The old man stifled a laugh. “Nice to meet someone who’s as curious as me. You must be a scientist!”
Amrita shook her head. “A reporter. Well, I want to be one, anyway. I’m the editor of my school paper. And I write all the stories.”
“Good for you,” the old man said. “Search for the truth and tell it like it is. Don’t let anyone stop you from doing some good.”
Amrita picked herself up off the floor and walked over to the old man. He was wearing gray pants, a gray short-sleeved shirt, and gray slippers.
“Who are you?” Amrita asked slowly. “And why are you here? Do you have anything to do with these weirdos?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” the old man said. “Wait, do the kids still say that? Old men like me aren’t really hip to the new lingo.”
Amrita laughed, and the old man smiled.
“The name is Scotty. At least, that’s what my friends used to call me. I was a scientist, an anthropologist. I was obsessed with discovering the missing link between humans and apes. Wild stuff, I know.”
“No, it sounds fascinating,” Amrita replied. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Kid Kaiju was still asleep.
“This was years ago. You weren’t even born yet. I thought I had found it, on the island of Borneo. The missing link, I mean. So I mounted an expedition, you know, as you do,” Scotty said. Amrita chuckled. “And do you know what we found on Borneo?”
“Gorgilla?” Amrita asked.
Scotty nodded. “Gorgilla, indeed. We also found dinosaurs. Not fossils, I’m talking real, live, Jurassic-style dinosaurs. One of them attacked our group. I thought we were goners. But Gorgilla jumped in and saved us.”
“That’s amazing,” Amrita said, as Kid Kaiju slowly stirred. He must have been hit with the same purple sleeping gas that the people in white used on her, she thought.
“It was amazing. Unbelievable. Gorgilla was more than a missing link, more than some sensational scientific discovery. To me, he became a friend. Some members of our group didn’t have the same feeling. They wanted to bring Gorgilla back to the United States. I said no. I thought it was wrong to remove Gorgilla from his home. He had lived there in peace for who knows how long. To take him away would just be cruel. I told our group that we needed to leave the island, never return, and never say a word to anyone about what we had found. We needed to protect Gorgilla from the outside world.”
“So what happened? How did Gorgilla end up here?”
“Ah, the young gentleman wishes to join the conversation!” said Scotty. A groggy Kid Kaiju rubbed his bushy hair and stumbled over to join the two. He sat himself down next to Amrita.
“Yes, well, that is also a million-dollar question. Like I said before, some members of our little party thought that Gorgilla should come back with us. They thought we could ‘learn’ a lot from him. By ‘learn,’ they meant he could be used as a weapon. There are lots of terrible people in the world who would pay a great deal of money to harness Gorgilla’s strength for their own evil purposes. So I was ‘overruled,’ and Gorgilla was captured. I stayed by his side. I knew what they were doing was wrong, but I guess I thought I could still help Gorgilla somehow. Protect him. Eventually the people in charge decided I might try something foolish…like freeing Gorgilla. That was a few weeks ago. Now I’m a captive, too.”
“He didn’t seem so captive,” Amrita said. “I mean, he’s been out roaming the woods, hasn’t he?”
Scotty shook his head. “He’s just as much a prisoner as I am. Let’s just say they have Gorgilla on a very short leash.”
The room was silent for a moment, then Scotty looked at Amrita. His lower lip trembled. He spoke again. “I see something in Gorgilla. He has a soul, you know. You can see it in his eyes. He’s no one’s weapon. He needs to be free.”
Amrita thought about the times she had looked right into Gorgilla’s eyes. She had seen the same thing. Scotty was right. The creature did have a soul. There was something good and kind about him. Right then and there, Amrita became more resolved than ever to help Gorgilla—and to help Scotty.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Amrita asked, clapping her hands. “Just sit here?”
Scotty smiled at Amrita, then looked at Kid Kaiju. “I don’t believe we are. Are we, son?”
“Ah, no,” Kid Kaiju replied. “No, we’re not. But first we need to find a way out of here.”
Scotty shook his head. “First, our young reporter needs to ask another question.”
Amrita thought a moment. What was Scotty driving at? Then it hit her. The device on Gorgilla’s back. The one she had discovered just before the people in white showed up.
“We saw something on Gorgilla’s back. It looked like a smoke alarm or something,” Amrita started. “Was that…some kind of—of tracking device or something? Is that how those goons were able to find us? Is that what you mean by having Gorgilla on a short leash?”
“Bingo!” Scotty said. “You sure ask the right questions. That was a tracking device. These ‘people in white,’ as you call them, put that on Gorgilla to make sure he can never escape. As long as that device is stuck to him, he’ll never truly be free.”
“Who are these guys?” Amrita asked.
“I thought I knew who they were,” Scotty said, sadly. “Some of them were my friends. A long time ago. I’m not sure who they work for, to be honest. For a long time, I thought they worked for the government. Maybe it’s someone else? A.I.M.? Hydra? Who knows?”
Amrita knew all about A.I.M.—Advanced Idea Mechanics—and Hydra. Both were criminal organizations that had plagued heroes like the Avengers for years. Even if they weren’t behind this, the idea that it was someone on their level was still pretty frightening.
“So that’s our plan, then,” Amrita said, turning to Kid Kaiju. “We have to free ourselves, then free Gorgilla and Fireclaw, and remove the tracking device from Gorgilla.”
“And how are we going to do all that?” Scotty asked. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but we seem to be unfortunately imprisoned.”
Amrita stared at Kid Kaiju. They both shrugged their shoulders. In unison, they said, “I have no idea.”
“A GOOD REPORTER is ready for any situation!”
“I haven’t met many reporters in my time,” Scotty said to Amrita, who was feeling her way with her fingertips around the walls. “But you seem like a good one. You sure ask the right questions.”
“She’s good enough that these goofs in white want to lock her up and throw away the key,” Kid Kaiju said. He was trying to be funny and put up a brave front, but the truth was, he was worried. He was worried for his friend, Fireclaw. What was happening to him right now? What were these strangers doing to him? What about Gorgilla? Would they be able to escape and free him? And what about his own situation—what were he, Amrita, and Scotty going to do if they couldn’t find a way out of their cell?
Amrita felt the walls with her fingertips, probing for any place that might feel like an indentation. She was looking for anything that could possibly be a door, since one wasn’t visible. She supposed that maybe the people in white could have teleported them inside the cell. Then she immediately dismissed it. They’d have to be Inhumans or some kind of super human—people with incredible powers—to pull something like that off. Or Tony Stark, maybe.
“Find anything yet?” Kid Kaiju asked as he joined in the search, feeling the wall. Scotty did the same.
“Not yet. But there has to be a way in and out of here. They just don’t want us to know what it is.” Amrita kept moving her sensitive fingers along the walls. She looked at Scotty. “You’ve never seen a door? How do the guards come and go?”
Scotty shrugged. “I’ve never seen them. They pump some kind of sleep gas in here. When I wake up, there’s food.”
Amrita’s brain went into overdrive. Scotty said he hadn’t seen any guards the whole time he had been there. That meant that whoever put them in this room felt confident th
at they weren’t going to find the way out. So the exit was definitely hidden. That meant they were on the right track.
“Search the floor, too! Maybe it isn’t a door we’re looking for!” Amrita said, excited.
There was no way of knowing how much time had passed in the featureless cell. It’s not like there was a clock or anything. Amrita tried to check her cell phone, but it was dead. No power. It must have broken when she tried to snap the picture of Gorgilla and dropped it. There was no way of knowing how long it had been from Amrita’s burst of excitement to the moment when Kid Kaiju had found it: a small section of the floor through which he felt air blowing.
“Over here!” he called. “I think I’ve got it!”
Amrita and Scotty ran over to Kid Kaiju and knelt down next to him. They put their hands above a section of the floor. It was white, just like everything else, but they could feel air blowing in!
Amrita put her hand on that part of the floor to touch it. Imagine her surprise when her hand didn’t touch the floor at all…but went straight through it! The floor wasn’t there at all. It was like a ghost, a mirage. Amrita gasped. So did the others.
“What is that?” Amrita exclaimed. “Some kind of—of hologram or something?”
Scotty rubbed his chin and put his hand “through” the floor, too. “I think that’s exactly what it is,” he said. “Ingenious.”
“So what do we think?” Kid Kaiju said, looking at his cellmates. “Is this an exit? A trap? Or just something freaky?”
The three looked at one another and smiled.
“Exit, trap, or something freaky, what do we have to lose by seeing where it goes?” Amrita said. “Let’s find out!”
KID KAIJU AND SCOTTY held on to Amrita’s arms, lowering her into the spot where the floor wasn’t there. Her feet “disappeared” through the floor as they let her down, little by little. Each held on to one of her arms tight as they could.
“Don’t let go,” Scotty said.
“Don’t worry,” Amrita said, nervously. “And don’t you let go until I tell you! If there’s no bottom to this thing, I don’t exactly feel like falling forever.”
“You’d find the bottom eventually,” Kid Kaiju said, laughing.
No one else laughed.
“Sorry,” he said.
BOOF.
“Hold on!” Amrita called up. “My foot just touched something.…It’s metal! Wait, I can see it—it’s a hatch! You can let go of me now!”
Kid Kaiju and Scotty released Amrita’s arms.
“Hey!” Amrita called up. “Kid! I found your sketchbook! They must have dropped it or something!”
It was only then that Kid Kaiju realized he didn’t have his sketchbook with him! “Great!” he called down the hole.
He heard the sound of Amrita’s laughter coming from below.
The hole in the floor was big enough for Amrita to wriggle through, but it wasn’t big enough for both Kid Kaiju and Scotty to stick their heads inside and see what was going on, so they were left to listen. They heard the sound of metal grinding on metal, like something turning around and around.
“What’s going on, Amrita?” Kid Kaiju said softly, trying not to attract any undue attention in case someone was listening in from below.
“The hatch has a big wheel on it—it must be the release! Just another couple of turns, and—”
CLANG!
“Ooooof!”
Amrita had fallen from the hatch onto the floor below. She had never been captured and held in a freaky prison cell before (add that to the week of firsts), but she thought this had to be one of the worst-designed prisons ever. Whoever built this prison should have their prison-building license revoked, Amrita thought.
Bruised and only slightly worse for the wear, Amrita picked herself up off the floor. She looked around. She was in a hallway, all white (of course), and there was no sign of the people in jumpsuits. Looking up at the ceiling, Amrita stared at the hatch she had just opened. Her eyes continued to flit back and forth, left and right, making sure that no one was coming in either direction.
“Come on down, the coast is clear!”
A second later, Kid Kaiju fell out of the hatch and landed on the ground. Scotty followed right behind him. Amrita handed the sketchbook to Kid Kaiju, who smiled gratefully.
“Whoever designed that prison should have their prison-building license revoked,” Scotty said, brushing himself off.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” Amrita said.
“Great minds think alike,” Scotty replied with a smile. “See? Scientists and reporters. Same thing!”
“Well, we’re out,” Kid Kaiju said, checking the hallway. “Where do we go from here, Scotty? Do you have any idea what the layout of this place is like?”
“Not that I’ve seen. But let’s think. All the activity in this place is going to be centered around Gorgilla. So we just need to follow the signs and sounds of busy people.”
There was silence as the group paused, listening for the sounds of activity.
“I think we should go this way,” Amrita said, suddenly pointing to her left.
“Why?” Kid Kaiju asked.
Amrita walked down the hall a little and pointed to a small sign with dark blue letters. “Because this sign says ‘Project Gorgilla Holding Cell,’ and it has an arrow under it pointing this way.”
“That’s a good reason,” Kid Kaiju said, as the group took off in the direction of the holding cell.
FOR A PLACE that was built to house a giant, twenty-five-foot-tall gorilla monster, the dome was surprisingly small inside. It took only a few minutes before Amrita, Kid Kaiju, and Scotty had made their way down the hall and come to a huge antechamber just outside the Project Gorgilla holding cell. The group huddled to one side of the antechamber doors.
“I hope it’s not lost on anyone just how funny it is that they actually have a sign that says ‘Project Gorgilla Holding Cell,’” Amrita whispered.
They sneaked a look inside the doors and saw Gorgilla and Fireclaw lying down on the floor, right next to each other. Both appeared to be asleep or unconscious. Either way, they were down for the count. Each monster was being held to the floor by what looked like huge metal bracelets that had been clamped around their wrists and ankles. Amrita looked at Gorgilla and saw the creature’s chest heaving up and down. A quick glance at Fireclaw revealed the same.
“Well, they’re both breathing!” Amrita said. She looked at Kid Kaiju as a wave of relief seemed to cross his face.
“At least they’re together” Kid Kaiju observed. “Now we just need to find a way to wake them both up and set them free.”
“And get rid of them,” Scotty said, pointing inside the room. Amrita and Kid Kaiju looked where Scotty was pointing, and saw “them.” There had to be at least twenty or so of the people in white milling around both Gorgilla and Fireclaw. They held all kinds of scientific-looking instruments, technology of a sort that Amrita was sure wasn’t purchased at a department store.
“What are they doing?” Amrita asked Scotty.
Scotty shook his head. “I’m not sure. They have to be running tests on them, I would guess. Trying to find out all they can. How they might control them.”
“No one’s controlling anyone,” Kid Kaiju said. “We need to distract these goofs in white. Figure out a way to get them out of there, so we can get into that antechamber and free the big guys.”
“I think I have a plan,” Scotty said, rubbing his chin. “In just a few seconds, all of those ‘goofs’ are gonna come running out of the room. The moment they do, you go inside. Now, you’ll have to find a way to wake up Gorgilla and Fireclaw, and release them from those shackles. I can’t help you there. You won’t have much time, either. Probably only a couple of minutes at best. So you’ll have to work fast.”
Amrita stared at Scotty. “Wait, what’s going on? What will you be doing? This plan sounds dangerous,” she said.
“Is there any other kind of plan?”
Scotty said, and winked at the kids.
“Hey! You goofs in white! Over here!” Scotty was now standing in the middle of the hallway, waving his hands and screaming.
Amrita and Kid Kaiju planted themselves against the wall next to the door, as low as they could go. Scotty had taken off down the hallway, running. Behind him, streaming out of the door, were the people in white.
“Get him!” shouted one.
“He’s escaped!” said another. “He must not be allowed to leave the facility!”
“He must not be allowed to leave the facility”? Who talks like that? Amrita thought. Who ARE these people?
The people in white kept on coming, flowing out of the antechamber in pursuit of Scotty. The last person raced from the room. At last, there was no one else. The people in white were so single-minded in their pursuit of Scotty that they had failed to notice the two kids flattened out on the wall behind the door.
“Go, go, go!” Kid Kaiju said as he and Amrita scrambled off the floor and through the doors. There didn’t seem to be anyone left inside the large featureless room. At last, they were all alone with Gorgilla and Fireclaw.
“Boy, these guys sure don’t like to decorate,” Amrita said as she took in her surroundings. Aside from the monsters on the floor and the scientific instruments the goons in white had left behind, the room looked nearly identical to the cell they had escaped from. She turned her attention from the room to Gorgilla.
“So, how do you wake up a monster?” Amrita asked hurriedly.
“Very carefully,” Kid Kaiju responded.
“What, is that a joke?”
Kid Kaiju shook his head. He wasn’t smiling. “No, I’m being deadly serious. Wake them up carefully; they don’t like waking up. You take Gorgilla, I’ve got Fireclaw.”
Amrita had no idea what to do. When was the last time she had tried to wake up a sleeping monster? Her dad certainly didn’t count. Walking over to Gorgilla, she started to gently stroke the fur on the side of his neck. The monster grumbled in his sleep and opened his gaping mouth, letting out a loud snort.
Marvel Monsters Unleashed: The Gruesome Gorgilla! Page 6