by Tim Marquitz
The cooking staff wasn’t the only obstacle. Having the pilots eat with the rest of the base personnel had been an unqualified disaster. Despite the new posters covering the walls that sternly warned personnel not to feed the pilots, barely a day went by that Sutiya didn’t find herself bawling out some private for distributing French fries as if the pilots were a gaggle of pigeons in a park. Just yesterday she’d had to watch in horror as Pilot Patel V had managed to beg half a side of bacon off of Major Akisato herself. So she’d certainly had some sympathy for Sergeant Shearer’s position, though not eleven pounds’ worth. An emergency handlers’ meeting had followed their hugely unproductive discussion, with Sutiya finally declaring the only way to deal with the issue was to have the pilots’ meals set up on pre-ordered trays, and that the pilots would eat them in the classroom. The decision had required numerous memos in triplicate, approval from Major Akisato (who had at least had the decency to apologize for her own part in the situation), and a thoroughly unpleasant exchange with the head of the kitchens.
All of which finally resulted in Sutiya arriving at Pilot Patel V’s room a full forty-five minutes late. The one relief, of course, was that at six years old, Pilot Patel V was one of the few remaining senior pilots in existence, and had proven surprisingly flexible to fluctuations in routine. For most of the pilots Sutiya had worked with during the height of the war (juniors all, admittedly), such a disruption would’ve thrown the pilot off-kilter for the entire day, if not part of the next as well.
Pilot Patel V had, without any handler assistance at all, simply woken up, done her morning calisthenics, and was now seated on the side of her cot, shirt stripped off and her sleep-pants already rolled down to her upper thighs to expose the whole length of her spine, the gleaming metal of the implant ports hazily visible through the fitted polyurethane cover.
No fussing with this pilot, no nagging out of bed, or coaxing to remove clothing, or the endless arguments about how the ports had been just cleaned last night so why couldn’t it just be left until after breakfast. Pilot Patel V, in the mornings, always reminded Sutiya of the way the older draft horses on the farm had always looked: eyes placid and one hoof already half-crooked in anticipation of the pick, every motion routine and expected to that old pro. Even that most reliable of argument-starters, the approved object of affection (endlessly insisted on by the psychological consultants, who the rest of the handlers had always derided behind their backs as the mommies) was tucked neatly up on the cot pillow. Pilot Patel V’s approved object of affection was a plush tiger that had lost half its stuffing and one of its eyes, and which Sutiya found creepily reminiscent of her own daughter’s most beloved toy in those rare moments that she found herself looking at it and not reminding herself that it really needed to get a thorough wash one of these days.
Halfway through Sutiya’s apology about her late arrival, Pilot Patel V was already shrugging it off, turning her attention back to something more interesting. In this case, the laces on her canvas base shoes. Sutiya didn’t take it personally. That was both the advantage and disadvantage of working with a senior. The juniors, and those fresh out of their basic training, always bonded quickly to handlers, something that made them easier to control in the field, yet always raised the potential specter of a handler who was overly attached to a pilot. It had been known to cause problems in the past. The seniors, on the other hand, had become used to the cycling of handlers, and some could even reach the point of having no particular preference for any handler, which made them easier to work with day-to-day, but had caused more than a few crisis points in the field if a pilot ignored their lead handler’s orders. Given the likelihood that Pilot Patel V would ever be put into field again (negligible at best), Sutiya was just focused on getting through the day to day grind.
As Sutiya grasped the top tab on the cover and began to carefully draw it down and off, she reflected on what a shame it was that so few pilots had ever survived as long as Pilot Patel V had. The only indication the pilot even gave to indicate the discomfort of the cover’s removal was a slight twitching of the brown skin of her shoulders.
With those thoughts in mind, Sutiya took a rare moment after the cover was completely removed and, instead of picking up the first of her cleaning and sterilization supplies, she admired the aesthetics of Pilot Patel V. The smooth contours of her head, clean-shaven every morning to make certain that the pilot helmet had perfect adherence. The lean muscles of the shoulders and back, the result of an exercise and diet program that made sure that the pilot was in peak physical shape. And, finally, Sutiya saving it for last even for herself, that spine, with its triumph of science. Those sixteen gleaming metal ports that had been surgically implanted directly into the spinal cord within an hour of Pilot Patel V’s decanting from the amniotic tubs, then enhanced and expanded with the most meticulous care and surgical artistry. One wrong slip of the knife, after all, and not only was the subject crippled, but millions of dollars of the sponsoring nation’s money was wasted. Then, at the end of the accelerated growth process, those sixteen ports were perfectly positioned at 2.6875 centimeter intervals (2.8125 for male pilots) along the cord, allowing that gloriously crafted pilot to jack into a 150-foot mech that could be controlled as intuitively and reflexively as a human body. All those reams of code and analysis that a conventional robot would’ve required for something as simple as walking down a path with uneven ground, unnecessary when nature’s greatest computer, the human brain, could crank through those determinations of balance and weight and ratios just by applying all the same scenarios and pathways that it applied to its own body.
Early experiments had been on adults, but too few of them had succeeded. The signals sent from the brain down through the spinal cord often didn’t mesh up correctly with the ports, resulting in action delays that could cost dozens of seconds between thought and action—catastrophic in a battle. The ports had been an intrusion into the cord, and the utterly precise alignment on the scale that was required for the defense of the human race had been successful in less than one percent of subjects.
Until one team of scientists pointed out that, if the ports could be implanted early enough, the very malleability of the brain and the senses would work in their favor. In the early years of a child’s life, the reflexes were still developing as the brain created the neural pathways that it would rely on for the remainder of its life. The misalignment of a port by a ten-thousandth of an inch in an adult resulted in serious lag times, if not absolute failure. In an infant, the brain was so busy creating basic pathways that a variance of ten times that amount was completely within safety limits.
With the world in crisis and militaries already at their breaking points just to defend the largest at-risk population centers, much less the dream of defending all coastlines from kaiju incursion, no one could wait two decades for traditional infants to grow up. DNA splicing to create the right genetic base, clone lines to keep each pilot precisely matched to its massive mech, and an accelerated growth to allow pilots to take the controls of their mechs at physiological adulthood, achieved eight months from decantation.
For a moment, Sutiya had to restrain herself from saluting the line of Pilot Patel V’s spine and everything it represented about the resilience and ingenuity of the human race.
Of course, that was the moment that she caught sight of the first signs of an abscess forming around Pilot Patel V’s eighth port. She cursed under her breath as she rifled for the appropriate supplies. Despite all experimentation with materials, the scar tissue that formed around the ports after implantation was rubbed and abraded by even the most microscopic movements on the part of the pilot. Slicing the abscess open, draining the pus out, filling the wound with sterile packaging, then finally covering the whole spine up with a temporary adhesive rather than the usual polyurethane cover, put the day’s schedule even further behind. Fortunately for Pilot Patel V, the whole experience was so normal it didn’t even bear serious consideration.
; Sutiya telling her that meals were now going to be served in the classroom, however, proved to be a very serious consideration, proving that even a senior pilot was more than willing to throw a tantrum on par with anything ever thrown by a ten-month junior pilot when it came to the important things in life.
“Why didn’t Mustafa get dessert tonight?” Pilot Patel V asked.
Sutiya paused in the act of cleaning the tenth port. After a rough inaugural classroom breakfast, followed by a distinctly inferior training day due to surly attitudes (culminating with a near-riot at lunchtime), she admitted defeat. After discovering so many excellent and unhealthy things to eat in the world, the pilots refused to return meekly to the world of fortified oatmeal and protein drinks. Negotiations were conducted, new orders were given to the cooking staff, and dinner had been a low-calorie version of what was available in the general cafeteria, with an apple tartlet for each pilot. That each apple tartlet had arrived with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a dollop of whipped cream on top had not been in the discussed menu, but Sutiya was resigning herself somewhat to the ongoing mutiny from the kitchen staff.
“Ataturk XI did get dessert,” Sutiya told her charge. “He just didn’t get the extras. And he’ll be able to eat those extras in a few weeks, as soon as we’re assured we aren’t going to have to let out the seams on his combat uni.”
“That doesn’t seem very fair. The rest of us got to eat our ‘extras.’” Pilot Patel V twisted her head around to frown at Sutiya, who was scrubbing out a suspiciously puffy portion of skin with antiseptic, hoping she could head off yet another abscess.
“I didn’t see the rest of you offering to give yours up.”
“I would’ve shared mine, if you’d let me.”
“Food sharing’s against regulation,” Sutiya said, closing the discussion by yanking up the pilot’s spinal cover with a little extra emphasis. As she tucked and smoothed, making certain that everything lay perfectly and wasn’t going to create rubs or abrasions, she wondered whether she should put Patel V’s comments into her nightly log. During the war, she would’ve. And those comments would’ve been followed up on, with adjustments made to the pilot’s training. Patel V and Ataturk XI would probably have been separated during training sessions for at least a month until any particular preference between the two of them was mitigated. The pilots often needed to act in teams and fighting units, and a solid working dynamic was critical to mission success. Increased altruism and emotional bonding between pilots had proven dangerous. Handlers were grilled in heading off even the most innocuous-seeming displays.
Pilot Patel V seemed content to let the conversation drop. Sutiya helped her into her sleep uniform, then tucked her into bed. There was that other danger, she reminded herself, that Pilot Patel V might look like a fighting-force-ready woman of twenty, but she could act almost identical to Sutiya’s toddler. Sutiya hadn’t been a mother the last time she’d been a handler; now, she wondered if she had better insight as to why so many handlers had requested reassignment after becoming parents.
“Want a bedtime story?” Sutiya asked; after all, it was handler protocol.
“Yes, please,” Pilot Patel V replied. In the room’s auto-dimmed lighting (studies showed dim light cued pilots it was time to go to sleep), her shaven head resting against her pillow, with her battered toy tiger tucked under her chin, it was hard to remember the emotional-distance protocols riddling the handler rules and regulations book.
Sutiya knew it was advised to program bedtime stories on random, yet she cued up the one she knew Patel V liked best. The opening portion of “Engaging Kaiju Enemy in a Team of Three Over Semi-Urban Terrain: Part Five” filled the room. Sutiya slipped out, the door sliding quietly shut behind her. She swept her fingertips down the glass wall console, and the auto-locks whirred and clicked.
In her office, recording her notes on today’s interactions with Pilot Patel V, Sutiya pondered—far longer than she should have—whether to include her concerns about the possibly destabilizing altruistic behavior. The textbook example for this protocol was infamous in handling circles, the footage shown regularly during training.
A team of three pilots in their mechs had been doing a routine sweep off the HK (Hong Kong) defense border. Tracking reports had shown that the enemy’s seasonal migration from the Mosh Pit was sweeping further north than usual, so a number of mech squads had been deployed as a deterrent and, if necessary, city defense.
The team had consisted of Pilot Thomas Jefferson IV, Pilot Bai Yun II, and Pilot Cora Coralina VI, a trio that had worked together for over a year. Two juvenile kaiju had launched an attack against the city and been eliminated by the seasoned team; however, during the fight, Pilot Jefferson IV had been drawn away from his partners.
Common knowledge on kaiju was they possessed animal-level intelligence. Yet, as had been pointed out many times, a significant difference spans between the intelligence of a garden slug and that of an orca; kaiju were much further toward the killer whale end of the spectrum.
Four juvenile kaiju had taken advantage of the fight, using it as a distraction. They sprang from deep water, attacking the vulnerable Pilot Jefferson IV. The initial attack was devastating. It was clear from observing handlers that the other two pilots were too far away, that even if they were closer the sub-adults had the advantage. Handlers radioed Pilots Yun II and Coralina VI, ordering them to fall back to the defense line and leave Pilot Jefferson IV behind. Meanwhile, antiquated communications systems had broadcast Pilot Jefferson IV’s screams as, fully jacked into his mech suit, his sensitivity turned up to high (to help navigate the difficult terrain), the kaiju tore him apart.
The handlers had given the orders, but the other two pilots had refused. They started moving toward their partner. Everyone watched the footage as the handlers repeated orders. Pilot Yun II never once slowed down. Pilot Coralina VI, the most junior of the trio, hesitated, her handler’s orders pulling her back but, at that point, Pilot Yun II had reached the writhing mass, ripping away what had once been a fully armed mech. She threw herself into the fray, and Pilot Coralina VI resumed her course of action.
Sutiya had heard the handlers’ audio as they tried everything to recall the pilots. She’d read transcripts of the outgoing audio, as well as the corresponding bio signs. Pilot Jefferson IV had suffered brain death before either of his teammates reached him, likely due to biofeedback overload, which his handler admitted they’d kept turned up over regulations, due to increased nerve scarring as Jefferson IV had aged.
Pilot Coralina VI had argued with her handlers as she’d disobeyed their orders, insisting that she and Yun II could “save Tommy,” though her arguments quickly turned to her own death screams. Her demise took much longer than Pilot Jefferson IV’s, coming from physical damage as the pilot compartment was breached and she was eaten alive.
Pilot Yun II never spoke during the entire engagement. Her handlers noted in the post-incident debriefing that they doubted she was even listening. Of the three, she was the only one to survive the encounter, as her pilot compartment remained un-breached and, in a supreme piece of cosmic irony, became lodged under the torso of Pilot Jefferson IV’s mech, protected from catastrophic damage.
Three other mech teams had been deployed into the area, and the surviving kaiju were pushed back into the deep, at which point Pilot Yun II was retrieved, after hours of being on emergency auxiliary power, and having been fully jacked into a mech as it was dismembered. Given the events of the day, the unanimous decision had been to euthanize her before she regained consciousness. Further, the Yun clone line was discontinued and archived.
Unofficial video had been caught by kaiju-chasers, proliferating the Internet. Missing any official audio, but with enough leaks to know that Pilots Yun II and Coralina VI had been ordered to stand down, the video was incessantly circulated as part of the fringe “Free the Pilots” group, and generally used to justify speculation about the range of the pilots’ emotional lives—Sutiya recalled
a version in which someone laid audio to a song called “In the Arms of An Angel.”
After the incident, new regulations were put in place. Kill switches were added, so handlers could cut-off the ability of pilots to communicate with each other. Rotation schedules were introduced, so no team of pilots could develop emotional bonds that endangered their training. From then on, instances of altruism between individual pilots were closely monitored and quickly discouraged. Warning signs were identified, with the sharing of treasured items (particularly their approved objects of affection) and food.
Regulations were more than clear. Sutiya knew that allowing her pilot’s utterings to go unnoted could impact training. That was the problem. Training continued day-to-day, but what were they still training pilots for? The war was over. Pilots hadn’t been put into a hard-start training simulation since the Battle of McMurdo, and soft-start training had been reduced to bi-monthly. The beginning phases of decommission were imminent. With only four surviving pilots in the entire facility, what good would it do to attempt to separate Patel V and Ataturk XI?
None. Sutiya went home for the night, the incident unrecorded.
As it turned out, the question of separation resolved itself. Three days later, Sergeant Shearer reported that Pilot Ataturk XI was having trouble tying the laces of his shoes. Ataturk XI’s weekly MRI confirmed what the visual sign had indicated, and that night Ataturk XI was given the same dessert as the rest of the pilots. The next morning, before the rest of the pilots were allowed out of their rooms, Pilot Ataturk XI was taken to the infirmary. His coffin was shipped to his country of ownership, draped with the Turkish flag, his approved object of affection tucked inside with the body.