Chapter 3

It was an insane week.

First, November Ajax started throwing bad sectors in her main core. It turned out to be a bad relay that caused a cascade of hardware failures, which then started corrupting her data. After the bad memory and relays were replaced, Sy had to spend almost two days restoring the jaeger's memory files and recompiling her whole system.

Plus, Sy had already been scheduled to do a full backup and defrag of Zeus Phantom's systems. Normally that could wait, but Anchorage had a high-priority patch for all the Mark 5 and 6 jaegers that they wanted installed ASAP. So Sy had to find time to do that as well as fix up November Ajax's issues.

It was exhausting trying to fit everything in. But no matter how tired he was, Sy made sure to spend time with Sun Streaker each night after he was done with his regular work. As far as LOCCENT was concerned, he was researching and mapping the jaeger's AI so that they didn't get any more surprises. And yeah, sure, he was doing that.

But the real reason he was spending his evenings in Sun Streaker's conn-pod was just to talk to the jaeger.

He knew it was probably his imagination, but Sy thought he could hear Sun Streaker's verbal AI become less mechanical and less robotic the more that Sy spoke to him. The longer he spent in the conn-pod, the less Sy found himself thinking of Sun Streaker as just a sophisticated AI, and more like he was a person.

More like he was a friend.

While he worked, Sy quizzed Sun Streaker on the various fighting styles that he had been programmed with. Sun Streaker knew that the techniques and routines he used had been lifted from the minds of jaeger pilots, but as he talked with Sy he started using the Shatterdome's internet to look up the history of the different styles.

"Not all of my fighting styles have histories that are available on the internet. Not all of these styles have names," Sun Streaker said. "For example, the techniques provided by Huo Shui are unnamed and I am unable to find information on them."

"That's because Ranger Huo was a straight-up street fighter. Look up mixed martial arts and you'll find some of the moves he used," Sy replied, his attention fixed on his laptop screen. He'd found another nest of logic trees in the jaeger's AI that he was sure hadn't been there earlier in the week. Sy jotted down some notes on the printed schematics.

"What fighting styles are you programmed with," Sun Streaker said. A question mark appeared on the HUD at the front of the conn-pod. The jaeger's verbal AI didn't seem to be able to add the inflection for questions, so he used the screen to add punctuation. Sy thought it was a pretty creative solution, one that the jaeger had come up with himself.

Sy laughed and shook his head. "Humans aren't programmed," he said. "But I did a lot of boxing and taekwondo before I enrolled in the PPDC pilot training."

There was a long pause while Sun Streaker looked up taekwondo on the internet, and Sy watched his laptop closely. Sometimes Sun Streaker's algorithms modified themselves when he collected new information. Sure enough, Sy saw one of the algorithms shift, but he frowned when he realized it was modifying the tree that related to himself.

Sun Streaker had built several algorithms specific to people he encountered. Sy's was the most extensive, which made sense because he was the person Sun Streaker interacted with most closely. Jack also had his own tree, as did a handful of the techs who did the day-to-day maintenance on the jaeger. While Sun Streaker didn't interact with them directly, he was able to recognize them on sight.

Before Sy could delve into why the information on taekwondo was being added to the algorithm Sun Streaker used to respond to him, the jaeger said, "Are you a jaeger pilot." Another question mark appeared on the HUD.

Sy looked up at the HUD and sighed. "No. I was a pilot cadet. I failed out of the Ranger program, but they kept me on as a systems specialist." He looked back down at his laptop and smiled. "And my JPO said I'd never get anywhere if I kept hacking. Shows what he knew!"

"What is a jaypo." Question mark.

"It's an acronym. J, P, O. Juvenile parole officer." Sy watched as a whole new branch was added to the algorithm he'd labelled with his own name. "When I was thirteen I got two years for hacking into a travel agency's website and stealing a bunch of credit card numbers. Just dumb kid shit; I wasn't actually going to do anything with them." He shrugged. "I got out in a year on good behaviour, and the website upgraded their security. So technically I did them a favour pointing out their system flaws," he said with a grin.

The branch that had been growing as Sy spoke froze, and another branch appeared in the logic tree.

"Are you not a good fighter." Question mark.

"What?" Sy asked, thrown off by the abrupt change in topic. Then he laughed. It figured that Sun Streaker would be more interested in the topic of fighting rather than whatever criminal activity Sy had gotten into fifteen years before. "No, I'm a great fighter. I won two middleweight boxing titles in Cleveland before coming to L.A. for the Ranger program."

"Then why did you fail out of the Ranger program." Question mark. "Good fighting skills are a major criteria for jaeger pilot selection."

Sy slid down in his chair, watching the algorithm change before his eyes. "Yeah, but you also gotta work well with others. Turns out I'm not Drift-compatible with anyone."

There was a pause. "Ranger cadets are not permitted into the program if their psych profiles indicate they will not be capable of Drifting." Sun Streaker's words sounded almost accusatory to Sy's ears, but he knew that was just his imagination. Or he hoped so, anyway.

"That's right, and on paper it looked like I would be just as capable as anyone else. But," Sy paused and shrugged. "Turns out I'm not. Couldn't even get up to 40% calibration with anyone they paired me with. And that's not nearly good enough. So... they let me go."

There was a long pause, and Sy made some more notes on the printed schematics. When he looked back at his laptop, he noticed that the algorithm related to him had shifted again. As he frowned and tried to interpret the changes, Sun Streaker's deep voice filled the conn-pod again.

"Maybe you just did not find the right co-pilot."

There was no question mark on the screen.

A week later, a Category 4 kaiju erupted from the Pacific Ocean, crashed through the remnants of San Francisco, and headed straight for Oblivion Bay. All three active jaegers in the Los Angeles Shatterdome were deployed, including Sun Streaker, to face down the kaiju Hellion.

Because of all the surveillance equipment protecting the jaeger graveyard in the Bay, the fight was filmed from a variety of angles. And if the PPDC wanted to demonstrate their new jaeger AI in a more spectacular fashion, they could not have picked a better fight than this.

Sun Streaker worked seamlessly with November Ajax and Zeus Phantom, listening to and interpreting their pilots' calls, as well as calling out his own actions just like a regular pilot would. By the end of the fight, the two piloted jaegers just held Hellion by its appendages while Sun Streaker pummelled the creature's head into an oozing blue pulp.

"That was fucking awesome!" whooped Ranger Roberts as he exited November Ajax's conn-pod. The four pilots met up on the floor of the dome, giving each other high-fives as Sun Streaker slowly stepped backwards into his maintenance bay.

Ranger Chroma grinned, showing off her gap-toothed smile. "Not that I want to put myself out of a job, but if you get ten more of those pilotless jaegers out there, all we'd have to do is the cleanup!"

Chroma's co-pilot nudged her. "Speaking of cleanup, did you see what Sun Streaker did on our way back?" Ranger Hide made a motion like he was giving himself a sponge bath. "It looked like he was rinsing all the kaiju guts off himself." Hide caught Sy's eye and called, "Hey Swipson! You've been lookin' in that thing's head. Is that what it was doin'?"

Sy shrugged and smiled. "Not sure. I wouldn't be surprised if he had some routines for rising off the kaiju blue so it didn't corrode his armor. I'll check it out and let you know."

Standing next to Sy, Jack added, "Maybe you kids should take a hint. If you did the same thing in your jaegers, we might not have to do as many repairs each time you came back from a fight." That prompted a roar of good-natured laughter and hooting from the gathered work crews at the expense of the pilots.

After the post-fight scrum broke up, Sy followed Jack to Sun Streaker's feet. They looked up at the almost spotless black and yellow armor of the jaeger. "It figures he'd be particular about his paint job," Sy said. "There's a whole subsection in one of his logic trees about which maintenance workers are better about buffing out the dings in his plating."

Jack glanced around them and leaned close to Sy. "Listen," he said. "Some of the night shift guys... They've heard you talking to him." He jerked his thumb up at the jaeger looming over them. "I've played it off saying that you run a radio in there while you're working, but you might want to keep it down if you're talking to him while the crews are still up."

"Shit," Sy muttered. He had gotten a bit lax about making sure that no one was around while he was chatting with Sun Streaker. "Right, thanks. I'll... figure something out."

Jack nodded, seemingly satisfied. "I'll let you know when the crews are done with his post-deployment check." Then he looked up at Sun Streaker and smiled. Jack had spent several evenings with Sy in the conn-pod, and – much to his own chagrin – had slowly grown convinced that the jaeger was more than just an overly-active artificial intelligence. "If it's all right, I'd like to join you tonight. I want to let him know that he did a great job today."

Sy laughed. "Sure. He asked about you last night. He wants to know if there's any way to make his fangblades deploy faster." He made a fist and mimed the wrist action Sun Streaker used to deploy one of his fangblades.

Jack thought for a moment, then replied, "There might be! If we increase the pressure in the lines..." He hummed, scratching his chin, then said, "I'll think about it!"

Nodding, Sy said, "I'll see you tonight, then. I've got a call with Anchorage in half an hour." He waved as Jack headed towards Sun Streaker's bay, then turned towards the administration offices.

Exactly forty-one minutes later, Sy was staring at the comm screen and trying desperately to hold down his lunch.

Unaware of Sy's rising anxiety, the tech in Anchorage continued on blithely. "The pruning program and the patch should be ready in about ten days. Once you receive the drive, run the pruning program, then once it's done, immediately install the patch." He spun the pen he was holding around his fingers as he spoke. "We're estimating that the pruning program should take about ten hours to run. The patch should only take about an hour to install. After that's all done, we'll need a complete download of the logic trees to make sure that all of the irrelevant algorithms have been eliminated."

It took a huge amount of effort for Sy to keep the quaver out of his voice. "But I don't understand... Why bother with the pruning? Why stop him from creating new algorithms? Sun Streaker's performance today was flawless. In fact, our other pilots were just saying we need ten more just like him." He glanced at Commander Magnus, who sat next to him silently. "What if the patch damages his fighting capabilities?"

The tech raised an eyebrow. "If anything, it should make Sun Streaker a better fighter by eliminating superfluous algorithms. All of the logic trees the AI created that have nothing to do with deployment will inevitably slow down the jaeger's reaction speeds."

Sy leaned forward, aware that he was scowling but unable to fix his expression into something more professional. "With respect... I've been through the basic cadet training," he said. "Fighting a kaiju isn't just about knowing some fighting moves and following orders! You've got to have creativity, and teamwork and..." He threw his arms in the air. "Look at the updated schematics I sent! The new trees he's been creating can only help him fight, not make him worse at it."

The tech shrugged, giving off the air of someone who did not give a shit one way or the other. "The decision to create this patch came way higher in the R&D chain of command than me. When it arrives, you are to install it. If you refuse, you'll have to take it up with command."

After they ended the call, Commander Magnus looked at Sy. "You seemed remarkably resistant to installing the patch," he said. "Why?"

Because it will lobotomize Sun Streaker. Because it will turn him back into a dumb machine. Because it will kill my friend. Sy took a deep breath. "I don't see the point in creating an AI that's designed to learn, letting it learn all kinds of stuff about fighting and kaiju and how to interact with humans, and then removing what it's learned because you decided it learned too much, and stop it from learning it again." He collecting his gear, slamming his laptop closed and thumping his notepad on top of it. "Why bother?"

"I agree with you." The base commander waited until Sy looked up at him in surprise. "The footage from the fight today was impressive. Unless Sun Streaker starts performing poorly, I don't see the point in removing anything that it's learned. I'll speak to command and see if I can get some better rationale for this change."

Nodding quickly, Sy said, "Thank you, sir. I appreciate it."

Commander Magnus stood and said, "However, Anchorage ultimately controls these prototype jaegers. Once we get an explanation for the rationale and the drive arrives, you may not have a choice in installing the pruning program and patch." He met Sy's eyes evenly. "I hope that won't be a problem."

"No. Sir." The words tasted bitter in Sy's mouth.

Sy stared at the ceiling over his bunk, making plans that he could never carry out.

He could run with Sun Streaker: tell the jaeger what Anchorage wanted to do to him, and then just make a run for it. Sure, they'd send other jaegers after them, but Sun Streaker had proven himself to be capable of taking care of himself.

Sy closed his eyes. He knew Sun Streaker wouldn't run. He had directives hard-coded that prevented him from disobeying direct orders. The hesitation that he'd displayed after doing his motion test a month ago really was what Anchorage had said it was: he'd been scanning for other targets before returning to the dome. Yes, he wanted to fight, but he was forced through coding to return when commanded. If confronted with two conflicting orders, he'd follow the order of the higher ranking PPDC officer. That particular piece of code was immutable.

And to be honest, Sy wasn't sure he could run, either. PPDC had given him a second and then a third chance. They gave him the opportunity to pull his life back together and make something of himself, even if that didn't happen to be a jaeger pilot. He didn't know if he could just turn his back on that.

He opened his eyes again, looking at but not seeing the poster of Tacit Ronin that hung over his bunk. Maybe he could just not install the pruning program. Then he shook his head. No, they wanted a complete copy of the new AI to review after the program was done running.

Maybe he could do a backup before he installed it! That would take almost a complete day to run, but he could play it off as being good systems management before installing a new system patch. Then after he sent the download of the pruned AI to Anchorage he could restore Sunny's memory...

Frowning, Sy wondered where he could store the backup that would be secure. The backup would probably exceed four petabytes...

Sy's phone buzzed. We just finished up our maintenance! I'll meet you in the conn-pod. Jack ended his text with a thumbs-up emoticon.

With a sigh, Sy pushed himself upright and grabbed his laptop.

Jack was already in the conn-pod when Sy arrived. The engineer was looking up at the HUD, talking to Sun Streaker and explaining some of his ideas to improve the fangblade deployment. He stopped when he saw Sy's face. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Glancing up at the HUD, Sy briefly wondered whether this was something he should say where Sun Streaker could hear it. Then he threw caution to the wind; the jaeger deserved to hear what was going to be done to his brain. "Anchorage doesn't like how many new logic trees Sun Streaker's created. They think it'll make his reaction times slower... Or something." He shrugged, aware of how little he actually knew about how AIs really worked. "So they're creating a program to trim out what they consider to be irrelevant algorithms, and a patch for his AI to prevent him from creating new ones." Sy collapsed into the chair next to the tech station. "They're going to turn him into a toaster."

"I told you before that I am not a toaster." Sun Streaker's baritone filled the conn-pod. Sy was sure that the dead-pan delivery was on purpose; the jaeger had started building some interesting algorithms around humour.

Sy was also sure those algorithms would be included in the ones that would be destroyed by the pruning program.

"And I don't want to let them turn you into one," Sy said. He tried for a smile and failed, then let his head fall into his hands. "But I don't know how to stop them. If I refuse to do it, they'll just have someone else do it."

"Well, shit." Jack's soft expletive made Sy look up at the engineer. Jack picked at his bottom front teeth for a moment before sighing. "I guess maybe we should do more than just think about how to make sure that doesn't happen."

Hardly daring to hope, Sy sat up straighter. "Do you have an idea?" he asked. "I was thinking about doing a backup of his AI before installing the program, but I don't know where I could store that much data securely, and restoring it would be a problem, especially with the patch that has to go along with it. If you've got a better idea..."

"Maybe. Sort of. I've been thinking about how to prove that he's..." The engineer hesitated. "Damnit, you're gonna make me say it. How to prove he's alive. Or at least sentient." He rubbed his forehead and gave the HUD a sidelong glance. "Anyway, I gave Percy a quick rundown of the situation –"

"Percy?" Sy growled. "You told Percy about him?"

"What?" Jack asked. "He's a genius and a complete nerd." He ignored Sy's dramatic sigh and continued. "You don't have to worry about him. He's totally on board with keeping this a secret. Me and him have kept plenty from command. How do you think we got the new integrated sensor suite installed on Zeus Phantom so quickly?" Jack smiled. "Besides, you should have heard him, going on about how he knew something like this would happen, going on about technological singularities and shit. Anyway, I asked him what we could do to prove that there's something special going on inside Sun Streaker's head, and he came up with a really great plan."

"What?" Sy asked flatly, still internally grumbling that Jack had told someone else about Sun Streaker without checking with him first. He felt possessive about Sun Streaker. Sy was the one he'd talked to first, after all.

"We can use the neural handshake protocols to get an imprint of Sun Streaker's – uh, brain waves or patterns or ...Whatever?" Jack scratched his head. "Err, it sounded more like an actual thing when Percy was describing it."

Sy frowned. "I know what he's talking about, but... That's something they do for cadets right before they start learning how to Drift."

Jack nodded. "That's right. You'll just have to Drift with the jaeger so Percy can record his pattern and –"

"Wait, what?" Sy asked again, his eyes going wide. "Me? Jack, you know I can't Drift. I'm awful at it. That's why –"

"Shut up and listen," Jack said. "You don't have to get synchronized or anything, it just needs a partner for the pattern to be read. I mean, we could do some hacking to get the program to just read one pattern straight from the jaeger, but it would be a lot faster and easier to do it with a co-pilot. And besides... Now we're pressed for time." He patted Sy on the shoulder. "All you'll have to do is stand there."

"Why can't you do it?" Sy asked. He looked up at HUD. Sun Streaker had been silent through the whole explanation.

"Because I don't know how to Drift, and I'm going to be busy making sure that hooking the pons directly into a jaeger's AI isn't going to fry your brain or something. And Percy's going to be grabbing the neural pattern." Jack shook his head. "Look, if you really don't want to do this, we don't have to. But I can't think of any other way to get the proof we need that your jaeger can think for himself, and use that to convince command that he should be allowed to continue to do so."

Sy laughed mirthlessly. "My jaeger?" He looked at Jack. "I think that's the point. He shouldn't belong to anyone."

Glowing words appeared on the HUD as Sun Streaker finally weighed in on the conversation.

I AM YOUR FRIEND, SY.

Smiling, Sy said, "Thanks, Sunny. You're my friend, too."

BUT.
I ALSO BELONG TO PPDC.

Jack glanced at Sy after reading Sun Streaker's response.

"I know," Sy said with a sigh. "And that's the problem."