by Tim Marquitz
Despite the wonder of the port system, and advances made on the part of the surgical teams, no answer had been found for the damage done to the human psyche by the act of jacking-in to a mech. The transference itself, the hard-start, created trauma linked to the sudden appearance of brain lesions.
Pilot clone lines that proved more lesion-resistant were aggressively pursued; although, autopsies on active-duty pilots rarely showed no lesions at all. A pilot like Patel V, with six years of active service and hundreds of in-the-field hard-starts, remained unimpaired however, her daily coordination scores always at the top of the chart. Yet, then there were pilots like Ataturk XI, hailing from a hardy clone line, who, at just fifteen months and just under twenty hard-starts, exhibited the signs of advanced lesion incursion. Pilot studies all illustrated the same outcome, and every handler knew it; once fine motor coordination became compromised, a pilot’s decline was swift, painful, and unstoppable.
Sutiya had seen it happen many times. She’d handled pilots who’d been euthanized. Still, she’d never been a lead handler. In her day, lead handlers left the aftermath in the hands of the psychological consultants, who typically broke the news to the pilot.
They sat on the floor of Pilot Patel V’s room. Sutiya explained it, while the pilot stroked her plush tiger.
“Do you understand?” She realized immediately what a stupid question it had been. Patel V was a senior. She had seen this several times before.
There was a long pause, then Patel V looked up.
“We were friends,” she said simply. “When it was just the two of us, I called him Musa, and he called me Mubu.”
It took Sutiya a minute to realize what Patel V was talking about, then of course it made sense. Mustafa Ataturk. Mubashirabanu Patel. Handlers rarely mentioned the pilots’ first names. They slipped the handlers’ minds completely. But not to the pilots. After all, when Pilot Coralina VI had tried to save Pilot Jefferson IV, she’d called out to “Tommy.”
How easy for us to ignore that.
It was that moment. That moment, when Sutiya could later pinpoint it. The moment when all her training as a handler began to fail. Catastrophically.
Six days later, newsfeeds were packed. Breaking news! Russia had deployed twelve mechs in war games maneuvers.
One of her rare off-days. Sutiya sat on the couch next to Ruben, as they both stared at the footage. To keep the news from Chenpeng, they kept the feed muted (no such luck—one trip to the grocery store, dozens of overheard conversations, and Ruben reported spending an entire day fielding endless questions on the subject from the anxious toddler). On mute, though, it seemed to make what they were witnessing even worse. Russian naval carriers and planes coordinated with their mechs as they worked through war maneuvers.
“They hard-started,” Sutiya observed, her hot tea untouched. “Why would they do that? KDF never did hard-starts for displays. Who are they even practicing fighting?”
“The world did a great job coming together when we were facing species-wide extinction,” Ruben said, “but now the threat’s gone, and what do we see? The threat of each other… and armed with mechs.”
“No, that can’t be it. At least… I hope you’re wrong.”
Ruben sighed. “I don’t know. I think we’re seeing the start of a new Cold War, just with mechs pointed at one another instead of bombs.”
A briefing proved Ruben correct. The same footage that Sutiya had watched at home was up on the displays, but this time Specialist Icaza was there to point out even more bad news.
Pausing the footage, a laser pointer indicated two mechs. “These rigs were for pilots Valentina Tereshkova X and Yelena Sereva III, both confirmed KIA at McMurdo. The mechs were salvaged and returned to Russia upon recall.”
“I thought new pilot production and decanting was suspended after McMurdo,” Sutiya said.
“We all did,” Icaza replied, “but the Big Three not only recalled mechs and pilots, but their clone lines, their scientists, and all the equipment from the Geneva pilot facility.” He nodded at the footage. “The Russians had everything they needed to create replacements from the Tereshkova and Sereva lines and, given the timeline, it’s likely they decanted as soon as the material arrived at Kiev. Now, while the Russians might have been the first to make an open display, all reports indicate China and the United States have restarted their pilot programs, and also initiated construction on new mechs.”
A long silence in the room, as everyone absorbed the news and realized how fleeting the worldwide peace had been. Less than a year.
A slow scraping as Major Akisato adjusted her chair, recapturing everyone’s attention. “Given the turn of events,” she said, “the KDF has decided to halt the drawdown. Captain Puedpong…”
Sutiya snapped to attention, her military hindbrain covering for her shock.
“…your orders are to increase soft-start training to weekly. All of our pilots that were recovered from McMurdo. I have authorized crews to initiate rebuild as of today. If the timelines our techs have provided are accurate, we’ll be ready for hard-start testing in four weeks.”
“Sir…” Sutiya chose her next words carefully; after all, it was never a good idea to question a superior officer in a crowded conference room. “We don’t have enough handlers on staff to support hard-start tests.”
“We will in four weeks, captain. All staff will be at appropriate support levels by then, I guarantee you that.” One look at Major Akisato’s expression was enough to see further questions were unwelcome at that time, so Sutiya settled back into her chair and fingered through her notes.
The day passed in a blur. Personnel folders for five new support handlers, all pulled out of post-peace reconstruction assignments, sat on Sutiya’s desk. They were scheduled to arrive next week. The buzz was Canada was financing decanting and training of a new clone from Pilot Gretsky line, and they might not wait for the pilot to age for sterilization before being shipped to KDF for training.
Once home that evening, Ruben was full of news about the new arrivals on the base. Technician spouses had been everywhere, and there were going to be at least two separate shifts, possibly three, to get the mechs into combat-ready shape. The next morning, her phone vibrated, offering a top-level classified encryption from Major Akisato, alerting Sutiya that training parameters were being adjusted and the pilots needed to be aware their simulations were going to be against other mech opponents, not kaiju.
Sutiya tried to prep them. It didn’t help much. During soft-start training, three literally locked up when directed to attack simulated mechs.
Pilot Patel V didn’t; instead, she simply crossed her arms and refused to participate. When Sutiya ended up in a debriefing with Major Akisato and the head of the battle simulation programming, she kept her report brief and honest. The mech opponents had been built from existing lines in the Big Three stables; in short, the pilots knew who they were being ordered to attack.
“That’s a realistic situation,” the programmer said in a defensive tone. “They might very well encounter this in the field! We must get them on board.”
Sutiya looked at Major Akisato. “The pilots found it… upsetting. Pilot Achebe II was administered a sedative. I’ve asked two handlers to stay overnight to assist the staff, since I am almost certain we’re going to have an outbreak of night terrors.”
After the department head left, still complaining that his simulations were not to blame, Situya faced Major Akisato. “You’re asking too much of them. If you need pilots who can fight other pilots, the KDF is going to have to decant new clones. All of the pilots we have now were trained to defend and safeguard each other. We taught them kaiju were the enemy. They won’t be able to handle this kind of cognitive dissonance. They’re too high-level. We’ll have breakdowns.”
Major Akisato steepled her fingers. “The KDF cannot simply start decanting. The four we have are battle-tested veterans. They are fundamental to heading a new team, particularly given how many raw j
unior pilots we have to bring in as it is.”
“This group survived McMurdo,” Sutiya said, aware even as the words came out of her mouth that she wasn’t arguing as a handler anymore. “They won a war. The war. Can’t we spare them this one?”
A long silence, then, “This was only the first training session, Captain. Repetition. That will solve the current issue.” A pointed look. “Dismissed.”
“Ruben,” Sutiya whispered as they were lying in bed. “If I had to do something… and you had to take care of Chenpeng for a while on your own, could you do that?”
The sheets rustled as he rolled and pressed against her. His voice was barely a breath in the darkness, just a tickle against her ear. “Because of deployment? Or something else?”
“Something else.” She paused, not sure how much was safe to tell him. Spouses might not have to testify against each other, but he was a veteran. It was too easy for a commission to finger him as an accessory. “Prison, maybe.”
She couldn’t see his expression, but she could feel him breathing. “Would it help a lot of people, this thing that you think you have to do?”
Sutiya wiped her eyes. “I don’t think so,” she said. “It might just help a few.”
Just four, and then only maybe.
Even then, how much could it really help? No matter how much people talked about decommissioning, there wasn’t a retirement home for washed-up pilots. There’d been a proposal from Italy, but no one had bothered much with it. She’d liked reading that proposal, though. It had been nice to imagine Pilot Patel V scampering around Italian hillsides, maybe feeling salt water on her real toes for the first time, not just through nerves that were jacked into a mech’s systems.
It was very, very hard to imagine Chenpeng growing up without her, with nothing more than a monthly visit to the prison facility.
“I trust you,” Ruben said, her own private miracle. “If you have to do it, then I trust it has to be done.”
And, because they’d both been military their entire adult lives, that was the end of it.
Pilot Patel V sat on the side of the bed, holding on to her plush tiger.
“I need you to look at my phone when you talk,” Sutiya said. “It’s recording what you say.”
“I don’t have a script,” Patel V said. The pilots were used to being trotted out in front of cameras, but they always had scripts. The KDF always edited the footage before it was released, too.
“That’s okay,” Sutiya said. “I just want you to say what you feel.”
“About what?”
“About the training session that happened yesterday. About how it made you feel. About why you decided not to participate.”
Patel V considered, gnawing at her lower lip. She looked at Sutiya, and the handler felt as if it was the first time that the senior pilot had really looked at her. The paradox of the pilots was in those dark eyes—the emotional maturity of a six-year-old, but six years that had been spent fighting a war no one expected her to survive.
“Okay.”
She looked at the phone’s camera eye and started talking about McMurdo.
Sutiya uploaded the video to Len Haddrill, a former journalist she’d made contact with after an illicit search through the HR files of every handler dismissed by the KDF. Len was now a senior organizer for a group called “Free the Pilots.”
Four days later, the video went viral in the feeds.
The next morning, MPs arrested Sutiya on her way to her office.
In her holding cell, Sutiya heard Patel V’s voice. Even the guards were watching the footage.
“I don’t want to hurt my friends,” Patel V said, her voice clear and adult, yet so incredibly young and vulnerable.
The media gobbled it up, like Sutiya had known they would. There was a reason why the KDF always kept tight control over any footage of the pilots.
“In McMurdo, we knew that we had to hold the line and keep the kaiju contained until the atomics could be dropped. We knew we were all going to die. I lived because the mechs of my friends covered me and shielded me from the blast. I don’t want to fight my friends now. It shouldn’t matter that India paid for me, and America paid for someone else. We should never have to fight each other.”
Sutiya heard her own voice, quietly prompting: “What should happen for the pilots?”
A childlike “Hmm.” Then, “I think we should go somewhere sunny. Somewhere we can all be together… until our brains give out from the lesions. It shouldn’t take that long. After all, I’m six, and I’m already really old.”
The voices of commentators and newscasters followed. Politicians saw an issue that guaranteed popular support and re-elections. The Italian Proposal suddenly received worldwide support. Patel V “Free the Pilots” posters and holos went up across the globe. The American capital was flooded with protestors demanding pilots all be retired.
Sutiya let her head drop back against the wall of her cell. Six years, her lawyer had said. Six years, if she admitted to what she had done, accepted a dishonorable discharge and the revocation of her pension, and agreed to never do an interview with a reporter as long as she lived.
Chenpeng would be ten when she got out. Ruben promised to wait.
Six years. It seemed oddly fitting. That was how long Patel V’s war had lasted.
Two days served, Sutiya thought.
Two-thousand one-hundred and eighty-eight to go.
They came from the outer edge of the world.
Not kaiju, that’s Japan’s problem.
Yes, they get their ten-story lizards and weird bugs the size of jumbo jets that come off the ocean and stomp the shit out of Tokyo every year or so. The Japanese army rolls out with some tanks and rocket launchers, hems them in while the monsters fight it out for a few hours and then fuck off back to the ocean from whence they came.
Japan loses some property, but their warning system is so on-point that nobody ever dies from this anymore, they just rebuild and wait for more.
Big, freaking, whoop.
Here in Oslo we have motherfucking frost giants.
Those bastards are a real kick in the head.
The child pushed the door open.
It scraped across the ice, making a sound like a harsh cough.
She stopped, muscles pulled tight, vibrating with tension as she listened for an alarm. She could barely hear anything but her own breath under the Gore-Tex hood of her coat.
No one heard that.
Illustration by NICOLÁS R. GIACONDINO
No one was near, all of them huddled in the center of the building, the edges where the doors led outside too cold to stay in. Too close to the outside. Too close to where they might hear them inside and tear the roof off like so much soggy cardboard.
The outside air fell through the opening, there was no wind to push it so it tumbled inside, instantly turning the moisture of the warmer air into mist first, then into a snow of micro-crystals that fell like faerie dust at her feet. The cold climbed inch by inch, dragging itself up her slight body, pressing through even the thick insulation of waffled goose down and man-crafted fiber. It reached the wool scarf around her face and kissed the tiny sliver of skin between it and the goggles that were her older brother’s and too big for her tiny skull. The cold burned, flaring like a stuck match across her cheekbone and making her eyes water. The tears ran down to the edge of rubber pressed to her face and pooled there, chilling instantly. The sting of frostbite fell away like a climber off a cliff as the cold sank to her nerves and froze them dead.
She drew a deep breath through her scarf that burned as it sank into her tiny lungs, stepped carefully out onto the ice-covered porch and pushed the door closed behind her.
We were given a Go, a green light, a clear signal to do what we had to.
Up to a point.
Nuclear warheads were off the table. If we dropped nukes in the ice bowl the blast and fallout would do in minutes what the frost giants were doing in weeks. We were desperate,
but we weren’t fucking suicidal.
Not yet.
We flew our Vipers loaded with Hammers in a tight triangle formation, me, Geir, and Ragnhild, all staying in sight-line with each other. There was no communication from anyone on the ground. The frost giants had destroyed that capability, whether by accident or design we did not know, but we three were on our own to accomplish our mission. We flew low, near the tops of buildings sealed in ice, down where traffic helicopters and drones normally lived. Ice cracked and fell from buildings in sheets as we tore through the airspace. I saw the mirrored sheen of the Radisson Blu break free. Tallest building in my city, a miracle of man-made craftsmanship.
It only came to the frost giant’s knees.
The radio didn’t crackle like it does in the movies, Geir’s voice was just suddenly in my ear. “Spooky, isn’t it? Like Oslo has been erased.”
Cold rolled off the canopy above me, even through the mesh of wires the ground crew had come up with to keep it warm enough to not frost over. The world was white below us, glowing with light noise, so pure it was impossible to tell how far down the ground was. I knew my city was below my jet but every inch of it had been sealed in a scrim of hoarfrost that left it as featureless as copy paper. Hate throbbed in my heart. My city was beautiful from the sky, a goddess in the wilderness waiting to surprise you with her grace and loveliness.
And that had been stolen from her.
The goddess left in the desolation, ravaged and plundered of her comeliness.
And, as her worshiper, it burned.
“She’s still fucking there.” My voice snapped into the speakers in my helmet, making a dissonance in my brain that always happened while flying. I knew I had spoken, but the split-second delay between my words leaving my mouth to reach my ear always jarred me.