He leaned against the wall about a foot to the left of the door, waiting. When his quarry exited, he would not see the General there until it was too late.
The door slid open, and Captain Hirata Catigiri stepped out, wiping sweat from his brow. His eyes conveyed a sense of relief to be out of the room’s sauna-like atmosphere. As he turned to the right, he froze when he felt static in the air and an ungloved finger pressed to his back. He knew better than to run; he would not get very far if he tried.
“For someone who never says anything, you’ve certainly been very chatty, haven’t you, Captain?” Tsujimori said.
Hirata was too young to have seen active military duty during World War II, but he still knew a thing or two about basic strategy, which meant he knew when to fight and when to surrender. General Tsujimori was his superior not only in rank, but in ability. The man could literally slay monsters with his bare hands. Hirata stood no chance in a fight against him, especially not here, in the hallway of a ship lined with conductive metal.
Besides, he knew the full extent of his actions. The General, on the other hand, did not.
Hirata raised his hands slowly in surrender, then turned his head to look behind him at the General. He remained as silent as ever but motioned with his eyes back to the conference room.
Tsujimori had worked with Hirata long enough to know every nuance of the Captain’s wordless forms of communication. Although rumors abounded as to why, ranging from a tragic accident to a religious vow of silence, the truth was that he was simply born mute. Few people had expected much from him because of this, but he had proven himself many times over throughout the years. His nonverbal ways of communicating did wonders for covert operations.
At the moment, it was clear he wanted to show the General something important in the private conference room, something which he seemed to think would explain everything.
Tsujimori nodded. “Very well,” he said as he stepped aside, though he kept his ungloved hand raised and charged. “Show me what you’ve been doing, but remember that you’re as powerless against me in there as you are out here.”
Hirata nodded, for he knew it was true, and led the way.
Within the room, in addition to a video system, there was a series of keyboards set up for silent text communication between stations. Hirata sat at one of these and began typing.
The General read the words, still keeping his aim fixed on the traitor. “Good old fashioned detective work, as our American friends would say,” he replied. “You almost never leave the ship, and you have clearance to use these spaces. Now, do you admit that you were telling Michael Sun about Richard Godfrey?”
the Captain typed,
“Oh?” Tsujimori scoffed. “You consider disobeying orders, acting in secret, and putting our entire operation at risk an act of loyalty, then?”
Tsujimori had not expected that response, and even more unexpected was the fact that the young Captain made an excellent point. The plan on which Godfrey’s involvement hinged reeked of treachery when viewed in a certain light. Past events in General Tsujimori’s life put things in a slightly different perspective, however. Treason could be a virtuous act, but only if done for the right reasons. “Everything we have done is for the greater good,” he said. “Just as it has always been.”
Hirata reached for another keyboard slowly, so as not to invite an unwanted electric shock. He typed a sequence of numbers, and one of the video monitors flickered to life with a satellite image identified as a replay of events from three hours ago, indicated by the timestamp. The video showed a bus in a desert being attacked by Kaiju.
The General watched as the creatures tore the bus to shreds while letting the passengers flee, only to turn their attention to a small, familiar man who had exited last. Curiosity gave way to recognition as he saw the man was Michael Sun, then recognition turned to awe when Armadagger appeared and saved him from the attacking ceratopsians.
Tsujimori was awestruck by the sight, but not so much that he did not ask the immediately obvious question. “How on Earth could you have known this would happen?”
Hirata hesitated, his eyes involuntarily darting back and forth as he tried to think of an answer.
The General eyed the Captain suspiciously. “You’re sure of that?”
General Tsujimori nodded slowly as he scrutinized Hirata’s face, which was reflected from every angle in the surrounding monitors. Just because the Captain was silent did not mean he was stoic. Any sign of dishonesty would have registered somehow, maybe as a bead of sweat or a twitch of the eye.
No such signs manifested.
Satisfied, Tsujimori put his glove back on. “Well, finally some good news from Groom Lake.”
“Such as?”
The General was out the door before Hirata even had time to turn around.
If there was one thing Michael Sun hated more than being at Groom Lake, it was being at Groom Lake with Sam Sigma, Head of Research and Development.
Every single aspect of Sam mixed perfectly into a cocktail of detestability. His slicked-back hair, his rat-like face, his pallid complexion, and the haughtiness that constantly radiated from his eyes like the ultraviolet rays of a dying star all congealed to make someone who Mike assumed could only have been loved by his own mother, and even she might have had a hard time of it. Worst of all was that Sigma knew how easy he was to despise, and he enjoyed it. He actually liked that everyone hated him, and why not? He held the most powerful position at the government’s most clandestine top secret facility. What point did friends serve in such a life as his? It gave Sigma a weird satisfaction to know that no matter what everyone else thought of him, they still had to follow his orders, and they could not complain about it to anyone – not even their own families – since Groom Lake did not officially exist. To Sigma, friends were equals, and he had no room in his life for equals.
The only reason Mike was in the same room as Sigma now was because a decision had to be made about the machine. Since it was designed for use by the armed forces, this was a military decision, which meant the final choice went to Colonel George F. Stingray. Mike and Sigma had to help him make that decision, essentially playing the respective parts of the angel and devil that appear on the shoulders of a cartoon character. All three were gathered in Stingray’s on-site office, with the Colonel seated behind a lovely antique mahogany desk. Framed photographs of him shaking hands with Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson hung on the wall behind him, although pictures of his family were strangely absent. Sigma was also seated comfortably in one of the two armchairs facing the desk. Mike was the only one who stood.
“Neither of you have even seen a living Kaiju up close, let alone gone through what I just did!” Mike said. His veins were still pumping with adrenaline from his encounter with Armadagger, which unfortunately made him come across as a bit frantic. He knew this was working against him, yet he could not calm himself down. How co
uld he, after being in the presence of a Daikaiju?
Sigma, in contrast, was maintaining his composure in that arrogant way only he could accomplish. “You’ve said that several times by now, Mike,” he said. “How is that nugget of so-called wisdom relevant to our discussion?”
Mike resisted the overwhelming urge to punch his opponent in his smug teeth. “You just think they’re animals, Sam, mindless beasts ruled by instinct. Our boys in Operation Red Dragon have always said otherwise, that the monsters are intelligent. I didn’t believe them until today. I’ve finally come face-to-face with one, and let me tell you both, they were right! Those monsters can think!”
Sigma tapped his chin. “I know there’s a psychological term for assigning human qualities to inhuman objects and creatures… Anthropomorphizing? Projection? I’m sure it’s one of those two, or both.”
“Oh, so that’s your tactic? Make me look crazy?” As soon as Mike finished asking the question, he regretted it, as he had just given Sigma more ammunition to use against him.
“Well, given your current appearance and mannerisms,” Sigma said, “you’re clearly not thinking straight.”
Mike slammed his fist hard on the Colonel’s desk, imagining it was Sigma’s head. “I’ve never thought more clearly in my whole life!” He turned to face the Colonel. “Stingray, you’ve seen the footage, read the reports, heard the testimonies! Kozerah, Andrea, Armadagger… They aren’t our enemies!”
Stingray drummed his fingers on the desk in thought. “They’ve caused millions in property damage,” he stated.
Mike was, perhaps, a bit too quick to counter the Colonel. “But they saved lives! Not just mine, but all of those people in Japan and Chile! Pair them with CIGOR, and that’s four giant monsters we can count on to protect us!”
“Unreliable,” Sigma interrupted, his voice bearing the same inflection it might have were he commenting on the weather. “Even if we assume that this delusion is correct, those monsters defend us at their discretion, not ours. We can’t control them.”
Mike turned sharply. “So?”
“So what’s to stop them from turning on us?”
“Us being better, that’s what!” Mike began pacing. “If we start behaving like we’re worth protecting, they won’t turn on us!”
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “So, you’re suggesting that mankind live in fear of vengeful gods who will turn on us if we don’t do what they want?”
“Why not? Just two years ago, the world was on the brink of nuclear war! Bay of Pigs, remember? Cuban Missile Crisis? And for what? A different economic system? Maybe some humility before God is what mankind needs before we destroy ourselves!” He shot Sigma a dirty look, and his tone became more aggressive. “Lord knows there’s no shortage of trigger happy idiots who would be more than willing to destroy the world so long as they got the privilege of pushing the button!”
Sigma finally stood and tried to meet Mike face-to-face, even though he was shorter than anyone else in the room. “Well, I say humanity has outgrown the need for gods, whether it’s a man with a long white beard or an overgrown salamander! I also say the machine will prove that!” He turned to Stingray. “George, listen to me. You’re a smart man, a cunning strategist, and most important of all, a protector of the people.”
“Sycophant,” Mike grumbled loud enough to be heard.
“So you know that your duty is to those people. We can’t say the same for the monsters. They’re unreliable. Mike himself all but said outright that they could destroy us just for stepping out of line.”
Stingray chewed his pipe in thought. “And what about CIGOR? He’s definitely agreed to defend us, has he not? No ambiguity about that. I was there when we made that alliance.”
Mike was about to jump on this and use it to win Stingray over to his side, but Sigma beat him to the punch. “CIGOR still has a will of his own. He could turn on us without warning for any reason. The machine, on the other hand, would be entirely under our control.” Sigma leaned in close. “George, think of how much chaos there would be all over the world if the human race began to think it didn’t have mastery over creation. Governments would collapse, anarchy would spread through the streets-”
“You don’t know any of that!” Mike shouted.
“It’s the same logic we apply to the UFO cover-up.” Sigma straightened his posture again, his voice adopting the silky tones of a deceptive devil. “Of course, since President Johnson has given you full authority here, the choice is entirely yours, George. Far be it from me to dictate your actions.”
The silence was deafening as Colonel George F. Stingray considered everything he had heard. “It is my choice,” he finally said. “Currently, though, things are quiet, so it’s not a choice I have to make immediately. I’ll need some time to think, but I will take both of your concerns into equal consideration. By the time one of those things resurfaces, I’ll have made up my mind about the machine.”
He leaned back in his chair and glanced at the ceiling. “You know, I’m getting sick of calling it ‘the machine’ all the time, and I can’t be the only one who is. Do we have a proper name for that bucket of bolts yet?”
Sigma nodded. “The original name Professor Toshiro used in his proposal has grown on me somewhat.” He spread his arms as if envisioning the name plastered boldly on a theater marquis. “Panzer Indigo. It just has a nice ring to it, wouldn’t you agree?”
“How close is it to being finished?”
“It is finished, actually. Finished, fueled, and fully armed to the teeth. It simply awaits your command.”
“All right,” Stingray replied. “Get Panzer Indigo fully prepped for launch.” He glanced at Mike. “Just in case.”
The Colonel left, and Sigma shot a triumphant smirk at Mike before following.
Mike remained where he stood, feeling utterly alone in his defeat.
Despite the Colonel’s parting words, he could not shake the sinking feeling in his gut that the decision had already been made.
CHAPTER 15
Those who study mythology are liable to notice common threads running through the many legends of ancient cultures. Many folklorists and archaeologists have struggled to come up with rational explanations as to how these bygone civilizations, who were separated by thousands of miles and had no form of contact with each other, could have told such similar stories with so many of the same details generation after generation. One explanation – considered a fringe theory by most respectable men of science – is that these myths are not myths at all, but factual accounts of real history.
One of the more curious myths found all over the world is the one about reptilian entities living underground. According to these myths, the reptiles had made their home in vast subterranean caverns connected by a network of tunnels below the surface. Accounts of what this realm was like varied between cultures, running the full gamut from volcanic wastelands to buried tropical jungles. In some regions, it was not hordes of reptiles who dwelled beneath the surface, but hives of unnaturally large insects.
Dr. Daisuke Armitage knew that these accounts were not myths, but terrifying truths. The caverns were where the dinosaurs and bugs had fled eons ago to avoid extinction, and the tunnels were how they moved around the globe without being noticed by humans. He had been concerned about what dangers the tunnels might pose, and so he had imparted his knowledge about them to Operation Red Dragon when the organization was founded.
For a long time, it had been said by the Red Dragons’ top scientists that, despite the plethora of dinosaurs who lived there, the island of Rabu Nii had no such tunnels beneath it.
Those top scientists had been very wrong.
Now that their master Allorex was awake and leaving Rabu Nii, dinosaurs from all over the planet were mobilizing, tunneling through the Earth’s crust toward one particular location.
And they were not the only ones on the move.
In the South Pacific, roughly ten nautical miles east of the Ogasawara Island chain
, the United States Navy had posted a small fleet comprised of one aircraft carrier, two battleships, and a destroyer. It was a temporary post, more of a place to wait until a more strategic location was decided upon, but the ships were ordered to remain on full alert at all times. One never knew when the Russians might try sneaking a ship of their own through these waters.
Admiral William Smith, the man in charge of the little fleet, was pacing the bridge of the carrier. It was past midnight, but he could not sleep, especially not with news of the recent catastrophes in Chile and Japan. Reports were only now just reaching them. Most of his men assumed the statements about monsters attacking cities were part of some elaborate prank, akin to Orson Welles’ fake War of the World broadcast from the Thirties, but Smith was not so sure. He had sailed the sea for a very long time, even before he had joined the Navy, and he had seen many unexplainable things over the years. Ergo, he had always accepted the idea that sea monsters – and, by extension, possibly other monsters – existed, though it was not an opinion he expressed openly as a military man.
To suddenly hear that monsters were not only appearing around the world, but were now said to be attacking cities, was disturbing enough to keep him awake.
“We have a bogie on radar, Admiral!” shouted the radar operator, a young corporal everyone simply knew as Hicks. “Five miles west!”
Smith put his personal thoughts and concerns aside, like any good soldier would do. Now was the time for action. “Speed and direction?” he said.
“Thirty knots, Sir,” Hicks replied. “Heading straight for us. Should be visible by now.”
Smith glanced out the window and saw the unmistakable lights of another vessel fast approaching his fleet. He raised his binoculars to his eyes and focused on them.
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