Kaiju Preservation Society(75)

Niamh grimaced. “I hate this.”

“Also, you didn’t come up with a better idea.”

“Yes, shame on me for feeling bounded by actual science.”

“If it doesn’t work, at least we tried,” Kahurangi said. He’d fished out another four cylinders and offered them to Aparna.

“Reassure me my hand isn’t going to fall off if I take those,” Aparna said.

Kahurangi smiled. “These are unused fuel pellets. If they had been used, they could kill you. As it is, they’re safe to hold for as long as we’re going to use them for.”

Aparna looked over to Niamh. “Kahurangi is a comprehensive load of pants, but this much he has actually got correct,” they assured Aparna.

Aparna nodded, held out her hand, and took the offered fuel pellets. Then Kahurangi fished out the final four pellets, set them down briefly on the ground as he returned the bag to his pack, zipped it, and placed it on his back. He retrieved his four pellets and stood up.

“Ready?” he asked.

“For what?” Niamh said. “To stand around with fuel pellets waiting to see if our hands slip over to our home planet?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“Uuuunnnnngh, this is the worst.”

“I know,” Kahurangi said.

“The actual worst. I feel like they’re going to rescind my doctorate for doing this.”

“I can’t believe I’m the one saying this to you,” Aparna said to Niamh. “But, wow, you’re sure whining a lot right now.”

“This is what bad science does to me! Now you know!”

“Okay, all right, enough,” I said. “It’s a wild and possibly terrible idea, it probably won’t work, and if it doesn’t, then we go back to the base and face our very angry bosses. Until then, let’s hope. Just hope. Fair enough?”

“Works for me,” Kahurangi said.

Aparna nodded again. Niamh rolled their eyes but nodded, too.

“Great,” I said, and closed the fuel pellets in my hand. “Fist bump, everyone.”

Kahurangi grinned and leaned in.

“Love you, kaiju nerds,” Aparna said, both paraphrasing the movie Pitch Perfect and putting out her fist. I was pleased to have caught the reference.

Niamh sighed and leaned in. For the briefest of seconds, all our fists touched.

The world lit up like a fireworks display.

“Oh come the fuck on,” Niamh yelled, and then there was an immense crack, the sound of a sequoia being snapped in half by a lightning strike.

Aparna pointed up, and moved her mouth in a way that said, Look. We all looked.

A vast and bright pillar of light was blasting straight up seemingly out from nowhere. At what appeared to be its base, very faintly, we could see the outline of what would have been Bella’s mouth. All around the dimensional holes were brightening and growing, and in their centers we could see another world.

The barrier was breached. There was a way through.

Wind started whipping up as the hot warm air of Kaiju Earth was sucked into the colder, thinner atmosphere of the human Earth. As it hit, it immediately condensed, forming a cloud of vapor.

I looked around near us and a few meters away saw a vaporous hole, big enough to run through. I started running.

“Come on!” I yelled, although I could only barely hear myself. I hoped the other three were following, but I had no time to check.

I was almost to the hole when the lights suddenly went out. The vaporous hole in front of me immediately began to close.

I leapt into it, closing my eyes as I did so.

And then I was through and tumbling on the ground, which was soft and gave way, cushioning me.

And then I was kicked in the head by Niamh as they barged through, followed by Aparna and Kahurangi, neither of whom, I’m happy to say, followed up on the kick.

“Sorry,” Niamh said.

“It’s all right,” I assured them. I looked up to where we had come through.

The hole was gone.

“Everyone okay?” I asked.

“Okay?” Kahurangi said. “I’m awesome. We’re through. It worked!” He unclenched his fist to show his fuel pellets.

“It did not work,” Niamh said. “We got through because of Bella’s atomic belch making the barrier fall.”

Kahurangi nodded. “And the fuel pellets.”

“The place we went through was meters away from your godforsaken fuel pellets, you impossible man.”

“Still counts.”

Niamh held up a hand. “I’m not talking to you about this anymore.”

“Hey,” Aparna said. “Look where we are.”

We looked. Right next to us was Bella, all hundred-plus meters of her, going straight up. All across her body, things shifted and moved; her parasites and personal ecosystem. There was a pronounced breeze as Bella’s body sucked air into itself. Around us was a thick layer of something rubbery. Natal jelly.

“We landed in goo,” Niamh said, looking down.

I stood up. The jelly did not stick to me, thankfully. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone and, for the first time since we had gone over to Kaiju Earth in September, switched over to cellular mode to see if I could find a signal.

There was none.