Project Maigo (Kaiju #2)
Jeremy Robinson
For all you crazy Kaiju fans who made PROJECT NEMESIS a hit, and helped make PROJECT MAIGO a reality. Thank you for your support, and all the art!
Prologue
Hong Kong
“Somebody shut that bitch up.” The sound of flesh striking flesh followed the command, stifling the chained woman’s whimpers and reminding the others why they shouldn’t speak, cry or even breathe loudly.
Satisfied with the silence, the man known simply as Tinman crouched down to inspect the woman. He reached out a dirty hand, held her chin and yanked her face back and forth. She was hard to see in the dim multicolored light provided by the distant towers of Hong Kong. He snapped his fingers. “Flashlight.”
A light was flicked on and placed in his hand. The inside of the blue, 40-foot-long, steel shipping container lit up, revealing two rows of young women. Thirty-three in all. They were prisoners. Slaves. And yet, not one of them was bound. Not physically, at least.
The light shone into the eyes of the slapped woman. She didn’t blink. Her pupils remained dilated. She simply stared straight ahead, no longer afraid. No longer...anything. Tinman noted the red hand print emerging on the woman’s face. Dingle had struck her hard, but he had remembered not to use a closed fist, at least. Damaged goods fetched a lower price. And this one—a Japanese girl—would get good money from their Western patrons. “How long will they be...pliable? The auction starts in thirty minutes. Most of our guests are already here.”
“They’re pretty doped,” Dingle replied. He was a skinny man with greasy blond hair, shiny black leather garb and purple sunglasses—despite the late hour. He shook his hand, still recovering from the open-palm blow he’d given the woman. “But they’ll be able to walk, among other things.”
“Nothing happens on the premises,” Tinman reminded him. “We’re not a brothel. We’re an outlet. What they do with the product is their own business and on their own time.”
Dingle nodded. “I know the drill.”
Tinman knew Dingle was capable. They’d bought and sold more than two thousand women during their last three years together, and they had become the number one import/export outfit in the Asian flesh trade. Business had slowed after that mess in Boston, though. People had grown afraid. Some of his clients even attempted to return their merchandise. But the monster—Nemesis—hadn’t returned. And business was booming, or as Dingle liked to say, their ‘business was banging.’
Tinman sometimes told himself that some of the women were being used for more noble pursuits, like house cleaning or manual labor, but if he was honest, he knew the lucky ones found themselves locked inside a plush hideaway for a few years before being used up and discarded. The unlucky ones wouldn’t make it a week. Some might not even survive the night.
Not my problem, he told himself.
He looked down the row of women, casting the bright white light along their faces. Most were Asian—Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Chinese. Most of them Chinese, on account of Chinese parents not putting up too much of a stink when the girls disappeared. Mom and dad might not appreciate them for being born female, but Tinman’s clients would. At least, Tinman thought, some of them will feel desired before dying. A few of the slaves were Western girls. A couple of sluts from California who practically volunteered. Two Germans. A French girl. And two Spanish—Mexican Spanish. While the Asian girls attracted Western clients, these Western girls would fetch top dollar with his Eastern clientele. Everyone always wanted what they perceived as exotic.
He crouched to the left, shining his light in the next girl’s eyes, seeing the same vacant look. Like this, mindless and oblivious to what was going to come, Tinman didn’t find the girls attractive. He thought the kind of men who did were...off. But they paid well enough for him not to care.
The girl had a bit of an overbite. He pulled a black marker from his pocket and placed a single dot on the back of her right hand, signifying that the bidding on her should start at a lower price. She’d be one of the unlucky ones. No one spent good money on a temp.
“Hey, Tin,” a man called from the container’s opening. Tinman turned to find his two guards silhouetted against the city lights. A stiff breeze brought the scent of smog and ocean decay to his nose. He hated Hong Kong. This was as close as he ever got. The docks. The auction and the exchange of money and girls would all happen on his freighter, which also conducted more legitimate, but less profitable business. When they were done, he’d sail away richer than when he arrived.
Tinman blew Hong Kong’s stink from his nose. “What is it?”