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

Everything was shaking now, and it wasn’t the monsters, or the machine; it was something coming through the earth itself.

Apex Facility, Hong Kong

Simmons felt giddy as more information poured in. Microscopic cell structures unfolded, looking not so much like animal or plant cells, but more like carbon snowflakes, pulsing with blue energy. Four-letter genetic data became digital instructions. Whatever Maia had found, whatever her machine was analyzing, the results were beyond belief. Everything was falling into place, just as he had known it would. He glanced out at his Godzilla. He had built a jet engine, but thus far he had been running it on rubber bands. But the power of Titans was on the way. Primitive man had feared and worshipped lightning, but even they had learned to steal the fire that storms often left in their wake. Legends told of those who stole the fire of the heavens—Prometheus, Raven, Water-spider—and brought it to mankind. Millennia later, early scientists like Kleist, Musschenbroek, Franklin, Faraday and Ohm had ripped lightning itself from the sky and put it to work in the engines of industry. In the next two centuries, humanity learned to pry energy from the sun, rivers, from the very heart of the atom itself.

The gods of old had been upstaged; mankind now owned all of the power they once had.

Except this, the power at the core of the planet, the life force, the last thing the gods had to give before they were completely eclipsed by the little apes that had once worshipped them. This was not only the culminating achievement of his own life’s work, but of every scientist before him who had dared wrestle with the powers of the universe and seized them for themselves—for the human race itself.

“Mr. Serizawa,” he said. “Start your engines.”

Serizawa didn’t reply right away. Simmons cast him a questioning glance.

“The upgrade is untested,” Serizawa said, at last. “Once we get online, Gojira will come straight for us.”

“He’s been coming since our creation first awoke,” Simmons said. “We must embrace it.”

Serizawa was still hesitant. “We shouldn’t rush this,” he said. “We have no idea how this energy source will affect the AI.”

“Get in the goddamn chair,” Simmons snapped.

Serizawa nodded curtly, then settled into the control chair. Outside, the mechanical Godzilla came back to life; not like before, barely limping along on rubber bands, but ready to take off on jet fuel. Fully operational.

Kong Temple

Dust and flakes of stone drifted down from above, and as the ground shook harder, the ancient temple began to break apart. Ilene watched it happening with two hearts. One was breaking, as a structure that was probably older than any human civilization was being destroyed; the loss was staggering. The other beat in terror; the very real possibility of being crushed fought for precedence with the fear of being killed by one of the hellhawks.

She, Nathan, Jia and their pilot bolted toward the HEAV as the stones collapsed behind them, but they hadn’t made it more than another ten steps when one of the winged monsters came down on the pilot, pinning him to the ground just in front of the vehicle with its nasty, clawed feet. A second landed beside it, and the two began a short spat over the body.

The first drove the intruder off, and then turned to look at them.

*   *   *

Nathan stepped in front of Ilene and Jia, feeling helpless. If one of those things came at him, he would be shredded in an instant. But if they didn’t get to the HEAV they would all be dead nearly as quickly.

He picked a rock up from the ground and hurled it at the hawk-monster. It bounced harmlessly from the beast’s head, only now it was visibly angrier.

“Okay, wise guy,” Nathan muttered to himself. “What now?”

He picked up another stone, this one just a pebble. The monster started toward him.

Then the stone they were standing on exploded in a burst of blue energy, hurling him from his feet. He saw Kong’s throne implode, and the entire temple go up. A huge boulder smashed his antagonist, and the others of its species took flight, fleeing the destruction.

*   *   *

The ground lurched as Maia all but dove in to the HEAV, brushing past the remaining mercenaries. She headed up front to the pilot.

“Go, go, go,” she snapped. “Move. Move. What the hell are you waiting for? Let’s go. Go!”

The pilot was frantically flipping switches, and the HEAV jumped up, but then the pilot pulled back hard on the stick.

Kong loomed in front of them, looking dazed, blocking their way. In the distance she could see daylight vanishing as the temple continued to collapse. They only had seconds to get out.

“Get him out of the way,” she screamed. “Shoot him!”

The pilot obliged; the HEAV’s guns began rattling, blasting into Kong at point-blank range. The Titan spun away, and the path was open. The pilot saw this, too, and punched it, aiming them toward the huge pit that had opened in the ground. It was going to be tight, she saw, but they were going to make it.

Then the HEAV came to an abrupt and absolute stop, sending Maia lurching forward. She recovered, looking out the windshield. Kong was there, looking royally pissed off. He had snagged them in midair.

Oh, shit, she thought. “No, no, no—” she said.

Then Kong crushed the HEAV in his fist.

*   *   *

Nathan watched as Kong snatched Maia’s HEAV from the air. Just before he closed his fist, before fire gushed from every opening, Nathan saw Maia’s face, frozen in an expression of horrified indignation, her mouth working soundlessly.

Then the burning HEAV slammed into the stone floor.

He knew Maia had lied to him, had in fact been in the process of screwing all of them. And even before he was aware of all that, she’d been sort of a pain in the ass. She had been blunt and unapologetic and dismissive, and he had become used to her, even begun to