by Greg Keyes
It worked, but not for long: Reckoner flexed its immense muscles and pulled first one, then the other forelimb from the ice, writhing back and forth, causing it to begin cracking. Brave charged in, fists swinging, knocking it back, getting up under the thing’s belly, wrapping her arms around it and locking them in place.
“Cherno Alpha,” Vik said. “If you can hear me, bring the lightning.”
“We’re starting to lose hydraulic pressure in our left arm,” Jinhai said. “I’m switching to auxiliary pressure. It might buy us a minute or two.”
The ice was almost all shattered by then, and Reckoner was bucking like a bull.
“We might have to rethink this,” Jinhai said. “We have to let go, back off, stay between it and the city…”
“If it gets past Cherno, we have no hope of stopping landfall,” Vik said. “We’re not built for it. They will come. I know it.”
“It’s just a simulation,” Jinhai said. “What if Cherno is just a prop? What if it doesn’t have any AI guiding it?”
Several red lights were flashing now, and the schematic display of their Jaeger showed systems on the verge of failure. They were losing pressure in both arms, and there were no more back-up drivers to compensate.
“I think we’re about to learn what it’s like to die in a simulation,” Jinhai said.
But then Reckoner’s struggles became more spasmatic, and they were thrown clear; sky and undersea alternated as they rolled through the shallow water.
“We’re not dead yet,” Jinhai said, reading the instruments. “Get up, we can still win this.”
When they managed to get to their feet, however, it was to behold a wonderful sight. Cherno had limped up behind the monster while they held it and grabbed it with its huge Tesla fists, jolting it with all of the electric a small nuclear reactor could produce. Smoke was pouring out of the Kaiju’s eyes and mouth as it slowly sank into the bay.
“Lightning brought, Horizon Brave,” the resurrected voice of Sasha Kaidanovsky said.
This time, when they came out of the simulator, Lambert gave them a nod of approval. It was the best feeling Jinhai had experienced in a while.
* * *
The director of K-Watch was Rajen Lokman, a round-faced, rather humorless fellow who took his job very seriously. Gottlieb approved of him – usually. But today he was being a bit obstructionist.
“I have already tasked two hundred man-hours to this matter,” Lokman said. “I’ve diverted three Amberjack Mark-2’s from their accustomed duties. I have redirected several of our instrument arrays. At this time, I see no point in adding more of our equipment and expertise to research this… supposition.”
“I’m telling you,” Gottlieb said, “if I’m right about this – and I think you will recall I am very often right – then we may be about to experience the greatest Anteverse event since the triple event ten years ago. An event I predicted, I might add.”
“Dr. Gottlieb, I am well aware of your expertise. Your proofs were required reading at university…”
“Then you will also have read the earlier equations worked out by Dr. Ysabel Morales,” he snapped. “And that is exactly who brought me the base data for my ‘supposition’. So if you would kindly do your job—”
“I’m doing my job, Dr. Gottlieb,” Lokman said. “Here, let me show you something.”
He walked over to a console and waved his hand. A holographic projection of the Pacific Rim appeared.
“These are the readings from today. Here, along the Kuril Trench, there, near the Philippine Trench – that’s from the Amberjack submarine I sent down at your request.”
Gottlieb frowned and bent nearer. “What’s this?” he asked. It was a tiny blue dot highlighted on the map, just at the edge of the Philippine Trench.
“That? It’s incidental.”
“It has an Anteverse radiation signature.”
“We figure it’s some bit of junk from one of the nearby battles. A Kaiju bone or something. It’s tiny.”
“It doesn’t have a fixed position,” Gottlieb said. “As if something is blurring the signal. Don’t you find that odd?”
“Whatever it is, it’s incidental,” Lokman said. “None of your data – pardon me, Dr. Morales’ data – involved the Philippine Trench.”
“No,” Gottlieb said. “You’re right. I want to see if the pattern is in keeping with the other points of information.”
“My point is,” Lokman said, “the geo-energetics aren’t as predicted by your model. The same as everywhere else we’ve looked.”
Gottlieb studied the map, trying to see how the patterns fell together, what would make it all make sense.
“It’s really quite impossible,” he said.
But he’d thought it impossible that he and Newt could have drifted with a Kaiju, much less learned anything from them.
In his field, “impossible” was a suspect concept, and very often the harbinger of very bad things.
* * *
“What do you think they’ll throw at us this time?” Jinhai asked, as he and Vik did a final check of their drivesuits. “I heard Renata and Suresh got Taurax last time.”
Vik nodded. “No one else got the Reckoner scenario,” she said. “But so far as I know, everyone has been handed a fight that really happened. Of course, not everyone is talking to me.”
“Join the club,” Jinhai said. “Amazing how shabbily people treat you when they think you might have murdered a couple of people.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Funny that.”
He’d thought to lighten the mood, but it seemed his comment had the opposite effect as Vik fell silent.
“Anyway,” he said, “I’ve been brushing up on my Kaiju fights.”
“Didn’t do us much good last time,” she said.
“Maybe. But maybe we’ll know what not to do.”
* * *
As they prepared to drift, Jinhai realized that Vik might have a point; it was probably best to try to go into the next simulation with no expectations, to judge the situation as they found it, the way they would have to if they met a real, unknown Kaiju. As the neural handshake began, he tried to clear his mind, to be ready to accept whatever they were faced with.
A good thing, too because when the lights came up, he didn’t have the slightest idea where they were.
There was no water, for one thing, not in any direction. Instead they were in a valley surrounded by mountains. And in the middle of a city, much of which was already in ruins. The city too was unfamiliar – he could see modern-looking skyscrapers, but the part they were in was mostly one- and two-story buildings, white, with rusty brown tile roofs. He didn’t hear or see any Jumphawks, so they hadn’t just been deployed – they must have walked here; they were in the middle of a fight.
And they were also damaged, although not badly. Their power cell was down to about half capacity.
“We’re in Striker Eureka,” Vik said. “Look, the fight’s over there.”
He saw it, maybe half a mile away. It was daytime, but there was a lot of dust and smoke, so all he could make out were two very large creatures, grappling.
“Yeah,” Jinhai said. “Looks like we were in it, and maybe got knocked down. This simulation is starting after Striker got back up.”
“Let’s go,” Vik said.
“Watch out for civilians,” Jinhai said,
He needn’t have worried too much. A clear path of leveled buildings led from where they had “appeared” toward the ongoing battle.
“Power levels are dropping, LOCCENT,” a voice crackled in their ears. “We’re right near empty.”
“I hear you, Specter,” Control shot back. “Just hang in there. Striker Eureka is back up and on the way.”
“Vulcan Specter,” Vik said.
Specter was a Mark-3, and like Striker Eureka, Australian built.
“We’re coming, Specter,” Jinhai yelled.
“Aw, no,” one of Specter’s pilots said. A heads up on the ho
lo display identified him as Joshua Griffin. “Please, take your time. We’re having a great time here.”
They could see the Kaiju now as well.
The monsters from the Breach were never pretty, but some of them had a sort of majesty, looked at the right way.
This thing was just nasty. The massive, bony skull was what they saw first, long-jawed with ragged teeth and three pairs of slitted eyes; it looked sort of like the head of a hairless opossum, albeit with a jumble of spines jutting from its skullcap and running down its back and tail. The head rode on a sinuous neck; the body was balanced on a pair of long, scaly, birdlike legs, so in silhouette it was a little like an emu or cassowary, although the two sets of upper limbs diluted that impression. Each of these ended in hands with extraordinarily elongated, bony-looking digits, which were currently clutched around Vulcan Specter, wrenching at its Conn-Pod. It wasn’t looking good for the other Jaeger, and they were still a hard jog away. It almost seemed like a replay of the situation with Cherno Alpha.
“We have missiles,” Vik said. “Let’s use them.”
“We’ll hit Specter,” Jinhai pointed out.
“No, they’re built to tunnel into and explode inside the Kaiju”
“Okay.”
An instant later, a pair of missiles jetted out of the launchers on their chest; one struck the Kaiju just above one of its walking legs and the other a little higher in its chest. The detonations came a few heartbeats later, and they were rewarded by the sight of blue Kaiju blood spraying freely from both wounds. It hesitated, craning its head around to see what had injured it.
Vulcan Specter didn’t let the pause go to waste. One of its fists came down on the Kaiju with a horrible crunching sound that seemed to fill the valley. The Kaiju’s head dropped under the blow, and Specter instantly raised its other hand, from which protruded what looked like a narrow, blurry cone.
“Have my Atomic Drill for breakfast, mate,” Griffin yelled.
Then the cone went straight into the top of the Kaiju’s skull with very messy results.
The monster collapsed without so much as a whimper.
“Well,” Jinhai said, after a moment. “That wasn’t so hard.”
“Yeah,” Vik agreed. “That was easy. Too easy.”
They eased up on the scene. Vulcan Specter hadn’t moved since the kill.
“Specter?” Jinhai asked.
“No worries,” the pilot said. “That was the last of our juice, but the job is done. Thanks for the assist.”
“Glad to help,” Jinhai said.
“What’s that?” Vik asked.
Jinhai saw it, too. Vermin’s dead body was slowly slumping down; blood had ceased pumping from its wounds. But the Kaiju’s skin seemed to be – moving, like it had a life of its own.
“Specter, can you see?”
“Hell!” Specter’s pilot yelped. “Yeah, we see, Striker. There’s littler ones coming out through its hide. God, there’s hundreds of them.”
“Magnify,” Jinhai said. Their view zoomed in on the beast. All over, things were wriggling from its skin, leaving empty holes behind.
“I knew it was too easy,” Vik said.
“Some kind of parasites?” he said. “Babies?”
“Parasites,” Vik said. “This must be Colombia. Medellin. They swarmed all over the city, killing and contaminating everything in their path.”
“How did Striker Eureka stop them?”
“I don’t remember,” she said. “I was never all that interested in that fight. Step on them, maybe?”
By the time they reached Specter and the dead Kaiju, the “littler” monsters were everywhere, spreading out in a rough circle into the city.
Kaiju had parasites – that was well known. The most common were skin mites, which were about the size of a small dog; Burke had showed them a preserved one early in the trimester. Whatever these things were, they were not skin mites. They were bigger, for one thing, about a meter long, shaped like fat, smooth snakes, and moving something like serpents as well, but instead of merely slithering, they also coiled and sprang into the air, over walls, onto rooftops. Their heads were grenade-shaped, and when Striker snatched one up to examine it, they saw that instead of a mouth, it had a trilobed beak covered in hundreds if not thousands of tiny serrated teeth set in a tight spiral pattern. The head didn’t spin all the way around like the drill bit it resembled, but it could twist its head back and forth with great speed. A collar of four clawed limbs probably pulled it forward as it burrowed into its host.
Stepping on them killed them; they exploded like engorged ticks, spraying Kaiju blood everywhere. They couldn’t use their missiles, because the parasites were now all over the town. Vik finally came up with the idea of overcharging their Sting-Blades. These were weapons set in Striker’s hands, like knives, but which could be heated to incredible temperatures by carbon nano-tubes. When overheated, they could be used to mortally burn bunches of the things; they didn’t have to actually touch them – coming close was good enough. Even so, it was tedious work, finding the things, all too often after they had already burrowed into some hapless dog or in a few cases, human stragglers. Obviously Medellin had had time to evacuate – the coast was miles away – but there were always holdouts and left-behinds.
LOCCENT clocked in with their analysis as they chased one of the things down a street, trying – without complete success – not to destroy any more buildings. Jaegers were built to fight behemoths, not to chase fleas. It seemed to Jinhai they might end up doing as much damage as the Kaiju.
“We’ve got good news and bad news,” LOCCENT reported. “The good news is that these parasites are blind – they don’t have eyes. The bad news is that we think they have a heightened sense of smell, or something. Satellite feed shows a whole bunch of them converging on a Kaiju shelter.”
“That’s actually good news,” Vik said. “I saw a gas tanker a few blocks back.”
“What – oh,” Jinhai said. “We have to be quick, though. If those things can burrow through Kaiju skin, concrete isn’t going to keep them out.”
They picked up the gas tanker and traced the path LOCCENT painted for them through the hilly, winding streets until they reached the location of the underground shelter. The parasites were collected there in a swarming, hopping mass. They tore the tank open, splashed the whole area liberally with gasoline, and set it ablaze with their Sting-Blades.
As it turned out, the little monsters could scream.
That wasn’t the end of it – there were plenty more. But with satellite support they were making pretty good headway.
But after an hour or so, the simulation just – stopped.
“I wonder what we did wrong?” Vik sighed.
But this time, Burke had an approving look.
“That was good,” he said. “I shut you down because otherwise you would have been at it for the rest of the day. Five chits for each of you. Take a break.”
23
2034
HONG KONG
CHINA
JINHAI
WHEN HE WAS ALONE, SOMETIMES JINHAI TURNED the music up approximately to the volume of thunder. Their house was in the dead center of twenty hectares of nowhere, so there were no neighbors to complain. The housekeepers were out, and Dustin didn’t seem to care, and sometimes made suggestions. It could be anything: Robert Johnson, The Clash, the Brain Geysers, Quell, Madonna – except when he wanted to dance.
When he wanted to dance, it was Stravinsky, and he vanished into it; melody, rhythm, his blood, his muscle, his brain all one. It didn’t always perfectly line up, but when it did, it was amazing. And sometimes, after, he wondered if it was anything like – if it even approached – what his mother and father seemed to have every minute of every day.
Maybe one day, he would know, if he was lucky. If things went right.
He let the thunder die away and got some water.
“Stravinsky again?”
He turned and found Dustin sitting
in the corner of the kitchen, reviewing something on a pad.
“Dude’s music started a riot back in its day,” Jinhai said.
“That’s a recommendation?” Dustin asked, mildly.
“Yeah. Because he makes you feel something. And not always something sweet, or fun, or pleasant. Some people didn’t like that about his music. Some people said it wasn’t music at all.”
“Well, people said that about rock and roll, too,” Dustin said. “And rap. And jazz, I think.”
“There have always been stupid people,” Jinhai said.
Dustin nodded. “Granted. How was school today?”
“It sucked,” Jinhai said. “But I got through it. How would you like to take me shooting?”
Dustin blinked.
“Shooting? You mean like with guns? I thought you hated guns.”
“Only on principle,” Jinhai said. “But what are principles? Limitations pretending to be virtuous. Come on, I need to learn how to shoot.”
Shooting was more fun than he imagined it would be, although there were a lot of rules. Dustin was very firm about rules.
Cleaning the guns was less fun – but that was one of Dustin’s rules.
“A gun is equipment,” he said. “Like all equipment, it requires maintenance.”
“I guess so,” Jinhai said. “Of course, if I’m a Jaeger pilot, there will be other people to take care of the equipment.”
“I don’t know,” Dustin said. “I wouldn’t trust my life to something I didn’t understand. If my gun jams, I might not have the luxury of taking it to a repair shop. If you’re out in the ocean, and your Jaeger pops a gasket, and the Kaiju is right in front of you, wouldn’t you like to have some idea how to fix the problem?”
“Yeah,” Jinhai said. “Right. Like there’s ever gonna be another Kaiju attack.”
Dustin stopped cleaning his gun and set it carefully on the table, pointing away from either of them.
“You’re a yo-yo,” he said. “You know what a yo-yo is?”
“The cellist? I love that guy. He’s like, eighty-something and he’s still a complete wizard.”