I nodded. “How long has the feed been out?”
“Just now,” Niamh said. “I was watching the overhead feed, waiting to check the connections on the new instruments. The helicopter had just dropped everyone off, and they were swapping shit out. Then you came in and distracted me, and when I looked back, it was out.”
“Sorry.”
“You’d better be.” They mused at the screen. “It usually drops for a few seconds at most before it comes on again. This is way longer than usual. It’s annoying. I want more data. Data from an instrument pack that’s not been smeared with parasite mucus.”
“I’m going past the administration building,” I said. “Do you want me to tell them the aerostat feed is out? They have a radio connection with Chopper One. They can probably check to see if there’s something obviously wrong.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Niamh said. “By which I mean obviously go and complain to Administration, so you’ll be the one they’ll be annoyed with and not me.”
“On it,” I said.
I got to Administration and found Aparna and Kahurangi there. “The aerostat feed’s out,” Aparna said to me.
“I know. I was told by Niamh to complain about it.”
Kahurangi pointed at Brynn MacDonald’s office. “There’s another problem,” he said. “They can’t raise Chopper One, either.”
I frowned at this. “For how long?”
“Since we’ve been here to complain about the aerostat feed being down.”
“So not that long.”
“No, but it’s weird to have both the aerostat feed down and a helicopter out of contact at the same time,” Kahurangi said.
“Especially near a kaiju,” Aparna added.
I nodded. I hadn’t quite made that connection myself. Something or someone might have bothered Bella enough that she roused herself out of her brooding torpor. If that happened, that could be very bad news for the aerostat, the helicopter, and everyone on the mission, which included Kahurangi’s Blue Team counterparts. Niamh’s, too.
And Tom Stevens, I just remembered.
MacDonald came out of her office, looking displeased. She was about to say something to Aparna and Kahurangi, saw me, and stopped.
“I know about the feed and the chopper,” I said to her.
“Then I want you to go to the airfield and talk to Martin Sa tie,” she said. “Quietly and discreetly. The airfield has its own radio equipment, maybe he can raise Chopper One from there.”
“And if he can’t?” I asked.
“One thing at a time,” MacDonald said. She turned to Aparna and Kahurangi. “I need you not to talk to anyone else about this yet.”
“Niamh Healy knows something’s up, too,” I said. “I just came from talking to them.”
“We can talk to Niamh,” Kahurangi said.
“It’s not something we can keep quiet for long, though,” Aparna warned. “We’re not the only ones with access to the aerostat feed. Ion will be back in the lab soon, and looking for that data.”
“It’s not the aerostat I’m worried about,” MacDonald said. “They go down every now and then. It’s Chopper One out of communication that bothers me.” She looked at me. “Why are you still here? Go.”
I headed out the door and went to the airfield in enough of a rush that I almost forgot to grab a hat and gloves.
Martin Satie did not seem surprised to see me. “You come from Administration?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“They can’t raise Chopper One either.”
“No. The aerostat feed is down, too.”
“How long?”
“As long as Chopper One’s been out of contact.”
“Anything on the feed before it went out?”
“I didn’t see it. I was talking to Dr. Healy, who was looking at it before it went out. They didn’t see anything either.”
Satie nodded. “Okay. Well, let’s go, then.”
“What?”
“We have a chopper out of contact and an aerostat down near a kaiju,” Satie said. “We need eyes. You have eyes.”
“You have eyes, too,” I said. “I need to report back.”
“Right.” Satie pulled out his phone, opened the screen, and texted something. “Okay.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“I just texted Dr. MacDonald and told her I was borrowing you for a moment.”