“It thrives,” Callie said.

“I was right. Hans was wrong. It’s hard for me to take any pleasure in that now.”

“The kaiju is moving.” Shall stood poised on sharp legs, just under the spot on the wall where the opening had been, though it looked now like smooth unbroken glass.

The bio-drone lurched away from the wall where it had collapsed and did an oddly delicate stumble-dance across the space on the other side of the glass. It paused, lifted its closed-flower head on its long flexible stalk, and then lurched abruptly backward several meters. Then it turned again, doing a clumsy sort of pirouette on its many legs.

“It looks like it’s drunk,” Callie said. “I’m envious.”

The drone went still again, its head now facing toward the glass, and slowly moved forward. It bumped its bulb against the glass – and an opening irised at its touch. The kaiju snaked its head through the hole, and Shall scuttled back. The bulb opened up like a lily, and Lantern dropped out, landing easily on her tentacles. “All aboard the Kaiju Express.” She paused. “Ashok told me to say that.”

Then the bio-drone darted its flower-head and swallowed Shall.

Within minutes, they’d all been consumed and uncomfortably squeezed up through the kaiju’s esophageal tube in a series of pulsations. Ibn had resisted letting it take him at first, trembling and traumatized by his last experience with the kaiju, but Elena soothed him, and followed him inside. Callie came last, covering the escape for everyone else, just in case more spiders arrived.

Soon they were all back in the soft belly of the drone, light shining in from the ragged hole in its side. Ashok was standing near the front of the drone, a flashlight array on his prosthetic arm flashing what seemed like random strobes.

“You hacked the drone,” Callie said. “I’m impressed.”

“Lantern should get the credit,” Ashok said. “She told me, it’s all about signals. The bio-drone gets a signal to go scoop things up and then come here. The bio-drone gives the wall a signal that says ‘Open up for prisoners’. Then the drone is supposed to tell the wall, ‘OK, all done, close up again’. Except we blew a big hole in the side of the drone and scrambled its systems and sent it into emergency repair mode. There’s some failsafe in place, though, so the aperture doesn’t stay open forever, and after a certain amount of time, it closed automatically. The spiders are dispatched by a signal, too: the bio-drone picked up five bodies, so the system dispatched five spiders to tinker with their brains.”

“You hacked this whole system?” Callie said.