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

feel. Maia’s team was acting awfully quickly, with no particular care taken to determine what they were dealing with.

He hesitated, trying to frame his words carefully, but Ilene beat him to it, and with no attempt at diplomacy.

“What are you doing?” Ilene demanded of Simmons.

Simmons nodded at the machine. “Extracting the sample,” she said.

“This is power beyond your understanding,” Ilene said. “You can’t just drill into it.”

Maia shrugged, unimpressed with Ilene’s outburst.

“My father gets what he wants,” Maia said. “That’s Apex property now.” She looked at the core of glowing stone now inside a little reservoir in the machine. The digital readout began running numbers; it was uploading something.

“We should be able to replicate this now,” she said.

Apex Facility, Hong Kong

Ren was running another series of diagnostics when the needle moved on the energy signature. A lot. It was like a nine-volt battery had just been replaced with a nuclear power plant. This was it. This was what they had been waiting for.

“Energy upgrade incoming,” he reported.

On another screen, a string of figures indicated DNA code uploading. The system around Ren began to respond immediately, incorporating the data, ramping up. Waiting to become.

“Good girl, Maia,” Ren heard Simmons say.

Ren turned to the monitor, watching Gojira, sizing him up. He had watched countless videos of the Titan, read everything he could find, including his father’s notes. He had finally seen him for the first time in Pensacola, but then it hadn’t felt as if Gojira was coming for him.

But that’s what the Titan was doing. Not for him, but for the Mecha he had designed. He had come for it in Pensacola when they first tested some of the components, but by shutting the test down and then shipping out the parts, they had managed to stop him. Gojira had still destroyed half of the factory, but the thing calling him was no longer there, so he had eventually gone on his way. For Simmons, it had actually been a boon, despite the destruction of his facility. It had made Gojira out to be a capricious monster, no better than Ghidorah. People’s fear of Gojira had once been tempered by the belief that he was on the side of humanity. No longer. When the Mecha destroyed him, no one would weep. Simmons would have everything he wanted.

So would he. Defeating Gojira and thus surpassing his father was only the beginning.

But staring at the incoming data, he was starting to sense a problem. This time, they knew the cost of testing the Mecha; they knew it would draw the real Gojira. And Simmons believed they were ready for that. He was ready to bet everything on that. Even his own life.

Ren was not so sure, and he was growing even more uncertain as he watched the upgrade and the odd readings that came with it. The system had been designed to make use of the Hollow Earth energy without knowing exactly what that energy was. And it would work—there was no doubt the Mecha would reach its full potential as designed.

But it might do more. The new data suggested a whole series of uncertainties from the quantum level up. They had harnessed the telepathic potential of the two Ghidorah skulls without ever really understanding how and why they worked. And this new genetic information, so intimately related not just to the energy, but to Gojira and how he metabolized that energy—all of this was introducing a series of X-factors that ought to be explored, quantified, understood. If they kept his creation shut down, if they turned off all of the ancillary systems connected to the skulls—chances were Gojira wouldn’t know exactly where to look. In fact, Ren thought, they could probably relay a false signal elsewhere, to draw Gojira away—give them more time to truly perfect his creation.

But he had a sinking feeling that he would never convince Simmons of any of that.

NINETEEN

At a certain time, the Earth opened in the West, where its mouth is. The Earth opened and the Cussitaws came out of its mouth and settled nearby. But the Earth became angry and ate up their children. Therefore, they moved further west. A part of them, however, turned back and came to the same place they had been and settled there. The greater number remained behind, because they thought it best to do so. Their children, nevertheless, were eaten by the Earth, so that, full of dissatisfaction, they journeyed toward the sunrise.

Speech given by Chekilli, Head Chief of the Upper and Lower Creeks in Savannah, in the presence of Governor

Oglethorpe and written on a buffalo skin in 1735

Kong Temple

“This is the discovery of the millennium,” Ilene told Maia Simmons. “You can’t just strip it for parts.”

Simmons looked at her for a heartbeat or two. Then she shrugged and signaled to her men.

Instantly they moved up, rifles lifted, pointing at her, at Nathan and Jia. Ilene put up her hands; so did Nathan. But Jia just stared at the barrel of the gun pointing at her.

No, Ilene thought. They’re threatening Jia. Kong’s going to lose it.

He did. Roaring, the Titan stepped forward toward the girl.

Simmons pivoted, fear plain on her face. How she could have expected Kong not to react, Ilene didn’t know but…

The distant fluttering in the heights of the cave suddenly came down on them. Whether drawn by the increase in the blue energy or—more likely—spooked by Kong’s outburst—the creatures were flying all over the place. Their wings were batlike, but they were hairless, wrinkled, awful-looking things with raptor-beaked heads. They reminded Ilene of griffins designed in hell. Hellhawks would be a good name for them.

They swarmed Kong, who merely swatted at them in annoyance. They were far too small to be of any real threat to him.

But they were two or three times the size of a person.

One of the flying devils snatched up one of Simmons’s mercenaries. Simmons started to run, her men along with her, but another of the hellhawks snatched