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Jan. 7th, 2014 04:29 pmI think I have a concussion. I should probably -- I'm dead.
Chuck Hansen will be dead in a week. Herc won't be. Stacker Pentecost will.
There's a dreadful stillness pooling in Pentecost's center, but that's not why.
He's known since Tamsin blacked out and the eigengrau flooded the Drift that his own end was coming. The clock in the Shatterdome counts up, seconds and minutes and hours and days since the last kaiju attack, but when Tamsin's diagnosis came in and the doctor turned to him and asked to speak to him alone, a different clock entirely started ticking in Pentecost's head. That one counts down, not up, and unlike the one in the Shatterdome, it doesn't get reset. It counts its time out in Metharocin capsules and physical examinations, in unexpected nosebleeds and moments of quiet nausea.
He's lived with that clock's tick since Tokyo. Hansen's words just made it clear what it was counting down to. The stillness comes from-
Most of Hong Kong made it, at least
Started as a double event, but turned into a triple
Took out the other two, hopefully
Dunno if it worked, sir
-elsewhere.
They've never had a double event before. They've never had two kaiju at once. In seven days there will be two, and then there will be three, and then he does not know. And he won't know, not before then, not after- assuming there even is an after. In seven days he has to see the world saved. He doesn't get an or.
If he doesn't see to it now, he never will. One kaiju is a horror, two an abomination, three an eschatological event that can only be followed by more. There will be no ever after.
He does not have time to get anything wrong. Not any more.
He and Becket are about to land at the Shatterdome, anyway.
Chuck Hansen will be dead in a week. Herc won't be. Stacker Pentecost will.
There's a dreadful stillness pooling in Pentecost's center, but that's not why.
He's known since Tamsin blacked out and the eigengrau flooded the Drift that his own end was coming. The clock in the Shatterdome counts up, seconds and minutes and hours and days since the last kaiju attack, but when Tamsin's diagnosis came in and the doctor turned to him and asked to speak to him alone, a different clock entirely started ticking in Pentecost's head. That one counts down, not up, and unlike the one in the Shatterdome, it doesn't get reset. It counts its time out in Metharocin capsules and physical examinations, in unexpected nosebleeds and moments of quiet nausea.
He's lived with that clock's tick since Tokyo. Hansen's words just made it clear what it was counting down to. The stillness comes from-
Most of Hong Kong made it, at least
Started as a double event, but turned into a triple
Took out the other two, hopefully
Dunno if it worked, sir
-elsewhere.
They've never had a double event before. They've never had two kaiju at once. In seven days there will be two, and then there will be three, and then he does not know. And he won't know, not before then, not after- assuming there even is an after. In seven days he has to see the world saved. He doesn't get an or.
If he doesn't see to it now, he never will. One kaiju is a horror, two an abomination, three an eschatological event that can only be followed by more. There will be no ever after.
He does not have time to get anything wrong. Not any more.
He and Becket are about to land at the Shatterdome, anyway.
