Queen of Hearts
By Neil Riebe
Film appearances of the characters:
Miki Saegusa….Godzilla vs Biollante (1989) through Godzilla vs Destoryah (1995)
Azusa Gojo…Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1993)
Kazuma Aoki…...Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1993)
Professor Omae…Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (1993)
Meru Ozawa…. Godzilla vs Destoryah (1995)
Part1
"You can't leave," Azusa said. She, G-Force engineer Aoki, and Professor Omae hung outside Miki's office door, pleading with her to withdraw her resignation as the head of the Dinosaur Research Team.
Most of Miki's stuff had already been boxed and loaded aboard the supply ship which was waiting off the coast of the island. Right now Miki Saegusa was at the computer jotting down the pass codes to the protected files.
"I would stay but Godzilla Junior reminds me of Godzilla and…" Miki's voice trailed off before she became misty-eyed with grief. Godzilla's death had left her heart broken. She kicked herself for getting worked up over an animal, but she couldn't help it. Her feelings interfered with her performance, at least in her opinion. Therefore, she decided going home would be in everyone's best interest, although her friends didn't agree. So she said, "Godzilla was my dinosaur. Godzilla Junior is yours. You cared for him when he was an infant."
"He sees you as much as a part of his family as any of us," Azusa stated firmly, "more so because of your telepathy. You understand how he thinks and feels better than anyone."
"I've recorded every detail of my time with him in my log book." Miki patted the cover of her log. "A custodian could pick up where I left off."
"I wish one of them would," Azusa grumbled. She folded her arms and looked away.
Miki pursed her lips in dismay. "Ms. Ozawa is well suited to fill my role. She is a paleontologist and a telepath, a very good one."
"Junior doesn't like her!" Azusa said. Flushed with emotion, she did sound like Junior's mom, looking only for the best for her son.
"I don't even like her," Aoki added, which was saying something. He was an incorrigible girl chaser and Ms. Meru Ozawa was a beautiful woman.
A piping roar shook the room. Miki and her friends jumped at the sudden jolt of noise. They gathered at the window facing toward the jungle bordering the research base. A gigantic ankylosaur reared its head above the treetops and growled at Godzilla Junior, who was standing waist-deep in the foliage. Junior cocked his head to the side, unsure of what to make of the creature.
Professor Omae called the beast "Anguirus". Aoki suggested the professor should call him "Gigantis, Destroyer of the Living" to make the animal seem more exciting, but Omae nixed the idea. He didn't find Kazuma's humor funny.
Anguirus had surprised the world. Just when everyone thought Godzilla Junior was the last dinosaur Anguirus popped up on Kwajalein, which was within swimming distance of Lagos, Godzilla's home island. Did Anguirus originate from Lagos? Possibly. Where one dinosaur roamed there could be more. What concerned scientists was Anguirus's armament. For protection against predators, a typical ankylosaurus had an armored carapace with spikes running along the flanks. Anguirus had spikes covering his entire back. Plus he had a crown of spikes atop his head and a nose horn. What kind of predators did he have to fight?
Fortunately, ankylosaurs were vegetarians. The Dinosaur Research Team didn't need to worry about Anguirus getting a hankering for human meat. As for Godzilla Junior, he had adapted to an omnivorous diet under Azusa's care. However, he was a godzillasaur and godzillasaurs by nature were carnivores. The anklyosaur seemed to be aware of this fact and let out another ear-ripping roar to drive him away.
"This is why we need you," Professor Omae said to Miki. "The mission of our team is to tame these animals so we can coexist with them. For that we need a telepath who is gentle. Ms. Ozawa wears her G-Force beret too proudly. She will expect discipline. Obedience. You can't act that way toward these animals. What it comes down to," Professor Omae said gently, "is that you create harmony. Yes, Ms. Ozawa is qualified, but she does not foster the warmth you do."
The professor's words touched Miki. For their sake she wanted to stay. Leaving will be a good thing, she told herself. Even if you don't feel it is, it is!
She nodded in thanks. "I chose Meru as my successor. Give her a chance. She wants to be friends. It's just that some people have a harder time than others in getting along, which requires us to take an extra step to make that happen. You will take the extra step, won't you?" she said to Professor Omae.
The professor, being the eldest, was the most mature. He couldn't argue. He nodded in agreement.
Miki turned to the engineer. "Aoki?"
Aoki eyed Omae. He didn't want to be in disagreement with an elder. He nodded.
Then Miki turned to Azusa. "Well?"
Azusa frowned at her fellow team members. She nodded, not wanting to stand out as the one person who was being difficult
Miki thanked them and smiled. "A positive attitude will go a long way in smoothing the rough edges. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to finish getting ready to go."
They promised to keep in touch by email. Azusa, Kazuma, and the professor filed out of her office.
Shortly, Meru Ozawa stepped in gushing with excitement. She set her brief case on the desk and plopped her G-Force beret atop the case. "Saegusa-san, how are you?"
"Fine. And you, Ms. Ozawa?"
"Please, keep calling me Meru. Just because I'm getting your post doesn't mean we have to be formal with each other." Miki couldn't help feeling territorial after Ms. Ozawa had put her things on her desk. Meru took Miki's hands into hers. "I know everyone is pressuring you to stay. So let me be the first to say going back to the Psionic Center is the right thing for you. Working with psychic children is your first calling."
"Thank you," Miki nodded. "And dinosaurs are your first calling. I am confident you will make a fine team leader."
Meru beamed with pride.
"Here are your pass codes." Miki slid the notepad with the hand-written codes toward her.
"Ooo!" Meru cooed as she grabbed the pad. Miki evacuated her seat before Meru plopped on her lap. Ms. Ozawa was eager to take over as head of the team.
"Well, I'll be in my room packing if you need me." Miki paused before stepping out in case Meru wanted to wish her well.
"Uh-huh," was all her replacement said. She was wrapped up in keying in the codes.
Miki wished Meru would offer a few parting words. She had invested over seven years of her life with giant monsters. Leaving the friends she had made over those years, never mind leaving the livelihood she had become accustomed to, was not easy. Besides, Miki was the one who recommended Meru for the promotion!
Well, Meru lived in Meru's own world.
Miki turned to leave.
"Wait!" Meru called.
"Yes?" Miki turned back.
"You forgot this." Meru handed Miki her wooden name plaque and set hers, a shiny, gold-plated one, in its place. She adjusted it so it was square with the right-hand corner of the desk. "Ah, perfect!"
Miki made the effort to feel happy for her. After all, this was her big day.
"Before you go," Meru took a moment to be sincere, "I want to say I appreciate your being a good sport. This change will be good for both of us. It will help ease the tension."
They locked eyes. They were rivals. There was no denying it. Meru thought this post should've been hers from the start and Miki's stepping aside was the sensible thing to do. It was also gracious of her. Meru's hardened stare softened. "Take care."
"You, too." Miki felt better. She acknowledged Ms. Ozawa with a nod and headed to her room. The packing boxes were ready, lined up across the floor.
Before packing, Miki looked at her room one last time, to give her old life a few more moments of breath before she packed it into boxes. Her heart became heavy.
Then she took a deep breath and reigned in the onrush of sentiment.
Her things weren't going into the trash. They were going with her back to Japan. Sure, most of them would end up in storage. She might visit them from time to time. Pull them out to revisit old memories.
Oh, who was she kidding? Once she resumed her work at the Psionic Center, she would forget about this stuff.
Rolling up her sleeves, she got to work. She unplugged the lamp on her night stand, wound the cord around the lamp's base and set it on its side in an empty box. Next she took the pen that was beside the lamp and put it with the others in her desk drawer.
Most of the clutter in the drawer should be tossed. She started sorting and found a playing card of the Queen of Hearts. Miki was surprised she still had it.
She remembered when she got it. It was a sweaty day in July. She was out shopping with her mom when they bumped into the neighbor lady. Mom and the other woman talked and talked. Miki became bored.
She spotted a man, a foreigner in a blue pin-striped suit and dirty tennis shoes. A suit and tennis shoes—an odd combination. He sat at a table outside a Starbuck's playing solitaire. A glass of iced coffee waited patiently at his elbow while the ice cubes continued to shrink in the sunlight.
She became entranced by his concentration on the cards. Her psychic ability was already acute and she knew which cards he should flip over and which ones he shouldn't. When he reached for the wrong one she drew in her breath. When he reached for the correct one she nodded yes, that one!
Yet, he never committed to flipping any of the cards. Finally he spoke to her.
"I bet you know which card I should pick," he said.
She pointed to the correct one.
He looked up at her. His eyes looked deep into hers. His eyes were like... like Mothra's fairies'. Eyes that had witnessed the passing of millennia. They experienced joy and suffered tragedy. They were eyes that had seen the turn of the universe.
Then he became disarmingly boyish, like some star-struck otaku. "Why, you're Miki Saegusa! Not just any Miki Saegusa, but the proverbial ONE and ONLY Miki Saegusa. Wow! Imagine little ol' me meeting someone like you."
"How did you know my name?" she asked defensively.
"How did I know your name?" The man gaped at her. "How I could I not know your name? You're in all the headlines."
"I'm not in any headlines."
"Well—Pfft!—not now! You're only what? Thirteen?"
"Fourteen."
"Exactly. Fourteen. But you wait. In a couple years—wow!"
The man spoke Japanese flawlessly, although with a bit of a British accent. Yet, he wasn't from the UK. She sensed something different about him and he sensed she was sensing something different about him.
"Oh, yeah," he said. "You're good. You can tell I'm not from around here. I mean," he spread his hand toward their surroundings, "not just from Japan, but from here."
He was being discreet so as not to attract attention, but when he said "here" she knew he meant he was not from Earth.
"Listen," he motioned for her to come closer. "This gift you have," he tapped his temple to indicate her psychic ability, "is wonderful but it doesn't compare to the gift you have here," he tapped his chest. "You have a heart, bigger than both of mine put together. Now, I want you to pay attention to what it has to say." He squeezed her hands. "All right? Will you do that for me? It's important. Trust me on this."
Miki nodded so he'd let go.
"All right." He released her hands. "Take this." He gave her the Queen of Hearts. "It'll help you remember who you are."
She took the card, looked at it then at him. "If you know so much about me, tell me about my future. Like, who's going to be my boyfriend?"
He bit his lower lip and bobbed his head side to side, weighing what he should say. "I'll give you a hint." His hands sorted through the deck and pulled out the Ace of Spades. He slid it across the table toward her.
"Ace of Spades, that's the death card," Miki said.
"Yeah, you may want to keep that in mind."
Miki frowned at him. "Are you saying my future boyfriend is going to be the bringer of death or he's going to die?"
"Both." The man gathered his cards, leaving her with the Queen of Hearts. "Oh, one more thing, you work well with animals." He gave her a knowing wink and walked off into the crowd.
Her mother came up to her, ready to continue shopping. "Who were you talking to?" she asked.
Miki shrugged. She tried to read him telepathically but she lost sight of him among the other pedestrians. "I think he's some sort of doctor."
Miki never saw the man again. She had forgotten about him until she found this card. Looking back, her encounter reminded her of stories of people who claim to have met their guardian angel.
"Follow your heart," he had said.
I am following my heart, she assured herself. She enjoyed working with children. She was going back to Japan.
Yet she felt guilty.
Normally she would figure out why but this time she refused.
Miki crumpled the card and tossed it into the waste basket.
#
Twenty-six light years from Earth, Gigan was honing his fighting skills by destroying starships. He waited outside the jump gate to the Tabit solar system. The instant a ship jumped through the gate—bam!—he smashed it with one of his hooked hands.
So far it had been a warm up exercise. The ships were merchant vessels. When they failed to reach their port of call, Tabit Sector Security dispatched patrol craft and an Eradicator class destroyer.
Gigan clanged his hooks and held them at the ready. He monitored their radio transmissions as they closed in.
"Look at the size of that thing! Is it a creature or a ship?"
"Doesn't matter. It's a rogue. Follow procedure."
They tried contacting him. "Tabit security to rogue, surrender at once. Do you copy? Surrender at once."
Gigan did not respond. He waited for the fun to begin.
"Your silence will be regarded as resistance. Respond or we will open fire."
Gigan replied by swooping through their ranks. The three-man patrol ships scattered. They called him a fool. "He's big but he has no hope of outmaneuvering us!" Gigan proved them wrong. He batted them out of the stars.
The destroyer wisely kept its distance and fired its twin turbo lasers no sooner Gigan had destroyed the last patrol ship. He blocked the beams with his hooked hands. The metal hands turned from silver to orange, to red, to white hot as the destroyer exhausted its energy reserves in trying to destroy him.
When the lasers let up, Gigan lowered his hooks and counter-fired. The laser cannon embedded in his visor cleaved the ship in two. He regarded the resulting explosion with satisfaction.
It was a fine workout.
Then an Orion dreadnaught came barreling out of the jump gate. Its massive size blocked out Tabit's starlight and cast a black shadow over Gigan. This was a rare moment when he found himself dwarfed in size.
This time his opponent did not give him a chance to surrender. Scores of fighters poured out of the docking bay in the belly of the ship. They threatened to swarm him. For every fighter he destroyed, dozens of others would be shooting at him.
Gigan chose to take the fight to the enemy. He flew straight into the yawning docking bay, smashed his way through the various decks and burst out the top of the ship. He scanned and located the anti-matter power core and fired his laser. The beam sliced through the thick armor and hit its mark. The entire ship went super nova. An expanding ball of super-heated gas enveloped the fighters and swept away the wreckage of the other ships. Only Gigan remained to bear witness of the battle.
His creators from the M Space-Hunter Nebula contacted him via a FTL transmission.
Gigan transmitted his acknowledgement. He was once a giant winged animal. His makers had turned him into a cyborg with hooks for hands and a buzz saw in his torso. The red visor covering his eyes sported a variety of scanners and a powerful laser weapon. He had been designed to slice, chop, and crush anything in his path. And to be sure he operated at peak efficiency the pleasure centers of his brain had been hotwired to be stimulated by acts of violence. The more he destroyed, the happier he became.
"Observe this planet."
His makers transmitted data on a terrestrial world to his memory core. Its image appeared on the red visor's HUD. According to the data the planet had oceans of liquid water and an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, much like his makers' homeworld. Spectrometer readings also showed gases from industrial waste. So the planet was inhabited.
"We have drawn plans for colonization," his makers said. "However, the people of the planet Telos are also interested in this location. But they say we can have the planet. They want the population. Our negotiators have worked out an alliance. We may have the planet provided you help them harvest the inhabitants. Details of their attack plans will be provided once you arrive at the coordinates we have uploaded to your memory core. Your part is simple. Destroy. Destroy. Destroy."
Those last three words were all Gigan needed to hear. He immediately set course for the new world.
#
Godzilla Junior resembled his adoptive father, a mountain of muscle with a majestic array of dorsal spines. His footsteps reverberated like thunder and his roar shook the leaves out of the trees. Yet, psychologically he was a juvenile godzillasaurus. Radiation had accelerated his growth. Even though he looked imposing he was something of a teenager in a man's body.
He would rather get along with Anguirus, but the grumpy ankylosaur wanted nothing to do with him.
Anguirus bit the tops off a couple trees, scattering a flock of birds. The branches snapped loudly between his teeth. After he swallowed, he decided he wanted to eat the trees by Godzilla Junior and butted Junior out of the way with his nose horn.
Junior hissed, but he got out of the way. It was as if Anguirus was trying to provoke a fight.
Godzilla Junior understood the meaning of friendship through his time with the humans. While he was in his egg, Azusa's voice was the first person he heard. He bonded with her as his mother. It did not matter that she was not a godzillasaur. She fed him and took care of him. He grew to like her friends, Aoki and Professor Omae. They liked him, too. Well, Aoki seemed disappointed with him at first because he didn't hatch out of his egg as a pteranodon. In time they warmed up to each other.
Then there was the human who could speak to his mind, Miki Saegusa. She helped him understand the concept of friendship. She taught him about names so when he saw Azusa he didn't think of her as just "mother" but as "Azusa-mother", or just Azusa. Aoki was no longer "possible mate for Azusa" and Professor Omae was no longer "older human with less hair on head."
He tried to speak Azusa's name, after all names had sounds. He heard the humans use them. But when he did, her name came out as "Ahhh-rrrrrr-ahh!" Miki explained he needed lips to speak. "But I'll let Azusa know you spoke her name," she had said in his thoughts.
Azusa shined with delight when Miki told her. That made Godzilla Junior feel warm inside. He liked the warm feeling that friendship gives. It made one feel safe and special, and it allowed creatures of different species to group together. So he saw nothing unnatural about being friends with Anguirus.
There was one problem Junior recognized. His species were carnivorous. Anguirus was an herbivore. That made them natural enemies.
To show he didn't need meat, Godzilla Junior bit the top off a tree.
Anguirus's eyes bugged wide open. He charged, raking Godzilla Junior with his claws.
Godzilla Junior spat out the branches and roared at Anguirus to back off.
Anguirus stomped back to his spot in the jungle. He glared in warning to not eat any foliage. It was his. All of it.
Godzilla Junior let out a raspy sigh.
Then he saw Azusa, Miki, Aoki, and the professor down at the docks. Miki boarded a small boat. Boats came to the shore but they didn't come back. Were they leaving him?
No, only Miki boarded the boat. The others remained on the dock. They waved to Miki. He knew what that gesture meant. Miki was leaving.
He called out to her in a loud roar.
She turned and waved to him, too.
So it was true. She was leaving.
But she couldn't leave! The size difference between himself and his mother had become so great the only way he could stay in touch with her was through Miki's telepathy.
Upset, he roared and stormed onto the base. The siren blared. The workers scrambled for the shelter.
Azusa motioned with her hands and cried out to him to go back. He could barely hear her tiny voice over the siren, which only fortified his resolve. Miki can't leave or he would never be able to speak with his mother again.
Meru Ozawa stepped out of the main office building with a megaphone. The laborers ran passed her while she stood her ground. She drew her sidearm, fired three angry shots into the air, and yelled, "Junior! Stop! You are being bad."
Godzilla Junior stopped and growled at Meru.
"Junior, behave."
Godzilla Junior braced himself for a telepathic fight.
"Oh, you don't want to go there, Junior!"
Azusa ran up to Meru. "Don't treat him like that. You'll make him angry."
"I got this covered," Meru replied curtly and put the megaphone back up to her lips. "Junior, get back!" She thrust her hand toward him and gave him a telepathic push.
Junior's head snapped back. His mind felt as though it had been swept up in a sudden gust of wind, his thoughts scattered like dust. He shook his head to regain his senses. Her next push would be worse if he didn't obey and fighting would only distress his mother. He let out a plaintive roar to let the humans know he wasn't happy and lumbered back into the jungle.
"Good boy," Meru called out to him over the megaphone.
Professor Omae folded his arms and gave Miki a reproving look. He didn't need to say anything. Meru's behavior made his point.
"You will be missed," Aoki said to soften the tension between the professor and the young psychic.
"Thank you." Miki smiled, grateful he chose not to show his disappointment with her as the professor did.
The boat revved up and took her out to the supply ship for the trip back to Japan.
Junior watched from the jungle with longing in his eyes, wishing she would come back.
Anguirus snorted in contempt.
Junior could tell the bristly ankylosaur thought he should've put up more of a fight. His own natural instinct told him the same thing. He should've fought the human. If he had he might have kept Miki from leaving.
#
The research base was located on an unnamed island in the Marshall Islands. In fact this was the same island where Anguirus had been found. The United Nations Godzilla Countermeasure Center (aka G-Force) had Meru and Miki telepathically guide Godzilla Junior to this island thereby putting all their dinosaurs into one basket.
Anguirus turned hostile at this intrusion into his territory. Meru acted as security, using her psychic power to repel him, which freed Miki to assist in research and manage administrative duties. With Miki gone, G-Force expressed concern on whether Meru could shoulder the responsibility intended for two psychics.
She assured her superiors she could. Besides, she didn't want a partner. Being the sole psychic enhanced her importance.
With her bullhorn in hand she shooed the monsters away from the base. "The excitement is over, boys. Go back into the jungle."
Godzilla Junior lowered his head, despondent over the loss of Miki, and lumbered deeper into the jungle.
Anguirus lay down and dared her to try to make him budge.
The thirty-thousand ton monster and the ninety-eight pound young woman narrowed their gazes at each other.
Meru smirked. You want to fight? She challenged him telepathically.
You are smaller than my paw, Anguirus replied in his thoughts. I can crush you.
Fine. You asked for this. Meru closed her eyes in concentration. In the physical plane she amounted to a rodent in comparison to Anguirus, but on the psychic plane size or weight did not come into play. Only the strength of one's will mattered and Meru brought a lot of muscle to the field. Like a grappler she locked her will with his and jockeyed for leverage.
Anguirus countered by focusing on his mass. I am big. She is small. I cannot be moved. His simple thoughts became a brick wall. Meru pushed. She pounded. She rammed her will against it. Nothing. Anguirus could not be shaken from his belief that his size trumped her superior intellect. In essence he was beating her by being obtuse.
Meru broke contact and rubbed her throbbing temples.
Weakling, Anguirus sniffed.
Attack the nerve centers was the next step. Inflict pain. But he would be expecting that. She came up with a new tactic.
Ready for round 2?
A low growl purred in Anguirus's throat. He was ready.
Meru concentrated. This time she gave him visions of the succulent flora down by the lagoon on the other side of the island. Dew dripping from the leaves... The tangy snap of bark between the teeth... The splash of sweetness on the tongue from the tropical fruit…
Anguirus's stomach rumbled. He got up and wandered off toward the lagoon none the wiser his opponent had implanted those impressions in his mind.
Wait! She pleaded with him telepathically. Don't you want to fight? Come back!
The ankylosaur ignored her.
Meru chuckled. "Anguirus, I can outwit you anywhere, at any time."
#
Later in the evening, Azusa stopped by Meru's office.
"May we talk?" Azusa asked.
"Sure." Meru invited her to take a seat in front of her desk.
Azusa took her seat but felt uncomfortable, as though she were a student in the principal's office. Funny, she thought, I never felt this way when Miki was our team leader. I could talk to her about anything. As for you, Ms. Ozawa…Then she thought, uh-oh! Hope she isn't reading my mind.
Meru waited attentively with her elbows on the desk and her palms resting one atop the other. Maybe she was eavesdropping on Azusa's thoughts, maybe she wasn't. Meru didn't give any indication. She raised her brow to prod the young scientist to speak.
Azusa cleared her throat and braced herself. Her complaint might light a short fuse. "It's about the way you treat Anguirus and Godzilla Junior. You are too harsh."
"How so?"
"Your attitude is condescending. You taunt them. Intimidate them. Animals have feelings, too. You should know that better than anyone."
"And when they snarl and threaten to attack, what do you suggest I do?"
"You are our team leader. Not this island's warden."
Meru's hands clenched into fists.
Azusa stood her ground. "I cared for Junior when he was an infant. Not once did I raise my voice against him. Look how he behaves. He is gentle. As for Anguirus, yes he snarls, but who has he been in contact the most? You!"
"That's not fair. Junior was born in captivity. Anguirus sees this island as his turf. To him we're intruders."
"And it's about time you take that into consideration."
Meru leaned back and thought about Azusa's remarks.
The room became quiet. The sound of the clock ticking heightened Azusa's anxiety.
"You're right," Meru unclenched her fists. "We need to define a set of protocols for communicating with these animals. Would you help me?"
Azusa sat stunned. Had she misjudged Meru? "Of course!"
"Let's get started."
"Right now?"
"You got something else planned?"
"No! No!" Azusa was relieved Meru was taking this so well.
Meru got out Miki's logbooks and two notepads, sliding one of them to Azusa. "We'll jot down some ideas then get the professor's input in the morning. Isn't this exciting?" She smiled. "We're the first people to draft a handbook on diplomatic relations with dinosaurs!"
Azusa smiled, too, happy they will be able to work together after all.
Before they started brainstorming, they heard Anguirus and Godzilla Junior's roars echoing from the jungle.
Azusa dropped her pen. "Are they fighting?"
Then the power cut out across the entire base.
Meru grabbed a flashlight from her desk drawer.
Footsteps approached the office. Whoever was coming didn't seem to need any light.
"Who's out there?" Meru demanded.
The footsteps stopped short of the door, turned and walked away.
The power came back on. The computer on the desk beeped as it rebooted.
"Come on!" Meru handed her the flashlight as she got up. She grabbed her holster from the coat rack and belted it around her waist.
Azusa was too terrified to speak. Who was it? Terrorists? Terrorists didn't stroll in dark corridors like some stalker.
Was it a ghost?
As ridiculous as it sounded, the footsteps did made Azusa think of a ghost.
Meru aimed her gun down the hall, checking to the right then to the left.
Seeing nothing she motioned Azusa to follow.
Azusa huddled behind her gripping the flashlight like a club.
They caught up with the footsteps and stopped at the next corner.
Meru peered down the adjoining passage. Her eyes opened wide. Her lips parted in shock. She quickly regained her composure and took aim. "Who are you?"
She didn't get a reply.
"Don't move!"
Meru's gun boomed.
Azusa yelped and covered her stinging ears.
A door closed shut down the adjoining hall.
"Stay here!" Meru left her alone.
She didn't want to be by herself. What if a second set of footsteps crept up on her from another direction? She ran after Meru.
They came to the door to the room containing the base's computer mainframe. Meru wrenched the knob but it wouldn't turn. "What's going on? This door has no lock."
Azusa put her ear to the door. She couldn't hear anything.
"Get back!"
Azusa stepped away to give Meru room as she grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall and bashed the knob.
"Is someone in there?"
"Yes!" Meru bashed the knob again.
Aoki came running up from the far end of the wall with a couple dock workers carrying pry bars as weapons. "We heard a gunshot!"
"Stay back!" Azusa cried. "Someone is in the mainframe room."
"Who?"
"We don't know!"
Meru shook out her arms to relieve the strain then raised the extinguisher to resume banging on the doorknob. When she did the door creaked open.
Everyone exchanged glances.
Meru handed Aoki the extinguisher, drew her pistol, and kicked the door aside. She charged in. Before she came back out, Azusa knew what she was going to find.
Nothing.
The kaiju came storming up to the base. Godzilla Junior was bellowing. He sounded distressed.
Everyone ran outside.
Azusa turned on the flashlight and waved it to get Junior's attention. "I'm here! Everything is all right."
"He saw something," Meru said. She concentrated to read his mind.
"What?"
Meru's brow tightened. "A light…a bright light in the sky. It's as bright as Venus. But there's a problem…"
"What? What? Tell us!"
"From what I can tell Junior was looking up at the stars in that direction," she pointed toward the lagoon, "and Venus is over there." She pointed in the opposite direction. "Does anyone see anything stand out in the sky toward the lagoon?"
Azusa and everyone else searched the stars. Out in the Pacific where there were no cities, all the stars shined brilliantly. Yet…
"None of them stand out," Aoki said.
"Because what Junior saw is gone," Meru holstered her gun. "Like the metal man I shot."
"Metal…man?"
"He must have been made of metal," Meru said, "because my shot bounced right off him."