[Eva][FanFic] Neon Exodus Evangelion 1:2 - Acclimations

[Benjamin D. Hutchins]

/* Genesis "Land of Confusion" _Invisible Touch_ */

EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED
presents

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION

EXODUS 1:2 - ACCLIMATIONS

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

Most characters designed by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto
(except DJ, who looks like a young David Duchovny)

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), and THE X-FILES created by Chris Carter

Written by Benjamin D. Hutchins and Larry Mann

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

(c) 1997 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

"Commander Ayliffe?"
The base commander looked up from the assortment of maps and
charts displayed on the command center's monitors and turned to face
his lieutenant, Michael Steffler, who had just entered the room
through the sliding double doors. "Situation?"
"Word just came back from our contacts in Worcester-3,"
Steffler replied. "The Third Angel was neutralized by the Fifth
Child last night."
"Fifth?" Ayliffe arched an eyebrow. "What about the Third?"
"The Third is either unable or unwilling to participate in the
project, more likely unwilling. Fortunately the Fifth was at hand,
but it's unclear whether he will remain involved, and we have reports
that he was injured and Unit 01 damaged in the combat, so either way
they'll be out of action for a while."
"And the other Children?" the commander asked, fairly sure of
where this was leading.
"The First is still incapacitated, expected to be out of
service for at least three more weeks; reports indicate she suffered
further injuries during the fighting. The Second is still in final
training in Germany. And again, the Fifth can't be considered
reliable yet. NERV has requested the transfer of the Fourth Child to
direct NERV authority immediately, if not sooner." He paused. "At
the moment we're receiving negative commentary for not handing him
over when first requested."
"And I suppose they want the work on Unit 03 expedited as
well?" the commander sighed.
"They're requesting transfer of the EVA as soon as it's passed
preliminary testing; final synchronization tests will be conducted
on-site." Steffler shrugged. "They're a little annoyed with us, I'm
afraid. We could have done the transfer when they originally asked,
and then all this might have been avoided."
"I know, I know." Straightening up, Ayliffe turned to one of
the officers manning the communications system. "Colburn, tell
Engineering to expedite the prelim tests on EVA-03 and get it ready
for transfer to Worcester-3 ASAP."
"Yes sir!" Colburn replied.
"And the Fourth?" Steffler asked expectantly.
"We'll deal with that now," Ayliffe replied.

"Problem, Dr. Spiner?"
David Spiner looked up from a hushed discussion with his
fellow scientists. He and Ayliffe had known each other for a long
time, long enough that each could read the mood of the other with only
a glance. Ayliffe could tell Spiner was bothered about something.
"Not sure exactly, Commander," Spiner replied. "We were
conducting the synchronization exercise as planned, when the Fourth
started complaining of body-wide pain. We aborted the test and we've
been going over the data but so far there's nothing to indicate what
might have caused the problem."
"Is he all right?" Steffler asked.
"He's awake, if that's what you mean, Lieutenant," the
scientist answered. "The pain decreased but didn't go away after we
cut the power; he says it's been slowly dropping off since then and
should be gone soon."
"Can we talk to him?" Ayliffe inquired.
Spiner gestured toward the holding tank at the end of the
testing chamber, indicating an affirmative. The two soldiers crossed
the room and stood before the large cylindrical tank, regarding its
occupant, the Fourth Child, through a large viewport. He was a tall,
thin boy, with shoulder-length black hair. His actual age was
fourteen, but he looked older, closer to eighteen. At the moment his
eyes were closed and he floated in the LCL breathing and antishock
medium, seemingly asleep.
Ayliffe activated an intercom on the tank's side, picking up a
hand microphone. "Jon."
The boy slowly opened his eyes, revealing them to be a deep
emerald color, and his head turned toward the source of the sound
waves, regarding the soldiers with an expressionless, almost blank,
gaze.
"Are you all right?"
"I am improving," Jon answered neutrally. If he was still in
any pain, he did not show it at all. "My ratio is up 15 points from
last test."
"That's good, Jon," the commander replied, then paused to
organize his thoughts. Jon merely looked at him, still
expressionless. "I have new orders for you."
"I'm ready to receive orders," Jon answered flatly, still
without trace of emotion.
The commander paused again, regarding the boy thoughtfully for
another moment. Then: "Jonathan Ellison, effective immediately you
are being placed under the direct authority of NERV. You will be
transferred to Worcester-3, and will be answerable only to NERV
central command, as Fourth Child and pilot of EVA-03."
"Yes sir."
"Your transport to Worcester-3 will depart at 0800 hours
tomorrow. Have your personal effects packed and ready by that time.
Unit-03 will be transported to Worcester-3 once preliminary testing
has been completed. Per NERV's orders, final testing will take place
in Worcester-3."
"Yes sir," Jon repeated. "I will be ready for transport at
0800 tomorrow."
"Good," Ayliffe nodded. "Good luck, and be careful."
"Thank you sir," Jon answered, and his eyes closed again.
Ayliffe watched the boy quietly for a few moments longer
before replacing the microphone on its hook. "Dave," he said at last,
turning to Dr. Spiner, who had been standing nearby. "I need
everything locked down and ready to go ASAP."
"No problem, sir," Spiner answered. "Though I want to go on
record as being uncomfortable about sending the Fourth into the field
at this time."
"Your concerns are noted," Ayliffe nodded. "Unfortunately it
can't be helped; NERV's authority overrides all other orders."
"Then he'll be as ready as he can be, sir," the scientist
replied.
"Good. Get to it."
Although both Ayliffe and Spiner had no way of knowing, they
were both thinking the same thought as they went to attend to their
respective tasks:
Dear God, what have we become?

Miles away, the Fifth Child, DJ Croft, returned to
consciousness slowly, reluctantly, and with a measure of difficulty.
When he peeled his eyelids (which felt as if some considerate soul had
come along and glued sand to the insides) away from his eyes (which
felt as if some other considerate soul had poured salt in them), the
first thing he saw was an intolerably bright blur. He flinched. This
caused his brain, which had apparently shrunk to the size of a walnut,
to carom wildly off the inside of his skull, through which someone had
apparently pounded several dozen framing nails.
By squinting to the point where he was peering out at the
world through a crosshatch of eyelashes, DJ reduced the intolerable
brightness to a mere agonizing glare, and managed to identify its
source as a rectangular ceiling fixture holding three fluorescent
tubes. Then a merciful shadow blocked the light as an indeterminate
shape leaned over him.
"DJ? Can you hear me?" came a deafening voice that was
probably Misato's. "How do you feel?"
"Like the ancient Aztecs have been using my head for a
football," DJ replied, surprised that his voice came out in something
other than a feeble croak. He sat up, gingerly, trying not to rattle
his brain about too much in his nail-filled skull.
"Drink this," came another voice, this one Ritsuko's, and
someone pressed an item his brain took a moment to identify as a
drinking glass into his hand. "It'll restore your electrolyte
balance. You've been unconscious for almost twenty hours."
And so he did, tossing the foul-tasting beverage down in
several great tidal gulps; after a few moments of perilous nausea, he
was startled to realize that, just like that, he did feel quite a lot
better. He rubbed at his eyes, blinked, and discovered himself able
to focus on things again, then turned to Ritsuko.
"Wha'happen?"
"An unexpected feedback error. We didn't expect you to be so
deeply synchronized with EVA-01 that it would set up a neural feedback
loop if you went to an external camera position, but it did. We've
run a full set of scans, though, and there's no permanent harm. The
shock knocked you out before your neural pathways could be permanently
affected."
"How reassuring," DJ said dryly. "That's why I feel like
somebody's unscrewed my head and taken out my brain?"
"More or less."
"Right. Memo to myself: don't use the external cameras." He
plopped back down on the bed, looked painlessly up at the light
fixture, and decided he was feeling fine. Well, hungry, but otherwise
fine. His hands didn't hurt any more; looking at them, he saw that
the palms and some of the fingers were lightly bandaged.
"How the hell'd I do that?" he wondered.
"We're... not sure," Ritsuko replied, looking briefly away.
DJ didn't buy that, but he let it slide.
"Can I get up now?" he asked.
"Sure... as I said, your tests showed no problems. EVA-01
will be in repairs for a few days, so you'll have some time off to
rest up. Misato will take care of your living arrangements. I
believe you were having the things you wanted shipped, weren't you?"
"That was when I thought I'd be at summer-camp-for-bookworms
for two months. How long do you intend to keep me here?"
"You're free to leave at any time," said Ritsuko, her gaze
level. "We won't keep you here against your will."
DJ sat up again, looked to the side, spotted his clothes
folded neatly in the chair next to the bed. With a bit of surprise,
he noticed that his Springfield Armory V10 pistol was there, too,
still hanging in its shoulder harness and offset by a pair of spare
magazines. Given the fuss Ritsuko had put up over it when he'd been
fitted with the plug suit, he'd expected to have to go through all
kinds of hassle to get it back.
He got up and started dressing, unconcerned that he was not
alone; you got over that kind of hang-up pretty quickly in the field.
"I need some time to think," he observed as he belted on his jeans and
shrugged into a slightly oversized oxford shirt. "Time and space.
And my backpack, so I can have something to read."
"Something to read?"
"I think better when I'm reading."

Rei Ayanami, contrary to what anyone might have expected had
they looked into her private infirmary room, was not bored. She would
have been, had she known of the concept; but since she had never known
the simple pleasures of a hobby, she had nothing to miss. And since
missing that simple pleasure is what boredom is all about, she was not
bored.
She lay in her infirmary bed, swathed in bandages, an IV in
her arm, and thought about the events of the previous day. Who was
the blue-eyed stranger who had helped her? She had seen something in
his eyes she could not identify when he knelt beside her, held her
head and shoulders off the cold, hard floor, and wiped the sweat from
her forehead. It wasn't unusual for Rei to see an emotion in someone
else's eyes that she could not identify, but it was unusual for the
phenomenon to matter to her; unusual enough that she was now pondering
it, turning those few seconds of contact over in her mind, wondering
at their significance.
The door slid open, interrupting her thoughts; she looked to
her left and saw the stranger entering the room, dressed in the same
faded jeans, age-grey Dr. J's and blue-striped oxford shirt with the
top two buttons missing he'd been wearing the day before, with a
battered leather backpack slung by one strap over his left shoulder.
With the battered brown jacket he'd been wearing the day before slung
over the backpack, Rei could see a shoulder-holster harness like the
one Colonel Keller wore, which struck her as odd for someone so
young.
The stranger smiled, a quiet smile that lit up his eyes,
walked silently to the end of the bed, and tilted the hanging
clipboard there toward his eyes.
"Rei Ayanami," he observed, his English accent putting an
interesting slant on her last name. The smile again. "DJ Croft. I'm
Number Five."
Rei nodded. One mystery explained, anyway. "Hello," she said
softly.
DJ went to the chair in the corner and plopped into it,
pulling the small stepstool over to use as an ottoman, and produced a
tatty paperback from the backpack. This behavior struck Rei as odd -
people who did not know her well, which was more or less everybody,
tended to feel an irritating need to make conversation, as if silence
were a bane to be thrust back at any cost. DJ, however, didn't seem
to mind her silence at all; he merely read his book. Even so, Rei
didn't feel as though he was ignoring her. It was very odd... but not
unpleasant.
After almost an hour of silence, Rei's curiosity defeated her
reticence, and she said, very tentatively, "Why are you here?"
DJ looked over the top of the book. "Sorry, am I bothering
you?"
Rei shook her head.
"I wanted somewhere quiet to have a think, but I didn't want
to be alone," DJ explained. "I hope you don't think it's an
imposition, but I thought perhaps you could use a bit of quiet company
yourself. It must get lonely here."
Rei shrugged. She had never considered that possibility.
After all, she had been alone all her life. Like boredom, she
couldn't feel loneliness; she had no frame of reference, no way of
knowing what was missing from her life.
But if this was what company was like...
DJ returned to reading his book. He didn't mean it as a snub
and she didn't take it as such. Already, they had that much of an
understanding.
Rei Ayanami's pale, drawn face wore the slightest hint of a
smile as she settled back against her pillow and went to sleep.

Misato Katsuragi sat in her office, glaring sourly at the
information on her terminal screen; then, with an exasperated sigh,
she scooped up her desk phone and called Ritsuko.
"Akagi," came the reply.
"Ritsuko, why does your department have DJ living alone in C
Block?"
"He doesn't have family in the area - chances are, he doesn't
have family at all any more. Haven't you read his file? His father
was killed in the aftermath of Second Impact and his mother's been
missing for months; his only living relatives are a paternal
grandmother who doesn't know he exists and a maternal grandfather who
disowned his mother years before he was born. What were we supposed
to do with him?"
Misato hadn't consciously planned on saying anything remotely
like what she was about to say, but before she realized that, it was
out: "I'll take care of him."
"Uh, what?" Ritsuko replied.
In for a penny, Katsuragi, said Misato to herself. "I said
I'll take care of him. My apartment is huge, much bigger than I need,
I've got two empty bedrooms I'll never fill with stuff of my own. He
can live with me. C'mon, Ritsuko, it's not like I'm gonna put the
moves on him or anything."
"Of course not!" Dr. Akagi bellowed. "How could you even joke
about such a thing? That's just like you, Misato!"
Misato held the phone at arm's length and glared at it.
Ritsuko never -could- take a joke.

After an almost-exactly-two-hour nap, Rei Ayanami awoke to
silence, save for the quiet whir of the room's air conditioning vent
and the soft sound of a page turning every now and then. The room had
been darkened by some nurse or another, but DJ had somehow managed to
remain, his chair sitting now in a small, warm, yellowish pool of
light cast by a small reading lamp affixed to the wall with a magnet.
He had a different book now; too far for Rei to read the titles, but
the cover was a different color. The last had been blackish-blue;
this one was white.
"What are you reading?" she asked.
He lowered the book a little and looked over the spine at her
again. "It's called 'The Ghost from the Grand Banks'," he replied.
"By a chap name of Arthur C. Clarke - absolute bloody genius, greatest
writer of the twentieth century."
In what any familiar observer would have counted as an almost
unprecedented spurt of volubility, Rei asked a second question:
"What's it about?"
"Businessmen trying to raise the wreck of the Titanic."
And a third: "What's that?"
DJ reached into his pack, retrieved the last book he'd been
reading and tossed it onto the bed. Rei picked it up and looked at
the cover.
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER, it said, BY WALTER LORD. The cover was a
reproduction of an oil painting, depicting an old-fashioned
ocean-going ship at night. All wasn't well with it, though; it wasn't
sitting evenly in the water, and there were small boats with oars
visible in the picture as well. Rei found this imagery quite
confusing, but concluded that it would be explained within; so she
turned to the first page and began reading.
In a way, this decision was to have unfortunate consequences
for Rei. Having now experienced a leisure-time activity, she would
soon acquire the ability to be bored.
There came a knock at the door, and then it opened a bit and
Misato peeped around. "Hello?" she said quietly. "Oh, hi. I don't
want to disturb you, but it's time for DJ to go."
DJ tucked his book into his pack, shut off the light, pulled
it off the wall, folded it into a small oblong package, and slipped it
into the pack as well. As he passed the bed, Rei tried to hand him
back "A Night to Remember", but he smiled and pushed it back at her.
"Keep it," he said. "I'll take it back when you're finished
reading it. If you want, I'll pop by tomorrow for a bit... I won't
have much else to do 'til they finish putting my EVA back together."
Taken aback by both the offer and her reaction to it, Rei
nodded. DJ smiled, nodded in return, and followed Misato out.
In a way, this decision was also to have unfortunate
consequences for Rei. Having now experienced a bit of companionship,
she would soon acquire the ability to be lonely, as well.

"What were you and Rei talking about?" Misato wondered as she
and DJ navigated the corridors of NERV Headquarters.
"We weren't," DJ replied. "We were reading."
"Reading?"
"Reading."
Misato decided she didn't really want to know. They walked in
silence for some time, until finally, her curiosity got the better of
her, and she asked,
"So?"
"So what?" DJ replied.
"So did you... decide?"
DJ realized as she asked that he hadn't bothered to consider
it. After his not-really-a-conversation with Rei Ayanami, there
wasn't really a need.
He nodded. "I'll stay... for now."
Misato grinned. "That's great. We really do need you."
"Uh-huh," DJ replied, unimpressed.
"So... are you hungry?"
"I could eat," said DJ. "All I've had since the flight out
was a hot dog in the commissary after waking up."
"Well, then, let's get something. We have to have a party!"
"What for?"
"To welcome home my new roommate, of course!"
"Your new roommate," said DJ skeptically, wondering why he was
being involved in this matter at all.
"Didn't anyone tell you?"
"Tell me what? I've been in Rei's room all afternoon.
Nobody's told me anything. It's been very restful."
"Oh, well, Ritsuko was going to stick you all alone in base
housing, waaaay off in the boonies where there's still some living
space, but I said, 'No way, Ritsuko, that's no way to treat the hero
of the day,' so instead, you'll be living with me."
DJ smiled. "Will I."
"Your stuff's probably already been delivered. Isn't that
great?"
DJ wasn't sure if it was great or not, actually, but who was
he to blow against the wind?
"Got any Indian restaurants in this town?" he asked. "I could
murder a good curry."
"I know a pretty good place," Misato replied. "But we have to
make a stop first."
"Where?"
"Someplace really cool."

DJ stood looking up at the craggy stone edifice before him,
reflecting that it looked like a small version of the kind of place he
and his mother might explore, then turned his attention to the plaque
on the ground in front of him.
"Bancroft Tower," he read. "This tower was built in 1900 to
honor the memory of George Bancroft, 1800-1891. Born at the foot of
this hill he rose to the posts of Secretary of the Navy, Founder of
the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis Maryland, U.S. Minister to Great
Britain and Germany. This memorial was built by his friend and
admirer Stephen Salisbury III."
He looked back up at the tower again, then around at the
rolling grass and craggy old trees of the wooded clearing in which it
stood. To his back was a small parkway where Misato's car was
currently parked; flanking the walkway that led to the tower itself
were two stubby stone turrets.
DJ turned around and walked back to the parkway, where Misato
was standing next to the small retaining wall that prevented people
from accidentally driving straight off the top of Bancroft Hill at
night.
"You're right," he told her, "this is pretty cool. I hate to
tear us away... but I'm bloody starving, you know."
"Won't be long now," said Misato, hopping up onto the wall and
turning to face away from the tower, her legs hanging over. She
patted a spot on the wall next to her. "C'mon up and watch with me."
"Watch what?" wondered DJ as he climbed up next to her. The
top of Bancroft Hill gave a panoramic view of the city of Worcester,
surface component of Geo-Front Worcester-3; it sprawled in all its
sleepy glory in the valley below, flanked by hills and bathed in the
golden gleam of the last few minutes of afternoon sunlight. DJ could
still see the marks of his battle with the Third Angel the previous
evening, but for the most part, the city looked as peaceful and dull
as it had looked the previous afternoon about this time, when DJ had
arrived in it.
"It's almost time," Misato said with a smile. DJ glanced at
her, but she was watching the cityscape with rapt attention, so he
turned back to it.
Just then, his ears caught the faint sound of warning klaxons
drifting up from the city, and with much rumbling and clacking and
other mechanical sounds, the sleepy low-elevation city began to sprout
skyscrapers. As he watched the buildings grow, DJ realized that what
he had taken for a hanging city on the ceiling of the Geo-Front cavern
was really the larger of Worcester's buildings, retracted below ground
level for safety's sake.
"Very spiff," murmured DJ.
Misato put her hand on his shoulder. "This place is a
fortress, designed to protect its inhabitants against the Angels," she
told him with a serious smile. "This is our city. And - it's the
city you saved last night."
DJ looked at her face, then at the gleaming golden spires of
Worcester, now locked at their full extension and reaching proudly
toward the sky, and decided coming here hadn't been such a waste after
all.

Half an hour later, still hungry but with the smell of chicken
Vindaloo heavy in his nostrils and promising him a change in that
condition very shortly, DJ reflected that he was having a better day
than the previous one. Had he possessed a clean shirt, it would have
been nearly perfect - the dried blood on the corner of the right
sleeve had stiffened and scratched his arm irritatingly every time he
moved his hand. He followed Misato to a fourth-floor apartment in a
biggish apartment complex, new enough that the elevator still smelled
of carpet glue, and stood waiting for Misato to get the door open. He
was humming a song she didn't recognize (which was probably fortunate,
since it was an old rock song entitled "Take Me Home Tonight").
"I just moved in here a bit ago myself," she explained,
indicating the as-yet-unremoved pile of empty boxes alongside the
door with one hand as she worked the locks and opened the door with
the other.
"Here we are!" Misato declared cheerfully, leading the way
through a small foyer, where they removed their shoes, and into an
efficient little kitchen.
Or at least it would have been efficient, had every available
horizontal surface except the table in the middle not been covered
with stacks of empty black cans. DJ's already-decent opinion of
Misato hitched up a couple of notches at the sight of these; any woman
with enough sense to drink Guinness couldn't be too bad. The
housekeeping wasn't even all that alarming to him; sure, it was a bit
of a clutter, but there wasn't a heap of filth-encrusted dishes in the
sink or anything.
Misato continued on through the room and down the hall, DJ
guessed to her room; he busied himself laying out the food on the
table and hunting up some utensils in the drawers (an easy enough
task, since none of them held anything except for the one with the
flatware in it). While he was snooping, he had a look in the fridge;
save for ice, some random junk food, and approximately a freighterload
of canned Guinness pub draught, there was nothing in it.
Cold beer wasn't DJ's favorite thing in the world, but you
take what you can find in an uncertain world, so he took one out,
popped it, let the charge of nitrogen bubble up through the beer and
aerate it, and slurped the foam off the top, grimacing a little at the
sharpness of the cold brew. Turning and leaning his back against the
fridge, he surveyed the small kitchen, making mental plans to clean it
up and put it into service (as the piles of nuke-food and take-out
containers in and near the trash can indicated it wasn't, really, at
this time). Hmm, that's odd...
"What's with this other icebox?" he called to Misato.
"Oh, don't worry about that," Misato called back as she
hung up her dress and slipped gratefully into a pair of cutoffs that
had reached that magical age where the denim was still strong, but
softer than a car-wash chamois. "He's probably still sleeping."
"Sleeping?" wondered DJ, then shrugged and took another slug
of his pilfered beer. So, she had something in the second fridge that
slept. Everything else about this city was that weird, why not?
Misato emerged from the hallway, transformed by a pair of
cutoff jeans, a tank top, and a ponytail elastic from a cool and
competent military officer to a cheerful, casual woman, perhaps a
little too old to be college-age. "So, ready to dig into the - " She
stopped short, regarding DJ with an odd expression.
"What?" he replied, returning her stare blankly.
"What were you planning to do with that?" she demanded,
pointing accusingly at the beer.
DJ glanced down at the can, then returned his eyes to Misato,
the confusion in them unabated. "I was planning to drink it," he
replied slowly. "Man's not allowed to a beer in his own home after a
hard day's work?"
"Not when that man is seven years from the legal drinking
age!"
DJ looked infinitely confused for a moment; then the clouds
cleared and he slapped his forehead with the heel of his free hand.
"Bugger all! I knew there was a reason I didn't want to come to the
States. Misato, keep in mind I'm from England, eh? I've been
drinking best bitter at the local for years now."
Misato wavered. "But... I'm supposed to be your guardian,"
she replied. "It's illegal."
"I'm not supposed to have a gun either, but you let me keep
mine," DJ pointed out.
"That's different," Misato replied. "You're a NERV operative
now, that makes you a kind of military personnel. We can make
exceptions to the weapons laws."
"What about the vehicle laws?"
"What about them?"
"Back home I had a motorcycle."
"The -driving- age in England isn't discretionary!" Misato
protested, as if indignant that he was changing the rules of the
argument.
"I come from an unusual profession," DJ replied with a shrug.
"Sometimes we make our own rules. Anyway, I want to get another one
to get around with here - there are no bloody trains in this city and
it's way too far to work to walk."
Misato considered. "We might be able to swing that," she said
after a moment, "but you're changing the subject."
"C'mon," replied DJ scornfully, taking another drink. "I can
pilot a 300-foot robot against the Forces of Evil, but I can't have a
beer? This -not- an incentive against me just pissing off back to Old
Blighty. I've a much bigger house back there, y'know, a manservant
I'm quite fond of, proper warm beer, and no job that involves... what
did dear Ritsuko-of-the-Ripcord call it, neural feedback." He gave an
exaggerated shiver. "What a bloody awful thought that is."
"You're threatening to leave the project and go back to
England if I won't let you drink -beer-?"
"No," replied DJ, "I'll drink it anyway, but if you won't
accept that, things'll get awfully tense."
Privately, Misato was impressed. DJ was calm, centered,
self-assured, all things Dr. Ikari's son Shinji had singularly failed
to show during the brief time (perhaps an hour) he'd been in
Worcester-3. He had a few conditions he wanted to live his life by;
fine, Misato could relate to that, she demanded a few indulgences from
life herself, and, like DJ, she felt she earned them.
She had to remind herself that this was no run-of-the-mill
14-year-old, yanked out of an idyllic summer between eighth and ninth
grade, with a sheltered conception of how the world worked. This was
a seasoned traveler and explorer, raised alone by a woman Misato had
long admired for her legendary toughness and self-sufficiency, with
very definite ideas of how he thought things should be. The only
reason he hadn't gone with his mother on her last fateful expedition
was because he was bedridden at their country estate in England,
recovering from a tropical fever contracted on the expedition before
that. Without his mother present to drive him, he'd worked his way
back to health and whipped himself back into shape. She wondered why
he hadn't gone to the Yucatan in search of his mother himself. He
certainly seemed to have both the wherewithal and the chutzpah for it.
Smiling, she nodded. "OK, fine. But only here, and not when
you're on call."
DJ grinned. "Glad we got that worked out before the curry got
cold... shall we?"
"Sure. Can you get me a beer while the subject's on your
mind?"
"Your wish, my lady," he replied, retrieving and popping
another, then handing it over before seating himself at the table.
Plopping down in the opposite chair, she leaned back and
poured the contents of the can straight down. DJ watched, fascinated,
as the muscles in her throat worked. His mother did that same thing,
and the resemblance echoed powerfully in his mind (though frankly, in
both women's cases, he thought it was really a frightful waste of the
beer, since there wasn't much chance to savor it, and he had no idea
how Misato could bear to do it with a -cold- liquid).
Then she slammed the empty can down on the table and let out a
contented howl. "WAAAAAAAAAA! YYYYYEAAAHHH! Life doesn't get any
better than this."
Shrugging acquiescence, DJ chopsticked up a chunk of the
curried chicken, then murmured his approval. "Not bad. Not
Mildram's, mind, but acceptable."
"I'm so glad you approve," replied Misato sardonically.
"Who's Mildram?"
"Our manservant. I should phone him tomorrow when it's a
reasonable hour back home... he's probably worried sick."
"Will he want to come here, do you think?"
"Oh, I should think not. He's about 2000 years old, been with
the family since the Conquest. I understand going with Mum when
Gran-dad disowned her was the only time in human memory he's done
anything flash. No, he'll stay at home and keep Crofthenge from
falling down while we're away, like he always does."
"'Crofthenge'?" Misato asked with amusement, forking up some
of the curry herself.
"Don't blame me, I wasn't born when Mum named the place," said
DJ.
Misato grinned. "Well, this is your home now," she said. "So
relax and feel free to take advantage of everything here - except me!"
she added with a cautionary finger.
DJ made a great show of looking around the room, then asked,
"What else is there?"
This earned him a poke in the shoulder with a fork and an
exasperated, "Now you're just being mean."
"Sorry," he replied. "You realize when you say something like
that, it's just an invitation for trouble... "
"Get me another beer."
"Ma'am."
They finished the meal, tossed the debris in the trash, and
then Misato suggested they work out a way to divide up the household
chores.
"I know," she said. "We'll play paper-stone-scissors and
whoever loses will have to do the chores for the day. We can mark up
the calendar a month in advance that way."
DJ snorted. "Paper-stone-scissors? Please. I'll wrestle you
for it," he added with a raised eyebrow.
"Not tonight," Misato replied with a grin.
He snapped his fingers. "Darn. I guess we'll just have to go
even-odd, then. You're the odd one, so you can do the chores on odd
days, and I'll take the even days 'cause I'm so even-tempered."
Misato didn't know whether to glare at him or laugh, so she
tried to do both, which failed spectacularly. That, she thought, was
worth another beer.
"Isn't this nice?" she asked. "Two for dinner instead of
eating all alone."
DJ nodded. "I haven't done this since... " He trailed off
and did not go on, but for just a moment, he looked immeasurably sad.
The day would soon come when he would have to admit to himself that
Lara Croft would not be coming back from the Yucatan this time.
"Well!" Misato said, forcing cheer back into her voice. "Why
don't you have a bath and wash all those bad thoughts away?" With an
admonishing finger raised, she went on instructively, "Bathing
cleanses both body and soul."
"Right," DJ replied, yawning. "I'm too tired to bother
unpacking my things tonight... d'you have an extra towel I can use?"
"Sure, they're in the cabinet under the sink in the bathroom."
"Thanks." DJ stood and shuffled into the bathroom, closing
the sliding door behind him.
The bathroom was actually two rooms; the one directly off the
kitchen had the sink, toilet, and mirror, and a door on the far wall
led to the actual bath. Yawning again, DJ took off his shoulder
holster and hung it on a towel hook, then stripped naked. Leaning
against the sink, he contemplated his face in the mirror.
He looked like his father; his mother had told him so a
thousand thousand times, and he had a picture of the man which
confirmed it. He had the same strong jaw and sensitive eyes, the same
thick black hair that was straight and well-behaved except for the
little shock at the front left corner that would never do anything but
look windblown. Looking down at himself, he saw a boy still fairly
short and fairly thin, but wiry and tough, well-conditioned from a
life of adventure.
"You are one good-lookin' man," he muttered to his reflection,
grinned the grin that his mother said was heartbreaking (probably
because it was his father's too - DJ had another photo, a snapshot
rather than a portrait, that showed him with the same grin), and then
went and shoved open the sliding door to the bath proper.
And almost ran smack into a large black-and-white bird with a
metal collar on, who appeared to be carrying a towel.
"WAUGH!" said DJ.
"WAUGH!" said the bird, which DJ now realized was a biggish
member of the penguin family, maybe two feet tall, with bristly,
bright-red eyebrow-like bits over bright green eyes that looked
unnervingly intelligent for those of a bird.
Regaining his composure, DJ regarded the bird, who had also
recovered his calm, for a moment, then decided this was worth
reporting and returned to the kitchen door.
"Say, Misato," he said as he pushed open the door. "Did you
know there's a penguin in your bath?"
As he said this, the penguin in question waddled past him into
the kitchen and made his way to the other refrigerator.
"Oh, he's one of those new hot-springs penguins," said Misato
cheerily, as if that explained what the bird was doing in her bath.
"His name is Pen-Pen. He's your other roommate."
The bird pushed a control on the front of the spare fridge
with a claw; a sliding panel opened, releasing some cool steam, and,
with a sideways hello-like glance at DJ, Pen-Pen sauntered into his
cool room for the night.
"Isn't science wonderful," said DJ, who had not known there
were genetic engineers spending their time doing things as apparently
random as hot-springs penguins.
"Mm," replied Misato, taking another drink of beer. Gesturing
significantly, she said offhandedly, "Shouldn't you cover that up?"
DJ glanced in the direction of her gesture, then back up to
her eyes, and shrugged, grinning his father's grin. "Sorry, are you
having trouble controlling yourself?" he inquired.
He slammed the sliding door shut just barely in time to
deflect the hurtling jar of toothpicks which would otherwise have
struck his forehead, and, chuckling, went to have a bath.
Misato, cheeks aflame, glared at the bathroom door for a
moment; then her anger sputtered and died, and she chuckled, tossing
back another drink.
I suppose I'm not being as nice as I ought to, she said to
herself. On the other hand, he's probably made up his mind about me
already.

"Not a bad sort of woman," DJ observed to himself as he soaked
in the tub. "And what looks! Kind of woman who'd make a bishop kick
a hole in a stained-glass window."
He was too tired to engage in any lengthy, meaningful
reflection on the day's events; instead, he allowed his mind to drift,
entertaining himself with thoughts of all the nice-looking women he'd
met in the thirty-odd hours he'd been with this NERV outfit. Misato;
the blonde scientist, Ritsuko Akagi; that one console operator, what
was her name, Maya, who he suspected had understood his muttered
historical reference just before EVA-01's launch; Rei Ayanami.
Yes, indeed. Rei Ayanami.
Red eyes, blue hair, and no wasted words.
He looked forward to having another lack of conversation with
her tomorrow.

He was too tired to consider unpacking any of his things or
setting up his computer, so as much as he burned to update his
journal, it would have to wait until the following day. He took only
the time to root through his duffel for his favorite blanket and set
up his lucky crystal skull on the desk in his new bedroom; then
crawled into bed and plummeted immediately into a deep and satisfying
sleep studded with mildly erotic dreams of Misato, Ritsuko, Maya, Rei,
and, of course, the most beautiful woman he'd ever known, Lara Croft.

Misato, taking her turn in the tub after DJ, was on the phone.
"I don't know, Ritsuko, I'm just a little scared. I'm way out
of my depth, I don't know anything about kids."
"You took this as part of your responsibilities to NERV,"
Ritsuko replied, tapping on her desktop with a pen. Misato was always
undertaking projects she had no clue how to accomplish and then
calling Ritsuko in a panic; it would have infuriated Ritsuko had
Misato not tended to make rousing successes of these jobs anyway,
after a few calming words from her old college roommate.
"I know, I just... " Misato slumped her shoulders. "I was
thinking of him as an asset I wanted to keep a closer eye on. After
tonight I don't think I'll ever be able to look at him that way again,
and I feel guilty about having done it."
"After tonight? What happened?" asked Ritsuko, a trifle of an
edge in her voice.
If Misato had been able to throw something at Ritsuko, she
would have. "Nothing like what you're thinking, Dr. Judgmental," she
snapped. "But he's so... he's so -alive-. And sharp. I don't know
if I've got the mind to keep up with him, he's so sharp."
"He likes you, that much is obvious," Ritsuko told her old
roommate. "I don't think he'll give you any trouble. If he does,
well, throw him out."
"Thanks, you're a big help," Misato growled, slamming down the
phone.
She sighed and slumped back in the tub, slouching down so that
her knees came up out of the water and prickled with the sudden
coolness of the air. She's still thinking of him as a tool, said
Misato to herself. Ah, well. She'll learn her lesson soon enough. I
get the distinct feeling Derek J. Croft is nobody's tool... and
nobody's fool, either.
On her way to bed, she wanted to tell DJ she was proud of the
job he had done protecting the city the day before, but he was already
sound asleep, so she let him keep at it.
She would be slightly troubled the next day to remember that
she had dreamed of the boy.

In the Central Dogma infirmary, Rei Ayanami was having a last
visitor of the evening herself. She looked up from her book as
Dr. Ikari entered.
"Good evening, Rei. How are you?"
"Much improved, Professor," replied Rei with something
approaching cheerfulness. "I should be able to return to work ahead
of schedule at this rate."
"Excellent." Ikari pushed his glasses up, then noticed the
book and cocked his head inquisitively. "Rei," he asked, "where did
you get that?"
Rei looked down at the book, which lay closed in her lap with
a finger holding her place. "DJ lent it to me."
"He was here?"
Rei nodded. "For most of the afternoon."
"What was he doing?"
"Reading."
"Reading?"
"Yes."
"Odd." Ikari scratched his bearded chin. "Did he speak to
you?"
"Only to introduce himself."
"Hrmph." Ikari was sure he didn't like the idea of the Croft
boy's attitude influencing Rei. The project had to have at least
-one- stable EVA pilot, after all.
"Is something wrong?" asked Rei.
"No, nothing to worry about," he replied. "What is your
opinion of him?"
Rei looked confused. "Should I have one?"
"Everyone has opinions."
"Well, I... " Rei stopped and searched her thoughts, trying
to find a name to put on what she felt if she considered it. "I guess
I like him," she finally said.
Ikari frowned thoughtfully. If Croft were allowed to erode
Rei's detachment, she might lose her efficiency, something he hated
the mere thought of. On the other hand, if he told her to stay away
from him, although she would obey, if she had started developing some
attachment to him, it might damage her efficiency to separate them.
Damn the boy! Rei's morale had never been an issue Gendou Ikari had
to consider before. Perhaps it hadn't been worth the effort and
expense of getting him here after all... but no, Rei could not have
defeated the Third Angel in her condition, Ikari knew that.
"Is... is that wrong?" asked Rei tentatively.
"Hm? Oh, no, I'm sorry, Rei. I was thinking of something
else. No, I don't mind if you like Croft. Maybe... maybe you need a
friend your own age."
She looked faintly relieved, and nodded. "If you say so."
"Just don't let him influence your efficiency."
Was that a trace of reproach in her eye as she said, "I would
never do that," or just Ikari's imagination? There was certainly
nothing of it in her voice.
"It's time for you to sleep," he said. "You need to rest if
you're to recover."
Obediently, Rei marked her place and put the book on her
nightstand.
"Good night, Rei."
"Good night, Dr. Ikari."
Ikari switched off the light on his way out, but Rei remained
awake for several minutes, contemplating the dark quietude of the room
and wondering about the undercurrent in the conversation with Ikari
she was certain she'd missed.
When she slept, it was her first night's sleep in the
infirmary without dreams of the accident that had put her there.

Three thousand miles away, on his last night at X-COM
Alcatraz, Jonathan Ellison dreamed of nothing at all.

/* The Marcels "Blue Moon" _Billboard Top Rock 'n Roll Hits: 1961_ */

NEXT EPISODE:

- Meet DJ's computer!
- Meet Ritsuko's computer!
- The Fourth Child and his EVA arrive in Worcester-3!
- Attack of the Giant Squid Thing!

All this, plus DJ sweet-talking Maya, in the next stunningly exciting
episode of Neon Exodus Evangelion, coming to http://www.eyrie.net/ on
7/16/97 (and your local news server some indeterminate-but-hopefully-short
time after that)! Be here for "Catch of the Day"!

--
Benjamin D. Hutchins, cofounder and Keeper-Straight of the Continuity
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited - An AnimeTech Limited Company -><-