3. The last thing you built might be the best thing you will ever build… but you have to build the next thing to find out.
4. Humans can both ask questions and answer them… but sometimes the answer is a machine. It is a terrible mistake to see machines as something apart from humans, because we envision them. We create them. We improve them and make them obsolete and envision new ones. Creating machines is one of the most human things a human can do.
5. If I had not become an engineer and programmer, I would have been… I don’t know. I don’t feel like I have done my best work yet, so it isn’t yet time to think about doing something else.
Marshal Quan knew that he had lost Valor Omega in the first attack, and then Titan Redeemer moments ago. But as he burst into the LOCCENT overlooking the Jaeger bay, he didn’t know the status of Guardian Bravo, Bracer Phoenix, Saber Athena, or Gipsy Avenger—although Gipsy was still undergoing repairs from her battle with Obsidian Fury. “Sit-rep!” he called. “Where the hell are my pilots—?”
Instead of answering that question, Xiang reacted as red circles suddenly blinked into existence all across the LOCCENT holo map of the Pacific Rim.
“Breaches detected!” Xiang cried out. “Multiple locations! It’s the Drones, sir!” Quan registered the scale of the problem as he saw the number of Breaches. If even one Kaiju came through each, there weren’t enough Jaegers in the world to stop them. “All pilots!” he said, leaning into the commlink. “Breaches detected!”
Down in the Shatterdome Jake heard Quan’s alert. “Drones in the field are opening multiple Breaches across the Pacific Rim—”
The communication cut off as plasma missiles shrieked through the Jaeger bay and obliterated everyone inside the LOCCENT. The entire structure, undermined by the force of the explosions, came crashing down onto the deck as everyone below scrambled for cover. Jake dove behind the prone hulk of Titan Redeemer, with Jules and Lambert right behind him. Explosions rocked the interior of the bay and burning wreckage scattered across the deck between them and the docks holding the remaining Jaegers. The cadets, staying low, ran to join them in the relative safety behind Titan Redeemer. “We told you to get to quarters!” Jake shouted.
Amara pointed. “The corridor’s blocked!”
Lambert was doing a head count. “Where are Tahima and Meilin?”
“I don’t know!” Amara looked around but didn’t see them.
Next to her, Renata tried to stay focused, but her question came out sounding panicked. “What do we do?”
“Stay here,” Jake said. “We’re going to try to get to Gipsy.”
More missiles strafed the bay deck between them and the Jaeger docks. It didn’t seem too likely that Jake and Lambert would survive a sprint across to Gipsy Avenger, but they had to try. If there were Breaches opening, Kaiju would be coming through. The only people on Earth who could stop them were Rangers… and only if they could get to their Jaegers.
Jake looked over at Lambert. “You ready for this?”
“No,” Nate said right away. “You?”
“Nope.” They were both crouched, tensing to go. “On three,” Jake said. “One, two—”
A voice crackled through the static on the commlink. “—ello? Anyone there?”
Jake recognized the accent. “Gottlieb?”
* * *
In Newt’s lab, Shao worked furiously to hack the subroutine Newt had installed in the Drones’ operating code. The code’s security scrambled it into an undifferentiated mass of data blocks, but if there was one programmer on Earth as good as Newton Geiszler, that person was Shao Liwen. She would cut through the security sooner or later. The only question was whether she could do it soon enough.
“Jake, thank God!” Hermann said. “I’ve been trying to raise the LOCCENT—”
“It’s gone! We’re under attack! You have to force Liwen to shut down the Drones!”
“It isn’t her. It was Newt. Precursors infected him, got into his head.”
There was a brief pause as the Rangers digested this. Gottlieb understood it was a hard thing to believe, but he hoped they would realize he wouldn’t say something so outlandish without proof. When Ranger Lambert came back, his response gave Gottlieb at least some comfort. “Gottlieb, it’s Lambert. Can you make him disable the Drones?”
At least they believed him. But now Hermann had to admit a shameful truth. “No. He—he got away. It was my fault. I—”
On the holo screen, the scramble of data formed into comprehensible lines of code. “I’ve penetrated the subroutine,” Shao said. “Initiating shutdown protocol.”
* * *
In the Shatterdome, the Drone Jaegers had destroyed everything they could see from the bay doors. They stomped into the bay, training their weapons on the vehicles—and more importantly, the Jaegers—now within range. “Shut ’em down!” Jake yelled.
“Stand by,” Gottlieb answered. In the background they heard Shao say something angry in Mandarin. “It’s trying to lock you out!” Gottlieb said.
* * *
Shao paused as an idea occurred to her. If she couldn’t open the subroutine before the security protocols re-formed and shut her out, maybe she had time to rewrite just a few crucial lines of its code… “Feedback loop,” she said in English.
“Brilliant!” The data blocks were re-forming, but some of the code was still accessible. “If you modify that algorithm—”
Shao’s fingers flew over the keyboard, changing critical values. The screen was almost covered again in data blocks. Gottlieb couldn’t tell if she had managed to alter the correct lines in time.
Jake’s voice over the comm was tight with tension. “Gottlieb, shut ’em down now or we’re all gonna die.”
* * *
As Jake spoke, he was looking up at a Drone. It towered over the fallen Titan Redeemer, locking in on the group huddled on the other side. They were near Titan’s partially crushed head. The violent impact with the floor had smashed open the Jaeger’s face shield, exposing the still bodies of the Rangers inside. The Drone raised one hand and the muzzle of a cannon started to glow.
So this is how we die, Jake thought. We’re never even
