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

was being overly paranoid. The big fellah had come out of hibernation or whatever to stretch his legs a little, check on some old pals, and maybe now he was all tucked in again for another three years. Or ten. Or a thousand. He had almost turned his mind back to other projects when Kennan said something under his breath.

“What was that?” Mark asked.

“Look,” Kennan said. He was pointing to a video playing on his screen. It looked like it had been shot with a phone from a small watercraft of some kind. It showed an expanse of blue sea, and in the distance, what looked like a stony ridge rising from the water. Except that the ridge was moving, leaving a wake—and although shot from a considerable distance, there was hardly any doubt that the “ridge” was Godzilla’s dorsal fins.

“When was this?” he demanded.

“It was posted about twenty minutes ago,” Kennan said.

“Where?”

“It was taken from a yacht, the Ima Outahere,” Kennan said.

“Cute,” Mark said. “Where is she?”

“En route from Galveston to Veracruz,” he said.

“The Sigsbee Deep,” Mark said. “Deepest part of the Gulf.” That was spitting distance from Isla de Mara, so it looked like Chloe had been right.

“Headed west?” he said, to confirm the suspicion.

“The Ima reported him headed northeast,” Kennan said.

“Northeast? Bring up a chart.”

Kennan complied.

“If that’s true,” Mark said, studying the map, “He’s not going to Isla de Mara. If he is topside, we should be able to reestablish a fix. Set bioacoustics and radiation signature scans from the Deep to DeSoto Canyon and everything in between. Find him.”

“On it,” Kennan said.

*   *   *

It was six-thirty in the evening when they picked up the trail again; by then Godzilla was less than a hundred miles from the northern rim of the Gulf. Mark upgraded his message to command and control. By seven, they finally scrambled some jets from the nearby Naval Air Station and diverted nearby coastguard ships to have a closer look. Alarmed, Mark called command and control and was referred to a fellow named Clermont.

“Don’t let them engage,” Mark said. “Whatever you do. You know what he is capable of. I don’t know why he’s headed for the Gulf. It might be something inland. Do you guys have any other Titan activity, anywhere?”

“No,” the Monarch official, replied. “Nothing. What do you advise?”

“His path has been wobbling, like he’s triangulating on something,” Mark said. “Right now he could come ashore—if he comes ashore—anyplace between Biloxi and Panama City. We’ll know more in an hour or so. We should start evacuating everything in between.”

“That’s a lot of territory,” the man said. “I don’t think I can make that case. And as far as we know, Godzilla is still a friendly.”

“It doesn’t matter how friendly he is,” Mark said. “If he comes ashore, for any reason, he’s going to break things. Like buildings and highways. People are going to die.”

“Look,” Clermont said, “we’re doing what we can, for now. When he gets closer, if you still think he’s coming ashore, we’ll be ready. We’ve got relief staff on their way already.”

“Prevention is way better than relief,” Mark said.

“Look, most likely he’ll turn, right? We’re running projections, and none of them have him coming ashore. He’s avoiding human populations, just like he’s been doing for the last three years.”

“I think something’s changed,” Mark said. “I feel it in my gut. Something new is happening.”

“Just keep us updated,” Clermont replied. “And stay away from the press. The last thing we need at this point is a panic over nothing.”

What about a panic over something? Mark thought. But he knew when he was at the wall. Yet as the next hour passed, and then the next, it became clear that Godzilla was headed straight for Pensacola.

Why? Because there was a Monarch base here? Could the Titan somehow be aware they were tracking him? Maybe. Or at least he might have noticed the aircraft surveilling him, even if they were keeping their distance. Had Monarch escalated an innocent situation by putting things Godzilla recognized as weapons into play? Mark had seen that happen once, in the Monarch base near the Bahamas. Maybe if they called everything back… But Godzilla had been on his way here long before they sent out the jets. He was overthinking.

“Enough of this,” he said. He called Clermont back and told him that if he didn’t evacuate the waterfront, he would call the Federal Emergency Management Agency himself. The official made noises that sounded agreeable but didn’t really amount to much. Godzilla was now only twenty miles offshore and showing absolutely no signs of turning. If anything, the Titan was speeding up.

Mark took out his cell phone and called Madison.

Russell House, Pensacola

It was sometimes possible for Madison to close her eyes and just sleep. But all too often what she saw on the back of her eyelids made that impossible. Ghidorah, stalking her, destroying the ball park around her. Scenes of mass carnage. Her mother, in the distance, Ghidorah stooping over her, ending the woman who had sung her to sleep at night, nurtured her, mentored her. The therapist her dad had sent her to had said it was post-traumatic stress disorder, and she figured he was right. She had seen monsters, a lot of them, up close and personal. And she had known monstrous people, who murdered without conscience. And for a time—a short time, but still far too long—she had been on the same side as them.

So maybe she was a little messed up. But she could not just give in to that. That could not be her identity. She refused to be a victim.

She sat up, looking around her room. Her command center. The many computers, the maps, the incident charts, the newspaper clippings.

Clearly this was going to be one of those nights when sleep would not come easily. She didn’t let it upset her anymore. If she occupied her mind with something else for a while, she could try again later. She had