“Then it won’t be a problem,” she said. “And work on your Mandarin. I don’t like to repeat myself, in any language.”
8
JAEGERWATCH—
AN OPEN LETTER TO MAKO MORI
We are trying to wrap our heads around this Drone thing, Madam Secretary General, and we have to say it’s not easy. Would Gipsy Danger still be Gipsy Danger if she didn’t have the stories of the Becket brothers tied up in her history? Would Hong Kong Harbor have memorials to Crimson Typhoon if the Wei triplets had not piloted her, or Cherno Alpha if the Kaidanovskys had not died inside? You know the answer. Nobody ever built a monument to a machine. And maybe that’s all right. Maybe it’s time we stopped building memorials. The Kaiju War is over, isn’t it? There are still great things for Jaegers to do—remember when November Ajax stopped a highway overpass from falling on the commuter train in Los Angeles?—but maybe those things could be just as well done by machines.
And maybe not. Rangers were heroes, and we need heroes. People need heroes. And only people can be heroes.
So if you’re listening, Mako Mori, remember that. Machines can be spectacular, and they can do great things… but they can’t be heroes.
In the War Room, Shao Liwen stood before a massive hologram of a Drone Jaeger. The prototype was designed along the lines of other Jaegers, because it was more efficient to repurpose the existing structural technologies than completely redesign the Drone Jaeger’s body. The primary visual difference from human-piloted Jaegers was in the structure of the Drone’s head. There was no need to dedicate space for a Drift cradle or human life-support systems, so the Drone’s head was smaller and set lower between the shoulders. Where a human-piloted Jaeger typically had a window so the pilots could visually supplement their input from sensors and instruments, the Drone had a single red light that gave it the appearance of a mechanical Cyclops. The “eye” was in fact a multispectrum visual and motion sensor, located in the Drone’s “face” as a concession to human nature. Shao could have put the sensor anywhere, but she knew the Drones would be less likely to frighten ordinary people if they retained some semblance of a human aspect.
Arrayed around Shao was a mixed group of Rangers and J-Tech personnel. They looked on skeptically, some with outright hostility visible on their faces. Mixed in among them were Secretary General Mako Mori, Hermann Gottlieb, and security staffers.
Shao had chosen Dr. Geiszler and Burke to stand with her for the presentation. They would be able to answer the questions that were sure to arise, and Burke had the added clout of being a former Ranger, not to mention Nate’s former copilot, who left the PPDC to take a job in the private sector.
She had already introduced the mechanical specifics of the Drones, and was now moving on to the real paradigm-shifting innovation at the heart of the project. “The system I designed processes commands through a quantum data core,” she said, as a holographic diagram of the core appeared. “Thus relieving the neural load. This means that a single pilot can operate the Drone via remote link from anywhere in the world. As soon as the Council approves deployment, the days of struggling to find and train Drift-compatible pilots will be a thing of the past.”
Shao had anticipated questions at this point, and planned a pause so Burke and Dr. Geiszler could address or deflect them. Her anticipation proved accurate, as dissatisfied murmurs immediately swept through the room at the suggestion that the PPDC would no longer need Drift-compatible Rangers. The Council in Sydney, composed of delegates from all PPDC member states, would make the final decision on Drone deployment, but Shao knew implementation of the plan would be smoother if she could pre-emptively address concerns coming from individual groups of Rangers.
Ranger Lambert spoke up on behalf of his colleagues, who seemed particularly incensed by the Drone presentation. Again, Shao had expected this, and she had rehearsed answers to a number of different possible questions. “You think a bunch of desk jockeys playing with their joysticks can stop a Kaiju attack?” Lambert asked, scorn clear in his tone.
“Not only can they stop it, they can do so without putting pilots at unnecessary risk, Nate,” Burke answered.
“Contrary to what you may have heard,” Shao added, “we’re not here to shut you down.” She made an effort to sound diplomatic and collegial, even though neither of those qualities came naturally to her. She didn’t necessarily need the Rangers’ support to push the Drone program through PPDC approvals, but the less friction accompanied the process, the better.
“Cooperation between our programs has never been more vital,” Burke added. “If there are any questions…?”
The room exploded in an uproar of questions from both Rangers and techs. None of them believed for a single moment that Shao had any intention of working with them. The whole point of the Drone program was to get them out of their Drift cradles and behind desks, and they were not going to go quietly. “We don’t want your damn Drones!” shouted a Ranger by the name of Huang. “We’re pilots, not a bunch of overpaid office workers!”
Jake felt exactly the same way, but rather than join the shouting, he turned and walked out of the room. He needed to calm himself down before he said something he regretted. This was one of the times when having the surname Pentecost made him self-conscious. Whatever he said would carry more weight with the Rangers because of his father, despite the fact that many Rangers still carried a grudge against Jake for getting kicked out of the Ranger program back when he was barely
