"Welcome to Sacramento Airport."
"Sacramento?" Joe asked.
"It's the closest we could get to San Francisco without risking getting too close to the MUTO." Ford replied.
Joe nodded, and the pair disembarked their private jet with some assistance from the local ground crew. After gathering their belongings they waited outside the main entrance to hail a cab.
"Hey, dad? You okay?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. I'm fine, son."
"You've been really quiet since just before we landed."
"Have I?"
"Yeah. Something on your mind?"
Joe nodded slowly.
"It's about something Doctor Serizawa said."
"About what?" Ford asked.
"The other Titans. He and Doctor Graham said there was another spore like the one this MUTO hatched out of, right?"
"Oh shit. The one in Nevada?"
Joe nodded.
"If that thing's being stored near nuclear waste, and these things feed on radiation, I hope the Doctors have managed to contact someone about looking into it. Otherwise we could have two really big problems on our hands."
"Oh man."
"Don't worry son. Once we get a cab we'll head straight to San Francisco and get Sam and Elle out of there. After that, it'll be up to the military and the Doctors to deal with whatever happens."
"Honestly dad, I don't like the sound of that. It didn't seem like the military and the Doctors got on very well."
"True. Nevertheless, we should at least trust Serizawa. He seems to know the most about these Titans and how to deal with them."
Ford nodded uneasily as a cab approached and parked beside the curb.
Back on the USS Saratoga, Doctor Serizawa sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he set his phone down and put it on speaker.
"You're certain?" He asked.
"Yes, Doctor. There's no signs of anything unusual around the facility." Came a semi-distorted voice.
"You're breaking up a bit." Doctor Graham said.
"Sorry. Bad service in this place. Anyway, we have it all under control."
"Please make certain and check the room with the spore."
"Will do. I'll call back when I have nothing to report."
The phone went silent and Serizawa leaned back with a heavy sigh.
"You think it's awake, Sensei?"
He nodded slowly.
"But it can't be that radiation by itself is enough, right? The other MUTO was contained in the Philippine mine and awoke without any kind of radioactive surges."
"It may not have been the radiation at all, Vivian."
"Well, what could it have been, Sensei?"
"I believe what awoke the first MUTO was the collapse of the mine. Fresh air and sunlight pouring into what was once pitch black. It must have stimulated the MUTO enough to wake it from its sleep."
"Then why would this one remain dormant?"
"It must be waiting for something. A trigger. Something to let it know that it's safe to emerge."
"But what could that be? Surely if Godzilla's awake his calls would be a warning right?"
"It may in fact be just the opposite, Vivian. If Gojira's kind are prey to the MUTOs as we surmised from the skeletal remains in the mine, then his calls may be exactly what the other MUTO was waiting for. Either that, or…"
"What, Sensei?"
Serizawa's eyes and mouth slowly opened wider.
Within the bowels of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, a team of several scientists in hazmat suits approached a massive metal door and slid the tiny window shield to the side.
"All dark inside. Let's get this over with." Said the lead.
The door was unlocked and pulled open with a creak and a hiss accompanied by the sounds of groaning metal. Flashlights illuminated tight cones in front of them and were dragged up until they illuminated the spore.
"What the?" Asked one of the other scientists.
"It… It's broken." Said the lead.
"You said this was a spore, right?" Asked another.
"Doctor Serizawa called it a spore. But another one had broken open and…" The lead trailed off as a low grumbling sound reverberated from the left.
"What in God's name was that?" Asked one of the others.
The lead's eyes trailed left and saw a faint red glow flickering behind some of the other items stored in the room. Slowly the team walked around and saw a massive slimy looking thing hunched over in the rear corner of the room staring straight at them.
"What… The fuck… Is that?" Asked another.
Lights were shone onto the creature which illuminated its dark charcoal gray body covered in slime from the spore as it turned its head away and released a horrible crackling screech at them. As they dropped their lights and covered their ears, the creature lunged at the lead and sank its sharp beak-like mouth into his flesh around the left shoulder causing a stream of blood to erupt and spray across the faces of two others.
Those who weren't in the immediate path of the blood turned and ran. But those hit by it were blinded and soon became victims of the creature's wrath themselves.
Those who survived and fled managed to sound an alarm which brought the attention of the military forces present at the facility as requested by Doctor Serizawa when the spore was delivered fifteen years ago as a safety precaution.
When the military arrived, the bodies left behind were unrecognizable as human.
"Holy mother of God." Whispered one soldier.
"Eyes up! It's here somewhere!"
Flashlights at the ready, they scanned the room and quickly saw that both the left and right walls were broken down.
"Half with me! We're going left! Everyone else, go right!"
Almost immediately after splitting up, the leader and his crew who went left stopped in their tracks.
"B Team. Anything?"
"No, sir. This room's clean." They called back.
"Then get over here. We've got a massive problem."
B Team rushed to their comrade's side and all skidded to a halt and stared slack jawed.
The entire wall, not just a hole, but the entire wall and some of the ceiling in the room A Team had gone into was gone.
"How is this area worse?" Asked another soldier.
"Ready up! Safeties off!"
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
Wandering into the next room over, more of the same. But this time it was the far wall opposite the door which was broken open and leading into a massive tunnel which was the size of a small house.
"Stay tight… Let's move."
Forming up almost shoulder to shoulder in order to fit through the entrance, into the tunnel they went. Slime covered the walls and dripped onto their weapons and shoulders the deeper they went. The formation tightened as the ground rumbled. And silence became their constant companion save for the sounds of their hearts in their ears.
Inch by inch they continued through the tunnel until they noticed the tunnel snaking around back into the facility proper up ahead as more walls and wires became visible in the tunnel walls beside them. Sure enough the creature had broken into another room, or… Two. Two at once through the center wall as if… It wasn't even… There.
"Is it getting bigger?"
"I thought that too. Look at the tunnel."
The team, despite their relatively tight grouping being necessary when they stared, were barely filling one third of the entire tunnel at this entrance to the newly afflicted region of the facility.
"What's happening? Nothing grows that fast!" Whispered another.
"Quiet!"
The team entered the new area and immediately regretted their decision.
Back on the Saratoga...
"Female, Sensei?" Doctor Graham asked.
"The one we saw has wings and is far too small to consider Gojira prey. Its EMP can only take away Gojira's primary weapon. But its claws, sharp as they may be, weren't able to pierce Gojira's hide. Given these facts, it stands to reason that the MUTO we saw is male and its relationship to the female is probably similar to those we know in the insect world today where the females either have no wings at all, or have much weaker or smaller wings making the males more mobile and able to reach more females over a large area."
"If that's true, then the male's course towards California makes more sense. Nevada's just on the other side."
Serizawa nodded.
Back in the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository, the soldiers had opened fire on a massive creature which was now almost three stories tall and seemingly growing by the minute. Every time it chomped into one of the objects around it, its eyes flashed and the lights flickered in their flashlights and the lights of the facility. The locked doors were also seemingly being unlocked and opened via the tremors produced when it slammed one of its many "hands" into the ground.
The creature's head shot towards the soldiers and one arm came up.
"Look out!"
A large sweep raked the ground around and beneath them throwing dozens of tons of debris and junk everywhere. Several soldiers were instantly crushed while others were half buried or thrown about the area and shaken completely senseless.
With the pests out of the way the creature continued to feed. And with each new meal its size increased further and further until the entire facility went dark. And as the sun began to descend in the rapidly reddening skies, the side of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Facility exploded outwards.
The Female MUTO had arrived.