It was nice to get out of the lab, Liv thought to herself. She meant it, too. All work and no play lead to a mental breakdown outside of acceptable time parameters.
She hadn't been to Los Angeles in ages. The last trip had involved a very long negotiation with the CEO of Dr. Carver's Nuts and the possibility of some peanut subsidies coming in from the government. Sycorax had been interested in the offer, of course. While their foothold in food was a strong one, none had been able to crack Carver's dominance of the nut market.
Liv couldn't quite put her finger on it, but the city felt different from the last time she had been here. The overwhelming aura of malaise that usually hung over the city like a shroud seemed to have abated a bit, gone with the constant Gordian Knot of traffic that had strangled the life out of the freeways nearly since their inception. The streets were orderly, they were coldly efficient, and nowhere was the telltale gridlock that plagued much of the rest of the country.
Judge Doom had truly knocked it out of the park with this one. As a Zaibatsu head it paid to keep her fingers on the pulse of new technology. The flying cars that Cloverleaf had released months ago were a curiosity at best- unlikely to truly revolutionize the industry, but rather a luxury good that would make him some extra money. It wasn't until the recent release of the 'Mustang' AI that she truly became interested.
"Turn… left." the icy voice of Judge Doom intoned.
Artificial intelligence had always been Trengrove's thing, but she hadn't been able to ask the man's thoughts on this latest development in the field. He had grown increasingly reclusive as of late, spending week after week holed up in his office with only the occasional delivery of pizza to prove that he was still alive.
She wasn't sure what he had him working on, but it couldn't be anything good. One of these days she should really schedule a meeting with the man and make sure they were on the same page moving forward, so to speak. Business for later.
Would Mayor Saito possess the initiative to do something about traffic of her own accord? Cloverleaf's offer to export their successful model elsewhere was extremely tempting; she had already heard rumors that everywhere from Zootopia to New York were considering the benefits. On the other hand, helping people wasn't something he was known for doing during his rage-induced temper tantrums, so she supposed the point was moot.
"You are listening to… swing music." the AI commented. "An acceptable choice." Its 'opinion' didn't seem to be purely random, considering how it had lambasted her listening to the Beach Boys the other day.
The news about DEI's scientist cracking 'true AI' was an interesting one. She could only imagine how Trengrove had taken the news, and privately hoped that he was seething over the fact. Doom's AI, on the other hand, was good; very good. Sometimes she could even pretend that she was talking to a person, but there were always those little tics that stopped it from crossing that threshold.
The drive downtown was refreshingly short, by the time her next song had ended she was already pulling into the parking lot in front of a large one-story warehouse that seemed to disappear into the early morning mist off of the harbor. The words 'OMINOUS HOLDING COMPANY' loomed three feet large on the rust-stained, corrugated metal. A light rain was falling as she stepped out of her car and walked across the chipped pavement into the front door.
The reception area, if one could be so bold as to call it that, held a cigarette vending machine that looked like it came straight out of the 1950s, a slightly bent metal sign advertising 'Fierce Fizz Chemical Grape', and the overwhelming stench of formalin and old carpet. Flickering fluorescent lights cast erratic shadows in the cobweb-strewn corners as the far-off rumble of distant machinery filled the room with a deep thrumming sound.
The Judge was waiting for her in the doorway, silhouetted against the amber lights that illuminated the interior. He was shrouded in a black cape that almost seemed to absorb the ambient light, devoid of even the slightest speck of dust. In one gloved hand he clutched a coffee cup, bone dry and covered with a thick layer of dust through which she could only barely see a faded 'Wilkins' logo.
"Ms. Amara." the mayor spoke through a facsimile of a polite smile, tones perfectly neutral. "Good… morning."
'Liv' plastered a smile as fake as she was onto her face. Neither of them were fooled, but neither of them needed to be. This was about deniability; both of them understood that.
Mr. Doom was easy to work with.
"So lovely to see you again." Amara replied, prim and proper, and stepped deeper into the gloom.
"You are tooo… kind." Doom replied, dragging the words out like one relished a murder. "I understand you are in the market for a Monkey's Uncle!" He said, the last words rising to an uncomfortable volume just barely below a yell.
Liv chuckled. The joke wasn't funny, and that was why it was. "Indeed."
"One must wonder… why." Doom said, after a moment.
"Oh, you know." Liv said with the smile of a predator. "A genetics firm like mine could find countless uses for such an unusual specimen of gigantism."
"Kaiju! Is, I believe, the common term." Doom said, beginning to pace simply because it was necessary he do so. "Foreign term." He sneered. "Yet very evocative to the youth, they say."
The man wasn't actually a racist, Liv realized with a flash of insight and a very slight frown. That was just another layer of pretending.
Fascinating.
The two of them began ambling down the halls of the vast building, moving with silent agreement towards what brought them both there.
"I hope you have enjoyed my city." Doom said, because he owned it, more than anyone else could. "I've made some improvements! Since last you were here."
"Oh, I have." Liv replied immediately. "But I'm most excited to see what you have to-"
They rounded the corner, and Liv could not help but gasp.
The room was kept well below zero, frost forming on the coils of the massive condensers built into the walls and the ceilings. Thick insulated walls kept the insidious LA heat at bay, and a series of antiquated halide lamps cast an eerie glow on the titanic corpse that rested in the center.
The fifteen-foot gorilla was a far cry from 'The Bearcat', a butchering of the name assigned to the giant red panda that had sent the entire Canadian armed forces into an uproar, or even the 'King Sturgeon' that was known to harass vessels on the Great Lakes, dwarfing even some submarines. Kaiju incidents were not uncommon but they were far from a frequent occurrence, with the last attack in Japan costing nearly a hundred lives and a few billion dollars in property damage.
Mighty Joe Young was nowhere near the size of those titans, but it was still incredibly imposing to see in person. A single hand could have encircled the both of them.
"I thought he'd be… bigger." Liv said.
"The ceiling is only twenty-five feet tall, what did you expect? And besides, the size of his heart made up for it." Doom intoned. "Until it was riddled with fifty caliber bullets, of course."
"Such a tragedy." Liv replied, not really caring but knowing that the conversation needed to continue along certain lines.
"You know, it all started the day they shot that damn ape." Doom muttered in a tone Liv might almost call wistful. "Just as it started on so many others…"
Liv had absolutely no idea what that meant, but she nodded all the same. "How did you come into possession of the corpse?"
"It's a long story." Doom stated, and did not elaborate.
Liv nodded. Sycorax had already arranged to airlift the specimen to their proper holding facilities, all that needed to be finished here was the paperwork. Why exactly was she here, then?
Well.
She wanted to be.
"I assure you Mr. Doom, I'll put this specimen to good use." Liv said, teeth shining. "I dare to say it will produce results you might be very interested in."
"We… shall… see."
Doom smiled. It was a horrible thing, stretched with retractors. It would not fool anyone. And that was why it fooled everyone.
Liv could appreciate a different approach. She could tell Doom did too. Artists could recognize each other.
Very fascinating indeed.