Kaiju Preservation Society(20)

We cleared the walkway and were immediately confronted by several dozen people cheering us, wearing festive shirts over their jumpsuits, straw hats of various sorts, playing ukuleles and guitars, and holding up drinks. Presumably, Red Team.

When all of Gold Team had made it up the walkway and stripped off their insect caps, there was a dramatic shushing, and then Brynn MacDonald stepped forward to a man in a particularly loud shirt, wearing a particularly ratty straw hat, holding a particularly large drink.

“Brynn MacDonald, commander of KPS Tanaka Base Gold Team, here with my team to formally relieve KPS Tanaka Base Red Team,” she said.

“Joao Silva, commander of KPS Tanaka Base Red Team,” the man in the loud shirt and terrible hat said. “I am formally relieved you are here!”

Silva reached up and put his ratty-ass hat on MacDonald. A wild cheer went up from both camps. Silva and MacDonald hugged, and then Silva took off the terrible shirt and presented it to MacDonald, who put it on, apparently signaling the transfer of authority.

With that, members of Red Team surged forward and welcomed their counterparts, handing over hats and shirts and musical instruments, but not drinks. I was personally accosted by a friendly chap who gave me a ukulele, a straw boater, and a polyester shirt with parrots on it. “It is you,” he assured me, gave me a hug, and wandered off.

“You know how to play that thing?” Kahurangi asked me. He was clad in an orange shirt with white bucking broncos on it, and a straw trilby.

“Not a clue,” I assured him.

“May I?”

I handed the ukulele to him. He started playing it like he’d been playing all his life, which maybe he had. He smiled when he saw me looking at him play. “I debated about whether to bring mine. I decided against it, and I regretted it almost as soon as we left.”

“I’m glad they had one here.”

“More than one, it looks like. I can teach you how to play, if you want. In our I’m sure voluminous free time.”

“I’d like that,” I said. Kahurangi grinned and then wandered off, playing as he went.

I turned back to Tom, who had been festooned with a sombrero and a loud shirt with kittens. “So, there’s two teams at Tanaka Base, and we rotate?”

Tom shook his head. “Three teams. Each team has a six-month stay, offset three months with the other teams.” He pointed at the now de-hatted Red Team. “Red Team has been here for six months, and they’re about to get three months off back home.” He waved farther into the base, where I could see other KPS personnel. “Blue Team arrived three months ago to relieve us so we could have a three-month break, and will be here for another three months. Then they will be relieved by Red Team, who will be returning. Every team works with every other team for three months. That way Tanaka is always fully staffed and there’s always continuity.”

I pointed at Tom’s kitten shirt. “And this? We do this every three months?”

“You have something against loud shirts and ugly hats?”

“Yours are loud and ugly. Mine, on the other hand, are quite fetching.”

“We just do it when we arrive and leave. The middle transfer, we keep things running while the other two teams do their transfer. Like Blue Team is doing right now.”

I fingered my shirt. “And, uhhhh, do we keep the shirts and hats?”

Tom smiled. “You can if you want. But they usually go back into the storeroom. The musical instruments are community property, too. We usually sign them out. We’re big on the community sharing here. Which reminds me, you said you brought books and movies on hard drives. You should let our IT people know, they’ll add them to the community Plex server.”

“Okay.”

“You have licenses for all that stuff, right?”

“Er.”

“That’s a joke. The treaty we work under creates a special carve-out for us in terms of copyright.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, apparently, they thought if we were being sent to an alternate Earth ruled by one-hundred-fifty-meter-tall creatures who could step on us at any moment, we should be able to borrow each other’s ebooks and watch Stranger Things.”

“Seems fair.”

“Helps keep us sane, anyway. More than just ukuleles.” Someone called Tom’s name; he looked around, saw the person, and waved.

“You don’t have to babysit me,” I said to him. “If you have people to say goodbye to, go do that.”

“All right, thanks,” he said. “Also, in a little bit, Brynn MacDonald is probably going to collect you and your friends to help get you situated. Then tomorrow she’s going to start you on your actual orientation. You know, starting on your actual job.”

“I lift things,” I confirmed.

“You will indeed lift things,” Tom agreed. “But there’s going to be more to it than that.”

“Dun dun dunnnnnnn,” I said, mimicking dramatic music.

Tom laughed and left, and I turned and watched two groups of friends, one arriving and one departing, try to catch up on three months’ worth of life in a couple of all-too-short hours.



* * *



“Let me start by informing you that I’m a little drunk right now, so I’m going to keep this very short,” Brynn MacDonald said. She was holding a glass of something, presumably alcoholic.