Disclaimer: All rights to Godzilla and its characters, places and names belong to Toho Studios. All rights to Godzilla (2014) and its characters, places and names belong to Legendary Entertainment. The author of this story owns nothing; this story was written for entertainment purposes only; not for money or profit of any kind.

Chapter 2

Tokyo, Japan

2014

Rain pelted the dark kitchen window of the cluttered, tiny one room apartment Joe Brody now called home. The only lights coming in from outside were the dark amber glow of streetlights and blue and yellow neon signs from other buildings, creating an eerie and depressing glow.

Joe stared at his tired reflection in the glass as he contemplated his life.

'Fifteen years,' the former nuclear physicist thought darkly. Fifteen years had passed since that awful day that haunted his every nightly dream and some days, his every waking moment. Not a day went by that he didn't dwell on those events.

He didn't even have a picture of her, he mused darkly. Everyone had been evacuated so quickly, there had been no time to return to his home and retrieve personal belongings.

His depression and obsession had only grown worse as the years went by. There was a time early on he had made an honest attempt to accept the official report given by the government officials. He had given his report on what had happened that day, as had all the plant workers who had survived that day.

After the nuclear plant collapsed, the entire city of Janjira had been evacuated, and the Japanese government had quarantined off the city and the surrounding areas, citing the nuclear fallout from the plant had caused another Chernobyl-level disaster. The official report stated that a natural disaster had caused the catastrophe as a result of the earthquake in the Philippines.

But Joe knew better.

He had insisted it had been no natural disaster, that he had seen the print-outs with his own eyes. But he had no physical proof to offer beyond his own testimony, which of course had been discounted out of hand. They had just assumed he was grief-stricken, in shock, or simply mistaken about what he had seen.

And so, for a time, he had even believed they were right about him. He had returned to the States with Ford and did his best to raise him and tried to put the heartbreak behind him.

'Shit-load of good that did,' Joe thought bitterly. For a few months, he made the honest attempt to move on, but in the back of his mind he could not let it go. Couldn't let Sandra go.

He started looking into the plant disaster, reading every report and newspaper article and internet article he could find. It started as an innocent hobby, at first. A way to cope with the grief. But the hobby quickly turned into an obsession.

Upon returning State-side, he found work teaching nuclear engineering at the University of California, but due to his involvement with the Janjira plant as well as his growing fascination and involvement with conspiracy theories and growing concerns about his mental stability, he became a pariah in the scientific community.

His relationship with Ford also began to deteriorate as the years went on. He had done all he could to raise Ford; put him through school, watched him grow up. But as Ford grew into a adult, they had more than a few arguments. After Ford graduated, they had become even more estranged.

Ford joined the military, became some hot-shot in the bomb business, or as Ford called it, 'Explosive Ordinance Disposal'. Joe had returned to Japan. He had to know what had really happened. He got a job teaching English as a second language; the only job he could get.

And that's what led to him being here, tonight. He looked over at the tiny couch where Ford slept. It was only earlier in the day that Ford had flown all the way from San Francisco to bail him out of jail.

Joe had been arrested trying to sneak back into the quarantine zone. Ford had scolded him, of course, and implored his father to come home with him. But he didn't understand how important his new discoveries were.

Joe hated lying to his son, who had asked that he return to the States with him for good, but he was planning on sneaking back into the quarantine zone tomorrow morning. His contact was going to reach out to him in the morning, who had a small boat to sneak him in via the coast where security was less tight...

Ford awoke on the couch around seven in the morning to the sound of his father speaking Japanese in a low, hushed voice. Another voice responded, crackling and hissing over what sounded like a radio. Standing up, he slowly rounded a tall bookshelf that separated the tiny studio apartments living room from his fathers sleeping area.

Joe was sitting on the edge of his bed hunched over a tiny desk with a small laptop, a stack of notebooks and a radio. He seemed unaware that Ford was standing there and as he turned off the radio and removed his glasses. He swiveled to see his son's disappointed expression.

They stared at one another for a moment before Ford spoke.

"What are you doing?"

Joe stood up and put on his heavy dark brown jacket. He wasn't looking forward to explaining this. "I'm heading back out there, Ford. One hour, in and out."

Ford began to protest, but Joe would hear none of it. "I have to go! I came back here and sat for six years staring at that barbed wire, thinking it was a military mistake or some kind of horrible design flaw that they were covering up."

Joe turned to continue gathering up his equipment a he continued explaining his reasoning to his son. "I have to go back to our old house; I need my old disks, if they're still there. I need that data to be able to prove a base-line, here. That this isn't a fantasy; that I'm not... what you think I am."

Fords expression softened from frustration to sadness, while his fathers face became filled with determination.

"I'm going to find the truth, and end this. Whatever it takes."

Tears stung Fords eyes. He could see that he couldn't persuade his father not to due this. Shaking his head, he asked, "Why can't you just let her rest?"

Joe exhaled softly, as his voice softened. "Because I sent her down there, son. This wasn't just a reactor meltdown-"

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Joe and Ford both startled and looked at the door. The father and son shared a look.

"You expecting company?" Ford whispered.

"No, of course not," Joe said, his voice low. "Must be the wrong address."

His heart pounded in his chest. Certainly the police weren't after him, again. Ford had cleared up all the legal stuff when he arrived to bail him out. Since it was his first offense, they had thankfully let him off with a warning.

But years of living a mostly solitary lifestyle and talking with other conspiracy theorists had made him paranoid of some shadowy agency silencing him because he knew too much.

Realistically, Joe knew such a thing happening was slim to none, as every government agency and nuclear committee he had ever spoken to about the incident thought he was a crack-pot.

Whoever it was knocked on the door again, a bit louder this time.

"You gonna answer that?" Ford asked.

Joe sighed, and crossed the small apartment and stood by the front door. In Japanese, he spoke to whoever it was through the door without opening it and asked them politely not to disturb.

"Doctor Joseph Brody? Please open the door, I need to speak with you."

Joe and Ford were both surprised to hear the response in English instead of Japanese.

Steeling himself, Joe cracked open the door only enough to allow his face to be visible and saw a young Japanese woman standing in the hall, her hands folded in front of her. She was wearing a lightweight beige jacket over an orange button shirt and cream colored trousers and her dark hair framed her face in an attractive cut.

"My apologies for disturbing you this early in the morning, but-" she began, her English surprisingly perfect, with only a faint Japanese accent.

"If this is about my being arrested, my son has already taken care of everything," Joe interrupted, thinking this woman had something to do with the government.

"Mister Brody, my visit has nothing to do with your trouble with the police," the woman replied. She then frowned. "Well, not directly; although your attempt to breach the quarantine zone is what brought you to our attention."

"'Your attention'?" Joe repeated, his brow wrinkling in confusion and apprehension. "Who are you, and what do you want with me?"

"Yes, right, of course," the woman said, smiling. "My name is Dr. Emiko Yamane. I need your help."

By this time, Ford had stepped up to the door beside his father. "What exactly do you want with my dad?" he asked.

Dr. Yamane glanced from side to side at either end of the hall, on the lookout for prying eyes.

"I work in the Janjira quarantine zone," she said in a hushed voice. She reached into her jacket pocket and revealed her identification badge to them. It looked legitimate, but I.D. could be faked.

"Please, Mr. Brody. My organization needs your help. And I believe we can help you."

Joe continued to stare into the woman's eyes, not sure if he could believe what she was saying. Out of all the potential outcomes he had ever gone over in his mind, a government agent coming to his door asking for his help; offering him answers...

That was genuinely something he had never planned for. Weighing his options, his curiosity outweighed his suspicion. Joe sighed and slowly opened the door without taking his eyes off the young woman.

A look of relief crossed Emiko's face and she bowed quickly in gratitude. Normally, she would have removed her shoes before entering, but time was critical and she walked into the apartment. She was immediately taken aback by the state of Joe Brody's apartment, though she hid her surprise well.

Every inch of available wall space was covered with newspaper clippings, printouts of various graphs, maps, among other papers. Some clippings had red strings leading from one article to others to follow trails to the truth.

Books about various subjects ranging from nuclear fission and mathematics to biology and echolocation were stacked up on the various shelves that lined the walls along with countless notebooks filled with equations and notations.

Briefly, she felt a twinge of worry concerning Joseph Brody's mental stability growing in the back of her mind.

'Have I made a dreadful mistake?' she thought to herself.

Her eyes then met Ford Brody's and she gave a small bow.

"Lieutenant Brody," she said in greeting. "Pleased to meet you. Apologies for interrupting your morning."

Ford frowned in surprise that she knew who he was. "You know me?"

"Yes, lieutenant," Emiko replied smoothly. "I had to familiarize myself with your fathers background, including family members to contact in the event we were unable to locate him."

"Okay, out with it," Joe demanded, closing the front door. The shock of the whole bizarre experience had begun to ware off and now he wanted answers. "I want to know what you want with me."

"Contrary to what you might think, I'm not part of some malevolent faction seeking world domination," Emiko replied evenly.

"You said you work in the quarantine zone," Ford said. "Doing what, exactly? Are you with the nuclear regulatory commission? Or with the JSDF?"

Crossing his arms, he tried to make sense of the situation he found himself him. Coming to Japan to bail his father out of jail, he had thought that would be the end of it. He was well aware of his fathers conspiracy theories, and the trouble that could bring. He didn't think someone from the quarantine zone would actually come to his father, and he was on edge.

'What has my dad gotten himself into?' Ford wondered, concern growing in the pit of his stomach.

Emiko sighed. "No," she replied, straightening herself. Both father and son could tell the young woman seemed to be out of her element. "Although, we do work with them from time to time. Allow me to properly introduce myself. My name is Dr. Emiko Yamane, I'm a paleontologist."

"A paleontologist?" Ford questioned in disbelief. "Why would a dinosaur scientist be working in a highly irradiated quarantine zone?"

A smile traced Emiko's lips, fully understanding Ford's confusion. Her eyes appeared far away for a moment as she pulled a small netsuke from her pocket and traced it with her finger. It appeared to be made of ivory, carved in the shape of some type of dragon.

"Monsters exist," she said quietly as she stared at the netsuke she held in her hands before looking Joe dead in the eyes, who met her gaze with a frown of confusion. "What you've been saying, all these years, about what caused the meltdown? You're not wrong.

"It wasn't a typhoon or an earthquake. But I think we each hold a piece to the same puzzle. I'm afraid I'm not authorized to tell you any more than that, at the moment. If you agree to help us, Dr. Serizawa or Dr. Graham would be the ones to give you the whole story."

Joe took this in with a healthy dose of shock, his mouth parted. Ford looked bewildered. "I knew it," Joe said, mostly to himself, breathing hard. He could barely believe it. He quickly moved past Ford to his small desk and picked up a notebook and held it up.

"I knew it all along! One day a while back, I met a guy who runs a cargo boat offshore and sails past the reactor site every day. I paid him to place buoys with frequency monitors for me.

And two weeks ago, I tuned in just for the kick in the teeth and- Oh my God, there it is. Whatever it is that's in there, whatever it is that you people are guarding so closely started talking again, just like fifteen years ago. And I mean talking!"

Emiko frowned in surprise by Joe's information. She was about to respond, but Joe continued talking to himself before she could speak.

"I need to get back to my old house; I need to find my old disks. The data on them can prove what I've found."

Ford began to protest his fathers intentions of trying to break into the quarantine zone, but Joe wasn't hearing it, and the two began to argue. Emiko could tell this was not a new argument judging by how quickly the father and son chose their words.

"I can take you there," Emiko cut in, seeing an opportunity. Her response surprised both men once again who both turned back to her. "My agency is known as Monarch. We're a multi-national scientific agency. Recently, we've hit a bit of a wall in our research, which led us to you.

"Mr. Brody, I've staked my career to come to you this morning. You may be the only one who can help us unravel this, perhaps even prevent another, even worse disaster. If you come with me; if you agree to help us, you'll have the answers you've been searching for. You both will."

Joe seemed to digest this information, this seemed to good to be true. This woman was offering him a free pass to the quarantine zone, back to his old home and the data he needed to prove everything. His heart pounded in his chest as he weighed the decision.

Emiko glanced at her watch. "Mr. Brody," she said. "If your not comfortable with what I'm offering, I understand. Believe me, I know exactly what it's like to be given this same opportunity with so little information. I can leave and you'll never hear from us again."

Her eyes softened as she saw the uncertainty in his eyes. "But believe me when I say, I have never regretted my choice to take the chance I was given."