[Eva][FanFic] Neon Exodus Evangelion 3:7 - The Third Child

[Benjamin D. Hutchins]

/* Genesis "Land of Confusion" (Extended CD-Single version) */

EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED
presents

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION

EXODUS 3:7
THE THIRD CHILD

Inspired by NEON GENESIS EVANGELION created by Hideaki Anno, Gainax,
et al.

Most characters created by Hideaki Anno and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto
except

DJ Croft created by Benjamin D. Hutchins
and
Jon Ellison created by Larry Mann

Additional material and inspiration cadged from TOMB RAIDER by Core
Design, Ltd., X-COM: UFO DEFENSE and sequels from MPS Labs (whoever
owns them nowadays), THE X-FILES created by Chris Carter, and
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by Arthur C. Clarke

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN' by Bob Dylan

LIED DER DEUTSCHEN by Franz Joseph Haydn
and Heinrich Hoffman van Fallersleben

Written by Benjamin D. Hutchins, Larry Mann,
MegaZone and John Trussell

Aided and abetted by the Eyrie Productions, Unlimited crew
and special-guest-for-life Phil Moyer

Anne Cross, asker of the questions whose answering improves the
material

With special thanks to the incomparably paranoid Richard Belzer

(c) 1999 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

Gendou Ikari had given up his Director's office gladly. It
was inappropriate for his new role at NERV, it was ostentatious, it
was the site of many unpleasant memories, and anyway, it was cold and
rather dark. Now he worked out of a cramped little room off the main
admin corridor. It had been deemed too small for an office when the
rooms on this level had been originally assigned, and so had been used
for storage, but it had one window, and that window had a pleasing
view of Pyramid Pond. Though tiny, the room was big enough to hold a
desk, a terminal, a bookshelf and two chairs, if only barely. Ikari,
while scouting for a new place to work, had found the place full of
toilet tissue and cleaning supplies.
Without hesitation, he'd pitched the lot out into the hallway
and was in the process of stealing a desk from the communal
junior-TechDiv offices when a young man with thick black hair and
glasses had stopped him. This young man, in a curious combination of
politeness and indignation, informed Gendou Ikari of two important
facts:
1) His (the young man's) name was Makoto Hyuuga; and
2) Gendou Ikari was stealing his (Makoto Hyuuga's) desk.
Faced with this revelation, Ikari had immediately apologized,
and then enlisted the young man's help in scouring the immediate area
for a desk no one else was using. It took them an hour to find one,
and another to wrestle it into an elevator and bring it up six levels,
then wrangle it into the former storage room and get it situated just
so. It was a big gray steel affair with seven drawers and a scarred
linoleum top, almost as wide as the office; getting it through the
door had been a test of Ikari and Hyuuga's engineering skills as well
as their backs. To get behind it and sit down, Ikari had to climb
over one end of it, which he had to clear of papers each time he
wanted to leave his office.
The bookcase and the non-swiveling visitor chair had been
easier; those, Ikari had pilfered from John Trussell's old office.
Truss wouldn't be needing them; he'd moved into Maya Ibuki's office
when Maya had, in turn, taken over Ritsuko Akagi's. All that
shuffling around was, perhaps, not very productive, since they would
all be leaving the facility entirely within three months if things
went according to plan, but certainly both parties involved deserved
the change of setting along with their increased responsibilities.
There had barely been room in the tiny storeroom-cum-office
for Ikari's chair, but he jammed it into the space behind the desk
anyway. It was the only thing he'd allowed himself to keep from his
old office, except for the framed picture of his son that stood at the
corner of his desk on the side nearer the wall. It loomed there, big,
brown and leathery, far too big for its setting but offset a little
bit by the fact that the desk was also too big for the room.
He was there, shuffling through some files trying to find the
last set of preliminary specs for Archangelion that the Halifax team
had sent down. They were in here somewhere, he knew, buried under a
ream or two of manpower reports and moving plans that someone in the
bureaucracy had forwarded to him even though he wasn't the Director
any more and had nothing to do with them. From time to time, he
glanced at the telephone as if hoping it would ring.
There was a knock on the frame of the office's open door. The
office door was always open; closing it would require putting the
visitor's chair up on the desk or out in the hall. Ikari glanced up
and was surprised to see DJ Croft standing in the doorway.
Ikari cocked an eyebrow. "Mr. Croft!" he said. "I hadn't
expected you, of all people, to come visit me. I take it this isn't a
social call?"
DJ looked a trifle sheepish. "Actually, it is, Professor.
Can I come in for a moment?"
"I suppose," Ikari said dryly, "that depends on whether you
intend to kill me."
DJ's sheepish look took on an overtone of outright
embarrassment. "That's what I want to talk to you about."
"Well, by all means then, come in." Gendou waved toward the
visitor's chair. "Enjoy the sumptuous accommodations."
DJ sat. "Look, Professor - I can't deny that I've said a lot
of nasty things to you over the last year, and most of them, I meant.
But as it turns out, it wasn't really you I was saying them to, was
it? Since the scene went down in your old office a bit back, I've had
to do a lot of thinking about that, and I don't think I have any
reason to hate you."
"You have no way of knowing how much of what I did before then
was my decision," Ikari pointed out. "Perhaps I'm a ruthless, evil
man, and the creature was just there to try to moderate my behavior."
DJ shook his head. "I might believe that if I hadn't seen you
fighting it," he replied. "One of you wanted to kill me - one of you
was willing to kill Rei to do it - and it wasn't Gendou Ikari."
Gendou considered this for a moment, then gave a satisfied
nod. "A rational conclusion," he decided. "Assuming, of course, that
you, or anyone else, know who Gendou Ikari is any more. I'm not
certain -I- do."
"How long had the Enemy been controlling you?"
"Almost twelve years, since just after my wife died," Ikari
replied. "I suppose I was most vulnerable then. Yui was everything
in the world to me; I didn't count my work as competition, because we
worked together, and my work was her work. When she was gone, I tried
to find out what had happened. I didn't believe the official report
that it had been an accident. I went in search of the truth." He
smiled, a bitter, ironic smile. "Well, I found it, and it took over
my mind.
"I can't blame it for everything that went wrong in my life
after that, though. I had already started down a self-destructive
path. My obsession with learning the truth about Yui's death, my
obsession with continuing her work to honor her memory - between those
two obsessions I had no time for the things that had been my life. I
ignored my son, with the result that he now hates me. I abandoned all
my hobbies, everything that gave me pleasure in life. It may come as
a surprise to you, DJ, but I had interests, once, outside my work. I
played chess. In college, I was the captain of the Nekomi Institute
of Technology's Kendo Club."
"No kidding," said DJ, impressed. "Always wanted to learn
that, but I move around so much I never have the time."
Ikari smiled nostalgically. "I loved baseball, too. Was a
passable pitcher in college, had a hell of a fastball, if I do say so
myself. 'Rocket' Rokobungi, that was me."
"Uh, 'Rocket' what?" DJ asked.
Gendou gave him a puzzled look, then nodded. "Oh, of course.
You wouldn't know that I took my wife's name when we married."
"Ah!" said DJ, and then, in an undertone, "(I can see why.)"
Gendou chuckled. "Indeed. Anyway, if I thought about it for
a few minutes, I could probably still give you all the relevant stats
for any member of the 2001 Red Sox." Ikari's eyes lit up with
happiness at the memory. "Ah, That was a magical season! The world
lay in ruins, some parts of it still wracked by calamity. A year
before, Boston had drowned and the Sox had fled to Pawtucket. San
Francisco was under a dome, struggling to survive. And still there
was baseball. Those two teams managed to overcome the worst
conditions in the country and make it all the way to the World
Series." Ikari grinned wryly. "Unfortunately, the Sox broke with
their tradition of winning the Series everytime they move to a new
ballpark. Perhaps McCoy Stadium was inelegible because it wasn't
technically new."
DJ smiled. "D'you think they'll ever win the whole thing?"
"I suppose that depends on whether there's a next year," said
Ikari lightly, as if he the contingency involved were good weather,
not the continued survival of humanity. "Oh, by the way," said Ikari,
picking an item up from his desk blotter and tossing it across to DJ,
"I think this might be yours."
DJ looked at the item, and then his face took on a look of
surprise with a tinge of wonder. It was a copy of "A Night To
Remember", in a condition that might charitably be called
'well-thumbed'. If it was DJ's missing copy, it looked as if it had
spent ten years in a lending library in the months it had been gone.
He looked inside the front cover. Yep, there were his initials; it
was his, all right.
"Where'd you get it?" he wondered as he tucked it into a
pocket of his jacket.
"I'm not sure," he said. "I think Colonel Keller left it on
my desk a couple of weeks before... " Gendou made an expressive
shrug, indicating that he hadn't yet thought of a convenient, short
way to refer to the events of the previous few weeks.
"Hm. Last I knew, Rei had misplaced it in the infirmary. I
wonder how many hands it's passed through since then."
Ikari looked thoughtful. "I think Otto gave it to me as a
message, trying to remind me of happier days. There was a movie that
my wife and I were fond of during our courtship... " He paused,
sighed, cleaned his glasses, and went on, "If you don't mind, I don't
think I'd like to go there just yet."
"Sorry," said DJ, getting up. "I've taken up enough of your
time. I just wanted to tell you... I'm willing to blank the slate and
start over, if you want."
Gendou Ikari smiled. "I think, Mr. Croft, that I'd like
that. Come by again tomorrow if you like. I don't get much company
down here."
DJ grinned. "I'll do that."

John Trussell sat at the master console in one of the
secondary EVA control rooms. Never used in battle, these rooms had
been prepared as contingencies should the Master Operations Control
Room be put out of action. They were much smaller than the MOCR, and
not as lavishly outfitted with recording, data-analysis and telemetry
gear. Makoto Hyuuga, seeing one on his operations-center tour shortly
after his promotion from Equipment Section to Operations, had called
them the "emergency battle closets". Gradually, over the course of
the project, all but one of them had been reassigned to other tasks
and re-outfitted accordingly. This one was the designated home base
of the Jet Alone Adaptation Initiative, and its heavy armor-glass
window overlooked the disused surface-to-air missile silo which had
been reassigned to house JA.
On the two largest monitors of the multi-function console,
Truss was surveying two diagrams. One was a schematic of Jet Alone,
reflecting the Mark II standard Truss and the Equipment Section had
arrived at after subjecting the original AG Systems design to two
weeks of intensive, critical scrutiny. Most of the original structure
had been left in place, but JA's multisectional, tentacle-like arms
had been replaced with magnetic-ram-driven solid-segment limbs like
the legs. This modification had strengthened the unit's upper body
considerably, giving it greater hand-to-hand combat capabilities; it
had also given the team some extra space in which to site JA MkII's
planned complement of integral weaponry.
On the other was a comparison chart of two energy-corona
diagrams. One, in red, was of an EVA's AT Field, generated based on
data gathered from EVA-01 during the full-power event it experienced
holding back the Eleventh Angel. The other, in blue, was of the more
complex energy interactions resulting from EVA-01's spontaneous
creation of a half-dozen Elerium colliders during its battle with the
Thirteenth Angel. A few days ago, while glancing through old reports
looking for operational information recorded by EVA-02 during its
encounter with JA, Truss had noticed these two diagrams, and they had
set something scratching at the back of his mind. Whatever it had
been, it hadn't fully formed into an idea, so he'd stuck the diagrams
on the other monitor, hoping that the notion would gestate while he
worked on the next revision of JA's operating software.
The unspoken truth about all of the effort and expense going
into the modifications of Jet Alone was, of course, that it was
probably all for nothing. Although the modifications John and his
team had devised for the unit would make it a very powerful weapon,
possibly the world's most effective land-based conventional combat
system, it remained just that, conventional. It had no Absolute
Terror Field capabilities, and as such, it couldn't hope to be
effective in battle against an Angel - or an Evangelion. Truss had
been given access to all the accumulated data on the AT Field, the
initial research group's speculations on the source of the field
within Angels and EVAs, and all the rest, but none of it had been of
avail. A frustrating problem, and apparently insoluble.
The door hissed behind him; he glanced over his shoulder and
smiled as he saw Maya Ibuki entering the room. She came over and put
a hand on his shoulder.
"How's it coming?" she asked.
"Oh, fine, I guess," said Truss. "Scrapping the AGSys code
and starting over was definitely the right call. I'd be going out of
my mind trying to adapt the old stuff to the new arm configuration,
let alone patching in weapons controls."
Maya chuckled. "I can imagine." The rotating energy-corona
comparison diagram caught her eye. "Huh, what's this?" she wondered,
leaning forward over Truss's right shoulder to get a better look at
it.
"Something that caught my eye the other day," Truss said. "I
thought it gave me an idea, but it passed before I could get a lock on
it. I've been hoping that if I left it there it'd come back to me."
Maya looked at the diagram again; then something snapped
behind her eyes, and her face slackened momentarily as the works
behind it went into high gear.
"Oh my God," she whispered. Then, leaning a bit further
forward, she reached and brushed Truss's hands away from the console.
She shifted the focus to the monitor with the energy diagrams on it,
then started manipulating the blue diagram. She fiddled with the
configuration a little, moving the colliders around, deleting four of
them, adding another back, and changing their relative positioning.
As she did, the interaction fields around them warped, shifting, as
the computer recalculated them on the fly based on the repositioning
of the cores that generated them.
When Maya had arranged the three colliders into a horizontal
row, Truss realized what she was doing. His eyes widened. He moved
his chair over to one of the other consoles, patched it through, and
the two of them started working on the problem together.

Asuka Soryu-Langley left the Evangelion test bay at noontime
with a definite spring in her step. She was scheduled for her first
full-activation Evangelion test the next day, with a surface
deployment and even, if they all felt particularly ambitious, a combat
simulation on the bill of fare. The Medical Section had certified her
"combat-worthy". That was not the same as "fully sound"; she still
had the occasional strange pain, her strength had not fully returned,
and she still walked with a slight limp. Her endurance was just about
back, though, and she could see the top of the recovery hill from
where she stood. She'd probably -always- have the slight limp,
anyway, unless she bothered to have further corrective surgery done;
all the reconstruction work on her right leg had left it a half-inch
or so shorter than the left. She doubted she'd care enough to get it
fixed; she barely noticed unless she actually stopped to think about
it, and it disappeared entirely if she ran.
As she passed through the empty Wedge, it occurred to her that
she hadn't been out on the plaza in front of Central Dogma's
GeoFront-surface (it couldn't really be called "above-ground") pyramid
in a long time, not since she and Jon had spoken next to Pyramid Pond
after the Skyfall Incident. She wasn't sure, now that she thought
about it, how many more opportunities she would get to do that, so
now, while she had the time, she went through the Wedge's outer doors
and out on to the wide expanse of white concrete. It was a pretty
spot, situated below one of the Geo-Front's larger skylights so that
it was bathed in natural sunlight, assuming any was to be had on the
surface, for most of the day. Now the light was faintly orange from
refraction through the skylight crystal, and it glittered on the
surface of the pond and washed the concrete into a golden
yellow-orange tint. She stood in the center of the plaza, facing the
pond, and looked up at the gleaming orange trapezoid of the skylight.
Movement caught the corner of her eye, and she glanced up to
see the Stars and Stripes fluttering at the top of its pole in the
slight breeze that was kept blowing across the plaza for just that
purpose. It was one of two dozen flags kept flying, a dozen on each
side of the plaza, representing the member nations that had originally
sanctioned NERV. No one had taken them down after NERV's defection
from its parent organization, even though some of the flags were now
inaccurate, representing countries not approving of X-COM.
Asuka turned to the right, walked across the plaza, and stood
looking up at the black, red and gold flag of the Federal Republic of
Germany. A tangle of emotions she hadn't known she had passed through
her. She'd never considered herself all that patriotic; in fact,
she'd hated the tiny, bucolic town her parents had insisted on
settling in, forty miles from the FEISAR complex outside Hamburg, and
wanted nothing more than to escape from it. She'd been ecstatic when
the Kriegsmarine fleet escorting EVA-02 had sailed away from what
she'd thought of as her dreary, boring, and rather stupid country of
origin.
Now, looking up at the flag, she felt sorrow and rage at the
thought of that country and its people under the thumb of SEELE,
ranked against its old enemy Britain in the setting-up phase of
another world conflict. The world political situation was sliding
toward outright war, with Germany, the United States, and other
SEELE-controlled nations speaking out loudly against Britain for its
X-COM/NERV-friendly policy. The United Nations was on the brink of
collapse. Even the most optimistic pundits thought it was only a
matter of months before the SEELE-controlled Bundeswehr and United
States Armed Forces launched attacks against X-COM facilities in the
UK, Canada, and possibly elsewhere in the Empire. Another global war
with Germany the villain; Asuka's heart cried out at the thought.
Gazing up at the flag, she stood to attention, raised a hand
in salute, tipped her chin up defiantly and raised her voice in song:

"Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Fuer das Deutsche Vaterland.
Danach laBt uns alle streben,
Bruederlich mit Herz und Hand.
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Sind des Glueckes Unterpfand.
Blueh' im Glanze dieses Glueckes,
Bluehe, deutsches Vaterland.
Blueh' im Glanze dieses Glueckes,
Bluehe, deutsches Vaterland!"

Asuka lowered her hand, stood respectfully for a moment, and
then lowered her eyes and walked back inside with a new resolve.
She'd never really thought she'd loved her country until it had been
lost to her. She hoped that someday she'd see Hamburg again.

Hours passed as Truss and Maya experimented with different
configurations, but with each minute, the frustation grew. It just
wasn't working. The elements looked promising, but something was
missing, some moderating factor, a key or catalyst to turn raw aligned
energies into a very special effect. It was the elusive magic of the
AT Field, and though Maya's idea had been a good one, they couldn't
make the energy fields produced by the Elerium cores' interactions
match the AT pattern, no matter how they fiddled with the
configuration.
Finally Truss pushed himself away from his console with a
disgruntled sigh.
"It's no good, Maya," he said. "There's some magic to it we
just don't understand."
"There's no such thing as magic," Maya replied, stubbornly
continuing to poke at the diagram. "Only a science more advanced than
we yet understand."
"Either way it's beyond us," Truss replied pessimistically.
He was hungry, and he never did his best thinking on an empty stomach.
Maya refused to be defeated. "Ask the systems at X-COM now
that we have access," she said. "Maybe they've got something on it."
"Why would they?" Truss wondered. "They've never done any EVA
research."
"Just look. Try their records on Elerium field interactions."
Truss shrugged. "OK, fine, I'll check." He opened a session
with the interactive database system at X-COM Halifax, a system
overseen by one of Halifax's triumvirate of HAL 9000 computers.
After he passed authentication, a voice not unlike that of
SHODAN came from the speaker on his console.
"Good afternoon, Dr. Trussell," said the voice. "I am Leela,
a SAL 9000 computer. I administer the database systems here. How may
I help you?"
"I'm looking for any information X-COM's research division may
have gathered regarding energy field interactions with Elerium-115."
"There's quite a bit of that," Leela replied. "Plasma
weaponry and anti-gravity systems are both based on Elerium
energy-field effects, as are a number of other experimental
technologies, all derived from alien technology captured during the
Hidden War."
"I specifically need anything you might have on the field
interactions of multiple Elerium-collider power generators in close
proximity."
"Again, there's quite a bit of it. Most of it pertains to UFO
power sources, motive drive power and defensive applications."
Truss glanced excitedly at Maya. "We're interested in the
last part."
Leela paused, then said, clearly reading from a report, "In
1999, a complete and intact battleship-class UFO was captured when
X-COM forces under the command of Lieutenant Otto Keller destroyed an
alien base in the Congo. This craft's capture provided X-COM's
Research Division with an unparallelled opportunity to study the inner
workings and operating principles of alien spacecraft. It was found
that their powers of flight and maneuver, as well as their uncanny
resistance to damage from conventional weapons, were the result of
energy field interactions from the multiple Elerium collider
generators which provided them with all internal power."
"That's the one!" said Truss. "Can you send that document to
my station here?"
"Certainly, Dr. Trussell."
"Were there any attempts made to duplicate this effect?"
"No," Leela replied. "The Second Impact forestalled all
developments based on these alien technologies. This report was
catalogued, but, for all practical purposes, lost."
"Lost? But you've just quoted it to us."
"X-COM's Research Division catalogued 75.72 million gigabytes
of information regarding alien technologies before the Second Impact,
Doctor," said Leela. "After the Impact, that information remained
intact, but most of the people who knew what to ask for were either
dead or assigned to other projects. No one has ever asked for
information pertaining to the subject since February 11, 2000."
Truss reflected on this for a moment, then said, "All right -
thank you, Leela."
"You're welcome, Dr. Trussell," said Leela, and signed off.
Truss looked over at Maya, who was barely suppressing a yell
of triumph. Together they plunged into the X-COM report. It was
dense, tough going in spots, but everything was there in black and
white. The missing key was a special focusing element, present in the
energy-handling systems of UFOs. The substance that focusing element
was made of, a curious red material resembling a gemstone but
impervious to laser spectrography, had defied all the X-COM
researchers' attempts to identify or duplicate it - but Truss and Maya
were intimately familiar with it. The biggest challenge in the
development of the general-production Evangelion had been synthesizing
enough of the material to make EVA construction possible.
It was the sort of material to be found in the core of an
Angel, or an Evangelion.
A small spherical module made of that material, placed at the
point of an equilateral triangle whose other two vertices were at the
centers of two Elerium colliders, matched the blue diagram to the red
one, creating an artificial AT Field. The technology had existed all
along, but the key to linking it together had been lost in the sea of
information spewed out by two separate, uncommunicative research
efforts.
It was well past midnight when they finished the revisions to
JA's design, marked them Emergency Rush, and fed them into the TechDiv
pipeline so that, when the dismantling and reconstruction work on JA
began tomorrow, the workers would not only remove JA's arms and parts
of his internal structure, but also his reactor housing. A great many
changes had to be made to the computer systems as well, given the
massive new demands on the power system imposed by the colliders and
the field-management systems. It remained to be seen if the system as
they had devised it would actually work in the field, but before that
could be tested, it would have to be built.
It was a gamble, and both Maya and Truss knew it. If they
tore down JA and reconstructed him with Elerium colliders and a
miniaturized EVA core, and their conclusions regarding the field
effects were incorrect, they would have expended a tremendous amount
of time, money and energy on a change that brought no gain. The
colliders would make JA more powerful, physically, and would be more
stable and manageable than the reactor, but if the field didn't work
the way they thought it would, he would still be easy prey for an
Angel or enemy EVA.
But if it worked...
When Maya and Truss finally made their way home, it was with
the tired satisfaction of a job well done. Now, if only the suspense
of waiting for the reconstruction to be complete didn't kill them...

Several hours earlier, DJ Croft stood with his hands clasped
behind his back, looking out at what he could see of the lights of
Worcester-3 through his bedroom window. He was frowning at his
reflection in the glass. He'd been feeling out of sorts for the past
few days - not sick, but psychically unbalanced, as though nothing
about his world was quite in the right place. The core of what had
been the counter-conspiracy against SEELE, which had come together so
magnificently at the point of crisis, now felt like it was eroding.
Its members hadn't had a real conversation since the day Gendou
Ikari's controller was exposed; they were all too busy with
preparations for the move, seeing to the defense measures in the
interim, and their own personal difficulties brought on by the many
revelations that accompanied the crisis. On top of that, he thought
he was having a growth spurt. None of his trousers seemed to be quite
long enough, and he'd noticed lately that his shoes were too tight.
He sighed, long and deep. Behind him, the door to his room
vibrated to someone's gentle knocking, then opened slowly. Asuka
Soryu-Langley, just released from a day of pre-operations EVA testing,
slipped into the room. She saw and immediately recognized the mood he
was in. She'd become quite adept at reading his moods of late. She
walked up behind him and put her arms around him, her chin on his
shoulder.
"What's the matter with you?" she asked softly.
"Everything," he replied irritably.
"No, I mean it. What's wrong?"
DJ sighed. "Ah, I don't really know, love. Maybe I'm just
getting old." He disengaged from her, walked around her and flopped
down on his back across his bed, feet hanging down the side.
Asuka climbed up next to him, sat with her feet to one side
and played idly with his loosely-knotted necktie as she said, "DJ,
you're fifteen years old."
"Oh, don't remind me," he said with a pained expression. "Why
the hell can't people be fully-grown at ten? Why do we have to endure
-twenty years- of our favorite clothes suddenly not fitting us?"
Asuka couldn't help it; she started laughing at this plaintive
lament. He glared up at her, mock-offended, and said, "Oh, y'think
that's funny, do you?"
She got hold of herself and said, "I'm sorry. It's just...
that's not really what's bothering you, is it? Did you -want- to be
five-foot-one your whole life? Stop complaining about secondary
matters and tell me what's really wrong."
DJ sighed, turning on his side to take her hands in his. "I
can't hide anything from you, can I?"
Asuka smiled. "I hope not."
DJ gave her a grin, then sobered and said, "It's Jon. I'm
bloody worried about him. Ever since it all blew up he's been going
round like he's in a trance. He hasn't said ten words to me in the
last three weeks. Just goes about his business, comes home, goes into
his room and won't come out."
"Have you tried to talk to him?"
"He won't let me in. Have you?"
"He won't let me in either."
"Christ." DJ shook his head. "How long can he go on that
way? How long can -Rei- go on that way? She sits outside the door to
his room waiting for him to call, to say he's ready to talk to her,
hour by hour... "
"Rei's holding up all right," Asuka told him. "She seems to
understand what's happening to him. The last time I tried to see him,
she told me not to worry too much - that it's all just a matter of
time."
"I wish I had her confidence." DJ sat up and looked her in
the eyes. "What's happened to us, Asuka? We used to be able to be
happy, even in the middle of all this madness. It's like it's finally
wearing us down. Now, when we need to pull together more than ever."
"We're just tired," she said, patting his arm. "-You're-
tired."
"Tired," he snorted. "I don't bloody -do- anything anymore.
I barely pull my weight."
"Nonsense," she said, giving him a playful scowl. "You must
be tired, or you wouldn't be saying stupid things like that."
He smiled.
"I say - Miss Langley... " he said with a tone of overt
formality.
She grinned and replied, "Yes, Lord Crofthenge?"
"I wonder, would you accord me the very great honor of your
companionship this night?"
"That would be my distinct pleasure, my lord," she said.

"Asuka?" he asked later, in the dark.
"Yes?" she replied sleepily.
"Do you think we're too young for this sort of thing?"
"I imagine our parents would think so," she said.
"No," he said, "not the act - the feelings that go with it."
His hand squeezed hers in the dark, where their fingers had lain
interlaced since the whole adventure began. "Are we old enough to
know what love is?"
"Are you second-guessing me or yourself?" she wondered.
"Both, I suppose," he answered honestly.
"What are you wondering?" she asked. "Whether we'll still be
together in five years, or ten, or twenty?"
"More or less," he replied.
"Who can say?" she said. "Perhaps we'll be killed next week.
Perhaps we'll drift slowly apart over the course of years and finally
go our separate ways with nothing more than sweet memories and a
longing wistfulness that the magic wouldn't last. Perhaps one day it
will all turn to hate and we'll tear at each other until one or the
other of us is pushed too far and kills."
"Asuka!" he said, shocked.
"Or maybe," she said, moving her face closer to his so that
her breath whispered over his cheek as she spoke, "what's between us
will grow stronger with every passing day, and we'll spend our whole
lives together, in peace and warmth and mutual respect, complete unto
ourselves and yet two halves of a whole, until time first separates us
and then reunites us forever."
DJ lay speechless for a moment, and then said with admiration,
"That was beautifully said."
"I must have read it somewhere," she replied with a chuckle.
"Go to sleep, DJ. Tomorrow will attend to itself."
As he drifted off, DJ decided that that was excellent advice.

The next morning was bright and clear, good operations
weather. At his new station in the MOCR, Truss stifled a yawn and
watched with detached interest as steady, stable, boring readings from
Asuka Soryu-Langley's first above-ground test in EVA-03. The test was
going extremely well. She had passed the basic agility tests the
first run through and proceeded to live-fire exercises with no
emotional issues, control problems, neural crises, or equipment
failures. Everything was going extremely well. If the test proved
fully successful, Truss knew Maya would certify the unit and its pilot
combat-operations ready, which would be a big step toward NERV's
operational readiness recovery.
The changes in NERV's structure showed themselves to the staff
in unexpected places sometimes. For example, the people in the
control room for this test weren't the same group as those who had
been present for all the other EVA operations. Ritsuko Akagi and Otto
Keller were gone to Canada. Gendou Ikari was down in his office
professing disinterest in the operational EVAs with so much data to be
collated for the Archangelion project. Maya now stood up on the main
deck with Misato Katsuragi, ultimately responsible for Technical
Division activities during the operation. Truss was in Maya's old
place in the back of the "orchestra pit" as Supervisor of Technical
Services, watching over the two young men from Weapons Division who
had taken over his old place as primary console operators - though why
there were two of them when Truss had been expected to do the job all
on his own in the old days, Truss didn't care to speculate.
He liked his new subordinates, much as the notion of being in
charge of something had alarmed him. They were well-trained,
competent and eager to please, and they handled their consoles with
assurance. Makoto Hyuuga, the senior of the two by around a month and
so automatically named Deputy STS, to take over if Truss were called
away or incapacitated, was a cheerfully earnest type who would've been
a signals ensign in a World War II naval drama. Truss didn't know his
mate, Shigeru Aoba, very well by comparison - he was quieter and kept
more to himself, though he wasn't rude or standoffish. Truss had
heard that Aoba played guitar in a fairly popular local band before
joining up with NERV to fight the good fight.
Truss stifled another yawn; Hyuuga saw him doing it and
grinned. The boss was working too hard, between these tests and the
work on Jet Alone. Why, just this morning he'd seen the TechDiv memo
about huge revisions to the JA design based on a breakthrough he and
Captain Ibuki had had the night before. Hyuuga didn't understand most
of the calculations in the memo, but he had no doubt that they
represented a real leap forward in human understanding of EVA
technology. Truly brilliant scientists always did their best work
after 2 AM, and the time stamp on the memo had been 5:42. Besides,
Gendou Ikari himself had replied to the emailed memo saying that he
found the concepts in it "remarkable," and from Ikari, that was
skyrocketing praise.
Hyuuga turned back to his console with renewed energy despite
the boring nature of this particular test. At least Soryu-Langley was
blowing things up. Besides, if Lieutenant Trussell had achieved his
officer's commission, his increased responsibilities, and his
opportunity to create technological breakthroughs in the dead of night
with a colleague as congenial as Captain Ibuki through diligence at
this very console, then Hyuuga thought that was a pretty damn good
testimonial for diligence.

"...No, DJ, look. Three years after the assassination, the
Air Force dumps Kennedy's casket in the middle of the Atlantic
-because it 'isn't evidence'-?! Doesn't that strike you as just a
-little- bit suspicious?"
"I told you, Gendou, I don't find the Kennedy assassination
interesting. Human history has had some -much- more arresting
conspiracies. You want to talk about political assassinations? The
ancient Egyptians bumped off a pharaoh and then tried to -erase him
from the historical record-. Let's see the Mafia try to do that to
JFK."
"Oh so? This sounds interesting. Tell me more."
"Fellow name of Akhenaten, became pharaoh in 1358 BC... "

As the SEELE Antonov AN-411 streaked across the sky toward
Worcester-3, Shinji Ikari mentally reviewed the information he'd been
given during the mission briefing. It was to be a precision strike,
the first in a series which, when complete, would drop the city's
defensive capability to virtually nil. The primary targets for Phase
One were above-ground installations - weapons blocks, communications
towers, and the most strategically-placed of lift bays and
thoroughfares. Paralysis, not infiltration or theft, was the order of
the day. SEELE had provided the Third Child with a map of the most
vulnerable locations, which he brought up on EVA-04's viewscreen for a
final review.
If all went according to expectations, the opposing pilots
would be Rei Ayanami and Jon Ellison. Ellison, Shinji was told, was
an experienced pilot and fully devoted to the NERV cause. As for Rei...
["The neural pulses are feeding back!"
["Cut power! NOW!"
["Commander, the entry plug is ejecting!"
["REI!!"
["Commander, wait! It's too dangerous - Unit 00 still has 25
seconds of power left..."]
Stop it, Shinji chided himself. Distracting yourself with
thoughts of the past will only serve to get you killed.
According to the briefing, there was also a small but nonzero
chance that DJ Croft could be pressed into service. SEELE had
received reliable reports that Croft had never synchronized with any
EVA but his own, but Natla had felt it was best to advise their new
pilot on how to deal with him... just in case. If DJ appeared in
another unit, Shinji was to exercise extreme caution, but continue
with the mission. If EVA-01 put in a surprise apperance, however, the
operation would be cancelled -immediately-. Shinji was still too
inexperienced to risk a battle on such level technological ground.
"Third Child, we're approaching the drop zone. Your synchrotron
readings are holding at 45%, and all systems appear to be go. Are you
ready?"
Shinji closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm ready."

"Brigadier Katsuragi! I'm picking up an unexpected radar
contact on the edge of Worcester-3 airspace."
"Another Angel?"
"No, it's an aircraft. Trying to ID the radar signature, hold
on." Hyuuga's eyes went wide as the results of the check appeared on
his screen. "What the hell? It's an AN-411!"
Misato marched over to the terminal for a look. "How is that
possible? All Antonov aircraft are in their bays! John, can you get a
visual from any of the perimeter viewing stations?"
"One step ahead of you. It's coming up on the main viewer
now."
A chorus of gasps filled Central Dogma as the plane and its
cargo, a gleaming chrome Evangelion, came into view.
Misato was momentarily dumbstruck. "Unit... 04?"
On the master viewer, the image of the chromed EVA zoomed in,
resolving in enough detail for the unit's production markings to be
visible. Immediately, SHODAN bracketed the EVA, and below the
reticule surrounding it appeared the words:

TARGET: PRODUCTION TYPE EVANGELION UNIT 04
CODENAME: MALPHAS

Truss nodded. "SHODAN confirms - target is Evangelion Unit
04. I think we can all guess its purpose - it's being carried in the
drop position. Estimated touchdown in Worcester-3 within two minutes.
And from the markings, I'd say that's a SEELE aircraft."
Misato's confused expression morphed into one of shock, and
then into anger. "Those BASTARDS!" she snarled. She lashed out at a
nearby desk, toppling it and sending a ream of papers flying across
the room. "We fell for it - hook, line and sinker. SEELE told us
Unit 04 was destroyed, and we never even questioned it. They stole it
right out from under our noses!"
"There's more bad news," Aoba added. "It seems to have been
outfitted with some kind of on-board power source. 04's going to have
an advantage over anything we can throw at it."
"Who in the hell is piloting it?!" Misato demanded.
"There are a couple of theoretical possibilities," said Maya,
"but if you're going by the Marduk Report, it has to be Shinji Ikari."
"Oh, damn. This is going to get extremely ugly." Misato
paused for a moment to regain her composure, then turned to Maya.
"Get Professor Ikari up here, and prep Unit 00 for launch."
"I'm on it."
"Asuka, bring Unit 03 back to Lift Bay 16 - we should have
someone ready to take over by the time you arrive."
Jenna Steen, promoted to Chief Medical Officer in Ritsuko
Akagi's absence, glanced at the gathered EVA pilots, slipped over to
Misato, and whispered, "Ellison isn't ready to go operational yet,
Brigadier. He - "
"I -am- ready," said Jon flatly. Jenna felt a blush on her
cheeks; she had no idea the young man's hearing was so acute. Jon
stepped forward, determination but no offense on his face, and said
again, more firmly, "I am."
"No," said Rei, "I'll go."
Jon turned, puzzled. "Asuka can't bring Unit 03 back soon
enough for it to be reconfigured - "
"No matter," said Rei. "I'll take Unit 00."
"Unit 00?" Misato objected. "Rei, you were having problems
with that unit -before- we recalibrated all its neurosystems for Jon.
I can understand that you want to protect him - "
"I don't need protecting - " Jon interrupted, a bit indignant.
"This isn't about Jon," said Rei, her voice cutting both of
them off despite its softness. "It's about Shinji. I'm the only one
of us he's met. I think he'll talk to me. Maybe we can stop this
without letting anyone get hurt."
For Rei, that was practically a speech. Misato looked at her
for a long moment, then turned to Jon. He glanced at the Brigadier,
nodded his understanding, and stepped back.
"Go," said Misato.

Not bad, Shinji thought. Not the most graceful of landings,
but given less than a week of training and only those ersatz air-drop
landings to work with, no one could have expected better.
He unslung his EVA's autorifle and set about causing some
damage.

"... Moved the -capital-?!"
"Into the middle of bloody nowhere. You can imagine how well
that went over - "
Alarms blared, and both men came to their feet out of reflex.
"Ah, Christ, I thought we might be done with this," DJ
growled. "Suppose we ought to head for the control room."
Ikari shrugged dismissively. "Why? I'd just be dead weight,
and you're - "
"Equally useless with Unit 01 out of commission," DJ finished,
"I know... I just thought it would be nice to keep my hand in."
"I was going to say you're not on call," said Gendou with a
wry grin, "but if you insist on putting so fine a point on it... "
The intercom crackled, and Maya Ibuki's voice called,
"Worcester-3 is under Evangelion attack by SEELE. Professor Ikari, to
the control room, please."
DJ and Gendou looked at each other in confusion.
"Evangelion attack?!" said DJ.
Ikari looked confused for a moment; then his face melted into
a look of utter horror.
"Oh my God, no," he murmured; then he seemed to shock himself
into motion. "Come on!" he shouted, jumping over the end of his desk
and leaving papers scattered everywhere in his wake as he crashed into
the hall at a dead run. DJ looked around in puzzlement for a moment,
then ran after him.

"OK, Rei, we're ready to power up if you are," said Maya Ibuki
to Rei's image on the EVA-cage comm screen. "I hope you know what
you're doing."
"Activate," said Rei flatly.
Maya nodded. "Power up Unit 00's neurosystems," she said, and
Truss moved the appropriate controls.
The green boxes marched across the status board, but stopped,
hovering, the last box before the break-even line flickering fitfully.
Go away, said EVA-00. You are my enemy.
Rei closed her eyes and told it in return, You are mistaken,
but there is no time for me to waste on convincing you. You're
needed. You -will- act.
No.
You will!
The Synchrotron spooled up to 45% - good enough.
"Evangelion Unit 00 - Moloch, moving out," said Rei.

DJ and Gendou Ikari arrived in the control room to find it in
chaos; Unit 00 was in the field - apparently with Rei behind the
controls, since Jon was standing in the corner of the room, arms
folded, watching the battle with a darkened countenance - and everyone
seemed to be talking at once.
"Shinji, please," Misato was saying over the background
chatter of defense operations, "I don't know what they told you, but
I'd be willing to bet it's not true. Why don't you stop this and we
can talk about it."
"You would say that," Shinji Ikari's voice replied from the
commset speakers. Gendou Ikari flinched as if slapped. "They warned
me that you'd try to sweet-talk me, but I won't listen!"
"Shinji!" Misato tried again. "Please, stop! I can protect
you from them - do you understand?"
"I'm not the one who needs protection!" Shinji replied, a
touch of hysteria creeping into his voice. "Besides, you can't
protect anyone - I know you're just a figurehead there, so my father
can deny responsibility for NERV's crimes in public."
Misato slammed a hand down on the console. "I'm WHAT? Now
you listen here, you little punk! When I get my hands on you - "
"Misato, love, I don't think that's helping," said DJ quietly,
elbowing her away from the pickup. "Shinji? This is DJ Croft.
Listen to me. Your father isn't even in charge down here any more,
all right? Now, nobody wants to hurt you. Why don't - "
"No! I won't listen to you," Shinji's voice replied. "You're
just my father's puppet, like all the rest!"
DJ and Gendou Ikari shared a bemused look.
Covering the microphone pickup with his palm, DJ observed
wryly, "Gendou, my friend, I believe your boy's been misinformed."
Ikari allowed himself a dark chuckle before sobering and
pushing his glasses back up his nose. "He won't listen to any of us,"
he sighed. "Natla's people have been too thorough for us." Driving a
fist into the opposite palm, he said darkly, "By God, they'll pay for
this."
"It's no good, Unit 00," Truss observed glumly. "Unit 04's
rate of fire is too heavy for you to get close."
"We need a plan, quickly," Jon pointed out. "She's on the
outermost set of umbilicals."
Rei's voice came over the radio, quiet and calm. "No. I have
one." She jettisoned her EVA's umbilical and proceeded on battery
power - directly toward the silver EVA. "Shinji, I'm coming to talk."
EVA-04 froze for an instant, not unlike its pilot's heart.
That was Rei Ayanami's voice! What was she doing out here? What was
she doing aboard Unit 00? SEELE's intelligence told them that the EVA
prototype had rejected her, that she couldn't pilot it any more!
"Rei!" Jon called after her, but was stopped short by a single
word from Rei:
"Wait."
Jon studied her image on the big screen, and understood.
Shinji wrenched himself out of his horrified hesitation and
opened fire again. "Stay back! I don't have anything to say."
Moloch's vambraces opened, and Rei withdrew the twin
Progressive Knives. Immediately, she let them drop to the ground
beside her. "Shinji, I'm unarmed. Stop firing."
As he sensed that Rei had no intention of slowing her
approach, Shinji's voice took on an edge of panic. "No! You have to
stop! I don't want to hurt you - don't let them make you do this!"
"No one is making me do anything."
Unit 04's rate of fire slowed as its pilot became more and
more flustered. This can't be happening, he thought. I'm so close to
accomplishing the mission goal, but now I have to fire at an unarmed
unit - I might even have to kill Rei.
["Unit 00 has broken free of the restraints!"
["Pilot's vital signs are unconfirmed!"]
My father almost killed her as I watched. How can I bring
myself to do the same - to finish what he started?
"Unit 04," crackled the voice of Jacqueline Natla in Shinji's
ears, "you're falling behind schedule. Destroy Unit 00 and proceed."
["Ayanami is not above sacrificing herself in battle in order
to escape her no-win situation."]
How can I take her life, even if it's to save everyone else?
"I saw what my father did to you! He doesn't care whether you
live or die, he just cares about himself and his project!"
"I'm not defending him."
The distance between them had been cut to only a few hundred
yards, and Shinji had completely forgotten to keep running.
Damn it, Rei, don't you understand? I'm trying to save your
life!
"Don't... I can't kill you... please, stop! Stop!!"
"I can't do that."
Unit 04 raised its rifle, ready to fire. Shinji's mind went
into a tailspin. "Stop! This is -wrong-!" he shrieked. Nothing made
sense anymore.
"Unit 04, what the hell are you playing at?" demanded Natla.
"Kill her and get on with your mission!"
"NO!" Shinji shouted, slamming a hand down on the
communications panel and cutting off the command frequency. "I didn't
come here to kill anyone," he added, though now he was only
transmitting on the tactical band used by NERV. His head swam, and he
could feel the panic crawling up into his thraot. His purpose was no
longer clear, he had failed to leave the city fast enough, Rei Ayanami
was in the wrong EVA, Jon Ellison was nowhere to be seen, and the
other unit -
Oh shit!
Shinji's realization came a moment too late. While Rei
approached and diverted his attention, Asuka had maneuvered Unit 03
around to Shinji's blind side. Now, As Rei brought Moloch's hand up
to grasp the barrel of Unit 04's autorfile, Orcus passed by Unit 04 at
a dead run. The black EVA reached out and tore at the Elerium
collider which powered 04 with all its might, hoping beyond hope that
it would break loose.
It did - leaving a trail of sparks, armor, and mechanical
parts behind. Orcus never slowed down, and Malphas was unable to
react in time.
Shinji screamed as Malphas lurched violently from the force of
the impact. 04's rifle was also jarred loose, but not before it was
accidentally fired into Moloch's arm and chest. Rei's EVA was thrown
backward, but she did not cry out nor lose her footing.
"Bastard!" Shinji snarled, whirling to face the black-and-red
interloper. "Look what you made me do!"
Jon wasn't any too pleased about the side effects of Asuka's
unauthorized attack either - it had given him a nasty jolt to the gut
to see Rei's EVA shot - but the instinctive anger that seeing her
threatened always gave rise to was directed at Shinji, not Asuka.
Asuka stopped Orcus within the city perimeter, knelt, and
retrieved an umbilical from a service block, then stood and brandished
EVA-04's power core.
"You want your power unit back, Third Child?" Asuka taunted,
the grin audible in her voice. "Come get it."
Shinji's snarl escalated to a roar as he drove his EVA into a
run, charging toward the black enemy unit. Asuka stood her ground,
holding the device enticingly out (though she knew there was no way
Shinji could reattach it even if he took it back - the power induction
socket on the back of EVA-04 was mangled far beyond serviceability,
and much of it was still hanging from the Elerium collider itself).
Rei got Moloch to its feet and looked the situation over. For
just a moment, she considered calling to Asuka to get out of the way
of her charging adversary. Then she noticed something about EVA-04
that made her realize all in a flash just what Asuka had been planning
all along, and she remained silent - and silently impressed.
A moment later, Shinji Ikari's howl of anger faltered, then
sputtered out in a welter of vocalized question marks as his EVA's run
slowed, slowed, and finally stopped, and the machine toppled
face-first to the street, skidding to a halt a couple of inches from
EVA-03's toes. Behind it, a thick greenish trail of battery gel led
back to the spot where Orcus had torn away EVA-04's Elerium collider,
and with it half of the EVA's back armor and various internals -
including the outer walls of the primary battery cells.
Battle over.
Almost.
Maya saw it first. "The SEELE aircraft has just launched an
air-to-surface missile!"
Rei keyed her radio and shouted, "Asuka, incoming fire!"
A half-second later, the N2 missile landed.

As soon as Rei could pull herself to her feet, she was charging
towards ground zero. "Asuka, are you all right? Unit 03, come in!"
Silence for a few beats, then, "Yes... we're alive."
A few seconds later, Rei arrived on the scene. Orcus was
charred, its armor melted in spots, but relatively intact. It was
huddled over Unit 04's damaged back - Asuka had shielded it from the
explosion.

As Shinji's unconscious form was being toted into the
infirmary by a stretcher crew, Gendou Ikari stood at the end of the
corridor, his hands behind his back, only the extra lines on his face
betraying great anxiety.
"I was afraid something like this might happen," he said to
the man next to him, without taking his eyes off the infirmary door.
"When Soichiro called me and said that Shinji had gone to meet with
someone from a music school and never come back, I knew they'd taken
him. I denied it to myself, but inside, I knew. Even so, I never
dreamed that they would use him against me this way." He scratched at
his chin fretfully. "When he wakes up, he's going to be horrified at
his situation. It would be helpful if he had his familiar things with
him. All he left home with were the clothes on his back."
Ryoji Kaji gave the scientist a thoughtful look. "Has the
Aircraft Section still got that JBS2 you used to use for your reporting
trips to Geneva?"
"Yes, I think so," said Ikari. "I'm not cleared to draw
flights from the Section without talking to Command first, any more,
so I don't know for sure."
Kaji grinned and clapped Ikari on the shoulder. "Don't worry
about it, then. I'll, uh, borrow it and go get his stuff if you give
me your brother's address."
"Would you, Ryoji? It would be a great comfort to him."
"Sure, no sweat."

Shinji Ikari returned to consciousness slowly, painfully, in a
welter of confusion. His memories of the last several days flooded
back before he got around to opening his eyes or getting up. The
speeches, the footage, the battle, the bomb... the lies.
All of it.
Lies.
He opened his eyes.
"This ceiling," he remarked to himself softly, "is unfamiliar."
"You get used to it," said a voice to his right. Sitting
gingerly up, Shinji turned to look, and saw a redheaded girl sitting on
the edge of the next bunk over in what appeared to be a small hospital
ward. The girl wore the greenish-white tunic and trousers of a
patient, and, with concentration etching lines around her blue eyes,
she was performing arm curls with a small barbell. Shinji recognized
her from the photos he was shown during his orientation - but he had
expected Asuka Soryu-Langley to be in much poorer condition.
"I guess you would know," Shinji allowed.
"Smart -and- tactful," said Asuka, rolling her eyes. "I love
that in a man." She narrowed her eyes in concentration and lifted the
barbell from knee to shoulder again, sucking in air between gritted
teeth as she did so.
"They... they told me you'd been crippled, nearly killed,"
Shinji murmured.
"They exaggerated the first part," replied Asuka quietly.
Shinji decided it was best if he didn't try too hard to keep
this faltering conversation going, and instead lapsed back into
silence. Before too long, a couple of white-coated medics came in,
examined Asuka, and told her she was free to go. She went into a side
room and came out in skirt and blouse, a small bag over one shoulder.
She waved a parting to Shinji; he half-heartedly returned it
and tried to think of something to say, and then she had gone. The
medics looked him over, pronounced him healthy, and left the room. He
noticed no one had told him -he- was free to go.

Misato Katsuragi sat at the head of the table in Conference B,
wondering if anyone would hold it against her if she gave herself up
to a fit of humorless, hysterical laughter. The whole thing was
ridiculous. While NERV had been coping with the trauma of separation
from SEELE - reeling with the discovery that its parent organization
was an alien conspiracy and facing the incredible task of moving the
largest militarized research and development organization ever created
- SEELE had grabbed the production facilities for the Evangelions,
most of Project Ascension, and the one remaining child with the EVA
talent right out from under their noses.
Misato took a deep breath and got hold of herself.
"OK," she said aloud. "The situation's bad, but not as bad as
it could be. We can even reasonably claim that we came out ahead this
round. We got a damaged but reparable EVA and the Third Child, and
all they got was some more collateral damage to a city we're
abandoning anyway."
Maya Ibuki frowned, fiddling idly with the button atop a
ballpoint pen, and said, "The first isn't as much of a win as you
might think. With EVA-01 out of commission and DJ unable to interface
with any of the others, we've got pilots for all the operational EVAs
we have. Another one is just deadweight. Besides, SEELE controls the
production facilities. They can have as many of them as they want."
John Trussell added gloomily, "Our situation's not as good as
that, either. They've left us in a bad state defensively.
Conventional ground defenses reduced to 45% effectiveness, air
defenses knocked down to 70%, and worst of all, we have no operational
Evangelion units for the next five days."
Misato looked startled. "What? Explain."
"Unit 01 is still unresponsive to all test stimuli," said
Truss. "Unit 03 will be in repairs for five days. We could probably
have Unit 04 operational in six or seven, but given the circumstances,
I wouldn't rate it operation until we've had a chance to -really-
swamp out its software, and that'll take another two or three days on
top of the repairs. Rei's interaction with Unit 00 without a proper
reconfiguration beforehand doesn't seem to have affected her at all,
but it's thrown the unit's neurosystems into chaos. It'll take us at
least a couple of days to straighten everything out. We're seeing the
weirdest resonance pattern ever, even for that unit, just sitting
there idle. I can't imagine what it might do if we powered it up."
Misato groaned wearily. "It never rains," she muttered. "At
least we got Shinji away from them. If the Marduk Report was right
and there aren't any more children with the talent out there, then all
the EVAs in the world won't help SEELE mount another attack, within
our vulnerable timeframe or out of it."
"Somehow," Maya observed, "I doubt they'd go to all the
trouble of seizing both EVA production facilities if they didn't have
that angle covered." She sighed. "As for Shinji... well... what are
we going to -do- with him?"
"He'll have to be extensively debriefed," Misato said. "He's
been deeper into SEELE than anyone else we have access to. He's seen
their EVA facilities, no doubt talked with their tech staff. We need
to know what he knows."
"Who's to say he'll be willing to tell us?" asked John
Trussell glumly. "They must have played on his hostility toward his
father to get him to cooperate with them. You heard what he said
during the attack. He thinks we're all his father's puppets." He
gave Misato a pointed look. "Or were you planning on using force?"
Misato scowled. "No," she said. "That's the kind of thing
SEELE would do. We won't sink to their level." She looked to the
other side of the table. "What do you think, Professor?"
Gendou Ikari looked tired and drawn. He'd counted on his son
being safe with his brother, the boy's uncle, in Japan. Word hadn't
reached him of Shinji's disappearance - Gendou's brother had no idea
how to reach him in the US. To have the boy suddenly thrown into his
face this way had stunned and infuriated him, and now he had no idea
what to do. Looking up at Misato, he told her as much.
"I'm torn," he said slowly. "On the one hand, I want to see
him, to try and prove to him that I'm not the man he remembers
hating. On the other hand, I don't think he would believe me. He's
not ready to believe me. Look at his situation. He's been lied to
about us; that much was clear from his attack. They lied to him about
us and they lied to him about being on his side, or they wouldn't have
tried to kill him when he failed his mission. He's lost. He won't
know whether he can trust anyone... but he certainly won't trust me."
Ikari sighed deeply. "No. It's better if he doesn't see me just
yet."
"What about Rei?" Maya wondered. "They've met before, and
there's obviously a connection there somewhere - look at the way he
reacted to her in the field."
Misato shook her head. "He's refused to see her already," she
said. "Rei wanted to see him in the infirmary, and he asked the
medical staff not to let her in."
Maya frowned. "That's strange. I would have thought... "
She shrugged. "What about one of the others?"
"Jon isn't in any condition to make new friends," Misato
said. "Asuka is our only fully operational EVA pilot right now. We
can't spare her. And DJ - well, you heard Shinji's opinion of him."
"That he's Professor Ikari's yes-man? That's ridiculous,"
Maya said. "No one who knows DJ could believe that."
"Shinji doesn't."
"Not yet," said Maya.
Misato looked thoughtful, then nodded. "Well, it can't hurt
anything, I suppose."

Confusion had given way to nervousness, and that was working
its way slowly toward outright fear, for Shinji Ikari. In the hour
since he'd awakened, he'd been removed from the infirmary by an escort
of two sinister-looking men in identical black suits. They hadn't
said much, just led him down several confusing corridors and deposited
him in an empty conference room with instructions to "Wait here,
please." So he'd waited, wondering what NERV was planning to do to
him, and each speculative notion that came into his head was worse
than the last.
He'd just about convinced himself that they were going to have
him killed as a security risk when the door opened and someone
entered. To Shinji's horror, it was DJ Croft. The former EVA pilot
was wearing a black jumpsuit with his last name stitched over the
breast pocket and a patch on the left shoulder bearing the NERV and
X-COM logos. He had a handgun of some kind in a holster on his belt
and a black ballcap on his head that seemed to have a radiation symbol
embroidered on the front.
"Hullo!" said Croft cheerfully. "I hope we haven't bored you
too awfully. I only just got done with a test or I'd have come down
straight away."
Shinji didn't reply for a moment, as Croft pulled a chair
around and sat down at the conference table opposite him. Then he
said softly, "They told me your unit wasn't working."
DJ looked rueful. "They were right," he said, "bloody thing's
on the blink. They've got me testing on their other giant robot."
Shinji wondered about that for a moment, then noticed the
lettering around the radioactivity symbol on DJ's cap: JET ALONE
JA-01. He'd been told of Jet Alone during his training at SEELE.
They knew that NERV had it, but judged its likelihood of appearing in
combat to be almost nil.
DJ looked upward, following Shinji's gaze, and took off the
cap, turning it to look at the logo himself. Shinji saw that Croft's
initials were embroidered on the back of the sweatband. DJ grinned.
"Not bad, eh? Part of our separation from SEELE. Command thought it
would be good for us to have a bit of a boost in our esprit de corps.
New uniforms, project caps, better base privileges. Makes us feel
like it's worth bothering with the fight, or that's the idea, anyway."
He put his cap back on.
"Why are you here?" Shinji wanted to know.
"Well," said DJ, "basically, it's like this. The Powers that
Be in Charge here, they know that you must be feeling pretty well out
of it right now. God only knows what they told you about us at SEELE,
but we're guessing it wasn't anything too complimentary. My CO,
Brigadier Katsuragi, decided that somebody needed to sit down with
you, find out what they told you about us, and then see how we might
go about proving that it wasn't true." He spread his hands. "We
decided you'd be more comfortable talking to somebody your own age,
and since I'm the least busy of the four, I'm elected."
DJ thumped the table with both palms and stood up. "Now
then. We're the worst hosts in the world, aren't we? Locking you in
a conference room without anything to eat and forgetting about you for
hours... it's disgraceful. Right, follow me."
Shinji got hesitantly up as the jumpsuited figure strode out
into the hall, following at a trot when it became clear that DJ hadn't
noticed he hadn't followed immediately. They paused so that DJ could
leave his jumpsuit in the pilots' locker room and recover his jacket,
shoulder holster and shoes. Shinji got a puzzled look on his face as
DJ walked right past the door marked "Commissary". It got a little
more puzzled when they went into an elevator. The elevator let them
out in what appeared to be a parking garage.
His confusion hitting a peak, Shinji finally protested.
"H-hey! Where are you going?"
DJ stopped, turned and let him catch up. "You're not hungry?"
"Well, yes," Shinji said, thoughtful. Then he remembered that
he was confused and a bit irritated, and blustered again: "But this is
a parking garage!"
"Uh-huh," said DJ. "What about it? Where do you keep -your-
car?"
"I don't have a car!"
DJ looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "Mm... no, I
suppose you don't." He shrugged it off. "Anyway, in you get," he
said, gesturing to a large black Chrysler sedan with no markings and
anonymous license plates.
By this time, Shinji had no idea whatsoever what DJ was up to,
but he decided anything beat sitting around in a conference room
waiting for them to kill him. He got into the passenger seat.
DJ started up the car, put it in gear, and headed for the ramp
up to the top-floor access to the S490. As they rounded the top
corner, DJ said offhandedly, "As it happens, I'm not authorized to
remove you from the compound, so when we get to the guard station,
it's probably best for you to be out of sight."
"What?" Shinji asked, confused.
"Get on the floor," said DJ, slowly and patiently.
Shinji looked at him as though he had several heads, then did
as he said.
"Afternoon, Barney," said DJ cheerfully as the Dodge pulled up
to the guard post at the garage exit.
"Hey, DJ," said the security guard, a lanky Southerner DJ only
knew by his first name. "Gettin' outta here for lunch for once?
Can't say I blame ya. Busy day today." Barney thumbed a switch, and
the candy-striped metal arm across the roadway swung up. "Take care."
"You too, Barn. See you later," said DJ. "Stay down until
we're on the highway," he muttered to Shinji as they drove away.
Shinji did as he was told, then popped up and got into his
proper seat. "What's going on?" he demanded. "Are you kidnapping me
or something?"
DJ shrugged. "Well, technically, I think what I'm doing is
unlawfully removing you from detention. Do you like Chinese food?"
"What?!"
DJ sighed, realizing that he was going to spend a lot of his
time repeating things slowly and patiently until Shinji got his
bearings. "Do - you - like - Chinese - food?" he repeated.
"Yes, but what - "
"Right, then. Nobody from Central Dogma will be lunching at
this hour - I hope. We'll go to Ping's Garden and get something to
eat, all right? You must be hungry by now."
Shinji would have protested, until it occurred to him that the
gnawing, empty sensation in the middle of his being was probably an
indication of just that.
They ate in relative silence, making small talk, but nothing
more. DJ didn't seem to care whether Shinji told him anything or
not.
"Aren't you going to interrogate me?" Shinji asked after their
appetizers were delivered.
"Not while I'm trying to eat," DJ replied, with a tone of
voice that left the subject unequivocally dropped.
Shinji was unimpressed by the hot and sour soup, but the crab
rangoons were passable and the orange flavor chicken quite good. It
wasn't until they were back in the car and heading crosstown again
that DJ spoke up.
"Your father told me what happened the last time you came to
Worcester-3."
Shinji didn't really know how to respond to that, so he just
nodded and made an affirmative noise. It wasn't a conversational
gambit he would have expected from an interrogator - after all, it had
all happened at NERV. They couldn't help but have full information on
it. Why wasn't he asking about SEELE?
"They say you turned round, walked out and never looked back,"
DJ went on.
Shinji nodded. "Yes, that's right."
DJ smiled. "By doing so, you've convinced me that you're the
only one of us with any sense at all."
Shinji had no idea what to say to that, and in this he was
beginning to sense the development of a trend. Then a question
occurred to him, and he asked it, even though he wasn't sure he could
believe the answer:
"Why did -you- do it?"
DJ considered this for a moment, the gently mocking humor
slowly fading from his face. "I could be a smart-arse," he said, "and
say it was my curiosity, or my contrariness, or my estimation of my
chances with Misato, but I won't. The truth of it is, there was a
girl going to die if I didn't come through, and I looked at her and
couldn't bear the thought of letting it happen."
Shinji looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked, "Why does
-she- do it?"
DJ seemed surprised by the question; then he smiled, a rather
sad and private smile, and said softly, "It's her vocation."
Shinji waited, but DJ didn't seem willing to elaborate. After
a few moments, he asked slowly, "You're not going to ask me -anything-
about SEELE, are you?"
"No," DJ replied. "I'm not."
"Why not? Isn't that your job here? Isn't that why you're
being friendly to me?"
"Sod my job," said DJ shortly. "I'm being friendly to you
because you're the only one of us smart enough to stay the hell out of
this mess and you've got dragged into it anyway. You've been screwed
by Fate at every turn. You deserve people being decent to you for a
change."
Shinji blinked at the other boy, taken completely aback.
"Uh... th-thank you," he said at length, but DJ did not respond; he
seemed lost in contemplation of the anger that had shown around the
edges of his last answer.
The car emerged onto a roundabout with a statue of a general
on a horse in the middle of it. DJ followed it most of the way
around, then pulled up onto a small, concrete-paved plaza in front of
a building with a very ornate white marble facade. Shinji suspected
that the area was not meant for parking, but who was he to argue with
the driver?
DJ got out. Not wanting to sit around alone in the car
waiting for whatever was next to happen, Shinji got out too. He
looked up at the building, and, as DJ came around the car to join him,
he said in puzzlement,
"This is a train station."
"Yes, it is," said DJ, his face still intent. "Look, for the
moment, Worcester-3 is still a free city, but nobody knows how long
that's going to last." He reached into his pocket, removed a wad of
bills and shoved them into Shinji's shirt pocket. "Get away from
here, Shinji, as far away as you can. This isn't a place for an
innocent like you. If you know anywhere to go that they won't find
you, then for God's sake go there, quick as you can."
Shinji realized that he'd only -thought- he'd been confused
before now. "What?"
"Go!" DJ roared, gesturing at the station. "Get out of this
place! Get away from this fucking war before it consumes your life,
like it's consumed the lives of everyone else who's got too near."
Shinji stared. DJ's face was cast in fury, not at Shinji, but
palpable nonetheless. Tears had cut tracks down the British pilot's
cheeks and his blue eyes burned with something that Shinji thought
must look something like madness.
"C-Croft," he gasped, taking a half-step back.
The rage drained away from DJ's face, and he sagged a little
as the emotion left him; then he dashed at the tears on his face and
said with an embarrassed chuckle,
"Sorry... I guess the last few weeks have weighed on me more
than I thought. Now go on, get out of here while you still have the
chance."
"Y... you're letting me go?" Shinji asked.
"Yes," said DJ, wiping his face with his handkerchief and
straightening the knot in his tie. His composure restored, he folded
the handkerchief, put it back in the top pocket of his jacket, and
said, "I am letting you go."
"I, uh... I... " Shinji's mind whirled. Between the bizarre
conversation, the strange and suddenly reversed transformation that
had come over DJ, and the utterly unexpected notion of his release, he
forgot everything, including the English language. Finally, falling
back on manners ingrained in his childhood, he straightened, bowed
stiffly, and said, "Domo arigato gozaimasu, Curofto-san!"
"Ist nicht," said DJ, his easy, lightly but goodheartedly
mocking composure back in place. "Have you got anywhere to go?"
Shinji's own composure was leaking slowly back as he started
to allow himself to believe that he was really being set free. He
recovered his ability to speak English and said, "Uh... I'll figure
something out. I have a cousin in the Midwest somewhere... Kansas, I
think, or Nebraska... one of those flat states."
DJ regarded Shinji for a long moment, his eyes intense and
rather sad; then he grinned and stuck out his hand. "Good luck,
Mr. Ikari."
"Th... thank you," said Shinji, hesitatingly taking the
proffered hand. "You too."
"Thanks," said DJ wryly, "I'll need it."
Without another word, he went back around the sedan, got in,
and drove away.
Shinji stood and watched the black sedan until it disappeared
down one of the other streets off the roundabout. Then he turned and
walked slowly into Union Station.

DJ drove aimlessly around Worcester for the rest of the
afternoon. He felt tired... no, more than that. He felt -old-. Much
older than he had any right to feel. He drove mechanically, his mind
elsewhere, as he unconsciously counted the minutes until Shinji would
be safely away from the city, gone in any one of a dozen directions,
impossible for NERV Security to trace.
There'd be hell to pay for letting him go, DJ knew that.
Misato would be furious, and Stanfield, too. But having made the
decision, he felt at peace with it. To hell with them! To hell with
their opinions. None of them deserved to be involved in this damned
war either. Why the hell couldn't they all go home and live in peace?
Why had the fate of humanity come to rest on the shoulders of this one
small group? If they failed, Shinji would die anyway, along with
everyone else in the world. Everything anyone had ever done would be
wasted effort.
He sighed and wondered how he had become so cynical all of a
sudden. Didn't he believe in himself? In his friends? They had
right on their side, didn't they? Wasn't that enough? Couldn't pure
hearts and strong hands win the day against any odds?
Well? Couldn't they?
He looked at the clock on the car's radio and saw that it was
4 PM. By now, Shinji would be in Springfield, or Hartford, or
Providence, or Manchester, or Portland. It would have to be enough.
DJ turned the car toward the S490 and got ready to face the
music.

"That'll be $18.54, please."
Shinji handed the cashier a 20-dollar bill, waited for his
change, and wandered outside. Sitting down on a nearby bench, he
hastily set about unwrapping his purchase. It wasn't particularly
cold for February in New England, but his jacket was a bit too thin
for the season, and he wasn't wearing any gloves. Once he got moving
again, he'd be better prepared to deal with the climate.
The shrink wrap now removed, Ikari pulled a small electronic
device and a pair of earbud headphones out of the cardboard container,
then tossed the packaging into a black steel trash bin which stood
next to the bench. He put on the headphones, flipped the power
switch, and pressed play.
No less than six portable music formats had acquired popular
acceptance since the Second Impact. The venerable Compact Disc still
clung to life in 2016, though its market share had dropped to
something akin to vinyl LPs in the late 1980's. DVD-Audio had only
received moderate success, despite optimistic predictions by so-called
experts in the earliest years of the 21st century. S-DAT's low price
point allowed it to carve out a niche market for itself, in spite of
critical reviews as harsh as DVD-Audio's had been glowing. C/RAM
(Compact Recordable Audio Media, a format based on advanced floppy
diskette technology) had completely failed to catch on, despite an ad
campaign that seemed to feature every well-known television
personality between 18 and 25 years of age.
The two real survivors in the format wars had been MiniDisc
and NoteFlash. Sony introduced, mismarketed, and all but gave up on
MD twice before finally getting it right in 2004 - two years later, it
had taken over the role of market leader. NoteFlash had successfully
coexisted with MD by presenting itself as a budget alternative. It
was the descendant of MP3 flash media which had debuted in the late
1990s, extremely portable and featuring the latest in audio
compression technology. What had won over consumers most, though, was
that NoteFlash didn't require a player of any kind. The listener
could simply plug a set of headphones into the built-in jack, then
kick back to some tunes for as long as the tiny, replaceable
carbon-chain realignment battery lasted.
Shinji closed his eyes, and reveled in the opening strains of
the first track of Vivaldi's Popular Works. "Spring" wasn't a
terribly appropriate track for a day when patches of snow still dotted
the landscape, but listening to it helped Shinji focus on the matter
at hand: what to do next.
He had spent the train ride to Nashua in a state of mild
paranoia, laying low and worrying that DJ's actions were really just a
setup of some kind. The phrase "killed while trying to escape" had
sprung to mind five minutes out of the station, and he chided himself
for being so naive as to think he could just walk away. But no one
had come for him when the train stopped in Lowell (he had planned to
get off at the first stop, but the look of the city had struck him as
singularly uninviting), and when he stepped off the platform in
Nashua, New Hampshire, there was no sniper waiting to end his life in
the shadows. As far as he could tell, DJ -had- disobeyed orders and
let him escape.
Even so, DJ's secret wouldn't be safe forever, so Shinji had
quickly left the station behind. He quickly got lost, since he had no
familiarity with the city - but he hadn't really been looking for
anything, anyway, so it wasn't a serious concern. What he wanted most
was a chance to think, to sort out all that had happened to him over
the past few weeks. He didn't dare venture away from the crowds,
though. As long as he was in view of the general populace, NERV
probably wouldn't try to -kill- him - he hoped.
But the bustle of the crowds had played hell with Shinji's
ability to think clearly. His neighborhood in Japan was much more
heavily populated than Nashua, but back home his focus would have been
aided by the old S-DAT Walkman that his uncle had handed down to him,
and which he carried with him everywhere he went. Everywhere but the
SEELE briefing, that is - he had dressed up that day, expecting an
inteview, and left everything extraneous at home.
Oh, well, he mused silently. If I'd brought it, it'd be
somewhere in the Arctic right now - and where would that get me? As
it was he'd had to leave behind the MD-Walkman one of the friendlier
tech types at the SEELE training facility had scared up for him. It
was just as well; the selection of music, dubbed from the tech's own
collection, leaned heavily toward progressive rock, which, while not
objectionable, didn't move Shinji the way the great composers did.
Luckily, Ikari had happened across an electronics store, and
was able to find something that could serve the same purpose. It was
fairly cheap, too - an important factor, since he was traveling the
countryside on the $237 that DJ had handed to him as he exited the
car. (He'd definitely planned to fund the escape from the start,
Shinji realized, since $200 of that sum was comprised of crispy,
never-used twenty dollar bills... fresh from an ATM in NERV HQ,
undoubtedly.) Shinji had never realized how soothing the soft
click-whirr-click of the S-DAT's mechanisms had been, but faced with
the MD-Walkman's almost inaudible whirr and the NoteFlash's completely
silent controls, he found the lack of such sounds slightly jarring.
Still, Vivaldi had carved out a small mental space in which
Shinji could feel isolated, for a time. His situation, he decided,
was unfortunate but not dire. If NERV hadn't found him yet, they'd
have a difficult time pinning down his location now. Even if they'd
forced DJ to confess knowledge of his extended family's home states,
any searches along those routes would come up empty. It had been
careless of DJ to ask, and Shinji had maintained just enough sense to
lie. He hoped Croft would understand, if it ever got back to him,
that Shinji had meant no personal offense in doing so.
Anyway, he'd used the lie to obscure his trail while he struck
off in a completely different direction. Going north did limit his
destinations, to be sure, but perhaps he would go to Canada. Shinji
seemed to remember someone telling him that the exchange rate was
favorable there. He thought he remembered his uncle mentioning a
cousin who lived in Vancouver, which Shinji believed was somewhere in
Canada, and he could catch an intercontinental flight home from
Montreal if need be, in any event.
The plan (such as it was) made sense, but something in Ikari's
heart was nagging at him. He'd never liked the thought of running
away, even though he'd proven more than adept at it over the years -
depressingly so. He'd run away from Worcester-3, and that was the
start of this whole mess...
Wait, he rationalized. Didn't DJ himself tell you that
leaving NERV behind was the -smart- thing to do? And wasn't refusing
to run away from SEELE what -really- got you into trouble? If you had
left Natla and her slideshow behind, you wouldn't be watching over
your shoulder for undercover agents. You wouldn't have risked your
life (or Rei's) in that failed assault on the city. You'd never even
have met DJ Croft, or Asuka Langley, or...
...or Ichi.
Shinji's heart raced at the thought of the dark-haired girl
who had given comfort to him during the long days at the training
facility. What -of- Ichi? Surely she was still there, sitting in her
room, waiting for the day when he'd return safely... and waiting for
the day when NERV's alleged reign of terror ended.
Alleged. It was a lie, he knew that now. NERV was not the
evil organization that Natla had made it out to be - he was sure of
that much. (They probably still wanted him dead, after what he tried
to do in Unit 04, but he'd brought that on himself.) The children
were not held against their will, as he'd been told. Natla had known
all along that it was a lie, but it was a -plausible- lie, one that
Shinji had been all too ready to believe.
Shinji had escaped SEELE's grasp by a stroke of luck, and
NERV's by an act of charity. But Ichi remained imprisoned -
physically by SEELE, and emotionally by the web of falsehoods that
Natla had carefully engineered for her. How could he leave her behind
now?
For that matter, how could he abandon DJ, Asuka, Rei, and Jon?
It had been for the children that he had gone along with the lie to
start with... and although they weren't prisoners, they were certainly
still in danger. Natla wouldn't cease her plans just because Shinji
had lost - his failure would only be a temporary setback to someone
with her resources. And as of now, he was the only person outside of
Natla's circle who had any concrete knowledge of what she was up to,
or what she had at her disposal.
His own safety aside, how -could- he run away now, and risk
having that valuable information vanish with him?
The third movement of "Winter" was just ending, and Shinji
switched off the unit as the final notes faded out. The bargain-bin
device had served its purpose - his only reasonable course of action
was clear to him, now.
Shinji thrust the NoteFlash and the headphones into his
pocket, and went into a convenience store to ask for directions to a
bus terminal.

Asuka Soryu-Langley sat on the couch at Apartment 3-D, alone
but for Pen-Pen, who was sprawled in a nap-state at the end of the
love seat. It appeared that she was reading a book, but the
page-turning was just a mechanical reflex. If asked, she couldn't
have told anyone what book she was reading, let alone what the last
page had been about. She was using the familiar movements as a cover
for fretting.
She was frightened for DJ. By the time he'd returned to
Central Dogma, the Security force had noticed that Shinji Ikari was
missing, and DJ too. A search had been underway for half an hour when
DJ suddenly walked into the command center and announced flatly that
he had let Ikari go.
Misato had hit the ceiling. DJ had taken it upon himself to
-release- a -captured enemy pilot-?! The richest potential source of
inside information about the enemy yet available, and DJ had given him
money and let him walk away? What the hell did DJ think he was doing,
if he didn't mind the impertinence of her asking?
DJ replied stiffly that he thought the expediencies of war had
crushed enough lives, thank you very much, and Shinji Ikari deserved
a chance to escape it while he still could.
Misato, so furious as to be almost inarticulate, had set NERV
Security to the daunting task of boarding all passenger trains
originating from Worcester at their first major stops and searching
them, had dismissed all operational staff, and had confined DJ to the
base until the searches were concluded. Asuka had wanted to stay -
something in DJ's eyes frightened her - but Misato had ordered her to
leave, and, not wanting to heighten the tension any further, Asuka had
gone.
Now she was at home, fretting. Would they catch Ikari? If
they did, what would they do to him? What would Misato do to DJ? It
struck her as disturbing that the core of their group, the group that
had successfully stood up to the alien infiltration of NERV and was
starting to chart the organization's new course toward safeguarding
the future, was starting to fracture over something like this.
What disturbed her even more, though, was the look she'd seen
in DJ's eyes as he'd made his announcement. He looked beaten.
Tired. Burned out. She realized, now that she thought about it, the
relentless pounding he'd been enduring almost since day one. His
personality was such that he took everything possible onto himself; he
tried to do everything for everyone. He'd never really had a chance
to rest since the war began, and for the last few weeks the punishment
had been steadily accelerating.
He hadn't had time to deal with his feelings for her before
her grievous injury.
He hadn't had time to deal with that before his subsumation
into his EVA against the Thirteenth Angel.
He hadn't had time to deal with that experience before
discovering that his father was dead.
He hadn't had time to deal with that loss before, if you'll
pardon the expression, all hell broke loose with Jon, and Rei, and
Professor Ikari.
He hadn't had time to deal with that before Ritsuko Akagi had
tried to take her own life.
He kept running from crisis to crisis, trying to shoulder
every burden he could see, and now he was starting to crack. He'd had
to be strong for everyone in their turn, and since the one night when
he and Rei had vanished, a night neither of them had ever talked
about, no one had been able to be strong for him.
Asuka wanted desperately to go to him, hold him, and be strong
for him; but Central Dogma was locked down tight, and there was
nothing for him there tonight but the cold censure of Misato, who,
Asuka knew, must have felt as though DJ had betrayed her. She might
be able to understand his motivation if she stopped to think about it,
but she had her own pressures to deal with, and she wasn't in a
position to stop and think. She had the responsibility of command,
and she had to act within it.
"Damn it!" Asuka cried, throwing down the book.
"Waugh?" asked Pen-Pen, jarred awake.
Asuka got up and paced the room like a caged tiger. "Damn
it," she repeated, gesturing angrily. "There must be a way to break
through this, this fog of misunderstanding. There must!"
Pen-Pen cocked his head in apparent confusion.
"I've all but recovered from my injuries," she went on. "Even
my leg doesn't hurt me any more, and the limp is almost gone. I can
afford to be the strong one for a while."
That sounded definitive, so Pen-Pen chipped in an
affirmative-sounding, "Waugh." The penguin had no idea what the
redhead was on about, but he could see that she was working herself
into a froth over it, and he had learned by now that there was no
percentage in getting involved in that sort of thing. He got up and
discreetly retired to his refrigerator, leaving her to it.
Not noticing that she'd lost her audience, Asuka paced and
muttered, "Jon and Rei are reeling from all they've learned about
themselves. Misato is crushed under the weight of command. DJ is
burning out. I'll have to take my turn!" She nodded firmly.
Just as she went to the kitchen to get her coat, go out, and
do -something-, the doorbell rang.
She stopped. Who in the hell could that be, and where did
they get off interrupting her moment? Everyone who she could think of
who would visit the apartment had a keycode. Puzzled, she went and
opened the door.
Standing on the threshold was Shinji Ikari.
"Ikari!" she cried; then she poked her head out into the
corridor and looked around to see if he was alone. He was. She
grabbed his arm. "Get inside before someone sees you!" she commanded,
and yanked him bodily across the threshold.
"Ulp - !" said Shinji as she hauled him into the kitchen and
shut the door behind him. "Uh, hello, Miss Langley... "
"What are you doing here?" she asked him. "I thought DJ let
you go! He's down there catching hell for it right now. They're
scouring all the train lines for you."
"I, uh... I decided to come back," said Shinji as she herded
him to the living room.
"Why?" asked Asuka. Then, before Shinji could answer, she
said, "No, save it - you'll have to tell Misato anyway. How did you
find us?"
"You're in the telephone directory," Shinji said. "Once I
remembered Brigadier Katsuragi's full name it was easy. I didn't want
to go back to NERV Headquarters - I thought they might shoot me or
something... "

DJ keyed the door to 3-D open wearily, hung his overcoat on a
peg, and slumped in the doorway of the living room, leaning against
the wall.
"Honey," he said in a dull, exhausted voice, "I'm home."
"We have company, dear," Asuka replied with a grin.
DJ pried his eyes open to look at her quizzically, then
realized there was somebody in the armchair by the TV.
He goggled.
"Shinji!" he shouted. "Bloody hell! What are you doing here?!"
Shinji smiled sheepishly. "I... I didn't think it was right
leaving you all to face this by yourselves." His face became sober,
even rather stern, and suddenly the younger Ikari reminded DJ of the
elder as he said, "I can help. I -should- help. So... I came back."
DJ sniffed with mock disgust, turned his back and went to the
kitchen. "Bloody ingrate, you are," he said, and Asuka smiled to see
him regaining his humor a bit.
Shinji got up and went after him into the kitchen. "No,
that's not true," he said. "I'm very grateful to you, for leaving the
choice to me. But don't you see - once you gave me the choice, it was
mine to make."
DJ turned, stared intently at Shinji, and then grinned.
"You know," he said, "you're absolutely right." He opened the
fridge, stuck his head in, then reached an arm back without looking at
Shinji and offered him a black metal can. "Beer?"
Shinji recoiled. "No!" he said indignantly.
DJ looked back over his shoulder. "Suit yourself, no need to
get upset." He delved back into the fridge. "Would you care for
anything else?" he asked from inside it. "Let's see, spring water,
Pepsi, ginger ale, dubious-looking 'energy drink' - whose is -that-?!"
"It's mine," Asuka called from the living room. "It was
supposed to help me with my rehab exercises. I can't stand the
stuff. Shinji can have it if he wants."
"Uh, ginger ale," said Shinji.

Misato Katsuragi couldn't remember the last time she'd been so
angry. At DJ, of all people! From Kaji, she would have expected an
act of such wanton irresponsibility, but DJ? She'd come to rely on
him, his discretion, his bolstering moral confidence. And then he
turns around and pulls a stunt like this, and what's worse, he refuses
to explain why except in cryptic, bullshit, philosophical riddles!
Security teams had boarded and searched every passenger train in every
major station within fifty miles of Worcester and turned up nothing.
Shinji Ikari, their one solid source of information about the inner
workings of SEELE, had vanished like a puff of smoke.
Misato slammed the door of her apartment behind her, slung her
jacket toward a peg and missed, ignored it, got a beer from the
fridge, downed it, got another, and stormed into the living room, a
fifty-watt glower in place just for good measure if anyone happened to
be in there. The whole damn world deserved to be glowered at tonight.
The first victim of the glower was Shinji Ikari.
"GYAAAAAAAAA - !" Misato cried, stopping dead in her tracks
and pointing. "Wh-wh-what's he doing here?!" she demanded.
Shinji reddened a little and said, "People keep wondering
that."
Misato looked at DJ. "Did - no. Of course you didn't. Why
would you set up a situation where you caught that much hell, just to
give me a shock?"
DJ shook his head. "I was as surprised as you." He reflected
on her reaction, then said, "Well, perhaps a -bit- less."
Shinji broke into the byplay diffidently: "Uh... Brigadier,
I'm... I'm ready to answer any questions you have."
Misato stared at him for a moment, then forced herself to
become businesslike and sat down in an armchair. "I want to know
anything you can tell me about them."
DJ held up a hand. "I'd like the rest to be in on it, if you
don't mind, Misato."
Misato waved a hand. "Sure, fine. Their living room's
bigger... let's go there."
DJ nodded. "I'll see to it," he said, and went next door. A
moment later, he put his head in and said, "All right, come on."
Shinji, Asuka and Misato relocated to the larger living room of
Apartment 3-F, newly tidied up, its furniture and windows repaired,
after the clash that had taken place there not too long before. On
the love seat along the far wall sat Rei Ayanami and Jon Ellison, the
one curious, the other looking rather sullen. Shinji couldn't yet
have known that Jon always looked sullen when he was really just
upset, so he avoided the tall pilot's baleful green eyes. He only
glanced briefly at Rei, too - her resemblance to Ichi was too painful
to look at for long.
"OK," said Misato briskly after they were all settled. "Now
that we're all here, what do you have for us?"
Shinji shrugged. "I can tell you about what I saw, and how I
was trained, and what they told me about you. But to be honest, a lot
of it still doesn't make much sense to me. Especially now that I know
that most of what I was told were lies."
"Perhaps -we- should start, then," DJ interjected. "You've
been lied to by both sides, and it's time you heard the real story -
all of it." He turned to Misato, who nodded her approval. DJ seemed
about to speak, then paused, scratching his chin. "Damned if I know
where to start, though," he admitted after a moment.
"At the beginning?" Shinji offered.
DJ sat pondering for a moment, tapping his fingers against the
side of his chair, then stood up. "Right. Just a moment," he said,
then strode out of the room.
This did little to lessen Shinji's sense of confusion, but at
least this time he knew he wasn't alone. Asuka, Misato and Rei were
swapping curious glances, neither quite sure what their compatriot had
in mind. Jon gazed moodily out the window he had jumped through not
too many days before.
DJ returned to the room with an armload of books -- a few
hardcovers and five or six paperbacks of various sizes. He carefully
placed the stack on his chair, then lifted one of the hardbacks in the
air for all to see.
"'Almost Armaggeddon: A Scientific Analysis of the Second
Impact'," he said, his voice clinical. "'This 510-page volume
elaborates upon the universally accepted theory that an asteroid
struck Antarctica on April 1, 2000, and features quotes and findings
from highly respected researchers from facilities all over the
globe,'" he read from the flyleaf. "It spent twelve weeks on the New
York Times bestseller list, earned its author a fistful of literary
awards, is required reading in any university course on the subject
and is generally considered -the- authoritative work. It's
well-written and quite scholarly. Unfortunately, it's complete bunk."
After placing the book in front of Shinji, DJ produced a trio
of paperbacks, their covers much more lurid than that of the rather
clinical-looking hardcover. "These three books offer alternative
theories of the events of that fateful day. The first provides
allegedly irrefutable evidence that the disaster was the result of a
top-secret U.S. weapons test gone horribly awry. (The weapon,
incidentally, is supposed to have been based on the device used by
Nikola Tesla to cause the Tunguska Event in 1908. Interesting notion,
but wrong.) The second insists that the events were a warning strike
by hostile aliens bent on conquering the planet. The third is a
poorly-written religious diatribe warning readers that the Second
Impact was a punishment from God for the manifold sins of Man. The
first two were used as the basis for major motion pictures, the third
had to settle for TV movie status in the US and UK."
DJ deposited the paperbacks on top of the first book, then
began shuttling all of his remaining literature onto the table, one
volume after another. "Diary entries from Second Impact survivors -
well, survivors of the aftermath, really... tales of structures built
to hold back the rising waters... accounts of the political turmoil
that erupted in the wake of the catastrophe. Hundreds of books were
printed in the years that followed, covering all aspects of the event
and its aftermath."
DJ dismissed the pile of books with a negligent wave of his
hand and said to Shinji, "You could read every one of them, and you
still wouldn't know the truth - because SEELE has spent fifteen years
making sure that no one learned it."
Shinji gazed thoughtfully at him, but made no comment.
After retaking his seat, DJ continued, "Shinji, do you
believe in angels?"
"Do you mean the kind that attacked Worcester-3, or the kind
that come from Heaven and have wings?" replied Shinji. It was clear
that the question struck him as odd.
"Either. Both. You see, they're the same."
"WHAT?!" cried out Misato, who had been letting her attention
drift, aided by the alcohol in her system and her now-shattered belief
that she knew the details of the story DJ was preparing to tell.
Shinji had remained silent, but it was clear from his expression that
he would have said the same thing if Misato hadn't beaten him to it.
"We didn't tell you before because we weren't sure that you'd
believe us," offered Rei. "But we're running out of time, and you
need to know."
Brigadier Katsuragi slumped further in her chair, putting her
fingertips to her forehead. "Nothing that's happened today has made
any kind of sense. Why should I expect it to start now?"

It took an hour and a half for the children to tell the whole
story. First came the discussion of Rei's true nature, then the tale
of Lucifer's failed ascension and Natlateth's betrayal. This segued
into a short history lesson on X-COM, the Hidden War, and NERV's early
days (including Yui's death and Gendou's ensnarement). Next, each of
the children explained how they came to be part of Project Evangelion
(except for Jon, who left his story to be told by Rei). Finally,
Shinji was brought up to date on all that had happened since the first
Angel attack, culminating in the events which had prompted the split
from SEELE.
When it was over, Shinji looked almost overwhelmed. Misato
appeared skeptical, but didn't speak.
Ikari broke the silence with a quiet, "Wow."
"It's a lot to take all at once," agreed DJ, "but at least
you've heard it. Now you know everything that we do. What can you
tell us that we -don't- know?"
"They contacted me at my uncle's house. They told me it had
something to do with a special program for musically talented
students - I play the cello," he said, and then wondered why he had
told them that. Surely it was of no interest.
Jon Ellison looked up with the first look of real interest his
face had held all night. "I play guitar," he said, his voice hoarse
as if with disuse.
Shinji looked taken aback, and finally met Ellison's eyes. He
was startled by what he saw there. He'd taken Ellison's aloofness for
coldness, and decided that the young man was just an unfriendly sort,
but now he could see that Jon's eyes were deeply troubled. Something
very big was bothering him, eating at him, and having heard what he'd
just heard, Shinji could guess what it was. His heart went out to
Jon, and he smiled as best he could in the circumstances.
"What style?" he asked.
"Anything that comes to hand," Jon replied. "Blues, jazz,
classical, some early rock. I don't have an electric, so it's mostly
old-fashioned stuff." There was a note of desperation in Jon's voice,
an almost inaudible strain, and hearing it made Shinji do his best to
widen his smile a little.
"That's nice," he said, and not dismissively as so many people
use the phrase. "I've adapted some of Bach's pieces into duets. We
should try playing them sometime."
The corners of Jon's mouth twitched up a little, and some
light came into his eyes.
"I'd like that," he said, and retired back into silence. Rei
squeezed his hand, and for the first time that day, he squeezed it
back.
Shinji looked at them together for a moment, felt a twinge of
pain, and dragged his eyes back to Misato and his mind back to the
topic at hand. "Sorry, uh... oh, yes. I went to meet with them.
When I got there, they told me that they had lied. They introduced me
to a woman named Jacqueline Natla, who said she wanted to talk to me
about my father, and all of the horrible things he was doing." Shinji
frowned. "It was my visit to Worcester-3, all over again. I almost
walked out right there, but she assured me that she only wanted me to
watch some film footage. I'd be free to leave after that, if that was
what I wanted to do."
"That must have been quite a highlight film," Asuka added,
bitterness clear in her voice.
"Uh... yeah. Just about everything that's gone wrong in
Worcester-3 got at least a few seconds. I think I knew that they must
have been exaggerating things a little bit, but... it didn't matter.
If things out here were even half as bad as what they showed me..."
Shinji trailed off, shaking his head as if trying to jar loose the
memory of the footage from his mind. No one made any impatient
noises, so he stopped to compose himself before continuing.
"They briefed me on all of you. Misato was a figurehead. Jon
was the devoted follower. DJ was a psychotic, brainwashed puppet.
Asuka was crippled to set an example. And Rei..." Shinji turned to
face Rei, an almost apologetic look on his face, "they knew what I'd
seen here, and they took advantage of it. They told me exactly what
I'd been afraid of - that Rei was held here against her will."
"Where did they take you after that?" Misato inquired.
"I don't know, exactly. They kept me blindfolded most of the
time until I got there. It was a training facility -- I don't know if
it was their only one - and it was huge. It was in the Arctic
somewhere."
Misato looked doubtful. "X-COM has access to spy satellites
that can cover that entire area. If SEELE had a large facility in the
Arctic, we'd know about it."
"No," said Shinji unequivocally. "It was definitely above the
Arctic Circle. They didn't tell me, I figured that out from the
readings I got from EVA-04's instruments. But only the testing
grounds were on the surface - they had to transport me there every
time I had a live EVA test."
"Are you saying SEELE's training facility is an undersea
base? Under the ice pack?"
"Maybe. That's the weird thing. During some of the
simulation tests, I'd swear that we were moving. The navigational
instruments didn't stay constant, so unless there was something
interfering with them, we must have been."
"A submarine?" Asuka pondered aloud. "Could SEELE have built
a submarine large enough to transport an EVA?"
"It's possible," Misato replied. "We talked with Harland &
Wolff about it, messed around with the idea a bit, back when we were
working with Antonov on the AN-411, but it would've been too
expensive. SEELE certainly doesn't have to worry about the costs
involved, and it would explain why we've never managed to detect their
base. We'll definitely have to look into it."
"What about the personnel?" prompted DJ. "Who manned the
base?"
Shinji wrinkled his brow in concentration. "Natla was there,
but you knew that already. The mission commander - the one who talked
to me during my tests and during the attack - was a woman named Kaori
Yamashita."
"That name is familiar," grumbled Misato. "Where do I know
that name from?"
"I don't know... she mentioned that she used to work at
someplace called Western House," offered Shinji.
"Right!" exclaimed Misato. "Westinghouse. They're one of the
EVA manufacturers. Yamashita was the project lead. I've never met
her, but Ritsuko used to deal with her a lot, and I've seen some of
her memos. I gathered she went to school with Ritsuko's mother."
"I don't think she knows everything that's going on," Shinji
added hastily. "Natla always felt like she was hiding something, but
Kaori always seemed honest. I don't think she ever hid -anything-."
"Some people are very good at lying, Shinji."
Shinji shook his head violently. "Not Kaori."
Misato sighed in resignation, realizing that this was an
argument she couldn't win. "It doesn't matter. We don't have any
contacts within SEELE, so there's no way to contact her. She's on her
own."
That definitely wasn't what Ikari wanted to hear, but there
was nothing to be done about it now. "I don't remember any of the
other officers," he confessed. "I didn't talk to them very much. I'm
sorry."
"What about other pilots?" Rei asked. "Was there anyone else
our age?"
Shinji cringed instinctively -- partly because of the
question, and partly because of who asked it. "I... no. No pilots.
There was only one other person there my age, and she wasn't in the
training program."
"Then what was she doing there?" Misato asked.
"She... " Shinji fought back memories and tears as he spoke.
"She said that she was there for her protection."
Misato could tell that the boy was holding something back, and
was in no mood for it. "Protection from -what-? And do you know her
name?"
Shinji briefly looked towards Rei, but couldn't bring himself
to maintain eye contact. "Protection from NERV. Her name... "
Shinji paused, seemed to gather himself, and said all in a rush, "Her
name is Ichi, Ichi Ayanami."
Five pairs of eyes grew very wide at that revelation. DJ was
the first to speak, his expression one of pained realization.
"Oh, Christ," he muttered.
"She said..." continued Shinji, slightly stunned by the
magnitude of the reaction he had caused, "she said she was Rei's
sister. Was that a lie?"
"Not entirely," came the reply from Rei herself. Shinji
looked puzzled.
"I found her in a storage vault deep within NERV's
headquarters complex," DJ told him. "In a cryo-stasis tube, along
with ten more. That was right before we broke away from SEELE. We
weren't able to go back down there until the purge started... when we
got back there, they were gone. Someone had taken them away.
They're... well, we think they're copies of Rei, of one variety or
another. You're the only one of us that has actually seen one."
"She was my friend!" Shinji pleaded, as if begging not to be
contradicted. "She couldn't have known what was going on, I'm sure of
it. She must have been brainwashed - given the same kind of story I
was."
"Actually, that's possible," admitted Misato. "SEELE needs
them to be cooperative. No matter what Ichi told you, Shinji, I'll
guarantee you that SEELE intends to use her as a pilot. She just may
not realize it, yet."
Shinji had no answer for that. He was too busy fighting away
memories of what he had thought were better times.
Misato yawned, looked at her watch, and winced. "One last
thing," she said. "Did they tell you what their future plans were?"
"No, except for what I was supposed to do. The attack I made
was supposed to be one of many - I was supposed to weaken your
defenses a little bit each time. But I don't know any of the
specifics. I think they were waiting to see how the first one went."
"Hopefully, it went badly enough that they won't try again
real soon. And they're short an EVA, for now." Misato stood up,
wiped her eyes, and yawned again. "That's about all I'm good for
tonight - I've got to get some sleep. Shinji, you can sleep in 3-F's
spare room. There will probably be more questions tomorrow, by
someone who is actually trained in debriefing... and awake." As she
reached the door dividing her apartment from Jon and Rei's, she turned
back to Shinji. "Thank you for coming back, Shinji. You did a brave
thing. This will help."
Shinji sighed, his mind still a jumble of unidentified
emotions. "I hope so."

As Shinji climbed into bed, he heard a soft knock at his door.
"Come in?"
DJ Croft, clad in pajamas and a robe, stepped into the room.
"Sorry to keep you up, Shinji, but there's something I have to
know... and I didn't want to ask in front of everyone else."
"OK... " Shinji answered, hesitantly.
"What -didn't- you tell us about Ichi?"
Shinji froze. He'd -almost- gotten away with circumventing
this topic. He'd -almost- gotten away with suppressing his thoughts
of the night he and Ichi had spent together. But now... now it all
came thundering back. And so did the tears. His eyes met DJ's, and
he was surprised to find a hint of... sadness?... in the Britisher's
eyes.
"She... we... we were..."
DJ closed his eyes. "Lovers?" he said softly.
The word struck Shinji like a fist, but there was also a
sense of relief that he hadn't had to say it himself.
"Yes," he said, the word coming out in a choked sob. "Once."
DJ let out a long, slow breath, and placed a hand on Shinji's
shoulder without looking at him. "I was afraid that might be it."
Shinji's tears flowed like a waterfall, now, and he began to
cry audibly.
"She... she said... that is - we... "
DJ shook his head, eyes still closed. "No. You don't have to
explain." He opened his eyes and chuckled wryly. "Lord knows I'm in
no position to judge you." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry,
Shinji. I won't tell anyone else, if you don't want me to. Will you
be all right tonight? If you need company... "
"I'll make it," Shinji managed to get out between sobs.
DJ looked at him for a few moments, decided that Shinji knew
himself well enough to make that call, and said, "All right, then. If
you need anything, just tell Hal."
DJ stood up to leave, muttering a curse in Natla's general
direction -- wherever she was. At the doorway, he turned back for a
moment.
"Shinji... if we can get her out of there, we will. I
promise."
No reply was forthcoming, and DJ showed himself out.
He went through 3-F's living room, passed through the sliding
door into 3-D, and stood in the middle of the other living room for a
few seconds with his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
"Fuck," he said in a calm and distinct voice.
"That bad?" said a soft, ever so slightly amused voice from
the doorway behind him. He turned to see Rei Ayanami regarding him
with the slightest of smiles.
"Very possibly worse," he said, keeping his voice down out of
deference to the people trying to sleep. He walked back to the
doorway. "Is Jon any better?"
Rei's smile remained, wistful, breaking his heart. "Jon has
hope," she said. "He forces himself to keep distant - he's afraid
he'll try to hurt me again - and he has no trust in himself, but he
dares to hope again. In time, it may be enough."
DJ sighed. "I wish there was something I could do for him."
"For now, the knowledge that you have that wish is enough -
maybe all he can stand. It's hard for him, DJ. Perhaps Kevin -
Tabris - could have helped him find his balance again, but... I fear
for Tabris as well." She closed her eyes and looked down, and a
single tear trickled down one cheek.
DJ wiped it away with his thumb and held that side of her face
in his hand, tipping it up slightly and smiling sadly at her as she
opened her eyes again.
"I'm around if you need me," he said.
She reached up, closed her hand around his wrist, and returned
the smile.
"And I, you," she said softly; then she turned slowly and went
back to her own apartment to resume her vigil.
DJ looked after her for moment, then turned and went to his
bedroom. After a few restless minutes, he decided he couldn't face
solitude tonight, and went quietly to Asuka's room.
She was asleep, but that was all right; all he wanted was to
be near her. He slipped carefully under the covers on the far side of
the bed, moving slowly and quietly so as not to disturb her, and
wandered off to sleep after only a few minutes.
Rei, the only one still awake, sat next to Jon's bed looking
down at his lean face, the lines of trouble etched into it by recent
weeks smoothed away again in sleep. As she did every night, she sang
softly, almost under her breath, the melody that she and Tabris had
used to calm him that awful night in the Wedge. It seemed to bring
him peace and help him sleep, even in plain voice.

Alone in Apartment 3-F the following afternoon, Shinji Ikari
sat on the couch, feeling glum. This was a novel experience in some
ways: he'd absorbed so much information over the past few days, all of
it of staggering importance and incredible weirdness, that he couldn't
make sense of any of it, let alone all of it; but he wasn't reacting
to it with his usual panicked intensity. Instead, it all sort of
vaguely depressed him. He felt filled with a kind of morbid ennui, as
though nothing really mattered any more - the world had stopped making
sense entirely, and there was nothing to be gained by panic, or
industry, or anything else. He'd tried to strive for right once
already, and look where that had gotten him.
He shook his head, angry with himself. Are you going to sit
on someone else's sofa and mope for the rest of your life? he
demanded. You have a chance to start over. Why don't you take it?
Because, he told himself in reply, I don't know how much of
what anyone has told me is true any more.
His father, for all the years he'd been hateful and distant,
had been acting against his will? Gendou Ikari, a puppet of a cruel
and spiteful intelligence from beyond? It was almost too absurd to
believe, but then, so was the idea of a race of giants controllable
only by teenage children with special psionic gifts.
Rei Ayanami, an angel? Shinji didn't even believe in angels.
And if Rei wasn't a... well, wasn't a person like regular people, how
could she have a sister?
And if she couldn't, then who had Ichi been?
Everything Ichi had told him about her life and family was a
lie if anything the people here told him about Rei was true.
He couldn't believe that Rei would lie to him; but he couldn't
believe that Ichi had, either. Ichi had cared for him. Ichi had
trusted him. Ichi had...
Shinji wrenched his thoughts away from that path and looked
around the room for something, anything, to keep himself from thinking
of her.
Standing in the corner of the room, miraculously unharmed by
the melee that had wrecked this room a few weeks before, was Jon
Ellison's guitar, a gleaming acoustic National. Shinji got up and
went to it, then paused. Would Ellison mind? He wasn't around to
ask...
... but if Shinji didn't do -something- else with his mind he
was going to go insane.
He picked up the guitar and took it back to the couch with
him. It hadn't been played in a while; he fiddled around for a while,
tuning it and reacquainting himself with the instrument. He hadn't
played anything but a cello for months.
Then, satisfied that he'd got it about where he wanted it, he
started playing. First he strummed aimlessly; then he started to
settle into a pattern, remembering a chord progression he'd learned
when he'd first started with music. As he grew more and more
absorbed, remembering more and more of the tune as he remembered it,
he began to smile and lose track of his surroundings. Eventually, he
got to a point where he had taken the instrumental line as far as it
could go, so he stopped, reoriented himself, and started over, this
time quietly singing,

"Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam,
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone -
If your time to you is worth savin'
Then you'd better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'."

He picked up a little speed and started adding embellishments
to the basic progression, his voice gathering a bit of intensity.

"Come writers and critics who prophesy with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again,
And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

"Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call -
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block the hall,
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled,
There's a battle outside and it's ragin' -
It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'."

Completely absorbed now, Shinji closed his eyes and played
through a short improvised bridge, his fingers rapidly regaining
confidence as they plied the instrument. When he took up the verses
again, it was with full voice, all the more because the next verse was
the one that had always hit him the hardest.

"Come mothers and fathers throughout the land,
And don't criticize what you can't understand -
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,
Your old road is rapidly agin',
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'."

He pulled the tempo and the intensity back with an effort,
making himself use the last verse to wind the song down instead of
building it further, and his voice faded almost to a whisper as he
concluded,

"The line it is drawn and the curse it is cast,
And the slow one now will later be fast,
As the present now will later be past -
The order is rapidly fadin',
And the first one now will later be last
For the times...
They are a-changin'."

He finished the last progression and let the guitar fall
silent in his hands. He put it aside on the couch and sat quiet for a
few moments. He had to admit, as he sat with his eyes closed and his
breathing returning to normal, that he felt considerably better.
That, and he wanted his cello back.
The sound of one person's applause broke the silence, and
Shinji jumped, coming to his feet in a rush and looking toward the
doorway.
Gendou Ikari stood there, dressed more casually than Shinji
could ever remember having seen him in jeans and a Nekomi Tech
sweatshirt, a tentative smile on his face.
"What do -you- want?" Shinji asked. The words came out with
more hostility than Shinji had intended. He couldn't help it - years
of thinking of his father with anger and contempt had ingrained
patterns in him that would take some effort to break. He wished he
could take the words back and say them the way he'd wanted to say
them, when he saw the pained look cross Gendou's face.
"I... I just... " Gendou trailed off, at a loss. Then, all
at once, he strode into the room and seized Shinji in a powerful hug,
a sob escaping from his throat. Shinji stiffened instinctively, stood
like a wooden post for a few minutes, and then tentatively relaxed and
accepted the embrace. He couldn't yet bring himself to return it; he
was too shocked, and too accustomed to hating the man.
"I love you, son," Gendou Ikari whispered. "I'm sorry for all
the times I made you think I didn't."
"F-Father," said Shinji, almost dumbstruck.
Gendou stepped back, Shinji's shoulders in his hands, letting
the tears roll unchecked down his cheeks, and smiled. "You've grown
so fast," he said. "I've missed your childhood. My God, I've missed
everything."
"They... they told me you were being controlled. Your mind -
controlled by, by aliens, or demons, or something."
Gendou nodded. "Yes, Shinji, that's true. But I can't put
all the blame on them. That happened when you were three years old.
I missed your first word, your first step, the first time you read
anything by yourself, because I was too busy with my work. My damned
work!" He drew the boy into his embrace again, running his right hand
through the hair on the back of Shinji's head as he pressed the boy's
face into his shoulder. "I was a bad father before they came. I
can't change that, but I can try to make up for it, if you'll let me."
"Um... " Shinji had -no idea- what to say. He reflected with
some annoyance that this phenomenon was becoming very familiar to him.
"I hate to interrupt," said another voice from the kitchen
doorway, "but I've got a few things here that young Mr. Ikari might
like to have."
Gendou turned, stepping aside, so Shinji could see who was in
the doorway. It was a tallish Eurasian fellow with an unshaven,
ruggedly handsome face set in a cheerful grin - Ryoji Kaji, whose
picture had been shown to Shinji as that of one of NERV's chief
enforcers, a humorless, murderous hatchet man. He and the two
frightening men in black, the old white one and the young black one
named Stanfield and Edwards, were supposed to be the principle agents
of fear keeping the children in line. He certainly didn't look like
an agent of fear right now. Over his shoulder he had a heavy-looking
bag slung. His left hand held a suitcase, and his right a ponderous
black case that Shinji immediately recognized.
"My cello!" he burst out. "Where did you get it?"
"At your uncle's place with the rest of your stuff," said
Kaji, "where else? It was a long day, flying down there and back, but
your dad let me borrow his JBS2, and I've always wanted to fly one of
those."
"JBS2?"
"Jet, Business, Super-Sonic," said Gendou. "A high-speed
executive transport. I used it to report to SEELE Headquarters in
Switzerland. It's not really mine." He smiled at the other man.
"Thank you, Kaji."
"No sweat. Which room should I put the stuff in?"
"At the end of the hall," said Shinji, pointing.
Kaji nodded and headed down the hall, whistling a happy tune.
"You sent him to get my things?" asked Shinji.
Gendou nodded. "I thought they might give you some comfort in
this strange place."
Shinji's words stuck in his throat; he coughed, cleared his
throat, and finally managed to say softly, "Thank you, Father."
"Shinji... will you come with me for a few minutes? There's
something here in Worcester I think you ought to see."
"Uh... s-sure."

They drove in silence across the half-ruined, almost-deserted
city, Gendou distractedly guiding the car, which Shinji suspected was
the same Chrysler DJ had used to take him to the train station the day
before.
Shinji's puzzlement only deepened when they stopped in front
of a small white church on the outskirts of town. He hadn't even
known his father was religious, though he supposed that concept was
kind of up for grabs after what he'd been told the night before. He
wondered what his father was up to as Gendou led him into the cool
wood-paneled expanse of the church's interior.
To his surprise, Gendou walked right through the church and
out a side door, not giving the stained glass or the disturbingly
realistic sculpture of Christ on his cross that hung over the altar a
look.
Shinji followed him out, and they were standing in an
old-fashioned churchside graveyard. Gendou walked between the stones,
old and weathered leaning in between the occasional new or replacement
marker, stopping not very far from a large, gnarled oak tree. Shinji
thought the place was fairly creepy even in daylight, the very model
of the Halloween thriller churchyard. He looked around nervously, and
almost ran into his father's back as Gendou stopped before a marker.
It was a newish-looking stone, horizontal rather than vertical and of
only modest size, in pinkish polished granite.

YUI IKARI
AUGUST 9, 1977 - AUGUST 9, 2004
SCIENTIST - HUMANITARIAN - MOTHER

Shinji Ikari stared uncomprehendingly at his mother's
tombstone for a moment, then fell to his knees and laid his hands
against the cool stone, his eyes hot and stinging.
He could only dimly remember his mother, of course. She had
died when he was three, and he'd been sent almost immediately back to
Japan, where he'd been born, to live with his father's brother,
Soichiro Rokobungi. His only memories were the faint and disjointed
impressions of very early childhood - of warmth, and kindness, and an
overwhelming sense of peace. He'd always felt her loss in an abstract
kind of way, but now it slammed into him like a knee in the stomach,
and dropped him from his feet just as effectively.
Gendou Ikari put his hand on his son's shoulder and said
softly, "Your mother was the kindest woman who ever lived. She would
be proud of the courage you showed in coming back to help us - as
proud as I am."
Shinji looked up over his shoulder, dashing at his tears.
"You're... proud of me?" he asked.
Gendou nodded. "Very proud. You could have walked away and
left us all to our fates, but you came back and offered what you could
give. That was very brave."
Shinji's heart swelled. Could this man really be his father,
the man who had alternately rejected him, ignored him, and reviled him
all his life?
"How did Mother die?" he asked.
Gendou closed his eyes, thought for a moment, then opened them
again.
"Jacqueline Natla murdered her," he said quietly.
Shinji's face hardened. "She murdered my mother, and then she
tried to use me to murder my father." He stood up, anger making his
movements convulsive. "God damn her!"
"I fear He already has," said Gendou sadly.
A terrible thought struck Shinji. "But - if Worcester-3 is
destroyed, then - then - this place will go too!"
Gendou nodded. "That's why I thought you should see it now.
While it's still here."
"But - but Mother - "
"Your mother isn't here, Shinji. This," he said, nudging the
stone with the toe of one shoe, "is a symbol, nothing more. We came
to this church sometimes, we were married here, so I thought it proper
to put a marker here, but she's not here. The way she died... "
Gendou stopped himself, shook his head, and said simply, "There was no
body to bury."
"Oh." A new wave of fury struck him at that. Natla hadn't
even left his father the clay to pay his final courtesy to! The
heartless cruelty of it all...
He turned suddenly to his father, intensity shining in his
face. At that moment, Gendou realized for the millionth time how much
his son looked like his lost wife, and for the first time ever, that
thought did not drive a dagger into his back.
"Father, when EVA-04 is repaired, I want to pilot it for you."
Gendou Ikari was appalled.
"No!" he said. "Absolutely not!"
"But - "
"Shinji, please. Natla and SEELE are working hard to destroy
everything I care about. You're almost all I have left. Please don't
ask me to put you directly into the line of fire! All I want is for
you to be as safe as we can make you."
Shinji would have protested - the notion had just struck him,
but he felt terribly strongly about it - but the last thing he wanted
in this new peace was to start an argument with his father, so he let
the subject drop.
"All right, Father," he said. "I'll do as you ask."
Gendou put his hand on Shinji's shoulder again. "It's brave
of you to offer, Shinji. Please don't think I don't have confidence
in you. I just don't want you to be hurt any more."
Shinji nodded. "Sure. I understand." He tried out a smile.
It felt all right, so he left it on his face. "Shall we go?"
"All right," said Gendou. He put his arm around his son's
shoulders and the two of them left the churchyard behind.

The next morning found Asuka fretting about the EVA repair
bay, Jon in one of the simulator rooms punishing himself through a
series of difficult EVA sim exercises, Rei introspecting in the Wedge,
Shinji playing video games nearby, and DJ and Gendou trying to finish
up their interrupted conversation about the pharaoh Akhenaten from two
days previous. Truss was tinkering with the still-incomplete
operating code for Jet Alone, Maya was heading up the tech officers
for the command room and Misato was using her assistance to run a
conventional-defense drill - not that the city's conventional defenses
amounted to much any more, or were worth anything without an EVA to
back them up, but it was something to do.
The simulation was going fairly well when a group of three
unauthorized air targets entered the city's defense perimeter for
real, and set off alarms all over the place.
The console crew switched quickly and smoothly to real defense
operations and took steps to identify the intruders. When that
information appeared on his screen, Makoto Hyuuga felt his heart
sinking.
"Primary target is that Antonov 411 again," he reported.
"It's deploying another Evangelion."
"Oh, hell," Misato growled. "Let's see it."
This one was blue rather than silver, and it bore no numeric
markings at all, but it was a production-model Evangelion, all right -
the FEISAR type, EuroEVA Mark I, rather than the Westinghouse Model
2014-A1 that Units 03 and 04 were. It had the EuroEVA's unmistakable
quadroscopic sensor package, and sported slightly faster ground speed
than the Westinghouse type in trade for its lighter battery load and
lower uncabled endurance (though of course that disadvantage had been
nullified by the development of the self-contained Evangelion power
supply). At her first sight of it, Asuka's fists clenched
reflexively; it was the same model as her own lost Unit 02, and but
for its color it seemed identical.
"Defense systems, status report!" Misato barked.
"Air defenses at 62% capacity and falling," reported Shigeru
Aoba from his status console. "Ground defenses at 34% capacity and
falling. All Evangelion units non-functional. Conventional defenses
ineffective, as usual."
This wasn't just a tactical strike like the last one. Misato
could see that from the course the enemy EVA was following on the tac
map. They knew, damn them, they -knew- NERV didn't have an
operational Evangelion, and therefore had no effective defense against
this assault. They must have rushed the attack - the unit wasn't even
fully painted, they must have shoved it off the line at FEISAR just as
fast as the techs could work - to take advantage of that
vulnerability, and having committed themselves that far, they were
going for the kill. The blue Evangelion was making for one of the
primary surface access lifts. They'd all been shut down when
Worcester-3 went into fortress mode, of course - fortress mode except
the blocks of buildings downtown that, as they were completely
abandoned, no one had seen the use in bothering to retract - but no
doubt the EVA planned to use the shaft to gain access to the Geo-Front
and make a direct assault.
She looked around the room, her eyes going from face to face,
fixing them in her memory as they looked at that moment. Unless
someone could come up with something brilliant, they were all done
for, all their struggles for nothing, and Misato wasn't feeling very
brilliant.
John Trussell's face suddenly and subtly changed, from grim
resignation to tentative hope, and he softly murmured two words:
"Jet Alone."
"What?" asked Misato, who hadn't heard him clearly.
"Jet Alone!" Truss shouted, banging his finger down on one of
his panel's intercom keys. "STS to Silo 3 TechOps Chief, come in!"
"Silo 3, go," came the voice.
"Emergency. Give me an ETA to prepare Jet Alone for immediate
launch."
"Uh, say again, STS?"
"I need an ETA to prep JA for immediate combat operations,"
Truss said. "How long?"
"Four minutes to arm the weapons, one to lock down for
launch," the silo chief replied, picking up on the urgency in his
superior's voice. "But, sir, most of the reactor housing armor is
still off the unit, we've only just finished installing and
calibrating the colliders and focus core."
Truss looked up from the panel. "How long before the enemy
unit reaches Shaft One?"
"Twelve minutes, present speed," Makoto Hyuuga replied.
"Get as much armor back on as you can in ten minutes, chief,
and get those weapons armed. I'm on my way."
"Yessir!"

Silo 3 was located on the opposite side of Central Dogma from
the Evangelion Operations Center, a little more than a mile away. It
took two minutes for the Central Dogma internal rail system to get
Truss and DJ down there. DJ spent the entire ride silently gazing out
the window next to his seat aboard the monorail car, his face
unreadable. Truss wondered what was going through his head.
He seemed to realize he was being observed; he turned his head
to look at Truss, saw the look of concern on the technologist's face,
and smiled at him.
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends," he said.

Thomas Ellison, the youngest of the Ellison brothers in terms
of actual manufacture, couldn't help but sneer at the thought of his
siblings (to say nothing of his eleven irksome cousins) all left
behind while he got the opportunity to deliver the coup de grace to
NERV. Lucas had been absolutely furious when Natlateth had tapped
Thomas for the all-or-nothing followup to the Ikari debacle, and the
rest had been only slightly less perturbed - except Mathieu, perhaps,
but nothing seemed to bother Mathieu. He went through life with a
sort of cool superiority that had never failed to irritate anybody.
Well, so what if they were all angry. So what if the decision
was arbitrary - Natlateth was the arbitrary type sometimes. What
mattered was that it would be he, Thomas, who struck the final, fatal
blow. Once he penetrated the Geo-Front, the traitors would be
defenseless. He would hunt them down and crush them one by one.
Maybe he'd bother capturing the EVA pilots, as he'd been instructed,
and maybe not; it depended on his mood at the moment he encountered
them. What could anyone say to him if he didn't bring them back?
He'd still have won the war. All else was minutiae.
He'd just used one of SEELE's Armaments Division's refinements
to a NERV EVA weapon, a grenade launcher slung under the standard
autorifle, to take out a missile platform when his battle computer
painted a new threat. One of the several false buildings that were
used as surface points for Evangelion launches was active - the lights
at its corners were flashing red and a new siren was hooting in the
streets of Worcester-3, the twenty-second warning for anyone who might
happen to be in the area to get clear of the building. Thomas
scowled. What was this? They couldn't have an operational EVA;
intelligence data confirmed that all of NERV's were out of commission.
"What the hell's this?" he demanded of his tac channel.
"Unknown, EVA-05," he got back from his field commander, a
major whose name he hadn't bothered to learn, aboard the orbiting
AN-411. "Could be an EVA launch."
"Isn't that supposed to be impossible?" Thomas inquired
sourly.
"It might be EVA-01," came the voice of Kaori Yamashita, who
was monitoring the operation from a comm relay station at Central
Command. "If it is, get clear -immediately-."
Thomas gulped down fear and forced his sneer back into place.
"I can handle Croft," he said with more confidence than he felt,
racking a fresh grenade into the launcher.
"Negative, EVA-05," said Yamashita. "If - "
"Proceed, EVA-05," Jacqueline Natla's voice interrupted.
"Engage and destroy, whichever enemy unit it may be."
Thomas grinned. At least -someone- had some confidence in
him.
The false building shook with the impact of an EVA platform
delivery, then split down the middle and fell away to reveal a gantry,
but what was positioned on that gantry was not an Evangelion.
Thomas Ellison stared at it in mute disbelief for two seconds,
then burst out laughing.
"Control, are you -seeing- this?!" he demanded incredulously.
"We see it, EVA-05," said Natla. "It reveals the depth of
their desperation. Destroy it."
"With pleasure," said Thomas, his amusement rapidly waning to
be replaced by anger. How dare they send this toy against him? It
was a slap in the face, a bald insult. Jet Alone wasn't even a
weapon, it was a failed pork-barrel project - a bone tossed to AG
Systems by the United States Army when they had lost the EVA Phase Two
contract to FEISAR. NERV had been allowed to capture it -because- of
its utter uselessness.
Thomas frowned crossly at it. What had NERV done to it? Its
tentacle-like, multi-segmented arms were gone, replaced by thicker,
heavier, conventionally-jointed arms like something off a huge cargo
loader. Where they joined the still-intact sloping red pauldrons, the
armor was marred by a patchwork of bare gray spots, weld scars, and
surviving bits of the original red paint. The arms themselves were
unfinished, with unpainted armor and some armor segments missing to
expose the gleaming structure of magnetic rams beneath. The lower
slopes of the chest panel on both sides were similarly burnt and
scarred, as though some modifications had been done there too. There
was no sign of the tall black actuating rods for the reactor core,
which should have been jutting up behind the robot.
"EVA-05," said Yamashita's voice, "exercise caution. JA
doesn't conform to our files; it's been modified."
"I can see that," Thomas replied sardonically. "Don't worry.
Whatever they've done to it, it's still a toy." Thomas raised his
EVA's autorifle and opened fire.

Ten seconds earlier, Truss looked over the status indicators
for JA's systems and felt a surge of relief; everything seemed to be
working properly, even with the incredible rush to reassemble the
unit. The new operating code wasn't quite complete either, which he
had expected would cause problems, but the unit seemed to be quite
functional. He keyed open his comlink to the command pod.
"DJ, how's everything look down there?"
Two levels below the control booth was the Jet Alone Command
Center, a large, mostly empty room that contained an Evangelion entry
plug on a hydraulic motion-control rig of the sort used to manipulate
the fake cockpits in airliner simulators. A thick bundle of cables
and wires of a dozen or more different gauges and colors snaked from
the front end of the plug like the green top on a carrot, ran across
the concrete floor, and disappeared into what had been a ventilator
duct in the opposite wall. They ran upstairs to the control booth,
where most of them were connected to the consoles there, and a few
were shunted into the main conduit system to run to the telemetry
monitors that SHODAN maintained for all combat units.
It had to be admitted that the fit and finish of the new
control setup inside the former entry plug wasn't up to the usual
polished standards of the NERV Technical Division. In fact, it looked
rather like a high school science fair project, with exposed wiring
here and there, instruments haphazardly installed in spaces that
weren't the right size and shape for them, and the occasional
poorly-executed weld. DJ Croft sat in the middle of it, in
shirtsleeves and tie, not having had time to change into his purely
ceremonial jumpsuit. He was strapped down, because the command pod was
on a motion-control rig for a reason, and getting chucked out of the
-remote control- for one's giant robot was even more embarrassing than
being unhorsed by the real thing.
He had on manipulator gloves wired into one of the consoles, a
headband based on an EVA transducer unit but cabled to a computer
behind his seat, and electrodes on his forearms, neck and ankles. The
first were waldo-equipped for operating JA's hands; the second fed
signals back and forth between his inner ear and JA's primary gyro to
fine-tune balance sensations; the third monitored his vital signs,
just in case. Without a direct neural interface there was no
possibility of feedback, but who knew, the jury-rigged control system
might blow a fuse and electrocute him or something. The plan had been
to finish testing on the new configuration, then build a 'finished'
command center close to the new MOCR in Halifax.
He ran his eyes over the status displays and said, "Power
train looks good, weapons are standing by."
"Roger. Engage Ibuki-Trussell Field."
DJ looked down at the newest switch, a yellow and black
striped toggle that had been jammed in above the weapons selection
panel. They hadn't had a chance to test this in the real world yet.
He wondered if it would blow them all up.
"Engaging," he said, and flipped it.
A red light next to it started flashing, accompanied by a
rhythmic buzz.
"IT generator calibration error," DJ reported. The EVA-style
wraparound situation displays had been kept unmodified, and on the
center one, EVA-05 opened fire with what looked like a modified
autorifle. DJ got Jet Alone moving, putting a building between
himself and the attacker, and toggled the switch a few times.
"Negative IT activation," he said, and tried to remain calm. Without
the IT Field, JA was just a giant wind-up toy as far as the enemy EVA
was concerned; there would be nothing to stop it wrecking the robot
and then proceeding with its deadly mission unopposed.
"I see it, hang on," said Truss, pulling open another window.
"I was afraid this might happen. Take evasive action while I see what
I can do."
"Roger," said DJ. JA had good land speed, especially with its
heavy reactor core replaced by the collider assembly. Once the lead
shielding had been stripped and replaced with lighter-weight, stronger
armor plating, it would be even better; right now it was still a bit
top-heavy, a state not helped by the heavier, stronger new arms. He
kept a careful eye on the balance indicator and tried to lose himself
in the rhythms of the machine. The jarring of the motion rig
underneath him helped to maintain the illusion that he was really on
board.
He rounded a corner and halted, hemmed in by rubble left
behind from the previous incident. In EVA-01, he might have tried
jumping it, or even climbing it, but JA wasn't that dexterous yet; he
was trapped.
He turned to face the oncoming attacker. "Truss, I hate to be
a bother," he said.
Truss completed modifications to the code image for the IT
generation matrix, then thumbed the key to upload the changed image to
JA and restart the affected system, thanking his muse again for giving
him the notion of making JA's new operating system modular.
"Got you now!" Thomas Ellison exulted.
DJ reached to the weapons panel and flicked one of the four
switches down. A small green light labeled [AC ARM] came on above
it. The scarred, modified-looking panel on JA's lower right chest,
just below the robot's orange 'collar' marking, slid back, and from
within the robot's superstructure, a snub-nosed three-barrel cannon
popped out. DJ flicked the safety cover away from the finger trigger
on his command joystick and squeezed.
JA's primary armament, a General Electric GA/11 'Intimidator'
45mm autocannon, growled out a short burst of twenty mixed
armor-piercing and explosive shells. They raked across EVA-05's
chest. Thomas cried out with alarm as they exploded against the EVA,
their impact driving the unit back slightly. Then he realized that
they could do no harm against his AT Field and felt foolish, then
angry. Snarling, he responded with a burst of his own. JA stumbled
back as the EVA's lighter autorifle fire bit into the forward armor,
but the robot was sturdily built; the attack did little more than
smear the already-shabby paint job.
Thomas made an inarticulate noise of hatred and jacked a shell
into his autorifle's underslung grenade launcher.
"Christ!" DJ muttered as he realized what the strange
modification to the enemy unit's weapon was. "John, they've attached
a hi-ex weapon to his autorifle. Think it's a grenade launcher,
M203-style."
"Upload complete," Truss replied. "Five seconds to system
restart."
"I don't think I've -got- five seconds!" DJ replied as EVA-05
leveled the weapon. "Ah, hell, nothing better," he muttered to
himself, and kicked the robot forward into a hand-to-hand attack.
It accomplished little - JA's fist clanged ineffectually
against EVA-05's protective field, making it strobe - but the lunge
brought JA in underneath the arc of the grenade launcher's fire, and
the explosion rearranged the rubble behind JA to no particular
effect.
"Idiot!" Thomas snarled, then realized that he was just
yelling at his own Control. He opened a channel on one of NERV's
documented tactical frequencies and repeated the imprecation, then
smashed Jet Alone back toward the rubble with a stiffened arm.
In the NERV master control room, Misato Katsuragi dropped the
pen she'd been fiddling with. The enemy pilot had just jumped into
the NERV tac net, his face appearing on one of the display screens.
He looked just like Jon Ellison!
Jon saw, and instead of reacting with surprise, he snarled,
crushing a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his fist and not even feeling
the hot liquid burn his hand. Beside him, Rei gasped and put a hand
on his arm. Glancing at her, he pulled it away.
"Who in the hell are you supposed to be?!" Misato demanded.

"Nice work, EVA-05," said Kaori Yamashita dryly. "You've just
wasted all our counterintel work on the Ellison project in one flick
of a switch. Congratulations."

"To hell with that!" the enemy pilot shouted, which confused
Misato until she realized he wasn't talking to her. "I want them to
know who killed them." He looked away from the side panel he'd been
addressing and faced the pickup that was showing him to NERV. "My
name is Thomas Ellison," he sneered. "I have the singular honor of
being the one to breach your feeble remaining defenses, chase you into
your burrows, and crush you like the animals you are. What do you
mean by sending this pathetic toy out to do battle with me? I hoped
at least I would have the opportunity of killing my failure of a
brother in -battle-. Now it seems I'll have to content myself with
smashing him like a bug." Thomas leered. "See you soon, Katsuragi,"
he said, and switched off his link to them.
Jon gazed at the now-blank comm screen for a few moments, the
muscles at the corners of his jaw working; then he spun on his heel
and stormed out of the control room.
Rei watched him go with pained eyes, then turned to Asuka.
"This," Asuka observed heavily, "was not what Jon needed to
see right now."
"No," said Rei sadly.

"OK, try it again," said Truss on the intercom hardline to
JA's command pod. He'd been as shocked as everyone else by the sudden
appearance of what appeared to have been Jon's evil twin, but the
enemy pilot's boasting had given him the time he needed to complete
the restart of Jet Alone's core calibration systems without the unit
being pounded further while it happened. "Engage IT Field."
"Trying it again," DJ replied, and he flipped the switch.
For a moment, nothing happened, and DJ watched EVA-05 feed
another round into its grenade launcher with wry but calm thoughts of
just how many times he could expect to avoid JA being blown to bits in
this stupid blind alley. Then the little green light next to the red
one that meant disaster began to flash. It flashed five times, then
settled into a steady glow. The VDU next to it, which displayed an
armor status diagram of JA, now displayed a brilliant green energy
field diagram around the map of the robot's body.
"IT Field engaged," said DJ with a grin. "Truss, you're a
genius."
Truss mopped his forehead, smiled, and said, "Phase spaces
equalized. You take it from here, DJ."
"Believe I will," DJ replied equably, and he squeezed the
trigger again.
Thomas shouted again, this time in more pain than surprise, as
the second volley of fire tore into EVA-05's chest armor. The unit
staggered backward, launching the prepared grenade in a random
direction and blowing up nothing more consequential than a derelict
water-storage tower.
"What the FUCK!" Thomas bellowed. "HOW DID HE DO THAT?!"
"Jet Alone is... "
Natla's voice trailed off, to be taken up by the more urgent
tones of Kaori Yamashita:
"EVA-05, alert! Jet Alone is generating an Absolute Terror
Field in counter to your own! Your phase space is neutralized, you
are vulnerable to its weapons! Repeat, -you are vulnerable-!"
"No! HOW?!" Thomas cried, backpedaling his unit as JA began
to advance. "That's IMPOSSIBLE!"
"Obviously not," Natla said coldly. "It's happening, isn't
it? Whining won't help you."
Thomas ground his teeth. This damned Tinkertoy! Making him
look bad in front of the boss! If the others were being allowed to
watch, they must be laughing themselves sick. He wasn't going to take
that, not from anyone! AT Field or no AT Field, Jet Alone was going
-down-.
He dodged the next burst from that brutal cannon and returned
fire; JA strode coolly through the light autofire, its armor shrugging
the rounds off without the imbalancing effect of EVA-05's unopposed AT
Field.
"EVA-05, you're outgunned, you can't win a stand-up
firefight," Yamashita advised. "You have superior mobility, I suggest
you use it."
Thomas was about to reply, hotly, that he was damned if he'd
-run away- from this... this -thing-, when he realized that she was
quite right. He jumped back, dove sideways, slid down Elm Street on
the edges of EVA-05's feet and disappeared into the maze of tall
buildings that made up the heart of downtown by the time Jet Alone
made it around the North American Bell relay station at the top of the
hill.
DJ's eyes narrowed. He realized what the enemy pilot was
doing: he wanted to lure the slower, clumsier JA into the narrowest,
twistiest streets in the city, where the EVA's fluidity and acrobatic
prowess would give it an advantage. Down there, EVA-05 could appear
and disappear almost at will, picking away at JA's armor until the
robot was disabled.
DJ didn't particularly want to play that game.
He patched his intercom channel through to the master control
room and said, "Misato, would you be so good as to retract sections
A-3 through C-12?"
Misato grinned at his image on the comm monitor and said it
would be a pleasure.
Thomas Ellison crouched his EVA behind the reassuring gray
bulk of the AT&T Tower and waited, weapon at the ready, an eye on his
monitors. As soon as the robot came down into the streets, he could
get a fix on it by the sounds of its footsteps and stalk it without
maintaining visual contact. This would be time-consuming, but simple;
the clumsy machine couldn't hope to keep ahead of his EVA in these
streets.
The ground rumbled slightly, and for a moment Thomas thought
this was it, until he realized that it wasn't coming from any specific
direction. He wondered what was going on. This was hardly an
earthquake zone. He put out a hand to steady his unit against the
AT&T Tower.
The Tower was moving.
EVA-05 recoiled, mirroring the surprise of its operator, and
Thomas's eyes went wide as he realized that the building, and all the
buildings around, were shrinking - no - SINKING, vanishing into the
ground! His cover was disappearing!
DJ saw EVA-05's Elerium collider appear on his Magnetic
Anomaly Detection sensor before the unit was fully revealed by the
shrinking buildings. He flipped another of the switches on the
weapons selection panel; this one caused a light labeled [PBW ARM] to
glow above it. Along the length of JA's right forearm, an armored
panel popped up, exposing a spiral of silver hoses surrounding a
cylindrical core with a black emitter muzzle at the hand end; this
extended telescopically until it protruded above the back of the
hand. DJ dropped a targeting reticule onto JA's MAD signature and let
JA do the rest; the unit raised its arm, fist clenched and tilted down
out of the way, and trained the weapon on the target.
When the top of the AT&T Tower cleared the top of EVA-05, DJ
pressed a thumb trigger - unfortunately, just as EVA-05 moved, turning
toward its suddenly-visible enemy. For an instant, a thick line of
brilliant, coruscating blue light connected JA's arm with EVA-05's
left side; then the light was gone, and EVA-05 was toppling backward,
smoke billowing from the charred wound in its side just below the left
shoulder, half an autorifle in each of its hands.
"AAAAAAGGGGHHHH!" was the cogent remark Thomas Ellison had on
hand for this situation. His plug suit responded to the sympathetic
pain his EVA's abrupt wounding has caused, slamming pseudoendorphins
into his system and electrically moderating his heart rate. In a
moment, he'd regained some semblance of consciousness, the staggering,
mind-wiping pain replaced with a dull throb and a fierce anger.
"What the FUCK was that?!" he demanded.
"Particle beam weapon," Yamashita's voice said. "You're
losing your cover, EVA-05. Get out of there while I see what I can
do."
"No!" Thomas snarled, driving his unit to its feet. "I'm
going to tear this thing apart!"
Back at the SEELE command post, Kaori Yamashita shook her
head. Ikari hadn't been the most assertive bulb on the tree, perhaps,
but he'd at least followed instructions and possessed a measure of
common sense. She patched her console through to the communications
and sensor systems aboard the orbiting SEELE AN-411 and began a
modulated frequency search.
"What are you doing?" Jacqueline Natla inquired.
"When NERV adapted Jet Alone they turned it into an RPV," said
Yamashita. "I read the reports we were getting on the project before
they cut off communications with us. I'm trying to isolate and cut
off JA's command signal."
DJ wondered what was going on in the enemy EVA pilot's head as
the blue unit charged him, Progressive Knife in hand. With a press of
a trigger, he could blow the charging unit's other arm off, or its
leg, or its head. The PBW might even have enough power to punch a
hole straight through the middle of the unit, reducing entry plug and
pilot to vapor. The thing was a little cousin of Gabriel's Horn,
after all.
His thumb hovered over the trigger as he prepared to do just
that, but something, some small voice, halted him. It would be too
much like cold-blooded murder, perhaps, or maybe it just offended his
sense of fair play. Either way, he hesitated momentarily.
Ah, the hell with it, he thought, and pressed the trigger.
All his displays went insane, stuttering back and forth
between meaningful telemetry and incomprehensible noise with a
disorienting strobe-like effect.
"Wha - ?!"
"Damn!" John Trussell shouted, slamming a palm down on his
console. "DJ, they're jammed the control signal - Jet Alone is cut
off!"
Jet Alone's remote command system utilized a band of
frequencies, not just a single wavelength, to transmit and receive
information from its command station. That frequency changed
approximately every 250 milliseconds on a random seed, which was both
defense against jamming attacks like this one and another layer of
security in the link between home station and remote unit - both sides
of the connection had to change frequencies on the same pattern for
connection continuity to be maintained. Yamashita's efforts to jam
JA's signal was thus not completely successful - the AN-411's comm
array didn't have the sophistication or power to jam the whole
frequency band or to properly chase the control frequency up and down
the dial. It was effective enough, though, to isolate JA from its
control station for over nine-tenths of every second, resulting in
bare snippets of data from JA reaching home base and incomplete
control inputs reaching JA - and JA could not act on incomplete
instructions.
Thomas Ellison gave a gleeful laugh as his opponent froze, its
strings cut. He slammed Unit 05's fist against JA's squat, neckless
turret of a head, which accomplished little but made Thomas feel
good. Then he kicked the robot high and made it topple to its back.
Grabbing hold of it, he turned it over.
"Elerium colliders!" Kaori Yamashita cried. "That explains
the increased power levels. It appears they've found a way to
generate an AT Field from Elerium field interactions."
"Ingenious," said Natla with cold sarcasm.

When Jet Alone's remote command signal was, for all practical
purposes, lost, JA's internal systems performed a number of programmed
actions:
First, they checked the unit's onboard communications
equipment for fault or damage, to see if signal loss was a local
problem;
Second, they broadcast a Request for Command Re-establishment
on the prescribed range of control frequencies, properly scrambled
with the encryption key shared between the unit and its authorized
control transmitter;
Third, they concluded that the transmitter station must have
suffered a fault, and that it was therefore unlikely that useful
contact would be re-established in a timely manner.
This conclusion gave the onboard computer latitude to activate
JA's intrinsic decision matrix, the NERV-improved version of JA's
original self-motivating programming. JA's expert system immediately
established that the unit was under attack by a hostile Evangelion and
in imminent danger. This decision authorized the autonomous use of
JA's integral weapons systems.
As Thomas Ellison prepared to smash a large piece of rubble
down on one of JA's Elerium cells (which would probably not have been
effective - Elerium colliders are sturdier than they look - but why
take chances?), Jet Alone suddenly turned on its side and flung its
left arm up to block the blow. The concrete shattered against JA's
heavy vambrace armor.
EVA-05 stumbled back, mimicking the shocked mannerisms of its
pilot, as JA rose slowly and deliberately from the ground. As soon as
the robot was in proper firing position, it opened up with its
autocannon again, driving EVA-05 back and peppering its armor with
dents, cracks and small craters.
"EVA-05," came an advisory for Thomas from Yamashita, "Jet
Alone's expert system isn't very creative, and it's better with ranged
weapons. If you can force it into close combat you should be able to
overpower it without too much trouble."
Thomas deployed his unit's Progressive Knives, waited for a
pause in the stream of fire from the autocannon, and pounced.
Jet Alone's expert system was indeed not adept at close
combat, even less so than Kaori Yamashita, who was familiar with the
AG Systems interpretation, expected. That part of the combat database
was lacking in the still-incomplete NERV rewrite of JA's software.
The robot was not even aware that it was equipped with close-combat
weapons, let alone how they should be employed. With Unit 05 inside
the safe minimum range for the autocannon's explosive ammunition, and
well within the particle beam weapon's safe-fire radius, JA could do
little but back away, seek cover, and protect itself with its heaviest
armor locations, its forearms and breastplate, as best it could.
Even so, JA was not completely at a loss regarding the
situation as a whole. Part of its analytical capabilities spent this
time devoted to further investigation of the loss of command signal.
Within a few seconds, it determined that the signal loss had been
caused not by a fault at the transmitting station, but by deliberate
interference being injected into the control wavebands by an orbiting
hostile aircraft.
In the hump on Jet Alone's back, where the reactor cooling
equipment had been, the NERV refit had placed eight vertical launch
tubes for general-purpose missiles in between the Elerium colliders.
Under normal circumstances it would be a simple procedure for JA to
obtain a radar or laser lock on the aircraft, deploy one of the
missiles and blow it out of the sky.
Under the current circumstances, though, Jet Alone was taking
too much of a beating to get a reliable target lock on a moving
airborne target. The constant battering by Unit 05 prevented the
robot from being a stable enough sensor platform to achieve missile
lock.
Frustrated in its attempt at remedying its situation itself,
aware that it could not win in close combat with an EVA nor disengage
from the speedier enemy unit, Jet Alone began broadcasting distress
signals on the approved NERV communications channels, which were far
separate from its command frequencies.

DJ saw the distress beacon indicator light up on the part of
his panel devoted to external communications. He still had no command
interface to JA, but by careful examination of the stuttering images
on his display screens, he could piece together JA's view of the
battle as though it were taking place in a strobe-heavy disco. He
winced as he saw JA backed across the plain of Worcester-3's retracted
downtown space and into the unrescinded warehouse district, its armor
acquiring dents and shiny furrows where EVA-05's fists and blades
battered at it. The robot weaved on its feet under the pounding like
a punch-drunk fighter, its arms feebly trying to protect its sensors
and vital systems, unable to counterattack. He gritted his teeth in
sympathy and anger, almost feeling pain with each ringing impact and
each jarring screech of blade against armor. Jet Alone was tough, but
it wouldn't stand up to this pounding forever, and DJ could almost
feel its robotic equivalent of fatigue as the damage mounted.
Transfixed by the battle, he slipped into a kind of trance, twitching
with JA's movements, feeling his identity overlay the robot's in a
strange display of sympathy.
Reflexively, he ducked as JA ducked, narrowly avoiding a cut
that sheared the corner off the abandoned Worcester Machine Tool
Company factory building. In a real fight, DJ would have turned that
duck into the half-crouch needed to throw a punishing right into his
opponent's ribs, driving the punch up with the legs as well as the
shoulder and arm. He could see how the maneuver would work in his
mind's eye, feel the shock of the blow in his arm. Damn, how he
wished he could have control, just to take advantage of that
oh-so-perfect opening!
In the emergency battle closet, John Trussell gasped as the
neurobalance monitor channel status window in the corner of his screen
went blank, then reeled off a chillingly familiar block of text before
falling silent again.
On the screen, Jet Alone hesistated for a fraction of an
instant, then threw that exact blow, driving EVA-05 back a half-pace
with the crash of JA's armored fist against its midsection. EVA-05
regrouped, shaking its head in sympathy with its pilot, and tried a
diagonal slash with its left. JA stepped inside it, thrust the EVA's
hand away with a forearm-to-forearm block, and drove its left fist
against the EVA's head in a picturesque left cross.
Misato Katsuragi saw the unit's recovery and smiled with
satisfaction. Keying the intercom channel to Truss's battle closet,
she said, "Good work, John."
"I didn't do anything," Truss replied.
"Wha - ? Then how is DJ getting a command signal to Jet
Alone?"
"He... " Truss ran his eyes over his panel and saw, as he
expected to see, no traffic. "He isn't. Nothing's getting through."
He checked the neurobalance channel. It was as silent as everything
else; after that brief burst of traffic, it had blanked completely
once more. Truss keyed the intercom to the command pod. "DJ, are you
doing anything?"
"Just watching the show," came the reply. "That ducking punch
was a good one, my compliments to the programmer. Just what I
would've done."
Truss switched the channel off, deciding now was not a good
time to mention that no one had yet programmed JA with -any-
infighting skills.
Staggering Unit 05 with the head blow gave JA all the time it
needed; it stepped back out of direct engagement range and directed
its rangefinding-targeting laser array upward, aiming the beam against
the orbiting AN-411's radar return.
The AN-411's pilot saw a laser illumination warning pop up on
his status panel and keyed his microphone. "Control, we've been
painted by a ground-based laser, probably fire control. See if you
can have EVA-05 isolate and destroy."
Thomas heard the pilot's request on the comm channel, but his
EVA wasn't responding properly to his control inputs. He himself felt
slightly light-headed from the blow to the unit's head, but the EVA
itself was staggering as if punch-drunk. The phenomenon was not
unheard-of; in an early engagement, EVA-01 had been struck so hard
that its synchrony with its pilot had been momentarily impaired in
much the same way. Either way, it prevented Thomas from acting on the
aircraft's request.
Jet Alone, satisfied with its positive missile lock, popped
the protective hatch on #1 tube and launched the first of its eight
Soviet-built SS-X-13 Stiletto general-purpose surface-launch missiles.
The three-meter-high missile jumped from its tube on a charge of cold
gas, hung in the air for a split-second, and then raced away as its
sustainer rocket kicked in. With a double laser and radar lock, its
target was all but assured of destruction.
The AN-411 pilot was good; he responded to the warning tone
just as he should have, with an abrupt bank to the left and a sudden
throttle-up. The fingers of his left hand instinctively reached for
the controls for chaff launchers, with which the AN-411, being a cargo
aircraft, was not equipped. If it had, the outcome of his
well-trained reflex actions might have been different.
As it was, the lumbering transport aircraft was easy meat.
The Stiletto struck it at the starboard wingroot, blowing the
starboard half of the wing assembly clean off the aircraft, and the
Antonov's flaming wreckage spiraled into Lake Quinsigamond.
DJ's displays stuttered further, flickered, and then cleared
entirely. He grinned broadly as the force-feedback mechanisms in his
controls stiffened against his hands and feet again. He settled the
robot a little better on its feet and opened up with the autocannon
again.
The shuddering impacts of cannon fire brought Thomas Ellison
back to his senses. He set EVA-05 and charged, dodging to JA's left
side. It was weak on that side, he'd determined; both heavy weapons
he'd encountered were on the right. By running in a circle and
approaching from the left he should be able to attack with relative
impunity. Still, he would be wary when he got within close-attack
range again. "Should be able to overpower it without too much
trouble," his ass! Those armored fists hit like freight trains, there
was tremendous power in the robot's crude-looking new arms. Thomas
thought his sympathetic reaction to the head shot had loosened a
couple of teeth.
JA faded smoothly back from his charge, pivoting. It couldn't
get the autocannon to bear, but as Thomas brought one of EVA-05's
progressive blades across in a lateral cut, JA raised its left arm,
and a gleaming, silver, triangular bayonet sang out of an integral
scabbard over the back of the left fist, extending for the length of
JA's forearm again beyond the hand. JA finished its pivot and struck
downward with this blade, deflecting EVA-05's cut.
Thomas realized the change in JA's movements and mannerisms at
the same time as both his own controllers and his enemies. The robot
suddenly moved with a fluid assurance that looked more like an EVA's.
It stepped inside EVA-05's guard with almost arrogant confidence,
holding the EVA's right-hand blade at bay with its bayonet. Then it
used its pile-driver of a right fist to deliver a crushing series of
body blows, sending the blue EVA into a reeling stagger back against
the nearest locked-down weapons block. The right-hand progressive
knife spun away into the background.
Thomas shook his head, wiped blood from his lips and snarled,
reversing the other weapon for attack. He drove his EVA forward,
thrusting the blade at the windows on JA's head. He knew there was no
pilot behind them to destroy, but it was his hope that if he could
penetrate them, he could damage the onboard computers or the
communications equipment or -something-, anything that would make the
cursed thing stop fighting him so fiercely.
Jet Alone stepped back half a step, blocked Unit 05's thrust
with its right forearm against EVA-05's left, and rammed its bayonet
knuckles-deep into EVA-05's right side below the slope of its chest
armor. Thomas writhed as though himself pierced; the unit recoiled,
pulling back off the blade, tipped back and kicked viciously at the
middle of JA's body. The blow cracked JA's articulated abdomen armor
and made the robot stumble back a step; the two blades came apart with
a ringing scrape.
EVA-05 staggered back, clutching its right hand to the wound;
orange blood trickled over its splayed fingers and dripped from its
knuckles to the ground far below. Inside, Thomas Ellison mimicked
this position, breathing hard, his system pumped full of
pseudoendorphins to counteract the sympathetic pain of his unit's
mounting injuries. It began to dawn on him that Jet Alone's operator
had one distinct advantage over him: however badly Thomas carved up
the robot, the intelligence guiding it never felt pain.
The thought of that fact's patent unfairness filled him with
rage. Screaming it out, he dug EVA-05's heels in and charged, raining
a series of blows and slashes on Jet Alone's upraised forearms, adding
more bright scars to the gray plating. A corner of one of the right
arm's plates broke off and clattered to the ground.
Jet Alone let the frenzied EVA back it through half of the
warehouse district as DJ bided his time, let the robot's automatic
defenses block for him, and waited for the right opening.
Then he stopped, set the back foot, pivoted, and brought the
progressive bayonet smoothly up and through.
EVA-05's left hand, still clutching its progressive knife,
spun away, leaving a spraying arc of orange fluid as it tumbled and
was lost among the buildings.
By this time, Thomas Ellison's biochemistry was so off-kilter
that he didn't much react to the new flood of sympathetic pain; he
just bit his tongue intil it bled, backed off at speed, and screamed
to anyone who could hear him, "I need a weapon!"
The loss of the AN-411 that had brought him to the battlefield
may have robbed him of his escape route, but it hadn't cut him off
from his controllers; SEELE had sent two Skyranger supply craft to
follow the AN-411 with drop supplies, and they, still intact, were now
mediating communications. Their comm arrays lacked the power to jam
JA's comm systems as the Antonov's had, but Kaori Yamashita had spent
the time unspeakingly pursuing other options since the transport
aircraft's loss.
Now she calmly broke her silence, directing her overmatched
charge to the building the blue EVA had crashed against after JA's
series of body blows. The impact of the EVA hitting the building had
partially collapsed the accordion-folding wall on the building's side,
and by getting a firm grip with EVA-05's remaining hand and bracing
with one of its feet, Thomas was able to tear one of its panels off
and reveal part of the cache of NERV weapons within.
DJ knew when the enemy unit had backed away where it was
headed, but JA didn't have the speed to catch it before it got there.
Brow furrowing, he turned to a secondary display and pulled up a map
of Worcester-3's substructure, and then a slow smile spread over his
face.
"Misato, quick," he said to his intercom channel. "I have an
idea."
Thomas reached into the weapons cache, half-crazed with an
overabundance of pain-blocking pseudohormones and his frustrated rage
at Jet Alone's unexpected capabilities. It fought with such cool but
vicious efficiency, one would almost think it held some actual
contempt for him. Thomas had long since forgotten that it was
controlled by a human intelligence. He yanked out the first thing his
EVA's hand closed around.
It turned out to be a standard NERV Evangelion-scale
mini-missile launcher, a long green metal tube with a magazine of five
white-and-red missiles on top and a shoulder cup and firing handle on
the bottom. Thomas let out a guffaw of triumph, shouldered the
weapon, and turned to await Jet Alone's emergence from behind the
power station a block and a half away.
He waited for nearly thirty seconds; nothing.
"What the hell is he waiting for?" Thomas wondered.
"EVA-05, be advised, air units have lost visual contact with
Jet Alone," said Yamashita.
"How can you lose -that-?!"
"They have to keep moving," Yamashita told him. "One of them
made a turn and lost it behind the power station. When they completed
their turn, it was gone."
Thomas panned around the area with EVA-05's sensors; he could
find no sign of Jet Alone either.
"Did it run away?" he wondered.
No response came for a couple of seconds; then Yamashita's
voice rang in his ear: "EVA-05, look out!" Out of the corner of
his eye, he saw motion. EVA-05 turned, trying to swing the launcher
to bear, even as Thomas came to full realization of what he was
turning toward.
Jet Alone stood halfway out of one of the giant hatches into
which Worcester-3's buildings disappeared during a battle alert,
slowly rising. Its right arm was raised and extended, the fist cocked
down.
Thomas ordered EVA-05 to fire.
The brilliant blue line of the particle beam connected the two
combat units for a split-second; EVA-05's hand convulsed, sending a
mini-missile shooting uselessly up into the sky.
The blue Evangelion slowly dropped the missile launcher, fell
ponderously to its knees, and then crashed prone to the ground, smoke
pouring from the place where its head had once been. Inside the
partially ruptured entry plug, Thomas Ellison finally, mercifully lost
consciousness.
Jacqueline Natla frowned, reached down to her side of the
master control console, flipped a red plastic cover away from a
button, and, without hesitation, pressed it.
DJ had been moving Jet Alone in to make certain that the enemy
unit was fully disabled, and see if the pilot might be saveable; but
he drew the robot up short as the orange plug of EVA-05's Elerium
collider began to pulse alarmingly, then broke into a steady glow that
built rapidly to a blinding intensity. With its visual sensors
blinded, DJ threw JA into a fast backpedal and hoped he didn't trip
over anything.
Then the Elerium collider exploded. The explosion's
electromagnetic pulse wiped out communications for a moment, snowing
DJ's displays; then they slowly cleared.
When visibility returned, Jet Alone stood, soot-coated but
intact, at the edge a blackened crater about two blocks in diameter.
In the center there was nothing but a slightly concave dish of
gleaming black glass.
"What the hell - !" Misato Katsuragi inquired of anyone who
cared to listen.
"Well," said DJ Croft's voice wryly on the intercom channel,
"I suppose I'd call that a successful test... "
John Trussell grinned. "I suppose I would too," he said.

Kaori Yamashita looked dispassionately at the blank displays
which, moments before, had shown her the self-destruction of EVA-05
and the shockwave's resultant downing of the two Skyrangers. She
evinced no apparent reaction to the fact that she'd just seen
Jacqueline Natla coldly seal the deaths of at least five people,
assuming Ellison had still been alive when his unit had gone up.
Natla was standing there, her finger still on the destruct
switch, gazing coolly at Yamashita as though daring her to react.
Yamashita raised her brown eyes to Natla's cold gray ones, then calmly
stubbed out the butt of her Lucky Strike, got out another one, lit it,
and left the control room without comment.

/* The Ventures "Blue Moon" _Walk - Don't Run_ */

NEXT EPISODE:
Treachery, heartbreak, gallantry, madness...
And a great hero's last stand.

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION
EXODUS 3:8
IGNIE FERROQUE

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

*** AND NOW ***
EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED proudly presents:
NEON EXODUS EVANGELION BONUS THEATER!!

[ONLINE: ACCESS ENTERTAINMENT DATABASE]

- TV
-- SCHEDULES
--- EYRIE BROADCASTING NETWORK

WEBN CHANNEL 17 [WORCESTER, MA; EBN]
THURSDAY EVENING

6:00 [News] LOCAL NEWS

6:30 [News] EBN EVENING NEWS WITH GENDOU IKARI

7:00 [Real-Life Police] REAL STORIES OF THE 3WA
The Crimson Vipers catch an interplanetary assassin; the
Lovely Angels wreck a nuclear-weapons smuggling ring.

7:30 [Real-Life Police] MALLCOPS
On the beat at New York's Crossgates Mall. (Repeat)

8:00 [Comedy] TENCHI IN WORCESTER
Tenchi (Tenchi Masaki) visits the Higgins Armory Museum.
Washuu: Washuu Hakubi.

8:30 [Action] YELLOW SUBMARINE NO. 6
Paul (Paul McCartney) tries to convince Ringo (Ringo Starr) to
rejoin Yellow #6. Zorndyke: Robert Mitchum.

9:00 [Comedy] THOSE WHO HUNT ELVIS
Junpei (Dirk Beefsteak) gets in trouble with the local
constabulary after trying to strip an Elvis at the Las Vegas Jack in
the Box. Ritsuko: Asuka Langley. (Repeat)

9:30 [Action] NEON EXODUS EVANGELION
DJ (Dennis MacCrofton) is forced to return to England by
another custody battle initiated by his grandfather (Patrick Macnee);
Asuka (Asuka Langley) goes underground to battle an Angel. HAL:
Douglas Rain. (Repeat)

10:00 [Drama] EL-HAZARD: THE DERIVATIVE WORLD
Paul (Paul Morrow) and Lawrence Taylor (Groucho T. Bugrom)
encounter a strange artifact; Zoner (MegaZone) explores an ancient
catacomb. Nanami: Nanami Jinnai.

10:30 [Police Drama] DOMINION: MOTHER RUSSIA
Episode 1: Floodland. Leona (Leona Ozaki) and "Timoshenko"
race the clock to save Alexei (Al Southwell). Captain Brentenov:
Charles Brenten.

11:00 [News] LOCAL NEWS

11:35 [Talk] LATE NIGHT WITH REI AYANAMI
Guests: Keanu Reeves, Lina Inverse. Music by Yoko Kanno &
Seat Belts.

12:30 [Action/Comedy] WALDO 13: THE UNPROFESSIONAL
Bumbling, womanizing assassin Waldo 13 (Ryoji Kaji) is hired
by a crime syndicate to kill the brutal warden of a women's prison
(Ritsuko Akagi). Godfather: Marlon Brando.

1:30 MOVIE (*) DESTROY ALL MUNSTERS!
(Color: 1969) The governments of the world pool their
resources in a last-ditch attempt at wiping out the Munster family.
Herman: Fred Gwynne.

3:30 PAID PROGRAMMING

[DATABASE ACCESS COMPLETE: ENDIT]

[TRAILER]

[GRAPHIC: The following PREVIEW has been approved for ALL AUDIENCES.
The fanfic advertised has been rated IS-13 (INDESCRIBABLY SILLY - MAY
NOT BE SUITABLE FOR VIEWERS OVER 13).]

[MUSIC CUE: Something relentlessly cheerful and full of fakey synth
horns. The opening theme to "Shogo: Mobile Armor Division" comes to
mind.]

EYRIE PRODUCTIONS UNLIMITED
is SO HAPPY to present:

[GRAPHIC: Logo bearing text below, brighty colored and splashed
gaudily across a black background featuring the NERV logo in blue.]

(neon genesis)
Evangelion
<FLASH!>

starring

REI AYANAMI

[The logo fades out, leaving only the black background. REI AYANAMI,
her model slightly simplified and exaggerated but definitely
recognizable, trots cheerfully into the frame, if it is possible to
trot cheerfully when one has one leg in a cast from the knee down.
She is dressed like a Man in Black, carries an aluminum crutch, and is
festooned with various bandages. Her hair is rather more unkempt than
the original's, and is now SHOCKING BLUE. She is unbearably cute.
She hobbles to center frame, then suddenly kicks off the cast (somehow
shedding all the bandages in the same motion), spins halfway around,
and wields what was once her crutch like the high-tech naginata it has
just transformed into, whipping it through a short series of blocks,
strikes, and accompanying kicks before finishing up with the
V-for-victory sign extended toward the audience, a saucy wink on her
face.]

REI: Ta-da!

ASUKA SORYU-LANGLEY

[Camera pulls back to allow a little more space. ASUKA, drawn in a
similar, simplified style, dressed in red-and-green-flecked German
Army fatigues, tumbles into the frame from the right in a controlled
forward roll, comes up to one knee, whips an automatic pistol from a
holster, fires it three times at something off the left side of the
screen, stands up, whirls the gun around her finger, and strikes a
pose next to Rei, gun in hand pointing at the sky, face in a broad and
slightly provocative grin. Her bright red hair is a bit spikier than
we remember it from the original, especially in front, where it juts
up blondely in a fashion reminiscent of the hairstyle of the 'Dirty
Pair Flash' version of Kei.]

SHINJI IKARI

[SHINJI, wearing his usual pants and short-sleeved Dilbert-style dress
shirt, jumps into the frame from the left, in a feet-up, bent-kneed
leap, a katana held in his cocked arms so that his right elbow is
behind his head and the blade extends past his ear and juts out in
front of his face. He too has been slightly remodeled and now sports
a serious Hikaru Ichijo hairstyle. He lands smoothly and easily
center frame, whips the sword through a brief and speedy kata, and
finishes up kneeling between Rei and Asuka, sheathing his blade in the
scabbard thrust through his belt. He smooths back his hair, which
immediately springs up again, and gives the audience a cocky grin and
a thumbs-up.]

and ALL THE USUAL SUSPECTS

[The shot pulls back still further, and suddenly the space behind the
three children is filled with a mob made up of the entire cast of NGE,
remodeled along the same lines as the first three. In the back left
corner, DJ CROFT and JON ELLISON can just barely be seen giving each
other quizzical looks and shrugging to each other. GENDOU IKARI has
Fresnel lenses in his glasses, a goofy grin, and an arm around the
shoulders of MISATO KATSURAGI on one side of him and RITSUKO AKAGI on
the other. MISATO looks younger, and is dressed as she was in the
first episode of NGE; RITSUKO also looks younger and is dressed in a
very smart, sophisticated gray suit. MAYA IBUKI, next to her, has on
a lab coat and is wearing tinted lab-safety goggles; she holds a
clipboard and has a pen behind her ear. MAKOTO HYUUGA and SHIGERU
AOBA stand next to her, in badly-pressed pants, rumpled shirts and
stained lab coats; they have rising-sun samurai headbands and are
several days unshaven, but look extremely happy to be there. Next to
them is a small group of children in high school uniforms - TOUJI
SUZUHARA, KENSUKE AIDA and HIKARI HORAKI, looking embarrassed, avidly
taping with a handycam, and looking irritated at TOUJI, respectively.
RYOJI KAJI is there, looking shaved, scrubbed and well-pressed in the
green uniform of a JSDF officer; a cigarette smolders at the corner of
his smug grin. Next to him is KOZO FUYUTSUKI, the only character to
look -older- than his NGE version; he wears a lab coat and a petulant
scowl. Maybe that's because PEN-PEN is tugging at FUYUTSUKI's pants
leg with his beak.]

[INTERIOR DAY: The NERV control room. FUYUTSUKI's face is on the
main screen; superimposed on it are the flashing red words: LIVE
GLOBAL TELEVISION FEED. GENDOU, MISATO, RITSUKO, MAYA and the TECHS
are present.]

FUYUTSUKI: ... and if ten billion United States dollars, in gold, are
not deposited in my numbered Swiss account by the close of business,
Zurich time, today, the first of my army of mighty servants will
destroy Tokyo!

GENDOU (overacting): You fiend, Fuyutsuki! You were a great scientist
once! Why waste your brilliance on crime?

FUYUTSUKI (smiling thinly): Because, my dear boy, science doesn't pay
nearly so well. And besides - chicks dig criminal masterminds!
Nyahahahahahahaha!

[The screen goes to static, then a SIGNAL LOST test pattern.]

GENDOU (banging a fist down on the railing): By God, Fuyutsuki, we'll
stop you!

[INTERIOR DAY: The Evangelion bay as it appeared in Episode 1 of
NGE. SHINJI, MISATO and RITSUKO are on the catwalk in front of
EVA-01's head.]

SHINJI: Wow! A giant robot!

GENDOU (V/O, from PA system): How'd you like to pilot it for me, son?

[SHINJI looks avidly up toward the mirrored window of the control
booth.]

SHINJI: Would I ever! Wow!!

[INTERIOR DAY. The control room.]

RITSUKO: Neurosystems, switch on!

MAYA: Neurosystems, switch on!

HYUUGA and AOBA: Neurosystems, switch on!

RITSUKO: Contact!

MAYA: Contact!

HYUUGA and AOBA: Contact!

[The status screen floods with green.]

MAYA: Success! EVA-01 is ready to launch!

HYUUGA and AOBA (overcome with joy, throwing their hands in the air in
time with their shouting): BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI!

[EXTERIOR DAY: EVA-01, its design streamlined and made to look
somewhat less spindly and more classically 'giant-robot', is doing
battle with the THIRD ANGEL.]

[INTERIOR DAY: The NERV control room. GENDOU is watching the battle
on the big screen. He can barely control his excitement; as the fight
progresses he makes little noises and shadow-boxes.]

GENDOU: Gnn! Uhh! That's the way, Shinji! That's my boy! Hoo-ha!

[RITSUKO and MISATO look at each other and sport big sweatdrops.]

[INTERIOR DAY: A conference room. SHINJI, GENDOU and MISATO are
present, as well as two figures in the shadows.]

MISATO: Good work, Shinji. Now it's time for you to meet the rest of
the Evangelion Fast Response Squad. Come and meet Shinji, girls!

[REI and ASUKA emerge from the shadows. ASUKA gets to SHINJI first;
after all, she hasn't got a broken leg to contend with.]

ASUKA (shoving herself right in SHINJI's face): Hi! I'm Asuka
Soryu-Langley! I'm from Germany. Sprechen Sie Deutsche?

[Before SHINJI can answer, REI has rather roughly shoved herself
between them.]

REI (with a big grin): My name is Rei. I don't care what language you
speak to me in.

[ASUKA elbows REI aside so that they're uneasily sharing the space.
They glare at each other sidelong.]

REI (muttering): Bitch.

ASUKA (muttering): Slut.

SHINJI (nervous grin): Please don't fight.

[MISATO and GENDOU look at each other and sport big sweatdrops.]

[INTERIOR NIGHT: Control room. FUYUTSUKI is on the screen again.]

FUYUTSUKI: ... and if twenty billion United States dollars, in gold,
are not deposited in my numbered Swiss account by the close of
business, Zurich time, today, the second of my army of mighty servants
will destroy Tokyo!

GENDOU (overacting): You couldn't defeat us before, Fuyutsuki! What
makes you think you'll succeed this time?

FUYUTSUKI (smiling thinly): Oh, I admit your little EFRS didn't do too
badly last time, Gendou, my boy - but this time I'm ready for your
tricks! Your toy soldier will never defeat my Mega-Monster Shamshel
Avenger! Nyahahahahahahaha!

[The screen goes to static, then a SIGNAL LOST test pattern.]

GENDOU (banging a fist down on the railing): By God, Fuyutsuki, you've
got another think coming!

[INTERIOR NIGHT: The three CHILDREN are sitting in the living room of
MISATO's apartment playing a GoldenEye deathmatch on the N64. ASUKA
and REI have killed each other a combined total of 45 times; Shinji
has not yet been killed. He observes the girls' single-minded
determination to destroy each other with bemusement. An alarm
sounds.]

ASUKA (dropping her controller and jumping up): The alarm!

REI (doing likewise): Let's go!

SHINJI (ditto): OK!

[They press controls on their identical wristwatches while saying in
unison:]

ALL: Evangelion Fast Response Squad - POWER UP!!

[The background goes white and all three undergo nifty bullet-time
dissolving-clothes costume changes. More time is spent on the girls
than on SHINJI, of course. They finish up standing on what appear to
be transporter pads in a metal-paneled room at Central Dogma, wearing
ridiculously stylized plug suits, Shinji's green, Rei's white and
Asuka's red.]

ALL: Let's go!

[REI presses a control on her wrist; her transporter disc sinks into
the floor, passes through a long tube, and then drops her into a
heavily padded seat on what appears to be a small monorail car. The
car accelerates down a long, brightly lit tunnel, outside which water
can be seen, before slamming to a stop inside an entry plug, which
immediately powers up.]

REI: Evangelion Unit 00, ready!

[SHINJI hits a control on his wrist and is whisked away by his
transporter to his entry plug in a similar sequence. Outside his
transit tunnel is brown earth.]

SHINJI: Evangelion Unit 01, ready!

[ASUKA does the same. Whatever is visible through her transit tube is
bright orange and glowing.]

ASUKA: Evangelion Unit 02, ready!

[INTERIOR NIGHT. Control room.]

MISATO: Evangelion Fast Response Squad, launch!

[EXTERIOR NIGHT: EVA-00 rises up from the waters of the pond out front
of NERV Headquarters and charges off through the streets toward the
disturbance.]

[EXTERIOR NIGHT: EVA-01 pops out of the top of a hill overlooking the
downtown area and immediately runs off downhill.]

[EXTERIOR NIGHT: EVA-02 bursts up from the bubbling caldera of a
conveniently-situated volcano and hightails it for town through what
appears to be a park, leaving burning trees in its wake.]

[BEGIN MONTAGE]

[EXTERIOR DAY: All three EVAs in battle with the two-part Angel from
"Both of You, Fight Like You Want to Win!" They are not dancing.]

[INTERIOR DAY: Control room.]

FUYUTSUKI (on screen, looking a bit disheveled and tired): ... and if
seventy billion United States dollars...

[EXTERIOR NIGHT: SHINJI, walking with REI in a park, suddenly turns to
her and kisses her fiercely. Her eyes open widely in surprise, then
close in surrender.]

[EXTERIOR DAY: EVA-01 is electrified by an offscreen attack.]

[INTERIOR DAY: SHINJI and ASUKA are playing NHL 2000 on the N64 in the
living room. SHINJI suddenly drops his controller, takes ASUKA in his
arms and kisses her. She doesn't hesitate as long as REI did.]

[INTERIOR DAY: MISATO in her office. She's tearing her hair in
frustration. On the screen of her computer, REI and ASUKA are arguing
fiercely in adjacent videocomm sessions.]

[EXTERIOR NIGHT: SHINJI is walking down a sidewalk. Suddenly he is
jumped by ninja. Good thing he knows how to use that katana he's
carrying!]

[INTERIOR DAY: Control room.]

FUYUTSUKI (on screen, now quite haggard): ... the tenth of my army of
mighty servants...

[SUSPEND MONTAGE]

[EXTERIOR DAY: A JSDF base outside Tokyo. KAJI, grinning around his
cigarette, is standing in the passenger seat of a jeep and looking at
something through binoculars.]

KAJI: By God, we'll show those punks what the JSDF can do! (He
reaches down and raises a CB mike to his mouth.) Jet Alone Battalion,
advance!

[EXTERIOR DAY: Five of JET ALONE are advancing on the possessed
EVA-03. They engage it in a minute or so of inconclusive battle.]

[Cut back to KAJI. MISATO can now be seen in the back of the jeep;
she has her own binoculars and is not impressed.]

MISATO: They're losing.

KAJI: Not for long. (Into the radio.) JA Battalion, execute Special
Maneuver Number One!

[EXTERIOR DAY: The five JAs back off and group together, then start
climbing up each other and executing weird contortions.]

[Cut to MISATO, who looks first puzzled, then incredulous.]

MISATO: You've got to be kidding.

[Cut back to the JA Battalion, who have now combined into one giant
robot, identical to their smaller selves but for scale. It towers
over EVA-03.]

KAJI: Special Self-Defense Super-Robot Jet Together - ATTACK!

[JET TOGETHER pounds EVA-03 into the ground.]

KAJI (gloating to MISATO): Losing, huh?

[EVA-03 climbs out of its crater, howls in fury and tears JET TOGETHER
to pieces.]

KAJI (cigarette drooping): ... damn.

[RESUME MONTAGE]

[INTERIOR DAY: Control room. HYUUGA and AOBA at their panels; EVA-02
is on the main screen, fitted out with a Type 12 particle-beam
weapon.]

ASUKA: Target locked!

HYUUGA: FIRE!

[The weapon fires, blasting a silhouette target of the THIRD ANGEL to
slag.]

HYUUGA and AOBA (throwing up their arms in time): BANZAI! BANZAI!
BANZAI!

[INTERIOR DAY: ASUKA and REI are having a full-fledged catfight in the
living room, which SHINJI is unsuccessfully attempting to mediate.
They are interrupted by ninja.]

[INTERIOR NIGHT: Control room.]

FUYUTSUKI (on screen, now looking -very- tired and unkempt): ... one
hundred thirty billion United States dollars...

[Snippets of numerous EVA combats, kisses, slaps in the face, ninja
attacks, science experiments.]

[SUSPEND MONTAGE]

[EXTERIOR DAY: DJ CROFT and JON ELLISON are standing on a hilltop
outside Tokyo, which seems to be largely on fire. All three EVAs are
battling it out with an ANGEL which is like the two-part one, except
that there appear to be six of it.]

DJ: I'm bloody glad we're not in this show.

JON: You said it.

[JUMP TO BLACK.]

[GRAPHIC: Logo as in opening.]

(neon genesis)
Evangelion
<FLASH!>

Tuesdays on the Eyrie Broadcasting Network -
right after LAIN: THE WIRED IDOL
Coming in Fall 2000!

[END TRAILER]

/* J.P. Sousa "The Liberty Bell" */

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION BONUS THEATER!!
was conceived, written and performed by
Ben Hutchins
John Trussell
Rei Ayanami
Asuka Soryu-Langley
DJ Croft
Jon Ellison
Gendou Ikari
Ritsuko Akagi
Maya Ibuki
Misato Katsuragi

and featured
Shinji Ikari
Kozo Fuyutsuki
Makoto Hyuuga
Shigeru Aoba
Touji Suzuhara
Kensuke Aida
and
Pen-Pen
as himself

[The editors would like to remind the audience
that this is MOST ASSUREDLY a JOKE.]

(c) 1999

E P U (Colour)