Governments all over the world scrambled to find the cause of - and the solution to - the calamity. But no one could have possibly considered the immediate or long-range consequences of such an impossible event. Within minutes, the tragic results became evident to thousands of horrified eyewitnesses.

Dozens of pa.s.senger airliners crashed while attempting to land without guidance from air-traffic controllers. Radar ceased to function, and there were many midair collisions, and even collisions on the runway. Two pa.s.senger planes collided over Queens, New York, while trying to land at LaGuardia. Much of the debris landed atop the Arthur Ashe Tennis Stadium in Forest Hills, destroying the famed sports arena.

Ships at sea, small and large, were suddenly lost. Without geo-positional satellites to guide them, or navigational beacons beamed from land, several ships ran aground. A European cargo vessel crashed into the fog-shrouded coast of Spain. A Libyan tanker rammed a pleasure cruiser off the coast of Greece.

In the worst sea disaster of them all, a j.a.panese supertanker collided with a cargo ship, spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Osaka. Already, oil slicks a hundred kilometers long were washing ash.o.r.e around that ancient, beautiful city.

Emergency calls in every metropolis in the world went unanswered. Thousands died in fires and traffic accidents, as victims of crimes, from heart attacks and strokes - all because help could not be summoned in time to save them.

Within hours, riots swept through the major cities of the world. Some were caused by panic; others were by design. Civil order all across the world broke down. Without communications, the very fabric of civilization began to unravel ...

Monday, December 11, 2000, 9:16 A.M.

Bridge of the Destiny Explorer.

Over the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile.

"This is Destiny Explorer, calling anyone, come in, please, anyone ..."

Nothing but harsh static sounds emerged from the radio. Sh.e.l.ly rose from the communications station and lowered the volume. The bridge was suddenly silent.

"How about your communications equipment, Corporal?" Sh.e.l.ly asked Sean. The soldier, who stood at the huge window staring out at the ocean, cleared his throat.

"We've tried our command nets, and they're dead," he replied. "I sent Rocco and our communications man, Mike Templeton, up to the top of the hull to set up their satellite gear. They haven't reported in yet, but I don't have high hopes, Miss Townsend."

"What about the computers?" Sh.e.l.ly asked, turning to Leena Sims, who sat at the navigational computer.

"The internal computers are still working," the intense dark-haired girl answered. "And we can pull up the maps we need, so we pretty much know where we are. But anything that involves long-distance communications, like the satellite net or the geo-positioning system, is down. Everything is gone ..."

Her voice dropped an octave. "It's like the end of the world," she murmured, a shadow crossing her face.

"Sunspots?" Michael Sullivan asked. Leena shook her head. Captain Dolan and Second Mate Gil Givers did, too.

"I would bet that this is not a local event," Captain Dolan stated. "Communications have been spotty for days, and GPS satellites have disappeared as if they fell out of orbit. Something weird was going on long before this happened."

Then the bearded captain smiled proudly. "For the last two days I have been navigating the old-fashioned way - with a compa.s.s!"

"So what is going on?" Sh.e.l.ly asked no one in particular. Captain Dolan, at the helm, replied. "I think I can answer that question," he announced. "Perhaps I am the only man on Earth who can."

All eyes turned to the captain, but it was U.S. Army Corporal Sean Brennan - the man who, because of his temporary rank, was supposed to be in charge of the airship and its pa.s.sengers - who finally spoke first.

"I think I should brief you all on the situation in the Antarctic," Brennan said. "I suspect that you know something about what's happening. It's time I told you the rest, just as Colonel Briteis explained it to me."

Captain Dolan faced the youth. "You tell your story, son, and then I'll tell mine ..."

Fifteen minutes later, Captain Dolan stood before the group seated in the crowded briefing room of the Destiny Explorer. On the table in front of him was a stack of battered journals and tattered maps scribbled with handwritten notes.

The group had just finished listening to Corporal Sean Brennan, who told them all of the details of the briefing he'd received the night before the monster arrived in Lima. The briefing was very much like the one Simon Townsend received, minus the fancy graphics and an authority like Dr. Birchwood.

Brennan outlined everything he knew about the pit in Antarctica, and the mission that he and his Airborne troops were supposed to undertake once they got there.

Sh.e.l.ly Townsend, Nick Gordon, Robin Halliday, Ned Landson, Michael Sullivan, Leena Sims, and Peter Blackwater listened in stunned silence. Though Captain Dolan was hesitant to tell his story to everyone - especially the teenage pa.s.sengers - Sh.e.l.ly insisted that they be present. Their future was at stake, too.

The group met behind closed doors and away from the prying eyes of the rest of the airship's small crew and the other soldiers, who would be briefed later.

When Sean Brennan completed his lecture, he took a seat at the long table and waited to hear the words of Captain Dolan. The bearded captain rose and told his story.

"What I'm about to tell you sounds almost as crazy as the tale you just heard," Dolan announced. "Sometimes I find it hard to believe myself. But after learning about the events outlined by Corporal Brennan, and the strange communications failures of the past few days, I am increasingly certain that what I am about to tell you is true."

Then Captain Jack Dolan told them the story of his college friend and brother-in-law, an eccentric genius named Alexander Kemmering. Dolan told them about the man's obsessive search for the south polar entrance, convinced that a lost world existed at the center of the Earth.

He told them about Kemmering's wife - Dolan's own sister - and how she had died trying to help prove her husband's unorthodox archaeological and geological theories about the Earth and its prehistory. Dolan told them about Atlantis and Lemuria, and how Kemmering thought these legends had more than a kernel of truth to them.

"Kemmering was convinced that in ancient times, the South Pole was not covered in ice," Dolan explained. "He felt that a civilization grew up there - and some of his theories are borne out by historical evidence. Old maps show accurate details of the Antarctic continent, details that have been obscured for thousands of years because of the layers of ice over the bays and rivers and mountains.

"The Pyramids, which were long thought to have been built by the Pharaoh Cheops, have recently been proven by geological science to be much older - perhaps, as Kemmering suspected, they were built eons ago, in the dim recesses of prehistory by a civilization forgotten in the mists of time."

Dolan explained how Alexander Kemmering had delved into forgotten folklore and long-forbidden books, as well as the writings of famed occultists and discredited scientists and theologians. He also told them about the birth of his niece, Zoe Kemmering, and how nearly nine years ago Alexander had dragged his teenage daughter on a mad quest into the Antarctic waste - where both of them vanished forever.

"Alex Kemmering was convinced that a polar opening, a small one, would appear in Wilkes Land around the time of his expedition. Kemmering was also convinced that with the new century's dawn would come cataclysmic events like the ones we are witnessing today.

"Alexander also accurately predicted the opening and the location of the giant hole in Antarctica that exists there now. He surmised in his journals that when the pit finally opened, great changes would come to our world ...

"Sometimes he seemed to be talking about a new Eden, a paradise on Earth, waiting to be reborn ...

"But at other times, he sounded as if the opening of the abyss would herald the coming of Armageddon."

Dolan paused. "Now it looks as if Alex wasn't a madman at all. h.e.l.l! I'm beginning to believe he was an unappreciated genius, like Copernicus!"

"But what proof do you have to support this crazy story?" Ned Landson, ever the scientist, demanded.

Dolan pointed to the journals spread out on the table in front of him.

"Alexander Kemmering gave me his scientific journals, maps, and notes before he left for Antarctica in 1993," Dolan announced. "I kept them, without looking at them, for six years. Then, last year, when this expedition to Antarctica was announced, I got curious. I dug out the journals and began to study them."

The captain paused, scanning the shocked and doubting faces that stared back at him.

"To my own amazement, some of the predictions my brother-in-law made ten years ago have already come to pa.s.s. There are others made in this journal which have not ... yet."

The captain met Ned Landson's skeptical stare. "You are all free to study these writings and come up with your own conclusions," he said evenly.

"So what do we do?" Sh.e.l.ly asked. The room was silent for a moment. Then Sean Brennan rose.

"As I explained before, according to all our intelligence this airship can safely pa.s.s over the Antarctic continent and reach the abyss. I submit that we should proceed there immediately and try to find out what is happening at the South Pole."

Sh.e.l.ly leaped to her feet and cried out in protest. But the tall, broad-shouldered corporal silenced her.

"My men are equipped, and your hold carries the weapons and supplies we need for this mission, more than we need, in fact, because there were supposed to be five times the number of men that we have."

Sean Brennan glanced at Captain Dolan. "While I am not the highest-ranking officer aboard this ship, I say we go!"

"And, Corporal, I say we go, too," Jack Dolan stated.

Sh.e.l.ly looked around her, searching for support. But Peter Blackwater and Ned Landson were smiling, obviously antic.i.p.ating the adventure of a lifetime.

Robin's and Nick's journalistic instincts were aroused. They both wanted to proceed.

Michael Sullivan was pensive but resolute. "We have to do something to help," he said simply.

Even the prima donna Leena Sims seemed to agree. She nodded every time someone pointed out another good reason to go.

Finally, Sh.e.l.ly threw up her arms in surrender.

"Okay," she relented. "Let's go to Antarctica!"

Tuesday, December 12, 2000, 12:36 P.M.

Pudong New Area.

Shanghai, People's Republic of China.

Despite the weird communications blackout that affected the whole world, it was business as usual in the Pudong New Area - a glittering, bustling capitalist zone in the middle of Communist China. Though the phones and fax machines were not working, electricity, self-contained computers, and the citizens of Pudong New Area certainly were.

But as the sun shone overhead, noon arrived - and that meant lunch. Many of the people who worked in the towering gla.s.s-and-steel skysc.r.a.pers began filing out into the busy streets and plazas to buy a meal at the many food stalls that serviced the brand-new city. Lines were long, and secretaries spent the time in gossip. Executives eyed the compet.i.tion warily, or traded stock tips.

Towering over all were two unique structures. One of them, the Jin Mao Building, was the tallest structure in Asia. The other, called the Pearl TV Tower, looked like a huge oil rig covered with gla.s.s. It, too, was one of the tallest buildings in Shanghai, and a symbol of the new China.

In the 1980s, the land on which Pudong New Area now stood was muddy farmland, used for growing food to feed the people of Shanghai. But with the coming of the early 1990s, and new economic initiatives by the Chinese government, development began.

Now skysc.r.a.pers replaced rice paddies, and Pudong New Area featured a new transit system and a coal-burning electric-generating plant. The first stages of construction on a new international airport were already under way.

Two ma.s.sive bridges and several commuter tunnels now connected Pudong New Area with Puxi, central Shanghai. Each day hundreds of thousands of people crossed those bridges to go to work in this shining capitalist powerhouse.

Deep beneath the ground, in the newest tunnel under construction - a wide, two-tier shaft for commuter trains - Chinese and j.a.panese engineers were searching for the source of a leak in the walls of the brand-new structure. When workers reported for duty in the deepest section of the tunnel that morning, they found the floor covered with water.

The leak was puzzling. There had been no sign of trouble when the men quit work the day before, and night crews, who worked on the entrance of the tunnel in the heart of Pudong New Area, had heard nothing unusual.

But now tons of brown, muddy river water were pouring into the tunnel. As the men walked through the wide shaft, the electricity suddenly died, leaving the engineers in pitch-darkness.

One of the Chinese foremen leading the consultants pulled a flashlight from his belt. But before he could turn it on, the entire shaft echoed with a strange, supernatural noise that sounded like the hissing bellow of a huge beast.

The electric lights flickered once, then came on again. One of the engineers pointed into the distance and screamed at the nightmare vision that the lights revealed.

The gigantic face of a traditional Asian dragon was emerging from the deepest part of the underground pit. Its huge eyes seemed to gleam in the darkness. Its snout had strange antenna-like tendrils, which flared back from its wide nostrils. The creature hissed again, and a pointed tongue flicked out of its ma.s.sive, tooth-lined maw.

As one, the men in the tunnel bolted. As they raced for the entrance to the shaft, they pa.s.sed lines of scaffolds with dozens of workers toiling away.

"Run! Run!" an engineer cried.

The workers exchanged uneasy glances. Then the creature burst out of the tunnel and was on them. Laborers screamed and died as the creature slithered past them, tearing down the scaffolds. Men spilled to the floor of the cavern, where they were crushed beneath the creature's heavy scaled body.

As workers spilled out of the mouth of the tunnel and ran through the muddy construction site, the mammoth dragon thrust its head out of the mouth of the tunnel.

From dozens of nearby buildings, scores of office workers saw the monster emerge from the pit. Many were struck with supernatural dread as a figure from Asian mythology uncoiled to its full length outside the tunnel.

At one of the food stalls near the construction pit, an ancient Chinese woman, who had lived in Pudong New Area when it was just a muddy bog full of vegetable plants, saw the creature. Instantly the old woman recalled the legends of the region, and one story in particular - the story about an ancient dragon that lived in the bog.

"Manda! It's Manda!" the woman cried, pointing at the monster that slithered through the ultramodern streets of the New Area.

As the old woman gathered up her wares and pushed her food cart out of harm's way, she began talking to herself. "Aiiiee, I always knew this place had bad feng shui," she muttered, waving her hand to ward off the evil spirits. "The stupid fools built the Pearl TV Tower on the dragon's eye, and now it's coming to tear down the building."

As she ran away, food and cooking utensils dropped off her cart, but she did not slow.

With short, stubby forearms, the dragon called Manda pulled itself over the low construction buildings surrounding the tunnel site. As it pa.s.sed, a tall crane plunged to the ground and a bulldozer was reduced to sc.r.a.p metal. The mammoth creature was a silvery gray color. Its large head was framed by tufts of woolly hair and punctuated with two elongated eyes that scanned the area with an evil intelligence.

Manda's long, snakelike body had four short legs that ended in grasping, curved claws, similar to a bird of prey's.

The creature had a length of 150 meters and probably weighed 30,000 tons. Its body was entirely covered with overlapping scales. As Manda uncoiled to its full length and began moving in the steel-and-gla.s.s canyon of Pudong New Area, it smashed aside buses, cars, and the tiny food stalls that cl.u.s.tered around the large buildings. The citizens fled before the dragon, while civil defense sirens began to wail in the distance.

But there was no one coming to save Pudong New Area - all communications were out, and no one outside the city knew that the district was in any danger ...

Tuesday, December 12, 2000, 4:39 P.M.

Aboard the Yuushio-cla.s.s submarine Takashio.

Under the East China Sea.

After failing to make contact with j.a.pan - or anyone - in the past few days, Captain Sendai continued with the primary mission of j.a.panese submarines on patrol in the world's oceans: locate and track G.o.dzilla's movements.

The Takashio had followed the monster since stumbling across it in the Sea of j.a.pan, near the coast of Hokkaido. G.o.dzilla had moved parallel to the j.a.panese coast since then, with the Takashio in pursuit.

Captain Sendai was glad that he'd refueled and resupplied the submarine at a naval base before embarking on this mission. They had many days of sailing ahead of them before they would have to return to j.a.pan for resupply. And if they were to lose G.o.dzilla, the elusive creature would be difficult to locate again.

To the captain's surprise, G.o.dzilla suddenly changed direction after pa.s.sing through the Korea Strait. Now he was moving away from the j.a.panese mainland. Though that brought relief to all aboard the Takashio, the officers were curious as to why G.o.dzilla had moved into the East China Sea, toward the southeast coast of mainland China. Captain Sendai realized that the creature might soon lead them into Chinese territorial waters, which could cause an international incident.