by Alex Irvine
Amara stood there, not knowing what to do. Wasn’t this the person Ranger Lambert had told to help her get settled? She had to train tomorrow! She didn’t even know what the training would be, where her cadet gear was, where she was going to sleep…
“Come on, I got you,” another cadet said. He picked up her duffel bag and led her toward another part of the barracks.
“Thanks,” Amara said. “Um…?”
“Jinhai. Ou-Yang Jinhai.”
“Ou-Yang? Like the pilots from the war, Ming-hau and Suyin?” Amara was starting to feel like she was the only person in the Moyulan Shatterdome who didn’t have a connection to a famous Ranger.
“I just call ’em Mom and Dad,” Jinhai said with a grin. “So you and Vik are already buddies, huh?”
“Vik?”
“Short for Viktoriya,” another cadet said. He’d been sparring when they walked in. Amara hadn’t caught his name. “But you don’t want to call her that.”
“What’s her problem?” Amara asked. She was starting to get her feet under her and see which of the other cadets were going to be cool.
“Took her three shots to pass the entrance test,” the other fighter said. “I’m Renata. This is Suresh.”
“Don’t think she likes how you landed here,” Jinhai said, talking about Vik again.
“Not my fault,” Amara said. “Recruiters never come around back home.”
“Heard you were from the coast,” Jinhai said. “Why didn’t your folks move inland, like everyone else? They poor or something?”
“They didn’t make it,” Amara answered quietly. “When Santa Monica got hit.”
The other cadets had moved on. It was just her and Jinhai. He saw it hurt her to talk about her parents. “Vik lost hers, too,” he said. “In the Tomari attack. Hey, know any Russian?”
Amara shook her head.
“I’ll teach you some. Calms her down. Let’s stow your gear and get you a uni.”
They moved off together, and Amara was already feeling more at home. Maybe this was going to work out after all. She had Scrapper, she had a chance to prove herself… maybe she would even have a friend.
6
FINAL COUNCIL DEBATE ON DRONE PROGRAM
WIRE SERVICE REPORTS
The Pan Pacific Defense Corps’ governing council will take up the question of Shao Industries’ Drone proposal at its next meeting, PPDC spokesperson Edwina Oglethorpe announced today.
The meeting, to take place at the main Council headquarters in Sydney, will be a highly symbolic moment in the organization’s history. Sydney was the site of a main battle during the Kaiju War, during which Jaegers proved capable of stopping a Kaiju when all other defensive measures—notably the city’s much-heralded anti-Kaiju wall—failed.
Council observers seem divided on the question of whether the Council will approve Shao’s plan. Some Councilors are said to be concerned that the Drone program puts too much responsibility for PPDC Jaeger readiness in the hands of a single company. These security concerns are countered by other perspectives arguing that Shao Industries’ security is the equal of the PPDC’s, and the needs of the PPDC would be better met by a cheaper, lower-maintenance Drone fleet.
Sydney authorities are bracing for massive demonstrations both for and against the program. Much of downtown Sydney in the area of the Council building will be closed off from ordinary pedestrian and vehicle traffic.
This story will be updated.
Jake went into his quarters and found them just like he remembered. Everything utilitarian; the bunk over the desk, the small bathroom, the even smaller closet.
On the outside of the closet hung a Ranger uniform. The name badge said PENTECOST. Jake reached out and felt the material of it, also feeling the weight of a past he wasn’t proud of—a legacy he couldn’t escape—and now maybe a second chance, a future he wasn’t sure he deserved.
But he couldn’t escape it. Not the weight of that name, the example of that sacrifice. Who could?
And who could ever hope to live up to it?
* * *
Jake wanted to give Amara a few days to get acclimated to her new surroundings, but Lambert was in charge of training and as he had announced in the cadet barracks, he set her first simulation session for early the next day. The simulation bay was arranged around a fully functional Conn-Pod that could be programmed to emulate the capabilities of any existing Jaeger. Today it was Titan Redeemer, and Amara was partnered with Cadet Suresh.
They got a short introduction to the Drift cradle and then the simulation kicked in. Titan Redeemer was dropped from virtual Jumphawks into the middle of the Tokyo megacity sprawl, as the Category II Kaiju Onibaba raged through the city. Jake remembered the story of Onibaba from when he was a kid. The monster had surged ashore from the Sea of Japan in 2016, laying waste to huge sections of Tokyo before the Jaeger Coyote Tango arrived to defend the city. In the battle, more of the city was destroyed, but Coyote Tango ultimately emerged triumphant, making heroes out of its Ranger pilots, Stacker Pentecost and Tamsin Sevier.
During the battle, Sevier had suffered a seizure, and Pentecost had had to pilot the Jaeger alone for the rest of the fight. The neurophysiological stress of that, together with exposure to Coyote Tango’s poorly shielded reactor, left Jake’s father with deteriorating health and forced him to retire from active service.
And that wasn’t the only personal angle to the Onibaba story from Jake’s point of view. One of the civilians who had witnessed the carnage—and barely escaped with her life—was a very young Mako Mori. After the battle, Stacker adopted her.
Watching the simulation begin, Jake wondered if Lambert had chosen Onibaba on purpose, to force Jake to confront his past. It would be a typical kind of psy-ops maneuver for Ranger training. See how tough the cadets are, see what the returning prodigal Ranger can handle.
Jake put it out of his mind. If it came up, he’d sort things out with Lambert. There was plenty they had to get straight if they were going to work together.
Titan Redeemer rushed to meet Onibaba, deploying her Morning Star Hand. The cadets, still new to Drift simulations, were going with the straightforward approach. The Morning Star smashed against Onibaba’s carapace, but didn’t do much damage. The Kaiju batted the Morning Star aside with its pincers and then seized the Jaeger, tearing away pieces of its armor.
A video feed from inside the Conn-Pod showed Amara and Suresh being flung around in their Drift cradle. Sparks flew: part of the simulation. “Warning,” a computer voice intoned. “Hemispheres out of alignment. Warning…”
“We need to reconnect!” Suresh shouted.
Amara struggled to keep Titan Redeemer on her feet. “I’m trying!”
In the simulation feed, Onibaba raised one of its claws and drove it into Titan Redeemer’s head. The Conn-Pod shuddered and the interior lights went out. The simulation ended and for a moment all was silent. In the real world, both cadets would be dead.
The hatch on the front of the Conn-Pod opened with a grinding noise, and the lights came back on. Inside, Suresh looked furious, and Amara embarrassed. The maglev system holding them in place disengaged automatically as the Conn-Pod’s floor rose to meet them. Behind him, Jake could hear the other cadets muttering to each other.
Lambert stood at the bank of terminals facing the Conn-Pod, frowning down at Amara. “When I heard you gave November Ajax a run for its money, I thought we might have something here,” he said. “Now, not so much.”
One of the cadets stifled a snicker. Amara tore her helmet off. “How am I supposed to Drift in this thing?” she said, clearly trying to cover her humiliation. “It smells like feet.”
Lambert wasn’t having the backtalk. “I ask you to open your mouth, Cadet?”
Jake stepped up into Lambert’s field of vision. He wasn’t too concerned about protecting Amara’s feelings—if she was going to be a Ranger, she would have to develop a thick skin—but he didn’t like the way Lambert was handling the situatio
n. A big part of Drifting success was about confidence. You had to make cadets believe in themselves while you were pointing out their mistakes. Lambert was only doing one of those things, and he was also deliberately picking on the cadet who had come in with Jake, which made Jake think Lambert’s real problem wasn’t with Amara at all. “You’re putting her up against a Kaiju that almost killed veteran pilots,” Jake said. He didn’t have to add that one of those veteran pilots was his father. “She’s not ready for that.”
Lambert turned to face him. “Maybe she’s not the only one who doesn’t belong here.”
Ah, Jake thought. Just as he’d suspected. “You got a problem with me, I’m right here. She’s just a kid.”
“So were we,” Lambert said. That knocked Jake back a little. He realized maybe he was making things personal too, just as much as Nate was. “That’s the point,” Lambert went on. “You make stronger connections when you’re young. That kind of bond makes better pilots that can Drift with anyone in their squad—”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “I remember the pitch, thanks.”
He wasn’t going to get anywhere now. But he’d gotten Lambert off Amara’s back, and that was enough for the moment. He went back to his station, where the simulation computers were analyzing the strength of the Drift connection between Suresh and Amara. It could have been better, but it also showed signs of potential.
Lambert glared after him, then got back to the situation at hand. “Ryoichi, Renata, you’re up. Show our new recruit how it’s done.”
Asshole, Jake thought. That was a cheap shot at a kid who was squatting in a warehouse thirty-six hours ago. He looked down at Amara, who was unhooking from the Drift cradle, not meeting anyone else’s eyes. If Lambert wasn’t careful, he was going to drive her out of the program before they ever found out what her real potential might be.
* * *
The rest of the day passed in a series of training exercises and simulations. Jake thought the cadets had potential. They were bright, dedicated, skilled. All they needed was experience—and a trainer who knew when to push which buttons. He wasn’t sure that was a skill Nate Lambert possessed. So he was up late thinking about what he should do, and it occurred to him that all this thinking might go better with a beer.
The Shatterdome kitchen was empty at this hour, maybe two thousand square feet of stainless steel and tile floors. Jake found the restricted Rangers-only part of the fridge, and sure enough there were a few beers in there. Probably the number was mandated by PPDC. There would be a report and a document somewhere in a file articulating the reasons why there should be x number of beers in that fridge, no more and no less.
It wasn’t until Nate Lambert walked in that Jake considered the fact that he was in flip-flops and his bathrobe. Maybe that was a little casual for the Shatterdome public spaces, but Jake was still adhering to the dress code of his ruined Malibu mansion. You had to bring yourself wherever you went, and this was Jake Pentecost, sipping a beer and rooting around in the freezer for ice cream while he considered whether his job was worth doing.
“Classy,” Lambert commented.
Jake stood up from peering into the freezer and saw who it was. “Jules loves it,” he said. “Told me it’s nice to finally have someone with style around here.”
He opened the fridge and tossed one of the beers to Lambert, who nodded his thanks. “Ice cream’s in the bottom left drawer, behind the frozen burgers.”
Of course it is, Jake thought. He found it and pulled it out, a gallon of precious frozen sweetness. “Cheers,” he said, and started to gather all the supplies he would need for a sundae.
Lambert sipped the beer for a while, and then said what was on his mind. “So one more time around to prove Daddy wrong?”
Jake was feeling pretty good at the moment, so he didn’t take the bait. “Nah, I just came back to see if your chin implant ever settled in.”
He saw a muscle jump in Nate’s jaw… and then saw his former partner crack a smile. “Looks good, doesn’t it?”
“Very commanding,” Jake said with a smile of his own. “The kids must love it.”
It felt good to be comfortable around Nate. Jake didn’t want the tension. Not with someone who had once been a close friend.
Lambert’s smile faded but didn’t completely disappear. “They look up to us, man,” he said. “We need to set an example. Show ’em how to work together.”
Jake loudly sprayed whipped cream. Then he set the can down on the table and said, “The war ended ten years ago.”
Lambert shook his head. “You have to understand your enemy’s objective to know you’ve defeated them. We still don’t.”
Jake pretended to think hard, then said, “I’m guessing it had something to do with sending giant monsters to kick the crap out of us.”
“The Precursors wouldn’t send Kaiju to flatten a few cities if they were trying to wipe us all out,” Lambert said. “That’s not a plan, genius.”
Like a lot of things Nate said, this sounded right but didn’t match Jake’s reality. But he wasn’t going to argue about it. He was going to try to do what he had to do to get by, and if that meant he had to go along with whatever Nate Lambert said, well, it was better than being in jail or having Sonny shoot him.
“Look, I got no beef with you, Nate,” he said. “I’m here because you and your squint was a better deal than some big hairy dude in a tiny little cell.”
“I’m touched,” Nate said.
Jake wasn’t done. “Cadets got what, couple of months before they graduate?”
“Six,” Lambert corrected.
“Six?” This was longer than Jake had guessed, or planned for. “Okay. Six. Tell you what. From now on, whenever you say something soldiery to the kids, I’ll nod all like, ‘Yeah, what he said,’ and before you know it they get to be pilots and I get to go back to my life.”
If he’d been trying to get under Lambert’s skin, it didn’t work. “May happen sooner than you think,” Nate said evenly.
“How’s that?”
“Big dog and pony show tomorrow. Shao Industries is pushing some kind of new Drone tech. Could make all us pilots obsolete.”
Jake considered this. No pilots meant no cadets, which meant no need for trainers, which meant no need for Jake Pentecost to be stuck in a Shatterdome when he could be living it up in California. Was it possible? Amara seemed to think Shao Liwen could do anything. Maybe she could. Either way, the Breach had been sealed for ten years and the world was starting to wonder why it spent so much money keeping the Jaeger program alive. Sooner or later, bureaucrats would win out over soldiers, the way they always did.
“Well,” Jake said slowly, “that sounds like my get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Nate could tell what was going on. He didn’t react to Jake’s attempts to provoke him, and just sauntered toward the door. But as he went, he said, “Front all you want, Pentecost, but you know you could’ve been great if you’d stuck around.”
“I didn’t bail. I was kicked out.”
“And whose fault was that?” Nate didn’t wait for Jake to answer. He knocked back the rest of his beer and tossed the can in a recycling bin on his way out.
Then Jake was alone again in the kitchen, staring at his sundae. Nate got to him a little sometimes. They had always taken shots at each other, out of a natural rivalry. Sometimes it spilled over into something a little more intense. Sometimes, Jake had to admit, he overreacted. A little. Maybe. Now…
Well, Jake wasn’t sure how to feel about it. But one thing hadn’t changed since the last time he was inside a Shatterdome.
He was real, real sick of people telling him what he could have been.
7
BULLETIN OF THE INTERNATIONAL ROBOTICS ENGINEERING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ASSOCIATION (IREAIA)
NEW MEMBER PROFILE: DR. NEWTON GEISZLER, SHAO INDUSTRIES
The International Robotics Engineering and Artificial Intelligence Association is proud to welcome Dr. Newton Geiszl
er as the newest member of its Distinguished Advisory Council.
A native of Berlin with multiple doctorates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dr. Geiszler is currently Senior Research Scientist and Director of Innovation at Shao Industries of Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. There he oversees the development of remote operating systems and integrative approaches to Jaeger technology, as well as ongoing research into the physiology of the multiconsciousness integrative protocol known as the Drift.
Prior to accepting his current position with Shao Industries, Dr. Geiszler was a top researcher and experimental roboticist at the Pan Pacific Defense Corp’s K-Science division. While there he undertook pioneering experiments in understanding Kaiju physiology and consciousness and co-developed some of the early fundamental technologies that made the Drift possible.
As a member of the DAC, Dr. Geiszler will be a voting member on IREAIA position papers and will participate in the organization’s funding and scientific outreach endeavors. The IREAIA is proud to add a scientist of Dr. Geiszler’s credentials, reputation, and demonstrated courage to the Council, and looks forward to benefiting from his voice in the future.
Shao Liwen arrived the next day for the Drone Jaeger demonstration. The Shatterdome, so chaotic the day before, was now quiet, as all nonessential activities had been put on hold for the duration of her visit. She was the biggest of big wheels, and the PPDC was pulling out all the stops to impress her. She entered the Shatterdome dressed in white, every detail groomed and perfect. Shao had started life as a tinker and hacker, but now she led one of the world’s most important tech manufacturing companies, and she knew how to play the part. She was escorted by a security detail, including Joseph Burke, whom Jake remembered from Ranger training. He saw Lambert staring daggers at Burke, and wondered what it was about—but then he was surprised to see Mako and Newt Geiszler bringing up the rear of Shao’s procession, and he forgot about Lambert’s personal problems. Jake still hadn’t gotten used to his sister wearing the uniform of the PPDC Secretary General. Newt Geiszler looked different, too. The rumpled clothing and tousled hair of the Newt Jake remembered from footage of the Kaiju War had been replaced by a perfectly groomed and manicured corporate model, with the kind of swagger that came from a fat private-sector salary. Marshal Quan, the successor to Herc Hansen as PPDC Marshal, waited with the Rangers as Shao and her security detail approached.