by Greg Cox
Joe inspected the street signs. He nodded in recognition.
“It’s just left on the next street,” he promised.
“The one before or after the rabid pack of dogs?”
* * *
Ford was surprised, but probably shouldn’t have been, to discover that his father had held onto the keys to their old house all these years. Rusty hinges squeaked in protest as they entered their former home for the first time in fifteen years. It was dark inside. Vines and bushes had grown over the windows, as though reclaiming the home for nature. Dust, hopefully of the non-radioactive variety, coated the tops of tables and shelves. Cobwebs hung across open doorways. Ford brushed them aside as they worked their way through the murky house. His eyes struggled to adjust to the gloom.
Flashlight beams provided glimpses of long-faded memories. Trophies, souvenirs, a ceramic “lucky cat” figurine, and other knickknacks rested on a shelf, next to a photo of a young Joe Brody in a Navy uniform. A moldy box of breakfast cereal rotted atop the kitchen table. Report cards and art projects were magnetized to the refrigerator, whose contents had long since passed their expiration dates. Dirty dishes had waited in the sink for far too long.
Ford’s throat tightened. A rush of emotion overwhelmed him and for a few moments all he could to do was stand frozen amidst the deteriorating wreckage of his past, remembering happier days and how abruptly they all had ended. The last time he’d set foot in this house, his mom had still been alive. He glanced at his father, concerned that the poignant surroundings might be too much for him, but Joe Brody was a man on a mission. He headed straight for his old office without pausing to look around. If this place brought back painful memories for Joe, you wouldn’t know it from his determined stride.
Fine, Ford thought. Probably just as well.
Nostalgia drew him irresistibly toward his old room. The flashlight beam fell on scattered relics from his boyhood. He smiled wryly at the dusty collection of toys strewn across the floor. One particular toy soldier caught his eye: a miniature Navy man, just like he’d promised Sam.
Maybe this trip wouldn’t be a total wild goose chase after all.
He swept the beam across the room. A glass case reflected the light and he spied his old terrarium, which he hadn’t thought about in forever. Curiosity, and a flicker of an ancient memory, compelled him to investigate further. Shining the light into the terrarium, he was pleased to see that a dried and crumbling cocoon was split down the middle. As nearly as he could tell, the cocoon was empty, as though its former occupant had finally hatched after all, meltdown or no meltdown.
“Huh,” he muttered. How about that?
* * *
Joe knew what he wanted and he knew where to find them. Old memories and associations lay in wait all around him, poised to strike, but he kept them firmly at bay. Now was no time to wallow in grief and self-pity. He had a job to do—and possibly a disaster to avert.
The beam from his flashlight tracked across his desk, even as he searched his memory for exactly where he’d left certain items fifteen years ago. He remembered pacing irritably across the room, arguing with Takashi on the phone. The light exposed a primitive cordless phone from 1999 and a well-gnawed pencil beside it. C’mon, c’mon, he thought impatiently. Where the hell are you?
Just when he was about to curse in frustration, the targets of his search turned up: fifteen dusty zip disks scattered across the floor near the desk. He realized belatedly that they must have been knocked off the desk by one of the convulsive tremors or blasts from that morning. And that wasn’t all. Lying near the fallen disks were the printouts of that distinctive waveform pattern. His eyes traced the pattern, which had haunted his imagination ever since the meltdown. It was just as he remembered it: small peaks at first, then higher and higher, closer and closer together, until…
Don’t think about that now, he thought. Just get what you came for, while there’s still a chance to make people listen.
He gathered up the disks and printouts, carefully blowing off the dust as he stowed them securely in his pack. Once that was done, he did another sweep of the office just to be certain that he hadn’t missed anything. As nearly as he could tell, he had retrieved everything important, except—
An old family portrait, resting atop the desk, stopped him cold. He was held captive by the photo—of Joe, Sandra, and little Ford. Of his family as they once were: happy, loving, untouched by tragedy and estrangement. Before the catastrophe that blew his world apart.
For a moment, the rescued data was forgotten. He lifted the portrait from the desk, gazing at it intently. His hands shook and his eyes threatened to mist over. Lifting his gaze from the portrait, he noticed something bright and shiny over the doorway. Sunset, filtering through the vegetation obscuring the window, was reflected off a homemade banner strung across the arch:
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!”
Joe stared numbly at the banner, instantly transported back in time. “He made you a sign, you know,” Sandra had said that morning. It all came back to him now. Ford’s overlooked banner. The surprise party that never happened.
All the emotions he had been fending off snuck up on him, ambushing him. His elation over finally recovering the disks gave way to a profound welling of regret. Sobered, but still determined to expose the truth, he tore his gaze away from the damning banner and stuffed the family portrait into the bag with the disks and printouts.
It was time to go.
He was sealing up the bag when, unexpectedly, the house came to life. Bells, buzzers, shrieks, and applause suddenly blared from the living room as the TV set turned itself on, breaking the silence with the hysterical din of some hyper-manic Japanese game show. At the same time, the desk lamp in the office crackled and sputtered only a few inches from Joe’s face, causing his heart to skip a beat. His dusty old computer booted up noisily.
What the hell?
Outside the office, the hallway lights were flickering, too. Unnerved by activity, Joe hoisted the duffel bag and went to investigate. Was it just a coincidence that this was happening now, around the same time that the cryptic signals had resumed? Joe didn’t believe it.
What if it was already too late… again?
He peered out the office door and made eye contact with Ford, who had just stuck his head out of his old bedroom. The two men looked at each other in confusion.
“Did you…?” Ford asked.
Joe shook his head. “No. I have no idea…”
A quick inspection confirmed the truth. Everything electrical in the house had powered up, from the lights and TV to the lucky cat figurine bobbing its paw. The aroma of scented oil from a miniature waterfall drifted from the bathroom, competing with the stale atmosphere of the house. Ceiling fans began to spin, shedding years of accumulated cobwebs. A light bulb popped.
The inane clamor from the TV grated on Joe’s nerves, making it hard to think. He moved to switch off the set, but had taken only a few steps when, without warning, the pictures on the wall started rattling. The ceramic cat vibrated off the bookcase and crashed to the floor, shattering into pieces. Just like Joe’s coffee cup at the plant fifteen years ago.
For a heart-stopping moment, he thought the tremors had returned already, but then he recognized the thundering whoomp-whoomp-whoomp of a helicopter flying low over the house. The chopper’s passage shook the rafters and the two men as well. They stared up at the ceiling in surprise, then back at each other. Neither of them knew why a ‘copter would be buzzing a house in the middle of the Q-Zone. It made no sense. This entire area was supposed to be a no-fly zone.
Then again, it was supposed to be a radioactive wasteland, too.
Joe decided that he and Ford were pressing their luck by sticking around. After his previous arrest, his old address might be the first house the authorities would search. They needed to get back to the docks with their prizes. In theory, Koruki, the pilot of the skiff, would be waiting for his signal to pick them up. Joe had promised the se
cond half of his payment on their safe return to Tokyo.
But first: Joe took one last look around at the house where his family had once been so happy, where and Sandra had been together.
He suspected he would never set foot in it again.
* * *
The fading daylight did not make the return trip through the deserted city any less eerie. Lights flickered in the lifeless storefronts, while snatches of muzak or TV broadcasts escaped open doors and windows. Neon signs cast long, colored shadows on the weed-infested sidewalks. A clock tower started counting off the minutes again, for the first time in who knew how long. Ford didn’t like it. He preferred his ghost towns to be a little less animated, especially when he didn’t have a clue as to what was turning the lights back on.
I knew this was a bad idea, he thought.
Another helicopter buzzed by overhead, and the two men ducked beneath the tattered awning of a vacant sidewalk café to avoid being spotted. Ford tracked the chopper’s progress. It was flying northeast toward the horizon, where he now spotted what appeared to be a large metal structure in the distance. Glowing lights illuminated a towering assemblage of new scaffolding and facilities—right where the nuclear power plant used to be.
He looked to his father in confusion. “Are they rebuilding the plant?”
Joe stared at the distant complex intently, too transfixed by the sight to reply. You could practically see the gears turning behind his eyes as the former engineer tried to absorb this unexpected new development. And yet, Ford observed, his father didn’t appear to be too surprised to find something happening at the old site, just as he’d theorized earlier. For the first time in years, Ford actually felt like Joe Brody had a better grip on what was going than he did.
How weird was that?
He opened his mouth again, to ask his dad to explain, only to be interrupted by the unmistakable sound of an assault rifle being racked. Ford’s mouth went dry.
The men turned around to find a pair of uniformed Japanese soldiers standing behind them, their Howa assault rifles aimed at the trespassers. Neither soldier was wearing a radiation suit, just ordinary camo gear. They shouted at the Americans in a torrent of angry Japanese. Ford couldn’t make out what they were saying, but raised his hands in the air.
“What are they saying?” he whispered to Joe.
Belligerent expressions conveyed a lack of hospitality. More choppers thundered past overhead, heading for the mysterious new facility.
“We’re screwed,” Joe said.
EIGHT
The unmarked security van rumbled down an access road deep in the heart of the Q-Zone. It bounced as it crossed a wooden bridge. The bump jarred the bench beneath Ford, who grunted in response. Things were not going well.
He and Joe sat handcuffed to a steel rail in the back of the van, flanked by two unsmiling Japanese soldiers, who had so far ignored all of Ford’s urgent queries as to what was going to happen next. Ford didn’t know if the guards didn’t speak English and couldn’t understand his feeble attempts at Japanese, or if they were just under orders to not engage with the prisoners, but what they had here was a definite failure to communicate. Ford had even tried explaining that he was a U.S. Navy lieutenant, but to no avail. It was clear that this wasn’t going to get straightened out right away.
How on Earth was he going to explain this to his superiors? Or Elle?
Night had fallen, throwing the Q-Zone into darkness, but Ford watched through the rear window as the van drove past numerous military vehicles, heavy equipment, and construction cranes on their way to the massive facility they had spied earlier. The van pulled up to the gates, where a guard conferred with the driver in Japanese. He scoped out the prisoners before waving the van through. Ford guessed that they had arrived at their destination, whatever it was.
Some sort of top-secret base? On top of the old nuclear plant?
Their captors had strongly discouraged the prisoners from conversing with each other. Still, Ford shot a questioning look at Joe.
What the hell have you gotten us into?
* * *
A security van passed beneath the elevated steel gantry supporting Serizawa as he and Dr. Graham made their way toward an observation post above the pit. Both scientists wore protective radiation suits, having just toured the restricted level directly above the buried power plant.
“Fifteen years of silence,” Graham recounted, shaking her head. “Then two weeks ago, these pulses. As of yesterday, it’s up to one an hour and stronger every time. Whelan’s practically walking on air, calling it a living fuel cell. All this time absorbing radiation like a sponge… and suddenly it’s gone electric.”
Serizawa shared his colleague’s astonishment. These were truly stunning developments. He only wished he knew whether they boded ill or not. Unlike the esteemed Dr. Whelan, who was the chief scientist in charge of the operation, Serizawa was not entirely convinced that this was cause for celebration. Now in his fifties, he still remembered that devastated mine in the Philippines—and the many lives that had been lost there.
They stepped to a safety rail overlooking a gigantic sinkhole, even larger than the one they had encountered fifteen years ago. Graham signaled Serizawa that it was now safe to remove their safety masks. She gazed in awe at the sight below.
“Nature is spectacular,” she observed.
He shook his head. “Nature didn’t cause this. We did.”
Where the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant had once stood was an enormous pit, more than one hundred meters across. An elaborate multi-story edifice of steel scaffolding and catwalks lined the walls of the sinkhole, descending dozens of levels. Six towering construction cranes were in place around the rim of the pit, bracketing it. Spotlights illuminated the sinkhole. And this entire imposing superstructure, Serizawa knew, had been constructed to monitor a single biological specimen.
The cocoon rested on the floor of the pit, many meters below. Nearly as tall as the pit itself, it was a gnarled, rocky extrusion roughly the size of a fifteen-story building. A bioluminescent red glow came from deep within its thick translucent husk. It was many times larger and denser than the twin egg sacs they had discovered in the Philippines years ago. Its pointed tip curled down towards its base, so that it vaguely resembled a claw or pincer. Its roots were sunken deep into the mangled ruins of the collapsed nuclear power plant buried beneath it.
A complex array of monitoring equipment surrounded the base of the cocoon. Huge cameras, sensors, and scanners probed the cocoon across the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The imposing apparatus, which were at least a story in height, rested upon a ring of grilled metal flooring surrounding the cocoon. Along with Graham, Serizawa watched from above as crews of workers, wearing hazmat suits, scurried about below, attending to the equipment. The flurry of new pulses had the entire base in an uproar, adding new urgency to its operations. Serizawa had gotten on a plane the minute he’d received word from Graham that the cocoon had become active and was manifesting new characteristics. She had just given him a firsthand look at the activities down on the floor of the pit.
“Get ready,” she told him. “Here it comes.”
All at once, the cocoon flashed brightly. A dazzling burst of light briefly turned night into day.
* * *
The van skidded to a stop, throwing Ford and his dad forward. Handcuffs tugged on Ford’s wrist, yanking him back; he would’ve preferred a seatbelt. Numerous voices and footsteps could be heard outside the van. Something’s up, he guessed. Now what?
Their guards whipped open the side door. Gruff words were exchanged in Japanese. Grabbing the prisoners’ duffel bag and gear, the soldiers scrambled out of the van and slammed the door shut behind them, leaving Ford and Joe alone in the back of the van. He figured now was their chance to finally talk to each other. Ford hoped to hell his dad knew what this about, because he was totally lost.
“Okay, okay,” he said, trying to get a handle on the situation. “So
the good news is that we’re not going to fry from radiation poisoning.” He looked to his dad for confirmation, but Joe seemed lost in a world of his own, staring bleakly at the floor of the van. It dawned on Ford that his father had barely said a word, or even made eye contact with him, since the guards had taken them into custody. “Hey, Dad. You okay?”
Joe didn’t react. His lips moved, as though he was talking to himself, but nothing audible emerged. Ford wondered if the strain of the last several hours had been too much for him. What if his dad had finally cracked for good—just as his insane theories were looking less crazy by the moment?
“Hey!” Ford said sharply.
“…dragging you back here.” Joe roused a little, at least enough to mumble audibly. He turned anguished eyes toward Ford, his battered spirits in some sort of hellish freefall. Guilt weighed down his voice. “I am, I’m totally insane. It’s a replay of fifteen years ago and it’s all my fault. Now I’ll lose you, too.”
Ford tried to snap his father out of whatever sort of post-traumatic depression had gripped him. “See that’s the crazy talking. That’s not going to help us. No one’s losing anyone.”
“They’re never going to let us out of here, Ford. Why would they? Now they’ve got the disks…”
“Disks? What disks? What are you talking about, Dad?” Ford leaned anxiously toward his father, desperate to get his dad’s full attention. The irony of the moment was not lost on Ford; after years of doing his best to tune out his father’s paranoid ramblings, he suddenly wanted more than anything to know exactly what was going through his father’s tortured mind. “Look at me. I’m listening now, okay? Help me understand this.”
“I’m cursed, Ford,” the other man said despairingly. “Look what I’ve done.”
Ford wanted to shake him. “TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!”
Joe flinched, blinking in surprise. The sheer intensity of Ford’s demand jolted him back to reality. His eyes came back into focus. He nodded gravely.