Kaiju Preservation Society(40)

“It’s also a dessert topping,” I joked.

“Actually you’re not wrong,” Aparna said. “I mean, actually you are wrong, horribly wrong, and you should be ashamed of yourself. But also, you are correct that it’s something other creatures here will find irresistible as a food source. It’s designed to draw them in.”

Kahurangi looked confused. “Why would Bella want that? Her eggs will get eaten.”

“Some of them will, sure. But there are thousands of them in that. Tens of thousands. They were never all expected to survive anyway. And while creatures are coming in to feast on them and their medium, Bella’s parasites are swooping down and feeding on them. And she uses what she gets from the parasites to make more eggs.”

“She’s going to mate with Edward again?” I asked. I remembered the last time and was not looking forward to repeating as Cupid.

Aparna shook her head. “She’s stored his sperm inside her.”

Niamh made a face at this. “Gross.”

“It’s more common than you think, biologically speaking.”

“Biology is gross. All of it. But especially storing sperm in your body like you’re a thermos for jizz.”

“‘Jizz Thermos’ is a good band name,” Kahurangi said. I gave him a high five for his efforts.

Aparna rolled her eyes at all of us. “The point is that she’ll repeat this maybe three or four more times over the course of the next several weeks. We’ve seen this before with her species.” She pointed to the gooey egg mess. “But this will be the first time we ever get to see her species’ early development up close. And that’s exciting.” She snapped her laptop closed. “But clearly you jerks can’t appreciate that. You’re all terrible and I hate you.”

“We are the worst,” I agreed. “Can we go to dinner now?”

“Wait, I can top egg goo,” Niamh said, and reached over for their own laptop.

“Dinner? Anyone?”

“Jesus, Jamie, you’re not starving.”

“I kind of am.”

“Chew on Kahurangi.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Thank you,” Kahurangi said.

“But I might if we don’t eat soon.”

“I’ll be quick.” Niamh pulled up a silent night vision video of a forest; a drone or helicopter was slowly circling a portion of it. There was nothing particularly remarkable about it, and then there was a tiny glitch. “There!”

“That’s it?” I asked.

“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’?”

“It’s trees.”

“It’s not the trees, you dense argumentative spoon.” Niamh scrubbed the video back. “It’s the flash.”

“What flash?” Aparna asked.

“This one!” Niamh pointed when the tiny glitch happened again.

“That’s it?”

Niamh narrowed their eyes at Aparna.

“I know we’re supposed to be torturing Niamh right now, but I would actually like to know, what’s so fascinating about that flash?” Kahurangi asked.

“Thank you,” Niamh said. “This video was taken by a Canadian drone back home. What it’s flying over is our world’s counterpart to where Bella has her enormous kaiju ass. And this flash”—Niamh paused the video at the glitch—“is us.”

Kahurangi nodded. “Excellent likeness.”

Niamh smacked him, lightly. “Not us us, ‘us’ as in this planet us.”

I looked over at Aparna. “I thought you said Bella wasn’t going through.”

“She’s not,” Aparna said, then looked at Niamh. “Is she?”

Niamh grinned in triumph. “See, I told you I could beat egg goo. And no, she’s not going through. But”—they pointed at the flash again—“that doesn’t mean a connection between our worlds isn’t open. The kaiju going up thinned the barrier between our worlds. That started healing up immediately since the barrier thinning correlates with active nuclear energy generation. But then Bella took a seat right where the barrier thinned—”

“And she has her own nuclear reactor on her,” I said.

“Right.” Niamh nodded. “Normally, the kaiju are moving around too much to thin out the barrier by themselves. To thin it, you either need to have a big burst, like a bomb, or a gradual residual buildup in one place, like Camp Century. They can get through if it’s already thin, but once the barrier closes up, they’re stuck. That’s what happened to the ones who came through. They couldn’t get back, and they’re not adapted to our world, and they died.”

“But Bella’s not coming through,” Aparna said. “She’s just sitting there.”

“Because she has no reason to come through, like you said,” Niamh agreed. “She’s got everything she needs here. She’s just sitting there, radiating nuclear energy into the barrier, so it’s staying thin. And every once in a while”—they pointed to the glitch—“we see this.”

“What causes the flash?” Kahurangi asked.

“I have no idea,” Niamh said. “It’s something we’ve never seen before, because we’ve never had this happen before—a nuclear explosion followed by a reactor showing up and keeping the barrier thin. At least, we haven’t seen it happen before. I suppose the chances of one kaiju getting knocked up and another kaiju exploding on the same day, both in proximity to each other, are pretty low.”