by Alex Irvine
This was the conservative assessment. Newt’s intuition was, in fact, quite a bit more radical. He didn’t believe the brain was dead at all. It was dormant, maybe, but Newt was certain that if you stuck that brain back into a kaiju, the kaiju would get up and walk around and level Honolulu or Melbourne.
He just needed this experiment to prove his theory.
He rested his finger on the switch that would activate the neural handshake between the brain of Newt Geiszler and the kaiju brain formerly belonging to the exo-being known as... well, he didn’t know. In fact he didn’t know if the kaiju had names, or considered themselves individuals. Maybe he was about to find out.
“Unscientific aside,” he said. “Hermann, if you’re listening to this, I’m either alive and proving what I’ve just done, in which case ha! I won!”
Ungrammatical, yes. Satisfying, also yes.
“Or I’m dead,” Newt went on, “and you need to know that it’s you who drove me to this, and it’s all your fault. In which case... ha! I won. Kind of.”
He kept the recorder on and rested finger and thumb against the activation switch.
“I’m going in... five, four, three, two... One!”
Click.
***
Newt had never Drifted, so at first he didn’t know he was Drifting. He thought he was dreaming, even though in the midst of the dream his conscious mind observed— until it was blown away by the welter of sensations at the beginning of the Drift.
He was a boy. It was summer. He and his parents were on holiday, at one of the lower-Alpine resorts that aspired to be Lake Como. His mother had a concert that night. Newt felt wet sand between his toes. He swam, closed his eyes, envisioned the water around him as a matrix of flow equations. He wondered if there were fish looking at him, and what they thought.
Oh right I’m Drifting.
His uncle’s study, where Newt had learned both music and tinkering. Gunter, we dig this, can we take it? We’ll pay you when we’re back from tour.
Gunter’s laugh, from his belly, roughened along the way by cigarettes. Uncle Gunter who gave people things before they could steal from him. The gear in his studio. A new sound, one that nobody had ever made before. Lines on a monitor danced out the data, expressing it. Ecstasy of sound and idea, endlessly dividing inside Newt’s mind.
The lake in the summer, the skies growing dark and the water surging, getting heavier and thicker
Oh no, Newt thought, like a dreamer knowing his dream is about to become nightmare. He wasn’t looking at the lake of his childhood anymore. The scene in his mind, no human had ever seen it before. Sky turning red and the lake was a heaving sea of bio-slurry stirred and channeled into great sacs inside the sacs things moved and grew
This satisfied him and it satisfied the Precursors
The word speared its way into Newt’s consciousness and he could not fight it off. Precursors that is not who is who is where did I get that word oh god the kaiju it’s talking to me
Looking down with mind cold and empty save for hunger to conquer, Precursors
Around them a city made of bone and flesh, bred and grown not built now dying as the world around them was dying he was one of them he was not one of them they realized they were being watched
From a sac surged a monster, slick with fluid it shambled forward the Precursor saw it and beckoned
Behind it the factory
Factory
Spread under a dying sky sacs and watchers and the churning pools from which they sprang
Like Mutavore but larger, it spread wings deformity thought the precursor dying the kaiju fell back into the bio-slurry and was absorbed another sac split and another kaiju rose from within like Mutavore but larger, it spread wings
Mother never left the lake she fell in love there and
And died
Realization shattered the intensity of the Drift and for a moment Newt had clarity. Oh God, I understand
The kaiju died the first time around
The Precursor looked at him it looked at him and knew him they were ready this new world was ready for them they had waited a time for the world to prepare itself and now it had
They were coming now they were certain and they were coming
Pay you when we get back from tour
Another and another another another
Laughter of the Precursor from its bone belly roughened by brutal exhilaration of conquest the sound was bits and waves and
Newt
He was coming back. Was he coming back? Slowly.
was a brain Drifting in Lake Como below him fish burst from their sacs and
Newt
All those fish were probably dead from pollution acidification runoff pesticides estrogen mimics the world was dying Earth was dying, yes. But that other place, too... Their world was dying
Was that a voice calling him? Newt!
***
“Newt!”
The world was shaking around him. No, he was shaking.
No, someone was shaking him.
Hermann. Shaking him. Also he was shaking, spasming, making sounds.
“Newt!” Hermann shouted again. He tore the squid cap off Newt’s head and slapped him hard.
Newt froze. The world fell into place around him again. He had two thoughts at once.
The first was that he had no idea how the Rangers could do this more than once. As for the second... he looked up at Hermann and said, “I was right.”
Then he slumped into unconsciousness.
***
Mako sat on the edge of her bed, music shuffling through her earbuds. She didn’t care what. Over the sound she heard the speaker feed in her quarters crackle. Tendo Choi’s voice mixed with the guitars and drum beat.
“All crews! Ready for Gipsy Danger neural test!”
There was a pop as Tendo signed off.
Mako sighed and looked around her room. A chessboard pieces scattered mid-game sat on a table. Above it, a small bookshelf stuffed with papers and books. On her desk, tactical manuals and schematic diagrams. Maps of kaiju attacks were tacked to the wall. It was the room of a singleminded person. Mako knew this and embraced it, because she was a single-minded person. Other than the tiny red shoe displayed on a shelf near her bed, everything in the room focused her on Jaegers and the practice of battle.
She was permitted no luxuries. Pentecost made sure of that. Made sure Mako got nothing for free, because he knew everyone in the Shatterdome assumed that she was his personal favorite because of what had happened in Tokyo. The shadow of Onibaba hung over Mako, and always would until the day she could make her first kill.
Everything in the room, other than the red shoes, was a testament to her determination. Everything in the room contributed to her goals of rebuilding superannuated Jaegers, learning about kaiju, and preparing herself for the day when she would at last be a Ranger.
That day, however, would not be today. Marshal Pentecost was not quite ready to let her go.
She and Raleigh Becket had a connection. Everyone in the Kwoon had seen it. They had fought evenly, fiercely, and by the end—even in that short minute—they had been on the point of being able to anticipate each other’s moves. Their styles matched. Their emotional patterns and neural structures matched. They both had something to prove. They were a perfect fit, practically born to stand side by side in the Conn-Pod of Gipsy Danger.
Still Pentecost had said no.
So she had retreated into this room, to sit among the mementoes and forge her frustration and anger into renewed determination. Her entire life was contained within this space, and all of her life’s ambitions were focused on someday being in a Jaeger Conn-Pod deploying to fight.
She lingered over the shoe. It was her reminder of the day her childhood had been destroyed, and the rest of her life preordained. Her totem. Her memorial, over which she swore remembrance and revenge.
There was a knock at the door. Mako went to answer it, anticipating a technician asking he
r to help prepare Gipsy Danger. She would say yes, because she was a good soldier. She would monitor the neural-handshake test and the Drift between Raleigh and the co-pilot who should have been her. She would collate data, write a report, tinker with Gipsy Danger’s systems to optimize them for a new pilot pairing. She would do this because it was her duty, but the whole time she would be aflame with resentment, ambition, and hunger.
Just like every other day.
All of this went through her mind as Mako took out her earbuds and opened the door.
Marshal Pentecost stood there.
She waited, not daring to hope.
“Mukashi no yakusoku datta yo,” Pentecost said. A long time ago I made you a promise.
He held a red shoe out in the palm of one hand. Mako looked at it for a long moment. She realized she was holding her breath and let it go. She bowed and accepted the shoe. As she touched it memories flooded over her but she held them back. This was not the time for dwelling in the past. It was time for the future to begin.
Then, in English, Pentecost said, “Suit up.”
13
RALEIGH WENT THROUGH THE SUITING PROCEDURE from memory, with Tendo assisting remotely and a pair of techs doing the hands-on work. It all came back to him almost instantly—it hadn’t changed much. The drivesuits sure had, though. The new model was black and sleek—a long way from the one Raleigh had worn on his last mission.
By the time he had the drivesuit on and was stepping onto the motion rig in the Conn-Pod, he felt like the last five years were an illusion. The same console spawned the same HUD from crossed particle streams out of the same holoprojectors. It had never been any different. That feeling wouldn’t last, and he didn’t want it to, but he was gratified to know that he hadn’t forgotten how to be a Ranger.
This was where he belonged.
When he hit his mark on the platform, a control arm descended with his helmet. It slotted into place on the suit collar, and he heard a series of clicks and pings as the helmet’s systems activated and interfaced with the neural feeds coming out of the suit.
“Good to go,” he said. “Can you hear me, Tendo?”
“Five by five,” came Tendo’s voice. A lover of outdated slang, was Tendo Choi. Just like outdated haircuts and way retro clothing.
“Okay, then,” Raleigh said. “So am I piloting this thing by myself, or...?”
“Look behind you,” Tendo said.
Raleigh turned his head as his co-pilot stepped up onto the platform next to him. It wasn’t one of the five hapless rookies he’d toyed with in the Kwoon, no sir.
It was Mako.
Raleigh couldn’t believe it. For once, the brass had gotten a decision right and gone with the gut connection rather than whatever data a computer spit out. He broke into a big grin.
“Are you going to say anything?” she asked. She looked happy, nervous, and serious all at once.
“No point,” Raleigh said. The control arm carrying Mako’s helmet descended and he continued the conversation over the mic channel as her suit and helmet mated and powered up together. “In five minutes you’ll be inside my head. We’re gonna know more about each other than we care to, trust me.”
From the LOCCENT command mezzanine, Pentecost was looking down with Tendo. Raleigh heard the Marshal’s voice.
“Engage the drop, Mr. Choi.”
“Engaging drop,” Tendo acknowledged.
Around them, the massive machinery responsible for getting the Conn-Pod from the prep deck to its position on Gipsy Danger’s neck roared to life. The forty-foot-tall Jaeger head jerked and rumbled.
“Should I warn you about the Drift?” Raleigh asked.
“No, I’ve done dozens of runs in the AI,” she said.
Right, Raleigh thought. Fifty-one for fifty-one, and that wouldn’t count practice Drifts without combat runs. She’d had the training, and she’d done her homework, and now she thought she knew everything.
“That’s a simulation,” he said. “This is the real thing. Much more intense. Your entire life rushing through your brain in a matter of nanoseconds. Every secret, every memory.”
“I can handle my memories,” Mako said.
“Okay,” Raleigh said. “But can you handle mine?”
She turned her head and he saw her through the faceplate, registering what he meant. But she didn’t have time to respond, because somewhere up on the command mezzanine Tendo Choi hit a button.
The Conn-Pod and its cranial chassis slammed down a vertical shaft, guided by both steel rails and a magnetic-repulsion systems that kept vibration to a minimum— minimum in this case meaning slightly less turbulence than skydiving. Mako yelped in surprise and lost her balance, grabbing onto Raleigh’s arm to stabilize herself.
He’d had his eyes closed, as he often did during the drop to the launch bay. Feeling her touch, he looked over at her, and saw her pull back immediately.
Yeah, he thought. That doesn’t happen in the simulations, either.
With a whine, the Conn-Pod unit decelerated and lowered onto the neck of the Jaeger itself. Clangs and booms echoed through the Conn-Pod as the automated connectors activated and locked Gipsy Danger’s head to her shoulders.
There was a pause. All sounds died away.
Then Gipsy Danger came online.
“Okay, Gipsy,” came Tendo’s voice. A moment later the holofeed from Tendo’s workstation spawned and the pilots could see his face and a rectangular section of the command center around him. “Lining up nicely. Get ready.”
Raleigh could see Pentecost and Herc in the feed as well. The heads-up display inside the helmet read perfect.
“You did some nice work on the old girl, Mako,” he said.
“Mr. Choi was the leader of the project,” she said.
“Modesty is good,” Raleigh said. “But take your credit. You can’t always count on other people to offer it.”
He was going to add a comment about Pentecost, just to keep things loose because everyone was obviously pretty high-strung about the test. But before he had the chance, the far door of the command mezzanine banged open and Hermann Gottlieb ran in looking like he’d seen a ghost.
“Marshal, I need to talk to you!”
“Now?” Herc asked.
Pentecost watched Gottlieb approach and turned his attention back to the readouts on the bank of monitors displaying Gipsy Danger’s status.
“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how crucial a moment this is,” he said.
Gottlieb leaned in close and said something that Raleigh couldn’t quite catch. He thought he heard the words garbage and kaiju... and maybe Drift. Whatever Gottlieb had said, it sure got Pentecost’s attention. Almost immediately he said, “Herc, you’re in command. Tendo, proceed without me.”
“Yes, sir,” Tendo said.
Pentecost left with Gottlieb, walking fast. The door had barely closed behind them when Chuck came through it and lingered by the far wall.
“Rangers, three minutes to neural bridge calibration,” Tendo said.
Herc leaned into the center of the feed view, closer to Tendo.
“All we are looking for today is a neural handshake and some baby steps. No pressure,” he said.
Behind him, Chuck smirked.
“We should sell tickets to this. It’s gonna be a barrel of laughs.”
Raleigh and Mako exchanged a glance. No neural handshake was needed for each to know what the other was thinking about Chuck at that moment.
***
Newt was just barely starting to feel human again. The intensity of the Drift was not something he had been prepared for, and it had left its mark both on his mind and body. Afterimages of the heaving organic seas, the ranks of birthing chambers, the skewed sensory spectrum of the kaiju’s consciousness... all of that made it a little difficult to focus. Especially with Pentecost stomping into the lab and shouting at him. And to top it all off, he was having a little trouble seeing out of his left eye. He’d glanced in a mirror and th
e eye was thoroughly bloodshot. More blood was coming out of his nose. A visit to the medic was in Newt’s future.
But in Newt’s present were Pentecost and Gottlieb.
“As usual, I was right,” Newt said, needling his colleague as a way of establishing normalcy. “Hermann, not so much.”
Hermann turned away to get something from the fridge. Pentecost continued to glare at Newt.
“Specifics,” he said, biting off each syllable. “I need to know specifics.”
“Okay,” Newt said. He took a breath. “So it was only a fragment of brain. All I got was a series of images. Impressions, like when you blink your eyes over and over again.” He blinked fast, demonstrating. “All you see are, like, frames. It was like that, but... emotional.”
Pentecost had not blinked once. His gaze bored into Newt.
“Sorry, okay,” Newt continued. “What I mean is, I don’t feel like they’re just following some animalistic urge, hunting and gathering. They’ve been manufactured. Every cell holds the collective memory for the species.”
“They’re breeding?” Pentecost asked.
“Not as simple—no. I mean, they can breed, yes. They have penises and such—but I think...”
He paused as another afterimage washed over him. Not a kaiju. Something else, watching over them. Angular, bony, malevolent... the flashback passed over and through Newt and he felt the terrified shock of it seeing him all over again.
“I think they have a boss,” he said. “I think they’re attacking under orders. I think we thought were fighting monsters, but we’re fighting organic weapons. Silicate-based organic automata. They were created, designed and built, just for this war.”
“That’s impossible,” Hermann said.
“Hey, you know what, maybe you Drift with a cold cut, tell me what you see,” Newt snapped. It was just like Hermann to say no to everything. Newt hated that about him.
Pentecost leaned forward and slammed his fist down on the desk right in front of Newt.
“Enough!” he shouted. He pointed at Gottlieb. “You shut up!” Then he turned back to Newt, who was blinking nervously. “You talk!”
“These beings, they’re colonists,” Newt said. “Overtaking worlds, consuming them, moving on to the next...” He knew it was true, but he had to take a moment to organize his thoughts, make sense of everything he’d seen. “They’ve been here before, a trial run. The dinosaurs.”