G.o.dZILLA.

AT WORLD'S END.

by Marc Cerasini.

PROLOGUE.

Wednesday, January 29, 1992, 2:55 A.M.

7515' south lat.i.tude, 11310' east longitude.

Wilkes Land, East Antarctica.

Dead eyes stared at her.

The girl jumped back, away from the broken body sprawled on the bottom of the pit in the ancient ice. She blinked twice, then her green eyes widened in astonishment. Under the thick wool scarf, her mouth - smeared with petroleum jelly to prevent dryness in the harsh, arid climate - opened in an oval of surprise.

Her first thought was This is not possible.

But she knew it was. Her eyes told her so. Though only fifteen, Zoe Kemmering had already seen enough of the world to trust her five senses more than her emotions. And she'd also seen enough of death in her young life to recognize the signs of its presence.

Zoe stared down at the man whose violent end left her completely alone in the middle of the frozen Antarctic waste. His blank eyes stared back at her, already frozen in the dry, sub-zero temperatures. Gone from them were the dreams of discovery that brought the man here. His once sensitive eyes were nothing more than icy white orbs.

The only thing she recognized about the broken corpse was the half-smile fixed on the bristly, bearded face. Zoe remembered that smile well, for she'd seen it every day of her life. Sometimes the dead man's enemies referred to that expression as a smirk, but Zoe knew that this kind and brilliant man had been incapable of smirking at anyone. That half-smile had sprung from the man's belief that life was a mystery that could never be solved.

In her whole life, Zoe had seen that smile disappear only once. The day her mother died. Zoe Kemmering blinked back tears, realizing only then that she was an orphan.

Fighting back the grief that threatened to overwhelm her, she bent over her father's corpse. Reaching out with her gloved hand, Zoe gently closed his eyes. As she did, her foot brushed against the shattered remains of the dogsled her father had ridden to his death at the bottom of this pit. The battered corpses of the dog team lay scattered among the shattered pieces of the sled and most of their supplies. Among the wreckage was a smashed satellite radio - Zoe's only link to the outside world.

After the accident that had claimed her father's life, it had taken the girl three hours to climb down into this creva.s.se. The pit had opened as if by magic or malevolent force, for it had not even existed mere moments before it swallowed her father's dogsled. The fracture in the ice had actually seemed to open up directly in front of them, as if intent on gulping both father and daughter.

It was only the skill and control of Zoe's lead sled dog that had saved her from the same fate that befell her father. Her dog team had swerved at the last moment, barely avoiding certain death.

Her father was not so lucky. But then, be never was, Zoe recalled bitterly. Her father had given up so much to prove his scientific theories.

And now, so close to the final revelation, he's dead. "Why?" Zoe moaned bitterly.

Her only answer was the howl of polar winds.

Casting aside her emotions, Zoe scanned her surroundings. The icy walls of the creva.s.se surrounded and towered over her. They seemed to press in on her, and Zoe realized that the rift in the ancient ice could close just as suddenly as it had opened.

It was a mistake to climb down here, she realized. I knew my father was dead. My coming down here only endangered the quest. Now I have to get out - fast ...

For a moment, Zoe began to tremble. Then she recalled her father's words, repeated often in the weeks and months after her mother's death: "Think like a scientist, Zoe, not like a frightened little girl." She always tried to obey him, but sometimes it was so hard.

Especially now ...

With an effort of will, the girl forgot her fears and her past and focused on the problem at hand.

The seismic activity that had caused the creva.s.se to open up was extremely odd for this part of the Antarctic - a phenomenon so violent it had probably been noticed at relatively nearby bases like McMurdo and Scott. The seismic activity was very unusual, but it certainly verified one key aspect of her father's theory. And if the rest of her father's theory was correct, Zoe was close to her dead father's intended destination. Very close.

Maybe less than a kilometer.

Zoe knew she had a decision to make, a decision regarding her very survival. No one knew she and her father were here - no one who could help, anyway. Her uncle Jack had the bulk of her father's scientific journals and knew the route they'd planned to take. But Uncle Jack had sworn an oath to her father that he would not tell anyone where they were going - and there was no way that Jack could mount an expedition to the Antarctic to save them if they got into trouble, anyway.

Zoe could abandon the quest and try to make it to a research station or settlement on the Antarctic coast of the Ross Sea. Though she was pretty sure she was still in the part of Antarctica claimed by Australia, the U.S. base at McMurdo or New Zealand's Scott base were only a few days' travel from her present position.

But finding either base was nearly impossible, given her lack of supplies and navigational instruments, or even satellite communications to signal for help.

The other option was to go forward into the unknown.

No, Zoe suddenly corrected herself. Not the unknown. I know exactly what I will find there. All the evidence points to the fact that my father's theories are correct!

Which meant that, in mere hours, an undiscovered and long-sought-after polar pa.s.sage would open for the first time in eons. For a few days, humans would be able to enter the underground world hidden in the very center of the Earth.

For the first time in hundreds of thousands of years, humans would be able to return to their one true home in the universe. A place that might have been the very cradle of humanity. A world known by many names. The ancient Greeks called it Hades, the land ruled by the G.o.d of the same name. Medieval alchemist Giacomo Casanova called it Icosameron, and dubbed it a veritable paradise. In 1692, astronomer Edmund Halley postulated that the Earth was hollow and filled with concentric spheres. In 1820, John Cleves Symmes, an American researcher, named the world at the center of the Earth Symmeszonia. Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs explored it in fiction. Burroughs called his prehistoric land Pellucidar.

Many theories. Many names. But only one true name.

The Garden of Eden.

Zoe's thoughts were interrupted by a curious sound. On the cliffs high above her, she could hear her sled dogs whimpering anxiously. She looked up, scanning the edge of the ice cliffs. But from her vantage point, Zoe could not see the animals.

Then she peered into the sky. It almost never got dark in Antarctica at this time of year, a time of almost perpetual sunlight. But it was getting dark now.

A storm was brewing. A big one.

In the middle of the Antarctic's spring season. That was almost unheard of, and further proof that her father's theories were correct. Something strange was indeed happening in this part of the Antarctic continent.

The polar gate was opening.

Zoe knew she had to hurry. She again turned her attention to the dead man at her feet. Zoe bent low, reaching into her father's parka. Her hand fumbled inside his coat until it gripped the plastic-coated map he always carried with him. She found it, as well as the crumpled pages that made up the final volume of her father's scientific journals.

Slowly, almost reverently, she drew out the precious doc.u.ments. Now Zoe had everything she needed to finish the quest. She told herself that she didn't need the satellite equipment, because there was no turning back now. Without a second glance at the corpse of Dr. Alexander Kemmering, Zoe rose and began searching through the shattered wreckage of the dogsled for any supplies she might be able to salvage. She quickly gathered what she could and wrapped it in a blanket.

For a moment she thought about bringing along the corpse of one of her father's dogs for food, but decided against it.

If Zoe didn't find the polar entrance to the Garden in the next few hours, her life would be meaningless. Food wouldn't matter.

But Zoe believed that she would find the entrance to the Garden. In a few hours, she would cross through the frozen gate that led to a paradise undreamed of by mankind. Zoe would survive, and she'd prove to a doubting world that her father's theories were correct.

Or perhaps she would dwell alone in Eden forever. Zoe could enjoy a peace she had never found in her short life. She could be happy while the rest of mankind lived in the violent, destructive, and dangerous world they created for themselves.

It would be a fitting revenge for the ridicule the public heaped on her parents for their unorthodox beliefs. And the punishment would be all the more ironic because the world would be ignorant of its exile from Paradise.

Only she would know. Zoe smiled.

The notion pleased her.

All doubts banished from her mind, she was ready to proceed. The bag of salvaged supplies was not heavy. All she had to do was tie it to her body and begin the arduous task of climbing out of the creva.s.se.

But at that moment the dogs, which had been quiet after their initial burst of anxious whimpering, began to bark frantically. The barking grew more frenzied, then turned into frightful howls in a matter of seconds.

Zoe stood stock-still, listening to the dogs' desperate yowls.

What could be frightening them? she wondered.

Suddenly, Zoe heard a crash. Then a dog yelped in pain as another began to growl. Soon all the dogs began to snarl and growl. Dusty ice began to rain down from the edge of the creva.s.se, as if some struggle were taking place far above.

Finally, Zoe heard another sound, an unearthly, high-pitched bleating filled the air. The noise was so loud that it nearly stopped her heart. The eerie wail increased in intensity until it was deafening, drowning out even the death howls of the terrified dogs.

Zoe dropped the bag of supplies and clutched her ears with both gloved hands. She doubled over and shut her green eyes as more ice particles rained down on her.

Curled in a tight ball at the bottom of the creva.s.se, Zoe waited for the struggle to end. Still, the mysterious wail continued on for many minutes. Then it simply ceased.

Cautiously, Zoe opened her eyes and took the gloves from her ears.

Silence. Except that Zoe's eardrums were still ringing from the noise. She rose to her feet. Her parka was covered with ice particles, and she brushed them away, shaking her head in a futile attempt to clear her ears. But just as her breathing returned to normal Zoe detected sudden movement out of the corner of her eye. A shadow fell over her.

Zoe looked up, then opened her mouth and screamed.

A gaping green maw filled with th.o.r.n.y woodlike teeth yawned within an arm's length of her face. The thing wavered on the end of a thick, snakelike green trunk covered with rough bark and sharp thorns. The sound of Zoe's wail caught the thing's attention, and the appendage reared backward, its gaping mouth snapping shut.

Zoe jumped backward, too, until she was pressing against the icy wall of the creva.s.se. The pod, which was mostly mouth, seemed to slaver with a greenish sap. Another shadow crossed her, and Zoe lifted her eyes to the edge of the pit. Three more pods were bobbing on the ends of other thick vines, far above her.

Zoe's eyes quickly returned to the pod down in the pit with her. It seemed frozen, as if wary. With her eyes, Zoe followed the vine up the side of the creva.s.se, where it disappeared from sight.

For what seemed like an eternity, Zoe remained absolutely still. The thing obviously had no eyes. Zoe reasoned that the sound she made must have attracted its attention. She was determined not to make another, and to outwait the thing, no matter how long it took.

Twenty minutes later, as Zoe tried to suppress the shivers of cold that ran through her body, the ground began to shake. With the first hint of seismic activity, the thing in the pit snapped its mouth shut and pulled itself out of the creva.s.se.

Zoe moved away from the walls as large chunks of ice began to rain down around her once more. The ice beneath her feet seemed to turn to jelly. Helpless in the grip of the quake, Zoe again rolled into a defensive ball. The bottom of the creva.s.se, solid mere seconds ago, began to liquefy.

Suddenly, Zoe was sinking. She reached out instinctively, vainly clutching for the nearest solid object. Her fingers closed on cold, dead flesh. Clutching her father's battered body to her breast as the ground swallowed her brought the teenager some degree of comfort.

Finally, Zoe Kemmering and the corpse of her father both vanished beneath the quaking ground and were sucked into the very center of the Earth ...

1.

TEEN BEAT.

Sat.u.r.day, November 11, 2000, 7:59 P.M.

Independent News Network, Studio B.

World Trade Center Tower.

New York, New York.

"One minute!"

The electronic voice from the gla.s.s booth sounded hollow in the huge television sound stage. Robin Halliday knew it was the voice of the director, now in position for the live broadcast.

Robin blinked and stared intensely into the camera lens as the technicians and camera crew worked out the mechanics of the live show's opening shot.

"Camera one, go to a medium shot," the electronically transmitted voice of the director commanded. Robin shifted her eyes to a monitor near the floor. The picture on the screen changed from a close-up of Robin's face to a medium, full-body shot of her sitting in the host's chair - the Teen Beat logo now clearly visible behind her.

The makeup artist used the change of camera angles as an opportunity to touch up Robin's face. She dabbed some violet wet-look lipstick on the teenager's pouty lips while the hairdresser combed and separated the unruly bangs that brushed Robin's forehead.

"Robin," the director said from the booth, with a touch of sarcasm that was audible despite the electronic distortion. "Can we have a little modesty, please? This is supposed to be a family show."

Robin pursed her lips and rolled her eyes as she grabbed the material of her dress, pulling the provocative slit in her retro-1980s ankle-length Betsey Johnson skirt closed to cover her shapely legs. Robin then adjusted her tailored jacket - also a Betsey Johnson - while trying not to jar the microphone hidden inside her clothes.

When the makeup woman vanished, and the hairdresser stepped out of camera range, Robin checked herself on the monitor one last time.

She was fashion-conscious enough to wear retro-1980s styles on the show. Her hairstyle, too, remained true to the trends of the twenty-first century. Her once-auburn locks were now colored a deep, rich, inky black - mimicking the look made famous by MTV's "Prophetess of Doom."

Dark hair had become de rigueur among fashionable young women of the 2000s - blondes were definitely out. Fortunately, Robin's naturally pale skin and emerald eyes contrasted nicely with the ebony hair. The result, especially on camera, was striking.

Which was just the way Robin wanted it.

Still clutching the hem of her full-length skirt, Robin composed herself and scanned the notes she held in her hand. The list was short and simple - it contained only the names of her guests and the locations of some of the remote feeds she would have on today's show.

Robin never used a TelePrompTer. She'd never needed one. She always had something to say - to her guests, to her producers, even to the director on occasion. In fact, Robin was the only writer on Teen Beat these days, and she was the one who selected the guests as well.

It was Robin's show now, even though she had almost nothing to do with its creation, its corny name, the stodgy news network that broadcast it, or any of the other negative baggage that went with it.

Against all odds, Robin had returned from her first big a.s.signment - chasing the monster Varan in Mexico - to make Teen Beat one of INN's top-rated broadcasts. Before Robin, Teen Beat was a bust. But from the moment she was hired to replace Maria Kenni-Fuego - the show's original host - and began doing things her way, Teen Beat really took off. Two weeks ago, it was the number-one program in its time slot. Last week, it slipped a little, but it was still a solid second. Robin knew she'd just have to work a little harder. One of her new ch.o.r.es was a special Sunday edition of the show, to air tomorrow.

Thankfully, much of that show was already in the can. The rest wouldn't be any more tiring than doing a regular episode.