TWO

You got this new Hollow Earth Conservation Bill. Like that’s gonna stop the corporations from going down there, taking whatever they want. You thought the monsters were scary, just wait for Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Oil—it’s gonna be a field day.

—Titan Truth Podcast #82

Somewhere in Hollow Earth

Kong knew what death was, and he knew it was chasing him.

Death was four-legged. Death was swift. Its jaws bristled with teeth, all sharp, all for puncturing and tearing meat, no flat plant-grinders in its skulls. Death was hairy, hunched at the shoulders, thick-tailed.

Individually, these deaths were small. One—or even a hand of fingers of them—didn’t worry him. He had met them before, fought them before. Once he had nearly succumbed to them. Their size had fooled him until he realized they did not hunt alone. They did not hunt in numbers he could count on his hands. They hunted as many. And today there were more than he had ever seen at once. This death knew it would take more than two hands of them to kill him, and they had brought more than enough. Far more than last time. So he would not fight them. Not here.

He leaped over a ridge and came down on all fours, his knuckles crushing trees as he ran faster, as fast as he could. It would not go well for him if they caught him here, in the open. The mountains ahead promised better ground for the coming fight. Ground of his choosing, not theirs.

A glance over his shoulder showed they were still gaining.

Above, the skin-winged fliers called as they cut through the air. Still further up, the tops of trees, hills and mountains pointed down at him. There was no sky here, except the one that lay in the middle of the land that arched over—or maybe below—him. Neither was there a great moving light in the sky, like the one he had known in the other place, or the dimmer one that glowed in the night. But there was light, shining from bunches of rock that sprouted up from the lower land or hung from the upper one.

The thing inside of his chest was beating hard, and the air in there was starting to burn. He wasn’t tired yet, but he would be soon. Then he would slow down, and those sharp teeth would find him. But not yet. Right now, with the wind inside him and the bright world all around, with the chittering of the fliers and the growling of the pack and the smell of broken trees and bruised leaves, he almost felt like he should turn and fight them, see how many he could kill before they brought him down. If they brought him down. He might kill them all. He was Kong.

He looked back again. No, there were too many of them. He knew that, even if his rage did not. So he kept running.

This place with no sky was still new to him. It was big, far bigger than the place he had lived before, the land surrounded by sea and storm, the land where the skeletons of his parents bleached in the sun, where his little ones, the Iwi, had once lived. He was learning it, though. Each day he wandered further, explored new territory. Searching, always searching. At first he had been eager—hopeful even. But lately he was starting to doubt. To feel like the middle of him was hollowed out. He was tired of his own company. He wanted someone else. Even the little ones seemed distant now. He hadn’t seen the one called Jia in a long time. A very long time, it seemed.

Right now, he was at the edge of the territory he knew. But he did know it. He knew where he should go to stop death from finding him, as it had found his parents, as it had found most of the Iwi.

He ran on toward the jagged line of mountains, up a slope between two peaks. Ahead, a crevasse cut the ground in half. He pushed himself to go just a little faster, bunched his massive legs beneath him, and threw himself up and forward. Air rushed through his fur, and he wondered if this was what the skin-wing fliers felt as they sailed through it. But no, he felt the pull of stones below him. High above, in the middle of the sky, there was no pull. He had been there, floating, with no weight drawing his huge frame down. But now he wasn’t flying, he was falling—he could feel it in his belly. The crevasse below had no bottom he could see, although he knew it must be many times his own height. It might go on forever, for all he knew. The other side was far away, right around the limit of how far he could jump. For a thump of his chest he thought of falling much further, too far, of smashing into sharp stones far below. Then his feet hit the far edge and he tumbled forward across the hard ground, a savage joy surging through him.

Was it too far for his pursuers? Probably. It had almost been too far for him.

But they sensed a kill. He could see it burning in their eyes. The leaders of the pack didn’t hesitate. They jumped after him, and all the others followed without hesitation.

As they landed on his side of the gorge, Kong raced on along the path leading up between the peaks.

But not for long. A final dash brought him to the edge of another cliff, but this wasn’t one side of a ravine. The mountains ended here in a precipice dropping down into a valley cut by a long, winding water, and beyond that more mountains, but far too distant for him to jump to. The peaks on either side of him were too steep to climb. He was caught between narrow walls and a fall that even he could not survive.

His pursuers knew it. But they slowed down. Now that they had him trapped, they were suddenly cautious. Maybe it worried them that the way between the pass was so narrow they could only get to him a few at a time. He knew from observation and experience that they preferred to come at their prey from all sides. Here they would have to come straight toward him. Even if one or two managed to slip along his flanks, the drop behind him would keep them from coming at him from his back.

He took deep breaths, waiting. Then he rose up to his full height and shouted his rage, his fists crashing against his chest.

Try me. Come and get me if you think you can.

For an instant longer they hesitated, their bloodlust balanced against their fear until the leader snarled and bolted across the broken ground, right across the spot Kong had carefully avoided a moment before.

The ground broke beneath the predators’ feet. Or rather, it had never really been there. Kong had spent a long time placing branches, covering them with rocks and sand, until—if you didn’t know—they looked just like the stone of the pass. There were animals that looked like something they weren’t, that disguised themselves as plants or grass or harmless creatures, that you didn’t notice until they were trying to eat you. He had made such a thing. It looked like solid ground, but it was really a hole.

His hole ate the beast, chewing it with teeth he’d made of sharpened logs and placed in the bottom. You didn’t have to hold a weapon in your hands to make it work. The little ones knew that well, and so did Kong.

The pack did not. But the others saw the pit now. They saw their leader dying, but that didn’t bother them. They would jump across his hole if he gave them a chance.

But he didn’t. He lifted up the thick part of a tree he had dragged up from the lowlands, tied with vines which he had also brought. The log swung forward, smashing into the predators even as the vines pulled at the tree-trunks he had wedged into the high cliff faces and piled heavy with boulders. The braces pulled out, and the rocks fell in an avalanche of his making, burying his enemies. Crushing most of them.

He watched, satisfied with his work. It wasn’t perfect. A few had survived and were crawling out from beneath the boulders, but these he could count on one hand. Their blood was so hot that they started back toward him anyway, even though most of their pack was dead or dying. There weren’t enough of them now, not enough to kill him. But they could hurt him. Fighting them would still be trouble. And he was hungry, very hungry, and ready for this to be over.

One of the creatures had been thrown clear to his side of the trap, but it was as good as dead. He picked up the broken body, lifting it over his head, shouting rage and challenge. He pulled, feeling the dead muscle and sinew resist until they didn’t, and the creature tore in half, drenching him with gore. He thrust the half-a-beast with the head toward them, howling his threat, his promise to do the same to them.

That was finally enough. Shaken from their hunger-rage, the remaining members of the pack yelped in fear and ran back the way they had come.

Panting, triumphant, Kong lowered his prize, then dropped it on the ground. As his own fury cleared, he realized his fur was sticky with blood and guts.

Which did not please him at all. It would not do.

He took the carcass and carried it out of the narrow pass, down to the cave he lived in, where a long water fell off the top of a mountain. He stood in the stream of it. It washed down him like rain but was so much stronger. He had bathed himself this way in his old country. Then later, after the storms came, when he lived in a much smaller territory, there had also been a place like this. A falling-water place. It felt good pressing through his fur, carrying away the stench and gore, beating against his sore muscles. But he couldn’t enjoy it completely. He kept thinking about the pack which had hunted him—or that he had lured into hunting him. They had failed to make a meal of him, but they had at least been working together. Their strength was in their family. To kill them, he’d had to make a trap, because he was alone. He had no pack, no family to help him.

The Iwi had been a little like family. He had protected them. And later, Jia and her family had been like part of his own. But he knew there had once been more like him. That two of them had brought him to the world, and then died. He had seen their bones, but he couldn’t remember them alive. Not really. When he tried, all he could feel was sadness and rage. He had always known something was missing. When he had first come here, to this place with no real sky, he had felt at home. Even though he had never seen a place like it, every sight, sound and smell had seemed familiar. He expected to find more apes like him. His family. He found signs that they had been there. He found a dwelling, a throne, weapons they had left behind. But never another like him.

He thought they must all be dead.

*   *   *

When he felt clean, he dragged his meal back up into the mountains and through the huge hole in them to a place he liked, a ledge that looked out over the world. He settled there, weary. Hungry. He tore a leg from his prey and took a bite.

It bit him back. It felt like that, at least. Something in his mouth cracked, and pain struck through his jaw and into his head. He snarled, and reached to touch where it hurt, and found that one of his sharp teeth no longer came to a point. It felt rough, and it throbbed. It had broken. He didn’t know that could happen to teeth, but now he did, and he felt… bad. Everything seemed to have turned against him, even food. Even his own mouth.

Next to him, the carcass moved. It slid away from him. For a moment he was confused because he knew it should be dead and therefore shouldn’t move. Then he saw that something was trying to take it from him, a creature just less than half his size. Its head was small compared to its fat body; it was covered in bumps and horns, with no hair or feathers, and it sprawled on four short, thick legs.

It was trying to take his meal. His prize.

He grabbed the carcass and yanked back. However small it was, its jaws were strong. It dug its feet in, trying to back away.

Kong wasn’t sure he even wanted to eat anymore. His mouth hurt; his whole head hurt. The big lizard-thing didn’t act like it wanted to fight. It wanted to steal. But now that it was caught, it wasn’t giving up.

He still wasn’t sure it was worth it when he heard a booming call, echoing through the cliffs. A distant, familiar roar.

Sometimes when he bellowed in the mountains, the sound would come back to him. He would hear himself, like he saw himself when he looked in still water. But this wasn’t that. He hadn’t yelled at the creature stealing his food. He hadn’t yelled at all.

Something else had made the sound. It sounded like him, but also not like him.

Was it another? Could it be another? Finally? Family?

The pain in his jaw was forgotten as he leaped from his perch and began swinging and scrambling though the maze of cliffs and canyons, pursuing the source of the sound. Another that was like him. He felt a sort of swelling inside, almost like the feeling right before a fight. Excitement. The thinking-ahead-about-something-good-that-is-about-to-happen.

As he searched, he called back, and was rewarded by an answer. Closer. He was almost there.

He skidded down a slope and came to a stop at the edge of another overlook, turning his gaze to the canyon below. He didn’t see the source of the voice, but the view was so vast that even something so large as himself could be lost in it. For a blink of his eyes, everything seemed still, full of possibility.

Then the call came again, and he saw. Across the gulf, on a ledge below him. Not something like him at all. It was small, not even the size of his head. It didn’t have fur or arms. It was slick and four-legged, like the things that lived in water, the long-jumpers. As he watched, the skin beneath its mouth suddenly bulged, ballooning out until it was nearly twice the size of the creature itself, lifting it from the ground. Then its mouth yawned wide, and a sound rushed out, a sound far too loud for something of that size.

The call. The sound that had brought him here, to find another of his own kind. Instead, he found this. Yet another thing that survived by pretending to be something it wasn’t. Something else.

He stared at the ape-pretender, and although the crystals shone as brightly as ever, everything seemed to have grown darker. He chuffed and turned his back to the source of his disappointment, lowered himself to sit. His tooth hurt again, more than ever. Even if he felt like eating it, his hard-won meal was now surely gone, devoured by the food-stealer.

Weary, in pain, hungry, and still alone, Kong lowered his head.