The Saratoga’s Combat Direction Center, located below decks, was packed and buzzing. Banks of monitors and work stations, manned by uniformed analysts, were jammed with data feeds. Armed services personnel, sporting the uniforms of several allied nationalities, were crammed into the war room, which reminded Serizawa of the crow’s nest back at the base. The overhead lights were kept dim to increase the visibility of the various screens and graphic displays. A backlit table map projected the creature’s potential courses, as calculated by the incoming data. As the simulations ran, dotted lines crossed the ocean, branching off in all directions, but with most heading east across the Pacific. Each dotted line was accompanied by a flurry of algorithmic probability data: wind speed, currents, altitude, weather conditions, and so on. Quietly observing the operations, Serizawa was just selfish enough to be relieved that the creature appeared to be winging away from his homeland.
Not that anywhere in the world was truly safe at the moment.
“Okay! Listen up!” Captain Hampton said, taking the floor. To say that his manner was “brisk” would be an understatement. “Quiet please!” He waited, but not for long, for the general chatter and hubbub to die down. “Briefing is up. New faces. New info. From here out, we do not try to move quickly, we will move quickly.” He turned to introduce a figure to his right. “Admiral?”
A senior officer, with cropped white hair and a lean, taciturn face, stepped forward. He gestured at a monitor displaying a blurry image of the creature that had emerged from the cocoon. Hushed voices murmured in awe.
“Good afternoon,” the admiral said crisply. “This is our needle in a haystack, people. A ‘massive unidentified terrestrial organism,’ which from this point forward will be referred to as ‘MUTO.’ The world still thinks this was an earthquake, and it would be preferable if that were to remain so. It was last sighted heading east across the Pacific. However, this… animal’s electromagnetism has been playing havoc with radar, satellite feeds, you name it, leaving us, for the moment, blind as bats.” A frown deepened the well-earned creases on his face. “I emphasize ‘for the moment’ because I have every confidence in the world that you will find it. We have to.”
His remarks concluded, he surrendered the floor and sought out Serizawa at the back of the room. He extended his hand.
“Doctor Serizawa,” the admiral greeted him. “William Stenz. We’re glad to have you aboard.”
Serizawa accepted Stenz’s hand and bowed slightly. He spied Graham beckoning to him from the open hatchway to the command center. He had dispatched her earlier to examine Joe Brody’s findings. He nodded back to her in acknowledgment. He was anxious to hear what she had to say.
“Will you excuse me, Admiral?”
Joe Brody’s face looked more at peace than it had been for at least fifteen years. His eyes were closed forever, seeing only the next world. Ford could only hope that, whatever had become of his father’s tortured spirit, somewhere Joe was gazing on his wife’s beloved face once more.
Ford stood by numbly in the Saratoga’s well-equipped medical bay as the body bag holding his father’s remains was zipped shut. A medic offered him a sympathetic look, but Ford was too stunned to respond. The tears would come in time, he hoped, but right now he just felt drained and lost. San Francisco seemed more than a world away. He wondered how he was going to break this news to Sam. The boy had never really known his grandfather. Would he even understand that now he never would?
“Lieutenant Brody, sir?”
A young petty officer intruded on Ford’s grief, as gently as he could. His voice held a distinctly Midwestern accent.
“Would you please come with me?”
Serizawa and his team had been assigned guest quarters upon the Saratoga. Even on a ship as large as the super-carrier, space was at a premium so the cramped cabin was a tight squeeze, but they were making do. Monarch scientists worked beside Navy technicians, monitoring data feeds at various workstations, even as he and Graham each spoke urgently on their respective phones.
“Yes,” he reported in Japanese, “the patterns match, but I can’t crack the significance.”
Joe Brody’s antique zip disks, rescued from the M.U.T.O. base, were stacked on a desk beside Serizawa’s research materials. Scattered photos and reports held fragments of a history that began years before Serizawa was born: grainy images of a gargantuan creature rising from the sea six decades ago, archive photos of an atomic bomb blast on a remote Pacific atoll, shots from the Philippine mine disaster, reports on the Janjira nuclear plant disaster, and updates on the singular cocoon found on the site afterwards.
It appeared that he and Brody had been colleagues of a sort, pursuing similar lines of investigation all these years.
What a pity, he reflected, that we never knew each other existed.
He overheard Graham dealing with the public-relations issue. “Yes, sir,” she said into her phone. “Media is reporting an earthquake. The cover’s holding for now, but if it—”
A knock at the hatchway interrupted both phone calls. Graham went to answer it.
“Dr. Serizawa?” Petty Officer Thatch stood in the doorway. He had Ford Brody with him, still wearing part of a rundown radiation suit that had seen better days. The man’s wrist was chafed, but his handcuffs had been removed en route to the carrier. Serizawa nodded at Thatch that it was all right for him to leave Ford with them. Ford’s passport had been found among his belongings; a quick investigation had confirmed that he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, currently on leave. Thatch departed and Graham escorted Ford into the room.
Ford, who looked more than a little shell-shocked, approached the desk warily. His eyes widened as he spotted the photos spread out across the desk, which Serizawa made no effort to conceal. Ford was visibly taken aback by the startling images. Serizawa sympathized; what these pictures displayed would be shocking to the young man, who had just lost his father as well. His entire world had changed overnight.
“Mr. Brody, my condolences,” Serizawa said.
Ford stared at them. Pain, anger, and confusion all seemed to simmer inside the unfortunate young man, who was understandably overwhelmed by recent events. Powerful emotions played across Ford’s face, while his body language was tense. Serizawa began to fear that the grieving lieutenant would be of little use to their investigation. Judging from his reaction to the photos, Ford was apparently not fully conversant with his father’s theories.
Graham tried to secure Ford’s cooperation anyway. “We’re deeply sorry for your loss, Lieutenant. But I’m afraid we need your help. Your father’s data—”
“No, you first,” he snapped. His nerves and temper were obviously at the breaking point. “Who are you people?”
Graham shot a questioning look at Serizawa, letting him make the call. He nodded, regarding Ford with sympathy. This man had been through so much already. He deserved to know what his father had given his life for.
“Come in please, Mr. Brody. Come in and we will show you.”
Ford stepped deeper into the cabin. Graham shut the door behind him.
Flickering images played upon the wall of the cabin. Hooked into Graham’s laptop, a portable digital projector provided relevant visuals as Serizawa attempted to explain.