ℙ𝕒𝕔𝕚𝕗𝕚𝕔 ℝ𝕚𝕞 : 𝔼𝕧𝕖𝕟𝕥 ℍ𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕫𝕠𝕟 • 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐨 & 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐚

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

ᴘʀᴇsᴇɴᴛ ᴅᴀʏ - 11 ᴅᴇᴄᴇᴍʙᴇʀ 2034 - 9.02ᴀᴍ
~𝐻𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑑 𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑎, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑃𝐷𝐶 𝑁𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑠𝑎𝑘𝑖 𝑆ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑑𝑜𝑟𝑚, 𝑁𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑠𝑎𝑘𝑖, 𝐽𝑎𝑝𝑎𝑛.

Mako sighed through her nose at the sound of the rubber end of a cane tapping against the hard tar that was catching up to the click of her heels.

She placed her hand onto the edge of her blazer jacket before turning around to face the German man's limping with a small smile.

"Dr.Gottlieb," Mako blew out. "Shouldn't you be supervising in the K-Science Lab right now?"

"Babysitting was never my strong suit, Marshall, you know that," he frowned. "Besides, what the point in supervising a bunch of new officers who are about to lose their jobs in the next twenty-four hours alongside with me."

"Hermann," she said softly. "I'm not going to be there to surrender. "

Hermann Gottlieb looked at Mako with dull eyes hidden behind lopsided spectacles.

It was as the head of the Kaiju Science Division feared. He was going to lose the livelihood he had built over the past decade to a debatably smarter and much younger woman with a stern vision for business. It was inevitable. He even ran the numbers on the possibility Liwen Shao would change her mind. 98.5018% when rounded off to the nearest ten-thousandth for precision. The odds couldn't be lower, and the numbers don't lie. Certain death is what awaited his career.

"And what's the formulaic constitution you used to fall onto that conclusion?"

"I don't need numbers to tell me who I feel inside," Mako laughed softly. "I'm confident that she will listen."

Hermann pressed his lips together and looked out into the wind as he put his thoughts into words.

"I want to be there when they tell you it's over. To meet whoever's going to replace me." He hit his cane on the ground, and he cleared his throat. "No matter how disheveled I look."

He patted the off-white lab coat stained with burns from Kaiju Blue, letting out more dust than he was proud of. The woman puffed her cheeks out as he continued.

"And I-I also want to be there," he paused, "when they tell you that it isn't over."

His voice was filled with somber as he choked back the lump on his throat. "Either way, I wanted to have a head start on cleaning out all whiskey flasks hidden in various drawers around the lab. The other officers are being rather cheeky about it."

Mako nodded her head with a small smile. He may have seen horrors within the working at the forefront of humanity's fight against the Kaiju, but he still had hope within him. He wants to support her through thick and thin.

"I'm sure HR has received enough complaints about that already," she took a step towards him as the air around them began to fill the force of the helicopter's descent onto the landing pad.

"Your father would have skinned me alive if he found out that I was a workaholic and an alcoholic simultaneously," he chuckled, rare sight she hardly ever sees from the uptight man.

"And what probability makes you think that I wouldn't skin you for that when we get back."

"You exasperate me, Marshall Mako, you truly do," he says as her hair flies into his mouth, which he promptly tries to swat at with his free hand.

"If you aren't going to be redundant by the end of the day, Hermann," she yelled as the helicopter blades drowned out her voice, "you looking at a dismissal"