Domovoi Part 17

It should have been a joyous occasion for Gipsy Danger and her Rangers – a reunion with Raleigh, and the forging of a new bond between Mako and the Mark III.  But it had ended with all three of them disgraced, the failed drift standing out like a visible badge of dishonor on each of them.  The two Rangers were now pariahs among the Shatterdome personnel, and more than one technician and mechanic now looked at Gipsy as if wondering why so much time and money had been expended on her.  Even the other Rangers seemed disappointed in the three of them, and though only Chuck went so far as to insult them to their faces, no one seemed eager to be seen in their company.

Chuck stalked into the Jaeger bay, nursing bruises and scrapes but his expression hovering somewhere between disgust and a smug triumph.  Cherno felt a growl bubbling up in his reactor at the sight of the rookie Ranger.  He never wanted to cause harm to a human, but somehow the younger Hansen riled his circuits in a way no other human could.  He wondered if he could talk Papa into confronting Chuck at some point, and wiping that nasty expression off his face for him…

Crimson “nudged” Cherno, bringing him back to the task at hand, and the Russian Jaeger returned his attention to Gipsy.  Outwardly, nothing had changed – she still stood stoically in her hangar, unmoving and silent – but all the Jaegers could feel her pain.  She radiated shame at her failure… and fear at what she had witnessed in the drift.

Striker’s engine coughed in disgust, earning flashes of irritation from Crimson and Cherno.  The Mark V couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.  Drifts failed all the time, and even his pilots had chased the RABIT several times before they had settled comfortably into their own neural handshake.  What was so tragic about this botched handshake that had the other two Jaegers so worked up?

Cherno growled again and aimed a mental “kick” at Striker.  The Australian Jaeger had no idea what Gipsy was going through, and had no right to judge.  She was their friend, and if Striker couldn’t be nice to her during this difficult time, he could just shut up and keep himself out of this.

Striker huffed his engines again and went silent.  He still radiated unpleasant feelings, but at least he wasn’t going to hassle Gipsy further, and that was all Cherno cared about at the moment.

Gipsy let out a low, sad moan and “leaned” against Cherno and Crimson’s presences for comfort.  It had all been going so well… she and Raleigh had fallen into place so easily that it was as if he’d never left, as if they hadn’t spent five years separated from one another.  And Mako had fit herself into the drift just as effortlessly, as if she had always been part of it.  She was no substitute for Yancy – and nothing could fill that void in her core – but Gipsy had liked and respected her, and welcomed her into the drift.

Crimson thrummed softly.  Gipsy had done the best she could.  She had merged well with her Rangers and responded to their commands.  No one could have asked more from her… and it wasn’t her fault that Mako had gotten locked in a bad memory.  It had happened with the Weis on occasion early on, proving that even the best Rangers weren’t immune.

Cherno backed that up with an eager hum of his own.  Aleksis had chased the RABIT on his first drift, and he had still managed to be one of the best Rangers in the program.  This was just a setback, right?  Surely Gipsy would get another chance.

Gipsy moaned again and withdrew into herself.  Cherno whined curiously, sensing that she was trying to hide something.  It hadn’t been her fault… right?  Surely no Jaeger would sabotage a neural handshake, unless they disapproved of the Rangers… and Gipsy hadn’t rejected Mako as a pilot, right?

Another soft moan.  No, Gipsy had accepted and even welcomed Mako into the drift.  The two had clicked in a way she hadn’t known before the Becketts.  Perhaps… perhaps they had clicked too well.  Because Gipsy had seen her memories, and had become ensnarled in them.  And despite everything she knew, all her programming, she had been unable to escape.

Striker coughed again, this time in surprise.  A Jaeger chasing the RABIT?  He’d never heard of such a thing.  Crimson and Cherno sputtered in equal surprise.  There were plenty of stories of Rangers getting locked in rogue memories, but for a Jaeger to be trapped in a memory was unthinkable.

It was true, Gipsy replied, her tone miserable as she explained.  She had just wanted a look at Mako’s memories, to see what drove her new Ranger to fight so passionately.  She hadn’t expected to get a firsthand look at a Kaiju attack… not an attack from a Jaeger’s or Ranger’s point of view, but through the eyes of a helpless civilian.  The sheer horror and fear, the sense of being so tiny and helpless, of trying to outrun and hide from something so big that it almost hurt the senses to try to take it all in at once… it had paralyzed her.  Mako’s fear had become hers, and she and Mako had reacted as one, trying to obliterate the beast in her memory…

And nearly wiping out the LOCCENT in the process, and shaming her Rangers.

The other Jaegers went silent at the revelation.  Gipsy’s presence curled into itself, shivering with pain and guilt.  It had been her fault the drift had been spoiled, and Raleigh and Mako took the blame for her failure.  They’d never be allowed back in her Conn Pod, and she’d never see battle again… and after this, she wouldn’t blame Pentecost if he decommissioned her and sent her right back to Oblivion Bay.  She deserved it.

A sharp growl cut into her despairing train of thought, answered by a warning rumble from Crimson.  Striker ignored the red Jaeger and pushed on.  No, Gipsy did NOT deserve to be hauled off like so much scrap.  No Jaeger did, especially not one who’d done NOTHING wrong.  It wasn’t her fault her Ranger had gone through trauma, and if she’d become so enmeshed in Mako’s memory that the two of them had thought as one for a few moments… well, that was just proof that they were the perfect team, right?

Cherno just listened in quiet shock.  After being so snarky and dismissive toward Gipsy ever since his arrival, the Mark V was taking her side?  He’d thought that as likely as a Kaiju sprouting wings and learning to fly… and yet it was happening.  Why this change?

Striker picked up on Cherno’s thoughts, and he growled again in irritation.  Just because he was superior to the other Jaegers here didn’t mean he was without empathy.  And Gipsy had earned his respect – he could spare a little sympathy for her.  Besides, they were the last of their kind, and even if they didn’t like each other, the last of the Jaegers needed to stick together, right?

Gipsy pondered on Striker’s words.  Then, slowly, she reached out to the others, a quiet soprano thrum vibrating through her engines.  Crimson and Cherno chimed in, falling into harmony with her, and Striker surprised them all again by adding his own baritone hum.  It took him a minute to find harmony with the others, but he managed it.

Outwardly, in the eyes of the Shatterdome workers, nothing had changed… but among the Jaegers, a bond had just been forged.  From this moment on, they stood together, regardless of anything the Kaiju, the government, or any force on Earth threw their way.

***

Mako wished she could remove the hazmat suit and wipe her eyes.  The protective gear was hot and suffocating, and sweat poured down her face, matting her hair to her cheeks and half-blinding her with its sting.  And the thick gloves made her clumsy, turning even the simplest tasks into an ordeal.  She knew it was a necessary precaution – who knew what kind of alien micro-organisms infested the material binding Gipsy together – but it didn’t mean she had to like it.

Gipsy’s presence in her mind stirred, forming words.  Crimson’s going to open the plates on my chest, over my core.  Stand back.

Mako nodded and stepped away from the finger she had been piecing back together.  Crimson rumbled something that might have been a “thank you” before bending down and grasping the warped chest plate.  Pistons tensed in his joints, and the metal howled in protest as he yanked at the plate.

“Gipsy!”

It’s okay, Gipsy assured her.  It doesn’t hurt.  It’s just stuck – I hope it’s not rusted.

Crimson gave another brutal yank, then staggered back as the plate detached without warning.  Personnel scattered in panic as he flailed to regain his balance, then gave a collective sigh of relief as he found his footing.  With a shake of his Conn Pod he turned to set the plate aside, in a growing stack of metal they deemed in good enough shape to use to piece the fallen Mark III back together.

Mako gave a sigh of her own as she returned her attention to the broken hand before her.  How they were going to get Gipsy back together she had no idea.  So little of her had survived the explosion… though given the circumstances, it was a wonder any of her had survived.  The blast that closed the Breach should have obliterated her.  And yet somehow, here she was, broken yet with soul intact.  Though whether they could put her back together again was anyone’s guess.

“How do you feel?” she asked as she scraped accumulated grime from a knuckle joint.  “Does it hurt anywhere?”

It’s more of a dull ache than anything else, Gipsy replied.  Maybe I’m just used to it.  Her engines made a wet coughing sound as she tried to clear them of some obstruction.  What’s Raleigh installing in my Conn Pod?

“Recording equipment.  It will allow you to see and hear on your own.”

Like Cherno and Crimson have?  I’d like that.  She went silent again, but Mako continued to feel pain and fear brewing through the drift.  Despite insisting she wasn’t hurting, the pain of her injuries still plagued her… as did the memory of what the Precursors had inflicted on her.

Mako couldn’t begin to imagine what kind of pain came from surviving a nuclear explosion in one’s own core, but she understood being haunted by memories.  After Pentecost had rescued her from the ruins of Tokyo, she had been so psychologically crippled by the deaths of her parents and the horror of Onibaba’s attack that she couldn’t even speak – not wouldn’t, but couldn’t.  It had been months before she could vocalize more than a whimper, and months more before she was speaking in full sentences again.

Even now, years later, she still suffered the occasional nightmare.  And there had been that horrific first drift, where for a terrifying moment that had seemed like hours she had been forced to relive that day, hunted by Onibaba and stricken with fear…

I’m sorry.

Mako glanced up from her work, briefly startled.  “Sorry for what?”

Mako… that drift.  It wasn’t your fault.  I… I was looking through your memories, and when I got to that one, I got locked in it.  It’s my fault you chased the RABIT that first time.  I never got to say sorry, but… I’m sorry now.

Understanding filled her, and despite everything she smiled.  “You are forgiven, Gipsy.”

But… but I brought shame on you.  Everyone was angry with you because of me!  You’re not even upset about that?

“How could I be?  You are my Jaeger, and I am your Ranger.  We do not have grudges.  It was an unfortunate mistake, and nothing more.”  She finished cleaning the joint and set about reattaching wires.  “Before now, we didn’t even know Jaegers were capable of chasing the RABIT.  It was always thought to be the fault of the Rangers if it happened.”

Well, we’ve got minds like you.  If it can happen to you, it can happen to us, right?  Gipsy sounded just a bit smug at that.

“That is true.”

A sudden wail from Crimson cut off their conversation, and she looked up to see the red Jaeger recoil, hands raised, looking for all the world like an uppity woman who had just seen a mouse.  Cheung, looking on from a platform nearby, shouted something Mako didn’t catch, and Crimson gave a whole-body shudder and pointed to Gipsy’s open chest in reply.

“What is it?” asked Raleigh, climbing up onto Gipsy’s broken torso.  “What’d you find?”  He peered into the open chest… and recoiled with a shout of his own.  “Jesus Christ!”

“Raleigh!”  Mako dropped her work and hurried to climb the scaffolding set up on Gipsy’s side.  

Oh no… what’s in there?  A tremor passed through Gipsy’s frame, nearly knocking Mako off the scaffolding.  I knew something was stuck in there, but I couldn’t get it out… is it bad?  Can you get it out?  Please say you can get it out…

“Calm down, Gipsy, we’ll get it out,” Raleigh assured her, though Mako noted that he looked rather green in the face as he said that.  She rushed to his side and chanced a look of her own.

She wanted to be sick.  Tangled in Gipsy’s inner machinery was a body – but not a human body.  It was difficult to make out the original shape of the corpse, given that Gipsy’s engine had mangled it badly, but Mako could clearly make out six limbs and a strange crest-like head.  Four eyes, blank with death, stared up at her, as if accusing her of murdering it.

“Mako, Raleigh, what’s going on up there?” demanded Tendo.

“It’s a body!” Raleigh shouted back.  “It looks like a Precursor!”

“Bloody hell,” Herc grumbled.  “Get it outta there!”

Gipsy began to shake, and it was all Mako could do to not lose her balance and pitch forward to join the dead Precursor in her torso.  A high keen filled the Jaeger bay, and Gipsy’s presence in her mind went vibrant with terror.  

Get it out! she shrieked.  Get it out, get it out of me, get it out!  I don’t want them in me, their little hands pawing at me, their tools, their bio-tech…

“Gipsy, girl, calm down,” Raleigh pleaded, falling to his knees.  “It’s dead.  It can’t hurt you.  It’s just a body.”

Mako knelt as well, placing her hands against Gipsy’s armor.  “You have to hold still.  I know you’re frightened, but you have to hold still.  We’ll help you, but you need to do as we say.  Please… we’re here.  Nothing is going to hurt you.”

She and Raleigh kept up their litany, trying to soothe the Jaeger.  Gipsy continued to keen, but slowly her terror faded, and she stilled beneath them.  Tremors still shook her at odd intervals, but they were slight compared to her earlier quaking.

Crimson rumbled a warning, and a massive hand lowered into Gipsy’s interior.  With a delicacy that seemed impossible for a metallic giant, the Mark IV pulled the Precursor corpse out.  He gave a squeal of disgust and promptly dropped the body on the floor, leaving the cleanup crews to sort the mess out.

“Get that thing to the labs!” Herc ordered.  “Get it in a preservative tank if you can!  Christ almighty, if Newt were here he’d be goin’ bonkers by now…”

“There you go,” Raleigh murmured, rubbing Gipsy’s plating.  “It’s out now… it can’t hurt you.”

Don’t leave me, she pleaded.  Don’t go…

“We’re not gonna leave you,” Raleigh promised.  “We’re going to finish fixing you.  Here… I’m going to go back into your Conn Pod to finish hooking up your new optical sensors.  I’ll still be right here with you, though.”  His voice was soothing and gentle, and for a moment Mako had the sudden out-of-nowhere observation that Raleigh would make a good father someday – he had the right temperament for calming a frightened child.

She shook the thought out of her head and climbed back down to return to her own duties.  A crisis had been averted for now, but Gipsy was still traumatized from what had happened to her in the Anteverse.  And though she and Raleigh would never hesitate to go to her side and calm her down, logically she knew that they would waste precious time in pausing her repairs every time she had a panic attack.  Especially since Gipsy wouldn’t permit anyone but her Rangers and the other Jaegers to repair her.

As she went back to working on what remained of the Jaeger’s hand, her thoughts returned to her recovery from the attack on Tokyo.  Pentecost had been remarkably patient with her, encouraging her but never trying to force her into situations she didn’t want to face, providing her with a much-needed anchor during the stormiest period of her life.  She couldn’t recall if he had said or done anything specific that had eased her pain, but she did remember the strength of his presence, the feeling that with him watching over her, nothing could hurt her again.

I wish he were here, she thought with a stab of pain.  To see Cherno and Gipsy and the others alive and moving on their own.  He would have known how best to help them.

But Pentecost was gone… and they would have to make do on their own.  And now that the story had come full circle, she would step into Pentecost’s place, and be the anchor Gipsy so sorely needed.

A burst of obnoxiously cheery music broke her train of thought, and she turned to see Lance fumbling with his phone.  Predictable – Mustang’s Rangers wouldn’t deign to help, but they’d stand around and gawk, Lance fanboying over Gipsy and Lexie dropping sarcastic comments and going on about how inferior Gipsy was to Mustang.  Could Tendo find the two of them something constructive to do?  Surely they could at least do a practice run in the simulator or something…

Lexie snorted in laughter, her disdainful expression aimed at her brother/co-pilot instead of Gipsy.  “Really, Lance?  I mean, really?”

“What?” he protested, silencing his phone.  “Like YOU don’t have a stupid ringtone!”

“My Little Pony, Lance?  Really?”

“Will you stop saying that?  Besides, that show was a classic.  Why do you think it got such a cult following during the K-War?  People wanted something cute and lighthearted to distract them from the real world!  Besides, it’s more intelligent than what you like to watch!”

“Never took you for the type to watch little-girl cartoons.”

“Hey, shut up, I’m still a badass.”

“A badass who likes pink ponies.”

“Shut up!”

“Break it up, you two!” Herc snapped.  “Either shut up an’ be useful or take it outside!”

Lexie rolled her eyes, and the two Rangers walked out, still bickering.

Raleigh blew out an irritated sigh and went back to work.  Mako thought about being annoyed by the two of them as well… but what Lance had said had her thinking.  

He is right… during the war, children’s shows and more light-hearted movies were popular.  The world didn’t want dark and gritty in their entertainment anymore – they could get that by watching the news.  They wanted something to remind them of better times, or to simply distract them from the terror of the real world.

Even she hadn’t been immune to that – after losing her parents she had spent much of her time either curled up in bed and trying to isolate herself from the world, or watching television to try to distract herself.  She had found some measure of solace in children’s anime, particularly Sailor Moon and Pokemon and other older shows.  Perhaps it hadn’t directly helped her recover, but it had distracted her… and given her hope that perhaps, just perhaps, not every story ended in tragedy, and it was still possible for heroes to defeat the monster and save the day.

She turned to Gipsy’s Conn Pod, where Raleigh was diligently following a technician’s orders to plug the optical sensors into her controls.  Perhaps what Gipsy needed was a distraction.  If nothing else, it would take her mind off of what she had endured, and let her comrades finish her repairs without interruption.  And if anyone else in the Shatterdome thought it was silly… she didn’t care, so long as it comforted Gipsy.

She turned to Tendo.  “Can we get a projection screen in here?”

Tendo raised an eyebrow.  “I can see what I can dig up.  Why?”

“I have an idea.”

***

I never imagined my job would come to this.

Hermann stared at the doors leading to the Kaiju Cult temple’s Inner Sanctum, dread building in his gut.  Carved from a rich brown wood, they bore bizarre designs that looked like thorny vines or barbed tentacles, writhing and twisting without any particular pattern or order.  No sound came from behind the doors, though whether the room beyond was truly quiet or the doors were just soundproofed he had no idea.  Still, he almost imagined he could hear some kind of ritual drum throbbing within the Sanctum… or was that just the pounding of his heart?

Dr. Gottlieb was not a man given to panicking, but at that moment a headlong flight out of the temple sounded very tempting.  He might not make it very far – curse his bad leg – but it was worth a shot.

He glanced sideways at Newt, expecting to see him vibrating with excitement or grinning stupidly like the fanboy he was.  The biologist shocked him by doing neither.  His expression was of quiet dread, his skin oddly pale beneath his scruffy attempts at a beard.  Dr. Geizler seemed to recognize just how serious the situation was, and if he was at all eager to see what the cult hid in its Inner Sanctum, he was remarkably good at hiding it.

Hermann drew in a deep breath.  “Well… we’d better go in.  No sense keeping the High Priestess waiting.”

“Let’s not and say we did,” Newt suggested.  “This place gives me the creeps.”

“Not so much a fanboy anymore?”

“Fanboy, maybe.  But this isn’t fanboying.  It’s not even obsession.  It’s… insane.  Not the good kind either.”

Hermann nodded slightly.  So Newt had some sense beneath the fanaticism after all.  “We still have to go in.  We have a job to do, remember?”

Newt nodded.  “Tendo owes us big-time for this.”  And he visibly steeled himself before pushing the doors open.

The smell struck him first – and shockingly reminded him of their home in the Shatterdome.  The reek of old meat and preservative chemicals filled the air, underlaid with a strange electric tang.  Hermann paused on the threshold, too stunned to continue on.  So the cult had fresh Kaiju parts on hand… not just tooth and bone and scale samples, but brain matter and other organs.  The work of Hannibal, or something more sinister?

“Holy…”  Newt stepped into the Sanctum, eyes wide.  “How did they… what…”

Hermann hobbled forward to keep up with the biologist, looking around.  The room was illuminated with a soft blue light that radiated from several clear tanks containing Kaiju flesh and organ samples, some mangled but others so pristine he knew Newt would have sold his soul for one of them.  Said tanks weren’t just the utilitarian specimen tanks he was used to, but decorated with seals and trim sculpted to resemble grasping claws or open jaws, with delicate symbols etched into the glass of the tanks themselves.  The floor was a mosaic of painted tile and polished stone, depicting a vast open maw with a bright blue, flower-like tongue.  Priests and acolytes in scarlet robes moved to take up positions throughout the room, some standing by the tanks as if to serve as guards, others forming a ring around the gaping maw on the floor.

He took all this in before letting his gaze settle on what lay at the head of the room – a tank large enough to hold an orca, its bluish glow casting weird highlights on the upturned faces of the scientists and cultists.  Bobbing within said tank was a mass of twisted gray tissue, tendrils twisting and writhing about it and pawing at the tank walls like the tentacles of an octopus.  A crown of wires jutted from the top of the mass, looking entirely alien next to the organic mass.

“That-that-that’s a Kaiju brain!” Newt shrilled at last.  “It’s a secondary brain from a Kaiju!  Gotta be at least a Category III!  And it’s completely intact!  How did you get this?  Where?”

A soft chuckle was his answer, and High Priestess Mikhail stepped out of the shadows on the right side of the brain tank.  The Priestess wore fine satiny robes of silver-green embroidered with bright blue, but her usual twin-pronged headdress was gone, replaced with a green leather crest that added a good foot-and-a-half to her height and gave her a shark-like appearance.  A jade pendant carved in the shape of a scale and engraven with a symbol Hermann didn’t recognize hung about her neck, and her eyes and cheeks were marked with blue makeup that reminded him of a Kaiju’s bioluminescent markings.

“You think Hannibal only sold to Pentecost?” she asked, cocking her head curiously.  “No… they were good customers, but he provided us with relics of the Messengers as well.  Perhaps ones in better condition than you’re accustomed to?”

“Only because you paid him more,” Hermann said, not bothering to hide the nasty tone in his voice.

She shrugged.  “No price is too high to honor the Deep Ones or their Messengers.”

“Wait, I thought you guys hated Hannibal Chau,” Newt pointed out.  “You know, the Defiler?”

She shrugged again.  “He is useful to us, just as he is useful to the PPDC… for now.  There will come a day when we take our revenge on him for defiling the bodies of the Messengers, but that day is not today.”

“Why have you brought us here?” demanded Hermann.  “I thought we made it clear that we are not joining your cult.”

“You did,” she replied, her gentle smile never leaving her face, “but we did make it clear to  you that in return for sanctuary among our numbers, we would ask you to commune with the Messengers, and pass what you have seen and heard along to us.”  She gestured to the floating brain just behind her.  “We have made good on our end of the bargain... it is time for you to fulfill your end.”

Only now did Hermann see what stood before the disembodied brain – a low ebony table bearing two Styrofoam head mannequins.  Mounted on each mannequin was a battered but presumably functional Pons headset.

“You’re joking, right?” Hermann demanded, forcing as much belligerence into his voice as he could to mask his sudden fear.  “Tell us you’re joking, for the love of God.”

“Why would we joke?” she asked, as if she were genuinely wondering why he would come to that conclusion.  “Your drift with the young Messenger’s mind was a bold move… one that even we had not thought to attempt.  You are a pioneer, Newton Geizler, an inspiration to those of us who await further messages from the Deep Ones.  And we have sought to duplicate the process by which you listened to the whispers from the Deep.”  She reached over and lifted one of the Pons headsets from its mannequin.  “Today, you will listen to the Messenger you once called Mutavore, and you will share with us whatever he imparts to you.  Then your bargain will be fulfilled.”

“How did you get those?” Hermann asked, not bothering to hide his accusatory tone.  “Stole them, no doubt.”

“The Shatterdome will not miss them,” she said dismissively.

“You guys really do have a spy in there!” Newt exclaimed.  “Who is it?  Is it the Rossis?  Tell me it’s the Rossis, I knew those two were no good!  Hey, keep that thing away from me!”  He backpedaled, nearly colliding with an acolyte, as Mikhail approached him with the headset.

“You cannot refuse us this,” she said mildly.  “We have given you food and shelter, and taken you in when no other would have you.  This is the least you can do for us.”

“And if we refuse?” asked Hermann, scowling.

She raised an eyebrow.  “I don’t believe you want to find out.”

Hermann glared at her, but quietly he acknowledged that they had no choice in the matter, threat or no threat.  If the Precursors were truly trying to reignite the Kaiju War, they would need all the intelligence they could get.  And if the only way to spy on the enemy was to engage in a neural handshake with a Kaiju brain… well, war meant doing unpleasant things, and making personal sacrifices for the greater good.

“Take it, Newt,” he ordered.  “Let’s get this over with.”

Newt groaned but took the headset from Mikhail.  “You’d think this gets easier every time… it really doesn’t.  It sucks just as much the second time as the first.”

Mikhail just smiled and picked up the second headset, handing it reverently to Hermann as if it were a crown.  “Once you are comfortable and ready, we will initiate the drift.  Just signal us when the Messengers have imparted their wisdom and you are ready to disengage.”

Hermann grimaced and settled the Pons headset on his head, making sure it was correctly arranged.  Newt adjusted his headset and lowered his hands, clenching his fingers into fists and gritting his teeth as he prepped himself for what was to come.  

“On three,” Hermann ordered, trying his hardest to control the tremor in his voice.  “One... two... three!”

Mikhail touched a button on the ebony table… and the world vanished in a flood of blue-white light.

Feelings, images, sounds, a maelstrom of memories tossed about in a whirlwind of emotion… Newt plucking at the strings of a guitar, trying to tune the aged instrument to his satisfaction… Hermann curled up in a cubby under the stairs of his school, his only sanctuary from the other students who liked to torment him for sport… Newt being tossed around the public anti-Kaiju refuge by a terrified crowd, bruised and battered… Hermann looking on as a Mark I Jaeger moved for the first time, his programming coursing through its CPU to ensure all systems performed optimally…

Animalistic shrieks and roars… an obscene chittering language that sounded as if a swarm of locusts was trying to mimic human speech… tall, multi-limbed beings looking on as two massive Kaiju writhed in battle… the winner being released to swim to the surface, the loser being driven into an acidic pit to be reduced to basic components and recycled…

The ocean floor… the massive calcified domes of the Precursor’s ships, now serving as the buildings for an underwater base… workers scurrying to erect a workstation big enough to hold a small skyscraper… a massive form, a Kaiju, hunched nearby as if waiting in reserve… three regal-looking Precursors with elegant crests gathered around a tablet and discussing its contents in clicking, guttural voices…

A mental blast that nearly knocked Hermann and Newt unconscious, skull-rending agony… screams that might have come from one or the other’s memory, or might have been their own voices… two sets of eyes, black and cold as shark’s eyes, looking upon the two of them with the dispassionate gaze of a sociopath, regarding them as if they were insects to be crushed on a whim…

The single thought blazing across the rift wasn’t formed in words, or at least words as they could understand them.  But the intent and meaning were perfectly clear:

WE SEE YOU.

The blue light winked out, and Hermann wobbled on his feet, kept upright only by the hands of two acolytes.  Pain raged through his skull, his stomach heaved and roiled, and something warm and wet trickled out of his nose and down his face.  It took his eyes a full minute to focus, and the image of Mikhail swam before him.

“Dr. Gottlieb!  Dr. Geizler!  Can you hear me?  Answer me!”  Was it his imagination, or did she sound genuinely terrified?  “Are you with us?”

“I-I’m fine,” he stammered, yanking the Pons headset off.  “G-get… get me a b-b-bucket…”

No one asked questions, and a basin was thrust into his field of vision.  He grabbed it and promptly emptied his stomach inside it.  It took him several minutes of heaving and retching before he finally regained control, and the basin was whisked away without comment.

“Whoa,” Newt groaned, and Hermann refocused his vision to see the biologist sitting on the table, pinching his nose shut to stem the bleeding.  “Just… ouch.”

“Take all the time you need to recover,” Mikhail advised, though her eyes shone eagerly.  “Then tell us what you saw.  We await the blessings and the warnings of the Deep Ones.”

Hermann’s brain felt scrambled with pain and the aftereffects of the drift.  What could he pass along?  Surely not everything… if the cult learned that their precious “Deep Ones” were establishing a city on the ocean floor, there would be no telling their reaction.  But his tired, aching mind couldn’t come up with a workable fabrication.

“The Deep Ones… spoke to us,” he said at last.

“Oh?”  Her smile widened, and she reached up to clutch excitedly at her pendant.  “Tell us!  What wisdom do they pass on to their devoted followers?”

“They… they…”  Why wouldn’t the words come.

“They chastised us,” Newt cut in, getting shakily to his feet.  “Told us off for sticking our noses where they don’t belong.”

Mikhail visibly deflated at that.  “But you are their prophets.  Why would they chastise you?”

“Because we tried to look where it is forbidden,” Hermann replied, deciding to roll with Newt’s story for now.  “They have a plan for this world, but the time to share the plan has not yet arrived.  They scolded us, told us to have patience, and all will be revealed at the correct time.  Until then, we should not pry.”

Mikhail mulled over that a moment, then nodded slowly.  “To know there is an ultimate plan is enough.”  She frowned.  “But what sign will they give us to let us know the time is right?”

Well, blast.  He had hoped to deter them from repeating this stunt.  Evidently they weren’t so easily dissuaded from their insanity.  “They did not say, ma’am.”

She shrugged.  “No matter.  We will try again in a week’s time.  Perhaps then, the Deep Ones will be more forthcoming.”  She raised her hand in a gesture – of blessing or farewell?  “Thank you, Dr. Gottlieb, and thank you, Dr. Geizler.  And do not be discouraged.  The Deep Ones cannot remain silent forever, and when they are ready to speak to us again… we will listen.”

Hermann only nodded in reply, and he made his way out of the chamber.  Newt followed close behind, and the two remained silent until they were a safe distance from the Inner Sanctum.

“Dude, that was freaky,” Newt mumbled, voice blurred by his bloody nose.  “And that Kaiju we saw… it looked kinda like Leatherback.  We gotta warn the Shatterdome that they’ve got another one ready to send out.”

“Indeed,” Hermann replied, “and we must also alert them that the cultists’ spy is still among us… and that the cultists are trying to make contact with the Precursors.  Gods, and here I thought YOU were the only one insane enough to drift with a Kaiju!”

“Hey, I’m surprised no one thought to do it sooner,” Newt replied.  “Though if we tell them no, we’re not gonna drift again, what’s to stop them from just using someone else?”

“We’ve drifted before,” Hermann reminded him.  “It’s far easier, and far less risky, to use individuals who have engaged in a neural handshake previously than to start cold, as it were.”  He opened the door to their quarters.  “Get your phone.  We have a call to make… and we hope to everything good that Tendo has a plan to deal with the cultists before something terrible happens.”