Godzilla vs. Kong by Greg Keyes (e books free to read TXT) 📗

Ilene saw the tiny form of Jia, padding along the deck toward Kong. Her stride was unhurried, her back straight; nothing in her carriage suggested fear.

Swearing under her breath, Ilene bolted toward the hatch and down the stairs leading to the deck. From there, she saw Jia, now very close to Kong, who still venting his anger and frustration. But as Jia drew up to him, he saw her, and calmed.

Jia reached out her little arm toward the Titan. Kong leaned over, gently extending his hand toward the girl. She reached up and touched his finger—a tiny point of contact for Kong, like a person touching the foreleg of a gnat.

But the effect was undeniable. Kong was no longer struggling. He didn’t seem angry anymore so much as … melancholy.

Ilene closed the gap between her and the girl, shivering in the rain. However calm Kong seemed at the moment, she still flinched involuntarily when she got close.

“Come on,” she told Jia. “Come on.”

Jia ignored her, and she realized she was so flustered she had spoken aloud.

It’s not safe out here, she signed.

Jia turned toward her and started moving her hands.

Kong is sad. And angry.

Join the club, Ilene thought. She flicked her eyes toward the mountain of muscle and bone stooping over them. It didn’t matter if he was chained; from here he could crush them both without trying.

That’s because he doesn’t understand, she told Jia. We want to help him.

He doesn’t believe that, Jia signed.

It was the way she put it that jarred her. The Iwi and Jia in particular did not tend to project their own feelings into words. She was blunt and literal when she said something. If she was speaking for Kong, she was either guessing at his thoughts, or—she knew them.

How do you know? Ilene asked.

He told me, Jia replied. Ilene looked up at Kong as Jia’s words began to sink in. He told me.

Rain cascaded down Kong, flowing around his thick brow ridges. Rivulets coursed through his fur. Southern Pacific or not, the rain was cold. Her breath caught in her chest as Kong lifted his hand, brought it up to his face. His hand formed a shape.

A sign.

Home, he said.

Ilene gaped in amazement. There was no mistake. But as if to prove it, he lowered his hand and raised it again, and again.

Home. Home.

She didn’t notice the rain anymore, and her fear dropped away, replaced by awe.

I knew it, she thought. But to see it made real, to know for a fact was quite … overwhelming. She was watching the dawn of a new world.

*   *   *

Nathan stood next to Maia Simmons on the bridge, watching the strange tableau, the little girl and the immense Titan.

“Did the monkey just talk?” Simmons asked.

Nathan was too awestruck to answer.

Russell House, Pensacola

Madison closed the door of her room behind her and locked it. Then she gazed around her office, her sanctum, her war room. Newspaper clippings, Post-it notes, photographs and magazine articles were pinned all over the walls, along with a big map of the world with all purported sightings of the Titans for the last three years marked on them. She studied it for a moment, and then placed a Post-it note next to Pensacola.

Apex, it said. Why?

She sat on the bed and looked over at the alligator skull she’d found by the creek in the woods behind the house.

Why? And why wouldn’t Dad listen to her? Or better yet, why had she even gone to him?

Fighting with Dad—or Mom, for that matter, back when that was possible—had never gotten Madison anywhere, and that was now truer than ever. Her father did not trust her. He didn’t trust her opinions, her feelings, or her capabilities. Maybe it stemmed from the trust issues he’d had with her mother—he might have just shifted those onto her after Mom died. Or perhaps it went even deeper than that. All that she knew was that she had proven in the past that her instincts were good, and he had somehow convinced himself of the opposite. He’d said it himself: he only saw her through the lens of what he wanted in his life right now. Someone who would just do what he said. Someone he wouldn’t lose.

But if life had taught her anything so far, it was that losing people was part of life. Everybody died. And some people died way too young, for no reason. And maybe some people who should die survived. The universe didn’t weigh you in the balance before deciding to kill you or spare you, it just did what it did. If you worried too much about that, you would never achieve anything at all.

But even so, she did not make the decision to act on her own right away. If Dad wouldn’t listen to her, she reasoned, someone would. She had some credibility, didn’t she? So she had taken to emailing or DMing everyone she could think of—she still had contacts in Monarch—and anyone who might have some sort of pull, laying out her case.

But she should have known better. They were all nice, and encouraging, and told her they would take her input into consideration and meanwhile she should keep safe and do her schoolwork.

Keep safe? From Titans? The only way to do that was get ahead of them, take the initiative. Act.

But how? There was no ORCA to steal this time, no obvious course of action for her to follow as there had been before.

Or maybe there was.

Apex was obviously at the heart of this, and there just so happened to be a mostly ruined Apex complex right down the road. That was the place to start, if she knew what she was looking for, but she didn’t. What she needed was a guide.

And that … she might be able to find.

She listened to Mad Truth’s latest podcast, and when that didn’t give her a starting place, she pored back through his archives.

“Okay, class, listen up. There’s dozens of Apex facilities up