by Greg Keyes
Look at that! Ilene signed to Jia.
House, Jia signed. Big house.
“That has to be it,” Nathan said.
As they drew closer, the red-gold glow became more pronounced.
“Is that … magma?” she asked.
“It’s not a volcano,” Nathan said. “At least, not like any I’ve ever seen. But yeah, I think you’re right. If I had to guess, I would say that there is so much of the life-force energy here, it’s causing the rock to heat up and glow.”
“Do you think it’s dangerous?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Nathan replied.
Even closer, Ilene saw that she’d been right, or at least partly so. The mountain itself was probably natural originally, but it had clearly been modified. What at first had appeared to be a hornlike split at the top of the central peak was actually a facade carved to suggest columns flanking what was an arched stone temple door, defined with a carved double-arch around it.
The myths and legends, the cave paintings, the hieroglyphs. They all pointed to this. The ancestors of the Iwi and Kong were from here, and Kong knew it. Felt it in his bones.
Ishiro Serizawa had proven that Godzilla—or others like his kind—had human followers, that they had built a great civilization, and a temple dedicated to him. She had long believed the same was true of Kong, and here was the proof. The ancestors of Jia’s people must have lived here, built this holy place for their gods, Kong’s ancestors.
She realized that she was tearing up as she watched Kong approach the structure with what appeared to be something akin to … reverence.
Then he approached the gates. The doors themselves were plain—except for a single, very large, red handprint on one of them. Ilene had seen prints like that before, found all over the world in the caves and rock shelters of her own prehistoric ancestors. They were markers, signs—I was here. We were here.
Kong roared, but it was not like any sound she’d ever heard issue from his throat. It was … a question. He tilted his head—as if listening for a response—then repeated the sound—then listened again.
When no answer came, Kong placed his hand on the print. It was almost, but not quite, a perfect match. She saw it on his face as he understood what that meant. A different member of his species had made this. He was not the only one.
Kong studied the gate for a little longer. Then he pushed it, then pushed harder—and the doors swung open.
The HEAVs followed him but kept their distance. Ilene couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Inside was huge, mysterious. It reminded her a little of a cathedral, for it had a row of arches enclosing a vast circular space and stone columns reaching high into darkness. There was an immense central pillar, although it looked like a natural formation that had been minimally carved. The upper reaches of the temple—for that’s what it was—looked entirely natural, with stalactites hanging down. More of the red handprints were visible in the deep recesses of the place, and what were almost certainly paintings.
The glowing blue seams in the stone were everywhere here, and the stone of the floor glowed here and there with reddish hotspots, like magma was pooled just below the surface. Scatterings of huge bones were visible in that dim light; in the brighter HEAV floodlights they were recognizable as those of Titans. And one, still largely articulated, seemed especially familiar. She had seen pictures of such skeletons, from the Philippines, and elsewhere. She’d seen bones like this covered in muscle and scale. It was a species that resembled Godzilla.
Kong noticed the remains. He stared at them at first without comprehension, but then she saw fury dawn on his features. He stood over the skeleton for a moment and then, with great deliberation he bent toward the reptilian neck. She saw something was lodged there, and as she watched he took hold of it, pulled, and then yanked it free and held it aloft, beating his chest. It looked for all the world like some sort of outlandish scepter, sized for Kong.
“Congratulations,” Nathan said. “You were right.”
She nodded. “He’s home.”
And as if he also recognized that fact, Kong approached the central pillar, holding his prize, and sat down upon a seat carved into the base of it. And now he was complete; the throne, the scepter, the king.
He roared once again, and something changed in the set of his shoulders. In his expression. Even though there were no other living members of his species here, he knew he was part of something bigger and older than himself. That ancestors of his had sat on this same throne, in this place.
Like her, Jia had just been taking everything in, but now she began signing.
Kong’s family, she signed.
Yes, she replied. This was their place. Built for him by your people.
Jia looked at her, puzzled, then shook her head.
The Iwi lived here with Kong’s family, yes, she signed. But this was built by Kong’s family.
What do you mean? Ilene asked. How do you know?
I remember the story now, Jia said. Look, nothing small here. Nothing the size of Iwi. This was built by Kongs.
And in a sudden flash, Ilene realized that had to be true. Humans could have built this place, given time, and numbers, and basic machines like block-and-tackle. But they hadn’t. Now that she looked more closely, with different eyes, it didn’t look like human architecture, and not just because of the scale.
The HEAVs settled down and quietly, cautiously, Ilene and the others climbed out and entered the cavernous temple. Standing on the floor in front of Kong, she felt as tiny as an insect, just as the Iwi must have felt, gathered around him. Kong watched them for a moment, but quickly lost interest—he seemed absorbed in his own thoughts.
Jia tugged at her hand, pulling Ilene toward something. At first it just looked like a series of incisions in the floor, forming a circle around the column the throne was carved into. But as they walked the circle, the details became clearer. The depiction looked like it could be Godzilla, albeit stylized, looking more like a serpent biting its tail. The most peculiar thing about it was that one of its dorsal fins seemed to be missing—where it ought to be was only a hollow space…
EIGHTEEN
Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee.
Job 40:15
Apex Facility, Hong Kong
Shortly after the shower of Skullcrawler guts covered their hideout, the arena shut down and the lights went out. Mechagodzilla, however, did not withdraw into the floor, but remained where it was, inert now, slumped over, all the fire gone out of its eyes.
“This is why Godzilla attacked the Apex facility,” Madison said. “They’re trying to replace him.”
“Yes,” Bernie said. “Yes. The eye I saw. That’s it up there, on the robo-Godzilla.”
“Mechagodzilla,” Josh corrected him.
“Really?” Bernie said.
“Bernie,” Madison said, “I think you have to let that one go. And I need you to focus. What now?”
“Now?” Bernie said. “Now?”
“I think it’s time to go,” Madison said.
“Yes,” Bernie said. “Yes, I think that’s entirely appropriate.”
Madison turned the valves, cracked the hatch slightly, and looked out.
“Coast is clear,” she said. “Come on.”
“Yeah, let’s get out of here,” Bernie said.
Madison glanced up at the observation balconies overlooking the arena. Whoever had been controlling the mechanical Titan must be up there someplace, along with an explanation. It wasn’t enough to know that Godzilla hadn’t just gone rogue for no reason; she needed to be able to prove it.
They climbed out of the bunker, trying to avoid the Skullcrawler guts as best they could.
“That’s probably an exit down there,” Madison said. “Let’s check it out.”
“Yeah,” Bernie said, stepping over some sort of organ. “I really, really hate this room.”
The scale of the place had fooled her; what she thought was an exit looked mo
re like a freight elevator. The door was closed, and the keypad next to it suggested getting on was not going to be easy.
“You’re a hacker, right?” Bernie said to Josh. “You think you can open that?”
“Maybe,” Josh said. “Or we could take the stairs.” He pointed to a smaller door.
Madison pulled on the handle, and it opened easily. Inside, stairs led both up and down.
“Huh,” Bernie said. He looked around. “You see another door?” he asked. “Maybe one that just says ‘out’?”
“What are you talking about?” Madison said. “It’s here. It’s all here, like you said. All of the answers.”
“Yeah?” Bernie said. “Stealing memos and shipping manifests is one thing. All this…” He pointed at the resting Mechagodzilla. “That’s another. Look, you may be used to almost being eaten by these things. I am not. I am a journalist, a truth seeker. I am not a Titan entrée.”
“Not an entrée,” Josh said. “Not even an appetizer, really. More an amuse bouche.”
He shrank back a little as Bernie leaned over him.
“What?” Josh said. “I like food television.”
“Do what you want,” Madison said. “I’m going this way.” She hesitated for just a moment. Did they want to go down? That’s where the big mechanical Titan had come up from. But while it might have been built down there, her strong feeling was that whoever was controlling it was up.
The first five landings with doors didn’t look promising, just darkened access corridors that seemed to service the building’s infrastructure. Eventually, though, they did come to a more promising exit. She was just starting to push the door open when she heard footfalls outside. She eased the door shut and they all flattened against the walls as the steps grew closer and then began to recede. She pressed the door open and peered out just in time to see a pair of armed guards turn a corner.
“Okay,” she said. She slipped through the door with Josh and Bernie behind her, padding down the corridor, glancing through the doorways as they passed them. She felt as if she was going the right way—toward the viewing areas above the arena—but she couldn’t be sure. The place was like a maze, and they might have gotten turned around.
They reached a dead end, but there was another door and more stairs. They went up them to the next level, where they entered another corridor.
Madison looked up and down it and started to the left.
“Hang on,” Bernie said. “I think—”
He was cut off by more footfalls, and a couple of voices chattering in the distance. Madison pushed open the nearest door and they all ducked in, waiting for the guards to pass. When they finally did, Madison breathed a sigh of relief and cracked the door.
Bernie got ahead of her. “Hey guys,” he said. “The exit is this way.”
“Madison!” Josh said, from behind them.
She turned to look and so did Bernie.
They hadn’t stepped into just any room. They had stepped into a really weird room.
To begin with it was a sort of technological nightmare, a mad scientist’s playground. A mass of computers and machinery connected by freeways of electricity, complete with blinking lights and glowing components and a generally neon feel. But in the center of it all was something decidedly non-technological, at least on the surface; an immense horned skull, suspended by wires and fiber-optics and tubes of some kind of goo and who knew what else.
Even without the scales and skin, Madison had no doubt what it was. She had been too up close and personal with its former owner to ever forget.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“What?” Bernie gasped.
“A Titan skull?” Josh said.
“No, no,” Bernie said. “Not just any Titan skull. That’s Monster Zero.”
“Ghidorah,” Madison said.
Bernie seemed to have forgotten he was trying to flee the scene. He approached the skull almost reverently. “They hardwired its DNA,” Bernie said. “Self-generating neuro-pathways capable of intuitive learning…”
“Uh,” Josh said. “So, like—I’m smart, but I’m in high school?”
“It’s a living supercomputer,” Bernie clarified.
Bernie drew even nearer and ran his fingers over the skull, the wire embedded in it like filigree.
“It had three heads,” Bernie said. “Its necks were so long that it communicated telepathically. There’s one here—there’s another one inside of that thing. It could be a psionic interface.”
“Which is?” Josh asked.
“Mind-to-mind connection,” Bernie said. “The two skulls are still in contact. I think that’s how they control the…” He looked at Josh and sighed. “Mechagodzilla.”
With a jolt, Madison realized someone else was in the room. A man, seated in a chair inside the skull, wearing a cap with hundreds of wires and cables connected to it, running out into the machines and the skull itself.
“It’s the pilot,” Madison breathed.
Bernie peered in, then hid once more behind the skull.
“He’s in a trance,” Bernie said. “Psionic uplink. It follows his will. Oh, Apex, what have you done?”
As if in response, the man shifted a little. Bernie moved back, waving them back, too.
“Hide!” he whispered, as the pilot reached to remove the helmet.
With no time to reach the door, they did the only thing they could; they ducked underneath the skull, scooching toward the middle.
Monarch Command and Control, Hong Kong
“This is the day we feared,” the director said, as Mark rushed from the helipad into the command and control. “I’ve given the order, Doctor. The city is being evacuated.”
“Where are Apex’s defenses?” Mark asked.
“They’re not responding,” Guillerman said.
“Maybe we were wrong,” Mark said. But he didn’t finish. What was there to say? The monster was here.
Mark watched, stone-faced, as Godzilla emerged from the sea. The monitors were full of the evacuation, some of it orderly, much of it characterized by the screams and hysteria that were inevitable when a three-hundred-foot-tall lizard came wading up to your metropolis. Fortunately, Hong Kong, like most major cities, had spent the past three years building secure bunkers just in case something like this were to happen again. Unfortunately, Mark knew that no shelter built by human hands could withstand the full force of Godzilla’s attack. Their best hope was that they were right, that Godzilla was headed straight for the Apex building and would ignore everything that wasn’t between him and it.
For Mark’s part, he felt a sort of grim déjà vu.
He had spent years hating Godzilla, blaming him for the death of his son, the dissolution of his marriage and his family. But in the end, he had come to believe he was wrong, that Godzilla was on the side of humanity, that his hatred and anger were misplaced. And three years ago, he had felt vindicated. Even now it was hard to imagine how Ghidorah could have been defeated without the aid of Godzilla.
But now, maybe because of something Apex was doing or maybe just because, Godzilla had turned on them. That meant they had to do whatever it took to stop him.
Of course, he didn’t know what that might be. The only thing that had been able to stop Ghidorah was Godzilla, and Godzilla had proved pretty definitely that there was no other Titan that could challenge him, most recently by making an example of Kong. So what was their plan?
Maybe Simmons had something up his sleeve. If so, Mark hoped whatever it was wouldn’t be as destructive as Godzilla already was.
“Landfall,” one of the techs said.
Mark nodded, watching the familiar silhouette advance into the city, the monitors capturing him from various angles.
Then, the Titan suddenly stopped, jerking as if something invisible had arrested him. He screeched and then began whirling around, his tail cutting through buildings. The entire city shook, and in the harbor, boats, swamped by miniature tsunamis, began to sink.
/> What the hell was he doing? Mark wondered. More than anything, it reminded him of a Titan’s reaction to the ORCA, or the call of another Titan. If the call was centered on him.
He’s confused, Mark thought. But what…?
Then Godzilla stopped and faced toward the earth. Blue light crept up his dorsal fins, and then a cerulean bolt of energy blasted from his mouth, tearing into the asphalt and concrete at his feet, and then deeper, into the very stone the city was built upon. Mark felt the earth shuddering through the concrete of the bunker and the mountain it was embedded in.
He had seen Godzilla do this before. For seconds, for tens of seconds maybe, and always directed at an enemy.
But now his enemy seemed to be the Earth itself, and he did not stop. He kept going, drilling toward the core of the planet.
Kong Temple
Ilene and Jia wandered around Kong’s temple, and found more ancient art lurking in the shadows; like the building itself, Ilene suspected much of the painting and sculpture had been done by the Kongs themselves. Dozens more handprints graced the walls, all huge, but still of different sizes, reflecting different members of the race—different sexes and ages. They also found hundreds of smaller, human-sized prints, virtually invisible until you went looking for them, lost in the cavernous space. Most of the small prints were low, near the floor, but once they started looking for them, they saw some were much higher, and far from any ledge in the stone that might have given a human purchase.
Kongs lifted them up, Jia said. Ilene knew the girl was speculating, but it made sense, especially when she thought about the relationship between Kong and Jia.
They found more images of warfare, too, one fairly spectacular. It depicted a Kong and a Godzilla-like creature grappling. Below the Titans were smaller figures, human. And not just human; she was sure from the depictions, and some she had seen before, that they were Iwi. Jia’s people.
Jia had known it before she had. The girl was shaking with emotion, and Ilene gathered her in and held her tightly.
