Attack of the Super Allosaurus
By Neil Riebe
Chapter 1
"We have visual contact with bogie."
"Very good, Alpha leader. Tower to all wing commanders, engage bogie."
Three squadrons of F-15 Eagles rocketed over Tokyo bay toward the open sea. In other countries, you call the humane society when a wild animal strays into the community. In Japan, you call the army.
Alpha leader pushed his squadron into the lead. "Almost in range." He held his finger ready at the trigger. "Closing…closing…"
"Oh, god!" one of Alpha leader's wingmen gasped over the intercom. "I can't get over this monster's size."
"Easy,Sakai!" Alpha leader shot a glance toward his wingman's plane. "We're going to bag this bird, stuff him, and stick him with his fossilized ancestors in a museum. Right?"
Japan's strays tended to be bigger than a deer or fox. This one had a five hundred foot wingspan and flew at supersonic speeds. His lineage could be traced back sixty-five million years. He was the monster Rodan, and as far as he was concerned the skies were his playground.
When his pursuers drew close, he swooped up, high over the planes. In one instant the giant pteranodon was in their sights, in the next—gone!
The pilots craned their heads. "Which way did he go?"
"Tower to all wings, Rodan is heading for you! Beta wing break right. Omega break left."
While the control tower issued orders, Rodan completed his loop and shrieked ahead of Alpha squadron and swung across their path at such speed, his wake sent their fragile planes crashing into each other. Wreckage and screams rained from the air.
Rodan continued round toward Beta squadron, slashing the sky like a scythe.
"Beta commander to all wings, make evasive!"
"Beta squadron, abort evasive! Make dive! Make dive! YOU'RE HEADING RIGHT FOR US!"
Rodan herded Beta toward Omega just as Omega launched their missiles at him. The pilots turned the airwaves purple with their curses as they yanked their throttles in one direction to avoid an incoming warhead only to have to pull in the opposite direction to avoid one of their comrades.
Rodan screeched in delight as he flew straight through them. In one swoop, the twisting and rolling airplanes boomed into orange fireballs, like a grim display of fireworks. The sky crackled. Once clear of the smoke and falling debris, Rodan slowed to a gentle mach two through the salty Pacific winds.
Below was his island home, a pinnacle rock ringed with trees. A circle of water parted from the coast. A figure rose from the deep blue depths. Rodan squawked and dived for home.
At the tower, radar indicated only a half dozen marks remained of the original strike force. "Tower to surviving pilots. Regroup and pursue. Bogie on descent course to island."
The six F-15s skimmed the ocean. Rodan swung from view, behind the far side of the mountain on the island. Directly ahead, the object of Rodan's irritation lumbered across the beach, a beast towering fifty meters.
Wet from the sea, his charcoal-colored scales shimmered in the summer radiance. His eyes glared from under a hooded, reptilian brow. With his clawed hands held out, he strode as though he were stalking a victim. The white sands and cloudless azure hardly suited as a stage for his reappearance. But with Godzilla, the world was his office. He went where he pleased and this sun-soaked island pleased him.
At the sight of the fighters, he flared his dorsal plates in warning.
The pilots took the hint and withdrew for the mainland, lest he blasted them with his atomic breath.
Godzilla relaxed only to sense a familiar sound. He craned his head. The noise picked up into a sonic screech. A winged mass smashed into the back of his skull. Pain flashed. Godzilla staggered off his feet, taking in a mouthful of sand. A familiar cry bellowed from above. Rodan!
Godzilla righted himself, ignoring his throbbing bruise. The main thing was not to let Rodan get the best of him.
His pteranodan opponent dived from the direction of the sun. Squinting, he fired blindly. Rodan soared overhead, untouched, whipping a veritable sandstorm in Godzilla's face.
He perched on the mountainside and flapped his wings to stir up the wind. Godzilla hardly shook the sand out of his eyes when he found himself bracing against the Rodan-induced hurricane storming down the mountain.
This little island wasn't worth the fight. Rodan thePestcould be dealt with later. Squabbling was not on Godzilla's agenda for today. He returned to Pacific waters and headed for a much bigger piece of territory, the Japanese mainland.
"Earlier this afternoon Rodan soared supreme in what zoologists described as a territorial fight. Air force fighters engaged the winged reptile off the mainland coast."
Gary Cullmin was on the phone, yet he picked out Rodan's name over his call. "Hey, Mom, guess what! One of those Japanese monsters is in the news." He went to the TV. On screen was an anchor woman standing on the shore with the ocean waves behind her. Hm, he thought to himself she's cute.
"They're just saying the air force fought him," he explained over the phone. "No! I don't plan on coming home right away. Like I said I want memories ofJapanother than school."
Garyknelt down by the TV. "Here. Would you like to hear a news report in Japanese?" He put the phone to one of the speakers.
"The surviving pilots tracked Rodan to a small uninhabited island only to become witnesses to a battle of prehistoric titans. It seemed Godzilla also had his eye on the little knoll..."
Gary pulled the phone away. "Wasn't that cool? The reporter said Rodan and Godzilla fought over an island. I wished they would show some footage."
The reporter's monologue suddenly distracted him from his mother's voice. "I repeat. The following prefectures -Kanagawa,Tokyo, andChiba-are to be prepared for evacuation. Godzilla has been sighted heading toward theHonshucoast. This is Tomoko Mahiko, NHK News."
"Sorry, Mom, I didn't catch what you said."Garylistened to his mom repeat her question. "No, I didn't 'meet anybody' here. Believe me you wouldn't have time with all the homework!"
Elsewhere, a slight Chinese girl dressed in a purple silk robe and white slippers hurried down a long, echoing corridor. She pressed a neon button with a delicate finger. A harsh hydraulic hiss spat within the steel walls as a door slid open. She hurried into a carpeted room. The door rumbled shut with a clang behind her. She scampered through a tastefully decorated office to a back room and waited, bowed and silent, at the threshold.
Here in this room stood a tall, lean man tailored in a suit of purest white. His back was to her as he watched a row of monitors displaying the events of Rodan's battle with Godzilla from news services from around the world. The man rested his hand on a globe the way one would on the shoulder of a beloved wife. He spoke in a smooth and paternalistic tone. "Ling, tell Satin to retrieve my property from Muka's club."
The walls of Muka's club at the Tokyo Ginza thrummed with applause. The young singing duet, The Twin Petals, bowed after finishing their final song, Petite Fleur.
Japanese Secret Service Agent Yomo Kuta leaned over to his burly boss, saying into his ear, "Told you, Chief. They are terrific!"
"If I am not mistaken, Shindo was the one who recommended we come." Goro Yamashita looked over to his other agent who, oddly enough, was the only one in the audience not applauding. "What is the matter, Shindo? You look bothered."
"It was not them singing."
"You mean they lip synced?" Yomo asked. "So what? That's nothing new."
Shindo turned on him sternly. "I mean it was not them. Period! I could see the stage fright in their eyes. They're not professionals, while those voices were more than professional."
"Shindo," Yamashita gruffed. "You are not on assignment. Relax."
"Something is wrong. I can tell when someone is under the gun."
With that Shindo stood.
"Hey, wait!" Yomo jumped from his seat.
Shindo blocked him from leaving the table. "One of us nosing backstage will be conspicuous enough. Two would be making a scene. Besides, it's my turn to buy the next round." He slapped a wad of bills into Yomo's hand. He then pointed to the corners of his mouth and said to his boss Yamashita, "Smile."
Yamashita didn't smile. "Shindo, sit down!"
Too late. Shindo took off. Yomo plopped back down.
"I just hope, Yomo," Yamashita said, "he doesn't embarrass us."
Shindo gathered his share of stares backstage. He smiled and moved on before anyone could question him. Around the corner by the back exit stood a man dressed in a black suit like his. This looked promising. A Yakuza.
After passing several rooms, he heard voices. Voices, he could tell by the tone, which were finalizing a deal, a deal that was not going well. He pressed his ear to the door.
"These two girls have become quite lucrative. We insist on compensation," a brutish-sounding fellow grumbled.
"Consider the extra earnings a bonus, Muka-san," a rich, feminine voice said. Shindo recognized her. "This was a temporary arrangement," she continued. "Surrender the girls."
"What about us?" another woman spoke. She sounded younger, tense. She must be one of the Two Petals. The girl probably had been under a lot of strain and only now worked up the courage to speak up. "You strong-armed us into this gig, and now we're going to be dumped like garbage?"
With practiced fingers, Shindo twisted the knob and inched the door open a crack. Inside, Muka sat at one end of a table flanked by his cut throats. Muka weighed over two hundred pounds. Half of it was fat, the other muscle. He was not the type of man Shindo wanted to challenge in a fist fight. Muka's blubber could soak the impact of any punch while his returning blow would shatter bone.
Shindo didn't see much else other than an ornate box set on Muka's side of the table.
The sultry voice answered the duet's complaints. "I am truly sorry. But we cannot allow any compromise to our mission's secrecy. Take comfort in the fact you will not be starving on the streets."
The lights went out and gunfire erupted. Shindo dropped to the floor as stray rounds ripped through the door. Bodies hit the floor inside. The shots stopped. Shindo burst in finding Muka, his men, and the singers, dead. The ornate box was gone.
From an open door on the other side of the room, Shindo heard a scuffle and then something crashed on the floor. "Forget about it!" the woman with the sultry voice commanded. "Let's go! Let's go!"
Shindo rushed out of the room, down a corridor toward the noise. He arrived at the exit where he found the Yakuza watchman on the floor, unconscious. The fancy box lay smashed. Shindo bent down to examine it. The ruined box had a pop up lid and two little doors on the side. He picked up a piece. The interior was lined with padded cloth.
Then a car pulled away, its tires screeching. Shindo burst out the exit, but the car was long gone.
While he caught his breath, a number of stagehands and performers joined him in the back alley. The club manager asked, "What happened?"
Shindo looked at the piece of the ornate box again. "I don't know."
At that point it no longer mattered. Sirens whined to life. A thud, like a heavy toll of distant thunder, reverberated through the ground, followed by another. Everyone knew what that heralded…
Godzilla's fins flared, adding their blue glow toTokyo's neon signs. He exhaled a stream of his atomic beam over the heads of the people rushing for cover, striking the face of the Odakyu Mall. Girders melted to steam. Concrete crumbled and glass exploded into a cascade of shimmering shards. Godzilla roared over the din.
Motorists hopped out of their vehicles as Godzilla stomped toward them. Cars crunched under his feet like eggshells. Godzilla roared again to hustle the scurrying humans. Contrary to popular opinion, he didn't take pleasure in trampling on human beings anymore than people wanted bug guts smeared on their bare feet.
He passed through the gap he burned into the mall and stepped across the next street, shoving his foot into the brilliant blue and red lights of the Kabukiza Theater. Electricity jolted his toes. The sensation merely tickled him. Godzilla pushed the theater into the next building, both collapsing to rubble. A wave of cinder billowed.
A block away, the lean man in the white suit waited, resting his elbow on the hood of a black jeep. His angular features revealed that he was of Chinese descent. The men under his employ took positions on both sides of the road, to watch for police, evacuees—witnesses of any sort. They were dressed as civilians and armed with compact versions of the AK-47 assault rifle.
"Godzilla approaching," the radio operator in the jeep reported. "Six hundred meters."
The man in white stepped to the center of the evacuated street, the same street in which Godzilla was treading.
"Prepare Contraction Field."
His radio operator relayed his order. Three black Huey choppers swung into view over rooftops. Godzilla eyed the helicopters as they circled him.
A cruel grin crept across the man's face. "Activate the Contraction Field."
The radio operator yelled into his headset. "Activate! Activate!"
The three Huey helicopters fired yellow beams of swirling light at Godzilla, spreading them all over his body.
The behemoth doubled over. He forced himself erect, wailing both in agony and anger. Impossibly, Godzilla's form shrank, from his full fifty meters in height to forty, then thirty. Soon the buildings towered over him. The choppers smoothly rotated to better angles lighting their beams down into the street where Godzilla staggered, dwindling smaller and smaller—ten meters, five, and still shrinking. Smoke peeled away from his body in steamy tendrils, enshrouding Godzilla in a pale cloud lit by the beams of light. His shrunken form slumped to the pavement.
The man signaled his radio operator with an upraised hand. The beams let up.
A large Russian Mi-10 Harke transport helicopter roared over the rooftops. It lowered a steel crate to the street beside Godzilla's smoking form. Five men slung their AKM's and rushed forward. Fumes dissipated from Godzilla's body, which barely stretched out two meters from head to toe.
Two cars pulled up alongside the road. A beautiful Caucasian woman with long black hair stepped out of the first car with two of her mercenary women. Three more women exited from the second vehicle. All of them were smartly geared in black combat fatigues. The men admired the ladies as the brunette approached their leader in white.
"Chiang," she greeted him with a kiss.
"Ah, Satin. Success?"
"I had some complications."
"Complications?" Chiang's gaze turned icy.
"The Yakuza surprised us in the hall. One of your 'telepathic components' got away."
Chiang calculated the compromise to his enterprise then smiled with satisfaction. "So long as I have one. The other I am sure is dead with all the chaos inTokyo."
One of Chiang's men ran up to him. "Godzilla is loaded and ready."
Chiang waved to the Mi-10 helicopter. At his signal the helicopter pulled the crate to its under belly and flew off with the three Hueys. "Now Godzilla can be put through mental processing," Chiang announced. "Come. My work has only begun."
Godzilla's sudden disappearance baffled the authorities. The official stance was that Godzilla, for reasons known only to him, chose to make his trek throughTokyoa short one, even though the police and the military could find no tracks heading back to the sea. His trail marched into the heart ofTokyoand then abruptly stopped. Relieved to have suffered only a fraction of the usual damage, the citizens didn't press for any further explanations.
Shindo had the police reports spread out before him. But the one pertaining to the murders at Muka's club occupied his attention. Yomo sat on the corner of his desk. He asked what this woman Satin was like.
"Satin?" Shindo leaned back dreamily in his office chair. "Think of Jane Seymour but taller. Very beautiful. I always wanted to meet Satin. Almost did once."
The intercom beeped on his desk. Shindo pressed the button.
"Shindo, this is Yamashita. I have the file on the box you found at Muka's club."
"Good work, Chief, bring it in."
"Shindo!" Yamashita exclaimed in anger.
Shindo clicked off. "I guess we better see him."
In Yamashita's office, Shindo compared a piece of the smashed box to a photo of it dated 1964.
"The box was a carrying case." Yamashita pulled out a picture from the file and slid it across the desk to Shindo and Yomo. "For these two."
Shindo picked up the photo. The photograph was a publicity shot of two young women, identical twins. They flashed sparkling smiles and wore golden tiaras in their trussed up hair. Leaning over them from behind was the infamous showman, Clark Nelson, deceased. He held his hands out, presenting them to the camera. The size of the two women in comparison to Nelson was distinct. They appeared to be no more than a foot tall. "It's the Shobijin," Shindo said, "the Twin Fairies fromInfantIsland."
Yomo took the photo. "Say, weren't they inTokyoa while ago, on that TV show? What was it called?"
"What Are They Doing Now?" Yamashita said.
"Yeah, that one!" Yomo set the photo back on Yamashita's desk. "Since their carrying case was at Muka's club, the Twin Fairies must've been there, too."
"The Fairies are renowned for their singing ability," Shindo noted. Then he snapped his fingers. "I bet they were the ones singing. Muka rigged a mike backstage while the Twin Petals lip-synched."
"Yes," Yamashita agreed, "your theory is valid. But read on. Under powers."
Shindo took the Shobijin's file and scanned the pages. "Ability to communicate with animal and plant life... and the greatest of these is mental telepathy!"
"Impressive," chimed Yomo.
"Now," Shindo emphasized with the papers in his hand. "Who would want access to these powers? And for what purpose?"