Chapter Text
“Tell them we’re not afraid,” Jake Pentecost said to the man in the chair, and the things in his head. “Tell them next time they won’t have to worry about coming for us...cause we’re going to come for them.”
“Jake, this is a Hail Mary and you know it. The odds are—”
“Never tell me the odds,” Jake interrupted.
Hermann quietly rolled his eyes. Everyone always had a Star Wars reference at the ready. He missed conversing with people whose love of science fiction ran deeper than quips.
Six months with these people had really driven home to him just how much he had lost when Newton walked out of his life. They were all fine people who seemed to consider him a friend—they all certainly insisted on calling him by his first name, to the point that he no longer bothered to correct them—but he was never going to connect with them, or anyone, the way he had with Newt.
Lambert and Pentecost continued to snipe at each other as they took their places in the command center. Shao stayed by Hermann’s side. Like it or not, she understood the new jaeger tech better than anyone, even Hermann, and while he could have managed her role, it was best not to split his focus between the jaegers and the breach. So, grudgingly, he bowed to her expertise and let her access her share of the monitoring systems.
It was just awful, having to work with her. She had the arrogance and the willingness to pick a fight over every little thing, but there was no fun in it.
If Newton were here…
He shook the thought away. There was work to be done. A breach to open, and a battle to fight.
When Ms. Shao was wrong, she was very wrong, not as an overeager scientist jumping to the wrong conclusions for the sheer joy of seeing progress, but as a businesswoman accustomed to absolute rule over her company. She saw the path ahead, and she expected reality to conform to her view. She demanded the results that would support her plan.
They needed kaiju tissues to get their jaegers through the breach. That much had always been true. So Shao had proposed connecting their pilots’ neural bridges through deactivated kaiju brains in a synthesis of biology and machinery. She had, perhaps, forgotten her own years-long push for drones over living pilots. And she had not learned to distrust the kaiju and their masters, and all the parts of them, as Hermann had. She had never interacted with a kaiju brain. She could not conceive of a “dead” one turning on them.
Fortunately, Hermann had won out on this one. They were sending a drone, leaving pilots like Jake to pout and whine at being left behind. And they had laced it with a kaiju’s connective tissues, semi-living sinews holding together carbon steel bones. Nothing that could wake up and take control. He had learned better than that.
Their systems engaged, the great machine coming to life without the human element of the drift. They had moved so far away from what this program had once been. Humanity’s hope was a thing of the past. But if that was the sacrifice that kept them from losing any human lives today, so be it.
The jaeger drone launched, using Hermann’s own rapid deployment system that he had once hoped would bring him back in contact with an old friend.
It entered the breach.
And within minutes, it was swatted down, and all their feeds went dead.
All was quiet in LOCCENT. Hope was never truly dead, after all. They had all, in their secret hearts, hoped that this would be more than just a test run. They had hoped that this time, they would win, easily and definitively, and finally bring the war to a close.
But they had all known that this was only the beginning. And the data they had collected from this attempt meant that the next one would go better.
“Ms. Shao,” Hermann said coolly. “We might bring our teams together to continue working on a remote piloting system. The drone's autonomous actions are entirely too rigid. We need to find a way to bring humanity back into this equation, without making it a suicide run for every pilot who volunteers. And we'll keep pushing forward on the biointegration.” He had some ideas for reinforcing the armor plating with cloned kaiju hide, adding strength without a corresponding increase in weight. But he wasn't going to hash that out with her, or anyone else in LOCCENT.
He had other things to do. He needed to talk to Newton.
Newton was, of course, unsurprised when Hermann walked into his cell. Not a day went by without a visit of at least a few minutes, and anyway it was impossible to make a surprise visit down here. The guards had to put him into heavy restraints before anyone was allowed inside.
Even so, he managed to convey with no more than a look that Hermann’s presence was both unexpected and unwelcome. Hermann ignored that and took a seat across from him, outside the circle of tape that designated a safe distance.
“Hello, Newton.”
“Hi, Hermann. We’re going to kill you,” the precursors said.
“Yes, yes, very frightening. I’m here to talk to Newton. Can you hear me, Newt?”
“He’s gone,” they hissed.
“I see. Don’t worry, Newton, I’ll do all the talking today. You know I don’t mind that And I’ve brought you some comic books to read. You must be awfully bored in here.” He took three volumes out of his bag and held them up for his friend to see.
The precursors spitefully shut Newton’s eyes, petty as a bunch of children. But they couldn’t prevent his hearing.
“Aliens,” Hermann explained calmly. “It’s a continuation of the film, featuring Hicks and Newt.”
“Newt is dead,” the precursors snarled.
“Mm. That was a retcon,” Hermann said, willfully ignoring what they meant him to hear. “These comics were published years before Alien 3 established the characters’ deaths. They were considered canon until the movie wiped it all away. Then the comics were reprinted with the characters’ names changed to ‘Billie’ and ‘Wicks,’ to accommodate the films’ continuity. It was a real shame. The comics were so highly acclaimed, and the film was almost universally panned—incidentally, that dislike had a lot to do with the creators having so little respect for their own fans that they killed off two beloved characters, unceremoniously, without a second thought. That’s no way to run a franchise. But it is an interesting situation, isn’t it? Supplementary materials are only canon until someone at the top decides they’re not. The same thing happened with the Star Wars Expanded Universe, you know. They’re calling it ‘Legends’ now. I never could get used to that. And you know what else—”
“Hermann!” the precursors snapped. “Newton is dead!”
Hermann was quiet for a moment, looking into his old friend’s face, twisted by hate into something almost unrecognizable. Almost.
“They really would like me to believe that.” As if he’d ever accept that Newton was beyond saving. “I’m still with you, Newton. No matter what.”
Newton didn’t respond, but neither did they. Hermann couldn’t be sure what struggle was going on inside his head, but he could imagine his dear friend trying to make himself heard. And he could imagine what Newton would say to him if he could.
“Would you like me to read to you?” Hermann asked. “This is the second rerelease, with the original continuity restored.” He smiled slightly. “Newt is alive.”
Newton’s jaw clenched, lips peeled back from his teeth in a feral sort of sneer. His eyes squeezed shut, the veins in his temples standing out in stark contrast to the sudden flush in his face. Then he gave a single, jerky nod and fell back in his chair, trembling with the effort of what he’d just done.
Hermann moved his chair over next to Newton’s, on the wrong side of the tape line, where he could let him look at the pictures. On the very worst days, the precursors did still attempt to harm him when he got too close, but Hermann was not afraid. They had never yet tried anything he couldn’t handle, and the potential danger did not outweigh his need to demonstrate his trust in Newt. Newton would never hurt him, and Newton was the one he was there for. Always.
“I heard from Raleigh, by the way,” Hermann said as he opened the first volume. “Apparently he’s a kaiju now.”
There was a long, tense moment of silence. Then Newton said, with difficulty and in his own voice, “S-sick, dude.”
“Well, don’t get too excited. He still looks completely human. But he says he’ll allow you to study his mutation as soon as we get you out of this.” Hermann flicked his hand in a dismissive gesture that encompassed the chair, the cell, the hivemind and all.
Newton didn’t speak again, but he did manage a smile. Now he had one more thing to look forward to.