Title: like there's no tomorrow
Author: Jedi Buttercup
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: The words are mine; the world is not.
Summary: Non-Rangers who know anything about the Drift tend to assume that compatibility at its finest means Rangers who make no distinction between themselves and their co-pilots. That's true; but it's also only half the story. 1800 words.
Spoilers: Pacific Rim (2013)
Notes: For tooth_and_claw, in Not Prime Time 2014: a day in the life of the Wei triplets.
The Hong Kong Shatterdome had been the first one built, back in the early days when the Pan Pacific Defense Corps had all the funding it could ask for and more. But it was built in a hurry, as quickly as concrete could be poured and metal welded: completed barely 27 days before Horizon Brave was shipped in from the construction facilities on Kodiak Island on December 22, 2015. There are bubbles where the pour was imperfectly smoothed; rough lines of seaming that catch at fingertips dragged carelessly along a wall. Rooms marked on the official blueprints that can't be found; whose heating has never quite worked; that have picked up a constant drip from the reflecting pools in the Marshall's office overhead.
It is nothing like the Shanghai of their childhood, or the streets where they fought before they were recruited to the Jaeger Academy. But Cheung knows every flaw – every blind corner, every imperfectly sealed panel, every acoustical quirk that fills some halls with echoes and mutes others – like the backs of his brothers' hands.
He looks up at from his breakfast at Choi's announcement over the intercom that the Vladivostok Dome has officially been turned over to the Russian government with a groan.
"Ukrainian hard house next door for our birthday," Jin sighs. "Cheung, we're bunking in with you again."
Hu shoves another bun into his mouth, signaling his contribution with a nod, as Cheung grimaces. The Kaidanovskys figured out that particular amplifying quirk of the local acoustics after one of their paired drops ended in Victoria Harbour, and aren't likely to have forgotten it now.
»
None of the Rangers' quarters in the Hong Kong Shatterdome have bunks for three. Nor, of course, had any of the other Domes' quarters; Cheung, Jin, and Hu are the only triplets to ever successfully Drift, and only America ever experimented with other multiples greater than two. There is room for a third bed in the double occupant rooms – but only at the expense of one of the desks, or the entertainment console. And by the time Crimson Typhoon was built in 2018, remodeling was already a frivolous expense in a war that sucked up all the spare 蚊 that could be scrounged.
Cheung, as eldest brother, had laid claim to a single occupant room instead, and left Jin and Hu to clutter their floor with their laundry and bounce the basketball back and forth, late at night, in peace. It will not be so peaceful, with their blankets laid out on his floor.
"Like old times," he says, leaning over to intercept the basketball as Hu passes it back to Jin.
Jin makes a swipe for it, but Cheung already has it tucked in the crook of his arm; he scoops up his breakfast tray in the other and pushes away from the table. Dr. Geizsler in K-Science asked for a couple of hours of Hu's time this morning, something to do with specialty programming, and Jin will be with Crimson's crew, helping with routine checks of the hydraulics and muscle strands; he plans to spend the morning sparring with Mako. He knows she still holds out hope for Lady Danger, and no one will touch the ball in the Kwoon.
»
Mako is five years younger than the Weis; she went through the Academy six years after they did. Like them, she has spent three years waiting for her Jaeger. But unlike them, she's been forced to reconstruct her own on a shoestring budget – and may not ever see combat from its Conn-Pod. Without a Ranger partner, she trains with anyone who can spare the time to remind herself that she's more than just the engineer in charge of the Mark III Restoration Project. Sometimes the Marshall steps onto the mats; but more often the Weis, and in past years, other local Jaeger teams.
She has passion; and enough ability to read them that Cheung thinks she might be able to run the third arm, should one of the triplets ever be ill or injured when the klaxons sound. The Marshall has yet to let her run active Drift tests, but it's no hardship for Cheung or his brothers to pick up a bo staff and help her keep her forms current. It's as good for them to test themselves against opponents who can't feel their every move before it's made as it is for her to practice the art of combat dialogue.
Non-Rangers who know anything about the Drift tend to assume that compatibility at its finest means Rangers who make no distinction between themselves and their co-pilots. That's true; but it's also only half the story. The official PPDC line is that the basis of the neural handshake is psycholinguistic identification, which in turn is based on common experience, but there's more to a successful Drift than having a common foundation to start from or there'd be more sets of triplets in the Corps. Cheung, Jin, and Hu have the best compatibility rating on record not because they're so identical – but because they find it easy to maintain a group connection and strong individual identities at the same time.
That's a much more difficult balance to find with three than it is with two. But even two is difficult enough. And without the Drift – Kwoon combat is the closest a Ranger can get to practicing the combination of intense focus and expanded awareness required to succeed.
Cheung sets the ball down in the corner with his shoes, then picks up his bo staff and exchanges bows. Mako is smiling, and Cheung finds himself answering with a sharp, anticipatory grin.
»
Hu taps the key to transfer a copy of Shaolin Rogue's old pons software to the three-dimensional display in the K-Science lab, then picks up a stylus and starts nudging columns of text into visually distinct blocks. He's more familiar with Crimson Typhoon's, after all the time he spent helping Dr. Lightcap rebalance the neural load algorithms, but Dr. Geiszler doesn't need the extra details. He just asked for something basic to work from, and Shaolin Rogue's third-gen interface is easier to work with than Horizon Brave's Mark I just-let-it-work spaghetti code.
He sorts the code blocks by function, then directs the display to highlight them with color: the largest section glows the lurid hue of Kaiju Blue. "These are the functions that balance the neural load between the pilots and the Jaeger," he points them out. Hu's speaking Cantonese; Dr. Geiszler doesn't, but he understands it quicker than Hu can find the precise terms he wants in English, and vice versa. "It was the most difficult part to reprogram for a three-person pons – you can't just add another mind, or it becomes extra load rather than extra support."
Dr. Geiszler puts his face right up to the code, staring in fascination. "Really? So if all you wanted to do was, say, connect minds for the purposes of sharing information, all you'd need is ...?" He gestures toward the more compact vivid red and seaweed green portions, tracing a finger around them in an oval.
Hu blinks at him. "It would require some adjustment of parameters ... but, possibly. Are you working on post-war adaptations for the technology? You should ask Dr. Lightcap; the last time I talked with her, we were discussing modifying the code to run tech smaller than Jaegers for commercial uses. But I don't think she's considered..." he pauses, searching for the right term, "...recreational usage yet."
"Not recreational. Informational!" Dr. Geiszler objects. "Without the need to balance the technological input, the compatibility requirements wouldn't be nearly so strict; imagine what we could learn from minds vastly different from, er, from our own!" His eyes track toward one of his specimen jars, then away again as he launches into a high-volume explanation.
Hu shakes his head and saves the code to the console. Everyone in the Shatterdome knows how much Dr. Gottlieb complains about Dr. Geiszler, and vice versa; and how consistently they refuse to be parted, even to separate labs. Whatever the Drs. 吉 really want their own pons for is their business; he really doesn't need the details.
Time to go join Jin and the maintenance crew.
»
Jin perches high on the lower right arm of Crimson Typhoon, peering at the cabling under the bicep panel he's removed. He's not secured, but he's not concerned about falling; he, his brothers, and their Jaeger maintain a pretty constant sense of expanded proprioception. It's not exactly telepathy, but the neural pathways created by the pons don't just go away when the Drift stops. After six years of it, Jin's usually as aware of the relative positions of all six and seven of his other legs and arms as he is of his own. He'd no more slide off Crimson Typhoon's arm than he would trip over his own feet.
"I see it," he calls down to the crew. The testing software reported a glitch in one of the muscle strands, but the computers can't always identify the problem; especially when it's not mechanical. Sometimes human fingers are required. He slips on a glove, then thrusts his arm down into the space between drivers to scrape away a mass of netlike yellowish-brown algae. No matter how often a Jaeger gets washed down or bathed in toxic fluids, something always finds a way in between the gaps eventually.
A thread of that natural, part-of-me-is-moving sixth sense prompts him to look down as he pulls his hand back out of the machine: Hu's wandered in to join the crew, sunglasses pushed back on his forehead. Jin smirks, and tips his hand over Hu's head.
Hu looks up, of course. But algae's a lot harder to deflect than a basketball.
»
When Cheung finds his brothers again for lunch, all three smell of recent showers; but there are still crescents of grease under Jin's fingernails, a fresh bruise heating on Cheung's forearm, and a smear of something organic at the hinge of the sunglasses perched on Hu's head. Cheung bounces the basketball Hu's direction and snags the glasses in exchange, frowning at the smear; then he smirks at Jin.
"Fun morning?"
"More fun than yours."
"You're just jealous that Mako actually got me; how long has it been since you've pulled that off?"
"You'll find out this afternoon, old man."
"Might want to put today's practice on hold, boys," a fourth voice interrupts their banter, as Tendo Choi strolls up to the table. "Cherno's coming in this afternoon. I thought you might want to ... welcome the Kaidanovskys properly?"
His grin is as ridiculous as his bowtie; the Weis all smirk back in turn.
The end of the world may be coming; but in the meantime, they have more important things to do.
-x-