I would learn afterwards that it was exactly 18 minutes later that I woke up, lying on the table in the center of the tent. Tiny had my legs, one held by each massive hand. Giant was clinging to my right arm, Ceildh to my left with one of Dee or Dum holding down my forehead. Amazon had a hand on my chest and an automatic pistol aimed directly between my eyes. I took this in and reacted as my training had taught me. I didn’t fucking move.
“Don’t move, sir.” said Amazon, confirming my initial instincts as the correct ones.
“Report.” I said automatically.
The gun didn’t waver at all. “You picked up Hawkeye’s book and then, if you’ll pardon the expression, lost your baby shit, sir. It took Tiny and the Twins to stop you from tearing Gaga apart with your bare hands.”
I started to speak but she interrupted. “She’s alive sir, deaf in the left ear, but you didn’t do that. We can’t get her to make sense, she keeps babbling. Hawkeye isn’t talking, but I think he knows what’s happening.”
“Where’s the Sergeant?”
“Covering you from the door, sir. I’m going to remove this weapon now, and we’re going to let you up slowly.”
“What the fuck, Zon?!” I heard Giant exclaim, “He nearly tore Dee’s fucking arms off! And I’ve never seen anyone take a right hook from Tiny and not even fucking flinch.”
“That was Dum,” said what had to be Dee, “and they’re not off. They’re just… dangly.”
“Shut up, both of you. This is Sarge’s order and I mean to obey them, especially since he’s pointing a laser scope tri-barrel automatic death stick pointed at us that could easily tear a hole a building let alone the Captain here.”
She moved the pistol back and took several steps backwards herself while the rest of the squad gingerly let me go. I sat up slowly, head pounding. “Dum… status?”
“Two dislocated shoulders, now set.” said Amazon, maintaining her pistol position. “Nothing he hasn’t seen before. He’s recovering with Gaga.”
I put both hands on my head to try and stop the pounding. A few seconds of controlled breathing helped numb the pain. I swung my legs over the side of the table, the motion causing everyone except Amazon to either flinch or physically step back. As the cloudiness in my head cleared, I looked around the tent. It was trashed. The table was the only piece of furniture not in splinters. Electronics and audio equipment were strewn across the floor and the water basin was in three pieces. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of motion at the doorway. Hardass had raised and cocked the rifle.
“You just move nice and slow now sir,” he said in a dangerously quiet voice, “and you just lift up your shirt and show me your chest.”
“My shirt? I…” I started, shocked at the indecency of the request to a superior officer.
“Tell you what Sir,” he interrupted, “You show me your chest and I won’t pull this here trigger and shred it, are we clear?”
I moved without further consideration. The tone had convinced me that if I didn’t remove my shirt in the next few seconds bits of me would hit the far wall. I removed it and looked down. There was an hourglass carved into it, still bloody, about half of the sand was carved with pinpricks into the top and a small string of pinpricks falling through to a pile on the bottom. My jaw dropped, but so did Hardass’ gun.
“That’s bad.”
“What? What is? What is this?!” I was starting to lose patience with this situation. “Get Hawkeye here now.” I said, not to anyone in particular. Dee vanished out of the tent, beating Twinkle to it by a solid five steps. She hesitated and slid back against the wall, dropping down to a seating position and pulling her knees up.
“That book, that’s the problem. It’s too late now though. Everyone sit. It’s time you learn why we’re actually here.” he lent the rifle up against one of the tent’s supporting poles and pulled out a cigar, biting the end of. Hawkeye and Dee returned as Hardass lit the cigar and blew a few smoke rings. Hawkeye looked broken. His eyes were sunken and he had turned even whiter than when I had last seen him.
“First off, this ain’t Hawkeye’s fault. I know you’re thinking that. He couldn’t have know what that book is capable of.” he nodded Hawkeye who stared blankly back. “Now this is important. Shit has recently hit the fan. Not the bullcrap story about Japan and China fighting, the SKs in trouble from the Donkeys and everything else that you think you know.” he puffed and spat. “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that the Donkey’s can’t hit shit? I mean, fucking seriously. They’re useless but not THAT useless. If they wanted to hit us, we’d be a crater by now. They’re missing on purpose to keep the public from outright panic.”
Amazon interrupted “What about the invasion of China?”
“What about it? Have you been there?”
“No, but the videos coming out of China…” said Twinkle from the set against the wall.
“Right, because the Chinese don’t control their media. They’re letting the videos that they want you to see out because the truth is worse. Much worse. They ain’t gonna be able to hide it for much longer, but the Chinese/Japanese alliance insisted they be given a chance to try and take care of it themselves.”
“An alliance? Between those two? Fucking impossible!” said Giant.
“Exactly. That’s why no one would ever guess what’s really going on. That and it’s un-fucking-believable. Unless you’ve seen it of course.” the red end of the cigar brightened as he inhaled hard. “We are facing all of the bad shit out of the worst fucking Japanese movies that you can possibly imagine.”
No one spoke for a moment, then Ceilidh burst into relieved laughter which was joined by a few others. I held up a hand and it slowly died. “You better explain yourself Sergeant.”
“I got posted to China fifteen years back, just outside of Ningbo. It was explained as ‘disaster relief’, which was true after a fashion. We showed up and the platoon set up camp. We ran a couple of drills, strange drills, like we were trying to shoot down airplanes with our rifles. Then one morning, we marched to the sea and stood there, lines of us standing in perfect formation. Not for long though. An hour later, the sea began to boil, the clouds spun around overhead, some crazy funnel thing formed about 1500 meters out. Then I saw something that I will never forget to the end of my days.” he puffed again, clearly enjoying the attention.
“What?” asked Tiny, on the edge of his seat, massive head hunched over.
“God. Fucking. Zilla.”