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[Eva][FanFic] Neon Exodus Evangelion 2:6 - Ceremony of Innocence: The Geometry of Shadows

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Benjamin D. Hutchins

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Dec 25, 1997, 3:00:00 AM12/25/97

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

EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED
presents

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION

EXODUS 2:6
CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE PART ONE:
THE GEOMETRY OF SHADOWS

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 and
sequel(s) by Core Design, Ltd., X-COM: UFO DEFENSE and sequels from
MPS Labs (whoever owns them nowadays), MARATHON and sequels by Bungie
Intergalactic Software, THE X-FILES created by Chris Carter,
and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by Arthur C. Clarke

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

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

Ritsuko Akagi huddled in the corner of her shower, the
steaming water deepening the red in her usually pale skin. Her left
arm hugged tightly across her breasts; her right trailed limply at her
side. The wash rag that had earlier scrubbed her flesh nearly raw
dangled loosely from her fingers before falling to the floor.
Despite the scalding water she felt cold, a cold that seemed
to sit in her very bones. Some distant part of her mind tried to tell
her she was in mild shock, but it went ignored. Hazy memories of the
previous night played in a tortured loop behind the closed lids of her
eyes.
She'd agreed to join Ryoji Kaji mostly from the feelings of
loneliness and hurt that had been induced by her train of thought
after the party had broken up. A night out with an old friend seemed
like a reasonable cure for the blues, or at least a fair treatment.
Things had started out normally enough. They'd headed over to
Ralph's, one of Kaji's preferred haunts. After fortifying themselves
with burgers and chili in the diner they headed for the bar. Kaji
declared that the evening was his treat and the drinking began.
They'd played a couple of rounds of pool on the battered
table, monopolized the juke for a while, but mostly just talked about
old times, the project, life, etc. It was just the kind of
distraction she needed.
But as the night wore on, things began to get strange. She
must have had more to drink than she realized. She started feeling
distinctly tipsy, which quickly became drunkenness. Memory became
spotty. She remembered Kaji making more pronounced advances, which
she'd fended off clumsily, writing them off to the assumption that he
was as intoxicated as she.
But something didn't seem right, her mind struggled with the
muddled memories. She didn't understand how she'd become so
inebriated, and Kaji hadn't seemed all that impaired. Well, he did
drink far more often than she, so he probably had a higher tolerance.
Right?
Memory became more dark than light. She didn't remember
leaving the bar. One flash she was in the bar, the next she was being
carried across her living room. She'd felt detached, her head full of
cotton. Darkness again, then she was on her bed, Kaji grinning,
removing her clothes. She'd tried to resist but found she could
barely coordinate her movements, tried to protest, but her voice
produced only inarticulate sounds. Her memory jumped ahead again.
His panting face grinned down at her through a haze.
("Not so bad, now, is it?")
There, memory failed. The images had come back to her as
consciousness first returned. Their detached, dreamlike quality had
at first seemed to her a dream, a nightmare brought on by her mood.
But as she continued to surface, a dread instinctive certainty that it
was not a dream sank in, and her stomach knotted. The pounding in her
head told her she had certainly been drinking the night before. Her
hangover was worse than any she could remember.
But worse than that, the tangled sheets were evidence that the
worst of the memories were no dream. More so, she could feel in her
body that it was true. Moments later she'd been in the shower, where
she still remained, nearly an hour later.
How could she have allowed this to happen? How did she let
herself lose control, to let herself become so weak that she couldn't
take care of her self? What was wrong with her?
Perhaps if she had known what Kaji had previously attempted
with Misato her thoughts would have taken quite a different tack.
Surely if she realized why Kaji had insisted on always bringing the
drinks from the bar, future events would have been very different
indeed.
But she had no way of knowing.

Major Misato Katsuragi sat at her desk and read for the
seventh time the memo she'd found there, turning its implications over
in her mind. It was an annotated partial transcript of DJ Croft's
third and last psych evaluation session with Commander Ikari, and it
made for very interesting reading in spots.

IKARI: You have a history of travel and, for lack of a better term,
adventure. Do you find your NERV responsibilities confining?

CROFT: We're all confined by something. I'm confined by my curiosity.
Jon is confined by his sense of duty. What are you confined by,
Gendou?

IKARI: We're not here to talk about me.

CROFT: But you're so interesting.

[DELETIA]

Yes, very interesting, but DJ's verbal fencing with Ikari
paled in comparison to the volcanic explosion at the end - the point
at which, through the simple expedient of asking directly, Ikari
discovered that DJ and some person Ikari left unnamed had recently
become lovers.
Hence this pleasant missive from Commander Ikari, laying out
the basics of the interview and demanding to know why Misato had not
known of, or better yet prevented, this obvious breach of propriety
and protocol on the part of the pilot. The last page of the memo was
a pastiche of dire warnings related to concerns over the operational
implications and consequences of emotional immaturity in the Children,
capped off with the ominous statement, "If you cannot control your
charges, Major, we can find someone who can."
Misato glared indignantly at the signature on the memo. The
truth of the matter was, she agreed with the comments DJ had made to
Ikari after the issue had come up, comments which had been the subject
of much discussion throughout Central Dogma as word spread of Ikari
and DJ's very public confrontation in Corridor D-3A. They, the
hierarchy of NERV, -had- forced the pilots to grow up ahead of their
time. It -was- hypocritical of Ikari, the others, Misato herself, to
expect the Children to act like responsible adults one minute,
dependent children the next.
Only...
She dropped the memo on her desk and sighed. There was no way
around it: this news made her feel old. Old and tired and not in
control.
I wonder who she is, Misato mused. Somebody involved with the
program? Maybe a schoolmate...
What should it matter to -you-, Katsuragi? she asked herself
crossly.
Shut up, she advised herself. You know damned well why it
matters.
Across the desk from her, DJ himself sat, looking indignant.
A moment after Misato dropped the memo, he picked it up.
"Interesting phrasing," he observed. Then he smiled slowly as
the importance of that phrasing struck him. "'Discretion forbids'
nothing; he doesn't say who she is because he doesn't -know-."
Misato looked wearily across the desk at him. "DJ, this is a
serious problem. Professor Ikari wants to have you removed from the
program for your insubordination."
"My insubordination or my indiscretion?" DJ retorted. "He
asked me a question that was none of his business and flew off the
handle when I answered it honestly. If I went a little over the top
in dealing with him, fine, but everything I told him is true. If he
doesn't want to let me play with his toys any more, that's his
prerogative, but see that he doesn't come crawling to me when the
world ends."
Misato sat up, leaned her elbows on her desk, and rested her
chin on her doubled fists, and looked thoughtfully at the boy. When
she spoke, it was with a tone of sadness rather than anger:
"Do you think so little of the team we have here?"
DJ looked sharply up, then sat back with a sigh. "No, it's
not that. It's just that Ikari makes me so damned mad. It's none of
his business. He's no right asking, let alone getting angry about the
answers."
"He has that right if he thinks it will affect your
operational readiness, or anyone else's. So have I."
"Personal freedoms will be suspended for the duration of
crisis," said DJ in the best BBC announcer tone he could muster.
"Damn it, DJ! Can't you see this is difficult for me?" Misato
burst out. "I promised your mother I'd take care of you. I feel
partly responsible."
"Why must everyone persist in acting as though something -bad-
has happened?" said DJ. "I assure you, the people who were actually
there at the time don't view it that way. We were in complete
agreement, we were careful, we had an absolutely marvelous time, we
cleaned up after ourselves and we didn't disturb the neighbors. What
more do you want? How much more responsibility could we take for
ourselves?" When Misato had no answer for him, DJ got up and shook
his head.
"When you and Ikari figure out what the hell you want from us,
let me know," he said, and left.
Misato Katsuragi sat in her office for a long time afterward,
wondering just why she felt so much like crying. When John Trussell
arrived, he found her still staring glumly at the memo.
"Major Katsuragi, we're almost ready to begin the - what's
wrong?"
Misato looked up from her desk at the engineer, then shrugged
and tossed him the memo. Truss scanned it, murmuring the highlights
to himself.
"'... Grave indiscretion... project integrity in
jeopardy... pilot Croft has taken undue advantage of a comrade and
forced himself into a sexual relationship with a comrade, discretion
forbids me to identify her by name,'" Truss read, then coughed as a
sudden realization made him want to laugh, but the gloomy look on
Misato's face told him such would not be a good idea.
"What's the matter with you?" Misato wondered.
"Nothing," Truss replied as he got his coughing fit under
control. "I'm just having serious doubts about the 'forced into'
part. Asuka seems pretty much an equal partner in whatever's going on
between those two."
Misato leaned forward in her chair. "-Asuka- is DJ's lover?!
When did you find this out?"
"Just now, really," Truss replied. "Asuka's said some things
in the past couple of weeks that didn't make any sense to me until
now."
"Well, I'll be goddamned," Misato mused, plunking back in her
chair. She looked thoughtful for a few moments; then a mask of
military bearing fell over her features. "Was there something you
wanted, John?"
John didn't miss her shift in demeanor; dropping the memo on
her desk, he replied briskly, "Just wanted to let you know that we'll
be ready to start the cross-compatibility tests in twenty-five
minutes."
"Fine, carry on," said Misato.
"Yes, ma'am," Truss replied, turning and leaving the office.
Misato watched him go, punched a key on her desk to lock the
door behind him, and stared at the closed door for several minutes as
her eyes grew hot and damp.
She could do a lot of crying in twenty-five minutes, but there
seemed no sense in wasting any time.

Gendou Ikari was in his office, too, surveying his empire via
SHODAN's security system and considering the widening cracks that were
starting to develop in it. Ikari's outburst several days before had
become the stuff of instant legend around Central Dogma, the first and
only time that he had appeared as anything other than an unflappable,
god-like figure, ruthless, single-minded purpose given flesh. It was
as incomprehensible as it was unexpected to the rank and file of NERV
that the Icy Commander should come unglued like that in public.
They would not have felt comforted to know that Ikari was
mortified by his behavior, too. He hadn't realized how far under his
skin his annoyance with DJ Croft had gotten until that one brittle
moment during the psych evaluation Ikari had insisted on carrying out
himself.
Fingers steepled thoughtfully before him, Ikari watched the
playback again. From the small screen built into his desk, he had a
security-camera's-eye black-and-white view of himself and DJ in the
small conference room, and their voices, though a bit muffled, were
clearly audible.
"Are you currently involved in a sexual relationship?" asked
Gendou, reading it verbatim from the question list on his clipboard.
DJ scowled. "What the hell's -that- got to do with anything?"
"It's a standardized evaluation," replied Ikari, not looking
up. "You should realize that the emotional noise involved with that
sort of relationship can have potentially damaging effects to the calm
state necessary for proper interface with an Evangelion. Answer the
question.
"Is that really on the form?" asked DJ.
"Right there," replied Ikari, turning the clipboard and
pointing with his pen.
DJ peered at the form, then frowned. "Well, I'll be damned."
"Answer the question," Ikari repeated, turning back his
clipboard and sitting back in his chair.
"Suppose I think it's none of your business," DJ replied.
"Must everything be a test of authority with you?" wondered
Ikari. "If you don't answer this question or any other, I'll have
Security detain you in the holding center downstairs until such time
as you decide to co-operate. Under NERV's charter I have that
authority."
DJ glared at Ikari for a moment, then relented. "I suppose
it's too early in the day for a foot race. Very well, here's your
answer: Yes."
At this, Ikari's shoulders jumped a little, and, leaning
forward a bit in his chair, he said, "I beg your pardon?"
"You do?" asked Croft, his face bearing infinite surprise.
"God in Heaven! Let me get my camera."
"Your editorial comments are no longer amusing," Ikari cut him
off. "This is a serious matter."
"Fine," replied DJ. "The answer's still yes. What d'you
propose to do about it?"
Ikari flipped a page in his questionnaire. When he spoke
again, his voice carried a new tone of urgency:
"Is your partner a co-worker?"
DJ nodded. "In one! Shall we play Twenty Questions?"
"No," replied Ikari, his voice stony. "You will terminate the
relationship immediately."
"Like hell I will," DJ replied mildly.
"It was not a request!" Ikari barked, and DJ raised an
eyebrow, clearly surprised at this outburst from the Icy Commander.
"This is a military organization, not a dating service. You will
-end- the relationship, you will -cease- to take advantage of the
situation you've been placed in. NERV is under enough public pressure
for its use of children as combat pilots in the first place - it
doesn't need the potential feedback of a revelation such as this."
DJ snorted. "I wager you wouldn't be saying that if I were
Jon."
Ikari slammed a fist down on the conference table. "I won't
tolerate your insolence any longer!" he declared, standing and leaning
over the table toward the boy. "You will cease your endless
interference and follow orders or you will be removed from the
program!"
DJ got to his own feet and replied, "The program you all but
shanghai'd me into in the first place? How generous of you! The
great Gendou Ikari, whose is the power to bind and to loose. Go ahead
and throw me out - I've half a mind to take the others with me when I
go!" He turned, threw the door open and stormed out.
Ikari followed, his cry of "I'm appalled at your conduct,
Croft!" resounding in the room before the door closed behind them and
cut the camera's weak microphone off from the rest of the
confrontation.
Gendou stopped the playback, sat back in his chair, and
sighed. The task at hand was almost as distasteful as interviewing
Croft had been, but made much more necessary by the content of the
interview itself. If the unforgivable -had- happened, the best thing
to do now was assess the damage and go on with the program. That
damage might not be completely reversible, but it could be minimized.
He pressed a key on his desk and said flatly, "Send her in."
Moments later, the door opened, and Rei Ayanami entered,
walking in to stand silent and expressionless before Ikari's desk.
"Hello, Rei," said Ikari, trying to infuse his voice with a
bit of warmth that once would have been automatic. "How are you
today?"
"Well, thank you," Rei replied. "Why did you call for me?"
"We haven't spoken in a while," Gendou replied. "I thought it
would be good to ask you how things are going at home, and such."
Rei regarded him for a moment, then shook her head. "No,
there's something you want," she said flatly. "What is it?"
"You're too clever for me, Rei," said Ikari, trying and
failing to make a joke of it. She merely stood and waited for him to
get to the point.
Those who were surprised by Ikari's outburst would have been
absolutely stunned to see him now - for now he was not angry, but
uncomfortable. The one was, at least, imaginable for the Icy
Commander. To lose his patience and shout - well, DJ could be a
trial, everyone knew that. But to sit at his desk, fumble with his
pen and be at a loss for words? Inconceivable.
Finally he stopped himself, put down the pen, squared his
shoulders, and asked bluntly, "Rei, are you sexually involved with
Croft?"
Rei blinked once, slowly, looked curiously at Ikari, and
replied, "No."
The answer was so soon in coming, so direct, and so entirely
not what Ikari was expecting that, for a moment, he was absolutely at
a loss. He simply sat behind his desk and regarded her with something
just to the dignified side of a gape.
"No?" he finally inquired.
"No," Rei replied.
"Are you certain?" Ikari asked, conscious as he did so of what
an insufferably lame question it was.
"I suspect I'd remember," Rei replied, her face perfectly
straight.
Ikari pushes his glasses up his nose and looked her in the
eye, a long, searching stare that found nothing but that look that was
so essentially Rei - inscrutable, yet strangely powerful, as though
she were looking straight into his soul.
"Is that all?" Rei asked, jolting him out of his reverie.
"Yes. That's all," Ikari replied.
Without a word, Rei turned and left the room.
Alone in his office, Gendou Ikari slumped in his chair and let
out a sigh of relief. Never in his life had he been so pleased to be
wrong.
In a moment, he recovered his composure like shrugging on an
old overcoat, and tapped his intercom control.
"Colonel Keller," he said.
"Yes?" replied the voice of Otto Keller.
"Cancel the board of inquiry."
"Cancel it?"
"Yes. It's not Rei, and therefore not important."
"As you say, sir," replied Keller, who had never thought it
was terribly important to begin with.

Jon Ellison stood at the center of the Bay Seven catwalk,
surveying the Evangelions arrayed before him: EVA-00, back in its
original orange coloration, EVA-01, as always the most visible of the
three with its purple armor and the eyes that always seemed to be
looking right back at the observer, and EVA-02, its red finish
polished to a bright shine. Ordinarily the gantry next to EVA-02
would contain his own Evangelion, also cleaned and polished to a shine
as all the others were, but of course that was not possible just then.
EVA-03 would be back soon enough, certainly. Or at least,
whatever was left of it. He knew it would be physically impossible to
fit an Evangelion inside the cargo bay of even the biggest
aerospacecraft in existence (which the Venture Stars Babylon 2 used
for its supply runs were not), so the TechDiv team sent to Babylon 2
would certainly have dismantled (or 'dismembered', depending on who
you asked) the unit and brought it back to Earth in pieces.
As Jon mused, the orange warning lights on the EVA gantries
flashed and klaxons blared. Automated gantry systems began shifting
the massive warriors along the miles of gantry rails laid on this
level of Central Dogma to their assigned test chambers for the day's
harmonics and cross-compatibility testing. The layout of the system -
gantries on rails, wall segments which were really part of the
gantries - gave the whole arrangement a powerful resemblance to an old
children's television program Jon had seen once, in which the pilots
of various specialized aircraft were portrayed by puppets. Since the
puppets couldn't be shown convincingly walking, the sets featured a
lot of seats on rails, moving walkways, rotating doors and the like.
Jon wondered why, of all times, he would think of that now.
Even as he pondered it, the large main door at the end of the
hangar ground open, and a tractor-drawn flatbed rail car entered.
What was on the car was covered by a tarpaulin, but Jon knew full well
what it was. The only thing it could be was Unit 03... or what was
left of it. His suspicion was confirmed moments later when, as he
watched from the EVA-waist-level catwalk above, a TechDiv team swarmed
over the car, pulling away the tarp to reveal its cargo - in five
pieces, looking battered, scuffed and forlorn, but largely intact.
The whole business of cutting the EVA up and rebuilding it
would require a complete overhaul and resync of the neurosystems, and
just about every other system for that matter, meaning it would be a
while before he would be back in the pilot's seat. And in all
honesty, he was not feeling particularly put off by that news, since
it amounted to a brief respite from the incessant pressure of training
and testing and combat.
Of course he wasn't about to get too attached to the idea of a
forced vacation. If 03 were down long enough, Ikari would probably
have EVA-04 shipped over from Japan and put him in that unit's entry
plug. Oh well, it wasn't as if he couldn't adapt. The production
models were all very similar, and hence interchangeable. (Of course
he wasn't about to tell Asuka that.)
Jon thought about Asuka's attachment to EVA-02, and asked
himself if he had any real attachment to EVA-03. The answer he had to
give was 'no, not really'. The unit was familiar to him, certainly,
from years of training and combat piloting, but really, after all was
said and done, he couldn't perceive the production model Evangelions
as any more than empty shells. He had watched his unit being built
from the ground up at X-COM Alcatraz, and had known all the time that,
despite its flesh-and-blood nature, it was not really alive. The only
time any of the production model EVAs were 'alive' in any recognizable
sense was when they were empowered and synchronized with a pilot who
briefly lent the EVA his or her own thoughts and SSV pattern. By
themselves they had no consciousness or soul of their own; they were
just empty vessels.
The production models were, anyway.
Turning away from the soulless remains of his own unit, Jon
looked back up at EVA-01. Lucifer always seemed to look back at
anyone who chanced to make eye contact with it, and the more he looked
into the unit's eyes, the more Jon felt that presence which no other
inactive Evangelion -- with the possible exception of Moloch -- had.
A presence which seemed oddly familiar...
Perhaps if the cross-compatibility testing rumor were true, he
might have a chance to learn more.

The rumors were true. Rei Ayanami stood at the window in the
control room, looking down at the test chamber and remembering her own
experiences with this test chamber and this EVA. They hadn't been
overwhelmingly pleasant ones. She hoped DJ could do better.
"Main power engaged," said Maya, looking over the status
boards. "All responses are nominal. Ready to engage first neural
link."
"DJ, how's it feel? Noticing any difference, any impressions
at all?" Ritsuko inquired.
DJ sat back in the command seat, closed his eyes, and,
frowning thoughtfully, took a deep breath of the LCL through his nose.
Funny smell, he remarked to himself. Not at all like the
flat, slightly metallic smell he was used to; this was a pleasant,
piquant scent, and a familiar one. The ties of smell to memory are
the strongest of any sense, and with every breath, some subconscious
connection nagged at him.
A couple of seconds later it dawned on him, and he murmured
incredulously, "Smells like Rei."
"What?!" came the voice of Asuka over the comm. "Croft, what
kind of pervert -are- you?"
Annoyed, DJ opened his eyes and flicked an irritated glare at
her image on his comm screen. "You, of all people, feel the need to
ask me that?" he replied.
Asuka reddened and dropped off the channel. For a few long
moments she sat in her EVA (where she was undergoing a conventional
harmonics test in the next test bay over), alone with her thoughts.
What's wrong with him? she wondered. Why is he angry? What
did -I- do? Or is it something I -didn't- do? We haven't really
talked since...
Dammit... he can't push me away -now-.
Ignoring the byplay, Ritsuko turned to Maya and muttered,
"Olfactory hallucinations?"
Maya shrugged. "That's a new one."
"Maybe, or maybe he's just being a smartass," Ritsuko replied.
"Commence first-stage neural connection. DJ, try to confine yourself
to reporting -relevant- impressions, would you?"
"Understood, stabbing pains and above only," DJ replied.
"First-stage neural connection complete," Maya reported. "No
problems."
"Commence second-stage connection and neural synchronization."
"Synchro-start... now."
The booth officers watched tensely as the synchrotron readings
marched across the big board, heading for the critical break-even
point at 12.8 percent. As the flow of green reached that critical
point, it paused for a moment, fluctuated, hesitated...
... then pressed on, sweeping cleanly up to 25% and holding.
"Synchrotron stable at .25 to 1," said Maya.
"That's it?" Ritsuko inquired, looking puzzled. "He should be
a lot higher than that. His first sync with Unit 01 was a solid 47%."
"That's it," Maya reported. Keying the comm system, she
asked, "DJ, how's it feel?"
"Odd," DJ replied. "I feel distinctly unwelcome."
"Maybe there's a miscalibration," Ritsuko mused. "Are you
hitting a noise layer?"
"No," DJ replied. "It's... it's as if it's pushing at me.
The EVA is a definite presence and it's not welcoming me."
Ritsuko sighed. "Could you make your descriptions a little
vaguer, please? I might accidentally get some useful data at this
rate."
"Well, look," DJ replied, "you try to quantify weird psychic
phenomena. This is what it feels like. You've got all the computers
up there, you figure out what it means."
Ritsuko tried to rub the incipient headache out of the bridge
of her nose and replied, "Fine, OK. If it's 'pushing' you, try
'pushing' back."
"All right," said DJ skeptically. He gathered his
concentration and did his best to do as she said. For a long moment
there was nothing but silence as he matched his will against the
strange resistance coming from the EVA.
For a moment, he felt the mental presence almost seem to draw
back away from him, and then WHAM it hurled itself against him, no
mere resistance now, but an active, angry presence, outraged at his
intrusion and determined to see him gone. The EVA convulsed, then
began straining against its restraints in a very familiar manner as a
jumble of thoughts, his own and otherwise, rippled through DJ's mind.
"Oh, hell!" Maya muttered, engaging the emergency power
cutoff. "It's gone berserk again!"
"Dammit," Ritsuko muttered. "I thought we'd fixed that!"
EVA-00 tore itself free of its restraints, driven to a higher
peak of rage by the power cutoff. Within, DJ reeled. On the one
hand, it was obvious his sychrony with the EVA had increased; he could
feel the shocks pounding all the way up to his shoulders as Moloch
drove its fists against the control room windows. On the other hand,
the torrent of information that was screaming into his brain from the
neural linkage was like nothing he'd felt since his first outing in
Unit 01, and the cacophony was eroding his sense of identity and
sending him spiraling into a whirlwind of confusion.
"Evacuate!" Ritsuko Akagi shouted as the windows started to
crack, but Rei Ayanami did not move. She merely stood,
dispassionately watching the orange EVA hurl itself against the wall,
watching the windows crack and splinter, the metal crossbraces begin
to bend inward.
"DJ!" Maya shouted into the comm system. "Can you hear me?
What's happening?"
What's happening? wondered DJ. Where am I? Who am I? What
was I doing? I had something important I was going to do. I was on
my way to meet someone. Who was it? Why were we meeting? Who am I?
I must get out of here! Why do these people confine me? Who am I?
DJ clapped his hands to the sides of his head and struggled to
regain control of himself; EVA-00 mirrored his movement and began
smashing its head rather than its fist against the windows.
DJ's own eyes opened; through the monitors he saw himself
about to shatter the windows entirely and crush Rei.
Crush Rei? I would never do that. It must be someone else.
-I- would never?
Almost painfully, identity returned with the sharp snap of
crystal clarity.
I.
"STOP!" DJ screamed, hurling all his will against the rage of
the EVA.
In mid-lunge, Moloch hesitated, then reeled back away from the
window. The EVA staggered, made as if to step forward again, then
fell to one knee and slumped forward against the wall as DJ overrode
the battery system and shut the unit down.
The test chamber, the cockpit, and the channel into his mind
went silent.
"SHODAN, send the test data to my office terminal," said
Ritsuko. "I'll go over it there." Nodding to Maya and John, she left
the control room.
"Never seen her in such a hurry to get out of here before,"
Truss murmured.
"The fact that we all just nearly got crushed might have
something to do with that," Maya replied dryly.
When the recovery crews extracted DJ from the prototype's
entry plug, he was still a bit dazed, but he refused offers of support
from the two medics who greeted him there and made for the dressing
room under his own power.
"DJ, are you all right?" one of the medics asked.
"Sure, I'm fine," DJ replied, a little absently. At the
catwalk landing he reeled against the railing; as he shook his head,
the other medic took hold of his elbow.
"Are you sure? Let us get you to the infirmary and check you
out."
"I said I'm -fine-!" replied DJ, a trifle more emphatically
than was really necessary. Shaking his arm free, he stalked up the
catwalk and disappeared into the locker room.
The medics looked at each other and shrugged. They'd never
known him to be so short-tempered with the medics, but then, he'd just
had a very bad test; he could be forgiven. Knowing him, he'd
apologize later anyway.

Two hours later, Ritsuko sat alone in her office, the shades
drawn against the brightening day. She felt more comfortable in the
relative darkness, with only her desklamp's sickly cone of light
falling upon the papers spread before her.
She'd been sitting this way for a few hours, barely making
progress on the test data, and the next test - Jon/00 - was coming up
soon. Her hangover had been pushed back to a dull throb with some
painkillers, but that wasn't the real problem. Her thoughts kept
slipping back to the memories that had begun to play in her mind with
her waking. Should she close her eyes, she'd see Kaji's grinning face
again, feel his hands on her bare skin - and the overwhelming feeling
of helplessness would wash over her once again.
Of all the myriad of emotions, helplessness was perhaps the
one Ritsuko had the least experience with, the one that gave her the
greatest unease. Growing up alone with her mother, she'd taken second
place to her mother's passion for work, so she'd learned early on how
to be self-sufficient and how to protect her own interests. She was
adept at defending her person and her interests, and never allowed
herself to get into a situation where she felt threatened. It had
served her well... until now.
Not only had she somehow slipped and allowed herself to be
weak, actually let herself be rendered helpless, but now she didn't
know how to cope with it. She'd never felt so ashamed, so weak, so
violated - but above all, so guilty - in her life. Most people would
have ways of coping with such feelings, built from years of
experience. Most people would have correctly identified the true
guilty party and seen to it that he was punished.
In this regard, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi was still a child.
Still, she had one person she felt should could turn to, who
might understand. And so, with a sigh of resignation, she pushed
herself away from her desk and went in search of Misato Katsuragi.

She found Misato in the commissary getting some coffee.
Misato seemed not upset, but rather disturbed by something, and the
faint traces of red in her eyes indicated she'd been crying. Wanting
to buy some time to build her resolve, Ritsuko decided to focus on
Misato.
"Hey - Misato, how are you doing? You look troubled."
Ritsuko filled her own cup as she watched her friend.
"Oh, the usual. Ikari wants to get rid of DJ, and DJ, bless
him, is being his usual difficult self."
"As though that were a surprise."
Misato stiffened a bit, surprising Ritsuko. "DJ really isn't
like that. It's only when Ikari is involved - I swear they hate each
other. DJ would just as soon spit at Ikari as speak to him, and Ikari
would have kicked DJ out of the program months ago if only he wasn't
such a damn good pilot. I think that galls Commander Ikari - not that
he'd admit it, of course." Misato paused to sigh. "If only DJ could
control that temper of his. He can't seem to stop himself from
goading Ikari, and I'm afraid that no good will come of that in the
end."
"DJ needs to realize that Ikari is in charge here. This is
his project, his vision. DJ doesn't have to like Ikari, but can't he
at least avoid deliberately provoking him? He might not care, but it
doesn't make like any easier for the rest of us to have Ikari pissed
off. He only thinks of himself."
"That's not true!" Misato answered with enough force to take
Ritsuko aback slightly. Then, calming herself, she continued: "He's
just, well... impulsive, I guess. For all his airs, he's really
rather open. Ikari annoys him, and he lets that show. But afterward,
when he sees that it makes life more difficult for the rest of us, he
feels bad about it. I think he'd really rather not cause such
trouble... but it's so much a part of his nature."
This last was said in a tone of unmistakable tenderness, which
Ritsuko found interesting, but she left that to be pursued later.
"So, what did he do this time?"
"Something he said in his review with Ikari. I..." Ritsuko
didn't miss Misato averting her eyes. "I don't think I should talk
about it."
Don't think you should, or don't want to? Both Misato and
Ritsuko left the question unasked.
Misato decided to quickly change the subject. "So... what
about you? Is the project keeping you busy?"
"Yeah, we're going to be running the rest of the
cross-compatibility tests later today. Truss and Maya are seeing to
the cleanup in the testing area now... I was just trying to get some
paperwork done."
"Ugh. NERV never told us about the paperwork in the
recruiting process."
"No, I guess they figured they'd never get anyone to sign up
if they knew about that." Ritsuko smiled for a moment, but it faded
when she remembered why she was here. "Look, there's something I
wanted to talk to you about."
Noticing her serious demeanor, Misato too grew serious. "What
is it?"
"Well, it's about Kaji. He... "
"What's about me?" a new voice asked from the doorway as Kaji
entered the room. Misato scowled, while Ritsuko seemed to pull
inward. "Here I find my two favorite women talking about me behind my
back." Kaji seemed about to put his arms around the two ladies, but
thought better of it when he saw their reactions.
After a brief, awkward pause, Ritsuko made a furtive glance at
the clock and excused herself with a hollow, "Damn, the time. I'd
better get back to work."
Watching her leave, Misato muttered, "I wonder what got into
her?"
Kaji grinned. "I'm sure I wouldn't know."

Another test chamber; another EVA; another pilot; another
test.
"How do you feel, Jon?"
Jon pulled the LCL into his lungs with a deep breath, and like
DJ, he also noted the difference of scent, for him that much easier to
recognize. "It does smell like Rei, Dr. Akagi."
Asuka felt an urge to make some snide remark but, after the
earlier incident, she couldn't quite bring herself to do it. Ritsuko
and Maya looked at each other again. "Guess DJ wasn't being a
smartass," Maya remarked.
Ritsuko rolled her eyes. "We'll look into it later. Begin
the first connection."
The displays shifted in the entry plug as power began feeding
to the neural interface.
"First stage complete, no problems," Maya reported.
Ritsuko nodded. "Begin second connection and neural
synchronization."
"Synchro-start now," Maya replied, unobtrusively crossing her
fingers.
As Jon's awareness began to expand outward the differences
became much more evident. Whereas synchronizing with EVA-03 always
felt (for lack of a better analogy) like slipping into a new suit of
clothes, this time it felt as if someone were already in that suit,
and that there was not enough room for two people. He recalled DJ's
mention of feeling a 'definite presence', and 'distinctly unwelcome',
and bit back the wave of anxiety that tried to claw at him. This test
was important.
"Approaching break-even point in 5... 4... 3..." Maya counted
down as the indicators once again crept up to the border line and
hesitated there for what seemed like an eternity. Unconsciously her
right hand drifted closer to the emergency shutdown lever.
As the tension mounted, and the sensation of resistance became
more apparent, Jon reflexively sought out the touch of Rei's mind to
calm himself. But instead of Rei, his mind found the much closer,
stronger presence within EVA-00. For a moment it seemed just as
surprised at the contact as he was, and he felt as though it were
looking back at him, just as he was looking at it.
It touched his mind, hesitantly. Its presence did not feel
hostile, though. Curious, tentative, were the words that came to
Jon's mind at first. It kept itself aloof, feeling out Jon's
responses to it, and suddenly it occurred to Jon that it was afraid.
<...Moloch?> Jon thought.
The feeling of relief was almost palpable. It seemed to Jon
that the EVA had expected him to be someone else, and was pleasantly
surprised by who it had instead. Like a thrown switch, the resistance
was gone, replaced by a wave of welcoming neural pulses.
In the control room, the synchrotron readings began climbing -
and kept climbing, for many seconds longer than anyone thought they
would.
When they finally topped out, Maya tapped the glass over her
small master readout surreptitiously, then reported, "Synchrontron is
holding at point five six to one," not hiding her astonishment.
"My God..." Ritsuko echoed, similarly stunned. It wasn't
simply that it had worked, but that it had worked so well. "Jon? How
do you feel?"
"I feel..." Jon hesitated, trying to put it into words. It
was that 'musical' feeling again; different from Rei's music, but
energizing in its own way. "I feel...-alive-," he finally said.
In the rear of the control room, a smile spread across Gendou
Ikari's face.
Excellent.

After all the excitement of DJ's test with Unit 00 and the
surprising (and pleasing) results with Jon's, it seemed almost
anticlimactic to test Rei against Unit 01. Commander Ikari insisted,
though, and so there they were. The afternoon grew late, everyone
wanted to go home, but instead, they were back in the booth, testing
or watching.
"First neural link established. No problems detected."
"Rei, how does it feel?" Ritsuko asked.
A pause; then, in Rei's quiet, clinical tone: "It smells like
DJ."
Maya bit back a chuckle; Ritsuko scowled. Out of the corner
of her eye, she could see Commander Ikari, who stood silently in the
corner, grimace slightly.
Jon glanced at DJ, who shrugged.
"Initiating second neural connection," said Maya. "Stand by
for synchro-start."
In the cockpit of the purple EVA, Rei closed her eyes and
concentrated. Synchronizing with her usual unit was never easy for
her; the resisting presence DJ had encountered was always there for
her, so ever-present she had taken it for the normal state of affairs
in EVA piloting and never mentioned it to anyone until she and DJ had
spoken together of it after his morning test. Here, too, there was a
presence, but where Moloch was faint and sullen, Lucifer was vibrant,
a close presence, curious.
As the neural pulses began to blend and Rei opened her mind to
the link, she realized with a shock that what she thought was one was
actually two.
She opened her eyes.
The Evangelion cockpit was gone. She sat on nothing,
surrounded by whiteness, a glow so brilliant she thought she would
have to shade her eyes, until she realized that rather than being
blinded by it, she actually felt comforted, at home.
And standing before her
was
Rei Ayanami.
"You're not supposed to be here," said the standing Rei with a
reproachful shake of her head.
"Where is here?" the seated Rei replied. "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" Standing asked in return. "Is it important?
Are you important?"
"I don't understand," said Seated.
"What makes you think you're supposed to?" Standing inquired.
"Why shouldn't I?" countered Seated.
"You ask too many questions," said Standing. "I don't want to
talk to you any more."
Now the whiteness really was blinding; seated Rei closed her
eyes, shielding them with a hand against the glare.
When it faded and she opened her eyes, she was back in the
EVA.
"Rei," said the comm system, with Maya's voice. "Rei, are you
there? Are you all right?"
"I'm here," said Rei. "I'm all right. What happened?"
"We're not sure. Some kind of neural feedback. You hit a max
sync of 17%, but only for a few seconds; then the sychrotron started
feeding back and we shut down."
"The unit doesn't want me," Rei stated matter-of-factly.
In the booth, Gendou Ikari frowned thoughtfully.
"Her sync ratio with Unit 00 has been steadily declining over
the past few weeks, too," Ritsuko Akagi noted to him, well away from
the comm system pickups, as Maya and Truss continued debriefing Rei.
"Maybe her piloting ability is burning out. We've often wondered if
such a thing were possible."
Ikari pondered, then shook his head. "No. I suspect the
resistance from the unit is merely increasing. She said it herself,
to Croft, earlier: the unit has always fought her, and lately it's
been fighting harder." He seemed to consider for a moment, then said
abruptly, "I want to test-sync her with a production model. Has the
reassembly of Unit 03 been completed?"
"Almost. The main systems were quicker to repair than we
thought, but many of the neurolinks still haven't been tuned."
"We'll have to use Unit 02, then. It matters little; one
production model is much the same as another."
"Commander, with all due respect, it's nearly 5:30," Ritsuko
protested. "We've been at this all day. We haven't even paused to
examine the data we've been collecting since noon. Even if we stop
now, we'll be analyzing the test results all night."
Ikari nodded. "I know. Run this one test and the technical
personnel will be dismissed; we can analyze the data tomorrow."
"Very well, sir." Sighing softly, she turned back to the
consoles. "Rei, everyone, Professor Ikari has asked for one more
test... let's get it done."

The production model test was unexciting in action, but
interesting in implication; for Rei had no difficulty achieving a 46%
resting sync ratio with Unit 02, and reported neither resistance nor
discomfort for the first time in her Evangelion piloting career.
So it was that at 6:20, the weary pilots and TechDiv personnel
were at last dismissed, the Operations staff gathered for an important
emergency meeting, and those who were not involved made their tired
way home.
Or at least, tried to.
"DJ, I've got to talk to you for a minute," Asuka said as she
and DJ followed Rei and Jon from the pilots' locker room toward the
Wedge for some well-earned relaxation. So saying, she pulled DJ aside
into one of the empty conference rooms.
"Hm?" DJ wondered as Asuka locked the door behind them. He
hoped she wasn't going to rant about Ikari's calling for a test of
Rei with Unit 02. It had surprised Ritsuko a bit that Asuka had
voiced no objection at the time, and DJ had been wondering when the
other shoe was going to drop.
As it turned out, he would much rather have listened to that
rant.
"How many women had you... been with... before me?"
"What?!"
"You heard me, how many?"
"Asuka, I'm really tired," DJ replied.
"Please, DJ. I need to know."
"You were the first." DJ wasn't sure where this topic came
from, but he didn't see what it would hurt to answer. This would
later occur to him as proof that he had been extremely wiped out at
the time.
Asuka's expression turned stern. "Derek Joshua Croft. Don't
you -dare- lie to -me-."
Uh-oh, she used my full name, DJ thought to himself. Where
does she get off taking this tone with me? "I'm not lying to you. I
swear to you, you are the first woman I've ever known... in a Biblical
sense, that is." That seemed unequivocal enough.
"If you don't want to tell me, then just say so!"
DJ had spent the better part of the day utterly confused as it
was; he distinctly did not appreciate Asuka's making his day harder
for what seemed to be no good reason. "Bloody hell!" he burst out.
"What is -wrong- with you? If you ask me a question you ought to
accept the answer. Why won't you believe me?"
"Because it's impossible!"
"I can't believe I'm having this argument," DJ muttered to
himself.
"Where did you learn what you know, if not from someone else?
Some older, more experienced woman, perhaps?"
"Christ, is -that- what this is about? Well, I bloody -wish-
I'd learned what I know the way you think, but really, it's just that
I read a lot."
"You what?!"
"I read a lot," he repeated, somewhat less than patiently.
"Look, I read Gray's Anatomy when I was twelve, just because. I've
read a few 'everything you ever wanted to know' kind of books. And I
admit that I've seen my share of 'Club International' issues and the
like. I *am* a healthy fourteen-year-old male after all. Though,
frankly, that sort of thing always bores me. There can't be that many
19-year-old sex-maniac shop clerks named Samantha in the world."
"You honestly expect me to believe you got that from
reading?!"
"Why the hell not? It's the truth! Look, books can teach you
the anatomy, I have a natural knack for exploration of all sorts, and
I am rather sensitive, if I do say so myself. Toss a healthy
imagination into the mix, and there you are! No great mystery, when
you get down to it. D'you really think that if I were seeing 'some
older, more experienced woman', I'd have bloody gotten involved with
-you-?!"
It occurred to him even before the words were out of his mouth
what an unfortunate choice of words that was.
Asuka's face, already red from arguing, darkened, and the
anger in her eyes turned first to hurt and then to rage.
"Well," she said through clenched teeth, "I can see you're
going to be obstinate about this. Let me know when you're prepared to
be honest with me. If you even care!" With that she stormed out of
the room and slammed the door behind her.
DJ turned, as if pursuing her were on his mind, but his hand
stopped a few inches from the doorknob. For a moment he stood, torn
by indecision, his hand flexing ineffectually in the air; then he
whirled and, with an inarticulate cry of frustrated rage, overturned
the conference table.
He was still sitting there, raging at himself, when the attack
alarms went off.

"Where the hell'd this one come from?" Misato asked upon
arrival in the command center.
"It just appeared over the city!" Truss replied, sliding into
his seat, his hands already flying over his console. On the monitor,
an ominous spheroid hovered silently among the buildings in the center
of town, its surface covered in strange rippling patterns of
reflection. It cast a perfectly circular shadow on the ground beneath
it, a shadow that was much too circular to have been cast by the
waning rays of the setting sun.
"Anomaly is spherical, approximately 30 meters in diameter.
That's odd... I'm not registering a DNA pattern at all," Maya
observed.
"AT Field?"
"None detected," Maya reported from her console.
"Is this some new kind of Angel?" Ritsuko wondered aloud.
"Whatever it is, it doesn't belong here," Misato replied
pragmatically. She turned to Commander Ikari. "I think we should
send units to investigate - at least try to get it out of the city
center."
Ikari nodded. "Send all operational units to investigate;
they can box the anomaly in that way and better support each other.
Use the new pilot assignments as discussed."
"Yes, sir." Misato turned to the four pilots, once again
suited up. For the merest of instants, she wondered why DJ and Asuka
stood so far apart and did not look at each other. Who were they
trying to kid with that old tactic?
Shoving the irrelevant thought out of her head, Misato said,
"You heard Commander Ikari. Jon, take Unit 00; Rei, since Unit 03
isn't operational yet, you'll wait here. Your team assignments are
still the same. DJ, I trust you can get along without Rei for a
simple recon?"
For a moment, DJ seemed as if he would protest; then he
shrugged, and departed the control room, that shrug and his curiously
closed expression standing as his only answer.
"I wonder what's wrong with him," Misato murmured.
"He wouldn't let Medical give him a thorough check after his
sync test with Unit 00," Ritsuko said. "Maybe he's nursing a
migraine." For once in her life, as the renewed pain in her head
lanced through the space behind her eyes, Ritsuko found herself
sympathizing with DJ. Damn it all! What kind of hangover doesn't a
half-gallon of water and a thousand milligrams of acetaminophen get
rid of?

"Unit 00, in position," Jon reported as he settled Moloch to a
crouch behind the squat gray bulk of a Flagship Bank branch and
surveyed the motionless anomaly. Again he marveled at how vibrant and
immediate the responses he got from the unit were. He didn't know
quite why it had fought Rei and welcomed him, but if that was the way
it was going to be, it was fine with Jon. Rei had accepted the change
of assignment without protest - par for the course, from Ikari's point
of view, but Jon knew that, by now, if it had displeased her for some
reason, she would have made it known.
"Unit 01, in position." Jon would have given much to know the
source of the strange tone of DJ's voice. He'd never before heard DJ
sound as if he didn't want to be out there, didn't want to be in
action.
"Unit 02, in position." Asuka sounded upset as well. Jon
wondered if it was naive of him to hope the two circumstances weren't
related.
"No reaction from anomaly," Maya reported.
"OK, you guys," said Misato. "Move in 500 meters; let's see
if we can get it to notice you. Maybe we can herd it out of town."
Slowly, painstakingly, the units moved closer. Still the
anomaly ignored them. Closer, and closer still, they crept, over the
course of an agonizing half-hour. Their diligence was rewarded with
total indifference by the anomalous black sphere; it merely hovered
there, its shadow beneath it, waiting, as the evening gathered.
"This is getting weirder all the time," Misato observed.
"Jon, stand up, see if you can get it to notice you."
Moloch stood, in plain view before the anomaly; it hovered
grandly and ignored the EVA entirely.
"Ah, to hell with this," DJ grumbled, sending Lucifer to its
feet and drawing the paired autocannons from their holsters. "I'll
show you how to get the bastard's attention."
"DJ, wait, don't - " Misato cried, but DJ was already loosing
a volley of shots at the sphere.
That got a reaction, all right; the patterns on the surface of
the sphere stopped shifting, then faded away entirely, leaving a
smooth, featureless blackness. Then its circular shadow -moved-,
darting across the ground, up the street, taking up a position beneath
EVA-01's feet.
Which promptly sank into it as if into tar.
"Mother of God - !" DJ cried, and then his EVA was gone,
engulfed by the blackness as though it had fallen into a pit in the
street.
"DJ!!" Misato cried. "Jon, Asuka! Save him!!"
"Jon! Cover fire!" Asuka snapped as she sprinted forward.
Jon obligingly raised his assault rifle and snapped off three shots.
The first struck the floating sphere and it briefly vanished, the next
two shots only damaging the building directly behind it before it
could reappear. The black shadow on the ground immediately began to
expand rapidly outward, soon threatening the pavement under Grendel's
and Moloch's feet. "SHIT!" Jon cried as he didn't quite jump in time
and his left foot started to sink, but then Moloch's right foot found
purchase and he hurled the unit backward, away from the spreading
stain of blackness.
Buildings on all sides began to totter and sink into the
shadow. Slamming her Prog Knife and battle axe into the side of the
building she'd begun to scale, Asuka created steps for her EVA
to make its way up to the top of the building.
"Mein Gott..." Asuka gasped as she reached the summit and
looked around. The shadow had expanded to cover a huge area of the
city, and dozens of buildings were being sucked in.
Jon, meanwhile, had taken this opportunity to reapproach the
edge of the shadow and grab EVA-01's power cable. Quickly he began
hauling it back, hoping to pull EVA-01 up with it - but intstead, the
power cable suddenly went slack, and a moment later, Jon found himself
holding a cable which was no longer attached to any Evangelion.
At that moment, Misato's voice sounded over the comm:
"All units, withdraw."
"Major--" Jon started.
"That's an order!" Misato grated, fighting to keep her voice
from quivering. "Withdraw!"

Night fell over Worcester-3, what was left of it; it appeared
that a good forty percent of the deep downtown had been 'absorbed' by
the shadow, whatever it was. With a fully-powered-down Evangelion,
consuming power only for life support functions, DJ Croft could
survive for sixteen hours.
While Operations racked their collective brains trying to come
up with a plan of attack or rescue, TechDiv (in the form of the Magi
and SHODAN, mostly, but with the supervision, brain-racking and
sleep-deprivation-as-self-imposed-penance of their human keepers)
pored over every scrap of data they had on the phenomenon and the EVA
and pilot inside, looking for an angle.
Truss and Maya had been alone in the control room for two
hours, looking over old data, most of it useless junk, trying to sift
out the nuggets of useful information that would lead them to a clue.
In tense but companionable silence they sat at their stations, faces
illuminated by the glow of the displays, the control room lights long
since deactivated - reading, thinking, and assimilating.
"Truss... look at this," Maya said suddenly.
"Hm?" said Truss, glancing up from the section of printout he
was poring over.
"Look at this - it's one of the data logs from Unit 00's
neurochannel 83 during DJ's cross-test today," she said, indicating
the display before her.
"The deep subconscious channel? Isn't it all just feedback
garbage from the control crash?" Truss inquired.
"That's what I thought too... but look, this pattern here,
it... it just seems familiar to me. I know I've seen it before."
Truss looked:

6968 6176 6562 6565 6e72 6f6c 616e 6462
656f 7775 6c66 6163 6869 6c6c 6573 6769
6c67 616d 6573 6869 6861 7665 6265 656e
6361 6c6c 6564 6168 756e 6472 6564 6e61
6d65 7361 6e64 7769 6c6c 6265 6361 6c6c
6564 6174 686f 7573 616e 646d 6f72 6562
6566 6f72 6574 6865 776f 726c 6467 6f65
7364 696d 616e 6463 6f6c 6469 6861 7665
6265 656e 6b69 6c6c 6564 6174 686f 7573
616e 6474 696d 6573 616e 6465 7665 7279
7469 6d65 6972 6574 7572 6e69 6669 6768
7466 6f72 7472 7574 6869 6669 6768 7466
6f72 676c 6f72 7969 6669 6768 7466 6f72
6c6f 7665 6966 6967 6874 666f 7262 6561
7574 7969 616d 6865 726f

Shrugging, he admitted, "just looks like garbage to me."
Maya nodded acknowledgement, but kept gazing pensively at the
screen. "I know I've seen it before, though. Six nine six eight, six
one... " Abruptly, she snapped her fingers, leaned forward and
started typing rapidly. In a few moments, another block of text
gleamed inscrutably on the monitor next to that one:

"What's this?"
"This is a logfile from neurochannel 83, too... but look at
the date."
Truss looked.
"Wasn't that - "
"Mm-hmm," Maya replied. She pointed to the longer block on
the left. "This came in on Unit 00's neurochannel 83 just as DJ
regained control of it this afternoon." Then she pointed to the
other. "This came in on Unit 01's neurochannel 83 during DJ's very
first EVA battle - just as he regained control of the unit after it
sustained its head injury."
"What does it mean?"
"I have no idea," Maya admitted, sighing glumly.
The two of them surveyed the data in silence.
Suddenly, Truss gasped.
"What?" asked Maya.
Truss didn't answer; instead he leaned across her workstation
and began typing, dashing out a quick conversion script and feeding
the logged data through it.
Presently, his diligence was rewarded:

ihavebeenrolandb
eowulfachillesgi
lgameshihavebeen
calledahundredna
mesandwillbecall
edathousandmoreb
eforetheworldgoe
sdimandcoldihave
beenkilledathous
andtimesandevery
timeireturnifigh
tfortruthifightf
orgloryifightfor
loveifightforbea
utyiamhero

"Oh my... " Maya whispered.
"I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh," Truss
mused, sitting back in his chair and regarding the screen, his face
unreadable.
"What does it mean?" Maya unconsciously echoed Truss.
"I don't know," Truss replied. "I don't know... "

Asuka, Jon, and Rei stood together in the staging area. The
tension in the air was palpable. There were two main reasons for
that. First, DJ was out there, somewhere, and possibly still alive.
Second, they all knew that it would be up to them to defeat this
attacker, somehow. Up to them to defeat the very thing that had
swallowed DJ, and half the city. And they didn't have a clue how to
do that.
Asuka snapped first, unsurprisingly. "That damned fool!
Acting on his own, all high and mighty because he's been here longest.
Mister 'I'll show you how it's done'; this is all his fault! If that
fool had stuck to the plan and done what he was supposed to none of
this would have happened. He's still be here, and we'd all be back in
the Wedge by now!"
Jon and Rei simply stood there, staring at Asuka and simmering
quietly.
"What's the matter, you two don't want to hear bad things
about the great and powerful DJ Croft?"
Rei answered quietly. "Do you pilot EVA just to be praised by
others?"
"Hmph! I should say not! I do it to satisfy myself. I don't
need others to tell me how good I am!"
Jon and Rei shared a knowing look. Jon spoke for the both of
them: "Asuka, DJ will be OK."
Asuka's glared softened for a moment, the comment obviously
striking home. Then she clamped down on her feelings and snapped, "I
don't care if I ever see that idiot again!" With that she turned on
her heel and stormed off.
Rei and Jon stared after her, a sad expression on their faces.
"She's frightened." Jon said quietly.
"Yes. And she loves him," Rei added.

Early evening became late evening. In the control room, a
digital clock counting down EVA-01's remaining life-support time
served as an ominous reminder to the tired techs why it was important
that they remain and keep trying.
In a conference room near the control center, TechDiv's
highest echelon were meeting with Operations to discuss the fruits of
their efforts so far.
"What have we got on the anomaly itself?" Ritsuko asked her
two chief engineers. Behind the chief scientist, Misato Katsuragi and
Otto Keller stood, expectantly listening. Gendou Ikari was nowhere to
be seen.
"We've figured out that the 'shadow' the buildings and EVA-01
have sunk in is the actual anomaly - a phase space, currently 680
meters in diameter and about 3 nanometers deep," Truss replied.
"Exactly what it's connected to, nobody can be sure of, but the
phenomenon itself has been documented before, on a much smaller
scale. Dr. von Runstedt at the Munich Institute nicknamed it 'Dirac's
Ocean' after it appeared during AT Field phase-space tests there four
years ago - but the power it would take to create one this size is
beyond calculation."
"How far beyond?" Ritsuko asked.
"No Angel we've yet encountered could produce a tenth of it,"
Maya replied. "No Evangelion has the power to negate it, either -
even EVA-01's output during the Skyfall Incident was only perhaps a
quarter of the energy output required for an AT Field to negate a
phase space of this magnitude."
"What's on the other side, then?" Misato asked. "What's
happened to DJ?"
"We're not even sure there is 'another side'. The original
Dirac's Ocean phenomenon lasted for around an hour, then disappeared,
and the test items that were placed into it were later found in the
generator facility, six hundred meters from the test lab. As long
as we can still see the shadow, our best guess is that DJ and Unit 01
are surrounded by... well... nothing. When - if - the shadow
dissipates, chances are the unit and the buildings will emerge
elsewhere... wherever -what-ever is causing it is located."
"Why would the Angels want part of Worcester-3? Or Unit 01,
for that matter?" Keller mused.
"We don't know this -is- an Angel," Truss replied. "In fact,
I don't think it is. That spherical anomaly we saw was just a phase
reflection of this phenomenon, but it should have given us an Angel's
spectrographic pattern when we analyzed it. It didn't."

DJ glanced at the clock panel, but couldn't focus on it. He
blinked, then blinked again, but his vision failed to clear. Raising
his hand, he realized he couldn't focus on -it- either. He'd been
drifting in and out of consciousness all night, ever since powering
his unit down to life-support mode; sleeping was the best way to
conserve resources he knew of, and the day's events had left him
exhausted anyway.
Now, though, while he wasn't paying attention, everything had
become uniformly fuzzy, and he didn't think that was right. Surely
such a phenomenon couldn't simply be the aftereffects of the bizarre,
half-remembered-and-getting-sketchier-all-the-time dreams he'd had.
It's not my vision, he realized suddenly. The LCL is getting
cloudy... and starting to smell funny, too.
The life support system is failing.
Any thoughts of his dreams were banished in an instant. Panic
welled up in his chest and throat, and he fought to push it down.
Panicking won't serve anything, it won't help, it'll just make you use
up your remaining oxygen that much faster. Calm down, think, use your
brain while you still can. There's got to be a way out of here if you
can just think what it is...
The life support computer, attempting to cut its losses and
conserve as much power as possible, turned off the cockpit lights.
Deep within DJ, an old, ingrained fear hissed cruelly and
reared its ugly head. The panic DJ was trying to suppress went
berserk - and DJ with it.
Young man transformed to animal by the most ancient of
emotions, he clawed at the straps holding him to the seat, tearing
them away; he pounded furiously at the hatch until his hands were
swollen and his knuckles bloody; he screamed until his throat was raw.
He cursed in every language he knew. At length, exhausted and
bruised, he subsided into his seat, curling up into a miserable ball
and crying for his mother.
I can't believe I'm going to die here, alone, in the dark.
Dammit, Rei, where are you?

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

NEXT EPISODE:
Rei confronts the darkness without.
DJ confronts the darkness within.
Jon tries to hold the center.
Things are never what they seem.

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION 2:7
CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE PART TWO:
POINTS OF SURRENDER
12/21/97

"I will not let that happen."

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

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