by Alex Irvine
Newt had. It was Newt all along.
A satellite camera view appeared on the holo screen, superimposed over the lower corner. On it, a Drone emerged from the shallows in Honolulu Harbor, joining a group to form a circle. The torso lenses covering their power cores lit up and particle beams flared out, intersecting at the center of the circle. Where they met, a brilliant sphere of energy formed, with a thunderclap that rippled the water across the harbor. Below the sphere, the water churned, and something on the seafloor began to glow.
Gottlieb understood. They were opening a Breach.
“Why?” he moaned. “Why would you do this?”
“He wouldn’t,” Newt said, his tone mocking and hateful. “Or maybe he would. Maybe he hates all of you. For laughing at him. For treating him like an insignificant little joke of a man.”
At first Gottlieb didn’t understand why Newt was talking about himself in the third person, but by the time Newt had finished talking, the conclusion was inescapable. “You…” He saw in Newt’s gaze another intelligence, alien and malevolent, and everything fell into place. “Precursors.”
Abruptly Newt’s demeanor changed. The sick smile fell away and Gottlieb saw terror in Newt’s eyes. “Help me, Hermann,” he begged. “They’re in my head…”
“Fight them, Newton!” Gottlieb stepped up and grabbed Newt by the lapels of his coat. “Fight them—”
Newt spasmed in his grip as the Precursor in his mind reasserted control. He backhanded Gottlieb, sending him sprawling back against a lab table. “He isn’t strong enough,” Newt snarled. “None of you are.”
The unmistakable metallic double click of a bullet being chambered cut through the air in the lab. Newt and Gottlieb both spun to see Shao Liwen, holding Chief Kang’s gun leveled at Newt’s head.
Unfazed, Newt chuckled. “Hey, boss. Finally figured it out, huh? What was it? The diagnostic?”
“My numbers weren’t aligning with yours,” she said, referring back to the Drift delays they had argued about only forty-eight hours before. “How did you do it? Without me knowing?”
“Thirty-eight percent of your manufacturing capacity is fully automated,” Newt said. “Wasn’t that difficult to reallocate a little here and there over the years without being detected.” He switched to perfect Mandarin and added, “Especially since you always thought you were the smartest one in the room.”
Gottlieb saw her make a decision. She might not have understood everything that was going on, but from her perspective, she knew everything she needed to know. One of her employees had betrayed her, outsmarted her, and destroyed everything she had worked her entire life to create.
Her eyes narrowed. “In about half a second, I’m going to be.”
No, Gottlieb thought. He may be under the sway of the Precursors, but Newton is still in there. My friend is still alive. He lunged forward as Shao squeezed the trigger, sweeping his cane upward and knocking her hand up as the gun went off.
Newt shoved him from behind, sending him tumbling into Shao. Both of them hit the floor, but she came up aiming the gun at Newt again. Gottlieb grabbed her arm. “Stop! It isn’t him! It’s the Precursors! They must have infected his mind when we Drifted with a Kaiju brain during the—”
“Shut up,” she snapped as she lowered the gun. Still holding her arm, Gottlieb looked around to see that Newt was gone. Shao shook him off and stepped over to Newt’s holo terminal. “And don’t ever touch me again.”
She stabbed a finger into the intercom control on the terminal and spoke in rapid Mandarin. Gottlieb didn’t speak enough of the language to understand everything she said, but he heard Newt’s name… and he heard the word for shoot.
25
FIVE THOUGHTS FROM SHAO LIWEN BOOTSTRAP.COM INTERVIEW, 22 MARCH 2033
1. Whatever you are doing, you can always do it better. This is not a bad thing. If you were already doing the best you could ever do, and you knew it, that would be the time to start doing something else.
2. Also: Whatever you are doing, you can always do it worse.The funny thing is that often you start to get worse when you stop believing that you can be better.
3. The last thing you built might be the best thing you will ever build… but you have to build the next thing to find out.
4. Humans can both ask questions and answer them… but sometimes the answer is a machine. It is a terrible mistake to see machines as something apart from humans, because we envision them. We create them. We improve them and make them obsolete and envision new ones. Creating machines is one of the most human things a human can do.
5. If I had not become an engineer and programmer, I would have been… I don’t know. I don’t feel like I have done my best work yet, so it isn’t yet time to think about doing something else.
Marshal Quan knew that he had lost Valor Omega in the first attack, and then Titan Redeemer moments ago. But as he burst into the LOCCENT overlooking the Jaeger bay, he didn’t know the status of Guardian Bravo, Bracer Phoenix, Saber Athena, or Gipsy Avenger—although Gipsy was still undergoing repairs from her battle with Obsidian Fury. “Sit-rep!” he called. “Where the hell are my pilots—?”
Instead of answering that question, Xiang reacted as red circles suddenly blinked into existence all across the LOCCENT holo map of the Pacific Rim.
“Breaches detected!” Xiang cried out. “Multiple locations! It’s the Drones, sir!” Quan registered the scale of the problem as he saw the number of Breaches. If even one Kaiju came through each, there weren’t enough Jaegers in the world to stop them. “All pilots!” he said, leaning into the commlink. “Breaches detected!”
Down in the Shatterdome Jake heard Quan’s alert. “Drones in the field are opening multiple Breaches across the Pacific Rim—”
The communication cut off as plasma missiles shrieked through the Jaeger bay and obliterated everyone inside the LOCCENT. The entire structure, undermined by the force of the explosions, came crashing down onto the deck as everyone below scrambled for cover. Jake dove behind the prone hulk of Titan Redeemer, with Jules and Lambert right behind him. Explosions rocked the interior of the bay and burning wreckage scattered across the deck between them and the docks holding the remaining Jaegers. The cadets, staying low, ran to join them in the relative safety behind Titan Redeemer. “We told you to get to quarters!” Jake shouted.
Amara pointed. “The corridor’s blocked!”
Lambert was doing a head count. “Where are Tahima and Meilin?”
“I don’t know!” Amara looked around but didn’t see them.
Next to her, Renata tried to stay focused, but her question came out sounding panicked. “What do we do?”
“Stay here,” Jake said. “We’re going to try to get to Gipsy.”
More missiles strafed the bay deck between them and the Jaeger docks. It didn’t seem too likely that Jake and Lambert would survive a sprint across to Gipsy Avenger, but they had to try. If there were Breaches opening, Kaiju would be coming through. The only people on Earth who could stop them were Rangers… and only if they could get to their Jaegers.
Jake looked over at Lambert. “You ready for this?”
“No,” Nate said right away. “You?”
“Nope.” They were both crouched, tensing to go. “On three,” Jake said. “One, two—”
A voice crackled through the static on the commlink. “—ello? Anyone there?”
Jake recognized the accent. “Gottlieb?”
* * *
In Newt’s lab, Shao worked furiously to hack the subroutine Newt had installed in the Drones’ operating code. The code’s security scrambled it into an undifferentiated mass of data blocks, but if there was one programmer on Earth as good as Newton Geiszler, that person was Shao Liwen. She would cut through the security sooner or later. The only question was whether she could do it soon enough.
“Jake, thank God!” Hermann said. “I’ve been trying to raise the LOCCENT—”
“It’s gone! We’re under attack! You ha
ve to force Liwen to shut down the Drones!”
“It isn’t her. It was Newt. Precursors infected him, got into his head.”
There was a brief pause as the Rangers digested this. Gottlieb understood it was a hard thing to believe, but he hoped they would realize he wouldn’t say something so outlandish without proof. When Ranger Lambert came back, his response gave Gottlieb at least some comfort. “Gottlieb, it’s Lambert. Can you make him disable the Drones?”
At least they believed him. But now Hermann had to admit a shameful truth. “No. He—he got away. It was my fault. I—”
On the holo screen, the scramble of data formed into comprehensible lines of code. “I’ve penetrated the subroutine,” Shao said. “Initiating shutdown protocol.”
* * *
In the Shatterdome, the Drone Jaegers had destroyed everything they could see from the bay doors. They stomped into the bay, training their weapons on the vehicles—and more importantly, the Jaegers—now within range. “Shut ’em down!” Jake yelled.
“Stand by,” Gottlieb answered. In the background they heard Shao say something angry in Mandarin. “It’s trying to lock you out!” Gottlieb said.
* * *
Shao paused as an idea occurred to her. If she couldn’t open the subroutine before the security protocols re-formed and shut her out, maybe she had time to rewrite just a few crucial lines of its code… “Feedback loop,” she said in English.
“Brilliant!” The data blocks were re-forming, but some of the code was still accessible. “If you modify that algorithm—”
Shao’s fingers flew over the keyboard, changing critical values. The screen was almost covered again in data blocks. Gottlieb couldn’t tell if she had managed to alter the correct lines in time.
Jake’s voice over the comm was tight with tension. “Gottlieb, shut ’em down now or we’re all gonna die.”
* * *
As Jake spoke, he was looking up at a Drone. It towered over the fallen Titan Redeemer, locking in on the group huddled on the other side. They were near Titan’s partially crushed head. The violent impact with the floor had smashed open the Jaeger’s face shield, exposing the still bodies of the Rangers inside. The Drone raised one hand and the muzzle of a cannon started to glow.
So this is how we die, Jake thought. We’re never even going to get to Gipsy Avenger. I’m never going to get to fight back. If there was an afterlife, Stacker Pentecost was watching the scene and nodding. Jake doesn’t have what it takes, he would be thinking. I knew that all along.
The Drone jerked and an ear-splitting screech echoed through the Shatterdome. Its arms twitched up and its weapon discharged, blasting a hole deeper into the halls behind the collapsed LOCCENT. It staggered, smashing a burning forklift. Kaiju blood spurted out through the seams in its head, burning on the alloy exterior and wreathing its head in smoke. Jake looked across the bay and saw the same thing happening to the other Drone. The screeching noise faded as both of the Drones overbalanced and crashed down.
* * *
On the holo screen in Newt’s lab, the satellite view of Honolulu Harbor showed the circle of Drones reeling and toppling over as one. Their particle beams flickered and went out. From the churning water inside the circle, a Kaiju had begun to emerge from the Breach, clawing its way out of the Anteverse. When the energy sphere failed, the Breach disappeared, slicing the Kaiju in half. Its blood boiled in the water and its death throes sent up waves that surged over the piers of Honolulu’s waterfront.
“Yes!” Gottlieb cheered. “Jake! Liwen disabled the Drones! The Breaches are closed—”
He stopped when he saw that the holo screen now displayed three blinking circles, and an ominous message:
KAIJU DETECTED
“Oh, no,” he said.
“What?” Jake called back. Gottlieb didn’t answer right away. Jake called his name.
Slowly, Gottlieb gave him the news. “Three Kaiju have gotten through. South Korea, Russian coast, East China Sea. Two Cat-Fours and a Cat-Five.”
There was silence on the line as Jake registered the enormity of this. Kaiju of that size were often more than a single Jaeger could handle, as they had learned during the war. Three of them made for a threat that would require all the PPDC’s resources… if there were any left after the Drone assaults.
“Copy that,” Jake said. “Get back to the ’dome. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”
26
TOP NEWS
PACIFIC RIM SHUDDERS UNDER DRONE JAEGER ATTACKS
Terrorist Feared to Hack Drone Jaegers
Disaster For Shao Industries
Drone Jaegers Attack Shatterdomes, Civilians; Thousands Feared Dead
Will Shao Industries Survive the Drone Attacks?
Analysis: What did Shao Liwen Really Know?
Drone Jaeger Attacks Raise Questions about Obsidian Fury
Who Are the Kaiju Cultists and Why Are They Attacking Now?
12 Reasons Why the Kaiju Cults Have Nothing to Do with Obsidian Fury
PPDC on Verge of Collapse After Attacks on Council, Shatterdomes
In Dark Corners of the Internet, Dark Rumors: Did Shao Industries Use Kaiju Parts in the Rogue Drone Jaegers?
Kaiju Cult Claims Kaiju Have Returned: ‘God Sends His Messengers Again’
A Look Inside the Black Market Trade in Kaiju Parts
Shao Liwen Destroys Own Drone Force… But Not Before Drones Cripple PPDC Jaeger Corps
Did Shao Liwen Stage the Drone Attacks?
A Defense of Shao Liwen
Markets Plunge in Aftermath of Drone Attack; Tech Stocks Hit Hardest
A few of the J-Tech medics were veterans of the Kaiju War, and had hard-won experience with mass casualty events. Many of the younger medics had lived through Kaiju attacks as children, but this was different. Then, all they had thought about was surviving, and later mourning. Now they had to tend to dozens, maybe hundreds of casualties, triaging and rendering aid in the middle of the devastation in the Shatterdome. The older generation tried to keep them focused and on task, as all of them grappled internally with memories of a time they had thought was past. Everyone was pitching in, trying to evacuate the wounded and get people out from under fallen debris. Jake and Lambert strained against a concrete slab pinning Tahima, as Amara and other cadets tried to work him free from underneath it. “Medic!” Jules called, waving one over. Tahima was alive but seriously injured.
Jinhai tried to joke with him to keep him together—and hide Jinhai’s own concern. “Always lying around,” he said. Tahima tried to smile. Nearby another team of medics was working on Meilin, who had also suffered wounds from the falling debris after the destruction of the LOCCENT.
Lambert saw Jules and called for a status report. With the LOCCENT out of commission, he’d asked her to get a sense of what the Shatterdome’s operational situation was. “What do you got?”
“Reports are still coming in, but Drones took out Jaegers and Shatterdomes across the Rim,” she said.
“How many Jaegers do we have here?”
“Operational? Gipsy Avenger. Barely.”
“That’s it?”
“Have to get more up and running or it’s gonna be a short fight.”
“Even if we can, all our other pilots are dead or—”
Lambert cut her off before she could demoralize all of them. “One disaster at a time. Let’s focus on those Jaegers.”
“Think you can help with the repairs?” Jake asked Amara.
“Me? Thought I was kicked out.”
Jake could have pointed out that she no longer had a ride off the Shatterdome because the Drones had destroyed every helicopter and Jumphawk on the tarmac, but right now they needed all the positivity they could get, so he took another approach. “I’m kicking you back in. Nobody has more experience turning junk into Jaegers.” He glanced over at Lambert. “You good with that?”
“Outstanding,” Lambert said with a grin. They were going to need all the help they
could get.
Amara was touched by their belief in her. Could she live up to it? She looked around the Jaeger bay, realizing that she was about to take a big step. Building Scrapper was one thing; getting Bracer Phoenix and Saber Athena ready to go was another.
But she could do it. She knew she could.
“We got incoming!” Jinhai said, looking out through the bay doors to the tarmac. Jake and Lambert, along with a crowd of curious techs, rushed to the doors. None of the Kaiju should have been close already. Was it more Drones? If so, the lights were going to go out at the Moyulan Shatterdome real soon.
Once Jake got a look at the fleet of aircraft cruising toward the Shatterdome, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. They were V-Dragons, but not from the PPDC. Shao Industries had its own private fleet, each with the distinctive Shao logo stenciled on its fuselage.
Jake strode out to meet the V-Dragon that was landing closest to the bay doors. As it touched down and powered its engines off, Hermann Gottlieb popped out… and right behind him Shao Liwen. “I brought some help!” Gottlieb said.
From the other V-Dragons, a small army of Shao techs and engineers headed toward the Shatterdome, bearing tools and pushing cartloads of equipment.
All right, Jake thought. Maybe we can pull this off after all.
* * *
Gottlieb and Shao set up a temporary war room in a former lab space near the site of the destroyed LOCCENT. With Jake and Lambert, they gathered around a holo screen tracking the path of the three Kaiju that had managed to get through the Breaches before Shao’s quick thinking—and quick fingers—had destroyed the Drone army.
The idea that Newt Geiszler was behind it all… Jake couldn’t quite fathom that. He’d always like Newt, and to think that Newt had secretly engineered Kaiju tissue into Obsidian Fury and the Drones… that was a betrayal Jake couldn’t wrap his mind around. But facts were facts, and had to be faced. Just like the fact of the three Kaiju. “Hakuja. Shrikethorn. And the big fellow, Raijin. I took the liberty of assigning the designations,” Gottlieb said. That duty traditionally fell to LOCCENT staff.