Sylvia Mansen's hands shook as she fitted the protective plates on the pilot suit, feeling them lock into place. She'd done this many times before, suiting up before locking into the piloting simulators, but somehow it felt entirely different here. She checked the suit over one last time, trying to distract herself from what she was about to do.
Not to mention what she'd just done. Don't go there, she thought. You'll deal with it later.
Part of her was yelling that she should give this up now, sneak out and abandon this crazy idea before she did something she'd regret even further. But she might never have a chance like this again. One of Vulcan Specter's pilots, Carrie James, had been injured in a training exercise and Vulcan was grounded until a replacement pilot could be found. There was no active maintenance on the Jaeger and it was just sitting there, unused and put on hold. Practically begging Sylvie to come and try it out.
It was the middle of the night, the pilots asleep, and no one around Vulcan Specter's hangar but a few security patrols. Sylvie's passcard let her avoid most of their rounds, using restricted passages to get almost all the way to Vulcan without meeting a soul. That 'almost' cost you more than you'd bargained for. She pushed the thought down. She couldn't go back now.
Sylvie stepped into the cockpit, pulling on the pilot's helmet. She heard a small beep as the helmet's comm system connected with the cockpit, and through it, the command center. "Vee, do you read me? How do things look up on the bridge?"
A moment later, the electronic voice of Syl-V came through, Sylvie's hand-programmed AI. "Contact established. All systems appear operational. Security systems are on standby, though they're throwing me some error messages. I don't think the command computer likes that I'm in here. I take it that you made it safely then?"
She suppressed the memory that tried to rise up at the question. Despite her nerves and anxiety, hearing Syl-V's voice made her feel a bit better. Talking to the AI almost always had that effect. Linking Syl-V to the command console had been her first stop of the night, and the easiest part of the plan. "Yep, I'm in. I'm going to go hook your double up to the second pilot's interface."
"I still feel it's rather unfair that I will not be the one piloting with you." Syl-V's voice processor didn't have much in the way of emotional variation, but Sylvie knew the AI well enough to recognize the frustration and slight jealousy in the words. She knew she would be jealous if Vee was piloting a Jaeger without her, and she and Syl-V were - for all intents and purposes - the same person.
"Look, Vee," Sylvie said, carefully attaching wires to the neural inputs. She tried to ignore the shakiness still in her hands. "I need someone running the bridge and I need someone piloting the Jaeger with me. That means I've got to have two of you - or if we want to get technical, three of me. Us. Whatever. I need a full, undistracted Syl-V working on the Jaeger with me, all the processing power she's got. And that means you can't do both at the same time. Don't worry, I've got a memory drive for her here. We'll record the experience and sync back up with you later in the drift."
"Drift memories are not the same as actual memories," the synthesized voice said.
"Vee, you're an AI," Sylvie pointed out. "All of your memories are drift memories. My memories to be precise. Besides, as soon as you sync with this pilot Syl-V, it'll be like you were in here the whole time. Honestly, if anyone has the right to complain, it's me. The last time I had two of you running at the same time, you nearly drove me crazy." She stepped back from the console, checking that all the inputs were attached. "I think we're good in here. I'm gonna fire her up and then we'll see if we can't get this Jaeger up and running."
She turned on the tablet computer hooked to the second pilot's space, the screen and buttons glowing as it came to life. It took about a minute to completely wake up. She heard another beep in her helmet as the small tablet computer synced with the second pilot's comm system.
"Syl-V, online and operational." The synthetic voice was exactly the same as the Syl-V running in the command center. Sylvie hadn't thought about that. It could get confusing quickly if she couldn't tell the two of them apart.
"Welcome to Vulcan Specter, Vee." Sylvie said, knowing that the AI she'd just turned on wouldn't know what was going on. The last thing she would remember was being put to sleep back in Sylvie's lab about an hour ago after they'd decided on the plan of attack. "As we discussed, you're running simultaneously with a version of you in the command center's computer, so to keep things straight, you're V2 and she's V1. Speaking of which, V1, can you alter your voice software to differentiate? V2's tablet doesn't have the capability, and you're hooked to a full computer. Pitch down 20 hertz please?"
The voice from the command center was already lowered when V1 responded. "Accepting designation: V1. Vocal change confirmed. Is this change enough to tell us apart?"
Sylvie nodded, though she knew the AI couldn't see. "Sounds good. V2, are you operational?"
The higher pitched voice spoke. "Accepting designation: V2. The system is responding to test protocols. I recognize the piloting interface. We're actually in the Jaeger? I take it you made it safely then?"
"Don't sound so surprised," Sylvie said, a bit more harshly than she'd intended. She pushed down the memory that question triggered yet again. V2 couldn't know that V1 had said exactly the same thing earlier. "I said I'd get us in. That's all there is to it. "
She stepped into her pilot's spot, feeling the supports clamp around her boots. There was a weight to the Jaeger's controls, a solidity that the simulator just couldn't compare to. A deep hum started beneath her as V1 fired up Vulcan Specter's engines. She could feel the vibrations in her whole body. All of a sudden, this was all very real. Her anxiety fled in a moment of pure, incredible excitement. "V2, you ready to pilot a real Jaeger?"
"I was made for this," V2 replied. Sylvie detected a hint of humor in the double meaning of the words.
"Could you please attempt not to rub it in?" V1 asked over the speakers. "It's bad enough that I am stuck babysitting this basic OS. I would prefer to do so without hearing the two of you gloating from the cockpit."
There was a slight smugness to V2's response. "It's not my fault I ended up in here and you did not. It was simple chance."
"Hey, cut it out. Both of you," Sylvie snapped, her thrill dampened by their arguing. "I don't know how long we've got, so let's get in and get out. The last thing I need is you two bickering the whole time. In half an hour you'll be the same person again when I sync you, and then you'll feel silly for fighting with yourself." She paused, frowning. "Although, if anyone is to feel silly about fighting with themselves, I suppose it'd be me."
Both of the Syl-Vs answered her together. "No arguments on that."
"I hate it when you do that. Remind me not to run two of you at the same time ever again." She checked the connections on her suit one last time. "V1, I'm hooked up. Let's do this."
"Reading your vitals here," V1 said. "Activating the Jaeger interface."
The heads up display flared to life; readouts, stats, and system information glowing on the screens in front of her. The holographic pilot's controls appeared, hovering over her left arm and leg like futuristic armor. A similar set flickered into existence where the second pilot's right arm and leg would be, but there was nothing more than V2's wires inside them.
"Okay, switch over to single," Sylvie said.
"Dual-hemispheric pilot control disabled. Override set to Single-pilot control," V1 said. The right side interface appeared on Sylvie, mirroring her left side interface and giving her a full body set of controls. V2's piloting spot looked dark with only the auxiliary interface glowing there.
This was what Sylvie had worked so hard to perfect, and now she finally had a chance to test it. A single human pilot, in complete control of a Jaeger. A matched AI copying her every move and alleviating the strain of the neural connection. They'd run hundreds of simulations, perfecting the technique. It would work now. It had to. She'd come too far for it to fail.
"Let's do this," she said, smiling for the first time since she'd entered the cockpit. It was finally happening.
"Initiating Neural Handshake," V1 said.
Sylvie felt the drift pull on her mind, and she didn't fight it, letting the technology pull her in. She felt Syl-V's familiar presence join her in the headspace, and a series of memories rushed past. Her childhood, her school, training in the piloting program, working in her lab. Smells, touches, emotions, and images. Glimpses of moments that were gone as quickly as they appeared, but all familiar. All hers. Syl-V's memories were an exact duplicate of her own. Every sensation had a sense of rightness, as one of them would pull it up, and the other would recognize it. They came and went in ceaseless succession, and the flow of them quickly faded into the back of Sylvie's mind.
"Neural Bridge at full capacity. Initiating Jaeger control." The words from the command were distant, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere in the rushing sensation of the drift.
Suddenly, Sylvie could feel the Jaeger beneath her, connected to both her and V2. It was like a second body, and her mind was filled with its innermost workings. She could activate its systems as effortlessly as she could move her own fingers, and V2 reacted exactly as she did, copying her thoughts and actions perfectly. She moved into a basic ready position, as she'd done time and time again in the simulator, her arms and the Jaeger's rising as one. She and V2 felt the thrill of success as one. She and V2 moved to the next stance, a defensive posture, crouched low with arms out, as if to grapple with a charging opponent.
But this stance triggered a new memory, and V2 latched on to this one, not letting it pass. Sylvie desperately tried to pull it away, to force it down, but this memory was new to Syl-V – from the time since their last drift together little over an hour ago – and she was curious. They never tried to hide things from each other, and concealing anything in the drift was all but impossible. V2 wanted to see what it was, and Sylvie's panicked response only made her curiosity more powerful.
"Careful! The Neural Bridge is failing. You are both phasing." V1's voice said, sounding worried. "How are you falling out of sync? What is going on in there?"
Sylvie tried to stay focused, but it was no use. The memory took over and suddenly she was back. The Jaeger and cockpit disappeared, and the memory swallowed her.
Catwalk leading to the hangar. Fifteen minutes ago. She's sneaking, staying quiet. She's almost made it. Heavy footsteps behind her. A man, calling out. "Stop where you are!" Fear spikes, then adrenaline. She tries to run. He rushes to tackle her. Instinct takes over. Training kicks in. Defensive crouch, leg back, arms out. She grabs him, twisting and shifting without thought. Perfect execution. His head cracks against the railing. She drops him. He doesn't move. She doesn't check for a pulse. She runs. She can't go back.
Sylvie tried to pull herself free, but V2 held on tightly, the horrible memory playing over and over. New details kept appearing. The feel of his shirt as her arms wrap around him. The sonorous clang as he strikes the rail, then the grated floor. Her heartbeat, pounding in her ears.
Distantly, she felt the Jaeger move through the motions of grappling their remembered attacker, but there was no one for Vulcan Specter to grab. Within headspace, Sylvie could feel V2's shock and horror, the same emotions that she'd been trying to force down since it had happened.
{What have you done?} V2's thought came across like an attack, in the indescribable wordless communication of headspace. {What have we done? Did you/we kill him? Are you/we a murderer?}
{I don't know… I didn't mean to…} Sylvie felt the same questions rising within herself as the confrontation played over and over. She had tried not to think about it. She had thought she could deal with it later, outside the Jaeger, after they got through the test. She should have known that wouldn't work, that the drift would pull everything out.
{What have you/we done? Are you/we a murderer? What have you/we done?} The expressions were like a mental scream – rage, terror, horror and incomprehension twisting together in the mental onslaught.
The emotions welled up in Sylvie as well, all the things she didn't want to think about. She stopped fighting Syl-V's mental attack, her mind buckling as Syl-V's questions became her own. {What have I/we done? Am/are I/we a murderer? What have I done? Am I a murderer? Did I kill that man? Who am I now? What will we do?}
She felt a pressure build in her head and something like pain grew with it, but it seemed too far away to be relevant. Sounds rang in her ears, a voice saying something, but she couldn't make out the words. The memory flashed faster and faster. She felt herself collapsing inward as Syl-V's presence began to retreat from her headspace. They were too far out of sync, and she was losing control of the Jaeger now.
Suddenly, the drift evaporated, and she felt a sharp pain as the connection cut off, like it had been stretched taut and had snapped her as soon as it was released. The screens flickered for a moment before turning off and the piloting interface disappeared from her body. The hum of the Jaeger's engines fell into a moan as they slowed, then stopped.
She slumped forward and the now-inoperative piloting restraints released, letting her fall to the floor. Bright red letters across the screen spelled out "Manual Command Center Override. Vulcan Specter: Offline."
They were the last thing she saw before blacking out.