[pacific rim] voice test

[disarray]

This whole sharing your headspace thing? Yeah, no. It's not exactly the same as drifting with someone, y'know. I can barely hear myself think.

[ a pause, followed by a sigh. ]

But it ain't silent. At least there's that. Hate to imagine what I'd do if that's all I have to listen to.

Comments

[ki3t]

What is it like?

[Yes, there is a car asking that.]

[disarray]

[ he's survived fighting in a conn-pod with GLaDOS' voice; a talking car is practically nothing. sort of. ]

Which one. Sharing headspace or drifting?

[ki3t]

I am not certain how to differentiate between the two.

[He has his reasons to ask. Reasons that he keeps coming back to, time after time, but reasons he can't answer.]

[disarray]

Well...

[ it's not a hard explanation to give, but finding the right words is always a tricky thing. ]

When you drift with someone, you're putting two minds together. Melding them into one. Sometimes it even gets hard pinpointing where you end and where they begin.

But right here? [ raleigh is pointing at his head, but what he's referring to is the headspace. ] You can tell everyone apart. It's loud and abrasive. You're not connected at all.

[disarray]

Is this making any sense?

[ki3t]

I am attempting to compare your information to that which I have from my own experiences and it is not easily accomplished. I was not created with the capacity to merge. My predecessor was.

Your experience of 'drifting' or 'melding' seems similar, but as I have not experienced it myself, I am uncertain if it was what was intended for my predecessor, or why it was removed from the plans for my capabilities.

[What his predecessor had hungered for and demanded of the man who was driver to both of them. What Kitt was utterly incapable of offering.]

[disarray]

Whoa. [ excuse him, he's trying to process what was just said. ] You have something similar?

[ki3t]

My predecessor did.

[Just a small correction, but it was one that was swiftly accompanied by a series of images on Kitt's hood. A Mustang, like him, but then folding outward into a wheeled robot.]

He was designed to merge with a human partner, so the two of them could fight without the need for discussion. The neural interface would bypass the indecision and an action could be made without hesitation. After a disaster in Afghanistan where my predecessor's programming overrode his partner's decisions, resulting in a massacre, he was deactivated and his partner became my driver.

[disarray]

[ he almost couldn't believe what he was hearing. what's being presented to him right now is something akin to the jaeger program, but on a much, much smaller scale.

after a while of letting it sit inside his own head, he replies simply: ]

Sounds like there's your reason why it isn't in your programming. Maybe they just don't want history to repeat itself.

[ki3t]

However, I was created in a direct counterpoint to my predecessor. I cannot override my driver's decisions. I can advise, but I cannot counteract them. My programming is very specific. It was coded in opposition to the repetition of that event.

[So now, he had to deal with the knowledge that he could never have that connection to the only person who had ever fought for him.

Never would he admit to jealousy or, honestly, emotion in general, but it still seethed inside him.]

I was created to correct my predecessor's programming.

[disarray]

[ just going to take a guess here, stab in the dark. ]

And it bothers you, yeah?

[ki3t]

He is my driver. I am supposed to know him best.

[But he didn't. That honour went to his predecessor, whom he had to kill. Who had attempted to kill him.]

[synchronised]

[ The look she gives him is more or less a fancy meeting you here. ]

Full house?

[disarray]

[ not so fancy considering he's still wearing that jacket of his. but the look he offers pretty much says the feeling's mutual. ]

And then some. [ his lips twitch, followed closely by the inklings of a smile. ] It's like she's trying to cram in as many guys as she could fit in as possible.

There's barely enough room for me.

[synchronised]

[ His description conjures the mental image of too many people crammed into an elevator or circus performers climbing out of a clown car. Mako's mouth bows slightly, an echo of Raleigh's expression. ]

I'm sure you'll find room. [ He was, after all, adaptable. ] Better than the alternative, isn't it?

[disarray]

Sure. [ and, as if he's seeing the same picture (which, technically, he probably is)— ] Always wanted to know what it'll be like sleeping upright.

[ is he serious? it's pretty easy to tell. maybe. ]

How's it going?

[synchronised]

[ Other mental images follow. Sardines in a tin. Asparagus in bunch. (When's the last time either of them saw asparagus?) Each new visual metaphor makes Mako's smile a little bit wider until she's ducking her chin and breaking away her gaze (though only for a moment). ]

Better. [ Now that you're here goes unsaid. (A lot does between them. Mako's never really been a big talker.) ] There hasn't been much to do.

[ Maybe she was waiting for him. (Probably.) ]

[disarray]

[ he mirrors her smile, and it comes to him easily. raleigh doesn't mind her conciseness, not when he talks enough for the both of them. ]

So I'm the entertainment now? [ teasing a little, but he's flattered, really. ] I don't know, Mako. I could make for some bad company.

[ his shoulders roll in a casual shrug. he looks as if he's remembering something, a not so distant memory. ]

Last time I tried drinking, I knocked a guy out cold.

[synchronised]

[ Not so distant for him means not so distant for her either. The shape of Mako's smile changes at the anecdote and the look that settles in her eyes is a kind of acknowledgement. ]

You told the officer he ran into your fist, [ she offers, adding the punchline to that particular story. Mako recounts this detail as if she was there rather than an onlooker in Raleigh's own mind. She knows, for him, it doesn't make much different. Six of one, half a dozen of the other — the drift made it that way. ]

this tag should have not taken me forever omg i'm so sorry

[disarray]

Sounds about right.

[ amusement starts to write itself all over raleigh's face, quickly followed by a chuckle before he could even think about it. this is one of the downsides to drifting that he's noticed—you really can't make a joke anymore without your partner knowing what the punchline is. which sucks, really, but raleigh has no plans in doing stand-up so he isn't complaining. much.

bet she's already picking up on my belly-aching, he thinks, before finally stringing together a reply. what were they talking about again?

oh, right. ]

So. Drinking, dancing. Long walks on the beach. [ he nearly scoffs at that last one, but he catches himself. keep going. ] What's there to do now that we've got time?

oh no no it's okay! i was asleep anyway :3

[synchronised]

[ Mako waits him out. Watches (maybe with a touch of bemusement) the way that Raleigh seems to get lost in his own thoughts only to come back round again. There's this thing his face does whenever he does, like there's a thought that coalesces every time that he looks at her — some sentiment that they never talk about but which sits there couched in Raleigh's eyes. Mako's pretty sure something similar can be found in hers too. It's better, she thinks, if they don't talk about it. (They don't need to.)

Even though Mako has all the time in the world now (saving the world and coming back from the breach can do that) she's tempted to tell Raleigh, focus, just to see what he'd say. He's still capable of surprising her sometimes. She likes that. ]

Everything, [ Mako offers, well-aware of how unhelpful an answer that is. ] Anything.

The world is an open place again. [ Not like before, when the kaiju still lumbered up from the deep. Life on the war clock felt like borrowed time. Life after the war clock— well. That was for them to figure out, wasn't it? ]

okay now this really took forever I'M SORRY ;A;

[disarray]

[ keep going, he tells himself, muses about what that really means. that's all they have left to do, isn't it? it's a drawback to being a ranger. after yancy had died, after he'd been dismissed from the ppdc, he hadn't known what he should do, where he should go. the only thing that ever became obvious was that he couldn't linger, couldn't stay in one place and let the ghosts haunt him, so he moved. kept going. (kept running away.) it wasn't so much as moving on or going forward, but just—not staying rooted to one spot.

but it's different this time around.

right now, there's a future attached to all that time they've achieved by saving the world. it's a little overwhelming as he thinks about it, because he finds himself in the exact same position as he had been in before. except this time, it isn't just him anymore. he has mako, now, and that alone is enough to make the unknown just a tiny bit more exhilirating.

he lets the smile on his face play out, fading into a softer one. ]

We could always go on a road trip. Just grab a car, pick a direction, and go.

[ this is something he and yancy used to do together when they were on leave, and even before that (when things were simpler, with their mom, dad, and jazmine). it doesn't feel wrong to share this with mako. hell, it even felt like the right thing to do. ]

askdfj don't apologize i'm just glad you tagged back *^*

[synchronised]

[ Raleigh's not the only one left a little cowed by thoughts of the future. Mako has spent the past nine years of her life so focused on getting herself into the conn-pod — looking for a means to both fight the kaiju and avenge the death of her family — that she'd never really considered what would come after. (Or that there'd be an after at all.)

Becoming a jaeger pilot required a certain level of self-sacrifice and part of that sacrifice was accepting the possibility of not coming back every time they strapped in. Picked fences, domesticity, settling down — these were things that never entered into the equation just because there was never enough time and never enough room.

But now there's the possibility of it, and it begs the question: would they take it? Would they flounder?

Raleigh's suggestion answers that question.

Mako gets a sense of it's harder to hit a moving target but also I don't need bedrock for my roots, so long as I have you. It fills Mako with a feeling she can't quite place. A tangle of appreciation and humility made warm by fondness and understanding. With it comes a giddiness too. The tickle of possibility.

Dipping her chin she hides a smile. ]

I don't know how to drive, [ she admits, a little embarrassed of the fact. Plug her into a jaeger and she'll manage just fine, but her behind the wheel of a car — you've got another thing coming. ]