by Greg Keyes
Madison kept her face turned toward him, though.
“No, wait!” Madison shouted. “We can’t leave him! Dad! Dad!”
“Maddie!” he screamed.
He started forward, but Jonah shot at him. He knew logically that he couldn’t dodge a bullet, but his reflexes didn’t, so he threw himself to the side. By the time he recovered, Maddie, Emma, and Jonah were on the elevator, going up.
He looked around wildly, fresh out of ideas. Then he saw the second elevator. He raced toward it, dodging chunks of the ice wall that was now coming down like an avalanche.
He made it to the platform, hit the button, and started up. They only had a few seconds on him. He could make it.
* * *
Barnes squeezed off another round and moved up as Martinez laid down cover fire. Foster was back in touch and was somewhere up ahead, although the connection was iffy and getting worse. But they had a rendezvous point.
The problem was, they were pinned down. They could retreat, but moving forward was difficult. The enemy had used explosives to create a makeshift barrier out of ice and structural junk.
He crouched behind a transformer just as bullets began spanging into it. He caught a movement from the corner of his eye, someone in a snow parka trying to flank him.
Yeah, no. He fired, swinging his weapon in an arc. The figure in white stumbled and fell behind a pile of ice. He wasn’t sure if he’d hit him or not.
A hail of bullets struck all around him.
He’d lost three. That left Martinez, Johnson, D’Aguilar, Li. Not enough to break through here. In fact…
Gunfire stuttered, and another figure whipped by, headed for the same flanking position. This one made it for sure; Barnes didn’t get a shot off.
“I’m coming up, chief,” Martinez said.
“No,” Barnes said. “Stay back.”
“They’re gonna move up on you.”
He knew that. The only smart thing to do was retreat. But there might not be a way out behind them; he’d heard a lot of explosions in that direction, too.
A sudden barrage of gunfire started up ahead of him. He braced himself; this was it, they were coming. Time to take as many of the assholes out as possible.
A head and rifle popped up on his flank. He fired and had the satisfaction of seeing the man’s wind-goggles shatter. Then he turned to face whoever was coming from ahead.
The shots continued, but he realized there weren’t any rounds kicking up near him. Who were they shooting at?
He leaned out and saw someone charging toward him.
He stood and shot him, then swung his weapon wildly, looking for the next.
But there wasn’t a next.
Everything was quiet now. He blinked, wondering what had happened.
“Barnes,” a familiar voice shouted from behind the barricade. “It’s Hendricks. Don’t fire.”
Now he saw a hand waving from behind the rubble, followed by Hendricks’s familiar face.
They’d come in from behind the enemy.
“What took so long?” he asked.
“We were on a coffee break,” Hendricks said.
Just then, everything shook. He thought it was another ambush, but it felt bigger than that.
Way bigger.
“Come on,” Hendricks yelled.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” Barnes replied.
By the time they got to Foster, the whole damn place was coming down. Gigantic chunks of ice were crashing all around them, and the floor beneath their feet was crumbling. He saw two freight elevators ahead; one was already going up, but the other was waiting for them, and Foster led them toward it.
But then it started up, too.
“Well, shit,” he said. “This sucks.”
* * *
Mark looked down from the elevator and saw what was left of G-Team. More ice was falling, and soon the whole billion-ton chamber would collapse, and then they would be buried.
There wasn’t another elevator. There was nothing he could do for them. If he went back down, he would give Jonah too big a lead. And he would probably die, along with the commandos. It was G-Team or his family, wasn’t it?
“Dammit!”
He hit the down button. The elevator reversed course.
It’s probably already too late anyway, he thought. For them and for me.
“Come on!” he shouted as the doors opened.
The soldiers piled in as the cavern came apart.
* * *
Maddie was still in a daze when the elevator brought them above ground, and she was hustled along to board the Osprey. The gunfire, the splintering ice. Her dad…
She glared at Jonah, but he didn’t notice. In fact, he looked – hurt. It had all been a sort of blur, but now she remembered the way he’d held Asher, the look on his face.
So even Jonah could care about someone. Amazing.
She didn’t give a shit. Jonah had tried to kill her father.
But he’d missed, right? She had seen him climb onto the other elevator. But she couldn’t be sure. What if he had a bullet hole in him, like everyone else Jonah met?
And the elevator hadn’t arrived, even though it had only been a few seconds behind them. She kept looking back, even as she was pushed into the Osprey. Jonah’s remaining men were scrambling aboard, and her mother began fiddling with the ORCA. She started strapping in as the craft, in helicopter mode, began to leave the ground.
“Why is Dad here?” she asked.
“I don’t know, honey—” her mom began.
“We can’t leave him!” she said.
But rather than responding to her, her mother looked over at Jonah.
“What are you waiting for?” Jonah demanded. “Wake it up.”
Her mother gave Maddie another glance. Then she stood up and walked toward the back of the plane, holding the ORCA, looking out the open hatch.
What was she doing? Dad was out there. Yes, they were divorced, but didn’t she understand how much he meant to her? Why was it always like this? Why did she have to choose?
The ORCA began throbbing a deep, slow rhythm.
NINE
From the field notes of Dr. Ling:
It is said he came from another place, the sky maybe. A star. That he was a younger son and would not inherit territory, and so he came here to find his own. Long ago. He had three heads, each on a long neck. Each head was like a death adder, with horns you know, but the horns were bigger. But he wasn’t a snake; he had legs, and wings like a bat. His color was like that of the sun near the horizon. He was very, very large. Like a mountain. And he brought storms wherever he went. His breath was lightning, and his eyes were flashes in a storm cloud. He was similar to the Ancestor Gods – but also unlike them. He fought with them, sometimes. We don’t talk about him much. When we do we just call him Mandandare Aqenomba “Three Heads.” But he had a name. We still remember it. Each mother and father whispers it to their children, when they are old enough. Once.
—Told by Basau of the remote Taza people of
Highland New Guinea
When they reached the surface of the ice it had already begun to shiver and fracture. Mark and G-Team sprinted toward the Osprey, leaping and sliding as cracks appeared, until all they could do was make one final leap from a surface that was already falling.
They landed on solid ice and collapsed in a pile, as behind them the din of a glacier’s worth of frozen water collapsed into a sinkhole that took most of the base down with it.
Maddie? But they’d been ahead of him.
Casting about, Mark saw an Osprey lifting off – not the one they’d come in. Maddie was there, he was sure of it. Emma had gotten her out, and even though that meant his daughter was again slipping away from him, the fact that she was still alive and escaping this frozen hell brought the greatest relief he’d ever felt. Whatever this was all about, his daughter was safe, at least for now.
Before he could begin to think what to do about that, a deep, eerie m
oan rose from the sinkhole, accompanied by a blast of hot air.
Things were about to get worse. Much worse. Monster Zero’s time in the deep freeze was over.
Steam and fog boiled up from the pit, and in that cloud, a massive, serpentine head.
It was all dragon. Bigger than an Osprey, and covered in dull, golden scales. Long, twisting horns swept back and fanned from the skull. Devilish eyes burned in the crevice beneath its bony brow, and sharp fangs gleamed in the jaws of a snout that seemed equal parts snake and demonic horse. A forked tongue flicked in and out, tasting the air.
Then another head snaked up, and a third. As he stared, paralyzed by terror, huge leathery wings unfolded, shaking off millennia of ice, blotting out the sky. The monster’s whole body crackled with golden bio-electricity. Twin tails lashed through the freezing winds.
A three-headed dragon. Something from ancient mythology come to life. A hydra. He remembered Chen saying something about myths…
* * *
“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Barnes said. He had signed up with Monarch not long after San Francisco. He had wanted to fight monsters – he’d known what he was doing. But this was just piling it on. First the firefight with the anarchy dudes, then half of Antarctica getting sucked into a hole.
Now a freaking dragon. With three heads, no less.
It was clear of the hole now. Its spiked tail swept through one of the few structures still standing. Then all three heads seemed to notice them at once.
“Open fire!” Hendricks yelled.
Their rifles spat; tracers streaked through the frigid air at a monster so big they couldn’t miss, but that barely registered their efforts. Probably felt like they were throwing pebbles at it. Barnes figured they would fall back, but Hendricks looked like he was digging in. That was crazy, but it might buy a little time for Colonel Foster and Mark to get back to the Osprey.
His estimation of Mark had risen considerably. He’d come back for them, knowing the asshole who had his little girl would probably get away. He figured it was time to return the favor.
“Chief,” Hendricks said. “We’ve got this. Get back to the Osprey.”
“Hendricks—”
“Seriously, chief, one more gun’s not gonna help. The Osprey has missiles. We can slow him down, but you have to hurry.”
“Okay,” Barnes said. The monster reared above them. The son-of-a-bitch almost looked like he thought this was funny.
He raced with the others toward the Osprey as Hendricks and his team unloaded their peashooters at the prehistoric nightmare. They were probably toast, but the way he saw it, odds were none of them were getting out of this little situation.
They reached the craft, got Mark in, and then climbed in after him. Barnes looked back out at Hendricks and his squad, still firing at the Titan. Griffin got the Osprey started; her rotors began to turn.
Monster Zero looked more curious than hurt as his heads turned to the squad. Lightning crackled along his scaled hide, more every second, like he was charging up.
“Aw, sh—” he heard Hendricks say, in his earjack.
Beams of golden energy crackled from all three maws, straight onto the commandos. He saw them outlined for a second, shadows dancing, and then they were gone.
But that wasn’t all of it.
The lightning or whatever the hell it was surged through the ice, spreading out as it did so. It reached the Osprey just before her engines came up to speed. Sparks and raw electricity arced all over the ship, and behind his eyes everything went white. A terrible spasm jolted through him, like the worst cramp he’d ever had, but in every muscle of his body. The worst of it only lasted a few seconds, but when it was over, his heart was still doing weird shit in his chest, like it was a three-legged jackrabbit trying to outrun the hounds.
The engines had stopped powering up. The Osprey was dead on the ground.
Colonel Foster recovered first.
“This is Raptor One to Argo,” she said into her transmitter. “Requesting immediate emergency extract. I say again, urgent extract!”
Oh, hell yes, Barnes quietly agreed. They did not have anything like the firepower they needed to deal with this thing.
“Griffin!” Sam yelled. “Get us the hell out of here!”
* * *
Madison watched in awe as Monster Zero rose from the sinkhole. But it wasn’t the same feeling as when she’d first seen Mothra. This was different. Terrifying. This was no mere animal either; she could see the fierce intelligence in each set of eyes. But there was also cruelty there, and more than anything, rage. This was not a Titan they were going to coexist with peacefully, ever.
It was difficult to make out what was going on below. She saw the flashes of someone shooting at Monster Zero, from the edge of the sinkhole. Nearby another Osprey was powering up, and in the light of the floods she saw her father, climbing aboard. Jonah hadn’t killed him. He had escaped the explosion.
But he wasn’t safe.
The dragon heads reared up, and spat golden lightning at them. It spidered and spread through the ice and lit up the Osprey like a sparkler. Then the craft went dark. Its rotors stopped turning.
Monster Zero stooped forward to examine the damaged aircraft.
“No!” she yelled. “Dad!
She’d been watching everything from the sidelines, doing what she was told, trusting her mother’s judgment. Trying to be a good daughter to her, support her. But this was too much. She’d had a choice, back in the base. She could have gone with him; now she thought maybe she’d chosen wrong. She wasn’t just going to watch her father die.
She grabbed the ORCA and yanked it away from her mother, then ran to the open bay of the Osprey, working the controls, changing the frequency to a piercing, head-drilling shriek. Monster Zero heard it, too. All three heads howled in agony, the crippled Osprey forgotten.
Take that, asshole, she thought. It was working!
But of course, her mother was trying to take the machine away from her.
“Honey, let go!” she said. She tried to wrestle it away, but Maddie fought, continuing to broadcast. Monster Zero turned toward them, identifying the sound causing his pain. He started to flash and flicker, as he had before he fried the soldiers.
“Madison,” her mother shouted. “You have to let go—”
Then Jonah was there. His fingers bit into her like steel, and between him and her mom, they forced the ORCA from her. Panting, she watched as her mother began powering the ORCA down.
With the noise gone, Monster Zero lost interest in them and turned away, his charge fading. They were far from him now as the Osprey picked up speed. And from her dad. Her mom tried to put a hand on her, but she jerked away, continuing to watch the downed Osprey until Jonah’s men closed the bay doors.
* * *
Mark knew the source of the monster’s pain, and he saw Maddie in the open bay of the other Osprey, holding the ORCA. He felt a swell of pride for his girl, quickly followed by fear. If she didn’t stop, the beast would electrocute her as it had Hendricks and the rest.
But then the noise stopped, and Monster Zero broke off his attack. The Osprey with his child and ex-wife vanished into the Antarctic sky.
At least Maddie was safe – for now.
The Osprey suddenly rocked half-over.
Monster Zero had renewed his interest in them. One of his heads loomed in the side window. A second head struck them from the front. Then the roof began to buckle in. Windows shattered as the Osprey’s frame bent.
It was taking its time, Mark realized. Monster Zero could have breathed on them again or crushed them in an instant. Godzilla clocked in at ninety thousand tons, and this horror looked bigger than the big G.
No, it was killing them slowly, savoring their terror.
Quick or slow, their fate was sealed. Stanton was praying; Sam was bracing for the inevitable.
The one still point was Chen. She looked completely serene, ready to accept whatever happened. He did
n’t understand it, but watching her, his breathing evened out and grew deeper; the drum of his heart lessened in tempo.
The metal stopped protesting; the pressure came off as all three heads rose up on their snaky necks, sniffing, smelling something. It vented a peculiar hiss. Monster Zero sounded almost… afraid.
Mark followed the beast’s six-eyed gaze.
Blue light shimmered below the frozen surface, building in strength as the ice buckled, melted, cracked. The Osprey rattled about like a penny on a drumhead. The ice sheet exploded upward, followed by a tremendous form, dorsal spines crackling with blue energy.
Godzilla.
The huge lizard faced Monster Zero, opened his jaws, and roared.
Monster Zero shrieked back from all three throats, charging up his own bioluminescence. Mark remembered Vivienne’s comment about the Titans being like gorillas, beating their chests. Except these gorillas were millions of years old, hundreds of feet tall and… not gorillas. But there was clearly a grudge there, maybe one that went back two hundred and fifty million years or more. And here they were in their tiny craft, caught between them.
Godzilla charged. So did Monster Zero.
They slammed together, hundreds of thousands of tons colliding at high speed. The shock wave raced over the ice and hammered the Osprey. Mark felt the sting of it in his ears, and even through the metal hull the air itself felt like a slap in the face.
“Everybody hold on!” Colonel Foster shouted.
It wasn’t clear which talon or tail struck them, but it sent their crumpled craft tumbling across the ice until they fetched up against an outcropping. Trying to shake the spots from his eyes, Mark saw the others climbing out of the remains of the Osprey. That seemed like a great idea, one to be emulated, but everything was spinning, and he was having trouble keeping focus. He floundered toward the opening.
Someone grabbed his hand, pulling him forward, guiding him out onto the ice.
Vivienne. He nodded his thanks, breathless.
The ice shook again as Monster Zero landed a tremendous blow on Godzilla that sent him thudding into the permafrost, but the giant saurian quickly regained his footing. The spines in his tail began to glow blue, and the light moved up his spine, blazing ever brighter until it reached his head. Then Godzilla’s mouth gaped and a blue beam of atomic fire jetted out. Monster Zero dodged, yanking his necks so the deadly beam threaded between them. Golden lightning crackled from the three-headed monster, striking Godzilla squarely in the chest. The reptile staggered back – into the sinkhole. Energy was still streaming from his mouth as he fell; he went sideways and hit one of the few remaining buildings, blasting debris all around them. Then Godzilla vanished into the abyss.