by Greg Keyes
But who should it pass on to now? Vivienne had no children. She’d had a few relationships, but never married, and as far as he knew hadn’t remained close to any of them. She was too devoted to her work, something he understood and appreciated very deeply. She had some nieces and nephews, he knew, but they would never understand its worth. She had been close to Emma and Madison these past few years, but it hardly seemed practical to give it to either of them at the moment.
Maybe it had come back to him, then, at least for a time. He put it in his pocket.
He closed the door leading into the hall.
He had never told her how much he appreciated her all those years; how much easier it made his work and his life to have someone who truly understood him and what he was working for. He thought she knew. He hoped she had.
“You are irreplaceable,” he told her, and felt a tear trace down his face.
* * *
Barnes studied the thermal map Foster pulled up depicting the hurricane engulfing most of the East Coast. It was a real monster, bigger than any storm he’d ever seen. But that wasn’t what made it so creepy. That would be the eye of the storm, where he could just barely make out the infrared form of their three-headed friend.
Foster was laying out the battle plan.
“This Category Six hurricane over D.C. is where King Ghidorah is nesting,” she said. “Working with all four branches of the military, this will be a joint operation to lure it away from the mainland so that we can continue evacuations long enough for our submersible team to complete its mission.”
So it was the Isla de Mara thing all over again. Only with a lot more people to get out of harm’s way, on the one hand, but a hell of a lot more firepower on the other. They were going after this monster fully loaded.
“Yeah,” Griffin said. “But what do those nerds think they’re gonna do down there with a bunch of nukes?”
“Didn’t you hear, Griffin?” Barnes said. “We’re bringing Godzilla back from the dead.”
* * *
Sam and Foster stayed with the Argo to coordinate the action against Ghidorah. Mark, Serizawa, Stanton, Chen and the others boarded the submarine. Mark wasn’t sure if Sam looked mournful or scared shitless. Either way, it felt a little odd that they weren’t along on the same ride anymore.
Mark had never been in a submarine before. Nor was it on his bucket list. And as the hatches closed, bells clanged, and the engines started up, he realized he felt a little claustrophobic. Something he hadn’t known about himself.
And they weren’t even underwater yet.
He was a long way from the open places he had become accustomed to over these many months. Since Serizawa and the others had shown up in Colorado, everything about his life was contracting. His choices. The very spaces he inhabited. His path was working its way toward a tightrope, and his balance wasn’t all that great.
They were in motion, however, nosing along toward Mothra, who seemed to be beckoning them on, hopefully toward Godzilla. But could you ever really know what a glowing moth with an eight-hundred-foot wingspan was up to?
Of course not. But it was the only lead they had, a bet they were placing for a whole lot of people.
He could only hope it paid off.
He turned his attention to the moment, and the video conference with Colonel Foster.
“We’ll be out of range while you’re down there,” Foster told them. “But a squadron will stay behind to keep an eye out for you.”
“Just don’t be gone long, okay?” Sam said. “And Mark – don’t worry. I’ll keep listening for Madison.”
“Thanks, Sam,” Mark said.
He meant it. The guy had really rubbed him the wrong way at first. But he meant well.
Everyone around him was in motion. The commander of the submarine, Crane, a square-jawed, dark-eyed, serious fellow, was busy plotting a course with the executive officer, Bowman. Chen and Stanton were mapping Godzilla’s vitals, which seemed a little odd. They weren’t thinking about surgery, were they? He tried to imagine how that could be done. Probably they were talking about how to maximize the bomb’s energy. Everyone was doing something except for him.
Mark felt like the still point, and for once, that was okay. He had put this in motion, but now he was just along for the ride.
“All right, Bowman,” Commander Crane said, now finished with the course. “Let’s take her down.”
“Dive the ship,” Bowman said. “And make depth one-five-zero.”
“Good luck,” Sam said, from the screen.
“Thanks,” Mark replied. “We’ll need it.”
* * *
Serizawa was playing with his pocket watch again. A sign he was thoughtful or nervous, or both. Often both.
Mark offered the scientist some coffee. “What time is it?” he asked.
A wistful little smile drew across Serizawa’s face.
“Time to get a new watch,” he said.
In an instant, Mark’s mind raced back, to a quieter time and the laughter of a young boy. He could almost hear it, the funny little arpeggio his son’s giggle composed.
“Andrew’s favorite joke,” Mark said. “You never could take that thing out without him asking…”
He stopped. Why were even the good memories so painful? Shouldn’t it be getting easier? He took in a deep, clean breath and went on.
“If you told me five years ago that saving the thing that took my son was my best shot at saving the family I have left…”
He stopped. He had spent a lot of time avoiding memories of Andrew. It was the only way he’d been able to stop drinking, and to focus on Maddie. But now the cogs of his mind had slipped. The memories were coming back. He wasn’t sure he could bear it.
“Sometimes,” Serizawa said, “the only way to heal our wounds is to make peace with the demons who created them.”
“You really believe that?” Mark said.
“Don’t you?” Serizawa said. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Mark didn’t know what to say. Maybe it was, although he certainly hadn’t thought so. He’d thought it was all about Maddie, about saving what he had, not dealing with what was lost.
“There are some things beyond our understanding, Mark,” Serizawa said. “The laws of nature are beautiful, but they can also be cruel and unfair. But we cannot control these things, or run from them. We must accept them and learn from them – because these moments of crisis are also potential moments of faith. A time when we either come together or fall apart. And nature always has a way of balancing itself – the only question is, what part will we play?”
It was one of the longest speeches Mark had ever heard the usually laconic Serizawa give.
“Did you just make all that up?” Mark asked.
“No,” Serizawa said. “I read it in a fortune cookie once. A really long fortune cookie.”
Mark smiled, but the moment passed too quickly.
The sub lurched violently and began rocking like crazy. Deafening alarms blared in the close quarters. Had Ghidorah found them, or one of the other Titans? One of the aquatic ones? What was that one in Loch Ness called, Leviathan? Could it have gotten here so fast? He hadn’t noticed anything near them in the last tracking data…
But they weren’t being battered, or eaten, actually. Since the initial bump they were just sort of leaning and twisting.
“Status of the ship?” Commander Crane said.
“Some sort of vortex, Captain,” Bowman said. “It’s dragging us.”
The ship groaned, metal straining and pinging as it began to spiral downward into ever-deeper water.
“Ship still descending,” Bowman said, counting down toward the sea floor. “Four hundred feet. One hundred. Fifty.”
“Brace for impact!” Crane shouted.
* * *
The mostly empty shelter left plenty of space for Madison to work in. Jonah’s mercenaries weren’t even doing a whole lot of guarding or patrolling. No one on the outside knew
they were here, and everyone who might think to look was currently distracted by the impending end of the world. Further proof her mom had fallen in on the wrong side. While she was holed up, safe from what she had unleashed, the rest of Monarch was out there fighting rather than taking to the shelters. Because even the shelters wouldn’t be of much use if the atmosphere was fried and every living thing outside besides Monster Zero was dead. Jonah thought he and the other survivors were going to live like kings. Maybe, if by that he meant the miserable lice-eaten thugs in the Dark Ages who had started calling themselves “kings.”
She found a bolt-cutter and the storage lockers; with a little help from the first, she opened up the second. And jackpot! Everything she needed: rations and medical supplies, all sorts of stuff that would come in handy. She loaded her pack, and grabbed a stun gun.
Despite her advantages, she knew she had to work fast. Once they realized she wasn’t in her room – that they didn’t know where she was – things would heat up. Jonah would put guards on all the exits, and she would be screwed. So get going, Madison.
She quick-walked to the control room. Normally, if someone saw her there, they wouldn’t think much about it; but now, with the backpack and all, it would raise suspicion. So when she heard someone inside, she ducked behind a corner.
Just in time. Jonah and one of his killers came out and walked off down another corridor.
She didn’t hear anybody else, so she crept up and peeked in. She couldn’t see anyone, but thankfully what she had come for was there – the ORCA. She had worried Jonah might hide it someplace or even destroy it, but that wasn’t really his style. He enjoyed power over others. He probably thought it was funny that her mother could look at the machine, but never touch it.
His mistake.
She stepped toward it, nervously. Once she actually took it…
Three steps in she realized she had screwed up; she heard a faint scuff of shoes and something threw a shadow on her. Whoever it was must have been in the corner.
She spun around, hoping it was Mom, ready to come up with some kind of story, but instead found one of Jonah’s men looming over her. She didn’t know his real name, but in her mind she had been calling him “The Mountain” due to his size.
She gave him her best sheepish, “I didn’t mean to” grin. Then shot him with the stun gun.
It worked astonishingly well. He jerked like a fish on a hook, his legs went all wobbly, and he pitched to the floor with a pronounced thud.
The bigger they come, she thought.
Once he was down, she quickly packed up the ORCA and moved on to the second part of her plan. She climbed up on a desk, and used a screwdriver to take out the bottom screws of the grille over an air vent. She first pulled and the pushed the grille, bending it up. When it was wide enough, she shoved the ORCA in. Then she gripped the edge of the vent.
Pulling herself up was harder than she’d thought it would be; her brilliant plan might have already fallen apart. But she dug down deep, jumping and jerking with her arms at the same time. She managed to get an elbow up, and then the other, and from there she pulled until her belly was on the edge and she could wriggle in like a worm.
Sometimes it was good to be small; she managed to turn around in the narrow duct, reach up and bend the grille back down. It wasn’t perfectly flush – it jutted about an inch – but it was better than leaving it wide open. Every second she wasn’t found out was like gold at this point.
She started crawling as softly as she could, trying to remember the turns from the specs she had pulled up.
It’s going to be fine, she thought. By the time they think to look up here, I’ll be out and away.
She came to another vent and paused to get her bearings. As per her calculations, she was passing the cafeteria.
She hadn’t expected to see her mother there. She was just sitting, staring into a cup of coffee.
Maddie considered her, momentarily paralyzed with guilt. She knew her mother. It was all finally catching up with her. Her mom could push her feelings pretty far down, but she couldn’t erase them, and now they were coming back up. That might be okay if things had gone the way she planned; she could justify the terrible things she had done. But Monster Zero had changed all of that. She was already at a low point. Maddie running away was going to crush her.
But there was no choice now. She had zapped one of Jonah’s men and stolen the ORCA. He wasn’t going to just give her a pass on that. At the very least, he would destroy the ORCA or lock it up someplace where no one could get to it. At worst, he might go ahead and kill her, and maybe Mom, too.
No. There was no turning back.
Her gaze lingered on her mother for another heartbeat, and then she moved on, crawling as quietly as possible.
With each breath she thought she would hear alarms or shouts, or whatever. Surely the man she’d stunned had recovered by now, or someone had found him.
Her heart felt like it was crowding up into her throat, and the air duct felt as if it was growing smaller, tighter.
When she finally reached the emergency exit hatch, she hustled toward it, unlatched it, and pushed it open enough to peek through.
She saw trees and underbrush, but no guards or vehicles.
Taking the chance, she climbed out, then closed the hatch.
She was alone, in a patch of woods, but in the distance, she saw swarms of aircraft flitting above a familiar city skyline.
Boston.
Without hesitation, she hefted the ORCA and started toward the lights. It was going to be a long walk.
SEVENTEEN
From the notes of Dr. Houston Brooks:
April 10, AD 1818.
To all the world:
I declare the earth is hollow and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentric spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles twelve or sixteen degrees. I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in my undertaking. Jn. Cleves Symmes, of Ohio, late captain of Infantry.
—From Symmes’ self-published pamphlet
Some optimism had crept into Sam as they made their way toward Washington D.C. in the Argo and a sky full of jets, helicopters, and a fleet of battleships and submarines with enough firepower to level a medium-sized country. It felt like they could take on anything.
Even when the Argo began to chop a bit as they approached the storm, he felt okay about their chances. But as the storm loomed nearer, he started to appreciate the scale of the thing as he hadn’t been able to observe it on radar. It was no longer a colorful doppler pinwheel assembled from wind directions and speeds, but hell unleashed.
Dozens of tornados and waterspouts churned though the air and sea, sucking everything they touched up into the bruised gray and sickly yellow sky. He could make out buildings in the distance, but it took a few breaths to understand he could see only the tops of things. The summit of the Washington monument, for instance, and the dome of the capitol building.
The storm surge from Ghidorah’s tempest had drowned Washington D.C.
“Jesus,” Sam said. “It looks like the sky’s alive.”
“That’s because it is,” Foster said.
A chain of lightning flared in the black clouds, and for an instant they could see Ghidorah’s dreadful outline.
“Here we go,” Foster said.
* * *
The Osprey dropped out of the Argo and into a wind shear so violent they nearly spun around. Griffin compensated, nosing them into the winds.
Barnes had a glimpse of the fleet, far below.
Jets hurtled by overhead. The plan was to get over the eye of the storm and drop some hellfire on Ghidorah. The main fleet would follow them in and pound the monster with everything they had.
He settled himself behind the .50 caliber and searched for a target. Griffin jinked hard, avoiding something ahead. Barnes’s fingers tightened on the trigger, but then he saw they had narrow
ly missed being sucked into a tornado.
He eased off. You couldn’t shoot weather.
“C’mon,” he muttered.
He caught a streak of flame from the corner of his eye. At first, he thought it was a burning aircraft, falling through a cloud. But lightning flared, and he made out a familiar outline.
“Griffin—” he said.
“I see,” she said.
“Ghidorah?” Martinez asked.
“No,” Barnes said. “The other one.”
“He’s on intercept with the Argo,” Griffin said. “What do you want me to do, boss?”
“Call ’em,” he said.
He eyeballed the distance while she alerted the Argo. They were too far away for the machine gun to be of any use.
“Are we in range for the missiles?” he asked.
“They’re unguided,” Griffin said. “I’d rather be closer.”
As gunships, Ospreys sucked. It had taken forever for anyone to mount missiles on them, and when they did, they were pretty small ones. But they were better than nothing.
The craft bumped as Griffin turned it into an airplane and sped it toward the track of the fiery bird.
Rodan appeared again through the clouds, circling around toward the Argo, using the storm as cover.
“Okay,” Griffin said. “One away. Two away.”
Two small sparks sped into the storm. One kept going; the other flashed on Rodan’s head.
The big bird didn’t seem to notice; he vanished back into the cloud.
“Get another shot!” Barnes said.
“That’s what I’m looking for,” Griffin said.
He moved the gun, looking for a shot. If he led high, he might be able to put a few in at this range.
There was a sudden break in the clouds. But Rodan wasn’t there.