“Do we care about that?” Niamh asked. “Whether she lives?”
“Well,” I said. “We are the Kaiju Preservation Society.”
They all stared at me for a moment.
“Just like you to name-drop that shit on us, Jamie,” Niamh said, eventually.
“Sorry,” I said, although I was not. “So, we’re agreed we’re going to do this, right? Bring Bella back?”
“There is still the minor problem of not being able to get across,” Kahurangi said.
“And not being able to get to the site in the first place,” Aparna continued.
“Plus the soldiers who will be happy to murder us if we get over,” Niamh finished.
“This is why you all had me come in here,” I said. “You all know what has to be done. It’s all there in your data. You just needed me to come in here and say it out loud. So, this is me telling you. You’re right. You’re not off your crackers. Bella needs to come back to this side. It has to be done tonight. And since she can’t do it herself, we have to help her. And it has to be us, since I don’t think any of you want to risk anyone else. Or ask permission, which we won’t get. Right?”
They all looked at each other, then back at me.
“I mean, I don’t know that I was actually planning to possibly die tonight in order to protect a kaiju,” Kahurangi said. “But I might be willing to possibly die to save a kaiju and ten thousand Canadians.”
“Now we know what motivates you,” I said. “Ten thousand Canadians.”
“I’m in,” Aparna said, simply.
I nodded.
“Look, I’m not saying I’m not in,” Niamh said. “I’m in. Why not. But this happy team-building moment doesn’t change the fact we still don’t know how to get across or how to even get to the goddamn site.”
“You three work on the first one,” I said. “I have an idea for the second.”
* * *
Martin Satie came to the door of the cottage he shared with other members of his aviation crew. It was clear by his face and how quickly he answered the door that he hadn’t been sleeping at all.
“I was expecting you,” he said.
“You were?” I asked.
He nodded. “I’m in.”
“You … have no idea what I’m going to ask.”
“Yes, I do,” Satie said. “I don’t know the exact words you are going to say. But I know you. I know your friends. I knew you wouldn’t leave it. And you didn’t. You need a ride. So you need me. I’m in.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You could say ‘sorry.’”
“Why would I say ‘sorry’？” I asked.
“I figured you’d be here earlier than this,” Satie said. “I stayed up waiting for you. I could have taken a nap.”
CHAPTER
24
“Would you look at that,” Aparna said, through our headsets, as we approached the site.
The entire site was aglow, faint and golden. It increased in intensity until there was the flash that we had come to expect. Then it disappeared, to slowly build again until the next flash. The underside of the Shobijin, which was hovering above the site, reflected the glow dully back onto itself.
“Guess we didn’t need torches after all,” Kahurangi said. We had flashlights with us, in the packs we were carrying, along with pullovers, canisters of various pheromones, first aid and emergency supplies, protein bars and water, screamers, electrified batons, canister launchers, and shotguns. The projectile weapons were apportioned between us according to who was better at what. I was given the canister launcher, because I had a reputation for those now.
“We’ll need them,” Niamh said. “If nothing else, we can club things with them.”
“You seem tense,” Kahurangi said to them.
“Of course I’m tense,” Niamh snapped back. “We have a stupid plan.”
“You’re just saying this because it’s my plan.”
“I’m not just saying it because it’s your plan, and also, yes.”
I left the two of them to bicker and turned my attention to Satie. “You clear on your end of things?” I said, more to reassure myself than to remind him.
In the glow of the instruments I saw him nod. “Wait until you step through, if you can step through. If all of you step through, go back to Tanaka. If only some of you get through, pick up the rest and go back to Tanaka. If none of you can get through, wait for you to contact me, then pick you up and go back to Tanaka. If you all go through, then I tell MacDonald and Danso what you’re up to. If only some of you get through, whoever’s left will do it.”