Gates of the Fallen, Tokyo, Japan

(Tokyo in 2024 is, despite the Kaiju attack of 2016 turning it into a smoking ruin, once more a thriving city. I meet Professor Yumi Anna of the PPDC's Oceanography Division under the towering form of the memorial to the millions who died during the attack, constructed from the bones of the dead Kaiju Onibaba to form the world's largest tori gate, inscribed with the names of every death caused by the creature. The eyes of most of the citizens and tourists are drawn towards the statue at the other end of the park, the life size stone statue of the decommissioned Jaeger Coyote Tango, standing triumphant atop the remains of a stone Onibaba and reaching a hand down to the tiny form of a young girl, the so called 'Girl in Blue' Mako Mori, whose image became a symbol of hope for millions in the wake of the destruction of Tokyo. The middle aged professor takes a moment to look up at the countless names inscribed on the pale white bones rising above us before turning toward me, brushing a lock of greying black hair from her eyes and smiling as we start the interview.)

I guess you could call me humanity's one and only ambassador to the Kaiju. That's what the media say at least. I remember, after the Kaiju went from terrifying monsters to objects of ridicule, a sketch on an American comedy show showing my 'first contact' with them as some ridiculous E.T parody, and then half an hour of jokes about how I must have rejected the monster's offers of a date and made him go and eat San Francisco in revenge.

(She frowns)

Bastards. I guarantee all those fat men in chequered shirts and moustaches laughing it up about the deaths of millions would have probably thought more about what they were saying if they had ever actually experienced one. I'm guessing you want to hear the story?

Go ahead.

(Yumi smiles)

I was working on a survey vessel tracking whale populations for the Japanese Oceanographic Institute in the Pacific Ocean about two hundred miles off the West Coast of the USA. I say survey vessel but it was really more of a container ship me and a few other researchers were tagging along with and bringing with us all manner of ancient scientific equipment. It was very dull work for the first week, just sitting by the seismic scanners and radar down in the lower decks, watching the odd tiny blip of green marking a shoal of fish or whale, and then noting it down in a battered logbook.

Were you past the Breach when you saw the anomaly?

Ah yes, the famous 'Pacific Blip', as the other scientists so imaginatively labelled it. Yes, as far as I remember we had gone past the future site of the Breach about an hour before the actual anomaly. You have to remember back then travel across the Pacific was hard, yes, but there was none of the giant red warning signs that you see all across that section of ocean every time you open a world map now. The Breach itself wasn't even on our charts back then. But anyway, back to the bit you came here for.

(She sighs.)

I was on radar duty that night must have been about three in the morning, pretty much pitch black when you stepped onto the deck, when it happened. I remember watching that green line making its way across the circular radar screen for what felt like the millionth time and I was already considering calling it a night and standing up when it happened.

You almost missed it?

Yes. And maybe it might have been better if I had, if only to spare me from the ridicule of internet trolls and Twitter. But, when I was just getting out of that chair and standing with my finger on the shutdown option on the computer I saw the green line of the radar make one final sweep. All of it empty. Until that last third of the screen, when I saw, illuminated for a second, a mass of bright green. About that big.

(She holds up a hand, with thumb and forefinger about two inches apart.)

I just remember one thought going through my head. 'If it's that big on the screen, how big is it out there in the sea?' I sprinted from the room after that to the main deck. I don't know why, it was pouring with rain out there and I was soaked through the second I stepped out onto the rain slicked metal and looked out over the ocean, already freezing under my thin shirt but I guess I just had a feeling that, whatever it was, it was no whale.

I must have been waiting a minute or so, and was considering going back to my uncomfortable bunk near the engine room when I felt it.

(Yumi pauses, her face paling at the memory)

I felt the sea beneath us moving, as if a great wave was rolling under the ship and yet, besides the rain, the sea was as calm as a koi pond.

That's when I got scared. By now the entire crew were out on deck, all grabbing onto something to hold, expecting the huge wave to throw us around like a toy.

"It's a monster wave!" the captain bellowed from further up, him and the first mate rushing to the bridge through the driving rain.

(She smiles grimly)

I guess he was half right.

Then I saw, through the rain and the murky sea below us, a shape moving.

And this wasn't a whale, or a submarine or anything. It must have been at least twenty metres wide, whatever it was, with one large opening at the front and two small others further back. The shape went under us, probably about ten metres below but still setting the ship rocking and swaying all over. Then I saw the shape continuing on and I came to one simple, but horrifying conclusion.

That was only the head.

Now I leant over the rail while all around me everyone else was tying down objects on deck or running inside.

Can you describe it?

(She nods)

I saw the rest of the beast flowing underneath. Arms the size of blue whales. Claws bigger than a freight train. And the body just kept going on and on, this scaly mass of darkness.

I was shaking by now with equal parts fear and excitement until, with a whoosh of spray and an ear piercing howl, louder than anything I had ever heard before, the beast's head emerged from the water like a submarine's conning tower.

Then I screamed. I know, makes me sound like a little coward but it was just so…overwhelming. This thing, about ten tonnes worth of head, turned in a heartbeat.

Its eyes were like pools of black, the lights from our ship reflecting off them and illuminating parts of the creature, a claw here, a section of scaled chest there. But it ignored all that and just floated there, rain polling off it in mini waterfalls and fixed its eyes, those dark orbs, directly on me. Nobody else. Not the crewmen all shrieking in terror. Not the ship bobbing in front of it like an all you can eat buffet of plate iron and tiny humans.

Just me.

And in that one second, that momentary stare, I saw into the beast's very soul. And I was afraid.

As it turned away and swam off in a froth of spray which battered our boat with columns of water and froth, whilst everyone else was screaming or shouting at each other I just stood there, feeling the same terror as when my father let me watch those old films he had loved as a child. The ones with the monsters tearing apart Tokyo with claws and radioactive breath, shrugging off missiles and swatting planes from the sky. And I felt one word come to my lips. As the rest of me was shaking in fear, hands gripping the cold steel handrail for support I just remember hearing myself repeating that one word over and over again, as if it would somehow make that experience seem less frightening and not bring back the same terror I had felt watching those black and white monsters devouring all in their path.

What was the word?

(Yumi pauses, looking up at the memorial above us, her face pale. My audio recorder barely picks up her next sentence, her voice is so quiet.)

Kaiju.