“That’s it,” Nathan said.
For what seemed a very long moment, the tableau seemed frozen. Godzilla stood there, dominating Kong, a threat display moving up and down his dorsal fins.
“Kong won’t bow,” Ilene said, softly. “Godzilla will kill him.”
Nathan dropped the HEAV lower. He could see Ilene was right; Kong was down, but he glared up in defiance, as if daring the victorious Titan to finish him. Kong might have lost the fight, but he was not defeated; he wasn’t giving in.
Godzilla, done with his victory proclamation, tilted his head down toward his beaten foe.
Maybe if I buzz him, distract him, Nathan thought. But a glance back at Jia, and he knew he wouldn’t. The girl had lost so much. She was about to lose Kong. But Nathan wasn’t going to be responsible for her death as well. He couldn’t.
Ilene met his gaze, then looked at Jia. She nodded.
Then Jia pointed and signed.
Nathan looked back down in time to see Godzilla do something extraordinary.
The saurian leaned down, so his snout was in Kong’s face, and roared. For a moment, Kong just stared back, as if finally acknowledging the fight was over. But then he lifted his head and howled back at the Titan, an act of purest defiance.
Godzilla straightened back up and then slowly, very deliberately, the reptile removed his foot, maintaining eye contact with Kong. Then he turned and walked away, moving once again toward the Apex building, knocking down everything that stood in front of him.
Kong, for his part, struggled to rise, but then his eyes fluttered, and he collapsed back into the street.
Nathan started the HEAV down toward the fallen Kong. He looked back at Ilene and Jia.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
* * *
Ren looked over his readout; the energy upload was complete. And his doubts were stronger than ever. There was something weird going on, behind the numbers.
“Kong has weakened Godzilla,” Simmons’s voice came over the link. “It’s time. Begin bio-integration.”
Ren sighed. He knew what was expected of him; he knew why he was here. This was no time to be timid; Kong was down, and he wasn’t getting up. The upload signal was all Gojira needed to find them, and Simmons wasn’t going to let him power that down. It was either take control of the Mecha and obliterate the Titan or be crushed by him. Why was he even hesitating? He had waited most of his life for this.
You gave your life so that this monster could live, Father, he thought. I now present mine to destroy him.
He put on the helmet and started the link-in. He felt the life-energy, waiting.
No, not waiting, multiplying. Like living cells. And the artificial intelligence was going nuts, pouring out packets of nonsense information, swamping the system. And the skull itself—it seemed to be pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. Not just pulsing, but shrinking, closing in on him—but no, that wasn’t it. He was growing larger as the cells multiplied. Filling it up, merging with the bone itself. He felt the connection establish, felt his will begin to filter over to the other skull, the control mechanisms of his Gojira, expanding all the while, filling it up, too.
But it suddenly wasn’t one way anymore. It was not just him entering the machine—something was also entering him, oscillating, a feedback loop between his own consciousness and the AI. He felt a million years of rage rising in him, hatred that transcended time and space. He felt as if he was sinking into it, dissolving, as another mind full of terrible, alien thoughts began to take his place.
He tried to take the helmet off, but he couldn’t feel his hands. He opened his eyes and realized he was in the Mecha, staring at Simmons through the glass. But when he tried to move the mechanical hands, they wouldn’t move either.
* * *
At least not when he wanted them to. But the Mecha was moving; the other was moving it, and as it did so, Ren’s field of vision began to shrink, pixilating at the edges. Images flashed in staccato bursts, recognizable for an instant, then gone. He saw a shadow in the distance, a man.
Dad? Daddy?
The man looked back at him and smiled, then he, too, broke apart, and the thing that called himself Ren was gone, and it had arrived. It did not know who it was, or what it was, but it was full of rage and the black joy of finally being, and having limbs, and teeth, a boundless, unending energy at its command. It saw everything as a blur, but as the one known as Ren died, its vision sharpened. It felt its hands, its legs, its fins, everything. And it saw a shape, a tiny shape, staring at it from behind a clear wall. One that believed they controlled it.
* * *
While Madison glared helplessly, Simmons walked to the observation glass to stare at his synthetic Titan.
“It’s time to launch,” Simmons said. “Now my Mecha is not just Godzilla’s equal, but his superior. The apex Titan, of my own hand. It’s time to show the world what he can do. This is how we, as a species, win.”
Outside, Mechagodzilla was slowly pivoting, facing the glass and Simmons. But Simmons had turned to address them, so he didn’t see. Madison began inching back, and so did Bernie and Josh.
“You see,” Simmons went on, “ten years ago, when Gojira first revealed himself to the world, I had a dream. And in this dream, I saw one thing. And that beautiful, amazing thing was—”
Then he noticed them retreating. He turned to find Mechagodzilla filling the window—and still coming forward.
“Oh, shit,” he said. There came a sudden flash of movement, and then the window and the entire front part of the observation room was gone, including Simmons.
