Godzilla vs. Kong Read online

  “There has to be another way,” she said. But even to herself, she did not sound convincing.

  FOUR

  So listen up, class. Way back in the day there was this guy named Odysseus. He got caught up in the Ancient Greece version of the military-industrial complex, went all the way overseas to fight in a war that did not make one lick of sense. And when it was over, all he wanted to do was get home to his wife. But the gods, you know, were pullin’ the strings behind the scenes, so it took him ten years to get home. And that’s on top of the ten years he was fighting in this nonsense war. So—trying to get back home—he comes across this island where everybody eats this lotus plant, this drug that keeps them mostly asleep and feelin’ good. They don’t know what’s going on, and they don’t care. They’re happy that way, even if some lion or something comes and eats one of them once in a while. So all you listening to this—that’s you. Most of you. Lotus Eaters. Your lotus is video games, television, social media, videos on the internet. For some of you it’s actual drugs. Most of you are asleep, and you like it that way. I am not here to talk to the sleepers. I’m here for the ones half-awake. Who want to know. Who want their eyes wide open.

  I had this teacher in sixth grade. If you said you were mad, she would say, “You aren’t mad, you’re angry. I’ve seen real mad people. They eat pillows and such.”

  She was a good teacher. One of the few I liked. But she was wrong.

  This is Mad Truth, Mad as in all-in, Mad as in crazy, Mad as in for real—but also Mad as in angry, because I was asleep myself, and I slept right through the end of my world. And this shit is gonna get crazy, and it’s gonna be angry, it’s gonna be out of your comfort zone, and it’s gonna be real. This is the first, but it ain’t gonna be the last. I’m here to stay, ya’ll. Buckle in for the ride or get off now.

  Mad Truth, Titan Truth Podcast #1

  Pensacola, Present Day

  Mark Russell woke from an uneasy sleep and lay in his bed for a few moments, trying to remember exactly where he was. It was dark, the only light in the room the digital clock that told him it was five-thirty. So he still had thirty minutes of sleep before he had to wake Madison…

  That made everything click into place. This was Pensacola, Florida. He and Madison had been here for almost a year. After he had returned to Monarch—after the battle in Boston—they had been shifted around the globe, sometimes moving four or five times a year. When the position in Pensacola had come open, he had insisted upon it. It was stable, long term. Madison could attend the same school for the remainder of her secondary years, settle in, make some friends, have something like a normal life. And he had family here, his older sister Cassidy. Her kids were grown and gone, and she didn’t mind pitching in to help him with Madison from time to time.

  As he sat up, he realized he smelled bacon. He followed the scent into the kitchen, where he found Madison cooking.

  “That smells good,” he said. “What are we having?”

  “Morning, Dad,” she said. “I’m working on my omelet skills today.” He watched as she tilted a little non-stick skillet full of egg and then flipped it to form a half-moon shape. For an instant, he saw her as the little girl she had been not long ago, with the short haircut that flipped up at the ends. It was his default image of her, the one that came to mind when he was away from home. He wondered if it was like this with all parents, to have a younger picture of their child stuck in their heads. The image was no longer a good fit; she was fifteen now, and she’d grown her brown hair out long in the last year, not to mention sprouting up six inches.

  “You know, you don’t have to do this,” Mark said. “I’m capable of making breakfast for us.”

  “Sure,” Madison said. “I’m a big fan of your fabulous cereal and milk. And you make a mean … toast.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I can cook.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “I like doing it. It reminds me of…”

  She didn’t finish, but he knew where she was going with it. When Madison had lived with her mother, he gathered that they had become more like roommates than mother and daughter. Not in a bad way; Madison had always liked to pull her weight and Emma had encouraged a certain amount of independence in their children.

  And, boy, had she succeeded. Madison had shown that back in Boston, three years ago. He was still surprised to this day that he hadn’t dropped dead of a heart attack during that whole business. He still woke with the cold sweats sometimes, from nightmares of finding her in the wreckage of their old house, not breathing, pale as death.

  He felt like he was still playing catch-up in a race where he had only one leg, trying to find a balance with his daughter. He wanted to give her what was left of her childhood, if he could, but it was also achingly apparent that she was mostly beyond that now, or thought she was. She was fifteen and fully convinced she could take care of herself. In a couple of years it would be over. And he had missed so much, they had missed so much together. It felt like what they had left now was gold.

  “How’s work?” she asked, as she added a new batch of beaten eggs to the pan.

  “You know, about the same.”

  “But he’s been sighted, right? The first time in years?”

  “What?” Mark said. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Mad Truth,” she said. “It’s a podcast I listen to.”

  “Oh, right,” he said. “The one about chemtrails and crop circles and tap water and all of that.”

  “And Titans,” she said. “He claims Godzilla was sighted near Kiribati in the Pacific.”

  Mark sighed. “There was a sighting. Of something. We haven’t confirmed that, and anything you see or hear on the internet is just speculation.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But Monarch is taking it seriously enough to look into it, aren’t they?”

  “What’s your security clearance?” he asked. “I forget.”

  “Yeah. I thought so,” she said. “You’re not denying it.”

  “No,” he said. “Like I said, we’re not sure what the islanders saw. We’re trying to get to the bottom of it. You know, through observation. Facts. Not conspiracy theories on the internet.”

  “Right,” she said. She flipped the omelet, placed two pieces of bacon on the plate with it, and handed it to him.

  “You can go ahead and eat,” she said.

  “I’ll wait until you’re done,” he said. “We’ll eat together.”

  “Okay.”

  A few minutes later, she settled down and started poking at her food.

  “Something else on your mind?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Sort of,” she said. “You remember you said we could talk about homeschooling?”

  He sighed. “I know you’re not one hundred percent happy at your school …”

  “I’m miserable,” she said. “I’m way ahead of everyone. And they all hate me.”

  “Josh doesn’t hate you.”

  “Josh doesn’t count,” she said. “Anyway, he and I could stay in touch.”

  “Madison, if I could just stay home all day, maybe. But you know I have to work. And you, of all people, know how important my work is.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I’ve looked into some online stuff. And Aunt Cassidy said she could help. All you would have to do is sign off on some things, and you could do that in the afternoons.”

  “It’s a good school, Madison. I just want you to give it a chance.”

  “I’ve given it a chance,” she said. “It’s not working.”

  “You’re not in a position to make that decision,” he said.

  “Why?” she said. “Because I’m just a kid? Because you know so much better than me?”

  “Madison, these are important years for you. You’ve spent most of your life around people far older than you are. You’ve never really developed the social skills to deal with your peers. I know it’s not fun—”

  “Dad, it’s Lord of the freaking Flies.”

  �
�I know it’s not fun,” he pushed on, “but you need to try. I know you have that in you. And you are already so much in your own head, and your podcasts, and these conspiracy theories—”

  “It’s Godzilla, Dad,” she said. “Something’s happening—”

  “And it’s not your concern,” he said. “Look, you grew up too fast. You had to. And you have been through things I can’t imagine having experienced at your age. I know you feel … responsible. But honey, you did your part. You did more than anyone. Now you need to take a break. You have to believe me when I say Monarch’s got this. I’ve got this.”

  “Like last time, you mean?” she said.

  “Maddie—”

  “You want me to trust you,” she said. “But you don’t trust me.”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Madison…”

  She shoved her seat back and stood.

  “I’ve got to get ready for school,” she said. “Make myself presentable, you know. It’s all about the clothes at my age, right?”

  Before he could conjure up some magical, cure-all response, she was back in her room. He lowered his head to the table and bumped it three times.

  Monarch Office, Pensacola

  The Pensacola office was far from the center of the Monarch universe, and Mark liked it that way. He’d had his fill of being in the middle of the action, at putting himself and those he loved in mortal danger. At the same time, he had most of the data available to him that anyone with his security clearance had, so there was plenty to do. And what he did mostly was look for trails and patterns. He was a kind of glorified Titan analyst.

  His background was in animal behavior; he had started with cetaceans—orcas, dolphins, and such. After leaving Monarch the first time, he had worked with wolf packs. The common denominator was his interest not in the behavior of individual animals, but in how groups of animals acted. That was the perspective he had brought to the attempt to understand the Titans; while it was tempting to think of creatures like Godzilla as solitary, unique actors, he was certain that none of them could be fully understood without reference to one another—and to a lesser extent, to humanity. That point of view had come in handy when Ghidorah was running amok and Titans across the globe were breaking out of confinement. Mark had recognized that despite being wildly different species on the surface, all the Titans were behaving like a pack, with Ghidorah as their alpha, calling the shots. That, in turn had led to the conclusion that they needed another alpha to confront Ghidorah. Godzilla. It had paid off, but the cost had been high. Mothra, a Titan allied with Godzilla, had given its life in that battle. So had Vivienne Graham, Ishiro Serizawa, and Emma, Mark’s wife—Madison’s mother.

  And now he searched for trails and patterns, and for the past three years there had not been much to see, but that didn’t stop him from going back over old data, rethinking it, preparing for the day when they would come again. Preparing for a time he fervently hoped would never happen.

  And yet, this yahoo Madison listened to through her earbuds might, for once, be right.

  Monarch had re-tasked several satellites overnight, along with tuning up the web of air and undersea sensors. The tale the data told this morning was unambiguous; there was no mistaking the twin bioacoustic and radiation profiles.

  “Godzilla,” he murmured under his breath. Not what he had been hoping for.

  “You see it?” Chloe asked.

  “Yeah,” Mark said. “Have we had any movement?” Chloe was the intern on the night shift. She was young, but very good at her job. She had blond, curly hair that he suspected required a fair amount of effort to maintain. He usually missed her—she was almost always gone before he showed up in the morning—but Madison had left for school early, and he hadn’t seen any reason to stick around the house with her gone.

  “Yes, he’s definitely cruising,” she said. “Kind of exciting. This is the first time I’ve actually seen a Titan on the move. I was in high school, back in the day.”

  That made her, what, twenty-one? Twenty-two? Younger than he’d thought. A handful of years older than Madison.

  “No worries,” Mark told her. “That doesn’t make me feel old at all. Let me have a look.” He bent over her shoulder to examine the interactive chart showing several projections of the globe.

  Madison was right; Godzilla had been spotted near the Micronesian islands of Kiribati two days ago. Now, after a global search expanding out from there, Monarch had located him. They were tracking him using various forms of telemetry, one of which was based on the passive bioacoustic characteristics of the ORCA that Emma had used to communicate with the Titans to devastating effect. This version could only receive, not transmit, and along with satellite surveillance, was one of their best early warning strategies against not just Godzilla, but all of the Titans.

  He studied the Titan’s meandering line. There was no way of knowing where Godzilla had first started this journey, but extrapolating from the remnants of his trail, it looked like he’d taken a swing by Fiji, passing Kiribati on his way to a certain storm-covered island east of there. After that, he came near the South American coast, then followed it down to the southernmost tip of the continent. From there he had begun moving toward Antarctica before taking an abrupt turn north.

  “He’s patrolling again,” Mark said.

  “You mean for other Titans?”

  “Right,” he said. “Three years ago, right after the fight with Ghidorah, he did something we’ll call ‘the big cleanup.’ Some of the other Titans didn’t exactly stay in line. He went on a global walkabout and set them straight. He drove Scylla from Georgia. He ran Amhuluk out of the Amazon, and so forth. Not long after, they all ended up going dormant. We think Godzilla may have sent out some sort of silent signal, although we aren’t sure how.”

  “He attacked humans, during that period, too, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, but those were some very bad actors who were taking advantage of the chaos at the time. A terrorist group. They had taken over an offshore oil rig and had captured a Titan, Na Kika, using a stolen containment net, apparently with some sort of plan to mine her parts for use in bioweapons. Intelligence thinks it might have been an offshoot of Jonah’s bunch, but I have my doubts about that. Monarch got wind of it and sent some jets to check it out. Then Godzilla showed up and wiped the floor with them. I think it fits in with the rest of his pattern during that time. It was like Godzilla was sorting things out, establishing himself as king, so to speak. And then he went silent. Disappeared. We haven’t heard a peep out of him for almost three years. Or any other Titan, for that matter—Kong excepted, I guess.”

  “Looks like he checked on Kong,” Chloe said, nodding at the map.

  “We have him at Fiji first,” he said. “That’s where Rodan ended up. He cruised by Skull Island for sure. But he has never bothered Kong there—we’re not a hundred percent sure why. And he checked on Quetzalcoatl, then Scylla. Then it looks like he was going to have a look at Methuselah, but he never got there. He went north instead.”

  “You think he’s headed for the Amazon?” she said.

  “Maybe,” he replied. But it felt a little off. Godzilla had left Behemoth in the Amazon basin, where it hadn’t been any trouble. It was hibernating like the rest of them, and the locals liked it a lot; some literally worshipped it. And why would Godzilla skip checking up on Methuselah when he was less than a hundred miles from it and head north instead?

  Or maybe what felt “off” was the notion that he could predict what Godzilla was going to do. He had spent years of his life hating the Titan. His son Andrew had died in San Francisco during Godzilla’s fight with the MUTOs—Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms—and after that Mark had been a firm believer that the only good Titan was a dead one. It had taken a while for him to come around, to realize that Godzilla and humanity had a common enemy in Ghidorah. But how far did that go? With Ghidorah gone and the other Titans either submitting willingly to Godzilla’s rule or being beaten
into submitting to it, what was his agenda now? Godzilla wasn’t just a big, dumb lizard. There was a brain in there, one Mark believed was pretty sophisticated. Emma had believed that the Titans existed as a check against the harm humans might do in the world; in releasing them, she had believed she would heal ecosystems devastated by pollution, deforestation, and climate change.

  The thing was, Emma had been right. Not morally or ethically—dooming so many innocents was out of bounds, no matter how laudable the ultimate ends. But since the Titans had emerged, the rainforests were once more gaining ground, reefs were healing, climate change had ground to a halt and was even reversing. But now, humans were starting to put their thumbs on the scale again. People were forgetting, returning to the practices that had screwed up the global ecosystem so badly in the first place. The global ecosystem that Godzilla was apparently the steward of.

  What if Godzilla came to see not another Titan as his competition for alpha predator, but the human race as a whole? Maybe three years ago he had seen humanity as the lesser of two evils, and one of those evils was now gone. Perhaps his priorities had shifted to meet the new reality. Maybe he had changed.

  If so, then it was like Emma all over again, with Godzilla making the cold calculation that a certain amount of human death and misery was necessary for the good of the planet.

  “Mark?” Chloe said. He realized he had been staring mutely at the screen for a long time.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was just thinking. Your shift is over, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Yes, but Kennan is late.”

  “It’s okay,” Mark said. “I’ll keep an eye on things until he gets here.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  As she left, he poured himself a cup of coffee, then went back to his workstation and started doing his weekly report. But he kept glancing back at the map, and Godzilla’s track.

  You’re thinking too much, Mark, old boy, he thought. This obsession nearly wrecked you once. It nearly cost you everything. Do not let it happen again.