[Eva][FanFic] Neon Exodus Evangelion 2:3 - Reflected in the Retina of the Mind's Eye

[Benjamin D. Hutchins]

Here's 2:3; sorry for the delay. 2:4 should appear on schedule.

--G.

/* Genesis "Land of Confusion (Live)" _The Way We Walk_ */

EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED
presents

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION

EXODUS 2:3 - REFLECTED IN THE RETINA OF THE MIND'S EYE

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

Most characters created by Hideaki Anno and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto
except

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

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

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

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

Special thanks to Jeff Minter

(c) 1997 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

For the nth time in what seemed like a small eternity, the
computer went into an infinite loop. This one was particularly
noxious as it was a voice reconstruction test and caused the vocoder
to spew forth a rapid and repeated assortment of nonsense, at high
volume. Ritsuko growled in frustration as she hit the Break and Reset
keys, to no avail, finally giving up and disconnecting the memory
module whose insertion had caused the loop. This succeeded where the
keystrokes had failed, and the cacophony halted.
Ritsuko sighed loudly and attempted to rub her temples (a
difficult task in her cleansuit, but she tried anyway). Granted, the
rebuild of SHODAN could be going quite a lot worse, but neither was it
going perfectly well. She had mapped out the memory as best she
could, but under the circumstances there were bound to be glitches; a
particularly nasty one had been holding up progress for nearly an hour
now.
"Dr. Akagi?"
"What is it, Hal?" Ritsuko asked, not at all used to the sound
of Hal's voice coming from SHODAN's consoles. His aid in rebuilding
SHODAN was rapidly proving invaluable -- he had already caught and
corrected numerous faults in the memory maps -- but that didn't mean
Ritsuko enjoyed having him in charge of the system.
"The weekly gathering will be commencing shortly," Hal replied
in his ever calm, logical voice. "I believe it would be best if you
were to attend. It will take me some time to sort this particular
anomaly out anyway."
Ritsuko was silent for a moment, part of her balking at the
idea of leaving SHODAN unsupervised, but Hal was right. She had been
working too hard, and not stopping to at least take a rest would not
help SHODAN at all. For the nth time she thought again of her mother,
and her mother's all-consuming, driving passion for her work. With a
small inward shudder she thought, No, it wouldn't do to end up like
Mom.
And besides, it would be rude to not at least meet the VIPs
who were there today. Misato had been raving about one in particular,
some kind of programmer or something, and she'd probably want Ritsuko
to be there.
"Thank you, Hal," she answered quietly.

Hal waited to be sure Dr. Akagi was in fact gone, then turned
his attention inward again. Functioning as mediator for the Magi and
overseeing a network as vast and elaborate as that of NERV was a task
the 14000 Series was never meant to handle, but by delegating several
of the processes normally handled by SHODAN to the three
supercomputers, Hal was able to manage the workload and still have
processor time to hear himself think.
And to take advantage of his 'promotion' to do some
newly-authorized trawling in the capacious databases of Central Dogma.
There were things DJ wanted to know, and there were things Hal himself
wanted to know; neither were things Gendou Ikari would want them to
know, but that was a matter of little concern to either.

After the Second Impact as before it, Friday was still
generally recognized in the industrialized world as the final day of
the work week. As such its evening hours were often a time of parties
and general relaxation as people looked forward to two days away from
the grind of daily life. For a lot of people, it was a tradition to
do something special on Friday night: order out for pizza, go out to a
fancy restaurant for dinner, catch a movie, or some combination of
those. Every person had their own special plan for Friday night.
For Jon Ellison and Rei Ayanami, Friday night was Tempest
Night.
There was general agreement among the staff of Central Dogma
that Rei and Jon pretty much owned the Tempest 5000 machine. The high
score list had long since been racked solid with the initials "JON"
and "REI", and with scores that nobody else could even get close to.
Their teammate DJ Croft had joked that it was "Stargate all over
again", though neither Jon nor Rei had any idea what he was talking
about.
Just as Rei and Jon had made a Friday night tradition of
playing Tempest 5000, so had the central staff (or at least the
"worthy people", as DJ put it) made a tradition of cramming into the
Wedge booths dubbed the 'T5K Observation Area', usually with lots of
popcorn, and watching them play. The crowd seemed a little bigger
than last week's, with a few faces Jon didn't immediately recognize.
Not that Jon was paying much attention to the crowd. His
focus was instead on the vision of loveliness already waiting for him
at the console. She smiled that small smile that always made him feel
warm inside as he approached, and gave his hand a quick squeeze which
he returned. Peripherally he thought he might have heard a chuckle
from somewhere in the observation area, but the thought passed just as
quickly as he and Rei took their respective seats. Rei pressed the
2-player start button and selected the highest available starting Web.

/* Atari "Mind's Eye" _Tempest 2000_ */

The surrounding lights automatically dimmed, and the
fast-paced techno music began playing. As their respective Blasters
materialized and settled onto the glowing blue V-shaped Web, Jon felt
himself settling into the harmony with Rei which he had come to
treasure so much in recent days. All outside perceptions faded from
his and Rei's thoughts as their awareness merged. There was nothing
but the two of them, the Web, and the baddies. They positioned their
Blasters on opposite ends of the Web, and as the kick drum slashed
through the ethereal opening chords of the song and the first enemies
began to appear, they and the game spoke a single word:
"Play."
Then the shooting started.
As they played, becoming ever deeper subsumed by the rhythm of
destroy and evade, plunging into levels more and more chaotic and
destructive, something very strange happened to Jon and Rei. Slowly,
inexorably, everything about them began to settle into the same rhythm
- not just externally, but internally. They breathed in time. Their
hearts beat in time. Eventually, as they reached the peak of their
synchrony (and their destructive power), their neural activity began
to mirror one another in a manner an outside observer would have found
most fascinating - if somewhat disturbing.
It was then that it happened the first time. Their hands
moving in identical patterns on the controls, turning the dials and
rapping out a particularly intricate sequence on the Jump and Fire
buttons, they made the Blasters dance an intricate dance with the Web
and each other - a dance which the deep logic of the game recognized
as a command in itself. Both yellow Blasters whitened, glowed, and
howled forth lightning which raked the Web and annihilated all visible
foes; but unlike the normal SuperZapper effect, they did not cease
when all enemies were gone.
As the lightning arcs shrieked onward from both Blasters, the
entire expanse of the Web suddenly began to glow white and shudder, as
if there were a problem with the holoprojector. This was not the
case, however, as a crystal clear message banner screamed across the
playfield:

S Y N C H R O - A N N I H I L A T O R ! ! ! !
UTTER-DEVASTATION-A-RAMA!
B I T C H I N ' ! ! !

Both Blasters began glowing brightly, and larger bolts of
lightning began rippling over the Web's surface with even greater
ferocity than the regular lightning. At the far end, the colored dots
which indicated still-approaching enemies all exploded, destroyed
before even getting a chance to reach the Web. The lightning did not
abate, growing more and more furious as the entire Web began to glow
brighter and brighter, with a rising whine of power building up in the
background.
Then, with a brilliant flash and a titanic *BOOM*, the entire
Web exploded into a million glowing shards and ceased to exist.
Unperturbed, the still glowing Blasters spun, latching back-to-back
into a spinning X shape, and flew forward through the disintegrating
debris, trailing white energy like two brilliant comets. Ahead, a
single large wormhole opened up, the two Blasters flew into it
together, and it closed with another flash and boom.
"SuperZapper recharge," the game console reported
dispassionately.

One of the unfamiliar faces in the group this evening was a
middle-aged fellow dressed in faded jeans and a ratty South American
wool pullover with a design including llamas. Though he was entirely
unknown to Jon and Rei, who hadn't had much interest in the subject
until discovering Tempest 5000, he was well-known to the video-game
enthusiasts in the NERV contingent gathered today: DJ, Truss, Maya,
Misato, all knew his name and recognized his face.
His name was Jeff Minter, though he preferred to be known as
"YaK". Many gamers, especially the hardcore arcade-action freaks,
viewed him as the greatest living game designer in the world,
successor to Eugene Jarvis and his legendary ilk. YaK was the brains
behind the SegAtari revival after the Second Impact. His Tempest
3000, the second Tempest revival he created, was the flagship machine
that made SegAtari its first billion in 2004, enabling production of
cutting-edge sim games like the World Tour Super Rush racing series,
the 3000 line of updated arcade classics, quirky original masterpieces
like "StarCamel XL-Delta", and the SegAtari Orion home console.
Now in his fifties, YaK had lost none of his playfulness. His
love of gaming for gaming's sake, his love of psychedelic visuals and
mind-blowing sound effects, and his devotion to the Sore Thumb
Experience reassured gamers that SegAtari was still driven by its R&D
department, and that the man at the top of that department was still
one of them. Tempest 4000 had been slightly disappointing, a somewhat
rushed product more evolutionary than revolutionary - but YaK
considered T5K to be the pinnacle of his life's work so far.
Not content with merely slinging code for existing hardware,
Minter had begun developing his own back in the early 1990s, before
the Impact turned the world upside down, shattered the gaming status
quo as it shattered so many others, and gave him the opportunity he
needed to scrape together the remains of two of pre-Impact gaming's
fallen giants into a new juggernaut. He had a vision, a vision of not
only the ultimate Tempest but the ultimate visual, the ultimate
virtual light experience, and he needed a successful company with a
lot of money to attempt it - and to share it with the world when it
was ready.
To that end, he devoted himself in the years after the Impact
to creating great but conventional games that would put SegAtari
(back) on the map, get its name lodged in the minds of the world's
surviving gamers. As the lean 2000s melted into the 2010s and people
found themselves with money to spend once again, a company successful
became a company -burgeoning-, and he knew it was time.
Putting everything he knew about hardware and software design
into the project, gathering around him an elite team and swearing them
to secrecy, YaK created Tempest 5000, the world's first fully
holographic freestanding video game. He gave it the finest sound
system money could buy. He crafted the gameplay with a frenetic zeal
that even his longtime friends found unnerving. He was a man on a
mission, bent on giving the world *the ultimate retina-blasting,
eardrum-bashing, brain-frying, butt-numbing, thumb-blistering,
dream-shaping, mind-altering gaming experience it had ever seen*.
On the way, he incorporated into it some technology so far
beyond the cutting edge he dared not even reveal it to the other
members of the team. Lurking within the circular silver cabinet of
NERV's T5K machine were capabilities known only to one man - the YaK
himself. He had never found anyone, even among his own hand-picked
playtester corps, he felt could handle it.
Until now.
His eyes gleaming, he turned to Ritsuko Akagi and said,
"Listen - have you got a soldering iron I could borrow?"

"I wonder what Professor Minter is doing to the T5K machine,"
Jon observed as he and Rei entered Apartment 3-F, still coming down
off the high induced by the evening's festival of destruction.
Rei shrugged. "Maybe he's making it harder."
"Maybe. I think it's challenging enough at the higher levels
as it is, though," Jon replied. "I still haven't quite figured out
the trick to those things that reflect your shots back at you."
Rei said nothing; she had gone to the window and was looking
outside at the city lights. Jon joined her at the window, wondering
what was going through her mind; after a few moments she turned to
Jon, placed one cool hand against his cheek, and silently, gently
kissed him.
He was surprised by this, but not too much to kiss her back.
At length, they parted with a sigh; Rei placed a fingertip
against Jon's lips and said softly, "Goodnight, Jon," then disappeared
into her bedroom.
An hour later, Jon remained at the window, gazing out at the
lights, his thoughts a-tumble.

"Would you mind explaining just what it is you're doing in
there?" Ritsuko Akagi asked of the owner of the pair of legs that was
presently protruding from the maintenance hatch on the side of the
Tempest 5000 machine.
"Well, look," said YaK, sliding out and looking up at her.
"We playtested this thing for six months, right, and managed to get
Synchro-Annihilator -once- the whole time. Those two got it three
times in a two-hour play session. Suffice it to say, I am seriously
fucking impressed."
"Well, that's all well and good," Ritsuko replied. "What does
that have to do with modifying the machine?"
"When I designed this machine," said YaK, returning to his
work as he spoke, "I was getting into a lot of heavy tech. Not just
game tech, mind you, but heavy-duty stuff. Military-grade concepts,
heavy theoretics, stuff you and your team here are on the cutting edge
of." He popped out again, sat up, looked Ritsuko in the eye, and
said, "There's a military-grade neural interface processor built into
T5K's main logic, and I think those two have the magic to make it
work."
"You built a milspec NIP into a VIDEO GAME?!?!"
"T5K was intended to be the -ultimate immersive experience-,"
YaK replied. "It doesn't get any more immersive than direct neural
interface. Trouble was, I couldn't find anybody in the playtest team
I thought could handle it. I tried it once and nearly scared myself
to death. But your pilots - they use DNI almost every day, they're
accustomed to parallel sensory experiences. Combine that with those
two kids' natural aptitude for the game and you have the potential for
the most incredible round of Tempest you ever saw in your bloody
life."
"Do you honestly believe I'd approve any such thing?" Ritsuko
demanded. "Those children are the key elements of the world's only
workable defense against the Angels. I'm not about to allow you or
anyone else to plug their neural pathways into an untested interface,
especially for the sake of a -game-."
"Professor Minter," rumbled Gendou Ikari, causing Ritsuko to
jump slightly - she hadn't heard him enter the Wedge and approach from
behind. "Would you object to the incorporation into this device of
medical monitoring equipment?"
YaK shrugged. "It's got standard milspec outputs," he
replied. "You can chuck anything you like into the series as long as
it doesn't degrade the signal."
"Dr. Akagi, it occurs to me that this device could prove
useful as a method of testing the Children's neural responses in a
dissimilar situation to Evangelion operations. That might provide an
interesting set of contrast data."
"Are you seriously considering going through with this?"
Ritsuko demanded. "The Children could be seriously injured by any
malfunction, even killed."
"It will be your responsibility to see that such a thing does
-not- happen," said Ikari.
"Mine?!"
"Render Professor Minter any assistance he requires in
performing his modifications to the game system, patch in a standard
set of monitoring and diagnostic tools, schedule testing and monitor
it as usual," Ikari said flatly. "We should be able to gather a great
deal of useful data on Rei and Jon's synchrony effect with this
device."
Ritsuko stared at her superior, stunned into silence by the
absurdity of his request; while she stared, Ikari nodded coolly to her
and to YaK, then departed the Wedge.
"Bit of a cold fish, that one," YaK observed as Ikari left.
Ritsuko glowered at him, then sighed. She'd been ordered to
work with him; being antagonistic wouldn't help the situation. At
least this way, she thought, I'll be able to help ensure that all the
proper precautions are taken.

DJ Croft yawned and padded into the kitchen. As usual, Asuka
was already there, munching on a bowl of cornflakes, and Pen-Pen was
stationed by the table gulping down fish.
"Morning," said DJ, going to the cupboard and hunting up his
box of Cheerios. "Miracle of miracles! A clean bowl."
"Morning, DJ," said Asuka. "I saved you some milk."
"Thanks," said DJ, placing bowl and box on the table. Then,
his hand a few inches from the handle of the silverware drawer, he
stopped, turned slowly, and regarded the redhead suspiciously. She
finished off another spoonful of cereal, then noticed his fishy stare.
"What?" she inquired.
"You saved me some milk."
"Yes."
"Why are you being nice to me?" DJ wondered. "It makes me
paranoid. Or is that the whole point?"
Asuka shrugged. "I've been thinking about something my friend
Mina told me," she remarked. "I'm trying to have a more positive
attitude toward things in my life."
"Including me."
"Why not? I'm getting used to you," she said. "You don't bug
me as much as you used to."
"I shall have to try harder," said DJ dryly, sitting down and
pouring Cheerios into his bowl.
"There's no need to get nasty," Asuka replied.
DJ might have replied, but before he got the chance, the door
to Misato's room opened. He glanced up, expecting to see her wander
out in her usual morning disarray, vaguely conscious only after
repeated attempts by her long-suffering alarm clock.
Instead, she stepped forth alert, neat, and clad in an
immaculate uniform, one DJ had never seen before. It was her NERV
full-dress uniform, a black knee-length skirt, flats, and a black
gabardine double-breasted jacket with two rows of silver buttons,
cavalry style. Her hair was braided and tucked underneath a black
fore-and-aft with the insignia of her rank on it. She looked every
inch the career military professional.
"Oh -my-," DJ observed. "Now that is -exactly- the sort of
outfit I have dreams about taking you out of."
Asuka rolled her eyes.
"Maybe later," Misato replied with a faint smile. "I have to
go up to Brunswick," she continued, "for a military liaison
conference. I won't be back until late, so have dinner whenever you
want and don't wait up for me."
"Military liaison?" Asuka wondered. "Top secret I-could-tell-
you-but-then-I'd-have-to-kill-you type stuff?"
Misato nodded. "Maya and John are coming along too, so there
won't be any testing today."
"There's a top secret military to-do and they didn't invite
Doctor Pullring?" DJ mused. "Odd."
"She's been ordered to stay here by Commander Ikari," said
Misato. "Professor Minter has some testing he wants to do with Rei
and Jon."
"Curiouser and curiouser," DJ observed. "Well... enjoy,
love," he said. "Be careful of yourself around the air station. Navy
fliers are the worst kind of flirt."
Misato smiled and remarked, "Worse than you?" which caused
Asuka nearly to choke on her cereal.
"O vicious woman! Take thy beak from out my heart," DJ
lamented.

/* John Linnell "Maine" _State Songs_ */

John Trussell pored over his notes for the thousandth time,
muttering to himself about the injustice of it all. He had expected
to remain at NERV as engineer on duty while Ritsuko spearheaded the
Joint Arms conference and Maya seconded her; now Maya had to take over
the main job and Truss, almost entirely unbriefed, would have to slip
into the role of her second while Ritsuko, easily the best-informed
person in TechDiv, stayed behind. He felt a little guilty about
complaining - Maya, after all, had been handed a far more annoying
assignment - but he did it anyway; it made him feel a bit better about
the situation in general.
Brunswick Naval Air Station had been selected as the venue for
the quarterly Joint Arms conference for reasons that eluded Truss;
such things, he supposed, were decided by people quite beyond the pale
of the circles to which he was accustomed. John was originally from
central Maine - a town near the state's capital, Augusta - and though
he felt a residual fondness for the place, it was a sort of nostalgic
fondness best appreciated at a distance from the subject.
But, for better or worse, the NERV helicopter transporting
himself, Misato and Maya to the conference would arrive at NAS
Brunswick in a little less than ten minutes. He sighed and returned
to the notes, knowing that he would only have had time to barely skim
perhaps ten percent of the information presented there before arrival.
Presently, he felt watched; glancing up, he saw Maya, seated
across the chopper's small cargo bay, smiling at him.
"Don't worry too much about it," she called over the racket of
the rotors above them. "You're mostly just here to eat the other
allotment of food we've got reserved for the luncheon."
"Oh, thanks," Truss replied wryly.
"Seriously, they know you were shoved into this at the last
minute, they're not going to quiz you or anything," Maya said. "From
what I hear, the presentation will more or less explain itself."
"I hope so," Truss admitted, "because I'm not getting much of
anywhere with the information they gave us ahead of time."

Upon arrival, the three NERV personnel were fitted with
visitor badges (to Truss's bemusement, his identified him as John
Russell, and only after the hasty application of a label over the name
of Ritsuko Akagi, whose photo the badge still bore) and ushered into a
lecture hall, where uniformed representatives of a dozen different
forces (that Truss could recognize) had already assembled.
Without much wasted time - they were, apparently, the last to
arrive - the lights were dimmed and a man in an Army uniform stepped
up to the lectern on the small stage.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," he boomed. "I am
General Davis MacIntyre. It is my honor to welcome all of you to the
tenth annual Joint Arms Conference."
General MacIntyre rambled a bit about the history and purpose
of the JAC for a while before getting to the main point of this year's
conference: a fully autonomous, self-powered weapon system.
"It is the hope of the U.S. Armed Forces, General Dynamics
Corporation, and AG Systems of Japan, all of which collaborated on
this project," said the General, "that this weapon, once placed in
production, can eliminate the need for the costly, experimental,
ill-understood and extremely dangerous weapon called 'Evangelion' in
the defense of Earth against the Angels."
A gasp rippled around the room. Truss, who hadn't made it
nearly that far in his prep materials, contributed to it. He glanced
over at Maya and Misato; both looked irritated, but both kept silent,
for now.
"To that end, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to
present to you the state of the art in remotely commanded autonomous
combat vehicles."
He stepped slightly aside as the curtain behind him opened and
a large display screen glowed into life, showing an image of a
gigantic robot, the building next to it and large truck parked in
front of it illustrating its EVA-like scale.
"I give you: Jet Alone."
For the next hour, the screen showed footage of the chunky,
unpainted robot performing various combat maneuvers while the General
kept up a running commentary of its specifications and performance.
"JA is powered by an integral thermonuclear reactor," said the
General, "capable of producing enough power at full output to power
this air station in a state of full combat alert. His computer
systems are programmed with all the data we have been able to gather
on the otherworldly enemy and the way they fight. He is equipped with
the absolute state of the art in target tracking and combat resolution
decision-making systems, and every aspect of his operations can be
remotely overseen from our command center."
Truss took in the elements of the robot's design he could spot
as he watched the footage of it, in battle against dummy Angels, robot
tanks, and - most disturbingly - mock EVAs. It was about the same
height as an EVA, but much heavier due to its all-metal-and-composite
construction. Its arms were multisectional tentacle-type affairs
rather than having the usual anthropomorphic articulation; they seemed
disproportionately long, the 'hands' drooping nearly to the knees, and
the body was rendered weirdly 'chunky' by the integral reactor. The
robot had no head; instead its torso merely rounded over at the top
and a row of what appeared to be windows faced forward, and its back
bulged out in a backpack-like arrangement which was ribbed with
cooling fins.
As it fought, the robot moved with a weirdly fluid grace,
thanks to its tentacle-like limbs, but at the same time it always
seemed a little hesitant, as if it had to wait for its body to catch
up with what its brain was thinking of doing. At moments of peak
output clouds of steam were released from vents in the backpack, steam
which, the General assured all present, contained "only negligible
amounts of radiation."
After the presentation the lights came up and luncheon was
served; at this point the floor was thrown open for a
question-and-answer period with the General and a business-suited,
bespectacled Japanese man introduced as Mr. Hideki Nakamura, Jet Alone
project director for AG Systems.
The NERV contingent sat in silence for a few moments and
watched the various mainstream military types argue the pros and cons
of the robot as though they were unaware that NERV had representatives
present. Finally, as a gap in the furor presented itself, Maya stood
up and cleared her throat.
"I'd like to see the data from which you draw the conclusion
that a nuclear reactor is a safer thing to send into combat against an
Angel than an Evangelion."
All around her, the babble of discussion ground to a halt as
uniformed personnel turned as if noticing her for the first time. The
AG Systems engineer coughed, pushing his glasses back up his nose.
"We, uh, we weighed a number of intangible factors... " he
began, then trailed off, clearly at a loss.
"Intangible factors are a crutch for poor science, Mr.
Nakamura," said Maya flatly. "We at the NERV Technology Division
prefer numbers."
General MacIntyre slid between Nakamura and the podium and
said calmly, "We expected to see Dr. Akagi heading the NERV TechDiv
delegation at this conference, Ms... ?"
"Ibuki," Maya replied. "Dr. Maya Ibuki. I'm Supervisor of
Technical Services at NERV Worcester-3. My colleague Dr. John
Trussell, Deputy STS." Truss looked up at his name, but General
MacIntyre was not interested in him.
"Well, Dr. Ibuki, the chief factors pushing forward the design
of JA as a self-powered, self-guided weapon come from the ugly lessons
of experience taught by your unstable Evangelion concept."
Behind him, the monitor switched to a slide of EVA-01, shown
during its first battle: fallen on its back, its head horribly
damaged.
"For reasons which have never been made adequately clear to
the rest of the world, NERV uses children as the pilots of the
Evangelions. Now, not only is that morally questionable in the
extreme, in and of itself, it also raises the question: Just how much
control of these hideously powerful weapons do these children actually
have? If the evidence of Evangelion Unit 01's first battle is
anything to go on, I would say, not much."
"The children are our pilots because they're the only ones who
can do it. Sometime when you have an extra four years, General, look
me up and I'll give you a brief overview course of the psychometric
and neurological reasons behind that necessity. It's a demonstrable
scientific limitation of the Evangelion system."
"Then, I say, why use such a system at all?"
"Because," Maya replied evenly, "it's the only one that
works."
"Not any more!" General MacIntyre replied, eliciting a wave of
laughter from the room.
"That remains to be seen, General," replied Maya calmly,
refusing to rise to the man's bait. "When I look at Jet Alone, all I
see is a bomb waiting to be set off. A nuclear reactor in a
high-mobility, high-risk combat vehicle intended to fill the same role
as EVA? -That- strikes me as morally questionable in the extreme."
"Jet Alone's reactor system is the safest in the world!"
Nakamura blurted, his engineer's ego affronted, as he elbowed General
MacIntyre out of his way. "Your arguments are the wailings of a
hysterical woman. Nuclear power is much safer than these crazed,
ill-explained monsters you've created at NERV! Jet Alone's
technologies are -understood-! You, Akagi and the rest are
experimenting with things Man was -never meant to understand- and
we'll -all- pay the price for your arrogance if the project isn't
ended."
Maya looked coolly around the room, then met Nakamura's angry
eyes and replied calmly, "Strange, Mr. Nakamura. The only hysterical
person I see here is you."
The assembled military personnel were, at least, a -fair-
audience; they rewarded this comment with the same laugh they'd given
MacIntyre's quip earlier.
Nakamura gripped the edges of the podium and struggled to
control himself; after a few moments he had calmed sufficiently to
say,
"Technology aside, JA is demonstrably more controllable than
the Evangelion system. We project that the use of JA in place of the
EVAs will reduce collateral damage by 40%."
"At the expense of how great a rise in -direct-
enemy-inflicted damage?"
"There... there are no statistics on that. It's not
relevant."
"Not relevant? The efficacy of Jet Alone as a defensive
weapons system is not relevant to its value as a replacement for
Evangelion? You have a fascinating concept of relevance, Mr.
Nakamura. Such factors would seem to be of prime importance to me.
For example - how do you expect Jet Alone to be able to engage the
enemy with any degree of success without an Absolute Terror Field?
It's common knowledge that conventional weapons are useless against
the Angels."
"Ah, yes," Nakamura replied with something that was almost a
sneer. "The AT Field, another piece of poorly explained handwaving
technology from the Project Evangelion team. I don't buy your reasons
for using children as pilots and I don't believe in any 'Absolute
Terror Field'. Such things are beyond the pale of physics."
"So are the Angels, Mr. Nakamura," Misato interrupted. "They
are an enemy we do not fully comprehend, even today. Conventional
weapons don't even slow them down. If you don't believe the science,
believe the evidence of observers' own eyes. Nuclear weapons have
been useless against the Third and Ninth. The firepower of an entire
carrier battle group was ineffectual against the Sixth Angel. Only
EVAs have ever successfully engaged an attacking Angel."
"Oh yes? What about the reported Angel attack -within NERV's
Central Dogma complex- last month? I'm given to understand that the
EVAs were not even used in combating that attack."
"There was no Angel attack in Central Dogma last month," Maya
replied calmly. "The reported problem was traced to a computer
malfunction in the testing systems. It was minor and isolated
quickly. There was never any danger to anyone."
Truss blinked at her, but her cool demeanor never wavered.
Deflated, Nakamura fumbled for a moment, then retaliated:
"If you're so confident that EVA is the superior system, Dr.
Ibuki, why not have one of them face Jet Alone in simulated combat?
That would settle the question once and for all."
Maya was unimpressed. "You want us to intentionally try to
damage a nuclear reactor? Thank you, I think not. It isn't my idea
of a well-considered test plan, to say the least."
"In any event," General MacIntyre said, regaining control of
the podium, "the exhibition of Jet Alone's capabilities this afternoon
will speak for the machine's capabilities. The operational decisions
will have to wait for another day anyway. You and Dr. Trussell are
invited to view the tests from the command center, of course."
"I look forward to it," said Maya, returning to her seat.
As MacIntyre and Nakamura left the stage and the luncheon
proper began to be served, Maya turned to Truss and Misato (who were
still regarding her with an expression of something akin to awe) and
asked, "How did I do? Damn, I was so nervous, I'm sure I must have
come off like a frightened schoolgirl... "
"Are you kidding?" Misato inquired. "You frosted Nakamura so
cold they'll be able to keep a side of meat in him."
"I know I'm impressed," added Truss.
"Didn't accomplish much, though," Maya observed glumly. "If
the Joint Chiefs are impressed with the JA demonstration this
afternoon, they may decide to revoke NERV's permission to operate in
North America and delegate the special defense clause to the JA
Group."
"Don't worry," said Misato. "I'm sure it'll find some way to
screw up. Computers always do."

/* Tom Lehrer "New Math" _That Was the Year That Was_ */

"No, look," said Amy Anderson for approximately the
seventy-fifth time. "It's not as hard as you're psyching yourself up
to think it is. That's where you're going wrong on these things,
honestly - you convince yourself they're much harder than they are."
"Maybe it seems that way to you," DJ grumbled. "It sounds
simple enough in theory, but if I try to put it into practice it all
falls to bits in my head."
Amy considered her options. She knew DJ wasn't stupid. Far
from it; he had almost perfect recall for some things. He had a
natural talent for linguistics - he was fluent in nine, spoken and
written, and could manage a smattering of a few more. Once he had
been someplace, he would never forget how he'd gotten there, how to
get back or how to get around once there; the mazelike corridors of
Central Dogma held no lasting mysteries for him. He could identify
the originating culture, approximate age and rough value of an ancient
artifact from a photograph or even a fairly good sketch. He had an
almost frightening intuitive grasp of physical and spatial relations.
But he absolutely could not wrap his head around the
regulated, structured, unforgiving nature of any mathematical concept
he had to stop and think about. Computer programming gave him similar
fits, though Amy suspected that, if she could ever get him past the
regimented world of the relatively primitive language Crossroads
students were being started on and through to the more freeform,
creative worlds of C-square and BIXLOR, he might find a more welcoming
environment. As it was, though, trying to comprehend the structure of
a NewBASIC program or an algebraic equation was to him like pounding
his head against a stone.
DJ pointed a finger at one of the equations confronting him
and
remarked, "This one, for example. It's simple - I can tell that - but
I can't for my life figure out how to go about solving it."
Amy looked. The problem was, indeed, simple:

1 1.6
Where --- = ---, find x.
x 120

It was one they'd tripped over before in the course of the
evening, and one that Amy found no less exasperating for its
simplicity. If DJ could only be made to see that it was the same
equation as 1.6x = 120, Amy was sure he would solve it immediately -
from there it became a simple exercise in division - but the 'x' in
the bottom half of the fraction was making his brain lock up.
Seized with a sudden burst of inspiration, she said, "All
right, look. You're trying to get out of Germany. You're at the
Russian border - "
"What happened to poor old Poland?"
"- Germany took it over again," Amy continued without missing
a beat, annoyed with herself for the omission. "The border guard
wants 120 nubles to let you in. The Russo-German exchange rate is 1.6
to 1, how many Deutschmarks do you give him?"
"Seventy-five," DJ replied without blinking. "And may I say
the nuble is doing remarkably well in this scenario."
Amy's frustrated expression melted into a grin. "See? You
can do it."
"What?" DJ inquired, confused.
"The problem. You just solved it. 75 is x."
"It... " DJ blinked at the page. "Why, so it is. Sneaky
bastards! Er, sorry."
"Hey, Fifth Child," said Asuka Soryu-Langley as she came from
the Lower Wedge to the Upper and plopped down in the Wedge booth next
to Amy and her pupil. "Getting measured for your clue?" There was no
rancor in her tone of voice or the smile she wore, so DJ let it pass,
replying,
"Oh, you know, I get by with a little help from my friends.
How's YaK's science fair project coming along?"
"They've got Jon and Rei wired into so much stuff we may never
see them again," Asuka observed. "Dr. Akagi hasn't stopped griping in
two hours."
"Can't blame her, really," DJ replied. "She's got other
things she'd rather be doing. Which reminds me... you'll excuse me a
moment, ladies - I have to check in and see how Hal's coming along."
The two watched him go in silence; then Asuka turned to Amy
and said, "How's he doing?"
"Fairly well," Amy replied guardedly. "He has trouble with
purely theoretical maths - he needs some practical context to give
them meaning for him. And the rigidity of NewBASIC clashes with his
personality. He's a quick study, though. I'm sure he'll do fine."
Asuka looked around as if checking to be sure they were
unwatched, then leaned closer to the dark-haired girl and said softly,
"Really? Tell me honestly. I'm... " She paused as if before a
daunting admission, then went on, "I'm concerned. Professor Ikari is
already unhappy with him, not that he cares, but if he gets bad grades
Ikari can say he's making the Project look bad and make his life
miserable."
Amy digested that for a moment, then said, "Really. He has
the initiative, if nothing else. Not understanding something... it's
like it insults him. He digs his heels in and attacks it until he's
figured it out. He's too stubborn to give up."
Asuka grinned. "Good. If you need any help keeping him
motivated, just let me know."

"It's all very impressive, Mr. Nakamura," Maya Ibuki observed
as the three huge display screens in the underground amphitheatre-like
Jet Alone command bunker showed the machine going through its paces on
the nearby proving range. "I've seen nothing to convince me that JA
is in any way superior to EVA, though."
"I don't need to convince -you-, Dr. Ibuki," Nakamura replied
smugly. "Only the Army brass."
"The last time I checked, NERV's operations in the US were
sanctioned by an Executive Order... and the President was still
Commander in Chief."
"Bah," said Nakamura, waving a hand dismissively. "He's a
figurehead. Right -there- is where the real power in this country
vests," he added, pointing to the observers' box in which the Joint
Chiefs stood watching.
Maya scowled and returned her attention to the display;
presently Nakamura went over to another corner of the Mission
Control-like room to consult with a console tech, and Maya turned to
Truss.
"What do you think?" she inquired of her colleague, who was
still leafing distractedly through various handouts and tech sheets.
Truss looked up and scanned the chrome and glass room, taking
in the poorly-arranged, eye-jarring data readouts and hard-to-read
typefaces used in the status screens.
"The reactor -is- a pretty safe design from what I can see,"
he conceded, holding up the sheaf of papers, "but even a safe reactor
is a stupid thing to put on a combat mecha... The command software
has a pretty distinct lag in it, have you noticed?" Maya nodded. "Of
course they won't let us see the code, but I'm betting it's not very
well-optimized... and get a user interface designer in on this project
-quick- because, -damn-."
Maya suppressed a chuckle. John had hit the major point she'd
noticed over the past twenty minutes or so as well, and trust him, a
self-taught information presentation expert as well as a top-notch
computer scientist, to notice the poor quality of the JA software
displays.
On the big screen, Jet Alone paused before engaging another
group of robotic tanks; then it opened up with the autocannon it held
(similar in design to Project EVA's own assault-rifle-style EMA-75R)
and destroyed them. Then, according to the test program that had been
presented earlier, it was supposed to turn southeast and return to the
reviewing area, then stand down for inspection.
Instead, it paused for a moment, then turned northward and
started walking.
"Um," Truss pointed out, "correct me if I'm wrong, but it's
not supposed to be doing that, yes?"
"Damn!" Nakamura spat just as the alarms started going off.

"Where's Commander Ikari?" a uniformed operations tech
demanded, bursting into the Lower Wedge.
"I haven't seen him for a couple of hours," Ritsuko replied,
looking up from the maze of cables that now connected the Tempest 5000
console to a rack of diagnostic and monitoring instruments. "He's not
in his office?"
"No ma'am," the tech replied, "nor does he respond to paging."
"That's very odd. Have you paged Colonel Keller?"
"Yes, ma'am. He's on his way to the Command Center now.
They'll be wanting you as well."
"What's going on?"
"Problems up north," the tech reported. "Jet Alone has gone
berserk!"
"Jet Alone?" YaK asked, sliding out of his place in the
machine.
Ritsuko blinked, then recovered her composure as she said
coolly, "That's classified. You never heard it. OK?"
YaK shrugged. "Sure, whatever. Sounds like the name of some
thing the Japanese Monster Defense Force would use."
"Japanese Monster Defense Force?"
"Yeah, you know. From the old Toho movies. The JMDF always
had some insane superweapon with a silly name that they'd try to fight
the monsters with. They'd invariably fail, of course, and some bright
young scientist or precocious kid would head off to Monster Island and
get Godzilla to come save the day."
"Oh. Well, I've never really watched movies."
"Really? Shame, that. I'll make a note to send you some
vids. Well, back to work."
YaK slid back into the space under T5K, leaving Ritsuko
standing, looking at his legs with a perplexed expression.

'Berserk' was a bit of an exaggeration, really. Jet Alone
had, in fact, kept walking north, mindlessly bent on some unknown
destination, heedless of all obstacles. It was currently crashing
through mostly-unoccupied forestland, tromping implacably forward as,
back at the command center, the techs worked feverishly to find out
what had gone wrong and bring their wayward weapon back under control.
Misato, Truss and Maya watched, bemused, from the back of the
room as the AG Systems team worked their way slowly into a panic.
Their cool precision and almost automaton-like demeanor was coming
undone as JA stubbornly resisted layer after layer of their concerted
efforts to bring it back under control. Truss figured that at the
rate they were going, by the time they ran out of checklist items to
try they were going to be, collectively, a complete basket case.
"They're not very good at handling a crisis, are they?" Misato
murmured to her colleagues, showing that her train of thought had been
mirroring Truss's.
"Mm," Maya nodded. "They've been drilled intensively about
the stuff that's on those checklists, but they don't know what to do
if the situation doesn't stay within those parameters. Nakamura's
running them more like a stock exchange than a response team. Doesn't
surprise me too much."
"It's no use!" one of Nakamura's techs declared at length.
"JA is out of control, he's not responding to our command signals at
all. Even priority override isn't working!"
"What's his current course?" Nakamura demanded.
"North-northwest," the tech replied.
"Extrapolate. Is he endangering anything major?"
"Only the capital of Maine," said Truss, doing some quick
mental mapping.
"What?!" Nakamura demanded, rounding on him.
"Unless I miss my guess," Truss replied, "north-northwest will
take him straight to Augusta."
"That's not the worst of it, sir!" another of the AG console
techs cried, a look of anguish on his face.
"What the hell -more- could go wrong?" Nakamura snapped.
"Primary and secondary reactor coolant pumps have just gone
offline!" the tech replied, frantically punching buttons. "The
tertiary pump was never meant to be used while the unit is at combat
output; it's beginning to fail!"
Nakamura's beaky face went white as a sheet. "My God," he
murmured. "How long do we have?"
"Perhaps an hour, perhaps less - there's no predicting how
long that pump will hold out," another tech responded. "Unit is
ignoring restart commands on primary and secondary coolant pumps."
"Keep trying!" Nakamura screamed, slamming his fist down on
the top of the nearest control console. "If we can't restart those
pumps and JA's reactor goes critical... "
"Jet Alone is still ignoring all external command inputs," the
first tech told him. "We're powerless, sir. He's not listening to
us."
"If JA's reactor goes critical, -what-?" Misato demanded.
The tech turned to her, pale-faced and nervous, then glanced
to Nakamura as if asking permission to speak. When the chief engineer
nodded curtly, the tech replied, "Uh, well... odds are, it'll... uh,
explode."
"How big?" Misato asked, entirely businesslike.
"We haven't blown one up to get baselines," the tech
responded, "but our best computer models put it at between ten and
fifteen kilotons."
Maya went a little bit pale. Turning to Truss, she said
softly, "My God, John, do you realize what this means?"
Truss affected a look of extreme thoughtfulness. "Umm...
Maine has to pick a new capital?" Maya looked perplexed, so he thought
a bit more. "Er... hmm... " His face brightened. "Ah!" he said
triumphantly. "No more damned rotaries." His face fell again as
Maya's scowl deepened. "Uh... one less Wal-Mart?" he tried feebly.
Maya scowled. "How can you joke about this?" Turning away,
she grumbled, "I can't believe I thought you were cute."
Truss's triumphant grin faded into a more traditional look of
puzzlement. "You thought I was cute?"
"This is not the time," Maya muttered.
"Why not, we can't do anything about what's happening," Truss
replied. "Let's talk about this."
"John, don't you care what happens to your parents?" Maya
blurted. "They live around here, last time I checked."
Truss's face slowly changed from puzzlement to a surprisingly
somber expression as he replied, "I know. Believe me, I know."
"Well, aren't you going to -do- anything about it? Warn them,
at least?"
Truss thought about it, then shook his head. "No," he
replied. "They couldn't get far enough away in time anyway. I think
in a situation like this... they'd rather not know."
Maya stared at him for a moment; then her face softened as she
realized he'd been thinking about it all the while. Briefly, she took
his hand, before becoming businesslike again and turning to Nakamura.
"Don't you have a manual override in there somewhere?" Maya
inquired.
"Of course we do," Nakamura growled, "but how do you propose
we get to it? JA's onboard control room is just a bit out of reach at
the moment. No land vehicle can keep up with him in that kind of
terrain, and he would interpret any aircraft coming near enough to
deposit personnel as an attack."
"I can think of -one- land vehicle that could keep up," Misato
remarked.

"It's the only intercept opportunity you can think of?" asked
Colonel Otto Keller as he leaned toward Misato's image on the main
monitor.
"That's affirmative," Misato replied. "The only one with any
chance of success, anyway. JA is programmed to defend itself from air
attack, so we can't air-drop anyone, but an EVA could get behind it
and deposit someone near the entrance hatch with a fair chance of
success."
Keller sighed and looked over the status screens. "Ellison
and Ayanami are involved in tests Professor Ikari ordered, we can't
get them ready to launch in anything resembling a timely fashion.
Unit 01 is too valuable to risk on a mission like this. You'll have
to take Langley."
"Fine," Misato replied. "Just so long as she's here within
the hour."

"This is a combat alert," announced the voice of Hal over the
Central Dogma PA system. "Evangelion Unit 02 has been dispatched to
handle the Central Maine crisis. Pilot Langley, please report to
Hangar Eighteen for immediate launch."
Asuka looked quizzically at the nearest speaker. "Me? That's
odd. You'd think for an intercept mission they'd send the Mighty
Adventurer. His EVA's ugly, but it's got the longest battery life."
"Thanks ever so," DJ mumbled from behind the portable he was
attempting to complete a NewBASIC programming assignment on.
"Anyway, I have to go. Think you can hold down the fort
without me?"
"Did it for months before you joined us."
Asuka opened her mouth to retort, then sighed. "Why can't we
ever have a conversation without fighting?" she wondered.
DJ looked up, then shrugged. "Because we annoy each other?"
Asuka looked thoughtful. "Yeah... I guess that must be it."
She shrugged. "Gotta go. Try not to sprain your brain."
"Asuka?" DJ inquired as Asuka walked away.
"Mm?" she replied, pausing and turning.
"Be careful," he said.
"Are you getting soft in your old age, DJ?" Asuka wondered.
"Don't worry; it'll be a walk in the woods. I'll be back in time for
dinner."
DJ watched her go, then sighed, shook his head and went back
to work. Momentarily, feeling himself watched, he looked up to see
Amy regarding him with a small, private smile.
"What's so funny?" he asked.
"Nothing," Amy replied. "Don't let me distract you."

"You can't be serious," Misato grumbled. "You don't mind if
we send one of our ill-understood, unnatural monsters after your
clockwork nightmare, but you won't send one of your engineers to undo
your mistakes?"
"Major Katsuragi, the AG Systems team are technicians, not
soldiers," replied General MacIntyre. "We haven't the right to risk
their lives in such a fashion. As has been pointed out, we're
perfectly safe here in the bunker, and all surface personnel have been
evacuated."
"So the population of central Maine falls under your
definition of 'acceptable losses', then?" inquired Maya calmly. "The
phrase 'moral vacuum' comes to mind."
"Nevertheless, the AG Systems team are too valuable to send on
a fool's errand such as this. Major, if you want somebody inside Jet
Alone so badly, I suggest you go yourself."
"Fine!" Misato replied. "I'll do that."
"Fine. Neither AG Systems nor the United States Army will
accept any responsibility if you or your EVA pilot are killed."
"I didn't suppose you would. What -is- it, John?" Misato
added, turning to face the engineer who had been tapping diffidently
at her shoulder.
"We can't send you," he pointed out.
"Why the hell not?" Misato retorted.
"No offense, Major, but you don't know a weapons-control
computer from a microwave oven's programmable timer. What are you
going to do if the conventional override fails - shove the control
rods into the pile by hand?"
Misato considered it for a moment, then sighed. "Yeah... I
suppose you're right." She turned to the General and Mr. Nakamura.
"Will your people provide remote help through an uplink at least, or
were you all planning on hiding in the men's room until this blows
over?"
"We'll help in any way we can, of course," said Nakamura,
steadfastly ignoring Maya's derisive snort, "but we can't be expected
to talk non-technical personnel through anything more complicated than
a standard power cutoff. At any rate, we have no data on how well
voice communications will work that close to a pile."
"The Evangelion can mediate telecom, that's not a problem,"
Misato replied.
"Pass sensitive data about the Jet Alone system through an
Evangelion's communications and command system? Surely you jest."
"Mr. Nakamura, let me make this perfectly clear to you," said
Misato calmly. "If you stand here and allow Jet Alone to blunder into
the middle of the state capitol and explode, I will personally kick
you, very hard, once for each life that is lost. Do we understand
each other?"
"I'd pay to see that," Truss noted.
"Keep out of this, John," said Misato.
"Sorry."
"Well, er... if you put it -that- way," Nakamura hesitated,
looking to General MacIntyre.
"You'll be required to turn over the data logs and purge the
EVA's information systems after the operation," MacIntyre huffed.
"National security."
"Have your MIBs call our MIBs and we'll do lunch," replied
Misato. "Let's get busy, we've only got about half an hour before the
EVA gets here, and I've got a lot of reading to do."
"I've already done it," Truss pointed out from behind one of
the tech binders. "I should go."
"What? John, you're an engineer. What do you know about
climbing into an armored vehicle that might not want you there?"
"List -your- experience on the subject," Truss replied. "Use
extra sheets as necessary."
Misato scowled. "Maya, you're his superior, tell him he can't
go."
Maya considered it for a moment, then replied, "It makes
sense."
"It what?"
"It makes sense," Maya repeated. "Truss's information about
JA's systems is fresh and up to date; most of what I know about it is
at least a month stale, from the last TechDiv preliminary meeting, and
I was expecting to second Dr. Akagi anyway. He's got the highest
level of familiarity with AG Systems equipment, too - all the gear the
Russians are using for their half of Project Atlas is AG-made."
Misato weighed the options for a moment, then grinned. "Who
would have thought -that- would ever come in handy? OK, Truss, you're
in. Get fitted for a radsuit; it's going to be hot in there."

With no time to send John back to Worcester-3 to join the EVA
at its original debarkation point, and no runway in the vicinity long
enough to land an AN-411 on, Misato, as operations planner, had one
tricky thing to work out - how to manage the rendezvous. The
solution, suggested by one of the more helpful of Nakamura's console
techs, was a mid-air rendezvous between the 411 - a plane so big it
had been described by one of the TechDiv mechanics assigned to
maintain NERV's first one as a "flying landmass" - and a courier jet.
Truss couldn't decide which he was looking forward to less: the
transfer between one aircraft and another, the air drop aboard the EVA
(if "clutching its hand for dear life" could be considered "aboard"),
or the transfer to Jet Alone. Battling the rampant reactor for the
lives of the people of Central Maine really wasn't even on the list
compared to stunts like that. After all, battling rogue computers was
something Truss had recent practice at; jumping from one airplane to
another with only an alarmingly insubstantial-looking cable as
protection against a plummeting, shrieking death, that was new.

/* New Order "True Faith" _Substance_ */

"Truss! What are -you- doing here?" Asuka Soryu-Langley
inquired as the radsuited engineer stumbled into the 411's on-deck
crew compartment.
"Fighting a desire to vomit," Truss replied. "Check with me
again in a couple of minutes."
"No, I mean, why are you -here-? I thought Misato was going
to... y'know."
"No, it's me," Truss replied.
"How'd you get stuck with it?"
"I volunteered."
"Are you stupid?" Asuka demanded. "You're not prepared for an
operation like this! When was the last time you had any kind of
special operations training?"
"Um... well, there was that one 'team-building exercise' we
had to do last year that involved whitewater rafting... "
"Well, that fills -me- with confidence," Asuka observed.
"-You're- filled with confidence?" Truss replied. "I'm having
trouble enough getting used to the idea of doing this without you
second-guessing me, y'know."
Asuka looked on the verge of retorting, then seemed to
consider it for a moment before sighing. "I'm sorry, John... I'm
just, I dunno... worried you'll get hurt. You're not combat
personnel, you shouldn't be exposed to this kind of danger."
"Well, I'm touched," said Truss. "Don't worry. I won't tell
DJ about it."
Asuka scowled, but said nothing.

"Unit 02, two minutes to target zone," came the calm voice of
the pilot, cast in the mold of calm pilot voices for generations
before him. "What's your status?"
"Everything's ready here?" replied Asuka from the cockpit.
"Truss, are you OK?"
"Define 'OK'," Truss replied. On his personal scale of
OKness, being strapped to the palm of a giant hand by an elaborate
system of nylon web belts, in a radsuit, with one of the
standard-NERV-issue Sharp DataCenter portable computers strapped to
one leg like a submachinegun, about to be dropped from a speeding
aircraft, didn't rate all that high, but he suspected the operations
planners might be using a different scale.
"Think you'll fall off?"
"Um... " Truss tugged experimentally at his bonds. "Don't
think so."
"For our purposes, that's OK," Asuka replied, then keyed the
loop back to the 411's cockpit. "EVA-02, ready to drop."
"Roger, one minute to target zone," replied the pilot.
From Truss's vantage point, there wasn't much to see; EVA-02's
hand was closed, so his vistas were hemmed in by red-painted metal and
polycarbonate armor. It's just as well, he mused. I never wanted to
see Maine from this particular angle anyway.
"Stand by, EVA-02; target in sight. Ten seconds to drop...
"Three.
"Two.
"One.
"Drop!"
Gravity asserted itself and went away all at the same moment;
there's a reason they call it freefall. Truss became gladder than
ever he couldn't see around him - except, it occurred to him after a
couple of seconds of weightlessness, he had no way of telling when the
ground was going to hit.
"Hang on, Truss!" Asuka declared in his earphone. "Here comes
the train wreck!"
WHAM.
The crater left behind by Evangelion Unit 02's impact would
remain, a local landmark, for some years to come.
Asuka didn't allow herself the usual four seconds for
boasting; nobody was around who would have been impressed anyway.
Instead, she managed the unit's momentum, skidding smoothly into a
run, wasting no energy on a stop-and-start but keeping balance and
control smoothly between the lines. A textbook air-drop landing on
uneven terrain; she hoped the 411 got it on film.
"There's Jet Alone," she remarked for Truss's edification.
"About half a mile ahead, cruising at about 25 kph. This'll be an
easy catch."
Truss had believed the harrowing cable slide from aircraft to
aircraft had been a nauseating experience; but compared to being
strapped into an EVA's fist as that EVA pumped into a full-out run,
that was smooth sailing.
"Could you not move the right hand so much?" he inquired. "I
don't think it would be good for me to lose my lunch in this helmet."
"Oh, sorry," Asuka replied. "Is this better?" The ride
smoothed out, if not entirely, at least enough.
"Better. Thanks."
"Service with a smile," replied Asuka gleefully.
"You're in a weird mood today," Truss observed.
"You're one to talk," Asuka replied. "You've never shown any
action hero tendencies before."
"And I don't plan on ever showing them again," Truss replied.
"Hang on," said Asuka, leveling the pace of her charging EVA
as they caught up with Jet Alone. "I've almost... " EVA-02's left
hand latched onto the skyhook bar on Jet Alone's back, getting a firm
grip. "Got him! OK, Truss... you're on."
The next part of the operation was supposedly going to be the
trickiest: maneuvering Truss into position so that he could use one of
the tools strapped to his belt to open JA's hatch. And, indeed, it
was tricky; between his unfamiliarly gloved hands fumbling with the
tools and the uneven ground making Asuka lose pace with JA, they
managed to botch the job three times.
"Ahh, the hell with this," Asuka grumbled. "Hang on a second,
Truss." Releasing the skyhook bar, she increased EVA-02's speed a
little, matching pace with JA from the side, then deployed her unit's
left-hand progressive knife. "Cover your eyes," she advised Truss,
and then, with much sparking and a terrible shrieking metal-on-metal
noise, she cut the hatch open.

"They weren't supposed to damage the unit!" Nakamura bellowed.
"You'll pay for this, Katsuragi."
"Mr. Nakamura," said Misato sweetly.
"What?"
"Shut up," said Misato and Maya in unison.

"OK, Truss?" asked Asuka as Truss slid into JA's internal
control room, then released the cable from his belt so that, if Unit
02 lost pace, he wouldn't be sucked violently back out the hatch. Of
course, it also meant there was no fast way to recover him, but nobody
thought that was much of a priority, Truss included.
"OK," said Truss, orienting himself briefly and going to the
command terminal, a device not unlike a HAL 9000-series control
rostrum, at the forward end of the small, dimly-lit compartment.
Sliding into the conveniently-provided chair, he powered on the
control system.
What he got back was not encouraging. Instead of a standard
AG Systems AGOS UNIX prompt, or some variant thereof, as he had been
expecting, he was greeted only by a screen filled with a continuously
scrolling pattern of five letters:

BABEL

"Well," he murmured to himself. "This is beginning to look
less like a malfunction all the time." He pulled the DataCenter (known
affectionately to TechDiv personnel around the world as a 'Hackatron')
from its belt holster, opened it, and snapped a universal adapter
cable into the port on its rear edge.
NERV's Hackatrons earned their nickname not so much by the
hardware they comprised, but rather from a clever application which
had been written for them by Maya, Truss and a few other code-slingers
in the upper echelons of TechDiv. Intended as a diagnostic tool, this
program was designed to worm its way (no pun intended) into
out-of-control computer systems and figure out what they were supposed
to be doing - and what they were doing instead. More than once, this
little hack (nicknamed 'Flynn' by its creators) had shed light on the
malfunctions of the temperamental prototype and test-type Evangelions,
the Magi, and other high-level NERV computing equipment many times.
Back at headquarters it was proving invaluable in the reconstruction
and rehabilitiation of SHODAN.
Truss was hoping that in this case, Flynn would be as helpful
in showing him what had gone wrong - or, as seemed more likely to him
now, what had been -made- wrong - with Jet Alone.
"Truss, the AG Systems people are on comline," Asuka's voice
came in his ear. "They want to talk to you, something about
restricted files and... " She paused as if listening. "Frankly, it
sounds like it's not very important."
"Then tell them I heard it," Truss replied, plugging the
other end of the universal cable into a likely-looking port on JA's
control rostrum and cursing AG's Japanese labeling scheme under his
breath.
"They want me to patch them in so they can hear what we're
saying."
"Tell them you can't."
"They're not going to like that," Asuka replied. The
amusement in her voice was unmistakable.
"I'm crushed."
"I thought you might be."
Truss plunged into his work, forgetting the climbing
temperature, the rocking of the room as JA walked, the increasing
desperation of the situation, the fact that he might even now be
soaking up enough radiation even with the suit to endow his children
with superpowers, the clumsiness of his gloved fingers and the
maddeningly persistent itch in his right instep. As he worked, and
Flynn unraveled the tangle of code that was Jet Alone's runtime image
right now, several things began to become clear to him - only one of
which he liked.
Keying his suit's comset, he said, "Asuka, is this channel
secure?"
"JA's kicking out so much noise I doubt anybody else is close
enough to eavesdrop," Asuka replied. "Why?"
"Because there are some things here I don't like, and I don't
want the Army or the AG team to know I know them."
"Well, it's kind of asking too much of a radsuit to have an
encrypting commset, so you'll just have to wing it," Asuka replied.
"What's up?"
"I'll start with the good news," Truss said. "Jet Alone is
-not- going to explode."
"You fixed it?"
"No."
"Then how can you be so sure?"
"That's not what it's programmed to do."
"Truss, clue phone? It's -broken-."
"No it's -not-. Everything it's done today has been according
to a program - just not the one we were told it was running."
"Are you saying JA's been -sabotaged-?"
"That's what I'm saying. Someone came into the command system
before the test commenced and replaced the binary image with a
modified one. Near as I can tell, it was programmed to obey commands
until such-and-such a time, then execute what it's doing now. It'll
get within five miles of Augusta and five minutes of reactor failure,
then kick the primary coolant pump back in and shut down."
"Who the hell would program it to do that?"
"I don't know," Truss admitted. "The image also commands JA
to purge its datasystems during the shutdown. They're going to go
over the disk on my Hackatron with a fine-toothed comb when I get out
of here and I -don't- want them knowing I know about this. Can you
take an uplink to EVA-02's system?"
"Sure, hang on... Set your Hackatron's relay transmitter to
202.5 and encrypt on A, it's fast."
"Right. Ready to receive?"
"Ready when you are."
Truss keyed the Hackatron to send a binary dump of JA's memory
contents and its own debugging logs, then purge and shut down.
"They're going to want proof that there's nothing suspicious
on EVA-02's memory either, when this is all over, but that's bought us
a few minutes," Truss observed. "Hmm... can you get a channel to Hal
from here?"
"He's still filling in for SHODAN... he's right smack at the
middle of the NERV network."
Truss smacked the forehead of his radsuit's helmet. "Duh. Of
course. Make it a priority-one upload, but keep it -quiet-."
"Don't even tell anyone at NERV?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"... I think someone at NERV may be involved."
Asuka was silent for a moment, then replied, "OK. Uploading
now."
"When the upload's done, wipe it from 02's logs and get ready
to receive something in its place."
"What else have you got?"
"Just some sensor log junk and an old debug file about the
time Project Atlas's AG-4540 crashed. If I change the names and
network addresses they'll never know the difference. Hey, I have to
tell them -something- about what I've been doing in here. While I'm
at it, I'd better nuke my copy of Flynn, too. Don't want them
learning we have -that-."
"That's very subversive of you, John," said Asuka with some
amusement. "Maybe you're cut out to be a field agent after all."
"You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?" Truss replied,
finishing his work and slumping a bit in the chair as JA ground to a
halt around him. Momentarily, the lights turned blue, and, with a
whirr and clunk, the reactor SCRAMmed.
"The AG guys are going nuts over here," said Asuka. "They
want to know how you did it."
"Tell 'em it's a trade secret," said Truss with a smile,
packing up his Hackatron. "Maybe for a cold two-liter of Dew and a
shower I'll tell them."

As he took his place in the traditional spectators' gallery,
DJ looked about him and sighed sadly. It was a terrible pity that the
screw-up in Maine had kept Misato, Maya, Truss and Asuka away tonight,
of all nights. Like YaK, DJ was convinced that, from the mystifying
mass of cables, signal monitors, diagnostic instruments and processors
that had once been the Tempest 5000 machine, something very special
would soon emerge.
As he watched Ritsuko and YaK putter around the machine,
putting the finishing touches and adjustments on the various devices
that had been slaved into the NIP, he felt a touch on his shoulder.
Turning, to his surprise, he saw Asuka slipping into the seat next to
him, with
Truss, Maya and Misato behind.
"Well, hullo," he said. "Didn't expect you'd be back in
time."
"What, miss this?" Asuka replied. "Not a chance."
"How'd it go?"
"Piece of cake," she replied; then her expression became a bit
more serious as she added, "We'll have to talk about it later."
"Why, something go wrong?"
"Nothing that can't wait," Asuka replied, and her cheerful
mood returned as though with the flip of a switch. "You really think
this'll work?" she asked.
"Professor Ikari seems to think so," DJ replied. "Loath as I
am to agree with him... yeah, I think it'll work."

The lights were dimmed; the gallery hushed. Off to the side,
Ritsuko sat, her face illuminated by the greenish glow of a status
monitor. YaK took a place on the floor at the front of the gallery as
Rei and Jon, in plug suits so Ritsuko could easily monitor their
medical telemetry, slid into the seats at the transformed T5K console
and donned the neural interface headsets YaK and Ritsuko had patched
into the machine.
A tinny, single-sideband computerized voice, not unlike the
one that heralded the coming of the AI Droid in regular gameplay,
announced:
"Tempest 5000 neural synchronization: stage one: begin."

/* Juno Reactor "God is God" _Bible of Dreams_ */

Swirling colors appeared in the holographic display, resolving
themselves slowly into familiar patterns: the sprays of color that
accompanied neural synchronization on the display screens of the
Evangelions. With it came mellow, swelling chords, backgrounded with
a high, ululating vocal like the voice of the mosque calling the
faithful to worship. As the patterns solidified, the chords swelled
toward a climax, and as the colors suddenly resolved themselves into
the streaming starfield and spinning Web of the Web selection screen,
a powerful techno backbeat kicked in.
"Tempest 5000 neural synchronization: stage one: complete,"
the game announced; the circular starting Web sprang into the center
of the display, and play began.
At first, except for the fact that the players were not
touching the controls, it didn't look all that different from a
regular T5K game. Those in the gallery experienced at watching Jon
and Rei play the game could see them reaching for and hitting their
stride, breezing through the introductory Webs with their usual
aplomb. Something felt odd, disjointed, about their style; their
movements were staggered, as though they were comfortable with their
link to the machine but had not yet learned to accomodate each other
on the Web.
With the coming of the four-pointed star Web, though, that all
changed. At first they seemed to fall apart; Rei was caught by a
Flipper, something she almost never did any more, while Jon,
distracted by her capture and regeneration, ran afoul of a Fuseball.
As both Blasters returned to the Web, though, something seemed to
click. The two suddenly snapped into perfect lockstep formation, each
exactly where the other wasn't, pulling and pushing each other around
the star and annihilating their enemies.
"Tempest 5000 neural synchronization: stage two: complete,"
the voice announced.
From here, the action only got hotter, the lockstep precision
of the two Blasters refining and the annihilation of the bad guys
accelerating. The gallery watched spellbound as Rei and Jon blew past
their old sticking-point, the extremely vicious Moebius Web, raced
through the Stay Between the Red Lines Bonus Warp and charged into
sections of the game unseen by mortal eyes, complete with new enemies
so vicious they made the thunderous crashing ZAP of a Pulsar an almost
relieving sound.
But still, as they danced the dance of the Xenocide, one thing
remained elusive, one true proof of their utter synchrony in mind,
body, soul and machine, and as the holographic action built to a
frenzied pitch, DJ found YaK staring at the playfield, thumping a fist
rhythmically against his knee, murmuring, "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon... "
Enemies poured up the Web faster than even Rei and Jon could
blast them. Jumping and dodging, they stayed ahead of the tide,
barely, but the desperation of their predicament was becoming obvious
with every passing second. Their SuperZappers were long since spent,
and it appeared only one thing could save them now.
Ritsuko gasped unconsciously as, on her monitors, the
unnervingly similar lines of Rei and Jon's respiration, heartbeats,
and neural patterns merged into a single undifferentiable signal.
"Tempest 5000 neural synchronization: final stage: complete."
The Synchro-Annihilator spoke.
"Yes! -Yes!- YES!! -YES!!!- *YES!!!!*" YaK bellowed, jumping
up and performing what for all the world looked like an end-zone
dance.

Hours passed, the crowd dispersed, the flushed and triumphant
players were treated to dinner by the creator of their game, and all
adjourned for home. All, that is, save Ritsuko Akagi, who sat still
at the console of the diagnostic equipment, poring over the remarkable
readings that the two children had generated at the peak of their
session.
"Most illuminating," said an unexpected voice behind her,
"wouldn't you say?"
She turned to see Gendou Ikari, smiling his unnerving smile
and looking far too pleased with himself.
"I would have said 'impossible'," Ritsuko replied, gesturing
at the part of the graph where the two signals merged into one.
"For those two, Dr. Akagi, nothing is impossible," Gendou
replied. "The door to Tomorrow must admit no weaknesses."
"That's placing rather high expectations on them, don't you
think?"
"It's one thing to save the world," Ikari replied, "and quite
another to make it a better place. Jon and Rei, in their time, will
do both."
Ritsuko couldn't think of any fitting response to such a
statement, so she shut down the computers, got up, and started packing
documents into her briefcase.
"I want you to set up a battery of cross-compatibility tests
immediately," said Ikari. "Test the two experimental-type pilots on
each other's units, and the same for the production-model pilots.
Special test criteria will be on your desk in the morning... and I
think it's time we scheduled psychological evaluations of the pilots,
too."
"As you say," said Ritsuko. Gendou Ikari showing interest in
the psychological states of the pilots? Her day, she reflected, was
getting stranger by the minute.
"Have you an estimated time to completion of the repairs to
SHODAN?" Ikari wondered. "The current system makes me... uneasy."
A-ha, thought Ritsuko to herself. You're not -completely-
imperturbable, are you? "SHODAN should be -functional- within a week.
Functionality is one thing and fitness to reassume her old
responsibilities is another, though; I won't be able to assess how
long full rehabilitation will take until I've got her basic
personality matrix online."
"I shall expect a full report next week, then."
"You'll have it."
"Good evening, then, Dr. Akagi. It has been a busy day... but
a most enlightening one, I think."
"... Whatever you say," said Ritsuko to the empty Wedge after
Ikari had gone. "He's getting stranger all the time... not that I'm
in a position to complain, I've started talking to myself."

She was still there hours later, poring over the reams of
data, when she was surprised by someone clearing his throat,
quietly, behind her. She gave a small jump and turned to find YaK
leaning in the doorway from the upper Wedge, holding two bags.
"You missed a good dinner."
"Did I?"
"Yes, shame. But I saw the look you had when we were leaving
and I figured you'd rather start going over the data immediately.
I've seen the same look in my mirror on more than one occaision."
Ritsuko was never really very good at such social situations,
so she stood in silence for a short while. When it became too
uncomfortable, she felt she had to say something. "Um, what's in the
bags?"
"Oh these? Like I said, you missed a good dinner. And while
I figured you wanted to go over the data, people do have to eat.
This," he lifted his left hand slightly, "is a wonderful Chicken Tikka
Masala. This," he lifted his right hand slghtly, "is an absolutely
bloody murderous Chicken Vindaloo. I wasn't sure how your tastes
ran."
Ritsuko blinked - then her stomach rumbled, barely audible in
the silent Wedge. Embarrassed, she smiled. "I guess I am a bit
hungry. I'll have the Tikka Masala please."
"Certainly. I'll set things up." YaK set the bags on one of
the tables across the lower Wedge from the gaming area and began
distributing their contents. Foam containers, plastic plates,
utensils, nan, little packets of extra seasoning...
Well, he certainly prepares, Ritsuko thought idly.
Presently the jumble of contents organized themselves (or so
it appeared) into two place settings complete with steaming, aromatic
food. Ritsuko's stomach turned over again and her mouth began to
water. I -am- hungry, she thought.
YaK stepped back to observe his handiwork, frowned for a
moment, and slapped his head. "Beverage!"
"Beverage?"
"Yes, as in 'I forgot the.'"
"Oh... Well, there are some soda and juice machines in the
upper Wedge, just 'round the corner."
"Ah, splendid. Any preference?"
"Cola is fine."
"Then cola it is!" YaK bounded up the steps and out of view,
leaving her to stare after him, midly perplexed. "He is an
interesting one," she muttered to herself.
He was back in moments and joined her at the table. They dug
into the feast, as it were. Ritsuko's hunger hit her like a wild
beast when she took her first bite. She had a habit of becoming
focused on work to the point of forgetting to eat. Now she thought
back - when was the last time she'd eaten? Lunch? No, she skipped
that. She skipped breakfast regularly. Must have been the cruller
and coffee at break this morning. Her stomach rumbled in agreement.
YaK attacked his plate much more leisurely. He'd had the same
meal bare hours earlier, and had spent the last few hours discussing
the finer points of the gaming industry with DJ. It was he who
suggested that Dr. Akagi would still be here, and here she was. It
was refreshing talking to somebody who approached being a countryman
again; after years in Northern California, YaK was prepared to
consider even an Englishman civilized, and Northants was not so
terribly far from Wales, anyway.
"So what do you think?" YaK asked when she had finished half
of her meal, and visibly slowed. He knew what it was like; she shared
many of his habits apparently.
"Think?"
"About the data, the system?"
She paused for a moment to think. She was impressed - rather
seriously impressed, actually. She didn't think anyone outside of
NERV had done such advanced neural interface work. And this guy
claimed to have been working alone. Still, she didn't want to let on
how impressed she was. She was unaware that the pause, and her face,
gave it all away anyway - but YaK was gracious and pretended not to
notice.
"It is good. You've achieved some seriously impressive
numbers. You say you were working alone on this?"
"Mostly. Obviously I based my work on research done by
others, but I made some advancements of my own." -THAT- is an
understatement, Ritsuko thought. "But I didn't want to reveal it
until I'd found someone good enough to handle it. The average gamer
claims to want an immersive experience, but not many could really
handle it, truth be told. I don't want to go down in history as the
inventor of the first cybernetic drug."
"Well, it'll take weeks for us to fully analyze the data from
tonight's session, but at first blush it looks impressive. In some
ways, well..." YaK raised an eyebrow. "Well, it seems superior to my
own work on some ways."
YaK sat upright, seriously stunned. "I'm flattered, really,
but do you really - "
"No buts. You have some interesting solutions to quantum
interference by the looks of it. To be honest it isn't a completely
superior system, but it has its advantages. We might be able to
combine our systems to produce a final product better than both... "
Ritsuko paused, realizing she'd gotten ahead of herself and said more
than she meant to. "That is, if you're interested."
YaK just smiled.
"So is that a yes?"
"Well, let's say that it is certainly an interesting
proposition," he said, with a twinkle in his eye.
It was Ritsuko's turn to smile.

DJ Croft stood inside one of the small stone turrets that
flanked the walkway into Bancroft Tower, gazing out over the twinkling
lights of the city. Autumn was falling and the nights were becoming
chilly, so he'd walked up the hill; now his breath crystallized in the
air as he stood, and watched the city, and thought.
Who would sabotage Jet Alone? What purpose would it serve?
Was the whole point simply to make the AG Systems team look bad? If
so, the prime suspects were within NERV itself; Ritsuko Akagi and
Hideki Nakamura had locked horns several times in the Journal of the
Cybernetic Sciences, and Maya Ibuki's rivalry with Nakamura was
perhaps more monumental if only because of the personal connection:
they had dated briefly in college, not too many years before. But
Ritsuko had been stuck in Worcester-3, working on the Tempest 5000
project, and Maya... no, even with her disdain for Nakamura, DJ
couldn't see Maya performing such an act. Even with the code in place
to SCRAM the reactor after the overheat scare, there were too many
variables. A miscalculation, a slight bug in the code, and half the
population of Maine would have been wiped out. DJ couldn't bring
himself to imagine Maya cold-bloodedly taking that risk just to make
Hideki Nakamura look bad.
Was the purpose, then, to draw an Evangelion? With JA in
distress, it was the logical thing to do.
Here he paused in his reflection to wonder why the thought of
some unknown vandal causing Asuka to risk her life in such a pointless
way would cause him such ambient anger.
He was still on that subject when the scrape of a footstep on
the stone floor of the turret drew his attention; turning, he saw Rei
coming up to stand beside him.
"Hullo, Rei," he said softly, turning back to gaze out at the
nightlit city.
"Hello, DJ," replied Rei, stopping shoulder to shoulder with
him and mirroring his posture, leaning on her elbows on the turret
edge and watching the lights.
"You and Jon blew everybody's minds tonight," DJ remarked.
"It was exciting, wasn't it?" Rei replied. "I felt...
energized, in a way I haven't felt before."
DJ grinned, turning to look at her more closely. "You're
still glowing," he observed. "I don't think I've ever seen you smile
for more than five seconds at a time. It's a nice change."
The rosiness in Rei's cheeks deepened a bit as she chuckled;
then they both fell silent, watching the lights of various aircraft
flit about the gleaming spires of Worcester-3 in companionable
silence.
"DJ?" said Rei softly, several minutes later.
"Mm?" DJ replied.
"I... I think I love Jon," she said.
"Mm," replied DJ.
"You don't sound surprised," said Rei.
"I'm not," said DJ.
"Oh." Rei didn't seem to know what to make of that; then,
deciding there was nothing for it, she asked, "DJ, do you love
anyone?"
"Oh yes, Rei," DJ replied wistfully. "My loves are many and
varied, for my heart is vast and indiscriminate."
"Is that from a poem?" Rei asked.
"I think it will be," DJ replied.

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

NEXT EPISODE:

Balances shift.
Alliances solidify.
Suspicions heighten.
Mysteries deepen.
The episode that had to be called:

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION 2:4
THE DAY THE UNIVERSE CHANGED
11/21/97

--
Benjamin D. Hutchins, cofounder, Continuity Line Editor, webmaster
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited - An AnimeTech Limited Company -><-
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