Bikini Kaiju - Ch 7

People were shouting. Some screaming. The unmistakable sounds of a panicked crowd. It made little sense behind the quietening rotors of the helicopter as Cooper’s transport landed on the Pelican Crystal Estate, a remote private island way down the Alaskan archipelago. There shouldn’t have been anyone much here, a long way from anything and everything, especially as they’d been invited for a press event which was supposed to be an exclusive affair.

Cooper wondered if she was imagining it for a moment, recalling the sounds from Taipei. She was running on fumes, but that was the job. She’d gone weeks without proper sleep chasing stories in the past, and this was going to be a big one; she couldn’t afford to take a break now. When Solomon had suggested sending someone else to cover the Sentinel presser, she almost jumped down the phone and throttled him. She’d got him those photos of the dead rat, despite everything – she’d made the headlines that were gonna keep Stellar a head above the rest, and damned if she wasn’t going to see this mysterious organisation’s giant meet-and-greet firsthand. They’d been gracious to allow a day for everyone to get there, and a couple of long flights saw her at last touching down, arriving with a dozen other reporters and a scattering of the world’s most important business people and politicians who were willing to get close to Sentinels.

Whirred down just enough that they could all hop out onto the helipad before it took off again, disappearing into the night sky to pick up another round of delegates. Or just to give them a greater sense of privacy. As its sound faded, the shouts came into starker relief, and Cooper looked past the warmly lit elevated walkway, down into a rugged landscape of rocky fields, holding a wide, walled pen. It looked like a prison yard, bare and monitored by a couple of towers, walls tipped with spikes, a concrete block for accommodation. There were scores of people inside, moving about, waving and shouting for attention. She couldn’t make out their demands but it wasn’t English. Cattle, the word came to Cooper. They were penned in like cattle, making a reality of a decades-old conspiracy theory that somewhere, concealed in the wilderness, large populations of people were secretly imprisoned for feeding the Sentinels. The rumours had never been proven – never felt realistic, considering the Sentinels were mostly open about devouring anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths at the right time.

“See those uniforms,” a man said at Cooper’s shoulder – square-jawed, middle-aged and serious. Swedish, from the accent. Either a European politician or the rep of a major multinational. “Aktobe Militia. Part of the Kazakhstan Conflict that’s been stirring since 2004.”

Cooper frowned, not familiar with that particular trouble. Her interests had always gone towards the bigger headline news; no one much cared about minority violence unless it occurred in North America or central Europe.

A lady in a pantsuit was clapping her hands though, cheerily calling them onwards. As they walked, the Swede muttered in his own language, not sounding impressed so far. Cooper felt conflicted herself. Their walkway lead towards a glass palace of a mansion, a spectacle that allayed some concerns over that pen of people; it was a gargantuan mountain of built environment, with multiple layers of concrete and glass stacked in a kind of grotesque pyramid, and while it shimmered decadently, reflecting the lights leading there, the vast windows didn’t reveal what was inside. They proceeded in a shuffling procession towards huge glass doors, which opened out as they got closer, onto a cavernous space that glowed with warm light. Cooper’s companions cooed in awe as they entered, taking in an entrance hall fit for entertaining giants, with black marble pillars and sky-high chandeliers, and various out-of-the-way stairs and perimeter balconies for regular-sized people. A team of crisply dressed waiting staff held plates of canapés and champagne. Cooper idly took a drink, taking in the room – wider, emptier platforms at various heights she guessed were for giants to rest on. One housed champagne flutes taller than a person. Arching doors stood to the rear, leading deeper into the complex, a field’s distance off. It all gave the feeling that they were mice wandering into someone else’s domain.

This wasn’t an entirely new experience. Most people, in their childhood, had visited one of the STT’s old haunts on a school trip, these days given over to museums and galleries where they hadn’t been converted to office or warehouse space. The Sentinel Communes had once been vast meeting spaces to connect Sentinels and ordinary people, meant for press events and community mixers, but they’d fallen out of use around the Millennium, as the Sentinels grew more reticent and the need for ongoing interaction with the public faded. They had always been somewhat contentious, as they were rarely guaranteed to be safe – most famously made clear in the Yemen Incident of 1992, when peace talks had been upset by Ramona Dynamite stomping on two world leaders. Though it had, inadvertently, ended a war.

The Communes these days were empty cathedrals to what had been – Cooper had personally visited three of them, with the Los Angeles Heights Temple making the biggest impression, a concrete hangar partly crumbled and overgrown with vines, encompassing a space so big it gave a sense of dizziness standing in it. But this was different. The Pelican Crystal Estate was alive and functioning, fully lit and welcoming.

The doors at the rear opened and their apparent host stepped in. Cooper knew it was coming, and had seen this woman just a day before, but still she gasped at the sight of Sloane Alabama. The giantess took two steps in, raising a hand and waving, as casually as any homeowner come in from the kitchen to greet guests. She wore her dazzling smile, ice-blue eyes alight, and said, “Welcome, welcome to my humble abode. I’m so glad y’all could make it.”

The group huddled in around Cooper, as if for protection, as they warily looked up and whispered, all a little on edge. Cooper expected few of them had come here without reservations, though she hadn’t thought twice about it herself – danger came with the territory. These politicians and businessmen had to be considering it wasn’t worth their jobs to stand at the feet of such a powerful creature.

Sloane put her hands on her hips, striking a classic power pose that inspired a couple of people to immediately put aside their drinks to take photos. She was picture-perfect, for sure, a winking beauty dressed now in short stars-and-stripes shorts, covering only the barest part of her thighs, and a revealing bikini top with stars on one breast and stripes on the other. While there was nothing subtle about her size or the amount of her athletic body on show, she somehow made her pose, and presence, seem natural, that smile disarmingly genuine. It was a marked difference from the archive footage of the original Sentinels, who might’ve smiled and welcomed cooperation and interviews but rarely looked welcoming, with the exception of Darlene Dare – whose charm had turned out to be dangerously duplicitous.

But the group remained cautious, staying near the entrance, as Sloane spread her hands and gestured around. “Take the stairs, get a bit higher – I ain’t planning on looking down on y’all all day. There’s nice seating up here, you probably can’t see it way on the floor. My home, your home and all that.” She moved fluidly, with a grace remarkable for her size, rising on a toe, pointing daintily. She was trained in it, Cooper was certain – beneath that thick Southern accent and blue-collar appearance, there was a woman who knew precisely how to entertain. The question was, who had trained her. Their real hosts here, the people who actually owned this facility, were evidently still absent. There was a logo up high behind Sloane, the same as had been on the header of their invitations: PCE, Pelican Crystal Estate. A company or conglomerate who apparently ran this island, with no public records that Cooper or anyone else had found so far.

They were all here to learn the answers, she supposed, falling into cautious step as the group split under Sloane’s cajoling, moving up the suggested stairs and exploring the upper balconies.

“Come on now and get comfy. I don’t bite. Often.”

There were indeed luxurious seating areas upstairs. Viewing galleries with more food and drink, and better views of the space below, the giantess standing between them. As they walked, Sloane made small talk, leaning in: “Is that Senator Bakely I see? I am truly honoured to make your acquaintance. No fooling.” That last bit added as if she’d remembered not to be too graceful.

“And aren’t you a handsome devil. I know you’re gonna give me a solid write-up. Is it Rolling Stone? Is that still a thing?”

The reporter she’d addressed laughed and said it was, but countered, “You’re not in the loop? Have they had you on ice with the rest of the kaijus?”

“No such thing,” Sloane replied with a laugh of her own, which Cooper felt running through her. Vibrating the building. “I’ve just been up here preparing for my debut.”

Those vibrations turned to something more, with the approach of another helicopter. This one much, much bigger than the one they’d ridden in on. The crowd collectively shifted towards the front windows, looking out on the dark vista of the estate’s approach, past the pen to a hulking object descending from the sky. If few people had seen a working Sentinel Commune, even fewer had seen a thundercraft in flight, and they watched with interest as this one descended like a flying island, its rotors thumping in a defiance of gravity itself. Cooper had her phone out, professional instincts taking over to start recording. The craft landed a long distance off and its front doors opened.

Sloane stepped between the pillars and balconies into the entrance, joining the crowd to see who had arrived. As she did, Cooper looked up and the giantess looked down as if sensing her. The huge woman flashed another charming smile and pointed. “Hey, I know you!”

Cooper stiffened, not liking being noticed, but equally finding herself warmed by the attention of this titan of a woman. Sloane crouched slightly, eyes narrowing as she tried to place the familiarity. Cooper cleared her throat and said, “Taipei.” She raised her voice, and found it unexpectedly carried by the chamber’s clever acoustics. “I was in Taipei. Our paths crossed very briefly.”

Sloane studied her, still, mind clearly ticking behind those brilliant blue eyes. There was something more – the attention a little too close – but the giantess nodded and turned forward again. “Yup, that must be it. And boy wasn’t that a rodeo.”

Their short interlude was over, as the thundercraft’s passenger stepped out, stretching her arms and rolling her neck. Another great visage, the echoes of her giant footsteps rumbling in through the compound’s open doors. The first of the old Sentinels to join them was the most controversial of them, Washington Fury. She scanned the area as the thundercraft’s engines powered down, looking from the building and Sloane – waving sweetly – down to the pen of captured militia soldiers. Washington considered them for a moment before fixing her gaze questioningly on Sloane and saying, in her smooth tenor, “You’re really out here just saying the quiet part loud, huh?”

Sloane grinned back and spread a hand to one side. “They’re a band of militants who burnt their way through three villages by the time I caught up to them. My treat.”

Washington was quiet a moment longer, suspiciously – rightly so, Cooper thought. She hadn’t heard news of such atrocities herself, much less of one of these giant vigilantes stomping out there to stop it. But Washington shrugged, deciding to take it at face value, and strode the few paces she needed to stand over the pen. The captured soldiers started scrambling, pushing at each other to reach the walls, trying vainly to climb the concrete or shout for help. Washington bent down and reached in, then came up with a fistful of writhing limbs, as casually as a girl picking berries. She considered the lives in her hand, at least three or four people desperately trying to claw free but held firm by trunk-sized fingers. She shoved them into her mouth in one screaming mass. She worked her jaw hard, crunching down, an arm and leg still flailing through her lips, and chewed as she walked towards Sloane. The screams were cut off, and Cooper imagined she could hear the breaking of bones, the smashing of bodies, though at this distance it was unlikely. Washington sucked the last of them in, chewed some more and swallowed as she stepped up to the building. She ran a forearm over her mouth to wipe off a little blood and looked Sloane up and down, like a boxer before a fight.

Washington let out a satisfied breath and demanded, “Alright then, appreciated. But it’s about time you told me and the world who the fuck you are.”

Cooper clutched her phone tensely, aware along with everyone else that whatever was coming, it was going to be big.