Chapter Text
Harmony (ˈhär-mə-nē, English) Internal Calm, Tranquillity.
Alternate Definition: an interweaving of different accounts into a single narrative.
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“When I was a kid, whenever I'd feel small or lonely, I'd look up at the stars. Wondered if there was life up there. Turns out I was looking in the wrong direction.”
—Raleigh Becket, Pacific Rim.
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Here is the story of how Fareeha Amari becomes a Jaeger pilot.
Here is a brief history of the Jaeger Program.
Here is how the saving of the world comes about.
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Her name is Fareeha Amari.
She is of a long line of decorated and renowned soldiers. The name Amari bears great weight. She knows this from a young age.
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Her name is Fareeha Amari.
She will make her family proud.
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I
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Fareeha grows up with two mothers. Ana and Zareen. She is Ana’s child by blood, and Zareen’s by sheer force of love.
She does not know this until many years later, but she was only seven months old when Zareen – who had been Ana’s dearest friend since they were both nine years of age – turned around and said, “I love you, you know. I love you, Ana.” And she had reached out, then, with her characteristic gentleness, and cupped Ana’s jaw with one hand, thumb brushing gently over the lines of Ana’s Udjat.
And Ana, who had been waiting and wondering – and calling herself a fool for thinking that Zareen would ever love her in that way – had sniffed tearfully and called her a fool, a romantic fool, an annoying fool – and then they had kissed, slow and soft and half-incredulous, and loving.
Fareeha does not remember this, but she had watched them with shining eyes, and smiled, and laughed in the way that babies do: bright and carefree and hopeful, so very hopeful.
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They met in gym class on the first day of a new school year. Zareen was running up the field – more dust and dirt than anything else - tall and confident, the ball at her feet like she was born for this, to play, to win, to conquer.
Then there was another girl. Like an bird of prey swooping down from above, she streaked in, eyes gleaming and teeth bared, and stole the ball. And she danced around Zareen, strands of errant hair sticking to her sweaty forehead, and she laughed.
Zareen stared. Then she stole the ball back, turned away decisively, and kicked the ball thunderously. And into the goal it went.
The girl’s name was Ana. “Too busy showing off,” Zareen told her later, voice gruff.
Ana was drinking water. She tipped her head back, closed her eyes, and grinned around the lip of the water bottle. The sun touched her features to illuminate them, to show Zareen that she was there, that she was.
“I’m Ana,” she said, lowering the bottle and wiping her lips. “Ana Amari.”
“Zareen Khan.”
Dust on their legs and dust on their arms, sweat running down their limbs and making streaks through the grime. Girls shoving and jeering at each other in the post-game haze of weariness and lazy cheer. Ana Amari, due for a growth-spurt, eyelashes long and eyes sharp. Zareen Khan, tall and lanky, shoulders showing the promise of how broad they will become.
They shake hands.
It is the beginning of something wonderful.
Something that will help to change the world.
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A new program is introduced to select secondary schools that year. It prepares prospective students for entering the defence forces.
This program allows them to finish school a year early. They go to basic training and pass with flying colours. Then straight into special forces training, months and months of the hardest, most gruelling training there is. They are lumps of stone when they begin, and the instructors help to chip and file them into something resembling special forces soldiers.
They march carrying packs weighed down with bricks. Instead of guns, they hold bars of heavy steel. The instructors shout and they jog and run, and their boots sink deep into sand and mud and they thunder through water with purpose. They climb. They crawl. They do not rest. Not yet.
You have not earned this, barks one instructor. And so they march on, because they have not earned the precious gift of a break.
And this is how they are made: the first meal is offal. It is not a meal. There is no love in its making, only a challenge. Eat this. Only a reality. Sometimes, in the field, this is all you will have.
The flies love it. Ana meets Zareen’s eyes, winks, and eats the goat guts.
And this is how they are made: sleep is not theirs to have. They sink down into their bunks and an instructor storms into the dormitory and screams for them to get ready. It is 4am. They have not slept in thirty hours. They are exhaustion in human form.
And this is how they are made: parachuting into the sea and swimming back to shore in the dead of the night, the moon and stars shrouded by cloud. It is freezing. Zareen jokes that Ana needed a bath anyway.
And this is how they are made: with sprains and broken noses from sparring, and every muscle aching from long marches and obstacle courses, and minds numb from taking in lectures of tactics and warfare and history. Hearts thundering when the dogs snarl and snap. Necks protesting as the ATV skids too sharply. Stomachs lurching as they leap from planes and helicopters. Feet leaving solid ground as they abseil down cliffs and buildings. The rhythm of gunfire, the click-click-click of loading full magazines.
And this is how they are made: the badges are pinned to their berets. They have done it. They are the elite. The young elite.
They think they are ready for war, with their hard eyes and confident hearts and clever minds.
But the unknowable war is coming, coming, coming, and it will shake them and tear them and gnaw at them and damage them and they will not be the same. No one is ever the same. It is a tragedy.
Be ready for tragedy, warns the oldest instructor there.
No one is ready for tragedy. That is what makes it so tragic.
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There is a man. He is no soldier. He is a businessman. I will not tell you the story of how he and Ana met.
I will tell you this: he was Canadian, and he loved with all his heart. He loved Ana. She loved him. It was brief. Beautiful things like love can be brief: sometimes, it comes with the wind, and goes with the wind. It is there, and then it is not.
He is dead, now. He never met his daughter. He never knew he would have one.
He never knew her name.
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“Fareeha,” Zareen whispers against the skin of Ana’s belly, and this is how she is named: with a promise.
I will love her as my daughter.
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Fareeha grows up on military bases. The scent of gunpowder and grease become as familiar and beloved to her as Ana’s favourite perfume and the aroma of Zareen’s shampoo. Soldiers in fatigues and formal uniforms are a common, everyday sight – even to the point that civilians, dressed in dazzlingly different forms of clothing, seem odd. Out of place. Unusual.
She watches soldiers drill and march and spar. She eats with them in the mess. Soldiers teach her about firearms: she leans the names Tokarev and Helwan and Beretta and Sig and Maadi; she learns how to dissemble and clean pistols without either of her mothers knowing about it. She learns about warfare and vehicles and campaigns, military signals and codes, of generals who won the day and lost the war, and soldiers who accomplished the incredible, the impossible, and became legends.
Ana and Zareen are legends. Ana’s callsign is Saqr, which translates to hawk. Zareen’s is Hathor, for the Egyptian goddess of love. Saqr and Hathor are living legends, revered and praised, beloved and elevated. Soldiers aspire to be like them – as sharp-eyed and fast as Ana; as fierce and gentle as Zareen.
And so Fareeha Amari grows up on military bases, and grows up to become a soldier, even before she joins the army.
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She knows that she will be a soldier from an early age.
“You can be anything you want to be,” Zareen murmurs one night, as Ana tucks Fareeha into bed. “A doctor. An engineer. A builder. A writer.”
But Fareeha knows that she will become a soldier.
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It is the sort of thing that is in your blood and bones: some people are from a long line of carpenters, or artists, or writers. It is in their blood, their bones, their very essence. A kind of familial trait, passed down the generations.
It is the sort of thing that is in your blood and bones: Fareeha Amari, young and bright-eyed, looks at the stars, and smiles and promises, “I will be a soldier.”
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Ana and Zareen know it too, but they deny it as much as they can.
They dream of a better life for Fareeha. A life where she does not dream of bullets and blood and splintered bone, blinding white beneath a burning sun. A life where she does not lay her life on the line for her country and its people, for an ideal.
They are soldiers. They have seen war. They know the weight of grim things – things they have seen, things they have done.
They are soldiers, and so of course they hope and dream of more for Fareeha.
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Fareeha thinks that she knows the realities of war. She lives among those who call war an old friend and a bitter foe in the same breath.
Fareeha is wrong.
You do not know war until you have lived it and breathed it and endured its mighty hammer-blows and precise cuts. You do not know war until it has chipped away at you and revealed your mettle, your core, your very being.
You do not know war until it has touched your soul and said, so what are you made of, then?
Fareeha is wrong. She is innocent and young.
We will forgive her, for this.
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Ana teaches her to fight.
Zareen teaches her to sing.
(Zareen is not good at teaching others to fight. She is too gentle by far, scoffs Ana lovingly.)
(Ana cannot sing, Zareen notes. Her voice is too rough from shouting orders and drinking and smoking.)
Fareeha runs and kicks and punches and jumps and sings soldier songs and ballads and her mothers watch on and they know.
They know.
They smile sadly and they know that try as they might, they cannot stop her, and here is a child destined to march into war, with a proud heart and shoulders strong from righteous conviction.
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“We are practically encouraging her,” mutters Ana one night, punching her pillow savagely. “To join the army when she is older.”
Zareen closes her book, places it on the bedside table, and rolls onto her side to stare at Ana. “There is a difference between teaching a child self-defence, so that she may defend herself, and training her for war.”
“We are doing both,” argues Ana. “She – you see how she listens to the others. She knows more about campaigns than most new soldiers we get here. And she loves it.” She hits her pillow again. “We could send her away. My uncle would take care of her. She could grow up with civilians, and play games and go to a normal school – she wouldn’t be here.”
“You know that won’t happen,” Zareen says softly. “Here place is here. With us. And on this base, she is safe.”
Ana flops onto her back and glowers at the ceiling. “You are right, of course.”
“Aren’t I usually?” teases Zareen. She reaches out and runs a hand through Ana’s hair, her calloused fingers a strong contrast to the silken strands. “We will protect her, habibti. You know we will.”
“I know.” Ana takes a deep breath and exhales loudly. “I know.”
And that is that.
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And they protect her: from the realities of war, from seeing some of the soldiers get riotously drunk, from the heavy cost of long campaigns.
And they protect her from the knowledge of the dark things that they have seen and done.
And they love her.
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Her name is Fareeha Amari.
She is ten.
Her mothers love her.
She thinks that she knows a little of the world.
(And what is coming will shake and shatter the world and change all their lives forever, the three of them.)
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Fareeha is ten when the Breach opens in Challenger Deep in the Mariana Sea Trench. She is ten when the first Kaiju makes landfall at San Francisco and lays waste to the city. The great bridge groans and falls into the bay. Buildings topple and crash to earth and the city itself breaks.
And people die.
So many people die.
The death toll on screen cannot be truly comprehended. The numbers are so terribly vast. This is a disaster of the worst kind. This is unimaginable.
And here is a beast from nightmares, the bringer of death, the herald of a grim age. Monster. Demon. Kaiju.
Six days later, the beast that they call Trespasser is killed by three tactical nuclear missiles. Tens of thousands of people are dead.
The world, which has been holding its breath, thinks that this is an isolated event. A freak occurrence. Scientists scramble to explain it. A mutated lifeform – no, something unknown from the depths of the ocean – no, something from another world.
How do you make sense of something so unknown? How?
And then the Breach is discovered.
China drops a bomb into Challenger Deep and the bomb doesn’t do a thing. Then the Russians drop two bombs.
Nothing happens. The Breach remains. It has not been effected.
Then no more bombs. They wait.
Fareeha is ten and does not understand this entirely. She is ten. How could she? All she knows is that something terrible has happened, and it is unnatural, yet it is far away and they are safe, aren’t they, in Egypt? Aren’t we safe, ummi?
Yes, habibti, we are safe.
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That is the cruellest kind of joke.
No one is safe.
Not really.
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This is a tragedy.
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Zareen kisses Ana’s cheek and murmurs, “So what now?”
“We wait.” And Ana, who is not used to waiting when she does not have a goal to achieve, or a mission to finish, is unsettled. The Kaiju are not something that she can defeat. This disturbs her. “That is all that we can do.”
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Fareeha is allowed to go to the range, sometimes. When she does, it is to watch the special forces platoon train. This is the platoon that her mothers belong to, and they are unlike the other soldiers – instead of being stiff and rigid, they are filled with a lazy, predatory grace. They stroll through the base, berets sitting perfectly on their heads, and their eyes are like the night sky: dark and deep and almost unknowable, such is their depth, ever-watching and aware.
You can tell a soldier of the special forces by their eyes, some say.
Zareen is not here, today. She is with a handful of others, discussing something boring, or so Fatima says, smirking. (Fatima is twenty and very young but very skilled: her past is dark, Ana says, and not something to ask after or discuss, and so Fareeha does not. And Fatima, five feet and four inches of wiry muscle, with three scars through her right eyebrow, never discusses her past. But she is a good soldier. This is what matters. This is perhaps all that matters.)
Ana, lying on the ground, cigarette dangling from her lips, says, “It’s a pity the Kaiju aren’t a bit smaller. Reckon I could drop one, otherwise.”
A pause. She squeezes the trigger. Crack.
Khalid, the youngest of the company, raises his binoculars and grins. “Bullseye, captain.”
“What the fuck did you expect, Khalid?” asks Ana, and all the soldiers laugh. “Fareeha, you didn’t hear that, darling.”
Fareeha rolls her eyes and smiles.
Fatima lights a cigarette of her own and then asks, “What if there’s another Kaiju? What then?”
“Hope it crawls out of the Mariana Sea Trench,” Ana murmurs, taking aim at a different target – this one far further away. “We don’t need that sort of thing here.”
Crack.
“Bullseye, captain!”
“The word bullseye must be boring to you, now,” teases Sergeant Bahir. “You hear it all the time, hmm?”
And they laugh, and they shoot, and they smoke.
And this is home.
This is family.
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Fareeha is eleven when the next three Kaiju crawl out of the Breach and wreak ruin upon the world.
Hundun attacks Manila. Thirteen thousand die. Hundun is killed on the second day it spends destroying the city. A particularly brilliant squadron of fighter pilots blow its head clean apart. Toxic blue Kaiju blood spills into the water and more die from ingesting the poisoned water. Then, several months later, Kaiceph surges out of the sea and attacks Cabo San Lucas. Eleven thousand die.
Then there is the disaster of Sydney.
Australia has been preparing, but how do you prepare against a creature as terribly vast as a Kaiju?
Scissure makes its way down the east coast of Australia, heading straight towards Sydney. The Australian Defence Forces deploy helicopters and fighter jets and navy ships in an attempt to lure the Kaiju away from Australia’s largest city. And the Australian soldiers, renowned for their grit and determination and their beloved ideal of mateship, give Scissure hell.
Yet the Kaiju are still strange and unfamiliar. They are an unknown quantity. And so Sydney is evacuated. A city of over two million people, and the military says you must go, you must leave, or you may die.
No one has ever fought against anything like the Kaiju before. They were lucky at Manila, you see, to blow Hundun’s head into a hundred thousand fragments of alien flesh and bone. Scissure has a skull like a cliff: brutal and sheer and as hard as rock. The same tactic does not work.
The HMAS Wollongong, an Armidale-class patrol boat, is sunk at sea by Scissure. The HMAS Ballarat, an Anzac-class frigate, is destroyed when attempting to lure the Kaiju further out to sea. Two F/A-18 Super Hornets are destroyed within sixty seconds of engaging the Kaiju.
And the Kaiju forges ahead, indomitable, indestructible.
Scissure makes it to land.
In a room deep beneath the ground, a dozen men and women – most in military uniform, some in plain suits – make the heaviest of choices.
Scissure is killed by a nuclear warhead.
And half of Sydney is lost.
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And the world mourns.
Do you understand this?
The world mourns.
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It is a pyrrhic victory.
They all are.
San Francisco, Manila, Cabo San Lucas, Sydney – humanity won, but at what cost?
Pyrrhic. Pyrrhic. Pyrrhic.
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This is how Fareeha Amari learns the meaning of the word pyrrhic.
pyrrhic
‘pɪrɪk’
adjective
(of a victory) won at too great a cost to have been worthwhile for the victor.
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Her name is Fareeha Amari.
She is eleven.
Her mothers love her.
She thinks that the world is a terribly uncertain place.
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In San Francisco, Trespasser’s alien skull is stripped of all tissue and placed in a glass box in a museum.
It becomes an exhibit.
In Manila, Hundun’s skeleton becomes a feature of the landscape. Apartments and shops spring up between ribs; children play in the shadow of a monstrous spine and they learn to laugh again.
In Cabo San Lucas, not a trace of Kaiceph is left – every last bone and fragment of the beast is gone, kept away in a secretive laboratory, studied intensely by scientists. But the memory is there, huge and oppressive, looming over the city and ever-present.
In Sydney, battered and yet unbroken Sydney, nothing remains of Scissure. There is a crater and a wide swathe of devastation. Half the city has been lost.
The Australians build statues. Of those who flew the Super Hornets to their death. Of those who manned their stations aboard the ships as the Kaiju towered above them.
Of those on land, on foot, with rifles aimed and ready, and determination on their faces. And there are two ceremonial statues, the symbolic soldiers, a man and a woman both wearing slouch hats with badges shaped like rising suns pinned to the brims.
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The world holds its breath.
The world waits.
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Doctor Jasper Schoenfield watches his son play with robot toys and thinks, here is an answer.
To fight monsters, you create monsters.
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To fight the Kaiju, they will forge beasts of metal.
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His colleagues have always called him a dreamer and a fool.
And he is.
But here is the man who holds a toy robot in one hand, and a small figurine of Godzilla in the other – they are almost the same size, these toys, and the robot could grapple Godzilla into submission could it not? Break its neck and crack open its skull. Dislocate bones from joints. Tear muscles and ligaments.
Here is the man who thinks of the German word for hunter, jaeger, and he murmurs, “It could work.”
And he thinks, and he plans, and he dreams of these Jaegers. Sentinels of metal that could stand against the Kaiju, and defeat them.
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Fareeha Amari, meanwhile, decides she is too old for toys, and boxes up all of her robots and miniature soldiers, and gives them to the younger children on base.
She is eleven, and thinks that she is too old for toys, and that will tell you something about Fareeha Amari, I think.
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On the 15th of September, 2014, the Pan Pacific Defence Corps are founded in Seoul, South Korea, at an emergency meeting called between the nations of the Pacific Rim. It is here that Doctor Jasper Schoenfield presents his idea of the Jaegers: half of the assembled individuals stare at him incredulously, a handful laugh, and the rest murmur and mutter and shake their heads.
But here is the thing: this plan, this idea, this dream and hope of guardians of steel who will tower above mortals, has a chance of working.
It is perhaps possible.
Perhaps.
Meanwhile, the old and new tensions between Pacific nations are not forgotten, but they are pushed aside for now: there is a greater threat, one that can only be defeated by unity.
And so a union is born.
The symbol of the Pan Pacific Defence Corps is an eagle, wings outstretched and reaching up, and between its wingtips is a five-pointed star.
And the first order of business for the Pan Pacific Defence Corps, after taking care of temporary defences and jurisdictions, is that of a weapon.
“Doctor Schoenfield,” says Gabrielle Adawe, who has been elected Secretary-General of the Pan Pacific Defence Corps, by virtue of her glowing military career (her middle name might as well be Hero: she is, they say, the perfect soldier, the sort that most soldiers aspire to resemble. She knows of sacrifice, more than any soldier should). “You will be given a budget, a facility, and a team that you may pick yourself. And you will be given a certain timeframe. We will expect results. Do you understand?”
He clears his throat and says, his voice cracking a little, “I understand.” Public speaking has never been his forte.
The Assembly of the newly-forged Pan Pacific Defence Corps stare at him. Some shake their heads.
Schoenfield thinks of San Francisco and Manila and Cabo San Lucas and Sydney and he thinks of his son, a happy little boy who doesn’t comprehend the Kaiju crisis because he is too young, too unknowing.
Schoenfield stares back.
I will do this, he tells himself. His palms are sweating. His heart is palpitating. I must.
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A man approaches Jasper Schoenfield while the rest of the assembly is leaving the hall. He is tall and imperious, and wears a military uniform.
He introduces himself. “My name is Ankur Vaswani,” he says, holding out a hand. “Squadron Leader in the Indian Air Force. Do you really think that you can do this?”
Doctor Schoenfield shakes his hand and replies with, “Well, it’s – it’s possible, I think, and it makes sense. If it can make sense.” I want to build a giant robot to hit giant monsters, what do you all think? Ridiculous, isn’t it? Hahaha. He almost laughs hysterically.
Almost.
Squadron Leader Ankur Vaswani says, “My daughter is fifteen. Her name is Satya. She is brilliant. Already studying at university.” A beat. “I was messaging her while you were presenting, Doctor Schoenfield. And she seems to believe in this.”
Schoenfield blinks. This is certainly not what he has been expecting to hear. “Oh?”
“She is studying engineering, Doctor Schoenfield.” Ankur Vaswani studies him with shrewd brown eyes. “She will graduate university when she is eighteen. And she says that she will join the Jaeger Program.”
(Her name is Satya Vaswani. Schoenfield does not yet know this, but she will be one of the greatest engineers to work in the Jaeger Program.)
(Schoenfield does not yet know this, but they will call her the Miracle Maker, and she will be instrumental in ending the Kaiju War. She will look at a broken Jaeger and say, I can fix this. She will stare at a photo of one of the greatest Rangers to ever serve, a Ranger who endured more than most, and will say, bring her home. She will come. She will fight again.)
“Gosh,” Schoenfield manages to stammer, because what do you say to that? “I, um. Thank you. What do you, ah, what do you think?”
Ankur Vaswani shrugs one shoulder. “I do not know, yet. They say you are a clever man, though. One of the best suited for this task.” His lips twitch. It is not a smile, but it is close. “I hope that you are, Doctor Schoenfield. Good evening.”
And then he goes, and Jasper Schoenfield stands alone in the hall, briefcase heavy in one hand, tie sitting crookedly on his chest.
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Kodiak Island is cold and windy and almost all of the members of the Jaeger Program hate it, except for Doctor Larisa Delova, who is Russian and claims that this is like a tropical resort. The others scoff and groan, and trudge through the sharp gale towards what is to be their research facility.
It was once a military facility, but has been empty for a few years now. It is a cold place, dusty, and terribly vast. Anders Nordstrom stands in the centre of the vast warehouse and claps his hands, and the echoes are like thunder.
And then they are all looking at Schoenfield. They have been here for five minutes and they are ready to begin their work. None of their equipment has been set up. Doctor Gao has her notepad and pen ready. Doctor Brossard is typing on their tablet. Engineer Donnelly is bouncing on the balls of her feet.
They are ready to save the world.
And he loves them, for that.
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It is hard. The idea is there. The hypothesis. The dream.
But it is not impossible. They make progress.
And then they hit their first hurdle.
How do they control the Jaeger?
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“Manual controls—”
“For the seventh time, Nordstrom, manual won’t work.” Brossard is rubbing their temples and grimacing. “It’s not an excavator, it’s a robot. There’s too much. Balancing—”
“So we use a harness,” Gao suggests.
Donnelly grunts and so the idea of a harness is shelved.
Delova turns to Schoenfield and says, “Who would you ask? Outside of this room, outside of us. Who would you ask for help on this?”
And he knows. He has not slept well in weeks and he knows who to talk to. Who to ask. Hell, he’ll beg, if he has to.
“Lightcap,” Schoenfield says. His voice is rough. “Doctor Caitlin Lightcap.”
There is silence. Nordstrom seems confused. “Who?” asks Brossard.
Lightcap, mouths Gao, and blinks in a way that means she does not know who Lightcap is.
But it is Donnelly, the US Army engineer, who is nodding in recognition.
“Lightcap,” she says. “Yes.” And she’s grinning, nodding. “Ring Lightcap – no, get her here. As soon as you can.”
“But she’s working on—”
“I know, but hey, this is the end of the fucking world, right?” Donnelly raises both hands; shrugs. “Remind them of the stakes. Adawe will make it happen.”
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He rings Adawe.
“I need Doctor Caitlin Lightcap,” he says tiredly.
There is a long pause. Then Adawe says, “Doctor Lightcap is currently involved in a top-secret military research project.”
“I know.” And that is precisely why he needs her, why Donnelly wants her here too. Lightcap is helping to develop a thought-based piloting interface for fighter jets. And Lightcap is not just good at this kind of work.
She is absolutely brilliant. Pioneering. Incredible.
He did teach her, after all. He would know.
Secretary-General Adawe says, eventually, “Alright, then.”
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Adawe makes it happen. Lightcap arrives on a Monday evening, looking as tired as ever, clutching a travel mug of coffee to her chest. She has only one suitcase of belongings, and refuses to let anyone else take it. Schoenfield and a handful of others lead her into the facility, all talking a mile-a-minute as they lay out the basis of the program, where they’re currently at, and the issues they’re having.
Lightcap sips her coffee and looks around and yawns into her elbow. She does not appear to be paying a great deal of attention, but her eyes are sharp and interested, and Schoenfield knows she is not missing a word.
And then they fall silent. Lightcap finishes her coffee, tucks a strand of hair behind one ear, and turns to them.
“The Kaiju aren’t going to wait,” Lightcap tells them dryly. “Where’s the lab?”
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She grimaces at terminals and shuffles through schematics and pages of paper notes. She drinks three more cups of coffee and shakes her head and mutters under her breath. She calls them hacks. Delova blinks. Brossard beams.
And Donnelly and Schoenfield wait. Wait for those magic words.
Lightcap stands. Picks up a marker. Walks over to the whiteboard.
And she writes. The ink is dark blue. She steps away.
NEURAL INTERFACE LINKING PILOT AND MACHINE, she has written.
And there it is.
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In this moment, she becomes one of the great pillars of scientific history.
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A young engineer called Fielding takes a photo. She has been documenting the entire project with photographs and video recordings and diary entries.
(In several years, this will be one of the most recognisable images in the world. A group of scientists and engineers, with folded arms and hands in the pockets of their lab coats, eyes tired yet alight with curiosity, staring at what Lightcap has just written. This photo is taken in the second before they begin murmuring and clapping and planning. This photo is taken when they are still recognising Lightcap’s master plan.
And there they are, Lightcap, Schoenfield, Donnelly, Brossard, Delova. Gao and Nordstrom and Kim, Nguyen and Mendoza. Looking at the words which will shape the world.)
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They bring on more doctors and engineers. The best of the best. People from every corner of the globe.
Adawe mutters about budgets and presentations and reassuring the PPDC. Schoenfield reassures her.
“It’s going to work,” he says.
It has to, says that nasty voice in his head. If it doesn’t, you’ve doomed humanity.
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He misses his son. He misses his husband.
He dreams that a Kaiju crushes both and he wakes up screaming.
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I will do this.
I must.
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Things take shape. Literally.
They begin to build.
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A Kaiju destroys, and in turn is destroyed. Nukes. Missiles.
And the human cost is unspeakable.
The Jaeger Program makes great strides in its development of a Jaeger. They have a prototype, now.
They need more time for testing the Jaeger itself but the PPDC and the United Nations say that there is no time. They want proof – real, tangible proof – that a human can successfully pilot a Jaeger.
Adawe’s hand is forced.
The United States Air Force offers half a dozen handpicked test pilots. They arrive on a Sunday, and jump out of a military helicopter with their duffle bags slung over their shoulders. Some are grinning in excitement. All are curious. These men and women will make history, like everyone else on Kodiak Island.
Schoenfield greets them, and shakes their hands, and dread curls in his gut and whispers in his ear, says, if this doesn’t work, they could die, die, die, die.
He speaks and the wintery wind snatches away his words. But then Caitlin’s yelling – and her quiet, husky voice cuts through the gale like a knife.
“Thank you all for coming, and welcome to Kodiak Island!”
One of the test pilots – D’ONOFRIO, declares a patch on his jacket – is gaping at her. Schoenfield doesn’t know why. She looks tireder than usual. A zombie, Delova had joked this morning. Ha ha ha ha.
Lightcap marshals them all inside, flask of coffee in hand. She shows them around. Answers their questions. And they have a lot of questions.
They make it to the main warehouse bay, where the Jaeger prototype looms, surrounded by a myriad of catwalks and cables. There is a terrifying stillness to it. Sometimes, it seems as though it is waiting to move, walk, fight.
Sometimes, the others say they have trouble remembering it’s not alive, and Schoenfield agrees with them.
“Look at the size of that fucking thing,” whispers one of the test pilots. “It’s – it’s incredible.”
And it is.
“What’s it called?” asks a pilot whose jacket bears a patch that says CASEY.
“We don’t know, yet,” Schoenfield murmurs. “We just call it the Jaeger.”
“Aw, c’mon, doc,” says PARK. “Something that amazing deserves a name.”
“Big Boy,” jokes D’onofrio, and all the other test pilots groan and shove him, aww, D’onofrio, fuck off, you joker, this is serious. “What’s wrong with Big Boy?” he demands. “We can call it Big Girl.”
“Kaiju Waster!”
Yeah, Flores, that’s soooo much better.
Lightcap’s watching the test pilots and smiling.
.
The next day, there is another new addition to the Jaeger Program – Doctor Liao. He is a brilliant psychiatrist, and he reports directly to Adawe. He arrives in a small, sleek helicopter, and gracefully steps out onto the helipad, briefcase in hand, dressed impeccably. The icy wind does not bother him. He speaks calmly and precisely, and gives Schoenfield a long, evaluating look.
Schoenfield is not quite sure why he is here. To evaluate the pilots, of course, but why must he report directly to Adawe and not Schoenfield or Lightcap? It is unnecessary. A complication.
But he cannot pay it too much attention. So Liao speaks to everyone and Schoenfield worries about the upcoming interface test. This must be his primary concern.
But, as is his habit, he worries about the world and the Kaiju and how many lives have already been lost.
.
Adam Casey is the first individual to attempt to interface with a Jaeger. Doctor Jasper Schoenfield places a Pons unit upon his head and seals Adam Casey’s fate.
The neural load is too much and kills him. He is a tall man, Adam Casey, and a captain in the United States Air Force – he is strong, mentally and physically, and the neural load overwhelms him and kills him before the scientific and medical staff on hand can do anything to save him.
It is an awful thing. The most horrific thing.
Casey’s body is sent home. The remaining test pilots mourn him. And the scientists, grim and disheartened, work out where they made their errors.
What went wrong? They can only assume it was the mental load. What can they do to lessen this?
And then there is D’Onofrio. He volunteers for the second test. It is to be held soon, too soon, for there is the ever-present fear that another Kaiju is looming.
Sergio D’Onofrio is the second test pilot. And it almost overwhelms him too, before Doctor Caitlin Lightcap realises what must be done: she must enter the Drift with Sergio, and share the neural load of the Jaeger. And so, sitting in the control room, Lightcap grabs the spare Pons unit – this piece of technology, when attached to the user’s head, allows them to interface with the Jaeger. And when two Pons units are connected to the same Jaeger and thus each other, the two pilots wearing these units share the same headspace.
This is called the Drift, this headspace. Later, pilots will Drift with each other before synchronising with Jaegers. And D’Onofrio is alone in the Drift, thinking his head might well explode, when Lightcap appears beside him. Just like that, the pressure upon his brain fades, and his racing heart begins to calm.
Sergio stares at Lightcap and says, “I thought I was going to die.” He can taste blood. His ears are ringing.
“So did I,” she replies sadly. “I’m sorry, Sergio.”
She remembers Adam Casey, eyes red, blood dripping from his nose and mouth. Adam Casey, dead dead dead.
“Don’t be. Don’t be.” Sergio reaches out and grabs her shoulder. He is in the first model of Drivesuit ever made, and she is in a labcoat. Even in the Drift they are dressed like this. “You’re here now. And we’re doing this, doc. Together. We’ll leave the Drift, get you into a Drivesuit, and then we’ll pilot this big guy. Together.”
“You can’t be – not me, Sergio.” She shakes her head. She only did this to save him. “It will be another test pilot.”
“Hey,” he says, and squeezes his hand gently. “Nothing’s going wrong. We’re here together and it feels right. Explain that to me, doc.”
Lightcap blinks. “I’m…there should be conflict. Two different minds sharing the same space…compatibility. It must be some manner of compatibility.”
“Right. Compatibility. We’re compatible. And hell, if it works, then let it work.”
She steels herself. “Alright.”
.
They let it work.
.
Schoenfield looks at the readings. Sees the stability and strength of the connection.
“Well, then,” murmurs Brossard. “Would you look at that?”
Schoenfield looks. And Liao looks too, and makes some notes, nodding his head.
Schoenfield calls Adawe.
.
Leaving the Drift and returning to the waking world is a rough shock.
Delova and Nordstrom are staring at her. Caitlin has almost slipped from her office chair, and her back is cramping and the Pons unit is heavy and pinches her scalp.
“You just piloted a Jaeger,” breathes Nordstrom. Delova helps her back into the chair. A doctor and two nurses burst through the door and they are talking, talking talking talking; shining lights in Caitlin’s eyes, taking her pulse, does your head hurt? Can you hear me?
“Yes,” Caitlin says, and thinks of Adam Casey, who is dead, dead, dead.
.
But Sergio is alive. They are both taken to the medical bay for extra tests. The entire time, he sits there and looks at her, looks at her, and she looks back.
And they do not look away.
And then, when the medical doctors give them the all clear, Sergio is shaking her hand and she does not want to let go, not now, not ever.
“You’re a miracle, you know that?” he asks. They are still gripping each other’s hands. “So, is it going to be us, now? Because it worked. I felt it. Did you feel it?”
“I felt it.” She feels like she can run five miles without stopping and climb a mountain. All because of Sergio.
She feels like she can reach out and grasp the stars themselves.
.
Adawe flies to Kodiak Island. Asks to watch Caitlin and Sergio Drift together.
Then she asks for them to pilot the prototype.
.
Before, they synchronised with the machine, but not fully. There was an operational block.
Now there will be none of that.
Just the two of them and a creation the likes of which the world has never witnessed.
.
Caitlin has never worn a Drivesuit before. She is responsible for a good deal of their design and function, and has held the pieces of hardened armour in her hands, but she has never worn one. She has not has reason to. So it feels odd, actually putting it on.
First is what they call the circuity suit, a body suit rather that has been laced with synaptic processor mesh. This allows the pilots to feel everything that the Jaeger feels – even pain. Though this is dulled. But it gives them a greater sense of the Jaeger’s wellbeing than any readout or chart ever could.
Over the top go the polycarbonate plates. They are hard and light, yet still somewhat heavy. These are for protection.
“Good. Good.” Sergio smiles. It is the sort of smile that inspires confidence. “Come on, now – all we have to do is make this thing walk. So let’s go for a stroll.”
The Jaeger is called Warrior Yukon.
And together, they pilot it.
.
They record this moment on camera, of course – Delova holds the camera and her voice has this breathless quality of wonder – but here is the thing:
You must be there to appreciate the magnificence of this sight. This is a project of the grandest scale and it is working. The Jaeger’s nuclear core roars into being. The world grows silent.
Warrior Yukon moves. It raises its left hand and rotates it. It is a crude hand, with three fingers and a stiff thumb, but nonetheless it curls this hand into a fist.
Then it takes a step.
When a great sheet of ice sheers away from a glacier and plunges into the chilly sea below, there is a moment of silent and anticipation so profound that you feel it in your bones, in your blood, in the very core of your being. And you can only stare in wonder as tonnes of ice fall and crash into the sea, and then the sound hits you and travels through you, and you feel so inconsequential and small yet you do not care, because here is one of nature’s grandest sights, and you, by some miracle, are witness.
When a Jaeger walks before you, you witness one of humankind’s greatest sights and achievements. When a Jaeger walks before you, this creation of tonnes of metal and polymer and reinforced glass, you find it hard to breathe. And they all do. Their eyes are wide with wonder and hope, beautiful, darling, sweet hope.
Warrior Yukon stands before them and raises one hand in a perfect military salute. A beat, and then a cheeky wave, and the Jaeger is moving forth again, testing itself and its limits – how long can its strides be? How far can it rotate its shoulders while walking? Then its balance shifts, and while stepping forth it jabs out with its left fist. Another jab. A right cross. Left undercut.
It moves. Walks. Fights.
.
Here is something poetic:
Lightcap is a scientist – slim, slightly clumsy, with thoughtful blue eyes. She thinks that Sergio D’Onofrio is very nice. She does not realise that he has been flirting with her since they first met, back when he was selected as a Jaeger test pilot. She was Doctor Schoenfield’s apprentice and now his friend. She does not have many friends, Caitlin Lightcap. This is because she is shy, and really very busy.
D’Onofrio is a lieutenant in the Air Force. He has serious, shrewd brown eyes that light up when he looks at Caitlin Lightcap. He is a tall man and broad-shouldered, but as graceful as a dancer. And he is a good soldier, highly commended, and beloved by all those who know him well. When he laughs, it is a great cheerful roar of a sound, one that bursts up from his belly and out of his mouth and fills the room. He makes bad jokes. People love him, for that.
Lightcap has ink-stained fingers and sleeps, on average, four hours a night.
D’Onofrio’s clothes always seem to have little drops of dried paint on them, for he is a painter in his spare time, and he sleeps, on average, five hours a night.
They are as different as night and day. And yet they are not so different.
And it works. They work. The two pilot Warrior Yukon together.
Caitlin Lightcap and Sergio D’Onofrio are the first true Jaeger pilots. The first Rangers.
.
(Later, when the Jaeger Academy is officially opened, the first candidates will be met with a bronze statue in the main courtyard: a man and a woman, both in Drivesuits, helmets held under their right arms, faces turned towards each other and smiling. They are, unmistakeably, Caitlin Lightcap and Sergio D’Onofrio.)
.
(In four years they will marry. It is a beautiful wedding. John Morrison makes a speech at the reception that brings tears to everyone’s eyes.)
.
(They do not get to retire. This is a tragedy.)
.
(Here is a picture for you:
This is two years before they marry. They are on a brief holiday in Canada, and have come to a meadow hidden amongst valleys and peaks. Sergio is going to paint the sun setting over the mountains. Caitlin will read a paper by a promising engineering student called Satya Vaswani. And they will relax. What a strange thing, for them to relax.
“Hey,” Sergio says, turning to look at Caitlin. He’s shirtless. Threw off his t-shirt to make her laugh when they were climbing up to the meadow – look, I’m a real woodsman now! And he’d flexed ridiculously, and blushed when she’d picked a flower to tuck behind one of his ears. “What do you think?”
He’s a gorgeous painter. A wonderful man. Caitlin couldn’t ask for anyone better to stand at her side and face down creatures from the most terrible nightmares.
“Beautiful,” she murmurs, resting her chin on one hand.
“You aren’t even looking at the painting.”
And she isn’t. She is looking at him, bathed in the light of a sinking sun, with the words WARRIOR YUKON tattooed over his heart, a mirror of her own tattoo. And she smiles, and says, “The painting’s nice too.”)
.
Doctor Liao watches Lightcap and D’Onofrio, and he thinks.
Gabriella Adawe, Secretary-General of the Pan Pacific Defence Corps, meets with Doctor Liao and tells him that he is now overseeing recruitment. They meet in the upper gallery of the Kwoon Combat Room on Kodiak Island, which will one day house the Jaeger Academy too.
Below, on the mats, Sergio is teaching Caitlin to spar with staffs. And they are laughing, the two of them, despite the fact that they bear the weight of the world upon their shoulders.
“Seeing as Doctor Lightcap is now going to be Ranger Lightcap,” Adawe says, “I thought it might be best if you take charge of the recruitment.”
Liao smiles. “Ranger. So that will be their rank, then?”
“Only for those actively assigned to Jaegers.” Below, Sergio is skipping around Lightcap, and laughing, teasing. Hit me, he says gleefully, hit me, hit me, you know you want to.
And she does! Lightly, but quickly, a blow upon his right side. And she startles back, amazed at what she has done, and Sergio gives the proudest of laughs and sweeps her to the ground and grins broadly.
“And the academy?” asks Liao. They have been speaking of an academy, now that they have two successful Jaeger pilots.
“The United Nations is concerned that the Jaeger Program is still not a viable defence against the Kaiju.” Adawe brushes some lint from the sleeve of her jacket. “They said that they will welcome talk of an academy, and more Jaegers… after Warrior Yukon has defeated a Kaiju.”
Lightcap is on her feet and gripping her staff resolutely as D’Onofrio, bearing his own staff, moves towards her. They begin to trade blows – slowly, at first, then gradually faster and faster.
“I see.”
“I still want you to recruit.” A pause. “I’ve already had several recommendations from Colonel Hill.” She is their official liaison with the United States Military. A funny woman, actually. Liao likes her.
“Good. We need soldiers,” he says. “Mostly. Pairs with one soldier and one civilian work well enough, as you can see.”
Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-clack. “Nearly had me, Catie – ow!”
“I’m so sorry!”
“Beast!” shouts D’Onofrio dramatically, clutching at his thigh. (It was a light blow, Doctor Liao thinks, and thus he is quite uninjured, if somewhat dramatic). Doctor Liao smiles. D’Onofrio carries on. “My leg! Ah! Oh!”
She takes a step towards Sergio and then dodges to one side, avoiding his grab. Then they are wrestling. Armbars and locks and laughter.
“I see,” Adawe murmurs. She is smiling.
And Liao smiles too.
.
Colonel Hill escorts four hand-picked soldiers to Kodiak Island. The Reyes siblings, and the Morrison twins.
Two Marines and two infantrymen.
Gabriel Reyes is twenty-five. Maria Reyes is twenty-six. The Morrison twins, Jack and John, are twenty-one.
Maria teases Jack. He goes all red. John makes bad jokes. Gabriel laughs and tells worse ones. And it’s the beginning of something. The four of them, two matched pairs. There’s no competition between them. No. It’s camaraderie. And Gabriel and Maria look at these young twins, and know that they must be mentors.
And Caitlin and Sergio watch the four of them, and talk quietly, and then nod.
They will do.
They are perfect, for this.
.
Jack and John run. They run in perfect harmony.
Two people, one set of footfalls.
.
Schoenfield watches them run in the rain. Drops of water blur his eyes and for the longest moment, he sees only one Morrison.
He blinks. The image returns to normal. Splits into two.
Jack and John.
.
Maria and Gabriel spar unarmed.
It is as graceful as ballet, and more lethal than any martial art Schoenfield has ever seen. Their hands are rough and scarred and calloused. They have built themselves into incredible warriors.
There will never be anyone else like them. They are legendary and they are revered.
And now they are here.
.
At dinner, Gabriel forgets to grab a steak knife, and Maria tosses him one across the room. He catches it without looking. Continues his conversation with Sergio.
Liao watches, and makes a note.
.
Adawe sends Liao away. We need more soldiers, she says. More like the Morrison twins. More like the Reyes siblings.
He has contacts, and Adawe has contacts, and Colonel Hill has contacts. So a message is sent. The best of the best. Partnerships. Soldiers that work in pairs. Who are they? Where are they?
And, by far, one pair is mentioned the most in the replies.
Go to Egypt.
And so he goes.
.
A man flies to Egypt to meet Ana and Zareen. He introduces himself as Doctor Liao.
The PPDC need the best of the best. They need pairs of people who can work together instinctively. They need soldiers, he says.
And here are two of the best soldiers in the world.
Ana folds her arms and leans back in her chair, dusty boots resting on the table. Zareen is still and thoughtful. Liao is hopeful.
Fareeha sits on the sofa, pretending to watch cartoons, but really she watches them. And she wonders – what will they say, what does this mean? Who is this man, so small and resolute, who has come to ask her parents to leave Egypt?
“Us,” says Ana. Then she laughs – humourless, rough and dry. “You – what, you want two snipers to run around in a big robot and punch the fucking things to death?”
Zareen pinches the bridge of her nose and stares at the ceiling.
“But you are not just snipers, are you?” fires back Liao. “You are special forces. The best of the best. Soldiers without compare. You have trained in hand-to-hand combat to the highest degree. And you have discipline, and you know fear. And you know how to fight it.”
Ana does not argue that. Neither does Zareen. And, in that, they are agreeing with him. Yes. This is who we are. Yes, that is what we are capable of.
“Egypt is not a country of the Pacific Rim,” Ana tells him.
“The world is at war with these creatures, Captain Amari – the Pacific Rim is the mere frontier of this battle.”
“We have a daughter, Dr. Liao.” And this is Zareen, no longer staring at the ceiling. “And we will not leave her.”
“We understand. Accommodations would be made for Fareeha. She would be taught at the academy. Private tutors in any subject you wish for her to study. Weekly excursions.” A pause. “Should she choose to attend university in several years’ time, we will cover all costs.”
Ana’s jaw is taut. “She is twelve, Doctor Liao. We cannot ask this of her.”
“But we must ask you.” He smiles sadly and gets to his feet. “The Morrison twins will be twenty-one in three months.”
“That’s too young,” Zareen says sharply. “They’re barely adults.”
Doctor Liao shrugs. “And how old were you, when you first went to war?” He glances over and locks eyes with Fareeha. “I am sorry for taking up so much of your time. I will be at my hotel tonight – here is the address – and then tomorrow I must go to Australia.”
He goes.
.
A Kaiju crawls out of the Breach. Heads towards North America.
The world watches. The world waits.
.
The senior members of the PPDC meet.
They make the decision to deploy Warrior Yukon.
.
“When we get back – can I ask for a special breakfast? Pancakes, bacon, eggs, waffles – everything you’ve got.” Sergio’s putting on his circuitry suit. Caitlin’s got hers on and is finishing a cup of coffee so hot that it burns her mouth. “How you feeling, Catie?”
“I shouldn’t be having this coffee. It’s just going to make me pee.” Two assistants begin to armour Caitlin. “Is this real?”
“Hell yeah. How are you feeling?”
“It’s like a dream. A strange dream.”
His eyes are soft and steady as he says, “We’re going to do this. Show them that the Jaeger Program is the answer to these creatures.”
Someone hands Caitlin her helmet. She looks down. It is slate grey and unmarked, pristine, perfect. She looks at Sergio, tall and confident and one half of the pair that will pilot Warrior Yukon today.
And she is the other half of that pair.
“Yes,” she agrees, and there is purpose in her heart, and in his too. “We will.”
.
Liao’s phone buzzes. He opens his laptop. Accesses a secure PPDC channel. Opens a video feed.
Kodiak Island. The footage is being taken from a helicopter. Below, shrouded in mist, is the facility.
The warehouse roof rumbles open. Light shines up and through the mist. There is a rumble. The sound of other helicopters.
Then, through the mist, Warrior Yukon rises up, spotlights dimmed, strangely still.
“This is Warrior Yukon, ready for battle, control. What’s the word on the Kaiju, control?”
It’s Sergio.
“This is control. Kaiju is codenamed Karloff. Still on course to Vancouver.”
And, like something out of a dream, the helicopters fly Warrior Yukon into the distance, off to fight a Kaiju.
.
They brawl in the ocean, Kaiju and Jaeger, beast and machine, while helicopters circle above – one PPDC, two others from the Canadian and US militaries respectively. Schoenfield holds one hand over his mouth as the Kaiju lands a tremendous blow. Yet Warrior Yukon is not so easily injured.
Sergio has the balance and grace of a cat. He has been teaching Caitlin this. And now, Warrior Yukon takes a single step to right itself, left fist already swinging through the air towards the Kaiju.
The punch lands and the sound is like thunder, like the earth breaking apart. A metal fist driven into a neck that is weak and unarmoured.
And this is how the first Kaiju is killed. Broken spine.
And this is how the Jaeger Program truly cements itself in history.
.
When a Kaiju falls before you, you behold the strength and spirit of humanity. When a Kaiju falls before you, a beast that has crawled out from the depths of the ocean and intends to wreak havoc upon Earth, like all Kaiju that have preceded it, you find it hard to breathe.
Schoenfield is breathless. He looks at it and thinks, they’ve done it. They’ve won.
“No signs of life, LOCCENT. You picking up anything?”
“Negative, Warrior Yukon. Come on home.”
And they are all clapping and cheering and he is thinking of the moment he held his son’s toy robot in his hand and thought, here is an answer.
To fight monsters, you create monsters.
No.
To fight monsters, you create heroes.
“They did it,” he whispers.
And then Adawe is on the phone, shouts; Brossard is crying and so is Nordstrom; Delova and Gao are kissing and Donnelly is grabbing him by the shoulders, her eyes shining with tears.
“No,” she says. “We did it, Jasper. We all did.”
.
“I’m shaking, Sergio.”
“Yeah.” His voice cracks. He's crying. So is she. “So am I. But we did it, Catie.”
They did it. Fought a Kaiju and won.
And they will never forget Karloff surging out of the waves, they will never forget the shriek of unearthly claws scraping over Jaeger armour, searching for weakness, where to tear and rip and kill and it will be with them forever, forever, forever.
.
Warrior Yukon returns to Kodiak Island. Sergio and Caitlin leave the Drift and are in each other’s arms and nothing else matters because they’ve done it, they’ve triumphed, they’re victorious; a Kaiju is dead and no innocents have been killed and no nuclear missiles have been launched. And they cry and laugh and their hearts beat in time and in each other's arms they find comfort and this is Drift Compatibility.
.
At the PPDC quarters, Adawe resists the urge to say, I told you so. Instead, she raises an eyebrow, and regards the board and waits.
They support the Jaeger Program unanimously.
.
Later, the footage is released to media worldwide. People expecting more missiles instead stare at one of these rumoured Jaegers brought to life and cannot quite believe it.
But there it is. Tall and incredible and strong. And there is the Kaiju, a lifeless corpse.
And there are the pilots. The Rangers, says the broadcast. Ranger D’Onofrio and Ranger Lightcap. He is clearly a military man. She, apparently, is one of the pioneering scientists of the program.
Zareen blinks. Looks closer. Sees the way they breathe in time. How they stand. The bond between them.
Ana’s already ringing Liao.
.
Liao comes.
“We will go to Kodiak Island,” Ana says, Zareen’s hand on her shoulder. “We cannot promise anything. We cannot promise that we are the soldiers you are looking for. But we will come, and try our hand at piloting a Jaeger. And we will see.”
Liao nods. There is a gratefulness to his eyes. He knows how momentous this is.
“Thank you,” he says. He looks at Ana, at Zareen, and he thanks them.
And he looks at Fareeha. She is perceptive, for her age, and in his eyes she sees a sadness, an apology.
He feels sorry for her. He knows that this will change her life forever.
.
In the darkness, four pilots waiting to become Rangers run. Their heads are held high and their breathing is measured. They run, and their feet fall in a perfect rhythm – left foot, right foot. Breathe in, breathe out. One two one two one two one two.
On and on and on and on.
.
In the darkness, upon an icy shore, Caitlin Lightcap kisses Sergio D’Onofrio. Tattooed on the skin over their hearts are two words in black ink:
WARRIOR YUKON.
.
In the darkness, Satya Vaswani makes notes. On her laptop screen is a screenshot of the Jaeger; she clicks the mouse and changes to another screenshot, an image of the creation’s glowing core.
“Nuclear,” she murmurs. “Risky, but powerful.”
Another screenshot. The Jaeger’s brutish right hand, outstretched to block a blow.
“All that power,” murmurs Satya, “and you didn’t put a weapon there. That has to change. Something that gives off a great amount of heat, to cauterise wounds upon creation…and to stop Kaiju blood from escaping the body.”
She writes notes, and makes plans.
She dreams of being an engineer for the Jaeger Program.
She does not yet know that she will be the greatest among them.
.
In the darkness, a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes runs through the streets of Zurich with her father. She does not know this, but in nine months both her mother and father will be taken from her, and this will change the course of her life forever.
It will lead to her joining the ranks of the Pan Pacific Defence Corps Rangers, those rare pilots actively assigned to Jaegers. But, for now, she is merely Angela, who studies too much and already has a black belt in Taekwondo and has not yet decided between the army or a career in medicine.
“The Jaeger,” she says, speaking easily despite how many blocks they have run – her father, however, is feeling rather winded now, and wishes that Angela’s mother, a major in the army, was here to run with Angela instead, but she is on a training exercise in the mountains, having far too much fun jumping from helicopters and crawling through mud. “Isn’t it marvellous?”
“Oh, it is! Ah, Warrior Yukon. Soon, they say, there will be more Jaegers. More pilots.”
They run, and Angela’s feet fall in perfect rhythm. Her father thinks his own footsteps create an unsteady beat, but he has not tripped yet, so that is alright.
“I wonder who they will be?” asks his daughter, and he sees a flash of promise in her, and a thought crosses his mind, but he pushes it away and thinks, ah, you fool, why would she ever be dragged into that mess?
.
In the darkness, Fareeha dreams of a terrible beast that kills her mothers and tears them apart and she awakes, mouth dry, heart beating rapidly, and does not call out to them. She will be twelve, in several months. She must be brave.
They cannot know that this worries her.
She fears that it will dissuade them from this path.
.
In the darkness, Fareeha Amari yearns for harmony. So much is uncertain, and she is so very scared, and there is no tranquillity or calm to be found in this – in watching her mothers go to fight a different war, a war against terrible beasts.
But it is the right thing to do. And she knows that it must be them.
And one day, she knows, it will be her too.
.
pioneer
‘pʌɪəˈnɪə’
noun
a person or group that originates or helps open up a new line of thought or activity or a new method or technical development.
.
Here is the history of the Jaeger Program.
Here is a history of pioneers.
.