by Greg Keyes
The Baal Cycle, from clay tablets written circa 1500 BCE
Apex Facility, Hong Kong
Ren felt his connection with the Mecha strengthen, but for the first time since wearing the control helmet there was almost a sense of resistance, a slight pushing-back. He knew the biomechanical body was there, felt his control of it, but lacked the ultimate tactile sense that it was his. He could not close his eyes and feel where his feet were. Perhaps it was because this was his first time with the entire machine; the last components had only recently arrived and been incorporated. Naturally the whole was more difficult to control that the parts.
But then, like a piece snapping into place, he felt … completion. Fire surged in his veins, but they were not veins, there was no blood, only connection and power. He opened the eyes he was not born with and saw in colors no human being had ever seen before. Joy like he had never known swelled in him, a sheer delight in this new existence, his mind finally being fulfilled in a body worthy of it.
“Release Number Ten!” he heard Simmons say, as if from another universe.
Well, then. They were about to see, Ren thought, still giddy. This … this was going to be awesome.
Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean
He moved through his territory; his territory moved in him. He knew his domain by its voices, sounds, scents. By cycles larger than epochs and smaller than heartbeats. He knew it by its thirsts and hungers. By what it needed. Territory was not a place, not an area with boundaries. It was a compulsion.
He had defeated the ancient three-headed foe. He had accepted the obeisance of the others. He had rested, and then heard the song, the strange voice of another. He had followed the call and been met with the sting and fire of the small ones, but the prey had eluded him. He could not find it. Not in the deeps, where no sunlight reached, not in the shallows, in the reefs bustling with life, not in the currents where the great swimmers travelled. His territory seemed safe again. But as his anger subsided, as he sank toward his place of rest, his territory was invaded. Not by the hidden one, but by the Other, another ancient enemy, older than the three-headed one, a rivalry written into his very blood and bone.
So he sought him, and they fought, and again the small ones attacked him with their stings and smoke, and he knew that something was changing. Those who once fought with him had turned against him.
The world had changed before; it was always changing, mostly slowly, sometimes quickly.
What never changed was his territory.
Victorious over the ancient enemy and its small allies, he had gone, once again thinking of rest, but the waters still stank, the winds that blew from the core of the world still carried the shadow of the nemesis, and he thought perhaps the ancient adversary was not dead after all. He had not seen the corpse. He had been lulled by quiet, but quiet did not always mean victory. So he renewed his patrol. He sensed something in the direction of the cold place, where the three-headed one had once slept. So he turned there, following the falling current, the cold flow from the end of the planet.
But then, like a blow, he felt the hidden one, hidden no longer. A weak, thin voice no more. An intruder, an illness, a blight in the midst of his territory. With a bright shriek of rage, he turned that way, and he swam. He followed the dark paths that cut through the crust. And even when the distant cry faded, it was still burned in his memory. He knew it would wake again, that it was waiting for him.
He would not make it wait long.
Apex Facility, Hong Kong
Another set of warning buzzers went off, and these sounded a lot more … serious. Madison heard a grinding behind them and turned to see that one of the huge, numbered hangar doors—this one was labeled with a large number ten—was lowering behind them. She heard a scratching, and then another hideous shriek as claws jammed through the opening, and a long wicked snout pushed through.
Skullcrawler, she realized. A big one.
Bernie and Josh screamed like they were being disemboweled. She was vaguely aware that they were also running like hell, but all she could do was stare at the nightmare coming through the door. It was like something in the back of her brain was commanding her to be still, that maybe it would not see her, that it would go after the moving prey. It was exactly like she was back in Boston, with Ghidorah staring through the window at her. Like she had never really escaped…
“Madison!” Bernie yelled. “Get to the hatch!”
She didn’t know what he was talking about, but the shout snapped her out of it. She turned and started pumping her legs as hard as she could, following Bernie and Josh. She heard the Skullcrawler coming behind her, fast, like the biggest set of nails scrabbling across a chalkboard the size of Boston Common.
She saw what the other two were running toward now, the little octagonal bunker set down into the floor. Probably for observing stuff like this up close and personal…
Then she felt its hot breath on her back, choked on the charnel stench of it. She saw Josh and Bernie climbing into the top of the little bunker, but she was still yards away. She did the only thing she could; she threw herself flat, hoping it would just run right over her.
She did not think it would work. This is over, she thought.
And yet, the claws and teeth didn’t sink into her; the hideous pain she anticipated did not arrive. Instead, she only felt a whoosh of air.
* * *
As Number Ten came out of his cage and ran across the floor, Ren allowed himself a grin.
He loved Skullcrawlers. They were so extreme; it was literally impossible for them to eat enough to sate their hunger. They were always starving; they had no patience at all for stalking or hiding; evolution had designed them to kill, eat, repeat. It was surprising they ever found time to mate, and that they did not eat each other while they were doing so. Although some studies suggested that males did not always fare well in such amorous encounters.
He admired their purity, and he absolutely had no compunction about killing them. As they were made to prey on everything else, he had been built to end them. He was the alpha now, the apex predator.
Any other animal might have known it was dead when he picked it up in his powerful hands, already squeezing the life out of it. But not a Skullcrawler. It still somehow saw a meal in front of it, a fight it could win.
He felt the smile grow inside of him as the energy built up in the infernal engines contained in this body. Everything was becoming more. He senses were sharpening, his strength building. Instincts buried deep in the ancient, reptilian part of his brain broke through the barriers his primate mind had built around them, freeing him to be everything his kind had ever been since crawling from the ocean. He had claws, not nails; sharp teeth, not dull leaf-grinders. And he had the lightning and fire of heaven and hell coursing up his dorsal fins.
He opened his mouth, and red energy surged forth. It pierced the Skullcrawler through its gaping maw. He dragged the beam down to disembowel it, cut it completely in half. He felt a shudder of ecstasy as it died, writhing in his grip. This was what it was like to be a god, he knew.
* * *
Madison scrambled back to her feet and saw that the Mechagodzilla had snatched the Skullcrawler up. She ran toward the open hatch of the bunker, where Bernie and Josh were frantically gesturing her on.
As she reached it, she saw a red beam shoot out from the mechanical Titan, a horrible, distorted version of Godzilla’s ultimate weapon. Then she reached the bunker, jumped in, yanked down the hatch, and turned the metal valve that secured it.
Through the windows ringing their shelter, Madison was able to crane her neck and see the red beam split the Skullcrawler in half. Then, quite suddenly, the mechanical monster dropped the corpse. She flinched back as the thing hit their hiding place, drenching it in yellow goo.
* * *
Every inch of Ren trembled as the Skullcrawler disintegrated in the red energy of his breath. He had fantasized what such power might be like, but his imaginings were pale
compared to the reality. He pulled the monster apart as it split down the seams, enjoying every second.
Then it was all fading, gone; the claws, the legs, the fins, were no longer his. The Skullcrawler in his grip vanished like a mirage. The power dropped away—not gradually, but like a fuse blowing, a stroke, a catastrophic failure that cascaded through the Mecha’s systems. It almost felt like his own body was failing too, as if his heart had stopped and his lungs were empty, with no more air to draw into them. Every nerve ached and then he lost sensation in his limbs, his back, finally everywhere. All of his senses switched off; his sight was the last to go, and then he was in an absolute void. For that moment, he thought he had died, that the connection had been so intense that when the tech failed, his real body had shut down, too. But then his mind adjusted; he was once again small, and flesh, staring at the warning that his on-board battery was depleted.
“System only reached forty percent power,” he reported to Simmons, when he could talk again. Depression washed in, a cold, black tide—familiar, but never welcome.
“As expected,” Simmons replied. “Don’t worry, once the Hollow Earth signal is uploaded, our power troubles will be over.”
“If they can find the energy source,” Ren said. He tried to rein in his pessimism, the disappointment. He had been so close! To be shut down like that was … hard to take. He needed more power. He craved it. Only then could the Mecha be what he had designed it to be. Only then could he be what he was meant to be.
“I have faith in Maia,” Simmons replied. “I have faith in our creation. And humanity will once again be the apex species. And once I destroy Godzilla, the world will bow to me.”
“Our” creation, Ren thought, caustically. Just give me this energy source, you chattering baboon.
But he said nothing. He needed Simmons. For now.
Aboard the Argo
En Route to Hong Kong
Mark watched their flight path, a long arc over the pole bending toward Hong Kong. He remembered his last trip there with Emma. She had been a few weeks’ pregnant with Madison at the time, and they were both still innocent to how much that simple fact would change their lives. He remembered street food and the waterfront, hiking through the mountains that stuck right up out of the metropolis, a long day on the beach. There had been a conference, too, and they had both given papers, but he would be hard pressed to remember what either of them had been about. He remembered it as one of the last times the two of them had been alone. When Andrew came it had been wonderful, and he had fallen in love again in a way he had never imagined he could, with both his son and his wife. But it had all been different, more complicated. He wouldn’t have done anything different, at least not up until the point, years later, when Andrew was killed. But if he could go back to that day on the beach at Big Wave Bay with Emma one more time, he would.
He doubted he would see the beach this time, at least not up close, not with Godzilla’s latest activities. The Titan had appeared to attack the convoy escorting Kong to Antarctica. Mark had seen the briefing, watched grimly as the Titan leveled a fleet of ships and beat Kong nearly to death. Lind had managed to salvage the situation, sort of, but the loss of life and property was appalling.
Godzilla might have been their ally once against a common threat. But it seemed clear that that no longer held true. The Titan’s need to be the alpha had become toxic.
Of course, he’d vanished after the attack, only to surface again near the Philippines. He had bypassed those islands, though, and all of the models predicted an arrival in Hong Kong. And Godzilla was hauling ass, even for Godzilla.
And so the director had called him in.
And apparently wanted a conference call now. Mark logged on to his laptop computer and entered the video call. The background showed the inside of the command center, with displays and techs behind the director.
“I’m on my way,” he said.
“So I see,” Guillerman replied. “Thank you for responding so quickly. I’m looking forward to your arrival. But events are developing quickly here.”
“I understand,” Mark said.
Guillerman had been brought in a few years before to replace Ishiro Serizawa. Those were big shoes to fill, and Mark had his share of qualms about the guy, but on the whole, he was probably doing a good job. Cleaning up after a disaster as large as Monarch—and the world—had experienced was a thankless job. Serizawa had died a hero, so some of his questionable decisions were forgotten. A living, breathing administrator was not in the same position.
“There’s very little doubt he’s coming here,” the director said. “And so far, he hasn’t caused any trouble on the way.”
“And idea what’s drawing him there?” Mark asked.
“There’s no evidence of any other Titans,” Guillerman said. “But—have a look at this.”
He tapped a keyboard, and a window appeared on Mark’s screen, displaying a signal.
“As you can see, the signal is weak,” Guillerman said. “And we don’t know quite what to make of it.”
Mark studied the signal for a moment.
“It looks like a Titan,” he said. “A little. In fact, this segment of it seems familiar, although if I’m remembering right that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Could it be a manufactured call?” the director asked. “Like the sort of signal the ORCA put out?”
“If I had to guess,” Mark said, “I would say that’s exactly what this is. It almost looks like an attempt to synthesize Ghidorah’s call, although it’s wrong in some key ways. What’s the point of origin?”
“Here,” the director said. “Hong Kong. But we’re not sure from where in the city.”
Mark frowned as the signal repeated itself on a loop.
“Isn’t that where Apex headquarters is?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I think you should focus your efforts on them,” Mark said. “Monitor any signal coming out of there. Walter Simmons has sworn to destroy Godzilla. He did it on international television. Nathan—Dr. Lind—he’s off on some Hollow Earth boondoggle for Simmons as we speak, something about a power source he says can control or destroy Godzilla, right? None of this seems like a coincidence. Maybe Simmons is trying to lure Godzilla here for some reason. Maybe he’s set a trap, and Pensacola was practice for it.”
“Lure Godzilla to a city of eight million?” Guillerman said. “He’d have to be insane.”
“Simmons wouldn’t be the first person to have an insane reaction to Godzilla,” Mark said. “Hell, I’ve been there myself. No telling who Simmons lost back in 2014 or 2019. Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe he has a plan to stop him before he gets to the city. But we’d better be ready for anything.”
“I’ll start an evacuation as quietly as I can,” Guillerman said. “And we’ll see what we can dig up on Apex. I will see you soon.”
Mark nodded as the screen went blank. He was starting to feel like he owed Madison an apology, not to mention telling her he was significantly more out of town then he’d thought he would be.
He checked his phone and found Madison still hadn’t answered any of the four texts he has already sent her. He tried to call her, but she didn’t pick up.
“Damn it, Madison,” he murmured under his breath.
He knew he had disappointed her, but he also knew he was doing the right thing. He had lost a son and a wife to these monsters. Madison was all he had left, and he did not intend to put her in harm’s way. If that meant she sulked for a while and ignored his texts, he could deal with that. It was far better than the alternative.
Checking again, he saw he had missed a text from his sister. Several, in fact.
He read through them as they grew increasingly more panicked. Maddie hadn’t been home when Cassidy had dropped by to pick her up, and she hadn’t called or texted. Eventually she’d learned that Maddie’s friend Josh was also missing, along with his older brother’s van.
“What the hell are you up to
, Madison?” he muttered. He should have known this would happen. Should have seen the signs. This was Madison backward and forward, off to try to save the world again. And poor Josh, it was easy to imagine her bullying him into this. But where were they going?
His laptop made a noise. Guillerman again.
“We just got eyes on Godzilla,” he said. “He’s under a hundred klicks out now, headed straight for us. I’ve scrambled jets, for as much good as it will do. Maybe we can distract him while we evacuate.”
Mark nodded, finding it difficult to concentrate, knowing Madison was running around—in a van, no less.
But Godzilla was in Hong Kong, not Pensacola, and there was no way for Madison to reach Hong Kong by van. How much danger could she be in? His sister was doing what could be done to find her in Pensacola. And the fact was, as much as he hated to admit it—and even more hated to rely on it—Madison could handle herself. She had run off on her own because he hadn’t believed her, and he hadn’t trusted her. That wasn’t an excuse, but it was a reason. And it was something they were going to have to talk about. Perhaps while she was grounded for the next year or so.
That would be fun. Right now he only had an angry Godzilla to deal with.
Hollow Earth
The HEAVs followed Kong down the now right-side-up mountain, across a rocky, rather lifeless landscape. But as on the mountain, the blue energy was bleeding through everywhere. Kong’s course seemed more certain with every bounding step.
Their destination appeared to be a mountain with a single large peak in the middle flanked by smaller ones one either side. The steepness of the mountain and the symmetrical proportions suggested to Ilene that it wasn’t a natural formation—or at least not entirely natural. It reminded her of the structures in Angkor Wat, in Cambodia.
Directly above the central peak, a lightning storm flashed and fumed, but it wasn’t moving, as though it was created by the mountains, which had more of the blue phosphorescence than anything they had seen thus far. But along with the blue light, there was a red glow as well.
