Raleigh hadn't been lying: He really did suck at chess. Mako has to think how to explain what he's doing wrong, because it seems so natural to her.

"You have to anticipate your opponent many moves ahead," she says. "It's like sparring."

"It doesn't feel like that to me," Raleigh says, watching sadly as another of his bishops falls before her army. "Everything is so constrained."

"It is, though. Just like in sparring, you must also read your enemy," Mako explains. "See what he does, what he doesn't. The way you're playing, you telegraph what you're going to do, what kind of moves you like to make."

She hums disapprovingly as he moves a pawn, and removes it expertly with her castle. "See? You play chess like you pilot a jaeger. You worry too much about doing the unexpected thing. Here, there are no unexpected moves. Someone has already played every move there is to play in chess."

Raleigh frowns, looking at the board. "Maybe you just know what I'll probably do because you've spent time inside my head," he suggests.

Mako raises an eyebrow. "Are you challenging my chess skills, Mr. Becket?" she says. "Because I could remind you that you have also been inside my mind. That is not my advantage."

Chagrined, Raleigh makes a terrible move. Mako cleans up with a dangerous glint in her eye. "Another?" she says sweetly, knocking over his king with her queen.

"Maybe we should settle this with a sparring match instead," he suggests.

"Oh, you want me to beat you in two arenas?" Mako says, flashing a grin with a challenge in it that makes Raleigh's heart do a little backflip.

"Ah, I thought I'd find you guys in here," Herc says, poking his head into Raleigh's quarters. "You ready? Car's just about to leave for the ceremony."

Raleigh gets up, stretching his arms above his head. "I'll take you up on that rematch later," he tells Mako.

"Okay," she says, getting up. "You look very good," she tells Herc. He smiles his ghost-smile at her. He does look striking, though gaunt, in his immaculately pressed dark blue dress uniform and gold piping.

"Thank you, Miss Mori," he says. "Likewise."

Here Raleigh also agrees. The sharp military curves suit Mako, and there's something in the combination of uniform and slightly rebellious hair streaks that makes Raleigh...

He cuts his eyes hastily aside.

"They've got a car waiting for us," Herc says. They follow him down the lower loading bay, where Raleigh sees Ocampo and Liu a few hundred feet away, waiting for the buses to take them over to the ceremony site.

Raleigh and Mako both wave as they cross over to the long car waiting for them, and they wave back. Liu's even smiling.

"She looks happy," she says as they climb in.

"Ocampo said her brother's left that cult," Raleigh says.

"That's great news," Mako says. "I am happy for her."

It's kinda embarrassing to pass up all the engineers and techs as though they weren't just as important as he was. The long black car slides past them, out of the loading bay and across the bridge towards Hong Kong proper.


The car takes them back to where Leatherback fell, the last kaiju to die on land. The skeleton's already been stripped down to bleached white bones and the massive split skull. Some of the ribs are slagged partway down.

She did that. Mako stares as they pull up in the car. On an impulse, she puts her hand on the window, silhouetted against the five-story tall melted ribs. The difference in scale is the weirdest thing about reconciling the memories of being a jaeger.

The memorial is going to be built on top of the kaiju body, because humans can't resist, apparently. She's seen pictures of the plan: a long, graceful wall with the names of the cities destroyed in kaiju attacks dating back from the beginning, and on top of the skull a small-scale model of the first jaeger ever built.

A metal platform has been hastily constructed on top of the skull itself, nestled between the horns, with a podium in front of a giant TV screen framed by long strings of flags. That's where they're heading. The scaffolding reaches far back along the kaiju spine, flapping tents positioned between the massive ribs.

They drive deep into the construction site, past rows and rows of people in uniforms and, further back, civilians, crowd stretching at least as far as she can see until the view's cut off by the damaged buildings. As they climb out of the car and up a long set of scaffolding stairs, Mako recognizes some of the people on the platform: the presidents of the U.S. and India and the Canadian, Japanese and Australian prime ministers at first glance; there are other powerful men and women behind them too, from Peru and Mexico, Chile and Argentina, the Philippines, all of the Pacific rim nations.

An aide leads them to a spot of honor to the left of the podium. She stands next to Raleigh, falling to attention out of habit, hands locked behind her back. Then she half-turns to see the TV focusing in on her, from some camera along a track in front of the platform. Her face is forty feet tall. She blinks in astonishment as she realizes noise is rising from the crowd—a long, swelling wave of sound. Cheers.

Raleigh, always the ham, gives a big wave and after a second she follows suit, smiling tentatively. The crowd hoots and whistles. The sound is incredible.

"Citizens of the world!" rings out over the crowd, and they turn to see the U.N. chair at the podium. Behind him the screen is split between his image and the translation of his words in a dozen different languages.

Mako stands at attention through speech after speech, even as Raleigh begins to fidget beside her.

"We have united against a common enemy and we have defeated him," says the Japanese prime minister.

"They dared attack our people and they paid the price for it," says the Australian prime minister.

"This monument will stand as a testament to the ingenuity of the human race," says the US president.

"Most of all, it will stand for the brave women and men who died defending this world," says the Indian prime minister, and it's her words that really strike Mako with the first surge of emotion. It's powerful, and she waits for the tears, standing with her feet braced apart, but they don't come.

She stares wonderingly out at the seas of people, rows and rows and rows until she can't see any further, and feels the ache of grief and the swell of hope and happiness and pride together at the same time, and for the first time the two co-existing doesn't make her feel like she wants to rip out her heart. It feels bearable. It feels like maybe, someday, it's possible that everything will be okay again.

Her eyes wander across the faces in front of her, joy and jubilation and hope, boredom, dreams—and hatred.

Mako's gaze stutters to a stop at the man next to Engineer Liu, perhaps twenty rows back in the audience. He is standing at attention, same as Liu, but where her eyes are bright and hopeful, his are burning pits of hatred.

Now that she's noticed it, he stands out like a beacon in the crowd full of excitement. Like the man in the maroon robes in front of grandma's bun shop.

Mako's stomach shifts, and her mind takes a minute to catch up with it until she sees something stuck in his ears, like—cotton—?

"Raleigh," she begins to murmur, and his head turns towards her a fraction.

And then the first bomb blows.


Raleigh's blown off his feet and he goes tumbling backwards. In the back of his mind he thinks two things: 1) The back of the scaffold isn't far away, and 2) Mako.

He grabs out as he falls, one hand bashing against something hard and the other grasping empty air. The wind's knocked out of him as he hits the ground, bounces, hits something hard and stops.

There's dust in his eyes, in his mouth, in his ears. He's only stunned for a moment before he struggles up, spitting out dust. "Mako!"

To his left he feels something stir in the dust, but there's no noise, nothing, just a soundless ringing. Shit. Shit. He can't hear anything. The blast's screwed with his hearing.

Then a hand comes out of the dust and lands on his arm. It's Mako, her face blackened with soot. He grabs her hand and holds on, mouthing a prayer of relief.

The smoke thins a little bit and he can see frantic movements all around him. Aides are scrambling to his left, swarming around the presidents and prime ministers, who are all being heaved to their feet. Someone stays down, he can't see who it is.

He looks right. Herc's a few feet away. There's something—a chunk of the scaffolding came down across him. Raleigh tries to get to his feet.

Pain rips up his back and he falls back, hissing. Mako crouches close to him.

"Are you okay?" he can make out her mouthed words. He wants to know if she's okay. Her bottom lip is bloody, and as she moves, he sees the back of her hair is matted with something dark. His heart's beating way too fast. He points at her head.

Mako puts a hand to the back of her head and winces.

"It's not bad," she says, and she looks clear and alert enough and her pupils are the same size, but it doesn't stop Raleigh's panic from mounting. She peers behind him, her face tight and panicked, and cranes her neck to get a better look at the back of his shoulders, but he grabs her arm.

"Herc," he mouths, and points. No one seems to have noticed them or Herc; the aides are all clustered around the heads of state.

"Can you get up?" she mouths. He nods, and she crouches down next to him and slings his arm across her shoulders as though he was drunk again.

When they rises, he feels her jerk and hiss in. "What is it?" he says frantically, tightening his grip on her shoulder. Mako puts her hand to her ribs, grimaces, but mouths, "It's fine."

Raleigh's heart sinks as they get closer to Herc. It doesn't look good. Herc is on his back, and a long chunk of metal rebar—with a string of flags still attached to one end—is lying low across his torso. He's not moving.

"Herc!" Raleigh says, as Mako sets him gently down on one side and rushes to Herc's other side. "Marshal Hansen!"

Mako checks his pulse with efficient, trembling hands, and pats his cheek. Herc's eyes stay closed. There's a bright streak of blood at his ear. Mako turns to him, shaking her head. It's clear to Raleigh, too; Herc shouldn't be moved, not by anyone who isn't a paramedic.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees people in uniforms charging across the twisted, angled platform. Military officers, paramedics. He closes his eyes in relief.

"Hey!" he yells, though he can't hear his own voice, figuring it can't hurt. "We need help! We're over here! Marshal Hansen and Mako Mori and Raleigh Becket!"

A figure stops, breaks off and heads towards them. Thank God.

Then the second bomb goes off.

He can't so much hear it as feel it, the metal scaffolding jerking and wrenching beneath their feet. He's knocked off his feet again, and he sees Mako catch herself as she falls sideways. Shit, Raleigh thinks, we're still under attack—

All of the uniformed paramedics have disappeared in a wave of fresh smoke. The platform jerks again and tips a few degrees. Mako and Raleigh's eyes meet: the scaffolding isn't stable.

Someone rushes toward them in the dust. Raleigh, eyes watering, sees a youngish woman in a sharp, crisp uniform he doesn't recognize.

"Let's go!" he can make out what's she's shouting. She grabs Raleigh by the arm, gesturing, and helps him to his feet. She points down at the metal below them, clearly indicating what they already guessed—the platform is about to fall.

Mako, who's crawled back over to Herc, looks up desperately. "We can't leave him," she mouths.

Raleigh looks at the aide, points at Herc. She shakes her head and gestures again at the shuddering platform.

Mako shakes her head fiercely and beckons Raleigh over. She's right. They can't leave Herc. The world's already claimed too much of that family. Raleigh shakes off the woman's arm and goes over to help Mako heave at the heavy metal bar pinning Herc to the floor.

The woman hesitates, then joins them. Together they pull the metal rebar off Herc, who doesn't move. Mako kneels next to the unconscious man and Raleigh takes the other side. They pull Herc's body up between them.

"This way," the woman gestures, and they follow her towards the back of the platform. It isn't the stairs they came up; it's another set, leading back towards the kaiju's ribcage, away from the crowd. Raleigh supposes that's wise. If another bomb went off, it would probably target the crowd for maximum damage.

Faint screams begin to filter through the silence in his ears as they struggle to keep Herc mostly upright as they climb down the staircase. Raleigh shakes his head. His hearing's beginning to come back.

The back portion of the memorial construction has stayed remarkably intact. The tent poles are still upright, dust-blackened fabric flapping in the breeze. Mako and Raleigh follow the aide down the staircase, which leads down to a walkway formed out of the kaiju spine.

"Are you okay?" Raleigh tries shouting, and Mako's eyes widen. She must be able to hear him. "I'm okay," she yells back, and the sound of her voice, hoarse and ragged, is music to him. "You?"

"I'll be fine," he says. "Worried about Herc."

Mako glances down at Herc. The front of his blue uniform is soaked in blood. They both know it doesn't look good and all this moving isn't helping.

"Hey!" Raleigh shouts at the aide. "Do you speak English? How much further? Herc needs help!"

The woman turns partway. "Just a little further," she says.

Behind them there is a great shuddering crash, and they both turn their heads to see the platform collapse in a heap. A gust of wind kicks up and blows past their faces, dust and metal and blood.

The kaiju skull is untouched. It's like it's still winning, even though it's dead and the breach is closed.

"Who would do this?" Raleigh says, sickened. "The war's over!"

Mako frowns. "Before the first bomb," she says, her voice cracking, "I saw someone in the crowd. A man. Next to Liu."

Raleigh swears. The aide glances back at him as she holds a flap open for them. They drag Herc through. "Shit," he says. "Do you think it was the ju-heads?"

"We do not care for that term."

Raleigh jerks his head up.

They've entered the big tent nestled inside the kaiju ribcage. Inside are a dozen men and women in long, familiar maroon robes, arms clasped serenely in front of them, untouched by the dust and debris of the bomb. The Church of the Breach-borne Angels.

Shit.


Finally, some action *g*