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Ms. Candice , officially—had been the voice of moderation at the Kyoto conference. While others demanded immediate military solutions, she'd argued for diplomatic channels, for exhausting peaceful options before committing to total war.
Aidan had dismissed her concerns out of hand. Negotiation with genocidal invaders? Absurd. The Precursors had sent bioweapons to slaughter millions. What possible common ground could exist?
But Achilles's memories had changed the equation. The Precursors did want cooperation—at least a significant faction did. They'd watched humanity's rapid technological advancement and reached a pragmatic conclusion: alliance served both species better than mutual annihilation.
If the Precursors were willing to share their technology—centuries of accumulated knowledge in bioengineering, energy systems, materials science—humanity wouldn't need to wage a resource-draining war across dimensional barriers. The strategic calculus was brutally simple: why fight for scraps when you could negotiate for the whole treasure chest?
Of course, that logic only worked because Earth and the Anteverse existed in different dimensional planes. If they occupied the same universe, the same space? That would be a different conversation entirely. Proximity bred conflict. Distance made cooperation possible.
After delivering his report to the Planetary Warfare Council, Aidan opened another portal and stepped back through to the Anteverse.
This time he didn't need to navigate the wormhole's organic tunnel. He had exact spatial coordinates now, could triangulate directly to the staging ground. The portal opened onto the familiar crimson-lit desert, that artificial sun burning overhead, casting everything in shades of red and shadow.
Perfect. This Kaiju factory would make an excellent experimental facility. The cultivation pools, the genetic templates, all the infrastructure he needed to reverse-engineer Precursor biotech was right here, waiting to be explored.
He found Achilles still on the observation platform, standing with his two subordinates, all three watching the sky like prisoners waiting for a pardon or an execution.
"Well?" Aidan materialized his holographic avatar in front of them. "Have you made contact?"
Achilles flinched—still not used to humans appearing from nowhere—but recovered quickly. "Yes. The Anteverse council is sending representatives. It will take some time to arrange transport, but they're coming."
"Did they say who's coming?" Aidan's tone sharpened. "Because if they send a warmonger looking to sabotage negotiations, you'll be facing both the Toxin and human retaliation. Choose your ambassadors carefully."
"I trust in our leader, Ella Hayshiz." Achilles bowed his head, a gesture that seemed both religious and militaristic. "He will guide us toward prosperity. He always has."
"Good. But there's something you need to understand." Aidan's avatar crossed its arms. "When these negotiations conclude—if they succeed—you three will be handed over to human authorities."
Silence. The other two Precursors shifted nervously, but Achilles remained still.
"Your Kaiju killed millions of humans," Aidan continued, voice matter-of-fact. "Destroyed cities, devastated economies, traumatized an entire generation. Somebody has to answer for that. Whether negotiations succeed or fail, you're not walking away from this. The Precursor government will need to demonstrate good faith, show accountability. That starts with you."
"I know." Achilles's voice was calm, resigned. "I expected this outcome the moment you captured me."
"You're taking this well."
"I am willing to give everything for my homeworld. My life is no exception." The Precursor looked up, those fish-like eyes impossible to read but body language conveying sincerity. "I only hope the negotiations succeed. That my death serves a purpose. That it wasn't all meaningless."
He paused, then added: "Thank you for giving me this opportunity. For not simply destroying everything."
Aidan studied him for a moment. "You talk like defeat is inevitable. Like humanity has already won."
"Hasn't it?" Achilles gestured toward the empty air where Aidan's portal had been. "The spatial manipulation technology you demonstrated—appearing anywhere, anytime, bypassing all conventional defenses—that capability alone makes victory nearly impossible for us. You can strike the Anteverse from any angle. We can only reach Earth through this single wormhole, which you control."
"That's... surprisingly clear-headed analysis."
"I'm a military commander, not a fool." Something that might have been a smile crossed Achilles's alien features. "Actually, I'm grateful you appeared when you did."
"Oh?"
"Because you must have the capability to eliminate the Toxin. If anyone can solve our homeworld's crisis, it's the magician who bends space like cloth."
"I can't make promises about the Toxin," Aidan said, shaking his head. "And I don't have time to wage a cleanup campaign across your planet. That's not my problem to solve."
"But we would pay any price!" Desperation crept into Achilles's voice. "Any technology, any resource, any knowledge we possess—it's yours if you can save the Anteverse from—"
"That depends on how your people negotiate with mine," Aidan interrupted. "If I solve your Toxin problem now, you'd have no incentive for peaceful cooperation. You'd have time and energy to prepare a real invasion. No, the crisis stays in place until trust is established."
Achilles deflated, understanding the logic even as it condemned his people.
"Now," Aidan continued, "I'm going to use your Kaiju factory. And send another message to the Anteverse: have your representatives bring advanced bio-engineer genetic samples and detailed technical documentation. If they want productive negotiations, they should arrive prepared to share knowledge."
"...Understood." Achilles bowed again, defeated but still functional.
Aidan dismissed the avatar and turned his attention to the factory itself. The memory data showed massive cultivation pools deep underground, where several Kaiju were currently in various stages of development—preparation for the next wave of attacks that would never come.
The Precursor delegation would take time to arrive. Plenty of time to conduct research, map systems, learn the fundamentals of creating biological weapons from scratch.
Time to work.
Back on Earth, chaos had erupted.
The Planetary Warfare Council meeting had been broadcast—not live, but the footage was released within hours. By morning, every human with access to news media knew: the Kaiju invasion was orchestrated by an ancient alien civilization. Dr. Ryan had invaded their staging ground. Negotiations were being considered.
Public reaction was immediate and overwhelmingly negative.
Negotiate with them? The monsters who'd destroyed San Francisco, Manila, Sydney, dozens of other cities? The creatures responsible for millions of deaths, for the trauma that still woke people screaming in the night? Compromise with genocidal invaders?
Never.
Protests erupted across the globe. Massive demonstrations in every major city, crowds carrying signs demanding vengeance, justice, total war. The hatred ran deep and wide, a wound that hadn't even begun to heal.
But not everyone marched.
Some people—a minority, but a significant one—looked at the numbers and reached uncomfortable conclusions. The Kaiju War had killed millions. Horrible, tragic, unforgivable. But humanity's own wars had killed hundreds of millions. The Kaiju weren't uniquely evil; they were just another flavor of mass death in a species already well-versed in slaughter.
And the potential gains from cooperation? Staggering.
Aidan had distributed the intelligence package to all council representatives: detailed breakdowns of Precursor society, technology, military capabilities. Nanotechnology that made human materials science look primitive. Bioengineering that could grow weapons or medicine with equal ease. Energy systems that had sustained a civilization for hundreds of millions of years.
Plus five colonial worlds. The Precursors controlled five planets, including Edenia—a world still in the process of terraformation, not yet fully converted to Precursor biology. With the right technology, humans could adapt it, develop it, establish their first extrasolar colony.
The strategic minds in various governments ran the calculations. They read the reports. They looked at the long-term trajectory of human development with and without Precursor cooperation.
The decision practically made itself.
Oh, they'd need to verify everything first—confirm that the intelligence was accurate, that the Toxin threat was real, that the Precursors genuinely wanted peace rather than just buying time. Trust but verify, as the old saying went.
But the direction was clear.
Within seventy-two hours, every major nation had sent private communications to Aidan: We agree to negotiate.
Public opinion be damned. The people were angry now, and rightfully so. But this was about civilizational survival, about positioning humanity for the next thousand years of development. Leaders made hard choices. That's what leadership meant.
They'd announce the decision after negotiations concluded. Give people time to adjust, to understand the context, to see the benefits materializing. Frame it properly—emphasize accountability, reparations, safeguards against future aggression. Make it palatable.
The buffer time would help. It always did.
So the message went out to both sides: Earth agrees. The Anteverse agrees. Let the negotiations begin.
Now all they could do was wait for the Precursor delegation to arrive and hope that centuries of hatred could be negotiated away by people desperate enough to try.
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