This was supposed to be a day of celebration, a new stage in the development of the PPDC and the Jaeger Corps. Instead, thought Marshal Quan, it was entirely possible that by the end of the night there would be no Jaeger Corps left at all.
23
PAN PACIFIC DEFENSE CORPS JOINT SECURITY DIRECTIVE
NOT FOR PUBLIC CONSUMPTION
TO ALL LOCAL AND REGIONAL AUTHORITIES IN PPDC OVERSIGHT TERRITORIES:
Drone Jaegers in their initial deployments are attacking Ranger-piloted Jaegers, Shatterdomes, and other PPDC installations. All Drone Jaegers should be destroyed on sight using any and all available weapons short of tactical nuclear options.
All civilian populations and non-essential PPDC staff must be evacuated from the areas near the Drone attacks.
Jumphawks, V-Dragons, and other PPDC aircraft currently deployed should not return to their home Shatterdomes. Activate existing protocols for redirecting PPDC aircraft in emergency situations, per landing agreements at other regional facilities.
Until further notice, no Shao Industries contractors are to be permitted in any Shatterdome facility without personal clearance from that Shatterdome’s Marshal or acting Marshal.
No PPDC personnel are to comment publicly on these events under any circumstances. PPDC Council outreach staff in Sydney will coordinate public response and dissemination of information. It is particularly emphasized that PPDC personnel should not answer questions regarding Kaiju tissue or Kaiju components in Drone Jaegers.
Newt hurried through the halls of Shao Industries, on his way to Shao’s offices. She needed a personal update on what was happening, and she really needed to hear it from him. That was urgent in a way that Newt felt without really understanding why he felt it so keenly. He was still in shock from what he’d seen in the lab. Every single Drone Jaeger had first gone offline and then surged back to active status under independent control. The feedback through the remote Drift cradles had killed almost all of the pilots in the Remote Conn Lab. It was a horrific sight. The ones who survived had devastating brain injuries. Most of them lay twitching in their cradles, muttering gibberish or just moaning without words. Newt had ordered the tech crew to try to re-establish control over the Drones, broadcasting automatic emergency shutdown codes, but they had all been ignored.
In short, Newt had just overseen the deployment of dozens of hostile Jaegers that were in the process of destroying PPDC installations all over the world. Not to mention the havoc they were causing in the cities where Drone demonstrations had been planned as public-relations events. It was an unthinkable situation. How was it even possible? Who could have done it? There were reports from the field about strange organic protrusions on some of the rogue Drones, but Newt didn’t know how that could be possible. It was just nuts. People under battlefield stress saw funny things, that was all. Just like with that rogue Jaeger, the one the PPDC was calling Obsidian Fury. Couldn’t be that fast, right? That much faster than all the other Jaegers? Unless someone really different had created it…?
He was having thoughts like that pretty often the more stressed he got, and to keep his thoughts from going in directions he didn’t want them to go, Newt had been talking to himself a lot lately. Anyway, it made him feel better and he wasn’t self-conscious about it even though he knew some people thought talking to yourself meant you were crazy, but that was their problem. So at the moment he was rushing down the hall and talking a blue streak to himself as he went, convincing himself that everything would be all right once he got the situation figured out and knew what action to take. “Okay, okay, you got this, it’s cool. You cool? Yeah, I’m cool. I’m super cool…”
A lab tech, Qingsheng, called to Newt as he passed by. “Dr. Geiszler! Shao’s looking for you.”
“I know, I know! I’m heading up!” Newt almost started running, but he thought if he did, he might panic. The old unstable feeling in his mind was back, and it was all he could do to keep himself under control. Those were his Drones. He had designed their systems, he had overseen their manufacturing, he had helped write the training protocols for the remote Drift cradles. How had he missed someone sabotaging the whole thing by—
As he came around a corner, he almost ran smack into Hermann Gottlieb, who grabbed Newt by the arm and pulled him aside. “Hermann? How did you get in here?” He’d thought Kang had the building locked down to all outsiders.
“I do have PPDC credentials,” Gottlieb said, a little huffy at the perceived slight despite the panicked circumstances. “And besides, everyone here seems a bit preoccupied with the killer Drones your boss just set off.”
“It’s not her fault!” Newt said instinctively. But how did he know that? Why did he feel so certain about it? A plausible alternative occurred to him and he ran with it. “The Kaiju worshippers! Maybe they found a way to hack—”
“This has nothing to do with Kaiju worshippers!” Gottlieb was almost shouting. When he saw he had Newt’s attention, he glanced around them. Seeing no one else nearby, he went on in a lower voice. “We found evidence linking Obsidian Fury to Shao Industries.”
Newt couldn’t believe it. Shao, mounting a terrorist attack on the PPDC right when she was about to need the organization to approve her Drone program? That was… a little too on the nose as a false-flag conspiracy theory, wasn’t it? Although maybe that made it perfect, Newt thought. Nobody would believe how pat it was, so it would be easier to get away with it. Design a rogue Jaeger, threaten other Jaegers, demonstrate how they need some help, blow up part of the Council Building to make sure your point gets across… Was Shao capable of that? Newt really found that hard to believe. There had to
