by Greg Keyes
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Leave us a review
Copyright
Dedication
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
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
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GODZILLA VS. KONG – THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATION
Print edition ISBN: 9781789097351
E-book edition ISBN: 9781789097368
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
www.titanbooks.com
First edition: April 2021
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2021 Legendary. All Rights Reserved.
TM & © TOHO CO., LTD.
MONSTERVERSE TM & © Legendary.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
To Sandy Kay White
ONE
“Are you kidding? What can’t you do with it? Pharmaceuticals, bioweapons, food—hell, there isn’t a country or a company on the planet that doesn’t wanna get their hands on one of these suckers. I mean they’re basically living atomic weapons.”
Dr. Richard Stanton, Monarch scientist, on why anyone would attempt to steal the Mothra Larva
Sea of Okhotsk, Three Years and Two Months Ago
Manchaary Rybekov put his rifle back on safety as he watched the helicopter descending toward the oil platform. He exhaled a puff of white vapor into the freezing air.
“Put away your weapons,” he told his men. “I know who this is.” He gestured at Serj. “Go down and tell the gunners to be easy, too. But everyone stay on alert.”
His second, Proctor, sidled up to him, a bit of his unruly red hair peeking out from beneath his wool cap. “Who is this guy, Manch?” Proctor asked, dropping his pistol into one of his deep coat pockets.
“He is the money,” Manch replied. “Come to see what we’ve been doing with it.”
“Think he’ll be pleased?” Proctor asked.
Manchaary shrugged. The night, as usual, was cold but clear, and the three-quarter moon rippled light on the surface of the sea. In the distance, the mountains on the mainland were a ragged shadow against the starry sky. For the moment, this was all his. Eventually the Russian state would regain the wind it had lost in the Titan attacks and look back to its peripheries, where men like him had taken advantage of the chaos to carve out territory. In a few months, maybe. Not yet.
His little kingdom wasn’t all that large, but it was rich in oil, and he had managed not to kill the bulk of the workers on the rig, and even convinced most of them to join his “profit sharing” plan. Production was up, and he was making a decent return on the black market. But maintaining his territory cost money in bribes and military equipment, which cut into profits. A little discovery—well not little, really—beneath the waves had secured him help with both.
“I think so,” he said.
“And why should we care what pleases some banker?”
“Eventually we’ll have to give this all up,” Manch said. “We need to get everything out of it we can. We have something this man wants, and he’s willing to pay very well for it.”
“And then?” Proctor said.
“The world may settle back down; it may not. If it does, maybe we’ll move into some legitimate enterprise, eh? And this man can help with that, too. He has important connections.”
“And our cause?” Proctor asked. “What of that?”
“Causes need money,” Manch replied. He smiled at Proctor and slapped him on the shoulder, thinking that it might be about time for his second-in-command to have an accident of some sort. Things happened, out here. People fell off oil rigs all the time. Ten minutes in these waters was more than enough to bring about an untimely end.
The helicopter landed, and a man got out, followed by two more.
“Who is it?” Proctor said. “Some mobster from Moscow?”
“No, worse,” Manch replied. “An American businessman. He is to be referred to as Mr. Rosales. Understood?”
“Is that an alias? He some sort of superhero?”
“No,” Manch replied. “He’s just careful of his reputation around trash like you and me.”
They watched the man and his bodyguards draw near.
“You are Rybekov, I assume,” the man said. His smile was a crooked little thing. His heavy parka looked expensive—and brand-new.
“Yes. It’s good to finally meet you, Mr. Rosales.”
“It’s very brisk here, isn’t it?” Rosales said.
“It’s warmer inside,” Manch said. “Come along.”
“That sounds great,” Rosales said. “And as much as I would like to get to know you two and your merry band, I’m afraid time is pressing on me. So if we could get straight to the show.”
“Of course,” Manch said. “I wouldn’t want to waste your time.”
“Don’t take offense,” Rosales said. “I’m sure you’re far too busy to spend your time entertaining me, as well. So let us skip the tea and board games and get right down to it. No one offended, no one insulted.”
“You think like me,” Manch said. “That’s good. Come along. As it happens, you came at a good time. The submarine is down there.”
“Submarine?” Rosales said. “That’s quite impressive. Where did you get one of those?”
“There is—was—a naval port not far from here. We borrowed one from there, along with a sympathetic crew. Your money in action.”
“I see,” Rosales said. “You will send me the invoice?”
“Wait,” Manch said. “You really—”
“Kidding,” Rosales said. “Just kidding. How you distribute my charitable contribution to your orphan’s fund is quite up to you.”
“Ah,” Manch said. “This is what I thought.”
The helipad opened directly into the offices and control room, all of which Manch had deemed a little cramped for company, so he ha
d set up one of the large screens in the rec room to display the feed from the submarine.
Rosales took a seat when invited, but his men remained standing. Manch put on a pair of headphones with a speaker.
“Mizuno,” he said. “Manch here. Can you give our visitor a view?”
“Just a minute,” the sub’s captain replied.
The screen went blank, then came up again, revealing an underwater view of a large, amorphous presence covered in minute glowing points, as if a pile of leaves had been covered in stars.
“It looks like a giant jellyfish,” Rosales said. “Not what I was expecting.”
“That’s the containment field,” Manch said. “We … ah, borrowed one from one of the ruined Monarch facilities. Underneath the field, it’s quite another story.”
Rosales gazed at the image of the monster on the monitor. He stood, walked over to it, seemed on the verge of stroking the screen.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. Then frowned. “He? She?”
“Both,” Proctor replied. “It can change sex as needed and can be both at once.”
“I see,” Rosales said. “Even better, I suppose. Does it have a name?”
“I worked at its containment facility,” Proctor said. “Before it was destroyed. I was on the crew that found it, all curled up on an old Soviet submarine. We called it Kraken, but the official name is Titanus Na Kika.”
“You worked for Monarch?” Rosales said.
“As a contractor,” Proctor replied. “Nearly cost me my life.”
Rosales nodded, studying the monitor. “Na Kika,” he said. “I like it. Where does that name come from?”
“Kiribati,” Proctor said. “It’s an island nation. The people there worshipped it for centuries before European explorers showed up. Some still do.”
“So underneath all of that, it’s more like an octopus?”
“Something like that,” Proctor said. “A cephalopod, anyway.”
Rosales peered more closely at the screen. “What’s this greenish cloud coming up from it?”
“That’s its blood,” Proctor said. “We wounded it in the capture. Nothing serious. It will heal.”
Rosales smiled. “This is wonderful,” he said. “I’ll have a team come in to assess this situation and prepare for extraction. Now that I’ve finally got one of these in hand, I would hate to make a misstep. Congratulations, gentlemen, you have just received funding for the immediate future. And who knows? I might be able to pull some strings in Moscow when things become more—stable.”
“How large a team are you bringing?” Manch asked. “There aren’t many empty beds here.”
“A handful,” Rosales said. “You’ll hardly know they’re here. I—Say, what’s going on?”
The image had suddenly shifted. The microphone was still on, and Manch suddenly heard a lot of shouting from the submarine.
“Mizuno!” Manch demanded. “What’s happening?”
“We’re coming up!” Mizuno said. “He’s cutting him free.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Godzilla! He just—he’s there, with the squid.”
Manch paused for a second. “Evgeniy, did you hear that? Drop the depth charges. Drop them now!” He turned to Proctor. “Dump the oil, too.”
“Wait!” Rosales said. “What are you doing? That’s my Titan down there.”
“Depth charges won’t hurt them,” Manch said. “But they might blind Godzilla, dampen his sonar or whatever.”
“Until what?” Rosales demanded.
“We have another net,” Manch replied. “On the sub. How would you like to have two Titans?” He switched on his transmitter. “Mizuno, do you have a shot?”
“We’ve dropped it,” the voice came back. “And now we’re—” The man broke off and began swearing in Japanese. They suddenly had a visual: a glowing net, floating down, and something huge and dark moving into it; flashes like chain lightning. Then, abruptly, a column of blue-white light stabbed up through it; and an instant later in the submarine’s floods, a reptilian face, filling the entire view. Mizuno screamed, but the shriek of metal rending drowned him out. Then the screen went dark.
“Oh, shit,” Proctor said.
Rosales stood up. “If you gentlemen don’t mind,” he said, “I believe I’ll catch the rest of this show streaming.” He gestured to his men and they all exited onto the helipad.
“Go ahead,” Manch muttered after him. “I’ve still got a trick or two up my sleeve. Proctor, are the choppers up?”
“They are.”
“When he surfaces, give him the gas.”
“Okay,” Procter said. He sounded dubious.
The door to the radio room banged open and Serj stuck his head out.
“What is it?” Manch demanded.
“Sir, I’ve got a Monarch jet approaching. They have ordered us to stand down.”
Manch bolted out onto the helipad just in time to see Rosales’s helicopter leave. Ignoring them, he climbed up to where they had installed their heavy weapons battery. His own choppers were all in sight, converging.
From the pipes below, oil was pouring into the water, spreading over the sea, like liquid glass in the moonlight. Everything was ready. He had considered the possibility that Na Kika would somehow call help; he had never imagined Godzilla himself would show up, but he had been prepared for another Titan.
The last bubbles from the depth charges surfaced, and for a moment, everything was quiet and still.
Then the sea broke in half, and hell came up from the rift. The moonlight gleamed on reptilian scales as Godzilla heaved into the air and arched against the moon-bright sky. In a heartbeat, Manch’s gunners responded; tracer rounds from heavy-caliber guns streaked through the night; shells and missiles bloomed on the Titan’s armored hide like anemones as the heavier-than-air gas poured out of the choppers.
It’s going to work, he thought, as it did on Na Kika. But deeper down, he heard another voice. The voice of his grandmother, telling him the stories about the abasy who lived below the world, the spirits of darkness, and their chief, a huge giant with iron skin…
Two fireballs appeared in the sky, where a pair of his helicopters had been. A jet shrieked overhead.
“Take that down,” he told his men, before returning his gaze to Godzilla. The gas was clinging to the Titan, as predicted. Only his back was visible now, and to Manch’s eye, Godzilla appeared to be sinking as the remaining helicopters dumped more of the virulent stuff onto the surface of the water. He grinned in satisfaction as a missile took out the Monarch jet. The first of the two burning helicopters hit the water, igniting the oil, and the sea was suddenly aflame as Godzilla sank from sight.
“We got him,” Manch said. “Deploy the other net.”
“That will take a few minutes,” Procter said.
“Quickly,” Manch said. “Who knows how long it will take him to recover?”
“I’m on it.” Proctor started down the ladder.
Manch stared at the burning sea below. It was beautiful to him, and for the first time since coming here, the wind was warm.
“Screw you, Grandmother,” he muttered. “And your scary stories.”
Then the light of the burning sea was suddenly overshadowed by a blue-white glow. That, too was beautiful, but Manch felt his heart clot inside of him as he turned.
From the center of the rig, a pillar of blue light stabbed into the heavens like a beacon.
“Ah, shit,” Manch said, as the rig exploded, heaving him and everything else skyward. He had a single searing glimpse of the demon from the deep, rising amidst the ruin, and then the past and future closed in on him, and he winked out like a candle flame.
Apex Offices
Pensacola, Florida, Two Years Ago
“I’m impressed,” the man said, once he was in Walter Simmons’s office and the door was closed. “I didn’t think you would meet with me in person.”
The man didn’t look impressed. He
looked hard, his dark eyes cold. The wrinkles on his face had not gotten there from smiling or laughing. Not a pleasant fellow, surely. But he was here to do business, and Simmons understood business.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Simmons said. “I have no reason to suspect you mean me harm, and if you do, my security detail is, I assure you, very efficient. May I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you,” the man said.
Simmons stood and walked over to the window of his Pensacola office, turning his back on his guest.
“The view isn’t as nice as that from my Hong Kong office,” he said. “Yet I find it pleasing. Have you been here before? Seen the local sights?”
“I haven’t much use for local sights,” the man said. “I’ve seen about as much as I want to, over the years.”
“That’s too bad, I—Wait, what the hell is that?”
There was a ship in the docks, drawn up right behind one of his, with a bunch of people, half of them in tie-dye, lined up at the rails. And now that he was looking, there were a bunch of them on land, too, with signs and banners.
“I should say those are environmental crusaders,” the man said. “I passed through them coming in.”
“These guys,” Simmons muttered. “A thorn in my side.” Then he brightened. “Well, not so much a thorn as a little stitch, or maybe a mosquito bite. You didn’t come here with them, did you?”
“God, no. They’re a bit feeble for my taste.”
“So I understand. And speaking of that, you are really the one at risk coming here, aren’t you? Wanted by Interpol and at least twenty governments?”
“I’m not counting anymore,” the man said. “But as you say. I am, let us say, outside of my comfort zone. Can we get down to it?”
“Of course,” Simmons said. “What do you have to offer me? I know something of your history, but I must warn you, I have my own sources for the sort of things you deal in.”
“You don’t have a source for this,” the dangerous man said. He laid what looked like a photograph on the table.
“Seriously?” Simmons said. “Is that an instant camera picture? You contact me on the dark web, and then you show up in person with a cheap photo? Why didn’t you just draw it out on a clay tablet?”
