How To Train Your Kaiju Read online

  HOW TO TRAIN YOUR KAIJU

  Kaiju Wars Offline

  Book 1

  By N. Knight

  Copyright © 2018 N. Knight

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Kaiju Art Gallery

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Kaiju Art Gallery

  Acknowledgements

  ⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎⁎

  A special thank you to my cousin and the hard, fast workers of the Huntsville Jiffy Lube for answering my obnoxious questions about cars.

  Another thanks is owed to Omega Studios for my amazing cover and to Christina Weinman for the kaiju art sprinkled throughout this book.

  And the greatest thanks of all to my brilliant friends, supportive family, and all around amazing bride, who named the regular humming bird at her feeder Kaiju when I told her what kind of book I was writing.

  Chapter One

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  I don’t know which pisses me off more, the sharp pain exploding across my cheekbone or the fact that I should have seen the punch coming.

  Hope is supposed to be one of the first things to die when you go to prison. If you have trouble killing it there’s always a handful of inmates eager to help. Even the possibility of hope is like throwing chum in shark infested waters.

  This is my first time being locked up as an adult. I’ve been in and out of detention centers my entire teenaged life. I don’t care for it. It’s like what I imagine the transition from middle school to high school is like, you go from being the biggest and the baddest, to low-man on the totem pole. Only students don’t carry shivs. Or maybe they do. Mom travels a lot and chose to home school me so I wouldn’t really know.

  Fortunately for me, Kermit Haney doesn’t have a shiv on him. I spit out a mouthful of coppery blood as my world narrows down to his taunting cackle. For a second his skinny frame, too-thick jaw, and stupid-ass laugh are my whole world. The man is the kind of turd who needs a good beating. Obnoxious. He used to throw his poop at the guards. Everyone hates Kermit

  Right now, I hate him more than anything else in the world.

  There’s some specialist head-shrink visiting from out of state, part of a private company, who wants to see me. Word got out about it and with it came a rumor that I might get out early. I’m only in for destruction of private property, but I got the maximum sentence. The judge took one look at the thickness of my sealed juvenile record and decided to make an example of me. I’ve only been here two months. The possibility of getting out shouldn’t be exist.

  But I’m dumb enough to let myself hope. I was heading to see the shrink and passed Kermit in the hall when he sucker-punched me.

  I move. I’m not a big guy. I’m quick and I’m tough and I’m damn vicious when my temper gets hold of me. And my temper is telling me that nothing would make me happier than making Kermit swallow his own teeth. Maybe they’ll put a tube down his throat so he can breathe and he’ll make a croaking sound. Crazy little muppet.

  I’m halfway to him, about to throw a punch right back in his face when a grey shape hits me from the side and I’m slammed into the wall. Kermit’s out of sight but not out of mind. I want to get to him. Want to hit him. Make him hurt for coming at me like that. It’s not just a rule in the joint, it’s a rule of life. If you let anyone make a punk out of you, you give in and you run, you’re going to be running for the rest of your life. No one punks me. I’m no coward and I’m no one’s bitch. I’m going to break his nose, then knock his teeth out, and I’ll feel damn good doing it.

  That’s something no one seems to get about being angry. How good it feels. Afterword I always feel like crap. While I’m angry though? I’m invincible. I’m powerful. The whole world’s cardboard and I’m a firehose.

  That’s my real problem. I’ve got issues managing my anger. I’ve got issues, period. I like how being angry makes me feel. It gets me into the kind of trouble that gets me locked up.

  “Aaron,” says the grey mass pinning me to the wall. “Aaron get hold of yourself. He’s not worth it. He’s not worth it. You hit him and he wins.”

  It’s that last part that pulls me back to reality rather than anything else. Kermit the muppet doesn’t get to win at anything. That’s when I realize I’m dangerously close to actually hitting Gary, one of the correctional facility officers. He’s huge, dwarfing me by over a foot, and the wall of grey in my face is his uniformed chest.

  There’s an old saying: it’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. I’ve got a lot of fight in me. Thing is, Gary’s not just huge. He’s got a lot of fight in him too.

  More importantly, Gary’s got the respect of the whole joint. He’s a guard, sure, but he’s fair. He’s a hard case, with lines he won’t cross and won’t let anyone else cross. He’s not a bully and doesn’t abuse his authority. That’s a rare kind of man. And I’m one wild motion away from hitting him.

  If hitting Kermit will mess up whatever chance I have of getting out thanks to this shrink, hitting Gary would be tantamount to suicide. Assuming he doesn’t break my neck, the guards would make my life hell. If they didn’t, the other inmates would. Gary has all of their respect.

  I quit fighting. It’s hard. I can’t say enough how hard. My arms are shaking. Hell, my whole body’s shaking. There’s an instinctive urge to lash out at him, at everyone and everything around me. To break. To hurt. To be free.

  Deep breaths help. I take three.

  “That’s it, Aaron,” Gary says. “You’re good, kid. That’s it. Deep breaths.”

  I take three more.

  Kermit’s shrieking and laughing, shouting obscenities as they drag him off down the hall.

  I unclench my fists and my jaw and say, “Thanks.”

  I hate how much I mean it. Gary getting in like he did not only saves my chances with the shrink and keeps me out of trouble, it helps me save face. If things don’t go well with Mr. Psychee-McFee I can go back to my cell and no one’ll judge me for not hurting Kermit back right there.

  “Don’t let him get to you, kid. Kermit’s a dumbass. Someone probably put him up to it. People get stupid when others get a shot at getting out early.” Gary’s voice is a deep, resonating thing.

  He’s right on all counts and that makes me mad all over again.
Not as mad as him calling me “kid” though. I’m eighteen, legally an adult. To everyone in here I am a kid. It sucks.

  I take another three deep breaths. Kid isn’t an insult. He doesn’t mean anything by it. I still hate it. But I’m not going to make something of it. He doesn’t deserve that when he’s done me a solid and I sure as hell don’t need the trouble. If you let anyone think something gets to you, you paint a target on yourself. I’ll be “kid” to everyone within a week if I say something.

  “Think I actually got a chance of getting out early?” I ask instead, more to change the subject than anything else. Then I realize how naïve and pathetically hopeful that sounds. No wonder Kermit came at me.

  I’d thought my frequent stints in detention centers were bad. Sure, kids are mean, but I’d clawed my way to the top of that jungle gym. I knew the rules. I was older, respected. Here? I’m at the bottom all over again, now with people who give even less of a damn about hurting me while I figure it all out.

  Gary smiles down at me and for a moment he looks more like a grandfather than a guard, giving me a glimpse of him that I don’t think any of the other inmates ever get to see. Gary’s got a soft side to him. Who knew? “Yeah, kid. You don’t screw it up, I think you just might.”

  He walks with me the rest of the way to the prison’s in-house psychiatrist’s office to make sure no one else starts something, holds the door open for me, and I go inside.

  There weren’t a lot of constants in my life growing up. As I got older the world boiled my constants down to three. Mom, change, and detention centers. Dad left us when I was little, Mom moved us around a lot in her RV, travel writing and blogging our way across the US, and wherever we went I managed to get into trouble. Before all that though, before even Dad left, I had a teddy bear.

  Mr. Snuggles was huge, with fluffy, curly hair. Softest thing you ever touched. Ready to burst with fluff. He had big glass beads for eyes. Gave him a sweet, innocent look. I slept with him every night, clutching him like the world might flood and he was a life preserver. One day one of those glass eyes broke. I didn’t notice. Nobody did.

  I went to bed that night with Mr. Snuggles, pulled him tight and those shards cut me across the face. They nearly got my eye. I’ve still got a little scar below my left eyelid. It’s almost invisible now but it’s there. Mr. Snuggles had to be thrown out.

  The man waiting for me in Dr. Curry’s office reminds me of Mr. Snuggles. Everything about him is round and soft and plush. Even his tweed suit doesn’t have a single hard edge or corner on it. His beard looks just like Mr. Snuggles’ fur. But his eyes are glass shards, broken and sharp. They don’t match the rest of this man. No one who looks this soft is supposed to have eyes that look like they could cut you.

  The office itself isn’t anything special. It’s cold. The whole prison’s cold. Prisons are like hospitals that way.

  The big man stands from his chair and offers me his thick hand.

  I take it. His grip is weak, no surprise, and his fingers are cold.

  “Aaron Moretti,” he says with a smile, and even his voice is gentle. It’s like someone gave satin sheets a voice. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Dr. Warden.”

  I smirk. “Not be confused with our prison warden.”

  He laughs too hard at my lame joke. “No, no indeed not. Please have a seat.”

  He indicates a chair that’s been set up opposite from the one he was just sitting in. I take it. He returns to his old one and produces a clipboard. The corners are rounded. Of course, they are.

  “You have spent no less than one month out of the year in various detention centers across the country per year since you turned eleven,” he says. “Vandalism, assault, underage drinking. Now you’ve got destruction of private property on your record.”

  “I thought all those other records were supposed to be sealed.”

  His sharp eyes glitter. I’ve made him happy. I don’t like that.

  “They are sealed,” he says. “My backers simply don’t care. You see, I’m working on a project with some very interested, very influential parties. Whatever I need, they make certain it is made available.”

  And if that isn’t the sort of start to a cheesy spy-thriller I don’t know what is. Someone’s been reading Tom Clancy. “Sounds very cloak and dagger.”

  And like nothing I want to be involved with. I want my freedom, but I’m not going to make some devil’s bargain to get it. I know what happened to Dr. Faustus.

  “Not at all,” Dr. Warden said. “I will be nothing but honest with you, Mr. Moretti.”

  Was he mocking me? He called me “Mister” the same way everyone else here called me “kid.”

  “Unless you’re lying now,” I say, shifting back to get comfortable in my chair. It is comfortable. Probably more comfortable than any other chair in the facility.

  “There is that,” he says with a slow nod. “But you’ve got to trust at some point.”

  No, I don’t. Not that I say that. I think he gets the message though as I glare at him. “Must be one hell of a project you’re working on.”

  “It is,” he says. “I’m hoping you’ll be a part of it.”

  “And this project, it’s supposed to fix me?”

  “Do you need fixing?”

  Touché asshole.

  “No, Mr. Moretti. This project’s goal is to enable you to harness your anger,” he says. “To make it work for you.”

  Sounds like some bogus, guru, self-help mumbo jumbo. Harness your anger. Find your center. Eat this fortune cookie. “So, how’s this work? I join some kind of anger management group?”

  “Not at all.” He seems delighted that I asked. “My company is developing a videogame to help you exercise your aggression. We already have over a hundred players participating in the closed beta. We’d like for you to be a participant.”

  Chapter Two

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  Dr. Warden, or the people he works for, picked well when they came to me. I love videogames. Mom and me, we moved around too much for me to make friends. Acquaintances, sure. But real friendships? I don’t have many of them. I started with little handheld games, then graduated up from there to PC games. I don’t have much experience with console games but I always enjoyed Grand Theft Auto. There’s a sort of savage freedom to it. Everyone’s an asshole when they play. If only to see what it lets you get away with. Life without consequence.

  Mostly though I go for platform fighters and MMORPGs. I like visceral conflict and I like building stuff. If I’d been smart I might’ve gotten myself certified as a contractor instead of becoming a mechanic. Mechanics, we’re always fixing the stuff no one else wants to fix. Contractors? They get to make stuff that everyone wants. There’s something just as rewarding as leveling up your character and getting the right, optimized gear as there is beating an opponent in a straight up, one on one fight.

  But I wait to hear the catch before I jump for the bait he’s dangling. I’m interested. Oh yeah, I am. Some people say don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. I always check that new pony’s teeth. When something looks too good to be true you know it probably is. If those teeth aren’t rotten then they’re hiding a time bomb.

  “You agree to play our game, at a minimum of once per week, for the remainder of your sentence,” Dr. Warden says. “And you go free.”

  “That’s it?” I ask.

  “That’s it.”

  Now why didn’t I believe him? “What happens if I lose the game? Not in the game, but actually lose the cartridge or my computer blows up or whatever? Shit happens, you know.”

  He smiles, wider than any smile before. “That won’t be an issue. Our surgeons will implant a microchip in your palm that will interface with a number of devices. As long as you have a device to play on, you’ll have access to the game.”

  “Hold on, hold on. Surgeons?” That’s one hell o
f a piece of fine print. “You want some doctor to cut me up and put a chip in of me?”

  “I assure you, there would be only a minimal amount of cutting, Mr. Moretti,” he says, sounding like he’s chiding a young child who’s broken some small rule in public they know they’re not supposed to.

  “You want to microchip me like a dog,” I say. “Like a dog.”

  “It’s less cumbersome or stigmatic than an ankle monitor,” he says with a shrug.

  “No, you don’t seem to be getting it. There is no way in hell that I’m letting you’re cloak and dagger bullshit backers put some computer chip inside of me. Fuck that and fuck you.”

  “It is imperative that my team have access to the data the chip provides us,” he says. “Hormone levels, testosterone and dopamine levels. It will monitor all of your vitals and send us feedback. Live data about how the game is affecting you. How well you are coping being back out in the real world. And all of this data is confidential, afforded the same protections that exist between a doctor and patient.”

  I shake my head. “Look, Doc, you’re not listening. Maybe it’s ‘cause you don’t want to hear this, but I’m still saying it. Hell. No. Nothing of yours is going inside me.”

  There’s noise outside. Footsteps and voices getting louder very quickly. Someone’s in a hurry to get here and they are agitated.

  When the door swings open neither Dr. Ward or I are surprised. We’re both facing it expectantly, which I think catches Dr. Curry, the resident prison shrink off-guard.

  Dr. Curry is kind of a weasel though he looks more like a muskrat, brown haired, slightly pudgy face, and generally greasy. He looks back and forth between me and Dr. Ward several times, blinking rapidly as if we’ve just shown a spotlight in his face. His eyes come to rest on me and he points a shaking, narrow finger at me.

  “Mr. Moretti, this man does not have your best interest at heart,” he says, as if making some great announcement or accusation. I think he half expects there to be some dramatic music or climactic moment like in a TV show. Unfortunately for him, his news isn’t really news. It’s just belated confirmation.