Metropolitan Terror
By evolution-500
Genres: Horror/Tragedy
Feedback: Always welcome
WARNING: This story contains coarse language and mature themes. Reader discretion is advised.
Disclaimer: Godzilla is a property belonging to Toho Co. Ltd. I do not own this character.
"It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another." - Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein"
He was lashing out at the building again.
Taking a drag from his cigarette with his automated left hand, Max Watanabe disinterestedly stared through the window as he tried ignoring the stinging pain in his body, looking at the city's surroundings. Various streets, buildings and roads were flashing with bold neon lights of every imaginable color, grotesquely warping everything around them in a kaleidoscope of hues as holographic jumbotrons and air drones all advertised some product or service, bombarding the mind with wave after wave with promises, all of them spoken with an artificial zeal.
The latest in fashion for men and women.
The newest and hottest movies and music for download.
The newest flavors of soda or booze.
The latest hovercar and androids. The newest line of cybernetic augmentations. The newest medication from PharmaCorps. The newest assembly lines of genetically engineered pets of all shapes and sizes, hybridized, humanoid or otherwise, all available with warranties, at discounted prices, on sale, only available at certain locations-
Max rolled his eyes at the obnoxious onslaught of bullshit that assaulted his senses, looking away in disgust over to the lines of factories as they all puffed out dark, thick columns of smog from smoke stacks, the cloud so thick and dirty-looking that it made him want to gag each time he looked at it. Lowering his vision to the streets below, he saw them teaming with millions of people, all of them scurrying across the surface in numerous different directions like rats as they all went about their day, none of them paying any mind to the giant creature that attempted to attack them.
Turning his attention over to the latter, Max watched as Godzilla stood there in the middle of the city square looking around in confusion, the holographic creature letting out a frustrated and angry roar. Though the creature was impressively detailed - all three hundred feet and ninety-six feet of scaled and scarred fleshed that was impressively rendered in real time, a fearsome and threatening sight to behold, to be sure - to the rest of the people around here, he was nothing more than a novelty; every so often some person would be startled as it screeched in their face or tried stomping and/or swatting at them. It would try whipping its enormous tail, slash down with its sharp claws, slam down its massive foot or snap its massive fanged teeth at the tiny humans, but once the shock wore off, people would shrug and laugh, then continue on, as if nothing had ever happened.
Rearing back up, Godzilla then tried to grab onto or smash the nearest building, only for its holographic hands to fade straight through. The audio speakers huffed as it snorted, the beast letting out a deep, guttural growl that started at what sounded like the back of its throat before rumbling all the way down to its chest. Finally, the spectral dinosaur let out a scream of unbridled rage, his cries echoing all across the dark city, his shining, neon blue form reflecting off of the towering crystalline gothic/Art Deco hybrid skyscrapers that dwarfed and encaged him.
"You're staring at it again, I see."
Turning his attention from the window of the dimly lit, near empty retro-inspired diner that he was in to face the speaker, Max merely shrugged at the waitress as she poured him a fresh hot cup of coffee.
"Just can't help it, I guess," he replied. "Not many cities have a neon dinosaur attacking them on a regular basis."
"Meh," she half-shrugged, "you get used to it after a while in Neo-Tokyo. Tourists love it, though, especially kids."
"I bet they do," Max said dismissively as he poured in some cream and stirred with a spoon.
Outside, a torrent of heavy rain poured down to the traffic-filled street as people went about their daily lives, ignoring the towering leviathan as it attempted to destroy the various vehicles and buildings around him, not even taking notice as the holographic creature attempted to chomp down on passing hovercars that rumbled by his head and feet.
The waitress, an old, heavyset Caucasian woman dressed in a retro-styled uniform with long silver hair and tired eyes, looked at him curiously, her nametag labeled "Dolores".
"You new to this area?" she asked, tilting her head slightly.
He nodded. "Yeah, relatively. I work with Metro Industries as a cabdriver."
"Is that right?"
"Yeah."
"That's nice," she nodded. "I hear they have a good insurance plan and provide dental."
"They do," he nodded back. "In fact, they were able to cover my hospital expenses after I got into an accident couple of weeks ago." He lifted up his automated hand in demonstration. "Got this as a result, along with an automated lower leg."
"Oh dear," the woman murmured. "Does it hurt?"
Max puffed on his cigarette, exhaling out a thick plume of smoke.
"Sometimes," he admitted. "I have some painkillers to deal with it, but when left for too long, man..."
He trailed off as he took another sip from his coffee.
"I'm sorry to hear about that," the waitress said sympathetically.
"Thanks, I guess." he shrugged. "That said, I'm pretty lucky. At least it hadn't been serious enough to warrant full-bodied automation."
Max shuddered.
"You too, huh?"
"Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I know a couple guys that had been made into full-on cyborgs, and they're nice fellas and all, but man, I'd hate to be in their position. Between the choice of living as a rusted bucket some corporate fuck owns and being dead or a vegetable, I'd rather be the latter any day of the week. Like hell I let a corporation own my ass."
"Can't say I blame you," "Dolores" shrugged. She glanced to his automated hand as he clacked his mechanical fingers. "What happened, if you don't mind my asking?"
Max exhaled into his cup.
"I was doing a late night shift when he appeared in front of me," he motioned to Godzilla outside, glaring at it pointedly.
The waitress hummed thoughtfully, giving a sympathetic nod in understanding. "Yes, he does that sometimes."
"I don't suppose ya know any good lawyers around here," he stated.
She shrugged. "Afraid not. Besides which, the government passed a law stating you can't sue them for anything Godzilla does. Can't even sue for nuisance - believe me, I tried."
He frowned, letting out an indignant huff, "Well ain't that a kick in the pants."
"I'm sorry for not being able to help."
He shrugged, stubbing his cigarette into an ashtray.
"Are you taking therapy for the automated hand?"
Max nodded. "Yeah, I've been seeing a specialist and a physical therapist, but man the prices are outrageous!"
"Oh I hear you!" the waitress agreed.
"You have cybernetics on you?" He asked curiously.
"No, but I've had friends and customers who do, and let me tell ya, it costs an arm and leg."
He cracked a smile in spite of himself. "Ain't that the truth. I'm Max, by the way."
"Dolores," the waitress greeted back with a smile as she took the various leftover plates from the other tables.
"Nice to meet you, Dolores."
"Likewise."
Max flinched as Godzilla roared again, the sound nearly causing her to drop the dishes, drawing their attention to him outside.
"I hate it when he does that," Dolores growled as she took the plates back to the kitchen, reappearing later.
"I'm surprised that the government would even allow that thing to even play, especially during traffic." Max commented. "Aren't they worried about it causing accidents around here?"
She let out a slight scoff as she wiped the counter with a cleaning rag.
"Honey, the government has been trying to shut that thing down for years. Ever since the holoprojectors had been installed throughout the city, he would just pop up on display in different sections every now and again, day and night. Even during holidays."
"That right?"
"It's true."
"That sounds really annoying."
Dolores shrugged. "It can be, sometimes."
Max watched the holographic form of Godzilla as the latter opened his mouth, the audio speakers blaring out with his signature roar.
"Why the hell would anyone want to create a thing like that? And up to scale? I tell ya, it's hard enough driving a cab around here when every now and then that fat bastard starts showin' up, roaring and scarin' the shit out of me. What corporate think tank did that bright idea come from?"
"No one's," Dolores answered as she cleaned the other tables. "Nobody created that hologram - it just sprung up on its own."
He blinked. "Seriously?"
She nodded. "It's his consciousness. Even if his physical body is asleep, his mind, however, isn't."
Max hesitated. "Wait a minute...are you saying that-"
Dolores merely shrugged. "I'm only telling you what the government had told us on the news. You can find that info on YouView. But yeah, that's his mind given digital form, apparently, and it's been quite bothersome and restless. Nobody knows how to shut him off. None of the corporations, none of the software engineers, nobody. Not even those biotechnicians can stop it. At least, not without shutting the entire city off...and that is not something anyone wants. Not unless they want to risk...you know..."
"Hm." Max nodded, clicking his tongue absentmindedly. "You'd think they'd come up with something to deal with it by now."
Dolores merely shrugged as she kept cleaning, "Well, what can you do? They've been using so many lines of code, so much hardware and software that it's a wonder they hadn't fried their own systems. He has definitely been causing problems, that's for certain. Some folk get epilepsy when he starts doing his fire show, and that's not even talking about the various traffic accidents that he causes from time to time, especially for those driving in hovercars every now and then." She paused momentarily. "Of course...it is not...entirely...his fault..."
He raised a brow. "No?"
"Well...not really." Max watched as Dolores turned away from the counter to look over at Godzilla as he struggled. "I sometimes can't help- I mean...it is one thing to put him into a coma..."
As Max studied her, he saw the waitress' eyes droop sadly as she shook her head.
"I don't know. Maybe I've become sentimental in my old age, but...sometimes I can't help feeling..." She took in a deep breath, and sighed, "disgusted...by what we've become. I mean, I'm not denying all of the wonderful benefits that science, technology and progress had brought us, with advanced medicines and other life-extending products and services, but by the same token..."
She looked down pensively, as if trying to find the right words.
"...Before this island became Neo-Tokyo, it used to have a name. A culture." She exhaled softly, giving a small, wistful smile. "Odo Island. That was its original name before land developers bought it out and turned it into...well...this." She gestured to the various buildings and roads outside. "It's a shame, really. From the photographs, Odo Island looked like it used to be so beautiful. So...peaceful. It used to have so many exotic animal and plant species, with lush, beautiful forests..."
For a moment, Max watched as Dolores stared blankly ahead, as if she were trying to envision how it used to be. She kept still for a moment, then two. Finally, the old woman seemed to drift back from her fancies, snapping back to cold, unwelcoming reality as she shook her head slowly sadly.
"All gone now, I'm afraid," she shrugged. "The smog and toxic pollutants wiped all them out ages ago. Not many remember that. Hell, hardly anyone even remembers the original name of the island itself anymore, nor do many remember a lot of our past traditions. I still do, though. Most of them, anyway."
Max said nothing at first, staring into his cup of coffee. "...What's your point?"
The waitress was still as she considered the question.
"...The point is...well..." She sighed. "I can't help feeling as if somewhere along the way of progress we had lost something. Like we had...miss-stepped. Perhaps even overstepped. I know that he had caused untold of damage for God knows how long in the past, killing God knows how many throughout the years, but..."
Dolores sighed, staring out through the windows at the neon-lit buildings and streets, "...Isn't it enough that he's unconscious? Do we really need to inflict all of...this onto him? Strapping him up to all of those facilities and generators, with all those damn tubes, pipes, wires and what have you, and converting him into a city while he's still alive...using him like a battery for hundreds of years?"
Max leaned back into his chair as he considered her questions. Clucking softly, he shrugged nonchalantly.
"One could just simply chalk this up as being karma for what he's done," he said as he drank his coffee.
"Is it?" Dolores asked doubtfully. "After all, Godzilla had started off as an ordinary animal before it had been mutated by radiation, so technically it was him acting out in retaliation against us. I mean, think about it. God, when I see all those burns along with those bones jutting out from his skin in those various photographs and videos of him, it makes me wonder how much misery and pain he had been in all that time.
'I mean, just imagine - here you are, the only one of your generation, perhaps even the last of a dead or dying breed. If there had been others, you wouldn't have known - you're cut off from the world, and as a result, you're left all alone for God knows how long. Imagine how lonely and bitter you must feel as years pass and you've yet to encounter anything like yourself. You just sit and wait, hoping- well, praying for a sign that you aren't alone in the world, that there's something out there for you, that you wouldn't spend your days by yourself. We're not talking one or two years, but millions! Think of how soul-crushing that must be to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, with nobody to ever hear your cries.
'Then, as you're starting off your day, minding your own business, something happens to you, changing your life forever.
'You have no idea how it happened - one day you just wake up, and everything has changed.
'There's pain everywhere, happening to you everyday, and no matter what you do, be it sitting in cold water or boiling hot, it only makes it worse. So whaddya do? You travel. Maybe to find answers. Maybe to find a solution to your problem, or perhaps because you are just tired of being alone. Perhaps it isn't enough to just simply exist, and perhaps for once you want to stop feeling so isolated all the time. After all, aren't we all entitled to happiness, even just a little bit? Perhaps for just once you want to...reach out for...something. You want to make or find a...connection, someplace, somehow. At least, before you die."
Dolores stared down quietly, as if envisioning it before continuing, "But then you come across things you've never seen before, bombarded nonstop from every direction by all these different sights, smells, tastes..."
She folded the rag, placing it away in a drawer. "You don't know what these things are, but everywhere you go, you are confronted with obstacles. Everywhere you turn, you're confronted with more obstacles, and when you try going forward, you just end up confronting more, and more, and more, leading to more problems, leading to more frustration, more pain, more rage.
'Eventually, you begin to realize that these things had a hand in what you had gone through. Something that caused your pain.
'So what do you do? You can't express your anger vocally. You can't just ask them to fix it or stop, for the damage had already been done - there's no going back. You can't understand what they're doing, let alone what they're saying. So what happens? All that pain, all that frustration, all that anger...it just builds, and builds, and builds, and builds, until finally you want to lash out and hurt those around you in order to make them experience pain. Your pain."
He paused in his sip, giving her a curious look. "You sound as if you feel sorry for the lizard."
She met his gaze. "Wouldn't you?"
The diner was still as Max considered her query. Finally, an alarm echoed outside, drawing both of their attention.
"WARNING," An automated message spoke dispassionately over the intercom while a holographic text written in several other languages appeared on the screen in front of the holographic creature. "WARNING. GODZILLA IS FIRING. PLEASE STOP ALL VEHICLES."
Looking out through the window, two of them watched as Godzilla unleashed his atomic heat beam, the holographic flame flickering harmlessly through buildings and vehicles alike, the latter waiting for it to end. Once the creature had finished, the traffic on the ground and in the air continued on toward their destinations, none paying any heed to what had occurred.
Max watched as Godzilla let out an angry roar, the creature stomping its feet in frustration. Turning away to face the waitress, Max casually pulled his wallet out from his jacket, taking out some bills.
"I'm afraid I have to get going - I need to get my shift," he said as he handed them to her, grabbing his baseball cap from the table. "Thank you for the coffee."
"My pleasure, hon," Dolores smiled as she took the money. "Come back anytime!"
Zipping up his coat, Max placed on his hat as he stepped out into the dreary rain and walked down the sidewalk, the downpour hard and unrelenting. Reaching into his pocket, he took a couple of painkillers out from a bottle, downing them in one gulp before sealing it away. After glancing both ways as he stopped at the edge of the curb, he then quickly crossed the street over to the other side, making his way to the parking lot, glancing around at the rest of the concrete jungle with newfound perspective.
When Max first came here, he had been in awe at the sprawling, thousand story structures, the bewildering cityscape.
He had initially thought Neo-Tokyo to be a gleaming, delicate jewel the first time he laid eyes on it, but staring at it now, the city seemed less welcoming than he remembered. The more Max stared, the more discomforted he became. When he first came here, he thought the flashy neon gave the city a look of life, but looking at it now, he could see that it was mere window dressing; even under all the rain, he could see now how cold and grey everything actually was. Cold and grey...like cemetery headstones.
To Max, the city no longer looked nor felt like Paradise.
In truth, it looked more like a gaping, oversized mouth, the millions of buildings looming monstrously like collections of massive teeth and fangs.
Hearing a loud, angry and defiant roar that teetered to something electronic and digital-sounding, Max paused in his step and turned to look in the direction of the noise, his eyes falling on Godzilla's flickering and wavering holographic form as he pitifully struggled against endless miles of concrete, steel and neon, the buildings looming threateningly over him.
Like a ghost refusing- or perhaps unable- to pass on, the creature stood in the middle of it all, perpetually locked in an unending war with no hope of ever escaping.
As Max watched Godzilla's unending torment and struggle, the beast doomed to be swallowed whole by the city itself, the cabdriver looked down at his automated hand in troubled contemplation, uncertain as to whether or not the city had already begun to consume him as well.
Author's Note: And that concludes this story! So, for a while now, I've been wanting to do a kaiju story, let alone a Godzilla story, that had a cyberpunk theme and setting. I have always wondered what a Godzilla movie would look like had it been set in the world of "Akira" or "Blade Runner", and while a couple movies and shows such as "MechaGodzilla", "Pacific Rim" and a few others kind of had hints of cyberpunk here and there, they were not by definition "cyberpunk". I suppose Grid Man aka "Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad" and "Evangelion" to a tiny extent qualify, but not exactly; the latter is more of a mecha-based series set in a post-apocalyptic future, but it doesn't really have a lot of features aside from some slight elements. The former is more of a "Giant Hero" series. It's surprising how there aren't any kaiju cyberpunk movies, stories or games at all, just because I think some fun stuff could be done with the idea of merging the two.
So, because of that, I thought that I would do my own take on. Or at least, try to attempt it.
Of course, coming up with a take that combined the two meaningfully and was interesting was a bit of a problem. It wasn't until watching "Shin Godzilla" and the original 1933 "King Kong" that the idea hit me - rather than the age-old story of monsters terrorizing a city, what if it were the city terrorizing the monsters, thereby doing a kind of role reversal? I suppose the idea itself is true for a lot of kaiju movies, if not the very basis for a lot of monster movies in general, going all the way back to the original "King Kong", but a lot of the time, the monsters had their day and were able to lash out in retaliation, or were the hostile aggressors, the invading force. I don't think I have ever come across a story or movie where kaiju and civilizations/societies are fused uniquely together as one in a kind of parasitic relationship, let alone one where a civilization is intentionally and directly victimizing a kaiju, though, although it's possible I may be mistaken in my assumptions. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though. Another source of inspiration was Kitty Horrorshow's "Anatomy" game, which was a fantastic and creepy game with some really good writing.
A third source of inspiration had also been the "Ghost Godzilla" concept from the canceled movie of the same name. I was kind of intrigued by the idea, so I thought that I could try to find a way to integrate that, if not explore it a little.
I'm not sure if the resulting story is good or not. That said, however, I hope you enjoyed reading this. Feel free to criticize, but please avoid flames. If there are any errors or if you think there are better ways to improve, let me know and I'll gladly adjust and/or correct.
Take care, and stay safe and healthy, everyone! :)