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Tobias likes dinosaurs.
He has a book about them when he is little. An illustrated children’s dinosaur encyclopedia, one of the things his aunt gives him to keep him occupied and out of her hair. She never notices that it’s his favorite, of course. He doesn’t spend all that much time with her, anyway. There isn’t any reason for her to notice.
He spends hours tucked away in his room, poring over the book. At first, it’s the pictures that hold his attention—bright, colorful renderings of prehistoric reptiles, maps of how the world looked long ago, diagrams showing just how big the dinosaurs were in comparison to humans. When he learns to read, he practices on it. He learns a lot from it—taxonomy, evolution, continental drift, some botany, even a bit of physics. It’s a good book. Not quite age-appropriate, but close enough.
Sometimes, he wishes that he could see them. He pays enough attention to the skull diagrams and the razor-sharp teeth to know which ones he wouldn’t want to encounter, but he still finds them fascinating. Deinonychus, a speed hunter with wicked claws. Diplodocus, towering high enough to reach the treetops. Stegosaurus, heavily armored with a thick spiked tail. There are others, too, not dinosaurs but close enough to go in the book. Deinosuchus, a crocodile that could have swallowed him in one bite. Quetzalcoatlus, a pterosaur with a twelve-meter wingspan. Tetsudo atlas, a tortoise as tall as a man.
Trespasser hits San Francisco when he is ten years old.
It is something of a wake-up call for him, though he doesn’t yet recognize it as such.
Tobias recognizes bits and pieces of the dinosaurs in the kaiju. He goes to the school library during lunch and uses the computers to find pictures and videos from the attacks. He makes lists that he hides carefully in his school books to keep safe. Teeth, skull shapes, horns, frills, how they’re built, how they move. Things that make the kaiju and the dinosaurs similar. Things that make them different.
By the time he is fourteen, he goes to the public library most days. His uncle is happy to have Tobias out of the way. The librarians like him, and they don’t mind that he sits in the reference section for hours on end, devouring everything he can find about dinosaurs, biology, and geology. Sometimes they even give him food. He knows that they look at him a little sadly when they think he isn’t looking. It’s okay. He keeps his face still and his voice steady, and he doesn’t tell them anything. He is always careful to eat outside at the picnic tables, or at least in the lobby on days that it rains. The librarians probably won’t kick him out, but he isn’t about to risk it, and no food or drinks are allowed in the stacks.
His research area gets broader as he goes. Genetics, climate, evolution. Science fiction. Dog breeding. Engineering. As his suspicions grow, he starts to include tactics, strategy, military history, chemical warfare.
He lays it all out in the pages of the notebooks he is supposed to use for English. Lists, diagrams, chicken-scratch handwriting spilling off the lines where he doesn’t have time to be neat as information slots together like puzzle pieces.
He sees it, but he can’t do anything with it. Not on the outside.
When Tobias is almost sixteen, the guidance counselor at school asks him if he is thinking about college. Of course the answer is no. There’s no money for that. She tells him all about the PSAT. She tells him there are scholarships. He thinks about his grades and knows that he probably wouldn’t get enough.
He knows he has to be careful. He has to have a plan. Luckily, his birthday is during the summer. He’s still be seventeen through graduation. It gives him time.
The PPDC hires most of its staff through the jaeger academy. There are other ways in, other job openings, but not many for fresh high school graduates. The jaeger academy isn’t quite his only way in, but it’s definitely his best one. Unluckily, his birthday is during the summer; it keeps him from being eligible for the academy term that begins in July. There is nothing he can do about that.
It’s fine. Tobias is used to working with what he can get.
He turns sixteen and asks the librarians if there are any openings. The job is easy enough. Tobias has spent enough time researching (hiding, thinking, learning) that the shelving is child’s play. It is orderly, and it is quiet. They give him his paychecks in person, so he can take them to be cashed.
He hides the money in the library. He can’t be sure that his aunt or uncle wouldn’t find it, so he doesn’t dare hide it in their houses. He never knows when he’ll go from one to the other, anyway. Better to keep his stash in a place he knows he can get to. Keeping it on his person is out of the question. There would be too many questions, no matter who found it, and he would never be able to keep it.
Tobias keeps his head down and his goals clear. He has a job, internet access, and a quiet place to study at the library. He studies for the PPDC entrance exam between school and shifts. He runs in the mornings, before it gets too hot to work out in thrifted sweatpants and long-sleeved t-shirts.
He has a plan. He’s fine.
“Call me Ax,” is the first thing Philip Fangor says to him. The social worker smiles brightly, with no hint of real emotion.
“Hi,” Tobias says.
“Now, I know that this must be a strange situation for you,” the social worker says. “Mr. Fangor—Ax—has just recently moved to California, and he wasn’t in a position to…support a ch—anyone else—”
Tobias tunes her out in favor of examining Ax. It is blatantly obvious that nobody in this room knows what to do with this situation, but Ax is the one who initiated it, so he must know something. He doesn’t look like someone who would want custody of a high schooler, and Tobias doesn’t know why else an uncle he’s never met would suddenly try to contact him, especially if he has to go through the system to do it. When the social worker pauses, Tobias asks, “How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” Ax says. “I became aware that I had a nephew last year, when my brother’s letter was given to me, but I, I was in the jaeger academy, and then—”
“You work for the PPDC?”
“Yes.”
Tobias lets his eyes narrow, just a little. “What do you want with me?”
Ax doesn’t shrink under Tobias’ gaze, despite his obvious nervousness. “I wanted to meet you. I did not know my brother well, but I would not want to abandon family.”
The social worker is still smiling when she interrupts. “Would you two like to get some coffee and talk for a bit? There’s a coffee shop just downstairs.”
Yeah, and Tobias bets that’s convenient for her. She’ll keep an eye on them for the entire conversation.
Family doesn’t mean much to Tobias. He knows that his isn’t typical, and there has never been anything he could do about it. Why should he try to make family mean something that it never has before? Then again, he’s never had any other sources of information, either. All he knew was that his dad died overseas and his mom had an accident.
“Yeah,” Tobias says. “Okay.”
Tobias keeps his head down and his goals clear, but now he talks to Ax, too. Tobias doesn’t have a phone, but he does have an email address and computer access. They keep in touch.
It takes several exchanges for Ax to figure out that Tobias also wants to work for the PPDC. When Ax puts it together, he invites Tobias to the Shatterdome for a day. Tobias accepts when Ax offers to pay for transportation down to LA.
Tobias’ uncle will probably never notice that he was gone. Just in case, Tobias skips school to go during the week, and he leaves a note on his bed saying that he’s spending the night at a friend’s. On the off chance his uncle freaks out about it, he’ll probably get bounced back to his aunt. It’s been a while since he switched houses, anyway.
The Shatterdome is huge and bustling. Everyone seems to know where they’re going and what they’re doing. Tobias has never been anywhere like it, but it feels safer than most places he’s been. Ax gives him a tour of the areas civilians are allowed to see. Then he takes it a step further and brings Tobias to J-Tech.
J-Tech is extremely cool. Tobias makes sure to look appropriately impressed, since this is Ax’s department, but it isn’t all an act. Engineering isn’t Tobias’ strong point or his area of interest, but he can recognize the jaegers for the technological marvels they are.
“This is only the main lab,” Ax tells him. “The workshops are down that way, and the hangar, of course, is also ours. I mean, the pilots like to talk about the hangar like it’s theirs, but it is not. The hangar belongs to the engineers.”
Tobias listens, and he waits until Ax is starting to slow down to ask. “Any chance I could see K-Science, too?”
Ax blinks. Maybe he’s surprised. This is the first thing Tobias has asked for on this trip. “Yes, I will take you there.”
Ax can’t give him as thorough a tour of K-Science. Tobias doesn’t mind. He’s plenty busy just taking it all in.
He’s probably only allowed in this part of the Shatterdome because nobody expects him to know what any of the data on display means. Tobias stops next to a wheeled bulletin board and steps in closer to study it.
“Excuse me?”
Tobias jumps at the voice and turns. Ax is gone, probably still thinking Tobias is behind him. A man with a K-Science personnel badge on his shirt raises an eyebrow. “Can I help you?”
“This is Onibaba, right?” Tobias tips his head at the board. There is no name on the board, just an identification number, but he thinks he’s figured it out. He spends enough time analyzing kaiju that he should know.
The man’s eyes sharpen. He flicks a look at Tobias’ visitor sticker. “Yeah. How could you tell?”
“It’s a pretty distinctive profile. More of an arthropod than a reptile. As far as our taxonomy applies, anyway.” They only have so much to go on, and taxonomy is meant to apply to naturally born, Earth-native creatures, not genetically engineered nightmares. Kaiju always look strange, but most are distinctly reptilian. Onibaba’s crablike appearance was particularly weird. “I spent some time reading up on marine biology after this one.”
“What were you reading up on before?”
Tobias shrugs. “Dinosaurs. Among other things.”
The man’s eyes narrow, and he steps up to the board next to Tobias. “Why don’t you take a closer look at this, and tell me what it tells you?”
By the time Ax comes back, looking frantic, Tobias and the K-Science tech (whose name he never actually got) have taken to a dry erase board.
“You’d better not think you’re getting this one for J-Tech, Fangor,” the tech says.
Ax sputters. “Tobias has not even gone to the academy. You cannot just stake your claim to my nephew like this.”
Tobias smiles to himself as he scribbles down one last note about Onibaba’s patterns of movement on land versus in water. “We’ll see where I end up, Ax-man.”
Tobias graduates high school. He only goes to the ceremony because Ax expresses interest. Tobias doesn’t have friends, really. He didn’t get bullied in high school as much as he did in middle school, but part of that was just learning how to turn invisible. Only the teachers wrangling them would notice if he skipped graduation. Tobias doesn’t particularly care, but he goes for Ax’s sake. Ax has already exceeded any expectations Tobias had for family. Tobias can walk across a stage for him.
They go out for tacos afterward. It’s nice. Tobias learns about Ax’s fondness for cinnamon rolls when they stop at the Cinnabon next door in the strip mall for dessert.
Tobias is seventeen years old, and he has a high school diploma and a mess of a family. It’s not ideal, because until he turns eighteen, his aunt and uncle are his legal guardians. He has to stick around his aunt’s house until then. He keeps working at the library in the meantime. It keeps him out of the house, and it doesn’t hurt to make a little more money, even if he isn’t going to need it the same way anymore.
Originally, his plan was to use the money to make it from his eighteenth birthday to the next round of the jaeger academy. Ax threw a wrench into that, but unlike most surprises in Tobias’ life, Ax has been a change for the better. Tobias is leaving for Los Angeles the day after he turns eighteen. He and Ax will live in an apartment in the city until Tobias ships up to Kodiak Island.
The PPDC hires the vast majority of its manpower through the academy. Anyone who makes it through the first trimester is qualified to work in a Shatterdome, and it takes a lot of people to launch a jaeger. There are plenty of openings. Tobias will be tested for drift compatibility with the rest of his class, of course, but he doubts that will go anywhere. Tobias suspects he’s a little closed-off to be a jaeger pilot. Trust is difficult, and it’s rare. He understands why so few pilot pairs succeed.
No, Tobias will not be a jaeger pilot. When he leaves the academy, he’ll join the LA K-Science department. Pending completion of the first course at the academy, he has an offer waiting.
Tobias might not be able to save the world, but he’s going to do something.
The dinosaurs had their time, and they at least earned it. Tobias isn’t about to let a bunch of genetically engineered disaster sort-of reptiles inherit the Earth unchallenged. The Quaternary Period has only lasted 2.58 million years. Humanity isn’t ready to let go just yet.
Paleontology is all about learning from the past. Tobias has been thinking about dinosaurs for as long as he can remember.
He never thought he would be able to use it for the future, but then, life is full of surprises.