AN: I was working on something for STID when this little plot bit struck. It's a look into what could be the origins of a particular Five and all the history that goes into a name. Ideally I'd do this for all the Jaegers, but for now I'd be interested to see if there is any interest in a continuing story.
Please feel free to message me about anything, ideas, improvements, etc. I did do research to try and situate the information appropriately but I have also taken liberties. Specifically, I have the Mark Two Jaeger's well into production at this point, with talk of Mark Three's though they are not to be officially rolled out until 2017.
Hope you enjoy!
~Voi
Disclaimer: I own none of the content of Pacific Rim, and am not writing this fic for profit - merely fun.
Winter 2015 - Hong Kong Shatterdome
It's not supposed to be possible, to pilot Jaeger with only one person.
The mental load is too much, the strain more than even the most complex brain can handle. Years of intensive research had only proven the point. That was why they used the Drift, why it was partners and not individuals that commanded the most potent weapons humanity had ever built.
That was the rule of the academy, the single most important tenant of being a Jaeger pilot. You were never alone, and it was synchronicity that was prized over all, not individualism.
Herc Hansen was nearly thirty-six when he found out that he, that they, had been mistaken.
Thirty six, already an old hand and yet still so green when it came to humanity's newest conflict. He knew military, he knew tactics and soldiering, but this war with the Kaiju had changed everything.
Perhaps that was why, when he met her, the very nature of her youth surprised him but made sense. The young had always been quick to adapt, to accept what was and move fluidly onward.
"Hello?"
It was nearly ten in the evening, but the chopper had just landed in Hong Kong and with instructions from the Marshall back at Sydney to locate the Jaeger and provide assistance Herc had things to do.
Under normal circumstances he might have put the work off until a reasonable hour, but with the attack on Seattle still fresh in everyone's mind; Herc knew it would be several hours before he could even entertain the possibility of sleep.
Given that the Hong Kong base ran on shifts, it was all too easy to locate someone with directions to the Jaeger Hanger. But when he finally turned into the large hanger that was supposedly reserved for the new Mark Two Jaegers he found something very different instead. Lit only by a trio of spot lights the cavernous space was empty save for the desk in the center, piled high with all sort of Jaeger tech. And though was possible there might be a jaeger somewhere in the deep shadows, the room was Spartan at first glance.
"Hello?"
His voice echoed loudly in the silence as he repeated himself.
"I heard you the first time, hot shot. One minute."
Smooth and easy, the voice softened the sharpness of the reprimand, eased the tinge of annoyance that had so easily suffused the words. Coming from behind a large pile of gadgets, the voice continued on.
"Lost right? Stupid grunts still working from yesterday's floor plan."
Sighing, the voice dissolved into incomprehensible muttering for a moment before piping up again, "Would you mind grabbing me that sensor from the table? It looks like an old fashioned tuning fork."
Hesitating, Herc set his large pack on the ground before approaching the table and surveying the chaos he found there.
"You do know what a tuning fork looks like, right?"
And though he considered himself a patient man, Herc couldn't quite quash the flash of annoyance and resentment at the comment.
"I do."
"Ok, good – toss it my way when you find it. It might take some searching."
Take some searching? Fulfilling the request was a mission in and of itself. Nearly ten minutes of intensive lifting, shifting and prodding all the objects at the table proved fruitless, and it was only luck that pointed him towards the item, half buried under a stack of books atop a nearby chair.
"Found it."
Frowning, Herc looked around the still darkened space and waited for the voice to return. But when the silence stretched on, he called out once more. "Hello?"
"Slow down there cowboy, I'm just finishing the last bit of this set-up and then I'm all yours."
Laden with sarcasm, the voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, and Herc sighed.
"Look, I don't want to interfere with your work. If you just point me in the direction of the right hanger I can stop interfering and– "
"You would be interfering regardless," the voice replied tartly, "Besides, this is the right hanger…it's just nobody ever reads Lightcap's damn messages so we're running a bit behind schedule."
A loud exhale resounded through the room, "Just thirty seconds, I promise."
And this time, after exactly thirty seconds had passed, a face appeared out of the dark, poking from behind a machine that had indeed been pushed into one of the hangar's dark corners.
"Hello." Large eyes, luminous despite the dark, blinked several times before turning to a glowing panel on the far wall, "Watch your eyes, cowboy."
The hangar flooded with light a moment later, shadows obliterated as high-power industrial lights poured into the space.
When Herc finally managed to open his eyes without them watering he found himself face-to-face with the owner of that sharp voice.
Or rather, he found himself face-to-hair with the speaker, and discovered that for all her demure height (average for a woman) everything else about her was loud, first and foremost her hair.
Momentarily distracted by the color, the strange mix of cotton candy blue and Valencia orange, he completely missed her initial question as he tried to visually sort through tangle of color in the riotous curls of her hair.
"Hello, earth to cowboy. It's just hair buddy."
There was a small frown on her lips, a small indent in her brow as she looked up at him, and by the time Herc had the wherewithal to focus back, her arm were crossed firmly across her midsection. Of course, her arms were also vibrantly tattooed, and she seemed more like a rebellious teenager than a scientist.
Given that she looked scarcely older than twenty perhaps that wasn't far from the truth.
"I'm not exactly a cowboy."
Under normal circumstances he might have fallen back to his usual strictures, used the military formality to proceed. But confronted by that temper, the attention of those sharp green eyes, Herc didn't doubt that such mannerisms will hurt rather than help his cause.
Each battle was a little different, and strategy was everything.
As if she could hear his thoughts the small frown on her lips eased as she observed him, measured him.
"I know – Australian accent gave you away…well, the accent and this." She waved his badge under his nose, "Hercules Hansen, pilot, formerly from Sydney."
"You went through my wallet?"
She shrugged negligently, "You gotta be quick if you're going to survive out here, Marshall. Besides, you left this on top of your bag, not exactly top-grade security."
Tossing it back to him she continued, "I make a living out of examining brain waves and working the drifts, believe me when I say me going through your bag is the least of your concerns."
She had the face of a young woman, but her eyes were those of an old soul, an experienced solider.
"I was told to report there for introductions."
"Yeah, new Mark Threes were supposed to be in a few hours ago. We were going to do some initial neural work, check drift compatibilities against what you have on file."
"So you're a researcher, or a pilot?"
It wasn't unusual for pilots to double up on jobs when there was down time and the Jaeger program was so new that most people had to do a bit of both anyway. She had the temperament of a pilot, but all of the work scattered around was lodged firmly in the realm of science.
"I pilot the Tempest Royale."
The smile on her lips suddenly turned brittle, "Well…I say pilot. She's not much more than a test unit now."
"Tempest an old one?"
"Nah, she's a Mark Two gal we built for research, going to get a nice refit once the tests prove Mark Three upgrades are worth doing."
"But you are a pilot."
"I'm a researcher…sort of. Neural Bridge Officer in a pinch, but really Bialik has me linking up with Tempest to see if I can find ways to improve drift strength and synchronicity with the Jaegers."
"Bialik?"
"He's Lightcap's stand-in whenever we need a senior member of J-tech and she's away playing hero."
She eyed the insignia on his shoulder, "You're here for Lucky though, huh? One of a pair?"
His smile was small, and didn't quite mask the tension, "Yeah. What about you? Where's your right hand?"
The look she gave him was one of amusement, "What makes you think I'm left?"
"Analytic, logic-based, calculating..." Herc eyed the tables, "Sounds like left brain work to me. But by all means, tell me I'm wrong."
Her smile sharpened into a grin.
"You're wrong."
"So you're a right brain?" He paused, not quite believing it.
"Not exactly."
This time, the answer came not from the young woman but from the hall as Bialik himself stood there, figure casting a long shadow into the room.
"Hansen, if you will follow me please."
As the current head of operations at Hong Kong, there was no questioning Bialik's authority and so Herc cut his conversation with the curly-haired woman short.
It wasn't until he was standing in the elevator that he realized he had never managed to get her name.
He found her in the same hangar nearly a week later, pouring over what appeared to be stacks of scientific readings.
"Bialik said you are a savant."
It was less the pleasant greeting he had intended, but when she glanced up at him with that familiar raised brow, the lack of finesse seems suddenly inconsequential. She's not the sort of woman to take offence at a less that cordial line.
Discarding her work as she straightened the young woman snorted, wrinkling her pert nose at the word, "That's scientists for you – fancy words for less than fancy talents."
"According to them you're no small talent."
Tucking the cotton-candy colored hair behind her ear the young woman sighed, "What are you doing here, Hansen?"
"I want to understand a little bit. You're responsible for the upgrades to the drift system in Lucky, and Bialik said you were the person to talk to if I had questions."
"Sounds like you've been spending too much time with Bialik if he's sending you my way." She leaned back against her desk and gave him a half exasperated look before she began.
"I haven't had much time working on it, three months is nothing in the grand scheme of things."
"The chief of Jaegar technology seems to think otherwise," Herc retorted, standing firm in the face of her sudden avoidance of the question. "What sort of changes did you make?"
"Helped improve the neuro-link algorithm, made it more sensitive, like threating a needle rather than bashing a post through a tent loop. Tricky, but worth the result."
She grinned when she caught him wincing.
"Reworked a component of the relay gel with the guys over in lab, and though I had some ideas about strengthening the neural handshake, I'm going to be waiting on the go-ahead from Bialik until he sees my numbers."
"So the connection should not only be faster but clearer?"
His response got a nod of approval, "Hopefully more comfortable too, though that is really dependent on you and your buddy."
"My brother, you mean."
"Yeah, that." She gave him that look that told him she already knew all about Scott. And though that knowledge should have made him uncomfortable, Herc was quickly making his peace with the various eccentricities of Jaeger-tech scientists.
But her comment did remind him of the question he had posed the week prior, the one that, in retrospect, Bialik had very carefully manipulated into a non-answer.
Herc would have his answer now.
"Remember when I asked you if you were a left or right brain?"
The smile faded from her face but was replaced by one that was steady, patient.
"Of course."
"Which one are you?"
"Does it really matter that much to you?" There was a wariness to her tone, but Herc knew the sharpness was there, just below the surface.
"Initially it was just curiosity but…" he shrugged, "Bialik's comments have me curious."
Her response was to retrieve a cigarette and lighter from her coat pocket, offering him one before lighting up and taking a long drag.
"Damn that man."
Speaking on an exhale, she took only two more lingering inhales before getting rid of both cigarette and lighter.
"Ok, so you want to know if I'm a left or right. Well – the short answer is that I'm neither…or both, if you're an optimist."
Her response made Herc's brow furrow in confusion, "What do you mean?"
"In simplest terms? I'm self-sufficient when it comes to piloting."
"So…you don't need a partner."
"That is what self-sufficient means, Hansen."
"But that's impossible."
"Well then clearly I just lied to you and you're wasting your time talking to me." Her expression didn't change, but her tone, her annoyance was clear.
Herc grit his teeth, drawing on his natural patience to ease his temper.
"I'm not calling you a liar. Just…explain it to me. How is it possible?"
"It's possible because I have a very…" she paused as she searched for the right word, then thought better of it and said bluntly, "I got lucky."
"I was on my first mission two years ago with Tempest, I had a partner back then, and the short version is that she died and I suffered severe mental scarring after piloting without her for well over twenty minutes."
Herc frowned, "You didn't slip into a coma? Suffer seizures? Anything they talked about in training?"
The smile on her face was sardonic, "All of it actually, seizures first, then a coma. I was out for four months before suddenly finding myself awake. But then, that's when the fun stuff happened."
"What do you mean?"
"I have something called Savant Syndrome. For the people who do get it, it tends to be genetic – a neurological condition that swaps breadth for depth, and tends to effect memory. In my case, I got a flavor of it because of my prolonged time in the drift."
"The scarring?"
"Yeah. Ironic right? Who knew?"
There was something in the way that she said it that suggested something darker, but Herc had no way of getting her to elaborate.
"This isn't common is it?" His words seemed so grossly simplistic, but there was nothing else he could say. It seemed so very strange, and yet, it was not the strangest thing to have happened in the past decade.
"No, it's just very, very rare."
"And that's why Bialik has you working on this."
"It's become my obsession at this point. There really is no better word for it." Seating herself on the top of one of her desks she shrugged, "I'd be doing this even without the funding, so it's nice to have found a place where I have the means to do my work."
"Which also explains why you have a hangar to yourself?"
His comment made her smile, the first real smile he had seen.
"Yeah, exactly."
"You know, I never did catch your name.
Her smile, unlike her sharp tongue was lovely and it broadened as he offered a hand.
"Your name?"
"Erika."
"Erika?"
Her smile curved into a grin as she extended her hand and took his own.
"Erika Stryker, pleasure to meet you."