Gordon was still a general.
The time for war had come again.
He needed his army.
24
The roof of the FC-P headquarters has become my sanctuary while the work crews repair the damage to the stairwell wall. They’re using a lot of the original bricks, knocked out by Gordon, so it won’t look too funny. Not that I care about aesthetics, but seeing a lighter red circle of bricks in the wall every time I pull into the driveway would be a glaring reminder of what I had nearly lost that day. Collins, Cooper and Watson. All three of them could have been killed. Were damn lucky they weren’t.
Which brings me to my next source of constant agitation. Katsu Endo. Not only had he saved my life in Rockport, but he’d saved my team, too, at great personal risk. I still don’t trust his motives, or Zoomb’s, but I’d be an ass to not award the man some brownie points, especially since he was still in a coma.
The view here isn’t all that different from the Crow’s Nest below. I can still see the ruin of what once was Beverly’s coastline. Except out here, I can smell it, too. I barely notice the stink of ash. On the shore of what was once Dane Street Beach, a crew of Zoomb employees have descended like vultures. With practiced efficiency, they’re disassembling Scrion’s body and carrying it away by helicopter, large chunks of dark meat dripping brown all over the city.
This might even be the same crew that dismantled the Nemesis-Prime corpse—the first in a long line of people responsible for the birth of a city-destroying monster. And now they’re back to work, this time with the President’s stamp of approval, despite my best attempts to change his mind. In the months following the Nemesis disaster, I had the President’s ear. He took my warnings, responded to my requests and increased my budget exponentially. But since Nemesis’s reemergence, the man has gone silent. Since ordering me to work with Endo, he hasn’t taken my calls, and requests from the White House are once again being filtered through the mustache brigade that is the DHS.
I’m not out of the loop. Not entirely. And I’m still in charge of the FC-P, but there is an election coming up, and Zoomb’s support can help fill ballot boxes. Strangely, the security I feel about my job comes from Endo. Sure, he’s a threat, but he needs me.
After what happened to Endo, Collins would have me strung up and lashed with a barbed cat o’ nine tails before letting me mind-meld with Nemesis, but I’m convinced it’s our best option. Not only is Nemesis still a threat, but now there’s Gordon and three other Kaiju that are still growing. Something has to be done. Something drastic. And if I know the powers that be, and I do, they’re going to start dropping nukes. Call me crazy, but I’d rather risk a coma if it meant not dropping nukes on American soil. Or any soil for that matter.
“What do you think?” I ask. “Am I crazy?”
“Craziest son of a bitch, I know,” Woodstock says.
I spin around in surprise. Hadn’t heard the man’s arrival.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Didn’t know you were there.”
He looks back and forth. “Who the hell were you talkin’ to then?”
I hitch a thumb toward Betty, resting silently on her landing pad. If anyone understands talking to inanimate objects, it’s Woodstock. He proves it by nodding like he should have known. “She’s a good listener.”
“Ayuh,” I say, offering some traditional Maine agreement.
He joins me at the roof’s edge. Sits atop the small wall, oblivious to the height. “You thinkin’ what I think you’re thinkin’?”
I sit down next to him, watching a crane peel back Scrion’s turtle shell-like carapace. “Probably.” Woodstock and I are often in simpatico. It’s why I like having him as a pilot. But it also means he knows when I’m thinking of doing something stupid or reckless. “You won’t tell Collins?”
“This one of them ‘bros before hoes’ situations?”
I nearly fall four stories from laughing. Collins would kick his balls into his brains if she heard him, and he knows it, which makes it all the more funny.
He shakes his head. “Can’t say as I’d blame her for stopping you, though. Heard ’bout Cooper and Watson. Having a kid. Good news. It’s not yours, but it could have been. And before you tell me you use protection, I fought my way past a condom and a diaphragm. If the kid wants to be born bad enough, it will happen. And if it doesn’t...well, you still have your lady to think about.”
I’m not sure what to say. Woodstock has never held me back before.
Then he goes and reads my mind again. “I’m not telling you not to do it, mind you. It’s risky, but that’s our job. I’m just saying that the damage you do by sneaking, by risking your life without saying goodbye, would be far worse than being up front and disagreeing. Even if she’s pissed. The easier option for you, in this case, will be the harder to forgive.”