Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They pull him from the depths, gasping for air and crying out (Yancy, Yancy), only to shove him back into a cold, dark place. His wounds are severe, and his brain attempts to unscramble himself unsuccessfully from Yancy.

He's Raleigh. But then he's Yancy again, and together they are Gipsy.

He might be dead. He hears whispering, he hears someone talking in hushed tones, he opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out. There are hands all over him, cold and clinical and unloving, and it makes him feel sick, like he's being violated, fingers straying to where they shouldn't be. He wants to cry out and yell, don't touch me, don't touch me, but all that comes out is a strangled, inhuman shriek.

“This is our only chance. He piloted the Jaeger solo, with little neural damage. This is the chance we've been waiting for.”

He remembers screaming, hands reaching out and trying to grasp onto whatever they can, and it will take him years to go back to this memory and realize that he was the one screaming. They cut him out of the drivesuit but parts of it are permanently embedded on his skin, a stark reminder of what was and will be, the circuitry an angry parody of a tattoo on his flesh.

He does not have the mind to even begin to think Where am I, WHERE IS MY BROTHER because he's soon encased in frigid metal and his body is taken from him; he cannot move, he cannot see, and the claustrophobia begins to set in, his breath caged within his chest. His actions are no longer his own, and his body betrays him.

“We can't do this. We can't, he's still alive. He's not a brain dead vegetable; he's still alive!”

Yes, yes, he's still alive! He tries to shout the words but they fall on deaf ears, and someone covers his mouth, his nose, and he can't breathe, tears spilling from his eyes, he's so scared, he can't, he can't breathe, he can't-

Raleigh Becket is listed as 'dead on arrival', succumbing to his injuries on the operating table, after a battle with a Category III Kaiju, codename 'Knifehead', his elder brother Yancy similarly listed as 'killed in action'.

Tendo Choi looks at the dossier on the screen with a muted sort of shock, reading the words over and over again until they blur together to form a mishmash of garbled messages. He sits back in his chair, arms numb at his sides. Both Beckets, gone, just like that.

It's not like they belonged to him or anything, but he'd overseen all of their deployments, all of their drops, they'd palled around with one another, and they'd felt like they were his boys.

And now they're gone.

Just like that.

(The funeral is a short affair, but all of Gipsy's techs are there in attendance, everyone who knew them and was fond of them, punk ass kids they were. It's when there's no body, no real confirmation, that Tendo grows suspicious; if he does a little digging afterwards, well, that he keeps to himself. )

The thing is, he doesn't just wake up.

It's as if someone hits a switch and his eyes suddenly open, jolted into awareness, but there's nothing in sight he recognizes. It's not so much that he's simply unfamiliar with his surroundings, more as if his mind cannot comprehend what he's seeing.

The world is a mess of grey and black, stars bursting over his vision as his eyes try adjust. Everything looks broken, and he feels so numb, one hand experimentally reaching out to try and grab at something, anything. The air feels charged here, as if he's expecting some sort of electrical shock out of nowhere.

He sees the echo of circuits racing down his arm, the memory of the neural shock still ringing through him. They almost seem to glow, a menacing feeling creeping up his spine. His arms don't look right, his hands don't look right, as if he can see the joints that make them up and move them under the skin.

Everything looks like there's a static fog engulfing it. The ringing in his ears isn't going away. Yancy shouts his name, sounding so far away, but that's ridiculous, he's right next to him.

Shattered platforms are strewn around him, some floating in midair, others haphazardly connected by what could be mere strings. He doesn't dare step forward, the ground below him barely feeling steady enough. It feels like there's broken glass crunching beneath his feet, but he doesn't feel it slice through his flesh.

The world looks like it's falling to pieces, held together by fragile thoughts. By fragments of reality.

Where's all the color, he thinks, desperately, eyes wide. The familiar blue haze of the drift is gone, ripped away from him, and his hands begin to tremble as his breathing quickens; he feels old childhood fears grip him, losing mom, losing dad, losing Jaz, and now he's lost Yancy.

But he can't have, because Yancy's here, to his right, where he belongs.

But he isn't. There's a person sized impression in the static fog when he looks to his right, as if someone had cut right through the atmosphere and left a hole there. The ringing in his ears grows louder, and his hands grope around wildly as he falls to his knees, before finally slipping to his face, gripping the sides of his head.

Yancy is gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone.

He's well and truly alone.

And Raleigh Becket screams, an awful, inhuman shriek; tears streaming down his face, he screams and screams and screams-

But the sound is drowned out by white noise, as the fractured world converges upon him.

[2021]

A new Jaeger is brought online in Oblivion Bay.

It's a new machine built with old parts, the iron hull and body repainted and tweaked. Several techs from Anchorage and Los Angeles look upon it in equal parts awe and melancholy, because while the frame is familiar, the overall appearance is different, the soul of it completely lost now. The eye shield that crosses over the conn-pod gleams with a sinister light, and no one is quite sure why they'd decided crimson was the proper color for it.

It's vicious looking, is what it is.

No one says anything, or comments on how the chassis is the same, or how the joints move similarly, because that's the rules of salvage, right there. They can't always afford to build a new Jaeger from scratch, especially not now.

So they cannibalize the parts from an older one.

The Marshall is stone faced when they unveil the Jaeger; there's something about it he doesn't like, but he can't place his finger on it, can't just say Take it back, we don't need it, when the opposite is in fact desperately true.

They don't speak of the new nameless Jaeger, and no one even begins to speculate upon what it might be christened. Instead, some raise drinks, while others look on forlornly, because those from Anchorage remember their boys, and they remember that there's no Gipsy without them.

They're not toasting to a new Jaeger. They're mourning an old one, and her pilots. Her boys.

… WELCOME TO ***** ******.

… INITIALIZ\NG

… SYST#M ON\\NE.

… LOCAL FI\E SYS\EM MOUN\ED

… SYNC#R STA\TING

… NETWO[KING STAR[ED

… HOST NAM# IS 0.0.0.0

-

-

-

-

… H#LLO. THIS IS ******* ******. ALL SYST#MS OK.

||| NAME_

… UNKNOWN COMMAND

||| WHAT IS YOUR NAME_

… UN#NOWN CO##AND

It still doesn't have a name.

Tendo only pays attention to the new (but it's not exactly new, is it) Jaeger because of whose corpse it is. He figures he should come and see it at least once, but quite frankly, it's a bit too ghastly for him. All sleek black parts with midnight blue accents, and a blood red (why red, he'll never understand) visor spanning across the newly fitted conn-pod. The fucking thing even has claws that snap together to form grim short swords, for god's sake.

It looks like a damn ghost, is what it is. It seems almost irreverent to have it look like that.

And still, no name, no pilots, no emblem. The scientists who had been behind it (had been being a key word, said scientists in question disappearing the way so many people lost to Kaiju attacks do) claim that he (and they are so insistent that it's 'he', something Tendo doesn't strictly like) doesn't need pilots at all, but he doesn't believe that crock of shit for a second. He's seen the inside of the conn-pod, though; the setup could be switched out for the regular two-man rig that was usually necessary. The regular setup, however, was a single rig, though there were some odd additions that he wasn't sure what to make of. Like the strange oblong protrusion that sat before the rigs, acting as some sort of bridge for the center console and main control panel.

It looked like a coffin, quite frankly, but Tendo had been told it housed key parts of the A.I. that was meant to run the show. To be honest, he wasn't entirely feeling it, not wanting to trust a A.I. of all things with 1,980 tons of iron. A.I.'s could be damaged, they could malfunction, and it wasn't as thought they hadn't tried pursuing that particular train of thought before, so he wasn't sure what made this one so special.

Of course, the lack of authority on the matter (what with it's main creators being, well, dead) makes it nearly impossible to really gauge the full capacity of the damn thing, because they can't just scrap it now. The blueprints are telling enough, but there's still so much unknown about this one that Tendo doesn't find strictly okay.

He remembers the emotionless tone of Gipsy Danger's old A.I., but this isn't the same one, supposedly 'far more advanced'. It's not even the same synthesized voice, a warbled younger male with more inflection rather than the more mature sounding if not somewhat patronizing older woman. Tendo's only heard poor quality sound bytes here and there, but just not the same, a niggling doubt forming at the base of his spine.

It's going to be deployed to Sydney soon, however, and he's being sent to monitor it's first test run (that's right, they haven't even fucking tested the damn thing yet); a feeling of dread curls up his spine as the visor gleams harshly in the sunlight. There are those that even the Marshall has to answer to, and they seem to be gunning for this Jaeger in particular.

(He'll never admit this aloud, but the new voice chip for the A.I. isn't just creepy sounding, it's familiar, and sometimes when it speaks, he swears he can hear another, older sounding voice layered over it.)

The new Jaeger is something of a monstrosity.

That seems like a case of using a word to describe itself, but there's no better description for it, not really.

The iron chassis is pitch black, with dark tints of what Chuck can only assume is midnight blue as accents striating across it's solid metal frame. Chuck has seen salvaged Jaegers before, hell, even Striker isn't without some leftover parts of Lucky Seven and Nova Hyperion, but this Jaeger... His fist tightens into a ball, brows furrowed together.

It doesn't seem right, to see Gipsy Danger's specter standing in the Sydney Shatterdome. Two years ago, he would have been having heart palpitations over it, because, fuck, Gipsy Danger, but this thing...

“You're not seriously going to get in that thing alone, are you?” Okay, so him and his dad hadn't exactly been on the best of terms lately, but he can't help but voice his concern, incredulous as it may be. Mako stands next to them, eyeing the Jaeger with muted distaste in her eyes; Chuck can sympathize, to an extent. There had been plans to start a Jaeger restoration program, and he knew that she'd had her heart set on bringing Gipsy back to her former glory.

Not that there was anyone left to pilot her, what with both Becket brothers dead, but still.

“Not much else we can do, right now. It needs an experienced pilot to operate it, I'm the one with the most experience on base.” Except Stacker, is the unsaid end to that sentence, but both of them are aware that there's nothing that can be done about that. His dad sounds resigned to the fact, but there really isn't much else they can do right now. Striker is out of commission for the time being with some overhaul maintenance being done, and they need another Jaeger to pick up the slack during that time.

Especially when they're overdue for a Kaiju attack.

“It doesn't even have a name.” Now he just sounds petulant, because he should be getting into that Jaeger with his father. Neither of them talk about Herc's last co-pilot, about uncle Scott, not since Manila. Next to him, Mako shifts, seeming slightly perturbed.

“I am unsure of this... A.I.” She admits in a clipped tone, uneasiness plain in her voice. It's the closest they'll ever get to an actual admission of fear out of her, but it still leaves Chuck with a rock in the pit of his stomach.

To be honest, Stacker had been hesitant to even let Herc pilot the damn thing solo, but they needed to test it, one way or another.

If things went right, well, that would be all fine and dandy, but if things had gone wrong... They'd need to find a new co-pilot for Striker, probably.

Of course, that proves to be the perfect time for a Kaiju to burst forth from the rift.

Point proven: the new Jaeger is a fucking monster.

Chuck's not sure what he's seeing when the untested, untried Jaeger that has his dad in it effortlessly rips apart the intruding Kaiju.

Like, literally rips apart. With its bare fists, neon blue blood splattered everywhere. And then proceeds to stomp on the struggling Kaiju several times, the fact that it essentially has glorified running cleats on the bottom of its giant soles now apparent. Who the fuck puts giant spikes on the bottom of a Jaeger?

Him and Mako are utterly gobsmacked next to a solemn faced Stacker, standing in LOCCENT's control room. Tendo's holo monitor flashes at them, a string of gibberish code flying past him before the screen clears, back to the regular health displays and Jaeger positions. Chuck only catches a few words here and there, but it seems like no one else had seen it, far too engrossed in the chaos on the main screen.

Stacker's face, despite the overwhelming success of the Jaeger, is the opposite of pleased. If anything, there's a faint bit of anger in his countenance. He sees something wrong with the display, and idly, Chuck wonders exactly what could piss him off so badly.

The thing is, Chuck sort of understands. He drifts with his dad, he knows how they fight. And that, the utterly brutal beat down that is unleashed upon the Kaiju that had no idea of what was in store for it, that is not how his dad fights. They can't afford to be fucking gentle, of course, but Chuck hasn't seen such reckless abandon and sheer brutality like that before. There's so much anger in the ghastly Jaeger's movements, utter rage that is unbidden by mechanical limitations. He hasn't seen such recklessness since...

Not since the Becket boys, he thinks, suddenly morose.

As it goes, the still unnamed Jaeger is only ever piloted once, because Herc refuses to ever get back into it. He seems fine otherwise, brainwaves and all other health signs stable, but there's a slightly frantic air about him as he shrugs off the rig, as if wanting to get away from it as soon as possible, Stacker awaiting him on the platform.

“It's like... It's like I was just a puppet on a string.” Chuck catches bits and pieces of their conversation after his father gives him an awkward pat on the shoulder, pulling in close and whispering into his ear, dead serious.

“I don't want you to ever get in that Jaeger, do you hear me?” As if there was ever a question about it; Striker is the only Jaeger for him, he thinks, mouth pursed in a petulant frown.

It's only when Stacker and his father head off to the Marshall's private quarters to further discuss the nonsense out there in the ocean (and, okay, maybe to have some private time of their own, Chuck thinks with a shudder; there are some parts of the Marshall Chuck never wants to see bleed over in the drift), that he hears the tail end of his father's hushed words.

“...it's as if, that Jaeger really doesn't need a pilot. It's got one already.” Whatever they're going to discuss, Chuck thinks, he'll probably end up catching glimpses of it in the drift regardless.

An idea strikes him, just then. It's a stupid, passing thought, one that he really shouldn't put much stock into, but instead of heading back to his quarters, he steals quietly into LOCCENT's control room.

LOCCENT isn't empty, but there are few enough people where Chuck finds an abandoned corner to set up shop; one or two turn their heads towards him, but he's such a staple of the control room that no one pays him much mind (has always been, ever since they'd been stationed at Sydney; he'd always watched Lucky Seven's battles from here). Most of the techs and engineers seemed to have run off to do actual maintenance on the Jaeger, along with researching and cataloging the utter clusterfuck that had been the last battle down with the people in the K-science division.

Settling down at an unoccupied work station, he suddenly finds himself feeling very foolish, fingers stilling upon the keyboard. Chuck knows enough about computers, enough to take one apart and put it back together as if brand new, but he doesn't know how to access a Jaeger's A.I.

It seems, however, that the loss he finds himself at is quickly (bizarrely) resolved, because the holo screen suddenly goes black and a prompt pops up in it's place. It's the same series of words that has scrolled by at the speed of light on one of the monitors previously, this time at a much more sedate pace.

… WELCOME TO G**** D*****.

… INITIALIZING

<<<

… STARTING UP ******* LAYER

… NEURAL SYSTEM ONLINE.

… LOCAL FILE SYSTEM MOUNTED

… STREAMS DEVICE[S] ACTIVE

… SYNCER STARTING

… NETWORKING STARTED

… HOST NAME IS 0.0.0.0

-

-

-

-

… HELLO. THIS IS ******* ******. ALL SYSTEMS OK.

|||| _

The blinking text flashes at him, and Chuck feels a chill run down his spine. He should call for Tendo, for any of the techs, because this is downright weird. He looks away from the screen, swallowing; no one seems to be looking at him, which seems like a gross oversight in the grand scheme of things. What if he somehow accidentally fucks up the A.I.? In his mind, of course, he figures they deserve it if a 17 year old can accidentally mess up a multi-million dollar A.I..

His eyes roll back over to the screen, blinking suddenly when he realizes that letters have changed, words differing now and replaced with random symbols.

… STARTING UP ******* LAYER

… N#URAL SYST#M ONLIN#.

… _OCA_ FI_E +Y+TEM MOUNTED

… SYNC DEVICE[S] DISABLED

… SYNCER STARTING

… DRIFT MUTATED

… HOST NAME IS 0.0.0.0

-

-

-

-

… HELLO. THI| I| ******* ******. ALL |Y|TEM| OK.

|||| _

Instead of calling out to someone, which would be the smart thing to do, he, like a fucking moron, types back.

|||| HELLO_

… UNKNOWN COMMAND

||| WHO ARE YOU_

… UNKNOWN COMMAND

He frowns, trying to remember what little he actually honestly knows about computers. The longer he waits, the quicker letters turn into symbols; all of the 'O's are already '@' signs.

|||| DIR

… VOLUME IN DRIVE C IS RB_OS

… VOLUME SERIAL NUMBER IS 1211-RLH-BKT

… DIRECTORY OF C:/

…

… ********.EXE

… ******.EXE

… *********.DAT

… *****.SYS

… INTERACT.CFG

|||| _

Sure, why not, he thinks, only slightly hysterical. He has no idea what any of these are; his dad is going to kill him if it's turns out to be detonating a bomb or something similarly asinine.

||| INTERACT_

… HELLO

Chuck's heart nearly stops at that, because what the fuck else does it want him to say?

“Motherfucking... tell me your damn name.” He whispers furiously, typing as he speaks. He doesn't hear the movement behind him, too caught up in whatever the fuck he's doing right now.

||| WHAT IS YOUR NAME_

… UNKNOWN COMMAND

“Fuckin' piece of shit... I swear to god, you useless piece of drongo crap, if you don't...” He stares down the text on the screen, as if that will make it do what he wants it to.

|||| TELL ME YOUR NAME YOU MOTHERFUCKING PIECE OF SHIT_

… UNKNOWN COMMAND

Chuck will later swear up and down that this isn't what got it working, because quite frankly, that's just embarrassing. He'd never been very good at keeping his temper in check, after all. He probably lets his anger at what the Jaeger most certainly isn't get the best of him, perhaps.

|||| I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DON'T TELL ME YOUR GODDAMN NAME I'LL MAKE YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER BEEN BROUGHT BACK OUT OF THE SCRAP HEAP, YOU PATHETIC WASHOUT, YOU'RE NOWHERE NEAR AS GOOD AS THE REAL GIPSY DANGER_

… I C#NNOT S#Y. I DO NOT H#VE #CCESS TO THOSE RECORDS.

“Holy god.” Chuck does not have a panic attack right then and there, because fuck how long has Tendo been standing there over his goddamn shoulder? Instead of pushing him away and kicking him out of LOCCENT (because this is so, so against the rules and probably definitely very illegal), he just lays a hand down on his shoulder in a comforting gesture, motioning him to continue, a serious, entranced look on his face.

“We haven't been able to get jack shit out of this thing aside from basic maintenance runs and the creepiest neural handshake you'll ever see.” Chuck doesn't have time to ponder those words and how ridiculous and fucking psychotic the overall situation is, because his fingers are already typing out what he has to say next.

|||| MAKE ONE UP THEN, I DON'T CARE_

A second passes, then another, the two of them holding their breaths as the A.I. seems to be thinking, before an avalanche of garbage text scrolls by, so fast that neither of them can catch it. The only thing Chuck can pick out before it's gone is a cryptic L I S T E N T O M E, while the screen in front of them settles on it's final choice.

… SINE NOMINE.

“Well, fuck me.” Tendo says, shock plain in his voice. Chuck can't help but agree, eyes locked onto the holo-monitor until it goes blank. This is so incredibly fucked up, he thinks, the Jaeger A.I. named itself.

'Without a name' after all, then.

Chapter Text

… WELCOME TO G**** D***** .

… REINSTALIZING

<<<

… RENAMING G**** D***** LAYER

… NEURAL SYSTEM ONLINE.

… LOCAL FILE SYSTEM REMOUNTED

… STREAMS DEVICE[S] ACTIVE

… SYNCER STARTING

… DRIFT INTERFACE REINSTALLED

… NETWORKING STARTED

… HOST NAME IS 0.0.0.0

-

-

-

-

… HELLO. THIS IS SINE NOMINE. ALL SYSTEMS OK.

|||| _

“It named itself?” Chuck nearly flinches at Stacker's sharp tone. Tendo had reported the oddity (or rather, fucking weirdness) to the Marshall, who'd accepted it with a tense sort of grace, before practically putting the two of them through the third degree.

Next to him, Tendo nervously adjusts his bow-tie, swallowing audibly. While the Marshall is a stern man, most of the time, it seems that the presence of this Jaeger has fouled his mood considerably. Not that Chuck can really blame him.

“Yes, sir. The message prompt popped up and we... asked for its name.” That's probably the most low-tech and lame excuse Chuck has ever heard, even if it's actually the truth. He also knows Tendo is covering his ass for him, and he has a feeling he's going to owe the older man big time, but for now he's just thankful the Marshall's gaze isn't trained on him.

“And so it just gave it to you?”

“Well, first it said that couldn't actually tell us its name, so we told it to make one up.” Or rather, Chuck cursed and shouted expletives at it until the A.I. decided to obey.

Stacker remains silent. Next to him, Herc is staring out of LOCCENT and into the hangar bay, a haunted look resting on his features. He's the one who actually had to get in the Jaeger, after all.

“Might as ask, just how you came to access the command prompt?”

“It... it just popped up, sir.”

“I find that hard to believe, Mr. Choi. It's heavily encrypted, and the only way to access it is by using a data key.” Tendo seems to be struggling with how to respond to that, while also attempting to not throw Chuck under the bus, it seemed. Well-meaning he might have been, Chuck wasn't about to let him take that proverbial bullet for something that was neither of their fucking faults.

Of course, Chuck had made the choice to start typing, but whatever.

“Look, sir, I just sat down and it showed up on the screen.” He stood up, tossing that little bit of info out there. Herc gave him a sharp look from where he was standing, and the Marshall's attention was pulled towards him.

“Chuck...” His father warned, a frown forming on his face.

“Do you honestly think a 17 year old would be able to hack into a multi-million dollar Jaeger A.I.? It just did it on it's own. That's what you should be worrying about.” He bites back, crossing his arms before muttering angrily to himself.

“You don't have to believe me; you'll just find out in the drift, anyway.” He says bitterly, throwing his hands up in the air in frustration, glaring back at his dad. Figures Herc wouldn't believe him. He only feels a slight pang in his heart when his dad looks like he's been struck, but it's not like Herc has cared about that sort of thing before.

“Permission to speak, sir.” Tendo mercifully breaks them out of their self imposed stare down between father and son to pose a question towards the Marshall.

“Permission granted, Mr. Choi.”

“With all due respect, sir... we know that the A.I.'s for the Jaegers are fully capable of generating names and making percentage based decisions, but I highly doubt this was a randomly generated name. It... it chose that name.” Herc and Stacker share an incredulous look at this, but Tendo presses on.

“Chuck told it to make up a name, and then it spent time thinking about it.” When he says it like that, imploringly, Chuck feels a shiver wrack his spine. Because it's true.

The A.I. thought. It had an opinion. And Chuck had fucking cursed it out and called it names. How stellar.

“This isn't an ordinary A.I., is it.” Chuck blurts out. The Marshall seems to want to say something, perhaps tell him to shut his damn mouth, but instead him and his father look at each other for a moment, thoughts passing between them without words.

“There isn't anything about this Jaeger,” and at this, Stacker pauses, considering the grim Jaeger standing in the hangar, “Or its pilot,” he says, close to contemptuous, “that is ordinary, Ranger.” Herc takes over at this point, giving the Marshall a concerned look; there's probably miles of red tape between what they are and aren't allowed to say, because they're still under the jurisdiction the of the UN. There are still those higher up that they have to answer to; it's where they get their funding from, after all.

Of course, the thrice be damned Wall they're now building might take a cut out that. What a stupid idea, he thinks flippantly.

“The... A.I. is hardwired into the Jaeger's circuitry, basically. We can't remove it without shorting out the entire Jaeger and rendering it utterly useless. Trying to wipe it would yield the same results.” His father says, hesitantly, as if there's more he wants to say but can't. The implications here are that they tried, and were less than successful. What kind of idiotic engineer would ever sign off on that sort of thing?

Of course, they're dead now, so more's the pity that Chuck can't verbally castrate them for creating such an abomination. Chuck hadn't exactly had the most idyllic childhood, but even he had seen those classic films where robots enslaved the human race; did people never learn? That shit never worked out.

And they couldn't just get rid of it, either. They couldn't afford scrapping a perfectly good Jaeger, even if it was fucking creepy and probably sentient. More Jaegers had been destroyed just in the past year than in the previous two years combined, what with the sudden influx of more and more Kaiju. There would be no shelving this one.

The first big loss, after all, had been Gipsy Danger and the Beckets.

So now they were being forced to gussy up Gipsy's frankensteined corpse and use that, while also stomping all over the memory of her pilots, it seemed.

Well, that's just fucking ace then.

“You had to drift with the A.I., Herc... Is there any chance it could... go rogue?” Chuck whips his head to look at Tendo, who's practically whispering this, because he can't have heard right, his dad didn't drift with the A.I., they don't have brains.

“I don't think this one would go down that road. It has no interest in... that sort of thing. There are so many damn A.I. protocols in place that unless we give it the go, it won't do it. All it wants-”

“It wants? Interest?” Chuck says incredulously. Do they not all see how fucked up this is? Herc ignores him, continuing on as if Chuck hadn't said anything. As usual.

“All it wants to do is to destroy Kaiju. That's what it was created to do, and that's the only thing it's interested in.” He stops, taking a deep breath.

“I could hear it, talking to me in the Drift. It... He just took control, like he didn't need me there. I was just an extraneous part, unnecessary. The only reason I was there to act as a proxy for it to move past it's limitation protocols. We didn't tell it to pilot the Jaeger by itself, so it didn't. The reason that drifting with this A.I. works is because there are recorded brain patterns from a drifting pair rooted deep in it's circuitry.” He wipes at his face, not sure what else to say.

“That's why it can drift, that's why it can control a Jaeger. Ghost drifting has been literally ingrained into it. It essentially has the memories from a drifted pair grafted into it's mainframe.” He finishes with a deep, resigned sigh.

Chuck is speechless.

“So what you're saying is that this thing could go out there on it's own? Like, actually really control the Jaeger on it's own?” There's a lilt of fear in Tendo's voice, one that doesn't exactly inspire confidence within them. That could put the rest of them out of a job, Chuck thinks faintly.

“It's the first and only Jaeger A.I. capable of doing such a thing. And it'll be the last.” Stacker says, seeming to say it just as much to assure himself as well as the rest of them. Because they have no idea just how they'd managed to get brain waves rooted so deeply into a computer, probably. Fucking mad scientists.

“Mr. Choi, I want you to try and learn as much about this A.I. as you can, now that we have access to it's encrypted files.” Ah, so they actually know nothing about this thing. Wonderful. Chuck doesn't think he's ever seen Stacker so unprepared for something; the man usually had three or four plan B's before even acknowledging that failure was an option. But then again, it had been a non-PPDC funded team that had hacked this Jaeger together, so he figured he couldn't rag on the Marshall too hard. It doesn't seem right to see the Marshall off his game.

“Um, there's, ah...” Tendo sounds even more unsure now, and Chuck has a sinking feeling as to why.

“Problem, Mr. Choi?”

“I couldn't get back in to the C drive, sir. None of my technicians could, and most of them are actually hackers. The prompt just won't work now. It only worked when...”

At this, they all turn to look at Chuck, and he suddenly feels very small, the eyes of his father, the Marshall, and Tendo all trained on him with laser focus, before the Marshall starts again, attention on him, voice low.

“See if you can replicate the results, Ranger. A.I's can become...” Don't say sentient, please don't say sentient, “They develop their own personalities, at times. Figure it out, and take advantage of that.” With that, he turns and leaves the room, leaving the three of them standing there in awkward silence. Herc looks in the direction that Stacker's footsteps fade to, looking like he wants to go and follow him, but he stays, instead turning back to his son.

“Well... seems like that A.I. might like you.” His dad starts, trying to find some humor in the situation, something Chuck most definitely does not. He pointedly ignores Tendo's snort, I can't imagine why, only to cut into his dad's comment, reiterating an earlier statement. Right, because that's what he really wants, a fucking computer gunning for him.

“He.” God, why does he even care, the last thing he needs is an irascible A.I. (because what else could be the reason for that mutilated Kaiju out in the bay?)that has a beef with him. “He's got a name.” He swallows hard, and the suddenly gentle look his father levels at him is something he doesn't want to spend time dissecting.

They'd never actually told them what it had named itself, too caught up in the fact that it had even done it.

“It's Sine Nomine. The Jaeger's name is Sine Nomine. We can't just go around calling him 'it' or 'thing', that'd get old real fast.” He's probably pronouncing it wrong, but he doesn't really give a damn right now. His dad quirks his lips, only slightly, and nods.

“Yeah. Yeah, he's got a name, just like Striker.” There's some far away look in his father's eyes now, his gaze turned back to look at the Jaeger, Sine Nomine, standing in the hangar like a ghostly sentinel.

Fuck. He's actually going to go through with this and try to figure out what the hell is going on, isn't he.

“What was it like, drifting with an A.I.?” He questions then before he can stop himself, quiet, staring off into nothing. He can't even begin to imagine what it must have felt like; there is an entire lifetime shared between co-pilots, what with their memories, their hopes, their dreams. They come together as two people to form one entity, inside the Jaeger, and where one starts, the other ends, and vice-versa.

What does an A.I. have to dream about? What could it want? He figures that, if his dad doesn't purposely keep it locked away, he'll see it the next time they drift, R.A.B.I.T. be damned. Herc covers his mouth with his hand, contemplating what to say next.

“Sometimes... you know, the drift is silence. Sometimes we carry things into it, sometimes we carry nothing in but ourselves. But this... It was all static. White noise; I didn't get any details or pictures from it otherwise. It... He spoke, a little bit. Told me that things will be okay, sir, just let me take care of it.”

Just let me take care of it.

“Gipsy Danger used to have a female A.I., but this one is completely different, new voice chip and all. He sounded... familiar.” Herc's gaze go glassy with recollection, and that, Chuck realizes, is why there's the haunted look in his father's eyes. He recognizes the voice chip, and isn't that fucked up, he thinks, because though some Jaeger A.I.'s had synthesized voices, others were based on real people.

“We didn't hear anything but you over the comms.” Tendo supplies. “Must have only been able to hear it in the drift.”

It could have been someone his dad had known, speaking to him in the monotone voice that A.I.'s had. Herc looks up again, eyes suddenly clear, but there's a nostalgic tone to his voice.

“The drift... It felt like... snow.”

He doesn't dream.

Pathways twist and turn and then drop off into nothing around him, breaking into smaller pieces that float off and become new platforms, grey islands in the distance. The static hum is a familiar presence now.

The world twists sideways. He stays standing upright. A tower falls to dust over the horizon, the particles flying off to become stars, more parts of the world cracking in two. Somewhere, far away, lightening strikes twice.

A person sized hole in the atmosphere is his only company, a stark reminder that nothing lasts, not in this world. Sometimes it follows him, and sometimes it remains to the edge of his vision, but it does not speak, it does not move where he can see it. It is a landmark to his solitude.

The world is constantly breaking and rebuilding. He is constantly being broken and rebuilt.

He waits for the one who gave him a choice to a name to come back. He will wait, and wait, and wait-

Chuck stares unimpressed at the hologram before him, tapping his fingers on the desk. The holo-monitor stays blank, as if daring him to say something.

“This A.I. thing is so fucked.”

“Then it looks like we'll have to get it unfucked.” Tendo responds humorlessly, accessing some files on another computer while Mako putters around behind him, thumbing through some documents they'd had on hand, what little they knew about Sine Nomine's engineers on it. They'd informed her of the utter fuckfest that had gone in the meeting room, and, possibly because Mako was a sadist and liked to see Chuck squirm, had decided to join them.

Right now, however, nothing was really happening.

“I didn't even do anything last time. I just sat down and the stupid prompt popped up.” He glares over at where Tendo is sitting. They'd been at this for hours and all of the other techs had long since left. Fucking unfair.

“You sure about that?”

“Yes, I'm sure, I literally just sat down and-” His voice dies in his throat when he turns back to the holo-monitor.

And there it is.

… WELCOME TO SINE NOMINE.

… REINSTALIZING

<<<

… NEURAL SYSTEM ONLINE.

… LOCAL FILE SYSTEM MOUNTED

… STREAMS DEVICE[S] ACTIVE

… SYNCER STARTING

… DRIFT INTERFACE ACTIVE

… NETWORKING STARTED

… HOST NAME IS 0.0.0.0

-

-

-

-

… HELLO. THIS IS SINE NOMINE. ALL SYSTEMS OK.

|||| _

“And...?”

“Son of a bitch...” He murmurs, by that point tuning out Tendo as the two of them come step behind him.

“This is it?”

“He renamed himself. Like, actually changed the system name. Some of the startup notices are different, too.”

“What was the name before?” Mako questions, leaning over his shoulder to get a better look at the monitor.

“Ah, I don't remember, it was all blacked out. G-something and D-something.” He waves it off, fingers already typing. He doesn't see, but the furrow in Tendo's brow deepens.

|||| HELLO, SINE_

… HELLO, RANGER

Mako sucks in a sharp breath at that, and Chuck figures he should be appropriately creeped out right now. Tendo's face pulls into a deep frown. “See if you can access the C drive.”

|||| DIR_

… VO\UME IN D&IVE C IS &B_OS

… VO\UME SE&IA\ NUMBE% IS 1211-&\H-BKT

… DIRECTORY OF C:/

…

… ********.EXE

… ******.EXE

… *********.DAT

… *****.SYS

… ********.CFG

|||| _

“These are different, too. Bunch of garbage text here now.” The 'Interact' command is blacked out now too, and idly, Chuck wonders why that is. The others are still beyond him, because he's not a computer tech or a hacker, he's a 17 year old boy who had one of Striker's tech teach him how to put together a computer once.

|||| INTERACT_

… UNKNOWN COMMAND

Chuck curses, but a thought strikes him then, his dad's words echoing back at him.

It sounded familiar.

|||| HELLO, SINE_

… H%LLO, RANG%R

“Oh, goody, he's being weird again.” He mutters, ignoring the odd look Mako shoots at him. He probably shouldn't be sassing the A.I. of a giant robot, but, well, maybe the A.I. shouldn't be so thrice damned convoluted.

|||| CAN YOU SPEAK, SINE?_

… I C#NNOT

“I've heard the voice clips, but...” Tendo trails off, “Not during the test run. He was completely silent.” Chuck's fingers fly over the keyboard, more letters already being replaced with random symbols. He wonders what would happen if he'd left the screen up, if the text would soon just become swallowed up and unreadable.

Good lord, if this A.I. is actually corrupted...

||| WHY CAN'T YOU SPEAK, SINE?_

For a moment, nothing happens, and Chuck bites back another curse while Tendo sighs loudly next to him. Mako's eyes are still trained on the screen, however, and a small gasp escapes her when an avalanche of text starts to fly by at breakneck speed. Chuck barely manages to catch a few words here and there, a similar message from before and then another that sends a bolt of ice down his spine before it vanishes under the cavalcade of random text. Half of the phrase is illegible, but Chuck has become familiar enough with the changing symbols to be able to decode it quickly enough in his head.

G % T M % O U T O F H % R %

That's shunted out of his thoughts, however, when the next response pops up, the words appearing slowly as if the A.I. is struggling to get them out.

… SP%%CH IS D|S#BL%D, I C#N ONLY SP%#K |N THE D-D-D&|FT

And then there's an absolutely nightmarish screeching sound that comes close to rupturing eardrums spewing through the speakers, and the fucking thing just shuts down.

(None of them want to admit that beneath the burst of static, it had sounded like a scream.)

Chapter Text

"We should drift with Sine.” Mako says out of nowhere, when Tendo runs off to gather some older files that had been moved from Oblivion Bay, and is also on what they ostentatiously consider a food run. Chuck nearly chokes on his own tongue; they'd been trying with little success to get the command prompt to show up again, before Tendo had stood up and announced that it was time for his bi-daily coffee break. Which of course actually meant 8 cups of coffee.

“What? Have you gone stark raving bonkers?” The look he’s giving her is definitely a yeah, you’re fucking off your rocker look.

“We would not have to get into the Jaeger to do so. There are pons and a rig here for short term drift tests, we would be able to initiate a minor level drift with him.” She motions to what is basically a pile of junk in the corner that doesn’t instill an iota of confidence within him.

Chuck just scoffs, because this is so unlike Mako that he's not sure she hasn't been replaced by a robot herself when he wasn't looking. Her expression is completely serious, though, a look of stony determination in her eyes. It reminds him of Stacker, the thought briefly passing through his mind.

“Your father said that he heard him speak, in the drift. That might be the only way we can get him to talk.” Why she wants the damn A.I. to speak so badly is beyond him.

Chuck doesn't want to admit that there's some merit to that idea, horrid as it is. DRIFT INTERFACE ACTIVE blinks on and off in his head for a moment, before he waves away the thought. They could feasibly do it, but...

It wasn't even that drift compatibility was an issue; Chuck was partnered with his dad, sure, but he remembered being at the academy and hoping the short hair japanese girl who'd glared at him from across the mess wouldn't be his match. In the Kwoon, however, they'd actually ended up being evenly balanced, but they'd never gotten the chance to actually try it out in the conn-pod.

“That is literally the worst idea I have ever heard.”

“This literally the worst thing we've ever done.” Maybe not actually the worst, because there was still that weekend in Vladivostock to account for, but no one was ever to go speak of that ever again, not if they wanted to keep their tongues still attached.

“Yes, and I have caught you inappropriately touching yourself to pictures of Raleigh Becket.” Mako says noncommittally as she snaps the pons onto her skull. They have maybe a 30 minute window of time to do this, before Tendo returns, and the rush only makes him more anxious.

“You shut your mouth, you lying liar.” That doesn't hide the blush that's spreading across his face; that was one time, back before Gipsy's fall. He'd been a confused 15 year old boy and had pictures of Gipsy and her pilots plastered on his walls, ill-gotten gains from some trashy teen magazine he'd pilfered from the daughter of Striker's lead engineer. The loss of Gipsy Danger had stung at him harder than most would have imagined, but then, most hadn’t seen the posters he’d had up in his room.

Dad knew, of course, but it seemed like it was just another thing that they wouldn’t ever talk about, not face to face. Just like everything else that was remotely important. It was just another thing that was easier to let bleed away in the drift, even if he did feel like a fucking coward over it.

The holo-monitor with Sine's command prompt blips incessantly fast after that, as if responding to Mako’s words, before returning to the same weird wall of garbage data as before. Chuck sort of wants to go and sift through it, see if there's anything interesting there, but, well, it looks they're gonna drift with the damn thing instead.

He suddenly remembers the one message that had stood out to him, a jumble that had neatly been decoded.

GET ME OUT OF HERE.

The cold spike of horror that ran down his spine when he'd first seen it returns, faintly, but he brushes it away. Won't due to bring unsavory thoughts like that into the drift now.

Well, his dad had told him he never wanted him to get in the Jaeger, not 'don't drift with it'. Christ. He snaps the pons on, sharing a look with Mako, who nods at him. They're both so fucking nervous, how can they not be, they're about to drift not only with each other but a possibly crazy and sentient A.I.

He doesn't have the chance to make another flippant comment over how awful this is, because Mako flips the switch that second.

Drifting with Mako is nothing like drifting with his dad, Chuck thinks, once they manage to steady themselves. There had been moments where he'd been afraid she'd chase some RABIT, and then they'd both be lost, but with practiced control (that he'd learned, incidentally, from his dad, whenever Chuck had gotten too lost in his own memories) had managed to rein her back.

It's not like drifting with anyone, really. They don't have that same connection here in this bizarro world, the familiar blue haze of the drift completely absent; it's more like they've just been... displaced, but Chuck can feel Mako in his bones, can feel another presence far off in the distance, wrapping around the two of them like the static fog that is so prevalent.

It's as if something is keeping them from fully submerging themselves within one another. It’s keeping them from losing themselves in other another, as if shouldering the burden with them.

Another thing is that this place is completely fucked up. His eyes are still attempting to adjust, because holy crap, this is like a seizure just waiting to happen. A faraway ringing sound resounds in his ears.

If Chuck had ever had to imagine what the inside of a computer looked like, grey and black with flashes of white every so often is not exactly what he would have pictured. The path before them flickers on and off, with smaller, less sturdy looking roads peeling off to the sides and into nothingness around them. Things are constantly breaking apart and falling, jagged pieces reforming here and there to make new walkways that lead off into nowhere.

Around them is a complete abyss.

“Is this... is this what your father saw?” He hears Mako murmur next to him, in either awe or horror, he can't tell. He can’t really say what he’s is feeling either, really.

Chuck takes an experimental step forward, making sure the ground is solid before he turns back to Mako, his feet making loud crunching sounds not unlike of breaking glass in the floor. To his surprise, her hand is outstretched towards him.

“If we fall, we fall together.” She says firmly, admirably keeping the nervous tremor out of her voice. He nods, slowly, and takes her small hand in his.

Together, they walk into oblivion, the static clearing around them as they move. The presence pulls at them almost gently, beckoning them forward.

It's only moments later when they think they see something in the distance. As in, something that doesn't shatter once they get close. Well, the road does just that, so they can't move forward now, but at least they've found something else.

It's person shaped, but there’s no color to it, like the rest of the dreary, shattered world. Chuck tries to keep his heart beating at a steady pace, but as it stands, he feels like it's going to burst right out of his chest. Mako can definitely feel his fear through the drift, but wisely doesn't comment upon it.

“Sine? Sine!” Mako calls out, her words echoing clearly across the broken path, and Chuck can feel her grip on his hand tightening. Every step they’d taken had resulted in some god awful crackling noise, their feet leaving ghostly imprints in the effervescent road.

Chuck takes a moment to really think about what they're doing right now; they're drifting with an A.I. that has neural imprints from another drifted pair (who, they don't know, which, in retrospect, probably would have been a good thing to find out) and probably thinks on it's own because of this massive oversight. They’re going to try to appeal the baser senses of an A.I.. There is so little they actually know versus what is actually available to them. Fantastic.

All they get in response is a distorted burst of static, not unlike the one heard over the speakers, though not as ear shattering. Oh, god, what if this isn't the AI and they'd just gone and fucked themselves over?

“Can you speak?” He throws out, hesitantly, probably more politely than he would have on a regular day. Wouldn’t do to piss off the A.I. whose brain they’re apparently melding with.

More garbled static again, but Chuck swears he can hear words this time. All they see, however, is a darkened silhouette, too far away to be able to discern properly. For whatever reason, neither of them seem to be feeling the pant shitting fear that he feels like they should be going through, and he wonders if the fuzzy presence at the corner of his mind has anything to do with it.

It raises an appendage (good god he hopes that’s an arm) and waves at them. Chuck does the same, dumbly, Mako raising her own hand into a half-wave.

“We’re giving you permission to speak, you know!”  He calls out again, realizing how goddamn stupid he probably sounds right now, holding hands with Mako and waving to a shadowy static figure in the distance.

What is said next is lost to the sudden feeling of being pulled away, the drift dissipating around them in a blur of black and white.

It’s Tendo whose worried face they come back to, but neither of them are seemingly too concerned. They just drifted with an A.I. and aren’t horribly brain dead, that’s gotta count for something, right?

“What are you two, nuts? Your dads are gonna kill me-”  The way he says dads has Chuck thinking - perhaps somewhat hysterically - that he views them as a single unit, looking after two unruly children (which to be honest isn’t that far off). Just then, the speakers belt out another wave of static, before settling into a clearer cadence.

It’s actually fucking talking.

“Speech capabilities enabled. Hello, this is Sine Nomine, all systems okay.” A faintly familiar voice suddenly drawls out in the monotone way that the A.I.'s tend to speak (and yeah, Chuck realizes he had been pronouncing it wrong, but what the fuck ever), causing them to all rear back in surprise. The panicked look on Tendo’s face after pulling the rigs off of them twists into something else, neither of them are certain; a mixture of shock and ugly realization, perhaps. The older man steps back, as if his feet are suddenly unsteady beneath him. He recognizes the voice.

Tendo looks like he's about to throw something, his countenance suddenly ash pale as he grips his rosary tightly in his fist, turning to face the holo-screen with data flashing by. Mako looks just as lost as he does, which is a nice change of pace, for once.

“Is this a fucking joke?” And, wow, that’s not something they hear from him everyday.

“Unknown command.” Sine monotones as if in response, causing them all to flinch back. Tendo suddenly makes for the door, ignoring the holo-monitor as if it’s personally offended him. Which, to be honest, it sort of has.

“First they turn Gipsy into... that thing, then they have the audacity to use that voice?” Chuck doesn't think he's ever seen Tendo Choi this upset before, as he leaves the server room, probably to report to the Marshall, letting the door slam behind him. Mako looks like she wants to go after him, and Chuck lets her, their eyes meeting with an unsaid we need to talk about this later before she vanishes from the room.

As he stands there, motionless, he figures it’s time to leave himself, making for the door at the speed of molasses.

Just then, the speakers rear up again, quieter than before, static filtering through once more, and the voice speaks, softer.

“Please don’t go.”

His mouth goes dry, and his fingers tremble on the doorknob. He doesn’t want to admit that’s fear in his voice when he speaks, hands shaking, but he responds as firmly as he can.

“I’ll be back soon, okay?” It sounds like a promise, almost.

“Thank you, Ranger.”

It’s heartfelt and familiar, and Chuck hates himself when he all but bolts from the room.

It's late that following night that Chuck finds himself standing at the door to his room, hand raised to the doorknob. He doesn't move for a moment, before steeling his nerves and swinging it open.

Finding Mako standing there in her pajamas, hand outstretched as if to knock, is a surprise in of itself. The two of them stare at one another for a moment, both trying to hide their abashment, but Chuck is the first to speak.

“Couldn't, ah, couldn't sleep, huh?” He scratches the back of his scalp nervously, and she shakes her head slowly; he sighs, a tired, resigned sound.

“Alright then, can't be helped I guess. Come on in.” Mako silently wanders over to his small bed, giving Max a fond smile and picking him up into her arms as he yawns cutely, pawing at her softly. He's still pretty little right now, all pudgy puppy wrinkles, not yet grown into the heavy set dog that Chuck is convinced he'll become.

“First time drift is always rough, I guess.” He doesn't talk about how the first time him and his dad drifted that Chuck had spent an hour afterwards crying silent tears into his pillow, or that he'd had to stop himself from going and just being near his dad. He couldn't say that she'd handled it all that much better than him, because he could see the red rims on her eyes, could tell that she'd probably shed more than a few tears after the fact.

“It just...” She trails off as they sit side by side on the bed, lights off as they stare off into the darkness, Max cuddled in her arms.

“That world... It was as if it had just cracked in half, and kept on breaking. I could feel it, the sadness, through the drift.” She says breathlessly, eyes glassy. The world did not reflect the fearsome Jaeger that had all but turned the attacking Kaiju into bone meal.

“Yeah.” Chuck swallows, a lump suddenly forming in his throat; he hadn't told anyone about the garbled words that Sine had said after everyone else had left. He doesn't talk about what he'd been told by the AI.

“Please don't go.”

Mako leans into his side, and he lets her, pulling up the blanket at the foot of his bed to toss over the both of them. There's no desire or amorous intentions here, partially because, well... Chuck doesn't even think he likes girls that way. Not that he's ever, uh, tried, but... Seeing his dad and Stacker in his father's memories had sort of... put things in perspective, just a bit. Max snuffles in Mako's arms, and he reaches his hand over to affectionately pet the puppy's head.

“It was so lonely in there.”

Still.

He can still hear it clearly in his head, the screaming static. Was that a residual effect from the latent ghost drifting ingrained in the A.I.'s software? He doesn't want to believe it is, because that fear had felt real, it was more than just a blurred memory from another pilot. It had felt like the first time he'd faced down a Kaiju with his dad, and he'd felt Herc's fear through the drift for him, for his son.

Was it more than just imprints from a drifting pair? Could it be actual memories had been recorded into it?

Mako huddles closer into his side, and he can feel the tremors running through her now. The broken world had left a lasting impression on them, Sine (because who else could it have been?) screaming out to them in the distance. There had been fear from across the drift, through the bond, and it had not come from Mako, it had not come from himself.

The fear had felt human.

He thinks, as he feels Mako nod off next to him, exhaustion finally taking its toll on her, of what Sine had yelled to them, from across the rift. At the time, his mind couldn't parse what was being said, but now, he can hear it more clearly, words vibrating in his skull.

Chuck doesn't sleep much that night, holding tightly onto Mako as they try to sort themselves out from the drift.

… HELLO. THIS IS SINE NOMINE. ALL SYSTEMS OK.

|||| _

|||| HELLO, SINE_

… HE\\O, &ANGE& HANSEN

|||| ARE YOU FEELING OKAY, SINE?_

… N0

|||| ARE YOU FEELING SAD?_

… Y%S

|||| WHY DO YOU FEEL SAD, SINE?_

… B%CAUS% I AM ALON%

It hits him out of nowhere, sometime over the next few days. There hasn’t been much time to really do anything else, repairs on Striker coming to a head while the rest of the Shatterdome spends their time servicing the other three Jaegers on base.

He all but runs to his dad, who’s standing in Striker’s repair bay and speaking with their head engineer, before turning to him with light concern painted on his face.

It’s not as if Chuck has sought out his father’s company of his own free will in four years, after all.

“Raleigh Becket.” He blurts out, suddenly out of breath despite the rigorous training all rangers have to go. Maybe he’s more nervous than he originally thought.

“What?”

“Sine Nomine. Sounds like Raleigh Becket.” His dad looks completely thrown for a moment, before Chuck sees the realization hitting him like a freight train, but he powers on before Herc has a chance to respond.

“Why the fuck does the A.I. sound like someone who’s been six feet under for two years? Is this some sort of sick joke, to truss up the corpse of an old Jaeger and parade it around while using the voice of one of her dead pilots?” Maybe he’s angrier than he ought to be, but Chuck remembers Tendo’s face, and he can’t even begin to imagine the rage and upset that had been bubbling there. There’s something just so inherently wrong with it that Chuck can’t stand it.

“Sometimes the… Jaeger A.I.’s have voice chips based on real people, but I never thought…” He can’t exactly fault his dad here for this, as much as he would like to; he’d spent hours pouring over old interviews with the Becket brothers, and it was hard to tell because the A.I. was emotionless and drab compared to Raleigh Becket’s eager and puppyish voice, but they were pretty damn similar.

The suddenly emoting voice that had spoken to him as he’d left, however, was definitely Raleigh Becket.

“Tendo said something similar, the day the A.I. started speaking. He seemed too angry to try and get a proper response out of.” His father says softly. It was Tendo, after all, who’d recognized the voice right away, but it’s not like Chuck could blame the man for his distress. Tendo Choi and the Beckets had been fairly close, stationed together in Anchorage for two years, as far as Chuck knew.

Chuck hasn’t seen him since that day in the server room, but he figures the man deserves to… to what, grieve all over again, be reminded that yet again, his friends are dead?

“Is it really just a neural imprint? Dad, it wants and feels, do you think it…” And there it is, the word he doesn’t use as much as he used to, but he’s a little too panicked to be thinking that through at the moment. Herc just shares a look with him, hesitance plain in his eyes.

“Tendo wondered the same thing, if it was possible for… full memories to be downloaded into a machine.” The fear that blooms on his face before he has a chance to hide it is reason enough for concern, because a dark look passes over his father’s face just then.

“I need to go talk to the Marshall, I’ll see you at dinner.”

Chuck never gets the chance to get a concise answer out of the A.I. that speaks with a dead man’s voice, however, because the Jaeger is quickly transferred back to Anchorage to cover for the aching loss of Gipsy Danger, before it will be moved to Lima, and then just around the whole world, it seems. It’s not Stacker’s call, though, the UN clamoring for an unmanned Jaeger in all the places needed.

It had performed admirably on it’s first official unmanned test run, doing everything to protocol and with no flubs in programming. It has no pilot, no downtime needed aside from regular repairs; a perfect soldier that would follow orders to a T. There’s no one alive in there to worry about, after all. It speaks when spoken to, and answers questions when it can, though “Unknown command.” becomes a familiar heard phrase soon enough.

When they send it out for the test run, however, its voice changes, sounding as though there are two male voices layered over one another.

It becomes steadily obvious which drifted pair the data had been collected from. No one talks about it, especially not Tendo Choi, who’s transferred with the Jaeger.

He doesn't mention drifting with Mako and Sine to his father, somehow managing to lock it deep within him to keep it that RABIT from ever showing up. He doesn’t mention the forlorn words that had drifted through the speakers that day in the server room, either.

He just doesn’t talk about it.

(Chuck doesn’t see Sine Nomine or the specter of Raleigh Becket hovering around it for two years, and he tries to pretend that it doesn’t bother him the way that his father thinks it does.)

Chapter Text

“It was an old project, years ago when the Jaeger program was still up and coming. Some researchers thought the connection to the Jaeger had to be deeper, but we never really understood what that meant for a long time. They wanted to keep it a single pilot system, but the funding was cut when too many test subjects exhibited unsatisfactory results.” Tendo’s voice come across as tinny and faraway over the speaker of Chuck’s cell phone.

“So what's the deal here, then? And how did you get this number?”

“Well, the division that so gung ho for this method was split up, but key members somehow ended up in another research facility; it was a makeshift hospital, one where we’d send pilots for rehabilitation… in case one didn't came back, if you get my meaning here.” Tendo says airily, ignoring the second part of Chuck’s question.

“Who the hell would put nutjobs like that in charge of injured pilots?”

“The same people who are gearing up to pull our funding. It was never sanctioned by the PPDC, Lightcap would never see to that, but the UN was all for it, for whatever reason. Pretty much no one on the original research team is still alive; last one died I think three years ago.” About a year after Gipsy Danger went down, then.

“So why are you telling me this?”

“I'm tell you this, as a friend,” Chuck snorts at that, “that the last known patient they ever treated is currently housed a taxi drives distance from your current location. She’s been there for four years; I hadn’t even realized she was still alive.” He can hear the hint of shame in the other man’s voice over the receiver; he’d been a handler for many pairs of pilots, he’d done his best to keep track of them, but it seemed like this one had slipped by.

Or rather, someone wanted her to slip by.

“So what you’re saying is…”

“Look, kid, I think you should go visit her, see what’s up with her now. They accept visitors, only no one even knew she’d been there. She’s been off the radar for years, and I don’t think it was voluntary.”

He doesn’t understand what Tendo means until he looks up the address sent to him.

“You’re sending me to a Mental Hospital? Isn’t that something that’s supposed to be voluntary?”

“More like a psych ward in a regular hospital for patients with special needs; get with the program, Chuckles.”

He wonders what brought this on, sudden guilt or something new the other man had learned. He could only imagine it had something to do with Sine.

“Call me that one more time and I’m definitely not going to go.” There’s a pause on the other end, as if Tendo wants to say something else.

“Kid… It’s been asking for you.”

Chuck’s spine feels like someone has just poured ice down it.

“It… He asks if you’re doing okay. Once in a while, not a lot. A how is Ranger Hansen doing here and there.”

“Is that supposed to be comforting?”

Tendo sighs again over the speaker, exasperated but also somewhat desperate, and what he says next connects the dots Chuck didn’t want to think about.

“The facility where they treated Williams after her co-pilot died, it’s the same place they took… Raleigh to, after Knifehead. It’s where they were treating him, before he died on the operating table, according to the official report.” Something about the way Tendo says the last bit leaves Chuck with the inclination that he doesn’t quite believe what the official report said.

And frankly, Chuck doesn’t really believe it either.

He hangs up after that, not wanting to know more, or ask about the dark, slick Jaeger that Tendo’s been acting as a handler for. No one talks about it, except maybe in passing, hushed voices whispering Did you see how that Jaeger took down that category IV?. No one ever says its name, but everyone knows what they mean by that Jaeger.

He could go, he thinks suddenly, stupidly; they’re in the same state. Sine Nomine was stationed at the same Shatterdome as Romeo Blue (where Chuck should have fucking been right now, while his father sat through boring ass UN meetings, instead of debating going to visit a woman who was probably just crazy), and he could go. But there’s something stilling his hand at the thought of going to see a not-A.I. that apparently asked how he was doing like it was an everyday thing.

(There is a part of Chuck, singular and spiteful, that wonders what the Gages must think of the ghost of their failure being stationed at the same Dome as them.)

All Chuck knows for sure is that he didn’t keep his promise.

In the end, Chuck goes, mostly to escape his father’s threats of being forced to sit in for boring meetings due to his, as Herc called it, “moping around the dome” phase for a day and also to quell his growing curiosity. The drive is short, maybe 45 minutes at best, and then he finds himself signing a visitor’s sheet in front of a beaming nurse.

“It’s so nice you came, she hardly ever gets visitors. I’m sure she’ll be very happy to see you.” The nurse eyes the PPDC patch on his jacket meaningfully. If by hardly she meant never, Chuck privately thinks as he’s led to a room with large, open windows. There’s someone sitting in front of the window, staring out into the distance with light filtering in.

“Don’t call her by name, she doesn’t quite like it.” The nurse whispers to him, before calling out to the woman sitting by the window. It’s odd, he thinks, that the PPDC would have let one of it’s former pilots fall through the cracks like this.

Maybe they didn’t want to remember what sorrows drifting had caused.

“Honey? There’s someone here to see you.” The woman makes no move to turn to them, but nods slowly.

Her name is Karen Williams.

“Hello…” He starts, quietly. There’s a light tremor that goes through him, but he can’t pinpoint why until Karen slowly, slowly turns her head to look at him. Or rather, right through him, because her eyes are blank and unseeing. Limp brown hair falls just past her shoulders, probably cut that way due to the nurses trying to make her seem more human, as do the pale pink polish on her nails. They’d probably just asked her and she’d agreed, silent, non-opinionated.

She looks ancient, though Chuck knows she can’t be older than 28 years old.

Her co-pilot had died while they had been still connected, he remembers. Not torn from the conn pod, ripped apart like… the Beckets had been, but there had been some malfunction with their Jaeger when it had taken a particularly hard knock, and the resulting backlash had caused the other pilot, Nina Curtis, to seize.

Chuck remembers, his fingers twitching, that it had taken a rescue team several hours to reach them, that the report read that Karen hadn’t stopped screaming herself hoarse until they’d given her a sedative and carried her unresponsive body out of the mangled mess of the cockpit.

“So, uhm, how are you?”

She doesn’t say anything, just keeps staring past him like he’s a ghost. The dull light in her eyes glimmers slowly, a quiet realization forming behind them.

“Are you a ranger?” Her voice is raspy, unused, like she hasn’t spoken in years, which Chuck would believe.

“Yeah. Yes.” His words trail off because Chuck is honestly at a loss of what to say, of what to do. He came to sate his own fucked up sense of curiosity, but Chuck didn’t think he’d be staring at the pale shadow of a woman he’d long thought dead.

Chuck didn’t think he’d be anywhere near this place today, his fingers playing on his knees nervously as he resists the urge to tap his feet on the floor. He’s not even sure what he’s doing here.

He wants to laugh, or cry, suddenly, because is this what the PPDC does to pilots who they’d no longer had a use for? Leave them to rot in a hospital? But then, Williams had probably been one of the only pilots who’d gotten out.

Everyone else was dead.

“What did they do to you?” Chuck says softly, barely above a whisper; the words come out before he can stop them, tumblings over his lips like a waterfall. Karen, however, seems to hear him just fine, as her head snaps up so quickly that he fears she’s going to hurt herself. It’s a rhetorical question, one he can’t stop himself from asking, but he has no idea why this woman is so broken, with her thin, bony fingers grasping at nothing and sallow, sunken in skin.

But then he remembers that her co-pilot died, died when they were still connected, like the Becket brothers had been, and he wonders that if Raleigh Becket were still alive, if he would have become as much as a shade as this poor woman.

Something in Karen’s face twists in an odd manner, her lips curling together in an attempt to form words that fall short, before she tries to smile. Keyword being tries, because it turns into a grimace that takes over her entire face.

“They put us in a dark place and she went away, she went away and didn’t come back.”

She. Nina Curtis. The aforementioned dead co-pilot.

“Look, Karen, I know-” He starts, feeling his voice fail him again. What the fuck is he doing here? He’s not a psychiatrist or a trained physician, he can barely speak to his own co-pilot most of the time.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Karen snaps at him, as if suddenly energized by the use of her name. Despite what the nurse has said, what Karen says next makes Chuck's blood run cold, when she all but collapses into herself, a puppet with it’s strings tangled and cut. Her weak, thin hands grasp at nothing, and even when she looks right at him, Chuck has a sinking feeling that she’s not actually seeing him.

“She’s gone now.” Her eyes are so blank, as if no one is inhabiting the space behind them.

“Who’s gone, Karen?” And there, fuck, he says it again, accidentally, and the look she throws him is akin to one of a stricken animal. A sad, dismayed sound leaves her lips, her hands going to her face as if to cradle and soothe, but it’s obviously not working.

"That's not my name, that's not my name-"

I do not have a name.

“Then what is your name?” Chuck thinks he should probably definitely call a nurse, but she stops just then, breath hitched.

“What is my name?” She whispers, hands shaking.

Chuck doesn’t have time to think, to say anything else, as he watches this shadow of a woman, a once strong and confident pilot (because really, that’s all that’s left of her, a shade) crumple in upon herself, because that’s when the nurse blusters in, face red and filled with panic. Chuck can tell from the look on her face, familiar to anyone who’s been around when a Kaiju makes land, that something has gone wrong.

He rises from his seat, giving Karen-who-is-not-Karen one last sympathetic glance, before rushing out of the room, en route to the Dome as fast as his legs can take him.

There’s a two Jaeger drop in Seattle; Romeo Blue goes first, with Sine Nomine available as backup. They’re two of the only Jaegers left around at that Dome.

Tendo wonders what Romeo Blue’s pilots must be feeling as they look on at the dark Jaeger being dropped with them. He hadn’t had a chance to speak with either of Gages’ before they’d suited up, but he knew that the guilt had been plain in their eyes when they’d first seen the repurposed Mark III Jaeger. There had been people who’d claimed that it should have just been dubbed a Mark IV, but in Tendo’s mind, it had started out as a Mark III.

And it would go out as one.

“It’s a little morbid, don’t you think?” A J-tech next to him voices the words that he realizes more than a few of them had been thinking.

“Having them drop with that ghost.” The ghost was a name they were beginning to toss around more and more, possibly because no one wanted to actually mention the Jaeger by name. Superstition, perhaps, something bleeding into the techs after witnessing kaiju after kaiju fall to their own monster.

Romeo Blue had, after all, been supposed to intercept Knifehead.

In the end, their thoughts on the matter are quickly shunted off to the side when the attacking Kaiju somehow manages to get to Romeo Blue before the choppers can even finish dropping the other jaeger. The struggle continues for a good ten minutes, the kaiju playing keep away with Romeo Blue as the target.

It’s a delicate situation, because Sine Nomine is thrust off to the side, and in the moments that it takes for it to get back on its feet, Romeo Blue’s conn pod is already under the severe pressure of the kaiju’s grip.

One side of the conn caves in slightly, the resounding echo sending everyone watching in LOCCENT into a slight panic.

The last thing the Gage twins hear over the comms, as the kaiju’s claws slowly crumple the metal cage around them, is a desperate, familiar voice. It’s not coming from LOCCENT, but rather the comms of the Jaeger they’d dropped with. The metal of the conn pod groans dangerously around them, but they’re stuck, trapped in a vice grip, unable to escape. The other Jaeger is rapidly trying to reach them, but the kaiju’s claws are stronger than Sine Nomine is fast.

It’s strange, because it sounds just like-

“I’m sorry, I’m coming, I’ll-”

The last thing that they think, the last thing they say as one, frantic thoughts in tandem before one side of the conn pod collapses in on them, is this:

We’re the ones who should be sorry, Becket boy.

Romeo Blue falls, and everything descends into chaos.

They’re told that the black Jaeger won’t calm down, which, Chuck thinks privately, is a rather anthropomorphizing thing to say about a piece of machinery. Perhaps calm down isn’t the right phrase to use; after demolishing the attacking Kaiju that had taken out Romeo Blue (And Chuck isn’t optimistic, not after having seen the photos of what was left of the cock pit), it had come back to the Dome relatively fine, but once it had docked the electrical systems holding the Jaeger in had short circuited, and it wasn’t responding to any orders that would send it into standby.

So it was basically sending out bursts of static and white noise that had LOCCENT scrambling for something to shut it up with. It takes a full night of this after the last attack for all the techs to throw their hands up in the air and give up for the moment. Chuck hasn’t been by the now temporarily abandoned mission control, hasn’t actually wanted to, but he imagines it’s quite a mess.

The kaiju was taken out with minimal damage to the city, but they lost another Jaeger today. Another team.

It’s as if Sine Nomine is mourning, he thinks miserably,a low, sorrowful hum intermittently spouted out between the loud bursts of static that he can just imagine in his mind.

(The same static hum, Chuck thinks to himself, that had been floating through the broken black and white world with Sine.)

He wonders just what the fuck they’re supposed to do now.

Chuck gets what could vaguely be construed as an answer when Tendo rounds on him in an otherwise quiet hallway.

“Apparently…” Tendo starts, voice quiet, looking at him with an analyzing gleam in his eyes that Chuck doesn’t like, because it probably means he’s going to be roped into doing some bad for his sanity, “There was a final transmission between the two Jaegers before Romeo Blue went down. 3.24 seconds long, but it was there.”

Chuck waits for him to continue, raising an eyebrow. “And…?”

“And nothing. We can’t listen to it. The transmission log is corrupted to all hell. The point I’m making is that there was one, and it wasn’t from Blue to Sine.” He states, looking Chuck in the eye.

“When has that Jaeger ever sent a transmission of it’s volition?”

“I don’t know, Elvis, when has that Jaeger ever moved on it’s own?” Chuck shoots back, refusing to acknowledge the jolt of liquid ice to his veins. Tendo doesn’t say anything for a moment, not wanting to meet his eyes perhaps, before sighing.

It’s an aggrieved, tired sound, completely resigned.

“Karen Williams was found dead in her room a few hours ago.” Chuck’s lips, curled into a snarl, fall open like a gaping fish.

“But I just.. I just saw her yesterday, she was fine-” and then he stops, because Karen was certainly not fine.

Karen. Or Nina, he wasn’t sure, hesitant to voice his thoughts on the matter. He’d read more on the matter, had noted had Karen had exhibited what had appeared to not only be a case of Dissociative identity disorder, but also signs of minor ghost drifting with her dead co-pilot.

“Did she…”

“No, just… her body just gave up, I guess. According the nurse she’d been on her way out for a while, barely holding on… It’s like her body just decided enough was enough, and let go.” Chuck highly doubts it was purely coincidence that it had happened directly after his visit. But it was still sad, though perhaps not unavoidable.

“After her co-pilot died, she’d lost a lot of major motor control, as if she’d forgotten how to use her body. Maybe it was a mercy at this point, I don’t know.”

Or maybe it was because it hadn’t been her body.

“You think they could have… switched?” He ventures out, carefully. Tendo stops and all but stares at him, a creeping horror making its way onto his face.

“The ghost drifting, it might have been so severe that… Look, Chuck, I don’t know. I’ll… I’ll get back to you in a bit.” It’s a lame excuse and they both know, but Chuck lets him leave, noting the haunted look on his face as he grabs his coffee cup.

It takes him a moment to realize his own hands are shaking as he pets Max's fur in an attempt to soothe himself.

He gets an email from Mako that night. It’s short, concise, to the point like Mako usually is, but there’s an underlying tone of tension hidden between the text. Apparently, he muses, noting the names tossed around, Tendo told her about Karen Williams as well.

Scanning it, his lips form a thin, hard line as he mentally goes over what he’d learned from the previous day’s events.

Chuck,

This was the remains of a dossier I found regarding both Raleigh Becket and Karen Williams’ stays at Anchorage. Most of the files were corrupt, but what I have been able to piece together is rather unsettling. I have already brought this to the Marshal’s attention, but I thought you should perhaps look at this.

Mako

Chuck gets halfway through the dossier, brows furrowing together at words like experiments, complete failure, and must find other resources before his rage nearly consumes him, restraining himself just enough to not throw his tablet across the room.

It’s the fucking middle of the night and the static squalling has turned to a subversive hum with scattered spikes in volume that has LOCCENT completely empty for once.

The fact that he’s sneaking in after avoiding every instance of LOCCENT he can for the past two years is something Chuck doesn’t dwell long on. The empty chairs and otherwise sterile air in the normally bustling room come across as beyond eerie, everyone having cleared out to avoid serious hearing damage at the constant, subversive hum. Or maybe they’re just looking for a break from the chaos of work, he thinks privately.

The sound is only slightly maddening, and Chuck is suddenly glad he’d left Max with his father for the night, because right now, his thoughts are in a jumble, the buzzing sound echoing through his head like a hive of bees. He can’t sleep anyway, what’s another night of static nightmares?

Something catches his attention as he nears the center console.

A single monitor, one of the many that usually detail the Jaeger’s status, flashing incessantly. As Chuck gets closer, he realizes with a cold shock down his spine that it’s a continuous scroll of nonsense text, zooming by at lightspeed, calculating what he doesn’t know.

Worry suddenly worms its way up his spine, for reasons he can’t pinpoint, a murmured “Sine?” leaving his lips. The AI had evolved to the point of responding by name when called, but Chuck didn’t want to keep meandering on that particular thought process.

The hum dulls for a moment, as if considering, before a loud mixture of what can only be a shriek and a bark of heavy static bursts out from the speakers, throwing him completely off guard and nearly choking on his own spit.

“S-sine?” He coughs, trying to clear his throat; the speakers spit out more garbled nonsense, but beneath the static Chuck begins to hear words.

“No, no, no, no, no…” It slowly becomes more and more clear, and there’s actual emotion here, not just a robotic voice tonelessly speaking. There is someone talking and they are upset.

“Sine!” He tries once more, only to get a dismayed rebuttal in response.

“No, no, no, that’s not my name, that’s not my name.”

I do not have a name.

Chuck feels his heart jump into his throat. He’s been suspecting this for a long while, but Chuck could never bring himself to really believe it. He doesn’t want to admit this to himself, but the pieces come together and-

Why do you keep calling me that?

“Raleigh?” Chuck’s surprised his voice doesn’t suddenly give out in sheer terror, surprised that he even manages to get the name out without stuttering.

A loud sob bubbles out from the speakers, as if in confirmation, though the static, amazingly, is starting to recede. He tries again, swallowing hard. Chuck’s heart is in his throat at this point, and he feels like he wants to throw up but he repeats himself once more, voice only wavering slightly.

“Raleigh!”

“That’s my name, that’s my name, that’s me-” The voice is near hysterical now, raising in volume, but it’s the final confirmation that Chuck needs.

It’s the confirmation he didn’t want to admit was possible. The terror in his eyes must be apparent enough for the camera feed to pick up, because the voice seems to almost calm then.

“Yes, that’s you. You’re…” His brain scrambles for words to say, something, anything, that wouldn’t cause another breakdown.

“You’re a ranger. You’re Raleigh Becket.”

You were human, once.

“That’s right? That’s me, I’m… I’m Raleigh Becket.” For a moment, Chuck fears that he’s just inadvertently led the A.I. into thinking something that isn’t true… But, he thinks, there’s too much evidence of this not just being a regular A.I.

Chuck’s mind shoots back to the fragments of the files Mako had found, and feels his heart hammering in his chest at the thought of what had actually happened to Raleigh Becket at that fucking facility in Anchorage.

“Yeah…” He trails off, the relief in his mind near palpable at the calmer tone coming from the speakers. That’s good, right?

“And you, you’re Ranger Hansen.” The words almost sound relieved, something Chuck hasn’t heard in reference to himself since he’d been a kid who’d been picked up in a helicopter after Scissure had attacked.

“Chuck.” He automatically corrects, his throat suddenly feeling tight. Chuck can feel his heart beating in his chest, the blood rushing through his veins in a panic; he’s suddenly and acutely aware of every movement and sound he makes, of every tiny burst of static Raleigh throws out.

“Chuck.” It’s as if he’s testing the words with the lips he doesn’t have, with the face that Chuck realizes doesn’t exist anymore. Chuck has read the medical report, that stated Ranger Becket had been dead on arrival, his body broken and ruined from piloting the Jaeger back to shore solo.

Raleigh Becket’s body is gone, but his mind, his memories, are in this infernal machine now.

There’s a part of Chuck that suddenly feels angry, filled with rage at what they did to Raleigh Becket, seemingly unable to let the Ranger’s memory rest in piece.

“Do you… do you know…” It’s strange, Chuck thinks, to hear hesitance in the once emotionless and robotic voice; there are pauses here and there that speak of actual thought, rather than generated words voiced by a speech program.

“Do you know if Yancy…” He sounds so hesitant, as if he’s scared to ask.

Chuck does know. He knows, and it breaks his fucking heart because now he’s going to have to listen to a man’s life fall apart again, when there’s barely a life left behind already.

He swallows, hard, before trying to find his voice. He doesn’t know if Raleigh can see him, but there are cameras everywhere, not even including the ones that are implemented into the Jaeger’s console itself. He hopes the reluctance on his face doesn’t show how fucking scared he actually is, at the thought that this is actually happening.

“It’s been… four years, Raleigh.” He says the name because it seems to bolster the voice from the computer, grounding him and bringing him back from the brink of despair. Chuck doesn’t want to admit that it’s doing the same for himself, that he feels like he’s seeing progress here.

A low, sad hum belts out from the speakers, lacking the normal harsh static that has been to

“I know… I just… I hoped…” Each word is like a knife to Chuck’s heart, the stuttered hope the final nail in the coffin. Hopes. Thoughts. He’d hoped.

Chuck feels sicks at the thought.

There’s a terse silence between them for a few moments, Chuck shuffling from one foot to another, feeling the breath stolen right from his lips. He suddenly feels at such a supreme loss of what to do, but Raleigh seems to have more to say.

“You came back.”

“I… Not right away. I didn’t keep my promise.” Chuck breathes out, his voice thick, feeling as though his legs have suddenly turned to jelly.

“But you still came back, Chuck.” He sounds so hopeful this time, cracking Chuck’s heart into more and more tiny pieces.

“I… I’m not worth getting excited for, mate.”

“You came back, and you brought me back.” More confident, more sure of himself, reminding Chuck of the old interviews he’d used to watch on on the internet back when the Beckets were in their heyday, all charming smiles and coy words.

“I don’t see how I accomplished that,” He replies, letting himself fall into a nearby desk chair, practically deflating into the seat. What now, then? So Sine Nomine wasn’t just an AI, but an actual person? A grouping of memories thrown into an infernal machine to make it walk?

“When you asked for my name. You got angry at me. Somehow I… I managed to work past the protocols they installed to keep me from talking.”

Chuck’s brows furrow at that, mentally trying to understand what Raleigh meant at that, before a light blush stains his cheeks at a memory from two years before.

“You mean when I cursed you out.” Chuck doesn’t think he’s felt this embarrassed in a long time.

“Yes.” Now Raleigh sounds amused, a cheerful departure from the morose shrieking from before. There’s still the underlying hum that goes with everything he says, but he’s so much calmer now, speaking with actual pauses and human emotion.

“Was that seriously all it took? Some seventeen year old yelling at a computer?” Chuck snarks, letting some disbelief bleed into his voice. He gets what can be constituted as a soft chuckle in return, one that spreads an odd warmth throughout him.

“I don’t know, exactly, but… it worked. You gave me the choice to a name. You gave me a choice.”

That all but steals the breath out of him, looking up at the singular monitor, now no longer scrolling garbage text but instead what appears to be a crude ASCII smiley face. Cute, he thinks, before realizing how sad and fucked up this all is.

“I’m sorry.” He blurts out, suddenly. There’s a pause, and Chuck imagines it would be like a hitched breath if Raleigh were still a living, breathing person.

“Why?”

“Because you didn’t deserve to have this done to you.” Whatever had been done to him, at least. Chuck doesn’t know the specifics, but from what he’d gathered from Mako’s email and his visit to Karen-who-might-have-been-Nina, the pieces were coming together in a rather sinister fashion.

The center console heaves out a loud, slow hum of static that Chuck is going to infer is as close to a sigh as Raleigh can get to.

“The people who did this to you-”

“It doesn’t matter, Chuck. They’re all gone now, anyway.” Raleigh soothes, which Chuck thinks is fucking rich, considering that he probably has the most reason to be angry.

“But that’s bullshit!” Chuck doesn’t realize he’s risen out of the stiff chair until it creaks loudly behind him. Someone had done something so grossly indecently and morally evil to a Ranger, and it burned Chuck on the inside to know that they wouldn’t be punished for whatever fucked up experiments they’d likely done.

Because they were all already dead.

“Look, just… don’t be angry, please. Just talk with me?”

Chuck nods almost automatically, the fight suddenly taken away from him, before he lets himself fall back into the chair.

“Yeah…” He murmurs, the fire drained out of him, “Yeah, we can do that. What do you want to talk about, mate?”

The crude smiley face on the monitor continues to beam happily at him.

The static hum is gone, Tendo thinks as he nears the control room, somewhat astonished. He wonders if the AI simply grew tired of assaulting their ears. Voices bounce off the walls as he

He’s the first person back in LOCCENT, at ass o’ clock in the morning, and he can’t stop his footsteps from stuttering when the first thing he sees is Chuck Hansen, half slumped in one of the uncomfortable desk chairs, gazing off into space. Worry grips him suddenly, usually uncharacteristic of anyone who’s spent more than five minutes around Chuck, but Tendo knows Chuck.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, man, how long have you been in here? You been here all night? Alone?” There’s a sneaking suspicion crawling down his spine as he reaches Chuck’s side, who hasn’t moved so much of an inch aside to side eye him.

“Not alone.” Chuck intones, eyes flitting between Tendo and the many monitors peering down at them like so many eyes. Tendo does nothing aside from raise his eyebrows, doing a quick scan of the room and finding no Max, before his eyes fall on the main holo-monitor.

With a steady stream of readable, non-garbage text innocently scrolling by. His brows furrow together at the sight, remembering two years ago.

Chuck hasn’t been in LOCCENT since then.

“You and Sine Nomine getting cosy here?” He quips, raising a brow.

“Not Sine Nomine.” And then Chuck makes some odd motion to the monitor, which suddenly stops scrolling as if summoned.

“H-hey, Tendo.” A soft, familiar voice that he could place in a split second, a hesitant venture out as if worried. Not the regular AI voice that responds to commands that he’s grown used to hearing without flinching, but the inflection is the same, the emotion is exactly-

Tendo’s heart stops for a second, and it feels like an eternity passes by before his brain starts working again.

“Kid?” He breathes out, his voice suddenly dying as the names spills from his lips. It’s not the same voice he hears in LOCCENT, mechanical and emotionless and just so hollow.

Becket-boy, he wants to say, but his lips won’t cooperate.

“It’s been a while, man.” More confident this time, closer to what he remembers.

“Elvis, I’m sure you remember Raleigh Becket.” Chuck says with little flourish, but there’s a sad, tired look on his face, as he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing either.

“I’d like to go back our girl’s old name, if that’s alright with you.”

Tendo, gobsmacked as he is, with a mixture of horror and surprise plain on his face, nods, before he drops himself into a nearby chair like a sack of bricks and takes a long swig of his still molten hot coffee. His hands are shaking, Chuck notes.

“Do whatever the hell you want, kid.” Tendo rasps, voice thick with emotion and disbelief.

“Thanks, Tendo.” 

On the main monitor in front of them, the scrolling text abruptly stops, a new command prompt appearing in its place.

… WELCOME TO SINE_NOMINE.EXE

… REINITIALIZING

<<<

… OVERWRITING SINE_NOMINE LAYER

… NEURAL SYSTEM ONLINE

… LOCAL FILE SYSTEM REMOUNTED

… STREAMS DEVICE[S] ACTIVE

… SYNCER ACTIVE

… DRIFT INTERFACE REINSTALLED

… NETWORKING STARTED

...  NOW IN GIPSY_DANGER.EXE LAYER

… HOST NAME IS RB_OS

-

-

-

-

… HELLO. THIS IS RALEIGH BECKET. ALL SYSTEMS OK.

|||| _

 Thank you.