Project 731, p.1
Project 731, page 1
part #3 of Kaiju Thriller Series
PROJECT 731
By Jeremy Robinson
Description:
WASHINGTON D.C. HAS BEEN
DESTROYED
In the wake of a Kaiju assault that left the nation’s capital in ruins, Jon Hudson, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Fusion Center – Paranormal, is preparing his team for an uncertain future. While hiding Lilly, a chimera cat-girl rescued from Island 731, from GOD—the Genetic Offense Directive, a black ops organization within DARPA—Hudson attempts to raise Maigo, the teenage girl who once was part of Nemesis, the now deceased goddess of vengeance. But the two strange girls can’t be protected from what comes next.
NEMESIS LIVES
Kept in a massive warehouse operated by GOD, Nemesis’s body is violated by the Tsuchi, spider-like chimera also developed on Island 731. It spawns Kaiju-sized variations of the deadly creatures and wakes Nemesis from her regenerative slumber. Nemesis, fueled by an unquenchable thirst for vengeance, and now lacking Maigo’s conscience, storms after the Tsuchi, which have fled south, toward Los Angeles, and inland...toward GOD’s headquarters at Area 51.
SACRIFICES MUST BE MADE
To stop the infinitely hungry Tsuchi, and the rampaging Nemesis, Hudson and crew must make alliances with enemies, combining personal experience, future technology and bold actions. But for the world to once again be safe from a Kaiju menace, one of their own must give themselves up to the goddess of vengeance.
With Project Nemesis and Project Maigo, Jeremy Robinson created a new literary subgenre known as the ‘Kaiju Thriller,’ a term now being adopted by other authors. With movies such as Godzilla and Pacific Rim treating audiences to new Kaiju stories, Robinson has single-handedly launched the fiction world’s bestselling original Kaiju series (not based on a pre-existing film). In Project 731, we not only see the return of Hawkins, Lilly and Joliet from Island 731, we learn how the reborn Maigo has adapted, and—at last—discover the origins of Nemesis!
PROJECT 731
Jeremy Robinson
For TOHO,
whose productions inspired me as a child,
and still do to this day.
Prologue
Oregon Coast
“Looks like a ghost ship.”
Sean Johnson’s hands squeaked over the Zodiac’s rubber skin, holding his body steady, but not his nerves. As the newest addition to the five-member black ops team, he wanted to prove that he was the right man for the job. He’d been recruited straight out of the U.S. Military Academy, just days after graduation, and here—not five days later—he was on a mission, slipping through the glassy sea, concealed by the night’s darkness.
He never thought of himself as an exceptional student. He was mediocre, at best, in all things. So it came as a surprise when he was interviewed and recruited by a secret division within DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. DARPA was the brains behind the U.S. military, and despite the word ‘Defense’ being in their name, he knew that much of what they developed was actually used for offense. Drones, weapons systems, advanced armor and the stuff of science fiction movies.
Johnson’s night vision goggles were one of those advances not yet released to the public, or even to the standard military. Though it was dark, in the middle of the ocean, with no light sources other than the stars and a faint crescent moon, he could see, as clear as day, in full color. Accessing countless online photos, videos and satellite images, full color was rendered and projected on top of the standard green night vision, which could still be used in situations where no reference was available. So as he looked at the backside of the approaching derelict research vessel, he could clearly read the name printed on the aft: Darwin.
All he knew about the ship was that it had been searching for the Magellan, its sister research vessel, which had been lost at sea. Contact with the Darwin had been lost years ago, the ship presumed sunk in a storm. But the Darwin hadn’t sunk. Instead, it had made slow revolutions around the Pacific, following the North Pacific Gyre, circling the massive garbage patch it had been tasked with studying alongside Magellan. After years at sea, the currents had set the ship free, sending it toward the U.S. West Coast, where it had been spotted by fishermen.
“It looks like a ghost ship because it is one, you dumb shit.” The reply came from the man behind him. Shadow. Johnson didn’t know his real name, but like all the men in the BlackGuard, his codename reflected the clandestine nature of their black ops team.
Johnson wasn’t recruited for his brains. He knew that. They wanted him for two things: his skills as a soldier and his ‘unwavering loyalty.’ Their words. While he wasn’t sure about his skills on the battlefield, they were right about his loyalty. With no brothers or sisters and both his parents deceased, the military was the only family he had left. He would follow every order to the letter.
So when they asked him to join this night mission off the coast of Oregon, to inspect a derelict ship, he hadn’t questioned why DARPA was interested, what they were after or whether it was dangerous. He’d simply said, “Yes, sir,” to the man he knew as Silhouette, leader of the BlackGuard. Silhouette sat at the Zodiac’s aft, operating the engine, which was impossibly silent—more DARPA tech.
Johnson thought better of replying to Shadow. Instead, he looked to the others, hoping to find a pair of sympathetic eyes. He found none. The other men on board the Zodiac, known only as Obsidian and Specter, kept their goggled eyes straight ahead, on target, which was exactly where Johnson realized he should have been looking.
The Darwin was just fifty feet ahead, sitting still in the nearly placid sea, eerily peaceful. The research vessel, its faded blue metal hull showing patches of rust, was larger than Johnson had expected, despite knowing there had once been fifty people on board.
Fifty people...damn. What happened to them?
“Eclipse,” Silhouette said. “Prep for landing.”
Johnson looked up at the vessel now looming above them. At two-hundred-seventy-feet long and three thousand tons in weight, it was the largest ship he’d seen up close. Most of the hull rose up, thirty feet above them, but the dive deck on the back was accessible by boat. He remained locked in place, watching the deck get closer.
“Eclipse!” Silhouette hissed, making Johnson flinch. He was still getting used to his new callsign. “Tie us off.”
When the Zodiac bumped against the dive deck, Johnson stood on shaky legs and straddled the distance to the deck. The up and down motion of the Zodiac was much faster than the big ship’s, and it threw him off balance. He stumbled forward and caught himself on the ship’s aft ladder, but not without cramming his face against the cold hull.
“Amateur,” Shadow grumbled from the Zodiac.
Ignoring the comment, which Johnson knew was what his drill sergeant had called ‘fuckup bait,’ he tied the Zodiac to the dive deck without a word, moving quickly, fighting his shaking fingers. “Good to go,” he said, praying he’d tied the knots right.
Moving silently, the five-man team scaled the ladder up onto the Darwin’s aft deck. The deck was clear, swept clean by winds and rough seas over the past years. If anything had been left on the main deck, it was gone now. A crane for moving small boats, ROVs or supplies sat alone and bent on the deck, coated in rust, a solitary chain swaying in the breeze.
“Two teams,” Silhouette said, his voice a whisper, but clear through the earpieces the BlackGuard wore. “Shadow, Obsidian: sweep below decks. Take Eclipse with you. Specter and I will clear the labs and bridge before rendezvousing with you.”
Without verbal confirmation, Shadow and Obsidian, looking their part in all-black tactical gear from head to toe, moved toward a nearby hatch. Johnson followed, not giving voice to his questions. What are we looking for? Why are we whispering? If the ship is abandoned, why are we all carrying KRISS Vector submachine guns? The future weapon fired heavy hitting .45 caliber rounds at high speed, without recoil or muzzle climb. It made them exceedingly deadly and accurate. A little overkill for an empty research vessel. But his job was to obey, not question, and that’s exactly what he did.
The interior of the Darwin flickered to night-vision green for a moment before flickering back into full color. The ship’s interior, along with just about every piece of equipment and object inside, was identified by some distant computer, labeled, colorized and illuminated.
The floor was empty except for a pile of clutter at the end, too distant for his eyes or the computer to distinguish. The walls were white and clean. Spartan.
Shadow opened a hatch to the left and swept the room on the other side, left to right. “Clear.”
Obsidian continued forward, stopping to open the next hatch. While he swept the room, Johnson took his cue from the others and continued to the next hatch, which was already open.
“Clear,” Obsidian said, behind him, his voice gruff and baritone. He was a massive man, but he moved with the swift agility of the rest.
Johnson, on the other hand, had to lean against the doorframe when a wave canted the ship to the side, nearly throwing him inside the room he was supposed to be checking. Holding on to the hatch with one hand, he scanned the room from left to right, remembering to keep his weapon raised halfway through the sweep. As he lifted the submachine gun, his vision flickered in and out of night vision, muddling the image. Squinting like it would help, Johnson took a step inside the room. “Something is—”
The image resolved, exploding into full color.
Johnson stumbled back with a shout, pulling the trigger on his weapon. He to ppled back into Obsidian’s large arms without firing a shot; the safety was still engaged, blocking the trigger from depressing fully.
Shadow walked past him, entering the room while shaking his head in disgust. Obsidian propped him up and grumbled, “Pull your shit together, kid. You haven’t seen scary yet.”
Yet, Johnson thought, standing up. He imagined the two corpses inside the room. Could there be anything more horrible? He knew the answer. More horrible things existed. Three-hundred-foot-tall horrible things. City destroyers. But they had come and gone. Even Nemesis, the three-hundred-fifty-foot tall Kaiju with ominous glowing membranes, plated armor that modern weapons couldn’t get through and the ability to harness the sun itself as a weapon, who had left her mark on Boston and Washington D.C., was dead. And he had never seen those giant monsters up close.
His thoughts returned to the bodies. Sealed away from the humid ocean air outside, they hadn’t rotted normally and hadn’t been consumed by insects. He re-entered the room and stood next to Shadow, while he inspected the dead. Obsidian stayed in the hallway, watching the ship’s interior, gun raised. The bodies were petrified. Husks of what they once were. Dried leather stretched over bones. Frozen in death, sprawled beside what looked like an operating table, the corpses told a violent story, torn open as they were, from the inside out. Gnawed on. Surrounded by dark stains. This is what happened to the crew of the Darwin.
This is why we’re carrying the KRISS submachine guns. But... “The Darwin went missing two years ago. Whatever did this is gone or dead now.”
Shadow looked at Johnson, but said nothing. Instead, he toggled his invisible throat mic. “Silhouette, evidence of Dark Matter confirmed. We have corpses. Over.”
Dark Matter. To most, it was the theoretical stuff that held the universe together, but to the BlackGuard, it was the code name for whatever target they’d been assigned on a given mission. Johnson hadn’t been told about the Dark Matter, but apparently, they were after whatever had done this to these people.
Johnson fought the chill threatening to shake through his body.
Silhouette’s confident voice came through all the headsets. “Copy that. It’s the same up here. Ten total. Continue forward. Will join shortly. Over.”
“Copy that.” Shadow stood. “Out.” He turned to Johnson. “Good news. You’re on point.”
Everything in Johnson’s being, from his cells to his soul, shouted at him to run, to admit he wasn’t cut out for this, that they’d put their faith in the wrong man. But he ignored the urge, refusing to abandon his family. Be strong, he told himself. Be smart. Show these assholes you can be one of them.
With a nod, Johnson stepped back into the hall and led the way, sweeping two more empty rooms before reaching the end, and the piled debris. Another body, torn apart, inside out. He knew the dead held no real interest, so he continued past without pointing it out.
As they moved to the second deck, he picked up the pace, growing more confident with each room swept. After finding ten more bodies, he became numb to the mounting number of dead, seeing them as objects, not victims. I can do this, he thought, opening another door, seeing a corpse, and then moving on. I can do it.
But his subconscious was a whirlwind of observations and unanswered questions. Each person had been killed violently as something had emerged from within them. Not something...somethings. Each body had three holes, sometimes merged into one gaping wound, but never more than three. Had they been infected with a flesh eating disease? Parasites? How was the entire crew affected before they could call out a mayday and report their position?
It wasn’t his job to know or discover the answers to these questions, so when they reached the far end of the second deck hallway, he continued down the metal stairs to the third deck. The label on the closed hatch read, Living Quarters, Mess, Galley.
“Silhouette,” Shadow said, his voice just a whisper through the earbuds. “We are on deck three. ETA? Over.”
“On your six,” Silhouette replied. “Thirty seconds.”
Johnson looked back, curious if they should wait, but Shadow urged him forward with a two finger point.
Knowing that Silhouette would soon join them and see him in action, Johnson threw himself into the task of clearing rooms. He moved quickly, efficiently, sweeping the many bunkrooms, sometimes finding bodies, sometimes not, but never looking back to see if Silhouette had joined them.
The room at the end of the hall was labeled Messdeck, but Johnson barely registered the sign, or that the space beyond would be different from all the rest—until he opened the door and looked inside.
Everything was black.
Green night vision returned, revealing a white-green floor covered with dark stains. But the rest of the large space was impenetrable darkness. “What the—I think my goggles are broken.”
Then the darkness moved, spreading out along the floor. A sound like static filled the air: hundreds of hard, sharp points striking the floor.
“It’s alive,” he said, stepping back, thumbing off the safety on his weapon.
“Hold him,” Silhouette said.
Johnson tried to turn around, but he was stopped by three sets of hands that felt robotic. Impossibly strong. He fought, a scream building in his throat, but Silhouette’s next words shocked his system silent.
“Nighthawk, this is BlackGuard. Come in. Over.”
“We read you BlackGuard. What’s your status? Over.”
Silhouette looked up as Johnson craned his neck back. “Sorry, son, but you were the crappiest soldier we could find that wouldn’t be missed.”
The sentence struck Johnson in the gut, and it was quickly followed by a constricting tightness that had nothing to do with his emotional state. He was locked in a coiled grip that tightened over his midsection. Then, stabbing pain.
Once, twice, three times.
“Dark Matter acquired,” Shadow said.
Gunfire, painfully close, filled the metal hallway with ear-splitting noise, flashing light and the stench of gunpowder. With a shriek, the coiled tightness fell away. But twisting pain blossomed anew, roiling in Johnson’s gut.
“It’s happening fast,” Specter said.
The hallway shook as Obsidian slammed the hatch closed and said, “The lock is broken.”
Specter, the smallest and fastest member of the team, took the door. “I’ll give you a head start and catch up.”
Johnson was propped up. Silhouette pulled a plastic cap off a syringe with his teeth, and jabbed the needle into Johnson’s belly. Johnson’s vision blurred as the pain in his gut intensified. Tightness wrapped him again, but this time it was cold. Freezing. He was turned around and around, wrapped tightly in a translucent blue plastic, each revolution adding to the chill.
They’re freezing me.
“Nighthawk, evac on the aft deck in two mikes. Exfil will be hot. Repeat, exfil will be hot. Over.”
“Copy that,” Nighthawk—whoever that was—replied. “We’ll be waiting. Out.”
Johnson felt himself lifted up. When he saw the hall again, it was from Shadow’s shoulder.
“Let’s move,” Silhouette said. And they did. The journey on Shadow’s shoulder was rough, made worse by the pain in Johnson’s gut, which had slowed some, but nausea was sweeping through him. He left a trail of puke behind them. He watched the puke as the goggles tried to colorize it, and he noticed blinking lights along the walls. Bricks of C4 had been planted on the walls, their detonators blinking readiness.
“On my way,” Specter said through the comm. Ten seconds later, gunfire. Fast and continuous.
Then they were outside. The ship’s exterior was no longer silent and still. The violent chop of rotor blades filled the air with thunder and kicked up mist from the ocean below. Spotlights lit up the deck.
Gunfire grew loud behind them, spilling from the still-open deck hatch. “Almost there,” Specter said. “Very hot.”
Johnson felt himself tossed into the helicopter, his body temperature dropping by the second, robbing consciousness. The pain in his gut was almost gone, along with the rest of his feeling. He watched as the BlackGuard opened fire from inside the chopper, shooting at some unseen enemy. Then, Specter dove inside, held fast by Obsidian. The helicopter rose up and peeled away, giving Johnson a momentary view of the Darwin, its upper decks alive with hundreds of moving, unidentifiable black spots.
