Chapter Text
August, 2013
He could taste smoke. The world was quiet around him except for the distant, shrill calls of gulls – or maybe they were sirens. Tendo couldn’t tell the difference. He sat beside his grandfather’s body and stared out into the bay, wondering at the glowing blue poison slicking the water’s surface. The sun had sunk below the horizon hours ago but the fires in the city lit up the night, staining the sky a dirty orange and coughing smoke into the wind. Tendo hadn’t moved since sunset. He couldn’t muster the will to; moving meant walking away from Yeye, and that meant leaving him alone in a place where no one would find him, maybe for days on end. He deserved better than that.
Tendo had gotten rid of his ferry uniform shirt in a flurry of panic after hugging Yeye’s body to him in unthinking grief. The poison had spread across the thin linen and soaked into it, and Tendo had nearly ripped the shirt off before it could touch his skin. None of it had gotten on him – the creature had been practically raining it down to the ground below as it marched through the city, and not a single drop had found its way onto Tendo. How miraculous. How divine an intervention, that not a speck had touched him.
The wind gusted off the choppy bay waters and brought the odors of brine and smoke with it, passing over Tendo like a miasma. His eyes watered at the acrid smells and a cough caught in his throat. His mouth was painfully dry and his stomach gnawed with hunger, and his body ached all over. He felt like he was coming apart at the seams. Maybe the stress and fear was catching up to him and he was going into shock; how did one know that they were in shock? By the grinding feeling of their thoughts coming to a jumbled halt, their body feeling battered and broken even if it was still whole?
Tendo shifted, his stiff limbs aching in protest as he finally mustered enough willpower to move. He had to get up. He had to walk, to get away. He looked down at Yeye. He didn’t look like he was sleeping. He looked like an empty thing, human but…not, somehow. Everything that had been Tendo’s grandfather simply wasn’t there anymore. But it would be so wrong, such a betrayal to leave him.
He couldn’t look at him for more than a few moments at a time. If he tried, he started to feel sick. Tendo forced himself to look back at the bay, watching the water as it lapped at the shore. The sand was stained with the glowing venom and the bright, sheer unnatural light of it caught Tendo’s attention unwillingly. He stared fixedly at it until his eyes burned. Time passed without his marking it, and the sky had begun to lighten when the staccato rattle of gunfire began again.
Tendo looked around slowly over his shoulder. The ground was shaking as though something was stomping heavily overland. There were distant roars accompanied by explosions and crashes; a monster, a horrific, living impossibility, being attacked by the gathered military and smashing its way through the city. The shaking grew worse and the noise grew louder, and Tendo realized with a sick jolt that the creature was coming back.
There was no more time. Walking meant leaving, but staying meant dying. The monster seemed determined to bring down San Francisco on top of everyone and the army wouldn’t be pulling punches just so one wayward survivor could linger in shock. He had to move. He had to leave.
Tendo realized quite painfully that he wouldn’t be able to carry the body with him.
“Yeye,” he said. His voice was a rusty croak after so many hours of silence and breathing in smoke. “Yeye, I’m sorry.”
The wind stirred his grandfather’s beard and clothes slightly, the fire-stained light of the sky silhouetting him in dark greys and oranges. The entire world was burnt, ashes falling like snow all around him. The smoke filled him up and choked him and Tendo gave a hacking cough that turned into a sob he could barely stifle. He rolled stiffly over onto his knees, kneeling beside his grandfather and his hands hovering just over the body, afraid to touch him.
“Yeye,” Tendo said again, body shaking at the force of the coughing sobs. “I gotta go. I gotta go now. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Endure this. Endure? How? How could he endure it? Tendo pushed himself up and staggered back, his legs and back aching fiercely from sitting curled up on the hard ground for so long. He wiped at his face and there was gritty dirt on his palms, scraping against his face and sticking to the wet tracks of tears slicing down his cheeks. He turned away and started to walk, following the shore. The city burned on his right side and the water bordered his left. There was nowhere to go but straight ahead.
There was a thunderous crash and Tendo jolted, whirling around. The creature was using its entire body as a wrecking ball, smashing through buildings and shrugging off the relentless waves of gunfire and missiles the army was throwing at it. He watched as it swung its head from side to side, the blade-like horn that crowned its skull slicing through concrete and metal. It glowed, inside and out – its insides were lit in vivid yellow, and it seemed as though the symmetrical patterns blazing in its skin were cracks for the light to escape through. It was glorious and horrific and made Tendo feel like an irrelevant insect before it. It had come for them all, and it was sweeping humanity and all that it had built away with little effort.
He couldn’t stay. He had to move. The thought cycled repetitively in his mind, the only clear things he could hold on to. He couldn’t stay. He had to move. Tendo forced himself to look away from the monster and the battle, turning around and starting to walk again. It seemed so stupid, honestly. He was simply walking away, acting as though he hadn’t abandoned his grandfather– no don’t think like that you can’t stay you have to move – acting as though there wasn’t a monster rampaging behind him – don’t look back just walk just walk just walk – that there weren’t droves of soldiers dying on the ground and in the air alike trying to bring it down.
How could they bring it down?
Tendo dared to look over his shoulder again. The monster was keeping itself quite busy plowing through San Francisco and took no notice of him. He was so very far away from it after all, and so very, very small. Tendo only felt like a personal victim of it. His entire life had been ripped out from under him and undone in less than an hour – but surely he warranted a little recognition? The irrationality of it didn’t really occur to Tendo. He stopped dead in his tracks and watched the monster; its back was turned to him. He started to spit curses under his breath and suddenly his voice was picking up volume, and Tendo marched forward a few steps screaming his rage at the top of his lungs.
The curses and threats echoed but the sound of his voice was lost under the roaring and gunfire, and Tendo was left with only a hollow feeling deep inside him where the grief and fury had been only seconds before. The monster didn’t care how angry he was and it never would. Destruction didn’t care what it ruined. It adhered to its nature and to hell with anyone and anything that was stupid enough to cross its path. The ruins of Tendo’s life were collateral damage. He didn’t matter at all.
“I’m losing it. I’m fucking losing it.”
Tendo’s voice was hoarse and he coughed, leaning back against an abandoned car and knotting his hands in his hair. He closed his eyes and rocked slightly, trying to piece himself back together. He was dangerously close to coming apart completely and he knew it. He couldn’t stay. He had to move.
“C’mon, Tendo. C’mon. One step at a time, just move. Off you go. C’mon now.”
Yeye wouldn’t be impressed with his carrying on. The man had always been strict, stern, unyielding. Don’t wallow in self-pity when you could be helping yourself instead. Tendo gulped in a deep, smoke-tainted breath and pushed away from the car. He turned away from the monster and started to walk again. He didn’t know where he was going; only that he was putting distance between himself and the battle. It was all that mattered.
“So, Tendo, how’s your day been?” he asked himself after an hour, picking through a deserted neighborhood. Cars littered the street, some still running. Storefronts and apartment buildings stood open and abandoned – no one had stuck around to loot. He looked around and then ducked into an SUV with all its doors flung wide open, taking a bottle of water he’d spotted on the passenger seat. He cracked it open and emptied it in one long, unending gulp, shakily swiping his hand across his mouth.
“Oh, you know. Not too bad. Felt like going for a walk. Everyone’s….everyone’s out doing their own thing. Not a soul on the streets. Never seen it this empty before.”
He rooted through the SUV and found a paper bag spilling its contents in the back seat; granola bars, canned food, a crushed carton of eggs upset and leaking yolk onto the upholstery. Groceries, then. Not a quick grab-and-dash of supplies to evacuate with. Tendo filled his pockets with granola bars and ripped one open with his teeth, stuffing it into his mouth without really tasting it.
“Well, it’s always nice to get out and see the sights, isn’t it? Lived here most of your life and you never even went to Alcatraz, let alone just walk around town. What kind of person does that in a tourist town like this?”
Tendo shrugged at his own question, walking again.
“Hell if I know. It’s downright shameful.”
He walked in silence for a few minutes and nearly jumped out of his skin at a massive explosion. He hit the ground and flung his arms over his head. As the echoes faded he pushed himself up, looking around wildly. The creature was swatting at the fighter jets circling it like flies, being bombarded with….Tendo wasn’t sure what. Bombs of the heavier sort. Maybe atomic, who could tell.
“That’s all I need. Let’s get stuck in the path of a fucking atom bomb. C’mon, you idiot, get up.”
Tendo followed his own sharp, impatient order and stood, refusing to look back. The day wore on and his thoughts faded into an exhausted grey haze, wandering on autopilot through the city. He found a clear road and walked along the side of it with his head crooked down towards the ground and eyes focusing on nothing at all. The sun beat down on him and his dingy undershirt stuck to him like a filthy second skin. His stomach growled and he reached automatically into his pocket for another granola bar, gnawing on it. He wished absently that he hadn’t drunk all the water in one go.
How long had he been walking? Where was he even heading? Tendo forced himself to look up. The road he had been following had turned to highway without his noticing; he was well on his way to leaving the city behind. He turned and looked back at it reflexively; massive columns of black smoke towered over the ruined sections, and he could see squadrons of planes flying like birds on the wing and swarming around the monster. Tendo held his hand up and fit the creature’s distant shape between thumb and forefinger, pinching down and pretending to crush it.
“Good job, Tendo. You win.”
He turned away and started to walk again. The road was eerily still and the silence bothered him deeply. The planes were a mosquito whine in the background, punctuated by faint roars and the echoes of bomb explosions, but out here on the highway it felt as though the world had paused, holding its breath. Tendo walked, losing track of time and any sense of himself, his mind sliding back into autopilot. He just wanted to walk. Just wanted to move, to get away, to leave the city behind him.
The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon when the army truck rolled up beside him.
“Sir?”
Tendo didn’t look up. He had to keep moving. There would never be enough distance between him and the city, but he had to keep walking and try anyway. The truck idled behind him and there was a sound of following footsteps, and a soldier with an ash-smeared uniform and a careworn face caught up to him.
“Sir?”
Tendo flinched like a startled animal at the hand on his shoulder, twisting quickly away from the soldier. He immediately backed off, putting his hands up.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to scare you. Are you okay?”
There was no answer, only a blank stare. Okay? Was he okay? Tendo’s voice was stuck in his throat, refusing to come loose. Of course he wasn’t okay. The soldier was keeping him from walking. He had to keep moving.
“Did you come from the city?”
Tendo swallowed hard; his mouth had gone bone-dry again. He nodded slightly at the question, eyes flicking nervously from the soldier and back towards the road.
“It’s okay. It’s okay now. We’ve been helping evacuate people all day. How about you come with me now? It’s going to get dark soon. I can help you get somewhere safe.”
Safe…now there was an appealing thought. Tendo looked to the truck curiously. There were other people in it; some soldiers, some civilians. Many were looking at him. He turned back to the soldier and gave another faint nod.
“Good. Good, okay. C’mon with me now, sir.”
Tendo let himself be guided to the truck and the soldier helped him climb into the back of it, settling him down. The sudden jolt and vibrations as the truck started moving startled him again and Tendo wrapped his arms tightly around himself. He ducked his head down and closed his eyes. He didn’t care where they were going. He was simply glad to get away from the city. He was in the truck with the other refugees for a long time, and eventually fell asleep curled up in a corner.
--
The refugee camp had been unbearable. Tendo had lasted two days before he couldn’t stand it anymore, fleeing from it with a vague direction in mind and only the donated clothes on his back; his old clothing had been confiscated and destroyed as a precaution against ‘contaminants’. There had been a whole quarantine section of the camp dedicated to contaminants and the people suffering from them; the wracking coughs and cries of those exposed to the blue venom had kept him awake for two days straight.
He had had to answer questions in a triage tent about his own exposure before they would let him into the camp. No, he didn’t feel short of breath or nauseous. No, there were no open sores or blisters on his skin. No, his vision wasn’t blurry or distorted. He would have said the sky was green and the moon was purple if it meant he would stay out of the quarantine, but he had passed with a clean bill of health after his brief interrogation.
There had been so many displaced people. So many families, so many alone and searching for the ones they had been separated from. When the entire mess had first started Tendo’s only thought had been to get to his grandfather, but now he wondered if his coworkers and passengers from the ferry had gotten away…or if the boat had been capsized and sunk. He shook the thought off. Surely they had gotten away. Surely.
There were streams of people going in and out of the camp and it had been relatively easy to get away unnoticed. One less mouth to feed and one more bed open for someone who wanted to be there; Tendo left it behind and walked alongside the road, picking up the wandering trail he’d set for himself again. His mind was cleared of shock but he found himself missing the grey blankness as he walked; slipping into autopilot meant forgetting to think and remember. All he could do now was think over and over about the news reports he’d heard of the monster’s path inland and the destruction it was causing, the death tolls of civilians and soldiers.
Traffic had begun to pick up again, all the cars in a steady flow branching in every direction. It seemed counterproductive to flee out from the coast when the monster was inland, but what if another one came out of the sea to follow it? There were no safe places anywhere. Better to flee and hope for the best, skirting the monster’s path. It occurred to Tendo that he only had twenty dollars in his wallet and would likely be sleeping in bus stops or park benches now that he had sprung himself free of the refugee camp. He looked over his shoulder at the distant mass of tents, army personnel and caravans of trucks bringing medical aid and food, and then kept walking. If he had to listen to one more poor son of a bitch in the quarantine cough their life out, he’d lose his mind.
The sun was beating down on him mercilessly again and Tendo was quietly berating himself for not thinking to bring food or even a bottle of water when another truck pulled up beside him. He’d been thumbing for a ride for the past hour, though every car that had gone past him had been packed to bursting with people. He didn’t blame anyone for skipping over one particularly rough-looking refugee on their own. He paused now and the truck’s passenger side window rolled down, and the driver leaned over and squinted at him.
“Where you headed, son?”
Tendo shrugged.
“Wherever. Out from here.”
The driver pointed to a distant exit sign, the slow procession of traffic filtering from the main road into it like an inlet from a river.
“I can take you as far as the next town over if you want. That’s where I was headed.”
“Just gonna offer a total stranger a lift? Just like that?”
The driver mimicked Tendo’s indifferent shrug, scratching at the stubble that dusted his face. He looked like he hadn’t changed clothes or slept in a few days.
“Looks like that’s what you were expectin’, hitchhiking like you were. Seems like the world’s coming to an end. Might as well do someone a kindness before it sweeps us under, don’t you think?”
Tendo smiled slightly and nodded, pulling the passenger-side door open and climbing into the truck.
“I guess so.”
The driver waited until Tendo had buckled himself in before pulling back into the slow flow of fleeing traffic, lighting a cigarette and offering one to Tendo. He took it gratefully, sucking in the smoke and holding it in as long as he could.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it. Already helped a couple other stragglers get the hell out of Dodge anyway. I got the means to, might as well help people out.”
“Not a lot of people would.”
The driver took a drag on his cigarette and snapped the smoke, watching the traffic crawl.
“Most people tend to look after their own. Thing like this…makes you put that in perspective, what you want to protect first and foremost.”
Tendo said nothing. He smoked the cigarette down to the filter and ignored how dry and painful the smoke left his mouth, wishing for water. The day slipped slowly into a vividly red and orange sunset, the oppressive rising heat from the highway turning the air into almost liquid waves. The driver didn’t talk much, only asking at one point if Tendo would mind the radio playing. There was no music, only continuous news reports covering the creature’s steady process inland and the military response.
“Hell of a thing,” the man said. Hours had passed and they had finally made their way onto the exit ramp, steadily picking up speed and escaping the over-packed highway. “Never thought to see such a thing in my life. You?”
Tendo coughed, his throat rasping.
“No, sir. I sure as hell did not.”
“What are they calling it? Transgressor or something?”
“Trespasser.”
The man nodded slowly.
“Not bad.”
“Better than Godzilla Junior, anyway.”
The man laughed, giving Tendo a wry look.
“All we need is for it to start breathing fire to really kick the party into gear, huh?”
Tendo’s lips twitched into a thin smile. He looked out the window and watched the sky darken into deep blues and purples, stars beginning to phase slowly into view. The radio droned on and he sank into the seat, eventually dozing off. The dashboard clock was reading 11:34 in lime green numbers when the truck pulled into a motel parking lot; Tendo was shaken awake, sitting up abruptly with a soft, startled noise.
“Sorry, son. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Tendo looked around in disorientation, squinting at the motel. It was packed but the vacancy sign was still lit. He jumped again as the man pressed a crumpled twenty into his hands, looking from it to him in deep confusion.
“I can’t take this.”
“If you don’t, I’ll probably be passing it off to whoever I pick up next,” the driver said. “Just take it, son. I got family I’m staying with here, I’m set. You need it more than I do.”
Tendo mumbled his thanks, stuffing the bill into his pocket as he got out of the truck.
“Why are you doing this for me? You don’t know me from a hole in the wall.”
The man shrugged, seeming amused by the bafflement in Tendo’s voice.
“Like I said. It just might be the end of the world. Easier to be kind than cruel. You take care now, alright?”
Tendo stepped away and watched the truck as it pulled out from the parking lot, staring down the road until it disappeared, taking the man whose name he’d never even bothered to ask out of sight and away.
--
Trespasser fell three days later. It had destroyed six cities and killed thousands, and the cheering that erupted in the diner when it hit the ground shook the windows. Tendo sat in a corner booth with his eyes fixed on the TV screen, watching the grainy video replay over and over of the final wave of bomb strikes that had finally overwhelmed the creature. It fell heavily and bled vivid blue into the dirt, gasping out its final breaths before shuddering and going still. People were laughing and talking all around him but he couldn’t process it as more than white noise; all that came through clearly was Trespasser’s final ragged cry as it died. Tendo felt an odd sense of closure in his overworked emotions; he had been there first to see it rise from the water, and now he had watched it die in the dust. He looked back down at his food and his vision was blurry but he carried on with his lunch as though tears weren’t slicking down his face. Slowly the rest of the world began to come back into tune and he could hear muttering in the booth in front of him.
“Takes almost a week and God knows how much artillery to put the thing down. What if it happens again? What do we do?”
“Throw more nukes at it and pray, probably…”
Tendo laughed humorlessly at that, looking up at the TV. What would they do…what could they do, honestly, except fight?
--
“You hear about that new army thing they’re starting up?”
Tendo knocked back his beer, sitting a bit off to the side and listening to the men he’d simply trailed behind after work as they sat at the bar. He’d been six months out of San Francisco and found work that paid for a bare rented room and enough food to keep him going, but little else. He found he couldn’t muster a want for much else…especially after Hundun’s attack in Manila and the cold, sinking realization that Trespasser hadn’t been some kind of horrific fluke had set in.
“Tendo. Hey. You awake over there?”
He blinked and looked over.
“Sorry man, lost in my own head. You say something?”
“Yeah. S’all over the news, didn’t you see? They’re looking for mechanics’n shit too, welders…kind of a blanket casting call for people, y’know?”
“For what?”
“Pan Pacific…somethin’ Corps. Brand new. Dealin’ with the monsters.”
Tendo was silent for a long moment. He’d never thought of himself as any kind of military material…but it beat scraping by like he was now. He shrugged, finishing off his beer and signaling the bartender for another.
“Sounds kind of interesting. Guess it couldn’t hurt to take a look.”