The helicopter ride from the hospital to Gipsy Shatterdome was not a short one. But seeing as he did it at least once a week, Gottlieb was quite used to it. He always brought a puzzle book. And a second in case he finished the first, which was most days.

Now he didn't touch the second at all. His hands were shaking. Well, more than usual. He was jotting down notes in the empty spaces on the pages of completed crosswords or logic problems.

STARFISH

POISON IN THE WATER

NEWT POSSIBLY LUCID AGAIN

WHAT IS HE SAYING?

STARFISH STARFISH

EPISODES ARE NOT RANDOM; HAPPEN AT INTERVALS

I NEED MY BLACKBOARD

STARFISH STARFISH STARFISH

WHAT DO STARFISH DO?

LIVE IN THE SEA; NOT PHYSICALLY ACTIVE AS OTHER FISH

NEED AN EQUATION TO TRACK NEWT'S EPISODES

DRIFT-RELATED CAUSE LIKELY, PERHAPS CERTAIN

JUST BY MEMORY, INTERVALS SIMILAR TO KAIJU EVENTS ON SMALLER SCALE

I REALLY NEED MY BLACKBOARD

NEWT...

He even wrote in the ellipses. There was nothing he could really write that could cover it. He tapped the pen against the pulpy material, willed himself to keep going.

…

STARFISH.

DOES HE WANT A STARFISH? ARE THE CREATURES IMPORTANT?

WHAT WAS HE SAYING?

WHY WAS HE SO TERRIFYING?

WAS HE REALLY LUCID?

STARFISH STARFISH STARFISH

WHAT'S THE POISON IN THE WATER?

I NEED MY BLACKBOARD

He found a misspelled word from when he'd filled it in. Now he couldn't even remember what the word meant.

Newt...

He wished Newt was here right now to help him solve the problem. He might even have already nearly killed himself rigging up the most impossible yet most perfect almost-plan. Despite what they'd always said in public they really did work well together. It was like the Jaeger pilots: they split the load between them. When corresponding in Germany, then meeting in person for the first time, then the transfer to Hong Kong. They didn't need to like each other to acknowledge that numbers and entrails complimented one another perfectly in the Kaiju Wars.

Their workspaces had been neatly divided - at least, that was how Gottlieb himself thought of it. Newt was a bit more fluid, less organized. More chaos. He couldn't stand chaos. If any Kaiju remains crossed to his side of the room, his space was contaminated. The sharp lines and organized piles meant nothing if something as disgusting - as (once) alive - was there with it.

Maybe he needed a bit of chaos. Someone to share the load.

And a blackboard.

Right now, the thing he needed most was for his hands to stop shaking. He looked down. His handwriting was never too neat, especially when writing quickly, and it was a personal flaw for him. But the mess he'd scribbled was unintelligible. He only understood it because it was what he was thinking, and it's not like he could stop thinking it.

His brain was scribbling, too, in a way. Of course, it didn't help that helicopters were so noisy, he could only barely hear himself think. But it was quieting as it ascended, at least.

He looked at his hands again. They couldn't stop shaking, not for a moment. His right was shaking faster than his left, he estimated a 5/3 pattern. Almost twice as fast.

They slid out of rhythm. 7/4, 2/1, 6/5, 3/2, back to 5/3. 4/3. For a moment they were synced.

The shaking slowed. Returned to a state of normal. He exhaled.

Then he thought of the way Newt had toyed with him, only now unblocking the memory. He'd waited until he'd gotten his hopes up, then started babbling nonsense again.

Had he laughed? Gottlieb could no longer remember. He'd called him by name, though. Hermann. No one ever called him Hermann, always Dr. Gottlieb or just Gottlieb. All except Newt. Even Mr. Choi, Mr. Hansen and the Beckets called him Gottlieb; that was how he wanted it. And it wasn't like much of his family were around to call him Hermann. He hadn't talked to his remaining family in years.

He had a wife for a while, too, though they'd quickly separated when he'd needed her most. He knew it was coming, and didn't stop her, choosing instead to let it happen, leaving him free to do his part for the PPDC in Hong Kong. Weeks later, the Breach had collapsed and his work was finished for a time. He hadn't seen her since. Her name was Vanessa, he remembered begrudgingly. She was a model. He had not wanted to date a model, thinking them ugly in personality and dominated by their careers. She was neither of those, and the surprise had given way to mutual affection. Until it wasn't anymore, obviously.

Newt was, in essence, all he had. Gone.

Maybe it was a sign. Maybe, like with Vanessa, it was time to put aside his personal life in favor of saving the world. Two Jaegers had been dispatched to Ukraine because of reported Eastern Reform League activity outside their territory. Humans were not Kaiju, but strategy was still a matter of mathematics. One of the few things about the situation that comforted him. Handwriting of God, after all.

He reached for his second puzzle book. He was halfway finished by the time they landed.

...

Gipsy Legion was not very original. The "Gipsy" in its name was taken from the famous Jaeger, the one that ultimately sealed the Breach. The contracting company essentially absorbed any Pan-Pacific Defense Corps resources that the Americas and Western Europe could spare, plus those of Japan and Hong Kong that hadn't been swallowed by the League. Australia also declared itself an ally to Legion.

And the Shatterdome itself? It amounted to Raleigh Becket needing a place to go, and what better place than home? Well, close to home as he could get. The home he and Mako Mori (recently made Mako Mori-Becket) had made in Hong Kong was turned over to the League when the Chinese government came down hard on reclaiming the asset city in the name of its titular Post-Kaiju Reform. Without finished Jaegers to brush aside helicopters, tanks and scores of troops, it was not a long struggle.

Then Jaegers came back. Scrounged from the wreckage of universal dump site Oblivion Bay, redesigned to be more long-range, more warlike, even mass-produced.

Jaegers designed to kill people.

He was never in awe of the monsters and the monsters man created in return - they were simply things larger than himself, like thunder or the sun - but it scared him now.

GL's current contract with the newest iteration of the UN was to monitor Reform progress into protected countries, and push them back. This Shatterdome had twelve full-time Jaegers in its bays, plus Chinooks and more recent Floater units for transport. Another twenty were running water and air patrols, returning home to old oil rigs remade into "Jaeger Huts": mini-Shatterdomes for single Jaegers at sea. They did not expect to see much action, but most of the personnel assigned there were more than happy with that. Three teams were assigned in a triangular formation around the old Breach. It had been cold for all that time, just a normal fissure on the ocean floor. Since the bomb that detonated on this side was not nuclear, there wasn't even worry about radiation. In truth, the portal had not even been solid, hovering slightly over the fissure and having no effect on the water around it. There was really nothing to monitor.

Yet they could not be certain.

As his copter touched down, the scenery on base had Gottlieb revisiting history as he gathered his cane under him.

Newt had just gone catatonic a few days prior when the army had come knocking on the Shatterdome's door, and Gottlieb was told he had ten minutes to grab what he needed and get a chopper. Newt himself was already safely being transferred to the stateside facility where he resided to this day when it happened.

Here a group of pilots jogging in formation, there a team of Floats dispatched to a Hut for transport, somewhere off to the side an antique car from the '10s drove on base. That was probably that Shao woman and her partner. He wondered what insanities they'd have in store today.

He'd just have to find out.

He hobbled across the base. Dropped his card swiping it at the front checkpoint. The guard recognized him and she checked him in anyway, then stooped to pick it up and hand it to him. He did not thank her for it, simply hobbled along.

Several hallways. Their angles were a bit disorderly for him, asymmetrical. But he followed them, making almost-thankful use of the handrails and the carpet that muffled his clumsy steps. They'd gotten clumsier since Hong Kong, too. Muscular degeneration was possible.

Finally, he came to Shatterdome Control, and turned into the entryway.

The scatter of digital workstations annoyed him too, but again he was used to it. All were busy. He could not be mad. That wouldn't do him any good, either.

"Any developments on the Ukrainian patrols?"

Ops Officer Tendo Choi answered him.

"Hugo and Anubis are gone. We don't know what happened, but our sats show seismic activity and possible Jaegers. We're putting together a response team, planning to meet with some EU cans, drop them by the border."

It did not seem like a good plan. Simply throwing more soldiers at a problem was the stuff of barbarians, a tactic repeated in the bloodiest wars of history. Jaegers had been so scarce in the Kaiju days. Leaving only four left, then only two, then only one, then none.

Yet how many Jaegers were around today?

He was incoherent. His mind was leaping in horror at everything he heard and saw.

"Is there anything else?" he asked, trying to collect himself a bit more, straightening on his cane and regretting it for the locking he felt in his knees. He gambled two stumbling steps towards Tendo's desk and won, getting the chance to stabilize himself in his normal posture. The officer was clearly disturbed but as always said nothing of it. Gottlieb himself appreciated if no one said anything about the limp that was "worse some days than others". Most days it was just getting worse, yes?

"Erhm, yes, actually. Shao and Namani have a new Jaeger tech demonstration they're gonna show everyone in a few hours."

"Why weren't we informed earlier? There's so much going on, yet here we are seeing gadgetry thrown about by those two left and right!"

Silence greeted him.

He steadied himself again, becoming vaguely aware of the swirl in his stomach. He exhaled with a shudder.

"My apologies. I'll... be in my office if anyone needs me."

Then he left. He really needed his blackboard.