Kaiju Preservation Society(51)

“I don’t understand,” MacDonald said. “It’s not like we haven’t had kaiju go up before.”

“You have,” Sanders said. “But they’re not visible from Canadian airspace.”

I remember Niamh pointing out the flash that the Canadian drone was able to spot from the air, corresponding to where Bella was sitting on our side of the fence.

“It’s not a threat,” MacDonald said.

Tipton smiled. “You’re probably right about that. But it’s only a matter of time before it gets spotted by a commercial flight, or tourists—”

“There are tourists in Newfoundland? In October? In a pandemic?” I blurted out.

“—or by residents nearby,” Tipton said, looking at me, displeased. He was less thrilled about being interrupted than he was with interrupting. “And with no disrespect to your people here, Dr. MacDonald, not everyone back home is convinced that a pregnant kaiju squatting on the barrier between our two worlds is not a threat. I’m sure you are right, but I need information to convince others. And I need to have it today, because I’m expected at the White House early Monday morning.”

“The White House,” MacDonald said, skeptically.

“I’m reporting to the chief of staff. He’ll fill in his boss as necessary.”

MacDonald nodded. “Tom here will set up the meetings for today, then.”

“Thank you,” Tipton said. “And when can we see the site?”

MacDonald looked at me. “Martin’s ready,” I said. “We were going to take up one group as soon as possible. As soon as possible might as well be now.”

“Colonel Jones will stay behind to police our luggage and to coordinate with Mr. Stevens here,” Tipton said.

“All right.” MacDonald looked over to me again. “They’re all yours, Jamie. See you all in about ninety minutes.” She and Tom and Colonel Jones headed off, with Jones already pointing to things on the agenda.

I turned back to my charges. “You’ve been in helicopters before?”

“Of course,” Sanders said.

“And you?” I asked Tipton.

Tipton gave me a look. “I’m a major general in the United States Air Force. What do you think?”



* * *



Not too far off from the site, and while Satie and Tipton, who was in the copilot seat, were talking incessantly about helicopters, Sanders tapped me on the shoulder, took off his headset, and motioned at me to lean in. I took off my headset, was immediately reminded how much a pair of good aviation headphones blocked out helicopter engine noise, and leaned in as well.

Sanders said something.

“What?” I said.

Sanders got closer and pretty much yelled in my ear. “I said, I hope there are no hard feelings about me firing you in March.”

Really, you’re doing this now? was what I thought but I did not say. “It’s not what I had hoped out of that performance review,” is what I did say, into his ear, once he had turned for me to yell into it. This is how we would have our conversation; clearly Sanders didn’t want the others to be privy to it.

“I can understand that,” he said. “But you landed pretty well.”

“I wouldn’t have minded having the stock payout.”

“The stock buyout was only for the class A stock. You and most employees had class B. They were just swapped over for Uber stock.”

“So I wouldn’t have been a millionaire.”

“Not unless you were one already. Does that make you feel better?”

“Not really.”

“This is better anyway,” Sanders said. “And actually I’m jealous of you. You get to be here every day. This is only my first trip here.”

“But you knew about it before?”

Sanders nodded. “Tensorial and its predecessor companies are invested in nuclear energy technologies. Ever hear of a radioisotope thermoelectric generator?”

“Radio what?”

“It’s a type of nuclear power generator. We make ’em. KPS uses them.”

“We do?”

“Not at your base. Other places. Point is, we’ve been working with KPS for decades. My dad told me about it when I was a kid.”

“And you believed him?”

Sanders shook his head. “Not at first. Too wild, right? But then I realized it was real. I told him I wanted to see it.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He said, ‘When you make your first billion.’ So I went and made füdmüd.”

“You did füdmüd so you could come here?”

“Dad made me a deal.”

“füdmüd could have been a failure.”

Sanders smiled at this. “It was never designed to succeed. It was designed to sell.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“When you start up a company, you can do it to dominate a sector, or you can do it to cause someone else so much pain that they buy you out. I made füdmüd to cause Grubhub and Uber Eats pain. And one of them bought me out. For billions.”

I considered what this meant, and how cynically Sanders had designed his company. Then I remembered the suggestions that I had given him in the meeting where I had been fired. He used them, which was bad enough, but he also used them just to annoy someone else to pay him to go away. My sole attempt at business genius worked only to antagonize another company into buying a competitor that had no real interest in competing.