Free Godzilla at World's End by Marc Cerasini

but they were locked in the depths of her memory.
    And so, as she watched the crowd swell, the words for "Up, Up, and Away" echoed through her head. She even remembered the name of the group who had first recorded the song: The Fifth Dimension.
    It must be my nerves giving me flashbacks to those trips I took to Grandma's house , she decided, recalling her grandparents' collection of big flat black vinyl dishes wrapped in cardboard that Grandma called "record albums."
    But it wasn't a nostalgia flashback that was bothering Robin. It was the fact that on this day and date she was completely out of her element.
    I'm just not accustomed to being on this side of a story , she thought ruefully.
    Robin was used to reporting news, not being news. But here she was, standing on the raised podium with Nick Gordon fidgeting next to her, while thousands of people filled the temporary bleachers. Row upon row of bleachers almost completely surrounded her, creating the effect of a small arena built in the middle of the concrete runway.
    While she waited for her turn at the microphone, Robin couldn't help but imagine that all eyes were watching her - she realized with a start that she had a bad case of stage fright . Robin could seduce a camera with ease but now discovered that she found live events rather overwhelming.
    This event certainly was.
    Mycroft E. Endicott had pulled out all the stops for the launching of his super airship, the Destiny Explorer . Ten mayors - from New York City's to Hoboken's - and two governors, along with the speaker of the House of Representatives, were present. Unfortunately, a few of them were scheduled to speak.
    Robin knew it was going to be a long, boring day.
    But at least it was a beautiful one. The sky was bright and clear, and the temperature cool and quite blustery, especially here on the flatlands of New Jersey.
    No surprise for November in the Northeast, and not unlike the weather in her hometown outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
    Robin scanned the crowd. It seemed to be getting bigger. Although she knew the guest list and the schedule of events by heart, Robin was stunned by the sheer magnitude of this event.
    All this for a great big balloon , she thought. Of course Robin knew that the Destiny Explorer was much more than that, but it was tough not to get cynical about the whole crazy idea. Despite Endicott's flowery speech, which Robin had to admit touched her at the time, she was now having second thoughts about this assignment.
    Not that she had a choice. But if this voyage were to end in disaster, or end up as the butt of tasteless jokes on the Tonight Show , Robin knew her journalism career would be over. And there were a lot of people out there who would like to see Robin go down. She peered into the wings of the makeshift arena and saw that the media sharks were already gathering.
    Robin recognized cameras from the competition. All the major networks were here, along with CNN, Fox News, and the Microsoft Network.
    As usual, all the camera teams were jockeying for the best vantage point from which to shoot their highly paid reporters, while still getting a shot of the podium.
    Robin tried to ignore the lenses pointed at her and stared off into the distance. She noticed a lot more cameras on the towers near the huge hangar, which was so massive it dwarfed even the NASA complex at Kennedy Space Center. Part of the building was the remains of the original airship hangar, which had been built sixty years before - though much had been added on to the older structure.
    The original hangar had served other purposes after the airships were retired. When INN purchased the building, it was being used as a warehouse.
    Mycroft E. Endicott had had the hangar completely retooled and refurbished, christening the entire complex the Hulse Science Center, after Maxwell Hulse, the legendary INN science correspondent who had died along with his production staff when Godzilla destroyed Tokyo Tower in 1998. The