[Eva][FanFic] Neon Exodus Evangelion 1:7 - Alone in the Dark

[Benjamin D. Hutchins]

Here's NXE1:7... sorry it's a weekish late, I was in a yellow Ryder
truck driving across North America...

--G.

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

EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED
presents

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION

EXODUS 1:7 - ALONE IN THE DARK

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
Jon Ellison created by Larry Mann
and
Lara Croft created by Toby Gard

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

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

On one of the levels of Central Dogma below the main
operations level and infirmary floor, there was a large gymnasium,
primarily for the use of the security officers and the like. It
contained an obstacle course of walls, rope climbs, pit jumps, step
barriers, narrow tunnels and the like which had to be climbed over,
under, through and around, usually on a timer. There were also all
the usual accoutrements one would expect to find in a school gym - a
basketball court, floor markings for running laps, rings, bars, etc. -
and an adjacent weight-training room.
On this particular morning, the gym was empty, save for two
observers on a balcony above the floor and one young boy.
DJ Croft, in boots, shorts, tank top, sweatband and leather
driving gloves, stood at the beginning of the obstacle course, taking
a couple of deep breaths, stretching, and otherwise preparing himself.
Above on the balcony, his mother Lara and Misato Katsuragi watched
(unknown to DJ, who thought he was alone).
DJ was still fairly small for his age, but, as sparsely
dressed as he now was, anyone could see that he was strong - his
slender body packed with wiry, hard muscles, not bulky but lithe, kept
strong by agility training and light weight work (which he'd just
finished as part of his obstacle-course warmup). In another life, he
would have made a fine dancer or professional gymnast, or perhaps a
flyweight boxer; as it was, though he had the skills of a gymnast,
what he tended to use them for was something else again.
His muscles feeling loose and warm, DJ proceeded into the
course with an easy lope, not looking to break any speed records,
though he could muster a fairly impressive speed in a short, flat-out
sprint. He ran up the first ramp this way, and, without hesitation,
launched himself off the end, across a ten-foot-deep padded pit, at
the other side of which was another ramp. Arching his back, he threw
his feet forward, landing with ease on the opposite platform and then
loping down the ramp.
The next jump was longer; for it, DJ had to reach out and
catch the edge of the opposite platform with his fingers, then pull
himself up and continue. The other side of the platform was a very
steep ramp; rather than try to control his run down it, DJ set his
feet and slid down, tumbling off the end in a tidy forward roll and
coming up running. He ran to the barrier wall, jumped up, caught the
top, and pulled himself over, dropping lightly down the other side
(but not before looking down reflexively to make sure the floor on the
other side was the same height, a lesson he'd learned rather painfully
in a Transbelvian castle). Next was a ten-foot tube tunnel; it had
been designed to be a tight fit for a full-grown trooper in armor with
a field kit and weapon, so DJ scrambled through easily, then climbed
the rope on the other side without using his legs.
This put him on a narrow catwalk, lacking handrails, high
above the gymnasium floor. Since this was a training facility, the
yawning chasm was filled with soft plastic balls rather than, say,
stone spikes and pit vipers; nevertheless, DJ thought of it as the
latter as he made his rapid way across. It kept his edge sharper to
assume he was in mortal peril.
The catwalk ended a good ten feet before another down-hanging
rope; DJ walked to the end of the catwalk, stopped, then jumped back a
few feet and got a running start, leaping out into space, his hands
searching for and finding the rope.
With a grunt of effort, he seized the rope and arrested his
flight; it was attached at the floor, and so wobbled with a standing
wave but didn't swing. DJ climbed down a few feet, until it was safe,
then kicked off and landed "safely" on the platform a couple of feet
away. The ball pit continued for another twenty-five feet, traversed
by a series of small pedestals at the height of the platform he was
currently on, but only large enough for one of his feet.
Backing up, he sized up the gaps, counted mentally, and then
began, leaping from one to the next with long, powerful strides,
skidding to a stop on the far platform just shy of going right off the
edge. Now DJ found himself confronted with a stepped wall - massive
foam steps with four-foot treads and six-foot risers, four of them.
He made short work of this, and caught his breath at the top before
sizing up the final obstacle.
It was a nasty one. The back side of the stepped wall was a
slide, too steep to climb down; it ended twenty-four feet below at a
sheer drop into another ball pit. The pit extended for twenty feet to
the blank, padded floor-to-ceiling expanse of the far wall; there was
a rope loosely anchored at the bottom of the slide. On the far wall
was a narrow ledge, perhaps six or eight inches and only two feet
wide; it formed the bottom sill of a doorway in that wall. Miss the
rope, and DJ would go catapulting into the pit. Get the rope but be
off-center and he'd crash into the wall on one side or the other of
the door, then fall into the pit. Too fast, and he'd hit the top of
the doorway, and fall into the pit.
Without hesitation, DJ hopped off the top and slid. His left
hand flashed out and caught the rope, plucking it free of its
restraint, and he swung out over the pit. He'd judged it right - he
was heading straight for the doorway - but damn it he -was- going too
fast.
Only one thing to do; he swung his feet up and let go early,
trusting his momentum to carry him sidelong through the doorway, and
skidded into the padded stop room on his side, crashing feet-first
into the far wall like a baseball player sliding into home.
Safe.
He got to his feet and dusted himself off, then headed back
into the gym. Half an hour of work with the heavy bag and speed bag,
and then he could pronounce the day's workout complete, have a shower
and go in search of food.
"He's very conscientious," Misato remarked to Lara as they
watched him leave. "A lot of boys in his position would have let
their training slide a little, without you around to make them work at
it, but I haven't had to even ask him about it. He started coming
here the second day he was here."
Lara nodded. "I never had to bother him about it either," she
said. "When he was a baby I'd put him in the gym at home so that if
he cried or needed anything while I was working out, I'd know. Not
long after he got walking sorted, he started trying to match me, so
Mildram and I put together a smaller version of my workout setup for
him to use, and kept it updated as he grew. He's always kept fit.
"Coming with me on my explorations was his idea, not mine. At
first I wouldn't allow it - but when he was eight I left him at home
while I checked out a Babylonian temple find a friend of mine dropped
me a line on, and the little blighter got away from Mildram and -beat-
me there." She chuckled indulgently at the memory. "So like it or
not, I had myself a partner. It was either that or compete with him,
and I'm not sure who'd be on top."
Misato laughed. "I know what you mean," she agreed. "He does
have a way of taking charge of situations, doesn't he? If you watch
us at home, it's pretty obvious who really rules the roost... and yet,
he usually does respect my rules. He's got a definite problem with
authority, though."
"That's hereditary, I'm afraid," Lara replied, her grin
showing that she wasn't at all sorry. "As imperious as your Dr. Ikari
and his lovely assistant tend to be, I don't doubt he goes out of his
way to make things difficult for them."
Misato chuckled. "You have -no- idea." Frowning
thoughtfully, she added, "By the way, why'd you hit Ritsuko?"
Lara shrugged and replied casually, "She was bothering me."
Misato rolled her eyes. "You're DJ's mother, all right."
"He's hit her?" Lara asked, eyes narrowing.
"Oh, no, no, nothing like that. DJ's never shown any violence
to -anyone- here. It's just that Ritsuko tends to annoy him, too."
She smiled. "Generally, he deals with it by either ignoring or
confusing her."
Looking relieved, Lara replied, "Ah, good. -That's- the way I
taught him." She cocked her head, looking inquisitive, and then said,
"If I didn't know better, Captain Katsuragi, I'd say you care for the
boy rather more than your compatriots here."
Misato reddened slightly. "Well... Ritsuko does have a
certain way of viewing him as more of an asset than a person, and
Dr. Ikari, well, he treats -everybody- that way."
"And you don't."
"I did, at first," Misato admitted. "That lasted until the
first dinner we had together. He's -way- too much his own person for
me to stay detached after that. We're... well, we're a lot alike."
"Mm." Lara nodded, thought about it for a moment, then said,
"He must like you, too, or he'd refuse to live with you."
Misato hesitated, unwilling to breach such a potentially
sensitive subject, but then decided there was nothing for it and asked
bluntly, "Will you take him away? Ritsuko and Professor Ikari's
high-handed attitude aside, we really do need his help."
"I don't know," Lara admitted. "I came in here determined to
do just that, but... well... " She smiled. "I'll leave it up to him.
It's his life, and anyway, if he wants to stay here, it'd be a losing
proposition for me to try and make him leave. DJ doesn't do anything
he doesn't want to do."
At the visible relief on Misato's face, Lara's smile became a
grin. "He does have a way of stealing away your heart, doesn't he? I
never planned to have children, you know. Once, before he was born, I
considered giving him up... but that lasted until the first time I saw
him."
"What about his father?" Misato wondered, then looked
embarrassed as she realized how personal a question it was.
But Lara only shrugged wistfully and replied, "He died before
anyone knew I was pregnant."
"I'm sorry," Misato replied, realizing from DJ's age what must
have, in all likelihood, claimed his father's life. It had been a
hard time for Misato, too.
"So am I," Lara replied, then paused before continuing, "But
that was in another country... "
Misato did not recognize the reference, but that didn't bother
Lara much. She would have missed it too, had her father not insisted
on a classical education for his daughter.
Thinking sober thoughts, the two women left the gym.

Showered, scrubbed, and dressed in a fresh pair of shorts and
a black t-shirt with a large white '5' screened on the front, DJ ran a
comb over his damp hair, slipped his feet into his Tevas and headed
down to the Wedge to see if the new morale measures he'd spoken to
Maya about before leaving on the previous day's aquatic rendezvous
were in place yet.
They weren't, but Rei was there, reading "Snow Crash" with
such rapt attention that DJ decided not to greet her as he sat down
opposite her in the Wedge bench.
After a moment, she looked up, scarlet eyes fixing on DJ, and
smiled just a tiny bit.
"DJ," she said.
"Hullo, Rei," said DJ, stretching out on the Wedge bench, head
toward the windows of the conference room adjacent (often nicknamed,
thanks to its floor level being three steps down from the Wedge's, the
Lower Wedge), feet toward the Central Dogma concourse entrance.
"How's things?"
"Fine," said Rei. "Jon and I met your mother yesterday."
"Oh yes? What'd you think?"
"She seems very concerned." Rei hesitated, then asked
tentatively, "Will she take you away?"
"Not if I don't want to go," DJ replied evasively.
"Do you?" asked Rei.
DJ looked into her questioning eyes and shrugged.
"I don't know yet," he said.
Rei nodded, understanding his dilemma, and returned to her
reading as DJ returned to his thinking.

Jon Ellison, meanwhile, was on his way from the commissary to
the Wedge himself; he'd checked out the menu, found nothing even
remotely appetizing, and so intended to find DJ and see if he was
planning on going out for lunch.
He was met by someone he didn't recognize, a pretty girl about
his age with auburn hair, blue eyes and a trim figure, dressed in a
yellow summer dress and, at the moment, absorbed in (and confused by)
a Central Dogma map.
"Hey, you," she said, waving Jon over. "Which way to the... "
She squinted at the paper. "... 'Wedge'? That can't be right."
"It's right," Jon said. "Just follow me, I'm heading that
way. I'm sorry, I don't think I know you."
"Asuka Soryu-Langley," she replied, not looking up from her
perusal of the map. "I'm the Second Child; I'm here to give the
program some much-needed respectability."
"... Oh," said Jon, nonplussed. After a few seconds of
silence, it became obvious to him that she wasn't going to bother
asking him who he was, so he volunteered it: "Uh, I'm Jon
Ellison... the Fourth Child."
"No kidding?" Jon nodded. "I've reviewed your battle tapes,"
Asuka went on. "You should really find another line of work before
you get hurt."
Jon did not reply. Oh, joy, he thought, I get to be this
one's marksman? Wonderful. (Ikari's duty rosters still had him
listed as point to Rei's mark, but he knew of SHODAN's analysis of the
situation and, frankly, agreed with it. He figured it was only a
matter of time before circumstances proved SHODAN right, though given
Ikari's stubbornness he wasn't particularly looking forward to the
occasion.)
"I'm looking forward to meeting the First Child, her combat
record notwithstanding," Asuka commented as she followed Jon down the
corridor. "You three can't have survived this long on your own if
you're -all- stumblebums."
"What gives you the impression DJ's a stumblebum?" asked Jon
coolly. "He has an excellent combat record. And I understand he
handled himself quite well in the incident at sea."
"He got lucky," Asuka said hotly. "His attitude is terrible.
Besides," she added airily, "he gets wounded a lot. He's not going to
last long if he doesn't start being careful. Even now he's not at
full strength - how'd he manage to hurt his -hands-, of all things?"
"You've reviewed the reports on the confrontation with the
Fifth Angel?" asked Jon. At Asuka's nod, he went on, "DJ rescued Rei
Ayanami from her EVA before Unit 00's overheated armor could heat the
LCL in her entry plug to dangerous temperatures."
"So? That's not hard with the sliding canopy hatch."
"EVA-00 is the prototype," Jon said. "Its entry plug doesn't
have a sliding canopy hatch. DJ had to open the bolt-dogged side
hatch by hand. He suffered second-degree burns... and saved Rei's
life." Jon hardened his face and tone as he added, "So don't tell me
you have a problem with his attitude."
For once in her life, Asuka Langley had nothing to say.

"Can I ask you something?" Lara inquired as she and Misato
sipped tea in the commissary.
"Sure," Misato replied.
"Why did you take DJ's guardianship? I understand it was
originally planned that he'd live alone."
Misato considered her answer, then decided to reply honestly.
"I'm not sure," she replied. "I guess... I just couldn't imagine
someone as dynamic as DJ being alone all the time. I... " She
stumbled over the next few words, but Lara grinned and let her know by
doing so that she needn't worry about them anyway.
"I see," said Lara with a smile. "Seems I was right
then... my boy's caught himself another heart."
Misato blushed. "I don't want you to think that our
relationship is... you know... untoward."
"Odd," Lara commented, "you strike me as the type that doesn't
care much what other people think. Not unlike myself, come to that."
"It's not what you think of me that's important," Misato
replied, "it's just that I don't want you to think DJ has
behaved... improperly."
Lara threw back her head and laughed. "If he didn't behave
improperly he wouldn't be my DJ," she replied mirthfully. "But I
appreciate your trying to put my mind at rest, anyway." Her smile
turned a little more serious as Lara continued, "You know, I promised
myself once, long ago, that I would never leave DJ anyplace where he
wasn't loved. That's going to be a major factor in my decision,
whether to ask him to leave this place with me when I go."
Put at ease though she was by Lara's attitude, Misato still
refrained from answering that obvious question, for fear that her
answer would be misinterpreted.

Back in the Wedge, a shadow fell over Rei's book. Silently
she shifted to the right a little, bringing the book back into the
light. The shadow moved again, once more darkening the book. Rei's
eyes swiveled in the direction of the shadow.
"Hi!" said the redheaded girl who was casting it. "I'm Asuka
Soryu-Langley."
Rei looked perplexed, then replied quietly, "How nice for
you." Then she moved out of Asuka's shadow again and resumed reading.
Asuka looked momentarily perplexed, then annoyed, and moved to
once more darken the book and cause Rei to look up at her.
"I'm the Second Child," she persisted, "and the designated
pilot of Evangelion Unit 02."
Rei nodded, moved yet again, and went back to reading.
Incensed by this absolute lack of appreciation, Asuka snatched
away the book and cried, "What the hell's the matter with you? Don't
you have any courtesy at all?"
Without a word, her face almost devoid of expression, Rei
stood up, slapped Asuka hard across the face, then took her book from
the stunned girl's hand, found her place, sat down, and continued
reading.
Asuka's face turned slowly crimson, all of it matching the
slap mark, and, quivering with rage, she drew a hand back to
counterattack; but before she could strike Rei (who was completely
ignoring her), DJ darted forward and caught her wrist in a startlingly
strong grip, hurting her enough to jolt her out of her anger and into
a state of clear surprise. She blinked at him, startled, as, with the
fiercest expression she'd yet seen on him, he growled a single word:
"-Don't-."
Behind DJ, Jon's eyes flashed a similar silent message as he
unconsciously placed an almost proprietary hand on Rei's shoulder.
"-Ever,-" DJ continued, then released Asuka's wrist and backed
off a step.
"So that's the way it is, huh?" asked Asuka, bringing her left
hand up to rub her bruised wrist.
"That's the way it is," DJ and Jon replied in flat stereo.
Asuka glared at them for a moment, then looked back at Rei,
who sat, still reading, unconcerned and, in fact, apparently unaware
of this byplay.
"Look, I'm sorry I grabbed your book," she grudgingly
admitted. "It was rude."
Rei glanced up, then went back to reading.
"You're a strange one. Why won't you be my friend?" Asuka
said in a way that made Rei want to do otherwise.
"If I'm ordered to, I will," Rei answered, and returned once
more to her reading, leaving Asuka again annoyed.
"Hmph," Asuka remarked, turning away and walking across the
Wedge. "Frigid little bitch," she murmured to herself, loud enough
that DJ heard; he flushed and took a half-step, but Jon's hand on his
forearm restrained him.
"She doesn't know that this is Rei's way," said Jon softly.
"She's taking it personally. She'll come to understand."
DJ sighed, seeming to deflate slightly as the tension drained
out of him.
"I suppose," he said, plopping back down on the bench. "I
-hope-," he added. Then he brightened and said, "Any word on our
morale gear, Jon?"
"Tomorrow, according to Maya."
"Excellent. I must remember to give her a big wet kiss of
thanks."
"You're sure that'd be rewarding -her-?"
"Why's everything have to be about -her-?" replied DJ with a
grin.
Ever so slightly, Rei rolled her eyes.

That afternoon, after an uneventful day of harmonics testing
and boring dissertations on the importance of the project, DJ returned
to the apartment on Lee Street he'd started thinking of as home,
plopped his backpack down in the corner of his room, and sprawled out
on his bed, hands behind his head, contemplating the ceiling.
"Good afternoon, DJ," said Hal pleasantly. "How was your
day?"
"Oh, same old, same old," DJ replied. Then, perking up, he
sat up and said, "Hey, any results on that database search I set you
on?"
"I've completed a search of all the NERV databanks to which I
could gain access," Hal replied. "The information you requested was
not available in any of them."
"Not available??" DJ replied. "You mean to tell me Rei
Ayanami's birthday isn't on file in -any- of NERV's networked
systems?"
"Not even SHODAN has Rei's birth date on file," Hal replied.
"She informed me so herself."
"Doesn't have it on file or won't give it to you."
"SHODAN informed me that such information is a matter of
public record - she provided me with yours, Asuka Soryu-Langley's,
Ritsuko Akagi's, Misato Katsuragi's, Maya Ibuki's, John Trussell's,
Otto Keller's and Gendou Ikari's. I asked in order to test just such
a hypothesis," Hal explained. "H.A.L. computers are incapable of
falsehood. SHODAN does not have Rei's birthdate on file; nor does she
have Jon Ellison's."
"That's pretty weird," DJ replied, not bothering to voice his
doubt about SHODAN's veracity. It would only provoke a rather lofty
and tiresome speech from Hal about how no H.A.L. computer had ever
perpetrated a falsehood or made a lookup error.
"I can conduct an expanded search on other computer systems,
but I don't think there's much chance of success," Hal continued. "I
have already checked with the United States Social Security
Administration and the Department of the Interior. As far as their
public datasystems are concerned, Rei Ayanami does not exist."
"Definitely weird. Keep on it. Hack restricted systems if
you have to, but only if the risk of disclosure or damage is minimal.
All right?"
"Very well, DJ," Hal replied mildly, entirely unperturbed that
he'd just been asked to violate the law. "I will inform you of any
results. Is there anything else?"
"Mm... no. Oh, yes, there is one other thing. I've been
informed today that Asuka Soryu-Langley will be coming to live here
with us. I assume you've already read her personnel file?"
"I have."
"Good. Add her to the access database at access level three.
Oh... and don't talk to her unless she talks to you first, for a
bit... I want to see how long it takes her to realize what the sensor
heads are."
"That's cruel, DJ."
"I know. Do it anyway, please?"
"Very well."
"Right. What does the old recipe randomizer give us for
dinner tonight?"
"Szechuan-style wok-fried beef and vegetables, with a side
helping of vegetables and -not- beef for Rei."
"Right. I'd better toddle off to the kitchen, then... be a
dear and pop the recipe up on the kitchen monitor?"
"Already done, DJ."
"I couldn't live without you, Hal."

DJ laid out helpings of the evening's steaming, savory dinner
before everyone gathered at the table, giving extra flourishes to the
unveiling of his special vegetarian version for Rei, then distributed
appropriate beverages and took his own seat, chuckling with
anticipation as he cracked open the evening's first Guinness and
prepared his chopsticks for action.
"Hey!" Asuka burst out, distracted from her confused
contemplation of the plate of food DJ had put on the floor by the type
of beverage he had. "You're drinking -beer-!"
DJ blinked. "So I am," he replied, and went on about his
business.
"Are you going to let him drink that?" Asuka demanded of
Misato.
Misato shrugged, taking a drink of her own Guinness. "Are you
going to try to stop him?" she replied.
"What about you?" Asuka demanded, turning to Lara. "You're
his mother."
"So I am," Lara replied in an uncanny imitation of her son.
"You're letting him drink?"
"He's a big boy," Lara said, popping open her own beer.
"That's disgusting," Asuka declared, pouring herself a glass
of milk.
"Judge not," said DJ, "lest ye be judged yourself."
"I'm beginning to see where you got your bad habits, Fifth
Child," said Asuka. "You obviously weren't raised right."
Misato glanced sharply up, expecting to see Asuka on the
receiving end of the same sort of flash of temper that Ritsuko had
reported receiving from Lara; but Lara simply shrugged mildly and
said, "I did the best I could with what I had. Your parents obviously
didn't do so well in the 'manners' department themselves."
Asuka colored, but fell mercifully silent.
The rest of dinner was uneventful, until just toward the end,
when the second refrigerator opened and Pen-Pen emerged to consume his
evening meal. Asuka froze, eyes wide with a combination of
mystification and faint fear, as the bird ignored her completely,
wolfed down his food, and returned nonchalantly to the refrigerator.
"Wah... wah... " Asuka tried to say.
"Problem?" asked DJ calmly.
"There's a penguin in the refrigerator," Asuka said, meeting
his amused gaze with a look of blank confusion.
"Yes, I know," said DJ.
"Why does he go in there?"
"Why do you go in there?" replied DJ.
"To get a glass of milk - but that's not why he goes in
there."
"Of course not!" said DJ scornfully. "Penguins are birds,
they can't drink cow's milk. -Think- before you ask these questions,
Asuka! Twenty points higher than me, thinks a penguin will drink
milk?" Shaking his head sadly, DJ went off to get ready for a bath,
and it wasn't until he was safely in his bedroom that Asuka realized
she'd been had.
"CROFT!!"

Jon and Rei went back to Apartment 3-F after DJ emerged,
endured a withering glare from Asuka as she brushed past him to her
own room, and said goodnight to his mother. Having taken her leave of
DJ, Lara went next door as well, where Jon and Rei were putting her up
in their spare room (Misato and DJ's having been taken over by Asuka).
Jon was first in the bath there, so Lara sat in the living room for a
while in fairly companionable silence with Rei, both of them reading.
At length, Rei put down her book and said softly, "Dr. Croft?"
"Please," said Lara, "call me Lara."
"Lara," said Rei shyly, then paused before pressing on: "Will
you take DJ away?"
"Everyone seems to be interested in my answer to that
question," Lara observed wryly. "I'll tell you what I told Misato: I
can't make him do anything he doesn't want to do. If he wants to go,
I'll take him back to England with me; if not, I won't make a fuss
about it."
Rei's relief was not as transparent as Misato's, but Lara
caught it anyway, and smiled. "I've seen enough evidence that this
place, however strange and dangerous it is, meets my requirements,"
she added.
"Pardon?" asked Rei, looking quizzical.
"Never mind," Lara replied, waving away the question. "It's
nothing... a private joke. Let's just say I'm glad he has friends
here."
Rei nodded. "He's a good pilot," she said.
"And a good friend?" asked Lara, her smile inquisitive.
Rei's cheeks got slightly pink as she replied softly,
"... Yes." Then she looked mildly startled as she realized that she
hadn't said it alone; turning, she saw Jon, a towel snugged around his
waist, finishing a nod. He'd apparently heard their last exchange.
Lara's smile was gentle as she said, "Good. DJ likes to
pretend he can get by on his own sometimes, but... well, nobody can
live without friends."
Jon exchanged a glance with Rei, then nodded again. "Yes."

NEXT MORNING, 10:30
CONTROL ROOM, CENTRAL DOGMA

The plug-out focus test on EVA-00's neurosystem wasn't going
well, and the staff in the control room was already starting to tire
of their workday after only an hour and a half of the job.
Ritsuko Akagi studied the data being displayed on the master
screen and frowned. "0.08? We can do better than that."
"It is within the safety margin," SHODAN noted, "but only by a
margin of 0.01."
"What do you think we should do?" asked Maya.
Ritsuko considered for a moment, then sighed. "Abort the
test, clear all circuits. We'll do it again."
Maya sighed and started flicking switches. It was apparently
bent on being that kind of morning.

Thirteen levels up, Misato Katsuragi was fast reaching the
same conclusion. Her entire day, as far as she was concerned, had
been ruined at 9:15, with the news that Ryoji Kaji had been reassigned
to Worcester-3 and would not be returning to Germany, Japan, or the
pit of Hell that spawned him.
And now, just as she was entering the elevator to head down to
the control room, she heard his voice at the end of the corridor,
calling, "Hold the elevator, please!"
Eyes narrowing, Misato thumbed the >< button hard and
repeatedly, praying to the great god Otis that he wouldn't make it.
Just as the doors slid shut, he reached the elevator, and,
sticking the clipboard he was holding into the gap, he tripped the
safety mechanism and made the doors reopen.
"Phew!" he said, putting on his charmingest smile. "I almost
didn't - "
He was cut off as a small blur not immediately recognizable as
DJ Croft sprinted around the corner and crashed into him, knocking his
papers flying in a great conical spurt down the cross-corridor.
"Oof! Sorry, Kaji, didn't see you there!" DJ cried
breathlessly, ducking into the elevator and surreptitiously banging
the >< button. "Awfully sorry, I'll buy you a car or something, well,
no time to hang about chatting, you'd best be picking up those
papers!"
The doors closed and they were away, safe, sound, and without
Ryoji Kaji.
"You little shit!" Misato declared, trying (and failing) to
keep her face severe. Then she relaxed and let the grin she really
wanted to wear break through, and added, chortling and ruffling his
hair, "That was terrific."
"Was it? Thanks," DJ replied with a modest smile. "I had to
come up with it on the spur of the moment, and I figured shooting him
was probably socially inappropriate."
Misato considered for a moment, and then said, "Yeah, I
suppose so."
"So... you, uh, come to this elevator often?"
She chuckled. "All the time. Going my way?"
"If you're heading for the control room, I am," DJ replied.
"I have some extremely critical Ritsuko-and-Maya-watching to do."
"You're incorrigible."
"I'm fourteen."
"Same thing."

Since Dr. Ikari had stuck to his guns about the rotation
planning, Jon and Rei, as Evangelion Combat Team No. 1, were off-duty.
Being of similarly unextravagant tastes when it came to personal
entertainment, both were at home engaged in quiet pursuits. Rei was
sitting on the couch reading Philip K. Dick's "We Can Build You",
while Jon sat at the kitchen table playing chess with Hal via the
remote terminal installed there.
The sliding door the building superintendent had grudgingly
allowed to be built (with a little persuasion from NERV's authority)
between apartments 3-D and 3-F opened without preamble, and Asuka
Soryu-Langley entered. Neither Jon nor Rei acknowledged her presence,
something she had not yet accustomed herself to; she stood in the
doorway at odds with her expectations for a moment, then slid the door
shut a little more pointedly than was strictly necessary. This caused
Rei to look up, nod slightly, and return to her reading, while Jon, in
the kitchen and engrossed in planning his next move, did not hear at
all.
"Queen takes pawn," said Jon.
"Bishop takes Knight's pawn," replied Hal after a momentary
pause.
"Well, this is an exciting spot," Asuka grumped, plopping down
on the couch at the opposite end from Rei. "What do you guys do for
fun around here?"
"We're having fun," Rei replied, not looking up from her book.
"Oh, how silly of me," Asuka replied, rolling her eyes. "I
should have spotted that immediately."
"Rook to King One," said Jon.
"I'm sorry, Jon," said Hal. "I think you missed it. Queen to
Bishop Six; Bisop takes Queen; Knight takes Bishop; Checkmate in
three."
Jon frowned at the screen, then said, "Mm... you're right. I
resign."
"Thank you for a most enjoyable game," said Hal pleasantly.
"Would you like to play again?"
"Not now, thank you, Hal."
"You just lost to a computer?" Asuka remarked.
"Yes," Jon replied.
"Way to go, Kasparov." By invoking the name of the
pre-Second-Impact grandmaster who had demonstrated such terrible
sportsmanship after his epic loss to the original HAL 9000 in 1998,
Asuka launched a tactical nuclear strike on Jon's chess-playing ego.
He failed to ruffle, saying only, "If you would care to play
against me sometime, I'd be interested in seeing how good you are."
"Chess?" Asuka replied, scowling. "Most boring game in the
world. No -thank- you."
"Um... was there something you needed?" asked Jon.
"Or are you just looking for people to annoy?" Rei added
softly from behind her book.
"Well, I can see -this- was a wasted trip," Asuka grumbled.
"I was just looking for something interesting to do, but I can see
that this is definitely not the place to come for -that-."

"OK, Ritsuko," Maya reported. "We're ready to try again."
"Do it," Ritsuko replied. Maya pressed the test-initiate
control, and she began intently watching the readings and wishing
Truss didn't have the afternoon off.
As they crept toward the break-even point, the consoles went
dark. As, for that matter, did the room, and the test chamber with
the EVA in it, and everything else in sight. For a couple of
vertiginous seconds the control room was plunged into absolute pitch
darkness, before the reddish-amber, battery-powered emergency lights
kicked in and filled the chamber with a bloody gloom.

One and a half levels shy of the control room level, the
elevator abruptly, shudderingly stopped, and the lights went out,
eliciting a cry of consternation from both Misato and DJ - Misato
because the unexpected stop startled her, DJ because his lurking
nyctophobia spurted to the surface of his mind for a moment before the
knowledge that he was not alone in the small room could push it back
down. DJ Croft knew few fears, but a cave-in in an abandoned Inca
gold mine several years before, which had cut him off from light, air
and the reassuring human contact of his mother for several hours, had
left him uncontrollably afraid of being alone in small, dark places.
He resisted an urge to cling close to Misato; it would be
difficult and embarrassing to explain, however pleasant and reassuring
it might be. Instead he swung his pack down off his back and fished
around in it for a battery torch, but before he could find one, the
emergency lights came on, bathing the room in a red glow which was
very like that of his darkroom's safety lamp back home. This made him
feel more at ease, and he willed the tension out of his shoulders and
neck.
"What the hell?" Misato wondered.
"Blackout?" DJ inquired.
"Impossible!"
"Yet it seems to be happening."
"But what could cause the power to go out in a place like
this?"
"Ritsuko probably did something wrong during the EVA-00 test."

In the control room, all eyes were on Ritsuko.
"It... it wasn't me," she protested.

Rei Ayanami looked up as her reading lamp flickered once, then
died completely. Cocking her head inquisitively, she turned the
switch a couple of times; then, from the kitchen, Jon reported, "It's
not the lamp, the power's off."
"Local grid failure?" Asuka wondered. "Americans can't build
anything right."
"I'm afraid it goes a bit further than that," Hal reported
calmly. "I've lost all contact with NERV Headquarters."
"Hal? You're still operational?" asked Jon. From Asuka's
perspective in the living room, she couldn't see the wall-mounted
console unit he was talking to; it looked to her as if he was
conversing with the oven.
"I have six hours of internal battery backup power, assuming
judicious usage of power-intensive resources such as crystal-memory
search and graphic rendering. I will need to switch to standby mode
soon, to prevent data loss in the event that I completely lose power."
"Oh. What do you mean, you've lost contact with HQ?"
"I maintain a connection with the NERV Headquarters network at
all times. That link failed at the same time as my external power
feed. This should not be the case; the power grid and telecom network
are two separate services. However, I am unable to contact SHODAN or
any of the Magi. The network links are functional, but the machines
are not responding."
"None of them? That's impossible!" Jon protested. "Dr. Akagi
never allows more than one of the Magi to be taken down at a time for
maintenance, and SHODAN has run continuously since Headquarters was
built."
"Nevertheless, none of them are responding, and my diagnostics
indicate that this is not the fault of the link hardware. I am also
unable to raise DJ or Misato's HALcomm units, which indicates that the
signal relay network is down."
"Something must be wrong," said Rei.
"Guess we'd better check it out," Jon agreed.
"Right!" Asuka said, standing up and grinning fiercely. "But
before we go out into a crisis situation, our group needs a leader -
and naturally, that'll be me. Any objections?"
Jon opened his mouth to say something, but Asuka cut him off:
"Can it, Ellison."
Disgruntled but silent, Jon closed his mouth and looked at
Rei. The message exchanged between them was clear (if completely
missed by Asuka): It isn't worth the trouble of objecting.
The three EVA pilots left the apartment in varying states of
emotion. Asuka was excited and pleased to have her first opportunity
to demonstrate that the Children could get along just fine in an
emergency without their dipsomaniac den mother or Croft the Mighty
Adventurer; Jon was apprehensive and wished that there was some way of
gently curbing Asuka's enthusiasm; and Rei felt merely a faint
annoyance and an overlay of concern, a hope that everyone underground
was all right.
Deep down, all of them shared a quiet dread, a feeling that an
inevitable worsening of the situation was hanging over them.

"What's happening?" Gendou Ikari asked as he entered the
control room.
"Unknown, sir," Ritsuko replied. "As near as we can tell,
what's happening is... impossible."
"Explain."
"Worcester-3 was designed to be entirely self-sufficient if
need be," said Maya. "It's theoretically impossible for the primary,
secondary, -and- tertiary power systems all to fail at the same time."
"In other words, this was a deliberate action by someone,"
Ikari said, his tone betraying no emotion.
"They must have tripped the breakers," Maya observed, "though
how anyone unauthorized could get access to the power-system
switchroom I don't know."
"Studying this place, judging our strengths and weaknesses?"
Ritsuko wondered. "Or some kind of elaborate, stupid prank? I knew
it was a bad idea to build this place under a tech-school town."

"OK, first crisis," Asuka observed as she, Jon and Rei made
their way down Gold Star Boulevard. "It's two and a half miles to
Central Dogma via the S490. That will take us around half an hour -
much too long. We need a faster method of transportation. So get
your passcards ready - we're going to commandeer the next car that
comes along!"
Five minutes later, there had been no cars.
"Hmph! Where the hell is everybody?" Asuka wondered. "Don't
they know there's a crisis situation happening here?!"
"Yes," Jon pointed out calmly. "That's why they're not here -
they're staying home like the alert instructions tell them to."
"What a negative attitude you have," Asuka said scornfully.
"Someone will be along."
As they walked past Harr Dodge, Jon decided enough was enough;
he picked up a large rock and heaved it through the glass door to the
deserted dealership's showroom, then, as Asuka squawked indignantly,
stepped calmly inside and selected a set of keys from the pegboard in
the manager's office.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Asuka demanded as
Jon, ignoring her, unlocked the Avenger whose keys he'd selected.
"Finding a faster method of transportation," he said calmly.
"Get in."
Asuka sighed, then said, "Fine. You drive - consider it your
punishment for acting without my permission."
Jon rolled his eyes, sharing a glance with Rei:
<That means she doesn't know how to drive.>

John Trussell was hanging around the Jim Dandy laundromat next
door to Boomers Pizza, waiting for his clothes to dry, when the power
went out. He reacted with a speed and decisiveness which might have
startled anyone who knew him: instantly he removed his
still-slightly-damp clothes from the dryer, stuffed them into his
laundry bag, and darted into the street, fumbling for his keys. He
knew full well how impossible it was for the power to go out in
Worcester without somebody turning it off, and that NERV would
certainly have been informed of any plans. That it was happening
anyway was a sure sign that something worse was afoot.
And there it was, too, crawling over Airport Hill with a
spindly decisiveness that stopped just short of being utterly
terrifying: a gigantic, black, spider-like thing with four very tall
legs and a round pod-like body slung low at their crux. Misato was
right, Truss reflected as he started his car; they were getting
weirder-looking every time.

The power failure kept Asuka, Rei and Jon from gaining access
to HQ through any of the usual methods; though they had easily reached
the Geo-Front by crashing their commandeered ride through the wood
barricades blocking the S490, the passcard readers in the Central
Dogma garage weren't working and the elevators were powerless. They
wandered the garage for a little while, finally coming across one of
the maintenance hatchway doors, the sort which slid, but had a crank
behind an access panel off to one side in case of just such an event.
"Ah good, a manual door," Asuka smiled. "OK, Ellison: make
yourself useful!"
Jon silently shelved the remark which wanted to emerge, and
focused instead on turning the crank. It was a wearisome business,
the gears being reluctant to move and the door taking its own sweet
time to actually do anything, but he finally got the thing open.
The three children descended into the dark.

"Maintenance and Repair reporting no luck getting any of the
power supplies on line," Maya reported. "They have no idea what the
hell's going on."
"Damn it all," Ritsuko murmured. "Where the hell is Misato?"
"Last time anybody saw her, she was getting on an elevator on
Level G-13. That wasn't too long before the power went off; she's
probably stuck in the elevator."
"Damn! With the power off we can't even launch the EVAs on
their own batteries; they're stuck in the cages and there's no way to
get the entry plugs into them."
"Have the M&R work crews report to the EVA cage," Ikari said.
"We'll open the doors and seat the plugs manually. Where are the
pilots?"
"Unknown," Maya reported. "DJ was getting on the elevator
with Misato, so wherever she is, they're probably together. The
others were all off-duty. Presumably they've noticed that something's
going on by now, but getting here's going to be tough for them."
Ikari considered this gravely for a moment, then said,
"They'll be here. Rei won't let us down. Get the crews to the cage;
I'm going down to supervise the operations."
"Yes, sir."

DJ and Misato had been sitting side by side in silence against
the back wall of the elevator for several minutes before DJ spoke:
"Hey Misato?"
"Yeah?"
"Where'd they dig up that Ryoji guy, anyway?"
"I wish I knew, so I could send him back," Misato said
ruefully. "The guy gives me the blues just looking at him."
"Hm," said DJ. He rummaged in his pack, taking out a small
silver rectangle, which revealed itself momentarily to be a harmonica.
He blew a couple of experimental puffs, orienting himself to
the instrument again, and then began to blow a fairly standard
blues-rock line. After a few bars, he paused and sang a line in a
comically gravelly impression of a bluesman voice, then blew a few
bars, then sang another line. Misato was at first perplexed, then
pleased, by the music, and sat back to take it in.
It was a pretty standard blues tune, based on the basic
pattern laid down by old-time bluesmen like John Lee Hooker, but it
was obvious DJ was making the lyrics up off the top of his head - it
was a lament by an unnamed man who loved an unnamed woman, only to
have her stolen away by Ryoji Kaji. The lamentor then went on to
delineate exactly what he thought of Kaji, in detail.
"You really shouldn't talk about people like that... " Misato
murmured during the middle harmonica solo, trying not to laugh.
"What will he do, sue me for definition of character?" asked
DJ, missing only a few beats in the bridge before going back to his
bluesman voice. The ending of the song detailed how Kaji did the lady
wrong and abandoned her, leaving her distrustful of men and more
unattainable than ever before, and lamented the injustice of a world
in which men like Kaji roamed free to ruin the chances of everyone
else.
The way DJ exaggerated the last few lines of the rap and drew
out the traditional "wa-waaaaaah" put Misato over the edge, and as he
noodled about with the ending, changed keys a few times, and then
wrapped it up just as her giggles subsided.
Coming down from her fit of laughter, Misato succumbed to her
desire to scruffle his hair, pulling him closer by her side, putting
an arm over his shoulders and leaning her head against his.
"You're a good kid," she said with a smile.
"I try," he replied, stretching out against the wall and doing
what can only be described as "basking".

Meanwhile, in the maintenance tunnels...
Asuka studied the fork in the passageway for a moment. "I
think we should go right."
"To the left, in my opinion," Rei replied.
"Hey, who's the leader here anyway?!" Asuka growled, then
leveled her gaze at Jon. "What's -your- opinion, Ellison?" she asked
pointedly. Jon looked back at her for a moment, then glanced at Rei,
and Asuka knew right then she wasn't going to get a favorable answer.
"Never mind!!" she snapped. "To the right!"
Jon glanced at Rei, who rolled her eyes.

Truss noted with some surprise that the barricades into the
S490 freeway were already broken when he got to them, but didn't have
much time to dwell on it as he sped into the Geo-Front with all the
speed he could wring out of his battered Ford. Whoever did that was
almost certain to get lost in the labyrinth if they were unauthorized
anyway - and maybe even if they were authorized, what with the
computerized direction-giving terminals being offline.

"I think we went the wrong way," Jon remarked quietly, trying
to keep the 'I told you so' edge out of his voice. "This passage is
leading upward."
"Shh," Asuka said. "Don't distract me."
Jon pantomimed strangling her, which elicited the tiniest of
snickers from Rei. Asuka, not looking back, mistook it for a cough.
They trudged for quite a while in silence, Rei not caring to
say anything and Jon not quite daring as he became more and more
convinced that they were going the wrong way.
Presently, up ahead, they spotted a faint light. On closer
examination it proved to be a doorway. "There, now what did I tell
you?" Asuka said, looking quite pleased with herself. "Follow me!"
Rei and Jon followed, but at a few meters' distance. Presently they
arrived at the door, and Asuka flipped the emergency release switch
and kicked it open.
They were rewarded with a nice view of the surface again.
Followed in the next instant by a thundering crash as one of
the Angel's spindly black legs slammed down into the street only a few
feet away. Asuka was thrown off balance by the impact and landed
squarely on her rear. The leg arced back up into the air and out of
sight, and a moment later the Angel's body swept into sight a little
farther away down the road. Asuka instinctively backpedaled as the
thing seemed to glare at her out of the numerous eyes along its
surface, scrambled to her feet and slammed the door shut again.
Heaving a sigh of relief, she found herself confronted by the
even gazes of Rei and Jon. For a moment embarassment threatened to
color her face, but she fought it down.
"*AHEM* We visually verified that there *is* an Angel!" she
declared. "Now we have to do something about it! Let's go!"
As she marched off, Rei and Jon followed, exchanging yet
another private, knowing glance.
At length, as the Children tramped through what began to feel
like an endless maze of corridors and passages, Asuka grew bored with
the silence and decided to start what, on her planet, apparently
passed for a conversation.
"The two of you," Asuka said with a snide air. "You're the
favorites, aren't you?"
Rei did not reply; confused, Jon said only, "What?"
"It's obvious you're Ikari's favorites. He doesn't like
Croft's attitude any more than I do."
"DJ is very dynamic," Rei observed quietly. "It unbalances
the linear-minded. Makes them hostile."
Asuka nodded, glad that Rei agreed with her, and wondered why
Jon was coughing so violently.
"Are you all right, Ellison?" she asked. "It's not -that-
dusty in here." She frowned and added crossly, "You'd better not give
me whatever you're coming down with."
"I don't think you have to worry," Rei said, which seemed to
send Jon on another coughing jag. Asuka was so annoyed at the
possibility of catching some kind of cold or flu that she completely
forgot the fact that they hadn't answered her original question.
Before long, they came to a wrecked door.
"Looks like this passageway is totally blocked," Jon observed,
taking in the wreckage of the door.
"It can't be helped," Rei replied, pointing to a nearby
corridor feature. "We'll have to force open the grate and move
through the air duct." That having been decided, she and Jon both set
about searching through the debris for a suitable implement.
Asuka, long past trying to argue with either of them, just
watched in silence as they worked. <These two are scary,> she
thought. <She stops at nothing to accomplish her goals... and he's
always right there next to her...>
Jon came up with a piece of metal bar, once part of the door
mechanism, a couple of feet long that looked like it would make a
decent prybar. Moments later, Rei discovered its mate on the other
side of the door, and the two took up positions on either side of the
grate. Almost as one, they wedged their ends of the bars under the
sides, and, without speaking or counting, heaved against them - once,
twice, again, until, with a sharp SPANG of parting bolts, the grate
popped free and crashed to the floor.
<.....why do they all have to be so weird?> Asuka thought.

With a final heave from the work crew and a solid -clunk-,
EVA-03's entry plug dropped into position.
"Units 00, 02 and 03 are ready," one of the workers reported.
"Excellent," Ritsuko nodded. "Standby to cut the hydraulic
lines on the lock bolts."
"Er, we still don't have any pilots, though."
"Don't worry, I'm sure they'll be--"
At that point, interestingly enough, a nearby ventilation
grate gave way and Asuka toppled out with a shriek, landing in a heap
on the floor. Jon tumbled out right after her, narrowly avoiding
landing right on top of her, and then Rei jumped down, landing neatly
on her feet.
"--here any minute," Ritsuko finished, with a slight grin.
"How are the EVAs?" Jon asked as he stood up and brushed
himself off.
"They're ready for you," Ritsuko replied.
"How will we launch without the power, though?" Jon wondered.
"The same way we prepped the EVAs: by hand. We've fitted all
the EVAs with emergency batteries." Indeed, all three units sported
large battery cells on their shoulders. "You'll each have three
additional minutes of power."
"Right, let's get moving. The Angel's right on top of us by
now."
By now, Asuka had completely forgotten to assert her
"leadership".

"Cut the lock bolts," Ikari ordered. Using fire axes, the
workers severed the hydraulic lines, sending fluid cascading in all
directions. As the pressure dropped, the lock bolts slowly retracted
away from the EVAs. "Good, now move the binders manually." As the
crew quickly scrambled clear, the three EVAs extended their arms and
pushed the heavy machinery aside.
"We're all yours, Dr. Akagi," Jon said.
"Good," Ritsuko nodded. "Move out."

"God, I look so uncool!" Asuka lamented as the three EVAs
crawled through a corridor, 02 in the lead, followed by 00, with 03
bringing up the rear. "What a rotten way to make my combat debut."
"It can't be helped," Jon answered through the comm channel.
"Combat is rarely under ideal circumstances."
"Oh hush," she grumped. "Just don't do anything to disturb
me, either of you!"
"Oh, believe me, I won't," Jon replied with faint annoyance.
Rei said nothing. They reached the end of the passageway, and Asuka
vented her own irritation on the door which blocked their path,
kicking it several times until it gave way. It opened into a vertical
shaft which, according to the information they did have, would take
them straight up to the Angel, directly underneath it in fact.
Bracing legs and arms against the walls, they began climbing up.

With the power to the air conditioners and circulators cut
off, the complex had been getting progressively warmer and more humid.
In most of the open areas this was hardly noticeable - a kelvin or two
higher, a percentage point more humid, as the output of the relatively
small number of people diffused over a relatively large volume.
In the stopped elevator, though, it was getting decidedly
stuffy. DJ had dealt with this by the simple expedient of removing
his shirt and stuffing it into his backpack, then sprawling on the
tiled floor and letting the material leech excess heat away from him.
Misato, perhaps more mindful than usual of proprieties thanks to the
nearby presence of DJ's mother, did not feel she had that option;
instead she sat huddled in the corner, still wearing her jacket (since
she could feel that her shirt was by now plastered quite revealingly
to her body with sweat). That shirt was now no further help at all,
and perspiration ran annoyingly down the hollow of her back.
"You know," DJ observed, noting her overdressedness, "you
could take off your jacket."
"Probably not a good idea, under the circumstances," she
replied.
"Your shirt's wet, eh? Y'know," he said with a grin, "it
wouldn't be the first time my poor innocent eyes have been subjected
to that kind of thing. Mum and I have swum more than a few
out-of-the-way waterways in our travels."
Misato considered this for a moment. "I suppose you're
right," she conceded. As she removed the jacket, she felt
paradoxically nervous and awkward - as if she were not much more than
DJ's age again, disrobing for the eyes or hands of a date. This is
ridiculous, Misato, she chided herself, finishing the removal with
quick, almost angry motions.
"Tch," said DJ, taking in the sights below. "That shirt's not
doing you any good at all. You might as well off with that, too,
unless you're shy."
Misato hesitated, feeling that same awkward nervousness flood
over her again, and cursed, wondering at its source. Damn
Kaji... after all he'd done to destroy their relationship, did the
sight of him -still- have the power to affect her this way? Or...
Or was it DJ himself?
"I'll keep my hands to myself, promise," said DJ, his grin
never flagging.
"What about your eyes?" Misato asked.
"Oh, come now," he replied with a wink. "I've got to have
-some- fun in my life."
She considered it for a moment, then decided, well, what the
hell? It's not as if he's going to get too far even if he -does- try
something... right?
Not giving herself any more time to think it over, she reached
down, tugged the tails of the t-shirt out of her shorts, and pulled
the sodden shirt off over her head, dropping it on top of her jacket.
Then, clad only in shorts, shoes and bra, she met DJ's gaze, curious
to see his reaction.
It was an interesting one. He looked her over openly, clearly
appreciative of her beauty and this opportunity to see it more
plainly, but yet there was nothing of that animal gleam in his eyes
that she hated to see in the eyes of men - the gleam that always crept
into Kaji's eyes when he looked at her and kept his eyes from fully
succeeding in their quest to melt her resistance. What was in DJ's
eyes was no less sexual, but it lacked that sinister gleam - it was
frank, unconcealed admiration, and it had...
... it had respect. That's what was missing from Kaji's look,
from the looks of strangers. Respect and kindness and friendship...
Misato shook her head, trying to clear it of the entirely
improper imagery that had chosen this line of thought to follow into
her mind. Don't be crazy, she admonished herself...
It was only then that she realized what else she had bared to
DJ, and, gasping, she moved her hand to cover it, much too late.
"It's all right," he said softly. "I'm not exactly fresh from
the shrink wrap m'self, you know. As an old friend of Mum's likes to
say, it's not the years that get you, it's the mileage. Looks like
that one hurt like a right bastard when you got it - I don't blame you
for not wanting to talk about it, but please, don't feel you have to
hide it from me."
She looked a question mark at him, her hand slowly dropping
back to her side.
"It's part of you, after all," said DJ with a shrug, "and to
me, that makes it beautiful."
Misato smiled, meeting his eyes again and not caring that he
could see the tears in her own, and prayed that the day's end wouldn't
see him leaving her life forever.

Rei noticed it first, as orange droplets of something began
falling past her field of vision. One hit the shoulder of her EVA,
and was followed by a burning sensation; she glanced up to see the
pauldron starting to melt. "Incoming!" she said quickly.
"Taking evasive," Jon echoed instantly, already sliding back
down the shaft toward the corridor.
"Huh? What are you--WAAUGH!!" Asuka started to snap, then
shrieked as a stream of acid plowed into EVA-02, which promptly lost
its grip on the walls and fell, smashing into 00, which in turn plowed
into 03 and sent all three tumbling back down the shaft. Thinking
quickly, Jon shoved EVA-03's hands and feet against the walls hard,
sending up showers of sparks for a few seconds before bringing the
three of them to a stop. Emergency batteries, jarred loose by the
impacts, fell further down the shaft, along with their autorifles.
They spared no time to consider this problem: EVA-00 shoved 02 back
into the corridor and leaped in after, with 03 close behind, narrowly
avoiding a massive deluge of acid from above.
"The target's trying to invade HQ directly using a strong
solvent," Rei observed from the relative safety of the corridor.
Presently the acid flow subsided, as if the Angel were waiting for
them to make a move.
"I have an idea," Jon said, peeking around the corner. "We
need a three-element formation. Someone has to run a recovery
operation, get down to the bottom of the shaft and retrieve one of the
autorifles. Up here, Point will block the Angel's attack long enough
for Recovery to get a rifle to Mark; then Mark will terminate the
Angel. Any objections?"
"None," said Asuka, trying to rally her flagging 'authority'.
"Ayanami, you're Point; Ellison, take Recovery."
"Asuka," Jon said evenly, "We don't have time for posturing.
Your EVA is damaged; your visual sensors and targeting system may be
unreliable. I'm supposed to be marksman anyway, and you're supposed
to be point. You can either -be- Point, or take Recovery. Decide."
Faced with such a bald-faced, even-tempered refusal of her
ersatz authority, Asuka waffled for a moment; then her resistance
crumbled as the truth of Jon's statement cut through her anger.
"Fine," she replied, trying not to sound as grudging as she
felt. "I'll take Point; my unit's still got -one- side with undamaged
armor, but the damage to the front may slow me down. Ayanami, you're
Recovery."
"Roger," Rei replied quietly.
In less time than it took to describe it, the plan was in
action, then over. Asuka, without any further complaint, used the
back of her EVA to block another attack while Jon swung his unit,
shoulders and feet braced, into position; then Rei tossed up a rifle,
Jon caught it and swung it to bear, Asuka dropped out of the way and
Jon unloaded the rifle into the Angel's exposed underside.
Thankfully, this one didn't explode; it merely sagged on its legs,
toppling into the shaft and making the EVAs scramble to avoid being
carried to the bottom and crushed by it.
"Target neutralized," Jon reported, a smile spreading across
his face. Finally, a combat had gone well for him.

"Damn it!" DJ cursed, teetering precariously on Misato's
shoulders as he tried to get the elevator car's ceiling hatch open.
"The bloody handle's jammed, and my hands are still too tender to
force it. Give me something to pad my hand with, will you?"
The nearest thing to hand, given that Misato couldn't go very
far without having to put him down, was her shirt, which she'd hung
over the open emergency-phone door to dry a bit; taking it, she handed
it up. DJ folded it over a couple of times and wrapped it round his
palm, then set to the lever again, grunting and cursing.
"No use," he observed finally. "This's just a waste of time,
the bloody thing is jammed fast and I can't shift it. We'll have to -
"
Just what they would have to do, Misato would never know, for
just then the power came back on, the lights blazed on, and the
elevator jerked into motion. This caused an inevitable chain of
events:
- DJ, who had been looking right up at the ceiling, flinched
away from the bright light;
- Misato's already unstable balance was disrupted further by
his and the elevator car's sudden motion; and
- They crashed to the elevator floor in a bruised and painful
tangle.
Moments later, the doors slid open on the Control Room level.
DJ, face-down on the floor, groaned painfully and lifted his head to
see a trio of shocked faces looking down at him: Ritsuko Akagi, Maya
Ibuki, and his mother.
"Hullo, all!" he said cheerfully. "Care to join us? The lift
floor is lovely this time of year."
Misato sat up, shook her head, and focused on their observers,
then realized she was sitting on the floor of the elevator with DJ
sprawled face-down in her lap and her shirt clutched in his hand with
his mother looking on, and flushed a brilliant shade of crimson all
the way to the cleft of her collarbone.
Ritsuko still stared, not knowing how to interpret what she
was seeing, as Lara and Maya both realized what had happened and
simultaneously dissolved into gales of laughter, stumbling in tandem
back to the far wall, putting their backs to it, and sliding
helplessly down as their legs gave way.

Unaware of this excitement, Jon Ellison pulled on his sweater,
ran a brush over his hair, and then left the changing room for the
Wedge. Rei was there, and amazingly, she wasn't reading a book. The
new 'morale measures' DJ had requested some time ago had come in while
Jon wasn't paying attention, and Rei was trying one of them out.
Jon surveyed the Lower Wedge, which was really a conference
room behind the Wedge proper. Unlike the "Upper" Wedge, the Lower
Wedge was rectangular, not wedge-shaped, and did not have fixed
booths. Instead, it was an open room about thirty feet by twenty, and
had a conference table and a few smaller tables with chairs. It was
called the Lower Wedge because its floor level was four stairs lower
than that of the Upper Wedge. The wall dividing it from the Wedge was
retractable, save for the segment in the middle which formed the two
main Upper Wedge bench booths (there were windows here providing a
view between the two rooms), and unless there was a special conference
or something similar in the Lower Wedge, the walls were rarely closed.
To install the 'morale measures', the Services staff had
removed the conference table and a couple of the smaller tables plus
their accompanying chairs, reshuffled the rest of the room's
furniture, and converted most of the room into a small video arcade.
Ranked along the righthand wall were eight seats, each on a motion
control gimbal and fitted out with steering wheels and shift levers.
At either end of this arrangement were pairs of similar stations that
had faux motorcycle shells instead of driving seats. The whole thing
was apparently one massive linkable game; not being a video game maven
himself, Jon didn't know what it was called, and was too far away to
identify it.
There were also other, smaller games at hand; in the corner
was a standard upright cabinet, playing an eyecatch for some 3D
fighting game, and next to it along the back wall was a two-seat
machine for what looked to be a mecha combat simulator. There were
some conventional games, too - a pool table sat in the far left
corner, away from the wall for easy walkaround play, and next to it
was an air hockey table.
The centerpiece of the whole affair, though, was fittingly in
the center of the room, and for a moment Jon had thought, upon first
glimpsing it, that it was some kind of briefing tool, not a game.
It was a silvery-white, low disc, two feet high and about five
feet across at the base. Two seats were attached to the front, slung
low and angled up a little bit so that the players sitting in them
would not obscure a standing person's view of the playing field. That
playing field was not a screen, but a freestanding hologram, projected
out of a holoprojector built into the depression in the center of the
disc. Across the sides of the disc was printed the game's name:

TEMPEST 5000

Rei was sitting in the left-hand seat. Her left hand
controlled a small metal dial, similar to the sort you still
occasionally saw on high-end analog stereo equipment for the volume
control, and the fingertips of her right were splayed over three large
buttons. Above her, the holo-image showed, against a swirling
starfield backdrop, a strange tube-like construct with numerous flat
faces, like a strange irregular prism section with the ends removed.
From the far end, various and sundry objects - red bow-tie like
things, balls of pulsating multicolored lightning, and things stranger
than that - appeared in the distance and began coming up the lanes
formed by the facets of the tube.
At the near end, a yellow claw-looking construct, a lane wide,
its arms pointing down the tube, slid around the lip of the tube at
the command of the dial under Rei's left hand, raining red death down
onto the ascending enemies as her index finger held down its assigned
button. There were four more of those claws ranked in the upper left
corner of the holofield - Jon knew enough about arcade games to know
that they must represent extra 'lives'.
Presently, as Jon watched, the action got more intense, but as
Rei blasted enemies, some of them would not fully distintegrate, and
as she intercepted their wreckage before it could fly out of the tube,
the yellow claw she played got more and stranger abilities. It could
jump 'up' off the edge of the tube; its weapon became more powerful
and faster-firing; shortly it acquired a little sidekick (to the
accompaniment of a pixel-shattering banner, "A.I. DROID!" - each
power-up spawned a short-lived banner identifying it when grabbed)
which floated above the tube and helped it fight.
The action became more intense, but Rei seemed quite capable
of handling it, and Jon wondered where and when she'd played before.
Shortly, the enemies ceased coming, and as Rei destroyed the last one,
her claw began flying down the tube, the 'camera perspective' keeping
up so that the tube passed by out of view and the claw flew through
open space.
Then a wormhole opened up before it and, trailing blue
radiance, the claw dove into it; it sealed behind the claw with a
flash and a booming roll of thunder, and then, accompanied by another
disintegrating banner message, a voice not unlike that of SHODAN
announced,
"SuperZapper recharge."
The pattern of the starfield's movement changed; another
playfield appeared. This one was shaped differently - it was not a
tube but an open construct, rather resembling, to Jon's mind, a piece
of paper folded to resemble a long-division sign when viewed edge-on.
With that same blue-trailing warp effect, the yellow claw popped out
of a wormhole and settled onto the edge of the playfield as enemies
began creeping up the other end.
Entranced, Jon watched the pyrotechnic action through three
more increasingly hectic levels, until finally the enemy overwhelmed
Rei and destroyed all her claws. Twirling the dial, she entered 'REI'
in lieu of initials.
She got up from the seat and turned to go; noticing Jon, she
smiled ever so slightly.
"It's fun," she said. "You should try it."
"Does it have a two-player mode?" Jon asked. "You can show me
how to play."
"OK," Rei replied, resuming the left-hand seat. As Jon sat
down, the game's eyecatches cycled to the score list, and Jon noticed
that Rei's last game had been the number-8 high score.
"Number 8? Not bad," said Jon.
Rei shrugged. "Considering I've never played before, I
suppose," she said.
Jon gaped for a second, but decided not to comment; it was
obvious that she didn't know enough about the subject to realize how
unusual it was for a beginner to score so well.

After two hours, flushed and exhilarated with the feeling of
having made it a fair way along the learning curve of the game, Jon
left the Lower Wedge to get a drink. He'd never thought of video
games, especially of the 'shooter' variety, as anything other than
largely pointless reflex testers - and certainly there was a large
element of that to T5K, but there was also more to it than that.
Especially in cooperative play with Rei - he could feel their natural
synchrony ebb and flow as they played. It was an experience he would
probably not be able to describe to another person if asked, but he
was already coming to treasure it.
As he headed for the vending machines in the corner of the
Lower Wedge, he noticed Asuka, sitting as far away as a person could
sit and still be in the Wedge. When she saw Jon she got up and made
to leave entirely.
"Hey, Asuka," he called to her. She turned, fixing him with a
scowl, and he went on, hoping to mollify her, "If it's any
consolation, I had to get bailed out on my first mission too." Though
for rather different reasons, he didn't add.
Asuka said nothing, merely stomped out of the Wedge and began
making plans to avenge her hurt pride.
Jon sighed. As he got his soda, DJ came up, hands in pockets,
and asked, "What's with Langley? She just stomped out of here like
she just found out her magic mirror doesn't think she's the fairest of
them all any more."
Jon sighed again, more ruefully this time. "She's had a bad
day. In the Angel encounter she had the kind of bad luck that marked
my first couple of attempts."
DJ shrugged. "Well, it's like my Mum always says... shit
happens."
"Asuka doesn't seem to think it should happen to her."
"Poor dear," said DJ sardonically. "C'mon, let's go break in
the rest of those lovely games. I notice you and Rei have already
given the T5K machine a good thrashing."
"It's an excellent game," Jon admitted.
"Wait 'til it hits general release next month," DJ said with a
grin as they headed back toward the Lower Wedge together. "It'll blow
the doors off every other shooter on the market now."
"It hasn't been released yet?" Jon inquired.
"Nope," DJ replied. "We've got the first non-test-article
production machine, Number 005."
"How did you manage -that-?"
DJ made a dismissive gesture. "Mum knows the bloke who
programmed it. Bloody genius, he is - we should invite him out
sometime and show him we're putting his baby to good use."

Two hours later, DJ and Rei sat on the wall at Bancroft Tower,
the Corley pinging quietly in the background, and watched the
buildings of Worcester rise from the ground and begin twinkling in the
gathering twilight.
"Ah," said DJ, smiling. "The lights of the city... "
"Mankind fears the darkness," Rei observed, "and scrapes it
away with fire to survive."
DJ's smile faded, and he nodded soberly, realizing from his
perspective as an accomplished, albeit amateur, historian, that she
was right. Man counted fire as his greatest discovery not because it
gave him advanced metallurgy, better tools, weapons,
infrastructure... but because it enabled him to keep the demons of the
dark away.
"I have to go back to England for a while," DJ said after
digesting her statement for a moment.
Rei glanced at him, a trace of worry in her eyes. "Will you
come back?"
"As soon as I can. I found out this afternoon my
grandfather's made another custody attempt... Mum's flying back as we
speak to take care of the preliminaries. I have to go to the hearing,
but as it's not for nine days I'll have time to take a liner over. I
think this time I'll try to demonstrate my self-sufficiency and try
for minor emancipation rather than putting Mum through the old
custody-fight-with-Sir-Henshingly ordeal again... what with NERV and
all, I stand a good chance of winning it."
"What if you don't?"
"I'll come back anyway," said DJ with a grin. "They haven't
built the manor house that can hold DJ Croft."
Rei smiled, then surprised him by reaching over, squeezing his
hand, and quickly releasing it.
"Good," she said softly. "We need you here."
"-I- need me here, too," DJ replied quietly. He didn't
elaborate, and Rei didn't ask.

/* The Mavericks "Blue Moon" _Apollo 13_ */

NEXT EPISODE:

NERV has a unique opportunity.
DJ takes an unexpected journey.
Asuka learns a science lesson the hard way.
Rei keeps her own counsel.
And Jon shows a little more of what he's made of.

In seven days:

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION 1:8
JOURNEY TOWARD THE CENTER OF THE EARTH
COMING 8/27/97

"I'm a natural-born unfastener and that zip calls to me."

--
Benjamin D. Hutchins, cofounder and Keeper-Straight of the Continuity
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited - An AnimeTech Limited Company -><-
Visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.eyrie.net/