Tony Stark (in_extremis) wrote in oh_whatif, @ 2015-02-12 01:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | pacific rim, verse: pacific rim |
PACIFIC RIM
The silence of the entire population it took to operate a Shatterdome was profound and self perpetuating. It had been a fortuitously long time since they had lost a Jaeger and her team, long enough that it came as a gut wrenching shock of a reminder of their immortality, impermanence and staggering ignorance of the enemy on their doorstep. As the clock trudged coldly on toward the next Event, the Shatterdome remained mired in their mourning silence, voices sinking even lower when the crew that eventually brought the kaiju down and ended the battle was nearby. With the reminder so sharply clear, it was as though the pilots were marked for death, and contact with them was opening a morbid door. Someone in that massive hanger on the edge of oblivion was next. Suddenly, a lot more people were remembering how to pray.
Tony's masterful J-Tech unit should have been well above that kind of self-indulgence, but even as he sat on the shoulder of the Mercury Siren he watched one of the women on the bridge cross herself before picking up her tablet and running her diagnostics. Lingering a moment on the image and squinting skeptically, Tony idly tapped his pliers against the Jaeger's ridged collar before taking a deep breath and reaching up to haul himself to his feet, balancing precariously as he leaned deeply into the Jaeger's hollow neck, bare feet kicking behind him without any divinity to hold him back. There was still a tangle of seaweed in the threading of the Jaeger's throat that he pulled out in wet handfuls and tossed blindly over his shoulder, splattering across the bridge and the superstitious tech's tablet. Finding where that seam had ruptured to let the elements in was proving more difficult than he had estimated, and no amount of hands-off scanning was going to get them there, not when everything was this gunked up. This was supposed to be the easy project. Still hanging from the Jaeger's neck, Tony nudged his shoulder against his ear to mumble to anyone lingering in the LOCCENT, "What's the recovery status?" Some piece must have washed up to shore by now.