A Firefly/Pacific Rim crossover that evolved directly from a skype chat with my good friend Lycaenion, who is far too good at kicking vicious plotbunnies at me.
"Are you sure about this?" Simon asks, holding his little sister's shoulders. "This is new technology, we have no idea if it'll even work, and if something goes wrong -"
"Then they'll shut it down," she replies without missing a beat. River seems to stand taller these days, since she was accepted as a promising candidate in the Jaeger Academy. "It's okay, Simon, I have Drifted before."
He sighs, and pulls her into a hug. "Just be careful, okay? You're not a lab rat."
"Lab rats don't volunteer," she reminds him with a blithe smile, and kisses his cheek just as the door groans open. He turns to see Marshal Stacker Pentecost, and attempts to smile.
"Ah… hello, Marshal."
"Doctor Tam," Stacker replies, entering the room and, as usual, immediately filling it with his mere presence. "Cadet Tam. I take it we're all prepared here."
"Just going over a few last-minute… safety briefings…" Simon manages awkwardly; confident as he is in his own field, the front-line fighters - past and present - make him slightly uneasy. "But I think we're ready."
"We are," River asserts, much more confidently. She seems almost eager for this.
"Good. Let's not hang about then." The Marshal motions for River to join him, and she falls in with a comically serious expression for a fourteen-year-old's face, her much shorter legs stretching to keep up with his long stride as he talks to her in an undertone. Simon scurries after them, feeling a pang of regret. His baby sister is going into a field he can't hope to follow in, and he feels like she's growing up far too fast.
When they reach the facility that's been set up to accommodate the new technology, Simon reluctantly takes his place in the observation booth while River all but skips into the main room, greeting the technicians happily. Stacker pauses for a quick word with Sky, the mission control, and joins Simon after a few moments. Together they watch the lengthy process as River gets buckled into the machine. He can't help thinking of it as something resembling a torture device.
"You don't seem too happy, Doctor Tam," the Marshal observes after a few moments.
"Well, it's not every day you get to watch your sister's brain being used as a test subject," Simon replies dryly, barely glancing at the man.
"It's always harder when it's family involved," Stacker agrees, and Simon remembers with a flash of guilt that Luna Pentecost was killed in one of the first kaiju attacks. "But she volunteered, and she's old enough to know her own mind."
"She should still be in school."
"And you should be in a hospital, discovering cures for cancer, not out here working on Jaeger tech. Life doesn't always listen to should."
Simon half-shrugs. "I can't argue with that." He can't, really, not when he volunteered himself. But that doesn't make it any easier to watch.
The technicians retreat from the main room, leaving River standing alone, suited up and connected to an intimidating array of tech. A familiar voice breaks the silence; the slightly metallic, emotionless voice of the Jaeger AI.
"Data On Helmet. Data Relay Gel Dispersing In Circuitry Suit. First Test Of Solo Neural Handshake In Ten… Nine… Eight…"
Simon folds his arms and watches, trying not to let the tension show as the countdown continues. She'll be fine. There are nearly twenty people here watching for the first sign of anything going wrong, they'll pull her out and shut it down in a heartbeat.
"…Three… Two… One… Neural Interface Drift… Initiated."
River takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly as the memories engulf her and the room disappears. It's a familiar sensation already, and she's been one of the best candidates so far at learning to tune it out once she reaches the silence of the Drift. She keeps reminding herself of the first rule in this situation; don't chase the RABIT, don't chase the RABIT…
And then she's out again, in the silence, and it feels almost too quiet. There should be someone else in here with her.
She reaches out, seeking the other mind she's been expecting, and flashes of memory leap out at her. Her own, she recognises them, but then why do they feel so… unfamiliar?
Don't chase the RABIT.
She lets them go, trying to get used to the idea of sharing her memories with herself.
Don't chase the RABIT.
She doesn't notice the wiring above her head beginning to glow as it overheats.
The RABIT turns. It's not alone. There are thousands of them. And they begin to chase her.
River staggers, and an alarm begins to shriek. Simon is bolt upright in a moment.
"What's going on?"
"Pilot… Out Of Alignment."
Sky lunges for the microphone. "River? You're out of alignment! Don't engage!"
Stacker's already leaning over his shoulder, reading the flashing screens. "She's chasing the RABIT. Go to failsafe!"
Simon can't do anything but stand there with his hands pressed against the glass, praying that she'll pull back, that she'll be okay, that this is just a slip like they have so many times…
"I said go to failsafe!"
"She's too connected, we can't get the neural blocker to function -"
River collapses to her knees, clutching at her head, and a shrill scream pierces through everyone in the room.
"SHUT IT DOWN!"
"RIVER!" Simon pounds on the glass helplessly as his baby sister thrashes in the middle of the wiring, sparks cascading from the device attached to her head.
Stacker, his face a horrible greyish shade, bodily climbs over the console and wrenches out the power line himself. Everything powers down immediately, and the technicians flood into the main room to pull River out of the wreckage.
Simon elbows his way through just as her helmet is eased off, and a simultaneous gasp of horror leaves everyone's lips. The wiring has seared a pattern into her scalp, her eyes are unfocused, and she's still sobbing in pain, clearly unaware of the world around her.
He reaches out, trying to offer her some comfort, some reassurance, but she doesn't see him - doesn't see anything outside her own head. They're picking her up to take her to the medbay, and he walks alongside her, trying to get through to her as he squeezes her limp hand.
And then the doctors whisk her away, and he's left alone with Marshal Pentecost, and all Simon can do is stare at the man whose eyes seem about to burn a hole in the wall from sheer impotent rage.
"She's recovering well," Stacker explains to Simon a few days later. They're both sitting in the Marshal's office, with the updates from the medbay lying in a folder between them. "Physically, at least, the damage is only superficial. She's up and about already."
"I knew that already," Simon replies frostily. "It's the mental damage that bothers me. I've been asking for days now and nobody is giving me an answer."
Stacker sighs. It's clear this is weighing heavily on him; the decision to go ahead with the experiment was his, after all. "Doctor Tam -" he begins, rubbing his hand over his face wearily, but Simon is not in the mood to be put off any longer.
"What aren't you telling me? What's wrong with my sister?"
There's a long moment's silence, and then Stacker folds his hands on the desk. "There's going to be no hiding it from a doctor as knowledgeable as you anyway," he says slowly. "We're still not sure why, but the system overload seems to have overloaded her neural capacity as well. The impulse triggers came far too quickly and forcefully for her to tune out. It was too much for her to handle."
"And what's that done to her? To your promising candidate?" Simon's blood is boiling. How the hell can this man be so calm about it?
Stacker sighs. "As far as we can tell, she'll never be able to Drift with anyone else again. What we did - connecting the two hemispheres of her brain - it's shut down a lot of old connections, but it's also forced pathways that weren't there before."
"Meaning?"
"Doctor Tam." Stacker leans forward. "Your sister's in a state of constant Drift with herself."