Girders

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Logan half-dozes in the evening sun, sprawled on the grass in the neighbourhood park, hands tucked under his head.

"Heeey, Buttercup," sings Panda.

"I'm busy."

"And I'm bored," Panda whines, plunking down beside him.

"Bug someone who cares." Logan doesn't bother opening his eyes.

She nudges his ribs.

He grunts.

"Let's sneak into the Jaeger base."

Logan opens his eyes, raises an eyebrow. "Why?"

"'cause I'm bored."

He rolls his eyes.

"It'll be fun."

"You've got a weird idea of fun." Pushes to sitting, crosses his legs. "You'll wreck your scholarship chances if you get caught."

"So? We don't get caught."

"You're crackers."

"/**You're** one to talk."

"Your uncle will kick my ass."

"Only if we get caught." Panda bats her eyelashes. "C'mon, Buttercup. Please?"

Logan studies her face for a beat. "Fiiine." Heaves himself to his feet, dusts off his trousers.

"Whoohoo!" Panda shoots off toward the train station.

Logan sighs, ambles after her.

Two stations later, they hop out, stroll to a shabby boarding house hunkered on the corner of a block of hard-worn buildings.

"Up the stairs, second floor, go right, straight ahead."

Panda steps onto the landing, wrinkles her nose. "No wonder you don't host slumber parties."

"Ever think I don't because I hate people?" Logan cajoles the door into unlocking, swings it open, flicks on the light, bows Panda inside.

She scopes the place out. "Judging by this place, you hate yourself, too."

Logan closes and chains the door, grumbles, "Last I checked, I'm a person." He nabs a badly bruised leather jacket from the back of the door, loads the pockets with supplies from under the sink, tosses Panda a pair of grippy gloves.

She examines them. "You know these are waaay too big for me, ay?"

"Guess you'll have to go without, then."

Panda tosses them back.

Logan tucks them away. "Dump your mobile and everything but train fare and let's get going."

Tech and assorted crap hit the mattress.

"Why do girls carry so much shit everywhere?"

"Says the guy who just stuffed his pockets."

Logan shrugs, 'got me there', nudges her toward the door.

Out they go, Logan locks up, and they catch the next train east.

Panda tap-tap-taps her toes on the train.

Logan idly watches the other passengers.

Two transfers, onto a bus, and they're back on the street.

A block and Panda breaks the silence: "What's the plan?"

"'Don't get caught'."

"Hardy-har-har."

"We find an easy-to-reach, partially lit section of fence, check the security system, break it, hop the fence, and go adventuring."

"Cool."

Four quiet blocks paralleling the fence from a street away.

Logan snaps a turn base-wise.

Panda trips—

Logan steadies her.

—falls into step. "Thanks."

Logan grunts, stops in front of the chain-link-and-wire barrier, sizes it up. He sighs.

"What?"

"Don't like this much." Zips closed his jacket pockets, tosses it over an angle bracket.

"What's wrong?"

"Barbed instead of razor wire." Grimaces. "Probably something worrisome on the other side."

"Like what?"

"No idea."

"Some expert you are."

"We can go home."

Panda huffs.

Logan tilts his head toward the fence. "Ladies first."

"Why me?"

"So you set off the booby traps."

"You suck." But she grabs hold, shimmies up and over, drops to the ground on the far side.

Logan's over a moment later, pulling the coat down after him, shrugging it back on.

They stroll in and out of shadows.

"Looks like a construction site. Whee."

Panda elbows him. "Yea, you see girders like those—" Bobs her chin toward the skeleton of a building in the distance. "—every day."

"Wait."

She rocks back a step.

"/**Finally.**"

"What?"

"How's your pitching arm?"

"Aim's better than my speed."

"Awe/**some**." Passes her a nut from his pocket. "Hit that white box—" Points. "—as close to dead-center as you can."

"Why aren't you throwing it?"

"Want your fingerprints on the evidence."

Panda glares.

Logan smiles sweetly.

She shrugs, winds up, launches the metal.

A distant /*crack*.

"What was that, anyway?"

Logan shrugs. "Some kinda sensor. Weegie likes 'em, whatever they are." [Angles them] for the framework of what will probably be the hangar someday.

"You made me break one of Weegie's toys."

"It's probably the army's, not hers."

Panda jogs after him. "/**That's** comforting."

"If you were worried, you shoulda asked first," huffs Logan.

"I think I'll hope it's the army's. Weegie'd kill us both. You especially. Last I heard, she's still pissed about that thing you did."

"That was just business."

Panda rolls her eyes.

Logan looks up at the first steel column, and up and up, "No reason for her to take it personally—" Whistles. "That's high."

Panda sniffs. "Jaegers are eighty meters tall."

"Jesus."

"They're walking skyscrapers." Wistful sigh. "It'd be so /**awesome** to jockey one."

Logan shrugs, peers down an enormous elevator shaft.

She steps beside him. "Wonder what they're gonna keep down there?"

"Captured alien technology." Grins. "Probably have a whole collection of mobiles they took off the Kaiju."

"How 'bout I give you a shove so you can find out if that's true?"

"Good luck getting outta here if you do."

She smirks. "I've already got my escape route planned."

"If you're thinking of using that path behind the foreman's shack, you'll never make it."

"How'd—? Why not?"

Logan heads up a scaffold. "Be/**cause** there's another of Weegie's toys—little black stripe up the wall—that you can't break or bypass without a lot of alarms. You need an RFID tag to get through clean and we don't have one."

"Oh." Panda scrambles up behind him. "How do you know all this?"

He grimaces, hoists himself onto the next level. "Trial and error." Offers Panda a hand up.

"Ouch." She ignores him, swings herself up.

"Yea." Admires the view.

Panda plunks down on the scaffold, swings her feet over the edge.

Logan shrugs, joins her.

"We need a building this /**huge** for machines people actually /**drive**," she breathes. "/**Awesome.**"

"You really think it'd be cool to be a pilot."

"Yea! Don't you?"

"Being locked in a giant tin can while a monster tries to rip my head off. Sounds like a /**swell** time."

"You'd be great at it."

Logan scoffs. "'cause I'm so good at being locked up, taking orders—"

"Kicking the asses of people bigger than you ...."

"Sounds more like /**you** than me, Ames."

Panda hums.

## Original text

"While I've got you—"

Logan snorts.

"—I want to ask a favor."

An eyebrow quirks.

"I, umm, want pictures—snapshots—of the inside of the Jaeger base they're building across town."

The eyebrow climbs higher.

"For, you know, reference. Art."

"You want me to sneak into a military base and take snaps so you can paint pretty pictures."

"Well, when you put it like that, just—"

"Never said I wouldn't do it." Grins. "Sounds like fun."

"Oh. Great!" Reaches for a notebook. "Here's my—"

"Keep it."

"But you don't—"

"Only way you're getting those pictures is if you take 'em yourself. You're coming with me."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. You want pictures, you take 'em."

Jackson chews his lip.

"C'mon, Jack. Live a little."

"Fine," mumbles Jackson.

"Awe/**some**. Gimme a couple of days to scout it out and I'll drop back in with a plan."

"It better be a good one. I can/not go to jail."

"I don't want to go any more than you do. It's not my favorite place to spend a weekend." Smirks. "Still, it's not /**so** bad. You might even learn something."

"Not sure I want to learn anything jail can teach me."

"You might be surprised at how widely applicable some of the stuff is."

"What parts do you think you'll want to see?"

"Uh, Jaeger bays for sure. And anything else that looks, umm, interesting."

Logan rolls his eyes. "Jack, that thing covers /**acres**. We'll need targets if we want to get in and out without getting caught."

Jackson loses a little colour, scrubs at his face. "Okay. Uh. Jaeger bays. Something with a lot of small spaces, like a brig or crew quarters. A mechanical room with some of the equipment in place. Hangar doors if they're up. A long, straight corridor. Umm ...."

"And targets of opportunity," finishes Logan.

"Yea."

"Here's your shopping list. Get the most generic kind you can at the most generic place you can."

Jackson scans the paper. "Nuts? Planning on a snack?"

"Not that kind, dingus. Nuts, like nuts-and-bolts. The metal kind."

"What do you use those for?"

"Bunch of different things."

Jackson frowns.

"I've already got the more specialized stuff, that's just your basic kit."