by Greg Keyes
“Perhaps a prototype of all of them,” Lille had said, in her musical French accent. “When I have deciphered them, perhaps we shall see.”
There had once been more to the site. The rainforest around the pyramid concealed the ruins of an impressive city before whatever catastrophe befell it, thousands of years ago. Now little remained of the other structures; mounds of stone blocks, strange faces of broken statues peering from the underbrush with empty eyes, the occasional low wall that still sketched the foundations of once imposing buildings. The world at large had forgotten the place. The locals knew about it of course, but they rarely admitted it; not because it was taboo, or they were afraid of it, but because they were protective of it, and suspicious of the intentions of outsiders.
Monarch had discovered it through sophisticated satellite imaging rather than through word of mouth.
But the site was more than an archaeological dig. What mattered most was deep within the pyramid.
Which was where they were headed. And where the weird sounds were coming from.
She and Mom climbed into a jeep as the guards opened the gate. A woman – Renata – on one of the watchtowers waved at her, and she waved back. She had a daughter about her age back home.
They drove through the gate, down the bumpy packed-dirt trail to the temple.
Up close you could see the unique features of the pyramid. Comparable structures around the world were usually solid, filled-in bases for temple structures on top. Some might contain relatively small burial or treasure chambers. The Temple of the Moth was different: it was largely hollow, supported by stone columns; it had multiple interior levels and entrances.
Like their living compound, it was surrounded by a fence and watchtowers.
They left the jeep outside of the fence and went on foot. Another set of guards let them through, then closed the gate behind them.
They climbed the broad central stair, through the center doorway.
TWO
From Dr. Chen’s notes:
Who smote Azhi Dahaka, three-jawed and triple-headed, six-eyed, with a thousand perceptions, and of mighty strength, a deception-demon of the Daevas, evil to our settlements, and wicked, whom the evil spirit Angra Mainyu made as the most mighty deception-demon, and for the murder of our settlements, and to slay the homes of Asha!
—The Avesta, Yt. 9.8. Book of Zoroastrian
scripture compiled from oral sources
sometime between ad 300–600.
The stone within the temple was ornately carved in enigmatic glyphs and bas-reliefs of humans and beasts that hinted at ancient, mythic stories lost in time, but struggling to be known again. Statues of women in ornate headdresses held up the roof, their expressions knowing and serene. It seemed to Maddie they shared a mystery, but that each also held a secret all her own.
Dr. Mancini, the entomologist, met them in the corridors. He was a little younger than Mom, around forty. He had dark hair and a receding hairline and kind of a nice, slightly silly smile, if he chose to show it off. When he really got talking about insects, he could be pretty interesting. He had a passion and an appreciation for them. But that had only happened once or twice, mostly when he was talking to another adult in the room. He didn’t have kids, and sometimes she thought he didn’t think much of them.
“What the hell happened?” her mom asked Mancini.
“No idea,” Dr. Mancini said. “She was sleeping like a baby until an hour ago and then boom, her radiation levels went through the roof. Almost like something triggered it.”
Mancini looked over at Maddie.
“Are you sure she safe’s in here?” he asked.
That ticked Maddie off. It always did when somebody looked at her and saw nothing but a helpless twelve-year-old.
“She’s sure,” Madison said.
Mancini looked suitably rebuked, but only for an instant. He had bigger things on his mind. Or at least one bigger thing.
“Thanks, Tim,” her mom told Mancini as they approached some double doors. “You know, I can take it from here. Why don’t you get some rest?
“No way,” Mancini said. “Sleep or no sleep, I’m not missing this.”
Her mom didn’t like that answer, Madison could tell, but after a pause she nodded.
As they went deeper into the temple, Maddie paused to admire a stone carving some guys in hazmat suits were photographing. It was beautiful, and she wondered what ancient artist had carved it. It was stylized, but clearly represented a moth. A very special one.
After the pause, she followed the others through the entry hallway.
The chamber inside was stone, like the rest of the temple, but the stuff filling it up was modern, state of the art. Overhead illumination had been wired to the low ceiling. Desks with computers, diagnostic equipment, and multiple displays butted up against the wall, leaving some of the corridor free for the approach to a much larger central chamber. On the screens, EEG and EKG machines presented their continuous reports, radiation profiles shifted and reconfigured, sonar images and just mounds of data. Scientists and techs in Monarch apparel excitedly scurried about their jobs. When she had last been here, it had been a lot – quieter.
Was it happening? Finally?
“Sedatives?” her mother asked Mancini.
“No effect,” he said. “This thing wants to be born.”
A high-pitched chittering drowned out every other sound. Madison jerked her gaze to the central chamber, which she could see through the decontamination lock at the end of the corridor.
It was a big room, with bigger-than-life statues of women looking down upon a very large altar stone. Their arms were behind their backs, supporting the walls; they leaned forward a little, and their carven expressions were – encouraging, Maddie thought. Like when a preschool teacher was trying to get a five-year-old to pronounce a new word the right way. Sunlight shone down from openings in the pyramid’s apex; climbing vines had invaded the chamber, draping everything in green. Birds fluttered through the shaft of light.
Everything seemed to be waiting for what lay on the altar.
And that was something fantastic.
Some of Maddie’s earliest memories were of the backyard behind their small house in Boston. There, she had discovered a world as complex as any jungle on earth, a community of strange creatures that could hold her fascination for the best part of a lazy summer day. The butterflies and moths that drank from flowers; the dragonflies, veined wings glistening in the sun; the spiders, some stalking their prey, others waiting in their webs for it to blunder along. Rainbow-colored beetles so metallic in appearance they seemed more like robots than living things. Ants, building their colonies, their empires. It was like a world from the distant past, before vertebrates inherited the world – with only the occasional squirrel, bird, or human being to disturb that fancy. Giants stalking through their world.
Insects had fascinated her the most because of the way they transformed throughout their lives. It seemed so mysterious that they could have such completely different forms in the same life. Kittens, puppies, chicks were just littler versions of their parents. But cicadas laid eggs that hatched into worms, worms that burrowed into the earth for seventeen years before transforming into something with legs and a triple-segmented body, until finally that too split from its skin and spread its wings.
What rested on the ancient altar brought all that mystery back to her, amplified – and sort of inverted. In her backyard, insect eggs had been tiny. To them, she was a giant of unfathomable size. Now the situation was reversed.
It looked a lot like the silken egg sacs spiders wove; a roundish thing with a skirt of threads attaching it to the stone, so it appeared dome-shaped. Of course, no egg sac she’d ever seen had been big enough to contain a double-decker bus. Inside, light flickered – bioluminescence, like that of a firefly – revealing the squirming shape within. Something alive. Becoming. Something trying to get out.
The sac was completely surrounded by metal
catwalks, giving access to her mom and the other scientists who studied it; a larger platform looked down on it from above. Maddie knew not all of that was about science. Some of the equipment was in case things went wrong. A containment field could be switched on if the hatchling became violent. And her mother had also mentioned a kill switch, if things went very wrong. Added to that was a team of military types in hazmat suits, armed with shock rifles.
But hopefully none of that would be needed. Dr. Chen had once told her the creature’s name meant “giver of life.” Everything would be fine.
Nevertheless, Madison’s heart was racing. She and Mom had been talking about this for so long, now that the moment was actually here it seemed unreal.
The voices of the other people in the room sounded distant to Madison. She was completely focused on the movement within the sac, which was intensifying, as was the oscillating radiance.
“Mom,” she said. “I think it’s happening…”
She wasn’t afraid, she realized. She had thought she might be. After all, a Titan was being born – a thing like Godzilla and the MUTOs, a creature capable of crushing a city into ruins. But instead all she felt was awe at what she was witnessing, like the time she had observed a butterfly emerge from its chrysalis. But this was on such a different scale. How long had this egg been waiting? Centuries, the scientists thought, or even thousands, maybe millions of years. And she was here to see it happen.
“Her time has come…” her mom said.
The guards moved from the edges of the room, surrounding the sac, shock rifles ready. Maddie watched them, puzzled. What did they think they were doing?
With a final terrific jerk from the creature within, the sac split open and the pupa lifted out of it, towering up into the light, high above the protective goddesses who had been looking down on it. The birds scattered. In the control room, there was a collective gasp.
It – no, she looked very grub-like, Maddie thought, as the Titan’s head lifted still higher, revealing the many caterpillar-like prolegs on her underbelly. But that didn’t capture her majesty. Nor was it completely accurate. She was shaped like a grub or a caterpillar, but armor-plated with chiton, or something similar. Light shimmered from the colorful markings on her thick body. She was so magnificent Madison forgot to breathe for a moment.
The Titan screeched triumphantly, celebrating her own birth.
This was no dumb beast, Maddie realized. She could see intelligence in those strange eyes, as this ancient goddess, this Titan, struggled to orient herself, to take in where she was, and why.
Her mother felt it too and pulled Maddie close. They had been waiting for this moment, building it up – yet it didn’t disappoint. The reality was way more amazing than anything Maddie had imagined. The pulsing, moving patterns, a bit like deep-ocean jellyfish she had seen once in the New England Aquarium, but more complex. They didn’t seem random; they seemed to mean something, however weird that might be to say aloud.
“Meet Titanus Mosura,” Dr. Mancini said. “Or as we like to call her—”
“Mothra,” Madison finished.
“Incredible,” her mother said.
Dr. Mancini pushed a switch and the containment field came on, a glowing blue net, but then it sputtered, faded to red, and flickered out.
“What’s happening?” her mother asked Mancini.
“Something’s really wrong here,” Mancini said. “The containment systems are failing – perimeter alarms are going off – the whole network is going insane.”
“What do you mean?” her mother said. “How’s that possible?
“Emma, I think someone else is doing this,” Mancini shot back.
Mothra’s scream shook the building. Not a triumphant sound this time, but a warning cry.
It was terrifying how everything had gone wrong so quickly.
Her mom grabbed the radio.
“Containment teams, stand down,” she said. “I repeat, stand down, you’re scaring—”
Her command came too late. Mothra was in full panic now, smashing equipment and slamming into the walls. One of the guards fired his shock rifle and the rest quickly followed. If the weapons had any effect at all, it was only to focus the Titan’s fear and anger on them. She swung her body, knocking guards from the catwalks, crushing the scaffolding, battering the cage of equipment surrounding her. And something was spraying from her, wrapping around the teal-clad figures, encasing them. Silk, Maddie thought, her mind in a fog of anxiety. She’s like a silkworm…
It wasn’t just Mothra who was losing it. Everyone was now in a panic. She saw Dr. Mancini open a panel and reach toward a button. The kill switch, she thought. Mancini was going to destroy Mothra.
Her mom grabbed Mancini’s wrist.
“No,” she said.
“Dr. Russell,” he said, “I’m sorry but you know the protocols. We have to terminate—”
“No,” she said. “I’ll handle this.” Her tone left no room for argument.
She grabbed her metal briefcase and ran for the door to the containment area.
“Emma, we don’t know if it will work,” Mancini shouted after her.
Oh, shit, she’s going in there, Madison realized. Into the chamber with Mothra. She was going to try to use the ORCA.
“Mom, no!” she said.
“Madison, stay here. It’s going to work.”
She watched with mounting fear as her mother went through the decontamination chamber. Disinfecting mist obscured her for a moment, and then she emerged in Mothra’s temple.
The Titan shrieked as she approached, unwilling to trust anyone now. Her mother looked tiny as she approached the vast larva towering above her. But she moved with purpose. Laying the plastic case on the ground like an offering before an ancient deity. She opened it, never taking her eyes off the immense, raging pupa.
The ORCA unfolded; several screens expanded beyond the case, along with the speakers and amplifier. If it worked like her mom believed it would, it would change the world. This would be the test. But if it didn’t work or didn’t work right – Maddie didn’t want to think about it.
Mothra grew even more agitated as her mom set up the machine. The Titan probably thought the ORCA was some sort of weapon, like the shock rifles. She could hardly be blamed, considering the greeting her birth had been met with.
But that wouldn’t be of any comfort if Mothra attacked her mother, which was exactly what she looked like she was doing, rearing up to her full height, like a cobra about to strike down on her.
The ORCA came to life; a strange throbbing filled the chamber.
Mothra jerked as if stung and then shot webs at Maddie’s mother. She dodged them, but something snapped in Maddie. She’d been trying to stay cool, to at least look calm. But without even thinking about what she was doing, she bolted toward Dr. Mancini, grabbed his keycard, and ran through the decontamination chamber after her mother. She heard Dr. Mancini shout after her, but he was no more going to stop her than he had her mother. She didn’t have a plan, but she did have a conviction. Mothra was not – should not be – their enemy. She sensed that with every fiber of her being. Mothra was on their side. She was just confused.
She ran up to her mother and embraced her as she worked desperately at the controls of the ORCA. Mothra reared up in fury.
Alpha Frequency found, appeared on the display.
Her mother gathered her in her arms as Mothra struck down at them.
The ORCA began to sing. Mothra stopped, just short of crushing them.
Thum, thum, thum. It sounded like a heartbeat.
Mothra appeared to calm, became entranced. Her bioluminescent display became slower, less erratic. She began to sway, very slightly. Once again she resembled a cobra – no longer poised to strike, but mesmerized by a snake charmer.
As the Titan quietened, so did everyone else. Through the glass, Maddie saw Mancini and the other scientists staring, as enthralled as Mothra.
It was working.
; Madison felt the thrumming of the ORCA all the way to her bones. As she joined her mother she felt a profound connection to this entrancing creature. She couldn’t say what it was, exactly. It was just an understanding, a feeling that she knew Mothra, that she had somehow been here before. And that this was exactly where she should be now.
The now peaceful behemoth leaned down, examining her and her mom. Maybe wondering what these little things were, the way Maddie had once marveled over a weird green bug with red spots. As if in a dream, Madison reached out her hand toward Mothra’s head. Her eyes were like blue diamonds, each larger than Maddie’s head. What would it be like, when they touched?
Mothra exhaled, and her breath pushed them back like a strong, warm wind. Her breath smelled like hay and rotten eggs. They both laughed softly as the last of the tension dissolved.
An explosion shook the entire chamber, followed by the deadly rattle of gunfire. Mothra jerked back, as startled as Maddie.
At first she thought the containment guards had lost their minds, but when she looked she saw strangers had invaded the temple. They swarmed through the control center, shooting the Monarch personnel. She saw Mancini, one minute alive, the next just a crumpled corpse. She saw Li fall, and Costas…
This isn’t happening, she thought, desperately. They weren’t killing everyone. Why would they?
But the murder continued before her horrified gaze, until the invaders had no one left to shoot – except for her and her mother.