Chapter Nine
With that, Kyle Martin shot up from the bed where he slept. He then instinctively looked around and saw he was alone; he was glad that nobody except Tomas was there to see him like that and Tomas was asleep. Kyle saw nothing in the darkened room, not even himself, yet he knew he was shaking and sweating a cold sweat. In this state, he checked the clock at his side and saw that it was two in the morning at G-Force Base in Hokkaido, Japan, where he was. With that, he threw off the covers and, in his pajamas, went to the nearby porcelain tiled washroom. He turned on the light and looked into the mirror.
Good God he was a wreck. He saw himself in the mirror and saw there were lines underneath his eyes and that stubble was growing. He was shaking and sweating; he felt clammy all over. He had had a terrible nightmare; in it he saw himself as a baby Nessie and his big brother, Raymond, as the adult Nessie. It was the same dream, over and over. Him of all people, pitying a monster… He was there and so was Raymond. In every nightmare, the danger came and Raymond tried to stop it, tried to save Raymond and every time, Kyle was left alone, every time his brother died.
Before the kaijuologist knew it, he was crying. That he could still cry hardly surprised him; for the most part, Raymond was the only family he ever had. Kyle barely remembered his parents; they died in a car crash when he was very young. However, he remembered enough to mourn them and feel that he'd been betrayed. In fact, when as a little boy he lay alone on dark nights in his bed, Kyle secretly… hated them. After all, how could they have left him? Of course he knew that it was pointless to hate them; there was no way that they could have prevented their deaths, they could not have known. Even so, Kyle still grew up not knowing what to think of them.
His big brother, on the other hand, was a brother, a friend, and a father all at once. Raymond had been seven years older than his little brother and upon their parent's death had knowingly taken it upon himself to be the guiding light in his younger brother's life. Raymond had never lorded it over his Kyle; he'd never abused his power. Raymond had always made his choices thinking if it could help Kyle; he had always been the first to help Kyle, the first to stand up for him. It hadn't been easy for a boy Raymond's age to have such responsibilities, but he took them on, almost sacrificing his childhood, knowing that it was what their father would have wanted.
Well no, that was not entirely accurate, calling Raymond Kyle's almost father. Their grandpa, Steven Martin had taken both in and raised them. As their only living adult relative, he was the only one that could have done it. He cared for his grandchildren as best he could and did an admirable job. He made sure that they received a good education, received the best moral instruction possible, and had a firm grasp of responsibility. They were happy times until that dark day came.
It had happened shortly after Godzilla had been cast into Mt. Mihara in 1985. The world knew that he was imprisoned in the inferno and hoped he would never again be seen by human eyes, yet many feared the chance, however slim, that he might return. That was perhaps why the world listened when a young girl named Miki Segeusa predicted that Godzilla would rise once more. She claimed to have telepathic power and that she saw a future in which the King of the Monsters would live again. Despite readings at Mt. Mihara that seemingly confirmed what she said few believed her, except for Raymond.
By that time Raymond had gone away to study kaijuology at Tokyo U and was a graduate student for Dr. Hayashida. Hayashida was confident that Godzilla would escape through Mt. Fuji and took Raymond with him. Alas, Miki was right. Godzilla did escape through Mt. Fuji and one of his first victims had been Raymond Martin. Kyle had barely come home from school when he suspected something was wrong. He saw his grandfather standing alone in silence and then he had cast a sorrowful look at him. With that Kyle knew what had happened and his grandfather's nod confirmed it. He could only weep in his grandfather's arms and, indeed, he wept all night.
They went to Japan to see Raymond's funeral. At first, Kyle had wanted to hate his brother for betraying him, for leaving when he had promised that he would always be there. But that hatred was soon channeled towards someone else. It had not been Raymond's fault that he had died. Kyle remembered what Hayashida has said about that day and Kyle knew that it had been Godzilla's fault. Godzilla had killed his brother and it would be Godzilla that would pay, who would suffer, against whom he would have his revenge.
He told his grandfather that, thinking that he would understand. Kyle remembered the stories of monsters that he had been told since earliest childhood. His grandfather had told him that far from being a mindless animal as so many said, Godzilla was an intelligent being that knew exactly what he was doing. In his fevered anger, Kyle imagined that the monster had singled out his brother for death.
He had tried to console his surviving grandson, saying that revenge was a sin and that he shouldn't stain his brother's memory with hatred. He said Raymond wouldn't want his brother to poison himself with thoughts of petty revenge. It proved little consolation and still the fire for vengeance burned in him. The fire was only rekindled when he met her.
In keeping with what had become the family business, Kyle decided to dedicate his life to monsters and to do that he went to study kaijuology at Tokyo University. His grandfather having been a student of Japanese culture and language, Kyle was well prepared for the experience. Even so, Kyle was still very much out of place and if it hadn't been for Miki, the situation would have gone far worse. Miki proved a tremendous friend from the start and helped him adapt as she helped all gaijin students but when she learned that he was Steven Martin's grandson, things just took off from there.
As Miki had admired Steven Martin since early childhood and had first edition copy of his book, she was honored to meet the grandson of the man who wrote it. That wasn't to say that Miki didn't share fame. Everyone knew that she had predicted Godzilla's escape from Mt. Fuji and that she was being trained to be UNGCC's finest agent. Kyle and Miki quickly went from friends to lovers, became inseparable and graduated together. They were then jointly recruited into the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center. It was only when they finally entered their field of work that the trouble began.
Kyle still hated Godzilla and he admitted that he wished to kill him for his own reasons. By then, however, he had also obtained a more important reason for fighting. He had seen all the pain that Godzilla caused not only to him, but to countless others as well. Families ruined, cities destroyed, Kyle's heart broke for all those poor people and he vowed that he wouldn't forget them. He vowed that what happened to them, what happened to him, he would not let happen to any other and if he had to kill Godzilla to do so then so be it.
Miki, on the other hand, actually loved Godzilla. She had come to believe what Kyle's grandfather said of the beast being a strangely innocent and tragic monster, that the beast existed for a purpose. Godzilla—or Godzillasaurus—had saved her grandfather's life in World War II and had saved her own life mere days before the world learned of his return in the 1980s. She claimed to pity the monster for being hated and misunderstood. She said that she did indeed pity the human lives lost—and Kyle did believe her—but that she also hoped to change Godzilla for the better. After all, he listened to her and let her serve him as his conscience. Or so she said.
Kyle didn't want to believe Miki's claim that there was even a drop of goodness in Godzilla. He wanted to believe that the monster was an abomination, a freak that didn't deserve to live. And yet, if the monster were to be truly evil then he would have to choose to commit acts of cruelty by his own free will and did not free will mean he could also choose to do an act of good? Could he be saved as Miki said?
Such thoughts hurt Kyle, especially considering how much his grandfather sided with Miki. Steven Martin seemingly loved her more than him and such a thing left Kyle feeling that he truly alone, that nobody cared for him. It was all fine and good that his girlfriend be so welcomed into the family and he knew that she did loved him, but sometimes it hurt being alone.
With Kyle's vendetta against Godzilla driving an ever-deeper wedge between him and Miki, he wasn't sure if their relationship could last. Maybe he should try to talk to her; it had been almost a week since they'd last chatted. That's the thing with war; you go to fight for those you love yet you do so knowing that you might never see those you love ever again. But as the days and months passed he began to wonder if they were meant for each other, maybe all that was happening was proof that it just couldn't work out.
At that, Kyle shook his head. He tried to understand Miki's feelings, he really did, but with all the lives lost to the monster's wrath how could he not seek to end his reign of terror? Kyle thought that if he were not to do so then that he would betray the memory of his brother and all others who were killed by the beast. That was when he remembered something else; before it, he would have tried to make things work for Miki and himself, hoping that love would conquer all. But after it, God only knew what the future held for himself and her. The memory was of him actually saving Godzilla's life.
It had been at the start of the Monster Wars, before King Ghidorah's battles with Apophis. Knowing the feud between Godzilla and King Ghidorah would destroy the Earth and that the DFE & G-Force couldn't fight a war on two fronts, Kyle had taken it on himself to kill Godzilla. His Toxin apparently worked when he felled the King of the Monsters. Yet when Miki showed him how much more destruction the Prince of Skyllans would cause without his foe to keep him in check, Kyle felt doubt creep in.
That was when King Kong came. The world knew well of Kong and Godzilla's hatred towards each other and yet, according to Miki, Kong had chosen to put aside his feelings of enmity because he recognized Ghidorah's threat and that he had to be stopped no matter what. The ape had also known that Godzilla would have to survive to claim final victory. The ape's struggle would have been in vain if not for Miki's pleas towards Kyle. She told Kyle that if even Kong could give up his feud with Godzilla why couldn't he? What followed had been the most difficult decision that Kyle had ever had to make but he nevertheless made it. So as to keep King Ghidorah from winning, Kyle, being the only one able to reverse the Toxin's effects, had saved the monster's life.
But if there had been any doubt as to the hatred between Kyle and Godzilla before, there was none now. Shortly after Godzilla awoke he looked at Kyle and remembered him as the one that had done this to him. Not that he didn't remember him from before; from his telepathic discourses with Miki, Godzilla knew that Kyle was the one person that hated him the most. Before then, the King of the Monsters had been content to ignore the human and even acknowledge the good that he did in caring for Miki but now the hatred was returned in full. Godzilla feared not death nor anything else of this world but the thought that he would perish without first having his revenge against King Ghidorah was unthinkable.
Both had left the battlefield before they called each other enemy once more, both knowing that their final conflict lay yet ahead. Kyle knew the might the King of the Monsters could bring to bare and Godzilla knew the cunning weapons and machines that the human could call in. Would the human fight him face to face within a machine or fight a shadow war and use a poison as before? Kyle knew he would use both, he would use the Toxin once more if need be just as he would pilot the machine Red Ronin. He knew that just as he knew that when their final showdown came only one would walk away alive.
And yet that need not happen if he hadn't broken down and saved the beast! When he poisoned it with his Toxin, he had won; he had killed Godzilla as he had promised his brother. But he'd been unable to do it; he had been unable to finish the job. He had failed his brother and had let him die for nothing. God in heaven, Kyle knew that once the Monster Wars were done he would kill Godzilla! He would kill the monster no matter what!
Then in a swell of anger, Kyle screamed and slammed his fist against the mirror. He then yelled in pain as he felt the shards of glass dig into his hand. With that, Tomas woke up and looked around. Seeing the light from the washroom, he jumped out of bed and ran there. On getting there, he saw Kyle cradling his bleeding, glass cut hand in front of the broken mirror. Shocked, Tomas said, "Clavos de Cristo! What happened Kyle; are you alright?"
Turning his gaze away from his friend, Kyle looked to the ground. "I'll be fine. Just had a bad dream, that's all."
"Bad dream or not, we better get you to the infirmary and check that hand. Hope this doesn't happen again amigo, I'm going to get transferred to Area 51 and won't be here."
He glumly nodded towards Tomas. "Sure. Let's go." With that, Kyle let himself be led out to see the doctor. Yet his feelings were unabated. Even as the blood came from off his hand Kyle hatred burned no less fiercely. He that no matter what it took, no matter the odds, even it took a thousand years and a thousand lives, he would have his revenge.
While it was 2 AM in Japan with Kyle Martin, it was 11 AM back in Chicago with Steven Martin. While he had volunteered here and there in the war effort, ever since the Monster Wars began, Steven had mostly stayed home. He had accepted early on that the battles against King Ghidorah were clearly beyond his power to influence, directly at least. In older days, he went where the action was to record history even as others made it. While he had once recorded the stories of gods and monsters those days were long gone. Now he was an old man, old and tired. He could no longer go to the front-line to fight the good fight, not that he ever really did, but he knew that others could do so in his place.
That was why Steven Martin had done what he could for his kaijuologist son and others such as Kyle and Raymond and Miki. Director Goodhue would often ask him to speak before new G-Force recruits about the responsibilities that they would face and the knowledge he had, the wisdom, was revered by all. That was one of the reasons why he still did what he could. His powers as a reporter, as a wordsmith, were still there and always would be. Because of that he still fought the good fight as well he could by pen and ink; after all, the pen is mightier than the sword.
At the moment he was at his study; it was the same room where he had been typing material for a book, Cairo via Tokyo, when he had sensed that Godzilla returned in 1985. Now so many years later, he was still typing away at his mechanical typewriter, white out ready to undo any mistakes. Steven had spent all morning passing the thoughts through his mind, searching for the best ones to commit to posterity. He shifted in his seat and looked to the frames decorating the white walls.
He saw pictures of his family through the generations, all the way from his grandfather to his own grandson. He saw pictures of his many past adventures where he went chasing Godzilla or some other monster around while trying to make sure he stayed alive to get the story back. He saw ones with Walter Cronkite, Connie Matsu and others. He also saw a picture of himself with Nadia Raltique, the woman whose editorial guidance turned Britain's Planet Times into Earth's United World News, and her inventor husband, Jean Roque Raltique. It had been taken back in the forties and was signed, we hope you get home safely.
Steven Martin then took a sip of his tea—it was very good tea, he had to remember to thank Emiko for it—and turned back to his typewriter. Before he knew it, his words began flying across the keys and the click-clack of ink coated metal began hitting paper covered metal once again. The old newsman had never trusted computer word processors; not that he was unable to use them, he could use them fine. It just that he was too set in his ways for him to trust a machine that made words he could neither feel nor touch. Steven stopped typing and took another sip from his blue china cup as let the thoughts simmer in his mind. He then resumed his work.
He was typing a letter to be posted in the Chicago edition of United World News; the Lawrence clan was kind enough to post his letters in their newspaper any time. It had been the last wish of their late patriarch, and old boss of Martin, George Lawrence. For that Steven Martin was quite grateful. In fact, he had been taking advantage of that arrangement quite often in recent months in his attempts to exhort people to action in the Monster Wars.
Yet it was not only in writing letters in his old newspaper that he had done his part. Martin had written to The New York Times, National Geographic, Life, and any other who would listen. He had made appearances on talk shows and had been interviewed on CNN, he had given speeches at meetings and rallies, he had spoken at street corners and in allies, and he had preached at the pulpit of his church so that all would hear. He was a lone voice crying out in the wilderness hoping that those out there would hear the truth even if it was a most unsettling one.
The truth was this. Over the course of months that he had ravaged the Earth, King Ghidorah hadn't passed by the United States, not even once. The beast had attacked most every other country, bringing rack and ruin with every footfall. He had menaced Europe, Africa, Antarctica (he had destroyed a scientific research lab), Asia, Australia, South America, and even North America but not the US. Martin's grandson had told him of the slaughter left by the demon in Mexico City. King Ghidorah had also ravaged Canada; Lupis the wolf monster had put up a good fight but he had had to retreat, not that anyone could blame him. Yet despite all this the United States had suffered no attack. Why?
Steven Martin knew not but he somehow did know that it was only a matter of time until the attack came. In that there was a wrenching sense of foreboding, as if you were in a guillotine face up and could only stare at the blade and wait for it to come down and take your head. He had felt this way once before, back in World War II. He had been little more than a boy in those days, unwilling to take up arms against the country he had fallen in love with because of his friendship with Daisuke Serizawa, his college buddy. After Pearl Harbor he had stayed in college as long as he could to avoid being drafted—Serizawa, on the other hand, had gone home immediately to enlist with the Imperial Japanese Army—and when that day came he registered as a contentious objector.
It wasn't that he was somebody to ignore the threat simply because he did not wish to acknowledge it, far from it; even when he had been but a boy in the Great Depression, Martin had done all he could to keep apace with world news. In recent times, people of America kept up on world events as well. They were afraid and they wanted to do what they could to prepare yet President Emmerich was the proverbial ostrich with his head in the sand in that he refused to acknowledge what was going on.
Congress and the other offices of government, on the other hand, were doing everything they could. They were importing advisors from other countries, they were trying to initiate rationing, they were coordinating defense plans with G-Force and the DFE, giving food and comfort to stricken nations, etc. They felt that now, while America was still strong, was when it should do what it could. However, the United States would be doing more, such as actually engaging King Ghidorah in battle, if President Emmerich were not hampering its efforts.
Ordinary people, on the other hand, sought to take matters into their own hands. Many people were already beginning to store food & water and were making shelters in their backyards. Others were taking courses in First Aid and Survival and other things. Some people were already evacuating the cities and hiding out in secluded areas in hopes that King Ghidorah would not find them when he came. People were volunteering for service in the armed forces in record numbers. Those soldiers already in the American armed forces were leaving their posts and volunteering in the DFE to fight King Ghidorah right away. Even corporate America in all its greed began rationing its products and selling, almost giving, its goods and services to G-Force and UNGCC in their efforts against the space demon.
And at last, Steven Martin was done. Sitting in his chair, Martin finished off the little tea that remained in his cup and removed the sheet of paper from his typewriter to proofread it. It was all well and good and said exactly what he wanted it to say. It was a scathing letter of condemnation against President Devlin Emmerich, faulting him for everything he had done wrong and would do wrong. Getting up from his desk, Martin walked through the darkened halls of his Chicago home and picked up the telephone to ask the people of United World News if he could make the evening edition. On being told that he could just barely make it, Martin thanked the man and hung up.
Martin knew that he normally didn't have such a tight deadline so he searched his thoughts and realized what it probably was. Unless Martin was mistaken, today was the day that the President officially opened the new plasma power plant somewhere in the Midwest. Martin sighed and slowly shook his head at the thought. Of all the boondoggles that could be done, this would have to rank among the worst. When the man should be preparing for war, President Emmerich was playing with his new toy.