Bikini Kaiju - Ch 13

It was hard for Ruth to be around so many people. Over the years, they’d developed various narratives about her and the others to explain their reclusive behaviours: Viking Mary liked the great, cold uninhabited outdoors; Washington Fury roamed national parks to breathe in that intoxicating fresh air; and Steel Ruth, unsurprisingly, was too moody to tolerate big populations. But it wasn’t any of that. The little people never really got, or never exactly acknowledged, that growing giant hadn’t just given them super strength and ageless bodies. It made them hungry, too, with a particular appetite for their tiny counterparts. They’d tried to resist it in their own ways over the years and they’d each eventually given in. The hard truth was that their bodies needed human meat. It wasn’t something Professor Cracknal ever explained physically – they could survive without it, nutritionally – because it was some psychological quirk. Something the radiation had knocked loose in their synapses, or maybe something caused by their new perspectives, so high up breathing in the thin oxygen, unavoidably looking down on a world of temptingly inferior little bugs.

Something about standing between buildings that only came up to your waist, filled with lives, stirred an urge to knock things over. Seeing people moving about, their tiny limbs swaying away, made you want to just… gulp it all down.

Ruth gave up trying to explain it a long time ago. Instead she tried to ignore it, or suppress it, by evading it. Only coming into cities when strictly necessary, and taking her little fill where it was most easily given. But now here was Sweet Sloane bringing them into the centre of a big circus of activity, all sorts of planes and choppers bringing in a parade of specially dressed snacks to gather in the lawns outside the White Fort. Rows and rows of chairs before a podium where self-important idiots were going to declare how great they all were, all gathered at Ruth’s enormous feet. She could squash eight of humanity’s most revered people with one misplaced step. Hell, she could probably scoop up and devour a few dozen of them before anyone could do anything. It’d be something, she told herself distractedly, to have a president or two squirming inside her. Imagine scores of millions voting to put someone in charge, and then she just plucked their saviour up and had him for a snack. The audacity of such an act made it almost irresistible…

But it helped she wasn’t here alone. They were a team of great monoliths before the White Fort, a bigger and more aggressive copy of the former White House, this one with turrets and bunker-like reinforcements. Washington was between Ruth and the central podium, Sloane and Ramona standing on the opposite side. Still just them – Viking Mary hadn’t deigned to come, having only briefly called in via video to comment that this was no time to leave Europe undefended. Good for her. And Hunter Lane, the last surviving Boy Titan, was missing as ever – he was presumably still alive out there somewhere, but hadn’t been seen for over ten years and evidently wasn’t coming out of hiding for this.

Ruth wished she wasn’t here, either.

Almost as much as she wished she could grab a handful of people to quell her distracting hunger. She hadn’t eaten anyone since San Francisco, just vat-loads of processed meat and veg supplied by supposedly generous fast-food companies. They had forbidden her from eating the delivery drivers – preempted with jokingly relayed orders – and there’d been too much press around for her to sneak off and grab any straggling loners in the suburbs. She breathed in deep, though, enduring it all. A few hours of inane chatter and people patting themselves on the back and she could put all this behind her and return to her island. Handshakes over new defence initiatives, new monitoring protocols, country hotlines, bla bla whatever. There’d been a thousand of these summits in the past fifty years; it was a lot of bluster that basically amounted to changing out who was on the end of the line when they needed to call for help.

“– and a complete systematic review of funding for the SST,” the speakers announced, though, cutting through Ruth’s distraction to draw her into what was actually being said on the podium. She glared down at the man before the mics – that square-shouldered buffoon who was hosting all this, Heckard Nyman. Who was this guy and what the hell was he saying? “With oversight from Pelican, we propose a more efficient, more effective initiative that pools our resources so no one country bears the burden, and no one is left feeling we are giving undue handouts.”

“The fuck,” Ruth muttered, not quiet enough to go unnoticed.

There was a scattering of concerned comments as the lawn otherwise generally hushed, all heads turning up to her. Nyman cleared his throat at the podium, but rather than address her he continued, “We want to see transparency moving forward. We are already in the process of putting towards world leaders new systems of tracking and reporting, for both potential threats and those assets we can use to defend against them –”

“Tracking and reporting?” Ruth interrupted, much louder this time, twisting more squarely towards him so the ground shook and the nearest people fell out of their chairs in surprise. “What the hell are you saying? Are you talking about us?” She looked to the other Sentinels. “Any of you been asked about this?”

Washington was stone still but Ramona shook her head.

“This is to everyone’s benefit,” Nyman continued, voice hitching slightly but otherwise for all the world talking like he was explaining something at a board meeting. “With our new protocols, and the Pelican Global app, we can give the entire Sentinel program a long overdue overhaul. The kinds of improvements that the public have been asking for. With that in place, we will free up resources to truly interrogate the sources of the current discrepancies.”

“Who’s been asking?” Ruth cried. “Where in the shit is this coming from?”

“Now Ruth, please,” Sloane said, trying to sound reasonable. “You might not have heard living out on your island, but that’s perfectly understandable. This is all a good thing.”

“If it’s so good why’s no one asked me,” Ruth replied through gritted teeth.

“We have discussed it at length,” Nyman replied. “This summit has quickly reached agreements on many matters, and we are confident of a clear way forward. We are coming to a quick understanding, likewise, as to what has drawn these kaiju back to the surface. The next step will be reviewing the status of the so-called refugee cities. We have already spotted a correlation between nighttime activity in The Borough and the appearance of the Sheerwolf.”

Ruth almost snorted out a laugh. “Excuse me?” To the rest of the tiny crowd, she said, “What’s The Borough got to do with anything? Are you idiots buying this? I mean, is anything he’s saying actually making sense? And how do you come to any agreements without us?”

“With all due respect,” Sloane said, “we ain’t the people who run this world. They’re the ones gotta figure out how everything works. How things are connected.”

“Or aren’t,” Ramona commented, making the other giantess raise an eyebrow. “Go on. It seems you’re about to tell us the things we’ve been doing wrong?”

“I ain’t judging,” Sloane said. “But we have already had a giant rat and a mean-ass wolf slip through on y’all’s watch. Not for nothing.”

“You son of a –” Ruth started, about to step towards her, but Washington’s hand was suddenly on her chest, making her pause. They locked eyes, Ruth letting her anger show as Fury very subtly shook her head. Wrong time, wrong place.

“Perhaps we ought to take a beat,” Washington suggested, in a flat tone. “Ruth’s understandably upset, there being some things we should perhaps discuss in private.”

“That is part of the greater issue, though, Ms Fury,” Nyman said, and the lack of any deference or, dare she think, fear, grated on Ruth. “Nothing relating to this program should be private, considering the impact it has for everyone. What we are discussing here today is in the interests of the entire global community. As Sentinels you are, indeed, public assets, and as such we ask only a modicum more input to reflect that.”

“Buzzwords and bullshit,” Ruth growled. “They’re saying they want to control us.”

“No, we merely want a review,” Nyman insisted.

“And who are you, again?” Ramona asked, managing a much lighter tone than Ruth, enough so that Nyman laughed it off as a joke.

“We have an eight-step plan to roll out over a period of five weeks,” he continued, “Agreed upon through a democratic process. It takes a multi-faceted approach to restructuring Sentinel relations and studying refugee city corruptions. Between these two areas we are confident we can not only face down, but can perhaps prevent future attacks.”

Ruth snarled, lip curling back, but Washington’s hand was still on her chest and the other giantess whispered, “Walk away, Ruth.”

“You gonna let them talk to us like this?” Ruth demanded, but Washington didn’t reply, only held her gaze without blinking. Behind her, Ramona was watching curiously, looking like she might enjoy some trouble, while Sloane had an icy focus. Ready. If Ruth did anything, she’d be seen as the bad guy, no doubt. It might even be what they wanted, to prove this twisted point. Were they deliberately baiting her, tempting her with this crowd of potential snacks? But damn. They were running away with an idea no one had even known had been raised. Ruth took in a big breath and let it out, not listening as Nyman continued with some ridiculous scheme, making baseless claims about immigrants or some nonsense. She shook her head, turned and stepped over the media teams, sending techs scrambling over themselves. Another step took her outside the White Fort estate, and then she was striding out across the flat Indiana countryside. No one followed.

Ruth crunched a path of big boot craters between roads, avoiding buildings and paying no attention to the tiny cars and people stopping to stare and take photos. Soon, she reached a small lake, surrounded by trees with a couple of wooden huts nearby. She squatted in an empty patch by the water, growling, seeing a few beaches with people gawping at the distant sight of her. A boat with an off-board motor was zipping by and slowed near her, three guys with beachwear and beers taking her in. She narrowed her eyes, considering scooping up the trio for a snack. But that wouldn’t be good optics after stropping out of the great meeting of world leaders. Instead she looked away, trying to calm herself. She sat back and something crunched under her rear, making her wince. Another lodge she must’ve missed, flattened by her bum. She hoped there wasn’t anyone inside.

She settled in to get comfortable, bum depressing the ground. If there was anyone there, they’d be dead anyway, so why worry about it. The boat dudes were shouting though, waving their hands, shocked. She scowled at them, saw them pointing. Yeah she’d definitely sat on some people. Huffing, she leaned forward and reached out over the lake – fuck it. One of the guys fell out of the boat in surprise, splashing into the water, but the others hunkered down, holding on as her fingers closed on the little vessel. Her light grip snapped some boards but it otherwise held together as she lifted it out of the water, up to her face.

“Please don’t hurt us!” one of them was crying as the other whimpered. “Don’t eat me!”

“Shut up,” Ruth ordered, and the men went quiet, with clear effort. “Is the world scared of us? Do you hate Sentinels?”

This confused them enough that their nerves calmed slightly, and the two men shared uncertain looks. The more vocal one, a guy with long dark hair and no shirt, said carefully, “No?”

“Are you asking me? The truth. Did I miss where everyone was campaigning for us to fuck off or something?”

Again some hesitation, before they both shook their heads.

“You…” The guy hesitated, really not wanting to say the wrong thing. “You’re great. We love you. I mean. We’re surprised to see you?”

Ruth stared, not sure she was going to get anything honest or meaningful out of this, but her instincts said she was right to doubt Nyman’s words. People kept visiting her island, sacrifices kept getting willingly left, and she had access to the internet. There had always been public outcry about the Sentinels, but never a mass movement, or even a minor movement, to exert greater control over them. She hadn’t noticed any major political campaigns against it. And what was that nonsense he was talking about the refugee cities? Their transient, unmanageable communities had always been an open question, an easy target – but did he seriously think people would buy their failings as a scapegoat for the return of the kaiju? This was all coming from nowhere. Or rather, from Sloane and her shady backers themselves. And it was coming very quickly.

Ruth lowered the boat back onto the water and ignored the men’s profuse thanks before they gunned the engine out of there. She leant back, staring over the bland countryside. Far-off drones were recording her, but keeping their distance for the time being. She considered her options. Go back to Steel Island, that was the most appealing one. Ignore all contact after that. Leave them to tank their own civilisations while she minded her own business. Except Ramona had been right in her visit, that whatever this was, it’d catch up to her soon enough. Otherwise, she could go back and argue against these bastards. Or just lay down the law. Or play it sensibly, that was probably the best option – join Mary over in Europe, far from this excitement Nyman was whipping up here, to organise a more distanced and nuanced response.

Yeah, right. As if she was known for nuance.

But as Ruth sat there, a clear decision didn’t come and time drew on. Neither Washington nor Ramona came to join her, apparently staying through the full proceedings of the summit to see where it was going. It was almost peaceful, if not for the idiots gathering on the far lake shores. Thankfully, they were smarter than to come nearer, the closest road staying decidedly empty.

Until a car finally drew up, fast, and pulled into the dirt track feeding the lodge Ruth had sat on. She closed her eyes. Hopefully not lawmen or relatives come to check on whoever she’d squashed. Ruth watched the dark sedan pull up and a woman in a pantsuit got out, quickly straightening her clothes to look partway presentable. Like a damn estate agent.

“Steel Ruth?” the woman called out, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun as the other waved. “My name’s Naomi Cooper, with Stellar Indianapolis, I wonder if I could have a word?”

Ruth scowled at her. “Think any press had best go through the STT right now. Unless the word’s lunch. I wouldn’t say no to a reporter sandwich.”

Cooper cleared her throat awkwardly. “No. Um. Ha.”

“Not joking. You’ve got about three seconds before you take a swim in my stomach.”

“I’ve been in Alaska,” Cooper shouted quickly. “At the Pelican lab. I know no one’s reporting it right now – and they’re moving right into this summit – but there’s some ideas I’d like to share with you. I think there’s proof there of what you’re concerned about.”

“Of course there is,” Ruth scoffed, hardly surprised. But she paused. “Wait. You’ve seen what they’re up to? You know who they are? What proof?”

“I, uh, don’t have it myself. But I’m certain it’s there, if –”

“Fuck it,” Ruth grunted, twisting around. She swung a hand down towards the woman, who shrieked and almost fled, but wasn’t quick enough. Ruth clamped her in a fist as she stood from the lake shore. “If some random tasty reporter is sure of it, that’s good enough for me.”

And she started stomping back towards the Strength Summit.