CHAPTER 1
“I’m sorry, but I cannot approve of the T-Project.”
Miki Saegusa had spoken her words with a potent mixture of relief and dread. She couldn’t deny the weight that lifted from her shoulders at finally voicing her discontent, but understood full well the implications of her position. There would be judgement, pressure, even anger. Nothing she hadn’t dealt with during her brief time as the director of the UNGCC’s newly established Psychic Center. But as always, Miki stood by what she believed. And she wholeheartedly believed in what she’d just said.
“Trying to control Godzilla… What gives us the right to even attempt such a thing?”
The young woman stood facing a set of windows overlooking the main floor of the center. Spread out before her was a group of promising new students, all either naturally gifted in psychic abilities or just beginning to unlock their potential. The organization was less than a year old, and its establishment had kickstarted a global search for young people with psionic potential. Miki couldn’t help but see it as exploitative, but had vowed to protect and educate her students to the best of her ability. There were many days where it felt like a losing proposition, and it didn’t help that her overall mission as the center’s director – a literal battlefield promotion based on what the UNGCC top brass had called her “unique experience” – was in direct conflict with the rest of the bureau, and they knew it. Everyone did.
She’d known full well that a request of this nature would soon come knocking on her door. And she was in no mood to compromise on her stance.
As Miki continued to focus on her students beyond the window, she heard a rustle behind her. One of her visitors had stood up.
“Well…” a female voice intoned, “I believe this proposal may be a better alternative than the M-Project. It’s certainly far more in line with your way of thinking than anything G-Force has proposed.” There was a brief pause, then the visitor continued, “The process should be fairly simple. As you know, the idea is to attach an amplifying transmitter to the base of Godzilla’s neck. We then send your telepathic projections directly into its brain. By controlling Godzilla’s mind ourselves, we can prevent it from causing further destruction.” Another pause came as the speaker came to rest directly behind Miki. “Utilizing telepathy peacefully is what the T-Project is all about. If you truly care about a peaceful resolution to the Godzilla problem, I’m sure you’ll agree this is our best option.”
Miki remained silent.
Another set of footfalls echoed in the small meeting room as the second visitor rose and strode to stand next to the first. He was the next to speak, and his tone was far less patient: “Listen, if we can’t rely on your cooperation, we’ll have to ask one of them to help instead.”
Miki didn’t need to see the speaker to sense his head subtly gesturing toward the students.
“You can’t do that!” Miki spun around to face her visitors for the first time since they’d entered the room. To her right stood Dr. Chinatsu Gondo, Professor of Bioengineering and a foremost expert on the cellular structure of the planet’s largest inhabitants. On her left was Dr. Susumu Okubo, a biologist with a specific focus on evolution via both natural and man-made methods. Of the two, she knew Gondo the best; while dedicated foremost to the protection of mankind, she understood Miki’s position and scruples regarding Godzilla better than anyone in the entire organization. Okubo was a relatively recent addition to the UNGCC’s science division, and he carried with him a tenseness and impatience that Miki found oddly disquieting. Still, he was harmless enough, and Miki suddenly regretted the harshness of her worried response.
“You see,” she began, regaining her composure, “If someone with immature powers tried to use that much energy, they would endanger themselves. It could even be lethal.”
Gondo leaned her head in closer to Miki. “That’s why we’re asking you, Director Saegusa.”
Miki’s breath caught in her throat. There were a thousand things to say, yet no words to say them with. Instead of speaking, she turned back toward the window, hoping her silence would say all her visitors needed to hear.
Okubo was the first to walk away. He was no doubt frustrated with the lack of progress in their meeting. Gondo lingered for several more seconds, her presence seeming to intone “Please, just think about it.” Then, she departed, leaving Miki alone with her thoughts.
The world had changed so much in such a short time. More than that, her world had changed. The events of one year prior had replayed themselves again and again in Miki’s mind, altering her outlook a bit more with each repeated analysis. For years, her mission had been a clear one: use her powers to locate, delay, and even destroy Godzilla. It was a fight she’d been embroiled in for as long as she could remember; at 23, her entire adult life had been defined by men in uniforms pointing at a larger-than-life monster and telling her to slow it down, render it killable, or – as had happened the year before – to kill it herself. When the memories came, and they often did, she could feel the cold trigger of Mechagodzilla’s G-Crusher controls in her hands. The fear, the revulsion, and the guilt of pulling that trigger had haunted her every day since. How could it not? One hardly forgets committing their first murder.
Murder. That’s what it had been, plain and simple. She hadn’t fully grasped it until that horrifying moment in the cockpit. Even the day before her deployment, she hadn’t entirely been sure. To show mercy – even empathy – to a monster that had killed thousands and scarred the psyche of an entire nation for generations… could such a thing really be possible? Was it madness to even consider it?
All Miki knew was that her conscience, her heart, had screamed at her that day. It had pleased with her, begged her not to fire, not to kill. And yet, she had. Godzilla had fallen, all but dead by her hand. And while the beast had risen again to claim ultimate victory, it remained an agonizing fact that the death he’d barely escaped had been caused by her, and her alone.
Now, one year later, the least Miki could do to atone for her sin was ensure the creature continued to live.
It was a mission she hadn’t been shy about pursuing. Her dedication to Godzilla’s preservation was easily the worst-kept secret in the entire UNGCC, and it had certainly made her an object of extra scrutiny. Still, her history with Godzilla made her expertise and powers too valuable to discard. So, she remained a part of the organization, albeit a fringe one.
It was fortunate that the previous 12 months had required little from her in the way of Godzilla wrangling; after departing Tokyo and leaving Mechagodzilla a flaming wreck, the monster had made no attempt to return to Japan. After all, he’d gotten what he’d come for: a second of his species in the form of a newly born Godzillasaurus. It had been Godzilla’s connection to this infant and his desire to protect it from harm that had set Miki’s change of heart in motion, and she’d used her powers to gently convince the child to venture into the sea with its larger counterpart. No, its parent. Shortly thereafter, the UNGCC had tracked both monsters to the remote Birth Island in the South Pacific, where’s they’d stayed ever since. Satellite scanning had revealed the presence of naturally occurring uranium deposits scattered across the tropical island, more than enough to feed two radiovorous animals for years without depleting. In theory, both Godzillas – father and son – could live out their lives on that island without the need to leave. There would be no more death, no more suffering, no more war…
Naturally, the UNGCC hadn’t seen things so romantically. Instead of celebrating a year without a Godzilla attack, they’d used the time to prepare for the worst with the development of multiple potential countermeasures. The first on the docket was the “M-Project,” an attempt to salvage the remains of Mechagodzilla and combine them with fresh innovations and weapons to birth a new fighting machine. G-Force’s new pride and joy, a mecha they routinely boasted as being more advanced than even Mechagodzilla had been. How that was possible, especially given its rapid construction time, Miki didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care. Her fears regarding the M-Project’s deployment against Godzilla notwithstanding, the entire endeavor meant nothing to her. It was simply more gesturing from what she considered the UNGCC’s most radical branch, a faux-military murder club obsessed with achieving their ends through violence.
If the T-Project had anything resembling an upside, it was its relative distance from anything to do with G-Force. And yet, even this solution – the “peaceful alternative,” as Gondo had described it – was unnecessary on multiple levels. Too dangerous for any psychic other than herself to attempt, and hardly worth pursuing for a monster who hadn’t reared its head in a human city in a year, and had given no indication of wanting to do so. There was also no telling what effects such psychic control might have on Godzilla’s brain, but arguing the ethics of puppeteering a living thing like a doll on strings was a fight Miki simply didn’t have the patience to inevitably lose.
It had become too much to bear, a burden that no amount of busy work or distraction could lift from Miki’s shoulders. A decision was going to need to be made. A painful one. From her perspective, only three options existed: allow G-Force to slaughter Godzilla with the M-Project, endanger the lives of her students with the T-Project, or take on the responsibility of psychically linking with Godzilla herself. No matter how hard she thought, no matter what mental avenues she traversed, no fourth option had presented itself. There was no path to a world where neither project moved forward. None that she could see, at least.
At the moment, all Miki could see was the faint reflection of her own face in the window: tired, focused, and complimented by a short haircut she felt suited the professional persona she was attempting to craft for herself. It was the first thing her eyes had focused on in some time. She was unsure of how long she’d been standing alone. Her little corner of the world was often a lonely one. Lonely and silent. It was a lifestyle she’d grown accustomed to, but one she was hardly at peace with. Silence had a way of being far more deafening than chaos. Sometimes, silence was chaos. She often wondered if that’s how Godzilla felt, too.
But in this moment, Miki knew nothing productive would come from such contemplations. Instead, she took a deep breath, unfocused her eyes once again, and allowed her world and mind to drift into silence.
Then… music.
It was faint, distant. Like the last vestiges of a faraway echo. But it was there, subtly filling Miki’s ears. And it was beautiful.
Miki closed her eyes. The music became clearer. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard psychically transmitted music, and as she continued to listen, she realized she’d heard this melody before. In fact, she knew it quite well.
As the song rose in volume to encompass the length and breadth of her psyche, a vision of black night and a sea of infinite stars drifted into Miki’s mind. Into the sea glided a divine being on wings of red, yellow, and black. An angelic cry filled the silence of space, and from the goddess’ golden wake flew a multitude of smaller beings, each identical to the great guardian who now drifted out of Miki’s view, disappearing into a darkness so total that not even the distant stars could illuminate her…
Miki’s eyes fluttered open. The vision had faded away, as did the peace her brief communion had brought her. In its place came the return of her malaise, now suddenly heightened by what had just transpired. Miki knew all too well that even the most enchanting of visions could hold a deep darkness, and as she finally turned away from the window to leave the meeting room, she could feel that darkness – and the many questions that came with it – begin to seep into her troubled mind.
One thing was clear: Mothra had just reached across the vastness of the cosmos to make contact. What wasn’t clear was why. Why her? Why now? And for what purpose? Miki was sure the answers would find her, whether she was prepared to hear them or not.
NEXT CHAPTER COMING SOON!
The Godzilla Novelization Project 