by Alex Irvine
“Identical,” Newt said. “Like spare parts in an assembly line. The entire organisms are obviously not the same, but different parts of them are absolutely taken from identical cloned snippets of DNA. This is a manufactured organ. It did not evolve this way. There is something more at play here than just monsters wandering through an interdimensional hole, and we need to know what.”
“And now he gets crazy,” Gottlieb said, like he’d heard the whole schtick before.
“The DNA structures replicated in each of these organs serve two functions,” Newt said. “One is of course to create this specific kind of tissue. Even in this silicate form instead of the carbon-based human DNA, the basic task of DNA is to encode the physical form of the being. But with the kaiju, it does something else, too. It encodes memories. I’ve identified structures within the silicate nucleotides that appear to exist purely for information storage. They don’t program tissue formation or function. They’re memory banks.”
Herc wasn’t sure what a silicate nucleotide would be, but memory banks? In each kaiju? He thought he could see where Newt was going, and a moment later Newt confirmed it for him.
“Cellular memory,” Newt said, continuing before Gottlieb could take the group’s attention away from him. He hurried to a large tank holding part of a kaiju brain. “This specimen’s damaged, weak... but still alive. If we can tap into it using the same tech that allows two Jaeger pilots to share a neural bridge, then we could, theoretically, learn where they come from... see inside the Breach and experience exactly how to get through ourselves.”
Pentecost glanced over at Herc again. There was a lot in that look. Skepticism and worry and doubt, mostly... but also a little bit of hope. He was also looking to Herc to see if he thought Newt was actually proposing what he seemed to be proposing.
“Let me see if I understand,” Herc said slowly, incredulous—horrified. “You are suggesting we initiate a Drift with a kaiju?” It sounded crazy to him. Drifting with another human was hard enough.
“A piece of its brain, yes,” Newt said. “And a few pieces of equipment.”
“A few pieces?” Herc said. His tone was sharper now. Ah, here’s where the rubber meets the road.
“Just enough to create a Pons,” Newt said. “A neural bridge. There’s—”
Pentecost shook his head.
Herc took his cue from the Marshal.
“The neural surge would be too much for a human brain. Trust me, we can barely handle each other. What do you think a kaiju would do to us?”
“I agree,” Pentecost said. “Dr. Gottlieb, I want all your data on my desk as soon as possible.”
He turned to leave. Herc hung back a little, knowing Stacker would wait for him down the hall and wanting to get a brief sense of how Newt was reacting to the brushoff from his commander.
Newt looked angry and frustrated and crestfallen, like a kid who thought he’d had a great idea only to have all the grownups tell him they’d all thought of it before. Gottlieb looked like he might be the slightest bit sympathetic.
Because he didn’t rush out, Herc heard the two scientists talking quietly, as if he wasn’t there.
“I know you want to be right, so you’ve not wasted your life being a kaiju groupie,” Gottlieb said. “But it’s not going to work.”
Newt stomped back through the drifts of lab equipment, samples, and whatever else, on his side of the floor.
“Fortune favors the brave, dude,” he said, defiant again.
That’s the spirit, kid, Herc thought. Channel that frustration. Someone tells you you can’t do something, you go and figure it out just to prove them wrong.
Come to think of it, Newt’s attitude reminded him a bit of the kid Raleigh Becket. Seemed to Herc that both of them came at life with a bit of a chip on their shoulders. To hear Stacker tell it, that’s what had brought Raleigh back into the Ranger service. Same thing kept Newt’s fires burning when the higher-ups took Gottlieb seriously and not him.
“You heard them,” Gottlieb was saying. “They won’t give you the equipment, and even if they did, you’d kill yourself.”
Herc had heard enough. Time for him to catch up with Stacker before the conversation in the lab took a turn for the incomprehensible. But before he got out the door, he heard Newt say, “Or... I’ll be a rock star.”
PAN-PACIFIC DEFENSE CORPS
RESEARCH REPORT—KAIJU SCIENCE
Prepared by
Dr. Newton Geiszler
Dr. Hermann Gottlieb
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Subject: Nature and possible vulnerability of Breach
Study of the bio-electromagnetic signature of the energies radiating from the Breach, as well as remote analysis of the Breach's physical structure, indicates a potential vulnerability.
The Breach requires the energy of Earth's tectonic activity to maintain cohesion. Though a powerful and persistent phenomenon, it is also fragile, existing both on Earth and in what we have called the Anteverse. It is believed that the Anteverse is another planet, and presumably some energy source there also contributes to the function of the Breach.
Harnessing the fundamental energies necessary to the creation of a passage such as the Breach—which essentially folds space-time around itself to bring two distant points into proximity—requires technology far beyond current human capabilities, as well as focused energies equivalent to the entire output of human civilization during the last century.
Destroying the Breach, however, is likely easier than creating one.
The universe fights against disruptions in its fabric. Our analysis suggests that a powerful release of energy inside the Breach itself would destabilize its structure. Once this destabilization took place, the fundamental equilibrium of space-time would forcibly reassert itself. In other words, the Breach would collapse, sealing Earth off from the Anteverse again. (A detailed mathematical analysis is attached to this executive summary; q.v.)
Required energies are easily available to the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps in the form of tactical nuclear weapons. Detonation of such a weapon inside the Breach is, per our mathematical analysis, more than 96% likely to collapse it permanently.
Kaiju Science recommends that this avenue of attack be pursued immediately and with all vigor.
8
WALKING WITH MAKO AS SHE SHOWED HIM THE rest of the facility, Raleigh thought to himself, There is more to her than meets the eye. He’d have to find out what. Stepping back into the Ranger life after five years away, he was discovering right off the bat that there was a lot he didn’t know.
“So, the bomb run,” he said to her. “Pretty crazy— right?”
“It’s the only hope we have,” Mako replied. “If Marshal Pentecost believes it can work, I believe it too.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I agree.”
“Come,” she said. “Marshal Pentecost wants me to show you something.”
It was a short walk back to the main central space beneath the Shatterdome proper. Mako led Raleigh to a different side of the dome. Through another security door was a repair bay, one of the six that defined the organization of the Shatterdome, along with the deploy ramps and conveyors that spoked out from the central landing and staging area.
The construction was all steel, designed for function, and the entire bay was littered with repair benches, tool cabinets, totes and bins full of parts and wires... everything you might need if your job was to keep a skyscraper-sized robot in fighting trim. They passed a crew tuning up a relay engine the size of a small car. Other smaller motor assemblies sat on benches in various stages of cleaning or repair. Crews were scraping, welding, cutting, soldering...
And standing in the center of it all was Gipsy Danger.
Raleigh stood perfectly still.
He forgot all about Mako, and the Shatterdome, and Hong Kong, and the past five years he’d spent chasing construction jobs from Nome all the way down to Sitka, where Stacker Pentecost had found him. He forgot all of that. He even, for a moment, forgo
t that the world was ending. Five years...
She looked pretty good, was Raleigh’s first thought, when he could think again. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been missing an arm and half her head, and was spouting fluid from a dozen holes, including the gaping wound punched through her torso by Knifehead. He fell back into that moment, remembering the driving snow on the beach, the blood in his eyes, the shocked look on the face of the old man with his metal detector. The last thing he’d seen before he passed out was the young boy at the beachcomber’s side, eyes wide. There had been snowflakes in the boy’s eyelashes.
The last thing Raleigh had felt, as he slumped to the frozen sand, was the empty space in his mind where Yancy had once been.
Now Gipsy Danger towered over him into the floodlit night sky, her hull flickering with the light cast by welding sparks, as if none of that had ever happened.
“She looks like new,” Raleigh said.
“Better than new,” Mako said. “She’s one of a kind now.”
“Solid iron hull,” someone else said from behind Raleigh. It took him a moment to reset and place the voice. Then he turned and saw Tendo Choi coming across the repair deck with a big welcoming grin on his face. “No alloys,” Tendo went on. “Forty engine blocks per muscle strand. Hyper-torque drivers in every limb and a new fluid synapse system. And this little lady,” he pointed to Mako, “oversaw it all.”
“Tendo!” Raleigh exclaimed. They clapped each other into a bear hug. Raleigh held it, feeling suddenly that perhaps he belonged here after all. Not everything had changed. He took a step back and said, “So what’s going on?”
Tendo popped open a small tin and handed Raleigh a pill.
“Metharocin,” he explained. “New precaution. It’ll shield you from radiation while you’re out of your suit.” Pointing up at Gipsy Danger’s torso, he added, “Exposed core is still fuel rod.”
Raleigh took the pill.
“No, I meant with you,” he said. He pointed at Tendo’s left ring finger, which bore a gold band that hadn’t been there last time they’d seen each other.
“Um, well, remember Alison from munitions? We got married. Got a one-year-old son.” Tendo grinned proudly, but just as quickly his happiness was tempered and his tone wavered. “Haven’t seen him in six months. You know Pentecost, got me on Breach watch. Night and day, day and night; I am a caffeine-driven low-rider, my friend!” Having gotten his Tendo-bonhomie back, he watched Raleigh studying Gipsy Danger. “The Drift’s going to stir it all up, man. Memories. You sure you’re ready for this?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Raleigh figured he could remember the moves. He could pilot a Jaeger. He could kill kaiju. He’d done it five times. But could he allow another person to enter the space in his mind where Yancy had once been? Tough one. He was going to have to go right through those last moments again, feel Yancy’s terror and the blast of frigid salt air and the predatory roar of Knifehead shaking its way through Gipsy Danger’s frame and Raleigh’s own bones.
In one way, he’d never stopped going over those memories. He was in Olympic physical shape because one of the few ways he’d found to push the recollections away was grueling sessions of sweat and focusing deep into his body instead of his mind. But at some point the workouts always had to stop, and the memories were always waiting.
So he didn’t know. He didn’t know if he was ready or not, and he wouldn’t until he Drifted with another human being again.
Raleigh looked at Tendo, down to the floor, over at Mako... She was looking back at him. He coughed and pulled himself together.
“I should unpack,” he said.
Tendo understood.
“Yeah,” he said. “Mako will show you your quarters. Tomorrow’s the big day. First of many. You’re back where you belong, man. Good to have you.”
Raleigh cracked a smile.
“You too, buddy,” he said. Big day, yep. That’s what they’d always said to each other every morning when they thought there would be a kaiju attack. It had spread and become one of those little memes that they passed back and forth.
***
His room was nothing special, a pale-colored rectangle with a bunk and a few pieces of furniture. Raleigh dropped his duffel on the bed and took it all in for a minute.
In the doorway, Mako said, “If you need anything, I’m right across the hall. You’ll meet the candidates at six hundred hours. I’ve tried my best to match them to your Drift pattern.”
Six hundred, Raleigh thought. He had just enough time to clock eight hours in the sack and get a shower and some toast. Pentecost was throwing him right into the fire. Looking, no doubt, to see if the five years away from the Rangers had softened him up, made him weak.
And Mako had pre-screened his potential Drift partners.
“You did?” he asked as he unzipped his duffel. He didn’t have much in it. “Personally?”
She nodded. “I did, Mr. Becket.”
He wished she wouldn’t call him that, but he didn’t say anything.
Instead he asked, “What’s your story? Restoring old Jaegers for combat, showing has-beens like me around... that can’t be it.”
She met his gaze but said nothing. Her grip on the little pad she carried tightened. In there somewhere, Raleigh knew, was a detailed dossier on him and equally detailed assessments on all of the candidates to be his partner. He had no desire to see any of it. Data and pre-action analysis maybe helped to frame big generalizations about people, but Raleigh didn’t think they predicted much about how real flesh-and-blood human beings would react in realtime situations.
He opened a drawer and stuffed some socks into it.
“Are you a pilot?” he asked.
“No. Not yet. But I want to be one. More than anything...” She hesitated, and Raleigh saw her change her mind about something she’d been ready to say. “I want to be one.”
Something was going on here. Mako Mori was a puzzle, and she didn’t seem to be interested in letting anyone solve her.
“What’s your simulator score?” Raleigh asked.
“Fifty-one drops, fifty-one kills,” she said evenly.
“And you’re not one of the candidates tomorrow?”
Digging in the bottom of his duffel, Raleigh came up with the one possession that meant something to him: an old photo of him and Yancy, taken shortly after they finished Ranger training and made their first kill. Leaning into each other, bright and strong and invincible.
Mako answered but he didn’t hear her right away. He looked up at her, lifting an eyebrow.
“I am not,” Mako repeated. “The Marshal has his reasons.”
“Fifty-one simulated kills, though... what can they be?”
Mako looked him right in the eye and dodged the question.
“I hope you approve of my choices. I’ve studied your fighting technique and strategy. Every one of your victories... even Anchorage.”
“Really? And what did you think?”
“Mr. Becket. It is not my place to comment.”
Oh, but you want to, don’t you? Raleigh thought.
“The Marshal isn’t here, Miss Mori. You can say it. And you could stop clutching that pad so hard. Looks like it’s gonna snap in half.”
The briefest shadow of irritation crossed Mako’s face. She put the pad in her pocket and took a breath.
“I think... you’re unpredictable,” she said.
Oho, thought Raleigh. A genuine, unfiltered statement. What next?
And he found out, because Mako wasn’t done.
“You have a habit of deviating from standard combat techniques. You take risks that endanger yourself and your crew. I don’t think you are the right man for this mission—”
With that, she caught herself and looked down. Raleigh looked away from her at the same time.
“Wow,” he said. “You may be right, Miss Mori. About that, and about my past. But in real combat, Miss Mori— outside the simulator, in the real world, with the Miracle
Mile at your back and millions of people just beyond it praying for you to save them—in real combat, you make decisions and you live with the consequences.”
It was a little sharper than he’d meant to be, but Raleigh didn’t appreciate someone waving her perfect simulator record in his face and then telling him about what he did wrong fighting real kaiju. He turned away from her and went back to his unpacking. He heard her footsteps crossing the corridor to her own room. Raleigh caught a whiff of himself. It had been a long trip from Alaska, and he’d left at the end of a long sweaty workday. He stripped off his shirt just as Mako started to speak.
“I didn’t mean to—”
She stopped as fast as she’d started, and Raleigh knew why. She was seeing the old scars on his back and chest, where the circuitry from his drivesuit had overloaded and burned its keloid shadow into his skin in the shallows off Anchorage, five years and four months ago. He let her look and he didn’t say anything as he got out a fresh T-shirt and shrugged into it.
That’s the real world, he was thinking. In the real world, real kaiju tear pieces out of your Jaeger and when things go to shit, it leaves scars. Forever. On the outside and the inside.
He looked at her and caught her eye.
That’s right, he thought. You love the scars because you haven’t earned any of your own yet.
Mako ducked into her room and shut the door.
Raleigh didn’t consider himself an especially sharp judge of women, but he could practically smell the ozone in the air between him and Mako. Tension, attraction, rivalry, suspicion—all at once. It was good. Invigorating. He shut the door and thought to himself that he was exactly where he belonged.
Tomorrow, as Tendo Choi had said, would be a big day. The first of many
PAN-PACIFIC DEFENSE CORPS
PERSONNEL DOSSIER
NAME
Newton Geiszler, PhD
ASSIGNED TEAM
Kaiju Science,