by Greg Keyes
“Can we repair them?” Mark asked.
“I’m afraid not,” Crane replied.
They had come all of this way, found the sleeping Titan – for nothing?
But Chen wasn’t discouraged.
“Okay,” she said, “so what if we go inside, set a timer, and detonate one of the warheads manually?”
“No way,” Stanton said. “If the heat doesn’t fry you the radiation will. It might be good for Titans, but it’s not so good for us.”
“I’ll go,” Serizawa said.
Mark thought he’d heard wrong. Wasn’t Serizawa paying attention?
“What the hell does that mean?” he said.
Serizawa didn’t speak, but his face said it all. He had skipped to the obvious conclusion: that to bring Godzilla back to health – to have a shot at saving what was left of their world – someone had to die. And he would be that person.
“There must be another way,” Chen said.
“There’s no time for a debate,” Serizawa said. “I’ll go.”
Sudan
Mokele-Mbembe went through their line like it wasn’t even there, crushing tanks beneath his feet, his tail slashing through the hastily erected high-tension lines they’d strung across the mouth of the gorge. Missiles from a jet painted the monster with flame, but he came on, picking up a Humvee with his trunk and lobbing it at the plane as it banked for another shot. The jet turned into a comet, hurtling out into the desert.
After the Titan escaped containment, Nez had managed to rally what remained of her soldiers, crowd them into the few remaining aircraft, and get out ahead of the monster as he followed the Nile north. She only had about twenty troops, but that night, the Egyptian army responded to her radio calls and air-dropped a small army on her position, along with some big guns and a powerful electric generator to charge the “fence.” They’d set the trap in the canyon and lured Mokele-Mbembe into it by pestering it with aircraft. The hope was they could damage his legs, but neither the power lines nor explosive charges that went off under him gave him pause. He shrugged off the collapsing canyon walls as if they were Styrofoam rocks in a movie.
None of their preparations had made a difference. Of the two hundred plus troops who had been here at dawn, she now counted perhaps a dozen, and they were all doing what she was – running like hell as the beast thundered after them.
Problem was, it was a box canyon. The far end of it was a steep slope. There were still guns above it, blazing down at the beast, but they were only annoying him, encouraging him to rush up the gorge and silence them.
She hit the incline and started up on all fours, but by the time she was ten meters up, she knew she wasn’t going to make it, nor could she escape to the side. The monster was too big and the canyon too narrow.
She drew her sidearm, turned, and began firing, aiming for the monster’s eyes. He crashed on, was right on her…
And then he slowed. He took another step and stopped altogether.
For a moment she didn’t do anything. She stared at Mokele-Mbembe, wondering what the hell he was up to. Then she decided it didn’t matter. Moving slowly, she continued to retreat. She expected him to start up again at any second, but every instant he stood still like that allowed her to gain a little more distance.
Washington D.C. Area
“Come on!” Barnes yelled, firing steadily from the .50 caliber machine gun. “Yeah! You want some of this?! I’ll eat your children! I’ll eat your mother! I’ll—”
Across the cabin, Martinez was at the other mounted gun, also letting loose. Griffin was driving. She had already launched all their missiles.
It had looked good on paper, Barnes guessed. A whole fleet and squadrons of aircraft against one li’l monster. Or, to be fair, two.
Unless you had been up close and personal with the monster, watched Tomahawk missiles pop on its scales without leaving a scratch. But then, nobody had asked him if the attack was a good idea.
But he wasn’t mad. Not at the brass, anyway. He got it; this whole show was about keeping the I-can-grow-my-damn-head-back-dude distracted for a while, so the scientists on the sub could revive the big guy and a few more civilians could be herded to safety. So no, he wasn’t mad at the superiors who had sent him in here. They were out there too, fighting as hard as he was, and not doing any better.
But he was pretty goddamn mad at Ghidorah, who as far as he could see was just an asshole, full stop, and he didn’t have a lot of love for Rodan, either. Especially now that Rodan and Ghidorah were pals.
Black streaks of disintegrating aircraft fell like rain from the storming sky. The sea below was littered with burning ships chopping on ninety-foot swells, but those fires were going out fast as the raging ocean dragged them under.
And here he was, shooting at monsters he couldn’t even see for all the smoke and clouds and shit.
And their brand-new Osprey already all dinged-up.
Not a perfect day, this one.
“Come in, Argo,” Griffin said. “We can’t take much more of this.”
“Copy that,” Foster said. “We hear you – just hold them off as long as you can.”
What was it that Roman mothers had told their sons? Come back with your shield or on it?
Damn straight.
“Come on!” Barnes shouted, firing at a shape in the clouds.
* * *
The horrors were coming too fast for Sam to absorb. The sky was on fire, the ocean a wrecking yard full of shattered destroyers and the bodies of the men and women who had manned them.
Up ahead of them, the cruiser Philadelphia’s guns were blazing non-stop, and a flight of cruise missiles leapt up into the clouds. They detonated, flaring through the mist, lighting up Ghidorah as he plunged down like an eagle, his hind legs slamming down close to the bow. The ship tilted up, her stern leaving the water entirely.
Jets streaked by, peppering the Titan; the tiny sparks of small arms fire flared from Philadelphia’s upper deck. The Argo dove at Ghidorah, trying to bring some relief to the Philadelphia, but suddenly Rodan was there, diving to intercept them. The Argo rolled hard and dropped. Rodan clapped his wings and speared back into the sky like a meteor in reverse.
With a heave of his wings, Ghidorah jumped back into the air, swiping two jets as if they were mosquitos.
The Philadelphia snapped in the middle; her two halves settled back on the water like she was okay, but she was doomed.
That wasn’t good enough for Ghidorah. Before retreating back into the crowd, he vomited lightning onto the sinking ship. The electricity danced from point to point on the cruiser, and then the ship exploded, spreading flame in every direction.
Rodan was clearly now under Ghidorah’s control, and between the two of them they had shredded the once-mighty fleet in much shorter order than even the most pessimistic among them had believed possible.
Admiral Stenz was trying to push a signal through. It flared to life, showing the interior of his submarine full of smoke and water, rocking crazily. Then it was gone. Whether because the sub had exploded or because there was too much interference, there was no way to tell.
The center isn’t holding, Sam thought. Mere chaos…
But then he noticed something – probably below the level of conscious thought, at first, because so much was going on. But then he realized it was the map of the other Titans. Their positions. Before, they had all been on the move – he remembered Mark likening them to a hunting pack. But now something had changed.
“Hey,” he said. “Hey, wait a minute. Colonel, they’re stopping… They’re stopping! You see this?”
He looked at the live feed of the attacks. Sure enough, the Titans in Barcelona, Egypt, Moscow, Brazil – they were all just standing there, like statues.
“The hell’s gotten into them now?” Foster wondered.
* * *
Boston
In the broadcast booth, Madison watched the news stream in from around the world; footage of the Titans go
ing quiet.
Maddie smiled. She’d done it. Or at least it was a start. Monarch had a chance to do their thing, now.
On the field below, the crowd was thinned out to almost nothing. A few more airlifts and the evacuation would be complete. If anyone noticed the odd pulses coming from the stadium speakers, no one had come to check it out. But she was staying in case they did. She couldn’t let anyone turn off the ORCA.
Anyway, she didn’t know where else to go.
* * *
Emma tried Madison’s room again, but the door was still locked, and she didn’t respond to knocking. She left feeling empty. After Andrew’s death, after the divorce, she and Maddie had forged a new life together. She’d thought the bond between them was unbreakable.
It hadn’t occurred to her that Maddie’s connection to Mark would stay so strong, even though he hadn’t been there for her, even though she hadn’t seen him much at all in the past couple of years.
She supposed it was easier to idealize someone you didn’t see every day. You didn’t have all of those little arguments about putting away clothes or washing dishes.
And destroying the world.
But it was more than that. Despite his spectacular failure as a husband and father, at his core Mark was still a good man. How difficult had it been for him to leave his comfort zone in the wilderness? Probably very. But he had done it. He was putting his life on the line. Maddie couldn’t help but admire that.
Neither could she.
Andrew’s death had wounded them both, but in ways that weren’t reconcilable. Godzilla hadn’t meant to kill Andrew. His universe, his goals, existed at a much higher level than that of the individual human being. Godzilla was trying to keep the planet in balance. He had no malice toward human beings, she was sure of it. If a firefighter putting out a burning building stepped on a beetle in the process, would he even notice?
Her grief had pushed her toward Godzilla’s goal. If the natural world had been in balance, the MUTOs wouldn’t have emerged – and if they had, they wouldn’t have had piles of nuclear materials to feed on. Without them, Godzilla would never have come out of his deep retreat to fight them. Andrew would still be alive. She thought that if she brought the world to harmony, that would be a legacy. For Andrew. So he wouldn’t have died for nothing.
Mark saw it another way. He just wanted all of the Titans dead. And barring that, he wanted to forget. She’d been called to action; he’d chosen to run.
No amount of argument would have brought them back together. At least, that was what she had believed.
She went to the commissary and tried to eat, but she didn’t have any appetite. Eventually Maddie would forgive her, and they could move on. After all, they were likely to be stuck here for years. There was no hurry now.
She thought about trying to use the ORCA again, but Jonah’s warning had been far too vivid. She’d lost her son, her husband, her way in the world. Her certainty and purpose were gone. Only Maddie remained. She had already put her in so much jeopardy, she couldn’t bear to put her in more.
She was tossing her uneaten food when the alarms began blaring.
What now? she wondered, straightening. Had Monarch found them? Or one of the Titans?
She hurried to the control center.
She found Jonah there, looking more grim than usual.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Jonah pointed to a screen displaying a signal emanating from Fenway Park. She instantly recognized the cycling bio-signatures and piggy-backed master signal.
“The ORCA,” Jonah said.
She turned to look for the machine. It wasn’t where she’d left it. And yet it was doing exactly what she had planned, before Jonah stopped her.
“I wonder who could’ve done this?” Jonah asked.
Their eyes met, and she saw he wasn’t wondering at all. He knew as well as she did who had done it. But maybe they were both wrong. Maybe she would find her daughter still sulking in her room. Safe.
She ran to Maddie’s room and used her master key to unlock the door. Maddie’s things were still there, her laptop, clothes, and books scattered around, her pad…
She picked the pad up and took a sharp breath. It displayed the family picture, the one from their stoop in Boston. The screen was broken, the image covered in cracks.
Maddie, what have you done?
But she knew that, too.
* * *
Mark helped Serizawa into the dive suit. The bomb was prepped and ready to go. It was all happening too fast, slipping down a slope that was now almost vertical. There had to be some other way, he was sure of that. It was just that he couldn’t think of anything.
“We’ve removed the warhead’s lead shielding and inserted a mechanical timer, so it can function in the radiation,” Crane said.
“On first contact you’ll start losing your long-range vision,” Stanton said, quietly. “After you surface your motor skills will fade. But I added a heliox mixture to your tank. It should help keep you stable longer.”
Serizawa nodded without expression as he took in the specifics of his impending death. Stanton was trying to be precise, clinical. To make sure Serizawa’s attempt didn’t fail.
He wasn’t quite succeeding.
“Once you get inside, you’ll have about six minutes,” Chen said, “before the radiation—”
She was too choked up to continue.
Mark felt his own eyes misting up. Losing Serizawa – it was too much. Everyone felt it. He was part of the very foundations of Monarch, and of most of their lives.
“It was an honor, man,” Stanton said, reaching out and shaking Serizawa’s hand.
Chen grabbed Serizawa in a hug, gripping him like she didn’t want to let go. But she did, her arms pulling back slowly.
“Thank you,” Serizawa said. “All of you.”
He walked over to Mark and offered him his notebook.
“My notes,” he said.
Mark took them, reluctantly.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“He fought for us. Died for us. He’s not only proof that coexistence is possible, he is the key to it. Take care of them, Mark,” Serizawa said.
He turned the airlock and then entered the small submersible beyond. The doors were sealed; the water began to rise. Serizawa was on his way.
“He’s clear,” Crane said.
They watched as the little submersible, like the probes before it, entered the fiery tunnel. Like the drones, Mark knew it would not return.
NINETEEN
When Edmund Halley first laid out his evidence for the Hollow Earth, he said – and I’m paraphrasing here, because old Edmund could be pretty dense in his writing – that if God made Earth to support life, why would so much of the world be uninhabitable? Why so much wasted space? I think in a sense he was right. I’ve laid out the geological foundations of my theory, but there is other evidence. The Choctaw believe they emerged from an underworld at a place called Nanih Waiyah. The Hopi of Arizona, the Inca of Peru – cultures all over the world speak of vast underground spaces, places where monsters dwell. In some of those tales, the people explicitly leave those underworlds to escape the monsters, but in others they claim some of their ancestors are still down there. Since at least Paleolithic times, human beings have worshipped caves, communed in them, made sacred art in them. We are drawn to caves, and we fear them. Before the first deep ocean dives, it was the received notion that life could not exist in those lightless depths without photosynthesis as the basis of the food chain. But when we got down there we found an ecosystem based on chemosynthesis, driven by chemicals boiling up through deep sea vents. We are surface dwellers on this planet. We know nothing of its greatest deeps, and what might stir there.
—From a presentation by Dr. Houston Brooks
Serizawa tried to control his breathing as he entered the tunnel, to stay calm. To keep his purpose. Like every living thing, from the tiniest single-cell creature to the Titans the
mselves, his impulse was to stay alive. If he turned back right now, he probably would. He and Mark and the rest could do what Emma said – find a shelter, survive until they could come up with another solution.
But he didn’t think there was another solution. Once Ghidorah had destroyed every threat to him in the world above, he would surely turn his attentions down here. He would find Godzilla, still crippled, and finish him. And then it wouldn’t matter how well hidden the remainder of humanity was. Ghidorah would root them out, using the other Titans. Wherever he was from, whatever his origin, Ghidorah did not like the world as it was. He was changing it. When he was finished, even those people who escaped his hunts wouldn’t be able to survive. And perhaps the other Titans would die as well…
No. Godzilla was their only chance. Earth’s only chance.
It was getting hot. The deep sea was cold, but the river of lava flowing down from above was warming it here in the tunnel, where it was enclosed. If it got much hotter, he might not even survive long enough for the radiation to kill him.
The tunnel itself was remarkable. It was hard to imagine how it might have been built. Given the size of it, and the size of the steps, in had clearly been built for Godzilla, the entrance into the temple of the god himself. At the threshold, and thereafter whenever the floor stepped up, the architects had carved enclosures, within which statues had also been carved. Each represented a creature with the body of a bull and the head of a man with a full, thick beard. Bird wings folded at their sides. Although the style was a little different, he recognized them. The Sumerians had called them Lammar, the Assyrians Lammasu. Statues similar to these had been built in palaces and temples all over the Middle East. They were spirits of protection and guidance. Some said they represented certain constellations, or the wheels-within-wheels that made up the natural order. The people who built this place hoped they would protect their god.
Serizawa found them comforting and even encouraging. Protect him, they could not, but he could do with all of the guidance he could get.
Sweat poured from him now; the interior of the submersible was stifling – but it wasn’t enough heat to kill him. Not yet.
