Bikini Kaiju - Ch 8

Washington Fury made Sweet Sloane look almost childlike as the pair stood in the entrance to the cavernous Pelican Estate building. She was taut with muscle, especially those piston-like legs and bulging shoulders, and she wore combat boots, cargo shorts and a military-style vest, all practical, fighting clothes. Not that she had a military background: Washington had once been a model, and a fitness instructor, but she had grown increasingly soldier-like as she’d adopted the role of America’s chief guardian. The biggest and strongest of the female Sentinels – especially since Steel Ruth had generally let herself go – she was, more than any of them, feared as much as admired. Steel Ruth was a cynic, Darlene Dare had proved to be a vile bigot, and Ramona Dynamite was openly murderous, but Washington Fury, well… She was black.

America, the great nation for which Washington was their particular champion, had a complicated problem with that. They were a people divided, half rallying behind her as the ultimate titan, their champion. Half thinking maybe she should be destroyed. It had led to more than a few close calls when Darlene had been around, but Fury had gradually been accepted and the conversation sidelined, as politicians found ways to talk about their exceptional Sentinel as though she were a magnificent example of a model citizen, magnificent because she was so rare. It wasn’t ever subtle, and Cooper could see the cogs turning back into action here in Alaska as she looked up at a tableau of the reluctantly accepted African American hero meeting a new All-American redneck rival.

“Sloane, Sweet Sloane –” the latter started, holding up her hand, but Washington cut in.

“Yeah, I saw the broadcasts. I got your invite. What’s your deal, Dixie?”

Sloane’s smile twitched, the slightest break in her facade. There was a sign of worry in there. She really was young – not just still appearing young like the other Sentinels, who hadn’t aged normally over their decades being giant. Sloane looked at her hand, hesitant, vulnerable.

“Oh fine.” Washington took pity and suddenly gripped it, squeezing tight enough that Sloane almost winced. The bigger woman patted her gamely on the shoulder and boomed, “I’ll reserve judgement, but I’m waiting on explanations. A couple of snacks only buys you so much good faith.” She paused, looking past Sloane to the platforms beyond. “A drink might buy you a bit more.”

“Allow me,” Sloane said, reviving her charm and stepping back into the foyer, bending to take one of the giant-sized flutes. As she handed it to her guest, Cooper’s crowd of onlookers shifted from the front windows to the railings of their respective balconies, watching raptly. There was some muttering between them, split between shamelessly admiring Sloane bending over and otherwise still shocked by actually seeing Washington eating people. Mostly, though, they were a silent, voyeuristic audience well aware that it was their privilege to watch this unfold. The demonstration with the prison pen had made it clear enough they did not want to get involved. The stories of man-eating Sentinels were something you learnt about in school and chose to ignore, like so much about them. It wasn’t real if you never faced it head on – something only seen in frowned-upon fan art, since most actual footage of the Sentinels doing wrong was heavily policed.

Then, Cooper now had some of her own. The footage she’d already taken of Washington’s snacks might be worth a pretty price to Stellar, if only because the government would pay to destroy it. The footage she was getting now, though, was going to be the big story.

“How’d you get here, then?” Washington demanded, as she sipped her huge champagne. “What’s your story?”

“If we can give it a few more minutes,” Sloane replied, smiling sweetly again and looking past Washington as if another thundercraft was already landing. No such luck: they were alone out here for a little longer, and Fury was staring, hard. Sloane stirred a foot, slender feet on show in single-thong sandals. She looked over her shoulder to some imagined recess of the compound where her superiors must’ve been lurking, whoever they might be. “Okay. Well, I’m officially in the employ of Pelican Estate, who I have the true honour of introducing to you today – to all y’all.” She swept a hand to encompass the little people watching, and Washington twisted on the spot as if noticing their human-sized audience for the first time. One of her eyebrows shot up, vaguely disapproving, though Cooper wasn’t sure why. Sloane looked outside again, and again was disappointed that no one else was arriving. She went on, “Pelican have been developing some ground-breaking technology over the past few years, and –”

“In secret?” Washington cut in. “Unchecked by the US government or the STT, outside World Unity regulations? Correct me if I’m wrong.”

“We ain’t stepped on any toes.” Sloane gave a nervous chuckle. “All above board.”

Washington downed what was left of her champagne and held the empty glass up. “Benefit of the doubt’s just gone, Dixie. I’m standing here looking at the first new giant in decades, days after a kaiju encounter, and you want to tell me your people are legit, having been conducting who knows what behind the scenes for who knows how long?”

There was quiet as Sloane let that settle. Dread seeping through the vast room – one of Washington’s fists clenched at her side. Cooper could barely hold her phone steady to film it; they might be moments from an explosion. She could feel everyone itching to get back, take cover, get away, but no one dared move.

Even Sloane was hesitating, thinking very carefully over what she might say to avoid trouble. She’d clearly been coached in the introduction she was supposed to give, and everyone here could tell it wasn’t going to fly.

A trumpet fanfare came from all around, slicing through the tension, and Washington stepped back, looking at the ceiling. Electronic, tacky, the trumpets blared from all around them as if announcing a medieval procession, sounding from unseen speakers in the pillars. Washington swore as the rear wall lit up with a display, a billboard-sized projection of the Pelican Estate logo which spun and resolved itself into a man’s huge face, a video link streaming in. Middle-aged, square-faced with a thin smile and thinner hair, he sat before a busy alley of computers with people moving behind him, like a newsroom. He spoke in an unusual accent, not native English but hard to place:

“Greetings. Hello. Apologies for my tardiness, and addressing you this way – electronically. I will happily come to shake hands shortly, but it seemed most prudent, to start, to give our Sentinels the respect they deserve.” His face distorted, apparently seeing past Washington with the same uncertainty Sloane had. Just the one Sentinel here, so far. Forcing the smile back on, he continued unabashed, “Washington Fury. World dignities. I trust Sweet Sloane is proving an admirable host? She is a remarkable person.”

Sloane twisted, bucking a hip, an oh gosh look that Cooper didn’t buy for a second. Washington scowled, apparently sharing that sentiment.

“My name, thank you everyone, is Heckard Nyman,” the man continued, as if there had been some kind of applause or other positive greeting, and not just concerned silence. “I am the founder, owner, and CEO of Pelican Crystal. We have many interests, of course, but chief among them, as you can see, has become international security. At a time when the world has mostly moved on from the kaijus, and has become complacent, perhaps, we are ready to step in. It is unfortunate to see their return, no one wanted this, but we did expect it. As we all should have, yes? So, I have brought you all here to demonstrate exactly what we’ve been working on, and to make proposals for how we might work together. That means all of us – as an international community, not under the strict guidelines of the STT or the nation-state dictates of the WUI, but as people with a shared interest.”

He spoke in an odd halting manner, a little clumsy and unused to public attention. Also surely aware of the extreme point that he was making, bad-mouthing the STT and the WUI, trying to hide it with an affable tone and that smile. None of the politicians and journalists present could have missed the hidden message: whoever this mystery fortune-wielder was, he represented private investment in direct competition to public security interests. A man proposing a corporate alternative to the increasingly quiet Sentinel programs, ready-built with its shiny cathedral on show.

“Now, I’d like to begin with a short presentation –”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Washington cut in with her trademark impatient huff. “I knew this was going to be bullshit but you still managed to lower the bar.”

“Washington, come on now, we’re friends here,” Sloane started, attempting to play peacekeeper with her tinkling laugh.

“I don’t know you. I’m feeling like I don’t want to. What I do want to know is how you got this big and why you think I won’t put you the hell down.”

Sloane’s smile disappeared and she set her shoulders. Directly threatened now, she stood a little taller, and despite her slighter frame and pleasant appearance she suddenly looked a lot more dangerous. Not afraid of Washington, wearing a pose that invited her to try. Cooper was wrong, she realised – Sloane might’ve been young and had shown some genuine nerves, but she had more going on than it appeared. A good actress, no doubt.

“Ladies, ladies please,” Heckard Nyman laughed in whatever bunker he was broadcasting from. “I understand your concerns, Ms Washington, I really do! That’s why we’ve prepared this presentation, um, here for everyone to see. If you’ll only watch.”

Washington held Sloane’s stare, stony, ready to strike, and Sloane stood unmoved. Someone along Cooper’s balcony whispered that they should leave, but they stayed watching, same as everyone else.

“Alright then,” Washington said at last. “Show us your movie. I got a minute.”

Nyman chuckled a bubbling barrage of relieved comments, signalling his people to get rolling, but the giantesses ignored him, still locked in their confrontation. Only when the lights dimmed and Nyman’s image flicked out, to be replaced by Pelican’s shimmering logo and more cheap music, did Washington finally step back, grunting at the video.

It started like any other corporate video: a logo, a panning shot of the facilities they were in now, a neutral voice-over listing Pelican’s values. Meaningless buzzwords like innovation, cooperation and vision. Then sweeping shots of large-scale medical and engineering facilities, with an explanation that Pelican had been diligently promoting advancements in science for over three decades now. Three decades and no one had heard of them? Even as she watched, Cooper started firing text messages back to the office, calling for fact checks or follow-ups. It started extolling the virtues of Heckard Nyman himself, an Austrian businessman (Cooper wasn’t convinced that was his accent) who’d made his first fortune in industrial meat packing. On to innovations in transport and finally Sentinel infrastructure. Sentinel bioscience. A close student of Professor Cracknal’s – and here the audience became vocal, either disbelieving or distrusting, as old photos showed the famous professor alongside a younger, squarer Nyman. Washington folded her huge arms as the next part of the tale was lost under the crowd’s murmuring.

On, it went, to show Nyman alongside emergency responders during one of the major kaiju attacks. Paris, Cooper thought. She suspected it was doctored. Something about all of this looked like an engineered story. Yet it kept coming – Pelican’s rise in response to the final kaiju attacks and Nyman’s personal efforts to help rebuild during the Kaiju Calm. Major contracts in Berlin, Johannesburg and Rio de Janeiro. Experiments in new defences. Foresight, the voiceover said, marked everything that Pelican stood for. As the rest of the world grew complacent, they were working hard to ensure the horrors of the kaiju never came back. Words similar to Nyman’s earlier, clearly toeing a company line.

And at last what they were all waiting for – muted video footage of Sweet Sloane, waving cheerfully in her bikini between people in lab coats. Ordinary-sized. A voice-over now from Nyman himself, as if in an interview, jocularly saying, “Yes, well – we did it. It was thought impossible, without Professor Cracknal and the specific circumstances of his research. But under strict laboratory conditions we can confirm it.”

Sloane stepping into some kind of sterile metal chamber, clouds of steam whirling around, lab techs in full protective gear.

“Pelican has done it. By now, I think, you see for yourselves. We have done the impossible. And at a time when we may need it most.”

The video cut away at the moment everyone was itching to see, lights flickering, the machine coming to life. Hazy, blurry footage, lots of movement, lots more steam. The people near Cooper were cursing at being denied the actual change. The footage came back in to show a giant metal door opening, like the chamber Sloane had stepped into but bigger. Sloane stepping out, her foot landing beside startled lab techs. Then cheering, celebrating. People posing for photos around her, on gangways before her.

Cooper frowned. Much as they might’ve expected a degree of hokum in this, the product of clear propaganda, everything about Sloane’s size-change looked staged. Even at a glance she was sure that cut between her stepping in and out of those chambers were two entirely different places.

But the video moved on, a lot more self-congratulatory talk as people stopped listening, talking worriedly amongst themselves. With Pelican actively claiming they had the technology to create a giant, the politicians and journalists were getting their heads around the implications. This threatened everything the World Unity Initiative stood for, that being maintaining the status quo. Tolerance of the existing giants without need to fear more. It also threatened all the tentative peace lines that had been drawn across the world. Nyman had started out clearly saying this project was of no nation. That meant it could potentially go to the highest bidder. For the first time since arriving, Cooper started scanning the crowd for the Chinese delegates.

The video was winding down, music escalating as the voice-over invited everyone to unite and get ready for a new era of peace and prosperity and other vacuous nonsense, which led to voices rising, some of the men in suits actively shouting at the screen.

Washington Fury spoke over them, to Sloane: “They engineered you? Grew you?”

“I wouldn’t put it so cold, but . . .” Sloane shrugged innocently.

“I knew Cracknal well. Never met this Nyman.”

“Before my time.” Sloane smiled, and as she spoke Nyman’s video link came back on, the man laughing as though again delighting in applause that didn’t exist.

“Yes, I know – you must all have many questions, but first I want to insist that we are in no way in competition with the Sentinel program, and fully support World Unity. Our intentions are absolutely –” He broke off, distracted as someone leaned in from the side. Passing him a message. His face folded in concern, and he nodded quickly, a few whispered replies. He addressed the screen gravely, suddenly, a man delivering terrible news. Not a very convincing act, in Cooper’s opinion, all of this still feeling staged – but his next words cut through her cynicism. “I am sorry, ladies and gentlemen. Please be calm, but I have to let you know. My team are reporting sightings of another kaiju. We are tracking it on a course for San Francisco.”

A wave of disbelief and panic swept through the crowd, voices rising again.

“I regret having to cut this short, and to ask this of you without more fully performing our introductions,” Nyman went on, his own voice rising in urgency, “but Washington Fury, if I can particularly address you. We are ready to engage this monster. Sweet Sloane is ready. If we can work together, I beg of you?”

Washington glowered from his contrite face down to the increasingly worried people on the balconies, back up to Sloane’s expectant smile. Her lip curled back with annoyance as she said, “This is legit?”

“On my honour,” Nyman said. “We have some of the best trackers in the world, now. And this threat demands our cooperation.”

Washington turned more fully onto the screen now, sensing along with everyone else that this spelled particular trouble. “What is it?”

“Sheerwolf,” Nyman announced. “The Luprime Kaiju. We have to work together.”

Okay this was a pretty robust one but yeah, I'm excited to share next week's chapter with you!