“Okay. That’s better.”
Niamh smiled. “When you and Kahurangi were on-site, you both noticed that flash. Martin Satie, too. It’s the same sort of flash that we saw earlier, except now it’s much stronger—you saw it in daylight—and it’s happening more frequently. We’re getting data from that one instrument pack you put back on the ground, thank you for that—”
“You’re welcome.”
“—and from the Shobijin, too. That flash is discharge being generated by the processes of Bella’s reactor, compounded with the en ergy of whatever the fuck it was they used to pull her over to the human side of the barrier.”
“The flash is getting stronger and happening more often,” Kahurangi said. “Niamh thinks it has something to do with Bella’s reactor getting hotter and more stressed.”
“Yeah, that,” Niamh said. “There’s another thing, too. Right before the flash happens, the dimensional barrier between worlds is at its thinnest. These flashes are so strong that the math suggests that right before they happen, the barrier is hardly there at all.”
“Hardly,” I said.
“It is still there,” Niamh stressed. “But I’m betting that it’s easily disruptable. A little more energy in there and someone could walk through.”
“Or be sent through,” I said, thinking about Bella.
“See?” Niamh said to Kahurangi. “I told you Jamie wasn’t completely addled.”
I looked to Kahurangi. “You called me addled?”
“I did not,” Kahurangi protested.
“The problem is,” Niamh continued, plowing through Kahurangi’s clearly weak-ass defense of his calumny toward my person, “as these things get stronger and more frequent, they’re pointing to Bella’s reactor overheating and then, well.”
“Are the flashes showing up or getting stronger randomly?”
“What a good question,” Niamh said. “Once again, you are outstripping Kahurangi’s estimation of you.”
I looked over to Kahurangi. “All lies,” he whispered.
“They are not random,” Niamh said. “The strength is increasing as the time between the flashes decreases. I’ve been charting them, and something is definitely going to happen about sixteen hours from now.”
“What?”
“You heard Aparna.”
I nodded. “How does the perimeter thingy play into all of that?”
Niamh looked disgusted. “Oh, that fuckin’ thing.”
“This is my bit,” Kahurangi said. “I have a theory about it.”
“He has a hypothesis,” Niamh spat out. “It’s not the same thing.”
“You’re just irritated that I extended on your metaphor.”
“I’m irritated because it’s a shit idea and that as a physicist, you’re a very fine geologist.”
“Children,” I said.
“Actually only a passable geologist,” Niamh finished.
I looked over to Kahurangi. “Well?”
“Niamh described the flash as being a bit like a static electricity discharge.” And here, Kahurangi stared at Niamh, daring them to contradict him, which they did not. “It’s not exactly like static electricity, but as a metaphor goes it’s a decent way to think about it. I watched the video of the perimeter going active and taking Bella and her eggs, and I thought about electromagnets generating an electric current. I’m guessing something like that is happening here, but instead of creating a current, it’s collapsing the wall between our world and this one, without having to use a nuclear reaction to do it.”
“Trash hypothesis,” Niamh said.
“Except that it fits the available data,” Kahurangi countered.
“The available data being ten seconds of video.”
“And the fact that creatures are swarming the site like it’s been dusted with uranium.”
“And the fact that the evidence points to the barrier being thinned out more than it could be just from Bella’s reactor alone,” Aparna added.
“I see how it is,” Niamh said. “Take his side, why don’t you.”
“His side has the data on it.”
Niamh gasped.
“You’re … not really angry at Kahurangi, are you?” I asked.
“Obviously not, I’m just pissed he came up with a reasonable hypothesis before I did.” Niamh narrowed their eyes at Kahurangi. “Lousy mingy chemist.”