Disclaimer: I do not own any ideas or characters related to the Pacific Rim franchise. Only new concepts and characters are mineee.
I never used to have dreams, but now I can't escape them. Sometimes they're realistic, sometimes they're outlandish, some are good, sometimes they even give me deja vu half way through the day, but mostly they're one of the few things that can still terrify me. They started out of nowhere on the night of my twentieth birthday after a full day of celebrating. I woke up the next day, returned to my duties as per usual, and halfway through the day, something triggered the memories of the dream. Stopped me dead in my tracks in the middle of a hallway. But that was well over a year ago, so I'm used to all the strange happenings that accompany dreams now. I guess that I'm just adaptable like that.
September 2nd, 2024
There's a lot of commotion today while I'm working on a new Jaeger engine concept. It's not the usual hustle and bustle, it's not even the kind of panicked excitement that courses through the Hong Kong Shatterdome when a Kaiju signature pops up out of the Breach. No, this is a wild whisper that manages to steal my attention, because it's telling me that our time is dwindling, and that I'm not working fast enough. I need to get my act together, because we need a new engine and new weapons system. We need them so that any new Jaegers could outlast and out maneuver a level IV Kaiju, but I cannot even build a functioning engine before the UN decides to cut us off entirely. I won't be dreaming or sleeping much while more and more Kaijus and the last of the Rangers continue to battle. I need to be doing better. Even when Stacker finds time to visit me, and sees the look on my face, he can't bring himself to tell me that I'm doing okay. He needs my best work and I'm not giving it.
Stacks visits me deep into the night. I know he can't sleep either.
"Mako, may I come in?
"Of course," I reply distractedly. I'm deep into a book about thermonuclear fusion, as if it can tell me something I don't already know or what I'm missing.
"I think you need a break. You need a chance to regroup, refocus." Upon seeing the scowl on my face, he quickly adds, "You should practice. In the simulator. It's been months since you went in."
I look up from my textbook and shrug noncommittally. "I don't want to lose what focus I still have."
"Mako! You haven't seen a God dammed Jaeger in two months, you haven't done a sim in even longer, and you've hardly been doing any combat training either. I strongly believe that it would do you well to see this problem from another angle. An inside angle."
When I did not respond, he began to retreat, but not without one last remark.
"You have twenty-four hours to log a simulated drop in a Jaeger, Mako."
I want to yell frustratedly after the Marshall, but the heavy door to my lab is already swinging shut. I know he feels the pressure. We all do. I have yearned to be a Ranger for many years, to protect the planet that I love, to avenge my family, but Stacker refuses to let me. My place is in my lab, designing tech while I still can. The financial cutbacks to the PPDC are slowly but surely crippling us, and there are rumors that not only is our time on Earth rapidly shortening, but that soon Shatterdomes worldwide will be shut down to save money for the Kaiju Walls.
That night, I fall asleep as the sun is rising outside of our stronghold. I read until I can't see straight, until my mind is just equations and theories and possible real life implications. I read until I forget we are all in the midst of a terrifying apocalypse. I read until I fall asleep, and then I dream about every terrible thing there is out there.
September 3rd, 2024
I make my way to the simulation room late the next evening, hours after dinner. People are scarce, and my twenty-four hour time limit is right around the corner. As I punch in my security passcode on the door, my hand doesn't tremble like it did the first time I prepared to enter a sim. It has been a long two years. While I once experienced fear and trepidation, I now feel readiness and excitement. The excitement is smothered under a layer of calm as I say good night to the last technician in the simulation room. I've been in enough sims, and had a part in designing enough of this tech, that they leave me here without a second thought. I doubt that the analysts and technicians still at this post get many visitors. I am easily one of the last people on Earth still able to train but not pilot.
The steps to prepare all necessary machinery for the simulation bay I will be using are very familiar, and I do not hesitate to climb into the chair and put the helmet on. I recline the chair back, and press one last button.
The simulated moment of Drift is quickly upstaged by the Neural Handshake. As my Jaeger roars to life, I feel the different parts of me purr with it. The warrior and the scientist in me are both exhilarated about piloting a Jaeger, and I must quickly stomp down the feelings rising inside me. They will distract me from my objective, because I am only doing this drop to learn how I can better improve the performance of at least one of these mechs. But, I tell myself, to fully understand where I have gone astray, I should experience everything this Jaeger has to offer. Just one last time, I will have this moment of pure passion, and then I will return to my duties and do my part to save this world.
Most pilots know what Kaiju they are facing before they even have a drivesuit on, but today I have no idea what the computer will give me in my fifty-first drop. I have no idea what I'm getting myself into, but I cherish every part of this, even the uncertainty. We all are used to uncertainty these days. I wade through the relatively shallow waters that my mech was deposited in. There are traces of Kaiju Blue everywhere, making the water murky and extremely foul. I turn my back to the ocean momentarily to see which city I am protecting. The massive wall is completed and marked in a language I do not understand but am familiar with. Manila is hidden behind that wall, approximately four miles of ocean away from my current position. As I turn back, I begin to second guess my decision to come this far out to sea, but I refuse to make the deadly mistake of not trusting myself. I start flipping through the different sensors my Jaeger's AI and the LOCCENT Mission Control have available in this simulation, and realize that this will be the most life-like drop I have ever done. Each and every sensor is available, picking up the movements of the tides and fish in the ocean I stand reactor deep in. When first one, and then another, and then all of the sensors start going off, I lock myself into a fighting stance and brace for impact. There is a rather nasty level IV Kaiju headed straight for me, and I'm going to send it back to the hole in the universe from which it came.
Stacker Pentecost is ripping the helmet off of me as my consciousness returns from the Drift and into my body. From the sweat dripping down his face to the knife in his hand, I know that something has gone wrong, but I can't place what. My mind is fuzzy, but focused on two things: where I can give the Rangers an advantage, and my perfect, undefeated record in simulated drops. Stacker begins to look worried, and I realize it's because am I not responding to him and that he is holding something in his hand.
"Your braid... It, uh, got caught in the the circuitry in the back of the helmet. It was starting to smoke when I found you. I had to cut it off to get you out. I'm sorry, Mako..."
He looked upset, because I had been following his order, and it had put me very much in danger. He gathered me into his arms and I let him hold me. I was stroking my braid detachedly when I whispered, "I can fix our Jaegers. I can make them stronger."
AN: This is my very first published story, so I appreciate any reads and/or reviews, and especially constructive criticism! This story will follow the general plot of the Pacific Rim storyline, but with my own ideas added in. Thanks, lovelies!