by Greg Keyes
“Have you seen Jan?” she asked. “The Ranger here is looking for him.”
“No,” Benny said. “He was supposed to be off a while ago, wasn’t he? Maybe he went out to Fuding.”
“He didn’t sign out,” Lambert said.
“Don’t know what to tell you, then,” Benny said. “Odd guy. Doesn’t talk a lot. Kind of does his own thing.”
“I’d noticed,” Jules said. “I hope he’s okay.”
“If he reports in – if anyone sees him – would you let me know right away?” Lambert asked.
“Sure,” Jules said. “You got a number?”
“Ah. Yes. Yes, I do.”
He gave it to her, and she nodded.
“By the way,” she said. “I’ve got some ideas about Gipsy. A few little modifications you might appreciate. Maybe we could talk them over some time.”
“That sounds – yeah,” he said. “But right now, I’ve gotta…”
“Sure,” she said. “And listen – if you hear anything about Jan, let me know too, okay?”
He smiled. “You got a number?”
“I already sent it to you,” she said. Then she turned and walked briskly down the hall.
“Yeah,” Benny said. “Ranger, you should move on that business pretty quick, you know what I mean?”
“Thanks,” Lambert said, dryly.
By the end of the day, it was official: Jan Sokk was a missing person. It was as if he had simply vanished.
15
2033
HONG KONG
CHINA
JINHAI
THE CAR WAS A BLOCK AWAY. DUSTIN DIDN’T SAY anything on the walk there, but he handed Jinhai a couple of pills when they got in the car, then gave him his water bottle.
Jinhai took the pills.
“That was great,” Jinhai said, once he had washed them down. His whole body seemed to be on fire now. “You know, I really think I had a shot at that girl. Had that whole ‘wounded bird’ thing going on.”
Dustin still didn’t say anything. He just looked straight ahead.
“Aw, come on, man,” he said. “I was just having a little fun.”
“English,” Dustin said. “The deal is, when you’re with me, you speak English.”
“Fine,” he said, switching languages. “I was just messing around.”
“No,” Dustin said, quietly. “You were trying to commit suicide.”
Jinhai tapped his chest; it made a thudding sound. “Nobody gets killed,” he said. “We wear masks and body armor.”
“You’re not wearing armor on your legs. You get hit in your femoral artery, you could bleed out in under a minute.”
Jinhai saw he was serious.
“Okay,” he said. “I did not know that. But I’m not trying to off myself. I’m just, you know, trying to…”
Dustin finally turned to look at him.
“Trying to what?”
“You know,” Jinhai said. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just trying to be me. Just me.”
“Look, J, I’m not your therapist. I’m your bodyguard. Why do you need a bodyguard, you ask? Because the PPDC thinks you’re at risk from Kaiju-worshipping wackos – and if you’re at risk, so are your parents. If you’re taken prisoner or something, your folks might—”
“What, abandon their principles? Betray the PPDC? For me? You’ve been around long enough to know that’s not gonna happen. The Kaiju wackos could string me up on live video feed and threaten to cut off my head, it wouldn’t make any difference to them.”
“So you’re trying to get their attention with these dumb stunts of yours? You know love and attention are two different things, right?”
“I thought you said you aren’t my shrink.”
“Yeah, I did,” Dustin said. “It’s just – you’re making my job much harder than it should be.” He sighed. “Let’s just get you patched up, and hope you don’t have any damage that will keep you out of the Ranger program.”
“What if I don’t want to be a Ranger?”
“Then don’t. Come up with a viable alternative.”
“I’m Ou-Yang Jinhai,” he said. “There is no viable alternative.”
“That stunt you pulled with the transponder. That was pretty cool. Why not go into the tech side of things?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jinhai said. “My parents – you just don’t understand about that.”
“Whatever,” Dustin said. “Just don’t pull that trick or anything remotely like it again, okay? When you’re off the grid, I can’t protect you.”
“But you said it was pretty cool,” Jinhai reminded him.
“Yeah. And then it was pointed out to me that I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Jinhai suddenly yawned. “I think those painkillers are kicking in,” he said.
“Good,” Dustin said. “Maybe we can both get some sleep.”
* * *
He dreamed of a day when he was five. A lot of his friends couldn’t remember much that far back, and there was probably a lot he didn’t remember either, but that day – that day was stuck deep in him. He remembered how the sunlight made the water look like gold, and his dad told him that it was at this very place, at this time of day they had named him – Jinhai, “Golden Sea”. They told him one day it would be his to protect. There had been more: walking in the woods, a picnic, ice cream in a park later, a long ride in the car singing songs. He remembered being able to feel their love like the sunshine, feeling connected to them in every way.
He remembered it. In his dream, he remembered it.
He woke to laughter, far off, in another room. He sat up, and winced as his two stab wounds reminded him they were still there after – what, four days? He rubbed his eyes and took the antibiotic Dustin had given him. He’d had a doctor come to the house, so no hospital would have an admissions record, of course. Wouldn’t do to embarrass Mom and Dad.
Speaking of which, he was pretty sure that was them he heard. The house was out in the country, and things were generally pretty quiet when they weren’t around, unless he was the one making the noise.
He pulled on a long-sleeved shirt to cover his injuries and then found some pants.
They were in the kitchen, of course, cooking. He stood in the doorway, watching them, the way they moved. Each always seemed to know where the other was, even without looking. They chopped and diced and cleaned up after one another; now and then they touched, gently, a stroke on the arm or shoulder, intentionally bumping into one another, but only enough to make contact, never enough to cause a spill. Effortlessly attentive. Even with her prosthetic leg, his mom moved with incredible grace. A handful of something went into the wok and began to sizzle fiercely; an instant later he smelled ginger and onion.
And now the ache deep in the pit of him hurt worse than the puncture wounds.
Eventually they noticed him.
“Son,” his father said. “Good morning. Or early afternoon, anyway.”
“Well, it isn’t a school day, so, you know.”
His mother summoned him over for a hug. It was a little awkward, as usual.
“So?” she asked.
“So what?” he said. Did they know something? Had Dustin told them? Had it made the news?
“So, what’s going on?” she asked.
His father clapped him on the shoulder. That would have felt awkward, too, if it hadn’t hurt so much.
“What’s wrong?” his mother asked. Then she glanced at his father’s hand on his shoulder. “Did that hurt?” she asked.
He remembered one time his father had accidentally knocked the heavy stone pestle off the counter, and it had landed on his bare toe. He hadn’t made a noise – maybe the slightest sharp inhalation, but nothing more. But his mother was there immediately, also without making a sound, checking to see if it was broken.
“Is your shoulder tender, son?” his father asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Fencing injury. Just a bruise. One
of the beginners thought he was a pirate. Didn’t get the point.”
“Funny,” his dad said. “The point. I get it. Well, that’s fine. You got another year before you need to be a hundred percent. Have you given any thought to training in another martial art? Boxing, maybe, or mixed martial arts?”
“I was gonna look into that,” he said.
“Everything you take with you helps,” his mother said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know.” He had heard it often enough.
Stir fry was not forgiving, and they were soon back at it. They started eating in silence, although if you watched his parents, you would think they were reciting poetry to one another. Their knowing little glances, their private smiles.
When he couldn’t take it any longer, he began talking, although he knew it wouldn’t help.
“So how long are you guys home for?” he asked.
“Three days,” his father said. “After that…” He took a bite of kangkong.
“…we’ll be flying to Anchorage,” his mother finished. “We’ll be gone three weeks. But we should be here for your big recital.”
“That sounds great,” he said.
* * *
His father surprised him two days later by asking if he wanted to go cycling. Without Mom.
It was pretty weird, so he agreed. They weren’t entirely alone, of course – Dustin and a couple of PPDC agents were on the scene, but they stayed discreetly out of sight.
They went on and off trail in the national park. Jinhai’s muscles throbbed, but he was enjoying himself when his father called a halt. They sat down on some rocks by a little stream.
His dad’s face tried on a few expressions. He seemed to want to say something, but he was having a hard time coming out with it, to the point Jinhai started to worry. Was it something horrible? Did Mom have cancer?
“Dad,” he finally said. “What is it?”
His father sighed. “Jinhai, do you want to be a Ranger? Do you want to pilot Jaegers?”
Jinhai was so surprised it took him a few beats to reply.
“You know I do,” he finally answered.
“No,” his father answered. “I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Sir, I don’t think I’ve ever given you reason to doubt my sincerity.”
“Not directly, no. I know your mom and I aren’t around enough. I’m sorry for that, but it means we have to rely on the reports of others—”
“Dustin, that rat…”
“Dustin? No, Dustin hasn’t said anything to us. Should he have? What am I missing?”
Damn it, he berated himself. Sometimes he was his own worst enemy.
“No, nothing – he, uh, caught me having a beer the other day.”
His father shrugged. “That’s not what I’m worried about. But some of your teachers say you’ve been acting out. Smarting off in class. Getting in fights—”
“One fight. And he took a swing at me.”
“You didn’t have to swing back.”
“You swung back at the Kaiju, didn’t you?”
“And that, of course, was different,” his father said. “Mrs. Jian thinks this is all because you don’t want to go to the Academy. That you would rather be something else. A dancer, perhaps, or a scientist. Is that true?”
“I want to be a Ranger,” Jinhai insisted.
“I don’t care if you become a Ranger,” his father said. “Neither does your mom. What we do care about is that whatever it is you do, you do it with excellence. Do you understand? Excellence. If you do so, we will be proud of you – whatever you choose.”
For a moment, his words felt stuck in his swollen throat, and tears threatened.
“Then I will be an excellent Ranger, sir,” he said. “I promise.”
“Then work through whatever this is. I don’t want to hear any more of this behavior next time I get reports.”
“You won’t, sir, I promise.”
16
2024
YELLOW SEA
CHINA
SHAOLIN ROGUE
HUO DA JETTED TOWARD SHAOLIN ROGUE, throwing out its tentacle-like forearms so quickly they couldn’t avoid them. They wrapped around the Jaeger, closed behind them, locked together, and tightened. At the same time, Huo Da’s entire lower jaw suddenly shot out like the tongue of a frog or a lizard, wrapping around their left arm like a blood pressure cuff. And like a cuff, it began to squeeze, hard, and pull them toward the meat grinder of its serrated lower limbs.
They pumped their left fist into Huo Da’s face once, twice, three times, but it wouldn’t let go.
“There is a reef, five hundred meters off at two o’ clock,” Suyin said, more for Tendo than for him, because Ming-hau already knew what her plan was.
“Bringing turbines online,” he said.
They bent forward as their Hydropulsers kicked in, driving them forward and the Kaiju relentlessly back. It kept at them with its claws and struck with its tail, but at last they were in deeper water and they could turn fully horizontal and detach the Kaiju’s hold from the seabed. It thrashed its body, trying to find any sort of leverage, but its grip didn’t relent, and the powerful tentacles and jaw pulled them closer and closer to its head.
The reef loomed, a dark wall in the water, and they slammed Huo Da into it with so much force that huge chunks of it cracked away and Shaolin Rogue’s own pressure tolerances hit a red line.
Huo Da’s weird jaw finally retracted, and now they used both fists to batter the monster against the reef, returning as they did to a standing position, shifting ballast to reorient their center of gravity. An uppercut lifted the monster’s head up—
—and then its entire body followed it, flexing up until it towered above them, so they could see the myriad of tiny suckers on its belly, just before it arched over and fell, latching onto them like a leech, and then used its own water jets to drag from across the sea bottom while the sharp, stubby legs beneath its head clawed viciously at the junction of Conn-Pod and collar, trying to decapitate them.
“It’s starting to cut through,” Tendo warned.
Desperate, they tried to wrap their legs around Huo Da’s midsection, but as a machine they weren’t quite that flexible; the best they could achieve was a scissor hold. But that was good enough to allow them to pull free of the suckers, flip the thing onto its back, straddle it, and begin whaling at it again.
But Huo Da was basically one big muscle, and before long was able to thrash hard enough to buck them off. They quickly rolled in the water and landed back on their feet, ready to fight. But instead of attacking, Huo Da backed off and began to circle them a little more warily.
“Rogue, how are you holding up?” Tendo asked. “We’ve got a few red lights here. Nothin’ gone cold, but your underwear is showin’ a little bit.”
“We’re still here,” Suyin replied. “I’m not sure we can say more than that. This thing is tough. I’m not sure we’ve hurt it much at all.”
“You’ll have some company in about twenty,” he said. “Crimson Typhoon is on the way. If you can just hold on until then, things should get a whole lot easier.”
“It’s not getting by us,” Suyin said.
It didn’t, but it did come at them again, darting forward under the power of its water jets, aiming directly toward the Conn-Pod, as if it had figured out where its true enemies were. They battered it back, but it came again, and each exchange pushed them a little closer to the mainland, into shallower water. They were also starting to tire a little. In training, they had been able to keep the neural handshake stable for hours. The Kaidanovskys still held the record, but Ming-hau and Suyin had been creeping up on them.
But training wasn’t combat, as they were discovering. Shaolin Rogue itself was holding up pretty well. LOCCENT reported they were building up some stress fractures here and there, and Huo Da had managed to finally pierce their armor in a few spots, but water incursion was quickly contained – none of their systems were seriously compromis
ed yet.
Still, they needed to end this before Huo Da pushed them back to the mainland. A fight in Shanghai would be utterly devastating.
“Let’s use the lance,” Suyin said.
He remembered his earlier misgiving about releasing Kaiju blood in the Yellow Sea, but she was right. So far nothing they had done had injured the beast.
“Worth a try,” Ming-hau said. “The next time it shows its underside, I’ll try for right under the head.”
“Starting compression,” she said.
Predictably, the monster came at them again, and again it reared up, going for the Conn-Pod, trying to wrap them with those extensive arms.
“There,” Suyin shouted.
Driven by a hundred thousand psig of compressed gas, sixty feet of sharpened tungsten carbide spike sprang out of their left arm and locked there, like a giant switchblade. They felt the impact all the way to their toes, and the water around them was suddenly swirling blue with Kaiju blood. They shouted in triumph as they saw the lance had driven completely through Huo Da.
Their victory, however, was short lived, as the Kaiju twisted completely around, flipping them over by their lance arm, and jetted off, dragging them along. They tried to withdraw the lance, but its housing had bent under the pressure and was now jammed. Between the Kaiju’s blood and the roiled-up ocean floor, their visibility dwindled to almost nothing. Rogue flailed about, trying to get a foothold, or land a solid punch. But Huo Da was shaking them back and forth and rolling so hard it was difficult to concentrate.
Finally, the lance tore out of the arm, taking a good chunk of the anterior limb with it. The feedback pain was nearly blinding.
Ming-hau felt the neural handshake weaken for a moment, but then Suyin was there, firmly back in his head, calm, fearless. He grinned, partly because of the pain, mostly to spite it.
“Maybe that wasn’t the best idea after all,” he said.
“Hey,” she said. “It has a hole in it now.”
“Right.” They tried Rogue’s left arm. It still worked, but only at about thirty percent.