It came now like slow turning waves, like low tide on the beach of your family summer vacation. He could feel the motion of the waves, coming closer and closer. It's like a whisper in the back of his head, someone's saying goodbye in his ear as he shakes off this hangover. He tries to remember her name so he can call out to her but it's too late, he can hear the door shutting already. Like the rumble of thunder before the rain hits. Like the second right before a drift kicks in. He feels it coming, and shuts his eyes, waits for the message to become clear.
It had started off slow months and months ago, back then it was like a flash of light, like a tidal wave in his head. He wasn't used to it yet, he didn't know what it was, he ignored it rather than letting it come. Back then it wasn't whispers, it was a headache, a popped blood vessel, a bloody nose. He fell over once during work, had a minor seizure. He wouldn't have made a big deal of it, but one of the assistants came by and saw him writhing on the floor. They thought it was a tumor, but the scans came out clean. He knows now they weren't really looking in the right places. He doesn't even know if their kind of scans would work on this. Maybe they can't see it yet, this kind of drift. No, he assures himself. How would the scans see what was happening to him? The scans can trace the brain, the matter, and the meat, but they can't go any deeper. They can't see his mind, and that's where they were.
Some medication and some more tests was all they could do. He didn't think much of it, chalked it up to stress, lack of sleep, a few too many celebration hangovers maybe. No, he was small-minded back then. He ignored it, hoping and needing the problem to go away on its own. God forbid he face his own mortality. It makes him laugh even now, how he didn't think about it until he got a call from Hermann Gotlieb. The man asked, in his own awkward way, if everything was all right. There's a silence on the phone, neither wanting to speak. They're both afraid one of them is about to confirm the other's fears. Hermann breaks the silence with a cough and a sigh.
"I guess that's a no."
He hangs up the phone and limps towards the bedroom. Vanessa Gotlieb sleeps soundly in their bed. She's eight months pregnant and they've been working all day on the baby's room, wrapping up the finishing touches, the things that make it their own and not just something out of a catalogue. There's a teddy bear from Hermann's childhood, a locket from Vanessa. Family portraits and empty picture frames just waiting to be filled with memories.
He watches her sleep for a few minutes before waking her up and saying his goodbyes.
He was on a flight over that night. They were facing each other a few hours later. The silence continues, even though they're in the same room. But it's okay, they've been inside each other's heads, they're thinking the same thoughts, just waiting to finish the conversation in their own minds so they don't have to waste their breath on words. They go on like this, in something a bit too familiar to be awkward silence, until finally Newt Geiszler ends it.
"Do you remember what it felt like? In the drift?"
Hermann's face betrays him, a slight twitch of the lips, a forced frown that tries to hide the concern away. He can't help himself, he's made a friend of Newt Geiszler and he knows something's wrong. Newt wants to make a joke, some crack about Hermann's heart of stone cracking in two because of him, but he can't think of a punch line.
The lab feels dank and wet and just like home. They were supposed to get funding a few weeks back, move up to a larger facility with a team of people under them, but you know how bureaucracy goes. The people are too busy celebrating and the governments are too busy arguing to get anything done. They all think it's over, the silly, and tiny masses. Now they're back here, in Hong Kong, where no light makes it down to their underground work space. Where Kaiju guts have bled onto the floor and you can wash it all you want, the smell never really goes away. Hermann's hands are stained with chalk, like always. He says the sound of chalk hitting the board helps him think, white boards and dry erase markers can all go to Hell in his book. Chalk feels real. Real like his finger bones. He's writing pieces of him on the board, putting together the pieces.
They've been trying to get back to work because they know better than anyone else this isn't over. Everyone else is running off and getting married, having honeymoons, and erecting memorials, but they know better than that. They're having migraines, and nosebleeds and seizures at the same time from half a world away. Of course this isn't over. War is never so swiftly ended.
Hermann yearns for the new lab. They're already behind schedule. He was supposed to be there by now, getting it started, getting it on its feet before taking a leave of absence.
"You'll have to be more precise." Hermann says.
"It felt like something was watching us." Newt gets to the chase, he leans in closer. "I think it's still watching."
The prospect makes Hermann uncomfortable. His left eye hurts, out of instinct he goes to touch it, but stops himself when he sees Newt doing the same. The same pain, the same place. Newt grins, enjoying the madness their lives had become. He enjoys it because he has to. Because he'd probably cry like a baby if he didn't laugh about all of this.
"Your scans…" Hermann tries.
"All come up blank! Just like yours. There's nothing physically wrong with us. But you feel that, right? I'm not the only one, right?"
Hermann turns away, but Newt follows him wherever he goes.
"It was you and me and the Kaiju in the drift. We were looking into them and they were looking into us."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't play stupid with me, Hermann! This could be something really fucking cool, so don't wuss out on me here! I think these flashes we've been getting, cause don't lie to me, I know you're getting them too, I think that's them! I think they're trying to re-establish a connection!"
"I can't do this, Newton."
Hermann tries, almost desperately, Newt mistakes this for cowardice, and it only makes him more upset, more passionate.
"Why the hell not!?"
"I'm having a son!"
There's a moment when Hermann raises his voice, he simultaneously thinks of Vanessa. Consciously, he recalls the latest ultrasound, unconsciously he thinks of all aspects of her. The moment they met, the second he fell in love with her, the night he told her, the day he bought the wedding ring, the wedding itself, the Kaiju attacks, holding her and watching the television, the long distance calls, the whispers in the night. I miss you. I love you. Be safe. Come home. All at once, their life together sparks up in his brain. It hits Newton like a wave. He falls back, and Hermann looks at him, realizing what's just happened.
Newton grins, but Hermann shakes his head.
"I'm going to have a son, I can't have God forsaken Kaijus running around in my mind! That is unacceptable!"
"You felt that, right?"
"Leave me alone, Newton."
"Hey! This isn't just about you! This involves me too! You just sent me a telepathic gut punch, you can't just walk away from that!"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't bullshit me! Hermann, they're re-establishing our drift connection, to each other, and to them. They're a hive mind, man, they don't need stupid helmets to make it work. They're reaching across dimensions, trying to get in contact with you and me. Why? Because they want something. Because they have a plan!"
Hermann stands, a familiar tremor creeps up his leg, a pain from the knee that bleeds down the calf. He focuses on the pain, trying to think of anything else but this. Anything else but Kaijus and Newton Geiszler.
"Ow." Newton touches his knee.
They look at each other, a cold sliver goes down Hermann.
"Hey, stop that!" Newton cries.
"I'm not doing anything." Hermann lies.
"Fine, if you want to mess with me, I can mess with you!"
Newton shuts his eyes, strains. Hermann stands, waiting for something to happen.
"Stop making a fool of yourself." He says.
"Shut up! You're giving me thoughts and memories, I'll give you some too! I'll show you!" He shuts his eyes and tries again.
"Newton…"
"Oh, for Christ's shake, fine."
Newton rolls his eyes, thinks of the most painful memory he can think of. He sees his mother in person only once when he is ten-years-old. They think he's asleep but he's not, and he creeps down the stairs. He can hear her telling his father, don't wake him, I don't want to see him. Why not, come on. No, I can't do that right now. But he's creeping down the stairs, and she gets a glimpse of him. She turns away and never comes back.
Hermann stumbles back.
"Yeah!" Newton cries out, triumphant. "How's that taste? Shitty, I know already, it's awful, but there it is, Hermann! A connection. Our connection."
"I won't have this." Hermann turns to leave. "This wasn't happening until we were in the same room. I'm leaving. I'm going home."
"Hermann, we work better together! If we're separate who knows what the Kaiju will do to us! Remember? Jaeger pilots drift so they can share the load."
Hermann stops. Newton is waiting.
"We have to figure this out." Newt warns. "We have to. For us. For everyone."
That was fourteen weeks ago already. My, how time flies, he thinks. They're far from people now, deep in the remnants of Alcatraz right by San Francisco, home to the first Kaiju attack. The city never really got back on its feet. It's still a shadow of its former self, a mess of concrete and broken homes. A petrified battlefield that has gone on ignored this whole time. It's become a ghetto and burial site. You end up in San Francisco only if you don't want to be found.
He'd never been there before. The pictures don't do it justice. The absolute devastation. It was beautiful in person. The air smelled like dust and smoke, Kaiju blood that was decades old painted the streets. He knows Trespasser's anatomy now, it was such an incredibly well-engineered creature, it was young and small, but it took a beating. All for the glory of the Makers, all for the future of its kind. Kaijus are born to die. They are soldiers, and are born knowing all they ever need to know about who they are and what they are meant to do. They have their entire lives told to them in installed memories. Bred in dreams. Genetic information taking shape and form in electrical pulses. That's the amazing thing about the Kaijus and their Makers. They were engineers just like humans were, but they dealt in the much more complicated field of genetics. Their world was not built on concrete and stone. It was all born. Genetically designed by ancestors thousands and thousands of years old, still alive through their combined hive mind. Nothing ever dies with the Kaiju. Not really.
He sleeps and dreams their dreams. He's learning how to communicate with them, he's getting better and better every day. There is no spoken language amongst the Kaiju, information in its entirety is immediately transferred from one individual to the next. Thoughts, impressions, feelings, all connected, all communicated through the hive mind. He started out only being able to understand the gist of their messages. He'd get their intent, but nothing specific. But he's starting to get the hang of it. Emotions wrap around the ideas, giving them life, he learned opinions at the same time as he was learning information. Their thoughts became his thoughts.
He understood now, how small and petty humanity was. They had told him in the bred in dreams, the installed memories, they were superior in every way. They were ancient and new all at once, unified as a single voice, wanting for all, needing for all, no one got left behind or forgotten. All were a part of each other. The Kaijus, the Makers, the World, the Ancestors, and him. All one. He wasn't human anymore, not to them. He was welcomed amongst their ranks, his DNA did not matter, they could change that in time. They were showing him how to get started now. They taught him the holy scripture, the whispered secrets of the genetic code. He was changing every day. Getting better and better. Closer to them.
The morning sun rises, it burns his eyes and he retreats back into the basements of the Alcatraz prison. There it is dark and there's water up to his knees. It is cold but it feels warm and familiar to his changing biology. It feels like home even though he's never been to their home. But their memories tell him it feels like this, it feels like the waves of water.
He works the days and nights away now with stolen lab equipment and Kaiju body parts. It's time for breakfast, he glides through the water, he can see in the dark now, it's easy for him. He eats the holiest parts of a Kaiju heart that morning. They told him to. The stem cells live past death, they seek to heal and rebuild whatever is left, that's why Kaiju parts can live on past the Kaiju's death. They work with genetics, they've created flesh and bone and blood that live on. He ingests the Kaiju parts with the most stem cells, they enter his body and begin to reshape him. They interpret his foreign tissue as injuries, and start to heal him. He becomes more and more like them every day.
Glowing blue blood fills his mouth, his left eye shines a sickly yellow as he scans the room.
"Hermann!" he calls. "Hermann, time to eat!"
But Hermann doesn't hear. Hermann doesn't hear much these days. There's too much talking in his head. There's a billion Kaiju in there, and he can't make sense of it all like Newton. It all comes out in pieces, like a waterfall, tumbling in and out, he can't stop it or understand it. Newton's voice calls out from the billions, he can hear Newton best, and Newton tells him what to do and what to think, and he does so because he doesn't know what else to do. Newton says use the numbers, use the numbers, use the numbers.
He doesn't notice the cold water, he doesn't see the decaying walls or stolen lab equipment that's getting shoved any dry spot on the ground. He's writing chalk onto the walls, putting numbers over the peeling paint and concrete. He writes until there is no more chalk and he's writing with his own fingertips and blood. But he doesn't feel the pain, he doesn't feel anything anymore. He can't hear his voice amongst the billions.
"Hermann!" Newt walks over. "Hermann, Jesus Christ!"
He runs to Hermann's side, prying his hands away from the walls. It takes a moment for Hermann to notice him, but he seems relieved to see a familiar face.
"God damn it, Hermann. You can't keep tearing up your fingers like this."
"Newton. Oh, thank God. I thought…I thought there was something wrong…"
Newton pulls him along by the wrist, like a mother to her child, guiding him in the dark. Hermann follows obediently, seemingly aware that he would be lost without Newton's careless tugging.
"Where's my cane?" Hermann asks.
"You don't need it anymore."
Hermann looks down, he thinks the lack of pain in his leg is stranger than the water at his knees. He wonders where the pain went. Where his cane went. What's going on?
"We fixed you." Newton explains. "We can keep fixing you, you just need to eat your medicine, all right?"
Newton throws him towards the dining table, or rather a workstation that's become a sort of dining table. There's more Kaiju body parts for Hermann, but he seems confused when he sees it. Not repulsed, just perplexed.
"I'm not hungry." Hermann tries.
"Course you are." Newt nods.
"No. I don't think I am? I'm tired though. Yes. I keep thinking…? Like a feeling I have?"
Newton rolls his eyes, tired of listening. He cuts the Kaiju bits into more bit-sized pieces, slamming the plate on the table, trying to get Hermann to focus.
"Where is everyone else? I hear them, but I don't see them."
"Eat, Hermann."
"I hear a baby crying. I keep thinking…"
"Jesus Christ, look. Food. Eat it!"
Hermann quiets down, maybe he is hungry. He can't tell, but there's a plate of food in front of him, so he must be hungry. Weakly, quietly, he starts to pick at his meal. The blue blood fills his mouth, he feels a bit better with every bite.
"There you go." Newt sighs. "Why do you have to be so damn difficult all the time?"
The familiar wave feeling comes on. Newt feels it in the back of his head. Incoming message from the Kaiju. Newt recognizes it, but Hermann only feels light-headed. He drops his fork, reaches for Newt, like he's reaching for his cane.
"Yeah, I feel it too." Newt says.
"What is it? What's happening? To us? To everyone? I thought, I thought, I thought…oh, God. I'm so tired, Newton."
"You don't have to say it, Hermann. You can think it. It's easier if you think it."
"No! No, no, no, this is wrong, it's all wrong. I can't remember, but it's wrong. Newton, I'm so tired."
Hermann holds onto him, but Newton pulls away. Hermann holds his hand out, it lingers there, as if waiting for Newton to return. Hermann stares into the darkness, not understanding anything at all.
"We shouldn't be here anymore. The Kaiju are here. I can hear them. I can hear them. I can hear them. We have to go, we have to go."
"No, we're right where we should be."
Newton grabs some drift helmets off the floor. Hermann doesn't understand, but feels a sense of dread nonetheless.
"I can't remember, though. Something's wrong with me. I thought…I thought…"
"I know, buddy. Shut up."
Newton straps the helmet on him.
"Newton, please…"
"Hey, it's okay, we always think better in the drift, don't we?"
Hermann can't argue with that. It's true, he knows its true. His thoughts tumble out of him along with a billion others. Newton brings order to the chaos in the drift, that's what Newton does. He takes the voices and makes them one, he tells Hermann what to do. He tells him to use the numbers. Use the numbers. Use the numbers.
Newton goes to the floor, sits down like he's meditating. Hermann joins him, thinking he should do the same, but he isn't sure what they're doing anyway. Newton breaths in deeply. The wave is getting closer, they both feel it now, the pain beneath their left eyes. The Kaiju are coming with booming voices now, a message, not just their constant whispers. An electrical pulse rings down both their spines, connecting two nervous systems. Memories flood into each other, then subside into current thinking.
Hermann's mind grows silent, becoming frailer and frailer with every drift. Newton recognizes this, he lingers in the drift for a moment, pondering his own apathy towards Hermann. Something tugs at his heart maybe, he thinks to himself how the work is nearly complete, and soon Hermann won't have to suffer through these drifts. Newton will feed him the holy parts of the Kaiju, they will heal and fix him, Hermann will change and grow and become more like him. Yes, he thinks to himself, satisfied with this plan. It will be him and Hermann, the first of the human-Kaijus.
The wave comes over him slowly, he reads the Kaijus' message in the form of memories and emotions. They update him on their progress. They are repairing the city, analyzing the parts of Gypsy Danger, learning what they can from the technology of steel and computers. They want to integrate it with their own technology, adapt it to become a part of them. Mechanized Kaiju soldiers, perhaps they could use them to weaponize the drift. Perhaps they could connect with the Jaeger pilots and override their control over the Jaeger.
Newton replies in his own wave. He and Hermann are hard at work creating a Second Breach on their end. The numbers must be different given the different circumstances and factors all up in the air. Hermann can't respond so Newton goes into his brain and responds for him. He reads Hermann's thoughts like a book, the numbers are coming together, a Second Breach could be created within the planned timeline there in San Francisco. A Third Breach would follow, then a Fourth, a Fifth, and so on and so on.
Newton asks how long before they can cross over. How long before he and Hermann are fixed enough to survive in the other universe, until they can truly become one with the Hive. They tell Newton soon, but first there is work to be done. Newton understands, he wants to work, they tell him he wants to and he wants to. They tell him what to think and he thinks it. They put thoughts in his head and he thinks they're his own.
Humans are small and petty and weak, they tell him, and he understands. This world should belong to those who would use it best, and it is us. You are us. We are one. We are you. Yes, yes, he cries out in thoughts along with associations of love and triumph, we are together, as one. No one is going to get left behind, or forgotten. No one will be hurt. No one will die. This is the way of the Kaiju.
Time flies, he thinks, but the Kaiju don't think about time in the same way people do. He forgets what hours are, what minutes feel like. The waves are constant now, he drowns under the constant stream. Hermann lays on a cot in the corner. He doesn't recognize his surroundings. A broken lab, some new building, the stars shining down on him. How long has he been sleeping? How long has he been dreaming these dreams that aren't his own?
Mako shakes him, she has blood on her face, and she's screaming but he can't make out the words.
There's a Jaeger burning in the distance. Another one tearing through the torn up city. People are screaming. Mako is screaming. He doesn't understand.
Newton comes out of nowhere, gives Mako a swift kick in the head. She falls over. Newton is different now. Glowing lines in his skin mark his ownership, the Kaiju have him now. Newton screams without words, Hermann can feel his anger. He drifts with a nearby Kaiju monster, starts to fight off the Jaeger at their door.
Hermann lays there, his mind too broken to remember how he got there. Time flies, he thinks. Everything's different now. He's different now. Something happened along the way, a long time ago. The numbers added up, they told him the truth, a Second Breach was made. A Third. A Fourth. The Kaijus are coming now in droves, he can hear them, like a choir of voices in his head. They ring out as one and tear him to pieces. They scream over Newton until he's screaming the same thing. They changed him.
"Newton!" Hermann calls.
Newton doesn't reply. Words are foreign to him now. Unnecessary. Inefficient. He is lost amongst the Kaiju.
Mako rises, gripping Hermann's arm. He looks at her, she brings him back down to the Earth, to this moment, so amongst the choir of voices, at least Hermann can hold onto her. She says something, but he doesn't understand. He's suddenly piecing it all together.
He looks into the Kaiju and the Kaiju look into him.
Mako holds up a photograph, torn by wear and tear of war. She puts it up to his face so he can see it clearly, a photograph of Vanessa and two-year-old child. A boy. His son.
Time flies, he thinks, but he can't remember it all anymore. He tries to stand and Mako helps him. She is speaking, but he can't understand a thing she's saying, he's forgotten the words. But he knows. He knows he's been used. He and Newton.
"Newton!" He calls amongst the destruction.
Newton turns, his glowing sickly yellow eyes piercing through all they see, filled with purpose and unquestioning devotion. He isn't Newton anymore. He hasn't been for a long time. The Kaiju took him and tore him apart already.
Hermann recalls the old days. The lab. Dank and wet and home. The chalk and Kaiju blood. Newton's music blaring through the halls, Newton's jokes and whiney voice interrupting every train of thought Hermann had. Without words Hermann communicates these memories, and they seem foreign and strange to the Newton that stands before him. He recoils, but Hermann takes a step forward, this is wrong, he thinks again and again. This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. You aren't this. Newton whips his arm around, slaps the air between himself and Hermann, sends a telepathic punch to Hermann's mind. Hermann falls back, Mako catches him.
Be still now. Hermann hears in his head. It's almost over. Soon you will understand.
Hermann looks up to Mako, she's still speaking, and he wishes he could tell her what's happened. He reaches for her, tries to find the words amongst the Kaiju voices. He wants to explain, that isn't Newton. Newton's gone. I can't find him. He reaches, touches Mako's cheek, silences her. She puts her hand on his own, a wedding band on her ring finger. Time flies, Hermann thinks.
Hermann rises once more, Mako helps him. He picks up an iron rod from the ground, pulling away from Mako. He thinks of Vanessa. He thinks of his son.
Newton feels the tug of Hermann's thoughts, he turns.
Hermann smashes his skull in, the connection to the Kaiju is lost. The voices cease.