Godzilla vs. Kong by Greg Keyes (read people like a book .txt) 📕

village for one final try at persuading them, she’d found that the whole lot of them had vanished. Since that time, no member of the Iwi had been spotted alive, and she had reluctantly come to believe that they were extinct.

Except for Jia. The way the girl told it, Kong had rescued her when some of her people were trying to make it to higher ground. Ilene had found her with the Titan and brought her to live with her.

The girl was deaf from birth. She used her own sign language based on Iwi non-verbal communication, but there were limits to that. She was a quick student, however, easily mastering the American Sign Language that Ilene had learned in graduate school, and together they were able to communicate with a mixture of the two.

Like all of her people, Jia had a connection to Kong, a complicated one. Early visitors to the island had seen that the Iwi worshipped Kong as a god, and that was true enough. But it went deeper than that; they believed that Kong was Iwi, and the Iwi were Kong. Symbiotic; one people with different forms. It was not unheard of to find such belief in indigenous cultures—the idea that animal spirits and gods were also relatives—but the Iwi–Kong bond seemed especially tight. And Jia’s connection to Kong was another thing again. At times, she swore the girl and the Titan could read each other’s minds. At the very least, Jia often had a calming influence on him.

But at times like this, when Kong was agitated, Ilene worried, nevertheless.

The Titan could crush the girl with his pinky and might not even notice until it was too late. The size difference was just too great, and Kong’s mood too mercurial. Jia never seemed to feel in danger, but children were often unaware of the dangers around them, especially when they were trusted, familiar, and had been a part of their lives since birth.

She turned her gaze up to where Kong’s makeshift spear still hung at the top of the dome. The illusion of a “sun” was broken. It could be repaired, but Kong would remember. His cognitive level was high, and his memory had proven to be very good indeed—especially when it came to things that had caused him pain or pissed him off. Kong had been born with a chip on his shoulder. He could hardly be blamed for that: his parents were killed by Skullcrawlers just as he came into the world. So he knew how to hold a grudge.

She heard the sound of an automobile approaching, and moments later a Jeep came to a screeching halt. Her assistant Ben hopped out, wild-eyed, looking from the damaged dome, to Kong, to her. He adjusted his glasses.

“Dr. Andrews, did you see that?” he asked.

“This habitat’s not going to hold much longer,” she told him.

“No kidding.” He ran his fingers through his short black hair. “I mean … look at that.”

She watched him pace nervously.

“We need to start thinking about off-site solutions,” Ben said. “Someplace where he can’t, you know, break the freakin’ sky.”

“The island is the one thing that’s keeping him isolated,” she said. “It’s his territory. Most of the other Titans seem to recognize that, including the big guy.”

“Except that bat.”

“Camazotz was different. He was challenging Kong for the island itself. And that was our fault. If Kong leaves here, it’s like he’s signaling he’s in the mix for the planet at large. If he leaves, Godzilla will come for him. There can’t be two alpha Titans. The whole theory of an ancient rivalry stems from the Iwi mythology.”

“He’s gotten too big, over time,” Ben said. “This environment won’t sustain him much longer. It’s too unstable.”

Ben was right about that. Cut off from the sun by the perpetual storm, the landscape stripped by constant flooding and deprived of the sunlight, the once lush island was a rotting mess. The flora and fauna in the biodome were all that remained. The biodome provided full-spectrum light to sustain the plant and animal life in the dome at healthy levels. But an animal the size of Kong required an enormous amount of food, far more than the limited ecosystem could naturally provide. Already they had to ship in meat to satisfy his hunger, megatons of it. Clearly the Titan suspected something; he had attacked the “sun” on purpose. The illusion wasn’t good enough to fool him anymore. Once it really sunk in, what would he do next? Probably find one of the walls and start pounding on it. The structure could handle that for a while, but between the relentless storms and Kong’s attack on the artificial barrier that sustained this place … well, it was only a matter of time. But what she’d said about Godzilla was also true. It was an impossible situation, and she couldn’t see a clear way out.

To her relief, Jia had noticed her; she’d left Kong and was coming their way. Ilene smiled, trying to keep her troubled thoughts to herself.

She gathered Jia in a hug. She didn’t have any children of her own, but she had started thinking of Jia that way, and she believed the girl reciprocated, at least to a certain extent. She realized she was hugging almost too tightly; she had been more frightened for the girl than she had been willing to admit to herself.

After a few seconds, Jia pulled free, stepped back and started signing.

He’s angry, she said.

Ilene glanced over at the scowling Kong.

Go wait for me, sweetie, she signed. She didn’t want to continue her discussion with Ben with Jia nearby. She was learning to read lips, Ilene knew.

Jia’s face shifted subtly into an Iwi expression that Ilene interpreted as, “Whatever, Mom.” But she did as she was told and got in the jeep.

Ilene glanced at Ben. “Off-site would be a death sentence,” she said.

“You don’t think the King could take care of himself?” Ben said.

“Beat Godzilla in a fight?” she said. “Maybe.” Probably not,