“So while the immediate danger may be over, the pain continues. It is an anguish that city officials are saying could be with us for weeks, months, or even years to come, as the citizens of New York begin to pick up the pieces of their shattered—”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Ed turned down the volume. Caiman was hard enough to listen to when he had something to say, but for the last hour he’d been rehashing the same couple of ideas—just filling time until the evacuation order was lifted. When Ed lowered the sound, he realized his computer was beeping at him. He rolled his chair gracefully down the narrow workspace and checked the screen. New mail: Urgent!
He double-clicked the icon and read the message that popped up. It said: Ed, pick up transponder CFX 2 and watch the feed.
“What?” he grunted in disbelief. “There ain’t no Ranger game on tonight.” Convinced someone was playing a joke, he adjusted a couple of knobs on the board and plugged in one of the spare monitors. When he saw Audrey Timmonds pacing through the frame, he knew it wasn’t a joke. She seemed to be in the middle of a continuous monologue.
“… which is why, Ed, if you’re watching this, you have to put us on live. Please. It’s urgent! I know, if you’re hearing this, you’re probably thinking, She’s crazy, but I’m not. Just do it, Ed. Break into whatever you’ve got rolling now.” She glanced at the television set. “Come on, Ed. Caiman’s just rambling. Please, trust me.”
He scoffed at the monitor. “Ain’t no way I’m putting you on live, cupcake.” Even though he shared Audrey’s opinion that Caiman was a despicable slimeball for stealing her sensational story, Ed wasn’t going to risk his job just to help her get some sort of twisted revenge, which is what he figured she was up to.
“Eddie, break us in, baby!” Animal’s voice filtered through the monitor from somewhere offscreen.
“Screw you, Vic,” Ed sang back. He finished wiping the mustard from his shirt, then reached once more for his sandwich and gnawed off a big mouthful. Chewing patiently, he watched to see what Audrey would do next. She kept her eyes on the television set in the broadcast booth, waiting for her image to replace the one of the endlessly yammering Caiman. But it wasn’t happening.
She gave up. “He’s not going to do it.”
“Oh, yes, he will,” Animal’s voice said.
“Oh, no, I won’t,” Ed said through his mouthful, as if Animal could hear him.
Animal’s face briefly appeared in front of the camera. “Hey, doughnut boy, pay attention here. I got something I want you to see.” Animal stepped out of frame, picked up the camera, brought it to the windows overlooking the arena, and tilted it downward.
Cavorting through the aisles of the loge section, a couple hundred baby Gojiras were running around. Some were searching ever more frantically for their next meal; others appeared content to play some prehistoric version of tag. Ed’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw Madison Square Garden transformed into a ruined, Cretaceous-era playground. His jaw dropped open at the hinges and his new shirt was ruined forever.
Elsie and Mendel tell me the mood inside the command center was festive. As some of the soldiers began dismantling equipment and preparing it for shipment, others stood around watching the television. O’Neal had returned and had been forgiven by Hicks for any blunders, real or imagined, he might have committed during the wild hunt for Gojira. The two of them were sitting around the main conference table and O’Neal was telling entertaining anecdotes about confronting the battleship-sized saurian invader. The military’s sweep through the city was getting under way, and so far no evidence of a nest had been reported. Elsie wandered over to the television set and joined the crowd of enlisted men gathered around it. They cheered loudly when one of the local reporters began talking about the fine job they had done. In fact, they were tuned to WIDF and the reporter on the screen was none other than Charles Caiman. He had been talking for a long, long time, switching subjects freely in a desperate attempt to find something, anything, to talk about. Eventually he turned to the subject of the military and began waxing poetic over the phenomenal job they’d done.
“… a selfless sort of bravery in the face of danger that is, in this reporter’s opinion, something we can all be very proud of indeed. From the lonely foot soldier patrolling the shores of Staten Island to those fearless men on the front lines, some of whom laid down their lives pursuing Godzilla through the streets and tunnels of Manhattan, our boys in uniform have once again proved beyond a shadow of—”
“Are we on? Is this live?” Audrey’s image abruptly replaced Caiman’s on television screens across the region. The soldiers around the television in the command center let out a collective groan of disappointment with the interruption but continued watching. The blond woman on the screen stood in the darkened room and seemed to be somewhat confused.
“We’re really on?”
“Yeah, go!” Animal yelled from offscreen.
Audrey sucked in a quick breath and turned to the camera, a completely different person. It was really quite impressive. In less than a second she transformed herself from a nervous wreck into a carefully composed reporter. “Hello, this Audrey Timmonds with a late-breaking report of the utmost importance. We are coming to you live from the broadcast booth high atop the western sideline of Madison Square Garden with important news concerning the fate of the city. I’m here with one of the world’s leading experts on radiation contamination, Dr. Niko Tatopoulos, who has discovered Gojira’s lair. Doctor, could you step in here and tell us what you believe is happening?”
Huh? I hadn’t thought I would need to say anything, and suddenly I felt veiy awkward. Audrey and Animal both waved me forward. Reluctantly I stepped toward the camera. Before I got there, Phillipe took me by the arm and whispered to me: “Don’t say anything about me or my men. Don’t mention that we tried to explode the building ourselves.”
I nodded and stepped into frame. Realizing that I was on television made me nervous. I smiled tensely.
Audrey did her best to make me feel at ease and repeated the question. “Doctor Tatopoulos, can you explain to our audience what is going on here?”
I felt myself start to sweat. I cleared my throat, smiled nervously, then tried to explain. “Well, um, we’ve located the creature’s nest. Um, it’s here in Madison Square Garden and it’s, um, large. Really large. Larger than we expected. And we’ve discovered eggs, um, hundreds of very large eggs, which began hatching only moments ago.” Just then the door at the end of the hall broke free of its hinges and slammed to the floor like a sonic boom. “In fact,” I said, glancing away toward the sound, “I think I hear them coming now.”
Elsie and Mendel bolted toward the conference table and interrupted one of O’Neal’s stories. They both started talking at once, too flabbergasted by what they’d seen on the television to speak in clear sentences. The sight of all those baby Gojiras had scared Elsie so badly, it took her a long time to notice that Mendel was holding her hand. (According to Mendel, she was the one who wouldn’t let go of his hand.)
“You’ll never believe … on the news, they’re everywhere … it’s incredible.”
“They’re trapped, surrounded … they’re going to kill him … we’ve got to hurry.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Hicks asked.
Rather than wasting time trying to explain, Elsie and Mendel each took an arm and hoisted the colonel out of his chair, pulling him across the room. They shoved their way through the crowd of enlisted men watching the broadcast and stood him in front of the television set. When he looked at the screen, he saw me. I was still being interviewed by Audrey.
“So that’s why, um, if the military is listening, they should destroy this building, you know, immediately. Before any of these animals escape. In fact, if it’s possible, the entire block should probably be destroyed, just to make sure. Because it’s bad. The situation, I mean. It’s very serious. If only one of these youngsters gets out of—”
“Oh, my God!” Audrey screamed, but quickly regained her composure. “Excuse me, Doctor, but they’re coming!” She issued an order to her cameraman: “Shoot it!”
Animal whipped the camera around toward the hallway windows. Agent Roaché, I noticed, quickly ducked out of the way, making sure not to be photographed. Through the tinted Plexiglas, dark shapes prowled up to the door of the broadcast booth. A gang of eight or ten baby Gojiras came hunting down the hallway, sniffing us out.
I have to admit, the sight of those little bruisers closing in on us made me very nervous. In fact, I was on the verge of losing my cool completely. Luckily, Audrey sensed this and kept me focused. She pulled me in front of the camera and continued the interview. “Doctor, tell us what will happen if Madison Square Garden isn’t destroyed.”
“It would be catastrophic. No, we have to blow it up. If these creatures are able to escape into the outside world, they’ll find places to hide. They’ll grow up and, uh, multiply! If that happens, it won’t be very long until a whole new species—a very dangerous species—will emerge. One that could replace us as the, you know, the dominant species of this planet.”
By the time I finished stammering, Hicks was already on the hotline with the same man he’d spoken to when he needed several tons of fish. “That’s right,” he yelled into the receiver. “I want those F-18s turned around. And I want them to blow up Madison Square Garden. And no, I am not drunk!”
He slammed down the phone and was drawn back to the television by the hypnotic image of the baby Gojira hunting party and the dramatic pickle my companions and I found ourselves in. Elsie, Mendel, and nearly everyone else under the command center tent watched transfixed as Audrey stepped up to bring her report to a close.
“Regardless of what happens to us, the important thing is that this building is destroyed before these little Gojiras can break out into the city. We’ll do everything we can to help contain them in here. You do what you have to do out there. Good luck to all of us. Broadcasting live from Madison Square Garden, this is reporter Audrey Timmonds for WIDF ActionNews.”
“And out,” Animal said switching off the camera. “Very nice.”
For a moment I forgot about the man-eating lizards and stood there marveling at Audrey. I was impressed by how smoothly and professionally she’d conducted herself under fire. She was a natural in front of the camera, and her report (I would learn later) had left audiences breathless, stunned, and wanting to see more. Her closing statement, asking that the Garden be destroyed, brought tears to the eyes of many viewers. She was finally a legitimate reporter, one of the big boys. I was just sorry her first appearance on television looked like it was going be her last.
But she’d accomplished something far more important than jump-starting her career. Without her quick thinking, we never would have made it to the broadcast booth, and the outside world—the military in particular—wouldn’t have learned about the nest until it was too late. It’s no exaggeration to say that she helped save the human race.
A few hours before, I’d thought she was a bloodsucking, back-stabbing parasite of a news-hound with no regard for the well-being of others. But she had proved me wrong in spades. She really was that bright-eyed, small-town girl I’d fallen in love with so many years before. And I was proud to be her friend.
With all these thoughts racing through my mind, I searched for the words to explain my feelings. “Audrey, I …” But when our eyes met, I realized she already knew what I was going to say. At least I think so. So I summed it all up in a single word: “Thanks.”
She smiled, and I sensed that we were on the verge of reconciling eight years of unspoken conflict, that we would finally put all the anger, guilt, and hard feelings behind us. But as the words began to take shape on our quivering lips, the computer bleeped. We turned to see what it was.
Animal was at the terminal, reading the message. “Well, the good news is our friends in the military were watching and they got the message. The bad news is they’re going to give us what we asked for.” He turned around and flashed a sarcastic smile. “We’ve got precisely five and a half minutes to get out of the building before … kaboom.”
Crash! The newborn killers out in the hallway were anxious to join us in the booth. A pair of them were nuzzled against the hallway door, the only way in or out, while the others moved farther down the corridor. The hallway was too narrow for them to get a running start and blow through the glass. But they were clever like their father and found another way to reach us. They invaded the luxury boxes on either side of the broadcast booth and began pushing against the flimsy walls. All that was separating us from these crafty predators were thin sheets of plasterboard and glass.
“Okay, the party’s over,” Roaché announced. “Now it’s time to leave.”
“Yeah, right!” Animal and Audrey looked at the Frenchman as though he were making a sick joke. I smiled with relief when I saw him tying a spool of coaxial cable to the leg of a heavy steel table. I didn’t know what he had in mind, but I already knew him well enough to trust that he had a few tricks left up his sleeve. My smile quickly vanished when he pointed his machine gun at me. I raised my hands as though it were a stick-up.
“Step out of the way, s’il vous plaît.”
I obliged, and he sprayed the windows facing the arena with bullets. He used his boot to clear the last jagged pieces away, then tossed the spool of cable out the window.
“Anyone care to join me?” he asked dryly. The lizards, saliva dripping freely from their jagged teeth, pressed their faces against the glass. The walls were beginning to collapse. Given the circumstances, Roaché had made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. With the skill of an alpine climbing instructor, he rappeled backward out of the window with one hand on the cable and the other firing his semiautomatic at unseen beasts below.
“This guy’s good,” Audrey observed.
“You have no idea,” I told her.
But there wasn’t time to stand around applauding the Frenchman’s skills. The baby Gojiras were thrashing wildly in the luxury boxes around us. Audrey hopped onto the windowsill, firmly grasped the cable, and took a deep breath, poised at the edge. I waited for her to push off and lower herself over the side, but she hesitated. I assumed she was worried about falling and breaking her neck on the concrete below, but that wasn’t the reason she lingered. She reached out and grabbed me by the lapel of my coat, pulling me toward her.
“Just in case I don’t get a chance to do this later,” she said. Then she planted a big wet kiss right on my lips. For a second or two I didn’t care that there were flesh-eating, hunger-crazed reptiles closing in on us. I just wanted the kiss to go on.
But that feeling ended when the windows on both sides of us shattered. Scaly gray heads thrust into the booth, screeching and hissing and examining us hungrily with glowing eyes. Audrey yelped once and vanished over the side. The animals flew into a frenzy, throwing themselves against the walls, snapping their jaws closed in anticipation of their first live meal. I took hold of the cable and dumped myself over the side just as one of the creatures was getting up a head of steam, preparing to leap feet first through the broken window. The last thing I saw was that madman of a cameraman, still struggling to dislodge the booth’s video camera from its heavy tripod. I think he took his job a little too seriously.
When I was halfway down the eighty-foot drop, the booth above me swelled with a cacophony of screams—both animal and Animal. I thought for sure we’d lost him, but when I looked up I saw Vic Palotti—video camera in hand—doing a swan dive over the windowsill. Somehow he managed to reach back and grab the cable, but only with his free hand and not very tightly. I cringed and shut my eyes as all 180 pounds of him came plummeting down on top of me.
The next thing I knew I was picking myself up off the floor in a great deal of pain.
“Nick, buddy, thanks for breaking my fall.”
At that point in our relationship we hadn’t even been properly intr
oduced. But I was already getting a sense of how he’d earned his nickname. “Don’t mention it,” I replied with a grimace, massaging the lump that was sprouting on the top of my head.
We had a whole balcony of stadium seats to ourselves. The nearest pack of baby Gojiras was halfway across the stadium. The burst of gunfire Phillipe had fired on his way down must have startled the creatures and sent them running. Now it was eerily silent. Fish guts and fragmented eggshells were everywhere. Although we couldn’t see any of them, we knew the creatures were lurking nearby. Carefully, nervously, we followed Phillipe up the stairs toward the nearest set of doors to the lobby. They had been torn from their hinges and trampled on. Agent Roaché reached into his flak jacket and nonchalantly pulled out a second machine gun. Doubly armed, he led the way through the short tunnel and into the lobby.
As we feared, there was a welcoming committee waiting to greet us. Only thirty yards to our left, a pack of baby Gojiras, perhaps a dozen strong, stood there licking their chops. I was surprised to see a couple of them standing on one foot, rather like flamingoes do when they are at rest. As soon as we stepped into the open, twelve sets of nostrils lifted into the air and began wriggling. Drawn by the scent of our flesh, they dipped their long necks close to the ground and began to advance.
“This way,” Phillipe shouted, setting off at an easy jog. As we began to run, the lizards’ predatory instincts kicked in and they gave chase. The clickety-clack noise of their long claws on the floor was unnerving. Without looking back, we could hear them steadily gaining on us, so we increased our speed. In fact, we broke into an all-out sprint. But the powerfully muscled infants were much, much faster than we were. Phillipe, who was leading the way, surveyed the curving foyer and pointed to a set of escalators up ahead. He called over his shoulder for us to hurry.
Godzilla Page 19