Unity (23 page)

I smile, despite the—for lack of a better word—mothership, framing his head. “Did you just quote Churchill at me?”

“Sig says you’re a history buff. I considered Patton, but that guy had a potty mouth. Sig also said you’re trying to clean up your language. So, did Churchill help?”

I look around his big shoulder. The ship and its gnat-like fleet of smaller vessels continues toward the horizon, not interested in our tiny dot of an island or the people hiding on it. There wasn’t a single moment of World War II, with all its horrors, that looked this bleak. “Not really.”

“I’ll use Patton next time,” he says, and he motions to the jungle with his square jaw. “You should get back. They’re going to be scared if you’re not there.”

I’m about to argue. That other people could gain strength from my presence still doesn’t feel right. I get how it worked with Hutch and Sig, connected through the psy-net, but I’m not some kind of great leader. I was just lucky that my past was worse than anything the daikaiju could conjure.

“
I’ll
be scared without you,” he adds, catching me off guard. “We’d all be dead, if not for you. You’re stronger than any of us. You’ll need to fight. There’s no doubt about that. But you also need to come home alive. If you die, our hope dies with you.”

“Great. No pressure.”

He grins. “The point is, get your ass inside before I pick you up and carry you.”

I turn my back on the impossible view, forced smile fading away. I start through the jungle, each step either carrying me closer to the end of mankind or our rise from the ashes.

The only time it’s quiet in Operations is at night. People talk. Noise from the hangar—drills, machinery, grinding—filters in. Computer systems chirp and chime whenever a new event is detected around the world. But at night, with all the alarms shut off, the only sound in the room is the gentle shush of cooling fans. It’s why I volunteered for the night shift.

I’m not shirking my duties or ignoring the world outside, I’m just maintaining my vigil like a monk, watching in silence, as one person after another is plucked from the ground. They writhe in some kind of nightmare, before being pulled inside the daikaiju...and what? Are they killed? Are they slowly digested?

Questions I never really want answers to. Whether the end comes quick or long and torturous, it comes just the same. The moment those people are trapped in their own nightmares, they’re dead.

I watch it happen all over the world. In Japan. Siberia. Iceland. Brazil. Hawaii. The monsters wade through cities, moving slowly out into less populated areas, following the scent, or something, of fleeing people. The assault is organized, like archeologists working a grid, making sure nothing is missed. Only the smallest of islands, like ours, seem to be out of the current game plan. Maybe we’re just too far away? The energy it would take to reach us greater than the benefit of consuming us? Maybe that’s how humanity will survive?

Mind numbed by the thousands of murders I’ve watched from a distance tonight, I dig the photo out of my pocket and look at the two smiling people standing on this same island, sixteen years ago.
What were you doing here? Why did you take me away from here?
The list of questions has grown longer. While I’ve seen my mother and know she’s alive, and aware of me, I still don’t know her name. Or her place in all this. Or if she’s even still married to my father—or ever was.

The only real change is that I’m no longer angry at her.

The choice she made sixteen years ago nearly destroyed me.

But in the end, it saved me.

And everyone else in this base.

Was my abandonment sage foresight, cowardice or circumstantial necessity? Beats me. But if I had to go back and change it, I wouldn’t. The only thing it would really change is the quality of my life up until this point, at which time I’d be dead and eaten, or soon to be.

A chuckle rises from my core. And I’ve discovered the answer to my own question.

Why would God allow bad things to happen?

Because they make us—or those that survive us—stronger for when things get worse.

All of my pain and fear and loneliness were a forge, melting me down and remaking me into something stronger and sharper.

Suffering is a teacher that cannot be ignored or forgotten.

But does that still apply if there’s no one left to live the lesson learned?

Will we—the human species—be remade fast enough to survive?

“Too many damn questions,” I say to myself, and I lean back in my chair, feet up, fingers massaging my temples. I turn my eyes to the ceiling, seeing through it, the volcano above, the atmosphere and stars, to whatever creator it is that hides behind a curtain of dark energy universe glue. “A little hope would go a long way. You know, if that’s something you still do.”

The only answer I get is the tap, tap, tap of bare feet on the hard floor. I lean back a little further and tilt my head, watching an upside-down Daniel walk down the stairs.

“Feet off the console,” he says, rubbing his eyes.

When I don’t budge, he pushes my feet off and takes a seat. He’s bleary-eyed, yawning and stretching.

His exhaustion is contagious. I find myself yawning, tired and annoyed. I look at the time. 2:15 am. Ghost is scheduled to relieve me at 3:00 am. “Your shift doesn’t start until nine in the morning.”

“I had a dream,” he says.

“Most people go back to sleep after having dreams.” And I’m one of them. I’ve been plagued by nightmares since arriving on Unity Island.

“Most people don’t dream inventions,” he says, “or in this case, solutions.”

His screen blinks on. I can’t follow the streams of code that flow down multiple windows. His finger scrolls over the screen, tongue wedged between his lips. “Uh-huh. Hmm. Yes.” He taps the touchscreen with his index finger and declares, “There it is! I can’t believe we didn’t think of this before.” He turns to me. “Well, not you, but the—”

“I get it,” I say. “It’s a Base thing.”

He snaps his fingers and points at me. “Exactly.”

Then he’s back to work, tapping the keyboard like a mad scientist.

“Have you seen Sig much?” The question stumbles his fingers, and he smashes the Backspace key until the error is erased.

Typing again, he answers, “Not much.”

It’s been four weeks since the motherships arrived. We’ve counted twenty-five of them around the world, but Sig insists there would need to be three times that number to contain all of the daikaiju. And even then, it would be a tight fit. Daniel has spent the majority of that time with the Shugoten. Day and night. Meals. This is the first time I’ve seen him up close in two days.

“We need to make sure the Shugoten are ready for—”

“No point in fighting for something you’ve already given up,” I say. He’s smart enough to know I’m talking about Sig, not the world.

He stops typing and turns to me, trying to hide a half smile. “Point taken. But...”

“But, what?”

“I get results,” he says, and he hits the Enter key.

I wait patiently for the big reveal, but nothing happens. Daniel looks momentarily concerned, but then picks up a headset and says, “Uhh, hello. This is...Unity Island. Is anyone out there?”

“I thought the communication satellites were down.”

“They are,” he says, staring at the screen, though I don’t think he’s actually reading anything on it. “But the island also has cables laid out into the ocean. I don’t know where they go, but—”

“Hello?” The voice is young, feminine and completely unfamiliar, speaking with a Chinese accent. Daniel and I share a wide-eyed glance. “This is Lijiang, China. Is someone there?”

I hold my hand out to Daniel and he gets the message. “Can we get video?” I ask, taking the headset from him and putting it on. He goes back to work, and I respond. “Hello, uhh, hi,” I say, sounding dumb, “This is Unity Island. Who am I speaking to?”

“Shen Jia,” she says, “but my American friends call me Pickle.”

The big screen at the front of Operations turns on. I see a room that looks very similar to the one we’re in now, occupied by a girl, no older than eleven, staring straight at us. She’s wearing a plain black flight suit, the kind we were wearing when we crashed.

“Who are you?” she asks, looking back and forth at the screen on her end.

“Daniel Chen” He points his thumb at me. “This is Effie.”

“Your hand,” she says to Daniel. “You’re a Base?”

He nods, and she shows us the back of her hand. “Me, too.”

I lean in closer to Daniel to make sure she can see me. “Pickle, listen, are we the first people you’ve talked to?”

She shakes her head. “Oh, no.”

“How many others?”

“People or—”

“Bases,” I say. “How many?”

“Fifteen,” she says, looking annoyed. “Each with thirty kids. That’s four hundred fifty people total, in case you wanted both numbers. But there might be more. We make contact with a new group every few days.”

“And none of them have tried fighting yet?” I sound more aggravated than I am, but it would be nice to know if someone else was having any success.

Pickle’s annoyance fades. “I’m sorry. I neglected to subtract the deceased. Four hundred and thirteen. Several Points have tried to repel the invaders, but were subdued with little or no fight. We’re not sure why they can’t fight back.”

Four hundred and thirteen, plus our eleven. Against ten thousand monsters, twenty-five to fifty motherships and untold numbers of smaller, spiky craft. A bit closer to the odds Leonidas faced against the Persian Empire at Thermopylae, but still, they all died.

“Can we network with that many people?” I ask Daniel.

“Yes,” Pickle says. “We can. And we do.”

“Good,” I tell her. “Get them on the line. Now.”

The girl squints at me. Whoever is in charge on her side of things must be a little more diplomatic. “Who are you again, Effie?”

I lean in close to the camera, holding up my right hand so she can see the Point symbol. “Listen to me closely, Pickle. We have lost a lot of people. We have watched the destruction of our homes. And we have engaged and
killed
our enemy.” The girl’s eyes go wide, and I know this is a message she has never heard before. The Points who tried to fight the daikaiju must have done so alone, vulnerable to the psychic attacks. “You want to know who I am? I’m the person in charge.”

I lean back, satisfied that the girl is impressed. I glance at Daniel and nearly laugh when I see his surprised expression mirroring the girl’s.

“Now. Both of you. I want everyone in on this call in fifteen minutes. We have a planet to take back.”

I stand and say, “I’m going to get the others.” I leave the room without another word, heading down the hall, the weight of it all slowly bending me forward until I lean my head against the wall, and weep. I’m not crying for the people we’ve lost, here and around the world, but for the four-hundred-and-twenty-four people who I’m probably going to lead to their deaths.

My sadness lasts about as long as it normally does—just a few seconds. Then it’s replaced by my old standby emotion. Defiant anger. I grit my teeth and punch the wall, letting the repressed me slip out for just a moment. If this is to be Earth’s Alamo, then we’re going to make Davy Crockett proud, and go down fighting—sans the raccoon hat. I punch the wall two more times, shake out my hand and head for the mess. Our counterstrike will start soon enough. Until then, we’re going to regroup, repair, heal and eat chocolate pudding. A lot of chocolate pudding.