From the notes of Dr. Brooks
And through the two of them heat took hold on the dark-blue sea, through the thunder and lightning, and through the fire from the monster, and the scorching winds and blazing thunderbolt. The whole earth seethed, and sky and sea: and the long waves raged along the beaches round and about, at the rush of the deathless gods: and there arose an endless shaking. Hades trembled where he rules over the dead below, and the Titans under Tartarus who live with Cronos, because of the unending clamour and the fearful strife.
Hesiod Works and Days, circa 700 BCE, trans.
Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1914
Tasman Sea
Playing with her Kong totem, Jia could feel the Titan’s heartbeat through the metal skin and bones of the ship. It was smoother now, more even than it had been earlier, but she knew he was still angry, confused. More than that, he felt lost.
He had felt that way back in the fake jungle, too. He had known things weren’t right, that the island that had been the home to their kind for so long was no more. But at least the rocks had still been there, just as the bones of his parents had remained to remind him that they had once been real. Now even that was gone, and all that remained of the island was the two of them, Kong and Jia. The last members of their people.
She felt the loss, too, but she also had a mother. She knew Ilene wasn’t her real mother, of course, the one who had given birth to her. But with the Iwi, all women were mothers, whether they had given birth or not. Men, too for that matter, although that was sometimes difficult to explain to outsiders. Anyone who looked after you was a mother, and Ilene looked after her.
And in that same sense, Jia was a mother of Kong, and he of her.
Right now, he could not look after her. So she had to look after him.
She wondered exactly what others felt when someone’s mouth moved, when language came from the tongue and lips—from the wind passing through them—instead of the hands, the face, the body. It would be useful, at times, to know what someone was saying when you weren’t looking at them. On the other hand, she could feel things that they did not. Like Kong’s heartbeat.
And … something else. What was that? Kong’s heartbeat was picking up; he was more alert. More than alert, worried. More so than when he had first awakened, tied down. And his heart continued to beat faster.
But Jia felt something else. Something that wasn’t coming from Kong, but which he also was aware of. The thing that was making him anxious.
She put her hands against the metal wall, and felt it more strongly, tremoring through the water and into the skin of the ship. She had never experienced the pulsation before, or anything like it, but she knew what it was. Because he knew what it was. Kong had heard this back on the island, when he stood and pounded his chest. He had told her about it, but it was too faint for her to feel back then. Or maybe she just hadn’t been ready to feel it. But now she did. A heartbeat, like Kong’s, but different. And there was another vibration, high, then sharp.
As if he had a star inside of him.
And he was close, almost here, strong, getting stronger. And Kong, even with the stuff they had given him to subdue him—was becoming frantic. He knew what was happening. The old war had come for him, the war her people once told of. And Kong was helpless.
Understanding, Jia didn’t hesitate any longer, but sprinted out of the room, searching for Ilene-Mother.
She ran into one of the many people on the ship; she signed, asking him where Mother was. He looked at her as if he didn’t or couldn’t understand.
Useless. She ran on, searching.
* * *
“I know Jia is only a child,” Nathan said. “But she’s the only one he’ll communicate with. And we need Kong to find that power source. The world needs him.”
Ilene was forming an answer when red lights began flashing and the ship’s alarms blared. She turned and saw Jia standing in the doorway, signing like crazy. One of the signs was a new one—fingers held up, spread wide. Ilene had no doubt what it meant. She suddenly felt heavier, as if every molecule in her body had doubled in mass.
“What’s she saying?” Nathan asked.
“Godzilla,” Ilene replied.
* * *
When they reached the bridge, the crew was working frantically. Something—something big—had appeared in sonar, only to vanish in radiation interference as it got closer.
“Radiation readings are off the chart,” someone said.
“Did we change course?” Ilene asked the Admiral.
“No,” Wilcox said. “We’re nowhere near the areas you flagged.”
Nathan was staring at the monitors. “Well, it looks like he’s coming for us anyway.”
“He’s not coming for us,” Ilene said.
“What?” Simmons said, looking at Kong. “Him? Then dump him! Dump the monkey.”
“Why don’t we throw you off instead?” Ilene snapped.
Set Kong free! Jia signed frantically.
Kong seemed to agree. He was testing his chains again, but he also kept casting his vision out to the waves.
Ilene knew Jia was right. Their plan had depended upon getting Kong to Antarctica without Godzilla noticing he’d left Skull Island. It was now clear that they had failed. She did not know if Kong could survive a confrontation with the other Titan under the best of conditions, but he certainly had no chance tied up like he was, all prepped for vivisection.
“We need to release him,” she told the others. “We have to let him go.”
“See?” Simmons said. “I knew you’d come around.”
“Not dump him,” Ilene said. “Set him free.”
“If we lose Kong the mission is over!” Nathan said.
“He’s a sitting duck out there,” Ilene said. “If Godzilla kills him, if he destroys this fleet, the mission is over. We have to let him protect himself. And us.”
Nathan looked down, then away.
“It’s your mission,” Admiral Wilcox told him. “Call it.”
But Nathan still didn’t say anything; he just pursed his lips and seemed to be looking at something that wasn’t there. The Admiral’s expression shifted; Ilene thought it looked like disgust.
“Do something, Nathan!” Ilene shouted.
An explosion shattered the air; out on the water, a destroyer went up in a fireball. Black smoke boiled toward the sky.
The Admiral turned away from Nathan, disdain now written clearly on his face. “Scramble fighters!” he commanded. “All stations, acquire target lock and fire at will, fire at will!”
* * *
Nathan watched, paralyzed, as missiles and shells fired from every part of the fleet converged on a distant, still unseen target. They ruptured in the ocean, hurling up plumes of water and smoke, sending a shock across the ocean and in the air. It seemed impossible any living being could withstand such power. But then he saw Godzilla’s fins appear as the monster cruised out of the smoke.
On deck, Kong was thrashing ever more desperately, trying to break his shackles, and for a terrible instant the Titan looked straight up at the bridge, directly, it seemed, at Nathan, both puzzled and angry at his helpless state in the face of his enemy. And there was something else in that look. Ilene believed the Iwi and perhaps other humans had gone to war with Kong in the past, and there was evidence that Godzilla, too, might have once had human followers. Did Kong feel … betrayed?
Or did Nathan just feel like a betrayer?
He glanced at the Admiral, who was no longer paying attention to him. Why should he? Nathan had shown what he was made of, again.
He should have known better than to let Dave bully him into continuing the Hollow Earth mission. He had known in his bones that something was wrong, that he didn’t have enough data, that his calculations were somehow off. He had let it happen anyway. He could not make the wrong decision again. He couldn’t. Not with so much at stake. And yet the choice he had to make was impossible. There was no workable solution.
He watched in helpless horror as Godzilla cut a destroyer in half with his dorsal fins. Bombs tracked along his back; the unstoppable Titan kept coming, still swimming with his head down and his back out of the water, like an alligator. A pair of jets dropped down low over him and pounded him with missiles, which erupted in impressive columns of flame. Before they could reach safety, Godzilla’s tail lifted from the water, curling as high as a skyscraper, swatting one of the jets from the air as if it were an insect. Then he brought the tail back down, bisecting a pair of warships, sending their crews running toward the rails as flames roared up from their fuel and munitions.
And on he drove toward them, toward Kong.
To make matters even weirder, one half of the destroyer the Titan had just annihilated suddenly jerked in the water and then began racing behind Godzilla, reminding Nathan of a fishing bobber after a big fish hit the hook.
Must have caught the anchor chain, he thought numbly, watching as the Titan came on, dragging half a freaking battleship behind it. Surreal didn’t even begin to cover it; part of him wondered if it had finally happened and he was experiencing a psychotic episode.
He saw Ilene grab Jia and pull her toward the bridge elevator. Where was she going? Kong? What did she think she could do?
Then Godzilla went under, and a moment later, so did what was left of the destroyer.
Kong, meanwhile, was slamming the deck, desperately trying to tear free of his restraints. Nathan glanced at the controls that would set him free, but he was still paralyzed with indecision. Was Ilene right? Was setting Kong free the only solution? Surely not. Surely with all of the firepower the fleet commanded, they could drive Godzilla away. Maybe he was already gone; it seemed like a long time since he vanished beneath the surface.
Then Godzilla came out of the ocean like a killer whale breaching, smashing into Kong and the deck he was chained to. Nathan watched, aghast, as the entire ship tipped over. It took him an instant to realize that this wasn’t just something he was watching, that it was the ship he was on, that it wasn’t just the deck tilting but the bridge, too. And him. And everyone else.
As he fell and slid across the swiftly tilting deck, he smelled seawater, and then everything whited out.
* * *
Ilene pulled Jia into the elevator and sealed the hatch behind her. She was acting on instinct now, trying to put one more barrier between Jia and the monster outside. As much as she had studied Godzilla, as much as she thought her experience with Kong had prepared her for other Titans, the reality was terrifying. In a handful of minutes, Godzilla had shrugged off everything the fleet could throw at him, destroyed three battleships, obliterated a fighter plane, and capsized a vessel large enough to carry Kong. Now they were upside down, and water was pouring into her chosen hiding place—and into the bridge even faster. She gaped, horrified, at the sight of Kong, underwater, still in chains, fighting a losing battle for his survival. All of Monarch’s planning, all of their military might swept aside with no more effort than someone on a picnic brushing their blanket clean of ants.
They had to release Kong. It was the only chance any of them had. But the pressure outside was too great, preventing her from opening the hatch. She began banging, trying to get Nathan’s attention before the bridge filled completely with water and he drowned.
* * *
When Nathan came to, he was floating; water was gushing into the bridge, and everything was upside down. He heard muffled screaming and pounding from the elevator and saw Jia and Ilene were in it. They were above water, but like the bridge, the elevator was quickly filling. He couldn’t tell what Ilene was saying, but he followed her frantic gestures. Through the bridge window, he saw Kong, underwater, still bound and still flailing, continuing to pull the ship over.
The ship should right itself, he thought, in a weird moment of clarity. But it can’t now with Kong pulling it down. He was floating, with his head pointed at what had once been the floor. He looked down, toward the former ceiling, the controls, and the lever that would release Kong’s manacles.
He shucked off his down vest and struggled toward the controls, as spiderweb cracks formed in the glass. When that shattered, the bridge would finish filling in an implosion, and it would be too late to do anything.
He steadied himself. You can do this.
But he ran out of breath and came up short.
Gasping, he dove again, swimming back down to the lever. Outside Kong had managed to rip off one of his manacles, but it was going to be too late if he didn’t …
He felt his muscles hit their limit and knew he didn’t have it in him. His lungs ached, and he remembered his talk with Ayara, about how he and his brother used to see who could stay under longest.
It had always been Dave who won. He was the failure, and always had been.
But then he remembered something else.
You can do it, little brother. Dave had said, as he breathed, preparing himself. Another ten seconds this time. Don’t worry about anybody else. This time you’ll do your best.
Goddammit, Dave, he thought.
And he squeezed everything he had left in him into reaching the lever. His finger touched it. Now it was in his grip, and he was still afraid of failing.
But he pulled it anyway.
Then the universe tossed him aside as Kong finally freed himself. Gravity reversed again as the huge vessel righted itself and water began to drain away; as if in a nightmare, he saw the colossal forms of Godzilla and Kong grappling beneath the surface. As the reptile snapped at Kong’s face, the ape managed to kick Godzilla down into the depths, reaching for the ship.
Nathan felt the burn of saltwater in his throat and sinuses as Kong hauled himself out of the water and back onto the now righted, if listing ship. The Titan was gasping, too. But his eyes were tracking Godzilla, whose fins could be seen moving in a wide circle around the fleet. Kong pulled himself up to his full height. He reached up and broke the metal band around his neck, and roared, beating his chest.
Behind him, the elevator door opened, pouring out Ilene and Jia. The Admiral and bridge crew were recovering, but the controls were all dead.
Oh, Nathan thought as Kong continued to follow Godzilla’s path. Kong isn’t going to wait for Godzilla to come back for him, is he?
No, he thought, as the gigantic ape took a very short run across the deck and leapt. He bounced off a frigate as if it were a stepping-stone in a creek and landed squarely on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. The whole ship lurched but Kong steadied himself, roaring a challenge at the other Titan swimming toward him. He grabbed one of the jets from the carrier deck and flung it at the oncoming Titan; Nathan saw the pilot eject an instant before the craft slammed into Godzilla’s back.
It didn’t slow the monster down. Tail pumping furiously, he broke from the water and slapped down on the deck, destroying several planes as he pulled his entire weight from the sea and gathered his hind legs beneath him.
But by that time Kong was ready. He threw a punch that would have made any street-brawler proud, connecting with Godzilla’s snout and knocking him back on his taloned heels—but not far enough. Godzilla recovered and returned with an open-clawed slap that overbalanced Kong, tumbling him back. Godzilla stooped over him, but then a fusillade of missiles blasted into his back, stunning him for the few seconds it took for Kong to come up swinging, this time punching Godzilla over the side of the carrier. The reptilian Titan vanished beneath the waves.
For a moment, nothing happened; Kong stared down at the sea, his huge brows knit in concentration, searching for his vanished foe. Then he suddenly leapt aside as a blue bolt of energy shot up from below, blasting through the ship and narrowly missing the huge ape. Cut in half, the carrier began to sink, as Kong plunged into the water after Godzilla.
* * *
Free of the elevator, Ilene came alongside Nathan in time to see Kong dive.
Kong had never been shy of the rivers and lakes of Skull Island. He bathed in them, hunted in them, especially for mire squids and the enormous amounts of protein they contained.
But while he liked to look out over the ocean, especially in the rare days when the storm parted, he had always avoided getting into it, probably because he didn’t like the idea of water deeper than he was tall. Whether he knew that from experimentation when he was younger, of from instinct, she did not know. Did Kong know how to swim? She couldn’t remember if other apes swam or not. It seemed unlikely. But then again, Kong was not like other apes.
Whatever the case, Godzilla spent most of his time in the water.
“Kong could hold his own on solid ground,” she told Nathan. “But this isn’t his terrain. He needs our help.”
But once again, Nathan was frozen with indecision, as if his effort in freeing Kong had drained him of all initiative.
“We’re running out of time, Doctor!” the Admiral said. The emergency power kicked in, and suddenly the controls and monitors of the bridge were alive again.
“Depth charges,” Ilene said. “Depth charges. Maybe we can confuse Godzilla.”
Lacking any input from Nathan, Wilcox seized on her suggestion.
“All ships, set submersibles for cyclical expansion. Multiple sources. Multiple sources!”
* * *
The enemy pulled Kong down.
Kong had sensed him before, many times. Sometimes it had been like an itch, but deep inside where he could not reach to scratch it. He had never seen him until now, yet there were no surprises when he did; like when he saw the bones of his parents, he knew what they were, although he did not really remember them. The shape of the enemy was like nothing he had ever seen, much less fought; but just the scent of the creature made him angry, and everything about it fit into a hollow spot inside of him, as if something had been taken out long ago and left empty until now.
He would have let it be. He had no interest in it; it did not threaten his island and those he protected. Why should he care about it or what it did?
But it had come for him, come when he was helpless. And for that, he wanted to break it, tear off its limbs, suck the meat from its bones.
But it was bigger, stronger than anything he had ever known. It made him feel things he did not understand and did not want to understand.
He had known the instant he was in the water that he’d made a mistake. He had fought things like this, the giant scaly predators that lurked in the waters of his island, that pulled smaller beasts beneath the surface and kept them there until they died. The largest of them had tried to kill him, but he always managed to plant his feet on the bottom of the river and snap them in half.
There was no bottom to this water, and the only thing to plant himself on was the enemy. While the water was also Kong’s adversary, the enemy was friends with it. Rather than trying to go back up, where he could breath, the enemy only wanted to go down, deeper, where Kong could not.
If Kong let that happen, he knew the darkness in the middle of him, the ache for air, would eventually spread out into his arms and legs and the place where light came into his head. And then the enemy would triumph.
He had to break away, find his way back up to the air.
But as he thought this, the enemy only dragged him deeper with sweeps of its powerful tail. Parts of the metal things the small ones made went drifting by him. The things that floated on water, the flying-dead things like leafwings but faster. All falling in this pool that had no bottom. Like him.
Then the water slapped him, his ears rang from a sound like the booming the sky made, but closer to the booming made by the small ones with their flying-dead things. It hurt, but the enemy jerked in his grip. More booms came, and for the barest instant, the enemy lost his grip. Another sound happened just behind the enemy’s head. Kong tore his arms loose and swung.
The water made his arm too slow, but his clenched fingers still connected. It was like punching a mountain, but even a mountain could give way if you hit it hard enough.
He pulled his legs up, put both of them against the enemy’s chest, and pushed, even as everything seemed to be getting darker, like when the brighter circle light went into the water and the clouds blotted out the little dim ones. The middle of him hurt more than ever, aching for air. He pushed harder, broke free, but then the huge tail hit him, and all of the air came out of him in huge silver bubbles, and water rushed in to take its place.
* * *
The ocean’s surface boiled from underwater explosions, and then an immense column of water geysered up. Ilene braced herself for what would come next, but it was … calm. The water went still.
That was bad. Godzilla was completely at home in the depths. If only he came up, it probably meant he had prevailed. If neither came up, it probably meant the same thing. The only way this turned out well was if…
Her thoughts were interrupted when Kong’s hand shot out of the water and slammed onto the deck. Slowly, painfully, the Titan pulled himself onto the ship, coughing up tons of water and marine life. Then he collapsed, exhausted.
Relief flooded through her. He had survived. But had he won? She doubted it. If Godzilla came back for another try, it would all be over. Kong looked as if he could scarcely raise a fist.
* * *
Nathan could not focus. He was supposed to be in charge, why? Because he had such a great track record? All he wanted was out.
On one hand, he was aware that he was consumed with panic, and on the other hand, the nature of panic was that it would not let you think.
In the distance, Godzilla’s fins were briefly visible through the flame and smoke of the ruined fleet.
“He’s circling back,” he said.
“This won’t end until one of them submits,” Ilene said.
I know that! He screamed in his mind. Don’t you think I know that?
As long as the threat remained…
Wait. The threat. He remembered something, something Mark Russell had told him once over a beer in a hotel in Denver. About Godzilla, and Castle Bravo…
“Shut it down,” he told Admiral Wilcox. “All of it. Guns. Engines. Shut it down. Now!”
“If we do that, we’re dead,” Wilcox retorted.
“No,” Nathan said. “We’re playing dead.”
For a heartbeat or two, no one answered. But Ilene got it.
“Make him think he’s won,” she said.
The Admiral looked at Nathan, and his face changed. Nathan wasn’t quite sure how to read it, because he hadn’t seen the expression from him before. But it looked like … approval.
“Cut all engines,” the Admiral commanded. “Cut all power. Cease fire. No radio. Kill anything that makes noise.” He glanced out to sea. “This had better work.”
Everything went quiet, so quiet it was surreal. Nathan hadn’t realized just how much ambient noise there was even without the explosions until it was gone.
Come on, he thought. It had to look real enough; most of the ships really were gone. Smoke and fumes obscured vision; the water was full of their wreckage, of burning fuel and flotsam. And … bodies. Nathan had no sense of the casualty count yet. He prayed that it was small.
For a stretch of time, nothing happened. Then, in the distance, the water rippled as Godzilla’s head rose from it, just a little, like an alligator having a surreptitious look around.
Kong was still laid out on the main deck, exhausted, one eye wearily tracking for danger, his chest rising and falling slightly but the rest of him as still as a corpse.
Please let this work, Nathan silently pleaded. No more fighting, no more death. He had promised Ilene Kong would be okay. He had promised Jia.
Served him right for promising things not in his power to deliver. If Godzilla didn’t fall for this, everything was lost.
The reptilian head glided through the water, rotating here and there, surveying the wreckage, the flames, the silent remains of the armada.
Then Godzilla abruptly rose out of the water, slamming his tail into the waves and screeching a long nightmarish howl of victory, before plunging once more into the depths.
At first, Nathan feared it was just another ruse, that the Titan would surface again, right beneath their feet and savage what little was left of their expedition. But after several very long minutes, it seemed the ruse had worked.
Jia went to the window; Nathan saw Kong had lifted his head and was staring at her. The girl signed something. Then Kong slumped to the deck. His eyes closed, but he could still see the Titan’s chest moving.