She held up the little suit. It looks tight, but it’s okay. It will help protect you.
Jia took it from her, held it gingerly. Then she nodded.
For Kong, she signed.
Apex Facility, Pensacola
The Apex facility wasn’t so hard to break into now that most of it lay in rubble. Madison, Josh and Bernie had to evade a few security guards half-heartedly patrolling around the wreckage and cross some yellow tape. After that, most the obstacles were rubble related.
“So what’s the plan?” Madison asked.
“We find out what’s on sub-level 33,” Bernie said.
They turned on their flashlights and followed Bernie across a fissure in the concrete.
“I don’t have the right shoes for this,” Josh complained.
“Keep it moving, Tap Water!” Bernie said.
A moment later, they stood at the mouth of a dark tunnel that had collapsed so as to slope downward.
“All right, Mad Hatter,” Bernie said. It wasn’t clear to Madison if he was talking to her or to himself. “Down the rabbit hole.” He and Madison shared a complicated fist-bump before they sat on the incline and he slid down to the next floor.
“Are you sure we can trust him?” Josh whispered to Madison, as she prepared to follow.
“Yeah,” she replied. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Josh said. “Well, maybe because he mostly says crazy shit all the time and carries a bottle of whisky from his dead wife like a gun?”
“I think it’s romantic,” Madison said. Then she slid down after Bernie.
“I really don’t understand women,” Josh said, behind her.
* * *
“This all looks really different than it did before it was smashed up,” Bernie said, as they made their way through darkened, debris-strewn corridors. “I mean, I used to work here. I used to use that bathroom right down there.”
“I feel some of these details aren’t needed,” Josh said.
“Thing is,” Bernie said, “I like it better this way. Quiet and destroyed. Oh, man did I hate this place. I’ve never been so happy to be unemployed.”
“Are you sure you’re unemployed?” Madison asked. “I mean, on the news they were saying they would find jobs for everyone.”
“Yeah,” Bernie said. “Everyone alive. With any luck, they think I’m dead.”
“You faked your death?” Josh said.
“I didn’t report in,” Bernie said. “Last time I checked I was on the missing list.”
“Won’t that worry somebody?” Josh said. “Your mom, or dad, or … somebody?”
Bernie stopped for a second. He looked down at the floor. Then, after a breath or two, he continued on.
“Anyone ever tell you you talk too much, Tap Water?” he said.
“Honestly,” Josh said. “All the time.”
They came to a security door; Bernie used a screwdriver on the control panel to jimmy it open. They entered a long hall, collapsed in most places.
“This whole place came down,” Bernie said, looking around. “And there was this … eye.” He shone his torch through a broken wall; inside was a great hollow space, with lots of severed wires and conduits. As if something had been hastily pulled out.
“What are we looking for?” Josh asked.
“No, no, no,” Bernie muttered. “It was right here. I swear to God, it was right there!”
Madison was noticing something else.
“Hey guys,” she said, motioning to an elevator. “Anyone know where this leads to?”
She stepped in. Whatever the condition of the rest of the building, the elevator looked like it still had power.
Bernie and Josh followed her in.
“You believe me, right?” Bernie said to Josh. “’Cause I know there was something there.”
“Sub-level 33,” Josh said, as Madison pushed the button. “How deep does this thing go, Bernie?”
“Hell,” Bernie muttered. “It goes to hell.”
* * *
When the elevator door opened, they were no longer looking at a ruined facility, but a highly functional one. Sub-level 33 was obviously way below the damage Godzilla had caused; the Titan had scraped off the top of an anthill, but most of the nest was underground. They must also be far below sea level, Madison figured. That made her a little nervous, but the dozens of people going about their tasks were the obvious, more immediate worry. No one seemed to have noticed them arrive, though, or at least didn’t give them a second glance if they did. Unauthorized personnel on this level were probably unheard of. If you got off the elevator, you belonged. And Bernie, at least, had on the right outfit.
Still, they moved away from the elevator immediately.
The space itself was enormous; in the distance she saw techs at control panels, but most of the area immediately in front of them was occupied by lozenge-shaped transportation pods with blue LED lighting tracing their contours. A crane had just lifted one of the pods and was conducting it toward a large pair of doors set above the level of the floor. As she watched, the doors opened, revealing a tunnel. The crane placed the pod in the tunnel and the doors closed.
“What is all of this?” she asked.
“Breakaway civilization,” Bernie said. “I mean, c’mon. This is page one in the Apex-playing-God handbook. Huh? I mean, the Illuminati running a shadow economy all to fund a hidden colony for the elite in case any of these governments or mega-corporations accidentally hit the doomsday button.” He looked at Josh, walking away from him. “Makes a lot of sense, if you think about it,” he insisted.
“Ah,” Josh said, dubiously. “Yeah.”
Madison took that in. Monarch had bunkers all over the world designed for civilization to hide out in in case thing went really badly, and they had in fact been used three years ago. She had been in the one near Boston. But this didn’t look like a bunker. The voice on the loudspeaker kept calling out destinations—Mexico was the one she caught—and times so that it was more like a train station.
“Maglev,” Bernie muttered.
“What?”
“The manifest. Said something about maglev. That must be what these things are.”
“Yeah,” she said, slowly. “I think you’re right.”
Madison had seen prototypes and
