He felt himself sliding toward self-pity he didn’t have time for, so he cinched it up. Ilene and Jia were still alive, and he cared about them a hell of a lot more than he had ever cared about Maia. If there was anything he could do to get them out of this alive, he had to do it. And after that…
Better not to plan that far ahead. He might lose focus.
They still had one HEAV, but at the rate the temple was collapsing, they wouldn’t for long.
Jia and Ilene, of course, came to the same conclusion, sprinting through the shower of stone toward the vehicle. They piled in the back as he climbed into the pilot’s seat.
He looked up briefly and saw Kong watching them, concerned, but now that they were in the HEAV he seemed satisfied, so the Titan turned his attention to the charred hole on the floor. His axe lay nearby, the blade shimmering blue with radiation. Kong snatched it up, gripped it like a lumberjack and without the slightest hesitation leapt into the hole.
The temple was in full collapse now. Nathan could no longer see the entrance they had come in by; as far as he could tell, the whole mountain was coming down. He looked again at Kong’s exit.
That’s our only way out, too, he realized.
He gazed at the unfamiliar controls; then he started guessing, flipping switches and pushing buttons, anything to get a reaction out of the machine. Why hadn’t he watched the pilot? Given his past luck, he should have guessed he would have to fly the damn thing.
“Hindsight, twenty-twenty,” he muttered, under his breath.
“What?” Ilene said. “What are you doing?”
“I think Kong is going after Godzilla,” he replied. “Hold on, ladies.”
“Yes,” Ilene said. “Let’s go, now.”
Nathan nodded and pulled back on the stick, bracing for the acceleration.
Nothing happened.
What? he wondered, desperately. What am I doing wrong? The stick makes it go, right?
Jia stabbed her finger at the control panel.
“Nathan, how about the red one?” Ilene said. “The red one…”
“Which one?” Nathan asked.
“The red one,” Ilene said, more frantically, as rocks began pounding earnestly on the craft. “The huge red one that says ‘Ignition’ right there.”
Oh. Yeah. He punched the red button, and the engines roared to life.
“Right,” Nathan said. “Thank you.” He nodded at Jia. It seemed someone had been watching the pilot, after all.
The HEAV lifted up, wobbling a bit. He tilted the stick up, then down, diving into the hole after Kong.
Apex Facility, Hong Kong
When Madison was sure the pilot was gone, she carefully opened the hatch she had noticed in the bottom of the skull and ascended the ladder into it.
Inside was pure weirdness, with all kinds of crazy wiring and consoles and keyboards—and yet a single focal point: the helmet the pilot had been wearing, and the chair he had been sitting in.
There was another problem she noticed immediately; in one side of the skull, a glass wall with a door set in it opened into another room, where several tech-looking types were gathered. None of them had noticed her yet, and she crouched down below their sight level to keep it that way. She found the door’s keypad and locked it, flinching at the sound of the bolts sliding into place, but again, it seemed to go unnoticed by the techs, who were clearly busy at their tasks.
She motioned through the hatch for the others to come up.
“Stay low,” she said, and then moved to the main console. There was lots going on, with a monitor showing POWER UPLOAD IN PROGRESS.
She remembered the Mechagodzilla and its sudden power down. That might explain the upgrade; whatever batteries it had been running on hadn’t been enough to keep it going for long. Now they were trying to fix that.
Bernie came up and started taking pictures with what looked an awful lot like a flip phone. She didn’t have to ask; he had done five or six episodes about the dangers of smartphones.
“Yeah, going viral,” he said.
Josh poked his head up next, but Madison was still focused on the upgrade the system was processing.
“I wonder if we can shut it down from here,” she said.
“I don’t like this,” Josh said.
“You know,” Bernie said, looking around at the inside of the skull and its neon-pink lighting, “if this wasn’t contributing to world destruction, this would be a great DJ booth. I know that it—” He broke off, then continued, frantically. “Maintenance!” he said. “I’m here for maintenance.”
Madison realized that one of the techs outside had seen him, and now they were all staring through the glass.
“Madison, we should go,” Josh opined.
Yet Madison dithered. The doors were locked. If Bernie could buy her enough time to figure this out, she might still be able to give Walter Simmons and Apex a very bad day.
Bernie was still at the window, shouting to one of the techs. “You don’t have to alert the…” He trailed off, turning to Madison.
“She doesn’t buy it,” he sighed. “Madison, we need to go. The woman with the villain hairdo? She’s getting security, so we need to leave.”
On cue, two armed guards appeared at the window.
“Madison,” Josh said, “they have guns!”
“Hey guys,” Bernie said to the guards. “It’s soundproof, so I can’t really hear. I want to communicate.”
“Open the door,” the guard demanded, through the obviously non-soundproof door.
“Say again?” Bernie said.
Madison scanned the control panel, looking for something, anything that could help. If it was there, it didn’t jump out at her.
Behind her, she heard the door crash open. As she turned, security guards poured in, their guns aimed at her and her friends.
Monarch Command and Control, Hong Kong
Why Godzilla was burning a hole in the ground was anyone’s guess, but it bought them precious time for the evacuation. Ground vehicles streamed out
