The Russian delegate's car glided smoothly through the night streets of Shanghai. Inside the cabin, shielded from any eavesdropping and scanning, twilight reigned. The delegate sat in the back seat, looking at the city lights, while his assistant—a colonel of the foreign intelligence service—opened files marked "Top Secret. Special Importance" on his tablet.

  "Seems like they're hiding something," the delegate said without turning around. "There's clearly something wrong with Subject Zero. Why is Mira hiding him like this? Hmm... What did you find out?"

  The assistant brought the first data onto the screen.

  "We dug up everything that was in the old KGB archives and obtained some data from the US NSA," the colonel began in a quiet voice. "Subject Zero... he has existed for much longer than they tell us. It seems he's over a thousand years old. His power... it's beyond our comprehension."

  The delegate finally turned and looked at the screen. Old, yellowed photographs depicted seascapes.

  "Here is the American data," the assistant continued. "For years, the US tried to fight the Kaiju using nuclear weapons. In 1954, the 'Castle Bravo' test... They thought it was a success. But they only provoked the ocean. In 1958, operation 'Hardtack I'. Everything went wrong. Right after the explosion, a 180-meter-tall monster crawled out of the ocean. The radiation from it was off the charts, the water around it was literally boiling. Its scream was of such force that the crew on ships within a twenty-mile radius simply went blind and deaf."

  The delegate squinted.

  "And what happened then?"

  "Something flew into it from above at an inconceivable speed. The monster was blown to pieces. The explosion was of such force as if a 50-megaton bomb had detonated. The Americans realized then: nuclear explosions didn't destroy Kaiju. They fed them. But who destroyed it—remained a mystery."

  The assistant swiped to the next page. Cyrillic characters appeared.

  "Our sources. The Kola Superdeep Borehole."

  "I know," the delegate interrupted sharply. "Officially, it was closed due to technical problems. But the archives spoke of sounds from hell."

  "Exactly. The ground began to crack, the earthquake reached a 10 on the scale. Eyewitnesses swore that something terrible was crawling out of the rift. And again, a miracle: someone appeared and destroyed it. The reports say: 'A creature resembling a human.' And a few years before that, after the 'Tsar Bomba' explosion in 1961, a 100-meter-tall Kaiju crawled out of the Arctic Ocean. And it was him again. Eyewitnesses who survived on Novaya Zemlya claimed they heard his voice. It was... adolescent. That is the strangest detail in all the documents."

  The delegate thoughtfully drummed his fingers on the armrest.

  "An adolescent voice... A boy who lives forever?"

  "There are also letters," the assistant brought up a picture of an encrypted message. "It seems even back then the USSR tried to take Subject Zero for itself. In Siberia, in the mountains, in our permafrost in Siberia, ruins of ancient elves were found. There, on the walls, a human is drawn. They worshipped him. Elves who lived thousands of years before us considered him their protector and god."

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  A heavy silence hung in the cabin.

  "Yes, a difficult situation," the delegate finally said. "China and America are most likely digging too. They also want to take Subject Zero for themselves. We must be faster than them. While Mira is preparing her 'reconnaissance in September', we must be the first to find him."

  He looked out the window at the skyscrapers flying by.

  "If we manage to take him for ourselves... if we can control this power... then it won't matter how many Kaiju crawl out of the ocean. The whole world will belong to those who hold Subject Zero."

  "Have our agents in Japan already started working?" the delegate asked.

  "Yes. We are looking for a teenager who fits the description. There are too many 'coincidences' in Yokohama right now. We will find him before the Americans figure it out."

  The delegate's car turned toward the airport. The great race for a god who has forgotten himself had officially begun.

  The Chinese delegate's car—a heavy, premium black sedan—moved silently along the night highway of Shanghai. The cabin smelled of expensive tea and old leather. The delegate sat leaning back in his seat, his face, lined with the wrinkles of experience and power, motionless.

  "Mira is hiding something," he said quietly, almost to himself. "Why isn't Subject Zero participating in the operation? Why is she hiding him behind this veil of secrecy? Did something happen to him? Maybe he's sick? Or... does he no longer want to protect us?"

  The assistant sitting opposite him guiltily lowered his head.

  "We still haven't found him, sir. Not in Japan, nor through global databases. It's as if Subject Zero vanished into thin air after the incident in Los Angeles."

  The delegate looked out the window at the city lights. His thoughts drifted far into the past.

  "Yes... I remember," his voice became hoarse. "My childhood. Those were terrible times for China. Hard times. Chairman Mao decided to turn an agrarian country into an industrial power. I remember how our entire family starved. There wasn't enough food for anyone. My grandfather and grandmother simply got up one day and left the house, saying it was their time... but we all knew where they went. They just didn't want to take our last crumbs of rice. Our village was on the verge of extinction."

  He closed his eyes, and that scene rose before him again.

  "And suddenly he appeared. A boy. Looking about fourteen, cheerful, with white hair and piercingly blue eyes. He walked down our dusty road and laughed, as if he didn't see the death around him. He walked out onto our empty, dead field and simply snapped his fingers. And right before our eyes, stalks began to grow from the dry earth. With incredible speed, the field rippled with rice. And then he disappeared. As abruptly as he had appeared."

  The delegate clenched his fists.

  "And then... 1976. The Tangshan earthquake. We had come to visit relatives when this hell began. Hundreds of thousands dead. A Kaiju crawled out of the cracks in the ground. Huge, shapeless... On that day, my little sister left this world. Right before my eyes, a concrete wall collapsed on her. We ran, not seeing the road. And then I saw that monster in the distance simply explode. Its black blood covered the entire city."

  He took a deep breath, his voice trembling.

  "I had only one thought in my head then. I started screaming into the emptiness: 'Why so late?! Why didn't you save my sister?! Why were you late?!' I was crying, choking on rage. And then he appeared out of thin air. That very same boy. There was such a terrible, infinite sadness in his eyes... He walked up to me, knelt on one knee, and put his hand on my shoulder."

  "I remember it to this day," the delegate whispered. "Such warmth and calmness radiated from his hand that all my rage instantly evaporated. I felt so light, as if I were a little boy again. But tears rolled down from his eyes. He looked at me and said quietly: 'I'm sorry.' He stood up and disappeared."

  The delegate opened his eyes. Now there was steel in them.

  "His power... We must find him first. Russia and America are already digging through their archives, they've already sent out their best agents. But we know more about him. We know that he can feel guilt. We must find him before anyone else. If China gets Subject Zero, we won't just defeat the Kaiju. We will become a nation led by God himself."

  The car turned toward the government complex. The hunt continued.