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And onwards

(People had warned him about this; that the doors could have this sort of mind of their own in that they could grab you, like a door could kidnap a person and change their history. Chase sort of hadn't bought that, until...)

The door behind him slammed shut and it had an air of finality to it. Everything here was too quiet ever since the wall had been torn down and the news that everyone who was still contributing to the mission was to move on to Hong Kong. Sydney Shatterdome was shutting down, with all its personnel. Chase didn't exactly know whether he wanted to move on, given the fact that they probably already had their fair share of doctors there and it wasn't like he was a pilot or anything. He patched them up when they came back and yeah, he knows that's important work, but there's plenty of doctors.

Sighing, he heads up to the control centre and collapses in one of the ancient chairs that'll probably be left behind. He's not sure what's going to happen to everything, but he can't imagine it'll stay long. People might try and move further inland, in the desperate hopes that the Outback might stop the kaiju, but how long is that going to last?

Poking and prodding at a few of the now-defunct buttons, Chase reaches forward to grab one of the small toy-kaijus they'd always kept up here of Scissure, like they needed to remember why half of Sydney wasn't standing like it used to be.

So now it was stay here and wait or move on to Hong Kong.

Before he could take the time to process that decision, though, he heard the telltale scrape of a door that told Chase that someone else was lurking around -- to pillage or salvage or finish off work, he didn't know, but it made him feel somewhat relieved to know he wasn't the only one having trouble moving forward.

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Ben had been assigned to Sydney for only a little while but it already felt more like home than any place he'd lived for a long while. He'd grown up splitting time between India and England, the latter a much safer option when kaiju started rising up from the oceans. As soon as he was old enough to sign up, he'd joined the Rangers and done a damned fine job of stopping kaiju before they stopped him.

And now they were closing up the only real chance to stop them. Ben didn't have a lot of faith in the Wall. What was to say a kaiju wouldn't just plow right through it? Or, hell, they had new shapes every day. The next one could have wings.

"Still here, Chase? I thought I was the only one left."

"Don't exactly know where I'm going next," he admits, setting the little toy kaiju down as he shoots a smile over his shoulder, giving a hapless shrug. "Probably an ER somewhere, but it's pretty sad when you can take your pick up and down the pacific rim knowing that eventually, there'll be an event and the beds will fill right up," he says, always the realist. "What about you? Why are you still kicking around?"

"I've never known when to quit a fight," Ben admitted. It was true. He had a tendency to bet on the underdog or, in this particular case, fight for them. He couldn't simply give up on jaegers when he didn't fully believe that the Wall was going to do them any good. Being passive and idle never did anything to turn the tide of a war.

"I thought about heading to Hong Kong and seeing if they had a place for an old man like me. You don't normally get old enough to have crow's feet as a Ranger." Ben figured he only had a few years or so on Chase but it felt like an eternity.

"Maybe I can get in a few more fights before they decommission all of us."

Chase couldn't help his derisive snort. "You're not old," he says dismissively. "You might think you are, but I did your last physical and everything about you is in fine fighting shape. The more you keep saying you're old, the more I'm going to remind you otherwise." He spins in his chair, back and forth, peering out the window. "So, what do you think? Are we all doomed? Kaiju-bait?"

"Maybe. I like to think humanity is a little more creative and resilient than that. Millions of years of evolution...we'll adapt. We'll change, we'll overcome. There's more people capable of drifting now than they're used to be, you know? I can't help but think we're adapting to fight the kaiju off."

Chase might be a doctor but Ben had always had a healthy appreciation for science himself, even if he was on the front lines.

"I'm probably too pessimistic for this whole end of the world thing," Chase snorts, giving Ben a wry smile as he gives the console a little kick. "How about we get out of here and find a place where we can get a drink?" he suggests. "At this point, there's nothing but ghosts left and there is a bar very near to here that's half price because they're leaving town and want to sell as much as they can."

"I'd like to be drunk if I'm going to greet my last sunrise," Ben agreed. Alcohol might numb the sense of loss he felt at losing the jaeger program and, seemingly, giving up.

"First round on me?"

"Sure," Chase agrees, even though he has more than enough money to cover the both of them through however many rounds they each want. Still, he's definitely not one to turn down free alcohol. "You really think we've got a limited number left?" he asks, even though he already knows. He might only be a medical doctor, but people talk and they like to ramble when they're being checked out.

He knows the events are happening more often and becoming more and more dangerous. "You ever think of heading into the Outback? Not much ocean there. I'd like to see a kaiju survive those temperatures."

"Maybe, maybe not. I've been thinking about the Outback. I have to get over my aversion to heat and dust," Ben teased, grinning at him. "But I think safety would end up trumping any aesthetic concerns. Did you know, before all the kaiju and everything, my goal in life was to own waterfront property? Now you can't even pay people to live there."

The only people who lived along the oceans now were those who were too stubborn to go anywhere else or those who were too poor to move. Ben did not envy them in the slightest. At least his bunk provided a little protection.

Chase snorts at the notion and then feels bad for all those people who did have nice property on the water, once upon a time. His own family had been some of them. "Well, there's probably a lot for sale and dirt cheap," he points out with a rueful smile. "You'd just have to make sure the bunker went very, very deep into the ground. Unless the kaiju figured out how to mine, too."

"The next one will have mining picks in place of the claws," Ben said, snorting in reply. "They always seem to know how to adapt. That's why I think...we just have to be smarter about it, at the end of the day. Humanity is clever enough to have survived this long. I think we can outlast them."

Ultimately, Ben thought the difference might be hope. Hope seemed to make amazing things happen.

"Maybe we should be adapting, too," he says, even though that's not his field at all. "I don't know. They build the giant robots, I just tend to the human bodies that come out of them." Holding the door open for Ben, he takes a moment to look at the Shatterdome, probably for the last time in its current form. "What do you think they're going to do with it?"

"Maybe build more shelters for the people who can't afford to move inland," Ben said, stepping through the door and looking back one last time.

"It would hold up a little better than the average."

Chase sights the closest bar, a run-down thing that barely has enough staff to keep it functioning, but will do the job nicely. He leads Ben in that direction, hating the thought of going into a shelter to hide. Then again, they'll likely need all the medical help they can get there, too. Taking a stool, Chase lifts his fingers to signify he needs drinks, ordering them two of the strongest stuff they can find.

"Cheers to hiding out."

"Cheers to being drunk enough that being a coward matters less," Ben said dryly in response, lifting his glass. The alcohol burned a path down his throat and settled low, making him feel a little unsettled. Maybe a few more drinks would set that right.

"We should look into the Outback. Do you know anyone out there?"

He shakes his head. "Most people I knew went to the Atlantic side of the US," he admits. "Or London. Unless there's some kaiju coming up from the ocean on that side, it seems fairly safe." He could even get a flight out, going from Dubai to London, he figures, but that reeks of running away. Chase just wishes it didn't feel so easy and right, didn't pull at him. "Maybe that's the best thing to do. If the world's going to end, it'll end, but at least we won't worry about how."

"I'd feel guilty, I think," Ben said. He had thought about it before, taking what money he had and putting into some grand escape to some place far from the Pacific Rim but in the end, he was a fighter and not a runner. He wanted to make a difference for everyone and not just himself.

"I'll probably end up in Hong Kong trying to fight them off after we're decommissioned. I just...I feel awful about just throwing it in."

"You're good at that stuff," Chase said, raising his glass to Ben and giving him all the credit he's due. "And besides, your end of the ticket is a lot more specialized than mine. I'm sure they're already calling you like crazy trying to get you to Hong Kong. What've you got, five missed messages?" he teases.

Ben whipped out his phone to check. "Six, actually, because I'm a lot more desirable than you think I am. I've got to get back to them but...not right now."

Right now, he wanted to drown his sorrows for a minute and regroup.

"So, basically, let's get rip-roaring drunk and fuck the world?" Chase suggested, having come from a line of alcoholics who made poor decisions. This was practically up his alley to make a bad decision and completely be an idiot. "I'm all for that plan."

"It's been a while since I was truly drunk. Not a good idea to drift while intoxicated," Ben pointed out. "I think it actually makes your drift partner drunk too...not that I have tried it personally. I've just heard the horror stories."

"I wouldn't know. It's not like any of my family members really survived past the drinking to ever make it to the drift with me." And besides that, Chase had way, way too many issues to even be considering drifting. He couldn't put those levels of crap on anyone else and he knew that. "You planning on fighting any kaiju soon or something?"

"Right now? No," Ben said with a quick chuckle. "Right now, I intend to drink until I go practically blind and then stumble home with the first available person. Hopefully my judgment won't be too impaired. Sometimes you regret who you wake up with."

"I can make sure you leave here with your virtue intact, if that's what you want," Chase says, because sometimes people want the experience of leaving and not really going home with the right person. "It is the end of the world, though, and you're an attractive man. I'm sure you could pull anyone you like."

"Yeah? Want to make bets on who I can pull?" That sounded marginally more interesting than being maudlin about the end of humanity as he knew it and Ben thought it would be a fun distraction. It had been a long time since he had allowed himself to be distracted.

"Don't think you'd have trouble pulling any yourself, to be honest."

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