Bridget began life in the usual manner. A clawing gasp of bittersweet, double-edged air, and a wail that marked the slow count down.

Christ, Ham thought, I'm a cynical bastard. His fingers paged through the old photos of a red-faced, fist-waving heft of a baby.October 2nd, 2004 was written on the back in loopy woman's handwriting. His sister was a natural disaster just waiting in the wings. Always had been. Ham just felt bad for whatever unlucky son of a bitch got it in his head to marry her. She currently was in her tiny excuse for a room blasting nasal-lyric-heavy, four-chord-having rock from her radio. Ham could hear her mattress springs creak from where she was dancing. It wasn't really dancing. It was more of Bridget just unleashing her hair and making general body movements that went along most of the time.

"Oy! You wanna cut that out anytime soon?" Ham bellowed, fist smacking against the wall they shared.

There was another creak and then a thud. The music kept going.

"You wanna get that stick out of your ass anytime soon?" Bridget crowed back, fist smacking back against the wall. Ham could almost see the jerky movements of her early-teen elbows and knees as she completely disregarded what he had just said. He was supposed to be compiling some bullshit excuse for a scrapbook of important events in his life. It was supposed to let him graduate. Whether or not he would still retain his dignity afterward was still a hotly contested issue. Pops said he would be fine. Ham had a tendency to doubt most of what he said.

Ham picked the photo he knew he was going to pick in the beginning. Newborn Bridget, hours old, in their mother's artistic choice of black and white, held by a cautious three year old him, staring out a window like he could already tell her the ways of it all. He glued it down and labelled underneath in black marker: When I Was No Longer Alone. It was simultaneously sentimental to the point of being bruising and callous. Ham thought the description fit himself pretty well too.

The next out of the lineup was a stunningly spare and ill-framed photo of a small plaque in a grey stone wall. Ham picked the marker up and held it in the intermittent space for a moment before deciding: When I Lost Gravity.

The bass line of Bridget's radio thumped through the walls into his ears.

"Bridge! Pops comes home and you've still got that on-"

There was a rumble of an old model Cadillac pulling into the driveway. The music shut off immediately. There was a scramble of feet, Ham's included, and the shutting of doors as they snapped to attention at the top of the stairs. The keys were in the lock, the handle turning and in stepped Pops. Ashy grey-blonde hair parted with a ruler, mustache bushy yet contained. All set above the crisp Navy uniform that denoted his place as commandant.

John Bradley Hudson looked up, smile proud and turned to put his keys on the table next to the front door.

"At ease." His voice rumbled out. Ham saw his sister's shoulders slump to a slovenly level out of the corner of his eye. She never did things in halves, he'd give her that. "Hamish, if you'd join me in the kitchen, we have something to discuss." There was an odd glint in Pops' eye, like someone had just told him the shipyard workers were no longer on strike or that North Korea's newest rocket design just detonated inside its own facility. Hamish trudged dutifully down the wooden staircase, keeping his shoulders back and spine tight. Unlike Bridget, he wasn't a child, he was seventeen. She took her dismissal and headed back to her room, the door slamming into place with a bit more force than necessary. If Pops noticed, he didn't say anything, just popped his hat off his head and set it on the round kitchen table. He was spry for a sixty four year old man.

Ham took his seat across from his grandfather and waited for him to start. From the hallway, he could hear his sister's music start up again, at a much lower volume. Pops' gnarled meaty hands laced their fingers together and came to rest on the wooden table top.

"The Pan-Pacific Defence Corps are recruiting. Fresh, no previous service needed. They seem to want that, actually." Pops shrugged his big shoulders as if he wasn't taking it as an insult. Ham knew from experience he was. "They're looking for skilled young men like yourself. I want you to sign up." They'd been over this a few times. Pops seemed to think his great failing with Ham's father was not getting him into the military soon enough. The real failure was getting him into the military at all. That and a dose of Kaiju Blue.

Ham could hold his own in a fight, sure, and he wasn't scared of much, but those were hardly qualifying features for a brilliant career in the armed forces. Bridget, however, would be terrifying. He could see her as a drill sergeant, riding crop over one shoulder, bull horn in the other hand.

Pops cleared his throat and leaned forward on his elbows, the way he did when he was going to tell Ham something that would cost him.

"I am going to level with you, Hamish, and you cannot tell your sister what I'm about to say to you."

Ham resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Bridget would twist it out of him anyhow, there wasn't much point in secrecy.

"The world as you've known it, as we've known it, is coming to an end. Without this Jaeger program, it would've crashed down around our ears already. As it is now, as I see it, we've delayed it, but they will come back, and the way things are now- the economy is a wreck, the government is in shambles- the only stability you can find is in the military-"

Ham took the rest of his grandad's speech in silence. It was true, the world was going to shit, but that didn't seem like enough of a reason. Still, wasn't like he had any other plans, and there was no arguing with Pops when he got a notion in his head. Ham supposed Pops thought he would have some sort of vendetta against the Kaiju crawling their way out of the ocean floor. He probably thought it was the right thing to do, hate the things that killed his parents and sparked the end times. Ham didn't. His parents were in the wrong city at the wrong goddamn time. Humanity was in the wrong city at the wrong goddamn time. Every day there were more reports from one of the major event cities. Manila was experiencing some kind of toxic haze that was coming up out of the decaying carcass of Hundun. Sydney was blown to shit, the nuclear fallout killing damn-near everything.

"Hamish, I think this is the best option, son." John Hudson finished. His grey eyes were sincere, and pained if Ham bothered to look deep enough.

"Yes sir," Ham said, spine still tight and stiff. His mind was screaming at him to do something, anything, to not bow his head ot the inevitable. His mind lost. "Where's the ROC?" His voice asked.

Later that night, when the lights had gone off on their street in suburbia-sub-Port Hardy, Bridge rapped her knuckles against the wall. It was their way of asking to talk. Ham lifted his head off his pillow and knocked twice back. Alright, c'mon over. Her barefeet padded against the carpeted floor and she appeared in the moonlight coming through his window. Her curly blonde hair, ashy and dishwater like his, made Bridge seem bigger than she was. Neither of them was very tall, but Ham had a Hudson's big shoulders, and his sister had her own kind of bulk that was just coming in.

Bridget slid in, resting her head next to his. She didn't hold his hand anymore like when they were little. Their biceps bumped up against each other, Bridge's rather cool to the touch, Ham's giving off heat like a radiator.

"Ham, what's happening?" She asked, staring at the ceiling fan whirring on.

"The world's going to hell."