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pocket-ozwynn · 2 years

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Genesis Day: Chapter 8

[Kaiju!AU]

Previous Chapter(s): Chapter 7 // Interlude

Next Chapter: Coming soon...

Word Count: 6157

CW: Blood, brief references to death

(art used with permission from @chamomile-g-tea)

Everything was still.

That wasn’t to say it was quiet, however. Alice’s ears still rang from the explosions; the wind still howled through the boughs of the trees as rain still poured; and Freyja was still swallowing deep, cavernous breaths that made the very air shudder around him.

And yet, he could breathe.

His lungs ached from running, and his head was spinning. It had worked–the hastily cobbled together fireworks had paid off, and he had given Freyja the breathing room (quite literally) to bring down the robotic titan. The war machine was now just another piece of motionless junk for the forsaken cabin’s collection.

As the synapses started to fire a bit more in Alice’s brain, he took a careful step back to study her. She was bleeding from the forehead and the abdomen, but it was hard to tell if the injuries were bad. If you compare by quantity, she was probably bleeding liters worth of blood–but that could easily be nothing for her at this new size. And while she didn’t seem bothered by it, he didn’t feel his worries assuaged.

He paused when he noticed she was looking at him as well. She studied him through rain and blood, while residual arcs of lightning crackled across her flushed cheeks as she struggled to catch her breath. What could she possibly be looking for?

He didn’t realize how long they’d been staring at one another till his neck started to ache.

“S-so…” Freyja awkwardly chuckled, her glowing eyes breaking away long enough to examine the machine. “I guess Iron Giant is a thing now, huh?”

“G-Guess so.” Alice finally allowed his shoulders to relax.

She wiped a bit of the blood that trickled down her face. “Tonight’s just full of surprises…”

Alice trudged through the mud towards the wreckage. He ran his fingertips along the metal of the robot’s leg as he moved up the length of it, feeling the divots and welding marks with his pruned fingertips.

“Someone built this,” Alice noted. He could feel a rumbling, but he was too distracted to pay it much mind. “But who? And WHY?”

The shaking grew more pronounced as Alice mulled over the worrisome implications. He looked over his shoulder to pose another question, but the words stuck in his throat as he noticed the rumbling and where it was coming from–Freyja, and she didn’t even seem to notice. He completely forgot the question as he looked all the way up. It was hard for him to think straight when a woman the size of a building walked right on up and squatted down next to him.

“Yeah, weird…” Freyja looked over the chassis. “But I’m pretty sure if the Army had giant robots, I would’ve heard somethin’ about it.”

Alice wasn’t so sure about that. He knew from his time with Maura that there were plenty of projects that R&D kept classified. But then again, it also would be hard to keep something like machines that turn people into colorful colossi a secret–but here they were.

He shook the thought from his head as he gave the plating a knock. “Well, whoever built it wasn’t counting on someone as big and strong as you, Frey.”

Freyja blinked and a fresh wave of electricity rolled across her cheeks. She grinned and flexed her bicep in reply.

“You got THAT right.” Freyja’s hearty laughter was so loud it made Alice’s bones shiver. And, surprisingly, Alice found himself giggling as well. “They gotta try a lot harder next time!”

Next time.

How many times were they going to have to do this? Tonight they got lucky, but how long until that luck ran out? His eyes went back to her abdomen–she was holding the wound now. “You’re bleeding. How are you feeling?”

“Like I got shot,” Freyja chuckled through her grimace, though Alice wasn’t quite sure if she was serious or not. “But I’m fine…I promise. I’ve had worse.”

He wasn’t fully convinced, but he would trust her for now. He tore his gaze from her to look back at the robot, and as he did so, something caught his eye.

“Hey, don’t move for a sec?” Alice asked as he stepped under her knee so he could get out of the rain. She made a noise, but didn’t protest. He squinted to try to get a better look without getting pelted in the face by the storm.

He could spy a thin shaft of light peeking through a small hole in the robot’s chest.

A panel must’ve been knocked loose during the fight with Freyja. He chewed his lip as a risky thought came to mind.

“Hey! I have an idea,” Alice called up to her. She put her head down between her knees so she could get a better look at him. “It might be stupid though.”

“Great,” Freyja replied with a toothy grin. Her wet hair fell down like curtains. “I love stupid ideas–I’m full of ‘em.”

Alice was starting to appreciate her levity–it made all of this chaos a bit more bearable. He giggled and shook his head before pointing towards the robot. “I think there’s a weak spot in its chest, and I see some light coming up… If we can pry it open, I can crawl in and check it out. Maybe there’s something worth salvaging that can help us out?”

His smile fell as he saw the hesitation in her eyes. He looked away, now embarrassed for even suggesting it to the giant. “Ahhhhhh, nevermind. It’s stupid.”

“No no!” Freyja quickly protested. “I think that’s a great idea! We just don’t have a lotta time to waste, that’s all…”

“Yeah…you’re right.” Alice ran a hand through his sopping hair and sighed. He held the tablet to his chest and tried to think what they should do next. “I just…I’m not sure when we’ll get another chance like this.”

Freyja pursed her lips. “...how confident are you that you’ll find somethin’ useful in there?”

Alice shrugged. “Not sure. But if something like this comes after us again, I’d like to try and find SOMETHING that might help.”

Freyja nodded, then smiled upside down. “Okay. I trust you.”

She lowered her hand with the palm up, her spiked knuckles sinking into the mud. “Here, let’s getchu up there.”

Alice stared at her hand. She was offering to carry him? He blinked, completely flummoxed that this was his new reality now. He stepped up with a nod of thanks, then carefully walked towards the middle of her palm. She slowly raised her hand up, and he tried to maintain his footing. He couldn’t help but hold his breath, wondering if he would ever get used to these sensations. Once her hand came to rest on the robot’s chest, he hopped down.

The sensation as he walked across the hull was bizarre. It reminded him of all the times he’d look out the window of the airplane as a kid, just to imagine what it’d feel like to walk across the wing.

After making the trek up its chest, he knelt down to examine the hole in the paneling. It seemed that the armor had peeled back just enough for a bit of light to poke through, but not enough for him to get a look inside. Alice looked up to Freyja. “Mind giving me a hand?”

Freyja took her claw and began to work at the hole to widen it, before hooking the tip beneath the lip and gently peeling it back.

He smiled with quiet gratitude before taking a look inside. With the flickering white light illuminating most of his view, Alice ascertained that this was probably some kind of vent or service tunnel. The opening was a bit tight, but manageable–he’d crawled through worse. As he started to scope out the possible spots he could use as footholds, he remembered something. He looked down at Maura’s tablet and pursed his lips, knowing he wouldn’t be able to climb with it.

It felt strangely heavy in his hand.

“Hey, Frey?” She tilted her head. Her eyes went down towards his hand as he offered the tablet to her. “Can you hold onto this? I can’t take it with me.”

Freyja’s expression softened. She held out her hand again–the person-sized fingers unfurled gently for him, like petals of a flower.

“I’ll take good care of it,” she smiled softly. “I promise.”

There was something about the way she looked at him that gave him pause.

Alice swallowed and mouthed a quiet thank you before gingerly setting the tablet into her hand. He watched as Freyja gingerly closed her fingers around it and pulled it back to her.

With Maura’s tablet safe, Alice crawled over towards the hole and reached a foot down to gingerly test his weight on a pipe that he figured might be a good place to start. He applied a bit more pressure. It would do.

“Wish me luck,” he breathed as he looked over the rim of his glasses with a smile. She grinned in reply as he began his descent.

The rain thundered as Alice ducked down past the steel skin of the giant. The deeper he descended, the more clearly he could hear the distant hissing of punctured pipes, sparking wires, and the grinding of downshifting gears as the titan settled into its own robotic rigor mortis. There was almost a comforting nostalgia as he wriggled through the pipes and tubing. It made him miss Lexine. He wondered how she was doing…

He had to stop briefly to readjust his grip and catch his breath, but as he did so he felt a bit of anxiety start bleeding into his thoughts.

This is so stupid, he thought. What am I thinking? This is a GIANT ROBOT. This tech is WAY beyond me…there’s no way I’m going to find anything useful for us…

Alice tried to think what he would say to Freyja when he crawled out empty handed. Maybe he could lie and say there was a dead end, and that he couldn’t go any further. Would she think he was a coward if he didn’t try hard enough?

What could he-

He froze as he saw something slither out of the corner of his eye–in the thicket of cables to his immediate left.

But before he had time to react, he heard a fan groan to life and everything around him LURCH and SHUDDER. He gasped as he felt plates beginning to move around him and could hear the clunking of giant cogs nearby as they began to turn once more.

Everything started to move too fast–the pieces he was using for footholds twisted and shot off out of sight. His biceps screamed as he now relied wholly on his upper-body strength for support. But even now, he could feel his grip beginning to slip.

No, Alice’s heart broke as he realized he was going to die.

With a hiss and a SHWOOMP, the tube that he was gripping with his left hand shot back into the wall. His right shoulder felt like it was going to be yanked from his socket as all weight fell upon it. He went to reach for a new handhold with his left hand, but had to quickly duck as the section of wall that was at head level shuddered then turned suddenly. He felt it whiff right above his head before slamming into place at his right.

Close! he breathed as he went to raise his head, his left hand moving once more…

An explosion of pain blossomed out from the back of his skull as something hit him from behind. He could only manage a groan as his vision swam with darkness and spots.

He hardly noticed his right hand slip from the impact.

Alice plummeted. He tried to regain his senses enough to grab onto something–anything–but it was too late. Everything was moving far too fast. He wasn’t quite sure what would happen when he finally came to a sto-

THOOMP.

All of the wind was knocked out of him as Alice finally came to a stop.

“That…was awful,” he groaned as he clenched his eyes tight. His shoulder ached and his lowerback was throbbing. What had he landed on? He was also surrounded by hissing, and he wasn’t sure why.

After a few moments of composing himself, Alice slowly opened his eyes and stared up at the source.

It appeared that Alice had fallen down into a spherical space roughly the size of a kitchen. Everything bathed with eerie whitenoise that came from a series of monitors that encompassed the space--its combined glow must’ve been just enough for him to see outside.

Alice’s skin crawled from the noise as he slowly pushed himself up–he was surprised at the leathery give beneath his hand. He looked down and noticed he was in some sort of chair that was suspended in the air by six metal arms that connected out to the inside of a gyroscope. Dangling within reach from the gyroscope were a series of devices and instruments that he couldn’t readily identify.

He made a mental checklist as he started to look around: dials, gauges, levers. He wasn’t an aerospace engineer, but there was a certain familiarity to the makeup of this room.

This…is a cockpit, Alice slowly realized. It was a bit hard to tell at first, but this was basically some kind of ‘command bridge,’ just tipped on its side because the mech was laying on its back. He licked his lips and swallowed. It would make sense, right? Instruments, monitors, a command chair that could readjust according to the gyroscope’s position within the core of this walking dreadnought. Drone technology was one thing, but a machine of this size would surely need a human element. Even something remotely piloted probably wouldn’t be able to handle all of the intricacies involved with-

Alice’s heart stopped.

It would need a pilot.

Where’s the pilot?

Alice scrambled to sit up in the vertical chair–his eyes darting around wildly as the new panic started to boil. He looked underneath the chair to see if the pilot was lurking in the space below, but saw nothing.

His heart raced as he nervously swallowed. He looked around once more. Was it the movement in the cables? He couldn’t count on that. If the pilot was still in here, Alice was in danger. There was no one he could go toe-to-toe with whoever nearly killed Frey–mech or not.

He was struggling to breathe with how fast his heart was racing, but after looking around for a fourth time he still didn’t see anyone–no pilot, and no sign of a body. Maybe there was some kind of escape hatch? There had to be something like that in here…but if there was, Alice couldn’t spot it.

He waited silently in the glow of the whitenoise before deciding it was probably safe for him to get down. If the pilot was here, he had a feeling they would’ve done something by now. With a bit of awkward maneuvering, Alice crawled from the chair down one of the arms of the gyroscope then dropped the last couple of feet onto one of the monitors below. The screen barely bowed.

“Alright, let’s see what we got…” he breathed as he pulled off his glasses to give them a bit of a wave in an attempt to air dry them, before he started to poke around the sideways cockpit.

He wasn’t quite sure how long he spent searching, but it was long enough to start to feel frustrated. Due to the nature of the room, he could only really feasibly explore a fraction of it without having to resort to climbing.

A lot of the instruments were annoying, in that they looked so close to something that he could grasp but was just a few degrees off his understanding. So most of the time he spent silently pontificating to himself as to what all of these things might do, without being able to confidently settle on whether it was worth trying to salvage.

His eye did spy something slightly sticking out of the floor right beneath the pilot’s gyroscope chair–which meant, it was coming out of the wall from his point of view. He walked beneath it and spied a bit of a strap hanging down from the object. A case of some kind?

“Better than nothing,” Alice murmured to himself, a spark of curiosity flickering within the mounting discouragement. He crouched and then sprung up–he tried to extend his body, arm, and fingers as long as they could go to try and get the strap. His palm slapped uselessly against the rubber floor.

He grunted as he landed. He looked up and sneered at the strap. He was 5’10” danggit and wasn’t going to be outdone by something JUST out of his reach. He tried a second time…then a third…a fourth…then with a yell of frustration and with a running jump off a monitor screen and keyboard, on the fifth attempt he felt the tip of his middle finger hook the strap.

“HA!” Alice cheered as he dropped, pulling the strap down with him. He could hear the grinding of the object as it was pulled free. “Take th-”

His victory was cut short, as the object the strap was attached to–which was far heavier than he first anticipated–dropped and nearly hit him on the head. With a yelp, Alice managed to sidestep just in time for it to hit the monitor he’d been standing on.

He felt heat in his cheeks from getting startled so easily, but his embarrassment melted away as he noticed something stenciled on the side of the object.

He knelt down to examine it. The object had a hard-shell casing and latches on one side. There didn’t appear to be any lock, so he wasn’t quite sure what could be in here. Probably nothing important, but his interest was still piqued. He moved the case into the light of the monitors that shined from above so he could make out the stencil.

T-Y-R GAMMA. Alice furrowed his brow. At least, he assumed that was a Gamma and not just an upside down L. There was some kind of government logo above that, but he couldn’t quite make out despite this lighting–it looked like it had been stamped on improperly. While he would’ve loved to know what department of the government had sent this thing to step on him, the name TYR GAMMA was a start. He pulled the case a bit closer and popped the latches.

Inside he found things he recognized immediately: MREs, a compass, a first-aid kit, water purifying tablets, an emergency blanket–complete with a complimentary tent. This was a survival kit! He wasn’t quite sure how long the stuff in here was made to last, but he was grateful to find something useful.

Alice actually felt a bit hopeful. This wasn’t a silver bullet, but it would get them clean water and some food…and even a bit of shelter and direction too! He wasn’t quite sure where they’d go thanks to a compass, but it was a step in the right direction. And now that he had a first-aid kit, he could clean up Freyja’s wounds and make sure they didn’t get infected–the thing he had been silently fretting since saw her glowing bl-

Alice paused as realization hit him like a hammer to glass.

She was huge.

He let the emergency blanket fall from his fingers as guilt and worry washed over him. This kit would be able to provide for one person, but it absolutely wasn’t going to be able to cover Frey. The MREs and purified water would be miniscule, the emergency tent could be draped over a finger, and the first-aid kit…well, if he was lucky he could use the whole bottle of rubbing alcohol provided, it might be able to properly disinfect the cut on her forehead. But the wound on her stomach looked serious.

But he couldn’t keep all of this for himself–he absolutely refused to. How was it fair that he got to eat and drink and have a blanket, while Freyja got her life thrown upside down and mutated into this titanic living thunderstorm. What would her future be like? How long could she go without adequate sustenance? What would happen to her if the military caught her?

He wanted to help, he NEEDED to help…

No, he needed to fix this.

Wasn’t that Maura’s last words to him? When she looked at him pleadingly? He was tired, his memory was fuzzy…

All of this was because it was his fault. He should’ve been smart enough to stop the Engine from activating. He should’ve been smart enough to prevent Freyja’s body and life from being utterly ruined.

He should’ve been able to save Maura.

Crunch.

Alice jumped. It looked like something had dropped on one of the monitors and cracked the screen, but the ill timing of it made him sick to his stomach. It conjured up far too many images of Maura that he couldn’t shake.

He closed the lid of the kit, and slowly laid down on the muddy, shoe print-painted monitor. It was hard to breathe again. Tears started well up. Why couldn’t he get those images out of his head? They weren’t real…he was just imagining them.

That didn’t make the hurt any less real.

He pulled the survival kit up onto his chest, closed his eyes, and hugged the inflexible object as tight as he could. It didn’t help.

What were they going to do?

In here, he felt…surprisingly safe. Protected, even. Hidden within this hollow heart, he felt like he didn’t have anything to worry about. But he knew the moment he stepped back outside he would have to face his heart wrenching, unfair new reality.

He didn’t fight the tears this time. He let them flow freely, but he wasn’t quite sure who he was crying for.

What was he THINKING? This was so beyond what he was able to handle. He was useless. He found nothing of worth to Freyja in here, Maura was dead, and now Alice was just going to…what? Lay here and cry? He couldn’t kick tanks away or wrestle skyscraper-sized robots like Frey…he was just deadweight to her. Just an obligation–a burden. He could barely hold it together mentally, and he had nothing of use to her. He couldn’t even get her a glass of water.

So what good was he?

“I-I…I can’t do this,” Alice whimpered.

Alice jumped as the mech shuddered three times with a resounding THOOM THOOM THOOM.

“You okay in there?”

It was Freyja. He shouldn’t be surprised that he could hear her voice all the way down here. That was probably her knocking.

Alice wiped the tears quickly and tried to recompose himself. He stood up and slung the kit’s strap over one shoulder. He cupped his hands and yelled: “YEAH! I’M OKAY! COULD YOU MAYBE OPEN UP A BIGGER HOLE? I FELL IN AND CAN’T GET OUT.”

A beat. Had she heard him? He screwed up his mouth and realized his voice probably didn’t carry out in the same ways hers did. He clambered up one of the arms to the chair again and stood up on the back. Maybe she could hear him from up here?

“HEY FREY, DID YOU HEAR M-

SCREEEEEEEEEEECH. Alice crouched and braced himself with a gasp as everything lurched, he could hear metal tearing and pipes bursting. He looked up as the shaking intensified. One by one the monitors started to go dark as he saw the metal behind them bow and shiver before familiar clawed fingers started to pry their way into view. Finally, Freyja got a good grip and PULLED the chest of the mech open–monitors and instruments flew everywhere. The sound of twisting metal and shattering glass was a cacophony of destruction as she came to his aid.

The glow of her eyes enveloped the room as she looked down at him. Rain fell into the cockpit, but it had relaxed to a little more than a drizzle.

He was surprisingly grateful to see those eyes.

Freyja blushed and chuckled nervously, she pulled her hands back. “S-Sorry! I…probably should’ve given you a little warning first, huh?”

She laughed, then looked at him…her brow furrowed slightly.

“Hey…” She said with surprising softness. She reached a hand into the hole, her thick fingers serving as a platform for him to step up. “Are…you okay?”

Alice silently stepped up onto her fingers–his feet sunk a bit in the leathery pads as he walked. When he finally got into the hollow of her hand, he fell to his knees.

Right there in the middle of her palm was Maura’s tablet. It stared up at him impassively. He gathered it up and silently slipped it into the kit. Hopefully it’d be safer there.

She gingerly lifted him up out of the mech’s chest and to her face. And though he didn’t meet her gaze, it felt impossible to hide from those colossal eyes.

Alice shivered. He finally went to reply, but a rogue sob managed to slip past his lips. Freyja made an empathic noise and sat back on her haunches as she waited patiently for him to continue. Alice desperately wanted to hide.

“I-I…um…” Alice tried starting again. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He couldn’t help it. He silently shook his head. Freyja swallowed and nodded.

Alice wasn’t sure how long they sat in silence. Eventually, one of her large fingers bent forward to gingerly tap her thumb. Alice frowned and looked up for clarification.

“I’m a hugger,” Freyja’s voice broke as she smiled sadly. “And…I’d give you a hug right now if I could. But seeing as I, um…well, can’t…I figure my thumb is the next best thing, right? I know it’s not, like, a person, but-”

Alice didn’t hesitate, he flung himself at the thumb. He threw his arms around the digit and buried his face into the padding–forget about the glasses, he didn’t care. He dug his fingers as tightly as he could into the leathery skin and muscle. He could feel her pulse. His knees sank into the muscle of the palm that connected to the base of the thumb. Her thumb was surprisingly warm.

Freyja gingerly turned her hand at the wrist, and curled her fingers around his legs and lower chest so he could be gently held within her fist while he hugged her thumb. It was an asymmetrical reciprocation, but the gesture was genuine. Alice wriggled down a bit while still holding on to her thumb, so his chest could get swallowed up in the grip as well as he kept his arms out around the trunk of her thumb. He kept his face buried against her.

She gently squeezed him. At first, it surprised him–it felt like a bit of an all-over hug. But it was the safest, most secure feeling Alice could ever imagine. She wouldn’t let him fall…she’d keep him safe. He wasn’t quite sure how he knew that, but he trusted her.

They didn’t count the minutes as she just let him bitterly weep into her handheld embrace.

…

The VTOL’s engines growled as it made its final descent.

The ominous red lights of the interior cast long shadows across the soldiers’ faces as they patiently listened to their marching orders from Lieutenant Palmer. Meanwhile, General Donovan moved towards the bay doors–she had other matters to attend to tonight.

The crackling report from the pilot indicated that it would be landing in a few minutes, but she couldn’t sit still. She had read the reports so many times she had them practically memorized and her eyes were starting to itch from how long she had stared at the tablet screen. She reached up to grab one of the eye level safety straps for support as a bit of turbulence rocked them. She brought her hand up to touch her daughter’s necklace she kept beneath her coat–her thumb rubbed soft circles across the surface of the keratin as she tried to gather her thoughts.

This never got easier.

Donovan held tighter as they landed with a lurch. She heard the clatter of gear as the soldiers rose to join her. The bay door opened, the ramp descended, and an errant gust sprayed rain across her face. She grimaced with a shiver before pulling up her hood and drawing her greatcoat tighter over her uniform as she briskly made her down. The ramp trembled behind her as the rest of the platoon followed suit.

Her eyes followed the height of Ground Zero’s quarantine wall as her boots splashed across wet pavement. She felt a bit of heartbreak starting to creep in as her eyes lingered. She allowed that pain to stay, but only as a reminder of why she had to stay focused tonight. There would be shouts of anger, tears, and unanswerable questions but with all the meetings she knew she’d have to have, she would need to be the strong one.

If not her, then who?

She looked over to the left as she heard a yell. The remainder of Fort Jeffrey’s able-bodied forces were a few kilometers away amidst a smoldering field of ruin–the location where NUVA-002 rose. Donovan could make out the crushed trucks, the overturned embankments, the ripped open cargo containers with their content strewn about and still burning.

Her eyes lingered on the two largely collapsed buildings nearby. Officers were barking orders to those who were frantically excavating what they could in hopes of reaching survivors. She saw how many triage tents were set up nearby, but a part of her knew it would do little good.

She wondered what had gone through 002’s head the moment they transformed. What was the emotion that the victim clung to as they found their entire body unmade then rewritten? What caused 002 to lash out the way that they had?

Donovan wasn’t quite sure what she might’ve done, had the roles been reversed.

As she made a cursory glance across the search and rescue efforts for the base commander, she heard a voice call for her over the roaring rain. “General Donovan!”

Two figures approached her from the quarantine zero: Agent Wendig and Captain Edo.

“At ease,” she told the captain after spying their salute. She turned her attention to Wendig as she took the lead back towards the entrance. “Any updates?”

“SEER is attempting to reboot,” Wendig explained as they stepped into the quarantine zone’s sequestered hallways. The space felt oppressive. Clouds of dust floated in front of the tripod mounted lights that lit up the corridor, and the sound of rain against the roof made the general feel even more on edge. “The Nephilim-class aren’t like the other Kaiju. We’ve only had one set of data to work from in the past, and now we’re working to try and track down two at the same time. SEER’s adapting on the fly–we should be able to better triangulate the Kaiju’s positions soon.”

The general sighed as she moved on to the next subject. “Any luck on identifying the ones who dropped off the device?”

“No ma’am.” Edo shook their head. “A leading theory is that they’re cultists. The Children of Nibiru have a cloister down the mountain from here-”

“-but the Children aren’t paramilitary,” the agent interjected. “Whoever brought in the device not only had access to military-grade equipment, but they had military clearance. They were let right in and a base officer coordinated the drop-off.”

She earned a few more salutes from passing soldiers and engineers, but her mind was far too troubled to notice.

The general’s nails dug into her palms as she set her jaw. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Eleven years, and this was the first proof of human involvement.

The general steadied her breathing as they walked in relative silence. She could hear the low hum of commotion that echoed down the hall as they neared Ground Zero proper. “And what of this officer? Lieutenant Sinclair?”

“MIA.” Edo ran a hand over his fuzzy scalp. “Eyewitnesses indicate she was inside the warehouse during the device’s activation, but we haven’t found her body yet. Someone claimed they saw her thrown out by one of the resulting shockwaves, but we haven’t been able to corroborate that.”

That didn’t prove much, there were a lot of reasons why they couldn’t find the conspirator’s body. Having Sinclair alive was preferable, but that didn’t mean the lieutenant couldn’t have left a paper trail. They’d have to look into that further once the immediate danger had passed.

As they rounded the bend, she could finally see the entrance to Ground Zero. And though it was sealed off by a reinforced door, she could still hear the buzz of dozens of technicians and specialists working furiously on the other side. Flanking the entrance, were two pairs of Nobodies who stood as dark, silent sentinels who saluted immediately at the sight of the general.

She murmured a quiet “at ease” as she stopped and turned to face Edo and Wendig. Now that she stood close to the door, she could feel a tug from her daughter’s necklace in the direction of Ground Zero. Then she felt a slight shiver up her whole body, as the sensation extended past only the necklace.

“And the witnesses?” she asked, looking from one to the other. She heard one of the Nobodies typing in the access codes for the door. “Are they available for me to speak to them?”

“Yes ma’am,” Wendig replied. “They have agreed to give us their full cooperation.”

The door hissed open behind her.

“Good.” General Donovan nodded. She turned, then made her way inside.

Ground Zero was deafening. Technicians and engineers had set up all sorts of portable instruments and devices, and no one seemed content to keep their voices down as they relayed the readings they were receiving from either the horror above or the scar below.

She made her way around a fenced-off crater, though the general knew what it really was. They had mapped out two distinct sets of gigantic footprints–one for 001 and one for 002–left craters in the concrete. 001’s went away from Ground Zero, while 002’s went towards before veering off in a different direction. It made Donovan numb just thinking about it.

She turned her gaze upwards to drink in the gravityless graveyard of crumpled trucks, shattered cargo…

…and lifeless bodies. Everything that floated in this illogical, zero-g bubble was suspended in a miasma of haunting, celestial light.

But her attention wasn’t on the footprints or the horror above, but rather the cordoned off piece of concrete.

She felt their eyes as she walked the length of Ground Zero. She knew why so many of them lowered their voices now, as if to give her as much space as possible. She didn’t need their empathy, but she appreciated it.

Her eyes analyzed every detail she could about that single piece of concrete as she approached. To the untrained eye, someone might assume that a grenade had gone over that spot. But the scorched halo was far too wide for just a single grenade–it seemed to originate from a point that was at least six feet by six feet. No explosive could be that big without breaking the ground beneath it, and a grenade wouldn’t cause the scorch marks to twist and curl into patterns of unnatural symmetry and complexity.

No, this hadn’t been a grenade–this is the spot where the device was activated. This was where the lives of two people were altered forever, and by their actions the fate of tens of thousands might hang in the balance based on their actions. They were a genesis for everything that would follow.

For the last eleven years, the secrecy of Kaijus had been maintained, but the glass was cracked–all it would take would be a tap in the wrong place, and the only thing would come crashing down.

But that wasn’t the thing that scared Donovan the most. Agent Wendig went to speak again, but the general ignored her.

She stared at the familiar markings on the concrete. She didn’t need to touch those intricately carved shadows, she remembered vividly how they felt. She’d seen them only once before, but didn’t know where they had come from…now she did. There was a certain degree of closure in that, but she still felt a rising anger to the point of nausea bubbling in her chest. All she could wonder is where the device had gone, who had stolen it, and when they would strike next.

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