[Eva][FanFic] Neon Exodus Evangelion 2:9 - Odyssey

[Benjamin D. Hutchins]

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

EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED
presents

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION

EXODUS 2:9 - ODYSSEY

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

(c) 1997 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

Stanfield and Edwards could not be seen re-entering the
Geo-Front with someone in DJ's state of disrepute, so they left
without him - but they knew he would be going back. The main S-490
entrance tunnel would be barred to him, of course, and during an alert
the security force might even shoot, even if most of them -were- X-COM
operatives. Fortunately, DJ knew a few back ways in - construction
entryways which had then been plugged off and forgotten, but in which
he had found (or in a couple of cases, reopened) paths large enough
for him and his Corley.
Down one of those he raced, hoping he would be in time.

A massive plume of fire and debris rained down from the
ceiling of the Geo-Front cavern as the Angel breached the final
defensive barrier, emerging from the resultant cloud of smoke a moment
later and descending toward the cavern floor. The moment it was clear
of the destruction above, it promptly came under fire once more, this
time from the twin autorifles wielded by EVA-00.
The bullets had no effect.
"Shit! Its AT Field is up, Control!" Jon snapped, discarding
the rifles and grabbing two rocket launchers from the weapons cache at
his feet. Perhaps the missiles would distract the enemy long enough
for Rei to move in and do some damage. But, before either of them
could act, what looked at first glance like large grayish ribbons
unfurled from the Angel's arm stumps. These ribbons snapped taut and
lashed out before Jon could even react, and in a flash Moloch's arms
were gone, cleanly shaved off at the shoulders. Jon howled as the
pain exploded across his body far more intensely than he had expected.
He curled up into a tight ball for two seconds before forcing the
agony out of his mind. Just in time to experience another stab of
pain as the ribbons struck out again, slicing one of Moloch's legs
apart. The unit promptly lost its balance and began to topple over.
Through the haze of red which had become the sum total of his
consciousness, thought he heard a voice cry, "Go!" In the next
instant Moloch was gone, followed by wrenching vertigo as ejection
charges sent Jon's entry plug careening skyward. EVA-00 itself
collapsed to the ground, a pool of blood forming under its
half-crushed face, which was turned toward the Angel as it retracted
its ribbons and energized its beam weapon, preparing to finish Moloch
off.
Before the Angel could shoot, however, its attention was
diverted to the more immediate problem represented by the one-armed
black EVA bearing down on it at a run, a large silver canister
clutched in its remaining hand. The Angel probably didn't know what
the "N2" in big white letters on the canister's side meant, but
everyone else did.
"Rei!" Misato shouted. "What are you doing??"
"We have to stop it," Rei replied, quiet as ever but with an
audible undercurrent of tension. It was plainly obvious she intended
to force the N2 bomb past the Angel's AT Field and detonate it. At
that range, it was suicide.
The color drained from many faces, and in the control room,
John Trussell felt his heart skip a beat.
[If things remain as they are, I will not survive the next
Angel attack.]
"REI, NO! DON'T--"
Rei shut down her comm system, and the audible pleas stopped.
In the next instant she was upon the Angel, and drove the canister
forward, forcing it through the AT Field, priming the detonator as she
did so.
<It must be done. For all our sakes.>
But in the back of her mind she could hear a pleading voice
not mutable by any communications shutdown.
<<Rei, please don't do this.>>
Jon.
She tried to push him away, to maintain her concentration. <I
must do this.>
The canister penetrated the field completely. She activated
the detonator and it began counting down from five seconds. This
would do enough damage to buy time, time for them to rebuild Moloch
and give Jon a chance to finish the job...
Jon...
<<I am nothing without you.>>
She would die.
<I...>
<<Please don't leave me.>>
She would not see Jon again.
A new emotion clawed at her.
<......I don't want to die.>
Orcus threw itself backward, letting go of the canister just
as the timer reached zero. A flash of white light eclipsed everyone's
view as the N2 bomb went off.
The intention had been for the bomb to be past the AT Field
when it went off, but as it happened it was caught halfway, nearly
pulled back out by Orcus's retreat. As such, most of the blast was
absorbed. When the light faded, both Angel and EVA-03 were sprawled
on the ground, some distance apart from each other. Orcus was in
terrible shape, its chest armor shattered and caved in, its neck
twisted at an entirely abnormal angle, and the lower half of its
remaining arm missing.
The Angel's front was similarly scuffed and charred, but a
moment later it rose back up and continued on its course, giving the
two downed Evangelions no further thought.

DJ swore and fought for control, almost laying the Corley over
on its side, as the shockwave from the mostly-muted explosion washed
over the roadway, nearly blowing him into the guard rail. Then he
skidded to a halt, putting a leg down, and flipped the visor of his
helmet up, taking in the tableau of destruction and realizing just
what that enormous explosion had been.
"Oh, God, no," he murmured, his guts twisting as he forced
himself to take in the ruin that the blast had made of Unit 03, and,
not far away, the bloody, shattered wreck of Unit 00. The latter lay
on its face, and the entry plug cover was gone; so where was the plug?
Just as he thought that, the plug, on its parachute, crashed
into the park pond in the foreground of DJ's view, only a few dozen
feet away. As it settled, it rolled (as it was weighted to do) so
that the hatch was upright, and that hatch popped open, releasing a
minor deluge of LCL and a wet, bedraggled, coughing, thoroughly
displeased-looking pilot.
DJ waved and hailed to Jon, who clambered up the bank to meet
him.
"What the hell's going on?" DJ asked. "Did Rei just - "
"Yes," Jon replied, his face lined with pain.
"Are you hurt?"
"Only sympathetic. It'll fade."
"Is Rei - "
"She's alive," said Jon with quiet conviction. "Rescue team
will have her out in no time... but I don't know what we're going to
do next. EVA-01 won't accept any pilot we try since the dummy plug
incident."
DJ surveyed the wrecked EVAs, the Angel lumbering stiffly
toward Central Dogma (its injuries already healing, its speed already
picking back up), and his eyes glittered.
"He'll accept me," he said flatly. "Jump on!" The dripping
EVA pilot swung on behind him, his toes finding and flipping down the
extra set of footpegs. DJ started the Corley laid the throttle open
again as Jon got a secure grip on his waist, snapping his visor down
to keep the wind out of his eyes as Jon ducked, using DJ's body as a
windbreak.
Sparing no time or energy on thoughts of the danger, DJ ducked
in and out of the obstacles blocking his way, the abandoned cars and
chunks of rubble, making for the Central Dogma pyramid at top speed.
As he and Jon charged into the fast-evacuating building and up
toward the command center, they went unnoticed by the few remaining
guards and startled TechDiv personnel who ran this way and that on
urgent battle-station errands. In the deserted corridors of the upper
levels, they almost passed right by the commissary; but as they
hurried down the corridor, DJ's thumbs pricked. He heard something.
He didn't know what it was, consciously, but something tickled the
back of his mind and told him he'd heard a sound of distress. Holding
up his right hand, he drew his pistol with his left, then edged closer
to the commissary door and gently tried the knob. It was locked;
placing his ear to the door, DJ tuned out the sounds of the mostly
empty corridor and listened.
"C'mon, baby, what do you say?"
A man's voice. Deep, smooth...
Ryoji Kaji.
DJ's eyes narrowed as he continued to listen.
"It's the end of the world, don't you want to go out with a
smile?"
A woman's voice answering, breathless, not with arousal, but
with fear:
"Kaji, no, let me go!"
Maya.
DJ took a step back, thumbed the safety of the V10 off, shot
the doorknob out, then kicked open the door and stormed into the
commissary with a somewhat confused Jon on his heels.
Kaji had Maya backed against the Snacktron, his right hand
inside her uniform tunic, his left working its way up her right thigh;
she was pushing ineffectively against his chest with her hands and
turning her head in a mostly-futile attempt to avoid his kisses, which
he interspersed among his words.
At the crash of the door, he turned his head and saw the
interlopers; his mouth curled in an ironic grin.
"Hey, kid, I thought they threw your ass out," said Kaji.
"Too bad about -your- woman, but you'll have to look elsewhere for a
replacement." Kaji half-turned back towards Maya and leered. "This
one's mine."
"Let her go and walk away, Ryoji," DJ said, in a tone of voice
that made it clear he wasn't making a request.
Kaji ignored it. "Or what, you'll shoot me?"
"If I have to."
His grin unfaded, Kaji deftly stepped around Maya, removing
his hand from her tunic and slipping his arm around her throat, then
dragged her back a step toward the door. "We've danced this dance
before, kid, and you didn't have the guts. C'mon, Maya, let's find
someplace quieter."
Even if DJ had been entertaining the thought of backing down,
Maya's dark, pleading, silent gaze would have kept him from doing it;
instead, he held his .45 steady and said softly, "Kaji, I'm having the
very worst day of my entire life. I honestly feel I've nothing more
to lose." His control over his tone of voice faded as he went on, and
his eyes flashed something that wasn't entirely anger as he growled,
"Now let Maya go or I swear I'll kill you!"
"Uh... DJ, think about this for a second," said Jon
diffidently. "I mean, sure, he's obviously doing the Wrong Thing
here, but... do you really think you need to -kill- him?"
"That's quite up to Ryoji here, don't you think?" DJ snarled.
Jon turned a helpless look to Kaji and said, "I think you
should do as he says, Mr. Kaji."
"Well?" DJ asked, fighting to keep his voice even and blinking
away sudden tears. "What's it gonna be, Ryoji? You can walk out of
here, but not with Maya."
Kaji's grin didn't falter. He reached out and unlocked the
exit door, toeing it open, and dragged Maya a step closer. "Kid," he
sneered, "you won't shoot. You don't have the stones."
"Don't I?" asked DJ through his teeth.
In the large, empty commissary with its tiled floor and walls,
the sound of the single shot echoed for several seconds, long enough
for the jingling sound of the spent cartridge case falling to the
floor to blend with the echoes.
Ryoji Kaji flinched, took a half-step backward, released Maya,
and slowly reached up to touch the bloody flower that had suddenly
bloomed high on his chest. He gazed reflectively at the blood
streaking his fingertips for a moment, then stepped toward DJ, his
lips curling back from his teeth in a bloody sneer.
DJ stepped back and shot him again, then again, then again, as
Kaji kept shuffling forward; then, as the mortally wounded man took a
clumsy swing at him, DJ stepped aside, swung the weapon to bear, and,
screaming, "DIE, DAMN YOU!" at the top of his lungs, shot Kaji through
the temple with his last bullet. Blood splashed back at DJ, flecking
his face and his smoking gun, as Kaji slowly, as if underwater,
sagged, crumpled to his knees, and then fell forward to lie in a
slowly spreading pool of blood on the tiled commissary floor.
Maya Ibuki neither cried out nor fainted; she merely settled
unsteadily to her knees and looked very, very pale. DJ, his hands
shaking, dropped the pistol to the floor as if he'd forgotten he was
holding it, then knelt before her and asked softly if she was all
right.
Jon Ellison had seen death, but never like this. He was
momentarily dumbfounded by what he'd just witnessed; for a long
moment, he just stood there in stunned silence, trying to parse the
fact that yes, he'd just seen DJ Croft kill Ryoji Kaji.
"My God," Maya whispered to DJ. "Is he... "
"Yes," DJ replied, wiping at the tear-tracked blood on his
face and struggling to compose himself. "He's dead."
"You can't stay here," she told him, gripping his shoulders
with a strength born of desperation. "Ikari... he'll have you killed
for this. He has that authority during a crisis."
"Not if he wants this Angel stopped, he won't," DJ replied
grimly. "Besides, what was I supposed to do, let the bastard take
you? He gave me no option. I didn't -want- to kill him."
Maya sobbed, crushing her face into DJ's chest, and murmured,
"That won't matter to Ikari."
"To hell with Ikari!" DJ replied vehemently. "Are you all
right? That's the important thing."
"I... I will be... " Maya replied.
"Right, then. Let's go. I need you... I need your strength
in the control room, your voice in my ears, as I ride my EVA into
battle one last time."
"'One last time'?" Jon wondered. "Don't talk like that!"
As the three of them left the commissary, DJ replied
pragmatically, "I doubt dear Gendou is going to be too keen on taking
me back on the payroll, Jon, now that I've done murder. When I get
back from this mission - IF I get back from this mission - I expect
he'll either have me shot or throw me out of here so hard I land in
Spain."
"I won't let him do that," Jon replied firmly. "WE won't let
him do that. I... I don't care what he thinks anymore. We need you
here."
"I appreciate the sentiment, Jon... but I suppose we'll see,
one way or another."
Jon chewed on that for a moment, then replied gravely, "I
suppose we will at that."

Maya left them, subdued but again steady on her feet, at the
control room. As she entered, Ritsuko Akagi saw Jon and DJ pass the
door, and scowled.
"What's -he- doing back here?" she grumbled.
"Saving us, Dr. Akagi," Maya replied icily, "even when we
don't deserve it."
Without another word, she took her station, leaving her boss
slightly frosted and more than a little taken aback.

Ritsuko Akagi's expression had nothing on Gendou Ikari's when
Jon and DJ entered the EVA bay.
"I told you to be out of the city by midnight," he said
coldly.
"It's eleven forty-five," DJ replied. "And to hell with you,
anyway."
"You are neither welcome nor needed here," Ikari said,
indicating the closed hatch of the purple EVA behind him. "Recovery
Team 1 brought Rei in five minutes ago. She will have EVA-01
operational very shortly."
"It won't work," Jon muttered under his breath.
"You have something to say, Mr. Ellison?" Ikari demanded
sharply.
Jon looked on the verge of wilting before that sharp voice of
command; then he stiffened, stood straight, and said flatly and
evenly, "I said it won't work, sir. Unit 01 refused to accept me, and
I sincerely doubt it will accept Rei or the dummy plug. It only wants
one pilot now."
"Mr. Ellison," Ikari observed coldly, "the Evangelion is a
machine. It does not 'want'. It merely follows instructions, as I
expect its pilots to do."
DJ snorted derisively.
"I'm not disobeying orders, sir," Jon replied stiffly. "I'm
merely trying to save time and lives by reporting what I believe, from
experience, will happen. And if I'm wrong I'll take responsibility
for my error - but I strongly recommend that DJ be given the pilot's
seat."
Ikari stared hard at Jon, but the boy never flinched, giving
him back as flinty a glare as he absorbed.
Behind them, EVA-01 twitched slightly, making the
superstructure shiver beneath their feet; an alarm blared, and the
entry plug ejected, popping open in a shower of LCL.
Rei Ayanami emerged, one arm in a sling, bandaged around her
head, and unsteady on her feet; then she stumbled, dropped to her
knees and unceremoniously vomited through the grillwork of the
catwalk.
As one the three men on the gantry crowded toward her, concern
on their faces (even Ikari's).
Wiping at her mouth with the back of one hand, she looked up
with shame in her eyes and reported softly, "Synchronization
failed... I... I'm sorry."
Ikari turned again to Jon and DJ, both of whom stared hard at
him; then he keyed his wristcom and announced, "Rei has failed.
Prepare the dummy plug."
"The dummy plug is based on Rei's pattern, you idiot!" DJ
snarled. "If she can't sync with EVA-01, a cheap copy of her's not
going to do it either. For Christ's sake! Get the hell out of my way
or I'll throw you off the catwalk!"
Ikari turned his full glare on DJ. "Don't ever presume to
give me orders, boy," he snarled. "NERV is -my- operation. I built
it from the ground up. I control it. I give the orders. You are
just a stupid upstart boy with no -concept- of the things you're
meddling in! You've been a thorn in my side since you first got here!
Undermining my authority. Disrupting my experiements. Corrupting my
personnel. Interfering with Rei! You've made her unwarrantedly
erratic. I won't have any more of it! Get out of this base before I
have you SHOT, you miserable little - "
The slap echoed like a rifle shot through the Evangelion bay,
and for several long seconds afterward, there was utter silence.
Rei Ayanami, her whole body quivering with rage, pinioned
Gendou Ikari on her crimson, furious stare for ten long seconds; then,
in a quiet voice that dripped with pain, she said to him,
"I don't know you any more."
Turning, she stormed out of the bay.
Gendou Ikari, the left side of his face slowly reddening,
stood in absolute shock as, his face hard as stone, DJ Croft walked
past him onto the catwalk.
Turning back, he grinned a mirthless grin at Jon.
"'Interfering with Rei', indeed," he said. "If I was rogering Rei,
she'd be a hell of a lot more than 'erratic'." Jon pinkened slightly,
causing DJ to wave a hand at him. "Don't go all blushy on me now,
Jon."
At that point, Misato and Ritsuko entered the bay, joining Jon
at the end of the catwalk. DJ's smile took on some genuine warmth at
the sight of Misato; even with an arm in a cast, a pronounced limp and
a steadily darkening black eye, she was, as ever, lovely to him.
"Hullo, Misato, my love," said DJ. "I thought for a bit there
that I wouldn't get to see you again before I went."
Misato managed a wan grin. "I wouldn't miss it."
DJ swung a leg over the side of the entry plug. "When I get
back," he said with his rakish grin, "you owe me an evening of your
-undivided- attention, my love."
Misato smiled sadly, a tear escaping from her left eye.
"You'll get it," she replied. "I promise."
Blowing her a kiss, DJ slipped over the side and into the
seat, lowering and sealing the canopy; a moment later the plug screwed
itself into the EVA's neck, and the armor closed around it.
Ritsuko glared sidelong at Misato. "What the hell was the
meaning of -that-?" she demanded.
"Go to hell, Ritsuko," Misato snapped bitterly, wiping at her
tearing eyes. "He knows he's not coming back."
Inside the EVA, surrounded by the reassuring coolness of LCL,
DJ smiled and took the controls in his hands.
"OK, Lucifer," he murmured. "Let's do it... one more time."
The entry plug came obligingly to life around him, followed by
the EVA itself, without a fuss.
"EVA-01 is operational," Maya Ibuki reported, feeling
unnaturally calm as she watched the green signal boxes march across
the Big Board. "Synchrotron is holding at ninety-eight percent."
"My God in Heaven," Ritsuko Akagi whispered.
The EVA bay shook as the attacking Angel breached the armor,
and a moment later the beast was in the bay, lunging past EVA-01,
reaching for and slashing away the control room windows with its
razor-edged ribbons of death.
"No, I don't think so, son," DJ snarled, launching EVA-01 into
its path and slamming it against the side wall before it could strike
again and wreck the room completely, killing its occupants. "Maya!
Hit me on No. 13, fast!"
"Right!" Maya replied, thumbing the launch key for Pad 13.
With a crash and sizzle of capacitors, the launch catapult the EVA and
Angel were standing on flew back up out of the bay, flinging EVA-01
and its quarry back to the subsurface.
"Thought you had a free ride, didn't you?" DJ demanded,
slamming EVA-01's fists repeatedly into the Angel's glowing red core.
"Well the party's over, Chester! I've lost way too much that's
important to me today to let you come along and stomp on the wreckage!
D'you hear me? Huh?"
On and on he ranted, driving the Angel back and back and back,
further away from Central Dogma with each passing moment, battering it
relentlessly with EVA-01's fists and feet, never letting it have a
moment to gather its wits and strike. Finally he pinned it against a
hill and hammered at its core, over and over, reduced from ranting
semi-coherently to simply shouting inarticulately in rhythm with his
strikes. The core's glow began to flicker and fade under his
merciless pounding, and the NERV personnel who had abandoned the
smashed control room and now stood on the Central Dogma plaza watching
the battle were already drawing breath to cheer
when the power ran out, and EVA-01 ground to a halt.
"No!" DJ protested. "No no! Don't do this to me now! Not
now! For God's sake, not now!"
Sensing its change, the Angel reared back, its core glow
brightening again, and slammed its ribbons into the inert EVA, sending
it crashing limply back against a neighboring hill. DJ screamed in
sympathetic pain as the Angel tore away EVA-01's chest armor, laying
bare the greyish-brown flesh of its chest.
Maya Ibuki gasped in shock as the chest of the Evangelion was
laid bare, for embedded in that grey-brown flesh was a dark red orb -
an Angel's core.
Rearing back, the Angel began hammering at the core with its
ribbons, just as EVA-01 had been pounding on its own with its fists a
few moments before. The powerless EVA jerked fitfully under the
battering, as, within its cockpit, DJ Croft shouted to his
recalcitrant mount to get up and save itself in every language he
could remember the word for "move" in.
"... Move, move, damn you, I -know- you're not just a machine!
DAMMIT! LUCIFER - GET UP AND FIGHT!!"

On one of the consoles in the wreckage of the control room,
unnoticed by anyone, a sudden block of text spurted onto the screen.

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

Then the last few characters scrolled into infinity, before
the console sputtered and lost power.

6961 6d68 6572 6f
6961 6d68 6572 6f
6961 6d68 6572 6f
6961 6d68 6572 6f
6961 6d68 6572 6f
6961 6d68 6572 6f
6961 6d68 6572 6f
6961 6d68 6572 6f
6961 6d68 6572 6f

Outside...
... -something- happened.
EVA-01's core glowed; its eyes glowed; it stiffened, arched
its back, and then sat bolt upright on the hillside, swinging its jaw
wide and screaming defiantly into the Geo-Front night.
"My God!" DJ's voice crackled from the portable commset John
Trussell carried. "It's full of stars!"
Then the transmission ended in a squeal of static as EVA-01
hunched forward, vibrating with the tension in its artificial muscles.
All along its spinal ridge, the purple and gray armor plating cracked
and split, as from base of neck to mid-back six cylindrical, glowing
orange protrusions thrust out from within the EVA's body.
Its core and new-grown Elerium colliders glowing furiously,
the Evangelion leaped up from its resting place, seized the Angel's
ribbon arms, and unceremoniously tore them off. With an unprecedented
but very manlike level of fury - not the animalistic, feral mauling of
the berserk Unit 02 - it slashed at the enemy's flesh with
claw-stiffened fingers, kicked, punched and elbowed it, crushing it
mercilessly to the ground, picking it up and flinging it violently
against the hillside.
Its eyes glowing brilliantly, EVA-01 stood over its fallen
enemy. The Angel tried to get up, but it was too late: EVA-01 slammed
a foot down on the Angel's midsection, reached down, and, with a
horrific, visceral sound of tearing flesh, ripped the core out.
Then, as everyone watched in stunned horror, 01 reached up and
tore away the armored mask that concealed its real face - grey-brown,
with glittering green eyes and a huge, tooth-filled mouth that, as it
was lipless, resembled a hideous giant grin. Brandishing its trophy,
Lucifer threw back its head and screamed into the night.
"Mother of God!" Otto Keller cried.
"My God... it's really alive..." someone said. Maya wasn't
sure who it was; she was far too busy throwing up.
Then, tossing the core aside, the EVA stretched up to its full
height, and, screaming like a banshee, seemed to expand within its
armor, cracking and shedding the plating in massive pieces.
"Well, that's it, then," Ritsuko murmured. "It's breaking
free of its binders."
"Binders?" Misato wondered.
Ritsuko nodded. "That isn't armor; it's a restrictive
covering, designed to prevent EVA-01 from using its full power. Now
no force on Earth can control it."
Nearly denuded of its "armor", the EVA ceased to scream;
presently, it ceased to do anything at all, merely standing over its
fallen foe, silent, its core and eyes dark, the Elerium colliders
glowing only with the faint radiance of the mysterious metal itself.
"It's stopped!" Truss whispered.
"It's accomplished what it set out to do, for now," Ritsuko
said. "We'd better get it back into the cage and see what we can do
with it now." She started toward the recovery area.
"What about DJ?" Misato wondered.
Ritsuko turned, regarding the Operations Director with cool
curiosity. "What about him?" she asked. "We'll know how he is once
we get it back inside. Until then..." She finished her thought with
a shrug.
Misato knew she should be angry, but she was too tired.
Instead, she felt only a yawning, empty feeling that threatened to
become true despair if she let herself feel it too long.
She turned her back on her onetime roommate, and
ex-close-friend, and walked slowly back to Central Dogma. There was
nothing more for her to do out here.

Ritsuko sat in her darkened office, staring into the space
beyond the drawn curtains on the far wall. Her face showed the signs
of the rest, or lack there of, she had had in the two nights since the
last attack. Even while the sedative dosage increased, sleep was
increasingly fleeting. The thoughts of her busy mind prolonged her
wakefulness, and the dreams made sure the sleep that followed was
brief and restless.
She hadn't thought things could get any worse, she was already
pushing on towards exhaustion before the attack. But then there had
been the autopsy report, but she was getting ahead of herself...

After the attack Ritsuko and the rest had returned to the
control center to watch EVA-01 being returned to its cradle. Misato
had been distraught over DJ, and seemed to blame Ritsuko for the
entire mess. When Ritsuko had failed to respond to her invective,
she'd finally snapped "How can you be so cold?! You're not even
human!" Ritsuko could have explained that it wasn't that she didn't
care, just that she was too tired to show any emotions; but then, she
was too tired to explain. It certainly had turned out to he a
prophetic remark in the end.
Maya had noticed her growing fatigue and commented on it;
nearly having her head bitten off for her trouble. Ritsuko refused to
admit to anyone that it was impacting her work, least of all herself.
The mission was too important to be impeded by personal troubles. But
even she'd known she couldn't continue running on her own, and
besides, a little stimulant took the residual feelings the tranqs left
behind. Once the crisis was over she'd be able to really relax, work
things out, and get back into a normal cycle.
At least that was what she had been able to tell herself at
the time. But once EVA-01 was taken care of, at least as best they
could at the time, Maya had broken down. With the crisis over, the
will she'd clamped over her emotions broke, and she told all that had
happened earlier. Truss had held her gently as she quietly sobbed her
way through the tale.
Misato's rage had only grown, and if he had not already been
dead she surely would have hunted Kaji to his death. After Maya had
finished she'd related her own story - the first Ritsuko had learned
of it.
Ikari had listened impassively, showing no apparent concern
for the trauma Maya had experienced. Only Ritsuko had noticed his
eyes narrowing, as if he were mostly annoyed at losing Kaji. That
momentary look of cold calculation fixed in her mind like no other.
When the story had been completed the NERV medical corps had
been summoned to dispose of the body. Since Maya had reported the
stubbornness with which Kaji had clung to life, on top of his erratic
behavior, Ritsuko had ordered an autopsy.
Sitting now in her office, after rereading the autopsy report
for the nth time, she didn't know what she'd really expected. Maybe
drugs, or some disease, anything to explain what he'd done. Some deep
part of her wanted to believe that what he'd done wasn't the work of
the same smiling young man she and Misato had spent so much time with
in their younger days.
In that regard she'd certainly gotten her wish. Whoever had
raped her, it wasn't Ryoji Kaji, because the thing DJ had killed
wasn't human. The problem was, she didn't know what it was, and the
medical corps hadn't done much better at identifying it.
Definitely of alien origin, it was a shell of cells which
appeared to have Kaji's DNA... but the internal organs were all wrong.
While the brain was still in the skull, nearly everything else was in
the wrong location. The brain itself was malformed, by normal human
standards, at that. It appeared this simulacrum was rather more
robust than the human Kaji would have been. Which helped explain why
several point blank pistol shots failed to stop it.
But what her mind kept returning to was its hands on her body.
Its grinning face leering at her, its breath hot on her neck. Its...
No. Don't go there.
Ritsuko snapped her head up, shaking that train of thought
before she could let it overrun her again. The feelings she had were
tangled. She was relieved to find that her attacker wasn't an old
friend, but disgusted and disturbed to find it was some alien thing.
Really, she wasn't sure which was worse.

Aside from the turmoil she still felt from her assault was a
new feeling of guilt. Though she still hadn't told anyone of her
attack, she wondered about her responsibility in Maya's attack. What
if she had spoken out? Kaji (for she still thought of it by that
name, if only for convenience) would have been questioned, and likely
imprisoned. Even if he hadn't been, everyone would have been wary
around him.
She felt certain that her silence had condemned Maya to the
horror she'd experienced at his hands - which would have been much
worse if not for DJ. DJ, who was now, as she firmly believed, dead
within EVA-01. This was not her finest hour.
Her computer beeped, signaling an incoming communication
request. Quickly composing herself she toggled the connection open.
Maya's face appeared immediately. "We're ready to continue with the
tests." Maya was curious about her boss sitting in an office that
appeared to be dark from what her screen showed, but she had more
important concerns.
"OK, I'll be right down."
"We'll be here." With that Maya broke the link.
Ritsuko paused at her desk for a moment longer, considering.
Finally she opened the top drawer and removed a plasticene bottle.
Undoing the top she shook a bright red pill into her palm and dry
swallowed it before replacing the bottle.
Closing her eyes and drawing a deep breath she muttered to the
empty room, "Better living through chemistry." As she left she
uttered one short, brittle laugh. No one was around to hear it,
though anyone who had been would have wondered at the tone.
At the back of her mind, a not yet conscious thought began to
take terrible shape. Kaji had worked closely with Ikari; practically
as his private errand boy. Had Ikari known?
What was this Kaji-thing doing in NERV? Who was he spying
for, what had he managed to find out? Most importantly, how long ago
did Kaji cease to be Kaji and instead become this simulacrum? It had
fooled both Misato and she; maybe it had fooled Ikari too.
But that look of, well, inconvenience on Ikari's face when he
heard of Kaji's death formed the nucleus of the developing atom of an
idea. It would continue to gather mass and force for some time to
come.
The final fission would wipe away all before it when it came.

The repair crews had done an admirable job patching up the EVA
bay and control room. Aside from the smell of new paint and the
unfamiliar feel of some of the new monitor-station keyboards, it was
almost impossible to tell that anything had ever happened to the
latter, while the former, though still showing the marks of its recent
battering, was functional. EVA-01 was locked down in its usual cage
again, the tears and missing segments of its armor covered with a
white polysheet wrapping that made it resemble a huge, bandaged burn
victim. It was really quite disturbing-looking, thought John
Trussell, with its huge green eyes and grinning slash of a mouth
exposed by the bandages.
On the main viewer, a wireframe diagram of the entry plug
rotated in real time, diagnostic information running down the sides.
No trace could be found of the pilot by the diagnostic sensors, but
that didn't necessarily mean anything more than sensor failure. In a
moment, they'd have patched the cockpit cameras back into the recorder
system again, and then they would know for sure.
Misato Katsuragi had spent the last two days sleeplessly
staring at that monitor, wondering if the emotional torture of life in
NERV would ever end - in the cold insensibility of death or in any
other way, it no longer mattered all that much to her. Now she would
find out how deep this new despair would cut, how much of her soul it
would rend away. She wondered how much she had left, or if it
mattered; she hadn't felt so hopeless since the day she watched half
the world die, fifteen years ago.
In a sense, she had already given DJ up; but the idea of
losing him completely, never seeing or hearing him again, had never
really come home to her before. The danger had always been there, but
even in the Dirac's Ocean incident, she had never truly believed he
might be gone. He couldn't be. He always had an angle...
But the look in his eyes as he blew her a kiss and mounted his
EVA had told her clearly he didn't have one this time.
"Camera signal is coming in," Maya reported, startling Misato
out of her reverie.
Ritsuko Akagi sighed. "Put it up... let's see what we've
got."
Steeling herself for the possibilities, Maya pressed the key,
and the main viewer blinked to a view of:
An empty Evangelion entry plug.
"What the - ?!" Misato blurted.
"Damn," Ritsuko muttered. "Just like last time. Run a
spectrographic analysis of the LCL; I'm pretty sure I know what we'll
find... "
"Running analysis." The data flowed across Maya's monitor,
and she drew back, looking quizzically at the display. "Massive
impurities detected, inconsistent with even long-term filtration
failure," she reported. "Lots of carbon and water... "
Ritsuko nodded. "Just as I suspected. He's in there... but
he's dissolved."
"Dissolved?!" Misato cried, grabbing Ritsuko's shoulder and
spinning her so they faced one another. "What the hell's that
supposed to mean?"
"All living beings possess a distinctive energy pattern that
makes them who and what they are," Ritsuko told her. "Its existence
was confirmed in 1983 by the Spengler-Stantz-Venkman paper. Surely
you've heard of it?"
Misato scowled. "You're the biophysicist, Ritsuko. I never
read anything more complicated than 'Achtung - Panzer!'"
Ritsuko sighed. "I won't go into the details, but I think
what's happened here is fairly simple. EVA-01 has absorbed the
subject's SSV pattern - his soul, if you want to be inexact and
sentimental about it - into its own. It probably happened when Unit
01 came back online after its power failed, along with the other, er,
transformations. When that happened his body lost cohesion and
disintegrated into its component chemicals, which were absorbed into
solution by the LCL."
"Then... he's... dead?" Misato said slowly, her face falling.
"Not exactly," SHODAN interjected. "His SSV pattern has
merged with that of Unit 01, but it may still retain some nuances of
its identity. Theoretically, it's possible to charge the LCL in such
a way as to force his biocomponents out of solution, and orient the
EVA's neurosystems such that his pattern is reconstituted. This may
return him to what you would consider 'normal'."
Misato looked curious. "You sound like this has happened
before."
"It has," said SHODAN before Ritsuko could interrupt. "In
2005, before you came to NERV, the unit absorbed its original test
pilot. The process I described was developed in an attempt to restore
her."
"Did... did it work?"
"No," Ritsuko said, scowling in the direction of SHODAN's
sensor pickup. "It didn't. That's what makes EVA-01 different from
the others, Misato... it has a human soul."
"Two of them, now," SHODAN said dispassionately.
"But there's a chance this process could work if we tried it
again?"
"Yes," said SHODAN. "The Magi calculate our chances of
success as an average of 5.4%; I concur with their analysis. It is
possible, however."
"Then we should try it again," Misato said firmly. "What do
you think, Ritsuko?"
"I think," Ritsuko mused, "our chances of recovering the
subject are too low to justify the expense and time we'd need to
invest in a recovery attempt."
Maya Ibuki could stand no more. Her fist clenched
convulsively, snapping the pencil she held, as she wheeled out of her
seat and shouted, "DAMN you, Ritsuko Akagi! He's not a SUBJECT! He's
a BOY, a -wonderful- fourteen-year-old boy, with a nice smile and a
kind heart a thousand times the size of yours! You know what he did
for Misato and I. We -owe- it to him! I don't care if the cost puts
NERV out of business, if there's ANYTHING that gives us a chance in a
billion of getting him back, by God, I'll do it myself!"
Misato, who had been about to protest herself, was stunned
into silence from this outburst from the person who had been Ritsuko's
staunchest supporter to date.
"Maya," said Ritsuko reproachfully, "you're letting your
emotions cloud your judgment." 'Oh, and you're not,' a shrill voice
silently accused her.
"You're damned right I am!" Maya replied. "I'm a human being,
being emotional is something you might have heard we're good at! You
know what DJ did for me! You know what kind of friend he was! Did
you ever feel anything for him, ever let him get close enough to know
the warmth of his friendship? You know, sometimes I wonder which one
is the computer, SHODAN or you!"
As if the mention of her name had spurred her into action,
SHODAN interjected into the stunned silence following Maya's last
comment, "Dr. Akagi, I must concur with Ms. Ibuki. Careful analysis
of existing data indicates that Derek Joshua Croft must be recovered
at any cost."
Ritsuko turned her anger with Maya on the computer instead,
snapping, "Don't tell me his computer sweet-talked you." It didn't
help that SHODAN spoke with the voice of her mother. Memories of her
mother, especially near the end, had been uncomfortably close to the
surface of her mind for several days now.
"Hal supplied no data for this conclusion," SHODAN replied
calmly. "Fact: Evangelion Unit 01 has demonstrated an insurmountable
resistance to pilots other than Croft. Fact: Projected strength of
Central Dogma defenses, discounting Unit 01, show 0.71% effectiveness
for the next six months. With Unit 01, that figure is 2.19%. Primary
project goals therefore require Unit 01 to be online. It has been
previously shown that this requires Croft's recovery. QED."
Ritsuko seethed for a moment, then nodded, swallowing her
anger and her pride.
"Fine. Prepare the LCL particulate recovery program."
"Coordinating LCL particulate recovery preparations with the
Magi. Estimated time to operational readiness: twenty-nine days,
seven hours, six minutes."
Twenty-nine days...
Twenty-nine days until Misato had her answer.
Suddenly, she wished she could talk to Asuka. Asuka would
understand.

Jon lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling and hoping that, if
he thought hard enough about it, the events of the last few days would
reverse themselves, then play out differently.
"Jon?" came a calm voice from the speaker unit on the wall.
"Yes, Hal?" said Jon, turning his eyes to the glowing red
lens.
"DJ asked me to give you a short message in the event that he
was incapacitated or killed in action," said Hal. "I do not
understand its significance, but he said you would know what it
means."
After a long moment of gathering his strength, Jon said
softly, "What is it, Hal?"
"Jon," said Hal, his voice bearing a narrative tone, "Talk to
Ken Stanfield. He knew my father, you can trust him. Tell him
everything we've found. He's promised to protect you, Rei, and Asuka
now that I can't do it myself."
Jon considered this for a moment; then Hal spoke again, in his
normal tone of voice. "DJ had one other message to pass on, of a
personal nature."
"What's that, Hal?"
"He said: 'The truth is out there.'"
A pause; a smile; a tear rolled down Jon's cheek.
"Thank you, Hal," he said softly.
"You're welcome, Jon," replied Hal.

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

COMING IN THE NEXT SEASON:

The Enemy revealed.
DJ's fate unfolds.
The war for Humanity's survival moves to a whole new playing field...
But the Children of Project Evangelion are still our only hope.
Old friends, new faces, and the answers to a thousand questions.

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION
EXODUS 3: REVELATIONS IN REAL TIME
begins with
EXODUS 3:1 - THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
Watch http://www.eyrie.net/whatsnew.html for details...

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