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

don’t think it’s the best idea to go looking for some secret weirdo off the internet,” he opined. “We had a school assembly about literally exactly this.”

“He’s not a weirdo,” Madison said, putting her hair up in a ponytail. “He’s a covert investigator, the only one looking for the truth about Godzilla and Apex.”

“So let him look,” Josh said. “Why do we have to help him?”

“Because if we don’t, nobody else will.”

She caught his gaze and held it. “So you coming or not?”

Josh sighed. “Obviously I’m coming,” he said. He reached for the door handle and pulled. Nothing happened.

“It’s stuck,” he said.

As she hit the gas and started to peel out, he yanked open the sliding door in the back and scrambled in, hollering the whole time.

ELEVEN

“Talk! Converse! Do not moan or wail. Talk, each of you to your kind, within your type,” they were told—the deer, the birds, the pumas, the jaguars, the serpents. “Say our names. Revere us, we who are your mother and your father. Speak, and say: ‘Huracan, New Thunderbolt, and Brutal Thunderbolt, Heart of Sky and Heart of Earth, Creators, Formers, Bearer of Children.’ Speak! Pray to us! Venerate us!” they were told. But they could not speak like people. Instead they screeched, chattered, bellowed. Their language was not understood because each one made a different noise. When the Creators, the Formers heard this, they said, “This has not turned out well. They cannot speak. They are not able to name us. We made them. This is not good.” The animals were therefore told: “You will be changed, replaced, because you could not speak.”

From Popol Vuh: Sacred Book of the Quiché Maya

Pensacola

Josh reached over from the back to turn off the radio, but he slipped and his hand hit the wheel. Madison beat him back.

“We’ve been listening to this dude for hours,” Josh complained.

“Knock it off,” Madison snapped. “This is the part I was telling you about.”

“…because one or two gallons won’t cut it, I need my bleach in bulk ya’ll because spy dust is real. Soviet-designed pollination technique, invisible to the naked eye, need special UV to know you been marked and I’m taking exactly zero chances here.”

Madison switched it off.

“That’s how we find him,” she said. “The bleach.”

“Bleach?” Josh said.

“He consumes tons of bleach,” Madison clarified.

“He drinks it?”

“Showers with it,” Madison said.

“Oh, yeah,” Josh said. “Wait, what?”

“Prevention against organic tracking technology,” she said. “See? Tradecraft.”

“Drinking would have made more sense,” Josh muttered.

There were a lot more places near the plant that sold bleach than Madison would have thought, but they were able to narrow things down; Mad Truth liked Asian grocery stores. He had done a whole podcast on why, but it was not one of the more coherent or memorable ones. It seemed to have something to do with wherever he had lived before moving to Pensacola.

“Really?” Josh sighed, as they piled out of the van in front of yet another grocery store.

“Yes,” Madison said. “Just one more place.”

“It’s just, it’s getting old,” Josh said. But he followed her in.

It was an everything-sort-of store. Outside, they passed huge bags of various kinds of rice and open produce boxes full of ginger, bok choy, empty-heart vegetable, taro, chiles, and twenty other assorted vegetables. In the front were a few tables, and a string of red paper lanterns, and in the back a guy tossing something in a wok. But there were also shelves full of colorfully packaged foodstuffs, cooking gear, bowls, plates, flip-flops, postcards, tanks full of live fish, canned goods … a real general store. Madison made straight for the guy at the register.

“Hey,” she said. “You sell bleach?”

The man looked at her suspiciously. “Is this another one of those internet challenge things?” he asked. “Because when I sold those kids all those detergent pods, I had no idea they were gonna eat them. I’m still dealing with the lawsuits.”

“I told you this wouldn’t work,” Josh said.

“Look,” Madison told them man, “we’re looking for a guy who works for Apex industries and buys a lot of bleach. Like every night.”

“Probably paranoid,” Josh added, “high strung, doesn’t really like daylight, lots of leftover crumbs in his beard, if he has a beard…”

“Look,” the man said. “You kids want some candy? Because I can help you with candy.”

Madison felt her fuse starting to shorten. “Look at me in the eye, okay,” she said. “I need information—”

Josh slapped a ten-dollar bill on the counter.

“We want lots of candy,” Josh said.

“Josh,” Madison began, “What are you—”

“Oh!” the guy said. “You mean Bernie. Yeah, I know that guy. Buys like a ton of bleach.”

Madison and Josh exchanged a surprised look.

“I know where he is, too,” the fellow went on. “If you buy a live fish, I’ll give you his address.”

*   *   *

A few minutes later they were at the address the man had given them. Madison knocked on the door. Nothing happened, and she was about to knock again when there was a sudden loud crashing sound from inside, as if someone had thrown a kitchen’s worth of pots and pans on the floor.

“Bernie!” Madison shouted.

There was a light pause.

“Mister Bernie not at home,” someone finally responded, in a weird accent that dithered between being Spanish or Russian or something else entirely.

“That was definitely Mister Bernie,” Josh whispered.

“Listen,” Madison said. “We want to talk about Apex … and Godzilla.”

A sudden buzzing drew her attention to a camera on the wall.

“No! Ah, no! I’ve got your faces!” the Spanish Russian said. “I contact the authorities!”

“For what?” Josh said. “Knocking on your door?”

“Bernie, you don’t trust the authorities,” Madison said. “Bernie—please. My name is Madison Russell. My father works for Monarch. My mother was—”

The door flew open. Standing there was a man wearing welding goggles and holding what looked like a modified Taser gun. He lifted the goggles, staring at her with wide eyes.

“Emma Russell,” he said. “Right?”

“That’s right,” she said.

He looked dubiously at Josh.

“And this guy?”

“He’s all right.”

Bernie glanced behind him into his house, then