Storytime Blog Hop: Trampler of Dreams

Officer Greg was on the front lines the first time Waramando–Stomper of Cities, Menace of the Deep, Scourge of Humankind–came ashore and utterly trashed San Deralla City. Also the second time, and the third. His next promotion was coming with the next attack; he could practically smell it. He was climbing the ladder and soon enough he’d be the next Chief.

Except it’d been six whole months since the kaiju showed his big scaly face anywhere in a 100-mile radius, so Greg was out on the water in the dark, in the little speedboat he borrowed from his brother. He hadn’t bothered to ask this time, because his brother was one of many who thought anyone who voluntarily went into kaiju-infested waters was insane. It probably was, for anyone who wasn’t Greg, but he couldn’t just say that, so he took the boat. His brother wasn’t going to notice anyway.

He motored into the meeting place, a cove up where the coast was empty because it was a national park or something, and cut the engines and the lights. Then he grabbed the pulser out of his bag, turned it on, and lowered it, on its thin cable, into the waves.

It took about ten minutes for the bubbling to start, and another two for the first scales to breach the boiling water. The boat rocked wildly; Greg pulled up the pulser hand over hand and hung on tight.

One massive, slightly glowing yellow-and-red eye emerged from the water and fixed on Greg and his tiny boat. “What do you want?” a massive voice burbled directly into his mind.

“Well, ah, I was just wondering if you were even alive anymore,” Greg stammers. “Been a while since we saw you around. I figured out a new route for you, if you want it.”

Waramando–Stomper of Cities, Menace of the Deep, Scourge of Humankind–was going to come ashore and trample everything anyway, Greg figured. If he was directed towards the dirty, rundown parts of the city, where crime was rampant, well, that wasn’t such a loss, was it? Those parts of the city got built back up with fancy kaiju-resistant structures, with plenty of high-end housing for people who weren’t criminals, so really Greg was doing the city a service. And if he got seen helping the poor or whatever evacuate, well, that was just some bonus good optics for himself.

The kaiju rumbled, sending up bubbles and making the boat rock again. “You want me to trample your city again?”

“Oh, I mean, of course not,” Greg lied. “If you’re done trampling us, that’s great. Are you?” He could probably make that work somehow. Maybe short sell stocks in city rebuilding companies.

“I am not,” said Waramando–Stomper of Cities, Menace of the Deep, Scourge of Humankind.

There went Greg’s short-lived dream of making bank on the stock market. Ah well. “In that case, do you want the route?”

The massive eye watching him blinked, very slowly. “Very well.”

Greg explained the route, complete with valued San Deralla landmarks that the kaiju should be absolutely sure to step on, and Waramando–Stomper of Cities, Menace of the Deep, Scourge of Humankind–sank back below the waves. Greg motored back to the dock. That promotion was coming, he could feel it in his very bones.

But he secured the boat and walked up the dock, and found his brother waiting by his car, arms crossed. Worse, his sister-in-law Valerie was there–Chief Valerie, specifically. Greg’s boss.

“I’ve seen a lot of weird kinds of corruption during my time on the force,” said Chief Valerie, “but this takes the cake, Greg.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Greg said quickly. His brother waved his phone at him and Greg could just about make out a map of the coast on it.

“I have a GPS tracker on my boat, you know,” he said. “You aren’t the first one to try to steal it. I bugged it, too. We recorded every word you said.”

Well, shit.

“I hate to do this, Greg,” said Chief Valerie. “How about you resign, and this stays between the three of us?”

That was a better option than, well, anything else available to him now. Greg sighed and nodded.

“I’ll turn it in in the morning,” he said. That was it–no promotion, no accolades, no job at all. He didn’t even have the money to move or start a business in the new kaiju-proof parts of the city.

But…he still had a way to talk to Waramando–Stomper of Cities, Menace of the Deep, Scourge of Humankind. He still knew where the kaiju would go, and could suggest new routes through the city in the future.

Yeah, Chief Greg would never happen… but maybe Greg’s Guaranteed Kaiju-Safe Storage Service had a bright new future.