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
