“Submarine?” Rosales said. “That’s quite impressive. Where did you get one of those?”
“There is—was—a naval port not far from here. We borrowed one from there, along with a sympathetic crew. Your money in action.”
“I see,” Rosales said. “You will send me the invoice?”
“Wait,” Manch said. “You really—”
“Kidding,” Rosales said. “Just kidding. How you distribute my charitable contribution to your orphan’s fund is quite up to you.”
“Ah,” Manch said. “This is what I thought.”
The helipad opened directly into the offices and control room, all of which Manch had deemed a little cramped for company, so he had set up one of the large screens in the rec room to display the feed from the submarine.
Rosales took a seat when invited, but his men remained standing. Manch put on a pair of headphones with a speaker.
“Mizuno,” he said. “Manch here. Can you give our visitor a view?”
“Just a minute,” the sub’s captain replied.
The screen went blank, then came up again, revealing an underwater view of a large, amorphous presence covered in minute glowing points, as if a pile of leaves had been covered in stars.
“It looks like a giant jellyfish,” Rosales said. “Not what I was expecting.”
“That’s the containment field,” Manch said. “We … ah, borrowed one from one of the ruined Monarch facilities. Underneath the field, it’s quite another story.”
Rosales gazed at the image of the monster on the monitor. He stood, walked over to it, seemed on the verge of stroking the screen.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. Then frowned. “He? She?”
“Both,” Proctor replied. “It can change sex as needed and can be both at once.”
“I see,” Rosales said. “Even better, I suppose. Does it have a name?”
“I worked at its containment facility,” Proctor said. “Before it was destroyed. I was on the crew that found it, all curled up on an old Soviet submarine. We called it Kraken, but the official name is Titanus Na Kika.”
“You worked for Monarch?” Rosales said.
“As a contractor,” Proctor replied. “Nearly cost me my life.”
Rosales nodded, studying the monitor. “Na Kika,” he said. “I like it. Where does that name come from?”
“Kiribati,” Proctor said. “It’s an island nation. The people there worshipped it for centuries before European explorers showed up. Some still do.”
“So underneath all of that, it’s more like an octopus?”
“Something like that,” Proctor said. “A cephalopod, anyway.”
Rosales peered more closely at the screen. “What’s this greenish cloud coming up from it?”
“That’s its blood,” Proctor said. “We wounded it in the capture. Nothing serious. It will heal.”
Rosales smiled. “This is wonderful,” he said. “I’ll have a team come in to assess this situation and prepare for extraction. Now that I’ve finally got one of these in hand, I would hate to make a misstep. Congratulations, gentlemen, you have just received funding for the immediate future. And who knows? I might be able to pull some strings in Moscow when things become more—stable.”
“How large a team are you bringing?” Manch asked. “There aren’t many empty beds here.”
“A handful,” Rosales said. “You’ll hardly know they’re here. I—Say, what’s going on?”
The image had suddenly shifted. The microphone was still on, and Manch suddenly heard a lot of shouting from the submarine.
“Mizuno!” Manch demanded. “What’s happening?”
“We’re coming up!” Mizuno said. “He’s cutting him free.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Godzilla! He just—he’s there, with the squid.”
Manch paused for a second. “Evgeniy, did you hear that? Drop the depth charges. Drop them now!” He turned to Proctor. “Dump the oil, too.”
“Wait!” Rosales said. “What are you doing? That’s my Titan down there.”
“Depth charges won’t hurt them,” Manch said. “But they might blind Godzilla, dampen his sonar or whatever.”
“Until what?” Rosales demanded.
“We have another net,” Manch replied. “On the sub. How would you like to have two Titans?” He switched on his transmitter. “Mizuno, do you have a shot?”
“We’ve dropped it,” the voice came back. “And now we’re—” The man broke off and began swearing in Japanese. They suddenly had a visual: a glowing net, floating down, and something huge and dark moving into it; flashes like chain lightning. Then, abruptly, a column of blue-white light stabbed up through it; and an instant later in the submarine’s floods, a reptilian face, filling the entire view. Mizuno screamed, but the shriek of metal rending drowned him out. Then the screen went dark.
“Oh, shit,” Proctor said.
Rosales stood up. “If you gentlemen don’t mind,” he said, “I believe I’ll catch the rest of this show streaming.” He gestured to his men and they all exited onto the helipad.
“Go ahead,” Manch muttered after him. “I’ve still got a trick or two up my sleeve. Proctor, are the choppers up?”
“They are.”
“When he surfaces, give him the gas.”
“Okay,” Procter said. He sounded dubious.
The door to the radio room banged open and Serj stuck his head out.
“What is it?” Manch demanded.
“Sir, I’ve got a Monarch jet approaching. They have ordered us to stand down.”
Manch bolted out onto the helipad just in time to see Rosales’s helicopter leave. Ignoring them, he climbed up to where they had installed their heavy weapons battery. His own choppers were all in sight, converging.
From the pipes below, oil was pouring into the water, spreading over the sea, like liquid glass in the moonlight. Everything was ready. He had considered the possibility that Na Kika would somehow call help; he had never imagined Godzilla himself would show up, but he had been prepared for another Titan.
The last bubbles from the depth charges surfaced, and for a moment, everything was quiet and still.
Then the sea broke in half, and hell came up from the rift. The moonlight gleamed on reptilian scales as Godzilla heaved into the air and arched against the moon-bright sky. In a heartbeat, Manch’s gunners responded; tracer rounds from heavy-caliber guns streaked through the night; shells and missiles bloomed on the Titan’s armored hide like anemones as the heavier-than-air gas poured out of the choppers.
It’s going to work, he thought, as it did on Na Kika. But deeper down, he heard another voice. The voice
