Which meant the MUTO was heading for America as well.
Frowning, the scientist put his watch away and descended several decks to the CDC, where the war room remained a buzzing hive of activity. Glowing monitors displayed flickering satellite imagery of the flying MUTO as well as live UAV footage of Godzilla swimming beneath the sea. Vivienne Graham stared in fascination at the visuals. Despite the undeniable danger to the human population, she was obviously intrigued by the unique organisms she had tracked and studied for most of her career.
Serizawa knew exactly how she felt.
“Last satellite tracks had the MUTO continuing due east,” Petty Officer Martinez reported from her post. She glanced up at an accompanying image of Godzilla. “For the moment, it seems like the big one is following it.”
Serizawa corrected her. “Hunting.”
A theory was coming together in his head, which seemed to be supported by the latest data. Once again, Nature held the key. The monsters’ current behavior was consistent with basic biology.
“All vessels maintain current standoff distance,” Admiral Stenz ordered, overseeing the operations. He remained in command of the joint forces’ response to the crisis. “Map this thing’s current course and bearing and start compiling a list of all possible solutions that will allow us to interdict before these… whatever they are… make landfall.” His tone and expression were equally grim. “I need options.”
The backlit table continued to plot out potential courses for both creatures, constantly updated to reflect the most recent intel. Dotted lines headed for the western seaboard, with possible landfall sites including Vancouver, Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as locations in Peru, Panama, and Argentina. There were too many possibilities over too great a distance, making it difficult to plan a defense against the monsters’ eventual arrival. Serizawa contemplated the ever-changing lines on the map.
Ford Brody is from San Francisco, he recalled. He wondered if the young lieutenant had finally made it home, after burying his father at sea. I believe he mentioned a wife and child.
“Sir,” Martinez said. “Based on the current tracks, all our models have the targets converging on the US Pacific coast.”
Stenz scowled. He turned away from the screens to consult Serizawa.
“Doctor, are we certain this is the same animal from sixty years ago?”
Serizawa suspected as much. “Remains were never found,” he reminded the admiral.
“But if the MUTO is his prey,” Graham began, calling Serizawa’s attention back to the printout of the wave pattern Joe Brody had detected, “this signal shows a call. Why call up a predator?”
Stenz and others present threw out possible explanations, with even Martinez chiming in with something about echoes or audio distortions, but Serizawa no longer had any doubts or questions. There seemed only one obvious conclusion.
“It didn’t,” he said solemnly. “The predator was only listening. The MUTO was calling something else.” His reasoning led him to another ominous hypothesis. “The pattern,” he addressed Graham urgently. “Focus our search on Nevada.”
The intensity of his tone cut through the chatter. Competing voices tapered off as all present gave Serizawa their full attention.
“Nevada?” Captain Hampton asked. “What makes you think—?”
Graham got there first. The blood drained from her face. “You don’t think it could be…?”
“Fill me in here,” Stenz said impatiently. “Why Nevada?”
“There was another spore,” Graham informed him. “Intact. Found in the Philippine mine.” She looked at Serizawa, shaking her head in disbelief. “But we examined it, ran every test for years. You confirmed it for yourself. It was dormant.”
Serizawa understood her skepticism. He had indeed spent years studying the apparently inert egg sac they had recovered from inside the giant skeleton in the Philippines. Unlike the larva that had burst from the other egg sac and made its way to Japan, the organism in the captured spore had displayed no trace of vitality or growth. It had not been absorbing spilled radiation from a nuclear meltdown. By all indications, it had been an unbroken state of stasis or hibernation. And yet…
“Maybe not anymore,” he said.
The horror of this possibility, that they might be dealing with two MUTOs, caused a momentary hush to fall over the CDC. Martinez gulped and even Hampton’s stoic reserve cracked for a moment.
“The spore,” Stenz asked urgently. “Where is it now?”
“It was highly radioactive,” Graham said. “It was disposed of… by the Americans.”
“Where?” Stenz repeated, even more forcefully.
“Where you put your nuclear waste,” Serizawa said flatly. He called their attention back to the map table, where two converging dotted lines extended past the west coast of the North America.
Nevada lay directly in their path.
A stone marker, alongside a dusty desert road, pointed to the nearby Nevada National Security Site, about sixty-five miles northeast of Las Vegas. For over forty years, the desolate and cratered terrain beyond had been the site of nearly a thousand nuclear bomb tests. Cacti sprouted amidst the sunbaked dunes and gullies. A military convoy sped past the marker, stirring up a cloud of dust. Air Force helicopters flew overhead, keeping pace with the rumbling troop carriers below. Inside the trucks, tense soldiers geared up in anticipation. An assault force donned radiation suits and gas masks. Heavy weaponry was prepped for battle: assault rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and whatever else might make a dent in a monster. The mood among the soldiers was grim. Everyone on the mission had heard about what had struck Hawaii and had seen some of the on-line footage of the gigantic creatures tearing up Honolulu. They knew they had to be ready for anything.
The convoy quickly reached its destination. The Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Depository was the final resting place for more than 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and reprocessing operations all over the country. Dug deep into a barren ridge of volcanic rock, surrounded by acres of restricted federal land, the vast repository was designed to contain the highly toxic materials for at least ten thousand years and possibly longer. In theory, it could withstand earthquakes, the elements, even time itself.
Giant prehistoric monsters, on the other hand, had not been taken into account.
The main entrance to the facility consisted of an enormous tunnel that had been bored into the north side of the mountain. Armed guards stationed at the entrance admitted the troops, who deployed with both speed and purpose. The commander of the assault force, Captain Roger Pyle, led his men through a sprawling underground maze of tunnels, branching off into numerous long galleries lined with large sealed compartments. Steel doors, each nearly thirty feet tall, guarded the vaults and their lethal contents, which were routinely sealed inside solid steel canisters. View ports were installed in each door to allow for direct visual inspections.
Moving swiftly but methodically, the soldiers worked their way through the dimly lit tunnels, checking each vault on the go. The precise location of the captured Philippine egg sac was buried amidst layers of official secrecy, misdirection, redactions, and plausible deniability, defying ready access, but Pyle had reason to believe that it was somewhere in this particular gallery, nearly a thousand feet under the mountain. Given the possibility that a second MUTO might be stirring, it had been decided to conduct an immediate search and inspection of the vaults, pronto.