Pacific Rim Uprising

by Becky Matheson

He approached the drift rig Amara was punching. He saw that one side was occupied by a human brain floating in a container of synthetic cerebral fluid. A plaque mounted below the brain read: THIS IS SARAH. SHE DONATED HER MIND SO THAT YOU COULD TRAIN. TELL ME HER FAVORITE CANDY BAR.

  Jake smiled. “They’re still using Sarah, huh?”

  “I can’t get her to drift with me,” said Amara. “The other cadets have been training forever. Hate feeling like the slow kid.”

  “You gotta relax, or you’re just grinding gears,” said Jake.

  Jake punched holo commands. Sarah retracted. She was replaced by a regular drift rig.

  “Relax. Got it, coach,” said Amara.

  “Don’t call me coach,” said Jake.

  “Sensei?” joked Amara.

  Jake took the drift helmet and slid it on. “Just shut up and clear your mind. Can’t connect if you’re running your mouth. You ready?”

  Amara gave him the double thumbs up.

  “Let’s see if we’re drift compatible . . .” said Jake.

  Jake punched commands. Amara gasped as she got sucked into the drift space. Their minds were melding. Abstract memories rushed past.

  Amara as a kid: laughing as she chased her brother through the backyard, her on a bicycle. Then her father teaching her how to rebuild a car engine in the garage.

  The memories transitioned easily to Jake as a young boy in his father’s study. He put on his dad’s hat, which was way too big for him, and saluted. Young Jake in military school jogging in formation with a teenage Nate. Then, a younger Mako teaching Jake how to staff fight.

  Then, they were sucked out of the drift. “Warning! Neural connection unstable,” said a computer voice.

  Jake whipped his eyes to a holo drift connection meter. The strength of their connection dropped down to the red zone.

  “Stay focused,” instructed Jake. Amara concentrated. The connection meter started to climb.

  “That’s it. The stronger the connection, the better you fight,” said Jake.

  Amara grinned. She was getting the hang of it. She picked up one of Jake’s memories. “You lived in a mansion?” she joked, referring to the time he spent in an abandoned one in Santa Monica.

  WHAM! Amara winced as a memory slammed into her.

  The Santa Monica Pier. People running and screaming. She was little and standing frozen in the middle of the chaos, clutching a Polaroid photograph.

  Jake winced. Warning alarms wailed. “Don’t let a memory pull you in. Let them pass through you. Amara!”

  Amara turned to Jake, but she didn’t see him. Instead she was looking at—

  Her father on the pier. Holding a Polaroid camera. “Amara! Get in there!” he screamed. She rushed past to join her mother and her big brother.

  Jake was now standing on the pier as well, sucked into Amara’s memory.

  The family laughed. Click. Photo taken. Amara grabbed the Polaroid from her dad and ran to the railing, shaking the picture to accelerate development.

  “Amara! You need to let it go—” said Jake.

  WHOOSH! A Kaiju burst out of the water behind young Amara. It took out a section of the pier. Young Amara was trapped on the ocean side of the pier, frozen in the chaos of the fleeing crowd. Her family was on the other side.

  Amara spasmed. She was lost in the horror of the memory. “Warning. Pilot exceeding neural limits,” said a computer voice.

  Jake gritted his teeth and shouted to her. “Amara!”

  Amara’s father was motioning at her. “You have to jump!” he screamed. Young Amara hesitated—terrified. “Please baby, jump to me! I’ll catch you, I promise! Amara!” screamed her dad. Amara ran and leapt into the air. Her father reached out and KA-THOOM! A Kaiju foot slammed down, obliterating her family. Young Amara hit the water. The shadow of the Kaiju passed overhead. She started to sink . . .

  Jake’s hand grabbed Amara, yanking her out of the memory. Amara was shaken. Almost nonresponsive. “Amara! Come on! Hey!” said Jake.

  Amara snapped out of it. She looked around in a state of panic. She locked eyes with Jake. “I was back home. I felt it . . .” she explained.

  Jake felt the weight of what happened to her in the past almost as keenly as if it had happened to him. “I felt it too,” he said.

  Jake’s comm crackled to life, interrupting the moment. “Jake, it’s Nate. You there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here,” said Jake.

  “Meet me in the lab right away. Marshal wants to see us. And lose the robe,” said Nate.

  “Check. No robe,” said Jake. He grinned at Amara.

  A jumble of fragmented data swirled across a holographic screen in Gottlieb’s lab. Jake and Nate stood with Marshal Quan.

  “What is it?” asked Jake.

  “A message. From Mako,” said Marshal Quan.

  The news hit Jake hard. He stared at the holographic data.

  “She was trying to send it from her copter right before she—” Gottlieb caught himself. “It’s a data packet, high density,” he finished.

  Nate looked confused. “Obsidian Fury was jamming comms. How’d her signal get through?”

  “It didn’t. At least not intact,” Marshal Quan answered.

  “So it’s gone,” said Jake.

  At this, Gottlieb chirped up. “ ‘Gone is relative in the digital realm. By running a modified fractal algorithm, I might be able to reconstruct a few megabytes . . .” Gottlieb tapped a few keys. “There!” he said.

  A static-filled image of the strange Kaiju head that Mako had been drawing just before her copter went down appeared on the holo screen.

  “Is that . . . is that a Kaiju?” asked Jake.

  Gottlieb was working the terminal. “No match against the database,” he said.

  “Keep looking. Whatever this is, it was important to her. I want to know why,” said Marshal Quan. Then, he exited the room.

  Nate stared at Mako’s drawing. “You don’t stop fighting till the enemy’s down . . .” He looked up at Jake. “. . . If you’re really a soldier.” Then Nate followed Marshal Quan out.

  Jake was left alone in the lab with Mako’s drawing. He stared at the holo screen trying to make sense of it.

  Newt walked through Shao Industries at night. His lab here was top-of-the-line—a high-tech marvel by anyone’s standards. Lab techs in their twenties and thirties were busily working at their computer stations. Newt rushed in hurriedly and hissed at the tech next to him, “How long’s she been here?” He pointed at Shao.

  “Almost an hour,” said the tech, named Daiyu.

  Newt cursed under his breath as he crossed over to greet Shao. Her hands were buried deep in the guts of a drone Jaeger data core.

  Burke stood next to her in a sharp-looking drone Jaeger telemetry suit. Cables ran from his VR helmet into the data core. Newt forced a smile.

  “Hey boss. Sorry, thought you were still in Sydney,” he said to Shao.

  “The council has approved drone deployment in an emergency session,” she replied.

  “Wow, that’s . . . that’s great,” Newt stammered.

  “Thought you’d be a little more enthusiastic, Doc,” said Burke.

  “No, I am, it’s just, you know. They’re approving now because of the attack,” said Newt.

  “I was there. I know what happened,” said Shao in English. Then she switched to Mandarin and said, “And it wouldn’t have happened, if our drones had been in the field. Now everyone sees that.”

  “Yeah. I guess they do,” said Newt.

  “Which means the attack was positive. All things considered,” said Shao in Mandarin again.

  “If you look at it sideways and squint, then yeah I guess—” said Newt.

  Shao disconnected Burke from the data core. “There’s a 0.5-second micro delay in the uplink to the data cores,” she said.

  “I know. I’m working on boosting the connection,” said Newt.

  “Any other irregularities I should know about?” asked Shao.


  “No. All systems double thumbs,” answered Newt.

  “Push your data to my server. I want to run a diagnostic. The council expects full deployment in 48 hours.” Shao switched back to English. “Get it done,” she said firmly.

  Shao swept out of the lab with Burke at her side.

  Newt called after her. “Sure! No problem! I’m on it like a guy—like a guy that’s really, really on it.”

  “What? No way we’ll be ready!” whispered Daiyu in a harsh tone.

  “Way? Way? Yes, way. Know what—you’re fired. No, get this done, then you’re fired. Or promoted. We’ll see how it goes. But probably fired. Go! Shoo!” Newt exclaimed.

  The techs peeled off as Newt walked up to an observation window. The window overlooked a massive automated factory where the drone Jaegers at Shao Industries were being fitted with data cores. Newt eyed them. He was worried about the schedule, despite his promises to Shao. He never could catch a break, he thought to himself.

  Amara sat on her bunk bed, streaming the newsfeed of the Sydney attack. She studied the evil Jaeger’s every move. Tahima peeked over Amara’s shoulder and grunted in contempt.

  “ ‘Obsidian Fury.’ Doesn’t even sound like a real Jaeger name,” said Tahima, motioning at the evil Jaeger.

  “I don’t think Tahima sounds like a real name, but your mama did,” joked Renata.

  “There’s never been a rogue like this,” said Amara. “How’d the Kaiju nuts build it? Ones where I’m from couldn’t change a battery without getting fried.”

  “Maybe they stole it,” said Ryoichi.

  “Da. You can steal anything in my country with overalls and a work order,” said Ilya.

  Amara hadn’t stopped looking at the feed. “These pilots . . . they’re too fast. I don’t understand how they’re exceeding the neural load—”

  “Ballerinas, I’m telling you,” chimed in Jinhai.

  “Stop it with that, man. You know how many people died in Sydney?” said Tahima.

  “Newsfeed said they’re posting a dozen Jaegers at the memorial,” said Meilin.

  “When I die, I want that many to send me off,” said Suresh.

  “Still you die—meh. I’d post one Jaeger at your funeral. Maybe half a Jaeger,” said Jinhai.

  “I heard that’s where they found Amara. In half a Jaeger,” said Vik, looking at Amara coldly.

  Amara shot up. “It was a whole Jaeger. It just wasn’t very big, Viktoriya.”

  Renata’s mouth hung open after Amara used Vik’s full name. This was getting good!

  Vik stepped close to Amara, looming over her. “Bigger is better,” she said.

  Amara sized Vik up. She was much bigger. “Look, uh—Idi na fig,” said Amara in Russian. Vik laughed in disbelief. Ilya, who was also Russian, tensed.

  “What did you say?” said Vik.

  “Idi na . . . fig?” Amara said hesitantly. “Am I saying that right?” she asked Jinhai.

  “Yep,” said Jinhai. He suppressed a laugh. The Russian phrase he taught Amara was obviously not a friendly one. Vik exploded and grabbed Amara in a chokehold.

  “Whoa!” said Jinhai.

  “Vik, come on! Let her go—” said Ryoichi.

  “I worked every day of my life to be here! You didn’t do anything! You were just picked up off the street like garbage!” Vik screamed.

  Amara snapped. She broke free and took Vik down with a scissor lock around the neck. The cadets erupted in surprise as Vik struggled for air.

  “Know where I learned that? On the streets, you big dumb—”

  “Namani! Malikova!” screamed a voice. The cadets whirled around to face Nate.

  “Ranger Lambert on deck,” warned Ryoichi.

  The cadets all stood at attention. Amara released Vik, and they both scrambled up.

  “She jumped me—” said Amara.

  “She does not belong here,” said Vik.

  “Enough!” screamed Nate. There was anger in his voice, but the cadets could also see the pain and loss in his eyes. Amara and Vik fell silent.

  “When I first joined the corps, I was just like you. Worse even. I was nobody. From nowhere. But Mako Mori told me I could make a difference,” said Nate.

  Jake drifted into the room. He had heard Nate’s words from outside the door, and they drew him in. He was still wearing his street clothes.

  Nate continued. “She said whoever you are, wherever you come from, the minute you enter this program, you’re part of a family. And the people beside you are your brothers and sisters.”

  Nate cocked his head toward Jake. This speech was half meant for him.

  “No matter what they do . . . no matter how stupid they act . . . you forgive. And you move on. Because that’s what family does. Start believing that out here and you’ll start believing it in a Jaeger.”

  Nate’s words hit the room hard. Amara and Vik exchanged sheepish glances. Jake looked at Nate, suddenly understanding the hurt he caused his “brother” when he ran off years ago. Then, Jules entered the cadets’ barracks.

  “Hey,” she said. Nate and Jake turned to face her. “Marshal’s looking for you guys. Said Gottlieb found something.”

  The rangers rushed over to the lab. Gottlieb worked a holo screen, displaying Mako’s Kaiju head drawing. It overlaid a section of topography. Jake, Nate, and Marshal Quan couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Mako’s drawing wasn’t a Kaiju head. It was a map!

  “Severnaya Zemlya. Off Siberia’s Taymyr Peninsula,” explained Gottlieb.

  “What’s in Zemlya?” asked Marshal Quan.

  “Nothing anymore,” said Gottlieb. He zoomed in on the eye of the drawing. “A facility roughly in this location was used to manufacture Jaeger power cores early in the war. But it was decommissioned years ago.”

  “Why would Mako be trying to tell us about an abandoned factory in the middle of nowhere?” asked Nate. Then he eyed Jake, challenging him.

  Jake understood. He turned to Marshal Quan.

  “Sir, permission to take Gipsy Avenger and see what’s out there.”

  A howling swirl of ice and snow assaulted the frozen landscape. Gipsy Avenger blasted through the snow. The Jaeger paused, looking up at something in the distance.

  It was a manufacturing facility built into the side of a glacier, the one Gottlieb had mentioned in the lab. A cascade of ice half sealed the abandoned and dilapidated structure.

  Nate eyed the tactical scans of the facility on Gipsy’s display.

  “No life signs. Looks like Gottlieb was right. Place is abandoned,” said Nate.

  Then, the scan partially locked onto something deep inside the facility. It was faint and fluctuating.

  “Wait a second. I’m picking up some weird readings—” said Jake.

  WHOOM! Plasma missiles roared past Gipsy Avenger and destroyed the facility, obliterating any evidence that it might have contained. Gipsy whirled around to face Obsidian Fury, emerging out of a swirl of ice and snow!

  Obsidian Fury loomed on Gipsy’s screen. Jake snarled and hurled forward in his drift cradle. He was no longer afraid of Obsidian Fury. Now he just wanted revenge for Mako’s death!

  Gipsy charged at Obsidian. Obsidian unleashed another barrage of missiles. They slammed into Gipsy, but Gipsy ignored them and charged forward. “Get him off his feet,” screamed Nate. Jake bellowed and leapt into the air.

  WHAM! Gipsy Avenger tackled Obsidian Fury. Both Jaegers skidded across the ice and tumbled into a crevasse. As she fell through the deep fracture in the ice, Gipsy unleashed her chain sword. Obsidian countered by revving up his chain saws. The Jaegers traded blows, bounced off an embankment, and—

  — crashed through the ice wall and out onto an ice floe!

  Obsidian was the first Jaeger to regain balance. He whirled to face Gipsy, and then fired a sustained blast from his chest disrupter. Gipsy hipped her chain sword up. The disruptor beam slammed into it, throwing off ribbons of energy.

  Jake and Nate struggled to block the
particle beam assault with their chain sword.

  “We gotta get out of here!” said Nate.

  Jake thought fast. He reared up his fist and slammed it down! Gipsy imitated the motion—her fist slam cracked the ice at her feet. Gipsy tumbled into the water. Jake and Nate braced as the ice gave way under them.

  Obsidian Fury walked to the edge of the hole in the ice that Gipsy had just created and looked down. FHOOM! FHOOM! FHOOM! Detonations bloomed deep below in the water.

  WHOOSH! Missiles exploded out of the hole. They arced up and crashed down all around Obsidian, blowing out the ice under the metal beast’s feet. Obsidian Fury crashed into the water and started to sink.

  Gipsy Avenger rushed up from the depths, propelled by maneuvering jets in her legs. She slammed into Obsidian Fury, driving the evil Jaeger up through the ice.

  Gipsy and Obsidian Fury surged up through the ice, trading thunderous blows as they grappled. Obsidian started to get the upper hand, but then Gipsy blasted the Jaeger. Obsidian flew back and Gipsy rose to her feet.

  “I think we pissed him off,” said Nate.

  “Good,” said Jake.

  Jake and Nate deployed Gipsy’s chain sword.

  Obsidian reacted by deploying his chain saws, but this time they turned into whirling blades. Jake and Nate exchanged a worried look. The two Jaegers charged at each other.

  “Follow my lead!” said Jake.

  Obsidian swung his blades to cut Gipsy’s head off, but Gipsy ducked under the blow and sliced open Obsidian’s chest.

  “He’s hurt!” said Jake.

  “Go for his power core!” said Nate.

  Jake stabbed out to destroy Obsidian’s exposed power core, but Obsidian dodged the attack. Instead, Gipsy’s sword sunk into Obsidian’s thigh. Obsidian chopped off Gipsy’s chain sword, sending Gipsy tumbling.

  Obsidian Fury went in for the kill with his chain saws, but Gipsy caught the Jaeger’s wrists. Obsidian Fury pressed, its saws gouging into Gipsy’s head. The conn-pod was about to come apart! Nate and Jake strained with all their might to repel the attack.

  Slowly, painfully, heroically, Gipsy Avenger forced the plasma chain saws away from her head and back into Obsidian’s own chest. Obsidian reeled and Gipsy Avenger pressed the advantage—raining blows down on Obsidian. Jake and Nate gave the other Jaeger a beating!