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 money or profit of any kind.
Chapter 3
A silver helicopter left Tokyo airspace heading towards the abandoned city of Janjira. Inside, Joe and his son Ford sat across from Dr. Yamane, who was flanked by two members of the JSDF in full military fatigues.
Emiko was relieved that Brody had agreed to help, although she hadn't planned on his son Ford accompanying his father. But she understood his desire to keep his father safe. Joe also insisted Ford coming with, and seemed slightly more at ease with his presence.
While Joe and Ford were being searched and cleared for any weapons prior to boarding the copter, Emiko had radioed ahead to Monarch to give an update that she was on the way back to base. She explained that Brody insisted on returning to his old home to search for his research from the day of the incident.
Dr. Graham seemed a bit confused by this, but confirmed that a team would be waiting for Emiko and the others upon their landing.
"So how are we going to get to our old house?" Ford asked, growing tired of the silence that filled the cabin during the flight.
"I radioed ahead," the young paleontologist answered. "A team with the proper radiation equipment will be waiting for us when we land."
Ford glanced at his father, and noticed the skeptical look in his father's eyes as he stared at the young woman.
In the distance, growing closer, the abandoned and rotting city of Janjira stood as an ominous mausoleum, slowly rising from the mist. A light rain was falling over the city, and the sky held an ominous gray tint. They could see the scurry of military vehicles patrolling the perimeter of the quarantine zone which was fenced off with barbed-wire and warning signs.
Between the crumbling skyscrapers, they could see the skeleton of the old nuclear plant sitting out on a tiny island connected to the city by a long curved bridge. The massive smoke-stacks that relieved the reactor of steam were long gone, and only the remnants of the main building that housed the reactors remained.
What caught the Joe and Ford's eye was the high amount of traffic consisting of military jeeps and construction trucks and equipment. Large spotlights and electric wires were strung across the building and a ring of massive metal lattice towers surrounded what remained of the main building.
"Are they rebuilding the plant?" Ford asked, frowning in surprise.
"I don't know," Joe replied.
"Not exactly," Emiko said softly.
Upon landing at a makeshift JSDF airfield outside the quarantine zone, Joe and Ford, accompanied by Emiko, dressed in hazmat suits and filed into a military transport jeep with a canvas top. They were accompanied by several soldiers or security officers who had the same 'Monarch' logo on their uniform that was on Emiko's I.D. Badge.
They, too, were wearing protective gear of their own and Emiko spoke with the team in Japanese.
Turning to Joe and Ford, she relayed what was going to happen. "The three of us will enter your old home, while the rest of the team will remain outside. In and out. Let's try to keep the sightseeing to a minimum."
"Let's hope this is all worth it, Dad," Ford said to his father, his voice muffled by the radiation mask he was wearing.
"It has to be," Joe answered. Now that he was actually here, he felt more focused than he had in some time. He glanced at the security that sat on either side of he and his son. "Are the guys with guns really necessary?"
"Standard procedure, Mr. Brody," Emiko responded.
As the transport drove through the crumbling streets, Ford could see how nature had reclaimed what was once a prospering city. He had seen pictures over the years, of course, but seeing it first hand was entirely different. It was surreal to see the city he remembered from his childhood in such a state of decay.
Grass, weeds and vines covered the once pristine roads. Ford found it hard to believe that anything of any value could be left in this irradiated hell-hole. The sound of his masks respirator was a constant reminder of what was lost.
He looked out the back of the truck to see a large number of wild dogs running and barking, snarling and whining, their tales tucked between their legs. He could also see numerous large flocks of birds flying away from the city in the same direction as the dogs; away from the direction of the nuclear plant site. It was as though a mass exodus of the wildlife had begun.
'What spooked them?' he wondered to himself. Certainly it wasn't caused by their jeep rolling through the streets. Frowning, he turned his head and glanced at his father who met his gaze through his mask.
He understood his dads grief, but his constant desire to come back to this nightmare continued to baffle Ford. Why was it so hard for him to let go of the past? He knew that the Chernobyl plant, for example, still had workers and was well guarded, for obvious reasons, but it certainly wasn't for some conspiracy like his dad believes for Janjira.
While he was shocked some government agency came to his father for help after so many years, and he certainly found Yamane suspicious, he didn't understand what was so important to bring them back here. Yamane seemed far from dangerous, but even she admitted that she wasn't telling them everything, and that worried Ford.
However, Joe had taken her offer, and Ford suspected that his father did this partly out of desperation and seeing this as the opportunity to finally have answers. Ford refused to let his father do this alone, and his own curiosity had been peaked by the whole experience.
His military training had given him the ability to handle numerous situations, but traversing a ghost city in full hazmat gear for a mysterious science agency was a new one. Ford looked over to see his father glancing down at a small device in his hand.
Even through his face mask, Ford could see the suspicious look his father had in his eye as he kept glancing from the device to Emiko across from him with narrowed eyes. The truck came to a stop on the pothole-ridden asphalt road outside their old home. The team filed out of the truck and spread out.
"Alright, gentlemen, let's do this," Emiko said, as she ensured her mask was properly sealed.
She and Ford headed up what was left of the old front lawn when they noticed Joe hadn't moved. They turned to see Joe standing there, looking around from side to side. He pulled out the small Geiger counter.
"Dad, you wanna go home, or what? Ford asked, confused.
To his surprise and horror, Joe reached up and began to pull off his mask! Ford and Emiko immediately began to protest and were shocked as Joe exposed his face to the air. The armed members of the team near the jeep also exclaimed in surprise at Joe's actions.
"What are you doing?!" Ford yelled.
Joe took a deep breath and threw the safety mask to the ground. "It's clean," he said with a note of triumph and anger. "I knew it. The radiation in this place should be lethal, but there's nothing!"
He held up his Geiger counter as evidence and showed everyone the L.E.D. screen as proof, which read as normal with zeroes across the display.
"I knew from the moment we crossed into the QZ," he explained, pointing at Emiko. "None of you- Not one of you even had your Geiger counters turned on! If this place was dangerous, that jeep should have been buzzing the entire time!"
Ford looked bewildered and turned his head to look at Emiko, who sighed heavily in defeat. She gave a nod to the other members of the team by the street, who stood down. Emiko reluctantly removed her own mask and stared at Joe, her expression unreadable.
Inside the dilapidated house, what was left of it, Ford, Joe and Emiko carefully made their way through the debris, flashlights in hand. The windows had long been cracked and shattered and plants had made their home along the floor and walls. Portions of the roof had collapsed and a heavy odor of mold filled the air.
Joe looked around in obvious sorrow at the state of the house. Most of the furniture had rotted away or been torn up by scavenging animals. Thick layers of dirt coated every inch of the walls and floors.
"I don't mean to sound skeptical," Emiko said quietly. "But I find it a bit difficult to believe there could be much left to find."
Joe ignored her and headed through the hall to his old office, tossing aside bits of rubble and parts of a collapsed shelf that blocked the doorway. Ford carefully walked into his old room.
Casting his flashlight over the room, he saw his old toys and childhood possessions scattered over the floor. On his old desk sat the terrarium from one of his school projects filled with tepid water. Bending down on one knee, he picked up an old toy soldier, one of his favorites as a child.
Brushing off the dirt and grime, he gave a sad smile at the memories.
In his old office, Joe tossed aside a piece of collapsed ceiling from his old desk. He was elated to see everything was right where he left it that awful morning fifteen years ago, albeit covered in moss, mold and other debris.
Right next to his old keyboard sat the stack of floppy disks and grimy printout graphs he had spent so long dreaming of finding. Picking them up like they were Holy Grail or a pile of precious jewels, he briefly closed his eyes in relief.
'Oh, thank God,' he thought to himself. Placing them in his bag, he had no idea if any of the data on the disks could still be recoverable, but the fact that he even found them was enough for now.
He was about to leave the room when his eyes locked on a small picture frame on his desk. His breath caught in his throat as he slowly picked it up, careful to avoid cutting himself on the broken glass. Freeing the picture from the broken frame, he lifted it into the light.
The photo was of himself, Sandra and Ford on his son's fifth birthday. He felt his shoulders droop as he looked up. Still hanging above his old office window was a 'Happy Birthday Dad!' sign, the same one his son had made for him. The same one he had failed to notice that day.
Tears stung his eyes as he held back a sob.
'You useless, old fool,' he silently cursed himself. He hadn't been a good father, or husband, for that matter. And for fifteen years, he had let anger fester in his soul. Anger at himself, the world. He was so crushed by his grief, he pushed away Ford instead of being strong for his son.
"Mr. Brody?"
Collecting himself, he put his old picture in his breast pocket and turned to see Dr. Yamane standing in the doorway, a sympathetic expression in her eyes.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry for everything you've lost; I truly am. Have you found what you were looking for?"
Brody nodded and held up his bag. He took a deep breath. He didn't fully approve of the methods of this woman's agency, and was bitter for the pain their secrecy it caused him, but this woman had held up her end of the bargain, and now it was time he held up his.
"Thank you for bringing me here," he said, and he meant it. "It means a lot."
"You're welcome," the young woman smiled. "Now, I don't mean to rush you going through your old belongings, but time is critical. We need to return to base and go over the data you have."
Ford was waiting in the old living room and everyone piled into the transport once more. As the jeep pulled away, Ford and Joe took one last look at their old house, knowing it was likely the last time either would see it. Ford then frowned and noticed the jeep was taking a different road from the one they came.
"Where are we going now?" he questioned.
"Back to base," Emiko said.
"And where's that?" Joe asked.
"The old plant," she answered. Ford raised his eyebrows in surprise at that. Joe narrowed his eyes, but wasn't overly surprised.
The young woman noticed this and continued, "You wanted answers, Mr. Brody. You're about to have them. When we get there, Doctors' Graham and Serizawa will want to speak with you."
The rest of the ride was in relative silence. The sun had set and night had encompassed the world around them. The transport drove over the bridge that connected Janjira to the skeleton of the old nuclear plant.
As they drew closer to the plant, Joe and Ford could see there was a great deal of activity. Numerous construction workers were busy at work, with some driving heavy equipment. Shipping containers were being loaded and unloaded from trucks and a few helicopters buzzed over head.
Pulling up to an electric gate, the jeep came to a stop as several armed guards wearing protective breathing masks and white safety helmets spoke to the driver in Japanese. After a moment, the vehicle was waved through and out the windows, Joe and Ford took in the sight.
Towering in the center of the corpse of the nuclear plant was something neither of them had ever seen. A massive crescent-shaped object standing over one hundred feet high rose from directly above where the reactors had once been.
The structure looked like it was made from some kind of horrifying combination of charcoal and plant material, a vile rough and ridged exterior. Every few seconds, a series of faint reddish-orange glows ran up the sides of the structure, starting at the base and rising to the curved tip.
Large metal bridges and scaffolding encircled the alien-looking object and workers wearing protective suits hurried about. Every time the structure pulsed, a deep audible thump-thump-thump-thump reminiscent of a quickening heartbeat could be heard. Upon reaching it's crescendo, the electrical grid around the plant would sputter, causing lights to flicker before returning to normal.
Joe narrowed his eyes at the thing, the flickering of the lights bring back unpleasant memories that haunted his nightmares.