@terminatorgirlfriend was having some intense kaiju desires a couple weeks ago, so I decided to be a good friend and help out!
Eighty-Five-Foot-Nine
CW: references to war, miscellaneous panicking, acrophobia, also there's a giant woman.
<Hey.>
Every military had their own name for them. “Macro-Scale Second Strike,” “Project Tarasque,” “Object 2000,” and so on. Normal people mostly just called them kaiju.
<Heyyyy.>
They were meant to be the ultimate deterrence weapon: massive bomb-proof monsters trained to avenge their homelands at all costs. Miracles of nuclear biology that would make every fleet of bombers totally obsolete - what madman would attack another nation with the knowledge that the destruction of his own nation would be guaranteed?
<Heyyyy come look out the window.>
Well, nobody has ever been sure exactly who it was, since all the records would have burned up three years ago, but evidently there was at least one madman willing to roll the dice - and all it took was one.
<I can see you in there, you know. Your curtains don't block infrared.>
We never had a kaiju of our own. My homeland could barely afford to keep our secondhand jets in the air, being able to develop our own kaiju was as likely as a flying saucer or a magic carpet.
<You know I could squash this whole building, right? C'mon.>
I pull open the shade, already knowing what I'll see – but no amount of anticipation makes a slitted pupil as tall as you are any less terrifying!
“Jesus fucking Christ in a rowboat what the hell are you doing here?”
Our homeland never made a kaiju.. but now we have one anyway.
<Well, after my mission was done, I needed somewhere to relax, and your country is much nicer than where I was sent.>
Her tone is matter-of-fact in my head. Nobody had predicted the telepathy thing, or so they told us - it was some emergent property of having neurons the length of a city bus.
“I know that, but why are you–”
I cut myself off. What's the point in asking? The kaiju had been here for about two years now, and it seemed to just do whatever it wanted. I guess you're entitled to a vacation once you've finished annihilating a nation.
“Hang on, I'm going to come outside.”
As far as I've heard, it's never actually talked to anyone here. This might be a first, and in that case it's my civic duty to ask whether it'd be willing to stop rolling on the freshly-tilled fields every spring!
Also.. if a kaiju wants you dead then you're dead, right? That's kind of the whole point of kaiju. There's nothing you can do to stop them. So I figure, what's the point in panicking? It doesn't seem to want me dead.. yet.
Imagine a woman - the tall, lanky, scrappy-looking type who's equal parts intimidating and endearing. Now add 25 meters of height, or 80-ish feet if you prefer, and don't worry about the square-cube law because nuclear biology considers that a solved problem. Replace her skin with pale-green scales the size of your fist, with big green-brown ones on her hands, feet, cheekbones, and scattered around the rest of her body. Still pretty human, right?
Give her a tail. Big and solid, like an alligator’s, but she moves it like it weighs nothing. Give her spines down the middle of her back, from the base of her skull to the tip of her tail - sort of like a dragon's ridges, and sort of like a porcupine’s quills. Give her four horns, wicked and demonic and scarred from battle.
That's what I'm looking at right now, and even crouched down it's - she's? - huge.
<Finally. Come here.>
It holds out its hand to me, trying to coax me into its palm as if I'm an interesting bug.
<Don't you wanna see what I see? Let me show you how the world looks from up here.>
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious. Not just about the view, but about the proximity to a kaiju.. and, honestly, I want to know what this is all about. Why's she here? Why the interest in me?
I climb into her palm, past talons that are as long as I am tall - a reminder that kaiju are weapons above all else. And I'm VERY LITERALLY placing my life in the hands of one.
But if it wanted me dead - if she wanted me dead - then I'd already be dead, right?
Standing up from her crouch is enough to make the safety of solid ground feel terrifyingly far away. By the time she lifts me to her eye level, I'm clinging to one of those talons, petrified, hyperventilating.
From this high up, I can hear her breath huff out as she laughs at me inside my mind.
<I've plucked missiles from the air with my bare hands, I'm not going to drop you! Just relax, you can trust me.>
“It's not that I don't trust you, specifically! I'm just afraid of heights!”
It's true, being up too high has always made me go all wobbly in the knees.
<Just open your eyes and take in the view. You don't have to move, okay?>
Her hand is so solid, completely unwavering. It feels like the next best thing to solid ground. I'm not releasing my death grip on her talon but I can at least open my eyes–
It's beautiful from up here. There are no tall buildings - or at least, none taller than her - so I have an unbroken line of sight all the way to the horizon in every direction. The people below aren't exactly ants but they sure look like little toys scurrying around. This is how she's seen the world from the moment they made her…
<Nice, isn't it?>
“That's an understatement.”
<I can give you an even better view.>
She shakes me loose from her talon - rattling me around enough that I can't get a word out before what comes next.
With me loose in her palm again, she flings me into the air???
How high am I now? 150 feet? 200 feet? I have no idea, all I know is everything falls away until she looks almost normal-sized, a woman standing among a child’s stacked blocks.
<Calm down, I won't let you fall,> she tells me as I reach my apex and start my decent. <I did this all the time in training.>
It's true, she doesn't let me fall. She doesn't even catch me like you'd catch a ball, that sudden stop with its spike of g-forces. She catches me like you'd catch an egg - cradling me in midair, gently slowing me to a stop before bringing me back up.
And then she throws me again!!
To my credit, I think I'm screaming less this time? For a few moments it feels like I’m soaring like a bird, out in the air and completely unsupported, and then I swoop back into her hands.
After the third catch, she brings me up to her eye level, smiling like a whole billboard of shark teeth.
By the third time, I'm laughing as she throws me.
<Not so scary now, right?> She pauses. <You should go inside and change and then we can keep playing.>
Oh. Yeah. Mortal terror does do that. She sets me down on the ground so I can head back to my apartment.
Halfway down the hall I stagger, lurching against the walls - this must be what an earthquake is like, but nothing else is shaking, nothing else is damaged. The earthquake is inside my head.
The feeling subsides after a few moments of disorientation and I make my way back to my apartment. Everything feels normal again.. except for the feeling that someone's looking over my shoulder.
<I like your decor. Very minimalist.>
“It's not minimalist, I'm just broke.”
Is she peeking on me again? But there's no eyeball outside the window this time - and, despite me checking, definitely nobody behind me.
<Oh, wear that black dress, it suits you,> she says as I'm picking clean clothes out of my closet. <You can be an elegant lady riding in my hand, okay?>
Okay, my closet is definitely not visible from the window.. “How–?”
She cuts me off before I can finish asking: <There's a big important name for it but we always called it a ride-along. I can get into the heads of certain people, and borrow their senses. Not everyone is compatible, so you should feel special.>
The kaiju says I'm special? I'll admit I do feel kinda special about that, that's hardly an everyday occurrence.
<C'mon back out, let's go for a walk. We can get to know each other.>
I walk back into her hand with no hesitation, now. I'm more certain than ever that being afraid of her would be totally useless.
She sets me on her shoulder, her hand hovering nearby in case I start to slip - but I don't need it, she's surprisingly stable as she makes her way out of town.
There's something interesting about the way she walks through town. Her head is down, watching each footstep, and she's careful to step in backyards and parking lots rather than smashing roads and treading on buildings. She's flattening a shed here, a couple cars there, but she's avoiding anything that might hurt people.
Once we're out of town, she transfers me back into her hand. While I'm wondering why, she breaks into a sudden sprint - 80+ feet of kaiju running full-tilt across farmland and open plains, each step a crater, tail out behind her for balance. The freedom of the open road, kaiju-style.
<So, what's your name, anyway?>
Her voice is so casual, as if she weren't in a flat-out sprint right now. Advantages of telepathy, I guess? And/or this isn't a flat-out sprint for her, which is a humbling thought.
I'm Kate!” I shout up to her, hoping I'm still audible over the wind.
<Kate. Hello, Kate, let's skip the designation and you can just call me Viv.>
“Viv! Nice to meet you!”
Maybe it was her designation once upon a time, maybe it's just something she saw and decided she liked.. I won't pry. Getting into a kaiju’s personal matters seems like it could be hazardous.
Of course, everything that's happening right now is already hazardous.
“So.. Viv? Where are we going??”
<I'm taking you back to my nest. I've never had a guest before, but I prepared especially for this.>
A nest? Kaiju have nests? We're heading out toward the mountains, away from any major cities - where would she nest out here?
We left in the late afternoon, and the sun is starting to set by the time we arrive - a clearing in the trees, a pristine blue lake, and a series of towers and huge cubic buildings along the shore.
“Oh! The old power plant! That makes sense!
This is a place I'm familiar with - I've never been here, but I've read about it in the news for years. It was supposed to be a revolutionary nuclear power plant that would end the whole country's fossil fuel dependence, but the construction dragged on and on... Eventually the funding got diverted elsewhere, with the construction site simply abandoned.
It's big enough, solid enough, and sheltered enough, right?”
<More or less, yes. It's also isolated enough to keep anyone from bothering me. Hikers come through occasionally, but they never get too close.>
“Plenty of peace and quiet for you, huh?”
Viv saves me from further awkward small talk by carrying me through a kaiju-sized hole that's been smashed into the side of the main reactor building, and placing me gently next to..
“Why is there a camping chair here??”
<I stole it. It'd be rude to expect you to eat dinner standing up.>
Dinner? My stomach growls in response to the idea. Now that I'm back on solid ground, I'm realizing that it has been quite a while since I had lunch, and some food would be really nice… but what could she have out here for me?
With one claw, slides an overturned crate towards me across the floor - an improvised table for dinner in an abandoned building. Positioned on it is a packaged MRE, the kind you can buy for hiking supplies.
That's a relief, I was worried she was just going to drop a raw deer and expect me to dig in! Not that I have any reason to think she would have, but…
Viv stays quiet as I heat the MRE, but once I open the package I can feel her shove into my head for another ride-along.
<This one's my favorite,> she says by way of explanation.
<The only compatible hikers lately had either soup or this terrible freeze-dried rice bowl, so I went out and got you a proper meal so I could enjoy it with you.>
A bit self-serving, arguably, but.. who am I to judge? I hadn't really considered the idea that she’d have things she could only enjoy through ride-alongs, but I guess it makes sense to me. It's not like she'd be able to enjoy it herself, with the whole meal being a tiny speck on her tongue.
“What do you eat, anyway?” I can't resist asking, now that I've had the thought.
<I'll explain once you're done. Please, eat.> The voice in my head isn't exactly ‘pleading’, but it's also not not pleading.
<You were curious about my meal?>
I was, and I tell her so! I don't know much about how kaiju work, and the proximity to her is making me curious.
It's nothing like I expected. I'd have bet money she was out here swallowing bears whole, but instead– she lifts a 55-gallon drum and drops it straight into her mouth, biting down and then sticking out her tongue to show me the black oil coating it. She eats two more drums before she explains.
<I can get mass from nearly anything. These are heavy fuel oil. Tastes a little burnt, but not too bad. If I get tired of that, I can grab a couple trees, or even crunch on some gravel - the rocks around here have a pleasantly high iron content.>
<For energy, I need this,> she says, reaching into a hole in the concrete floor and pulling out..
..well, I'm not sure what it is, exactly? Just some metal cylinder, glowing faintly red, that she swallows like she's taking a pill.
<That's what an RTG looks like without the casing.>
“RTG– wait, you eat radiation?”
<It's nuclear biology, isn't it? Radioactive decay is the only source that puts out enough energy to keep me going. I'll hold onto it for an hour or two and then put it back in the tank.>
Okay, I guess I shouldn't have been all that surprised, but still!
“Wait, is it safe for me to be around you, then?”
<My gut lining is the equivalent of 50 centimeters of lead plate. You're fine.>
I'm taking a kaiju's word for it about the safety of being around her. My friends would balk at the thought, but.. I believe her.
“Viv.. why'd you bring me out here?”
She sighs. Not just in my head, but also out loud, and I grab a hold of the meal tray before she blows it away.
Well… I'm lonely, Kate. This is a perfect place for me, but there's nobody here except the occasional gawker who's traveled a hundred kilometers to ogle the kaiju’s nest. I wanted some company.>
I wasn't sure what to expect, but “the giant weapon is lonely” was the last thing on my mind.
But that's not fair, is it? I've known Viv for a few hours and I already know she's a person, not a weapon. Of course she'd be lonely, given her last home was probably a military base!
<Just stay until the stars come out. I want to show you how they look out here, and then I'll take you home.>
<I'll come for you again in a week or two. You're the best company I've had since the war.. I don't want to let you go.>
I pause, considering my response. There's a lot to think about, a lot of choices to make.. but none that would keep me away from her.
“If you wait until Friday, I'll pick up some camping supplies so I can stay the weekend, okay?”
The voice in my mind feels surprised, but warmer than before.
<I'll hold you to that, you know. Don't try to trick me, you can't run from me.>
“I won't run. I promise.”
I mean it.















