Scourge of the Super-saurs
By C. L. Werner
Part II:
Paris
Maurice de Gobineau was anxious to get back to his office in the squat little building that stood only a few hundred yards from the famous Arc de Triumph. The ex-mercenary was looking forward to reviewing the development of events in Algeria. Indeed, the Algerian campaign was a remarkable achievement for the Paris division of MARS, with the arms dealer selling munitions and weapons to both sides in the ongoing struggle. It did not matter to MARS which side eventually emerged triumphant, so long as they turned a profit. Politics had no place in the free market.
The old mercenary turned his eyes toward the strolling Parisians just outside the window of his limousine. At times, he envied the ignorant masses, unaware of just how fragile and transitory their peace truly was. Few of the young people he saw patronizing the streetside cafes could remember the war, the sight of German soldiers marching victoriously beneath the victory arch built by Napoleon. He would wager his considerable fortune that none of them had ever been knee-deep in sludge and filth in the swamps of the Belgian Congo, or baked beneath the Rhodesian sun. No, the days of honest conflict were over, in their stead had come terrorism, the shadow war where the enemy did not reveal himself until the knife was already in his victim's back. Like any good capitalist, the MARS corporation was adapting to the new face of war. Twenty years ago, MARS would never have supplied terrorists. Now, after the deals de Gobineau had orchestrated, there were few who could ignore the enormous profit potentials.
De Gobineau laughed. There were some in the New York and Tokyo offices that looked upon the Paris division as a loathsome necessity. A few even called it 'Terrorists 'R' Us'. Let them, the time would soon come when the Paris division outshone them all. With the recent destruction of the London headquarters, the Paris MARS division was already well on the way to controlling the entire European and Middle East marketplace. And those were no small markets.
Yes, de Gobineau smirked, someday; he himself might be the CEO of the entire MARS corporation. He might need to remove a few of his fellow employees, but the mercenary had never been adverse to a little violence to better himself.
A pair of American tourists stood before the Arc de Triumph. It was their first trip to Paris, and the young couple wanted to capture the moment. As the man stood before the famous landmark, his sweetheart tried to focus the camera upon him. Something seemed to be wrong. No matter how still she stood, the image in the camera seemed to jump and jitter. Suddenly, the ground began to shake violently. The cry went up. Earthquake!
The tremor continued, increasing in intensity and ferocity. Streets cracked and buckled, trees toppled as their roots retreated from the moving earth. Masonry began to fall from the older Parisian buildings as the violent quake grew still more powerful. People were unable to walk across the bucking ground, every step taken pitching them to the earth. Many began to crawl for the imagined safety of the Arc. It had stood for almost two centuries, surely it would survive the earthquake. It was a wrong decision, the last mistake for all who sought sanctuary beneath the Arc de Triumph.
The ground beneath the Arc seemed to burst open, like a bubble of dirt and stone. One side of the Arc de Triumph crumbled, its massive stone blocks crushing many who had thought to cower beneath its massive façade. More earth began to fall away into the gaping pit that opened beneath the Arc, screaming survivors plummeting into the darkness. A deep, malevolent growl issued from the pit and slowly a glowing light appeared. Moments later, a gigantic brown form leaped from the hole and plunged the thronging masses of Paris into a panic even greater than that brought on by the earthquake.
The monster was over forty meters tall, though it seemed to prefer walking on all fours to remaining on its hind legs. It skin was a leathery reptilian hide, brown in color, with a shell-like armor on its back that was only slightly lighter in shade. Huge elephant-like ears hung from the sides of the monster's malevolent, dog-like face while a great glowing horn emerged from above his nose. The monster bellowed again, his cold red eyes darting back and forth as he watched the Parisian mobs scatter. The motion excited the monster and Baragon's ears became rigid, sticking to either side of his head like those of a bat. The razor-filled mouth of the burrowing monster gaped wide and with another wild leap, Baragon crashed into a string of cafes and coffee shops. The monster lowered his head and began to feed. There was another urge tugging at the back of the monster's brain, but Baragon ignored it. Ever hungry, the voracious beast would allow nothing to come between him and his prey.
The ground beneath the remaining half of the Arc de Triumph shook once more and a huge, lizard-like head pushed its way through the earth, knocking the last vestige of the Arc from its tenuous stance. The second monster slowly and awkwardly pulled himself from the huge hole. The other monster resembled an enormous dinosaur, his scales a dull gray in color except at the belly, where they faded into a dull gray-white hue and on his back, where they darkened until they were almost black. The monster's arms were small and frail, as useless as those of the theodonts he so resembled. But his head was enormous, like that of a monitor lizard save for the oversized jaws and their sharp-edged fangs. Gorosaurus let his own high-pitched bellow drown out the sounds of Baragon's screaming victims.
Unlike the burrowing monster Gorosaurus had followed to the French capital, no unending hunger consumed Gorosaurus. The giant dinosaur turned away from the pit and began to advance towards the line of squat stone buildings the urge directed him towards. Like Titanosaurus in London, the dinosaur did not understand the metal letters which topped the building, did not recognize the name MARS. He only knew that he must destroy the structure. Gorosaurus stood before the building and reared back, almost resting upon his long, powerful tail. The monster lashed out with both of his massive legs, delivering a battering kick to the structure which shook it to its foundations and knocked two of the steel letters into the street. Gorosaurus continued his assault, battering away at the building until it collapsed into a pile of rubble.
Gorosaurus turned away from the ruins of the Paris division of MARS and began his slow, methodical return to Baragon's tunnel. The urge had been satisfied and there was nothing more for the enormous dinosaur here. Gorosaurus trampled the shattered remains of the Arc de Triumph and returned to the darkness of the pit.
Baragon, however, continued his voracious carnage, snatching up screaming masses of humanity with each snap of his jaws. He chased after the fleeing people, trampling the cars that choked the streets in his pursuit. Baragon did not notice the dark elegant automobile one of his taloned paws flattened. He did not see the small figure cowering inside the limousine that had been crushed as the car's metal roof was pressed flat against the floor of the car. For Maurice de Gobineau, there would be no more schemes, no more plots. Not even a grave would mark the man's passing, for no one would be able to identify the pulpy mess pressed between the floor and ceiling of the limo.
At last, several tanks lumbered toward the chaos. The French armored vehicles formed a wedge and began to fire on Baragon. The giant monster did not seem to be fazed by the shelling, but he was annoyed. The huge beast reared up off the ground, standing on his hind legs. Baragon's mouth opened wide and a gout of fire hurled at the French tanks, bathing them in flame. Some of the tanks exploded under the terrible fire, their fuel tanks unable to withstand the heat. Other soldiers were not so lucky, as the heat baked the metal of the tanks and cooked the crews inside their machines.
As Baragon retreated from the blazing wreckage of the tanks, missiles slammed into his armored back. Two French Mirage fighters circled overhead, diving toward the monster for a second attack. Baragon stared at the oncoming enemies. They would not draw near enough for Baragon to destroy them with his fire. Nor would he need them to. A brilliant light flashed from the monster's horn, searing the eyes of the two pilots. Blinded, the men panicked, one plane slamming into the other and exploding. The other fighter, its left-wing gone, spun end over end across the sky until it crashed in a residential section far away.
Baragon roared again and looked about for something more to eat. When he did not see any fleeing crowds of food, the monster returned to his burrow. Behind him, Baragon left a Paris that would again remember what destruction and death were and that such misery did not spare any nation for long.
* * * * * *
Dr. Otani could not recall having ever had so many people in the conference chamber that formed a part of the subterranean 'Monsterland' facility. Certainly he had conducted meetings with the staff and scientists of the Ogasawara project many times, but they numbered only a few dozen, at the most. Now, he was addressing about a hundred. Many of those present were prominent, well known veterans of the struggle against Godzilla, others were from foreign equivalents to the UNGCC, such as the United States' GARD and the newly-organized MDH - Monster Defiance Headquarters - of Europe.
Dr. Otani looked at those assembled around him in the room. He could see the stern visage of Commander Aso, military head of the UNGCC and Director Segawa, the civilian chief of the organization. Sitting near to Segawa was Miki Saegusa, joined on this occasion by G-Force's Koji Shijo, one of the men who had fought the Space Godzilla in Fukuoka with the MOGERA robot. Near to them were Dr. Asimov, creator of MOGERA and its forerunner, Mechagodzilla, as well as two of the pilots of that robot, Captain Sasaki and Lieutenant Catherine Berger.
The GARD representatives were at the far end of the room, led by US Navy Commander James Brandon. Also present was America's pre-eminent giant monster biologist, Dr. Raymond Martin, the son of the only American to survive the original Godzilla's 1954 attack on Tokyo.
Nearer to Dr. Otani was another link to the beginnings of the giant monster menace, Kohei Yamane, grandson of the man who discovered the first Godzilla. Beside Yamane was Professor Kashiwagi, who had risen to become an expert on the monster Rodan among the staff of Monsterland. Next to Kashiwagi was Dr. Murai, who had been studying Mothra. Sitting beside him on the table was a large velvet-line box in which Mothra's diminutive priestesses sat. It had caused no small amount of discussion among those present when Dr. Murai had entered and revealed the Cosmos. No one had even thought the twin fairies might be interested in the concerns of far away lands. The wizened astronomer Dr. Adachi, biologist Dr. Yoshida and Japan's foremost expert on Godzilla, Professor Hayashida, who had developed the sonic call that had lured Godzilla to Mt. Mihara back in 1985, completed the core of Ogasawara's scientific body.
Most of the men in the ranks of the MDH were unknown to Dr. Otani. He recognized the uniforms of at least five nation's militaries and had been told that some of the men were veterans of battling the monsters Gorgo and Reptilicus back in the 1960's. Unlike Japan, Europe had not been bothered by monsters since and had grown lax. The MDH was a last-minute effort to redress that lack of vigilance. Both the UNGCC and GARD representatives felt that it was a case of too little too late.
The discussion had begun the day after two kaiju had attacked Paris. Although the actual damage had been slight, compared to that done to London the previous week, the loss in human life had been staggering. One of the newly risen monsters had been reported to have actually devoured nearly two thousand people, the exact number being impossible to guess at. Indeed, it had lingered long after its companion had withdrawn to the underground tunnel the monster had dug beneath the city in order to feast on its human prey. The people of France had never been victims of a monster's attentions before and this man-eating beast had been a terrible introduction indeed.
Dr. Otani was about to adjoin the meeting when a young, somehow rugged looking Japanese man entered the chamber and made his way to the podium. He quietly asked Dr. Otani if he might address the assembly. Somewhat puzzled by this turn of events, Dr. Otani nodded and allowed the newcomer to speak.
'My name is Murakoshi. I am an agent of Interpol.' The man's words met with a hushed babble of whispers. His next statement silenced the room. 'We have identified the monsters that attacked Paris yesterday, and the one that attacked London last week.'
'How can this be?' asked Professor Hayashida, rising from his seat. 'Beasts such as that were unknown to science until their attack.'
'Unknown to science, perhaps, but not to Interpol.' Murakoshi licked his lips and considered how best to continue. 'In the late 1980's we were trying to track down a renegade bio-geneticist who had been working for Iraq to develop a new, untreatable strain of anthrax. I very nearly captured the man in Buenos Aires, but he eluded us. What we did manage to find were some of his notebooks.' Murakoshi set the pair of thin volumes down on the table, allowing the staff of Ogasawara to examine the charcoal drawings on the pages Murakoshi indicated.
'What does this mean?' Dr. Yoshida gasped. There could be no doubt; the drawings were indeed of the monsters that had attacked two of Europe's great cities.
'The monsters that attacked Paris are named Baragon and Gorosaurus. The one that attacked London is Titanosaurus. At least that is what Dr. Shinji Mafune calls them in his notes.' Murakoshi trained his icy eyes on the room. 'Interpol believes that these were blueprints, plans from which Dr. Mafune engineered his monsters. We also believe that he is the one behind these attacks.'
'He must be a madman!' exclaimed a French MDH officer.
'Three monsters under the control of a lunatic,' muttered Commander Aso. 'How can this get any worse.'
Murakoshi stared at Commander Aso. 'It is worse,' he tapped the notebooks. 'It is worse because we believe that Dr. Mafune might have another monster, and we have no idea where or when he will unleash it.'
The Indian mahout rose from the ground, his ragged clothes made even more ragged by the violent fall from his elephant. The man had no idea what had happened. One moment he had been atop the great animal, the next he had found himself facedown in the dust. As the man looked around for some sign of his elephant, he became aware of the cold, slimy smell in the air. It was like death, only more concentrated than he had ever smelled, even when the plague had come to his mother's village. The man focused upon his animal's tracks, confused when the abruptly stopped. It was as if the animal had disappeared, there was no sign of where it had gone. The mahout looked across the broken trees to where another man was leading another elephant away from a lumber camp with a cargo of logs.
Without warning, an enormous red-brown shape raced across the mahout's line of vision. When it had passed, both man and elephant were gone. From high overhead, the stunned Hindu could hear an unearthly cackle. The man began to tremble and say prayers to every god he could think of. Even in the hinterlands of India, the cry of the monster Rodan was known. And feared.
Dr. Shinji Mafune relaxed in his wicker-backed chair on the veranda of his plantation house. A cool breeze blew through the scientist's snow-colored hair. A satisfied smile graced the wizened face. It was a rare thing for the old man to feel happy, but today he indulged himself in the emotion.
Another of the MARS corporation's headquarters had been reduced to rubble. Dr. Mafune had been worried when he sent the burrowing monster Baragon. Baragon had been his second creation, but Mafune had little control over the voracious predator. To be truthful, the scientist was somewhat afraid of his creation. He depended on his other children to keep the aggressive Baragon from turning on his creator. Indeed, he had been so unsure of Baragon that he had sent the more tractable Gorosaurus along to make certain that the MARS building fell. While Gorosaurus might not have Baragon's ability to tunnel beneath the earth, he was more than capable of following behind the monster and, as events had proved, much more prone to do Dr. Mafune's bidding.
Two of his targets had been destroyed. It was a beginning, but Dr. Mafune had much more work for his creations before his revenge was finished. Much more work.