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“This was harvested in Manila, six years ago.”

I killed the kaiju that gland came from, Herc thought. He stepped closer, crossing from Gottlieb’s Prussian fantasy of scientific order to Newt’s intuitive maelstrom. He looked closer at the two glands.

They were identical.

Herc looked at Pentecost, who was looking at Newt with absolute concentration. In the background, Gottlieb was making a great show of ignoring Newt.

“Same exact DNA,” Newt said. “Two different specimens, two exact organ clones.”

“Same DNA,” Pentecost echoed.

“Identical,” Newt said. “Like spare parts in an assembly line. The entire organisms are obviously not the same, but different parts of them are absolutely taken from identical cloned snippets of DNA. This is a manufactured organ. It did not evolve this way. There is something more at play here than just monsters wandering through an interdimensional hole, and we need to know what.”

“And now he gets crazy,” Gottlieb said, like he’d heard the whole schtick before.

“The DNA structures replicated in each of these organs serve two functions,” Newt said. “One is of course to create this specific kind of tissue. Even in this silicate form instead of the carbon-based human DNA, the basic task of DNA is to encode the physical form of the being. But with the kaiju, it does something else, too. It encodes memories. I’ve identified structures within the silicate nucleotides that appear to exist purely for information storage. They don’t program tissue formation or function. They’re memory banks.”

Herc wasn’t sure what a silicate nucleotide would be, but memory banks? In each kaiju? He thought he could see where Newt was going, and a moment later Newt confirmed it for him.

“Cellular memory,” Newt said, continuing before Gottlieb could take the group’s attention away from him. He hurried to a large tank holding part of a kaiju brain. “This specimen’s damaged, weak… but still alive. If we can tap into it using the same tech that allows two Jaeger pilots to share a neural bridge, then we could, theoretically, learn where they come from… see inside the Breach and experience exactly how to get through ourselves.”

Pentecost glanced over at Herc again. There was a lot in that look. Skepticism and worry and doubt, mostly… but also a little bit of hope. He was also looking to Herc to see if he thought Newt was actually proposing what he seemed to be proposing.

“Let me see if I understand,” Herc said slowly, incredulous—horrified. “You are suggesting we initiate a Drift with a kaiju?” It sounded crazy to him. Drifting with another human was hard enough.

“A piece of its brain, yes,” Newt said. “And a few pieces of equipment.”

“A few pieces?” Herc said. His tone was sharper now. Ah, here’s where the rubber meets the road.

“Just enough to create a Pons,” Newt said. “A neural bridge. There’s—”

Pentecost shook his head.

Herc took his cue from the Marshal.

“The neural surge would be too much for a human brain. Trust me, we can barely handle each other. What do you think a kaiju would do to us?”

“I agree,” Pentecost said. “Dr. Gottlieb, I want all your data on my desk as soon as possible.”

He turned to leave. Herc hung back a little, knowing Stacker would wait for him down the hall and wanting to get a brief sense of how Newt was reacting to the brushoff from his commander.

Newt looked angry and frustrated and crestfallen, like a kid who thought he’d had a great idea only to have all the grownups tell him they’d all thought of it before. Gottlieb looked like he might be the slightest bit sympathetic.

Because he didn’t rush out, Herc heard the two scientists talking quietly, as if he wasn’t there.

“I know you want to be right, so you’ve not wasted your life being a kaiju groupie,” Gottlieb said. “But it’s not going to work.”

Newt stomped back through the drifts of lab equipment, samples, and whatever else, on his side of the floor.

“Fortune favors the brave, dude,” he said, defiant again.

That’s the spirit, kid, Herc thought. Channel that frustration. Someone tells you you can’t do something, you go and figure it out just to prove them wrong.

Come to think of it, Newt’s attitude reminded him a bit of the kid Raleigh Becket. Seemed to Herc that both of them came at life with a bit of a chip on their shoulders. To hear Stacker tell it, that’s what had brought Raleigh back into the Ranger service. Same thing kept Newt’s fires burning when the higher-ups took Gottlieb seriously and not him.

“You heard them,” Gottlieb was saying. “They won’t give you the equipment, and even if they did, you’d kill yourself.”

Herc had heard enough. Time for him to catch up with Stacker before the conversation in the lab took a turn for the incomprehensible. But before he got out the door, he heard Newt say, “Or… I’ll be a rock star.”

PAN-PACIFIC DEFENSE CORPS

RESEARCH REPORT—KAIJU SCIENCE

Prepared by

Dr. Newton Geiszler

Dr. Hermann Gottlieb

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Subject: Nature and possible vulnerability of Breach

Study of the bio-electromagnetic signature of the energies radiating from the Breach, as well as remote analysis of the Breach’s physical structure, indicates a potential vulnerability.

The Breach requires the energy of Earth’s tectonic activity to maintain cohesion. Though a powerful and persistent phenomenon, it is also fragile, existing both on Earth and in what we have called the Anteverse. It is believed that the Anteverse is another planet, and presumably some energy source there also contributes to the function of the Breach.

Harnessing the fundamental energies necessary to the creation of a passage such as the Breach—which essentially folds space-time around itself to bring two distant points into proximity—requires technology far beyond current human capabilities, as well as focused energies equivalent to the entire output of human civilization during the last century.

Destroying the Breach, however, is likely easier than creating one.

The universe fights against disruptions in its fabric. Our analysis suggests that a powerful release of energy inside the Breach itself would destabilize its structure. Once this destabilization took place, the fundamental equilibrium of space-time would forcibly reassert itself. In other words, the Breach would collapse, sealing Earth off from the Anteverse again. (A detailed mathematical analysis is attached to this executive summary; q.v.)

Required energies are easily available to the Pan-Pacific Defense Corps in the form of tactical nuclear weapons. Detonation of such a weapon inside the Breach is, per our mathematical analysis, more than 96% likely to collapse it permanently.

Kaiju Science recommends that this avenue of attack be pursued immediately and with all vigor.

8

WALKING WITH MAKO AS SHE SHOWED HIM THE rest of the facility, Raleigh thought to himself, There is more to her than meets the eye. He’d have to find out what. Stepping back into the Ranger life after five years away, he was discovering right off the bat that there was a lot he didn’t know.

“So, the bomb run,” he said to her. “Pretty crazy— right?”

“It’s the only hope we have,” Mako replied. “If Marshal Pentecost believes it can work, I believe it too.”