There are tales among the indigenous people of Borneo of a great dragon that once lived on the summit of Mount Kinabalu, the tallest mountain of that island, and indeed in Southeast Asia. It was said that the dragon had a bright, glowing pearl that it played with. The people loved to watch it. Inevitably someone chose to steal the pearl, thus earning forever the wrath of the dragon. Who stole the pearl and why changes in each version of the story. Some blame a Chinese prince who took it far away—but this is probably a very recent revision to a very old story.
If you climb Mount Kinabalu, you will find the summit to be bare rock, scraped and gouged by the massive glacier that once weighed upon it. Mount Kinabalu is not in Greenland or Siberia. It sits within a few degrees of the equator. And yet it was glaciated at about 1.4 million years ago and again about a hundred thousand years ago, and remained so until around ten thousand years ago. It’s easy to imagine the natives of Borneo looking up at the only ice cap in their experience and imagining it was a giant pearl or some other jewel.
There is another story from halfway around the world about a similar dragon and a similar shiny jewel that belonged to it. It too, was stolen, by an evil god or monster, who used it to inflict pain on the dragon, and make it do his bidding.
—Internal Monarch document, Speculations on a Hypothetical Titan, Maartens, Chen, and Omar
Despite what her mother had told her, Jia still worried she was losing her mind. She might be missing one of the senses that most people took for granted, but she had never really felt that lack, never felt sorry for herself that she couldn’t hear. She did well enough without that sense.
Here, in her mother’s world, she had encountered any number of well-meaning people who thought that since she had “lost” her hearing, her other senses must be “heightened” to compensate. She didn’t know about all of that—it seemed like their fancy way of feeling sorry for her. What she did know was that to survive on Skull Island, you had to pay very close attention to any senses you possessed. Plenty of people who could hear perfectly well had died there because they weren’t really listening. You had to let the world in through your eyes, your skin, your nose, your tongue. She had learned that at a very young age. She had always, even in her earliest memories, felt in control of her senses. When her sight, smell, or tactile senses told her something, she paid attention. She figured out what it meant. And she survived. When they had been on the ship, with Kong all chained up, she had known Godzilla was coming before anyone else. She had felt the Titan’s vibrations through the hull. It wasn’t that Mom or any of the others couldn’t feel those vibrations the way she could, it was that they didn’t pay attention the way she did.
Or so she had always thought. But thinking back, the ship had had machines that could feel vibrations and see things at a great distance—but it hadn’t. And maybe… maybe something had told her Godzilla might be coming before she thought to put her fingers to the metal hull of the ship.
Maybe. All she knew was that now she didn’t feel in control at all, and she didn’t like it. Feelings and images were forcing themselves into her head without her permission. Her body was changing too, also out of her control. Mom said it was because she was a teenager, and maybe she was right about some of it. But maybe there really were things Mom could not feel, had never felt. Things she couldn’t understand.
She thought back to the things she had seen the day before. They hadn’t been dreams, or at least not the usual sort of dreams. When she was smaller, she used to think that sometimes she dreamed about Kong—no, the same as Kong. Like she could see his dreams and be in them. And even further back, with her people, there had been something about that, about the dreams we dream together. But now, thinking back to that time, she wasn’t sure what was real, what she had imagined, and what she had rationalized. Mom’s people did a lot of “rationalizing.” Telling themselves and each other that something they felt was true really wasn’t. And she had begun doing it, too, hadn’t she?
She got a drawing pad and some colored pencils. She had drawn the weird shapes without even knowing she did it, and Mom thought they meant something. That was why she was gone now, again, to ask someone about it. She had promised she wouldn’t be away long, this time, and that she wasn’t going to Hollow Earth. She would be back for dinner.
But maybe, Jia thought, she could do something while she waited. Maybe she would draw what she had seen last night, in her room. It had scared her, but sometimes things were less scary when you understood them. When you knew what they were.
Trying not to think too much about it, she started putting color to the paper. She finished one drawing, frowned at it, set it aside, and started another. There was something she wasn’t getting right.
She was working on a third drawing when she felt it, pulsing through her, as if she was up to her neck in a pool of water something had jumped into, and the ripples were lapping against her.
And she knew. Something was happening. She put her pencil down and looked up to her old Kong totem, the one she’d brought with her from Skull Island. The one she had clutched for comfort last night.
Kong.
She jumped up out of bed, slipped on her shoes, and ran toward where Mom worked.
Ilene arrived back at the Barbados launch site to find everything in a state of chaos. She handed Bernie off to an aide with orders to put him in guest accommodations—where he hopefully couldn’t do much harm—while trying to catch up with developments on her phone and ignoring incoming calls.
At a certain point she couldn’t ignore them anymore. Or at least not one of them. She took it as she made her way through the facility.
“Okay, listen to me,” she told the senator, after enduring his opening tirade. “If Godzilla’s on the move he senses a threat coming. We don’t know what it is.”
“And you’re not concerned?”
“Of course I’m concerned, Senator. That’s why we’re monitoring the situation.”
“Well, let me tell you, my constituents—”
Hampton was banging on the glass wall of the office. “We’ve got a problem!” she shouted, causing Ilene to miss the senator’s next few words. It didn’t matter. She could guess the gist.
“And I am telling you, Senator, that Kong doesn’t leave Hollow Earth. Which is why Godzilla has no reason to retalia—”
Something moved on one of the monitors watching the Hollow Earth launch site. Something big. A hand? An arm?
Kong’s arm, reaching out of the bay. Perfect.
“I have to go,” she said. She didn’t wait for the senator’s response.
“What’s he doing up here?” Ilene asked Hampton as they ran down the metal stairs toward the launch area.
“No idea,” Hampton replied.
“Does Godzilla know?”
“Not that we can tell.”
“It’s only a matter of time,” Ilene said.
“What happens if Godzilla starts heading this way?”
“Then we all run like hell.”
But maybe Godzilla already knew. Maybe that was why he’d cut his nap short. The timing didn’t quite line up, though, since Kong was just arriving. Could Godzilla tell if Kong entered a vortex? But there was another, probably worse possibility. Maybe Kong and Godzilla were both reacting to an even greater threat.
Ilene reached the platform overlooking the launch area, a semicircular bay circumferenced by electric towers. The actual vortex was below the water. Kong was already fully out, pulling himself onto the land.
Jia was there, watching him, which was… strange. How could she have possibly known this was happening? And even if she did, how was she already here? It was a twenty-minute walk from their apartment.
Maybe Jia had been here all day, waiting for her to get back from Miami. She was a familiar sight around the installation. Most everyone here had a tendency to let her wander at will. Not necessarily a good thing, and totally Ilene’s fault.
Kong turned around and reclined against the hillside, groaning, draping one arm across his chest.
Jia saw her.
He’s hurt, the girl said.
Ilene could see that, but she didn’t see how he was hurt. There were no obvious, recent wounds. If he’d been injured, she should have gotten a report from Jayne. Of course, she’d been in Miami, and then the Godzilla thing had happened, so maybe she’d just missed it.
Kong grimaced and opened his mouth. Something looked odd, but it took a second or two to figure out what.
He’d broken a tooth. Was that what this was all about? Were they all about to die in another dust-up between Kong and Godzilla because the big fellow needed a dentist?
She sighed. They didn’t have a Titan dentist around, but they did have… someone. He would have to do.
* * *
The Maximum Utility Load Elevator, or more affectionately the M.U.L.E, was part hovercraft, part flying industrial transport, and part crane. It was the same bright yellow as a bulldozer, which Trapper loved, because as a kid he’d been partial to bulldozers. He clung to a ladder on the inside of the cargo bay, with nothing but air between him and quite a long drop. Kong was right where Ilene had said he would be, sprawled belly-up on the shore. He hadn’t really expected the big ape to move around, given the amount of tranquilizer he’d prescribed.
Passing over the overlook, he saw Ilene and her daughter, Jia, watching the M.U.L.E arrive.
“The good news is,” he said, “it’s just an infected tooth.” He hoped that was true. It was what his remote drone-assisted examination had turned up. If he was wrong, he had already cost the taxpayers… well, a lot of money. He didn’t really keep track of the details. “Luckily,” he went on, “you have come to the best doctor in town. Let’s have some tunes.”
He hit play on his ancient boombox and began mouthing the lyrics into the big hook in his hand as the pilot got them into position.
I gotcha…
“Tranqs at a hundred percent. Vitals are stable. Trapper, you are clear to swap the damaged tooth with the replacement.”
Sure. It wouldn’t do to be in Kong’s mouth when he woke up, would it? So he’d better hurry. He swung over and put both feet on the block-and-tackle rig, held onto the cable, gave the thumbs-up to the pilot and got one back in return. Then he was in free-fall, plummeting toward Kong’s gaping maw.
“Yay-hey-hey-hey!” he hollered. God, he loved this job.
The rig slowed up and he landed gently on the ape’s head.
“Touchdown Trapper!”
Seriously, he thought. Best be quick.
The broken tooth looked a little worse in person, but it confirmed his diagnosis. No wonder the big guy was in pain.
“We’ll fix that,” he said.
He secured the tooth with a winch clamp, then ratcheted it tight. In his sleep, Kong growled and belched. It smelled like he’d eaten an abattoir.
“Ugh!” he said. “What’d you have for breakfast?”
He stood up, took hold of his lifeline, and flashed a thumbs-up toward Ilene and Jia.
“This sucker’s ready to come out.”
Which meant he was out, too. The next instant the winch pulled him up toward the M.U.L.E almost as rapidly as he had come down. He got a secure grip on the ladder.
“Right, let’s roll!” he told the pilot.
It was the old tooth-and-doorknob trick, except in this case the slamming door was a twenty-ton M.U.L.E accelerating at speed. This was a first, and he hoped it worked.
As it was, the M.U.L.E barely clocked the jerk as the tooth came loose. Kong felt it though, groaning in his sleep.
Now for the really tricky part. Putting in the new one before the big ape woke up.
* * *
Ilene and Jia watched from the overlook while the M.U.L.E returned and lowered the new tooth down. It was an odd grey color and would not be mistaken for one of Kong’s real teeth, but she doubted the Great Ape would care what it looked like. Trapper directed the new canine to its proper place, but at this distance it was hard to see exactly how he was fitting it. That was fine—there should be a full report later. Well, eventually. Probably. After being reminded a few times. He’d been involved in Project Powerhouse, back before it had been shut down. Her involvement had been somewhat tangential, so she hadn’t worked with him directly. But she had read his reports, which apparently usually had to be chased down, and with some difficulty. Trap was good at what he did. He always had been. But paperwork, follow-up, accountability—these were not things she associated with him.
Hampton reported that Godzilla was being escorted by several ships, which fortunately didn’t seem to bother him. No one appeared to have any idea where he was headed, but if he was on his way to Barbados, he wasn’t taking the most direct route. That seemed like good news, but it might not be. Godzilla had been known to take shortcuts through Hollow Earth—or at least through subterranean passages that riddle the Earth’s crust that either connected to vortices or the remnants of ancient vortices. So he might know a shorter way to the Monarch station than following the curvature of the Earth. If he went off radar, they should probably start packing. Or skip the packing and get out.
Maybe Godzilla didn’t know Kong was on the surface. But as she’d told Hampton, it was only a matter of time. Then they would have a problem. A big one. Or more accurately, two big ones.
It looked like Trapper was done. He was walking away from Kong, anyway, and the M.U.L.E was lifting off. So he was staying, at least for a bit. Maybe she would get that report after all.
Kong still looked like he was asleep, but he was starting to stir a little.
I want to talk to Kong.
You will. But not right now. He may be angry when he wakes up.
He won’t be. He’ll just be confused.
Stay here, Jia, Okay? I have a lot to worry about right now. I need to know you’re safe.
Jia nodded, but she didn’t look happy.
* * *
Much as she would have loved to watch Kong get his first brush with dentistry, Hampton had concerns that outweighed that simple pleasure. Kong was above ground, and that could be very, very bad.
“Check the time when Kong emerged,” she told Vales, the tech on duty. “I want to know if Godzilla so much as blinked an hour each side of the vortex passage.”
“Yes, Director,” Vales said. There was a bit of a pause.
“No,” he said. “Godzilla’s changed course a couple of times, but it doesn’t appear to be in response to Kong’s arrival.”
“What do we think it is in response to?”
A map appeared on her screen, with tracking data and a bright blue line that marked Kong’s passage.
“He went north out of Rome, but then turned back west, and then southwest. He entered the Mediterranean—the Tyrrhenian I guess, technically—and now he’s traveling west, trending north. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s looking for something.”
“Yeah. But what?” she wondered. Apparently not Kong. And that was a good thing, right?
“Check in the with the sub,” she said.
She switched to a live aerial feed; Godzilla’s spines cutting through blue water, a naval vessel right alongside him, pacing him.
The sub didn’t have much more to say, just that they couldn’t determine Godzilla’s trajectory and they suggested all Monarch sites should stay on high alert.
No kidding, she thought.
What about the other Titans? No reports had come in, but sometimes that was because those who were positioned to report weren’t in any condition to do so. She went down the checklist, but everyone was calling in, and none of them were reporting movements of the other Titans—or any unusual activity at all.
What had gotten into Godzilla? This wasn’t one of his usual patrols.
“Map a cone in the direction he’s going now,” she said. “I want to know anything of interest in that area. If there’s a kid wearing a watch with a radium dial, I want to know about it.”
* * *
Ilene went back into the facility and followed the stairs down to the beach. By the time she got there, Kong was coming around, chuffing and looking confused, as Jia had predicted. The M.U.L.E was growing smaller in the distance, its job done.
“There she is!”
Trapper—Travis Beasley on his official documentation—was coming toward her from the surf. He wore a loud Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned over a white tee and sported dark sunglasses. If she hadn’t just seen him in Kong’s mouth, she might have thought he was a parrot head beachcomber. Or a tourist. Or maybe if she hadn’t known him for twenty years.
Was that accurate? Twenty years? Could that be right? It seemed impossible.
“Trapper,” she said. “Thanks for getting down here so fast. Nice work.”
“You are most welcome,” he said, bobbing a little curtsy. He’d grown a beard and mustache, she saw. It was a little redder than his disheveled brown hair. So he wasn’t exactly like he was back in the day, but he bore a very strong resemblance to the guy she used to know.
“It’s not every day you get to climb inside a three-hundred-foot-tall ape’s mouth, is it?”
“Ah,” she said. “Are you sure it’ll be strong enough?”
“The tooth? That’s the same polymer composite they use on the vehicle heat shields. He could chomp through the Eiffel Tower with that.”
As if commenting, Kong chose that moment to vocalize an agitated moan.
“Well, good teeth aren’t gonna help if Godzilla senses that he’s up here,” she said.
Trapper took off his glasses and began cleaning them on his shirt, revealing eyes the color of a bright summer sky. Without the glasses, he looked a little older, though, a little more weathered. Like maybe he really had lived through the same years she had.
“Well,” he said. “Can’t have a Titan with a toothache, can you?”
“Yeah,” she agreed.
“Don’t worry, a couple of hours, he’ll be a bit groggy, but he’ll be good to go back down.”
That was a relief. The sooner the better, and with any luck, their big lizard friend would be none the wiser.
She glanced at Trapper. She had been a little anxious about seeing him face-to-face for the first time in… a while. But now she was gratified to realize that it was actually pretty good to see him.
“You know,” she said, “when I first heard you were gonna be a vet, I thought, no, that is way too boring for Trap. Then you go and become the weirdest vet in the world.”
“Yeah, it’s basically me and Doctor Dolittle,” he replied. “Except my animals are bigger.”
“I thought, finally, someone’s made him grow up.”
“Nope,” he said. “Someone tried that back in college, but… it didn’t really work.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“You know what she said to me?” he asked. “Trapper, you are not a serious person.”
“Oh, she sounds very smart,” Ilene said.
“Ish,” he amended. “She’s got a PhD.”
“Two, actually,” she said.
He smiled, paused, as if considering if he was going to keep on in this vein. He didn’t, and she was glad. It didn’t need to get weird. Instead he nodded toward Jia.
“How’s the kid doing?”
“You know,” she said. “Struggling. Trying to find her place in the world.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes,” Trapper said. “She’ll get through it. She’s got a good mom.”
She followed his gaze up to Jia. But the girl wasn’t looking at them. She was looking at Kong. Signing.
Rest, she was saying. You’ll feel better.
Kong responded with a soft sound. Ilene thought it sounded skeptical.
Looks good, Jia continued.
This time, Kong’s vocalization sounded… pleased, maybe? He closed his eyes, plainly still recovering from sedation.
She started to turn back to Trapper, not at all sure where to move the conversation to, or whether to continue it at all. Did they really have much more to say to each other? Maybe not.
As it turned out, she wasn’t going to find out, because Wilcox, her assistant, chose that moment to appear in the doorway.
“Doctor Andrews? Your, um, guest has been asking for you.”
Bernie. What now?
“Okay,” she sighed.