intheheart (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
intheheart) wrote2019-06-20 10:38 pm
intheheart) wrote2019-06-20 10:38 pm
Entry tags:
- au: miscallaneous,
- character: aaron kendall,
- character: charlotte hennessy,
- character: daniel kiley,
- character: danny sierbenski,
- character: felipe claro,
- character: felix,
- character: gail hirschfeld,
- character: gina caravecchio,
- character: ivy hirschfeld-kendall,
- character: jack hennessy,
- character: jake foster,
- character: lars warmind,
- character: maya thakarta,
- character: michael sierbenski,
- character: miranda hennessy,
- character: nathan kendall,
- character: olivia marhenke,
- character: summer kendall,
- character: zachary ryan,
- not mine,
- warning
Into the Breach
Title: Into the Breach
Rating: R
Summary: The obligatory Pacific Rim fusion.
Warnings: spoilers for Pacific Rim, mentioned death, destruction, depression, a couple of ethnic slurs which are not treated as slurs, grief... throw things at me if I've missed something.
Notes: So this was fun. We're going to pretend the LA Shatterdome never closed because Miranda is wily. We're also fudging everyone's ages. For those of you unfamiliar with Pacific Rim, there are people in giant robots punching giant monsters in the face. Logic has no place here.
5. nuclear bomb
"It took three nukes to kill it," Nathan said, staring at the television as it replayed the images over and over. "Three nukes, my God, it took fewer than that to make an entire country surrender."
Gail pulled her legs up to her chest and held them there, trying to coax away the empty pain around her heart. Six days and three nukes and they still didn't know what it was that had invaded their country. Some kind of genetic experiment gone wrong? No one knew where it had come from. The survivor reports were still contradictory.
"Three nukes," Nathan repeated; he couldn't seem to get over that.
"Should we call the kids?" Gail asked. She couldn't take her eyes off the pictures, no matter how it hurt to watch. Destruction on an incredible scale. Hundreds of thousands of bodies littering the streets. It looked like a war zone, like something off a news report from far, far away, nothing that would ever happen here.
"Yeah," Nathan said, but he made no move for the phone. Instead he moved closer to her, put his arms around her and held her to his chest.
She let her legs slip to the floor and put her own arms around him, pressing her face against the crook of his shoulder. Her heart hurt, sore and squeezed. It had felt like this on September 11th, the same aching pain, the same pit of the stomach nauseous fear.
The pictures flashed again, damage, broken buildings, broken bodies, and she closed her eyes, felt the tears well up. Nathan was solid in her arms, breathing harsh but even, a comforting weight when the world was falling apart.
"At least it's over now," he said, and she wished he sounded more certain.
1. apocalyptic log
Where were you on kaiju day?
At work. Walking home. In Oakland--I don't remember how I got out. At home, asleep; my husband woke me up. On my way to get my kids.
Lars paused in his writing and stretched, working the kinks out of his back, massaging his hand. He could have typed this out, probably should have, really. His handwriting wasn't the most legible after he'd been writing for hours. But there was something so impersonal about words on a screen, something impermanent. This needed to be written out, a declaration to whoever found it of what had happened.
He bent over his desk again.
What did you do when you first found out?
Called my husband. Called my children. Called my parents. Tried to get home. Ran and hid. Took all my family and our pets into the basement in case the kaiju came our way. Loaded up the car and drove inland...
4. the end of the world
Alicia wasn't even supposed to be there.
They lived outside of Los Angeles at the time, far enough inland that the kaiju hadn't gotten that far, close enough that she could go into the city for a few hours with her girlfriends when the mood took her. That day she said she was going to get her hair done and relax a bit, and he'd forgotten to ask where. It didn't seem like a big deal. He could always call her.
Then the kaiju came.
He and Benjy evacuated, the way they'd practiced. Pack up the baby things, pick up the prepacked suitcases and drive east to the evac site, and it wasn't until they got to Palm Springs and Alicia was nowhere to be found that he began to worry.
Alicia Kiley, he said, to anyone who would listen. Alicia Kiley from Redlands, have you seen her? Do you know where she is? Alicia Kiley. Alicia Kiley. He'd have put up posters if he'd been able, her pretty brown face smiling out at the desert. Alicia Kiley. She has a husband, an eight-month-old son. She went to the salon and never came home. She should be here. Alica Kiley. Alicia Kiley.
By the time they pulled her body out of the crumpled, twisted city, they could only identify her from the license in her purse. Alicia Kiley.
Daniel closed himself into the hotel room, pulled all the curtains shut, and cradled his son against his chest, staring up at the blank ceiling.
Alicia wasn't even supposed to be there.
2. after the end
Joy had no place in this new world.
Where was she supposed to go? What was she supposed to do? She was a dancer. She didn't have any useful skills for this. The end of the world--
She went home, of course, catching trains and hitching rides, whatever she could do to cross the country. Maya and her parents were thrilled to see her, safe in Pennsylvania far from the Pacific. But she felt even more useless there. Her father grew food in his garden now, vegetables and fruits and a small patch of medicinal marijuana. Maya helped her father, and knitted things, warm socks and sweaters that they sent to the front for the refugees. Her mother spent endless hours at the university and on phone calls, doing something mysterious but evidently necessary. And then there was Joy, who... danced.
She brought in money for the house, sure. It turned out war footing created a lot of horny GI Joes with extra cash, and that was always useful. But she felt that life in some fundamental way had changed completely, the world made anew. And there wasn't any space for her, and what she did.
Joy kept dancing. She could no more stop dancing than she could stop breathing.
It felt a little more pointless every day.
10. deserted
The redhead dropped her tray across from Gina's with a clatter, startling her into a jump. "Sorry," she said, without much apparent remorse, and dropped onto the seat with as much ceremony as she'd dropped her tray. "You looked lonely."
Gina was, a bit, but that didn't mean this wasn't rude. "That's okay," she said, as politely as she could manage. "I'm fine."
The redhead shrugged. "I'm sitting here anyway," she said. "Might as well stay. What's your name?"
"Gina," she said, and looked at the redhead properly. Not very pretty, at least not conventionally, but she had lovely eyes, deep blue and expressive. "Gina Caravecchio."
"Oh," the redhead said, her eyebrows lifting. "You're the pilot they're holding auditions for, right? This afternoon."
Gina did not like talking about that; it brought back the memory of Olivia's stricken face, and the clawing grip of anxiety. "Yes," she said, shortly. "Who are you?"
"Ivy Hirschfeld-Kendall," the redhead said, with more pride than the name probably deserved. "I'm a candidate. I swear I didn't know who you were, though. I just thought you were alone. And really pretty."
This time she'd startled Gina into a blush. "Really? I mean, um. Thank you. I suppose."
The redhead-- Ivy-- laughed. "It was a compliment, I promise. So why are you sitting all by yourself?"
Gina lost her appetite again. "My... friend," she said, carefully. "She was supposed to be my co-pilot, but she..."
"Didn't make it?" Ivy asked. Gina might have bitten her head off if she hadn't sounded sympathetic. "I thought I was going to wash out five or six times. No shame in it."
"Yeah, well." Olivia hadn't washed out, she just hadn't made it, but no point discussing that now. "I don't have a co-pilot, so everyone thinks I'm... I don't know. Poison or whatever."
Ivy snorted. "Then they're dumb," she said, pointing her fork at Gina. "I try not to pay attention to what dumb people say."
"You know," Gina said, "I think I like you."
Ivy grinned, and her face lit up, making her suddenly and surprisingly beautiful. "I think I like you too."
6. earth that was
Charlotte liked children, and they liked her, flocking to her wherever she went in her Jaeger uniform or out of it. They liked to ask her for stories; what it was like being in a Jaeger, how it felt to be in the Drift, what it was like to kill a kaiju. She didn't like telling the last ones. She tried to make them quick.
And then one day a small girl, no older than five, tugged at her sleeve and asked, "What was it like before the kaiju?"
Before the kaiju. She could hardly remember. "Well," she said. "I remember my family lived next to the ocean. We had a private beach, with steps down from the house. You could lie on the sand in the sun and watch the waves."
The little girl's fawn-colored eyes were enormous in a sweet, copper-skinned face. "You mean you went to the ocean?"
"Yes," Charlotte said, and managed a smile. She missed when the ocean was safe. "People used to take vacations there. We would even swim in it, sometimes."
"Wow," the girl breathed. "That's amazing. I wish we could swim in the ocean again."
Charlotte swallowed back a sudden lump in her throat. "Someday," she assured the girl. "We'll get rid of all the kaiju and then you can go swimming in the ocean."
The girl beamed up at her, then suddenly threw both arms around Charlotte's leg and hugged her, hard. "Thank you," she whispered.
Charlotte only wished she deserved the thanks.
3. Before
Once, before, she had been a Jaeger pilot.
She knew hardly anyone believed it. Her siblings, of course, and her former co-pilot, though she and Emily were far apart now, but they had been there, and Miranda was starting to think that for anyone to believe in something they had to be there, witness it with their own eyes.
Who could really blame them, though? She couldn't remember the last time that anyone told the full, unvarnished truth in her presence—and she was in a position to know. Former Jaeger pilot, current Shatterdome marshal, she lied all the time now.
She was used to it, though. Better her than anyone else.
She paced through her Shatterdome, hands clasped behind her back, examining her people. Mechanics hard at work on the Jaegers, fixing and patching up, fine-tuning and cleaning after this last kaiju. Medical-- one pilot getting his latest broken bone patched up, his sister sitting beside him, talking and laughing and ignoring the medic.
Jack, leaning over his best friend's computer, for once not trying to lure him into copiloting. That was a problem, but one she could consider another day. Her newest pilots, Felipe Claro and Zachary Ryan, were nowhere to be seen. Settling in, she suspected, perhaps breaking in the bed.
That had been interesting. They'd told her, chins lifted in identical defiance, that they were married and had a wife as well; Miranda had merely nodded and ordered a bigger bed. Less space in their quarters, but that was for them to deal with.
All pilots accounted for. Or...
Ivy and Gina passed through the hallway, saw her, and immediately looked suspiciously innocent.
Miranda paused, wondering if she should find out what all that was about Probably they were either going to have sex or Ivy had some horrible idea in mind, and she trusted Gina to nip it in the bud if that happened to be the case. But... well, just in case.
"I see nothing that I would have to kill you for," she announced. "Please be sure it remains that way."
"Yes sir," Gina said, and Ivy followed with a mumbled repeat. Not the truth, probably, but they'd be sure to keep it out of her way.
Miranda gave them a sharp-toothed smiled, and proceeded. All was well in her little world.
She'd do anything she had to, to make sure it stayed that way.
15. the four horsemen
Summer Queen hit the ocean first, but then Felipe Claro had always been the first out of bed, and since he shared it with his copilot they tended to beat everyone else. Hamtaro and Mariposa followed, nearly at the same time, Lady Darwin last as always--her techs had learned to have coffee always on the brew, for Ivy.
Marshal Hennessy was unique among the marshals for her refusal to send out a Jaeger alone. She'd learned from Gipsy Danger; even if some of her Jaegers did nothing, even if Summer Queen could handle the kaiju alone, she would not risk losing her people to lack of backup. It endeared her to the pilots, who liked the work, if not to the mechanics, who did not.
"Hang back, guys," Jack said, over the comms. "Lady Darwin's having trouble keeping up."
"Fuck you, Hennessy," Ivy snapped back.
"Oooh," he said, tauntingly, ignoring his copilot's muttered 'pushing your luck' in the background. "Still grouchy? Maybe you should've had extra coffee this morning."
"No, sweetheart," Gina said aloud, presumably for Jack's benefit. "You may not kill him."
"Aw, but Gina!' Ivy whined.
"I'll do it," Danny volunteered. "When we get back to base. Make it look like an accident."
"Cut the chatter," Marshal Hennessy said, imperturbable. "Summer Queen, what's your status?"
"Kaiju in sight," Felipe reported, his voice smooth and professional. "We could use a little backup if you're all done flirting."
Brief silence reigned, then Danny said, "Who the hell have you been flirting with, Claro?"
"That's rich, coming from you," Ivy put in. "When half the time we can't tell if you and Lars are fighting or fu--"
"Chatter," Marshal Hennessy said again, this time sharp. "Summer Queen, locate the kaiju and destroy. You other children hold position, but feel free to interfere if they call for help. And you will call for help, won't you, Summer Queen?"
"If we need it," Zack said, polite as ever.
"Yeah, we're not Hamtaro," Felipe chimed in.
"It's Spitfire, dammit!" Danny snarled. "I'm going to kill you when we get back to base!"
"I'm going to fire you all," Marshal Hennessy said.
7. reconstruction
After she got the news, after they told her she couldn't be a pilot because of the anxiety, her world fell apart.
It wasn't that she didn't understand. She understood all too well. The anxiety did not do well in stressful situations, and that was the basis of a Jaeger pilot's life. Even her psychiatrist had advised her against going out for the program. But to do so well, and then to hit this wall-- it reinforced everything her mother had ever said, everything she'd thought about herself. Useless, worthless, fat stupid bitch.
It picked her up in its grip, shook her like a dog, and left her panting and weeping, convinced of her own foolishness in trying at all. She haunted the Shatterdome like a ghost-- no one had the heart to kick her out. Not even Jake could make her feel better, and it hurt when he tried.
So Olivia took to hanging around the mechanics, who were quiet and friendly and didn't engage her. Sometimes they would give her something to do, a piece of chrome to shine or a joint to oil. It was nice, mindless work, something even a washout Jaeger pilot could do, something that made the voices shut up and gave her blessed silence in her head.
And then one day the chief mechanic looked up, looked around, whistled at her, and said, "You. Kid. Come hold this joint while I fix it."
She'd watched, fascinated, while he tightened the joint, patched a leaking pipe, and spot-welded a minute hole in the Jaeger's side, halfway up on the catwalks. Olivia followed him all afternoon as he danced around Mariposa, fixing tiny problems, checking on other fixes. Finally he swung around, looked her in the eye, and said, "Kid, you want to learn, go get an apron and some gloves."
She did want to learn. She got an apron and some gloves.
To her surprise, Olivia was very good at Jaeger maintenance and repair. Perhaps it was her past as a dancer: she was intimately familiar with human bones and muscles, and the Jaegers were essentially squared-off people that way. Perhaps it was the soothing certainty of it: if everything was in the right place, it would work, and if it didn't work, something wasn't in the right place. Perhaps it was the sudden value of it: Jaeger mechanics were just as important as the pilots, if less well-known and celebrated. Whatever it was, she had a knack for it, and more than that she loved it.
Once she'd thought to be Gina's co-pilot. Now she was her head mechanic instead, ensuring Lady Darwin worked well when Gina needed her to. She couldn't love the Jaeger any more if she was her pilot. She couldn't be any happier.
Thank God for maintenance, and a chief mechanic who understood.
8. but a whimper
"No," Danny said, flatly. The show's host eased back, away from her, his smile going plastic in the face of her tone. "No, I'm not telling this story. It's a horrible story."
"Shut up, it's the best story," Michael said, and leaned forward, grinning. "Okay, so, you know how I've got a bone disorder."
The host focused on him, relief flashing across his face. "Yes, of course." He turned to the cameras, gestured to the audience. "That led the pair of you to develop the world's first disability-friendly Jaeger."
"Kinda," Michael said. "Not really. We just provided the impetus for a bunch of really smart scientists to get their act together and build the thing—I want to give a particular shout out to Gabrielle here, she's brilliant, designed the whole gyroscope system."
The audience cheered at that, and he grinned at them, flashed them a wave. "Anyway," he continued, focusing on the host again. "It was really awesome, the first time we tested her out. I got to punch stuff, it was great. But the thing was, nobody had ever seen the kind of setup we've got in there before, and they were kind of weirded out by the gyroscope."
The host held up a hand. "If I can interrupt you for just a second," he said, "we've got some pictures of your system side by side with the interior of a regular Jaegar up on the screen now." He gestured behind himself, and Michael glanced up—yep, there was the familiar, two-harnessed system opposite their rigged-up monstrosity, Danny's normal harness and his multi-ringed sphere to her left. They'd cannibalized someone's carnival ride, put a layer of plastic around it, plus given his suit a lot of extra padding, and the upshot was that he came out of their typical fight with a bunch of bruises and maybe one broken bone.
"That's it," he said, beaming fondly at their setup. "There's me on the left, obviously, and Danny on the right. She always has to be in charge." The audience laughed as he elbowed his sister, who was still sulking in her chair, and got an elbow right back.
"I'm sorry I'm smarter than you," Danny said, and got another laugh. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, but was quickly tucked away.
"That's my sister," Michael said, and went on. "So. Nobody had ever seen a setup like that." He waved a hand at the gyroscope ball. "Obviously Danny and I had, but the technicians... they knew how to strap me in, in theory, but they'd never actually seen the thing. So one of them, this guy named Lars, he takes one look at it and blurts out, 'Is that a hamster ball?'"
Predictably, the audience laughed, and the host laughed right along with them. "So that's where you got your nickname?"
"Pretty much," Michael said, grinning again. He tapped the battle-hardened hamster stitched onto his jacket. "I'm the hamster, Danny's the gerbil, and the whole shebang is Hamtaro. I'd be embarrassed but let's face it, it's awesome."
"Plus," Danny added, sitting suddenly up and forward so that she seemed to appear from behind Michael, "we've got the highest kaiju kill count on the California coast." She glared at the audience, expression daring. "We may have a stupid name, but we're still freaking awesome."
"I'll drink to that," the host said, apparently sincere.
14. doomsday
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
Felix rounded on him. "Jackson..."
He pouted, stepping back seamlessly as Felix stepped forward. "Aw, no fair using the Andy voice on me."
"Well, if it'll get you to shut up," Felix said pointedly, "I'll do whatever I can. Seriously, Jack, you got a co-pilot already."
Jack became solemn abruptly, one of his lightning changes of mood. "Charlotte wants out. You know she does. And you know we're Drift-compatible. I mean, look at us." He gestured to the both of them, and Felix realized that they were standing in exactly the same way. He shifted his stance, and ignored the hurt look on Jack's face.
"I know she wants out," he said. "She talks to me as much as she talks to you. It's that guy, isn't it, the civvie she's in love with? Why shouldn't she go?"
"She can't," Jack said. "You know that. It would leave us down a Jaeger and Marshal Hennessy won't stand for that."
"Then find someone else." Felix turned his back on Jack and kept walking. He went on talking, in the sure knowledge that Jack was still tagging along. "I don't want to be a pilot. I don't want to fight. It's hard enough listening to it on the comms."
Jack caught at his arm, but not to stop him. It felt like just to touch him. "Yeah, I understand that. Charlotte hates it too. And you and she are the only people in the world who are Drift-compatible with me." He caught up, but left his hand where it was, resting under Felix's elbow. "Will you at least try it? Drift with me, see if we can control Mariposa? It won't mean anything, it'll just be a test."
Felix stopped, swung around to face him again. "You're planning something."
"Of course I am," Jack said. His frankness was, oddly, reassuring. "I'm banking on the fact that you'll like the Drift so much you'll want to hang around. But if you don't, then ditch it, it's fine."
Felix pinched the bridge of his nose to disguise a smile. "I swear to God, only you would go for 'just try it, you'll like it.'"
"Just try it," Jack said. He was smiling openly. "You'll like it. Seriously, it's like nothing else, Felix. All I'm asking for is once."
Felix sighed. Jack was always going to win this, and they both knew it. "Fine. Once. No other."
Jack yipped with glee and ran off, presumably to tell his sister.
This was a mistake. He already knew it was a mistake. He'd known it was a mistake before he made it.
So why couldn't he stop smiling?
9. (near) extinction
"Oh my God, sweetheart, no."
Ivy glanced up and back at her co-pilot and lover, and caught a really weird expression on Gina's face, a sort of unholy combination of affection and horror. Or, well, it would've been weird if Ivy didn't see it so often.
"What?" she asked, affecting innocence. "What is it?"
Gina leaned over her shoulder and plucked the top sheet of paper off her stack. "You cannot, and I mean you absolutely cannot, make your own kaiju."
"See," Ivy said, "when you say can't..."
"I mean you are not allowed to," Gina said, without waiting for her to finish her sentence. Huh. Guess she'd used that one a little too often. "Absolutely, not a chance, not in any way allowed to do anything resembling making your own kaiju. I mean I will murder you in your sleep and that's before Marshal Hennessy gets her hands on you."
"I'm not afraid of Marshal Hennessy," Ivy said, which was an outright lie, and Gina had to know it. She hurried on away from the words. "I really, really want to do it. And it could help us win the war! You know that. It'll be awesome, c'mon."
"Absolutely not," Gina said firmly, towing her away from her workbench. "And you will not be doing this again. Promise me."
Ivy bit her lip. "But I want to."
"Promise," Gina said, with absolutely no room for negotiation in her tone.
Ivy sighed, defeated. "Fine," she said. "I promise not to try to make my own kaiju. Do I have to get rid of the research? It was kind of cool."
Gina examined her for a long moment, before she said, "No, but don't you dare use it again. Or let anyone else use it. No kaiju-making. None at all."
"No kaiju-making," Ivy replied. "I promise."
Gina smiled at her, her expression lit with relief, then leaned down a bit and kissed her. "Thank you, love. Let's not destroy the Shatterdome, shall we?"
"Well, not like that anyway," Ivy said practically, and startled Gina into a horrified laugh.
12. repopulation
"But it's interesting," Summer said, her chin jutting up at an angle. "Think of how much knowledge we can gain! Anyway, I was wearing all the necessary protective gear. I don't see why you're making such a big deal out of it."
Zack wanted so badly to bundle her unceremoniously back to their quarters, tuck her safe into bed and then read her a strong lecture on the subject of basic caution, but she wouldn't take kindly to that. Still, seeing his pregnant wife elbow-deep in a kaiju corpse did not inspire confidence in a man. "Because it is a big deal! You could've been badly hurt!"
"I was working with Dr. Geizler," she insisted. "He knows what he's doing. Everything was perfectly fine."
Zack shook his head. "Why couldn't you study with Dr. Gottleib? He just does numbers, right?"
A wistful look crossed her face, and abruptly he felt bad. "I would love to," she said. "We write a bit, back and forth. But I can't really understand what he does, and vice versa. I'm better with physical things."
He knew that, and he was kicking himself now. "I know, I'm sorry. I'm sure you'd be very good at this, but..." He cupped her cheek. "Summer, you're pregnant. And we worry."
She narrowed her eyes. "Are you suggesting that I don't know what's good for me? Because I do. I told you, I was wearing all the necessary protective gear and all precautions were in place. The chances of all of them failing at once are astronomically low."
"No, I..." Zack stopped, ran a hand through his hair. Because he had been telling her that she didn't know what was good for her, and that was completely unacceptable. "Yes. I was. I'm sorry."
Summer cocked her head, looking more puzzled than mad. "Is this because it's our first? Because I do know what I'm doing." She touched the soft swell of her belly. "I know I don't practice much anymore but I am a medical doctor."
He touched her face again, drew a thumb along the line of her jaw. "I know. I know you know what you're doing. It's just that I've seen what kaiju blue does to people." And he'd had to stand there, watching-- he couldn't swoop in and drag her out, didn't dare go in without protective gear, couldn't possibly save her if there was a catastrophic failure of the protective gear. Add that to her pregnancy, and... "I was afraid. I overreacted. I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Summer said, still sounding more confused than angry. "You don't need to be afraid."
He smiled at her, a little crookedly. "I'm going to be afraid right up until the baby's born, my love," he said. "And then I'm going to be a whole new kind of scared shitless."
"Felipe's not scared," she said, more of a question than anything else.
"Oh, he is," Zack said. "He just doesn't show it as much." He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, gently. "Just... promise me to be careful."
"I've been careful," she said. "I'll go on being careful. I promise."
"Thank you," he said, and rested his forehead against hers.
13. catastrophic
"We cannot give up on the Jaeger program," Jake insisted, hoping he didn't sound as desperate as he felt. "It's kept us safe so far. We can't just abandon it and pray that the walls will keep the kaiju out."
"But they will." His least favorite representative gave him a patronizing smile. "Of course they will. It's been scientifically proven."
Yeah, he thought spitefully, the same way vaccines had been scientifically proven to cause autism, but he valued his job and didn't say that. Instead, he said, "With respect, sir, that's one study. I don't think we can trust the safety of so many people to one study."
"It isn't just that," said someone. "The Jaegars are expensive, in terms of money, man-hours, and people lost every time one falls. We simply can't afford to keep doing this much longer."
Jake clenched his fist at his side. He knew that. It was Olivia's man-hours, his friends who could be lost. "The coastal walls are just as expensive. What if they fail? We'll be left without a backup plan. At least keep the Jaegers in support."
"The walls won't fail," insisted the first representative. "They're too big to fail."
"Isn't your wife a Jaeger pilot?" inquired one of the representatives, in a tone that could have been curious but was actually nothing of the sort. His second-least favorite representative, gunning for least favorite. Of course.
"No," he answered, instead, curtly. "She's a mechanic."
"But your friends are," the man continued. "Frankly, Mr. Foster, I think you have more than a little bit of personal interest in keeping the Jaeger program going."
The representative obviously expected him to protest, so Jake didn't. Instead he said, "Of course I have a personal interest in it. My wife and my friends, as you've said, but also the personal interest of someone who doesn't want to get eaten by a kaiju."
"That's as may be, Mr. Foster," said the chairman, in a tone that clearly stated he expected all protest to end. "Regardless, the Jaeger program will be ended. You may tell Marshal Hennessy to close down her Shatterdome and send her remaining Jaegers to Hong Kong with Marshal Pentecost."
And wouldn't Miranda react well to that. But there was nothing left to say. He bit his tongue until he tasted blood, until he was sure he wouldn't say anything untoward, and said only, "Yes, sir."
He'd failed.
11. civilization
It was over.
Aaron was in complete shock. It was over. Marshal Pentecost was dead, Striker Eureka, Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon all gone with their crews, even Gipsy Danger destroyed, and yet it was over, finally over, the breach had been sealed and the kaiju were never coming back.
Now what?
Everyone seemed to be asking that. Friends, family-- half his family was somehow involved with the Jaeger program, and he was never more grateful than the day he learned it was over and they had all survived. Marshal Hennessy had dragged her feet on sending her Jaegers to Hong Kong, and it must have saved them, though he wasn't sure how they felt about that. Ivy and Gina, Summer and her boys, Danny and Michael, Olivia, his parents, all of them still alive, and none of them knew what to do now.
Aaron privately thought that the Jaegers would be maintained, if not replenished, on the off chance that the kaiju ever did return. He didn't think so, though. He didn't think the kaiju had expected quite so stiff a resistance, and he did think they'd find an easier world to attack.
Which left them here.
Large sections of Earth uninhabitable from kaiju blue or nuclear fallout. Millions of people dead from kaiju attacks. Billions of dollars of property damage. And somehow, unaccountably, they'd survived. With a semblance of civilization, even.
There were more children hanging around now. Before their parents must have kept them away, but the Shatterdome was home now to robots and monsters, both draws to children. His own wife was pregnant. His sister had a baby. Olivia and Jake had at least two. And older children, as old as twelve, all born after Trespasser made landfall. Children.
He didn't really know what was going to happen to his family, to the people who'd been building the coastal walls and manning the Jaeger programs. But he did know there was a future, suddenly, one no one had really expected to have.
He didn't need to know what was going to happen.
All he needed to know was that it would.
Rating: R
Summary: The obligatory Pacific Rim fusion.
Warnings: spoilers for Pacific Rim, mentioned death, destruction, depression, a couple of ethnic slurs which are not treated as slurs, grief... throw things at me if I've missed something.
Notes: So this was fun. We're going to pretend the LA Shatterdome never closed because Miranda is wily. We're also fudging everyone's ages. For those of you unfamiliar with Pacific Rim, there are people in giant robots punching giant monsters in the face. Logic has no place here.
5. nuclear bomb
"It took three nukes to kill it," Nathan said, staring at the television as it replayed the images over and over. "Three nukes, my God, it took fewer than that to make an entire country surrender."
Gail pulled her legs up to her chest and held them there, trying to coax away the empty pain around her heart. Six days and three nukes and they still didn't know what it was that had invaded their country. Some kind of genetic experiment gone wrong? No one knew where it had come from. The survivor reports were still contradictory.
"Three nukes," Nathan repeated; he couldn't seem to get over that.
"Should we call the kids?" Gail asked. She couldn't take her eyes off the pictures, no matter how it hurt to watch. Destruction on an incredible scale. Hundreds of thousands of bodies littering the streets. It looked like a war zone, like something off a news report from far, far away, nothing that would ever happen here.
"Yeah," Nathan said, but he made no move for the phone. Instead he moved closer to her, put his arms around her and held her to his chest.
She let her legs slip to the floor and put her own arms around him, pressing her face against the crook of his shoulder. Her heart hurt, sore and squeezed. It had felt like this on September 11th, the same aching pain, the same pit of the stomach nauseous fear.
The pictures flashed again, damage, broken buildings, broken bodies, and she closed her eyes, felt the tears well up. Nathan was solid in her arms, breathing harsh but even, a comforting weight when the world was falling apart.
"At least it's over now," he said, and she wished he sounded more certain.
1. apocalyptic log
Where were you on kaiju day?
At work. Walking home. In Oakland--I don't remember how I got out. At home, asleep; my husband woke me up. On my way to get my kids.
Lars paused in his writing and stretched, working the kinks out of his back, massaging his hand. He could have typed this out, probably should have, really. His handwriting wasn't the most legible after he'd been writing for hours. But there was something so impersonal about words on a screen, something impermanent. This needed to be written out, a declaration to whoever found it of what had happened.
He bent over his desk again.
What did you do when you first found out?
Called my husband. Called my children. Called my parents. Tried to get home. Ran and hid. Took all my family and our pets into the basement in case the kaiju came our way. Loaded up the car and drove inland...
4. the end of the world
Alicia wasn't even supposed to be there.
They lived outside of Los Angeles at the time, far enough inland that the kaiju hadn't gotten that far, close enough that she could go into the city for a few hours with her girlfriends when the mood took her. That day she said she was going to get her hair done and relax a bit, and he'd forgotten to ask where. It didn't seem like a big deal. He could always call her.
Then the kaiju came.
He and Benjy evacuated, the way they'd practiced. Pack up the baby things, pick up the prepacked suitcases and drive east to the evac site, and it wasn't until they got to Palm Springs and Alicia was nowhere to be found that he began to worry.
Alicia Kiley, he said, to anyone who would listen. Alicia Kiley from Redlands, have you seen her? Do you know where she is? Alicia Kiley. Alicia Kiley. He'd have put up posters if he'd been able, her pretty brown face smiling out at the desert. Alicia Kiley. She has a husband, an eight-month-old son. She went to the salon and never came home. She should be here. Alica Kiley. Alicia Kiley.
By the time they pulled her body out of the crumpled, twisted city, they could only identify her from the license in her purse. Alicia Kiley.
Daniel closed himself into the hotel room, pulled all the curtains shut, and cradled his son against his chest, staring up at the blank ceiling.
Alicia wasn't even supposed to be there.
2. after the end
Joy had no place in this new world.
Where was she supposed to go? What was she supposed to do? She was a dancer. She didn't have any useful skills for this. The end of the world--
She went home, of course, catching trains and hitching rides, whatever she could do to cross the country. Maya and her parents were thrilled to see her, safe in Pennsylvania far from the Pacific. But she felt even more useless there. Her father grew food in his garden now, vegetables and fruits and a small patch of medicinal marijuana. Maya helped her father, and knitted things, warm socks and sweaters that they sent to the front for the refugees. Her mother spent endless hours at the university and on phone calls, doing something mysterious but evidently necessary. And then there was Joy, who... danced.
She brought in money for the house, sure. It turned out war footing created a lot of horny GI Joes with extra cash, and that was always useful. But she felt that life in some fundamental way had changed completely, the world made anew. And there wasn't any space for her, and what she did.
Joy kept dancing. She could no more stop dancing than she could stop breathing.
It felt a little more pointless every day.
10. deserted
The redhead dropped her tray across from Gina's with a clatter, startling her into a jump. "Sorry," she said, without much apparent remorse, and dropped onto the seat with as much ceremony as she'd dropped her tray. "You looked lonely."
Gina was, a bit, but that didn't mean this wasn't rude. "That's okay," she said, as politely as she could manage. "I'm fine."
The redhead shrugged. "I'm sitting here anyway," she said. "Might as well stay. What's your name?"
"Gina," she said, and looked at the redhead properly. Not very pretty, at least not conventionally, but she had lovely eyes, deep blue and expressive. "Gina Caravecchio."
"Oh," the redhead said, her eyebrows lifting. "You're the pilot they're holding auditions for, right? This afternoon."
Gina did not like talking about that; it brought back the memory of Olivia's stricken face, and the clawing grip of anxiety. "Yes," she said, shortly. "Who are you?"
"Ivy Hirschfeld-Kendall," the redhead said, with more pride than the name probably deserved. "I'm a candidate. I swear I didn't know who you were, though. I just thought you were alone. And really pretty."
This time she'd startled Gina into a blush. "Really? I mean, um. Thank you. I suppose."
The redhead-- Ivy-- laughed. "It was a compliment, I promise. So why are you sitting all by yourself?"
Gina lost her appetite again. "My... friend," she said, carefully. "She was supposed to be my co-pilot, but she..."
"Didn't make it?" Ivy asked. Gina might have bitten her head off if she hadn't sounded sympathetic. "I thought I was going to wash out five or six times. No shame in it."
"Yeah, well." Olivia hadn't washed out, she just hadn't made it, but no point discussing that now. "I don't have a co-pilot, so everyone thinks I'm... I don't know. Poison or whatever."
Ivy snorted. "Then they're dumb," she said, pointing her fork at Gina. "I try not to pay attention to what dumb people say."
"You know," Gina said, "I think I like you."
Ivy grinned, and her face lit up, making her suddenly and surprisingly beautiful. "I think I like you too."
6. earth that was
Charlotte liked children, and they liked her, flocking to her wherever she went in her Jaeger uniform or out of it. They liked to ask her for stories; what it was like being in a Jaeger, how it felt to be in the Drift, what it was like to kill a kaiju. She didn't like telling the last ones. She tried to make them quick.
And then one day a small girl, no older than five, tugged at her sleeve and asked, "What was it like before the kaiju?"
Before the kaiju. She could hardly remember. "Well," she said. "I remember my family lived next to the ocean. We had a private beach, with steps down from the house. You could lie on the sand in the sun and watch the waves."
The little girl's fawn-colored eyes were enormous in a sweet, copper-skinned face. "You mean you went to the ocean?"
"Yes," Charlotte said, and managed a smile. She missed when the ocean was safe. "People used to take vacations there. We would even swim in it, sometimes."
"Wow," the girl breathed. "That's amazing. I wish we could swim in the ocean again."
Charlotte swallowed back a sudden lump in her throat. "Someday," she assured the girl. "We'll get rid of all the kaiju and then you can go swimming in the ocean."
The girl beamed up at her, then suddenly threw both arms around Charlotte's leg and hugged her, hard. "Thank you," she whispered.
Charlotte only wished she deserved the thanks.
3. Before
Once, before, she had been a Jaeger pilot.
She knew hardly anyone believed it. Her siblings, of course, and her former co-pilot, though she and Emily were far apart now, but they had been there, and Miranda was starting to think that for anyone to believe in something they had to be there, witness it with their own eyes.
Who could really blame them, though? She couldn't remember the last time that anyone told the full, unvarnished truth in her presence—and she was in a position to know. Former Jaeger pilot, current Shatterdome marshal, she lied all the time now.
She was used to it, though. Better her than anyone else.
She paced through her Shatterdome, hands clasped behind her back, examining her people. Mechanics hard at work on the Jaegers, fixing and patching up, fine-tuning and cleaning after this last kaiju. Medical-- one pilot getting his latest broken bone patched up, his sister sitting beside him, talking and laughing and ignoring the medic.
Jack, leaning over his best friend's computer, for once not trying to lure him into copiloting. That was a problem, but one she could consider another day. Her newest pilots, Felipe Claro and Zachary Ryan, were nowhere to be seen. Settling in, she suspected, perhaps breaking in the bed.
That had been interesting. They'd told her, chins lifted in identical defiance, that they were married and had a wife as well; Miranda had merely nodded and ordered a bigger bed. Less space in their quarters, but that was for them to deal with.
All pilots accounted for. Or...
Ivy and Gina passed through the hallway, saw her, and immediately looked suspiciously innocent.
Miranda paused, wondering if she should find out what all that was about Probably they were either going to have sex or Ivy had some horrible idea in mind, and she trusted Gina to nip it in the bud if that happened to be the case. But... well, just in case.
"I see nothing that I would have to kill you for," she announced. "Please be sure it remains that way."
"Yes sir," Gina said, and Ivy followed with a mumbled repeat. Not the truth, probably, but they'd be sure to keep it out of her way.
Miranda gave them a sharp-toothed smiled, and proceeded. All was well in her little world.
She'd do anything she had to, to make sure it stayed that way.
15. the four horsemen
Summer Queen hit the ocean first, but then Felipe Claro had always been the first out of bed, and since he shared it with his copilot they tended to beat everyone else. Hamtaro and Mariposa followed, nearly at the same time, Lady Darwin last as always--her techs had learned to have coffee always on the brew, for Ivy.
Marshal Hennessy was unique among the marshals for her refusal to send out a Jaeger alone. She'd learned from Gipsy Danger; even if some of her Jaegers did nothing, even if Summer Queen could handle the kaiju alone, she would not risk losing her people to lack of backup. It endeared her to the pilots, who liked the work, if not to the mechanics, who did not.
"Hang back, guys," Jack said, over the comms. "Lady Darwin's having trouble keeping up."
"Fuck you, Hennessy," Ivy snapped back.
"Oooh," he said, tauntingly, ignoring his copilot's muttered 'pushing your luck' in the background. "Still grouchy? Maybe you should've had extra coffee this morning."
"No, sweetheart," Gina said aloud, presumably for Jack's benefit. "You may not kill him."
"Aw, but Gina!' Ivy whined.
"I'll do it," Danny volunteered. "When we get back to base. Make it look like an accident."
"Cut the chatter," Marshal Hennessy said, imperturbable. "Summer Queen, what's your status?"
"Kaiju in sight," Felipe reported, his voice smooth and professional. "We could use a little backup if you're all done flirting."
Brief silence reigned, then Danny said, "Who the hell have you been flirting with, Claro?"
"That's rich, coming from you," Ivy put in. "When half the time we can't tell if you and Lars are fighting or fu--"
"Chatter," Marshal Hennessy said again, this time sharp. "Summer Queen, locate the kaiju and destroy. You other children hold position, but feel free to interfere if they call for help. And you will call for help, won't you, Summer Queen?"
"If we need it," Zack said, polite as ever.
"Yeah, we're not Hamtaro," Felipe chimed in.
"It's Spitfire, dammit!" Danny snarled. "I'm going to kill you when we get back to base!"
"I'm going to fire you all," Marshal Hennessy said.
7. reconstruction
After she got the news, after they told her she couldn't be a pilot because of the anxiety, her world fell apart.
It wasn't that she didn't understand. She understood all too well. The anxiety did not do well in stressful situations, and that was the basis of a Jaeger pilot's life. Even her psychiatrist had advised her against going out for the program. But to do so well, and then to hit this wall-- it reinforced everything her mother had ever said, everything she'd thought about herself. Useless, worthless, fat stupid bitch.
It picked her up in its grip, shook her like a dog, and left her panting and weeping, convinced of her own foolishness in trying at all. She haunted the Shatterdome like a ghost-- no one had the heart to kick her out. Not even Jake could make her feel better, and it hurt when he tried.
So Olivia took to hanging around the mechanics, who were quiet and friendly and didn't engage her. Sometimes they would give her something to do, a piece of chrome to shine or a joint to oil. It was nice, mindless work, something even a washout Jaeger pilot could do, something that made the voices shut up and gave her blessed silence in her head.
And then one day the chief mechanic looked up, looked around, whistled at her, and said, "You. Kid. Come hold this joint while I fix it."
She'd watched, fascinated, while he tightened the joint, patched a leaking pipe, and spot-welded a minute hole in the Jaeger's side, halfway up on the catwalks. Olivia followed him all afternoon as he danced around Mariposa, fixing tiny problems, checking on other fixes. Finally he swung around, looked her in the eye, and said, "Kid, you want to learn, go get an apron and some gloves."
She did want to learn. She got an apron and some gloves.
To her surprise, Olivia was very good at Jaeger maintenance and repair. Perhaps it was her past as a dancer: she was intimately familiar with human bones and muscles, and the Jaegers were essentially squared-off people that way. Perhaps it was the soothing certainty of it: if everything was in the right place, it would work, and if it didn't work, something wasn't in the right place. Perhaps it was the sudden value of it: Jaeger mechanics were just as important as the pilots, if less well-known and celebrated. Whatever it was, she had a knack for it, and more than that she loved it.
Once she'd thought to be Gina's co-pilot. Now she was her head mechanic instead, ensuring Lady Darwin worked well when Gina needed her to. She couldn't love the Jaeger any more if she was her pilot. She couldn't be any happier.
Thank God for maintenance, and a chief mechanic who understood.
8. but a whimper
"No," Danny said, flatly. The show's host eased back, away from her, his smile going plastic in the face of her tone. "No, I'm not telling this story. It's a horrible story."
"Shut up, it's the best story," Michael said, and leaned forward, grinning. "Okay, so, you know how I've got a bone disorder."
The host focused on him, relief flashing across his face. "Yes, of course." He turned to the cameras, gestured to the audience. "That led the pair of you to develop the world's first disability-friendly Jaeger."
"Kinda," Michael said. "Not really. We just provided the impetus for a bunch of really smart scientists to get their act together and build the thing—I want to give a particular shout out to Gabrielle here, she's brilliant, designed the whole gyroscope system."
The audience cheered at that, and he grinned at them, flashed them a wave. "Anyway," he continued, focusing on the host again. "It was really awesome, the first time we tested her out. I got to punch stuff, it was great. But the thing was, nobody had ever seen the kind of setup we've got in there before, and they were kind of weirded out by the gyroscope."
The host held up a hand. "If I can interrupt you for just a second," he said, "we've got some pictures of your system side by side with the interior of a regular Jaegar up on the screen now." He gestured behind himself, and Michael glanced up—yep, there was the familiar, two-harnessed system opposite their rigged-up monstrosity, Danny's normal harness and his multi-ringed sphere to her left. They'd cannibalized someone's carnival ride, put a layer of plastic around it, plus given his suit a lot of extra padding, and the upshot was that he came out of their typical fight with a bunch of bruises and maybe one broken bone.
"That's it," he said, beaming fondly at their setup. "There's me on the left, obviously, and Danny on the right. She always has to be in charge." The audience laughed as he elbowed his sister, who was still sulking in her chair, and got an elbow right back.
"I'm sorry I'm smarter than you," Danny said, and got another laugh. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, but was quickly tucked away.
"That's my sister," Michael said, and went on. "So. Nobody had ever seen a setup like that." He waved a hand at the gyroscope ball. "Obviously Danny and I had, but the technicians... they knew how to strap me in, in theory, but they'd never actually seen the thing. So one of them, this guy named Lars, he takes one look at it and blurts out, 'Is that a hamster ball?'"
Predictably, the audience laughed, and the host laughed right along with them. "So that's where you got your nickname?"
"Pretty much," Michael said, grinning again. He tapped the battle-hardened hamster stitched onto his jacket. "I'm the hamster, Danny's the gerbil, and the whole shebang is Hamtaro. I'd be embarrassed but let's face it, it's awesome."
"Plus," Danny added, sitting suddenly up and forward so that she seemed to appear from behind Michael, "we've got the highest kaiju kill count on the California coast." She glared at the audience, expression daring. "We may have a stupid name, but we're still freaking awesome."
"I'll drink to that," the host said, apparently sincere.
14. doomsday
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
Felix rounded on him. "Jackson..."
He pouted, stepping back seamlessly as Felix stepped forward. "Aw, no fair using the Andy voice on me."
"Well, if it'll get you to shut up," Felix said pointedly, "I'll do whatever I can. Seriously, Jack, you got a co-pilot already."
Jack became solemn abruptly, one of his lightning changes of mood. "Charlotte wants out. You know she does. And you know we're Drift-compatible. I mean, look at us." He gestured to the both of them, and Felix realized that they were standing in exactly the same way. He shifted his stance, and ignored the hurt look on Jack's face.
"I know she wants out," he said. "She talks to me as much as she talks to you. It's that guy, isn't it, the civvie she's in love with? Why shouldn't she go?"
"She can't," Jack said. "You know that. It would leave us down a Jaeger and Marshal Hennessy won't stand for that."
"Then find someone else." Felix turned his back on Jack and kept walking. He went on talking, in the sure knowledge that Jack was still tagging along. "I don't want to be a pilot. I don't want to fight. It's hard enough listening to it on the comms."
Jack caught at his arm, but not to stop him. It felt like just to touch him. "Yeah, I understand that. Charlotte hates it too. And you and she are the only people in the world who are Drift-compatible with me." He caught up, but left his hand where it was, resting under Felix's elbow. "Will you at least try it? Drift with me, see if we can control Mariposa? It won't mean anything, it'll just be a test."
Felix stopped, swung around to face him again. "You're planning something."
"Of course I am," Jack said. His frankness was, oddly, reassuring. "I'm banking on the fact that you'll like the Drift so much you'll want to hang around. But if you don't, then ditch it, it's fine."
Felix pinched the bridge of his nose to disguise a smile. "I swear to God, only you would go for 'just try it, you'll like it.'"
"Just try it," Jack said. He was smiling openly. "You'll like it. Seriously, it's like nothing else, Felix. All I'm asking for is once."
Felix sighed. Jack was always going to win this, and they both knew it. "Fine. Once. No other."
Jack yipped with glee and ran off, presumably to tell his sister.
This was a mistake. He already knew it was a mistake. He'd known it was a mistake before he made it.
So why couldn't he stop smiling?
9. (near) extinction
"Oh my God, sweetheart, no."
Ivy glanced up and back at her co-pilot and lover, and caught a really weird expression on Gina's face, a sort of unholy combination of affection and horror. Or, well, it would've been weird if Ivy didn't see it so often.
"What?" she asked, affecting innocence. "What is it?"
Gina leaned over her shoulder and plucked the top sheet of paper off her stack. "You cannot, and I mean you absolutely cannot, make your own kaiju."
"See," Ivy said, "when you say can't..."
"I mean you are not allowed to," Gina said, without waiting for her to finish her sentence. Huh. Guess she'd used that one a little too often. "Absolutely, not a chance, not in any way allowed to do anything resembling making your own kaiju. I mean I will murder you in your sleep and that's before Marshal Hennessy gets her hands on you."
"I'm not afraid of Marshal Hennessy," Ivy said, which was an outright lie, and Gina had to know it. She hurried on away from the words. "I really, really want to do it. And it could help us win the war! You know that. It'll be awesome, c'mon."
"Absolutely not," Gina said firmly, towing her away from her workbench. "And you will not be doing this again. Promise me."
Ivy bit her lip. "But I want to."
"Promise," Gina said, with absolutely no room for negotiation in her tone.
Ivy sighed, defeated. "Fine," she said. "I promise not to try to make my own kaiju. Do I have to get rid of the research? It was kind of cool."
Gina examined her for a long moment, before she said, "No, but don't you dare use it again. Or let anyone else use it. No kaiju-making. None at all."
"No kaiju-making," Ivy replied. "I promise."
Gina smiled at her, her expression lit with relief, then leaned down a bit and kissed her. "Thank you, love. Let's not destroy the Shatterdome, shall we?"
"Well, not like that anyway," Ivy said practically, and startled Gina into a horrified laugh.
12. repopulation
"But it's interesting," Summer said, her chin jutting up at an angle. "Think of how much knowledge we can gain! Anyway, I was wearing all the necessary protective gear. I don't see why you're making such a big deal out of it."
Zack wanted so badly to bundle her unceremoniously back to their quarters, tuck her safe into bed and then read her a strong lecture on the subject of basic caution, but she wouldn't take kindly to that. Still, seeing his pregnant wife elbow-deep in a kaiju corpse did not inspire confidence in a man. "Because it is a big deal! You could've been badly hurt!"
"I was working with Dr. Geizler," she insisted. "He knows what he's doing. Everything was perfectly fine."
Zack shook his head. "Why couldn't you study with Dr. Gottleib? He just does numbers, right?"
A wistful look crossed her face, and abruptly he felt bad. "I would love to," she said. "We write a bit, back and forth. But I can't really understand what he does, and vice versa. I'm better with physical things."
He knew that, and he was kicking himself now. "I know, I'm sorry. I'm sure you'd be very good at this, but..." He cupped her cheek. "Summer, you're pregnant. And we worry."
She narrowed her eyes. "Are you suggesting that I don't know what's good for me? Because I do. I told you, I was wearing all the necessary protective gear and all precautions were in place. The chances of all of them failing at once are astronomically low."
"No, I..." Zack stopped, ran a hand through his hair. Because he had been telling her that she didn't know what was good for her, and that was completely unacceptable. "Yes. I was. I'm sorry."
Summer cocked her head, looking more puzzled than mad. "Is this because it's our first? Because I do know what I'm doing." She touched the soft swell of her belly. "I know I don't practice much anymore but I am a medical doctor."
He touched her face again, drew a thumb along the line of her jaw. "I know. I know you know what you're doing. It's just that I've seen what kaiju blue does to people." And he'd had to stand there, watching-- he couldn't swoop in and drag her out, didn't dare go in without protective gear, couldn't possibly save her if there was a catastrophic failure of the protective gear. Add that to her pregnancy, and... "I was afraid. I overreacted. I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Summer said, still sounding more confused than angry. "You don't need to be afraid."
He smiled at her, a little crookedly. "I'm going to be afraid right up until the baby's born, my love," he said. "And then I'm going to be a whole new kind of scared shitless."
"Felipe's not scared," she said, more of a question than anything else.
"Oh, he is," Zack said. "He just doesn't show it as much." He leaned forward and kissed her forehead, gently. "Just... promise me to be careful."
"I've been careful," she said. "I'll go on being careful. I promise."
"Thank you," he said, and rested his forehead against hers.
13. catastrophic
"We cannot give up on the Jaeger program," Jake insisted, hoping he didn't sound as desperate as he felt. "It's kept us safe so far. We can't just abandon it and pray that the walls will keep the kaiju out."
"But they will." His least favorite representative gave him a patronizing smile. "Of course they will. It's been scientifically proven."
Yeah, he thought spitefully, the same way vaccines had been scientifically proven to cause autism, but he valued his job and didn't say that. Instead, he said, "With respect, sir, that's one study. I don't think we can trust the safety of so many people to one study."
"It isn't just that," said someone. "The Jaegars are expensive, in terms of money, man-hours, and people lost every time one falls. We simply can't afford to keep doing this much longer."
Jake clenched his fist at his side. He knew that. It was Olivia's man-hours, his friends who could be lost. "The coastal walls are just as expensive. What if they fail? We'll be left without a backup plan. At least keep the Jaegers in support."
"The walls won't fail," insisted the first representative. "They're too big to fail."
"Isn't your wife a Jaeger pilot?" inquired one of the representatives, in a tone that could have been curious but was actually nothing of the sort. His second-least favorite representative, gunning for least favorite. Of course.
"No," he answered, instead, curtly. "She's a mechanic."
"But your friends are," the man continued. "Frankly, Mr. Foster, I think you have more than a little bit of personal interest in keeping the Jaeger program going."
The representative obviously expected him to protest, so Jake didn't. Instead he said, "Of course I have a personal interest in it. My wife and my friends, as you've said, but also the personal interest of someone who doesn't want to get eaten by a kaiju."
"That's as may be, Mr. Foster," said the chairman, in a tone that clearly stated he expected all protest to end. "Regardless, the Jaeger program will be ended. You may tell Marshal Hennessy to close down her Shatterdome and send her remaining Jaegers to Hong Kong with Marshal Pentecost."
And wouldn't Miranda react well to that. But there was nothing left to say. He bit his tongue until he tasted blood, until he was sure he wouldn't say anything untoward, and said only, "Yes, sir."
He'd failed.
11. civilization
It was over.
Aaron was in complete shock. It was over. Marshal Pentecost was dead, Striker Eureka, Cherno Alpha and Crimson Typhoon all gone with their crews, even Gipsy Danger destroyed, and yet it was over, finally over, the breach had been sealed and the kaiju were never coming back.
Now what?
Everyone seemed to be asking that. Friends, family-- half his family was somehow involved with the Jaeger program, and he was never more grateful than the day he learned it was over and they had all survived. Marshal Hennessy had dragged her feet on sending her Jaegers to Hong Kong, and it must have saved them, though he wasn't sure how they felt about that. Ivy and Gina, Summer and her boys, Danny and Michael, Olivia, his parents, all of them still alive, and none of them knew what to do now.
Aaron privately thought that the Jaegers would be maintained, if not replenished, on the off chance that the kaiju ever did return. He didn't think so, though. He didn't think the kaiju had expected quite so stiff a resistance, and he did think they'd find an easier world to attack.
Which left them here.
Large sections of Earth uninhabitable from kaiju blue or nuclear fallout. Millions of people dead from kaiju attacks. Billions of dollars of property damage. And somehow, unaccountably, they'd survived. With a semblance of civilization, even.
There were more children hanging around now. Before their parents must have kept them away, but the Shatterdome was home now to robots and monsters, both draws to children. His own wife was pregnant. His sister had a baby. Olivia and Jake had at least two. And older children, as old as twelve, all born after Trespasser made landfall. Children.
He didn't really know what was going to happen to his family, to the people who'd been building the coastal walls and manning the Jaeger programs. But he did know there was a future, suddenly, one no one had really expected to have.
He didn't need to know what was going to happen.
All he needed to know was that it would.