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"Wonder Boy, I'm here! Hurry up and come get me!"
Early in the morning, Ryan got a call from Chloe, her voice so keyed up it sounded like she was about to start bouncing in place.
"Coming, coming!" Ryan answered, hurriedly pulled a jacket on, and slipped out the dorm door.
For his sixteenth birthday, Chloe naturally had to be there in person. So she'd settled her arrival time with him well in advance.
The area around Redcliff in November was still fairly warm. With a jacket on, there was no need to worry about catching a cold.
Arriving at the main gate of the controlled zone, Ryan spotted Chloe in a down jacket so thick she'd all but wrapped herself into a penguin.
She'd only just gotten back from the country's far north.
The two drivers who'd gone to fetch her were still standing beside her, and only slipped quietly away once they saw Ryan walking over.
"Long time no see, Wonder Boy!!!" The moment Chloe laid eyes on him, she pounced.
"You've gotten heavier!" Ryan caught the incoming not-so-little girl, and it was like catching a boulder. Serious mass, serious momentum.
"What are you spouting off about!?" Chloe's feet returned to the ground. She clenched her little fists and fixed Ryan with a dangerous stare.
"Ahem." Ryan's eyes darted around. "It must be that I haven't exercised in too long. My fitness has slipped."
Only then did Chloe nod in satisfaction.
"Lead the way, then!"
She pointed ahead, ordering Ryan onward.
Walking into the controlled zone that had grown into a little science city, she reacted exactly as Ryan's parents had, sighing in amazement the whole way.
"This place really does have everything!"
"That internet cafe is so cool!"
"There's even a restaurant? You've already got cafeterias. Do people seriously still go out to eat?"
She was like a curious little kid, hauling Ryan along by the hand, wanting to poke her head into every shop along the commercial street, wanting to stroll every path in the park. That enthusiasm, though, was soon sabotaged by the sound of her own stomach.
Grrrrowl.
"I'm hungry. When are we eating!"
Ryan wiped the sweat off his forehead. He hadn't expected that in all this time away, Chloe's weight had gone up and her stamina had somehow gone up right along with it. Just now he'd been like some poor fool of a human being getting hauled around every which way by an overexcited husky.
"Then let's go eat right now. I'll lead. We'll walk slowly."
The controlled zone had two cafeterias these days, the old one and a new one built along with the new base, together able to comfortably handle the daily meals of at least twenty thousand people.
Naturally, Ryan brought Chloe to the new cafeteria. It was where he'd been eating lately anyway.
At the cafeteria, he loaded up a heaping plate of drumsticks for Chloe, then carried his own food back to the table and got ready to eat.
"Boss, got a question for you." Kyle suddenly dropped into the seat beside him, slinging an arm over Ryan's shoulder.
"It's about Triton-1's brain-control device... the... the..."
Kyle had just sat down when, in one glance, he saw the person sitting on Ryan's other side slowly raise her head.
Meeting the gaze Chloe sent over, in a single instant, certain memories from back at MIT came flooding home.
Danger!
"Ahahaha, I just remembered I left laundry hanging out at home. I'll come ask another time..."
With that, Kyle turned tail and bolted like a startled white rabbit.
Ryan watched his fleeing back, caught somewhere between laughing and crying. "Look how badly you scared him."
Chloe blinked, gazing after Kyle's retreating figure in pure bafflement. "Who was that? What just happened?"
She had completely forgotten who Kyle was.
Ryan shook his head. "Never mind. If you've forgotten, let it stay forgotten."
"Tell me how the work with the film crew went instead."
Over the summer, Chloe had followed her teacher into a production crew to build up filming experience, which was exactly why she hadn't had time to come visit him at the base.
For a college sophomore, an opportunity like that was hard to come by.
"Don't even bring it up." Chloe's pretty face puffed up into two little pouches. "It was nothing like the directing I imagined!"
"And the teacher supervising me shoots romance art films! All misty rain and longing looks, every single day. Not one special effect. Not one bit of excitement!"
"If it wouldn't have been mortifying, I'd have bailed ages ago!"
On this subject, Chloe lost interest even in her drumsticks.
Ryan laughed out loud. "Isn't that just the state of the domestic film scene?"
Chloe's eyes flashed wide. "I don't care. I am going to shoot a big-budget effects blockbuster!"
As she spoke, her eyes rolled once in thought, then locked dead onto Ryan.
"Wonder Boy. I have an idea."
Ryan's neck shrank down into his collar. This did not feel good.
"What do you say I shoot a mech movie? A mech movie that makes people's eyes light up!"
"A mech movie? Hasn't that been done to death?"
Over this past year and more, ever since Scrapper came into the world, mech-themed film and television had been the biggest trend going.
At home and abroad alike, a flood of mech-related works had appeared. Some were good, some were bad, and together they'd harvested an enormous share of the public's attention.
"Mech Fortress just came out to that massive response, practically blinding everybody. And you think you can shoot a mech movie that makes people's eyes light up?"
Ryan recalled Chloe's dreadful camerawork from filming videos back in the day, and expressed his doubts about her abilities.
Chloe glared over a warning look and stressed, "What I shoot next won't be like everyone else's!"
Buzzing with excitement, she laid it out for him.
"Tell me. What if we took that seabed monster element from your old interview and put it into a movie?"
"Aliens build a wormhole under the floor of the Pacific and start dropping giant monsters onto Earth. To fight the monsters, humanity has no choice but to build enormous mechs like Crimson Typhoon. And then it's giant mechs versus giant monsters, battle after battle!!!"
"Well? Doesn't that sound absolutely stunning?"
"And there's a market for it overseas! Tons of people abroad believe your monster invasion theory!"
Uh.
Ryan looked at Chloe's face, lit up with excitement, and for a moment had no idea what to say.
"Ugh, the one thing is, I don't know how to explain why they don't just kill the giant monsters with missiles, and have to beat them to death with mechs instead." Chloe scratched at her hair, the very picture of frustration.
"Because the monsters' blood carries a violent toxin. Blow one up and the toxin spills out, causing nearly irreversible contamination!" Ryan answered on pure reflex.
Chloe's eyes lit up. She seized Ryan's shoulders and shook him wildly. "That's brilliant! You really are the founder of monster theory!"
"That settles it. I'm giving you a cameo in my movie. A genius scientist!"
Ryan: ...
Wasn't this just Pacific Rim, goddamn it!?
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