“Oh, great, yeah. Let’s go yanking on the guts of the weird Kaiju kill-bot,” said Suresh.
Amara succeeded in ripping the cable loose. No one noticed that her yanking ruptured a Kaiju blood vessel running along the ceiling. She eyed the inside of the cable, her brow furrowing.
“What is it?” asked Jinhai.
Before she could answer, blue Kaiju blood dripped down. It just missed her—but it caught Jinhai in the arm! He grunted as the caustic blood ate through his jacket and seared his arm.
“Jinhai!” screamed Amara.
Jinhai dropped to the floor in agony, trying not to scream. Amara tore at his jacket, avoiding the caustic blood.
“I told you not to yank on those!” said Suresh.
“Go get help! Go!” said Amara. Meilin and Suresh bolted off.
Jinhai gripped Amara’s arm, grunting in agony. Amara kneeled next to him, her face twisted in sorrow and fear.
Jake argued with Marshal Quan out in the corridor. Quan stormed off. Amara sat alone in the holding room. Jake walked in to talk to her.
“Is Jinhai okay?” she asked.
“There’s gonna be some scarring, but yeah. He’ll live,” said Jake. “Marshal’s put him on probation. Meilin and Suresh too. They blink wrong, all of ’em are out.”
“It wasn’t their fault. I talked them into it. Jake, listen, there’s something—” Amara started, but Jake interrupted.
“Amara, I tried to talk to the marshal. I’m sorry. You’re dismissed from the program,” said Jake.
“Doesn’t matter. Never belonged here anyway,” said Amara.
Jake saw the pain her words attempted to cover. He crossed to sit next to her. “I said the same thing, long time ago. But I didn’t want to be here. Not like you.”
“Then why’d you sign up?” asked Amara.
“We were at war. My dad was leading the charge. I thought . . . I dunno. Maybe I’d see more of him. Maybe even drift with him . . .” Jake smiled. It was a happy memory.
“Then one night Nate—Ranger Lambert—and I get into it. Over something stupid, don’t even remember what. So I climbed into an old Mark IV to show him I didn’t need him or anybody else to be a great pilot.”
Amara eyed him, stunned. “Wow. That was stupid.”
Jake shook his head and laughed. “Yeah. Took two steps and blacked out from the strain. First thing I saw when I woke up in the infirmary was my dad. He told me I was out of the program. Said I didn’t deserve to be in a Jaeger. He said—he said a lot of other things. And so did I. Soon as I could stand up, I left and never looked back.”
Jake paused. A quiet moment passed. Then, he continued.
“A year later, he was gone. I never got the chance to prove him wrong. More importantly, I never got the chance to prove it to myself. Because I was angry. And hurt. Don’t let what other people think define who you are. You won’t like where that takes you. Do you understand? And keep your head up, and you might just be as good-looking as me in this type of situation. Seriously, this face is set up well. Beauty is a burden. You’ll be alright.”
Jake got up to leave. Amara stopped him.
“Shao Industries. That’s what I was trying to tell you. Obsidian Fury has tech in it made by Shao Industries,” she said.
“Jules and her team scanned every centimeter of that Jaeger. Didn’t find any serial numbers or identifying markers,” said Jake.
“Insulating metamaterials wound counterclockwise in the shunt cabling. Shao’s the only company that winds them that way,” explained Amara.
“Amara, are you sure?” asked Jake.
“Yeah. Stole a ton of it to make Scrapper. Thought it might be important,” said Amara.
Jake tightened at the revelation. He rushed out of the holding cell.
It was night at the Moyulan Shatterdome. Jake, Nate, and Gottlieb hustled down the corridor.
“Shao Industries? They don’t even have a bio division,” said Gottlieb.
“That we know of,” said Jake.
“Cabling could have been stolen, just like in Amara’s Jaeger. We need more than that to link Obsidian Fury to Shao,” said Nate.
“What about Newt? He’d have access to internal records, shipping manifests . . .” said Gottlieb.
“Go see him. Keep it low profile,” said Jake.
“A mission. I have a secret mission!” said Gottlieb excitedly.
Amara sullenly looked on as PPDC security emptied out her locker in the cadet barracks.
“This isn’t fair,” said Suresh.
Jinhai stepped over with his arm bandaged from the Kaiju blood burn. “I tried to talk to my parents. But they wouldn’t listen,” he said.
“It was my ‘mission.’ This is on me,” said Amara.
Security finished and started to lead Amara out of the barracks. Vik called to her, “Amara. The next Jaeger you build. Make it a big one,” she said, supportively.
Amara nodded, choking back the emotion of leaving people she was beginning to feel were her family.
Shao Liwen strode through the lobby of her offices in Shanghai. It was time for drone deployment. Her eyes focused on a data pad in her hands. Chief Kang fell into step with her. “The building’s secure, ma’am,” he said.
“No visitors without the proper credentials. I don’t want anyone interfering with deployment,” said Shao.
Her data pad beeped. She eyed something on it and frowned—suspicion clouding her face.
Meanwhile, inside a remote room owned by Shao Industries, Newt worked a holo screen. He punched in commands to track the drones in the field.
“. . . aaaand delivery at one hundred percent! That right there, that’s the way you do it—” he said gleefully.
Warning lights flashed! Burke wrestled with his controls.
“Losing uplink to drone 375!” said Burke.
Newt whirled around as more warning lights flashed. Now several remote pilots lost their uplink connections.
At the Moyulan Shatterdome, Xiang tensed. A holo map of Jaegers in the field flashed red. Out on the tarmac, two drone Jaegers were being flown in via Jumphawks. Amara glanced up at them as PPDC security escorted her out.
Jake, heading to a Jumphawk with Nate and Quan, locked eyes with her across the tarmac.
“Give me a second,”
