TEN

More than a day before:

Sam woke up. Sunlight filtered through the bedroom curtains as he yawned and stretched in bed. It was warm and comfy and he was in no hurry to get up until he remembered that his dad was home and had promised to take him to the toy store today. He sprang out of bed and scampered toward the door in his pajamas. Bare feet expertly dodged the toys strewn across the floor. He smelled pancakes cooking in the kitchen and grinned in anticipation. His mouth watered.

He loved pancakes — and so did his dad.

Yet when he rushed into the kitchen, expecting to find both his parents, he found only his mother cooking over a griddle. Confused, he looked around, but his dad was nowhere to be seen. He noticed that there were only two place settings laid out at the kitchen table.

He knew what that meant.

But he promised, Sam thought. He said he would still be here in the morning when I got up!

His mother heard him come in. She turned away from the stove to greet him. She gazed down at him sadly, forcing a smile. He didn’t need to tell her how he felt.

“It’s okay, babe,” she said gently. “He’ll be back soon.”

Sam didn’t understand. Had the Navy called Dad back already? He was supposed to be home for two weeks this time. Two weeks, not just one night!

His mom turned off the stove to comfort him. She knelt down and hugged him as she tried to explain why Dad was gone again.

His daddy needed help.”

* * *

Now:

The sun rose over the ruined base. Black smoke rose from the rubble, darkening the sky. The toppled cranes remained where they’d fallen, even though emergency crews had begun the grisly process of carting away the remains (partial and otherwise) of the deceased. Severed steel cables hung in tatters from the edge of the sinkhole. Helicopters circled overhead, observing the devastation below. Survivors were being carried away on stretchers, even as first responders worked overtime to extricate more bodies from the debris. Collapsed gantries and scaffolding had turned the site into an enormous junkyard. Twisted steel beams jutted from the wreckage like abstract grave markers. Sobs and curses filled the air.

Ford wandered directionlessly through the ruins, ignored and forgotten amidst the disaster scene. His face was caked with soot and sweat. He’d discarded his gas mask and helmet hours ago; radiation poisoning had seemed the least of his worries. Every muscle ached and he felt black and blue all over. A loose pair of handcuffs still dangled from one wrist, which stung like the devil. He stumbled clumsily over the rubble, attempting to stay out of the way of the emergency crews. He’d been searching all night for his father without any luck. For all he knew, Joe was still buried beneath the debris.

He spied a crowd of medical personnel tending to another batch of wounded. Unwilling to give up, he pressed his way into the makeshift triage unit. Dozens of casualties occupied gurneys, while the overtaxed doctors, nurses, and medic struggled to cope with the flood of patients. Ford was both appalled and discouraged by the number of victims. He didn’t know where to keep looking for his dad. Joe could anywhere.

Or nowhere, anymore.

No, he thought. Don’t even think that.

He’d already lost his mother on this very same site. He’d be damned if he’d see his father buried here, too. Exhausted and sore, he stubbornly worked his way down row after row of casualties. Ford had seen combat, and the aftermath of suicide bombings, but the widespread suffering on display here still got to him — and left him feeling very afraid. His brain was still trying to come to terms with the reality of the gigantic winged monstrosity he’d witnessed earlier. Bombs and terrorists were one thing. He knew how to protect himself — and others — from them. But a creature like that… how on Earth did you stop it? Was that even possible?

And what was it doing now?

Worried and worn out, he almost walked by his dad without recognizing him, but then he spotted Joe on a gurney, surrounded by harried nurses and medics, fighting to keep the injured man alive. An IV line was set up to administer fluids and medication. Pressure was applied to the most visible wounds. Joe was caked in blood and dirt, his shredded radiation suit almost unrecognizable. The medics were already peeling the suit from him to get at his injuries.

“Dad!”

Ford rushed toward, trying to squeeze past the doctors and nurses, who refused to let him through. He peered anxiously over the shoulders of the busy medics, hoping that he hadn’t found his father just in time to see him die. That would be too cruel.

Joe’s eyes fluttered at the sound of Ford’s voice. He squinted through a fog of pain at his son. Their eyes met, truly seeing each other for perhaps the first time in years.

But was it too late for both of them — and the world?

* * *

Not far away, Serizawa also wandered through the ruins. He watched numbly as rows of lifeless bodies were zipped unceremoniously into ugly black body bags. It was like the aftermath of a battle or natural disaster, yet all this carnage and destruction had been caused by a single organism emerging from the cocoon, just as it had burst from its egg sac in the Philippines over a decade ago. History was repeating itself — on an even more apocalyptic scale.

His clothing was torn and rumpled. He and Graham had barely escaped the crow’s nest before it had crashed to the ground, but many others had not been so lucky. He watched grimly as Gregory Whelan was zipped into a bag. To his credit, the embattled chief scientist had stayed at his post until the bitter end, waiting until everyone else was evacuated, like a captain going down with his ship. Serizawa recalled ruefully just how excited Whelan had been only hours ago, thinking that he was on the verge of a revolutionary discovery. Little had the man known that the “living fuel cell” in the cocoon would cost him his life.

Goodbye, Gregory. Serizawa bowed his head in respect. You were a good scientist. Your only mistake was not realizing that certain forces were beyond your control.

“Dr. Serizawa!”

A deep voice intruded on the moment. Serizawa turned to see a U.S. Navy officer approaching him, accompanied by Graham and a Japan Self-Defense Force captain. A helicopter was revving up behind them, its rotors stirring up the already dusty air.

“Captain Russell Hampton,” the American officer introduced himself, shouting to be heard over the ‘copter’s spinning rotors. He was a tall, fit man wearing military fatigues, at least a decade younger than the scientist. A bald pate crowned his stoic face, which could have been carved from a block of dark brown granite. “Tactical authority of this situation has been accorded to Admiral Stenz, Commander, US Naval Forces, Seventh Fleet, part of a joint task force. I’m told your organization has situational awareness of our unidentified organism?”

Serizawa nodded. For more than six decades, a top-secret international coalition known as Monarch had been covertly studying and monitoring evidence of unknown mega-fauna such as the one that had just hatched from the cocoon. Alas, their practical experience in dealing with living specimens was minimal at best.

“Then I’m going to have to ask you to join me,” Hampton said. He glanced around at the surrounding bedlam. “Are there any other personnel you need?”

Serizawa considered the question. There was Graham, of course; that went without saying. But was there anybody else? He joined Hampton in scanning the crowd around them. He noticed that Joe Brody, the power plant engineer, was lying injured on a gurney nearby. A younger American, whom Serizawa’s assumed to be Brody’s son, Ford, was looking on anxiously as paramedics scrambled to stabilize his father’s condition. Serizawa recalled the data that had been confiscated from Brody. Serizawa had made sure that the disks and charts survived the disaster, but, now more than ever, he wanted to know everything the trespassing engineer knew about the nuclear disaster fifteen years ago. He pointed decisively at Brody and son.

“Them.”

Загрузка...