1954

Nature was at peace.

The turquoise waters of the South Pacific reflected a cloudless blue sky. A coral reef shielded a tranquil lagoon from the sea beyond. A handful of tiny islands formed a remote atoll that was barely a speck on maps of the region. Palm trees swayed above a white sand beach. Warm trade winds rustled thatch huts and coconut groves, as the islanders went about their daily tasks. Bare-chested men, their skin baked brown by sun, tended to their fishing nets and outrigger canoes. Women in white cotton dresses wove baskets and looked after the cooking fires. Naked children played in the sand and surf, chasing after crabs, seabirds, and each other. They slaked their thirst with coconut juice and feasted on breadfruit, bananas, and papayas. A young boy, only eight years old, swam like a dolphin in the warm, refreshing waters of the lagoon, enjoying what seemed like a perfect day in paradise.

Until…

A strange white wake entered the lagoon from beyond the coral reef. The glassy blue water churned and swelled, stirred by the passage of some vast, unfathomable mass beneath the surface. The boy cried out in alarm, and dived frantically out of the way, as a huge dark form rose up from the depths. On the shore, startled villagers dropped everything to gape in fear and wonder, shielding their eyes from the sun, as the conning tower of a large gray nuclear submarine surfaced with a blast of salty spray.

Moments later, the rest of the sub came into view, claiming the lagoon like an invading sea monster. More than three hundred feet long, the intimidating steel vessel dwarfed the islanders’ simple outriggers. Paddling in the water several yards away, the boy watched along with his people as a familiar red-white-and-blue flag unfurled via a mechanical winch. Despite his island’s remote location and relative isolation from the world, the boy recognized the Stars and Stripes of the United States of America. It had been less than a decade after all since the Americans and the Japanese had waged war over the scattered islands of the South Pacific, but the boy’s people had largely been left alone since then. He wondered what had brought the Americans back to the islands.

A shiver ran through the boy, despite the warmth of the sun and water. He knew somehow that the world as he knew it had just changed forever…

Weeks later, Navy helicopters raced away from the island, which had been radically transformed by its new owners. The boy, his friends, family, and neighbors — all 170 natives of the atoll — had been relocated to another island hundreds of miles away. The simple village had been razed. Thatch huts and fire pits were replaced by temporary utility structures, along with massive concrete bunkers built to protect cameras and other test equipment. Frightened pigs and goats were locked inside cages labeled “Test Animals.” Some had been shaved and coated in experimental lotions — in the interests of science. They squealed and grunted anxiously as the ‘copters departed, abandoning them on the island. An atomic bomb stayed behind to keep them company.

The bomb rested ominously atop a sturdy metal platform constructed by Navy engineers. It was a large, riveted metal egg over eleven feet in length and weighing more than ten thousand pounds. Hand-painted on its nose cone was a snarling lizard, with angry eyes and fangs, pinned inside the cross-hairs of a gun sight.

Fleeing the island, the ‘copters passed over the deck of a massive escort carrier floating several miles away from the test site. The USS Bairoko was a Commencement Bay-class carrier, nearly seven hundred feet long and displacing over ten thousand long tons. Commissioned too late to take part in the War, it had been named after the decisive Battle of Bairoko and pressed into peace-time service. The carrier housed over a thousand souls, including, on this particular mission, a number of scientific observers, many of whom waited tensely on the deck as crucial minutes ticked by. They stared out across the sea at the tiny atoll, which was only a smudge in the distance, and sweated in the heat and humidity. The sun blazed overhead, powered by the same thermonuclear reactions that were about to be unleashed on the defenseless islands.

In the ship’s bridge, a sonar screen tracked a large green dot advancing toward the atoll.

“Countdown commences at thirty,” a voice blared from the loudspeakers. “Twenty-nine… twenty-eight…”

The entire world seemed to hold its breath.

Beyond the carrier, the sea boiled white as a chain of immense, jagged fins broke through the churning froth. Shipboard observers looked on in awe, instinctively backing away from the jaw-dropping spectacle. Each fin was at least the size of a massive rock formation. The mind boggled at the thought of what they might be attached to.

On the island, the test animals sensed what was bearing down on them. They squealed and bleated in panic, bucking and scrambling in their cages. Goats kicked violently against the bars, bloodying their hooves in their frantic attempts to break free. Pigs pawed at the unyielding metal floors of their cages, trying unsuccessfully to burrow to safety. Seabirds abandoned the islands in a flurry of flapping wings. Brightly colored fish fled the lagoon, preferring the dubious safety of the open sea to what was now approaching. Sharks and other predators fled as well.

On the deck of the Bairoko, the assembled scientists and military brass braced themselves for what was to come. Protective blast goggles were lowered over dozens of pairs of eyes, the better to witness the historic event. Documentary cameras whirred on tripods that had been lashed to the deck with multiple redundant cables. Ordinary crewmen, lacking special goggles, ducked and covered their eyes as the countdown neared its climax.

“Ten… nine… eight…”

A colossal form rose from sea like a living waterfall, hundreds of feet tall. The immense shape was shrouded by torrents of cascading water and foam, making it difficult to make out more than its gargantuan proportions. For a brief moment, a thundering, primordial roar bellowed across miles and miles of open sea, all but drowning out the amplified countdown.

“Three… two… one…”

A blinding flash of light erupted from island, followed by an immense fireball that could be seen from miles away. The glare was so bright that even the tinted lenses of the blast goggles were not enough to spare the observers aboard the ship, who were forced to avert their eyes. By the time they could turn their gaze back toward the blast site, a gigantic mushroom cloud was billowing up into the sky above the devastated atoll. The sight of the ominous cloud sent an instinctive shudder through all present. Matter itself had just been split apart at its most fundamental level.

A maelstrom of uprooted sand and debris exploded across the atoll, tearing off the tops of trees. The shockwave rippled out across the waves in all directions, racing faster than the speed of sound. The deafening noise of the blast hit the Bairoku mere seconds later: a deep, jarring rumble that shook the soldiers and scientists all the way down to the bone. It was a sound to rattle the very rafters of heaven and make a mockery of peace. The serenity of the islands was a thing of a past, as was, perhaps, the monstrous leviathan that has been briefly glimpsed during the final seconds of the countdown.

Or so the observers prayed.

1999

Dr. Ishiro Serizawa gazed out the side door of the helicopter as it soared over a lush green landscape. Below him stretched a sunlit tropical rain forest clinging to the rugged slopes of the Philippine highlands. Pines and other evergreens dominated the pristine mountainsides, while mahogany and bamboo groves thrived at the lower altitudes, painting a scenic portrait of pure, unsullied nature. A distinguished-looking man in his early forties, with receding black hair and a neatly trimmed mustache and beard, Serizawa enjoyed the view — until he spied his destination.

The strip mine cut like a gash through the verdant wilderness. Acres of natural beauty had been torn away to expose barren ridges of rock and soil. Ugly metal structures crouched upon shelves of naked bedrock that had been carved, blasted, and bulldozed into the side of the mountain. Shanty towns spilled down the slopes, providing housing for the thousands of laborers toiling in the hot midday sun. Mining, for copper, zinc, nickel, and other minerals, was a growing industry in the Philippines, but it came at the expense of the nation’s precious flora and fauna. Instead of abundant greenery, the mining complex was dirty, brown and lifeless. Serizawa winced at the damage done to the environment. The older he got, the more he thought that Nature was sometimes best left to its own devices.

His eyes narrowed as he spied what appeared to be a caved-in section of the mine. This was what had drawn him to this desolate location, all the way from his native Japan. He eyed the collapsed mine with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. The early reports had hinted at something truly remarkable, well worth this exhausting journey. Serizawa couldn’t wait to see for himself.

The chopper touched down on a flattened stretch of mountaintop, not far from the cave-in. Outside, sweaty laborers operated mucking loaders, scoop trams, and other heavy machinery as they hurriedly excavated loose gravel and sludge from the collapsed mine. The logo of Universal Western Mining was emblazoned on the machinery. Filipino workers backed away from ‘copter, raising their arms to shield themselves from the dust and debris thrown up by rotors’ wash.

Finally, Serizawa thought. He unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed stiffly out of the ‘copter, followed by his colleague, Dr. Vivienne Graham. An attractive Englishwoman in her thirties, she had a dark brown hair cut sensibly short. She had been at Serizawa’s right hand for many years now. Her practical attire was rumpled from the trip.

Three other members of their team also exited the chopper and immediately got to work unloading duffel bags and gear. Serizawa took a moment to get his bearings. It felt good to set foot on solid ground and stretch his legs again. He glanced around, looking for someone to escort them to the discovery.

“Doctor Serizawa!”

A stocky, middle-aged American emerged from the chaos surrounding the mine, shouldering his way past busy workers and machinery alike. Perspiration shone on his ruddy face and had soaked through his clothes. Serizawa recognized the man as Oscar Boyd, one of the men in charge of the mining company. He and Serizawa had been in touch earlier.

“Thank God you’re here!” Boyd shouted over the whirr of the rotors. He joined Serizawa and his team. “It’s just a mess, I’m warning you. Just a total mess.”

A squad of armed guards, toting automatic weapons, accompanied Boyd. The men had the stony expressions and ice-cold eyes of hardened mercenaries or guerillas. Not exactly the most reassuring of welcoming committees. Serizawa and Graham exchanged worried looks. The presence of the guns and guards was unnerving, but they had come too far to succumb to second thoughts now. Serizawa trusted that the soldiers were only on hand to provide security, even if the amount of firepower on view struck him as excessive.

“They picked up a radiation pocket out here last month,” Boyd said, getting right down to business. He sounded anxious for whatever advice and assistance the scientists might be able to offer. Serizawa’s understanding was that Boyd was from the company’s main office and had not personally been on hand when the disaster struck. He sounded flustered and out of his depth. “And got all excited thinking they had a uranium deposit. They started stacking up the heavy machinery and…”

As he spoke, he guided them down a slope toward a nearby ridge. Serizawa stepped carefully over the rough, uneven terrain.

“The floor of the valley collapsed into the cavern below,” Boyd continued. “Just dropped away. Best guess right now is about forty miners went down with it.”

He stepped aside to let Serizawa and the others see for themselves. The team found themselves on a rocky ledge, looking out over the valley below — or what was left of it. A jagged chasm, at least a hundred feet long, had swallowed up the floor of the valley. Mangled machinery, shacks, boulders, and other debris could be dimly glimpsed within the shadowy rift, which appeared to descend deep into the Earth. Serizawa gazed down at the wreckage for several moments, taking it all in, before speaking again.

“I need to speak with the survivors,” he said.

A tin-roofed storage facility had been converted into an impromptu triage center. Dozens of injured and dying workers occupied rows of cots. Serizawa saw at once that all of the men were suffering from severe radiation burns. Blisters and ulcers and raw red patches afflicted their flesh. Some were still conscious, while the luckier ones had been rendered oblivious by morphine drips. Agonized moans and whimpers echoed off the walls of the building, whose sweltering atmosphere lacked any sort of air-conditioning. Doctors and nurses, overworked and overwhelmed, moved briskly among the rows of patients, doing what little they could to relieve the men’s suffering. Unlike their patients, the relief workers had donned hazmat suits for their own protection. Gas masks covered their faces.

Still in his traveling clothes, Serizawa felt uncomfortably exposed.

Graham inhaled sharply beside him, taken aback by the scale of the tragedy. Serizawa shared her horror. From what he could see of the men’s burns, few of the miners would last the week, while any survivors would be doomed to years of complications, cancers, and deformities before they finally succumbed to the radiation’s pernicious effects. His heart went out to them, knowing there was little that could be done for them at this point.

Steeling himself against the heart-rending sights and sounds, Serizawa approached one of the patients. The man’s face was so badly swollen that he looked barely human. Scorched skin peeled and blistered. His hair was falling out. The burns and swelling made it impossible to determine the patient’s age, but a glance at his chart revealed that the dying miner was only twenty years old.

So young, Serizawa thought, even as he forced himself to focus on the task at hand. Now was no time for sentiment. He needed hard data and information if the root cause of this catastrophe was indeed what he suspected. Many more lives might well be at stake.

One of his aides had rescued a portable radiation detector from their supplies. The handheld device included an external wand. Serizawa unslung the detector from his shoulder and switched it on. Drawing nearer to the cot, he pointed the sensor at the patient.

The detector clacked rapidly. The needle on the monitor spiked upward, into the red zone.

Serizawa backed away warily, alarmed by the results. He flagged down one of the busy nurses, whose face was largely concealed by her gas mask. He grasped the shoulder of her hazmat suit.

“Can you ask this man what happened?”

The nurse nodded. Leaning over the patient, she spoke to him in Tagalog. A hoarse, whispery voice escaped his cracked and swollen lips, but was far too faint to make out. She leaned in closer as the man repeated himself, gesturing feebly at Serizawa with a bandaged hand.

“He says,” the nurse translated, “that people like you… you came here, you raped the earth. You tore holes in her flesh… and now she’s given birth to a demon.”

The miner slowly rolled over in his cot, using the last of his strength to turn his back on Serizawa and the others. Serizawa did not attempt to refute the man’s accusation. He was more concerned with the “demon” the survivor had mentioned. Just the delirious ramblings of a dying man… or a warning?

“Not sure there’s a box for that on the insurance form,” Boyd said.

The foreman’s attempt at lightening the mood fell flat. Lost in thought, Serizawa drew an antique pocket watch from his jacket and quietly wound the stem. He found himself hoping that this was a false alarm, but the evidence against that was mounting. The next step was to see for himself, no matter the risks.

A hazmat suit landed loudly at his feet.

Fully suited up, the team made their way into the chasm, steadying themselves on guide ropes that had been set up for the rescue operations. Their flashlights did little to dispel the darkness as they entered a cavern descending steeply into the earth. The sound of his own breathing echoed hollowly inside Serizawa’s protective hood, which felt heavy and unwieldy. The weight of the suit, and his limited visibility, did not make the downward trek any easier.

Keeping one hand on the guide rope, he held the radiation sensor out before him. The clacking was nonstop now, the needle pegging the dial. Serizawa couldn’t help wondering about the quality and integrity of his hazmat gear. He suspected that Graham and the others were, too. None of them wanted to end up like those wretched souls in the triage center.

While Serizawa monitored the radiation levels, Graham documented the expedition with her digital camera. Periodic flashes lit up the cavern’s murky interior, exposing fractured stone walls and twisted metal debris. She gasped as a flash revealed a lifeless human hand extending from the rubble. Flashlight beams swung toward the hand, which belonged to a bloated corpse sprawled upon the rocks. A contorted face was frozen in an agonized rictus. Cloudy eyes gazed sightlessly into oblivion.

“They sent another fifty men down here to search for survivors,” Boyd explained, his voice muffled by his protective breathing apparatus. “Half the rescuers never made it back up, they were too weak.”

Serizawa did the calculations. That was over sixty-five fatalities so far, not including the doomed and dying men they had just left behind in the triage center. The death count was mounting by the moment and they hadn’t even confirmed the cause yet. He feared, however, that this was indeed far more than just a tragic mining accident.

Graham’s camera flashed again and again, finding additional bodies scattered in heaps through the cavern. Still more valiant rescue workers, Serizawa realized, who had perished before making it back to the surface. He admired their courage even as he mourned their sacrifice.

Squinting in the shadows, he looked away from the plentiful dead and studied his surroundings. Each flash from Graham’s camera offered a glimpse of roughly textured cavern walls and oddly curved calcite formations all around them. It was like exploring the interior of some alien moon or world fresh from the dawn of its creation. The rich, green splendor of the Philippine rain forest seemed very far away.

A work crew from the mine, drafted into service by Boyd, set up globe lights around the spacious interior of the cavern. Serizawa and Graham both gasped out loud as the first of the lights flared to life, giving them a better look at the scene in whole. Thick bands of a porous, calcite-like material ribbed the grotto.

“The rocks, right?” Boyd said, as though anticipating the scientists’ reaction. “I’ve been digging holes for thirty years, but I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Serizawa’s eyes widened as he grasped what he was seeing.

“No,” he said, his voice hushed in awe. “Not geological. Biological.” He raised his flashlight, concentrating its beam on the huge shield-shaped calcite formation that made up the ceiling of the grotto. At least twenty meters in length, its contours were clearly recognizable if you knew what you were looking for. “The ceiling… it’s bone. It’s the sternum. We’re inside a ribcage.”

Before Boyd could process that, the rest of the globe lights popped, flooding the vast cavern with cold white light. Serizawa turned about, taking in the entire scene. Now that he knew what to look for, the impossible truth was right before his eyes. Gigantic rib bones, curving upwards like the buttresses of a medieval cathedral, formed the walls of the “cavern.” A bony spine, composed of huge, boulder-sized vertebrae, ran across the floor beneath their feet, stretching the length of several football fields. Serizawa realized that he was literally standing on the long-buried backbone of some incredibly gargantuan lifeform.

Graham stepped away from Boyd, before the speechless foreman could start pelting them with questions. Like Serizawa, she rotated slowly to absorb the full magnitude of what they had discovered. Her eyes were wide behind the visor of her gas mask. She drew closer to Serizawa.

“Is it Him?” she asked quietly. “Is it possible?”

Serizawa shook his head. “This is far older.”

A hush fell over the cavern as everyone coped with Serizawa’s stunning revelation. Boyd shook his head in disbelief, while some of the work crew looked like they were on the verge of bolting. Serizawa recalled the myth of Jonah and the whale, as well another legend native to the small Japanese fishing village where he’d grown up…

“Guys!” a voice called out from deeper within the cavern. It belonged to Kenji, a young graduate student who had recently joined Serizawa’s team. “You gotta see this!”

The urgency in Kenji’s voice could not be missed. Serizawa and the others hurried toward him, while trying not to stumble over the rubble and vertebrae. They found Kenji standing under a beam of natural daylight shining down from above. The sunshine lit up more of the cavern’s interior, allowing an even better view of the colossal skeletal remains, but that was not what immediately caught Serizawa’s attention. His eyes were drawn to yet another astounding discovery.

Two gigantic sac-like encrustations hung like barnacles from the colossal breast bone that formed the ceiling of the cavern. Each the size of a large boulder, the sacs had a rough, gnarled texture that might have formed from some kind of hardened resin or other secretion. Even more than the skeletal structure of the cavern, the sacs appeared unmistakably organic. Serizawa, whose background was in biology, thought that they resembled the egg sacs of some unknown organism, albeit of unprecedented proportions.

He aimed the radiation sensor at the closest sac, which elicited a flurry of clacking from the detector, but when he turned the sensor toward the further sac, the clacking died off noticeably. The detector registered only the pre-existing background radiation of the cavern.

Interesting, he thought. Theories and possible explanations began to form within his brain. Although he had devoted much of his career to the covert study of unknown megafauna, he had never encountered specimens like these before. Was it possible that…?

“That one,” Kenji pointed out. “The one that’s broken. It’s almost as though something came out of it…”

Indeed, one of the enormous sacs appeared to have shattered from the inside. Giant chunks of its husk were strewn about the floor of the cavern, dozens of feet below the ruptured specimen. Serizawa made a mental note to have every fragment collected for analysis. The nature of material might provide valuable clues into what sort of organism had produced it.

“Wait,” Kenji said. Fear entered his voice as the full implications of his observation sank in. “Did something actually come out of there?”

Serizawa refrained from replying. There were too many unsanctioned ears present and he had no desire to start a panic. Instead he headed toward the sunlight, joining Kenji in a wide circle of warm golden light. Tilting his head back, he peered upward.

High above his head, a ragged hole in the ceiling opened up onto the outside world — almost as though something had burst outward from the depth of the cavern, leaving the ruptured sac behind. He exchanged more apprehensive looks with Graham. This was far more than they had anticipated.

Hours later, as their chopper ferried them away from the site, Serizawa got a birds-eye view of the giant sinkhole that had broken through the floor of the jungle. Nearly sixty meters in diameter, the hole was even bigger than it had looked from below. But that wasn’t all that alarmed him. Beyond the gaping pit, a massive drag mark stretched across the hilly rain forest, leaving a trail of crushed and uprooted trees and foliage. Acres across, the trail gouged a disturbingly wide path toward the north end of the island — and the open Pacific beyond.

Serizawa could only wonder what had emerged from the pit.

And where it was heading now.

1999

The alarm clock jolted Ford Brody from sleep. One minute he’d been dreaming about riding a dragon through outer space, the next he found himself back in his bedroom in suburban Japan. Dawn streamed through the window curtains. Only nine years old, the boy smacked the snooze button on the clock and buried his face back into his pillow. Maybe he could get in a few more moments of sleep before his mom dragged him out of bed.

Then he remembered what day it was.

His eyes lit up and a mischievous smile spread across his face. He slid out of bed and tiptoed across the floor, which was littered with toy soldiers, tanks, and dinosaurs. Just last night, right before going to bed, he’d staged an epic battle between the miniature army-men and a ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex. As usual, the dinosaur had won…

The glow of a heat lamp caught Ford’s eyes. Despite his big plans for the morning, he detoured over to his terrarium to check on the butterfly cocoon dangling from a branch inside the glass case. To his slight disappointment, the cocoon had not hatched overnight. He impatiently tapped on the glass, trying to provoke a response, but the pupa inside the cocoon refused to cooperate.

Oh well, Ford thought, shrugging. Maybe tomorrow.

In the meantime, he had other business to attend to. There was a reason he had set the alarm to wake him up an hour early. He had a lot to accomplish before his dad woke up.

But as he snuck out into the hall, still in his pajamas, he was dismayed to hear Joe Brody’s voice coming from his office at the end of the corridor. Creeping closer, Ford saw his dad pacing back and forth across the work-filled office, talking urgently into the phone:

“—I’m asking — Takashi—Takashi—I’m asking for the meeting because I don’t know what’s going on. If I could explain it, I’d write a memo.”

Shaking his head, Joe ran a hand through his unruly reddish-brown hair. Early morning stubble dotted his anxious face. Glasses perched on his nose. He threw an exasperated look at Ford’s mom, Sandra, who hovered in the doorway to the office, listening intently to her husband’s side of the conversation. Her short black hair needed combing, and she had a robe on over her nightgown. Ford didn’t understand what the problem was, but he figured it had something to with his parents’ work at the nuclear power plant. The family had relocated from San Francisco a few years ago so that they could both get good jobs at the plant.

“Because Hayato said it had to come from you,” Joe said impatiently.

His mom heard Ford shuffling behind her. She turned away from the office to spot him in the hallway. He crept up beside her, distraught over this unexpected turn of events.

“He’s awake?” he whispered.

Her face transformed in an instant, going from concerned professional to sympathetic mom right away. She knelt down to look Ford in the eye. She mussed his light brown hair.

“I know!” she whispered back. “He got up early.”

Ford’s heart sank. Of all mornings for there to be a problem at the plant. “What’re we gonna do?”

“Get dressed,” she instructed him, flashing a conspiratorial smile. “I’ll figure it out.”

Sandra watched her son scamper back to his room before turning her attention back to more grown-up affairs. Joe barely looked up as she re-entered the office, which was neatly organized despite all the graphs and reports piled about. Printouts of an unidentified waveform pattern were spread out atop his desk, alongside a stack of zip disks.

“… my data starts two weeks ago,” he explained into the phone. “I’ve got fourteen days of anomalous signal; pulsing between seventy five and a hundred kilohertz, then suddenly today it’s like the same thing but an echo. I’ve ruled out the turbines, internal leakage, we’ve checked every local RF, TV and microwave transponder. I’m still sitting here with two hundred hours of graph I can’t explain.” He paused, listening to someone at the other end of the line. “No—No—the fact that it’s stopped is not reassuring. That’s not good, that’s not the message here.”

He belatedly noticed Sandra waiting by the doorway. He placed a hand over the phone’s receiver. “What’s going on?”

“Your birthday?” she reminded him. “Someone is preparing your ‘surprise’ party…”

Understanding dawned on his face, but she could tell this was the last thing on his mind right now. Flustered, he nodded at her, acknowledging that he’d gotten the message, but making no effort to get off the phone. He held up his hand, signaling that he needed a few more minutes.

Sandra frowned, giving him a gently chiding look, but let him get back to his call. Lord knew she understood how troubling this new data was. She shared her husband’s worries.

“… But that’s — hang on—that’s exactly my point,” he insisted. “The moment these pulses stopped is when we started having the tremors.” He irritably shuffled a stack of zip disks from his desk. “With all due respect, Takashi, and honor. Respect and honor. With all of that, okay? I’m an engineer and I don’t like coincidences and I don’t like unexplained frequency patterning near a plant that’s my responsibility. I need a meeting. Make it happen.”

He was still arguing with Takashi as she left to check on Ford, who had already gotten into his school uniform. They waited until Joe disappeared into the master bedroom to change for work, then hurriedly hung a string of cardboard letters over the archway of the office door. The handmade sign read: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!”

Grinning, she and Ford admired their work. They high-fived each other. Ford beamed in anticipation of his dad’s reaction.

But when Joe emerged from the bedroom, freshly shaven and wearing a suit and tie, he walked right by the banner without even noticing. His phone was glued to his ear and he spoke rapidly in Japanese on his way out the front door. “Come on,” he called out to Sandra and Ford, switching back to English. “We gotta go!”

Crushed, Ford looked up at Sandra. “It rocks,” she assured him. “He’ll see it when he gets home, I promise.”

Her comforting words appeared to do the trick. The absolute trust on his face tugged at her heart. Nodding, he grabbed his backpack and dashed out the door after his father. Sandra followed them, vowing to herself that, freaky signals or no freaky signals, she would see to it that her son was not disappointed.

Besides, it was Joe’s birthday after all. He deserved a celebration — after he got the higher-ups at the plant to listen to him.

“Later, Dad!”

Ford sprinted past the family car on his way to the bus stop. Seated behind the wheel, Joe waved distractedly at the boy, while wrapping up his call.

“Good. Finally,” he said in Japanese. “Thank you.”

Sandra slid into the passenger seat beside him. She clipped a “Janjira Power” ID badge to the lapel of her jacket and handed a matching badge to Joe.

“He made you a sign, you know.”

A sign? A pang of guilt stabbed Joe as he realized what she meant, and that he had been utterly oblivious to whatever she and Ford had cooked up for his birthday. Contrite, he put down his phone and looked over at his wife. He’d had no idea …

“He worked so hard,” she said. “I think what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna come home early. I’ll take the car and pick him up and we can get a proper cake.”

Joe was grateful that she was on top of this — and letting him off so easily. “I’m gonna practice being surprised all day. I promise.”

To prove his sincerity, he generated his best “Holy Shit!” expression. His eyes bugged out and his jaw dropped as though he had just won the lottery. The effort teased a laugh from Sandra. He smirked back at her, enjoying the moment. Which couldn’t last, unfortunately. Not with the matter preying on his mind.

“Look,” he said, “I need to know it’s not the sensors. I can’t call this meeting and look like the American maniac. We get in, don’t even come upstairs, just grab a team and head down to Level 5—do 5 and the coolant cask — just check my sensors. Make sure they’re working.”

“You’re not a maniac,” she assured him. “I mean, you are, just not about this.”

He appreciated her effort to lighten the mood, but he had too much on his mind to joke around right now. “There’s got to be something we’re not thinking of.”

“Happy birthday,” she said stubbornly.

He turned toward her. An infectious smile penetrated the cloud hanging over him, and reminded him just how lucky he really was. The corners of his lips lifted.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied.

She leaned forward and kissed him warmly on the lips. Despite all his worries and frustration, he responded to the kiss, keeping it going even as he fired up the ignition. They reluctantly disengaged as he pulled away from the curb and headed towards the plant, which loomed prominently on the horizon.

His birthday would have to wait.

The Janjira Nuclear Power Plant perched above the coastline, dominating the skyline overlooking the Sea of Japan. Thick white plumes of steam vented from the plant’s cooling towers, while the reactors themselves were secured within three imposing structures of steel and concrete that had been built to withstand even a crashing 747. Adjoining buildings housed the turbines, generators, pumps, water tanks, storage units, machine shops, administrative offices, and other essentials. A row of transmission towers rose from the switchyard adjacent to the plant. High-voltage power lines transmitted freshly generated electricity to the nearby city and points beyond.

After parking the car in the lot, Joe and Sandra hurried off on their respective tasks. Within minutes, Joe was marching briskly down a corridor, trailed by Stan Walsh, his best friend and partner in crime. Another transplanted American, Stan was a few years older than Joe, who was counting on Stan to back him up when they met with Hayato and the others. Joe gulped down black coffee on the run. “#1 DAD” was emblazoned on his mug, a title Joe doubted he was entitled to this morning.

I’ll make it up to Ford later, he promised himself, after I get to the bottom of this.

A local engineer, Sachio Maki, hurried up to Joe with an anxious expression on his face. He nervously thrust a file of reports at Joe. Juggling his coffee cup, Joe flipped through the folder, which contained some seismographic readings he had never seen before. His eyes bugged out for real this time.

“Whoa.” He froze in his tracks, caught off-guard by the data. “What is that?”

“Yes,” Maki confirmed. “Seismic anomaly.”

The region had been experiencing a number of small underground tremors recently, but nothing this dramatic. “This is from when?” Joe asked urgently.

“Now,” Maki said. “This is now.”

Joe blinked, not quite grasping the truth. When Maki said “now” did he really mean…?

“This graph is minutes, not days,” Maki explained, spelling it out. “This is now.”

“What?”

“Wait,” Stan said, trying to keep up. “Seismic’ as in what? As in earthquakes?” He peered over Joe’s shoulders at the graphs. “Are those earthquakes?”

Joe shook his head. “Earthquakes are random, jagged. This is steady, increasing.” He flipped rapidly through the remainder of the report, his eyes tracing the steady upward path of the vibrations’ intensity over time. “This is a pattern.”

Just like the inexplicable signals he had been monitoring.

Following Joe’s instructions, Sandra headed straight for the sub-level corridors beneath the primary reactor building, pausing only briefly before a large open doorway. Warning signs, printed in Japanese, marked the boundary before them. This was where the buck stopped: the containment threshold where sturdy barriers could be deployed to seal off the area beyond in the event of a significant radiation leak. While the existence of the barriers should have been reassuring, the necessity of them was something she generally preferred not to think about. There hadn’t been a Chernobyl-type disaster since 1986, thirteen years ago, but nobody in the industry wanted to take any chances.

She had rounded up a four-person team to assist her in the inspection. They quickly climbed into full-body radiation suits, as required by the Level 5 safety protocols. Multiple layers of thick protective material, along with a self-contained breathing apparatus, made the uncomfortable suit both hot and heavy to work in. Internal helmet lights illuminated their faces. Sandra took pains to maintain a cool, confident expression on hers.

“Alright,” she said, leading the way. “Let’s make this quick.”

Caught up in the anomalous new seismic data, Joe moved more slowly down the hall toward his meeting. He barely registered Stan fretting beside him.

“Can I be your Rabbi here for a minute?” Stan pleaded, sounding like he was on the verge of another ulcer. He popped an antacid. “Before you go in there and pull some China Syndrome freakout on these guys, keep in mind that we are hired guns here, okay?”

Joe understood that Stan was worried about their contracts and careers, but there were bigger issues at stake here, like the safety of the plant and the surrounding community.

“I have operational authority in my contract, Stan.”

This didn’t seem to allay Stan’s anxieties. If anything, he sounded even more apprehensive. “You pull this off-line, it’ll be three months before we get back up.”

You think I don’t know that, Joe thought, but before he could reply the fluorescent lights flickered overhead. Joe glanced up in confusion. Now what?

A second later, a sudden rumble shook the entire building.

The tremor hit even harder down on Level 5. Sandra’s team froze in surprise. One of her team members, Toyoaki Yamato, looked at her in alarm. “What was that?”

The overhead lights flickered momentarily, but then the subterranean rumbling stopped. Sandra held her breath for a moment, waiting to see if the tremor had truly subsided, before taking charge again. She tried her best to keep her voice steady.

“Just a little farther,” she stated. “Let’s check the cask and get out of here.”

The other workers nodded and quickened their pace. Nobody wanted to linger in the containment area longer than possible.

Including Sandra.

Joe could feel the tension in the plant’s control room the minute he and Stan arrived. Banks of sophisticated control panels, gauges, and monitors, manned by a crew of largely Japanese technicians, lined the walls of the chamber, while the main work desk occupied the center of the room. Windows looked over the plant grounds. Glass partitions isolated various support cubicles. Anxious voices exchanged technical data in Japanese.

Joe spotted the men in charge, Haruo Takashi and Ren Hayato, huddled over a bank of monitors. All eyes turned toward Joe, the hubbub of voices quieting somewhat. He could tell right away that there was more bad news coming.

Some birthday this is turning out to be.

“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.

Takashi turned to face him. The Deputy Plant Administrator was a slim young man, who looked like he was having a bad day as well. “Maybe not such a good time for a meeting,” he suggested.

“Agreed,” Joe said, pushing the seismic graphs on Takashi. “Have you seen this?”

Takashi nodded toward the bank of monitors he had been glued to before. Hayato, the Senior Reactor Engineer, stepped aside so that Joe could see for himself. Joe immediately recognized the distinctive waveform snaking and pulsing across the monitors. It was the same pattern that he had been staring at for days.

“Do we have a source?” he asked crisply. “Where’s the epicenter?”

Takashi threw up his hands. He was more rattled than Joe had ever seen him. “We keep trying… nothing…”

Joe shook his head. “It’s got to be centered somewhere.”

Hayato spoke up. “No one else is reporting. We’ve contacted every other plant in the Kanto region, Tokai, Fujiyama… they’re unaffected.”

Joe wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad. “Are we at full function?”

Takashi nodded. “Perhaps we should be drawing down. To be safe.”

“Is that my call?” Joe asked.

“Right now, maybe yes,” Hayato conceded. He was an older man with graying temples, only a few years from retirement. “We’re trying to reach Mr. Mori, but he’s not answering.”

Joe wasn’t inclined to wait on the owner of the company. Those weren’t profit-and-loss charts on the monitors. This was a safety issue.

As though to drive that point home, another tremor rattled the building. This one was felt even harder and sharper than before. Joe felt the weight of dozens of eyes upon him. He made up his mind.

“Take us off-line,” he said.

Stan balked. A shutdown could cost millions — and possibly their jobs. “Joe…”

“Do it. Wind it down.” He issued the order in Japanese. “Seal down the reactors.”

There was a brief moment of hesitation before the room erupted into a quiet frenzy of activity. Joe suddenly found himself at the eye of storm, overseeing emergency measures he had expected to go his entire career without implementing. The full import of his decision hit home and he felt weak in the knees. A cold sweat glued his shirt to his back. What if he had over-reacted and pulled the plug too soon? This could be the biggest mistake of his career…

Breathe, he reminded himself. Think.

He put down his coffee cup on a nearby table, figuring that his heart was already racing fast enough, thank you very much. Diagrams and blueprints were strewn across the table, along with a selection of walkie-talkies on a tray. He snatched one up and started scanning through the channels, searching for a signal. He needed info and he needed it now, damnit.

And he needed to know that Sandra was okay.

Before he could get hold of her, the mug started vibrating across the table, spilling coffee onto the blueprints, which were also shaking as well. Joe glanced in alarm at the monitors, where the pulse pattern was spiking into a new shape. A stronger, secondary jolt, accompanied by a deep sonic thrum that Joe could feel all the way to his teeth, rattled the glass windows of the control room. The walls shook.

Even worse, all the monitors and other electronics lost power for a second, briefly killing the lights, before they popped back on again. Startled technicians swore and shouted and scrambled to check their systems. Agitated voices competed with each other, everybody talking at once.

“No status!” Takashi blurted. “Everything’s rebooting!”

“Calm,” Joe insisted, trying to maintain order. “No yelling.”

Takashi got the message, settling down. He regained his composure as Joe raised his voice to be heard over the clamor.

“All personnel not needed for SLCS procedure should begin to evacuate the plant,” Joe announced. “You know the drill.” SLCS referred to the Standby Liquid Control System, which could be deployed to shut down the reactors in case the control rods failed to insert. He waited long enough to see his order being carried out before raising the walkie-talkie to his lips. A recorded announcement blared over the intercoms in the background. He placed a hand over his ear to tune it out. “Sandra? Sandy, can you hear me? You need to get back up here!”

At first there was no response, as he urgently spun through the channels, but then he heard his wife’s voice over the receiver, broken up by bursts of static:

“—ear me… anyone co… this is… report… damage to t—”

1999

The sub-level monitoring station was practically useless. Every screen was either flickering or dead, making it practically impossible to get reliable readings on the reactor core and cooling systems. Sandra kept one eye on her team, who were trying unsuccessfully to bring the equipment back on-line, as she worked the walkie-talkie.

“It’s shaking hard down here, Joe. Do you copy?”

Yamato stepped away from an uncooperative screen. “We’ve lost the monitors!” he reported. He was sweating visibly behind the visor of his helmet.

“Sensors are down,” another technician confirmed.

The team turned toward Sandra, waiting for her to make the call. She hesitated, knowing how much Joe was counting on her to get him the data he needed, but it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. The escalating tremors and blackouts had thrown a monkey wrench in their plans, and forced her to put the safety of her crew ahead of her mission. This was no place you wanted to be during an earthquake… or whatever this was.

“We’re turning back,” she declared. “Let’s go!”

Yet another tremor shook the control room, nearly throwing Joe off-balance. He grabbed onto the table to steady himself. Overhead light fixtures swayed violently even as the fluorescent bulbs went dead. All the electronics crashed again, while dust was shaken loose from the ceiling. The discarded coffee cup vibrated towards the edge of the table. Joe lunged for the mug, hoping to rescue it in time, but he was too late. It crashed to the floor and shattered.

So much for “#1 DAD.”

The tremor subsided and the lights blinked back on. Everybody held their breath, waiting for the next shock, before frantically trying to resume the shutdown procedure, if it wasn’t too late already. No one, least of all Joe, knew when the next tremor would hit — or how big it might be.

“Joe, are you there?” Sandra’s voice broke through the static. “We’re heading back through the containment seal—”

He clutched the walkie-talkie to his ear.

Hurry, he thought. Please hurry!

Sandra and the others raced back the way they’d come, moving as fast as they could in the heavy radiation suits. She prayed that was fast enough.

“You need to get out of there,” Joe urged via the walkie-talkie. “If there’s a reactor breach, you won’t last five minutes, suits or no suits.” She could hear the fear in his voice even through the static. “Do you hear me?”

“I hear you,” she responded, breathing hard. “We’re coming—”

A sonic pulse cut her off, thrumming louder than before. The floor quaked beneath her feet, causing her to miss a step. She threw out a hand to brace herself against a wall, and could feel the vibration even through her insulated gloves. The lights flickered and—

A massive jolt rocked the building to its foundations, as though it had been struck by a titanic sledge hammer. In the control room, Joe and the others were thrown to the floor. The exterior windows shattered, spraying broken fragments onto the floor, while a glass partition cracked down the middle. A file cabinet toppled over, spilling old paperwork over the floor tile. Empty desk chairs bounced and rolled about.

Sprawled on the floor, not far from the broken coffee mug, Joe rode out the tremor, keeping his face covered. Not until the shaking stopped did he cautiously lift his head and look around. Checking to make sure his glasses were still in one piece, he painfully peeled himself off the floor. His nerves were jangled, and he was bruised from the fall, but he was relieved to see that the control room was more or less intact. His eyes sought out the master control monitors, which, miraculously, were still running. Stan, Takashi, and the others began to clamber to their feet as well. Nobody seemed seriously injured, at least not here in the control room.

But what about Sandra and her team?

He peered up at a video monitor. Closed-circuit TV footage showed a crew in full radiation suits dashing though the reactor unit’s sub-levels. He didn’t need to make out Sandra’s face to know who was leading the team. He pointed anxiously at the screen.

“Sandra and her crew,” he exclaimed. “They’re in the containment area!”

Takashi looked aghast. “Why?”

Joe didn’t have time to explain. “Oh shit,” he muttered. What had that last shock had done to the reactor?. He dashed for the exit, shouting back over his shoulder at Takashi. “Put the safety doors on manual override!”

“I can’t do that!” the deputy engineer protested.

Joe didn’t want to hear it. He shouted back from the doorway.

“PUT THE DOORS ON MANUAL!”

Sandra and the others raced down a concrete corridor, which felt twice as long as she remembered. A stairway, leading to an upper level, finally appeared before them.

Thank God, she thought. Maybe we can still get out of here in—

Another jolt nearly threw her off her feet. Yamato stumbled, but she grabbed onto him and kept him from falling. The cumbersome radiation suits made every movement clumsier than it ought to be, and were unbearably hot as well; she was half-tempted to shuck the suit, but that would be insane. For all she knew, there could be a leak at any minute.

The team squeezed into the cramped, dimly lit stairwell. They were all panting now, weighed down by the heavy suits and breathing gear. Sandra’s muscles ached and her legs felt like they were made of lead, but adrenalin and panic kept her and the others climbing for their lives.

If they could just make it past the containment threshold…

An emergency stairwell led from the control room to the primary reactor unit. Joe rushed down, taking the steps two or three at a time. His heart pounded in his chest, going a mile a minute, while he prayed that Sandra was heading toward him from the opposite direction. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could count on Takashi to keep the containment doors open.

Don’t stop, he silently pleaded with her. Don’t slow down for a second. Please!

Reaching Level 5 in record time, he burst out of the stairwell and skidded to a stop right before the entrance to the containment area. A large button, surrounded by emergency instructions in both Japanese and English, was installed in the wall to one side of the entrance. Joe peered down the long corridor beyond, hoping desperately to see Sandra and the others running toward him, but the hallway was eerily silent and empty, as though it had already been evacuated. He was tempted to run into the corridor to find Sandra, but there was no time to suit up and somebody had to stand by to trigger the manual controls, just in case the worst-case scenario played out, which was looking more and more likely by the moment.

C’mon, Sandy, he thought. Where the hell are you?

A closed-circuit video camera was mounted in a corner where the walls met the ceiling. Joe hoped to God that Takashi was still watching this. He shouted up at the camera.

“Takashi! Tell me this door is on manual!”

The other man’s voice emerged from the comm system. “Manual, yes, but Joe — we’re starting to breach, you understand me?”

He understood all right. This was the nightmare that every nuclear engineer dreaded, the one that kept them up at nights, thinking about Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. He feared there was nothing he could to do to save one or all of the reactors.

But maybe he could still save his wife.

“I’m right here,” he told Takashi, as forcefully as he could. “As soon as they’re through, I’ll seal it!”

He hoped that would be enough to Takashi’s finger off the panic button, but he wouldn’t blame the other man for playing it safe. Takashi didn’t have the love of his life still in the danger zone.

“Sandra?” he said into the walkie-talkie. “Can you hear me? I’m here, honey. I’m at the door!”

She held on tightly to the walkie-talkie as she and the others sprinted breathlessly down yet another seemingly endless corridor. Steel-toed rubber boots pounded against the hard concrete floors. The crew had made it up the stairs, but they still had a ways to go before they were beyond the containment area. Joe’s voice, coming over the walkie-talkie, urged her on, even though his words were fragmented by harsh blasts of static:

“—ere — for you — checkpoin — aiting—”

Emergency klaxons started blaring behind them like angry foghorns. Flashing red annunciator lights turned the sterile white corridors incarnadine. Sandra glanced back behind her, as did the rest of her team. Panic gripped her heart. They all knew what the sirens and flashing lights meant and why the klaxons were getting louder and closer by the moment. The danger posed by the tremors was no longer just a terrifying possibility. The fiery genie inside the reactor had escaped its bottle and was chasing after them.

They were going to die, unless they made it to safety in time.

Takashi was alone in the control room. The rest of the staff had already deserted the premises, including Hayato. The older man had volunteered to stay behind, but Takashi had convinced him to take charge of the evacuation instead. Hayato was a family man, with a wife, children, and several grandchildren who needed him, while Takashi had put his career ahead of any serious relationships so far. The young engineer stared in horror at a hallway schematic of the lower levels. Blinking red icons indicated the rapid spread of radiation throughout the corridors. His eyes widened in dread as stayed at his post, torn between his duty to contain the disaster and his purely human concern for his friends and co-workers. He could only imagine how excruciating this must be for Joe Brody, even as Takashi worried whether the American engineer would really be able to do what was necessary, no matter the cost.

Takashi wasn’t sure he could, not if it was his true love at stake.

Joe stared anxiously past the threshold, frozen in fear. He listened numbly to Takashi’s fractured voice over the intercom. Static interference mangled the transmission, rendering it barely comprehensible:

“Brody — we — ah — each—”

“What?” Joe asked, straining to make out what was being said. “Say again?”

“Catastrophic radiation breach!”

Joe had thought he couldn’t be any more scared, but this nightmare just kept getting worse and worse. Utter horror transfixed him. This couldn’t be happening…

“Seal the corridor,” Takashi pleaded, “or the whole city will be exposed!”

Keep going, Sandra thought. Just a little further!

Terror overcame exhaustion as she and her crew sprinted down a corridor, despite the best efforts of the earthquake to slow them down. An earth-shaking rumble caused the floor to quake beneath their feet, tossing them from one side to another. Yamato tumbled headfirst onto the concrete floor, forcing Sandra to turn back and help him to his feet. His visor had survived the fall intact, thank goodness, and they were about to resume their flight when—

The air rippled behind them as a billowing cloud of radioactive vapor and particulate matter blew in from the far end of the corridor. The oncoming vapors set off the radiation sensors in the ceiling, causing the emergency klaxons to sound directly overhead. Flashing red lights accompanied the sirens. The hot gases and steam rushed toward Sandra and the others with frightening speed. Unable to outrun it, her eyes wide with horror, she braced herself as the cloud blasted past them like a red-hot gust of wind, knocking them all to the floor. Buffeted by the blast, she felt the heat of the vapors through the multiple layers of her protective suit. She held her breath instinctively, despite the gas mask protecting her air supply.

Oh my God, she thought. Have I been exposed?

But that wasn’t the worst part. The cloud kept on going, triggering sirens further ahead. It flooded down the corridor toward the containment threshold. Sandra and Yamato traded stunned looks. They all knew what would happen if the irradiated cloud reached the checkpoint first, what would have to happen for the safety of the entire community. They needed to be on other side of that boundary before it was too late.

Panicked, they all scrambled to their feet and ran madly for the checkpoint.

“Five seconds… four seconds…”

Takashi counted down over the intercom as Joe stood like a statue right outside the containment area, staring bleakly at the empty corridor beyond. He remembered kissing Sandra in the car less than an hour ago, tried to remember the last thing he said to her before they went their separate ways this morning. Had he said he loved her, or even said goodbye?

He knew he couldn’t wait much longer.

“Joe,” Takashi said, reaching the end of his countdown. No doubt he was tracking the progress of the radiation leak as it spread through the lower levels. “You have to shut it down… now.”

Looking away from the entrance, Joe stared at the manual control button on the wall. He tried to step toward it, but his feet didn’t want to move. He forced himself to take one step toward the button, two, three… until the button was within reach. He raised his hand, clenched his fist.

God forgive me, he thought.

Static squawked from the walkie-talkie. Fragmented bursts of his wife’s voice came over the speaker:

“—Joe — ear — an—”

His heart surged in his chest. He clutched the walkie-talkie hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Desperation filled his voice.

“Sandra?… Sandra?”

Perversely, the static abated long enough for him to hear her clearly at last, perhaps for the last time.

“Joe. It’s too late! We’re not going to make it!”

Her words hit him harder than any earthquake, shattering his world. “No, no!” he shouted into the walkie-talkie. “Don’t you say that! Don’t you stop—!”

“You have to do it!” The signal began to break up again, pops and crackles threatening to consume her final words. “You have to live! For Ford!”

The radio sputtered and died. He smacked it furiously, trying to get her back.

“SANDRA!”

Klaxons blared as a swirling cloud of discharged vapor came gusting around a bend at the far end of the corridor. Red lights flashed in alarm. The radioactive gases rushed toward Joe… and the boundary.

“You have to seal it!” Takashi shouted frantically over the intercom. “JOE!”

Joe thought of the unsuspecting city outside the plant. Ford would be at school now, maybe playing at recess… along with dozens of other kids. And thousands of other men, women, and children were going about their business, unaware of the hell that had been unleashed from the damaged reactor, the hell he was trapped in now.

I’m sorry, Sandy… I’m so, so sorry…

Screaming in rage, he drew back his arm and pounded his fist into the emergency control button. A transparent barrier, more than six inches thick, instantly slammed down like the blade of a guillotine, sealing off the contaminated corridor. The advancing red lights halted right on the other side of the barrier. The screaming sirens faded away, echoing into silence.

Dear God, Joe thought. What have I done?

Alone in the control room, Takashi sagged in relief, sinking into his seat as he watched the blinking red icons tail off at the checkpoint. A message flashed upon the screen:

“BARRIER SECURE.”

Takashi kept looking at the message, almost afraid to believe it was true. He felt like he’d aged twenty years in the last few minutes. They had come so close to a total catastrophe. If Joe had been just a few seconds slower…

“Radiation is contained,” he reported over the comm. He paused before asking the question he was afraid to ask. “Is… is Sandra with you? Joe?”

Joe couldn’t answer. He felt destroyed by what he had just done. The finality of shutting the barrier on his wife. The walkie-talkie slipped from his fingers, crashing unnoticed onto the floor. Unable to stand, he slid limply to the ground, his back against the thick plexiglass barrier. He buried his face in his hands.

“Joe?” Takashi continued to harangue him. “The barrier will only hold so long. We have to close the lead shield, too.”

Joe knew he was right, but he couldn’t cope with that right now. He needed a moment, just to try to come to grips with what he had lost, with what his life had just become. He and Sandra had been together since college, even gone into the same industry together. He had always assumed they would grow old together, watching Ford grow up…

A dull pounding reached his ears, coming from the barrier behind him. Dread gripped his heart as he realized what the pounding meant. Oh, God, he thought. I’m not sure I can stand this…

He didn’t want to turn around, but, of course, he had no choice. Lifting his face from his hands, he forced himself to turn slowly toward the barrier and the ghastly sight waiting for him on the other side of the transparent wall. Maybe this was his punishment for failing Sandra and the others. He needed to come face-to-face with what he’d done.

Toyoaki Yamato was there, pressed up frantically against the barrier, pounding with both hands against the unyielding plexiglass. Behind his visor, his face was a portrait of sheer, unadulterated panic. Joe couldn’t hear Yamato’s screams through the soundproof wall, but that wasn’t necessary; the fear and desperation in the man’s eyes spoke loud enough. The doomed technician was begging for his life, even though he was already as good as dead.

I’m sorry, Joe thought. It’s too late. There’s nothing I can do.

Part of him envied Yamato. At least his suffering would be over soon. He wouldn’t have to live with the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life. He wouldn’t have to tell his son that he would never see his mother again. For a moment, Joe was relieved that it wasn’t Sandra pounding on the barrier, and felt ashamed for his cowardice, but then the rest of the work crew rounded the corner, catching up with Yamato. The other men threw themselves against the barrier as well, blind animal fear overcoming their reason. Their frenzied faces shrieked behind their masks. Their fists pounded relentlessly at the impenetrable wall between death and survival.

But Sandra didn’t try to break through. Instead she merely slumped in exhaustion on the other side of the wall. Anguished eyes sought out Joe’s and they stared at each other hopelessly. Only inches of solid plexiglass divided them, but it might as well have been a continent. Joe tried to speak, to push the words past his throat, but they wouldn’t come. His throat tightened. His eyes burned with tears that had yet to spill down his face. He couldn’t imagine how they had possibly come to this unthinkable moment. It wasn’t fair…

“Joe,” Takashi interrupted. “I’m closing the shield.”

No, Joe thought. Not yet! He looked around frantically for the fallen walkie-talkie and snatched it from the floor. Tears began to fall as he held it to his lips. “Sandra? Can you hear me?”

There was so much he needed to say, so much he had to apologize for, but only static answered his agonized entreaties. She shook her head sadly, holding his gaze with her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed.

She couldn’t hear him, but she didn’t need to. His pain and anguish and guilt were written all over his face. The fear faded from her eyes as a strange calm appeared to settle over her. He could tell she knew what he did, what he’d had to do, and what it had cost them both. She placed her palm up against the glass. He reached out to place his own hand over hers, only to hear a jarring buzzer inform him that their time was up.

The second barrier engaged. Two solid-lead doors slid in from both sides of the doorway. Joe yanked his hand back just in time. For a few final moments, their eyes met in silent communion. Her lips moved, as though she was trying to comfort him, or perhaps just say goodbye, but he would never know what her last words were.

The doors slammed shut, cutting her off from view… forever.

Goodbye, Joe thought. May God forgive me.

He wasn’t sure he ever would.

A violent tremor jolted him from his grief. The building quaked all around him. Dust and debris rained down from the ceiling. The floor bucked beneath him.

“The entire plant is collapsing!” Takashi shouted from the comm. “We have to get out… NOW!”

Joe placed his hand on the lead door, exactly where he knew Sandra’s face must be. It tore him apart to know that she was still there, still alive, less than a foot away. Entombed inside a radioactive deathtrap, facing the end without even her family beside her in her final moments. And it killed him to know that now he had to leave her.

“You have to live!” she had said. “For Ford!”

Joe knew she was right. If not for their son, he would have gladly stayed behind to perish with Sandra. At least they’d be together, even if a wall of lead separated them, but he had to think about Ford now. The boy couldn’t lose his mother and his father. He owed it to Sandra to make it out of this alive… for Ford’s sake.

Tearing himself away from the lead doors, he scrambled to his feet and ran for his life.

The control room was empty now. Not even Takashi remained to bear witness to the plant’s final moments of operation. Unattended monitors captured real-time video surveillance of the last wave of plant personnel fleeing the complex. Joe could be glimpsed on one monitor, barely making it to the parking lot in time, along with Takashi. Squealing cars and trucks sped out of the gates, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the plant. Power lines snapped and whipped about, spitting showers of sparks. The sky-high transmission towers in the switchyard tottered.

Another screen watched over Reactor Room One, deep in the heart of the abandoned plant. The five-hundred-ton pressure vessel containing the reactor core was shielded by dense layers of steel and concrete, but hot gases continued to leak from the ruptured casing. Silence reigned over the compromised chamber until the massive vessel suddenly toppled over, crashing onto the reinforced concrete floor, as something huge and inconceivable burst up through the floor. A violent discharge of radiation wreaked havoc with the transmission so that the screen caught only a fleeting glimpse of a large, blurry object that vaguely resembled a claw…

Then an immense pulse of energy, indescribably powerful, swept through the entire plant, disrupting every electronic circuit and knocking out all the lights.

The screens in the control room went black.

The Janjira International School was a one-story building boasting traditional Japanese architecture, complete with bamboo shutters on the window. Sitting in class with his fellow students, facing the blackboard, Ford found it hard to concentrate on Miss Okada’s language lesson. He couldn’t wait for the day to be over so that his dad could finally see the surprise he and Mom had prepared for him. Ford was also hoping for some chocolate cake and ice cream. His mouth watered in anticipation.

Emergency sirens started wailing outside, distracting Ford from his sugary daydreams. The sirens sounded like they were coming from only a few miles away. Frowning, Miss Okada turned away from the chalkboard. “All right, children,” she said in Japanese. “Let’s practice our safety drills.”

Ford figured it was just another duck-and-cover drill as well, until a fearsome metallic groaning penetrated the thin walls of the classroom. Both teacher and students stopped what they were doing and turned their heads toward the window, where the nuclear power plant could be glimpsed not far away. Ford instantly thought of his parents — and how stressed his dad had been that morning.

Did this have something to do with that problem at the plant?

He rushed to the window, even as Miss Okada tried to herd the rest of the class out the door. Boys and girls in matching blue uniforms poured out of the school onto the grassy lawn outside, even as the ominous rumbling grew louder and louder. His teacher called to him, but Ford barely registered her anxious voice. Unable to look away, he stared out the window as…

The entire plant collapsed before his eyes. With a deafening roar, all three containment buildings dropped out of sight, as though suddenly swallowed up by the earth. Billowing clouds of dirt and debris rose up where the towers had once stood. Children, and even a few teachers, screamed as, in a matter of minutes, the looming nuclear power plant ceased to exist.

Mom! Ford thought, all thought of cake and birthdays forgotten. Dad!

The roar of the disaster consumed his entire world.

PRESENT DAY

A high-pitched hydraulic whine roused Lieutenant Ford Brody from an uneasy slumber. A sliver of light hit his tired brown eyes, causing him to blink and look away. The twenty-five year old Navy officer sat in the cramped-but-spacious hold of a C-17 Globemaster transport plane, surrounded by dozens of troops from other branches of the armed services, all returning from recent tours of duty in Afghanistan. Ford knew he ought to be more excited about finally touching down back home, but, to be honest, he was mostly worn-out, jet-lagged, and even a bit apprehensive.

“Family waiting for you?” Captain Freeman asked, eyeing Ford. A career soldier in his mid-forties, the older man had a seen-it-all air about him. He had been dozing beside Ford for the last several thousand miles.

Ford shrugged. “Hope so.”

Freeman nodded. “How long you been away?”

“Fourteen months.”

“Take it slow,” Freeman advised, gathering up his kit, which was resting at his feet. “It’s the one thing they don’t train you for.”

Tell me about it, Ford thought. The long separation had been hard on everyone.

Daylight flooded the hold as the large cargo doors at the rear of the plane glided open, offering a view of the tarmac beyond. Ford gathered up his own things as he joined the procession of weary, homebound warriors exiting the plane two by two. He quickly lost track of Captain Freeman in the crush of uniformed bodies. He wondered what, if any, kind of reunion the battle-hardened veteran had in store. The call of duty could be hard on one’s home life, as Ford was already learning for himself.

Outside the hangar at Travis Air Force Base, a mob of eager friends and family waited impatiently behind a cordon for the first glimpse of their loved ones. The crowd displayed flowers, yellow ribbons, waving flags, and enough handmade signs to stage a political demonstration. The brightly colored signs, often boasting stars, stripes, and generous amounts of glitter, greeted the new arrivals with countless heartfelt variations on the same theme.

“WELCOME HOME, DAD!”

“WELCOME HOME, SIS!”

“WELCOME HOME, SWEETHEART!”

Cheers and applause hailed the first appearance of the troops, followed by tears and squeals of delight as individuals spotted their respective loved ones. Neatly regimented ranks broke apart into a riot of emotional reunions. Spouses leapt into each other’s arms, locking lips in public displays of affection. Small children scampered to embrace their parents. Older relatives wept openly at the safe return of long-absent sons, daughters, nephews, nieces, and grand-children. Handcrafted signs, painstakingly prepared, were tossed aside and forgotten in the joy and excitement of the moment. Bouquets of yellow roses were crushed between enthusiastic hugs and kisses.

Lost in a sea of jubilant strangers, Ford looked around anxiously, searching for a familiar face. At first all he saw was other people’s reunions, but then:

“Hello, stranger.”

Elle emerged from the chaotic mob scene, her sandy blond hair and hazel eyes instantly rendering everyone else insignificant, aside from the mop-headed four-year-old boy clutched in her arms. A rush of emotion overcame Ford at the sight of his wife and son, who had only been flickering images on a computer screen for over a year now. He couldn’t help noticing how much bigger Sam was; he’d been barely more than a toddler the last time Ford had laid eyes on him in person. He tried not to think about how much he’d missed during the young boy’s growth.

They jostled their way through the crowd toward each other. Beaming and beautiful, Elle put Sam down on the pavement in front of his father. Ford half expected the boy to come charging toward him, as so many of the other children were doing with their parents, but instead Sam looked oddly tentative. He hung back shyly, retreating behind his mother, while Ford stood by helplessly, uncertain what to do. At the moment, defusing a roadside IED seemed simpler and easier than re-connecting with his own child.

Elle broke the awkward silence. “Lots of discussion about who gets the first hug.” she explained.

“Where’d you come out on that?” Ford asked.

Elle bent to confer with Sam. “You change your mind, honey?”

Sam stared at Ford wordlessly. Ford knelt down before him, approaching him as delicately as he would an unexploded bomb.

“I’ve been carrying around that last hug you gave me for a long time,” Ford said gently, even as Sam continued to gaze at him as though he didn’t quite recognize the uniformed stranger before him. “I could sure use a refill.”

The boy came out from behind Elle, but still appeared a little shy. Elle placed a comforting hand on Sam’s shoulder, while casting an apologetic look at Ford.

“Let’s do this,” she suggested. “Why don’t I go first and check it out and make sure Daddy still knows what he’s doing?”

She came forward and, for the time being, all Ford’s fears and worries evaporated as she was there in his arms once more, holding him close, kissing him passionately, and he felt keenly just how much he had missed her during his long months abroad. Sam was squeezed in between them, hesitantly joining in the celebration. The three of them clung to each other, wrapped up tight in the moment, oblivious to the tumultuous scene around them. For the first time since the plane had touched down, Ford truly felt like he was home.

At least for now.

“Welcome Home, Daddy!” read the homemade banner taped to the dining room wall.

The sun had fallen by the time they got back to their modest home in San Francisco. Ford was relieved to see that the house looked much as he remembered, aside from a few new knick-knacks and appliances. Dinner was cartons of ice cream, including Ford’s favorite: Rocky Road. Across the table, Sam dug enthusiastically into a big carton of chocolate-chip mint. His earlier shyness had faded somewhat, now that they were all settled back in at home, in familiar surroundings. Maybe Sam had just needed a little time to get used to seeing his dad again?

Ford hoped that was the case. “Sam, you better enjoy this,” his mother said. “You’re not getting ice cream for dinner every night.”

“We aren’t?” Ford said through a mouthful of Rocky Road, provoking giggles from Sam. “Why not?”

Elle rolled her eyes. “Sam, how do you have a ten-year-old for a father? How is that mathematically possible?”

After ice cream, it was time to put Sam to bed. His room still had same blue wallpaper, adorned with rockets and blazing comets, he and Elle had picked out four years ago. Pencil markings on a wall charted his growth. Although Elle had been needed to help Sam into his pajamas, Ford had insisted on tucking his son into bed himself. But first he had to clear off a menagerie of toy soldiers, tanks, and dinosaurs from atop the covers. He couldn’t help smiling at the toys, which reminded him of the same ones he’d played with as a child — before his mother died and everything went to hell.

Don’t think about that now, he scolded himself. Concentrate on today… and Sam.

“See this one here?” He plucked a green plastic soldier from the bed-slash-battleground. “That’s a lot like Daddy in his uniform, but mine’s way cooler. We need to go to the toy store, find you a Navy man. How ‘bout that?”

Sam nodded happily, grinning up at Ford, as his dad tucked him in.

“Alright, big man,” he said, mussing the boy’s hair. “Hit the rack.”

Sam cuddled in beneath the covers. “Can you sing the dinosaur song… like Mommy?”

The dinosaur song? Ford was baffled — and acutely aware of long he had been missing from his son’s life. “Not sure I know that one.”

He looked to Elle for help. She smiled at him from the doorway, letting him fend for himself, just like he’d insisted.

Captain Freeman was right, he decided. They really don’t train us for this.

He got up to leave. A worried look came over the little boy’s face.

“Dad? You’ll be here tomorrow, too, right?”

Ford winced at the anxiety in his son’s voice.

“Yeah, buddy. I told you. The next two weeks are all yours.” He reluctantly retreated toward the hall, where Elle was waiting. “Now get some shut-eye, okay? I’ll still be here in the morning.”

“You promise?”

Ford leaned in and gave Sam a gentle peck on the forehead. He wished there was more he could to do to reassure his son. He knew what it was like to have a father you barely knew anymore.

“You bet,” he promised.

“—so by this point, he’s literally buck naked with his jock strap on his forehead, a banana in his teeth, hooting like a monkey — and that’s when our C.O. steps in — and I swear to God, looks him right in the eye, not skipping a beat, goes: ‘At ease, Lieutenant.’”

Elle doubled over, giggling hysterically, as Ford acted out the anecdote for her entertainment. They had the lights on dim in the kitchen and a half-empty bottle of wine rested on the table between them. Ford knew he ought to get some sleep — he had been traveling nonstop for over a day now — but he and Elle had a lot of lost time to make up. She struggled to catch her breath, laughing so hard tears leaked from her eyes. Ford cracked up, too.

He came around the table and pulled her close.

“I missed your laugh,” he said, relishing the feel of her against him. “My last roommate honked like a mule.”

She melted into him. The familiar scent of her hair stirred his memories.

“I missed you, too,” she said.

Their laughter gradually subsided, but he kept holding onto her, unwilling to let her go. Back on tour, while disposing of explosive ordnance, there had been more than a few tense moments when he’d thought he’d never have a chance to hold Elle again. Part of him still couldn’t believe that they were really back together again after all that time. Hilarity gave way to intimacy as she rested snugly against him. Just like old times.

He drew her toward him. She resisted at first, eyeing him with a wary expression, but, to his vast relief, she let it go for now. Their lips met as they surrendered to a mutual hunger that had not been satisfied for far too long. The kiss deepened, growing in heat, while they pressed against each other with ever-greater urgency, their hands exploring the tantalizing contours beneath their clothing, their fervent grip and lips anchoring them together. Locked in each other’s arms, they began to ease toward the bedroom.

The phone rang.

“Don’t,” he said. “Not now.”

Elle disengaged from the embrace, pulling away, but he held on to her waist. Her face was flushed. “It could be work.”

She was a nurse at San Francisco General Hospital, and she took her responsibilities as seriously as he did his. It was one of the things he loved about her, even when their respective duties pulled them apart. He clung to her playfully, nuzzling her neck, even as she leaned over to answer the phone.

“Hello?” she said into the receiver, fighting back giggles.

“Tell ‘em you’re busy,” he whispered seductively into her ear. “Tell ‘em your husband is unbuttoning your shirt as you speak—”

He heard a muffled voice on the other end of the line, but was more interested in exploring the tantalizing contours beneath Elle’s clothes. She wriggled deliciously and made a very half-hearted effort to swat away his wandering hands while he nibbled on her ear. She turned her moist, enticing lips away from the phone.

“Ford, stop it — come on—!”

Not a chance, he thought.

The muffled voice spoke again. All at once, her frolicsome manner evaporated. She stopped responding to his caresses and gave her full attention to the phone instead. Barely suppressed giggles were cut off abruptly. Her expression darkened and Ford knew at once that playtime was over. He listened intently, frowning.

“No, this is Mrs. Brody,” she replied to the unknown caller. “Yes, he’s my husband. Hold on a moment.”

She covered the phone and turned slowly toward Ford, who braced himself in anticipation. Judging from Elle’s reaction, he knew he wasn’t going to like this.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s the consulate,” she said tersely. “Joe… he’s been arrested in Japan.”

Ford felt like he had just been sucker-punched. Whatever trace of his amorous mood had remained dissolved completely, consumed by an all-too-familiar mixture of resentment and gloom. He should’ve known that the call was about his father — and his never-ending obsessions.

Jesus Christ, Dad, he thought. What have you done this time?

Ford slumped in a kitchen chair, already exhausted at the prospect of having to deal with his dad again. It never ended, year after year, all the way back to terrible day fifteen years ago, when Ford had watched the nuclear power plant vanish from sight, taking his mother with it. Joe Brody had begun to melt down that day as well, and his son was still dealing with the emotional fallout, all these years later.

“Ford?”

Elle held out the phone. He lifted his head to meet her worried gaze. He had no idea whether he could handle this again. He stared at the phone as though it was a ticking time bomb, about to blow up in his face… one more time. What the hell was he supposed to do?

“He’s your father,” she reminded him.

Ford rummaged unhappily through a bedroom dresser, searching for a clean pair of socks. His duffel bag rested on the bed nearby. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He hadn’t even unpacked yet and here he was packing to leave again. He pulled open another drawer, unable to find what he was looking for. He didn’t even know where anything was anymore.

“Why was he trespassing in the quarantine zone?” Elle leaned against the wall, watching him pack. She nodded at the dresser. “No, the other drawer.”

“Why do you think?” Ford said bitterly. “Lone crusader for the truth, all his crackpot theories.”

“Your father’s a good man. He just needs help. He lost everything that day.”

“So did I. But I got over it.”

“I can see that,” she said wryly.

Ford paused in his search, realizing how he must sound. A photo of Elle and Sam, residing atop the dresser, reminded him not to take this out on her, and how much this whole situation sucked.

“We’ve worked so hard for everything we have, Elle. I’m afraid he’ll ruin it. Every time I let him close, he tries to drag me back. I can’t live in the past. I can’t put our family through that.”

“He is your family, Ford.” She came toward him, smiling. “You’ll be back in a few days. It’s not the end of the world.”

He wondered what he had ever done to deserve somebody so patient and understanding. He pulled her close and they kissed, doing their best to make every moment count.

Just a few days, he thought. That’s all.

“What is the duration of your stay?” the customs official asked, inspecting Ford’s passport.

An endless flight, one connection, and fifteen time zones later, Ford trudged wearily through Narita Airport, toting his carry-on luggage. He’d managed to catch a little sleep on the planes, but the prospect of returning to Japan had stirred up unwanted memories. Bad dreams had followed him all the way across the Pacific.

“One day,” he said curtly.

He fully intended to deal with his dad’s latest mess and get back on a plane to Frisco as soon as humanly possible. He’d promised Sam two weeks and he’d be damned if he’d let his crazy father cut into that precious time with Sam. More than he already had, that is.

“And the nature of your visit?” the customs official asked.

Ford paused briefly before answering. “Family.”

That was good enough for the official, who briskly stamped Ford’s passport. Ford bypassed baggage claim and headed straight for the taxi station outside the airport. The bright sunlight came as shock after leaving Frisco in the middle of the night. He wanted to catch a cab to Tokyo and crash in a cheap hotel, but instead he asked the cabbie to drive him to the police station where his father was still being held.

The drive was both longer and faster than Ford would have preferred. It was late afternoon by the time he found himself sitting in the austere waiting area of a Tokyo police station. Stark institutional walls and sparse furniture rendered the room inhospitable, not that anyone was ever likely to drop by for the amenities. Wanted posters and security alerts were pinned to a bulletin board. Ford tried flipping through some old magazines, only to discover that his Japanese wasn’t what it used to be, despite the long-ago efforts of Miss Okada. He glumly watched a parade of cops and perpetrators pass in and out of the station. He would’ve killed for a cup of black coffee, but that didn’t seem to be an option.

A middle-aged couple, their faces drawn, sat stiffly in the seats beside him. They looked about as happy to be here as he was, although he guessed that they hadn’t traveled nearly so far. Ford didn’t have the energy to try to make conversation with the couple, who appeared caught up in their own troubles anyway. They gripped each other’s hands as they waited. He wondered how long they’d been married.

A buzzer sounded and an inner door unlocked. Ford and the couple looked up to see a bedraggled teenager, decked out in Goth regalia, escorted into the waiting room by a duty cop. The boy’s Mohawked head was hung in shame and he stared at the floor, unable to meet his parent’s gaze. The black mascara around his eyes was smeared, as though he’d been crying. The teen’s mother placed a hand over her mouth, stifling a sob.

The father, a sober-looking gentleman in a conservative suit and tie, rose to face his errant son. The older man regarded the teen in silence for a moment, his stony face unreadable, then came forward to hug his son. The boy collapsed against his father, weeping and apologizing for whatever offense had landed him in the hoosegow. His mother, also forgiving, joined her husband in assuring the teen that, no matter what, he was still their son.

Maybe it was just the jet lag and lack of sleep, but Ford was moved by what he witnessed. He watched enviously as the trio departed the station together. That was what a family was supposed to look like. Not like…

“Been a while,” Joe Brody said.

Ford looked up to see his father standing before him, unkempt and disheveled from a night behind bars. He was rake-thin, having lost weight since the last time Ford had seen him, and there was more grey at his temples than Ford remembered. Stubble carpeted his face. If anything, he looked like he’d been sleeping worse than Ford. Heavy pouches shadowed his puffy, bloodshot eyes.

Caught up in someone else’s family drama, Ford hadn’t even noticed his dad being led in. Father and son stared at each other awkwardly, both of them searching for a place to begin. It had been a long time since they had known how to talk to each other, or been entirely comfortable in each other’s presence. Ford suddenly envied that Goth kid.

Unable to find the right words, Ford just held out his hand to shake.

It was the best he could do.

A partial view of downtown Tokyo from one small window was the only selling point of the cramped and cluttered garret Joe Brody currently called home. It was dusk and neon lights filtered in from outside as Ford and his father entered the apartment. Ford glanced around dubiously. This dump was a far cry from the cozy suburban home he had once shared with his parents — in what was now a radioactive ghost town.

“I’m sorry you had to come all this way, Ford,” his dad said. Joe stepped over tottering stacks of books, magazines, and newspapers piled high on the floor. A single beat-up futon was littered with dirty laundry. Crusty plates and dishes were heaped in the sink of an adjacent kitchenette. An open doorway revealed an unmade bed. The stuffy atmosphere was badly in need of air freshener. Joe avoided Ford’s eyes. “Couldn’t you have just given them a credit card?”

I wish, Ford thought. Bailing his dad out wasn’t the issue here. It was the fact that Ford had needed to do so in the first place.

He refrained from saying so. The awkwardness between them had not gone away during the short drive here. Joe flipped on a light, igniting a naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, and Ford got a better look at what his father’s life had become.

It was a lot to take in. The apartment was more than just a mess. It was a lunatic’s hoard of papers, maps, books, notes, photos, Post-its, and graphs occupying every available surface, including the walls. Tangled cables, snaking across the floor, connected a bewildering array of antique computer monitors, old TV sets, battered printers, and used mainframes that looked as though they should have been consigned to a junk heap years ago. There was even a VCR and VHS tapes for Pete’s sake. To Ford’s eyes, it was a chaotic flurry of random data, accumulated by someone driven round the bend by an obsessive search for answers. Ford dimly remembered how neat and well-ordered his father’s home office had once been, before the meltdown, and winced at the disorderly rat’s nest before him. Joe Brody had been a respected engineer, a professional, many years ago.

Ford wasn’t sure what his father was now.

Joe caught Ford staring silently at the clutter and disarray. He feebly attempted to tidy up, relocating some discarded clothing from the futon to a closet and clearing a path through the heaps of books and magazines. A knee-high stack of newspapers toppled over, spilling onto the floor.

“PhDs don’t make much teaching English as a second language,” Joe offered by way of explanation for his low-rent accommodation. He waited in vain for Ford to say something, then continued. “How’s the bomb business? That must be a growth area these days.”

Ford was irked by his dad’s remark. “It’s called explosive ordinance disposal. And my job isn’t dropping bombs. It’s stopping them.”

His gaze was still riveted by the insane accumulation of information pinned and taped to the walls. Looking closer, he spied decades-old news clippings about the meltdown, maps of the quarantine zone, and what appeared to be clandestine spy-photos of tall razor-wire fences and armed sentries on patrol. Ford frowned. He had a pretty good idea who had taken those amateur photos.

“How’s Elle doing?” Joe asked, in a transparent attempt to divert Ford’s attention from the walls. “Sam must be, what, two already?”

“Almost four.” Ford didn’t feel like talking about Sam. He made his way across the clutter to a second-hand desk that was practically buried beneath a surplus of scientific tomes. Bookmarks flagged key sections. Notes had been scribbled in the margins. “I thought you were over this stuff.” He sorted through the books, looking over the titles and chapter headings. He picked one after another up, trying to make sense of it all. “Echolocation. Parasitic Communication Patterns.”

Joe took the book from Ford. “Homework,” he said with forced casualness. “I’m studying Bioaccoustics. My new thing.”

As though that explains everything, Ford thought, losing patience. He was too tired and fed up to beat around the bush any longer. He turned away from the desk to confront his father.

“Dad, what the hell were you doing?”

“Ah, that trespassing stuffis nonsense, Ford.” Joe waved it away with a dismissive gesture. “I was just trying to get to the old house—”

“It’s a quarantine zone!”

“Exactly!” Joe’s casual pose fell away, revealing what was really driving him. “That’s exactly it — there’s something happening in there, Ford. I’ve seen pictures. They didn’t quarantine that place because it’s dangerous. They’ve got something going on in there. The new readings are exactly like they were on that day, and if I can just get back in before it’s too late—”

“DAD!”

Ford cut him off, unable to hear anymore. His dad had been spewing this same wild conspiracy stuff for longer than Ford wanted to remember. His outburst stopped Joe short and the two men stared at each other across the physical residue of Joe’s obsessions. A crestfallen look came over Joe’s face as he realized, that his own son thought that he was bat-shit crazy.

His manic energy seeped away. Deflated, he sank into one of the few chairs not covered by scientific journals and reports. He slumped forward, looking defeated.

“You know your mom’s still out there,” he said weakly, his voice barely above a whisper. “For me, she’ll always be there. They evacuated us so quickly I don’t even have a picture of her.”

Sympathy tugged at Ford’s heart, but he had to stay firm.

“This has to stop, Dad. You need to let go.”

“I sent her down there, Ford,” Joe said plaintively. Fifteen years of anguish poured out of him, as though the disaster had happened only yesterday. “I would do anything, anything to bring her back. That haunts me, and I know it haunts you too”

Ford’s resolve melted in the face of his father’s inescapable guilt and grief. He couldn’t help imagining what would be left of him if something happened to Elle… or Sam. He remembered those disappointed but loving parents back at the police station, embracing their son despite everything, and that customs official asking him what his business in Japan was.

Family, he thought. Damn it.

“It’s time to come home, Dad,” he said, his voice softening. “Come home with me.”

The grateful look on his father’s face was enough to break Ford’s heart. He swallowed hard and wiped at his eyes, obviously touched by his son’s offer. Ford prayed that he had finally gotten through to him.

“We’ll leave tomorrow,” Ford said.

Joe hesitated, just for a moment, but then he nodded. Emotionally exhausted, he could only murmur a quiet, “Yes.”

Ford signed in relief. Maybe this could be the start of a whole new beginning for them. He reached out and squeezed his dad’s shoulder.

“Let’s get some sleep,” he said.

At his own insistence, Ford crashed on the futon, letting his father keep his own bed. The flickering screen of a thrift-store TV set cast a phosphor glow over the room as Ford tried to zone out to an old monster movie playing on the late show; sometimes watching vintage movies with the sound down helped him unwind at the end of a long day. His eyelids began to droop as giant prehistoric creatures battled each other amidst balsa-wood sets. He surrendered to sheer exhaustion, and let his eyes close. The brawling monsters could work out their differences without him. He’d done enough for today.

Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow we’ll head back home.

Sleep overcame him, but rest did not. Dreams of Elle and Sam mixed surreally with memories of Afghanistan and that terrible morning, over a decade ago, when the nuclear power plant collapsed before his eyes. If only he could disarm the reactor this time, the same way he could an improvised explosive device, maybe he could somehow save everyone: Mom, Dad, Elle, Sam… Drifting in and out of sleep, he thought he heard a voice whispering urgently in Japanese. The sound of radio distortion intruded on his slumber.

Ford blinked and opened his eyes. The apartment was still dark; the sun had yet to rise, but somebody had switched off the TV at some point. He rested upon the futon, getting his bearings. At first he thought he had just dreamed the voice, but then he heard his father speaking softly in his bedroom. Ford strained his ears to listen in.

“Yes, yes,” Joe whispered, switching into English. “The northeast section, that’s good. There’s never a patrol.”

Ford came fully awake. He rose quietly from the futon and crept toward the bedroom. The light of a single lamp spilled into the living room. Ford checked his wristwatch. It would be dawn soon. He peered into the bedroom to see what his father was doing.

The older man was already up and dressed, his dark clothes more suitable for a burglary than a trip to the airport. He whispered into his phone as he furtively packed a selection of files and electronic equipment into a duffle bag. Ford’s heart sank. Joe didn’t look like he was packing for a trip home.

“Ten minutes,” Joe whispered. “Arigato.”

He ended the call and put away the phone, only to see Ford staring at him from the doorway. Anger and disappointment warred upon the younger man’s features.

I should’ve known, Ford thought bitterly. “What the hell are you doing?”

Caught red-handed, Joe didn’t bother trying to deny anything. “I’m heading out there, Ford — one hour, in and out.”

Ford shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You want closure?” Joe challenged him, not backing down. “You want to go home? That’s where I’m going. Now you can come with me or not, your choice, but I don’t have much time left to work this out and I’ll be damned if I let it happen again!” He kept on packing, defiantly. “I came back here and I wasted six years staring through that barbed wire thinking it was a military mistake or some horrible design flaw they were trying to cover up. I kept looking at the hard science. What I knew. One day I’m tutoring a kid whose studying whale songs. I’m looking at his textbook—‘Soundscape Interpretation,’ ‘Echolocation.’ I’m looking at these graphs and diagrams and I realized that all the data I had been going crazy over before the plant blew wasn’t something structural, it wasn’t a leaking turbine or a submarine. It was language. It was talk. Hard science wasn’t the answer — this was biology.”

Ford had no idea what his dad was talking about. He watched in dismay as Joe fished a ratty old radiation suit from a pile of crap beside the bed. The suit resembled the ones the workers had used at the plant fifteen years ago, the type his mother had supposedly been wearing when she died. He wondered how the hell Joe had managed to get his hands on it.

“I met a guy runs a cargo boat off-shore,” Joe continued, trying to get it all out before Ford could interrupt him. “Every day he goes right past the reactor site. He dropped off a couple monitors on buoys for me.” He shook his head at the memory. “Nothing. A year of nothing. More than a year.” Years of frustration could be heard in Joe’s voice. “Two weeks ago—‘cause I check this thing like every other day just for the kick in the teeth — two weeks ago, I tune in and, ohmigod, there it is. Whatever it is that’s in there, whatever it is they’re guarding so carefully, it started talking again. And I mean talking. I need to get back to the house. I need my old disks if they’re still there. The answer’s in that data. I need to know that what caused this wasn’t just me, Ford. That I’m not who you think I am. I am not crazy. That wasn’t just a reactor meltdown. Something’s going on there. I need to find the truth and end this. Whatever it takes.”

Ford tried to make sense of his father’s impassioned outpouring. Was it possible that Joe actually knew what he was talking about? Could you be crazy and still sound that coherent, that lucid, that sensible? Probably, Ford suspected, but one thing at least was clear: this was never going to be over for Joe Brody until he got the answers he was looking for.

Ford shook his head. He couldn’t believe he was actually considering what he was considering.

“You got another one of those suits?” he asked.

The trip took longer than Ford liked. It was late afternoon by the time they drew near an eerily deserted coastline. Miles of sagging perimeter fence extended into the choppy waters of a forgotten inlet. Posted signs, many of them showing obvious signs of age and weathering, warned repeatedly of fatal radiation levels. The official notices were in Japanese, but triangular metal signs also bore the international symbol for radiation: an ominous black trefoil against a yellow background. Ford recognized the view from some of the photos back at his father’s apartment. They had reached the perimeter of the quarantine zone. Somewhere beyond those fences were the contaminated remains of his childhood.

It didn’t feel like much of a homecoming.

A gruff smuggler, who had declined to volunteer his name, piloted a small skiff toward the fence. An outboard motor chugged quietly as it propelled the boat through the water. Ford contemplated the daunting warning signs even as Joe rescued their radiation suits from his duffel bag. Apparently he had purchased them on-line—” from a reputable dealer,” Joe had insisted.

Ford shook his head in disbelief. He was starting to wonder which of them was most crazy.

The skiff motored toward a stretch of fence that had sagged beneath the surface of the water, allowing the boat to pass over it unobstructed. The ruins of the abandoned city rose in the distance, visible in the early morning sunlight. No lights shone from the deserted skyline. Seagulls, braving the lingering radiation, perched along wooden pylons like avian sentinels. Ford wondered how secure the “Q-Zone” was if gulls could fly in and out — and a possibly deranged engineer and his idiot son could sneak ashore so easily.

The two men changed into the radiation suits. Ford would have preferred the armored bomb suit he wore on duty; the stiff green radiation suit struck him as worryingly flimsy by comparison. A dosimeter badge was affixed to his sleeve, but this did little to reassure him. Lord knows a suit like this had not saved his mom so many years ago.

The skiff pulled up to a rotting dock that was missing several timbers. Ford and Joe stepped cautiously onto the dock. The muffled tinkle of broken wind chimes, coming from a nearby shack, penetrated Ford’s bulky helmet. He guessed a breeze was blowing, although he couldn’t feel it through the suit’s heavy layers. The used helmet had a musty smell to it.

Joe leaned over to hand the smuggler a wad of yen. The man accepted the currency and, wasting no time, immediately turned the skiff around and put off for less perilous waters. Second thoughts assailed Ford as he watched the boat cruise away, leaving them behind. He resisted a sudden urge to call the boat back until it finally vanished from view. Ford and Joe traded looks through the transparent masks of their helmets.

They were committed now. In theory, the boat would not return until it received their call.

It was a long hike up from the coast, made slower by the heavy suits, which forced them to pause for breaks every half-mile or so. Ford was decades younger than his father, and accustomed to working in full body armor, but even he was exhausted and covered in sweat by the time they arrived at the outskirts of the city. The sun had begun to sink toward the horizon.

One hour, in and out, my ass, Ford thought.

Janjira was nothing like he remembered. Evacuated fifteen years ago, and cut off from the outside world ever since, the once-bustling community had become a ghost town overnight. Abandoned cars and trucks rusted in the empty streets. Weeds sprouted from the pavement, while moss and vines shrouded entire buildings. Mannequins sporting fashions from the late 90s kept silent vigil from shop windows. Newsstands displayed headlines that were over a decade out of date; apparently there was some concern about Y2K. A theater marquee advertised The Blair Witch Project.

Ford spied no evidence of vandalism or looting. Everything had been left exactly how it had been the day the reactor melted down, so that only time and decay had overrun the city. Ford found himself hoping they wouldn’t have to pass by his old school. His memories of Miss Okada’s classroom were fraught enough. He didn’t need to see it in ruins.

He figured they had the deserted streets to themselves, until a pack of wild dogs startled the men by padding around a corner. The canines looked mangy and malnourished, their coats dirty and matted, but they seemed to be surviving the Zone’s deadly radiation levels. Ford’s brow furrowed in confusion as he pulled his dad into a nearby alley to avoid crossing paths with the pack. Minutes passed before Ford’s heart stopped racing.

They took a detour around the dogs, then paused to catch their breaths. Ford tried to orient himself, but the rusty street signs, all in Japanese, were of little help. He didn’t recognize this neighborhood at all. No surprise, he thought, given that he’d been only nine years old the last time he’d lived in this city. He hoped his father’s memories were more reliable.

“Okay, which way?” He glanced around for Joe, who seemed to have wandered off. “Dad?”

A freeway overpass crossed the road before them. Joe paused in the shadow of the concrete supports and extracted a Geiger counter from his pack. Activating the device, he checked the gauge.

Nothing.

Joe smirked behind his faceplate. He tapped the gauge just to make sure it wasn’t stuck, but needle still didn’t budge. Next he consulted the radiation badge on his forearm. Sure enough, it was still green. Just as he’d expected.

He reached for his helmet.

Ford watched in horror as his father whipped off his protective helmet. Before he could do anything to stop him, Joe tossed the headpiece aside and sucked in a deep breath of the supposedly contaminated air.

“Dad!” he cried out. “What are you doing?”

A horrible thought flashed through Ford’s mind. Had Joe come all this way just to kill himself near where Mom had died?

But Joe didn’t look particularly suicidal. Instead a look of vindication transfigured his gaunt, careworn face. He pointed triumphantly at the telltale green radiation badge on his arm.

“It’s clean, Ford! I knew it!” Joe darted forward and showed Ford the readings on his Geiger counter. This was the most excited that Ford had seen his father in years. “The radiation in this place should be lethal… but there’s nothing. It’s gone. Something’s absorbing it.”

Ford didn’t understand. Everything he’d read or heard about the Q-Zone was that it was supposed to be completely uninhabitable.

He inspected his own green radiation badge and remembered those dogs running through street. He had no idea what could “absorb” all that radiation, but he didn’t hear any ominous clacking coming from the Geiger counter. Surely, the counter and the radiation badges couldn’t be broken?

He warily unzipped his own helmet. He took off the protective mask and held his breath for a long moment before inhaling. He waited for airborne particles to sear his lungs.

Elle is going to kill me for this, he thought ruefully, if the radiation doesn’t get me first.

“Trust me,” Joe said. “It’s completely safe.”

He certainly sounded confident enough. Ford folded up his helmet and tucked it into his belt, just to be safe. He had to admit it felt good to get the helmet off. A welcome breeze cooled his face.

Joe inspected the street signs. He nodded in recognition.

“It’s just left on the next street,” he promised.

“The one before or after the rabid pack of dogs?”

Ford was surprised, but probably shouldn’t have been, to discover that his father had held onto the keys to their old house all these years. Rusty hinges squeaked in protest as they entered their former home for the first time in fifteen years. It was dark inside. Vines and bushes had grown over the windows, as though reclaiming the home for nature. Dust, hopefully of the non-radioactive variety, coated the tops of tables and shelves. Cobwebs hung across open doorways. Ford brushed them aside as they worked their way through the murky house. His eyes struggled to adjust to the gloom.

Flashlight beams provided glimpses of long-faded memories. Trophies, souvenirs, a ceramic “lucky cat” figurine, and other knickknacks rested on a shelf, next to a photo of a young Joe Brody in a Navy uniform. A moldy box of breakfast cereal rotted atop the kitchen table. Report cards and art projects were magnetized to the refrigerator, whose contents had long since passed their expiration dates. Dirty dishes had waited in the sink for far too long.

Ford’s throat tightened. A rush of emotion overwhelmed him and for a few moments all he could to do was stand frozen amidst the deteriorating wreckage of his past, remembering happier days and how abruptly they all had ended. The last time he’d set foot in this house, his mom had still been alive. He glanced at his father, concerned that the poignant surroundings might be too much for him, but Joe Brody was a man on a mission. He headed straight for his old office without pausing to look around. If this place brought back painful memories for Joe, you wouldn’t know it from his determined stride.

Fine, Ford thought. Probably just as well.

Nostalgia drew him irresistibly toward his old room. The flashlight beam fell on scattered relics from his boyhood. He smiled wryly at the dusty collection of toys strewn across the floor. One particular toy soldier caught his eye: a miniature Navy man, just like he’d promised Sam.

Maybe this trip wouldn’t be a total wild goose chase after all.

He swept the beam across the room. A glass case reflected the light and he spied his old terrarium, which he hadn’t thought about in forever. Curiosity, and a flicker of an ancient memory, compelled him to investigate further. Shining the light into the terrarium, he was pleased to see that a dried and crumbling cocoon was split down the middle. As nearly as he could tell, the cocoon was empty, as though its former occupant had finally hatched after all, meltdown or no meltdown.

“Huh,” he muttered. How about that?

Joe knew what he wanted and he knew where to find them. Old memories and associations lay in wait all around him, poised to strike, but he kept them firmly at bay. Now was no time to wallow in grief and self-pity. He had a job to do — and possibly a disaster to avert.

The beam from his flashlight tracked across his desk, even as he searched his memory for exactly where he’d left certain items fifteen years ago. He remembered pacing irritably across the room, arguing with Takashi on the phone. The light exposed a primitive cordless phone from 1999 and a well-gnawed pencil beside it. C’mon, c’mon, he thought impatiently. Where the hell are you?

Just when he was about to curse in frustration, the targets of his search turned up: fifteen dusty zip disks scattered across the floor near the desk. He realized belatedly that they must have been knocked off the desk by one of the convulsive tremors or blasts from that morning. And that wasn’t all. Lying near the fallen disks were the printouts of that distinctive waveform pattern. His eyes traced the pattern, which had haunted his imagination ever since the meltdown. It was just as he remembered it: small peaks at first, then higher and higher, closer and closer together, until…

Don’t think about that now, he thought. Just get what you came for, while there’s still a chance to make people listen.

He gathered up the disks and printouts, carefully blowing off the dust as he stowed them securely in his pack. Once that was done, he did another sweep of the office just to be certain that he hadn’t missed anything. As nearly as he could tell, he had retrieved everything important, except—

An old family portrait, resting atop the desk, stopped him cold. He was held captive by the photo — of Joe, Sandra, and little Ford. Of his family as they once were: happy, loving, untouched by tragedy and estrangement. Before the catastrophe that blew his world apart.

For a moment, the rescued data was forgotten. He lifted the portrait from the desk, gazing at it intently. His hands shook and his eyes threatened to mist over. Lifting his gaze from the portrait, he noticed something bright and shiny over the doorway. Sunset, filtering through the vegetation obscuring the window, was reflected off a homemade banner strung across the arch:

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!”

Joe stared numbly at the banner, instantly transported back in time. “He made you a sign, you know,” Sandra had said that morning. It all came back to him now. Ford’s overlooked banner. The surprise party that never happened.

All the emotions he had been fending off snuck up on him, ambushing him. His elation over finally recovering the disks gave way to a profound welling of regret. Sobered, but still determined to expose the truth, he tore his gaze away from the damning banner and stuffed the family portrait into the bag with the disks and printouts.

It was time to go.

He was sealing up the bag when, unexpectedly, the house came to life. Bells, buzzers, shrieks, and applause suddenly blared from the living room as the TV set turned itself on, breaking the silence with the hysterical din of some hyper-manic Japanese game show. At the same time, the desk lamp in the office crackled and sputtered only a few inches from Joe’s face, causing his heart to skip a beat. His dusty old computer booted up noisily.

What the hell?

Outside the office, the hallway lights were flickering, too. Unnerved by activity, Joe hoisted the duffel bag and went to investigate. Was it just a coincidence that this was happening now, around the same time that the cryptic signals had resumed? Joe didn’t believe it.

What if it was already too late… again?

He peered out the office door and made eye contact with Ford, who had just stuck his head out of his old bedroom. The two men looked at each other in confusion.

“Did you…?” Ford asked.

Joe shook his head. “No. I have no idea…”

A quick inspection confirmed the truth. Everything electrical in the house had powered up, from the lights and TV to the lucky cat figurine bobbing its paw. The aroma of scented oil from a miniature waterfall drifted from the bathroom, competing with the stale atmosphere of the house. Ceiling fans began to spin, shedding years of accumulated cobwebs. A light bulb popped.

The inane clamor from the TV grated on Joe’s nerves, making it hard to think. He moved to switch off the set, but had taken only a few steps when, without warning, the pictures on the wall started rattling. The ceramic cat vibrated off the bookcase and crashed to the floor, shattering into pieces. Just like Joe’s coffee cup at the plant fifteen years ago.

For a heart-stopping moment, he thought the tremors had returned already, but then he recognized the thundering whoomp-whoomp-whoomp of a helicopter flying low over the house. The chopper’s passage shook the rafters and the two men as well. They stared up at the ceiling in surprise, then back at each other. Neither of them knew why a ‘copter would be buzzing a house in the middle of the Q-Zone. It made no sense. This entire area was supposed to be a no-fly zone.

Then again, it was supposed to be a radioactive wasteland, too.

Joe decided that he and Ford were pressing their luck by sticking around. After his previous arrest, his old address might be the first house the authorities would search. They needed to get back to the docks with their prizes. In theory, Koruki, the pilot of the skiff, would be waiting for his signal to pick them up. Joe had promised the second half of his payment on their safe return to Tokyo.

But first: Joe took one last look around at the house where his family had once been so happy, where and Sandra had been together.

He suspected he would never set foot in it again.

The fading daylight did not make the return trip through the deserted city any less eerie. Lights flickered in the lifeless storefronts, while snatches of muzak or TV broadcasts escaped open doors and windows. Neon signs cast long, colored shadows on the weed-infested sidewalks. A clock tower started counting off the minutes again, for the first time in who knew how long. Ford didn’t like it. He preferred his ghost towns to be a little less animated, especially when he didn’t have a clue as to what was turning the lights back on.

I knew this was a bad idea, he thought.

Another helicopter buzzed by overhead, and the two men ducked beneath the tattered awning of a vacant sidewalk café to avoid being spotted. Ford tracked the chopper’s progress. It was flying northeast toward the horizon, where he now spotted what appeared to be a large metal structure in the distance. Glowing lights illuminated a towering assemblage of new scaffolding and facilities — right where the nuclear power plant used to be.

He looked to his father in confusion. “Are they rebuilding the plant?”

Joe stared at the distant complex intently, too transfixed by the sight to reply. You could practically see the gears turning behind his eyes as the former engineer tried to absorb this unexpected new development. And yet, Ford observed, his father didn’t appear to be too surprised to find something happening at the old site, just as he’d theorized earlier. For the first time in years, Ford actually felt like Joe Brody had a better grip on what was going than he did.

How weird was that?

He opened his mouth again, to ask his dad to explain, only to be interrupted by the unmistakable sound of an assault rifle being racked. Ford’s mouth went dry.

The men turned around to find a pair of uniformed Japanese soldiers standing behind them, their Howa assault rifles aimed at the trespassers. Neither soldier was wearing a radiation suit, just ordinary camo gear. They shouted at the Americans in a torrent of angry Japanese. Ford couldn’t make out what they were saying, but raised his hands in the air.

“What are they saying?” he whispered to Joe.

Belligerent expressions conveyed a lack of hospitality. More choppers thundered past overhead, heading for the mysterious new facility.

“We’re screwed,” Joe said.

The unmarked security van rumbled down an access road deep in the heart of the Q-Zone. It bounced as it crossed a wooden bridge. The bump jarred the bench beneath Ford, who grunted in response. Things were not going well.

He and Joe sat handcuffed to a steel rail in the back of the van, flanked by two unsmiling Japanese soldiers, who had so far ignored all of Ford’s urgent queries as to what was going to happen next. Ford didn’t know if the guards didn’t speak English and couldn’t understand his feeble attempts at Japanese, or if they were just under orders to not engage with the prisoners, but what they had here was a definite failure to communicate. Ford had even tried explaining that he was a U.S. Navy lieutenant, but to no avail. It was clear that this wasn’t going to get straightened out right away.

How on Earth was he going to explain this to his superiors? Or Elle?

Night had fallen, throwing the Q-Zone into darkness, but Ford watched through the rear window as the van drove past numerous military vehicles, heavy equipment, and construction cranes on their way to the massive facility they had spied earlier. The van pulled up to the gates, where a guard conferred with the driver in Japanese. He scoped out the prisoners before waving the van through. Ford guessed that they had arrived at their destination, whatever it was.

Some sort of top-secret base? On top of the old nuclear plant?

Their captors had strongly discouraged the prisoners from conversing with each other. Still, Ford shot a questioning look at Joe.

What the hell have you gotten us into?

A security van passed beneath the elevated steel gantry supporting Serizawa as he and Dr. Graham made their way toward an observation post above the pit. Both scientists wore protective radiation suits, having just toured the restricted level directly above the buried power plant.

“Fifteen years of silence,” Graham recounted, shaking her head. “Then two weeks ago, these pulses. As of yesterday, it’s up to one an hour and stronger every time. Whelan’s practically walking on air, calling it a living fuel cell. All this time absorbing radiation like a sponge… and suddenly it’s gone electric.”

Serizawa shared his colleague’s astonishment. These were truly stunning developments. He only wished he knew whether they boded ill or not. Unlike the esteemed Dr. Whelan, who was the chief scientist in charge of the operation, Serizawa was not entirely convinced that this was cause for celebration. Now in his fifties, he still remembered that devastated mine in the Philippines — and the many lives that had been lost there.

They stepped to a safety rail overlooking a gigantic sinkhole, even larger than the one they had encountered fifteen years ago. Graham signaled Serizawa that it was now safe to remove their safety masks. She gazed in awe at the sight below.

“Nature is spectacular,” she observed.

He shook his head. “Nature didn’t cause this. We did.”

Where the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant had once stood was an enormous pit, more than one hundred meters across. An elaborate multi-story edifice of steel scaffolding and catwalks lined the walls of the sinkhole, descending dozens of levels. Six towering construction cranes were in place around the rim of the pit, bracketing it. Spotlights illuminated the sinkhole. And this entire imposing superstructure, Serizawa knew, had been constructed to monitor a single biological specimen.

The cocoon rested on the floor of the pit, many meters below. Nearly as tall as the pit itself, it was a gnarled, rocky extrusion roughly the size of a fifteen-story building. A bioluminescent red glow came from deep within its thick translucent husk. It was many times larger and denser than the twin egg sacs they had discovered in the Philippines years ago. Its pointed tip curled down towards its base, so that it vaguely resembled a claw or pincer. Its roots were sunken deep into the mangled ruins of the collapsed nuclear power plant buried beneath it.

A complex array of monitoring equipment surrounded the base of the cocoon. Huge cameras, sensors, and scanners probed the cocoon across the entire range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The imposing apparatus, which were at least a story in height, rested upon a ring of grilled metal flooring surrounding the cocoon. Along with Graham, Serizawa watched from above as crews of workers, wearing hazmat suits, scurried about below, attending to the equipment. The flurry of new pulses had the entire base in an uproar, adding new urgency to its operations. Serizawa had gotten on a plane the minute he’d received word from Graham that the cocoon had become active and was manifesting new characteristics. She had just given him a firsthand look at the activities down on the floor of the pit.

“Get ready,” she told him. “Here it comes.”

All at once, the cocoon flashed brightly. A dazzling burst of light briefly turned night into day.

The van skidded to a stop, throwing Ford and his dad forward. Handcuffs tugged on Ford’s wrist, yanking him back; he would’ve preferred a seatbelt. Numerous voices and footsteps could be heard outside the van. Something’s up, he guessed. Now what?

Their guards whipped open the side door. Gruff words were exchanged in Japanese. Grabbing the prisoners’ duffel bag and gear, the soldiers scrambled out of the van and slammed the door shut behind them, leaving Ford and Joe alone in the back of the van. He figured now was their chance to finally talk to each other. Ford hoped to hell his dad knew what this about, because he was totally lost.

“Okay, okay,” he said, trying to get a handle on the situation. “So the good news is that we’re not going to fry from radiation poisoning.” He looked to his dad for confirmation, but Joe seemed lost in a world of his own, staring bleakly at the floor of the van. It dawned on Ford that his father had barely said a word, or even made eye contact with him, since the guards had taken them into custody. “Hey, Dad. You okay?”

Joe didn’t react. His lips moved, as though he was talking to himself, but nothing audible emerged. Ford wondered if the strain of the last several hours had been too much for him. What if his dad had finally cracked for good — just as his insane theories were looking less crazy by the moment?

“Hey!” Ford said sharply.

“…dragging you back here.” Joe roused a little, at least enough to mumble audibly. He turned anguished eyes toward Ford, his battered spirits in some sort of hellish freefall. Guilt weighed down his voice. “I am, I’m totally insane. It’s a replay of fifteen years ago and it’s all my fault. Now I’ll lose you, too.”

Ford tried to snap his father out of whatever sort of post-traumatic depression had gripped him. “See that’s the crazy talking. That’s not going to help us. No one’s losing anyone.”

“They’re never going to let us out of here, Ford. Why would they? Now they’ve got the disks…”

“Disks? What disks? What are you talking about, Dad?” Ford leaned anxiously toward his father, desperate to get his dad’s full attention. The irony of the moment was not lost on Ford; after years of doing his best to tune out his father’s paranoid ramblings, he suddenly wanted more than anything to know exactly what was going through his father’s tortured mind. “Look at me. I’m listening now, okay? Help me understand this.”

“I’m cursed, Ford,” the other man said despairingly. “Look what I’ve done.”

Ford wanted to shake him. “TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW!”

Joe flinched, blinking in surprise. The sheer intensity of Ford’s demand jolted him back to reality. His eyes came back into focus. He nodded gravely.

“Animals,” he began, trying to explain. “All kinds. Any kind. Birds, lizards, whales, insects, millions of creatures are all talking all the time, with sounds we just can’t hear. Frequencies we can’t process. Bursts of sound so fast or subtle we can’t grasp it. Imagine the epic version of that. That’s what’s on the disks, the sound of some creature screaming.”

The control room, nicknamed the “crow’s nest,” was on the upper level of the installation, overlooking the pit. The tapered tip of the cocoon was almost level with the wide glass windows facing the sinkhole. State-of-the-art scientific equipment was crammed into the control room, along with a dedicated team of scientists and technicians. Monitors displayed readings from an impressive range of scanning devices, including infrared, spectrum analysis, backscatter x-ray, and others that Serizawa couldn’t immediately identify. Much of the apparatus bore labels reading “M.U.T.O.” A time-code ran across every screen.

“Ishiro,” Dr. Gregory Whelan greeted Serizawa as he and Graham entered the control room, after changing out of their radiation gear. The chief scientist was a balding Canadian about the same age as Serizawa. His eyes gleamed with excitement behind a pair of glasses. He had the buoyant attitude of a gambler who had just hit the jackpot. “Good timing. We’ve just had the luminary precursor. Seem to be due for another pulse.”

The lead technician, a man named Jainway, leaned forward to speak into a microphone. “Ten second warning. Ten seconds.”

Graham’s phone rang and she stepped away to take the call. She nodded apologetically at Serizawa as she took her leave of the control room, called away by some pressing matter. He joined Whelan by the windows, which offered a birds-eye view of the activity down on the floor of the pit. Suited observers manned the extensive assortment of scanners and recording devices aimed at the cocoon. They stared up at the huge, glowing specimen expectantly.

“Six, five, four,” Jainway counted down. He was a fit Caucasian in his early forties. A Midwestern American accent testified to the multinational nature of the operation. “Three, two, one…”

The air around the cocoon rippled as it emitted a luminous pulse. The translucent shell of the cocoon convulsed, shaking off a cloud of dust along with bits of outer husk. The spasm caused the entire pit and the attached scaffolding to tremble slightly, which Serizawa found more than a little unsettling. At the same, electric lights flickered throughout the facility. Industrial-sized backup generators, installed for just such occasions, kicked in automatically to override the power drain.

Serizawa nodded in understanding. This was precisely the phenomenon Graham had described to him: a powerful electromagnetic pulse that disrupted all power systems in the vicinity. Powered by the radiation the organism inside the cocoon had been absorbing all these years.

He wondered what else it was capable of.

Joe was talking a mile a minute now. It was as though a dam of depression had been broken by a manic need to make Ford understand. The words spilled out of Joe at a rapid-fire pace, while Ford struggled to keep up.

“… by that point, I had fifteen, twenty days of this signal pattern no one could explain. Pulses, getting stronger, faster, ‘til right before the last one—”

The dome light on the ceiling of the van dimmed suddenly. It sputtered erratically, like the lights back in town. The sudden flickering cut Joe off in mid-sentence. Falling silent, he looked up at the light anxiously.

Ford didn’t understand. “Dad?”

“It’s the same,” Joe said ominously, his worried gaze fixed on the flickering light.

Something about his father’s tone sent a chill down Ford’s spine. He tried to keep his dad focused and on track.

“Dad, you said ‘right before the last one.’” Ford prompted. “Right before the last one, what?”

Joe finally looked away from the sputtering light. He turned his haggard face toward Ford.

“Something responded.”

Responded? Ford still wasn’t sure what exactly his dad was getting at. Was he actually talking about some kind of animal? All he could tell for sure was that Joe was acting like this was a matter of life and death, and not just from fifteen years ago.

But before Ford could get his dad to elaborate, the van door slid open with a bang. Two armed guards, their granite faces reflecting how hardcore they were, invaded the back of the van. Without a word, they unhooked Joe from the security rail and muscled him none too gently away from the bench. They dragged him toward the open door.

“Hey!” Joe protested in Japanese. Ford could barely make out the gist of it. “Slow down! Where are we going?”

“Whoa!” Ford added, alarmed by the soldiers’ rough treatment of his father. He lunged forward as far as his cuffs would allow. “You’re gonna hurt him!”

Snarling, one of the soldiers shoved Ford back against the wall. Ford tugged uselessly at his restraints. Still handcuffed to the rail, he could only watch in dismay as the men hustled Joe away from the van. And away from Ford.

“Hey! Hey wait!” he shouted. “Where are you taking him? HEY!”

The soldiers ignored his frantic cries. They slammed the door shut behind them.

With full power restored by the generators, the equipment within the crow’s nest monitored the pulse. Glowing screens, tracking emanations all along the electromagnetic spectrum, registered a continuous spike that only gradually diminished in intensity before subsiding altogether.

“That was twelve-point-two seconds,” Jainway reported. “We’re trending exponentially and—” He rapidly worked his keyboard, collating and translating the latest data from the pulse. “—that’s our new curve.”

A distinctive waveform appeared on a central display screen. The pattern displayed a series of rising peaks, starting small at first, but quickly increasing in size and frequency. Serizawa examined the display in fascination. The pattern matched no biological phenomenon he was familiar with.

A hand tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to find David Huddleston, the base’s head of security, behind him. He was a tall, brusque American who took his duties very seriously.

“Dr. Serizawa,” he said. “We arrested two men in the Q-Zone—”

Whelan was annoyed by the interruption. “Can this wait? Have Dr. Graham take a look.”

“She did, sir,” Huddleston replied. “She sent me.”

Whelan glanced around, as though noticing for the first time that Graham was no longer present. Serizawa recalled her being called away during the countdown to the pulse. Intrigued, he gave Huddleston his full attention. He trusted Vivienne’s judgment, and wondered what about the trespassers was so significant.

“One says he used to work here,” Huddleston said.

At the old nuclear power plant? Serizawa found this provocative enough that he let the security chief escort him downstairs to the antechamber of a utility room that had apparently been converted into a makeshift interrogation room. He found Graham waiting for him outside the utility room, while an armed soldier stood guard at the locked glass door to the larger room beyond. A table held what Serizawa assumed to be the trespassers’ confiscated belongings: a duffel bag, a couple of American passports, a vintage Geiger counter, a flashlight, and other odds and ends.

Looking troubled, Graham nodded grimly at Serizawa as he arrived. They peered through the clear glass door as one of Huddleston’s subordinates, an American named Fitzgerald, attempted to question the distraught prisoner, whom had been identified as Joseph Brody, a one-time nuclear engineer, formerly employed by the doomed Janjira facility. Serizawa wondered what had brought the man back to this site, some fifteen years later. He noted that Brody was wearing a battered brown radiation suit, minus the hood.

“I want my son,” Brody demanded, visibly upset. “I want to see him. I want to know he’s alright.” He pointed accusingly at the guard posted outside the door. “This guy, he knows where he is. I want my son and I want my bag and my disks and I want to talk to the person who’s in charge here. I know what’s going on, okay?”

Serizawa listened with interest. Just how much did Brody truly know about what now occupied this site? And what might have caused the disaster so many years ago?

Fitzgerald tried to calm the prisoner. He had a shaved skull and an intimidating manner. “Mr. Brody—”

“You’ve been telling everybody this place is a death zone,” Brody ranted. “All the while you’ve been hiding something out there! My wife died here! You understand? Something killed my wife and ten other people, and I deserve answers!”

Serizawa recalled that several lives had indeed been lost during the meltdown, although the death toll could have been much, much worse had not all necessary emergency measures been taken in time. Curious, he rifled through the man’s possessions, finding a framed family photo, along with over a dozen obsolete zip disks and a collection of graphs and printouts.

“I thought all the data from that day was lost,” he whispered to Graham.

She glanced at Brody’s collection. “Guess he was doing homework.”

Leafing through the confiscated material, Serizawa froze as he came upon a crumpled computer printout of a certain waveform pattern. He recognized the rising series of crests immediately. It was the same curve he had just observed on the monitors upstairs.

Snatching up the printout, he turned excitedly toward Graham — just as the overhead lights flickered once more, even more noticeably this time. The electromagnetic pulses from the cocoon were indeed increasing in intensity.

“See?!” Brody exclaimed, as though in vindication. “There it is again! It knocks out everything electrical for miles!” The foundations beneath their feet rumbled as the lights continued to waver, despite the best efforts of the backup generators. Brody grew louder and more agitated. He shouted fervidly like a prophet of doom. His face grew flushed and the tendons in his neck stood out. “It’s what caused this whole thing, and it’s happening again. IT’S GONNA SEND US BACK TO THE STONE AGE!”

A technician from the control room rushed into the antechamber. “Dr. Serizawa, they need you upstairs! We have a problem.”

Serizawa glanced back and forth between Brody and the confiscated printout. Was it possible that this crazed American engineer knew something they didn’t? He stared apprehensively at Brody and their eyes met through the glass door between them. Serizawa wanted to stay and question the man directly, find out what precisely Brody knew about the events of fifteen years ago, and how they related to what was happening today, but the technician from the crow’s nest hovered in doorway, waiting anxiously.

He hastily gathered up Brody’s possessions and rushed to answer the summons. He shouted back at Huddleston and the guard.

“Keep that man here! I need to talk to him!”

Graham accompanied Serizawa as they raced back to the control room, which was now in a barely controlled frenzy. The elation and excitement of only a few minutes ago had been supplanted by an almost palpable sense of panic. Emergency alerts and warnings flashed urgently on almost every screen and console. Buzzers and sirens sounded. Alarmed technicians shouted over each other.

“Just seconds apart!” Jainway called out.

Another man, whose name Serizawa didn’t know, stared in dismay at the readings before him. “—stronger, broad spectrum!”

Whelan paced back and forth, chewing on his nails. His earlier jubilance had vanished completely, replaced by obvious signs of worry and agitation. The power and intensity of the pulses were exceeding all their expectations and precautions. His historic breakthrough was turning into a disaster.

“Any radiation leakage?” he asked fearfully.

A larger tremor shook the crow’s nest as the cocoon emitted an even stronger pulse. Serizawa staggered across the quaking floor to the windows overlooking the pit. Down below, the mammoth cocoon flexed and heaved, causing great hunks of its rocky outer shell to shear off and crash onto the metal grille covering the floor of the pit. Tiny figures, their movements hampered by their cumbersome radiation suits, scrambled for safety as the chunks of the shell tumbled down onto the expensive equipment like a rockslide, smashing portions of the sensor array to pieces. The impact of the fragments slamming into the metal floor echoed off the walls of the pit. As the outer layer of the cocoon disintegrated, more and more of the infernal red glow within it was exposed.

“What the hell is it doing?” Jainway asked.

“Gamma levels still zero,” his fellow technician reported, with audible relief. “It’s sucked all three reactors dry.”

Serizawa held out Brody’s printout. “It’s done feeding.”

Puzzled, Whelan grabbed the document from Serizawa. He peered at it uncomprehendingly. “What’s this?”

“Fifteen years ago,” Serizawa explained. “It’s what caused the meltdown.”

Graham had put the pieces together as well. “It was an electromagnetic pulse,” she said, chiming in. “That’s what it’s building to, converting all that radiation.”

“We need to shut down,” Serizawa said.

Whelan blanched at the prospect. “You’re sure this is authentic?”

Serizawa nodded, wishing he’d found out about Joe Brody’s findings years ago. The exact connection between the meltdown and the cocoon had always been unclear, but Serizawa now realized that an EMP produced by the larva had shut down the plant’s safety systems back in 1999. His grave expression and bearing convinced Whelan to heed his warning.

“Secure the grid!” the scientist ordered. “Wildfire protocols!”

Jainway pressed a button, sounding an alarm. He relayed Whelan’s orders into his microphone. “All personnel, clear the first perimeter, immediately!”

Klaxons blared throughout the base. Crimson warning lights flashed and rotated. Outside the crow’s nest, the generators were cranked up to full capacity as the six looming construction cranes went into operation. Gears engaged and motors roared as the cranes stretched a net of thick steel cables above the pit.

Just in case anything tried to escape.

Wailing klaxons penetrated the walls of the security van, causing Ford to start in alarm. He knew emergency warnings when he heard them. All hell was breaking loose somewhere.

Desperate to figure out what was happening, he peered out the rear window of the van. He spotted heavy steel cables winding from the base of a towering construction crane, which had just swung into action. He couldn’t make out what the cables were attached to.

Radios squawked outside the van. Ford saws guards rushing past.

“Hey!” he shouted, trying to get their attention. Had everyone forgotten that he was handcuffed inside the van? He yelled over the blaring klaxons. “HEY!”

His shouts went unheeded. Whatever crisis was underway clearly took priority over one inconvenient American trespasser. Ford realized he was on his own, right on top of a buried nuclear power plant. He remembered the radiation helmet tucked in his belt and hastily put it back on. He used his free hand to refasten it to the suit.

Better safe than sorry.

Serizawa watched from the crow’s nest as the tech crews on the lower levels of the pit scrambled out of the way as the huge wire “cage” descended, sealing the cocoon inside, even as another layer of the outer shell shook loose, sloughing onto the floor of the pit with tremendous force. Serizawa offered a silent prayer for the workers below, hoping they would not be crushed by the stony fragments, which were as hard and brittle as volcanic rock.

Agitated voices filled the control room. The pulses, coming faster and faster, were growing steadily in strength. Arguments broke out among the panicky scientists and technicians as they debated the correct response to the escalating crisis. Emergency measures were hurriedly deployed, but Serizawa got a definite sense that matters were spiraling out of control. Besieged by critical reports and queries from the staff under his command, Dr. Whelan looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. It appeared now that they had all severely underestimated the forces — and the creature — they had sought to contain. Whelan’s dreams of solving the world’s energy crisis were turning into a nightmare.

“Grid secure!” Jainway called out as the high-tension netting stretched taut above the quivering cocoon. The technician let out a sigh of relief, which Serizawa feared might be premature. After all, the cage had never been tested.

The announcement quieted the tumult inside the control room. Overlapping voices trailed off as all heads turned toward Whelan, who was pacing back and forth before the windows. Everyone present knew what came next. Jainway’s hand hovered above a switch. He looked to Whelan for the go-ahead.

“Say the word,” the technician said.

Whelan, for his part, appeared overwhelmed by the responsibility that had fallen on him. He looked in turn to Serizawa, who sympathized with the stricken scientist. This was no easy decision.

“So much we still don’t know,” Whelan moaned, agonizing over the potential loss to science.

Down in the pit, the cocoon shuddered again, shedding yet another layer of shell. Great chunks of the cocoon rained down on the metal flooring, which began to buckle beneath the avalanche. With each layer, more and more of the unearthly effulgence at the core of the cocoon could be seen, although the organism within remained hidden from view.

But for how much longer?

“Kill it,” Serizawa said.

Whelan let Serizawa make the call. He nodded to Jainway, who threw the switch.

Thousands of volts electrified the metal grille at the base of the cocoon. Bright blue flashes crackled across the flooring. The cocoon sizzled and convulsed as the electricity arced across its outer shell, jolting it with bolts of artificial lightning. Smoke rose from its cracking outer shell. Floodlights and fuses blew, throwing the entire pit into darkness. Graham gasped, and Whelan looked away from the window. In theory, whatever was growing inside the cocoon had just been electrocuted.

Serizawa prayed they had not waited too long.

On the monitors, the data feeds all went silent. A hush fell over the control room.

“All readings are flat-lining,” Jainway reported.

“Is it dead?” Whelan asked.

Serizawa peered down into the murky pit. As nearly as he could tell, the cocoon remained intact, apart from a single long crack splitting its surface. Shadows filled the gap, making it impossible to discern what lay deeper within the cocoon. The bioluminous glow had been extinguished. No sound or motion could be detected from this height.

Jainway sagged back into his seat, looking drained. He clearly thought the crisis had been averted, as did various other technicians throughout the control room. The electricity appeared to have done the trick, but Serizawa remained on edge. There was too much at stake to take any chances.

“Get a visual,” he instructed.

Down in the pit, a work crew cautiously approached the charred cocoon. The metal grid beneath their feet was no longer electrified, but their hazmats suits included rubber boots regardless. Massive fragments of dislodged shell, the size of boulders, were embedded in the floor, forcing the workers to detour around them. Burnt and shattered scientific equipment further obstructed their path. The grilled flooring was dented and cratered, making it difficult to navigate. It was several minutes before they reached the base of the cocoon, which remained dark and inert.

The leader of the team, Koji Tanaka, ignited a handheld flare. An incandescent red glow cast light on the deep, jagged crack running up the blackened exterior of the looming cocoon. He peered up at the crack, but saw only a still, silent darkness. It appeared that the creature was indeed dead, but perhaps there was yet more they could learn by examining its remains?

The team drew nearer to the cocoon. Tanaka was about to report back to the control room, when he thought he spotted a glimmer of movement through the crack. At first he thought it might be just a trick of the light, but, no, something was definitely shifting deep within the cocoon. He squinted into shadows, while the rest of his team started shouted and pointing excitedly. They could all see it now: Elusive shapes — no, a single shape — stirring inside the cocoon, right before their eyes.

Tanaka’s mouth went dry. He began to back away warily.

A deafening howl erupted from the cocoon, echoing off the walls of the pit. Terrified, Tanaka and his team turned and ran frantically for their lives.

They didn’t get far.

A bone-rattling shock wave blasted from the cocoon, flinging the fleeing workers across the floor into the ruins and rubble. The concussive force disintegrated what remained of the cocoon, causing it to crumble into dust, even as a tremendous electromagnetic pulse blew through the entire base, shutting everything down. Tumbling through the air, Tanaka was already dead, his organs pulped, before he slammed into a disintegrating pile of debris.

The creature howled again.

The van rattled as though a bomb had gone off nearby. The dome-light in the ceiling, which had been flickering and off, went out completely, leaving Ford trapped in the dark. The blaring klaxons ceased abruptly, while a sudden blackout seemed to hit the entire facility. All the lights outside went dark simultaneously, so that only faint starlight illuminated the scene. The motorized cranes whirred to a stop.

What the—?

Ford was still trying to figure out what was happening, and whether he’d been completely forgotten, when the thunderous howl of some unknown creature rang out over the chaos. That was no machine or siren, Ford realized instantly. The ululating cry was unmistakably coming from something alive.

He couldn’t believe his ears, and a primordial fear gripped his heart. Bombs and blackouts he understood, and he had seen combat more than once. But the thought of what could have produced that savage wail defied his imagination.

What had his father said before? About some sort of animal…?

Joe found himself alone in the improvised interrogation room. Fitzgerald and the guards had run off, distracted by the crisis, which had apparently caught them completely by surprise. He remembered the feeling.

You should’ve listened to me, he thought bitterly. I should’ve made you listen.

The lights went out, just as they had at the plant years ago. He heard an electronic lock click as the power shorted. He tried the door and found it unlocked. Cautiously sticking out his head out the door, he glanced around but didn’t see any more guards in the vicinity. He wasn’t surprised. If history was indeed repeating itself, as he feared, then the people here had a lot bigger problems on their hands than one trespassing engineer.

This was his chance, he realized, to find out the truth at last.

Along with his fellow scientists, Serizawa stared down into the abyss, which was lit only by the intermittent strobing of the emergency lights. The steel-mesh net over the pit remained intact, further obscuring his view of the creature below, which had obviously survived their attempt to electrocute it. Despite the danger posed by the monster, Serizawa marveled at its obvious strength and endurance. They had sent enough voltage through the grid to fry a great white whale, but the creature was still alive and free from its cocoon.

We waited too long, he realized. It’s grown too strong.

The erratic lighting frustrated him. Straining his eyes, he could make out only the vague impression of some gargantuan form moving below. He caught sporadic glimpses of gigantic red eyes and gleaming fangs. The biologist in him was anxious to see the adult form of the organism, now that it had completed its metamorphosis from the larval stage that had hatched from the Philippine egg sac fifteen years ago, even as he feared for humanity as well.

What exactly had just emerged into the night?

Beside Serizawa, Whelan gasped as the shadowy beast pressed up against the cable netting, testing its cage. The creature heaved upward, shaking the entire pit. Steel scaffolding and support beams began to buckle alarmingly. Tortured metal screamed in protest. The crow’s nest bucked beneath Serizawa’s beneath feet, and he had to grab onto a window sill to maintain his balance. Graham stumbled against him, her face pale.

“Evenyone out!” Whelan shouted. “Now!”

His palm slammed down on a panic button.

A bewildering assemblage of steel gantries and elevated walkways circled the site of the former power plant, overlooking a sinkhole of Biblical proportions. Joe made his way through the unfamiliar complex, heading toward the center, even as a mass evacuation got underway, triggering a distinct sense of déjà vu. Hundreds of fleeing workers, many wearing radiation suits similar to his own, rushed past him, descending from metal catwalks and stairways in a desperate exodus. In their haste, nobody noticed an unfamiliar face amidst the crush. Joe jostled through the tide of humanity, like a salmon fighting its way upstream. He alone was heading toward the source of the chaos — and the inhuman howl.

I have to see it, he thought. I have to know what’s down there.

Another deafening wail could be heard above the tumult. He forced his way along the gantries, drawn by the sound of the creature. The terrifying screech was proof that he wasn’t crazy after all, that he had been right all along.

He hoped Ford understood that now.

Trapped in the van, Ford found himself forgotten in the midst of an increasingly hellish nightmare. Fleeing workers and emergency crews raced past the van by the dozens, oblivious to the desperate American handcuffed inside the vehicle. The cuffs dug into his wrist as he tried unsuccessfully to wriggle his hand free. He shouted frantically at the people running by.

No one listened or even glanced in his direction. They were all too busy trying to get away from… what?

Joe crept along the gantry toward the pit. One level below, a crew of unusually courageous emergency workers warily approached the edge of the giant sinkhole. All at once, some enormous creature, its exact contours obscured by darkness and a net of heavy steel cables, shoved up against its cage. An angry screech conveyed its displeasure at being trapped.

The earsplitting cry convinced the workers to turn and run like hell. Joe didn’t blame them; it was a natural response to the gargantuan monster trying to force itself out into the world. He would have run himself if he hadn’t spent the last fifteen years looking for answers. This could be his last chance to find out exactly what had destroyed the plant years ago — and why Sandra died.

Luckily for the fleeing mortals, the creature retreated back into the pit after its failed attempt to breach the net. Brody was impressed by the size of the cage, admiring the foresight and ingenuity of the engineers who had designed and implemented the ambitious safety measure. The creature’s bellicose howl faded away. It appeared the cage had worked.

Thank God, Joe thought. He wanted desperately to lay eyes on the creature, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see it run amok. That monster’s caused enough havoc already.

Then a giant black appendage rose up through a gap in the cables. Joe’s eyes bulged at the sight. At first he thought it was a limb of some sort, but then he realized that it was actually just a single hooked claw. His mind reeled at the sheer scale that implied. For the love of God, how big was this thing?

The crooked talon hooked onto the taut steel cables, gripping them. It began pulling downward on the net, exerting tremendous force. The heavy cables stretched and strained at their moorings. The catwalks overlooking the pit started to tip precariously as they were wrenched loose, so that they dangled at alarming angles above the sinkhole and the creature below. All six cranes, each over 150 feet tall, began to tip toward the pit like fishing poles being dragged down by an over-sized catch. Twisting metal squealed as if in agony.

Joe gasped as the gantry quaked beneath him. He stumbled backwards, away from the railing. Suddenly the ingenious steel “cage” didn’t seem quite as impressive — or reassuring — as it had been only moments ago. Hearing metal shriek, he spun around and saw the groaning cranes begin to buckle and bend catastrophically. The veteran engineer foresaw the collapse only seconds before it unfolded. One by one, each crane gave way in sequence, crashing down like a row of towering dominoes. More workers raced in terror from the falling cranes, each of which had to weigh at least two hundred tons. The screams of the trapped crane operators were drowned out by the din of warping steel and one earth-shaking impact after another.

Jesus Christ, Joe thought. It’s tearing this whole place down!

One of the cranes toppled over, falling straight toward Joe. Adrenalin and reflexes kicked in and he dived for safety only a heartbeat before the top of the crane crashed onto the gantry right where he had been standing moments before. It felt like another tremor had struck, rolling Joe across the walkway. Amazed to find himself still alive, he staggered to his feet and looked around.

Several fleeing workers had not been so lucky. They lay crushed beneath the fallen crane. Heads, limbs, and torsos had vanished, buried beneath the heavy piece of construction equipment. Spreading pools of dark arterial blood, looking almost black in the night, seeped out from beneath the mangled steel. Joe could tell at a glance that most of the victims had been killed instantly.

He wondered if they were the lucky ones.

This is insane, Ford thought. I can’t die like this!

He fought the handcuffs with all his might. His wrist was raw and bleeding, but the cuffs still refused to yield. The perverse absurdity of his situation was enough to drive him nuts. He could disarm a bomb in the middle of a battlefield, but he couldn’t get out of a damn van when this entire place was coming down on top of him?

He stopped tugging on cuffs, recognizing the futility of his exertions.

I’m sorry, Elle, Sam, I tried my best. His heart broke at the prospect of never seeing his family again. I always meant to come home to you.

A falling crane hit the rear of the van like a giant hammer, shearing off the rear doors and sending the parked vehicle into a spin. Ford cried out, but had no time to react to this heart-stopping shock. Held in place by the cuffs, which yanked viciously on his wrist and arm, he tumbled violently inside the spinning van. His body slammed into the interior wall, knocking the breath from him. Whiplash twisted his back. For an endless moment, his world turned into a bruising carnival ride.

Then, finally, the van came to rest several yards away from its starting point. Dazed, his heart racing, Ford found himself staring out the missing back half of the van, which now faced the heart of the mysterious complex. The facility was apparently constructed around an enormous pit where Ford guessed the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant had once stood. Compared to the crashing din of moments ago, there was a sudden silence — until he heard what sounded like sturdy steel cables straining against some inconceivable force.

The animal, he realized. The one Dad tried to tell me about.

That chilling, mind-boggling realization was enough to snap him out of daze and take stock. It occurred to him that the crashing steel crane might have been a blessing in disguise. Hurriedly checking the security rail, he felt a surge of excitement as he saw that the sturdy steel had been cracked by the accident. It took him a few anxious moments, but he managed to slide the cuffs of the rail, setting him free at last.

Yes! he thought. That’s more like it!

Wasting no time, he clambered out of the wrecked van by way of its missing back half. His radiation suit was still clumsy and uncomfortable, but, this close to the old reactors, he wasn’t about to take it off — even if none of the guards had been wearing them before. He kept the helmet and gas mask in place.

He glanced around the darkened base, trying to get his bearings. The fallen crane lay between him and a steep ridge beyond. Steel catwalks and scaffolding spread across the ridge like overgrown foliage, but he could still dimly glimpse the pit beyond. Metal cables continued to creak and groan. He started toward the scaffolding, wondering how on Earth he was going to find his father in this chaos, when frantic pounding seized his attention. He quickly spotted where it was coming from.

A Japanese crane operator was trapped inside the control booth of the capsized crane. The compartment was partially caved-in, so that there was barely enough room for the man inside, and the exit door was a twisted mass of crumpled metal. It was going to take a blowtorch, or maybe the “Jaws of Life,” to extricate the operator from the crushed compartment. The man’s face was bloodied and contorted with fear. His fists hammered against the cracked window of the booth. From the looks of things, his legs were probably broken. Frankly, it was a miracle he was still alive.

He locked eyes with Ford, who hesitated, uncertain what to do.

I need to find my father, but…

Ford!

Joe spotted his son from his elevated vantage point atop the quaking gantry. Ford was down below, still wearing the same secondhand radiation suit, and staring at the crushed operator booth of one of the fallen cranes. Joe watched with growing concern as Ford stepped over a tangle of steel cables stretching between the crane and the net above the pit. The cables went taut as the creature tugged again at the bars of its cage, dragging the cables toward the pit. Distracted by some drama below, Ford didn’t seem to realize that he was standing in the path of the cables, which were shifting toward him.

“Ford!”

Ford was too far away to hear Joe’s shouting over all the other commotion. Frantic, Joe rushed along the wobbling gantry, forcing his way past a stampede of terrified workers. He had to fight not to get carried backwards by the crush of bodies fleeing. Joe waved his hands in the air, yelling at the top of his lungs.

“Ford!”

But Ford still couldn’t hear him. Unaware of the danger posed by the moving cables, he appeared intent on rescuing somebody trapped in the crane’s demolished control booth. The cables jerked again with another powerful tug from below, which also jolted the gantry beneath Joe. The elevated steel walkway creaked and teetered, tossing Joe from side to side. His elbow smacked painfully into a guardrail, but Joe barely noticed. He sprinted further across the unsteady gantry, even as everyone else scrambled in the opposite direction. The fear-maddened crowd thinned out, clearing his way, as he raced to get within earshot of his son. His eyes widened in horror as the taut cables began to drag the entire crane toward the pit.

“Ford! Get back now!”

Ford heard his father shouting. Startled, he looked up to see Joe staring down at him from an elevated walkway. He couldn’t quite make out what his dad was yelling, but the utter terror on Joe’s face was clear enough. Metal scraped loudly against the pavement, throwing off sparks, as the collapsed crane surged toward Ford. Hundreds of tons of lethal metal and machinery threatened to flatten him like a runaway train.

He dived out of the way, forced to abandon the trapped operator. The crane swept past him, carrying the operator to his doom. Their eyes met briefly before the control booth, along with the rest of the crane, was yanked into the waiting pit. Ford wondered briefly if the man had a family…

Joe kept shouting at him from above. Scrambling to his feet, Ford looked up at his father again — just as the plummeting crane hauled down the entire elevated gantry Joe was standing on. Ford barely had time to register what was happening before the metal scaffolding collapsed, taking Joe with it. Crumpled steel landed in a heap at the edge of the giant sinkhole, atop a jutting concrete ridge.

“DAD!!!”

Ford rushed toward the wreckage, praying that Joe was still alive somewhere in the towering pile of debris. He couldn’t lose his father now, not like this! He needed to apologize to his dad for never really listening to him, for thinking he was crazy all these years. Who knew that it was the world that had gone mad — and that Joe Brody was the only person sane enough to see that?

The ruins of the collapsed gantry loomed before him. A thick cloud of dust and pulverized concrete rose from the debris. He was almost there—

Something huge and heavy slammed into the pavement in front of him, blocking his path. A glistening black column suddenly stretched high above his head. Stumbling backwards, it took Ford a second to grasp that what he was seeing was an enormous spiked claw, attached to a limb the size of a redwood.

No, he thought. It’s not possible. No animal can be that big!

Then another jointed black limb stretched up from the depths of the pit and smacked down on the ground several yards behind Ford.

And another.

And another.

Ford froze in terror. For a moment, all he could hear was his own breathing inside the gas mask and the rapid thumping of his heart. Nothing in his Navy training or combat experience had prepared him for the sight of the colossal creature rising up out of the darkness of the pit like a living mountain. An iridescent black exoskeleton, made of a hard shell-like substance, covered a vaguely insectile behemoth with at least six limbs of varying sizes. Two sturdy hind legs, with “backwards”-jointed ankles, supported the bulk of the creature’s weight, while a pair of elongated middle limbs extended from the beast’s armored shoulders. A much smaller pair of forearms, resembling those of a praying mantis, protruded from its upper thorax. Glittering red eyes peered out from beneath a flat triangular skull that almost looked like a rattlesnake’s. Saliva dripped from a huge hooked beak. The sheer scale of the creature beggared the imagination. It had to be nearly two hundred feet tall.

This was no mere “animal,” as his father had predicted. This was a monster.

The beast kept rising higher and higher, straightening to reveal its true, incredible size. Its titanic form blocked out the sky, hiding the stars. Its immense shadow fell across the sprawling base. Ford waited for the monster to squash him like a bug, but it paid no attention to him. Instead it hunched and grunted, heaving as though undergoing some kind of internal convulsion. Its armored back began to buck and bulge violently. For a moment, Ford allowed himself the hope that the monstrous creature was dying for some unknown reason. Perhaps an adverse reaction to the environment or the radiation in the pit? Or maybe the creature was simply too big to survive. Was it possible he was witnessing its death throes?

Please, Ford prayed. There’s no room in this world for a monster like this.

But then its molting back split open in two long parallel gashes, dozens of feet long. Glistening prongs of flesh emerged from the ruptured carapace, unfurling grotesquely into sleek black wings that reminded Ford of a stealth fighter. Blood pumped into the wings causing them to grow stiff and rigid. Thick veins supported a scaly membrane. They stretched and flexed, wet and shimmering. A hard black sheath, that appeared to be made of the same glossy substance as the creature’s exoskeleton, protected the underside of the wings.

No longer hunching, the creature rose up triumphantly, exalting in its metamorphosis. It bloodcurdling screech could probably be heard for miles away. Spreading its newborn wings, it took to the sky.

Awestruck, Ford watched it fly away.

But to where?

More than a day before:

Sam woke up. Sunlight filtered through the bedroom curtains as he yawned and stretched in bed. It was warm and comfy and he was in no hurry to get up until he remembered that his dad was home and had promised to take him to the toy store today. He sprang out of bed and scampered toward the door in his pajamas. Bare feet expertly dodged the toys strewn across the floor. He smelled pancakes cooking in the kitchen and grinned in anticipation. His mouth watered.

He loved pancakes — and so did his dad.

Yet when he rushed into the kitchen, expecting to find both his parents, he found only his mother cooking over a griddle. Confused, he looked around, but his dad was nowhere to be seen. He noticed that there were only two place settings laid out at the kitchen table.

He knew what that meant.

But he promised, Sam thought. He said he would still be here in the morning when I got up!

His mother heard him come in. She turned away from the stove to greet him. She gazed down at him sadly, forcing a smile. He didn’t need to tell her how he felt.

“It’s okay, babe,” she said gently. “He’ll be back soon.”

Sam didn’t understand. Had the Navy called Dad back already? He was supposed to be home for two weeks this time. Two weeks, not just one night!

His mom turned off the stove to comfort him. She knelt down and hugged him as she tried to explain why Dad was gone again.

“His daddy needed help.”

Now:

The sun rose over the ruined base. Black smoke rose from the rubble, darkening the sky. The toppled cranes remained where they’d fallen, even though emergency crews had begun the grisly process of carting away the remains (partial and otherwise) of the deceased. Severed steel cables hung in tatters from the edge of the sinkhole. Helicopters circled overhead, observing the devastation below. Survivors were being carried away on stretchers, even as first responders worked overtime to extricate more bodies from the debris. Collapsed gantries and scaffolding had turned the site into an enormous junkyard. Twisted steel beams jutted from the wreckage like abstract grave markers. Sobs and curses filled the air.

Ford wandered directionlessly through the ruins, ignored and forgotten amidst the disaster scene. His face was caked with soot and sweat. He’d discarded his gas mask and helmet hours ago; radiation poisoning had seemed the least of his worries. Every muscle ached and he felt black and blue all over. A loose pair of handcuffs still dangled from one wrist, which stung like the devil. He stumbled clumsily over the rubble, attempting to stay out of the way of the emergency crews. He’d been searching all night for his father without any luck. For all he knew, Joe was still buried beneath the debris.

He spied a crowd of medical personnel tending to another batch of wounded. Unwilling to give up, he pressed his way into the makeshift triage unit. Dozens of casualties occupied gurneys, while the overtaxed doctors, nurses, and medic struggled to cope with the flood of patients. Ford was both appalled and discouraged by the number of victims. He didn’t know where to keep looking for his dad. Joe could anywhere.

Or nowhere, anymore.

No, he thought. Don’t even think that.

He’d already lost his mother on this very same site. He’d be damned if he’d see his father buried here, too. Exhausted and sore, he stubbornly worked his way down row after row of casualties. Ford had seen combat, and the aftermath of suicide bombings, but the widespread suffering on display here still got to him — and left him feeling very afraid. His brain was still trying to come to terms with the reality of the gigantic winged monstrosity he’d witnessed earlier. Bombs and terrorists were one thing. He knew how to protect himself — and others — from them. But a creature like that… how on Earth did you stop it? Was that even possible?

And what was it doing now?

Worried and worn out, he almost walked by his dad without recognizing him, but then he spotted Joe on a gurney, surrounded by harried nurses and medics, fighting to keep the injured man alive. An IV line was set up to administer fluids and medication. Pressure was applied to the most visible wounds. Joe was caked in blood and dirt, his shredded radiation suit almost unrecognizable. The medics were already peeling the suit from him to get at his injuries.

“Dad!”

Ford rushed toward, trying to squeeze past the doctors and nurses, who refused to let him through. He peered anxiously over the shoulders of the busy medics, hoping that he hadn’t found his father just in time to see him die. That would be too cruel.

Joe’s eyes fluttered at the sound of Ford’s voice. He squinted through a fog of pain at his son. Their eyes met, truly seeing each other for perhaps the first time in years.

But was it too late for both of them — and the world?

Not far away, Serizawa also wandered through the ruins. He watched numbly as rows of lifeless bodies were zipped unceremoniously into ugly black body bags. It was like the aftermath of a battle or natural disaster, yet all this carnage and destruction had been caused by a single organism emerging from the cocoon, just as it had burst from its egg sac in the Philippines over a decade ago. History was repeating itself — on an even more apocalyptic scale.

His clothing was torn and rumpled. He and Graham had barely escaped the crow’s nest before it had crashed to the ground, but many others had not been so lucky. He watched grimly as Gregory Whelan was zipped into a bag. To his credit, the embattled chief scientist had stayed at his post until the bitter end, waiting until everyone else was evacuated, like a captain going down with his ship. Serizawa recalled ruefully just how excited Whelan had been only hours ago, thinking that he was on the verge of a revolutionary discovery. Little had the man known that the “living fuel cell” in the cocoon would cost him his life.

Goodbye, Gregory. Serizawa bowed his head in respect. You were a good scientist. Your only mistake was not realizing that certain forces were beyond your control.

“Dr. Serizawa!”

A deep voice intruded on the moment. Serizawa turned to see a U.S. Navy officer approaching him, accompanied by Graham and a Japan Self-Defense Force captain. A helicopter was revving up behind them, its rotors stirring up the already dusty air.

“Captain Russell Hampton,” the American officer introduced himself, shouting to be heard over the ‘copter’s spinning rotors. He was a tall, fit man wearing military fatigues, at least a decade younger than the scientist. A bald pate crowned his stoic face, which could have been carved from a block of dark brown granite. “Tactical authority of this situation has been accorded to Admiral Stenz, Commander, US Naval Forces, Seventh Fleet, part of a joint task force. I’m told your organization has situational awareness of our unidentified organism?”

Serizawa nodded. For more than six decades, a top-secret international coalition known as Monarch had been covertly studying and monitoring evidence of unknown mega-fauna such as the one that had just hatched from the cocoon. Alas, their practical experience in dealing with living specimens was minimal at best.

“Then I’m going to have to ask you to join me,” Hampton said. He glanced around at the surrounding bedlam. “Are there any other personnel you need?”

Serizawa considered the question. There was Graham, of course; that went without saying. But was there anybody else? He joined Hampton in scanning the crowd around them. He noticed that Joe Brody, the power plant engineer, was lying injured on a gurney nearby. A younger American, whom Serizawa’s assumed to be Brody’s son, Ford, was looking on anxiously as paramedics scrambled to stabilize his father’s condition. Serizawa recalled the data that had been confiscated from Brody. Serizawa had made sure that the disks and charts survived the disaster, but, now more than ever, he wanted to know everything the trespassing engineer knew about the nuclear disaster fifteen years ago. He pointed decisively at Brody and son.

“Them.”

The transport chopper roared through the sky toward the USS Saratoga, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered super-carrier more than a thousand feet in length. One of the largest warships ever constructed, the Saratoga rose twenty stories above the water and was accompanied by a sizable naval strike group composed of smaller frigates, cruisers, an oiler, a supply ship, and other support vessels. Aboard the ‘copter, Ford stuck close to his dad while trying to keep up with their rapidly changing situation. One minute, he and Joe had been stuck in the ruins of the base, the next they had been hustled aboard a waiting chopper…

Hang on, Dad, he thought. Just a few more minutes.

A medic struggled to keep Joe alive, monitoring the battered engineer’s vital signs, but seemed to be fighting a losing battle. Captain Hampton and a pair of civilian scientists looked on as Joe feebly clung to life. Ford still wasn’t quite sure why he and his dad were now getting special treatment, after being arrested as trespassers before, but he wasn’t about to question this unexpected turn of events. All that mattered was keeping his father alive. They had a second chance to rebuild their fractured relationship, and Ford didn’t want to lose that. He wanted his father back.

“You were right,” Ford said, squeezing Joe’s hand. His eyes welled up. His throat tightened. “I’m sorry.”

Joe gazed up at Ford through bloodshot eyes. His voice was weak and raspy as he struggled to speak. Ford leaned in to hear him.

“Whatever it takes,” he said faintly. “You have to end this…”

He began to slip away, perhaps for good.

“Dad—”

“Whatever it takes…”

“Dad, stay with me!” Ford exclaimed. “Dad!”

Joe’s eyes lost focus, staring somewhere beyond this world. Ford watched helplessly as the medic scrambled to save his failing patient, who was fading fast…

The Saratoga’s Combat Direction Center, located below decks, was packed and buzzing. Banks of monitors and work stations, manned by uniformed analysts, were jammed with data feeds. Armed services personnel, sporting the uniforms of several allied nationalities, were crammed into the war room, which reminded Serizawa of the crow’s nest back at the base. The overhead lights were kept dim to increase the visibility of the various screens and graphic displays. A backlit table map projected the creature’s potential courses, as calculated by the incoming data. As the simulations ran, dotted lines crossed the ocean, branching off in all directions, but with most heading east across the Pacific. Each dotted line was accompanied by a flurry of algorithmic probability data: wind speed, currents, altitude, weather conditions, and so on. Quietly observing the operations, Serizawa was just selfish enough to be relieved that the creature appeared to be winging away from his homeland.

Not that anywhere in the world was truly safe at the moment.

“Okay! Listen up!” Captain Hampton said, taking the floor. To say that his manner was “brisk” would be an understatement. “Quiet please!” He waited, but not for long, for the general chatter and hubbub to die down. “Briefing is up. New faces. New info. From here out, we do not try to move quickly, we will move quickly.” He turned to introduce a figure to his right. “Admiral?”

A senior officer, with cropped white hair and a lean, taciturn face, stepped forward. He gestured at a monitor displaying a blurry image of the creature that had emerged from the cocoon. Hushed voices murmured in awe.

“Good afternoon,” the admiral said crisply. “This is our needle in a haystack, people. A ‘massive unidentified terrestrial organism,’ which from this point forward will be referred to as ‘MUTO.’ The world still thinks this was an earthquake, and it would be preferable if that were to remain so. It was last sighted heading east across the Pacific. However, this… animal’s electromagnetism has been playing havoc with radar, satellite feeds, you name it, leaving us, for the moment, blind as bats.” A frown deepened the well-earned creases on his face. “I emphasize ‘for the moment’ because I have every confidence in the world that you will find it. We have to.”

His remarks concluded, he surrendered the floor and sought out Serizawa at the back of the room. He extended his hand.

“Doctor Serizawa,” the admiral greeted him. “William Stenz. We’re glad to have you aboard.”

Serizawa accepted Stenz’s hand and bowed slightly. He spied Graham beckoning to him from the open hatchway to the command center. He had dispatched her earlier to examine Joe Brody’s findings. He nodded back to her in acknowledgment. He was anxious to hear what she had to say.

“Will you excuse me, Admiral?”

Joe Brody’s face looked more at peace than it had been for at least fifteen years. His eyes were closed forever, seeing only the next world. Ford could only hope that, whatever had become of his father’s tortured spirit, somewhere Joe was gazing on his wife’s beloved face once more.

Ford stood by numbly in the Saratoga’s well-equipped medical bay as the body bag holding his father’s remains was zipped shut. A medic offered him a sympathetic look, but Ford was too stunned to respond. The tears would come in time, he hoped, but right now he just felt drained and lost. San Francisco seemed more than a world away. He wondered how he was going to break this news to Sam. The boy had never really known his grandfather. Would he even understand that now he never would?

“Lieutenant Brody, sir?”

A young petty officer intruded on Ford’s grief, as gently as he could. His voice held a distinctly Midwestern accent.

“Would you please come with me?”

Serizawa and his team had been assigned guest quarters upon the Saratoga. Even on a ship as large as the super-carrier, space was at a premium so the cramped cabin was a tight squeeze, but they were making do. Monarch scientists worked beside Navy technicians, monitoring data feeds at various workstations, even as he and Graham each spoke urgently on their respective phones.

“Yes,” he reported in Japanese, “the patterns match, but I can’t crack the significance.”

Joe Brody’s antique zip disks, rescued from the M.U.T.O. base, were stacked on a desk beside Serizawa’s research materials. Scattered photos and reports held fragments of a history that began years before Serizawa was born: grainy images of a gargantuan creature rising from the sea six decades ago, archive photos of an atomic bomb blast on a remote Pacific atoll, shots from the Philippine mine disaster, reports on the Janjira nuclear plant disaster, and updates on the singular cocoon found on the site afterwards.

It appeared that he and Brody had been colleagues of a sort, pursuing similar lines of investigation all these years.

What a pity, he reflected, that we never knew each other existed.

He overheard Graham dealing with the public-relations issue. “Yes, sir,” she said into her phone. “Media is reporting an earthquake. The cover’s holding for now, but if it—”

A knock at the hatchway interrupted both phone calls. Graham went to answer it.

“Dr. Serizawa?” Petty Officer Thatch stood in the doorway. He had Ford Brody with him, still wearing part of a rundown radiation suit that had seen better days. The man’s wrist was chafed, but his handcuffs had been removed en route to the carrier. Serizawa nodded at Thatch that it was all right for him to leave Ford with them. Ford’s passport had been found among his belongings; a quick investigation had confirmed that he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, currently on leave. Thatch departed and Graham escorted Ford into the room.

Ford, who looked more than a little shell-shocked, approached the desk warily. His eyes widened as he spotted the photos spread out across the desk, which Serizawa made no effort to conceal. Ford was visibly taken aback by the startling images. Serizawa sympathized; what these pictures displayed would be shocking to the young man, who had just lost his father as well. His entire world had changed overnight.

“Mr. Brody, my condolences,” Serizawa said.

Ford stared at them. Pain, anger, and confusion all seemed to simmer inside the unfortunate young man, who was understandably overwhelmed by recent events. Powerful emotions played across Ford’s face, while his body language was tense. Serizawa began to fear that the grieving lieutenant would be of little use to their investigation. Judging from his reaction to the photos, Ford was apparently not fully conversant with his father’s theories.

Graham tried to secure Ford’s cooperation anyway. “We’re deeply sorry for your loss, Lieutenant. But I’m afraid we need your help. Your father’s data—”

“No, you first,” he snapped. His nerves and temper were obviously at the breaking point. “Who are you people?”

Graham shot a questioning look at Serizawa, letting him make the call. He nodded, regarding Ford with sympathy. This man had been through so much already. He deserved to know what his father had given his life for.

“Come in please, Mr. Brody. Come in and we will show you.”

Ford stepped deeper into the cabin. Graham shut the door behind him.

Flickering images played upon the wall of the cabin. Hooked into Graham’s laptop, a portable digital projector provided relevant visuals as Serizawa attempted to explain.

“In 1954,” he began, “the first time a nuclear submarine ever reached the lowest depths, it awakened something.”

“The Americans first thought it was the Russians,” Graham added. “The Russians thought that it was the Americans. All those nuclear tests in the Pacific? Not tests…”

“They were trying to kill it.” Serizawa indicated the ancient film footage from the 1950s. “Him.”

Ford’s jaw dropped. Breaking eye contact with Serizawa, he looked more closely at the projected images of the 1954 A-bomb detonation, the bomb with the cartoon lizard inscribed on its cone, a mushroom cloud rising over the once-tranquil Pacific Ocean, and, finally, impossibly, the grainy silhouette of a titanic beast rising up from the sea, a row of jagged fins dimly visible along its spine.

“An ancient alpha predator,” Serizawa explained.

“Millions of years older than mankind,” Graham said, “from a time when the Earth was ten times more radioactive than it is today. The animal — and others like it—consumed that radiation as a food source. But as radiation levels on the surface naturally subsided, these creatures adapted to live deeper in the oceans, farther underground, absorbing radiation from the planet’s core. The organization we work for, Monarch, was established in the wake of this discovery. A multinational organization, formed in secrecy, to search for him, study him, learn everything we could.”

Ford stared at the footage. The images were blurry, but the creature’s gargantuan proportions and general outline were clear.

“We call him Godzilla,” Serizawa said.

The name was derived from a legend of the islands: a mythical king of monsters known as Gojira. The name had been Americanized by the U.S. Military during their initial attempts to bomb the newly discovered behemoth out of existence.

“The top of a primordial ecosystem,” Graham elaborated. “A god for all intents and purposes.”

Ford gaped at the images, struggling to process what he was hearing and seeing. “Monsters…”

“That is one word for them,” Serizawa agreed. He used a handheld remote to call up images of the “cavern” in the Philippines. “Fifteen years ago, we found the fossil of another giant animal in the Philippines. Like Godzilla, but this creature died long ago, killed by these…” Close-ups of the MUTO spores appeared on the wall.

“Parasitic organisms,” Graham said. “One dormant, but the other hatched. Catalyzed when a mining company unknowingly drilled into its tomb. The hatchling burrowed straight for the nearest source of radiation, your father’s power plant in Janjira, and cocooned there. Absorbing the radioactive fuel to gestate, grow.”

“Until it hatched like a butterfly into the creature you saw,” Serizawa. “We call it a MUTO.”

The biology, in fact, was fairly basic, albeit on a monstrous scale. The larval form of various insects and arthropods were basically eating machines, consuming massive amounts of nutrients before creating a cocoon in which to undergo the metamorphosis into their adult stage. Serizawa called up an image of the massive cocoon, which had been discovered fifteen years ago atop the ruins of the Janjira plant, not long after the earlier disaster in the Philippines.

“You’re saying you knew about this… thing… the whole time?” Ford shook his head, trying to take it all in. “And kept it a secret? Lied to everyone?”

Serizawa remembered a family photo he had found among Ford’s effects.

“You have a son, Mr. Brody. Would you tell him there are monsters in the world? Beyond our control? We believed that horror was better kept buried.”

“But you let it feed?” Ford said. “Why not kill it when you had the chance?”

“It was absorbing radiation from the reactors,” Graham said. “Vast doses, like a sponge. We worried killing it might have released that radiation, endangering millions.”

Serizawa nodded. “The MUTO caused the catastrophe, but also prevented it from spreading.” Without the cocoon, and the immense pupa developing inside it, the quarantine zone would have indeed been the radioactive wasteland they had let the world believe it was. “That’s why Monarch’s mission was to contain it, to study its biology. To understand it.”

But, yes,” he thought regretfully, we waited too long.

“We knew the creature was having an electrical effect on everything within a close proximity,” Graham said. “What we didn’t know was that it could harness that same power in an EMP attack.”

Footage from Janjira showed the winged creature unleashing its electromagnetic pulse — a heartbeat before the pulse shorted out the monitors.

“Your father did,” Graham said. “He predicted it.”

“What else did he say?” Serizawa asked. “Anything at all?”

“I–I don’t know,” Ford confessed, his voice cracking. “I always thought he was crazy, obsessed. I didn’t listen.” He ran a hand through his hair, overwrought, while he visibly struggled to recall his father’s theories. “He said it was some kind of animal call. Like something… talking.”

“Talking?” Serizawa sat up straight. Was Ford implying there was more than one signal?

Ford nodded. “Yeah, he was studying something. Echolocation.”

Serizawa and Graham stared at each other in shock. Ford clearly had no idea what a bombshell he’d just dropped, but the two scientists immediately grasped the implications. They glanced down at an indistinct snapshot of the majestic creature from the ocean’s floor, last seen sixty years ago.

Could they truly be dealing with… him?

“If the MUTO was talking that day,” Serizawa reasoned, “your father must have discovered something talking back.”

Gripped by a sense of extraordinary urgency, he turned to Graham. “Go back through the data, search for a response call.”

She sat down at her laptop, while the projector continued to cycle through the relevant images. Serizawa slumped down into a chair. Ford stared at the wall, trying to make sense of it all. It was a lot to absorb.

“This parasite… it’s still out there,” he said. “Where’s it headed?”

“The MUTO is still young, still growing,” Serizawa said. “It will be looking for food.”

“Sources of radiation,” Graham added, glancing up from her laptop. “We’re monitoring all known sites, but if we don’t find it soon…”

Her voice trailed off, not needing to say more.

“It killed both my parents,” Ford said. “There must be something we can do.”

Serizawa had his doubts, at least as far as humanity’s ability to cope with the threat.

“Nature has an order, Mr. Brody. A power to rebalance.”

He stared up at the wall, where Godzilla could be glimpsed once more. The U.S. Army had attempted to destroy the beast with an atomic bomb, but no remains had been found afterwards. Some believed (or hoped) that Godzilla had been completely vaporized by the blast, but that may have been wishful thinking.

“I believe he is that power.”

A bugler played taps, but only a small honor guard was in attendance. Standing on the wide rear deck of the Saratoga, as the sun slowly sank into the horizon, Ford saluted stoically as his father’s body was put to the rest. He had shed the battered radiation suit, but was still wearing rumpled civvies he’d left Joe’s apartment in. Serizawa was also present as Joe Brody’s flag-draped body slid off the deck into the sea. It disappeared quickly beneath the churning waves.

Goodbye, Dad, Ford thought. I wish you could go home with me.

It occurred to him that neither his father nor his mother had a proper grave, but that was not something he wanted to dwell on at the moment. Petty Officer Thatch was waiting off to one side, maintaining a respectful distance while Ford bid farewell to his father, but Ford knew he had to get going if he wanted to make it back to Elle and Sam. He stared for a few more minutes at the endless expanse of ocean that was now Joe Brody’s final resting-place before walking over to Thatch.

It was time to go.

Thatch escorted him across the carrier’s expansive flight deck, which was noisy and abuzz with activity. Aside from “the island,” a multi-level command center topped by a towering array of radar and communications antenna, the top deck of the Saratoga was a flat expanse used as a runway to land and launch a wide variety of aircraft. There was also room to park a few dozen planes, although the majority of the carrier’s eighty-plus aircraft were stored below decks in the hangar bay. A transport chopper was loading off to one side of the runway. Busy seamen worked quickly and efficiently to stow their gear aboard the helicopter as it prepped for take off. Ford quickened his pace, not wanting to be left behind. Thatch shouted to be heard above the clamor.

“Right now we’re fifty miles off Hawaii,” Thatch explained. “This transport will take you there. You’re on a commercial flight back to San Francisco.”

Ford was grateful for the arrangements made on his behalf, especially given everything else that was going on. He saluted Thatch as he boarded the chopper and quickly found a seat. He spotted Serizawa watching from the deck a short distance away.

The chopper’s rotors were already spinning up. Within moments, the helicopter lifted off from the flight deck, carrying Ford away from the Saratoga. In the fading twilight, he made out a faint smudge of land in the distance, which he knew to be the islands of Hawaii. His next stop on his way back to his family. In all the chaos and tragedy of the last forty-eight hours, there’d been no chance to even try to get in touch with Elle back in San Francisco. He wished he was bringing back better news.

Peering down from the chopper, he spied the tiny figure of Dr. Serizawa. The Japanese scientist watched the helicopter depart before turning back to reenter the ship. Ford had left his father’s research aboard the ship. With any luck, it would prove useful to the people in charge of figuring out what to do about the giant winged monster on the loose.

If not, the whole world could be in serious trouble.

The TV news was on in the background as Elle and Sam fixed dinner in the kitchen. Although the sound had been muted, a crawl played across the bottom of the screen:

“EARTHQUAKE ROCKS NORTHERN JAPAN — NUCLEAR Q-ZONE SHAKES.”

The headline went unnoticed by Elle, who was trying to put up a brave front for Sam despite her growing anxiety. Days had passed since Ford had left for Japan and yet there was still no word from him. Something had obviously gone wrong; otherwise he would have surely checked in by now. All she knew for certain was that his flight to Tokyo had touched down on time and that, according to the local police, he had bailed his dad out of jail at least two days ago.

After that… nothing.

Where are you, Ford? What’s happened to you?

Distracted, she dumped some loose scraps and peelings into the sink and ran the garbage disposal. The loud grinding noise drew a frown from Sam, who clapped his hands over his ears.

Neither of them heard her LG mobile phone buzzing on the coffee table, one room away.

“This is Mommy’s phone. Leave a message.”

Ford swore inwardly as Elle’s phone went to voice mail. The sound of his son’s voice hit him harder than he had anticipated, but he needed to talk to Elle more than anything. He clutched a borrowed satellite phone as the transport chopper carried him over the Pacific. He raised his voice to be heard over the whirring rotors. It was getting dark outside; barely an hour had passed since he’d buried his father at sea.

“Elle…”

His voice faltered. The conversation he’d been rehearsing instantly flew out of his head, rendering him flustered and at a loss for words.

“I don’t know that they’re saying on the news. There was an… accident… in Japan. Dad’s… gone.” His eyes welled up. His throat tightened so he could hardly speak. “Listen. I’m almost to Hawaii. I’ve got a flight home. I love you both. Tell Sam Daddy’s coming home, okay? I’m coming home.”

The voice mail beeped, cutting him off. Ford put down the phone. Wiping his eyes, he peered out across the crystal-blue waters below to the Hawaiian Islands directly ahead.

He prayed that Elle would get the message.

Serizawa and Graham huddled before a glowing monitor in the Saratoga’s war room as a helpful petty officer uploaded Joe Brody’s data onto a display screen. Adapting the antiquated zip disks to the ship’s state-of-the-art computer systems had posed a challenge, but, thankfully, not an insurmountable one. The two scientists studied the telltale waveform as it plotted out across the screen. Serizawa tapped his foot impatiently against the floor. This was taking too long.

“Keep scrolling,” Graham instructed the technician. “Near the end, before the final pulse—”

Serizawa’s eyes widened. “There!” he blurted, pointing at the screen, where, just before the end of the graph, one peak was followed directly by another — as if in reply. Graham gasped out loud. The evidence was undeniable, the conclusion inescapable.

“Something responded,” Serizawa said gravely. “He was right.”

Graham lowered her voice. “You don’t think it could be…?”

He knew she was thinking of the unknown leviathan from sixty years ago, but he was reluctant to jump to conclusions. Perhaps there was another explanation.

“Search for this pattern,” he instructed.

Graham regarded him quizzically. “Where?”

“Everywhere,” he said.

Another petty officer came up behind them. Serizawa did not know his name, but could tell that he approached with urgent business.

“Doctors,” the man said. “You need to see this.”

“Terminal A, domestic gates.”

Ford rushed through the busy commercial terminal at the Honolulu International Airport. Tourists in floral leis, toting their carry-on luggage, paraded past him as he headed across the crowded concourse to where people were lining up to catch the elevated monorail connecting the various terminals. He needed to hurry if he wanted to catch his flight to San Francisco.

He found a seat on the train and slumped into it, completely worn out. He had barely slept for days now, ever since getting that phone call from Japan about his father, and he was both emotionally and physically exhausted. At this point, he just wanted to get on a plane back to Elle and Sam.

Shifting his weight on the seat, and checking to make sure he still had his boarding pass, he felt something hard and lumpy in his pants pocket. Momentarily puzzled, he reached into his pocket and extracted the object. It was the old toy soldier he’d rescued from his childhood bedroom in Japan. The toy triggered a surge of confused emotions and regrets. He turned it over in his hands. He was glad he had managed to hold onto it — for Sam’s sake.

That’s one promise I can keep, he thought.

A dense crowd milled about on the platform outside, waiting for another train. Looking up from the toy, Ford contemplated the other weary travelers, who had no idea that they were sharing this world with giant monsters capable of widespread destruction. He envied their blissful ignorance. He found himself pining for the days when his biggest problems were a crazy father, a wife he wasn’t always there for, and a strained relationship with his son. He glanced at his watch. It was after nine in San Francisco now. Sam was probably already in bed.

Missing his son more than ever, Ford noticed another little boy, about Sam’s age, on the platform outside. The boy peeked out from behind his mother’s legs, while his distracted parents coped with their luggage and a map of the airport. Wide eyes stared in fascination at the toy soldier. Ford smiled back at him, amused. His dark mood lifted for a moment.

A chime sounded, warning that Ford’s train was about to depart. “Aloha,” the recorded voice said cheerily. “Please stay clear of the automatic doors—”

Distracted by the announcement, Ford forgot about the boy, until a woman’s frantic voice called out abruptly.

“Akio?! Akio!”

On the platform, the boy’s parents were looking around anxiously, having obviously misplaced their child. They cried out as they saw that the little boy, whose name was obviously Akio, had darted onto the train when they weren’t looking. Drawn by the toy soldier, Akio approached Ford. He pointed a pudgy finger at the miniature Navy man.

“Ban-ban,” he chirped.

Oh, shit, Ford thought, realizing what was happening. He leapt up to return the boy to his parents, but he was too late. The doors slid shut with a whoosh and the train began to pull away from the platform. Through the windows, Ford saw Akio’s parents reacting in consternation. They dashed frantically to the edge of the platform, shouting and throwing out their arms. The father grabbed onto his wife, as though half-afraid that she would rush onto the tracks. She sobbed hysterically.

“Stay there!” he shouted. “I’ll bring him back!”

The platform dropped from view as the train glided away on the elevated track. Exiting the terminal, the train cruised above the tarmac, where parked and taxiing jets could be seen through the train’s windows. A departing plane took off from a runway as Ford inspected a posted map of the monorail system. According to the map, the train would make a complete circuit of the airport before returning to the station they had just left. He hoped that Akio’s parents had heard him and would stay put long enough for him to get the boy back to them. They’d looked Japanese. Did they even speak English? Had they understood what he’d shouted?

Ford looked down at Akio, who had suddenly become his responsibility. He gave the boy a playfully stern expression.

“You’re under arrest, bud.” He glanced again at his watch, while keeping one eye on his new charge. “I better not miss my flight.”

It was going to be close.

The young petty officer led Serizawa and Graham across the CDC to another work station, where Admiral Stenz awaited them, a grim expression on his weathered features. He wasted no time bringing the two scientists up to speed on the latest development.

“We’ve lost all comms with a Russian Borei in the North Pacific,” he said, referring to a class of nuclear submarine. He turned toward the young analyst manning the console. “Martinez?”

An impressive array of data and video screens faced Martinez, an alert young officer in her early twenties. She was focused on various screens displaying what appeared to be night-vision helicopter feeds of a platoon of U.S. Special Forces soldiers trekking through a dense jungle. A spectral green glow tinted a view of dense bamboo groves and underbrush.

“Aye, sir,” Martinez reported. “Sparta One is picking up a distress signal northwest of Diamond Head.” Disbelief registered on her face as she confirmed the location. “In the midst of Oahu.”

Serizawa inhaled sharply. Oahu was no ghost town or remote mining camp. It was the most populous island in Hawaii.

The MUTO and humanity were on a collision course.

The Green Berets advanced through the nocturnal jungle, kitted out with hazard gas masks and night-vision goggles. The dense bamboo forest was lush and fragrant, abloom with wild orchids, hibiscus, and plumeria. Hidden waterfalls cascaded in the background, but any wildlife was unusually silent, as though the local fauna had made themselves scarce. They were only miles away from lively beaches and night life of Waikiki, but, from the looks of things, they might as well as have been deep in the Amazon rain forest. The dense underbrush made for hard slogging, but the soldiers maintained a brisk pace. They hacked their way through the jungle with machetes.

The leader of the team, Captain Bill Cozzone, was a combat veteran who had taken part in a wide variety of missions over the years, ranging from counter-terrorism to humanitarian assistance, but this assignment was a new one. Nothing in his extensive training and experience had involved tracking down a “Massive Unknown Terrestrial Organism,” let alone a missing nuclear submarine. He used a Geiger counter to guide them through the jungle. It clicked faster and faster as they zeroed in on their objective. Spotting something ahead, through the green-tinted view of his goggles, he raised his hand to signal a halt.

Whoa, he thought. There’s something you don’t see every day.

The Alexander Nevsky, a fourth-generation nuclear submarine, was standing upright among the trees, as though dropped from above. Nearly six hundred feet tall and more than forty feet across, the sub was encrusted with a hardening resinous secretion that dripped slowly down its side. It nose was buried deeply in the earth, amidst smashed and pulverized greenery. In theory, the submarine housed a crew of 130 officers and men. Cozzone found it hard to imagine that any of them could have survived the drop. They were almost certainly crushed to a pulp inside the towering metal shell.

The twelve-man team spread out around the base of the misplaced sub, gazing up at the surreal sight. Cozzone didn’t like the look of this. Submarines belonged in the ocean depths, not perched upside-down in the Hawaiian jungle, only a short hop from Diamond Head. This was wrong with a capital W.

“Guardian 3, this is Sparta 1,” he reported via radio. “We’ve located the Russian sub. Break—”

Something stirred above the jungle canopy high overhead. Craning his head back, Cozzone spied the MUTO itself, crouched above the upright sub. Despite his earlier briefing, the soldier was taken aback by the sheer size and freakishness of the winged monstrosity, which looked like a cross between a giant bug and a dinosaur. Its shiny black wings were folded in behind it like an ominous dark cloak. A thick orange secretion oozed from the creature’s segmented underside. The photos he’d been shown before had failed to capture how truly monstrous this “organism” was.

Holy mother of—

“Guardian 3, we also have eyes on your bogey.”

The command center aboard the Saratoga immediately responded. “Sparta 1, Guardian 3. Six Actual requests a sit-rep, over.”

To Cozzone’s relief, the MUTO ignored the stunned Green Berets down on the forest floor. Instead it had torn open the hull of the Alexander Nevsky and was gorging on the glowing plutonium core of the nuclear reactor, gobbling down the red-hot fuel rods like a pelican downing a fish. Cozzone was suddenly very thankful that the MUTO supposedly consumed nuclear radiation. Otherwise he and his men would be fried for sure, gas masks or no gas masks.

He tried to convey to Command what he was seeing.

“Guardian 3, tell the Six it’s… uh… well, it appears to be eating the reactor.”

Of course, Serizawa thought. Just as it fed on the nuclear fuel at Janjira before.

A momentary hush fell over the CDC. Admiral Stenz looked at Serizawa, who nodded grimly in confirmation of the Green Berets’ on-site assessment of the situation. Stenz absorbed this new intel with admirable calm and efficiency. He stepped briskly to the center of the war room and raised his voice to be heard above the general hubbub.

“Cat’s out of the bag, people,” he declared. “New protocol is safety, not secrecy. Get me eyes in the air. Notify Coast Guard District Fourteen and Hawaii Civil Defense. There are a million people on that island.”

Serizawa recalled the devastation at the M.U.T.O. base and in the Philippines years ago. He could only imagine the consequences of the creature invading a major population center. They were looking at a catastrophe in the making.

“General quarters, please, skipper,” the admiral instructed Captain Hampton. “Set condition one.”

The order spurred the entire naval strike group into action. Crews reported to battle stations as the carrier’s various support ships rotated their huge artillery guns toward the shore. Seeking fresh air, Serizawa stepped out onto the busy flight deck in time to observe the commotion. Flight crews scrambled as several F-35 jet fighters screamed off the runway amidst loud blasts of blistering exhaust. The Lightnings were one-seat, supersonic aircraft capable of reaching the island in seconds. Catapults hurled them into the air at a breathtaking pace.

Covering his ears, Serizawa turned his attention away from the runway to the nearby island. The strike group was positioned off the shore of Oahu in response to the distress signal from the Russian sub. He could see the sparkling lights of Honolulu and Waikiki, as well as the lush green mountains rising up beyond the beaches and resorts. The landmark volcanic cone of Diamond Head dominated the southeastern tip of the island, overlooking the most popular tourist spots. Only a few miles of ocean separated the fleet from the island. Serizawa gazed out over the moonlit waves and the white caps churned up by the coursing battleships. The slumbering Pacific struck him as deceptively placid, hiding an entire undersea ecology with its own unplumbed secrets, such as…

His eyes widened as he spied a large, dark object slicing through the ocean toward the islands. At first he thought that maybe his eyes were deceiving him, that it was just an illusion born of darkness and the restless motion of the waves, but the huge shape began to rise from the water, growing higher and higher with each passing moment, like the fin of some enormous beast.

Serizawa swallowed hard. He remembered the colossal skeleton they’d discovered in the Philippines fifteen years ago, as well as the decades-old photos on his desk below, the ones he’d been studying his entire career. The ominous silhouette of that long-unseen leviathan remained burned into his memory, even though they were taken before he was born.

Could it truly be him?

Jenny was enjoying her family’s vacation in Hawaii. A blond, six-year-old girl from Seattle, she kept close to her parents as they strolled along the beach at Waikiki, along with dozens of other people. Palm trees swayed above the shore. Tiki torches lit up the night while the mouth-watering aroma of roast pig wafted on a balmy breeze from a nearby luau. Hula dancers in grass skirts put on a show for the tourists. A busy beachfront bar offered drinks, both grown-up and otherwise. The rolling surf lapped at the shore, while the white sand was cool and squishy beneath Jenny’s bare feet. Rows of multi-story hotels, condos, and resorts faced the water, while thickly forested hills rose up further inland, beyond the shops and nightclubs. Laughter and music filled the warm night air. An ocean breeze had a salty flavor. It was past Jenny’s bedtime, but her parents didn’t seem to mind. They were on vacation after all.

The festive scene was suddenly disturbed by a flight of fighter jets zooming overhead, heading inland from somewhere out at sea. Sonic booms shook the night. The jets came in so fast and so low that their passage whipped up the sand on the beach. Startled tourists looked up in surprise. Even the hula dancers stopped swaying and stared up at the jets. Contrails of exhaust streaked the night sky. Bartenders stopped serving drinks.

Wow, Jenny thought. Nobody told me there was going to be an air show!

The jets were just the beginning. Police helicopters arrived next, swooping in from downtown. SWAT team members, equipped with rifles and body armor, belayed down on ropes from the hovering choppers to the hotel rooftops, staking out sniper positions. They aimed their weapons at the wooded slopes of the Koolau Mountains, almost as though they expected something bad to attack from the hills at any moment. The helicopters buzzed above Waikiki.

Jenny was captivated by all the excitement, until her mom grabbed her and hugged her tight. Her parents exchanged worried looks and whispered anxiously to each other, as did the many others vacationers frozen in place upon the beach. People pointed and stared at the unexpected invasion. Jenny heard someone speculate about “terrorists.” Despite her tender years, she felt the mood changing all around her. Grownups were acting confused and scared, which scared her, too.

Suddenly it didn’t feel like a fun vacation anymore.

The train glided toward the next terminal along the elevated track, which ran approximately thirty feet above the tarmac below. Rows of jetliners were parked wing to wing away from the runways. Ford lifted Akio onto a seat to await their stop. He wondered what would be faster and more efficient: getting off at the next stop and trying to catch another train heading in the opposite direction, or staying on this train until its circuit brought it back to their starting place, where, hopefully, the little boy’s parents were waiting anxiously for his return? Ford could just imagine how frightened they must be right now. He’d once lost sight of Sam at the mall; it had only been for a few minutes, but he still remembered how panicked he’d been at the time, all the terrifying scenarios that had flashed through his head before Sam had turned up over at the food court, perfectly fine. Those had been some of the longest minutes of his life, including his time on the front. He knew exactly what sort of hell Akio’s parents were going through right now. The sooner he got their child back to them, the better.

Akio sat quietly, watching the planes taxi below, until he suddenly sat up and pointed in excitement at a flight of military jet fighters roaring past the airport toward the densely forested hills beyond. Ford held onto him tightly, alarmed by the sight. Those had looked like F-35 Lightnings, probably launched from the Saratoga offshore. He could think of no reason why the supersonic fighters would be zooming inland at full speed.

Unless…

Streaking through the sky, the Lightnings flew in formation toward the mountain range overlooking Honolulu. The lead pilot, Captain Douglas Lang, readied himself for combat against an entirely new type of threat. As the jets crested a rocky jungle ridge, the MUTO came into view, crouching above the bamboo trees like the world’s biggest praying mantis. Despite being prepped for this mission, Douglas gulped at the sight of the enormous winged monster. It was hard to believe that such a creature actually existed outside of science-fiction movies or comic books. Yet there it was: right in front of them, rippling with some sort of eerie bioluminescence.

It’s still just an animal, he reminded himself, keeping his focus on his mission. And animals can be put down.

The F-35 was armed with both guns and missiles, which ought to be more than enough to take out the dangerous creature. “Niner-niner,” he reported over the radio built into his helmet. He aimed his cross-hairs at the MUTO, but, to his surprise, they bounced and wavered erratically, as though unable to lock onto the target. “What the-?”

The cross-hairs kept sliding off the target. It was like trying to thread a needle with a wobbly piece of thread.

“I’m getting all sorts of guidance errors,” he reported. “Switching to manual.”

He reached to flip the switch, just as the MUTO reared up on its hind legs and began glowing brighter than before. A rippling aurora charged the air around it, only a heartbeat before it slammed its upper limbs down, generating a visible electromagnetic pulse.

No! The captain’s entire cockpit display went black. He fought to maintain control of the plane even though all of its electrical systems had shorted out instantaneously. This can’t be happening. It’s just an animal…

Flaming out, the disabled aircraft spiraled down toward the jungle floor, where the Green Berets scrambled to get out of the way. The crashing fighter jet slammed into the earth with stupendous force. The impact knocked the fleeing soldiers off their feet.

Seconds later, a huge orange fireball billowed up above the trees.

All at once, the entire airport lost power.

Agitated voices filled the train as the overhead lights sputtered out, leaving the passengers in darkness. The train slowed to a stop upon the track, stalling between stations. Ford kept a tight grip on Akio as the boy pressed his face up against the window, looking out towards the mountain slopes none too far away. The hellish red glow of rising flames could be seen from the airport, lighting up the night. Confused passengers murmured anxiously as they spied the distant inferno. No one else seemed to know what was happening, but Ford had a likely idea. His memory instantly flashed back to the creature from the pit.

I think we found it, he thought.

Jenny and her family jumped as an explosion went off in the hills. Thick black smoke rose from the dark jungle, followed by bright red flames. Her father swore under his breath while her mother stifled a frightened sob and scooped the little girl up into her arms. All around them, people were acting scared and confused. Nobody seemed to know what to do or even which way to run. Their hotels were even closer to the hills where the explosions were, so there was nowhere to run except into the ocean.

I don’t like this, Jenny thought, hugging her mom. I want to go home.

Looking away from the menacing flames and smoke up in the hills, she stared out at the sand and surf instead. Her eyes bulged as she spotted something peculiar. The tide appeared to be retreating rapidly from the shore, ebbing back into the bay, as though it, too, was afraid of all the scary noise and commotion on the island. Her brow wrinkled in confusion.

Was it supposed to do that?

She tugged on her dad’s arm, calling his attention to the fleeing waters. His sunburnt face went pale at the sight. Her mom turned around and gasped out loud. She thrust Jenny into her daddy’s arms and they took off running inland, away from the shore, as fast as they could. Her mom shouted at the other grownups and children on the beach. Jenny had never heard her so scared, not even that time Jenny had accidently stepped out in front of traffic.

“Run!” her mother yelled. “RUN!”

Aboard the Saratoga, Serizawa commandeered a pair of binoculars from a passing seaman. His heart racing, he placed the long-distance lenses to his eyes and searched the moonlit sea for the enigmatic shape he had spied before. He quickly relocated the mysterious object, only to discover that the jagged protrusion had been joined by two smaller points on either side. Recognition dawned in his eyes as he grasped what he was seeing: a row of gigantic dorsal fins.

Racing straight toward the fleet.

Warning sirens sounded as observers aboard the various ships spotted the oncoming threat and braced for impact. Serizawa suspected that few aboard the vessels, except perhaps Graham and a handful of others, knew exactly who or what was surging their way, but it was obvious that something very large and solid was on a collision course with the Saratoga and the other ships. Serizawa grabbed onto a safety rail, not that he expected it would do much good, not if this was indeed what he surmised.

It must be him, the scientist thought. What else could it be?

Torn between scientific curiosity and fear for his life, Serizawa prayed that he would at least be allowed to behold the legend in all its majesty before it laid waste to the floating super-carrier. Through the binoculars, he watched as the giant fins came closer and closer.

Then, at the last minute, before the mighty battleship could even attempt to avoid the collision, the fins dipped rapidly beneath the waves, diving beneath the Saratoga and the rest of the strike group. The ship pitched back and forth as something impossibly massive passed beneath it. Baffled flight crews shouted to each other in confusion. Only Serizawa understood the awesome force that had just passed them by. Nature had spared them, at least for the moment.

Drained, he lowered the binoculars and let out a sigh of relief. Part of him was actually disappointed that the owner of the fins had not fully revealed himself, but he suspected that that fateful moment would be upon them soon. He turned toward the unsuspecting island only a few miles away. He had visited Oahu before. It was a beautiful island, full of friendly locals and vacationing tourists.

Little did they know what was heading toward them.

Piano music tinkled softly in the background as Bob and Barbara McQueen celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in an elegant restaurant on the top floor of their luxury hotel. An open bottle of champagne rested on the table between them as they finished off their entrées. Bob had ordered the surf and turf while Barb had gone for the coconut shrimp. A picture window offered a lovely view of Mamala Bay, but the elderly couple only had eyes for their meals and each other. Bob had vaguely registered some noisy planes zipping by outside, but knew they weren’t all that far from the Honolulu airport. Certainly, he had no intention of letting some inconsiderate pilots spoil this romantic dinner. He and Barb had been saving up for this Hawaiian vacation for years.

Caught up in their celebratory meal, the couple completely failed to notice as, less than a mile away, a huge reptilian beast rose up from the bay to tower over Waikiki. Torrents of cascading seawater veiled the monster’s form so that only the titanic proportions of the leviathan were revealed. Standing erect on two stout legs, the monster was nearly four hundred feet tall and solidly built, with a broad chest and brawny forearms. A pair of enormous jaws, resembling those of some prehistoric saurian, opened wide, but the creature’s roar was drowned out by the urgent wail of a tsunami warning.

Bob lifted his head irritably from his steak. Now what?

A massive tidal wave surged onto the shore. Terrified vacationers, including Jenny and her family, ran in panic, seeking higher ground, as the tsunami roared over the beach to flood the crowded streets and buildings beyond. The raging water washed over blocks of bars, night clubs, shops, and restaurants. Telephone poles and power lines snapped one after another, causing a total blackout to envelop Waikiki. Clinging desperately to her daddy and looking back over his shoulder, Jenny stared in fear as the merciless wave chased after them. Her father stumbled in the dark, but kept on running. The wave finally spent itself, only a few blocks behind them, and Jenny thought that maybe they were safe. The roar of the wave died away, only to be supplanted by a series of thunderous impacts, like the slow, ponderous footsteps of a giant, getting closer and closer. Boom. Boom! BOOM!

The footsteps were accompanied by a deep, churning rumble that sounded like a giant breathing. Jenny stared wide-eyed into the darkness behind her, seeing only a looming shadow that stood bigger and taller than any of the blacked-out hotels overlooking the beach. A shadow with legs, arms, and a head like a dragon’s.

It’s a sea monster, Jenny realized. For real!

Flares shot up like fireworks from the hotel rooftops. Flashes of blood-red light offered glimpses of the gigantic creature emerging from the bay and stomping through the flooded streets. The monster was literally too big to take in all at once. Jenny caught only bits and pieces of the colossal whole.

Three rows of jagged fins running down the creature’s mountainous back.

Two clawed hands with four fingers each.

An endless, spiny tail that looked as long as a train.

Snipers opened fire from the rooftops. Tracer bullets split the darkness, but the giant sea-monster kept striding forward, squashing cars and trucks and small buildings beneath his mighty tread. His mammoth tail swung back and forth behind him, wiping away bars, boutiques, and coffee shops. Smoke from the gunfire added to the confusion, but the furious barrage had no effect on the monster, which seemed to be heading toward the nearby hills, heedless of whatever structures got in his way. He paid no attention to the insignificant men, women, and children frantically running away from him, or even the SWAT teams trying and failing to repel him. Mere humanity seemed beneath his notice.

Fleeing tourists and locals scrambled to get out of the way of the monster’s path of destruction. Jenny’s family ducked into an alley and huddled together, clinging to each other in fear, as the lumbering beast passed them by. They stayed there for what felt like forever until, finally, the giant footsteps seemed to recede into the distance. The deafening gunfire gradually died away as well.

Is it over? Jenny wondered. Please let it be over!

The family waited several more minutes before cautiously venturing out of the alley and looking around. The electricity was still out all over Waikiki, but numerous small fires blazed inside the ruins of trampled buildings. As the smoke from the guns began to clear, blown away by the wind from the ocean, Jenny and the other survivors gaped in astonishment at the cataclysmic view before them.

The monster was gone, heading northwest toward the hills above Honolulu, but he had left a trail of destruction in his wake. A swath of flattened buildings and vehicles, at least three blocks across, stretched from the sea to the jungle beyond. The invincible creature had cleared a path through the heart of Waikiki, crushing everything in his way. A trolley car had been ground into the pavement. A giant footprint was sunk deep into a luxury golf course. Neither tourist traps nor residential neighborhoods had been spared. Palm trees littered the rubble like broken toothpicks.

Holding onto Jenny, her dad whispered a Bad Word. Throngs of stunned and speechless people staggered into the ravaged streets to gaze in awe at the devastation. Native Hawaiians wept and cursed at the loss of their homes and businesses. Jenny just wanted to go home to Seattle. This vacation wasn’t fun anymore.

She had to wonder, though. Where had the monster come from? And where was it going?

The Green Berets staggered away from the burning remains of the crashed F-35. Thick black smoke made Captain Cozzone grateful for his gas mask. A quick head count confirmed that all his men had survived, although the same couldn’t be said for the unlucky fighter pilot. Cozzone spared a moment to wish the pilot’s soul godspeed and hoped that his sacrifice would not be in vain.

What the hell just happened there? he wondered. How did that creature bring the plane down?

Aware that his team was still in danger from the MUTO, he rallied his men, who responded immediately as trained. Rifles at the ready, they shook off the shock of the crash and peered up through the smoke, trying to achieve a fix on their inhuman adversary. The MUTO had not shown any interest in attacking them yet, but Cozzone wasn’t about to lower his guard.

A movement in the smoky jungle canopy alerted him to danger. He heard branches and tree trunks shattering loudly as a great black shadow tottered toward them. Diving to one side, he shouted hoarsely at his men.

“Watch out! Incoming!”

The men scrambled for safety as the fourteen-ton Russian submarine came crashing down like a falling redwood. The Alexander Nevsky, its reinforced double hull torn open like flimsy tin can, slammed down onto the forest floor, shaking the earth for acres around. Nearly six hundred feet of resin-encrusted sub crushed the verdant undergrowth. Broken branches and trees were strewn around him.

But where was the MUTO?

Cozzone jumped to his feet, armed and ready, while his men did likewise. His night-vision goggles penetrated the murky night, revealing a leveled stretch of jungle leading down to the coast. His heart sank as he spied the flickering lights of the Honolulu Airport in the near distance. Thousands of civilians passed through that airport every hour.

And the MUTO was on its way.

Gasps of relief echoed inside the train as the lights began to flicker to life throughout the airport. It appeared that the power had been restored and the blackout was over. The train even started moving forward again. Ford felt a little better now that he and Akio weren’t stuck in the dark anymore. He was still concerned about the battle apparently being raged in the nearby hills, but maybe there was still a chance to get the lost little boy back to his parents. He could only hope that the military could destroy — or at least contain — the winged creature from Japan.

That’s not my fight, he thought. The Navy didn’t need a bomb-disposal expert for this battle. The best thing he could do was keep Akio safe and get him back to his family. Thank God that thing hasn’t reached San Francisco… yet.

He looked ahead anxiously, trying to spot the upcoming terminal. Skyward lights came back into service, illuminating a stretch of elevated track ahead. All seemed clear as the train rounded a curve and the reawakened spotlights revealed…

The MUTO, straddling the track directly in front of them!

Pandemonium erupted aboard the train as the other passengers spied the gigantic winged monster directly ahead, but the automated train kept gaining speed, heading straight toward the creature. Fear-crazed passengers rushed toward the opposite end of the train. Ford tried to hold onto Akio, but the panicky stampede tore the boy from his grasp. Akio was swept away by the mob, even as the train sped toward the monster. Ford sprang from his seat and dived after him.

No! he thought. I can’t lose him!

An Apache helicopter swooped down from the sky, adding to the tumult. The wash from its rotors rattled the train’s windows. It soared past the head, right overhead. The attack ‘copter’s sudden arrival elicited more screams than cheers. Ordinary travellers suddenly found themselves caught in the middle of a battle between the armed forces and a giant insect-thing.

Ford kept his eye on Akio, who was trying to get back to him. Lunging forward, Ford tackled the boy to the floor just as the Apache opened fire on the MUTO. Its 30mm automatic cannon blasted loudly in the night, unleashing a barrage of ammo at the crouching creature, which reacted angrily. Howling in protest, it swiped at the chopper with one of its enormous middle limbs. The elusive ‘copter dodged the swipe, but the monster’s flailing limb smashed through the front of the train as well the elevated track beneath it.

Horrified screams were drowned by the din of shredded metal and shattered concrete. Tons of debris, mixed with falling bodies, crashed down onto the tarmac, more than two-dozen feet below. The rest of the train continued over the edge of the splintered track, but caught on mangled steel supports and dangled precariously over the rubble below. Gravity seized the survivors who tumbled helplessly out the severed end of the train, screaming all the way, even as the recorded voice kicked in automatically:

“Please watch the gap…”

Ford struggled to hold onto Akio while simultaneously anchoring himself to one on the upright metal poles in the middle of the aisle. Shrieking men and women tumbled past them, nearly knocking Ford loose. Gravity tugged on Akio, briefly yanking him from Ford’s grip. Screaming, the boy started to slide away…

No! Ford thought desperately, scrabbling to reach the boy.

He grabbed the boy’s wrist and held on tight. He hauled Akio up into his arms and the boy clung to him for his life. Ford wondered how long they could keep from falling, and whether it made any difference with the MUTO several yards away, perched on the other side of the severed tracks, snapping angrily at the buzzing helicopter. Ford stared at the creature, which had already been responsible for his father’s death, not to mention his mother’s fifteen years ago. Was this same monster going to kill him now — and leave Sam fatherless as well?

Would Sam even miss him?

Ford waited tensely to see what the MUTO was going to do next. The creature tracked the Apache ‘copter with its crimson eyes, appearing eager to swipe at it once more, but paused as a series of loud booms, approaching from the east, echoed across the tarmac. The sound instantly captured the MUTO’s attention; it hunkered down, as though actually unnerved by the noise. Still hanging onto Akio, Ford shuddered to think what could possibly frighten the giant winged terror.

Maybe an even bigger monster?

The MUTO let out a fearsome howl, then launched itself into the air. Its sudden flight caught the chopper pilot by surprise. The creature’s extended wing swiped the Apache, knocking the helicopter from the sky. Spinning out of control, the chopper crashed into a row of parked jetliners. The ‘copter and jets alike burst into flame, the blast shaking the dangling train. Billowing fireballs erupted from the wreckage. Ford could feel the heat of the flames even from so many yards away. He choked on the burning jet fuel. The light from the newborn inferno lit up the night, revealing the source of the booming noises that had alarmed the MUTO. Seismic footsteps pounded upon the tarmac, which cracked beneath the tread of two gigantic clawed feet.

Oh my God, Ford thought. He instantly recognized the legendary beast the two scientists had told him about, the one the Navy tried to nuke sixty years ago. It’s really him.

Godzilla was here.

The fearsome reptile towered above the airport, dwarfing even the MUTO. He was nearly two hundred feet taller than the winged creature and much heftier besides. Striding upright on two legs, he resembled some unknown species of dinosaur, but was at least thirty times larger than even a Tyrannosaurus rex. A rough scaly hide covered his stocky, imposing form. Two muscular forearms ended in viciously clawed hands. Rows of serrated fins ran down his broad back all the way to a thick, spiny tail that was nearly as long as the monster was tall. Ferocious eyes, glaring out from beneath the creature’s heavy brow, fixed on the MUTO with predatory intent. Fangs the size of a full-grown man gleamed inside the powerful jaws, which opened wide to let out a bellicose roar that rang out across the entire airport. It was a trumpeting roar with a deep bass reverberation that climbed to a chilling crescendo. Ford had never heard anything like it.

The MUTO accepted the challenge. Howling back at Godzilla, it swooped down from the sky at the legendary king of monsters. Amidst the flames and smoke from the burning jetliners, the primeval creatures collided in combat. Unable to look away, Ford clung to Akio as they gazed up at the titanic clash playing out high above the broken tracks.

Ford felt very small and insignificant.

Sam was curled up on the living room couch, where he’d passed out the night before. A comfy afghan had largely slid off him so that only his bare feet were covered. His sleeping face was lit by the flickering glow of the TV set, where a breaking news story had interrupted regular programming on practically every channel. The volume was turned down low, but the screen was consumed by startling images from Hawaii, where a fantastic clash between two unbelievable creatures was being captured by dozens of mobile phones from a variety of angles. The destructive battle played out upon the screen in fragmentary bits of chaotic footage, caught on the run by awestruck spectators all across Honolulu.

Hordes of terrified civilians, fleeing the disaster, ran toward the camera, all but blocking the view of a huge winged monster tumbling towards a high-rise hotel, which collapsed upon impact, raining broken glass and masonry onto the panic-filled streets below. An even larger monster, which bore a familial resemblance to the toy dinosaur on the living room carpet, came stomping in for the kill. The huge reptile opened his jaws wide, displaying the flesh-tearing fangs of the ultimate alpha predator. He took a deep breath, sucking in giant-sized mouthful of air, which suddenly rippled within his jaws like a heat-mirage on a summer day.

Sensing danger, the MUTO turned and fled from Godzilla, flapping its wings in a desperate attempt to escape.

Electricity sparked at the back of Godzilla’s throat and the super-heated air ignited. A blast of bright blue flame sprayed from his jaws, scorching both the MUTO and the beach below. Palm trees and abandoned cabanas burst into flame. White sand turned black in an instant.

But the MUTO survived.

Screeching in pain, its wings singed and smoking, the smaller monster fled. Abandoning Oahu, it soared out over the open sea, with Godzilla marching relentlessly in pursuit. Cameras on shore caught the fearsome leviathan wading back out into the bay and slowly sinking out of sight.

“Sammy?”

Elle entered the living room, already dressed in her hospital scrubs. She needed to report to work in a few hours and still hadn’t managed to find a babysitter. She found the boy still sleeping on the couch, looking so cute it hurt. He had seemed so peaceful last night that she hadn’t had the heart to disturb him. Glancing at the TV, she saw a morning news anchor intoning silently behind a desk but she didn’t pay attention. She had a job and a child to look after, not to mention an absent husband that was theoretically on his way home. Current affairs would have to go on without her.

She still had some time to kill before she had to head over to the hospital, so she drew the afghan back over Sam to keep him warm. He stirred slightly as she adjusted the blanket. His eyes fluttered briefly, looking past her, and then opened wide. All of a sudden, he was wide awake and staring at the TV behind her.

“Mommy! Look!”

Puzzled, she turned toward the television…

The sun rose over the beach at Waikiki, which now resembled a refugee camp more than a vacation spot. Both civilian and military medical tents had been erected along the scorched coastline, while scores of stressed-out first responders coped with the wounded, the homeless, and the traumatized. Most of the major blazes had been extinguished, despite the heaps of rubble blocking the streets, but smoke still rose from scattered small fires between the beach and the airport. Once-luxurious hotels and condos were now just larger mountains of debris, which emergency crews were desperately excavating in hopes of finding trapped survivors beneath the collapsed buildings. The press was already on the scene, interviewing survivors. Rumor had it the president had declared Oahu a disaster area.

For the second time in as many days, Ford found himself wandering through the aftermath of a devastating monster attack, except that this time he had a lost child in his arms. After being rescued from the damaged monorail, he and Akio had been bussed with numerous other survivors to the beach, which was now the center of the relief efforts. Ford had wanted to search the airport, try to locate Akio’s parents, but had been assured that every terminal had been evacuated. In theory, the tents here were his best chance at reconnecting the boy with his family, but Ford was starting to lose hope. The camp was full of desperate people, urgently seeking missing loved ones. Akio’s plight was just a drop in the bucket.

He carried the trembling child into one of the larger Red Cross tents. Akio clung to Ford; he had not let go of his rescuer since Godzilla had chased the MUTO away from the airport. Ford found himself feeling oddly grateful for the giant lizard’s timely intervention. He wondered where Dr. Serizawa was and what he thought of Godzilla’s return.

“Excuse me?” Ford called out, trying to get someone’s attention. “This boy’s been separated from his parents. I’m—”

But the medics and emergency workers were too busy to deal with him. The canvas tent was crammed with shell-shocked survivors in equally dire straits — or worse. Ford’s heart sank as he spied a makeshift morgue where far too many bodies were draped with sheets. He began to wonder if he was fooling himself in thinking that he could bring about a happy reunion in the midst of such widespread carnage and destruction. For all Ford knew, Akio’s parents were already dead, killed by rampaging monsters.

Just like dad.

“Akio! Akio!”

A woman’s voice cried out frantically. Ford spun around and saw the boy’s parents shoving their way through the crowd. Tears of joy streamed down the couple’s faces. Although a little worse for wear, neither appeared to be seriously injured.

Akio leapt from Ford’s arms and ran straight to his mother and father, who embraced him fervently. Ford couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a family so happy to be reunited; even the loved ones greeting the returning troops in San Francisco paled in comparison. Ford found it hard to believe that mere days had passed since he’d stepped off that plane to meet Elle and Sam at the Air Force base. So much had happened since then, so much death and devastation. His throat tightened as he watched Akio’s sobbing mother sweep her child up into her arms. He knew he’d do the same if Sam was here now.

He started forward to speak with Akio’s parents, but quickly realized that the weeping couple hadn’t even registered his existence. Akio was all that mattered to them right now; the rest of the world had faded into insignificance, which was perfectly understandable. Ford stepped back, not wanting to intrude on the emotional reunion. His role in this particular drama was over. Akio was where he belonged.

Good, Ford thought, overcome with relief. Take care, bud.

The family moved off, seeking whatever help or safety could be found these days. Akio glanced back at Ford over his father’s shoulder before the family vanished into the crowds and confusion. Ford silently wished them luck. He figured the whole world could all use a little of that with warring monsters on the loose. The entire planet had just become a much more dangerous place.

Mankind was no longer the most dangerous beast alive. Not by a long shot.

Suddenly on his own, in the midst of strangers, Ford now had only had one thing on his mind. Scanning the crowd around him, his eyes zeroed in on a cell phone in the hands of a passing survivor. He rushed up to the man, who was wearing a soot-stained Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts. He was missing one sandal. Numerous small cuts and scratches marred his face. Ford guessed that he probably looked much the same.

“Are you getting service on that thing?” he asked

“No,” the man said, shaking his head. “Those things must have taken out every working tower. The pay phones don’t even work.” He eyed Ford hopefully. “Do you have a car?”

A car wasn’t going to do Ford any good. He shook his head and walked away from the other man, already forgetting him. He needed to get hold of Elle and let her know that he was okay and trying to get back to her and Sam.

She must be worried sick.

A contingent of U.S. military personnel, from every branch of the service, entered the tent. Ford hurried up to them. He approached an Army soldier, who had paused to let some injured on stretchers pass in front of him.

“Lieutenant Brody, U.S. Navy,” Ford introduced himself. The soldier looked up, seeing only a ragged figure whose torn and filthy civilian clothing had been through the wars. Ford hadn’t even shaved for days. “I was here on leave,” Ford explained.

The soldier nodded, understanding.

“Excellent timing, Sir.” He offered Ford a crisp salute. “Sergeant Morales.”

Ford was relieved that Morales, who looked to be about the same age he was, had not challenged Ford’s claim. He hoped the friendly soldier could be of assistance.

“I need to get to the mainland,” he said.

“Well, see, it really is your lucky day, Sir.” Morales grinned at Ford, who didn’t get the joke. “General Orders. All branches. Everything not tied down is moving east.” He chuckled wryly as he headed across the tent. “We’re all Monster Hunters now.”

East, Ford thought. Across the Pacific… after the creatures?

“Is that where they’re heading?”

The sergeant, although accommodating, was in too much of hurry to answer all Ford’s questions. He stepped lively to keep up with the other military personnel. “Our truck’s right outside.”

Ford hustled after him, even as his mind reeled at the alarming news he’d just received. Whatever relief he’d experienced from reuniting Akio with his parents was instantly dispelled by a growing fear for his own family’s safety. His worst fears were coming true.

The giant creatures were heading east… toward the west coast of North America. Toward Elle and Sam.

The observation platform overlooking the Saratoga’s flight deck, located on the carrier’s upper island, was nicknamed “Vulture’s Row.” The unnerving parallel with the crow’s nest back at the doomed Japanese base was not lost on Serizawa. A briny wind blew against him as he occupied the high balcony, distractedly twisting the stem of his antique pocket watch. The observation platform offered an excellent view of operations down on the flight deck, but he gazed out at the ocean instead, where Godzilla could be seen swimming across the Pacific.

The submerged leviathan was a great dark mass swimming beneath the waves. The peaks of his spiky dorsal fins sliced through the churning foam, directly ahead of the carrier fleet, which had to pour on the speed to keep up with the swiftly moving colossus. The Saratoga could manage a maximum speed of more than thirty knots but Godzilla was even faster. Unmanned aerial vehicles, designed for low-altitude surveillance, skimmed above the surface of the water like a flock of seabirds dogging an orca. The Saratoga and the rest of the strike group followed behind the undersea monster at what they hoped was a safe distance. To the mounting concern of everyone aboard, Godzilla remained on course for the west coast of the United States.

Which meant the MUTO was heading for America as well.

Frowning, the scientist put his watch away and descended several decks to the CDC, where the war room remained a buzzing hive of activity. Glowing monitors displayed flickering satellite imagery of the flying MUTO as well as live UAV footage of Godzilla swimming beneath the sea. Vivienne Graham stared in fascination at the visuals. Despite the undeniable danger to the human population, she was obviously intrigued by the unique organisms she had tracked and studied for most of her career.

Serizawa knew exactly how she felt.

“Last satellite tracks had the MUTO continuing due east,” Petty Officer Martinez reported from her post. She glanced up at an accompanying image of Godzilla. “For the moment, it seems like the big one is following it.”

Serizawa corrected her. “Hunting.”

A theory was coming together in his head, which seemed to be supported by the latest data. Once again, Nature held the key. The monsters’ current behavior was consistent with basic biology.

“All vessels maintain current standoff distance,” Admiral Stenz ordered, overseeing the operations. He remained in command of the joint forces’ response to the crisis. “Map this thing’s current course and bearing and start compiling a list of all possible solutions that will allow us to interdict before these… whatever they are… make landfall.” His tone and expression were equally grim. “I need options.”

The backlit table continued to plot out potential courses for both creatures, constantly updated to reflect the most recent intel. Dotted lines headed for the western seaboard, with possible landfall sites including Vancouver, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as locations in Peru, Panama, and Argentina. There were too many possibilities over too great a distance, making it difficult to plan a defense against the monsters’ eventual arrival. Serizawa contemplated the ever-changing lines on the map.

Ford Brody is from San Francisco, he recalled. He wondered if the young lieutenant had finally made it home, after burying his father at sea. I believe he mentioned a wife and child.

“Sir,” Martinez said. “Based on the current tracks, all our models have the targets converging on the US Pacific coast.”

Stenz scowled. He turned away from the screens to consult Serizawa.

“Doctor, are we certain this is the same animal from sixty years ago?”

Serizawa suspected as much. “Remains were never found,” he reminded the admiral.

“But if the MUTO is his prey,” Graham began, calling Serizawa’s attention back to the printout of the wave pattern Joe Brody had detected, “this signal shows a call. Why call up a predator?”

Stenz and others present threw out possible explanations, with even Martinez chiming in with something about echoes or audio distortions, but Serizawa no longer had any doubts or questions. There seemed only one obvious conclusion.

“It didn’t,” he said solemnly. “The predator was only listening. The MUTO was calling something else.” His reasoning led him to another ominous hypothesis. “The pattern,” he addressed Graham urgently. “Focus our search on Nevada.”

The intensity of his tone cut through the chatter. Competing voices tapered off as all present gave Serizawa their full attention.

“Nevada?” Captain Hampton asked. “What makes you think—?”

Graham got there first. The blood drained from her face. “You don’t think it could be…?”

“Fill me in here,” Stenz said impatiently. “Why Nevada?”

“There was another spore,” Graham informed him. “Intact. Found in the Philippine mine.” She looked at Serizawa, shaking her head in disbelief. “But we examined it, ran every test for years. You confirmed it for yourself. It was dormant.”

Serizawa understood her skepticism. He had indeed spent years studying the apparently inert egg sac they had recovered from inside the giant skeleton in the Philippines. Unlike the larva that had burst from the other egg sac and made its way to Japan, the organism in the captured spore had displayed no trace of vitality or growth. It had not been absorbing spilled radiation from a nuclear meltdown. By all indications, it had been an unbroken state of stasis or hibernation. And yet…

“Maybe not anymore,” he said.

The horror of this possibility, that they might be dealing with two MUTOs, caused a momentary hush to fall over the CDC. Martinez gulped and even Hampton’s stoic reserve cracked for a moment.

“The spore,” Stenz asked urgently. “Where is it now?”

“It was highly radioactive,” Graham said. “It was disposed of… by the Americans.”

“Where?” Stenz repeated, even more forcefully.

“Where you put your nuclear waste,” Serizawa said flatly. He called their attention back to the map table, where two converging dotted lines extended past the west coast of the North America.

Nevada lay directly in their path.

A stone marker, alongside a dusty desert road, pointed to the nearby Nevada National Security Site, about sixty-five miles northeast of Las Vegas. For over forty years, the desolate and cratered terrain beyond had been the site of nearly a thousand nuclear bomb tests. Cacti sprouted amidst the sunbaked dunes and gullies. A military convoy sped past the marker, stirring up a cloud of dust. Air Force helicopters flew overhead, keeping pace with the rumbling troop carriers below. Inside the trucks, tense soldiers geared up in anticipation. An assault force donned radiation suits and gas masks. Heavy weaponry was prepped for battle: assault rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and whatever else might make a dent in a monster. The mood among the soldiers was grim. Everyone on the mission had heard about what had struck Hawaii and had seen some of the on-line footage of the gigantic creatures tearing up Honolulu. They knew they had to be ready for anything.

The convoy quickly reached its destination. The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Depository was the final resting place for more than 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and reprocessing operations all over the country. Dug deep into a barren ridge of volcanic rock, surrounded by acres of restricted federal land, the vast repository was designed to contain the highly toxic materials for at least ten thousand years and possibly longer. In theory, it could withstand earthquakes, the elements, even time itself.

Giant prehistoric monsters, on the other hand, had not been taken into account.

The main entrance to the facility consisted of an enormous tunnel that had been bored into the north side of the mountain. Armed guards stationed at the entrance admitted the troops, who deployed with both speed and purpose. The commander of the assault force, Captain Roger Pyle, led his men through a sprawling underground maze of tunnels, branching off into numerous long galleries lined with large sealed compartments. Steel doors, each nearly thirty feet tall, guarded the vaults and their lethal contents, which were routinely sealed inside solid steel canisters. View ports were installed in each door to allow for direct visual inspections.

Moving swiftly but methodically, the soldiers worked their way through the dimly lit tunnels, checking each vault on the go. The precise location of the captured Philippine egg sac was buried amidst layers of official secrecy, misdirection, redactions, and plausible deniability, defying ready access, but Pyle had reason to believe that it was somewhere in this particular gallery, nearly a thousand feet under the mountain. Given the possibility that a second MUTO might be stirring, it had been decided to conduct an immediate search and inspection of the vaults, pronto.

“Move it!” Pyle urged his men. “On the double!”

One after another, view ports were slid open. Flashlights probed the interiors of the vaults, finding only the expected stores of nuclear waste in their airtight casks. So far everything appeared secure, although they had yet to locate the MUTO egg, hatched or otherwise. Pyle had to wonder what the brass was thinking, storing something like that. He would have blown it to pieces years ago.

Then maybe they might not be in the fix they were in.

Pyle hung back, observing the operation, as yet another view port was opened. Instead of the usual darkness, a blinding white light shone in his face. Blinking, he shielded his eyes from the glare and recoiled along with his men. Instantly on guard, soldiers raised their weapons as their comrades warily unsealed the massive hatch. More light flooded the tunnel as the heavy door swung open, revealing a disturbing sight.

Goddamnit, Pyle thought.

The entire vault had been torn open from the inside. An enormous hole, at least three hundred feet in diameter, gaped at the far end of the cavernous chamber, where what appeared to be a newly dug tunnel climbed all the way up to the surface. The blinding light pouring down from above? That was sunshine, Pyle realized, coming from outside the buried repository.

Yucca Mountain had been breached — from within.

Already dreading what he’d find, Pyle and his soldiers scrambled up the crude tunnel, which was big enough to accommodate a tank or more. It was a steep climb and he was breathing hard by the time he reached the top, where the passage opened onto a panoramic view of the sprawling desert to the south. Heaps of shattered stone were strewn beneath the tunnel exit, where something had obviously burst up through the base of the mountain. Enormous tracks, at least fifty feet across, scarred the arid landscape, leading off to the horizon.

Pyle called sharply for binoculars, which were immediately smacked into his grip by a junior officer. Raising the high-tech lenses to his eyes, he increased the magnification to maximum and scoured the sunlit badlands to the south. Through a haze of uprooted sand and dirt, he glimpsed the distant outline of another enormous creature making its way across the desert.

They were too late, he realized. A second MUTO had hatched.

And it was headed straight for Las Vegas.

What happened in Vegas now tended to end up on the internet, but Sin City was still going strong. Unconcerned or unaware of the disaster in Hawaii, eager gamblers packed the floor of one of the Strip’s many lavish casinos. Rows of men and women sat at slot machines, feeding their salaries to the one-armed bandits. Dice rolled across green felt tabletops to the accompaniment of fervent groans, cheers, and prayers. People gathered around the blackjack and poker tables, spilling their drinks onto the garish carpet. Crystal chandeliers and plenty of neon added to the sensory overload. A color TV, mounted on a wall by the bar, displayed handheld camera footage of the winged MUTO, but was going largely ignored. A skeptical retiree, scowling up at the screen, muttered that the whole thing was a hoax “like global warming,” but nobody paid any attention to her. Honolulu was very far away and, anyway, the monsters were somebody else’s problem.

Then the lights went out, taking all the glowing neon with it. Strident bells and buzzers went silent, while people looked up from their games with varying degrees of surprise, concern, and annoyance. Roulette wheels slowed to a stop. Cards went unplayed. Piped-in music gave way to anxious muttering, as nervous gamblers scooped up their chips for safekeeping. Cut off by design from the outside world, the casino floor was suddenly a murky, inhospitable cavern. Puzzled staff and visitors waited for some sort of announcement concerning the blackout, but the P.A. system was apparently down too.

All that could heard, coming from somewhere outside the casino, was a piercing, inhuman howl that seemed to be drawing nearer.

Elle paced restlessly around her kitchen, keeping one eye on the TV news in the living room. The horrifying footage was playing continuously and only seemed to get worse every time she saw it. She’d watched every minute over and over, half-hoping, half-dreading that she’d catch a glimpse of Ford amongst the chaos, but so far there had been no sign of him, even though, according to Sam, Ford had called from the Honolulu airport right before the monsters attacked.

“Yes, Ford Brody — Japan to San Francisco,” she repeated into the phone at her ear. Pacing in her hospital scrubs, she fought to keep panic at bay. “Look, I know your systems are down,” she pleaded to the frazzled-sounding airline representative she’d finally managed to get hold of. So far he hadn’t been much help. “What? No, wait! Can I leave my number just in—?”

A click at the other end of the line cut off the call.

“Damn it!” she swore, slamming the phone down onto the kitchen table. The curse came out louder than she intended, startling Sam who was sitting at the table eating a bologna sandwich.

He looked up at her with a worried expression.

She hurried over to comfort him, pulling him close. To be honest, the hug was as much for her benefit as his.

“It’s okay,” she said, trying to reassure them both. “Daddy’s going to be okay.”

She wished she could believe that.

Once again, Ford found himself aboard a C-17 Globe-master bound for home. Crammed in among the other soldiers, all of whom were decked out in combat gear, Ford felt out of place in his beaten-up civilian attire. He rubbed his chin, which was badly in need of a shave. He suspected he could use a shower as well. He had been on the move for days now.

Fortunately, his new traveling companion didn’t seem to mind his lack of hygiene.

“I’m Queens all the way,” Sergeant Tre Morales volunteered, as if his New York accent wasn’t proof enough. He proudly shared photos of three generations of Morales. “Mi familia. My wife’s from San Francisco, but we dragged her over.”

Ford felt bad that he didn’t have any photos of Elle or Sam on his person. “We’re just across the Bridge.”

“Kids?” Tre asked.

“I have a son. He’s four. Sam.”

“I’m having a daughter,” Tre said.

Ford appreciated the conversation. He knew he probably ought to be trying to get some sleep, but he was too uneasy knowing that a pair of feuding monsters was heading toward America. He wasn’t going to be able to relax until he knew that Sam and Elle were safe.

“You gotta be psyched about that,” he said, regarding Tre’s upcoming blessed event.

“Oh, yeah. Super-psyched, ‘cause we’re due next week.” Tre grinned, but Ford could hear the genuine tension behind the sergeant’s joking tone. “I really wanted to wait until after the apocalypse to have kids, so, yeah…”

His voice trailed off.

Ford wanted to reassure Tre, but was still searching for the words when the light coming through the plane’s windows suddenly shifted direction. Changing course, the C-17 tilted hard to one side, throwing the seated soldiers against each other. Ford tensed up, concerned with what this might mean. Elle and Sam were waiting for him. The last thing he needed was another complication or detour.

“All right, heads up!” An Air Force loadmaster ducked back into the hold from the cockpit. He spoke loudly enough to rouse any napping soldiers. The stripes on his uniform identified him as a staff sergeant. “We have new orders, new destination. Get geared up!”

Ford frowned. Did this mean they weren’t heading to San Francisco after all? Rising from his seat, he approached the loadmaster. The tilting floor beneath him made walking a challenge.

“Hey, Staff Sergeant, what’s the word? We’re just trying to get home, right?”

The loadmaster shook his head. “Another one of those things just popped up in Nevada, sir. Tore through Vegas, heading for the west coast. We don’t stop it now, there might not be a home to get back to.”

Ford’s blood went cold. Another creature? Heading west from Nevada?

Toward California?

Elle was running late by the time she got to work. San Francisco General Hospital was located in the heart of downtown, and treated thousands of patients every day, but she had never seen it this crazy before. Emergency vehicles, including fire trucks and ambulances, packed the loading area out front, while dozens of paramedics were already on hand, preparing for a flood of casualties. It looked like every EMT in town had been called into service. Elle felt a twinge of guilt for not getting here earlier, but she had been trying — and failing — to find out what had happened to Ford in Hawaii.

With Sam in tow, she made her way through the hustle and bustle to the nurses’ station on the ground floor. Her supervisor, Laura Watkins, greeted Elle with visible relief. Like the area outside, the E.R. was a madhouse, full of doctors and nurses dashing about and getting ready. The hospital was the only Level 1 Trauma Center serving the 1.5 million residents of the city and surrounding county, so it often took the brunt of any major accidents or disasters.

“There you are!” Laura exclaimed. The head nurse, a fortyish brunette, had coped in her day with everything from earthquakes to multi-car pile-ups, but Elle had never seen her this stressed. “Thank God. What a mess.” She didn’t waste time chiding Elle for her tardiness. “Okay, where do I need you most? Get that triage unit off its ass. We’re just about to start catching overflow from Nevada and no one’s even got an estimate yet. I’m gonna be right here, so Sam can stay with me. He’ll be fine.”

“Thanks, Laura.” Elle sat Sam down at the station and handed him a coloring book and crayons. “Honey, I’m sorry, but you need to wait here while Mommy works, okay?”

Sam glanced around, visibly troubled by all the commotion. Even a four-year-old could pick up on the anxiety and agitation in the air. Still, he nodded bravely; this was not the first time Elle had been unable to find a babysitter. She leaned over and planted a firm kiss on his forehead, before reluctantly tearing herself away to get to work. A television screen in the waiting area, intended to occupy bored patients and their loved ones, aired live footage of rampant destruction in some small town further east. It seemed that the carnage was no longer confined to Hawaii. Elle shuddered as she hurried past the televised images of crushed and smoking ruins. Glancing back, she saw Sam staring at the TV, ignoring the coloring book in his lap.

She wished she could turn the TV off, but there was no hiding from the nightmare that had invaded their world. This was no harmless creature feature or childish fantasy.

The monsters were real now.

The penthouse suite at the MGM Grand Hotel was an exercise in opulent luxury, boasting a well-stocked bar with marble accents, a spacious dining area complete with fine linen tablecloths, a king-sized bed, a deluxe Roman spa tub, a full-equipped entertainment center, and a view to die for. Intended for high rollers only, the lavish suite was the height of elegance.

Or at least it had been.

A brigade of firefighters stomped through the suite, searching for survivors. The hotel’s entire façade had been ripped away, so that the far wall facing Las Vegas Boulevard no longer existed. Smoke and wind blew in from outside. Emergency helicopters buzzed loudly through the sky. The exhausted firefighters paused before the gaping hole where the wall and picture windows had been. They gazed out in shock and awe at the apocalyptic vista below.

A deep chasm cut across the famed Vegas Strip, where the claws of an enormous beast had gouged the street and sidewalks all the way down to the bedrock. Thousands of displaced and traumatized tourists and casino employees staggered amidst the shattered pavement, while an army of first responders was overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster. Water gushed from ruptured pipes. Flames erupted from the ruins of the Strip’s gaudy casinos, hotels, and attractions. New York-New York had been reduced to splinters, its faux Statue of Liberty defaced, its replica Empire State Building obliterated. Across the way, on the other side of Tropicana, the mock medieval turrets and battlements of Excalibur had been torn down by a genuine monster, who had wreaked havoc all along the ravaged boulevard. A half-scale copy of the Eiffel Tower had been snapped in two. Mountains of rubble filled the Venetian’s canals. The Luxor’s great pyramid and matching sphinx were history. It was as though the MUTO was symbolically laying waste to the entire world.

It felt like a prophecy.

The Saratoga was speeding across the Pacific, making thirty knots, but the crisis had obviously reached America before the carrier and its attached strike group could. In the briefing room, video feeds captured shocking views of the Las Vegas strip being torn apart by the second MUTO, the one that had just broken loose from the Yucca Mountain facility. Soldiers and scientists crowded before the monitors, gaping at this latest threat. Smoke and static obscured the video feeds, making it difficult at first to compare the new MUTO to the immense winged arthropod that had hatched from the cocoon in Japan, but Serizawa managed to make out its appearance.

Instead of six legs plus a pair of wings, the new MUTO had eight limbs in total: two sturdy hind legs, similar to those on the first creature, two sets of elongated middle limbs, and two smaller forearms on its upper thorax. Like the earlier organism, the creature was a chimera that defied ready classification, but, if pressed, Serizawa would have labeled it some manner of gigantic semi-arthropod. Its dark, iridescent exoskeleton, composed of a thick, chitinous material, displayed shades of blue and red. Its backwards-jointed hind legs rested on two squat claws, but its upper limbs ended in hooked talons. A flat, anvil-shaped head boasted glittering red eyes and beak-like jaws.

“You’re telling me this is a female?” Admiral Stenz asked. “Which means these things can procreate?”

“I’m afraid so,” Serizawa said. Sexual dimorphism would explain why two radically different creatures had hatched from identical egg sacs. Such gender-based variation within a single species was not uncommon in nature. “They’ve been communicating.”

Just as Joe Brody tried to warn us, he thought.

“The female remained completely dormant until the male matured,” Graham explained.

“And if they mate?” Stenz asked worriedly. “After that, then what?”

Serizawa did not mince words. “There won’t be an after.”

Stenz didn’t need it spelled out for him. The admiral was no biologist, but he could grasp the dire implications of the creatures reproducing. Two MUTOs, plus Godzilla, were bad enough, but if they started breeding…

“Let’s put all options on the table,” Stenz said.

Hampton nodded. “Our analysts have drawn up a nuclear option, sir.”

“Nuclear?” Graham reacted in shock. “You can’t be serious. They’re attracted to radiation.”

“Exactly,” Hampton said. “We get them close and kill them with a blast.” He called their attention to the map table, where the two MUTOs were converging toward the western seaboard, with Godzilla in pursuit. Current projections suggested that their ultimate rendezvous was San Francisco. “Their EMPs make remote targeting impossible. But if we rig a warhead with a shielded timer, put it on a boat, and send it twenty miles out… the radiation lures the MUTOs, the MUTOs lure Godzilla, and we detonate with little risk to the city.”

Serizawa said nothing, but his expression darkened. He took out his pocket watch and twisted the stem, an old habit that utterly failed to reassure him. To the contrary, it only increased his apprehension and dismay.

“That’s assuming everything goes perfectly,” Graham said, still skeptical of Hampton’s alarming nuclear scenario. “But if it doesn’t?”

“If you have another answer, Doctor,” Stenz said, “I’m all ears. But conventional arms are only slowing these things down… at best.” He weighed his options before reaching a decision. “We’ll need presidential approval.” He turned to Hampton. “In the meantime, get the warheads prepped and moving to the coast.”

Graham looked on speechlessly, visibly aghast, as Hampton hurried to carry out his assignment. With the decision made, the other scientists and soldiers filed out of the briefing room to get back to their respective stations. Graham departed as well, but Serizawa lingered behind, still toying with the antique watch. Within minutes, only Serizawa and the admiral were left in the cabin.

“You look like you have an opinion on this,” Stenz said.

Serizawa placed the watch on the meeting table and slid it over to Stenz, who picked it up. The admiral’s puzzled expression made it clear that he wasn’t sure where this was going. He examined the watch.

“It’s stopped,” he noted.

“Yes,” Serizawa said. “At 8:15 A.M.”

A look of understanding came over Stenz’s face. “8:15 A.M. August 6, 1945?”

“Just outside Hiroshima,” Serizawa said.

Stenz handed the watch back. He seemed uncertain how to respond. “Quite the collector’s piece.”

“It was my father’s.”

And with that, Serizawa exited the room.

The female MUTO’s trail of destruction was visible from the air. Acres of American farmland had been devastated by the creature’s passage, the gentle geometry of patterned fields left brutalized in the monster’s wake. Crushed barns and silos were ground into the clawed earth. Anxious farm animals roamed among the ruins of scattered family farms. Nor were the ensuing small towns and suburbs spared. Highways were flattened. Entire neighborhoods and housing developments were razed to their foundations, their former residents fleeing in panic just ahead of the destruction. The wreckage of abandoned malls and shopping centers, schools and churches, joined a seemingly endless disaster zone that stretched west for as far as the eye could see.

Ford was shaken by what he’d seen from the transport plane. Even with everything he’d witnessed overseas, this struck far too close to home. It felt as though the nightmare that had begun for him in Janjira fifteen years ago was still stalking his family — and the country he’d pledged to defend. And now there were three monsters?

“Okay, everybody off!” the loadmaster ordered. “This is as far as we can fly.”

The C-17 had touched down on an evacuated airstrip somewhere east of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The rear doors of the plane opened and the troops disembarked into the harsh sunlight. After being cooped up in the hold of the Globemaster for hours, Ford’s eyes needed a moment to adjust.

He spied a small town less than a mile away — and crashed aircraft further in the distance. The loadmaster saw him staring at the smoking wreckage.

“We’re well within range of its EMP,” Staff Sergeant Hultquist explained. “From here on out, it’s by land or not at all.”

Ford understood. Dr. Serizawa had explained to him about the MUTO’s electromagnetic pulse, the effects of which Ford had personally witnessed in Japan and Honolulu. He deduced that the crashed planes marked the current borders of the second MUTO’s field of influence.

He felt glad to be on solid ground.

Along with Morales and the other soldiers, he was crammed into a waiting troop carrier that was part of a larger convoy heading toward the front lines of the conflict. More planes were landing, disgorging yet more personnel, to be transferred into additional carriers. Ford was impressed by the scale of the mobilization. He’d never seen anything like it, not even in Iraq or Afghanistan. The military was pulling out all the stops to deal with the rampaging monsters.

He hoped that would be enough.

The convoy pulled into a small town whose name no longer mattered. What had once been Main Street, U.S.A. was now a war zone, lined with abandoned cars, charred storefronts, and smoldering debris. A toppled water tower was being cleared away. Broken glass and scraps of newspapers littered the ground. Dry air reeked of smoke and ash. Bloodstains remained on the pavement. No surviving civilians could be seen anywhere; what was left of the town was now a military staging hub. Jeeps and Humvees were parked at every corner. Troops hustled in and out of the few standing buildings, carrying out the duties with a definite air of urgency. Shelling could be heard in the distance.

It was hard to believe that this had once been somebody’s hometown.

The carrier braked to a stop and the soldiers piled out of the vehicle. Uncertain where to report to, Ford took a moment to survey his unreal surroundings. He had wanted to return home, but not like this. He glanced around, trying to figure out some way to get from here to San Francisco — and his family.

The pavement began to rumble. Ford experienced a flare of alarm, afraid that one or more of the monsters was approaching, but then he realized that the vibration felt more mechanical than the tread of either Godzilla or a MUTO. He turned to see a wall of smoke approaching from the east. A loud mechanical groan escaped the haze. The noise sounded familiar to Ford, but, tired and disoriented, he couldn’t quite place it. The vibration beneath his feet grew steadily stronger.

All along Main Street, busy soldiers halted their efforts to watch. They crowded forward expectantly, while Humvees backed up to clear the way. Ford wondered what was up. The groaning drowned out every other sound and he finally recognized it as the chug of an old-fashioned diesel locomotive, heading into town on a railroad track crossing Main Street.

A train whistle blew. Smoke jetted from the exhaust ports and vents as the train slowed to a stop, its air brakes squealing. The vintage locomotive was impressive, but even more jaw-dropping was the freight behind it. Car after car was loaded with ICBM missiles, lying sideways on open flatbeds. Ford’s eyes bulged as he realized that he was looking at an entire nuclear arsenal on the move. There were enough warheads on the train to nuke most of the west coast.

Had it really come to this, that they were seriously considering deploying nuclear weapons on American soil? For a moment, he flashed back to that awful moment in his childhood when he’d watched the atomic power plant melt down before his eyes. The terrifying wail of the warning sirens echoed at the back of his mind.

They tried to nuke Godzilla back in 1954, he recalled. But he’s back, more unstoppable than ever.

Still, what other options did they have?

An Army Master Sergeant, whose name, “Waltz,” was printed in block letters on his fatigues, led a contingent of security troops past Ford toward the train. He assumed they’d been assigned to guard the missiles.

“Alright, guys,” Waltz said, addressing the men. “Can’t fly them out and the roads are jammed.” He nodded at the train before them. “Makes this our best bad option. All goes well — and why wouldn’t it? — we’ll be in San Francisco in six hours.”

San Francisco? Ford contemplated the train. Missiles or no missiles, this could be his ticket home. He had to get on that train.

“Negative,” Waltz said. “Can’t do it, sir. That train is a national asset, not Amtrak.” A corner storefront, that was still more or less intact, had been converted into an ad hoc operations center. Worried-looking officers studied GCSS-Army maps spread out on top of tables, while aides rushed about, issuing and receiving orders and reports. Radios chattered in the background. TV sets flickered sporadically, providing intermittent news coverage of the unprecedented crisis. Ford was reminded of the frenzied relief efforts back in Waikiki. He hoped that Akio and his family were safe wherever they were now.

“Yeah, copy that,” Ford replied. “From the casings on those Minuteman-3 ICBMs, I’d say the digital module has been bypassed and you’ve prepped them for a full analog retrofit.”

“Is my jaw supposed to drop, sir?” Waltz said, unimpressed. “I get it. You’re EOD. But I have my crew and we know what we’re doing.”

Tre came forward to hand Waltz some paperwork. Apparently, he’d been assigned to the security detail on the missile train, even if Ford was still struggling to claim a spot. Ford tried hard not to resent that.

“Aim the pointy end at the monsters, right, sarge?” Tre said. He grinned at Ford as he headed out of the store toward the train. Ford hoped he’d be seeing him again soon.

“When’s the last time one of your guys had their fingers in a live bomb, sergeant?” Ford wasn’t taking no for an answer. “I’m a damn good EOD… and my family is in that city.” He looked Waltz straight in the eyes. “I’m on that train.”

It wasn’t a question.

The overflow from Nevada was already flooding the triage unit at San Francisco General. Hospitals up and down the coast were getting hit. Doctors and nurses and EMTs hurried from patient to patient, dealing with burns, head wounds, concussions, broken limbs, and even more serious injuries. Severe cases, who nonetheless still had a chance of survival, were being prepped for surgery. Every bed, cot, seat, and examination room was occupied, while plasma and other vital supplies were beginning to run low. Gurneys full of casualties were lined up in the halls. Elle was busy clamping a leg wound on a scared college student when she heard Laura Watkins calling to her from across the ward.

“Elle!” The embattled head nurse held up a phone. “For you!”

“Tell ‘em I’ll be right down,” Elle said impatiently. Dark arterial blood spurted from the jagged gash on her patient’s leg, which was resisting her efforts to halt the bleeding. Answering the phone was the last thing on her mind right now. If I can just get this slippery artery clamped off…

“It’s your husband!” Laura shouted.

Ford had found a working phone at the rear of the store. As he waited for Elle to pick up the receiver, he kept one eye on the missile train waiting outside. Through the storefront window, he could see troops already boarding. Like the other soldiers, he was now geared up and in uniform. He knew he didn’t have much time before he had to join the mission.

He heard a rustle on the other end of the line. “Elle?”

“Ford!”

The relief in her voice hit him right in the gut. He turned his face toward the wall, willing himself to stay composed. He had to be strong for her. God only knew what she had been going through.

“Where are you?” she asked anxiously, her voice catching in her throat. It sounded like she was crying. “I’ve been calling everywhere, are you okay? I can’t believe this is happening—”

“Elle, listen to me.”

“Ford, I’m so scared.”

“Listen to me, I’m coming to get you guys. I’ll be there by dawn, hear me. The military has a plan to get these things, and I’m going to get you out of there.”

He hadn’t always been there for Elle and Sam, he knew that, but this time he would be. They were going to make this work, just like he promised.

“Okay,” she replied. “Please hurry.”

He stared out the window at the waiting train.

“I’ll be at the hospital by sunrise. I’ll get you out in a convoy. Okay?” He fought to keep his voice from cracking. “I’m coming to get you, Elle.”

A train whistle blew, signaling that he had to go. He clung to the phone as hard as he could. He could definitely hear her crying now. They both knew how much was at stake here — and how precarious their future had become. Nobody was safe as long as the monsters were abroad.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too.”

She hung on the line, apparently unable to say goodbye, so he hung up for both them. He took a deep breath and wiped the tears from his eyes before heading back outside.

He had a train to catch.

Lugging his gear, he climbed aboard the missile train along with the last remaining troops. He joined Tre on a flatbed car carrying one of the huge ICBMS. Smoke poured from the locomotive’s vents as the train got underway, its wheels rattling upon the metal tracks. Sparks flared beneath the wheels as the soldiers left in the town watched the train depart, carrying its lethal load of nuclear warheads. Ford found himself missing the smoother ride of the transport plane.

Within minutes, they had left the nameless town in the dust.

The missile train rolled past mile after mile of devastated scenery, heading west toward California. Trampled towns, farms, factories, and strip malls could be glimpsed from the train as it whipped past them at more than one hundred miles per hour. A drive-in movie theater screen hung in tatters. A used-car lot had been transformed into a junkyard.

Ford tried not to let the apocalyptic landscapes distract him. He had a job to do and it couldn’t wait until the train reached its eventual destination, which he gathered was further west, toward the coast. Along with other EODs and a handful of nuclear tech specialists, they had to perform crucial modifications on the missiles and their warheads en route.

Easier said than done.

Working together, he and Tre unhinged the heavy nose cone of a massive ICBM and carefully laid it down on the vibrating bed of the flatbed freight car. Each missile was nearly sixty feet long and weighed close to eighty tons. The rattling of the train added to the challenge, especially when it took a curve, but they succeeded in gaining access to the trunk-sized warhead at the missile’s tip. The actual fusion device was packed into a targeted re-entry vehicle, which was connected to an intricate assemblage of sophisticated wires, dials, and electrodes. These electronics were located directly under the missile’s payload and above the first- and second-stage rockets.

“Easy there, cowboy,” Ford said to Tre.

Ford was already sweating beneath his helmet and fatigues. He had worked on plenty of bombs before and had been trained in manipulating nuclear devices, but he’d never actually handled a nuclear missile. He was acutely aware that the warhead had the explosive power of three hundred thousand tons of TNT. He had to be very careful.

Holding his breath, he uncoupled the electronics from the base of the payload before cautiously removing the entire mechanism. Tre passed Ford a mechanical replacement detonator.

“I thought these things all ran by remote control,” Tre said.

“The MUTOs fry out everything electronic,” Ford explained. “You can’t even get in range without stuff going haywire.” He patted the new detonator. “This, on the other hand, is old-school clockwork.”

The replacement mechanism was all gears and springs, with no electrical components. Ford was impressed by the simplicity of the design. Even the crude roadside bombs he’d disarmed in Afghanistan had been more high-tech. This detonator was bare-bones by comparison. Gears, dials, and a high-torsion mainspring controlled the timing mechanism.

“Takes a lickin’, keeps on tickin’,” Tre grinned at Ford. “See how the bastards like us now.”

He looked away from the missile long enough to spot something off to one side of the tracks. A stunned expression came over his face. “Jesus…”

Ford lifted his eyes from his work to see what the other man was looking at. A veil of trees cleared to reveal a rural highway crammed with bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles on end. Uncertain where safety lay, the confused and panicked refugees were stalled in both directions. Every lane had come to a standstill; unmoving vehicles were packed with displaced civilians fleeing the destruction behind them. Many of the people had gotten out of their cars, some standing on the vehicles’ hoods to try to get a better view of just how far ahead the gridlock extended. A desperate exodus was frozen in place.

Ford understood now, more than ever, why they weren’t transporting the ICBMs by road.

Heads turned as the missile train went by. Ford wondered what the stranded refugees thought, seeing car after car of heavy-duty ballistic missiles rumble past them. Borrowing a pair of binoculars from Tre, he checked out the bulging eyes and uneasy expressions of the displaced people watching the train go by. His attention was captured by one poor family stuck inside a station wagon, hastily packed with boxes of precious belongings. A young couple viewed the missiles with obvious worry while their little daughter, who looked about Sam’s age, clutched her teddy bear. The girl gaped at the train with wide eyes.

Ford wondered if she even knew what a nuclear missile was, or what it was capable of.

The train rolled on, leaving the family — and many, many other families — behind. Ford returned the binoculars to Tre and got back to work. He tried to put the little girl out of his mind.

Those warheads weren’t going to retrofit themselves.

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”

In the CDC aboard the Saratoga, Admiral Stenz had a phone to his ear. And not just any phone: the Red Phone. He nodded solemnly, his voice subdued and respectful. “I understand, sir.”

Serizawa observed the conversation tensely, twisting the stem of his heirloom pocket watch. He knew exactly what was being discussed, and the dreadful consequences of the choices being made. He looked on as Stenz gravely hung up the phone.

The worried scientist wasn’t the only one paying attention. A hush fell over the hectic war room as everyone present waited on the news. Graham was beside Serizawa, wringing her hands anxiously. Captain Hampton stood stiffly at attention. Martinez and the other junior officers looked away from their consoles to see what word would be given.

The admiral nodded his head.

The CDC erupted into flurry of activity. The pregnant stillness of only moments ago gave way to a renewed sense of urgency. Weapons analysts began plotting radial diagrams of concentric circles on the map. The ominous graphics depicted both radioactive fallout patterns and projected casualty figures. Although no one had yet spoken the ghastly words aloud, all involved understood what had just happened.

The order had been given to deploy nuclear arms.

“The president, sir?” Hampton asked finally, compelled to confirm the awful truth.

Stenz nodded. His taciturn face had gone pale. Visibly distressed, he seemed unable to speak for the moment.

Serizawa could not keep silent. “Please don’t do this, Admiral.”

Stenz regarded the troubled scientist thoughtfully. A pained expression hinted at the admiral’s inner conflict.

“Do you have children, doctor?” the admiral said quietly, in a reflective tone. “My father was an ensign on the USS Indianapolis, the cruiser that helped transport the Bomb in ’45.”

Serizawa stiffened, but said nothing.

“He was always very proud of his contribution,” the admiral continued, “but all my life he could never talk about the War.” Anguished eyes met Serizawa’s. “Doctor, I’m a father, too. And I’m sacrificing lives every minute just trying to steer one of these things clear of population centers. There are two more on the way—”

On the map table, dotted lines predicted the three monsters’ probable collision courses. As the lines redrew themselves yet again, Serizawa saw that they were still converging on the coast of North America.

San Francisco Bay, to be exact.

“That’s seven million lives,” Stenz said hoarsely. He pleaded with Serizawa. “So please, just tell me. Will it work? Can they be killed?”

Serizawa did not envy the admiral his dilemma or the awful responsibility that had fallen upon him. He weighed Stenz’s questions carefully and tried to answer as honestly as he could.

“A direct hit?”

“We’re talking dialable yield,” Hampton stressed, joining the discussion. “Megatons, not kilotons. Nothing can survive that blast. Makes the bomb from ’54 look like a firecracker.”

Ah, yes, Serizawa thought ruefully. Progress.

“Will it work, Doctor?” Stenz asked again.

“It could,” the scientist conceded. “But what then?” He indicated the monitors tracking Godzilla. “What if he’s been down there all this time? With no interest in our world, but a part of it, a part of the balance. If we kill him, there’s no telling what may come.”

Stenz listened intently. “Yes? Go on.”

“The MUTOs are stronger in a pair, but maybe not enough. He could defeat them.”

“You’re suggesting we let them meet and duke it out?” the admiral asked, sounding dubious. “Then what? Just hope the big one wins and swims back where he came from? And if he loses, are you willing to bet more lives on that?”

Serizawa wasn’t certain. He was fully aware of how reckless his proposal must sound, as well as the awesome gravity of the decision before them. He considered all the human lives hanging in the balance. At least seven million, as Stenz had observed, and perhaps billions more. Was he truly prepared to trust humanity’s future to a legendary monster?

And ask Stenz to do the same?

He shook his head sadly. “I can only bet my own.”

Stenz nodded, appreciating the scientist’s candor.

“Me, too, Doctor,” he said regretfully. No doubt he had been hoping for a viable alternative to the hellish course of action before him. “That’s why I have no choice.” He turned away from Serizawa to address Martinez. “Execute our evacuation contingencies for San Francisco Bay. And find me a detonation site at least twenty miles from shore. If these things are attracted to our bombs, let’s draw them out and finish this.”

Serizawa wondered if that was truly possible.

Night had fallen on the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains as the train skirted along high wooded ridges. Darkness cloaked the wilderness through which the tracks ran, but evidence of the female MUTO’s destructive migration could still be seen around every curve. Ford and his fellow soldiers spied broken bridges, flattened trees, and suspiciously recent rockslides. The roar of the locomotive drowned out the usual nocturnal sounds you might expect to hear from the woods at this time of night, but Ford suspected that any local wildlife had long since fled from the monstrous invader. As he understood it, the train’s route took it straight through “the heart of darkness”— right past the new MUTO. This was a calculated risk, to say the least, but there had been no quicker overland route.

No wonder he hadn’t seen a single deer or owl yet.

Tre and the other heavily armed soldiers were on high alert. As the train rolled toward a lonely mountain pass, the nerve-jangling din of battle could be heard up ahead, just beyond the next ridge. Tracer fire lit up the night sky. Ford glimpsed brilliant laser dazzlers and felt the thrum of high-tech sonic weapons. Judging from the distant lights and racket, the train was approaching the “front line” of the conflict, which was still going strong. Even with everything the armed forces were dishing out, the MUTO was obviously not down for the count.

What was it going to take to stop these things?

A loud whoosh startled Ford as a fiery red explosion flared above the pass. Air brakes squealed and the train came to a halt right before the entrance to a narrow railway tunnel bored into the granite face of the mountain. The sudden stop threw Ford and other soldiers off-balance, and even the multi-ton missiles shifted unnervingly, if only for a moment.

A little warning would have been nice, Ford thought, although he couldn’t blame the locomotive engineer for hitting the brakes. That explosion had looked way too big, too close. Who knew what was waiting for the train on the other side of that tunnel? Were there even any tracks left?

Master Sergeant Waltz hopped down from the locomotive onto the gravel beside the train. He called out to Tre, who was stationed on the missile car directly behind the locomotive.

“Sergeant, I need you down here… now.”

Tre gulped and looked to Ford for sympathy. Aw, shit was written all over his face.

The soldier did his duty, however, and quickly joined Waltz down on the ground. A light fog blanketed the earth. Thick groves of pines and sequoias hemmed in the tracks on both sides, while the tunnel entrance ahead was as black as outer space. Ford looked on as Tre donned a large backpack-mounted radio, which Waltz attempted to employ.

“Snake Eyes, this is Bravo,” the master sergeant said into the radio. He fiddled impatiently with the knobs. “What’s the status at phase line red? Are the tracks clear, over?”

Static growled from the other end of the transmission, along with background noise from a heated battle. Nonstop explosions and shouting crackled from the radio.

“Say again?” a voice answered, barely audible through the interference. “You’re breaking up.”

More soldiers disembarked from the train. They gathered around the radio, frowning. This was not sounding good, for themselves or their mission. Had they reached the end of the line?

Ford was feeling an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. Hopping down from the missile car, he found himself drawn to the pitch-black tunnel entrance ahead. A flashlight was attached to the barrel of his M4 automatic rifle. For a second, he felt as though he was back on that monorail train in Honolulu, with the original MUTO waiting just around the bend.

The voice from the radio grew louder and more agitated, punctuated by bursts of static:

“… not… time… peat… now! Go, GO NOW!”

An agonized scream came over the radio, followed by a brutal crunching noise. The voice went silent; only static issued from the radio. Waltz and the others stiffened, fearing that they had just heard a comrade die in battle. Tre crossed himself.

Slightly further up the track, Ford peered warily into the mouth of the tunnel. Was it just his imagination or could he faintly make out some sort of the movement inside the tunnel? From what he’d gathered, the second MUTO couldn’t possibly fit inside the narrow passage, but something appeared to be heading toward them, surging out of the blackness.

He quickly raised his rife and aimed it at the tunnel. The flashlight beam failed to penetrate the darkness. He started to shout a warning, just as a blast of dust and leaves and forest litter exploded from the tunnel, propelled by a luminous electric pulse. The flying dirt and twigs buffeted Ford, driving him backward. His flashlight instantly shorted out and so did all the lights on the train, car after car. The radio on Tre’s back went dead, too, killing the static. Startled troops shouted in the dark:

“What the hell was that?”

“What happened?”

“Hey, where are the lights?”

But Ford understood. Instinctively, like a child in a lightning storm, he had started counting to himself under his breath.

“…three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand, five-one-thousand…”

A triumphant howl, echoing from the other side of the mountain, cut him off. The din of the nearby battle ceased, so that only the unsettling screeching of the female MUTO could be heard. There were no more bombs or explosions, no tracers or lasers visible beyond the ridge. Brushing the leaves and twigs from his face, Ford realized what the sudden cessation of hostilities meant.

The battle was over — and the MUTO had won.

That same realization was shared by Waltz and the rest of the troops. The frantic shouts trailed off, replaced by a stunned hush that was finally broken by the master sergeant.

“Corporal,” he ordered a nearby communications expert, “get Snake Eyes on the line again. I need to know how close that thing is.”

Ford had already counted that out. “Five miles.”

Waltz turned toward Ford and squinted at him through the dark. It was hard to make out the master sergeant’s features, but Waltz nodded as though impressed. Ford refrained from bragging that this was hardly his first run-in with a MUTO’s electromagnetic pulse. He was practically becoming an old hand at this.

Lucky me, he thought.

“Lieutenant,” Waltz addressed Ford, sizing him up. He gestured at the deep black cavity of the tunnel entrance. “Wanna join us. We’re going in to check that tunnel.”

While the train remained parked outside, Ford, Waltz, Tre and another rifleman, Brubaker, cautiously advanced into the stygian blackness of the tunnel. Fallen leaves and gravel crunched beneath their boots. Spare bulbs, screwed into the flashlights on their rifles, restored a degree of visibility. Incandescent beams penetrated the darkness before them. Ford and Tre took point, leading the way.

The men stop short as they suddenly spied two glowing eyes staring back at them. Ford tightened his grip on his rifle and almost fired until the flashlight beams revealed a lone deer, frozen in terror at what lay beyond the tunnel. In a clatter of hooves, the deer dashed past the soldiers, who jumped out of its way.

How about that? Ford thought, gasping in relief. It took a moment for his heart to stop racing. Guess that fella didn’t get the memo to clear out.

The men moved on until they reached other end of the tunnel. Waltz signaled for alert as he warily stepped out into the open. Ford and the others followed after him, guns at the ready. Ford suspected that the deer had had the right idea, running in the opposite direction.

A long trestle bridge stretched before them, high above a deep gorge carved out by a raging mountain river. Rushing water could be heard, but night and mist hid the bottom of the gorge, as well as the far end of the bridge. The fog made it impossible to tell at a glance if the bridge was still intact all the way across. They would have to check that out and inspect the bridge’s supports as well. They needed to know whether the bridge had been damaged by the recent battle and whether it would still support the missile train.

“Master Sergeant,” Ford said, taking the initiative. “Why don’t you and Brubaker check below?” He nodded at Tre. “Sergeant Morales, you’re with me.”

Waltz approved Ford’s plan of action. He and Brubaker hopped a side-rail and began to carefully descend a steep path down to the rapids below. Ford and Tre watched them vanish into the mist before turning to face the fog-shrouded span ahead of them. Ford glanced around warily, but couldn’t detect any sign of a lurking MUTO. He hoped to God that the monster had moved on after crushing that last wave of troops. He’d already two run-ins with the first MUTO. He could live without encountering the second one as well.

The two men advanced through the fog, discovering obvious signs of damage. Wide gaps stretched between the slats beneath their feet, forcing them to step cautiously. Scorched steel and charred timbers testified that the battle had indeed passed this way. Deep gouges in the tracks looked uncomfortably like claw marks.

A broken slat caught Ford by surprise. Stumbling, he accidentally smacked the barrel of his rifle against an upright safety rail. The impact knocked the flashlight from its holder and it plummeted down through the irregular slats. It spun down into the mist like a falling star.

Damn.

Brubaker jumped as a falling flashlight smacked into the rocky shore of the river, many feet below the bridge. Waltz didn’t blame the young rifleman for being scared, given the circumstances, but the master sergeant’s face remained stern and unmoving. Chances were, either Brody or Morales had just lost their flashlights for some reason. It was annoying, but if that was the biggest snafu they ran into on this mission he’d count himself lucky. All that mattered now was keeping the missile train going, so that the brass got their nukes — before the MUTO did.

Descending to the bottom of the gorge, they reached the riverbed. White water surged over nearby rapids while the rocks beneath their feet had been worn smooth by flooding waters. Waltz turned back to look in the direction of the bridge, whose iron supports were half hidden by the mist, which was even thicker here down by the river. He scowled as he spotted a dim light flickering further upstream, growing brighter by the second.

What the—?

Flaming wreckage, including mangled helicopters, tanks, jeeps, drones and bodies, came rushing over the rapids. Burning fuel and incendiary gel blazed atop the flowing water, spilling onto the narrow shore. Waltz and Brubaker dived for cover to get out of the way of the blazing debris. They scrambled up the slope to get to safety, dodging the fiery remnants of his fellow soldiers’ lost battle.

Something was crashing loudly against the rocks below. Peering over the edge of the bridge, Ford and Tre could make out a red-hot glow through the mist and murk. For a moment, Ford expected to hear the blood-chilling howl of a MUTO but, if this was a monster attack, why weren’t Waltz and Brubaker firing their weapons?

Concerned, he whistled once. A tense moment followed before he heard an answering whistle from below. He let out a sigh of relief, as did Tre. It was good to know that the rest of their team had not run into serious trouble. At least, not yet.

Confident that Waltz and Brubaker did not require immediate reinforcements, Ford and Tre continued to make their way across the battle-scarred bridge. The thickening haze and uncertainty made every step a definite test of nerves, but at last the wooded mountain ridge on the far side of the gorge came into view. The two soldiers grinned at each other, encouraged by the sight. Although battered, the bridge was still in one piece. The train could keep going.

Almost giddy with relief, Tre wasted no time notifying the locomotive driver.

“All clear,” he said into the radio. “I say again, all clear.”

Eager to get on the road, neither man noticed as a craggy mountain peak behind them began to move…

In the locomotive’s engine room, an Army engineer replaced one last fuse. The monster’s EMP had done a number on the train’s electronics, but the Missile Express was ready to roll again. He nodded as Morales’ “all clear” filtered over the radio. Moments later, Waltz confirmed that the bridges main supports appeared structurally sound.

That’s good enough for me, the engineer thought. Let’s get this show back on the road.

He fired up the diesel engines, which churned to life, sending up plumes of white smoke into the misty mountain air. The whistle blew and the rest of the troops got back on the train and resumed defensive positions around the ICBMs. To be honest, the load of warheads made the engineer nervous. He couldn’t wait to get rid of them.

He released the brakes, figuring he could pick up Waltz and the other scouts on the far side of the bridge. The train chugged forward, picking up momentum as it entered the tunnel. Its wheels sparked against the track, providing flashes of light in the blackness of the tunnel.

With any luck, the engineer hoped, it would be a straight shot from here on.

Below the bridge, climbing back up toward the cracks, Waltz thought he saw something stirring high above the trees. He signaled Brubaker and they ducked behind what appeared to be the thick trunk of a towering sequoia. The tree’s bark, he noted, was strangely textured, almost though as it was made of some sort of hard shell-like substance. A viscous sap or resin oozed down the side of the tree — which suddenly uprooted itself from the ground. Claws appeared at the base of the tree.

Son of a bitch, Waltz thought. That’s not a tree. It’s a leg!

“MOVE!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “TAKE COVER!”

The “mountain” detached itself from the ridge and leaned toward the bridge.

“Hit the deck!” Ford shouted to Tre. The men threw themselves on the tracks and rolled over onto their backs. They froze, holding their breaths, as the female MUTO crouched over the bridge. Ford couldn’t help comparing it to the winged monster he’d encountered in Japan and Honolulu. The new creature was even larger and more massive than the first MUTO. Inhuman red eyes searched the night. Bioluminous sensors pulsed along its snout, as if it was sniffing the air for… what?

Us, Ford thought. Maybe it’s looking for us.

The men lay still upon the tracks, not moving a muscle. Ford allowed himself to hope that maybe they would escape the colossal beast’s attention. The first MUTO had ignored him back in Japan after all. In the foggy night, they might be too small and insignificant to notice. All they had to do was keep quiet.

Then Tre’s radio began to sputter, perhaps affected by the MUTOs electrical aura. Static crackled loudly. Terrified, Tre tried to turn the radio off, but the switch had no effect.

“Shit, shit,” he cursed. “Come on, come on—”

The MUTO’S hideous face dipped in closer, attracted by the noise. Its crimson eyes narrowed in concentration. Drool dripped from its beak, which was big enough to swallow both men whole in a single gulp, and still have room for a nuclear missile or two.

Unable to silence the radio, Tre struggled to undo the straps of the backpack, but his frantic efforts threatened to expose the two men even more than the squawking radio. Ford grabbed onto the backpack to hold it still. He raised a finger to his lips. His eyes locked onto the other man’s, conveying an urgent message.

Don’t move.

Tre stopped wriggling and kept perfectly still. Sweat drenched his face, though, and his naked fear matched Ford’s own. Endless moments passed as the soldiers lay flat on their backs atop the bridge, waiting to see if they personally had reached the end of the line. The sheer unfairness of it all tore at Ford’s soul. He couldn’t believe that he’d survived the attacks in Japan and Hawaii, and finally made it back to America, only to be done in by yet another goddamn monster, only a few hundred miles away from Elle and Sam. He’d come so close to making it back to them.

But then the MUTO seemed to lose their scent or perhaps just its interest. Lifting its head, it reared up on its hind legs, blotting out the sky. Ford spied a large glowing nodule clinging to the underside of the creature’s abdomen, only yards above the two soldiers. The sight jogged his memory and he recalled some of the old photos Dr. Serizawa had showed him back on the Saratoga. The luminous nodule bore disturbing resemblance to the giant egg sacs that had been found in the Philippines years ago. The ones that MUTOs had hatched from.

Holy crap, he thought. They’re breeding.

The MUTO began to move off, heading west toward the coast, but then the tracks began to rattle, signaling the approach of an oncoming train. Ford realized with horror that the missile train was coming through the tunnel and had no idea that the MUTO was on the other side.

He prayed that the monster would hurry on its way, but no such luck. Attracted by the vibrating of the tracks, the MUTO wheeled about and trundled into the fog to meet the train. Obscured by the mist, it hunched over the tracks, eight monstrous limbs lying in wait. Its maw opened wide.

No! Ford thought. He leapt to his feet and sprinted toward the tunnel exit, shouting and waving his arms. “STOP THE TRAIN!”

But a savage howl drowned out his cries. Moments later, gunfire erupted in the fog and Ford saw muzzles flashes going off like crazy. The battle had been joined and, horribly, Ford had no doubt which side was fighting for their lives. If the best efforts of the U.S. military had been unable to halt the MUTO’s destructive rampage so far, what chance did the train’s pitiful defenders have?

Only Godzilla had proven a match for the MUTOs so far.

The besieged train came roaring out of the fog, even as its gargantuan attacker grabbed at it with its claws and fangs. Multiple limbs greedily snatched up the eighty-ton ICBMs as though they were sticks of candy. Armed soldiers, valiantly attempting to defend the missiles, were swept aside by the monster’s claws, their torn bodies plunging into the flaming waters far below. Automatic-weapon fire had no effect on the voracious creature, whose obsidian shell repelled everything the doomed troopers threw at it. The MUTO’s prismatic aura rippled the air around it.

Ford and Tre ran from the oncoming train and the monster attacking it. Desperate to get off the bridge, they sprinted for the western end of the span and safety. Their boots pounded on the tracks as they threw caution to the winds. Ford leapt over gaps in the slats, racing to reach the far end of the bridge in time. Tre tried to keep up with him, but was weighed down by the bulky radio unit on his back. Huffing and puffing, he fell badly behind. Glancing behind him, Ford saw the besieged train bearing down on them faster than they could run.

They weren’t going to make it.

“GET DOWN!” he shouted back at Tre.

But it was too late. A gigantic limb obliterated the track right where Tre was. The soldier disappeared along with a wide stretch of track, even as train came barreling across the broken bridge toward the gap… and Ford.

The entire bridge began to disintegrate beneath his feet. With no time to think, he leapt from the crumbling structure and plunged toward the churning river. The entire train, complete with its remaining cargo of ICBMs plummeted after him, cascading over the edge of the severed tracks. Ford fell through the fog and hit the cold water feet first, sinking beneath the foam. He kicked his way to the surface long enough to snatch a breath of air before the current dragged him under again and carried him away. Tons of train and missiles rained down behind him, sounding like an avalanche.

And yet, above the din, he could still hear the MUTO’s shrieking howl.

The lights of San Francisco could be seen from the Saratoga, which continued to trail Godzilla at a safe distance. The monster’s immense dorsal fins sliced through the churning waves toward the coast, where a row of Navy LCS vessels had formed a blockade miles offshore. The Littoral Combat Ships, which were expressly designed for operations close to shore, were somewhat smaller, swifter and shallower than conventional frigates or destroyers, but still packed plenty of punch. Each vessel was armed with both 57mm guns and a full complement of surface-to-air missiles.

But would that be enough to deter Godzilla?

The warships held their fire as the fins approached. Searchlights lit up the night. In the Saratoga’s war room, Serizawa and the others watched tensely in anticipation, waiting for Godzilla to rise up and reveal himself. Nobody expected the giant reptile to simply turn around in the face of the blockade, not with the male MUTO reportedly flying toward the city. The minutes ticked down toward a likely confrontation that Serizawa still had serious reservations about. He understood that Admiral Stenz and the U.S. military could hardly be expected to let such a formidable threat come ashore unopposed, but Serizawa remained unconvinced that challenging Godzilla was a good idea, and not just because of the many valiant lives that might be thrown away in a futile attempt to turn back an unstoppable force of nature. With the MUTOs still abroad, it might well be that obstructing Godzilla, if that was even possible, was not in the world’s best interests.

We may be making a dreadful mistake, he thought.

But then, just when the conflict appeared inevitable, the great fins suddenly descended, sinking beneath the frothing waves until they vanished from view. The Saratoga pitched as turbulence upset the waters ahead. Serizawa held on to the corner of a computerized workstation to keep his balance. Graham gasped in relief. Stenz frowned, but also looked relieved to a degree. Serizawa guessed that the admiral also had profoundly mixed feelings about throwing the combat ships up against Godzilla.

Glowing green sonar screens tracked the leviathan until his mammoth form dissolved into a thousand tiny pixels, broken up by static, and eventually disappeared from the screens altogether. Serizawa assumed that Godzilla had simply chosen to dive under the blockade, as he’d done with the fleet two days ago. That he was still heading for San Francisco Bay went without saying.

Perhaps it is just as well, he thought, although his heart went out to the innocent men, women, and children in the city. They had not asked for their home to become a meeting-place for monsters, and Serizawa had no illusions that Godzilla cared anything for the insignificant human lives between him and his prey. We are all just collateral damage now.

Captain Hampton rushed up to Stenz, clutching a printout. “The warhead transport just went missing,” he reported urgently. “The next closest, we’d have to fly in, but with the MUTOs’ sphere of influence, there’s no way we get one here in time.”

Stenz’s face turned ashen. “Get Air Force recovery teams out there. Find a weapon we can use!”

The rising sun gradually roused Ford from unconsciousness. His eyelids fluttered, blinking against the early morning light. As he slowly woke from restless dreams of flames and falling, he became aware of a gentle lapping sound nearby. Opening his eyes, he was greeted by the idyllic sight of a solitary doe drinking peacefully from the waters of a muddy river delta. The deer turned its head towards Ford and for a moment their eyes met in silent communion, man and nature sharing the world in peace.

Then a loud noise overhead shattered the moment. Startled, the doe bounded off — past the smoking wreckage of a tank.

Flying low, two Air Force helicopters came in over a mountain ridge. A large heavy-lift Super Stallion was accompanied by a smaller escort chopper. The low-lying delta was strewn with the mangled remains of numerous vehicles and equipment washed down from further upstream. Crushed cars and trucks, both civilian and military, mixed with broken timbers, twisted steel beams, heavy artillery, and other debris less readily identifiable. The tranquil riverbed had become a junkyard and perhaps a graveyard as well. Charred and pulverized human remains could be glimpsed amidst the piled wreckage. Ford avoided looking at them, not wanting to spot Tre or Waltz or any of his other comrades among the dead.

Despite a pounding headache, he lifted his gaze to see at least a half-dozen Airmen abseil down from the hovering escort chopper. Dropping nimbly onto the ground, they spread out and started methodically scouring the ruins a bit further upstream. They moved briskly, intent on their mission.

Thank God, Ford thought.

He assumed the men were searching for survivors. Sitting up weakly, he tried to call out to the rescue team, who didn’t appear to have spotted him yet. His throat was parched and he felt completely wasted, worn out not just by his punishing trip down the river, but by the accumulated stress and exhaustion of the last few days. He could barely remember when he wasn’t about to killed by monsters or trying to make his way halfway across the world. A hoarse whisper escaped his cracked lips, but went unheard beneath the noisy rotors of the choppers. The rescue team kept on searching, not even looking in his direction.

Help, Ford thought. Over here.

Terrified that he might be overlooked and left behind, he forced himself to his feet and began to stagger through the ruins toward the searchers. A wave of dizziness assailed him and the violated landscape seemed to spin around him. He lurched clumsily from side to side, bumping into demolished vehicles and freight cars, which he occasionally grabbed onto for support. Soaked to the skin, he was cold and trembling and aching all over. Somewhere down the river, he’d lost his helmet and goggles along with his rifle. Muddy water dripped from his hair and down his neck. His mouth tasted of blood and silt. His boots squished with every slow, unsteady step.

Elle, he thought. Gotta keep going for Elle and Sam.

A filthy teddy bear, missing one arm, lay half-buried in the muck, next to the charred skeleton of an overturned station wagon. Something about this particular wreck jabbed at his heart, making him wince, but he was too groggy and debilitated to identify the memory, which quickly slipped away. He stumbled past the wagon, leaving the lost toy behind. His heavy boots dragged through the mud and splashed through puddles of icy mountain water. Random pieces of debris threatened to trip him.

He caught glimpses of the search team up ahead. The men were rooting through the wreckage several yards away, still oblivious to Ford’s presence. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t found any other survivors yet. Ford wondered if he was the only one left from the missile train. He tried again to call out, but could barely muster more than a squeak. Darkness encroached on his vision and he feared he was on the verge of passing out again.

I’m right here. Look this way.

His distress went unnoticed as one of the searchers found something among a heap of shattered steel trestles, railway cars, and other debris.

“We’ve got a live one!” he shouted excitedly. “Let’s move!”

In response, lines were lowered from the choppers and hooked into winches. Exhausted and out breath, Ford watched as the surrounding wreckage slid way to reveal not an injured survivor, but an intact nuclear warhead partially submerged in the mud. The missile’s massive booster rockets had been destroyed, but the cone-shaped re-entry vehicle bearing its lethal payload appeared to be still in one piece.

That’s what they came for. Ford’s hopes for rescue faded. The searchers weren’t looking for survivors at all. They’re after a working nuke.

Defeated and at the end of his rope, Ford slumped against the bottom chassis of a blackened Jeep that was lying sideways next to the river. He slid to the ground and watched numbly as the ten-foot-long re-entry vehicle was loaded aboard the larger of the helicopters. Once that was completed, the airmen took turns being hoisted back up into the smaller escort chopper. Just before he departed, the final man took one last look around. His eyes widened as he spotted Ford sagging upon the ground, next to the trashed Jeep.

“Hold it!” the airmen yelled. “We have a man down!”

The entire ward had become a triage unit. Doctors and nurses, just like Sam’s mom, were super-busy trying to take care of all the hurt people who kept pouring into the hospital, some of them from as far as Nevada. All the blood and confusion scared Sam, who wanted his mommy, but he stayed at the nurse’s desk like he had been told. A new coloring book rested on his lap, ignored and forgotten, while he stared in horrified fascination at the TV set on the wall.

“Military personnel are assisting in the evacuations,” a government lady said on the TV. “We’re urging civilians who have not already left to stay off the roads and make their way immediately to shelter.”

A group of soldiers marched through the ward. Their helmets and uniforms looked a lot like the ones his dad wore. Sam looked away from the TV hopefully.

“Daddy?”

He hopped off his seat and tottered after them.

Elle was at her wit’s end. Just when she thought they couldn’t possibly cope with one more patient, another batch of casualties arrived from the disaster zone, all requiring immediate attention. She’d been running herself ragged for nearly twenty-four hours now, with only short breaks for food and naps. She hadn’t even had a chance to go home yet. Poor Sam had practically been living at the nurse’s station. The only good thing about the ongoing crisis was that she wasn’t worrying every second about Ford and whatever danger he might be in at this very moment.

She glanced anxiously at her wristwatch. Ford had said he’d be here by now and yet there was no sign of him. And no word either.

“Ford, where are you?”

More National Guardsmen invaded the ward. To her dismay, they started rounding up children and critical patients and herding them toward the exits. She hurried toward them.

“Wait, wait!” she protested. “These patients are my responsibility. Where are you taking them?”

A Guardsman took a moment to a moment to answer her. “Across the bridges,” he said gruffly. “Critical and children only.”

Elle was caught off-guard. They were evacuating the hospital now? Did that mean the monsters were that close already?

Laura Watkins joined them, escorting another group of children. “The shelters are going to fill up fast, Elle,” she said. “Trust me, they’ll be much safer outside the city.” The older nurse revealed that she had been assigned to go along with the children and supervise their care at the emergency centers outside the city. “I can take Sam, too.”

Take Sam? Away from her?

Elle realized that Laura was offering as a friend, but she shook her head vehemently.

“No,” she said. “No way. My father-in-law’s dead. I have no idea where my husband is. The phones aren’t working, the roads are closed…” Elle couldn’t imagine not knowing where her son was, too. “I’m as spread out and freaked out right now as I can handle. Sam’s staying with me.”

She glanced over at the nurse’s station, expecting to see the boy where he belonged.

But Sam was gone.

Sam followed the soldiers through the hospital lobby to outside, where he was surprised and scared by the chaotic scene before him. Soldiers were busily loading patients, many in wheelchairs, into a fleet of bright orange school buses, while harried nurses and paramedics struggled to care for the displaced patients, many of whom looked too sick or hurt to travel. Empty gurneys were rushed back indoors to get still more patients before it was too late. Announcements blared from loudspeakers:

“This is not a test. A mandatory evacuation has been issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the San Francisco Bay Area…”

Confused and disoriented by all the frantic activity, Sam lost sight of the soldiers he’d been trailing. The little boy wandered randomly toward the buses, overlooked in the general tumult. He wasn’t sure where he was supposed to go now. Back to the nurse’s desk?

A thunderous racket overhead made him tilt his head back. He stared upward as two military helicopters — a big one and a smaller one — thundered across the cloudy sky. A great big bomb, carried in a sling, dangled from cables beneath the larger chopper. All the grownups around him reacted in shock and fear to the sight of the bomb. Sam heard one of the soldiers call it a “warhead.”

Bloodied, muddied, and dazed, Ford rode with the Air Force response team aboard the escort chopper. A heavy wool blanket was slung around his shoulders. Fresh water and black coffee, in that order, had helped restore him to a degree, but he still felt like death warmed over. He figured he was lucky he was alive at all, considering.

Tre and the others hadn’t made it.

Tucked in among the airmen, Ford watched as the heavy-lift transport chopper peeled away from its escort, flying toward San Francisco Bay with the recovered warhead. Ford wondered if it was one of the bombs he’d replaced the detonator on.

“Where are they taking it?” he asked, referring to the warhead.

“Twenty miles out to sea,” an airman explained. “Convergence point. We’re going to lure them there. Three birds, one stone!”

The escort ‘copter banked away toward Sausalito to the north. Ford shuddered beneath the blanket as the chopper bearing the 300-kiloton warhead made its way toward San Francisco.

His home. His family.

A makeshift command center had been established on a mountain overlook to the north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The scenic location offered a workable view of San Francisco Bay and the city proper. Mobile trailers and temporary structures were swarming with military personnel, who hustled to make sure everything was in readiness for the next, and possibly final, stage of the defense operations. Sunlight filtered through gray clouds. An overcast sky threatened to rain.

Airlifted to the site, Serizawa and Graham accompanied Admiral Stenz, Captain Hampton, and key personnel from the Saratoga as they hurried across the grounds to their new tactical operations center. Hampton updated the admiral on the move.

“We only found one warhead, sir,” he reported, “but it’s intact and already prepped with a manual timer and detonation mechanism. Should be immune to those things.”

Stenz nodded. “Where is it right now?”

“En route, sir. There’s a transport vessel waiting in the bay. The warhead should be there any minute.”

Serizawa paused to look south, where he spied a heavy-lift military helicopter carrying the nuclear warhead toward the bay. The sight of the chopper’s lethal cargo filled his soul with dread. His fingers found the antique watch in his pocket. He thought of mushroom clouds rising over a devastated atoll in the Pacific.

History, he feared, was repeating itself.

The Air Force helicopter touched down in the foothills overlooking the bay. As Ford exited the chopper, civilian relief workers rushed up to treat his injuries. He brushed them off impatiently, anxious to get to Elle and Sam somehow. It was maddening to be so close, to actually be within sight of the city, and still be separated from his family.

Hang, on Elle, he thought. I’m almost there.

He surveyed his surroundings. A parking lot in the hills was jammed with vehicles: some military, but also plenty of school buses and ambulances. Hundreds of anxious people milled about an emergency staging area and shelter, hastily assembled on the outskirts of the city north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Trying to make sense of the situation, he buttonholed a passing relief worker bearing an armload of first aid supplies.

“Is the city evacuated?” Ford asked.

The other man shook his head. “Only schools and hospitals. Everyone else is still inside.”

Including Elle and Sam? Or were they among those evacuated? Ford flashed back to that nightmarish morning fifteen years ago when he and the other children had been hurriedly evacuated from Miss Okada’s classroom. He knew exactly how scared Sam must be right now, but he had no way of knowing where his family was. For all he knew, Sam was on one of those crowded buses in the parking lot.

He ran toward the vehicles, desperate to find out.

“Hey!” the puzzled relief worker said. “Where are you going?”

The USNS Yakima, a fast combat support ship, was docked at Fisherman’s Wharf. A skycrane helicopter hovered above the ship as the recovered nuclear warhead was lowered via winches onto the Yakima’s deck. Office workers being evacuated from nearby buildings glanced nervously at the nuclear warhead as they were hustled into waiting vans and buses. Jeff Lewis, one of the missile techs assigned to the operation, didn’t blame the spectators for looking askance at the warhead. To be honest, it made him uncomfortable, too. Nuclear bombs belonged in silos or submarines, not heading out into San Francisco Bay.

But what other choice did they have? Nothing else seemed to be stopping the monsters.

Running out of the hospital, Elle searched frantically for her son.

A full-scale evacuation was underway in front of San Francisco General. EMTs and orderlies assisted in loading critical patients into waiting ambulances, monitoring vitals as they did so. Many of the patients could not walk on their own and had to be wheeled to the vehicles and physically lifted inside. Moving them at all would be a bad idea under most circumstances, but these were definitely not normal conditions. Better to transport them now than leave them helpless in the path of the creatures that were reportedly converging on the city. Unlike more able-bodied people, these patients wouldn’t be able to make their own escape.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the loading and unloading area, National Guard troops were ushering more children onto school buses. Could Sam have accidentally been swept up in the mass evacuation? Standing atop the front steps of the hospital, she peered at the buses, hoping she wasn’t already too late. Panic threatened as one bus after another drove away from the hospital, heading toward God knew where. What if Sam was already on one of those buses? How on Earth would she ever find him again?

No, I can’t lose him, too!

Then, through the bustling confusion, she glimpsed Sam tottering about in the chaos, looking lost and confused. Numerous strangers jostled the little boy, too caught up in the overall emergency to pay attention to a single unattended child on the verge of tears. Sam looked about anxiously, searching for a familiar face. Elle’s heart nearly burst from her chest.

“SAM!”

Her voice reached him through the hubbub. Turning toward her, he spied his mother at the top of the steps. His face lit up in relief.

“Mommy!”

He ran toward her with his tiny arms outstretched.

“No!” she cried out, afraid of losing him in the crowd again. “Wait there!”

But it was no use. Desperate for his mother, Sam raced for the steps and was almost immediately swallowed up by swirling maelstrom of soldiers, paramedics, evacuees, stretchers, IVs, and gurneys. Rushing down the steps, shoving her way through the hectic mass exodus, Elle tried to keep him in sight, but too many much larger bodies got in the way. People were practically stampeding toward the buses and ambulances now, desperate not to be left behind. Any pretense at a calm and orderly evacuation was devolving into bedlam.

Hang on, baby, I’m coming!

Sam couldn’t get to his mommy. Big people rushed past him on all sides, blocking him and spinning him around until he didn’t know which way to go. He looked for Mommy, but he couldn’t see her anymore. There were too many people all around, all in too big of a hurry to notice him. A swinging elbow knocked him down and he fell onto the pavement. Rushing feet stomped past him and, unable to get back up, he curled up into a ball, afraid that the crowd was going to stomp all over him. Boots and shoes smacked against the ground, only inches away from him. Terrified, tears pouring down his face, he screamed for his mommy.

And all at once she was there, her comforting arms scooping him up from the pavement and holding him close. A flood of grownups swept past them on either side, ignoring the rescue, but Sam wasn’t afraid anymore. His mother had found him.

“It’s okay, I got you,” she cooed, hugging him tightly. “I got you.”

Thank God, Elle thought.

She had gotten to him just in time. Things were getting seriously crazy out here now that the last of the buses were beginning to pull away. A few more moments and Sam might have actually been trampled in the rush. She hefted him in her arms and squeezed him with all her strength. She never wanted to let go of him again.

And yet, glancing around, she saw that there was only one school bus left. Her heart was torn in two as she spotted Laura herding the children from their ward onto the bus, which, in theory, would take them out of harm’s way. If Sam stayed behind with her, he would be trapped in a city that was looking at a disaster of unimaginable proportions. Conflicted, Elle found herself faced with two equally ghastly prospects: letting Sam out of her sight or risking his life by keeping him with her. It was agonizing dilemma, but, deep down inside, she understood that, if he stayed, she would not be able to protect him from the horrors in store.

The monsters were coming — and she knew what she had to do.

“Wait!” she shouted, running toward the last bus with Sam in her arms. “Wait!”

She reached the bus and tried to put him down on the bus’s steps. He clung to her, just as unwilling to let go as she was. Laura stepped forward to help Sam onto the bus. The older nurse held out her hand, but Sam turned away from her, wanting his mother instead.

“Sammy,” Elle said, her heart breaking. “You remember Laura, mommy’s work-friend? You need to go with her, okay?”

His eyes welled with tears. Panic filled his voice. “No, mommy, no!”

She was briefly tempted to climb into the bus with him, but then she remembered all the injured patients back in the triage unit. Someone had to stay to look after them. She suddenly appreciated, more than ever, the dilemma Ford confronted every time his duty called him away from his family. Fighting back tears of her own, she fought to keep up a brave face. For Sam’s sake.

“Mommy has to stay and help people. But I’ll see you soon, I promise.”

She pulled him tightly to her chest, just for a moment, then reluctantly let go. Peeling his tiny arms away from her was harder than clamping any bleeding artery. She felt like her own heart was being shredded by a monster’s claws. What if this was the last time she ever held her baby boy?

Laura tried again to take Sam from her. Her expression made it clear that she understood just how excruciating this farewell was for Elle. She gave the young mother a reassuring nod that testified to years of perfecting a good bedside manner.

“It’s okay,” she said, corralling Sam and taking his hand. “C’mon, Sammy.”

Laura led the boy up into the bus, where the driver was getting visibly impatient behind the wheel. She paused at the top of the steps to look back at Elle, who doing her best not to fall apart until the bus left. She didn’t want Sam to see how scared she was.

“I’ll keep him safe, Elle,” Laura said.

Elle knew she could count on Laura to keep her promise. Even so, as the door slid shut and the bus began to drive off, carrying Sam away, it took all of Elle’s strength and resolve not to change her mind and chase after the bus, screaming and shouting for it turn around and bring her boy back to her. He was only four years old. He needed his mother.

But he needed to get away, too. Before the monsters came.

Rain began to drizzle from the sky as she watched the bus join the procession heading for the Bridge. She waited, frozen in place, until she couldn’t see Sam’s bus anymore.

Then she turned and headed back to work.

At least Sam will be safe, she thought. If any of us are.

The tac-ops command center occupied a large state-of-the-art mobile trailer that had been tricked out with sophisticated communications and monitoring equipment. Networked screens lined the interior of the trailer to provide Admiral Stenz and his staff with real-time data, video, and satellite feeds. Large windows at the rear of the trailer offered a direct view of the bay and San Francisco. Analysts and technicians were already at their stations as Stenz strode into the trailer.

“Sit rep!” he demanded. “Where are our targets?”

“The male was spotted thirty miles west,” a civilian analyst reported, “off the Farallon Islands.”

“We’re showing seismic activity to the east, near Liver-more,” Martinez added. “Should be the female, closing in.”

Stenz nodded. “And the big one?”

The analysts shook their heads. The admiral glanced at the sonar screens from the ships offshore. They remained blank.

“Last contact was five hours ago,” Martinez said, “maintaining a bearing of zero-five-three degrees and descending past ten thousand feet. Nothing since.”

Five hours, Stenz thought. That was more than enough time for the submerged leviathan to reach the strait leading into the bay. Frowning, he turned his attention to another bank of monitors, where live satellite and CCTV feeds showed the Golden Gate Bridge. The outbound lanes, leading away from the city, were jammed bumper-to-bumper with school buses packed with kids. Damn it. Why aren’t those children to safety yet?

“There are still buses on that bridge,” he said. “Deploy everything we have. If they come at the bay, at least we’ll slow them down.”

But for how long?

“Everyone stay in your seats!” the bus driver hollered from behind the wheel. He honked his horn and shouted impatiently at the long line of buses in front of them on the bridge. “Come on, what’s the holdup?”

Sam’s bus, the last in the procession, was barely moving. Restless kids, most of them older than him, were getting loud and rowdy. Younger children were crying or refusing to stay in their seats, while the teenagers, who were working way too hard to hide how scared they were, joked and roughhoused with each other. Sam sat huddled in the back, wanting his mother, but trying to be brave. He peered out of the rain-streaked windows at the huge steel cables of the bridge and the foggy waters of the bay. Mommy’s friend Laura was up near the front of the bus, struggling to maintain order. Sam wasn’t entirely sure where the bus was taking them, but he hoped they got there soon — and that Mommy would come get him as soon as she could.

Horns blasted loudly across the bridge, but the caravan of buses remained snarled in traffic. The vehicles crept forward, their drivers jostling for inches. Inside Sam’s bus, somebody started throwing spit wads at the other kids. A paper airplane flew by Sam’s head. A teenager complained that he was starving. Sam tried to ignore the ruckus. He wished everybody would just calm down.

The TV had said a monster was coming. A monster named Godzilla.

The roadway started to rumble beneath them and everyone got very quiet very fast. It felt a little like an earthquake, but then Sam spotted a convoy of army tanks and Stryker vehicles rolling onto the bridge’s vacant inbound lanes. The intimidating armored vehicles took up defensive positions on the bridge. Their big guns swiveled to face the ocean, which was hidden from view by a thick bank of fog. Sam remembered the toy soldiers and tanks he’d played with on the floor at home.

The dinosaur always wins, he remembered.

Sam gazed out the window, both scared and excited to see what the guns were aiming for. Drizzle streaked the windows, making them harder to see through. He wished there was some way he could wipe them clean from the inside. He pressed his nose up against the window.

THWACK!

Without warning, a seagull smacked headfirst into the window, startling Sam, who shrieked in alarm as more and more birds slammed into the bus, leaving bloody smears on the glass. The entire bus started freaking out as a whole flock of panicked gulls came flying inland out of the fog. Squawking loudly, they flapped frantically toward the city, as though desperately trying to escape… what?

He’s coming, Sam realized. The monster from TV.

Eyes wide, he glimpsed a huge shadowy form approaching through the fog and rain.

A rear guard of Navy LCS vessels ringed the entrance to the Golden Gate strait leading to the bay beyond. Sailors manned the ship’s powerful Mark-100 57mm naval guns. The approaching creature had simply dived beneath the earlier blockade further out at sea, but no one knew if he would resort to the same tactic again. This time a confrontation was all but inevitable.

Along with his fellow sailors, Ensign Mark Pierce waited tensely. They understood too well that this was the Navy’s last chance to keep the sea monster from making landfall — and that so far the beast had proved unstoppable.

Here he comes, Pierce thought. God help us all.

Computer-controlled, the fifteen-ton guns pivoted to take aim at the emerging shape as it began to rise high above the water. Peering through the mist, Pierce made out a tall, upright form ridged with jagged spikes or fins. The shape kept rising higher and higher until it towered above the surface of the sea like a newborn volcano. Pierce estimated that it had to be at least two hundred feet tall.

Jesus, I knew this thing was supposed to be big, but…

The shape grew higher and closer with every moment. The guns waited for the creature to fully reveal itself so they could target its head and chest. Great torrents of water cascaded off the sides of the creature until Pierce realized that what he’d assumed must be the head was just the pointed top of a large scaly appendage that swayed ominously back and forth above the water. The horrifying truth hit him like a thunderbolt.

That’s not the monster! That’s just the tip of his tail!

Two nearby ships suddenly keeled up from below, capsizing as the rest of Godzilla’s colossal body rose up from the strait behind them. Violent waves slammed against Pierce’s ship, causing it to pitch sharply. The startled seaman was thrown across the deck. Landing on his back, he stared up in shock at the titanic beast.

Walking upright on two prodigious legs, the giant reptile was nearly four hundred feet tall. His ponderous footsteps echoed through the fog as he waded toward the Golden Gate Bridge.

Godzilla’s appearance shattered the traffic jam on the bridge. Buses lurched forward, honking and ramming each other as they rushed to get off the bridge before the monster reached it. Tanks and Strykers opened fire all at once, unleashing a deafening barrage full of smoke and fire. Geysers of water sprayed high into the air where the explosive rounds struck the waves. Scorching salvos of advanced anti-tank ammo blistered Godzilla’s hard, scaly hide, causing him to flinch and roar in pain. He swatted furiously at the projectiles, as though they were a swarm of angry bees. The rounds chipped away at the armored plates protecting his mammoth form, but, weathering the inferno, he kept on coming.

Sam watched from the bus in both fear and fascination. Godzilla was not just a dinosaur. He was a giant dinosaur, and he was heading straight for the bridge, despite the army’s attack. The bus driver swore and leaned on his horn, alerting the other drivers that he was coming through no matter what. He hit the gas and the bus surged forward, tossing the kids back into their seats. Nurse Laura had to grab onto a seatback to keep from falling. Sam’s gaze swung back and forth between the far end of the bridge and the monster getting closer and closer. The nearer the Godzilla got, the bigger he looked.

And the smaller Sam felt.

Roaring furiously, Godzilla waded into the military’s fiery assault, which was obviously not going to slow him down for long. Sam held his breath, terrified that his bus was not going to make it across in time. He stared at Godzilla’s giant fangs and hoped that being eaten by a monster wouldn’t hurt too much.

“C’mon, c’mon!” the bus driver exclaimed. A gap opened up briefly in the traffic and he floored the accelerator so that the bus shot forward and cleared the bridge. Everyone was too scared to cheer, but Nurse Laura gasped in relief, sinking into an empty seat next to Sam. He had never seen a grownup look so scared before. She was pale and shaking.

We made it, he realized. We didn’t die.

Turning around in his seat, Sam gaped as, braving the heavy artillery, Godzilla reached the Golden Gate Bridge and tore right through it as though it was made of cardboard. The magnificent orange towers collapsed and thick steel cables, each nearly a yard in diameter, snapped like rubber bands as the monster smashed through the bridge midway across its span. The concrete roadway, with its six lanes, crumbled to pieces. Tanks and soldiers, along with ruptured cables and great slabs of bridge, spilled into the strait, falling hundreds of feet into the foaming water below where they disappeared beneath the waves and fog. The tanks and Strykers had done their part, Sam realized, slowing Godzilla long enough for the buses to make it to safety, but they couldn’t save themselves. Godzilla was just too strong.

Maybe nothing could stop him.

Godzilla waded into the bay, his gargantuan contours still partly veiled by the thick fog and rain. Snapped steel cables and mangled pieces of the bridge trailed from him like torn vines. He lifted his head toward the sky, as though sensing something. He snarled in anticipation.

Seconds later, a squadron of F-35 fighter jets screamed in over the bay. They homed in on Godzilla, letting loose with an onslaught of armor-piercing rounds and guided missiles. The high-tech weapons pocked his armored hide and pierced whole dorsal fins, inflicting more significant damage than the land-based forces had. Godzilla reeled in pain, obviously feeling the injuries. His clawed forearms slashed uselessly at the planes, which were careful to stay above his reach. They strafed him, then circled around for another run.

The fighters actually managed to halt Godzilla’s forward progress, at least for the moment. As Sam watched from the back of the bus, the battle-scarred monster lumbered onto Alcatraz Island, just a few miles past the wrecked bridge, where he towered above the abandoned prison, which Sam had once toured with his parents. The visitor’s center was crushed beneath his huge clawed feet.

The F-35s pursued him, but Godzilla did not retreat. His jaws opened wide and a full-throated roar rang out over the bay. Sam shuddered as the buses sped north toward the hills beyond the bridge. The Air Force had hurt Godzilla, but the little boy knew that the battle wasn’t over yet.

The dinosaur always wins…

The Yakima sped through the choppy waters of the bay, heading for the open sea beyond. As Pierce understood it, the idea was to try to lure the MUTOs and Godzilla out into the ocean before detonating the warhead. Along with the rest of the technical crew, Pierce hurriedly prepped the primitive mechanical timer on the bomb, which was lashed down to the deck of the ship. He used a DIP switch to manually enter the launch codes, while hoping that the winged MUTO, wherever it was, wouldn’t come swooping down from the sky before he was finished. He could hear the Air Force fighters pounding away at Godzilla across the bay. The monster’s roar, audible even above the plane’s unleashed firepower, sent a chill down Pierce’s spine.

“Six, niner, bravo, zulu,” he said, trying to keep his voice and hands steady.

Another technician, Schultz, confirmed the code sequence. “Six, niner, bravo, zulu.”

That’s it then, Pierce thought. Despite the rain and fog, his mouth suddenly felt as dry as the Mojave. He traded disbelieving looks with Schultz. We’re really doing this.

Swallowing hard, he set the timer.

Schultz signaled to another man, who nodded and fired a flare into the sky. It rocketed upward, trailing a stream of bright red fire. Pierce watched the flare ascend before looking back at the ticking timer. The countdown had begun.

Three hours and counting.

The flare was visible at the mobile command center overlooking the bay. Spotters immediately reported it to Tac-Ops, where Martinez started the timer countdown on a digital wall display above the main monitor:

3:00:00. 02:59:59. 02:59:58…

Everyone in the trailer felt the weight of the moment. The countdown made the unthinkable decision more real somehow. Standing gravely behind the tense military personnel, Serizawa wound his watch. He and Stenz exchanged somber looks, both of them fully aware of the magnitude of what was to come and the responsibility they both bore.

God help us all, he thought.

“Our fighters have been engaging the big one,” Captain Hampton noted, “and getting some effect with guns and ATGMs, but it won’t hold him long.”

Stenz glanced at a separate monitor tracking the progress of the MUTOs. They were already beginning to sputter worryingly. Visual snow and static interfered with the displays. “How long before we lose power to the city?”

“Satellites and drones are losing signal, sir,” Martinez reported. “They’re close.”

“Send more birds and tell them to use extreme caution,” Stenz ordered. “I want eyes.”

Another squadron of F-35s roared past overhead, zooming toward the fogbound bay. The roar of the jets briefly competed with the chatter in the trailer. Serizawa lifted his eyes toward the ceiling, visualizing the fighters on their way to confront Godzilla. At least, he reflected, that mighty predator did not generate a disruptive electromagnetic aura like the MUTOs. The aircraft might have a chance against Godzilla.

But he doubted it.

“Yes,” the relief worker confirmed. “Sam Brody was checked into the Oakland Coliseum shelter an hour ago. His bus was sent on a ferry to the overflow facility there. But I have no record of Elle Brody. She never left the city.”

Exhausted and out of breath, Ford stood before a table where harried evacuation workers sorted through lists of incoming civilians. All around him, mobs of displaced persons filled the overcrowded refugee camp. More buses and ambulances were arriving every minute, bringing still more evacuees from the city. A steady drizzle rained down on him as a seemingly endless row of parked vehicles unloaded old people, hospital patients, and children. Most of them looked positively shell-shocked, as though they’d never been chased from their homes by giant prehistoric monsters before. Ford knew exactly how they felt; a few days ago, he would’ve never believed such creatures existed either.

“Can you check again?” he asked anxiously. “Please? I told her to wait for me, but I didn’t make it…”

“I’m sorry,” the worker said, shaking her head. “They’re trying to get everybody downtown into the subway shelters.”

The thought of Elle trapped underground during the crisis was agonizing. At least he knew Sam was safe, for the time being, but what about Elle? All three monsters, and possibly an armed nuclear warhead were aimed right at her.

I have to do something, he thought. I promised.

“Lieutenant Brody?”

He turned to see an officer standing at attention. He hoped this meant he was being drafted back into the battle. Rejoining the fight was his best chance to save the city.

And Elle.

The Golden Gate Bridge, which had spanned the strait for more than seventy-five years, was no more. The iconic bridge was smashed right through the middle, so that only amputated stumps of roadway jutted from its opposite ends. Severed steel cables dangled limply from the ruins, which swayed ominously, on the verge of further collapse. Crumbling slabs of concrete shook loose and plunged into the waters below, which had already claimed the armored divisions sent to defend the bridge. Fallen warriors floated atop the waves.

Holy crap, Pierce thought, viewing the apocalyptic scene from the deck of the Yakima as the Navy transport ship sailed toward the wreckage, past Alcatraz, bearing the ticking nuclear warhead. Despite everything he’d been briefed on, and had glimpsed on TV, it was still hard to accept that a single living creature could be responsible for so much destruction. The bridge looked like it had been taken down by a war or terrorist attack, not torn to pieces by some sort of overgrown lizard. How is this even possible?

Then Alcatraz came into view and it all made sense.

Godzilla loomed like a mountain above the island, slashing and snarling at the F-35 fighter jets harassing him. Pierce and his fellow technicians gawked at their first sight of the gargantuan sea monster in the flesh. This wasn’t just an animal, Pierce realized. This was a dragon, and as big as a skyscraper. The bridge hadn’t stood a chance.

At the moment, the jets seemed to have the monster contained, but then the F-35s broke off from circling Godzilla and zoomed off in a tight “V” formation, seemingly abandoning the fight. They disappeared into the stormy gray clouds overhead, heading inland toward the city.

Huh? Pierce thought. “Where are they going?”

Static burst from the shipboard radio. Sparks flared as it suddenly shorted out with a pop and a hiss. Pierce gulped. He knew what the electrical disruptions meant.

A MUTO was on its way.

In the Tac-Ops trailer, the feeds from Alcatraz abruptly went to static.

“Boxcar, this is Guardian 3, over!” Martinez barked into her radio. “Boxcar, this is Guardian 3. Do you copy, over?”

Interference whined over every channel, frustrating her efforts. And that wasn’t all; every feed from San Francisco began to flicker alarmingly, reminding Serizawa of the electrical disturbances and blackouts that had preceded the male MUTO’s cataclysmic escape from the secret base in Japan. Analysts feverishly worked their keyboards and controls, trying to compensate for the interference, but with little success. Serizawa joined Admiral Stenz and Captain Hampton, who were intent on the wavering feeds from the F-35s zooming inland through the dense clouds between Alcatraz and the city. The scientist understood that the planes were trying to outrace the MUTO’s crippling electromagnetic emissions. Stenz muttered unhappily under his breath. The MUTO’s approach had forced the jets to abandon their assault on Godzilla. The defense effort was losing ground on every front.

“CAG, my nose is cold,” a Lightning pilot reported over the radio. “I just lost radar. Do you copy?”

On the flickering screens, a monstrous shadow darkened the murky sky above the planes. Just for a moment, the fierce male came winging down from the sky like the stealth aircraft it somewhat resembled. Serizawa and the others caught only a glimpse of the creature’s inhuman red eyes, snapping beak and outstretched claws before the video feeds distorted beyond clarity. The fighter pilot shouted through the static.

“Engage, eng—!”

A blinding electromagnetic pulse lit up the screens, before knocking them out completely.

The doomed pilots had lost their race for life.

The evacuation was still underway at the hospital. A cold rain sprinkled on Elle as she helped the orderlies load more patients into a waiting ambulance. With the children and most critical patients already shipped out, they were now concentrating on the remainder of the patients, the one with less dire injuries or conditions. Like the poor guy on the stretcher in front of her, who had chosen the worst possible time to have a routine knee operation. More ambulances waited in the open plaza outside the hospital. The ambulance’s engine idled, its driver impatient to get on his way, as Elle slammed shut the rear doors of the vehicle and signaled the driver that he could go. The ambulance started to pull away from the curb… and its engine died.

Are you kidding me? Elle thought. Of all times!

Then she noticed that the other ambulances had come to a stop, too, and the lights were going out in the buildings nearby. Even the traffic lights had gone dead. She and the other hospital workers looked at each other in confusion, trying to figure out what had caused the blackout. Elle knew in her heart that they had all just run out of time.

There was a whooshing sound overhead. Somebody screamed and pointed at the sky. Elle looked up in time to see an F-35 fighter plane spinning out of control and diving toward downtown. A second later, it crashed to earth only a block away from where Elle was standing with an explosive boom that caused her to stumble backwards. A billowing fireball rose up from the blazing wreckage. Elle felt the heat of the flames against her face. Her heart was pounding.

This is it, she realized. It’s begun.

The Yakima was in trouble. Every electrical system, from navigation to communications, had shorted out at the same time. Pierce and his crewmates scrambled about the deck, trying cope with the emergency and complete their mission, despite the blackout.

“We lost power!” Schultz shouted.

I can see that, Pierce thought impatiently. “Check the warhead!”

They raced toward the bomb. The re-entry vehicle’s nose cone had been screwed back on, but a latched transparent window allowed them to view the mechanical detonator attached to the payload, which was still ticking away, its lathe gears unaffected by the EMP that had taken out the ship’s electronics. Pierce wiped his brow in relief.

“Still running,” Shultz shouted to the others.

Maybe they could still carry out their mission, Pierce hoped, until he heard the Yakima’s four powerful turbine engines die. Suddenly, the ship was dead in the water, carried along only by momentum and the current. Pierce’s blood froze as he grasped the full horror of their situation.

We’re stuck here, he realized, with a ticking nuclear warhead.

He looked out across the bay at the skyline of San Francisco, which had gone completely dark. No city lights shone through the mist and rain. The entire area had obviously fallen within the MUTOs’ sphere of influence, which meant that one or more of the creatures had to be in vicinity. Creatures that fed on radioactive materials like that installed in the warhead, which had been intended to serve as a bait to lure them back out to sea, but now was not going anywhere.

Oh crap, he thought. This just keeps getting worse.

He glanced up at the clouds, half-expecting to see a pair of monstrous black wings, but instead he saw a disabled F-35 spiraling down toward the bay. The fighter slammed into the water and exploded into flame. Stunned, Pierce was still trying to catch his breath when another jet crashed into the bay.

And another… and another…

An entire squadron rained down from the skies.

“Take cover!” Pierce shouted as the missile techs scrambled for shelter. More planes slammed into the water, narrowly missing the stalled transport ship. One after another, they exploded on impact, filling the foggy air with smoke and flames. Multiple impacts stirred up the waves, causing the ship to pitch from side to side. Pierce was thrown against the side of the warhead. The smell of burning jet fuel invaded his nose and throat. He choked on the thick black fumes.

This is insane, he thought. This can’t be happening!

Miraculously, however, none of the falling F-35s struck the Yakima. The rain of fighter jets felt like it went on forever, but was actually over in a few minutes. All at once, the planes stopped falling and an eerie calm fell on the deck, broken only by the crackling flames upon the water. Pierce and the others cautiously emerged from hiding. Dazed, they stood upon the deck and watched the burning wreckage sink beneath the waves. The unlucky pilots joined the scores of soldiers who had been lost upon the bridge. The bay was claiming more than its share of dead today.

And that’s before the warhead goes off, Pierce thought. He peered up at the brooding gray clouds above them. Is that it? Is it over?

A menacing shadow fell over the deck of the transport ship as the male MUTO, his hooked jaws opened wide, dived from the clouds, surrounded by yet another deluge of crashing F-35s. Its dark wings spread out behind it, its six clawed limbs reaching out hungrily, the male attacked the Yakima, instantly plunging the entire ship underwater. Nearly fifty thousand tons of displaced seawater splashed into the air, dousing some of the burning aircraft sinking slowly nearby. The water sprayed like a geyser before crashing back down onto the churning foam.

There were no survivors.

The turbulent waters began to settle, just for a moment, before the male erupted from the waves and took to the sky once more. The ten-foot-long re-entry vehicle was clenched between its jaws as the creature soared high above the bay, then swooped down toward the city ahead.

Bearing its ticking prize, the male flew over San Francisco.

Panic spread through the Tac-Ops center. Screens shorted and went black. Frantic analysts and technicians struggled to restore contact with the city. Paper maps were spread out atop a portable chart table, charting blast radiuses and fallout patterns from a new ground zero. This was beyond a worst-case scenario. This was a potential catastrophe beyond anticipation.

“Fifty-four minutes and counting!” an analyst called out.

Admiral Stenz stared in horror at the digital clock on the wall. The mechanical device continued to count down the minutes and seconds to detonation. They had less than an hour before the warhead exploded — and now that winged monster was carrying it into the city.

“It’s right in the middle of downtown, sir,” Hampton reported, confirming their latest visual reconnaissance of the male’s flight path. He started to elaborate, but Stenz cut him off.

“How many?” the admiral demanded.

“At least a hundred thousand,” Hampton said. “But we put in a shielded detonator. Nothing can stop it remotely.”

In other words, we can’t deactivate the damn bomb from here, Stenz thought. Their precautions against the MUTOs’ electromagnetic auras were coming back to bite them. But who could have expected that the male would hijack the warhead and bring it inland?

I should’ve, that’s who.

But there would time enough to crucify himself later. Right now their top priority, even beyond containing the monsters, was that ticking nuclear warhead. If they couldn’t defuse it remotely, then somebody was going to need to get the job done on-site.

“Both bridges are down,” Martinez informed him, as though reading his mind. “All roads into the city are jammed with cars, and we’re seeing electrical disturbances as high as thirty-thousand feet.”

The feverish activity in Tac-Ops slowed as the seeming hopelessness of their efforts sank in. Time was running out and so were their options. The odds against them felt insurmountable, but Stenz refused to give up. Failure in this instance was more than unacceptable. It was inconceivable.

Almost a hundred thousand people.

“Find a way to get men in there,” he ordered. “We need to disarm that warhead.” He turned to Serizawa, who had been keeping his own council during the escalating crisis. The scientist stood quietly off to the side with his colleague, Graham. “Your alpha predator, Doctor. ‘Godzilla.’ You really think he has a chance?”

Serizawa turned toward the rear of the trailer, where large plate-glass windows looked out over the fogbound bay and the imperiled city beyond. Even from this distance, the male could be glimpsed soaring over San Francisco, pursued by Godzilla, who was wading majestically toward the blacked-out waterfront. No longer detained by tanks or jet fighters, the invincible leviathan was closing in on his primordial prey, driven by a powerful biological instinct.

“The arrogance of Man is thinking Nature is in our control, and not the other way around.” Serizawa turned solemnly toward the others and nodded gravely. “Let them fight.”

Elle ran for her life, along with everyone else still downtown. Thousands of terrified men, women, and children ran through the streets. Panicked people crowded toward a BART subway entrance, seeking shelter from the titanic monsters that had invaded the city. Billowing plumes of smoke and fire rose to meet the falling rain. Abandoned vehicles clotted the streets. Elle squeezed between an unmoving taxi and a delivery van as she tried to make it to the stairs leading down to the subway. The frantic mob carried her along; she couldn’t have changed direction if she’d wanted to. She glanced wildly around her, afraid that the disaster would find her before she could reach safety. She had waited for Ford as long as she could, but obviously they had run out of time. Skyscrapers and office buildings blocked her view, but wide concrete canyons offered fleeting glimpses of the madness that had come to her city.

A giant winged monster, looking something like a huge alien insect, perched atop two adjacent high-rises, straddling them as though there were stilts. Despite her terror, Elle couldn’t look away. It was one thing to see a blurry image on TV or the internet; it was something else altogether to actually see a creature that big with your own eyes and be confronted with the escapable fact that such monsters truly existed. According to the news reports, this was the male “MUTO” and there was a female running amok as well. The creature lifted its head. An ear-piercing howl issued from its jaws.

The ground rumbled in response, throwing Elle to the ground. She threw her hands out in time to keep her face from hitting the wet pavement. Rushing feet pounded past her, and she grasped just how scared Sam must have been when he’d nearly been trampled outside the hospital. She struggled to get to her feet even as the tremors increased in intensity. Through the crush of weaving bodies around her, she gaped in horror as, up the hill in Chinatown, an entire intersection bucked as though it was the epicenter of a quake.

Pavement cracked, wide fissures splitting the asphalt. Steam spewed from broken pipes. Several blocks away, the trembling intersection sank beneath ground level, briefly forming a deep crater, before erupting upward with explosive force. Chunks of cement and blacktop went flying as another monster, even larger than the first, surfaced from beneath the city. Eight giant limbs, each sporting vicious claws, pulled the grotesque body up onto the demolished pavement. The female screeched back at the male.

Oh, God, no, Elle thought. Not the other one, too!

More bodies shoved past her, obstructing her view of Chinatown and the new creature. She clambered awkwardly to her feet and rejoined the frenzied mob fleeing the creatures. The subway entrance beckoned her and she stumbled down the steps toward the gloomy, unlit station. National Guard members began to herd her through the entrance as they prepared to shut the emergency doors behind them. Elle didn’t like the idea of being locked underground in the dark, but it was better than staying out in the open in a city overrun with giant monsters.

Just as she reached the bottom of the steps, a fierce roar trumpeted across the city. The riveting growl was even louder and more intimidating than the strident howls of the MUTOs. Despite her desperate quest for shelter, Elle turned toward the source of the bellowing roar, as did all the Guards and awestruck citizens around her. Eyes bulged and jaws dropped as Elle and the others stared up the stairs at the riveting sight above. Oh my God, Elle thought.

Godzilla rose from the bay and stepped onto the land. His thunderous tread shook the earth as he stomped through industrial shipyards and piers. Office buildings and warehouses were reduced to splinters beneath him. A cable car was crushed beneath a great, clawed foot. His tail whipped behind him, toppling entire buildings. Smoke and flames and billowing clouds of dust and pulverized concrete obscured some details of his appearance, but his overwhelming size and power rendered Elle speechless and made her feel like a minuscule insect by comparison. Godzilla’s pitiless eyes fixed on the MUTOs, his ancestral foes. A furious roar shattered windows across the city and left Elle’s ears ringing. Everyone around stared up at the raging behemoth in awe and terror.

A giant now strode the earth, terrible in his wrath.

Elle had only a moment to absorb this humbling realization before the Guards pulled her all the way into the station and slammed the corrugated steel doors shut behind her. Impenetrable blackness replaced her view of Godzilla, but his footsteps still shook the station. Petrified people clung to each other in the dark, but Elle was alone with her fears.

She could only pray that, somewhere, the rest of her family was safe.

General alarm sirens wailed from loudspeakers at the refugee camp in the hills. Holding Sam’s hand, Ford frowned as groups of soldiers rushed past them. An announcement issued from the speakers:

“All U.S. Military and Emergency Response personnel, report immediately for duty—”

Ford didn’t like the sound of that. Stepping away from Laura Watkins and the other children from the school bus, he called out to the troops.

“Hey! What’s happening?!”

“All hands on deck!” an Army soldier shouted back at him. “Those things dragged the nuke downtown! It goes off, so does the city!”

“They need a crew down on the ground to disarm it!” another soldier said.

Ford couldn’t believe his ears. He remembered the warhead the helicopters had rescued from the wreckage in the mountains. The plan had been to lure all three monsters out to sea, then detonate the warhead. How the hell had it ended up downtown — where Elle was?

Sam picked up on the heightened anxiety in the air. “Daddy?”

Damn it. Ford hated what he was about to say, but there was no other choice. “Sam, buddy, you need to wait here with these nice people.”

Understanding, Laura came forward to take the little boy’s hand. “It’s okay, Sam—”

“NO!” Sam yelped. Fear contorted his childish features. “DADDY, WAIT!” He broke away from the nurse and rushed frantically toward his father. “I want to stay with you!”

His son’s plea hit Ford right in the gut. He couldn’t remember Sam ever saying that before, which only made what he had to do that much harder. His throat tightened and his eyes misted over as he knelt down to face the tearful child, while keeping one eye on the departing troops. Ford didn’t have long, but he owed his son more than just another abrupt disappearance. There had been too many of those already.

“Alright, squid, listen I—” He realized that this was no time to be glib. He dug deeper, speaking from his heart. “I’m going back to find your mom. That’s why I need you to stay here, where it’s safe. Can you do that for me?”

Sam absorbed his father’s words. It took him a moment, but he wiped his eyes and nodded. He was only four, but he seemed to understand. They both knew how important Elle was. Ford felt incredibly proud of his little boy — and grateful for his courage.

“Daddy loves you so much. You and Mommy are all I’ve got in this world. I love you more than anything. So I need you to be a brave boy, okay?” Ford’s voice cracked as he thought of his own father, who had sacrificed everything to save him so many years ago. Joe Brody had lost the love of his life and the mother of his child. Ford wasn’t about to let history repeat itself. “No matter what happens, just know—” He choked up, tears leaking from his eyes. “I’m gonna do everything I can.”

Sam responded by throwing his arms around his dad and hugging him tightly. Caught by surprise, and moved more than he would have ever thought possible, Ford squeezed the little boy back for as long as he could spare, which, sadly, wasn’t very long at all. More soldiers ran past them, answering the general alarm, and Ford reluctantly let go of his son. Ford started to stand up, then remembered something. He fished a small item from his pocket and placed it in Sam’s hand. The boy’s eyes widened as he saw what it was.

A toy Navy man, as promised.

He looked up at his dad and their eyes met, truly seeing each other for perhaps the first time. And possibly the last. Wiping his eyes, Ford climbed to his feet and sprinted off after the other troops, while Laura Watkins came forward to comfort Sam. Ford felt confident the boy was in good hands.

Now he just had to save Elle, too.

Chinatown was ground zero. Concentric circles spread out on the paper map from the current known location of the stolen ICBM. Stenz grimly contemplated the chart as his analysts pored over what data they could access with the power down. He listened as they formulated a desperate, last-ditch attempt to get troops in place to disarm the warhead before it took out the whole city.

“Thirty thousand feet should be right above the sphere of influence,” an analyst estimated.

A more skeptical analyst shook his head. “Even if they survive the jump, we’re talking a Hail Mary.”

Stenz understood the odds against them, but didn’t see any other choice. They could hardly stand by and watch the clock tick down to a thermonuclear explosion in the center of San Francisco. A hundred thousand lives were at risk. If there was even a chance of disarming the warhead, they had to take it, or there wouldn’t be a city left to defend.

Racing footsteps rushed past the trailer. Through the windows at the rear of the command center, Stenz saw dozens of soldiers reporting for duty. He took a deep breath and went out to address them. They needed to know what was at stake and how much was expected of them.

He didn’t envy them the daunting task ahead.

Captain Hampton presented the plan to Admiral Stenz and the troops inside the command center, which was now crammed with fresh volunteers like Ford. Video feeds from the city showed nothing but static. Computers tried and failed to reboot. Paper charts and satellite photos were mounted behind Hampton, while the admiral stood off to one side. Milling among the other soldiers, Ford spotted Doctors Serizawa and Graham with the brass. He listened attentively.

“The male delivered the warhead here, at the center of downtown,” Hampton said, pointing to a table map of the city. An “X” marked the last known location of the nuclear weapon. “Putting more than a hundred thousand citizens in the blast radius. We can’t stop it remotely.”

Low mutters and whispered remarks rippled among the gathered soldiers. Ford wondered how many of the troops had friends or family in San Francisco. Everyone seemed appropriately disturbed by the prospect of the warhead going off in the city, on top of the unprecedented threat posed by Godzilla and the MUTOs. On top of the nuclear blast, the city also faced the danger of lingering radiation as well. He was gratified that none of his comrades-in-arms even suggested sacrificing the city to get rid of the monsters.

An Army Captain, who identified himself as Quinn, took over the presentation.

“An analog initiator has been installed. And the MUTOs are frying electronics within a five-mile bubble. Approaching overhead is not an option.” He placed a transparent plastic dome over the “X” on the map to represent the MUTOs sphere of influence. “That’s why we’ll be conducting a HALO jump insertion. Jump altitude is thirty thousand feet. Skate just over the top and drop here and here.” He indicated two spots atop the plastic dome. “And if you don’t eat a skyscraper, we’ll rally here and find the bomb.”

A bomb technician raised his hand. “Doctor Serizawa, any guesses where to look?”

“Underground,” the scientist said. “If the MUTOs have spawned, they’ll be building a nest.”

“In which case,” Graham added, “the bomb going off would only be the beginning. Its fallout would catalyze their eggs. We’d have hundreds of them, annihilating everything.”

A hush fell over the command center as that nightmarish possibility sank in. Ford tried to imagine hundreds of creatures like the ones he’d encountered before. He couldn’t imagine how civilization — or even humanity — could even survive an onslaught of that magnitude. Sam’s future would be utterly wiped out, along with that of every other human being on the planet.

Stenz addressed Quinn. “Captain, once you find the warhead, how long to defuse it?”

“Without having seen the analog mod, sir, I couldn’t say, but—”

“Sixty seconds,” Ford interrupted. “If I can access it.”

All eyes turned toward Ford. Captain Hampton nodded, acknowledging him. “Lieutenant Brody was the only EOD to survive the train attack.”

“I retrofitted that device myself,” Ford said.

Quinn deferred to Ford’s expertise. “Then we’ll say sixty seconds, sir, if he can access it. If for whatever reason we can’t defuse the device, we go to Plan B.” He indicated a pier on the map. “The waterfront should be no more than one click downhill. We get it to the pier, onto a boat, and as far away from the city as possible before it detonates.”

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, Ford thought.

“Lieutenant,” Hampton said to Ford. “To be clear, we have no extraction plan. If you don’t walk out, you don’t come back at all.”

Ford nodded, as did the other men around him.

“My wife is in the city, sir. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

That’s what Dad asked me to do, Ford recalled, with his dying breath. I’m not going to let him down… or the rest of my family.

Serizawa smiled in approval. Ford liked to think Joe Brody would have done the same.

Admiral Stenz watched the men file out, on their way to their mission. With any luck, they would defuse the warhead before it went off, or at least get it safely away from the city. But even if the bomb squad succeeded, that was hardly the end of their worries.

“So they take care of the bomb,” he murmured. “Who takes care of the monsters?”

He looked for Serizawa and found that the scientist had stepped outside the command center. Serizawa was gazing out across the water at the city with a pensive expression on his face. The admiral could guess who and what Serizawa was thinking about.

Godzilla.

In no time at all, Ford was getting suited up for the HALO jump. Along with a durable green jump suit and a packed parachute, he had also been supplied with a helmet, oxygen mask, gloves, new boots, a heavy-duty altimeter, and a bulging combat pack. As he and dozens of other soldiers prepared to board the C-17 that would drop them from a high altitude into the city, he watched a violent electrical storm brewing over San Francisco. Thunder and lightning added to the tumult battering the city and wasn’t going to make the coming jump any safer. Just bad timing, he wondered, or were the MUTOs peculiar auras stirring up the atmosphere somehow? He was no scientist, like those doctors on the Saratoga, but he suspected the latter.

“Lieutenant Brody!”

A voice from behind him shouted over the revving plane engines. He turned to see Dr. Serizawa hurrying across the tarmac toward him. Ford had noticed the Japanese scientist with Admiral Stenz earlier. Serizawa must have had spotted him among the troops listening to the admiral’s pep talk.

“I believe this belongs to you,” the scientist said.

He handed Ford a photo that must have been confiscated from Joe back in Japan. It was a family portrait of the Brody family in happier days. Joe, Sandra, and little Ford beamed at the camera. Ford couldn’t believe how young and happy they all looked.

Little did we know…

A bittersweet tide of emotion washed over Ford, who didn’t know what to say. He stared at the photo seeing not just the unsuspecting family from long ago, but also, superimposed over the portrait, he and Elle and Sam. A second generation of Brodys facing the same catastrophic forces.

“Time to load up!” an Air Force loadmaster shouted. “Move it out!”

Ford accepted the photo gratefully and tucked it into a Velcro pocket on his jump suit. He nodded at Serizawa, too choked up to speak, and turned toward the waiting aircraft. His fellow soldiers were already boarding the plane. They had to move quickly if they wanted to get to that warhead in time.

Assuming they could get past the monsters, that is.

“Lieutenant!” Serizawa called again. “He would be proud!”

I hope so, Ford thought. He glanced back at Serizawa. Ford hoped he could be half as determined as his father had been. Joe Brody had never given up trying to find the truth and warn the world. Ford wasn’t going to let his dad’s sacrifices be in vain.

He boarded the plane.

The sun was setting as the C-17 approached the city at an altitude of 35,000 feet, which was believed to be safely above the MUTOs’ sphere of influence. Seated in the cargo bay with the other troops, Ford assumed the brass had some evidence to support that assumption. Even so, he caught himself holding his breath as the plane came over the city. Crashing the Globemaster into the middle of downtown wasn’t going to do anyone any good.

The low bass hum of the plane’s engines continued uninterrupted, at least for the present. Ford chose to take that as a good sign as he peered out a window at their destination. Thick black smoke and heavy cloud cover largely hid the city below, but he could dimly make out immense shapes grappling in the haze. It appeared that the monsters were already locked in mortal combat. They charged at each other like divine beasts out of myth and legend.

Good, Ford thought. Maybe they’ll keep each other occupied while we deal with the warhead.

He removed the family portrait from his pocket and contemplated it one last time. The Brodys as they once were, as he and Elle and Sam could still be, if they survived the perilous hours ahead. It felt as though, one way or another, the unbearable trial that had tested his family for fifteen years was finally coming to a close. He hoped that, against all odds, they could still arrive at a happy ending somewhere down the line.

Glancing around, he saw that the other HALO jumpers were each preparing themselves in their own way. Photos of loved ones were cherished and heads were bowed in prayer or meditation. Everyone appeared deep in thought, searching for the courage and will to do what needed to be done, as well as remembering why exactly it mattered so very much. Across from Ford, a redheaded young soldier prayed softly to himself, reading aloud from a pocket Bible:

“… now as we leave one another, remember the comrades who are not with us today. ‘And He will send His angels with great trumpets.’”

The loadmaster’s booming voice roused everyone from their private thoughts.

“One minute, one more time!” he announced. “No comms at all down below. Use your flares to stay together!”

The rear bay doors opened and a ferocious rush of air drowned out any further discussion. Row by row, the HALO jumpers rose from their seats and headed briskly toward the ramp. The first in line ignited their flares and leapt out of the plane.

Here we go, Ford thought.

Ford returned the photo to his pocket and got his oxygen mask in place. HALO stood for High Altitude, Low Opening, which made the breathing apparatus a must. Joining the line, he made his way toward the ramp. Despite his resolve, he felt more than a flicker of trepidation. He was a Navy bomb disposal tech, not a Special Forces guy. He didn’t have a lot of experience with HALO jumps.

He didn’t hesitate when his turn came, however. Sucking down a deep breath of O₂, he threw himself out of the plane… for Elle’s sake.

The roaring in his ears went away, and the world went strangely quiet. All that could be heard was the thin air whistling faintly above the clouds. He extended his arms and legs to slow his fall, as he’d been instructed, while accelerating toward terminal velocity. Dozens of paratroopers free-fell through the darkening sky. Blood-red smoke trailed from the blazing flares strapped to their ankles as they descended toward the embattled city like falling angels, minus the trumpets. Lightning flashed in the turbulent clouds and smoke below. Thunder rumbled, but Ford had no idea if it was coming from the storm or the clashing monsters or some dreadful combination thereof. His own flare ignited as he plunged into the clouds.

Falling at nearly 125 miles per hour, he passed quickly through the clammy mist, somehow managing to avoid being electrocuted by a random bolt of lightning. The downtown area — or what was left of it — came into view. The devastation was staggering. Despite what he’d already witnessed overseas, Ford was shocked by what he saw.

A giant sinkhole, much like the one in Japan, had swallowed Chinatown. A wide path of destruction, like the one in Hawaii, had torn across The Embarcadero to Telegraph Hill, where Godzilla and the male MUTO could be glimpsed fighting amidst crumbling high-rises and residential buildings. Clouds of smoke and dust billowed up from the war zone. Fires blazed within the demolished buildings. As in Honolulu, Godzilla had the advantage of size over the other monster, but the male appeared in no hurry to retreat this time. The winged creature was standing its ground, with the surrounding neighborhoods paying the price. Angry snarls and screeches were punctuated by crashing buildings. Thunderclaps, reverberating overhead, provided a percussive soundtrack to the cataclysmic tussle, whose outcome seemed far from certain. It was survival of the fittest — on a grandiose scale.

Ford dropped between rows of buildings that blocked his view of the battling monsters. He tugged on his ripcord and was yanked upward as his main canopy deployed. A square, “ram-air” parafoil inflated above him and he used the steering toggles to come in for a landing on a rubble-strewn street somewhere in the ruins of the Financial District. He touched down with an awkward stutter-step onto the cracked and broken pavement, without actually falling or breaking anything, and stumbled to a halt.

Whew, he thought. Made it.

He was relieved to be back on solid ground again. Tugging off his oxygen mask, he took a deep breath of real air, which smelled of smoke and ash. He glanced around warily, but did not spy any monsters in his immediate vicinity. Smashed skyscrapers jutting up from the ravaged streets suggested that the monsters had already passed through this district, leaving little intact. Night had fallen so that only the glow from scattered fires illuminated the darkened city. From the sound of things, however, the beasts were still raging several blocks away. It dawned on him that he’d had yet to see the female MUTO, the one that had attacked the missile train. He had to assume that it was abroad as well.

Better keep my eyes out for that bitch, he thought.

Shedding his ‘chute, which was draped over the rubble, he hastily rescued a rifle and flashlight from his gear bag and fitted the light to the barrel of his gun. A gust of wind blew aside the voluminous nylon canopy, exposing charred human bodies lying amidst the debris, half-buried beneath fallen chunks of masonry. A blackened arm stretched lifelessly from beneath a mass of crumbling concrete and rebar.

More collateral damage, Ford realized, of the timeless feud between Godzilla and the MUTOs. He winced at the sight, wondering briefly whom the burned bodies had belonged to and what families would mourn them, but he also knew that the death rate would skyrocket unless he and his comrades completed their mission and disarmed the stolen warhead. He had to keep moving.

Anxious to reconnect with the others, Ford looked up and down the damaged and deserted streets. The unsettling darkness failed to mask the extreme damage done to his hometown. Once known as “The Wall Street of the West,” the Financial District now looked as though the Big One had finally hit. Gleaming towers of glass and steel, built to withstand all but the most powerful earthquakes, were now smoking husks. A toppled skyscraper leaned precarious against its neighbor. Broken glass, mangled steel beams, and crumbling blocks on concrete littered the streets and sidewalks. Elevated sky-bridges had crashed to earth. The Transamerica Pyramid, once the tallest structure in the city, was missing its tip and several of its upper stories. Abandoned cars, trucks, and buses had been crushed by falling debris.

Ford stared aghast at the devastation. The monsters had done all this — in less than an hour?

A titanic roar jolted him back to the crisis at hand. Ford spotted more soldiers running up a street one block over. He hustled after them, readying his gear on the run. A rifle hadn’t done him much good against the female up in the mountains, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to go up against the creatures unarmed. Better to go down fighting if he had to.

Panting, he caught up with several other soldiers. An EOD specialist named Bennett was busily assembling a device that resembled a Geiger counter, while the other soldiers conferred tersely, comparing notes on what they’d seen on the way down. Ford figured that some of them were still coming to grips with laying eyes on the monsters for the first time.

Bennett finished assembling the tracking device. It started clacking immediately, especially when he pointed it up toward Chinatown, where the warhead was reported to be.

“We’re moving up the hill,” their jumpmaster said gruffly. “Keep it spread out. Move out!”

The soldiers took only a moment to get their bearings before jogging up Grant Avenue. Within minutes, they passed through the ruins of the “Dragon Gate” at the southern entrance to Chinatown. Fallen ceramic tiles shattered beneath their boots, while the head of one of the gateway’s two guardian dragons stared up from the rubble. Advancing into the heart of Chinatown, they hurried past trampled shops, temples, banks, and restaurants. An upended cable car lay on its side, squashed bodies spilling out of it. A street lamp crafted to resemble a bright red pagoda leaned precariously over the obliterated avenue. Colorful flags and banners lay trampled on the ground. As they neared the crest of the hill, the infernal orange glow of an unseen fire could be seen through a dense wall of smoke. The veiled flames, and the clacking of the tracking device, drew the troops on.

Getting warmer, Ford thought. Let’s hope we don’t run into any company.

One by one, the soldiers warily entered the haze. Ford found his visibility cut almost to zero and relied on the flashlight mounted on his rifle to pierce the smoke. He aimed the beam at the ground before him to keep his footing, but then his flashlight dimmed. He smacked it with his palm, hoping to restore it, but the beam kept flickering. By now, Ford knew that meant.

A MUTO was near.

He wasn’t the only soldier experiencing technical difficulties or aware of their significance. He spied other flashlights sputtering in the smoke. Alert troops hefted their weapons and took cover behind wrecked and overturned cars. Ford darted behind a crushed SUV. The jump master, Quinn, whistled and put a finger to his lips, signaling quiet.

Damn right, Ford thought. The last thing they wanted to do was attract a monster’s attention.

But while the rest of them kept quiet, the tracking device was clacking louder than ever. Ford flinched at the racket as Bennett aimed the device straight ahead at the smoke and flames. He nodded at Quinn, who got the message.

The warhead was close.

The wall of smoke thinned out, revealing the female crouched above the giant sinkhole Ford had spotted from above. An involuntary shudder went through Ford; the last time he’d seen this creature, it had been tearing apart the bridge and locomotive in the mountains, sending Tre and Waltz and the others to their deaths. It hadn’t gotten any less terrifying in the interim. Its six lower limbs straddled the pit, while its smaller forearms were still large enough to qualify as enormous. Drool dripped from its beak. Its bony carapace caught the glare from the fires. Lightning flashed overhead; Ford wondered again if the MUTO was somehow causing it.

Hunkered down behind the available cover, the troops shared frustrated looks. The warhead was apparently down in the sinkhole somewhere, but how were they supposed to get past the female to reach it? Ford glanced at his ticking wristwatch. Time was running out.

Now what?

Ford was stumped, uncertain how to proceed, when booming footsteps shook the night. The thunderous tread triggered immediate flashbacks to Honolulu Airport — and his first sight of an even more colossal monster than the MUTO guarding the pit. The ground shook beneath Ford. Looking back, he already knew what he was going to see.

Godzilla lumbered toward them, cresting the hill behind them. His eyes narrowed as he spied the female. He dropped into a defensive crouch, like a fighter preparing for battle. He threw back his head and roared loud enough that Ford’s heavy-duty helmet provided no protection at all. There was no mistaking the primordial fury in that roar; Ford realized in horror that he and the other soldiers were stuck between the two monsters.

The female responded to the challenge with a defiant howl of its own. It sprang from the sinkhole and skittered across the ruins to face Godzilla. Endangered troopers dashed out of the way of her great, clawed limbs. Ford saw a hind leg crashing down toward him and dived for safety only seconds before it flattened the crumpled SUV he had been hiding behind. Rolling across the broken pavement, he saw the MUTO slam into Godzilla with extreme force. Grappling furiously, they tumbled down the hill, disappearing into the smoke and fog.

This is our chance, Ford realized.

The soldiers sprinted toward the unguarded sinkhole, peering down over its rim. The size and depth of the pit was even more impressive up close; it was possibly even bigger than the sinkhole that had swallowed the nuclear power plant in Japan. At least a block of homes and buildings appeared to have fallen into the pit. Ford did not relish climbing the crumbling, debris-strewn slope in search of the missing warhead. Fires burned down in the stygian depths of the abyss. Smoke rose from below.

Bennett employed his tracker. Rapid clacking pointed the troops toward an open fissure leading down into the side of the sinkhole. A hellish orange glow emanated from what looked like small cave opening. Ford felt the heat of burning wreckage as the soldiers cautiously ventured through the entrance and found themselves inside an uprooted Victorian row house, hanging upside-down from its foundations. An inverted staircase looked like something out of an M.C. Escher drawing. Tinny music issued from an antique music box lying sideways on the ceiling. Ford felt as though he’d stepped through the looking-glass into some sort of surreal fever-dream.

This just keeps getting weirder and weirder, he thought. I can barely remember what normal is anymore.

The troops hurried through the capsized house and out an open doorway. Leaving the bizarre setting behind, they found themselves faced with an infernal vista that could have easily passed for the lower pits of Hell. A huge cavernous burrow had been carved out beneath Chinatown, littered with debris from the ransacked city above. Bits and pieces of the city were strewn about randomly. An overturned gasoline tanker was partially buried in the rubble. A bronze dragon guarded heaps of broken refuse. A church steeple lay on its side.

They descended to the floor of the cavern. Thankfully, their flashlights were working better now that the female had charged off to fight Godzilla. Bright white beams soon located a huge organic shape hanging like a stalactite from the ceiling above them. It took Ford and the others a moment to realize that they had found what they were searching for: the nuclear warhead was encased inside layers of a hardened, translucent secretion. The outermost layers of the shell were still wet and viscous. They oozed slowly down the sides of the trapped weapon.

Ford gazed up at the suspended warhead. He could only assume that the male had brought his prize to the female, perhaps as some sort of courtship ritual. No doubt Serizawa and Graham would have a theory to explain how it all worked, but Ford didn’t care about that right now. All that mattered was disarming the bomb before the detonator went off.

At least we’ve found it, he thought hopefully. Perhaps we still have a chance.

A tremor shook the cavern, causing dust and gravel to rain down on them. It felt like an earthquake, but Ford knew better. The earth was shaking because of the titanic conflict being waged above. Godzilla had hunted the MUTOs halfway around the world, but now the chase was over and the final battle was underway.

With a nuclear warhead added to the mix.

Godzilla clashed with the female in the blazing ruins of the Financial District. Sky-high smoke and flames provided an apocalyptic backdrop to their savage combat, which was being fought furiously amidst the demolished skyscrapers. Godzilla snapped and slashed at the female, who locked her jaws onto his scaly shoulder. The mighty saurian towered at least fifty feet above the vicious, multi-legged parasite and was significantly heavier and stronger as well, but female did not back off. Grimacing in pain, Godzilla tore himself free from the MUTO’s fangs and spun away from her. His spiked tail whipped around to lash the female, who was sent tumbling down Broadway, carving out another swath of destruction. Her flailing arms and legs smashed through buildings large and small. Flames and explosions erupted in her wake.

Sensing victory, Godzilla closed in for the kill. The desperate female hurriedly righted herself and swung one of her clawed middle arms at Godzilla, but he dodged the attack and charged forward to pin her against a high-rise office building. The MUTO thrashed and screeched as Godzilla pummeled her with his fists and snapped at her twisting head and thorax. His jaws were going for her skull when the entire building suddenly collapsed under the force of the struggle. A mountain of sundered steel and concrete caved in on thefemale, burying her beneath the debris.

Snarling, Godzilla loomed above his fallen foe. He raised his right foot over the female, preparing to squash her into the ground, when the male came swooping down from the sky to defend his mate. The winged MUTO barreled into Godzilla, knocking him off his feet. Locked in combat, the monsters rolled across the district, grinding landmark buildings into dust. Their growls and screeches were matched by the rumble of disintegrating hotels, banks, and museums.

The earth shook all the way up to Chinatown.

The seismic shocks were coming fast and furious, causing the entire cavern to tremble and heaps of debris to shift in an unsettling manner, but Ford and the other soldiers redoubled their efforts to liberate the ticking warhead from the hard, resin-like substance it was encased in. They had already managed to break the weapon loose from the ceiling and lower it to the floor of the cavern; now they were chipping away at the sticky secretion with the butts of their rifles. Concentrating on the tip of the re-entry vehicle, they managed to expose enough of the casing that, grunting with effort, they could begin to pry off the nose cone.

Here it comes, Ford thought. Almost there…

To his surprise, the remaining secretion began to pulse with light. Did we trigger that with our hammering, Ford wondered, or was it the tremors? The cool effulgence grew in intensity and began to spread throughout the cavern. The soldiers backed away momentarily, caught off-guard by the unexpected bioluminescence. The glow rippled upward to light up the entire cavern. Ford glanced at the ceiling, where the wavering light now appeared to be concentrated, and gasped in shock.

No longer hidden in darkness, thousands of bulging egg sacs hung from the ceiling, which was positively encrusted with the pulsing organisms. Ford recalled the photos Serizawa had shown him upon the Saratoga as well as the egg he had briefly glimpsed on the underside of the female MUTO in the mountains. As nearly as he could tell, these new sacs were identical to the ones found in the Philippines fifteen years ago. The ones that had eventually spawned the two MUTOs.

They’ve already mated, he realized, and this is their nest.

The fertilized eggs continued to flash, as though reacting to their food source being disturbed. Something had to be done about the eggs, Ford knew, but first they needed to deal with the warhead or nothing else mattered.

The nose cone came loose, clattering onto the floor of the nest. The soldiers huddled around the exposed warhead and detonator. Flashlight beams penetrated the small window above the timing mechanism. The intricate gears continued to turn and engage, ticking down to Armageddon. Moving carefully, despite the urgency of the situation, the men took hold of the warhead by a set of metal handholds and eased it out of the cone-shaped reentry vehicle.

Easy does it, Ford thought.

Godzilla was outnumbered two to one. Acting in tandem, the MUTOs circled their relentless foe, who was undaunted by the odds against him. His eyes narrowed in anticipation of the parasites’ attack. His nostrils flared and he bared his fangs. He roared defiantly, challenging the MUTOs. He had not come all this way to shrink from the battle.

The MUTOs were prey. Dangerous prey, but prey regardless. They had to be destroyed.

Howling in unison, the MUTOs pounced on him from above and below.

A tremor shook the subway platform, causing dust and debris to rain down from the ceiling. Trapped underground, while giant monsters overran the city above, Elle and throng of other frightened people backed away fearfully from the thunderous impact. A baby cried in the arms of a young couple who huddled together fearfully, protecting the child with their own bodies.

Alone and scared, Elle didn’t know whether to envy them for being together or to be thankful that Sam was hopefully far from the embattled city by now. Probably a little bit of both.

She squinted at her phone. There were no new messages from Ford, not that she was likely to get a signal down here. She hoped to God that he was safe and on his way to find her. But would there still be a city left by the time he got here? It sounded like armies were clashing up above.

The lights flickered overhead and her phone died. People gasped and looked up in alarm as the lights sputtered and died, throwing them all into the dark. Panicked people screamed. Blackness swallowed them, so that all that was left was fear — and the earth-shaking sound of monsters destroying the city.

Be careful, Ford, she thought. Wherever you are.

The soldiers lowered the heavy warhead onto the floor of the nest. Divorced from its massive rocket boosters, the warhead was still at least ten feet long and five across. On closer inspection, it was obvious that the casing had been badly damaged during its travails. Bennett tried to pry open the access panel to the timer, but the metal was warped and refused to budge. Quinn and a few of the others added their strength to his, but it was no use. The latch was jammed.

“It’s sealed shut,” Bennett said. “We need time to get this open!”

“We don’t have time,” another soldier objected. “Let’s haul it out of here!”

Ford shoved his way to the front of the huddle and knelt down beside the warhead. He extracted a kit from a Velcro pocket on his flight suit. He unsealed the kit to expose a set of intricate tools, including screw drivers, crimpers, surgical scissors, forceps, tweezers, and a dental mirror. They were similar to the tools he had used to disarm any number of explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had never used them on a nuclear bomb before, but…

“I can do it!” he insisted. “Just give me some light!”

Flashlight beams converged on the latch, providing a steady white light that Ford vastly preferred to the rippling glow of the agitated egg sacs. He tried to tune out the pulsing bioluminescence, and the rumble of the warring monsters, to concentrate on the task at hand. The warhead was the primary threat now. Everything else, even Godzilla, was secondary.

I can do this, he thought. I have to do this.

The city trembled as Godzilla dropped to one knee, besieged by the MUTOs. The parasites’ combined assault was enough to stagger even the mighty leviathan. The male dived at him from above, gouging Godzilla’s dorsal fins with his claws. Broken shards of fin rained down onto the pulverized streets, adding to the heaped debris, even as the female sprang at Godzilla, slashing at his throat with her talons, which sliced through his scaly armor to the vulnerable flesh below. Blood seeped through the bony plates. The female howled triumphantly.

Godzilla reeled beneath the joint attack, but did not fall. His maw opened wide and, choking and gasping, he exhaled a gust of rippling, super-heated vapor. A spark ignited at the back of his throat and a searing blast of blue-white fire sprayed from his jaws.

Taking the full force of the Godzilla’s volcanic breath, the female screeched in agony and collapsed in a heap of twitching arms and legs. Her chitinous exoskeleton was scorched and blackened in places. Ichor leaked from cracks in her shell. Eight limbs vibrated spastically. She wasn’t dead, but she had been hurt and stunned by the blistering incendiary attack. Unable to defend herself, at least for the moment, she was ripe for the kill.

Godzilla climbed back to his feet, like a mountain thrusting up from the earth, and glared at the downed female. He opened his jaws once more, intending to incinerate her completely, but as his fiery breath flared up the male flew in low overhead and clapped his iridescent black wings together. A luminous pulse rippled through the air and snuffed the bioelectric spark in Godzilla’s throat. The draconic flames belching from his jaws sputtered and died out.

Godzilla blinked in confusion. Smoke billowed from his nostrils. He tried again to summon his most powerful weapon, but felt only an irritating tickle within his gullet. The spark refused to ignite. The flames would not come.

Frustrated, he glared at the soaring male, whom had interfered with his kill. He snarled and gnashed his fangs. His tail whipped back and forth in anger.

The male had done this to him. The male would suffer.

Flashlight bulbs exploded inside the nest, so that only the glow of smoldering wreckage and the strobe-like luminosity of the hanging egg sacs lit up the underground burrow. Startled soldiers swore profanely.

“Another EMP!” Bennett exclaimed.

“Bulb just blew,” another EOD specialist blurted. “I’m out.”

Still trying to get at the bomb’s sealed timer, Ford squinted at the jammed latch, which was stubbornly resisting his efforts to get it open. The dimming light only made his task harder. He could barely see what he was doing.

“I need more light,” he said.

In charge of the operation, Quinn made a command decision. “Time for Plan B. Let’s get this thing out of here! Come on, come on!”

Ford understood the man’s reasoning. If they couldn’t disarm the bomb, then maybe they could still get it out to sea before the warhead detonated. He stepped back and let six burly soldiers hoist the warhead by the handles on each side. Grunting in effort, they toted it back the way they’d come, retracing their path up the rubble-covered slope to the inverted doorway of the topsy-turvy Victorian home. Gathering up his tools, Ford hurried after them, only to pause on the threshold of the buried house. He glanced back over his shoulder at the multitude of pulsing egg sacs encrusting the ceiling. There had to be dozens of the eggs, each capable of hatching yet another MUTO.

The enormity of the threat was not lost on Ford. Two MUTOs were bad enough, but an entire swarm of them?

Uh-uh, Ford thought. Not a chance.

He signaled the other men to go on without him. One way or another, he had to end this.

Godzilla and the male faced off amidst the burning skyscrapers. They eyed each other warily, each seeking an advantage or opening. The MUTO glided between the surviving high-rises, keeping just out of reach of Godzilla’s outstretched forearms and claws. Baring his fangs, Godzilla dared the male to get closer.

But the standoff gave the female a chance to recover from Godzilla’s fire breath. Singed and smoking, she rose up on her hind legs and lunged at Godzilla. Hatred burned in her crimson eyes. She screeched in rage, out for revenge.

The male attacked simultaneously.

The upended gasoline tanker was right where Ford had seen it before, partially buried in debris on the floor of the sinkhole. Ford clambered up the exposed underbelly of tanker to reach the pipe valve and hammered at it with the butt of his rifle. He was beyond exhausted, but adrenaline and fear for his family kept him going. A couple of solid whacks bent the valve. Encouraged, Ford pounded it again — and the valve snapped off altogether.

Fuel gushed from the pipe, the gasoline smell invading Ford’s nose and mouth. The fuel spilled down the belly of the tanker onto the floor of the pit, where numerous small fires still smoldered. The gas washed over the bronze dragon and the other debris, streaming toward the flames.

Ford wasn’t going to stick around for the fireworks. Leaping down from the tanker, he landed roughly on the loose debris, twisting his ankle. Despite the pain, he sprinted out of the cavern, making tracks for the surface. His boots pounded against the ceiling of the upside-down Victorian.

This was going to be close.

The MUTOs pressed their attack, ganging up on Godzilla. He staggered backwards down a wide, wrecked boulevard, inflicting yet more damage to the city with every faltering step. His jagged fins scraped against a red granite building, shredding its elegant façade. Gasping for breath, he choked on the swirling smoke and ash and the volatile gases filling his lungs. He tried to burn it all away, but his hot breath caught in his throat, scalding it. Boiling blood and saliva trickled down his gullet.

The male strafed him from above, clawing at Godzilla’s head and shoulders. A half-dozen talons went for his eyes, and Godzilla barely managed to keep them at bay with his snapping jaws. The female sank her fangs into his neck, holding back his muscular forearms with six arms of her own. Godzilla roared in pain, wanting to fry her to ashes, but could muster only a faint crackle of electricity in his throat, which wasn’t enough to ignite the fire. His tail lashed the air, striking only a historic clock tower, which was knocked off its foundations. The tower crashed into an adjacent building, which collapsed onto the block beyond, the wholesale destruction going unnoticed by any of the battling monsters. Bricks and mortar cascaded down onto the battered streets and sidewalks. Flames burst from ruptured fuel lines.

Godzilla was losing ground. Cold reptilian blood streamed from deep bites and claw marks in his scaly hide. The frenzied battle reopened the wounds he had sustained from the planes and tanks. Blood loss sapped his indomitable strength. Weakening, he dropped to one knee, crushing a covered bus stop and an ornamental fountain beneath it. His jaws snapped impotently, unable to latch onto either foe. He growled feebly, grimacing in pain, as the male’s claws carved another chunk out of his fins. A beaked jaw pecked at his skull, while the female’s fangs embedded themselves deeper into his throat. Down on one knee, it was all Godzilla could do to keep semi-upright. The MUTOs had him on the defensive.

He was fighting for his life — and he was losing.

Breathing hard, his heart pounding, Ford had just made it out of the pit when he heard the gasoline-flooded sinkhole burst into flames. A tremendous whoosh of heat and light came rushing up from the underground nest. Ford kept on running, desperate to put plenty of distance between himself and the newborn inferno, but his boot caught on a fallen street sign, slowing his escape.

Damn it!

He yanked his boot loose a moment too late. The pit exploded in flames behind him, throwing burning debris in all directions. The force of the explosion flipped Ford and sent him flying away from the blast. An enormous fireball erupted from the butchered heart of Chinatown.

Thick black smoke enveloped Ford and everything went dark.

The fireball rose high into the stormy sky. The billowing conflagration was visible all the way down to the ravaged Financial District, where a primeval battle for survival was playing out on a Brobdingnagian scale. The explosion caught the monsters’ attention, interrupting their elemental fight to the death.

The female started in shock, sensing the danger to her nest. Her limbs drew back spasmodically. Her red eyes rolled in their sockets. Instantly forgetting about Godzilla, she yanked her fangs from his neck and bounded away from him. Landing heavily on the razed street, she scurried away from the fight, heading back uphill toward Chinatown. A keening wail betrayed her distress… and fury.

Intent on her burning nest, she rushed right past the troops bearing the warhead, ignoring the minuscule soldiers as they hauled the bomb downhill through the Financial District toward the bay. A collective shudder went through the men as the nightmarish arthropod briefly crossed their path, but they did not question their good fortune when she left them alone. Leaving Chinatown behind, they hustled as quickly as they could with their ticking burden, making it another block before a gigantic clawed foot slammed down from the sky directly in front of them. They tilted their heads back in order to take in the awe-inspiring owner of the foot.

No longer outnumbered, Godzilla rose to his feet and roared ferociously at the sky. Blood poured from deep gashes on his throat, but he was free of the female’s biting jaws at last. He bared his fangs at the flying male, taunting him, and swung his tail back and forth. Scarred fins shed loose chunks of scale and bone. Godzilla raised his clawed fists and waited for his remaining foe.

The enraged male took the bait. It dived at its enemy, but this time Godzilla was ready for him. Unencumbered by a second foe, he lunged forward and caught the MUTO’s left wing in his jaws. He bit down hard, shredding its hard protective sheath and the veiny membrane beneath. His fangs punched through the scales covering the underside of the wing.

The male screeched and spat, flapping wildly in a frantic attempt to free his wing. His entire body bucked and twisted, but Godzilla just bit down harder, clenching his jaws to keep his prey from escaping. Broken scales, the size of roof tiles, fell from Godzilla’s jaws onto the rubble below. The wing crunched beneath his fangs. Ichor spurted into his mouth.

Godzilla tasted victory.

Desperate and dying, the male tore himself free, leaving a huge segment of wing behind. The shredded segment twitched between Godzilla’s jaws for a moment or two before going limp and lifeless. He spit the chewed-up wing parts onto the street and growled menacingly at the crippled parasite.

Who was winning now?

Screeching in agony, the male fluttered erratically above the ruins. Barely able to stay aloft, the MUTO was mortally wounded, but Godzilla wasn’t done with him yet. With the last of his strength, Godzilla charged at the injured creature. Battered and bleeding, he drove the male through a fifty-story skyscraper two blocks away, destroying the building. Thousands of tons of glass and steel and concrete caved in around the monsters, entombing them in a mountain of fresh debris. The male’s dying howl was lost in the deafening roar of the skyscraper’s collapse. A tremendous cloud of smoke and dust rose to hide the destruction.

The city streets shuddered.

Another tremor, even stronger than before, shook the blacked-out subway station. Dust and debris fell from the ceiling and the subway entrance caved in. Trapped in the dark with dozens of equally panicked strangers, Elle screamed as the impact knocked her off her feet.

Sparks sprayed from the bottom of the damaged warhead as the soldiers dragged down it down an evacuated pier at Fisherman’s Wharf. A tour boat offering “See the bay” cruises was tied up in a slip. Cursive writing on its prow identified the boat as the Angel of the Bay. Commandeering the vessel, the troops lugged the warhead up the gangway.

Quinn raced ahead of his men to reach the helm. Prying open the ignition panel, he struggled to hot-wire the vessel, while keeping one eye on the bomb and the burning city behind them. The monsters appeared occupied at the moment, but it was only a matter of time before one of the MUTOs started tracking the recovered warhead. Quinn wanted to be well out to sea before that happened.

He realized that the odds that he and his men would be able to get away from the bomb before it exploded were shrinking by the minute, but he couldn’t think about that now. Their lives would be a small price to pay if they saved San Francisco from going the way of Hiroshima. That would still leave the rampaging monsters to deal with, but someone else was going to have to get that job done. Just keeping the warhead from destroying the city was good enough for him.

He trusted that every one of his men felt the same.

The pier rattled and shook. Looking up, Quinn spotted the female charging onto the hilltop where Chinatown had once been. Lieutenant Ford’s work, no doubt. The eight-legged creature was silhouetted against the blazing fire consuming her nest. Quinn smiled grimly. He hoped the murderous monster choked on the fumes.

So much for your babies, bitch.

Now they just needed to get the bomb clear of the city. Sweating, he revved the engines, which fired up noisily. The ship’s lights came on.

All right, Quinn thought. That’s more like it!

An anguished wail roused Ford from unconsciousness. At first he thought maybe it was just the ringing in his ears, left over from the explosion, but then his eyes fluttered open to see the female towering above him, howling over the destruction of her nest. Her charred carapace had seen better days, but she still looked perfectly capable of wiping Ford out with one flick of a claw.

Like the MUTO, Ford was in bad shape. His flight suit was torn and scorched. Soot caked his face and his hair and eyebrows were singed. Blood seeped from countless cuts and scrapes, some serious. Nothing seemed broken, but his already-battered body felt as though it had been dragged for miles behind a locomotive. His mouth tasted of blood and ash and a couple of his teeth were loose. Every muscle ached and his head was throbbing. The ringing in ears melded with the wail of the angry MUTO.

Ford held his breath, hoping to escape the monster’s notice. A racking cough threatened to escape his chest, but he clenched his jaws to hold it in. He had survived the female’s attack on the missile train. Maybe he could do so again, or had his luck finally run out?

The MUTO’s glowing sensors twitched and her huge anvil-shaped head began to swing toward Ford. Sprawled helplessly amidst the rubble of a demolished street, he figured he was a goner. He could only pray that he was buying time for Quinn and the others to get the warhead out of the city. His biggest regret was that he hadn’t managed to reunite his family one last time.

Goodbye, Elle. I’m sorry I didn’t make it back to you.

He braced himself for the end, hoping it would be quick at least, but then the female paused and turned her attention downhill instead, where the deck lights of a tour boat could be glimpsed through the smoky haze. Pivoting atop her mammoth limbs, she lumbered downhill toward the waterfront. Ford guessed that she was going after the other soldiers — and the warhead.

Forgotten by the MUTO, Ford let out a gasp that turned into a violent coughing jag. He spat blood onto the fractured pavement and debris. His head spun and it would have been easy to slip back into unconsciousness, leaving the fight to others, but instead, wincing in pain, he climbed awkwardly to his feet and limped downhill after the monster. Blood soaked through clothes, making them stick to his skin. Bruised ribs ached in protest. He wasn’t sure what he could do in his current condition, especially against a furious three-hundred-foot-tall insect monster, but he knew one thing for sure. The city — and Elle — were still in danger.

And he had a mission to fulfill.

Crap, Quinn thought. She’s coming for us.

The pier shook as the female charged down the hill toward the wharf. The warhead landed with a thud on the deck of the tour boat and a soldier raced to unhitch the dock-line binding the vessel to the slip. Quinn’s hand hovered impatiently on the throttle as he watched the monster close in on them.

Could the female swim? Quinn had no idea, but maybe there was still a chance they could leave the MUTO behind before it reclaimed the warhead. As the line came free, he thought, Let’s get the hell out of here!

He revved the throttle — and the engine died.

Quinn cursed and slammed the helm with his fist. A shadow fell over the boat, blocking the light from the fires, and he looked up to see the female looming over the wharf. A pulsing electromagnetic aura emanated from her immense form. The EMP had killed the engines, but not, unfortunately, the warhead counting down on the deck. The soldiers on the boat stared up in horror at the MUTO.

We’re screwed, Quinn realized.

Despite his injuries, Ford hurried toward the wharf as fast as he could manage. At least it was downhill all the way; in his current state, he wasn’t sure he could manage a steep climb. Gravity was on his side for once, which was about the only advantage he had going for him. He stumbled through the ruins of the Financial District, overwhelmed by the devastation surrounding him, which made the ghost town back in the Q-Zone seem like a vacation spot by comparison. The air was thick with dust and ash, irritating Ford’s eyes and throat. Charred paper from busted-out offices wafted down from above like snow. Lightning streaked the cloudy night sky. Dawn was still hours away. Ford wondered if the city would be around to greet it.

A loud, rhythmic rasping could be heard over the crackling of the flames and the noisy settling of the collapsed buildings. Puzzled by the unnerving sound, it took Ford a moment to realize that it was the breathing of an enormous beast, coming from far too close at hand. He slowed to stop and looked around. The suffocating cloud of dust began to settle and he squinted through the haze, searching for the source of the labored breathing. His eyes bulged as he spotted Godzilla lying beneath the ruins of a collapsed skyscraper.

The toppled monster looked as bad as Ford felt. His scaly body was scarred and bleeding, raw muscle and sinew showing through his armored plates in places. An ugly gash stretched across his neck. Stalactite-like fangs were cracked and chipped. Blood and bile dripped from his sagging jaws. His tremendous tail twitched feebly beneath the debris. Ford felt a twinge of sympathy for the injured behemoth, which had inadvertently saved him from the other monsters at least twice. The MUTOs had obviously done a number on him.

You and me both, Ford thought.

For a long moment, man and beast locked eyes across the desolate ruins. Two weary warriors, injured on the same battleground. A severed black wing, protruding from the rubble, gave Ford hope that Godzilla had killed at least the male MUTO. Ford nodded in approval, grateful for the destruction of the creature that had killed his parents and so many others. According to Dr. Serizawa, he recalled, Godzilla had left humanity alone for ages until the MUTOs lured him up from the depths.

Bursts of gunfire down at the wharf jolted Ford from his reverie. Leaving Godzilla behind, he sprinted toward the action, tracking bloody boot prints behind him.

Looks like my war’s not over yet.

Racing downhill on adrenaline, he saw Quinn and the others opening fire on the female from the deck of a commandeered tour boat. The men unloaded their M4s at the MUTO in a final, defiant blaze of glory. Muzzles flashed and bullets flew, chipping away at the monster’s scorched black carapace. Smoke filled the air between the troops and the female, but Ford spied the warhead resting on the deck of the boat, which appeared dead in the water. He hoped Bennett had managed to disarm it already, but suspected that was just wishful thinking.

The countdown was still on.

The female reared backwards on her hind legs, momentarily taken aback by the troops’ firepower. Then, screeching furiously, she lashed out with an upper middle arm and swept all the annoying humans from the boat with a single motion. A hooked talon sheared off the roof of the cabin.

Ford froze, stunned by the speed with which Quinn and Bennett and the rest had been wiped out. For a moment, he thought he was on his own until two more soldiers emerged from defensive positions along the wharf. They signaled Ford to make for the boat — and the warhead — while they provided cover.

“Go, go!” they hollered.

The men opened fire on the female from behind, getting her attention. She whirled about to confront them, murder in her blood-red eyes. Spittle sprayed from her snapping beak. Ford feared for the other men’s safety, but took advantage of the distraction they were heroically providing. Sprinting down to the waterfront, he raced across the dock and leapt onto the stranded tour boat. Ignoring the blood splattered across the deck, he hurried to the helm, which was now roofless and exposed to the elements. He tried to gun the engine, but to no avail; the MUTO’s disruptive sphere of influence was still in effect. Frustrated, he scrambled back down the deck and attempted to drag the warhead below and out of sight of the MUTO, but the bomb was far too heavy for just one man to manage. It wasn’t going anywhere.

Ford put his rifle aside. Desperate to get the warhead away from the city and the MUTO, in that order, he grabbed a pole and tried to shove off from the dock. It took all his remaining strength, but the boat only drifted a few yards out into the bay before ending up dead in the water again. It floated listlessly upon the surf, not remotely far enough away from the city to make the slightest difference. Shell casings rolled noisily across the pitching deck. Ford glanced anxiously at his watch. The mushroom cloud was less than fifteen minutes away.

Now what was he supposed to?

The gunfire halted abruptly, which told Ford that his remaining comrades had probably not survived their assault on the female. The boat rotated slowly in the water, so that the waterfront came into view before him.

And so did the female.

She leaned out over the boat, which was still easily within her grasp. The glowing sensors on her snout twitched. Drool dripped from her maw as she gazed greedily at the warhead. Her clawed forearms flexed in anticipation.

Does she know I’m the one that torched her nest, Ford wondered, or is she just after the warhead?

Not that it really mattered. He reached instinctively for his rifle, only to find it lying out of reach on the deck a few yards away. He slumped against a railing, exhausted and defeated. He’d fought the good fight, but there was nowhere left to run and nothing left to do. The boat was dead, the bomb was live, and the monster had him cornered at last. This time there was no bridge to dive off.

So long, Elle, Sam, he thought again. You’ll never know how much I loved you.

The female lowered her jaws toward him, so that Ford found himself face to ugly face with the giant MUTO. Her breath was hot and smelled of ozone. Sticky orange pus oozed from her burns. With nothing to lose, he formed a gun with his fingers and pointed it right between the female’s eyes. A wry smile lifted the corners of his lips.

“Pow,” he mouthed.

The female snorted. She drew back a clawed arm to dispose of this final nuisance. Ford readied himself for the fatal blow, then experienced a sudden surge of hope as he spotted something above and behind the MUTO.

Something big.

The female’s slavering maw opened wide, but her hostile screech was drowned out by a louder, more commanding roar that rang out across the waterfront and perhaps even the entire city. Ford gazed in awe at his unexpected savior.

Godzilla, King of the Monsters, loomed behind the MUTO. His scaly hide torn and battered, his dorsal fins cracked or broken off completely, he swayed unsteadily upon his mammoth legs like a twelfth-round boxer making his final stand. His endless tail was braced against the ground behind him, helping to keep him upright. He looked almost as spent as Ford, but an indomitable fury still blazed within his fierce eyes. He wasn’t done yet.

Startled, the female whipped around to face her enemy. A furious howl issued from her throat, but was abruptly cut off — by a blast of volcanic blue fire.

Godzilla’s fiery breath staggered the MUTO. With a single swipe of his arm, he decapitated the other creature whose lower limps crumpled beneath her as she crashed lifelessly onto the pier, crushing it beneath her weight. Her head went flying into the bay, where it sank from sight. Dislodged docks and pilings splashed into the bay. Water splashed onto the creature’s headless remains.

Ford’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t believe it.

The MUTO was dead.

Almost immediately, the lights began to come back on in what was left of the city. Streetlights flared to life and the bright lights of Fisherman’s Wharf returned despite the lack of any tourists to enjoy them. With both MUTOs deceased, their sphere of influence had popped like a soap bubble.

Thanks to Godzilla.

Serizawa started as, abruptly, the power came back on in the Tac-Ops trailer. Dead video screens awoke and fresh data began feeding into the mobile command center. Startled analysts and technicians looked at each other in confusion, but Serizawa understood.

He did it, he realized. Godzilla destroyed the MUTOs… as Nature intended.

He and Graham exchanged looks of relief until he realized that the countdown clock on the wall was still ticking down to a thermonuclear explosion. Concentric circles, spreading out on illuminated maps and simulations, confirmed that the warhead was now down by the waterfront, which put the entire city still squarely within the blast zone.

But at least Admiral Stenz and his forces were no longer blinded and crippled by the MUTO’s electromagnetic pulses. Perhaps there was still hope.

Stenz appeared to think so. He nodded urgently at Captain Hampton.

“Go,” he ordered. “Go!”

Seconds later, Serizawa heard a helicopter taking off outside.

Ford watched in wonder as, block by block, the surviving street lamps came on across the city. The comforting glow of the lamps combatted the harsh black smoke from the fires. On the waterfront, standing victorious over his fallen foe, Godzilla tottered and dropped onto a massive knee. His weight squashed the headless body of the female, which spurted a gooey ichor over the crumbling piers. Godzilla’s shoulders slumped in exhaustion. Ford guessed that it had taken the very last of the great reptile’s strength to dispose of the final MUTO once and for all. Godzilla’s labored breathing could be heard across the water. The monster’s eyelids drooped. He appeared utterly spent.

Ford knew just how he felt.

He slumped against boat’s exposed helm, all too aware that the armed warhead rendered the MUTOs’ defeat academic. It was possible, he supposed, that Godzilla might survive the blast, as he had back in ’54, but San Francisco was doomed regardless. Ford prayed that somehow, against the odds, Elle had managed to make it out of the city after all. With any luck, she and Sam would survive.

Dropping to his own knees, he was on the verge of passing out when the boat’s engines suddenly revved to life. A fresh jolt of adrenaline rushed through Ford as he scrambled to his feet and jammed the throttle.

The boat shot away from the docks and out into the bay. Losing blood and strength, Ford clung to the helm and fought to stay conscious. Within minutes, the mangled remains of the Golden Gate Bridge came into the view. Ford steered the boat toward the strait and the open sea beyond. He could barely stand and felt light-headed, but he kept bearing down on the throttle.

Hang on, he ordered himself. Just a little bit further…

In the command trailer, all eyes were locked onto the screen monitoring the warhead. The radial circles denoting the blast zone were swiftly shifting across the map. The warhead was on the move again, but was it going fast enough? Time was running out.

Serizawa twisted the stem of his pocket watch.

A resounding crash echoed across the bay. Glancing behind him, Ford saw Godzilla collapse onto the wharf. Blocks of world-famous waterfront were crushed beneath the monster’s sprawled form. For a moment, Ford thought Godzilla was dead, but then he saw the fallen giant’s chest heaving ponderously. The huge saurian was wheezing audibly with every breath.

Ford looked away from the debilitated monster, turning his gaze back toward the strait ahead. Godzilla had done his part, ridding the world of the MUTOs. Now Ford had to make sure that the goliath’s victory was not a Pyrrhic one and that the remainder of San Francisco would not be consumed by thermonuclear fire, like that atoll in the South Pacific so many years ago.

His vision began to blur. Ford shook his head to clear it, but he knew he was nearing his limit if he hadn’t already passed it before now. Fresh blood pooled at his feet. He felt chilled and dizzy. Given all he’d been through the last few days, it was a wonder that he was still standing at all, but none of that would matter if he didn’t complete this final mission. He wondered if this was how his dad had felt right before the Janjira plant melted down.

Probably not, he thought. Unlike Joe, he had no doubts or unanswered questions to torment him. Everything was very simple now; Ford knew exactly what he had to do. He glanced back at the bomb on the deck and peered at his watch to see how much time he had left, but the digital display blurred and wavered before his eyes. It was getting harder and harder to focus.

No matter, he decided. Just keep going as long as you can. Either it will be enough… or it won’t.

A peculiar calm descended on him. The world and its cares began to recede from his consciousness, becoming fuzzy and dream-like. The surreal image of the sundered Bridge appeared before him and he sped the tour boat beneath the jarring gap in its span. Leaving the bay behind, he navigated the boat through the floating debris out into the wide open waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Keep going, he thought.

His rubbery legs gave out beneath him and he eased himself down onto the deck, guiding the wheel with just his fingertips. It didn’t really matter where he went now, just so long as it was away from the mainland… and his family. Darkness encroached on his vision and the sound began to drain away from the world as well. A comforting stillness, very different from the tumult he’d been enduring for days now, beckoned to him, offering him peace and quiet at last. All he had to do was let go.

He wondered if he would see his Mom and Dad again.

But a loud, whirring noise intruded on his hard won serenity. He frowned as the noise grew louder and more insistent, dragging him back into the world. His eyes, which had closed without him even noticing, flickered. He tilted his head back in annoyance.

What the hell?

Bizarrely, a voice called out to him, so faintly that it might just be a dream:

“… uuuu…”

Ford stirred, annoyed by the disturbance. A glaring white light shone into his eyes, forcing him to look away. He listened again for the unlikely voice. Had he actually heard something or had he just imagined it?

“… uuuuten…”

There it was again! Squinting into the glare, he saw a blurry object sweeping through the light. He tried to focus, but the blur wouldn’t stay put. It was there and gone, there and gone, there and gone. Like the tip of a helicopter rotor!

“LIEUTENANT!”

The voice shouted over the spinning rotors. The chopper’s backwash whipped up the air above the deck, scattering the splintered remains of the truncated cabin. Hundreds of empty shell casings danced atop the deck. Blinking in confusion, Ford dimly glimpsed a figure leaning out the chopper’s side-door, a megaphone before his lips.

“LIEUTENANT!”

The rescue ‘copter kept pace above the boat. Gloved hands seized Ford and looped his arms into a vest. Only half-conscious, he vaguely registered being lifted from the bloody deck of the boat into the light. Skilled hands hoisted him aboard the chopper, which immediately swung around and sped back toward the bay as fast as humanly possible. Slumped in the crew compartment behind the cockpit, he stared numbly back at the ocean.

The last thing he saw, before passing out, was a tremendous flash of light miles behind them. Night briefly turned into day.

A mushroom cloud rose above the Pacific.

Dawn found the devastated city on the road to recovery.

Fire crews worked tirelessly to douse fires, leaving blackened husks behind. Rescue workers helped shell-shocked citizens from the subway tunnels under the city. Volunteers scoured the wreckage for survivors. Emergency vehicles, their sirens blaring, braved the surviving streets. Helicopters airlifted casualties to neighboring hospitals. There was already talk of a website and televised concert to raise money for disaster relief. The president was supposed to be on his way.

Down by the waterfront, crowds of people began to gather near the prostrate body of Godzilla, coming to see the great beast for themselves. National Guards kept the onlookers at a distance, while TV journalists and camera crews reported live from the scene. Wandering amidst the other pilgrims, Serizawa overheard snatches of the reporters’ spiels.

“In a city spared from fallout by prevailing winds, many feel another force of nature protected them today…”

“Gathering here to witness the fallen creature in what may well be its death throes…”

Serizawa contemplated the downed leviathan, feeling privileged to be able to behold Godzilla in the flesh, after devoting much of his life to merely studying reports of such creatures. Even sprawled atop the demolished piers, appearing barely alive, the formidable mega-saurian was humbling to behold. Serizawa found it hard to believe that such as Godzilla could truly expire from his injuries, and yet there was a skeleton buried in the Philippines that proved that even the mightiest of predators was mortal. Death, too, was part of Nature’s grand design.

Was he truly witnessing the passing of a legend?

Blocks away, volunteers were excavating a buried BART station. A neighboring building had collapsed on top of the subway entrance, all but entombing it. Collapsed and flooded tunnels had made reaching the station a challenge. It was unclear whether there were any survivors left below, but the crew hauled away the heavy wreckage, just in case. The leader of the crew was growing increasingly skeptical of their chances of rescuing anyone, but then, over the grunting of the workers and the incessant wailing of the sirens, he thought he heard something.

“QUIET!” he shouted.

A hush fell over the site. Straining his ears, he heard it again: a babble of voices calling faintly from beneath the rubble. The crew reacted immediately, clearing away the debris as fast as they could. Hope and excitement lent strength to their efforts. A huge chunk of fallen masonry was rolled out of the way, leaving only a layer of smaller rubble behind.

A hand thrust up from the ruins, reaching for the light.

News footage from the city played on the Jumbotron screen at Oakland Coliseum across the bay from San Francisco. A caption along the bottom of the screen identified Godzilla as the “King of Monsters.”

Sounds about right, Ford thought.

He and Sam wandered through the crowded stadium, which had been repurposed to serve as an emergency relief center for thousands of injured and displaced survivors. Ford cradled Sam in his arm while limping on a crutch. His twisted ankle had swollen up badly, but Ford couldn’t sit still, not until he found out what had happened to Elle. A grateful Admiral Stenz had offered to see that Ford and Sam got whatever care they needed, but Ford had insisted on being transported to the Coliseum so he could look for Elle. This was where they were bringing the bulk of the refugees, so this was where he needed to be. Bruised and bandaged, he searched the teeming stadium, looking in vain for his missing wife.

The bomb didn’t go off downtown, he reminded himself. She could have survived.

He circled back to the Coliseum’s main entrance, where a fresh crop of survivors appeared to have arrived. Dozens of dazed men and women staggered into the stadium, while others had to be transported by stretchers, gurneys, or wheelchairs. Thick layers of dirt and ash coated the new arrivals, obscuring their identities. Ford peered past the blood and soot masking the strangers. What if he missed Elle because he didn’t recognize her right away?

He was hardly the only person desperately searching for a lost loved one. A ragged mob of survivors waited behind cordons, anxiously scanning the faces of the survivors. A lucky few had their prayers answered. Calling out the names of friends and family, they pushed their way through the crowds to be reunited with husbands, wives, children, parents, or whoever else they had been worried sick about. Tears of joy streamed from faces, people hugged each other deliriously. It was like the “Welcome Home!” reception at the Air Force base a few days ago, only twice as heart-rending. Until this moment, none of these people had even known if the other was still alive.

Ford was happy for them, but he envied them as well. He gazed down at Sam, who looked crushed by the fact that his mom did not appear to be among the arriving refugees. The naked anxiety and disappointment on his son’s face tore at Ford’s heart. Sam’s tiny fingers clutched the toy soldier he had rescued from Japan. Father and son had both come through the crisis intact, more or less, and found their way back to each other, but there was still a gaping hole in their family.

Where are you, Elle?

His ankle killing him, Ford turned away from the cordon, looking for someplace he and Sam could rest until the next batch of the survivors arrived. He began to limp toward a first-aid station, hoping to secure them a spare cot. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a decent night’s sleep.

“MOMMY!”

Sam’s jubilant cry electrified Ford. He spun around, almost afraid to hope.

The boy leapt from Ford’s arms and charged into the crowd. Ford was briefly alarmed, afraid that he would lose Sam in the crush, but then Elle emerged from the mob, dirty and disheveled, but walking on her own two legs. Sam sprang into her arms and she hugged him close, laughing and crying at the same time. Lifting her eyes, she spotted Ford limping toward them. A radiant smile shone through the soot and dust soiling her beautiful face.

Ford had never seen anything so beautiful.

Crutch or no crutch, he couldn’t get to her fast enough. They crashed together, squeezing Sam between them, as they embraced beneath the open roof of the stadium. The sun beamed down on them, warming them with its light. The storm had passed and they were together again.

A family.

“He’s moving! He’s moving!”

The cry echoed throughout the crowd keeping vigil over Godzilla. Dusk was falling and the mob of spectators had grown and multiplied over the day. Debris tumbled onto the pier as the monster’s chest heaved and he drew a vigorous breath. A ripple ran down his tail, shaking loose the dust and ash that had accumulated on it. His nostrils twitched.

He’s waking, Serizawa realized.

The crowd drew back in both fear and wonder. Many of the spectators turned and fled, having suddenly reconsidered the wisdom of coming to see the unpredictable monster, while others remained rooted in place, transfixed by the unbelievable sight before them. Serizawa nodded solemnly to himself. Godzilla was Nature incarnate, eternally resilient and unstoppable. He would not succumb so easily. The monster’s eyes opened, meeting Serizawa’s, and, for a moment, they seemed to understand each other.

Your work here is done, the scientist thought. The world is in balance once more.

The moment passed and Godzilla shook his colossal head, as though clearing the cobwebs from his skull. National Guards hurriedly tried to disperse the crowds, who needed little encouragement to get out of the stirring behemoth’s way. People fled up the hill, away from the waterfront, leaving the shore to Godzilla, who stretched his enormous limbs and flexed his claws. Serizawa let the crowd carry him to safety, but his gaze remained fixed on the breathtaking spectacle before him.

Slowly, surely, Godzilla rose to his feet. Scarred but no longer bleeding, he stood like a mountain above the city he had claimed from the voracious MUTOs. His enemies were dead and rotting, but he had survived to tower over the world like the legend he was. Nature, red in tooth and claw, had created him to be the ultimate predator and he had claimed that title beyond any doubt. Where humanity and all its technology had failed, he alone had saved the planet from being overrun by a plague of giant parasites.

But would he now leave humanity in peace?

All across the ravaged city, helpless humans held their breath as Godzilla paused between the city and the sea. They watched from rooftops, balconies, hills, and helicopters as the revived leviathan trudged slowly toward the bay. The earth trembled beneath his cataclysmic tread as it receded from the mainland, wading into the water:

BOOM! Boom! Boom…

Cheers erupted in the Coliseum as the Jumbotron carried live coverage of Godzilla striding back to sea. Glancing up at the screen, Ford wasn’t sure if the hordes of refugees were actually cheering the victorious monster or just his departure.

Probably hefty amounts of both, he guessed.

And, honestly, he didn’t care. While everyone else stared raptly at the giant TV screen, Ford turned away to concentrate on what really mattered: Elle and Sam. He’d seen enough monsters to last a lifetime. From now on, his family was getting his full attention. They were going to make it work after all, just like he’d promised.

He figured his dad would approve.

The sun was setting over the Pacific as Godzilla sank beneath the ocean, returning to the depths. His jagged fins remained above the waves for a moment, slicing through the foam, but they too gradually vanished from sight. The churning waters settled until no hint of the mighty leviathan remained. All was as it was before.

Nature was at peace.

Greg Cox is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous novels and short stories. He has written the official novelizations of such films as Man of Steel, The Dark Knight Rises, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, and the first three Underworld movies, as well as novelizations of various DC Comics miniseries.

In addition, he has written books and stories based on such popular series as Alias, The Avengers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Farscape, The 4400, The Green Hornet, Iron Man, Leverage, Riese: Kingdom Falling, Roswell, Spider-Man, Star Trek, Terminator, Warehouse 13, Xena: Warrior Princess, X-Men, and Zorro. He has received two Scribe Awards from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. He lives in Oxford, Pennsylvania.

His official website is: www.gregcox-author.com.

As my sister recently reminded me, an Aurora plastic model of Godzilla (with Glo-in-the-Dark fins!) stood guard atop the dresser in my bedroom pretty much the whole time we were growing up, which just shows how long Godzilla has been a source of fascination to me. I honestly can’t remember what my first Godzilla movie was. Maybe the American version of the original 1954 classic, with Raymond Burr, or one of the later ones with Mothra and Rodan and the rest. But I have many fond memories of watching Godzilla tear apart Tokyo on TV and the occasional drive-in movie screen, so it was a thrill to be able to recapture that excitement again — and I have a lot of people to thank for that opportunity.

My dad, for making sure I was properly exposed to classic Japanese monster movies in the first place.

My editors, Steve Saffel and Jaime Levine, and the rest of the gang at Titan, including Cath Trechman, Nick Landau, and Alice Nightingale, for signing me up yet again.

My agent, Russ Galen, for ably negotiating on my behalf.

Josh Anderson at Warner Bros., along with Shane Thompson, Jill Benscoter and Spencer Douglas for making sure I had all the materials I needed to write the book. Thank you also to Jamie Kampel from Legendary Pcitures.

Gareth Edwards and the team at Legendary for bringing the King of the Monsters back to the big screen in a big way.

Author Christopher Bennett, for letting me tap into his encyclopedic knowledge of classic kaiju.

And, as always, Karen Palinko for putting up with me while I obsessed over a giant radioactive lizard for weeks on end, and our family of four-legged distractions, Lyla, Sophie, and Henry, just because. Henry sadly left us during the writing of this book, but was a big part of our lives for over twelve years.

We’ll miss you, you little goofball.