No longer hidden in darkness, thousands of bulging egg sacs hung from the ceiling, which was positively encrusted with the pulsing organisms. Ford recalled the photos Serizawa had shown him upon the Saratoga as well as the egg he had briefly glimpsed on the underside of the female MUTO in the mountains. As nearly as he could tell, these new sacs were identical to the ones found in the Philippines fifteen years ago. The ones that had eventually spawned the two MUTOs.
They’ve already mated, he realized, and this is their nest.
The fertilized eggs continued to flash, as though reacting to their food source being disturbed. Something had to be done about the eggs, Ford knew, but first they needed to deal with the warhead or nothing else mattered.
The nose cone came loose, clattering onto the floor of the nest. The soldiers huddled around the exposed warhead and detonator. Flashlight beams penetrated the small window above the timing mechanism. The intricate gears continued to turn and engage, ticking down to Armageddon. Moving carefully, despite the urgency of the situation, the men took hold of the warhead by a set of metal handholds and eased it out of the cone-shaped reentry vehicle.
Easy does it, Ford thought.
Godzilla was outnumbered two to one. Acting in tandem, the MUTOs circled their relentless foe, who was undaunted by the odds against him. His eyes narrowed in anticipation of the parasites’ attack. His nostrils flared and he bared his fangs. He roared defiantly, challenging the MUTOs. He had not come all this way to shrink from the battle.
The MUTOs were prey. Dangerous prey, but prey regardless. They had to be destroyed.
Howling in unison, the MUTOs pounced on him from above and below.
A tremor shook the subway platform, causing dust and debris to rain down from the ceiling. Trapped underground, while giant monsters overran the city above, Elle and throng of other frightened people backed away fearfully from the thunderous impact. A baby cried in the arms of a young couple who huddled together fearfully, protecting the child with their own bodies.
Alone and scared, Elle didn’t know whether to envy them for being together or to be thankful that Sam was hopefully far from the embattled city by now. Probably a little bit of both.
She squinted at her phone. There were no new messages from Ford, not that she was likely to get a signal down here. She hoped to God that he was safe and on his way to find her. But would there still be a city left by the time he got here? It sounded like armies were clashing up above.
The lights flickered overhead and her phone died. People gasped and looked up in alarm as the lights sputtered and died, throwing them all into the dark. Panicked people screamed. Blackness swallowed them, so that all that was left was fear — and the earth-shaking sound of monsters destroying the city.
Be careful, Ford, she thought. Wherever you are.
The soldiers lowered the heavy warhead onto the floor of the nest. Divorced from its massive rocket boosters, the warhead was still at least ten feet long and five across. On closer inspection, it was obvious that the casing had been badly damaged during its travails. Bennett tried to pry open the access panel to the timer, but the metal was warped and refused to budge. Quinn and a few of the others added their strength to his, but it was no use. The latch was jammed.
“It’s sealed shut,” Bennett said. “We need time to get this open!”
“We don’t have time,” another soldier objected. “Let’s haul it out of here!”
Ford shoved his way to the front of the huddle and knelt down beside the warhead. He extracted a kit from a Velcro pocket on his flight suit. He unsealed the kit to expose a set of intricate tools, including screw drivers, crimpers, surgical scissors, forceps, tweezers, and a dental mirror. They were similar to the tools he had used to disarm any number of explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had never used them on a nuclear bomb before, but…
“I can do it!” he insisted. “Just give me some light!”
Flashlight beams converged on the latch, providing a steady white light that Ford vastly preferred to the rippling glow of the agitated egg sacs. He tried to tune out the pulsing bioluminescence, and the rumble of the warring monsters, to concentrate on the task at hand. The warhead was the primary threat now. Everything else, even Godzilla, was secondary.
I can do this, he thought. I have to do this.
The city trembled as Godzilla dropped to one knee, besieged by the MUTOs. The parasites’ combined assault was enough to stagger even the mighty leviathan. The male dived at him from above, gouging Godzilla’s dorsal fins with his claws. Broken shards of fin rained down onto the pulverized streets, adding to the heaped debris, even as the female sprang at Godzilla, slashing at his throat with her talons, which sliced through his scaly armor to the vulnerable flesh below. Blood seeped through the bony plates. The female howled triumphantly.
Godzilla reeled beneath the joint attack, but did not fall. His maw opened wide and, choking and gasping, he exhaled a gust of rippling, super-heated vapor. A spark ignited at the back of his throat and a searing blast of blue-white fire sprayed from his jaws.
Taking the full force of the Godzilla’s volcanic breath, the female screeched in agony and collapsed in a heap of twitching arms and legs. Her chitinous exoskeleton was scorched and blackened in places. Ichor leaked from cracks in her shell. Eight limbs vibrated spastically. She wasn’t dead, but she had been hurt and stunned by the blistering incendiary attack. Unable to defend herself, at least for the moment, she was ripe for the kill.
Godzilla climbed back to his feet, like a mountain thrusting up from the earth, and glared at the downed female. He opened his jaws once more, intending to incinerate her completely, but as his fiery breath flared up the male flew in low overhead and clapped his iridescent black wings together. A luminous pulse rippled through the air and snuffed the bioelectric spark in Godzilla’s throat. The draconic flames belching from his jaws sputtered and died out.
Godzilla blinked in confusion. Smoke billowed from his nostrils. He tried again to summon his most powerful weapon, but felt only an irritating tickle within his gullet. The spark refused to ignite. The flames would not come.
Frustrated, he glared at the soaring male, whom had interfered with his kill. He snarled and gnashed his fangs. His tail whipped back and forth in anger.
The male had done this to him. The male would suffer.
Flashlight bulbs exploded inside the nest, so that only the glow of smoldering wreckage and the strobe-like luminosity of the hanging egg sacs lit up the underground burrow. Startled soldiers swore profanely.
“Another EMP!” Bennett exclaimed.
“Bulb just blew,” another EOD specialist blurted. “I’m out.”
Still trying to get at the bomb’s sealed timer, Ford squinted at the jammed latch, which was stubbornly resisting his efforts to get it open. The dimming light only made his task harder. He could barely see what he was doing.
“I need more light,” he said.
In charge of the operation, Quinn made a command decision. “Time for Plan B. Let’s get this thing out of here! Come on, come on!”