[Eva][FanFic] Neon Exodus Evangelion 3:1 - CQD

[Benjamin D. Hutchins]

Well, it's a couple of days early on the revised schedule, but it's
ready and you've waited long enough. Here's NXE 3:1, with a little
something extra for your patience.

--G.

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

EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED
presents

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION

EXODUS 3:1 - CQD

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,
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER by Walter Lord, 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

(c) 1998 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

/* James Horner "Southampton" _Titanic_ */

/--
As the great ship surges away from the Old Head of Kinsale and
into the open Atlantic, I stand at the forward rail, at the very point
of her bow, one hand on the rail at either side of the point. Far
below me the black peak of metal slashes through the blue-green water;
there is a chill in the sea air, but I am bundled in a new woolen
overcoat and never mind it. What do I care if it's a little cold? I
am free.
Free of my grandfather's endless pontification about proper
behaviour, free of any constraints but those I choose to bear, I'm on
my way back to America aboard the mightiest ship afloat: the White
Star Line's gleaming new flagship Titanic, on her maiden voyage. The
passenger list calls me Earl Crofthenge-in-Northants, etc., etc. - my
steward calls me Lord Derek - but the people I'm on my way back to,
they all call me DJ.
It's the eleventh of April, 1912, and I'm on my way home.
Jubilant, I throw my arms up and whoop to the twenty-knot wind
in a manner my grandfather would not approve of. For that matter, he
would not approve of my standing here at the very peak of the bow.
Because he might be stupid enough to fall overboard from here, he
assumes I must be as well. Fortunately, he remained behind in
England, and I will never have the burden of traveling with him again.
Not that some of my travelling companions aren't somewhat
trying in their own right. The drawback of travelling first class is
that you have to put up with all the other people who travel first
class. Generally, the more interesting people are in steerage. Mind
you, he fact that I know that doesn't mean that I indulge in the
loathsome habit of slumming, as some of my First Class fellows do.
Barging into the steerage spaces in full evening dress, chuckling in a
superior way at the antics of the lower classes, is entirely not my
way. If I go below decks, I dress to suit, then join in the fun.
Steerage may be cramped and a bit squalid, but there always seems to
be a party going on, especially if there are a lot of Irish aboard. I
love the Irish - sometimes I even manage to convince them of that.
They're so much fun, much more fun than most English; even more fun
than most Americans.
So good is my mood as I head aft across the forward well deck
that the thought of the evening's impending dinner amuses me, rather
than filling me with dread. I'm feeling my most puckish today. No
doubt that will bother some of the less flexible high-society types
who will be dining with me in the first-class dining saloon tonight.
I'm looking forward to it.
--/

PROJECT EVANGELION
PILOT RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAM RUNNING
R MINUS 28

Maya Ibuki entered Asuka's room quietly, not wanting to
disturb her if she were trying to rest; but she wasn't. She lay in
the midst of her web of traction cables and casts like some kind of
absurd pinata, staring at the ceiling with bleak, furious eyes. Her
face was painful to look at - dreadfully bruised and with a nasty line
of stitches running from under her chin to partway up her right cheek
- but she'd been assured that there would be no permanent scarring.
The full extent of her internal injuries had yet to be determined, but
for the moment she was out of danger, stable and allowed to remain
conscious and see visitors - not that there were many to see.
"Asuka?" Maya asked quietly.
Asuka's eyes slid toward Maya. "Yes?" she inquired, her voice
a trifle thick owing to the stiffness of her face.
"I came to see if you need anything."
"Is it true what they say about DJ?" asked Asuka. "That
he's... gone?"
Maya nodded, fighting back another wave of sadness. "Yes,
it's true."
Asuka's bruised lips pressed into a tight line. "Good."
"Asuka - " Maya began, but Asuka cut her off.
"He tried to kill me," she hissed angrily. "For no reason! I
begged him to stop until my throat was raw and he just kept on...
he... " She ran out of steam, and her face crumpled miserably, tears
welling up as she sobbed, "... I loved him and he tried to kill me...
why, why would he do that?"
Maya sat down next to the bed and put her hand on the back of
Asuka's. "He didn't have control, Asuka," she said softly. "He tried
to stop EVA-01, but he couldn't."
"It went berserk again? I thought he had better control than
that."
"No... it didn't go berserk." Maya sighed. "Look, I could
get into a lot of trouble for showing you this, but what the hell.
I'm already on Ikari's shit list for standing up for DJ to him,
anyway." She went to the wall viewer, keyed in a sequence of
commands, and indicated the screen to Asuka. "Watch. These are
the cockpit sensor logs from EVA-01."
The screen shifted to show DJ, as seen from the small
recording camera mounted on the entry plug's instrument panel,
slightly distorted by the mini-fisheye lens.
"I can't raise Unit 02 on EVA-to-EVA, Control," he reported
calmly. White subtitles captioned his words.
"Roger, EVA-01," came Maya's voice, captioned in yellow. "No
luck from this end either."
Asuka watched, silent, her eyes growing ever wider, as the
full story of her near-destruction played out, until, at last, the
recording ended with a black screen and a time/date stamp, just after
DJ's final, horrified "NO!"
Asuka stared in mute horror at Maya as the engineer cleared
the screen and went to the door.
"He couldn't hear me... " she whispered. "And Ikari... "
Maya understood anyway, and nodded. "Dr. Ikari discharged him
from NERV for his insubordination. In front of three witnesses, DJ
promised to kill him. Later that day, another Angel attacked,
disabling EVA-00 and EVA-03; DJ came back to fight it off, and in the
battle, EVA-01... absorbed him."
Asuka let her head drop back against the pillow and stared
bleakly at the ceiling.
"Oh, God," she moaned. "And ever since I woke up I've been
lying here hating him... oh, God, poor DJ... I can't even apologize
to him for thinking he would do such a terrible thing."
Maya returned to the side of the bed and patted Asuka's hand
again. "Some of us haven't given up hope yet. We think there's a way
to get him back."
"Seriously? Or are you just trying to cheer me up?"
"Seriously," said Maya. "He's special to a lot of us... and
we're not ready to say goodbye yet."
"How long?"
"About a month, according to SHODAN."
"A month... " Asuka pondered. "In a month they tell me I
might be ready to start learning to walk again." Her face darkened.
"It seems I have something to thank Dr. Ikari for, too."
"Try not to make too much noise about it now," Maya advised
her. "Without you and DJ to take some of the heat, Jon and Rei are
under terrible pressure from Ikari and Ritsuko. Any problems you
cause will just end up on their shoulders too."
Asuka thought that over, then nodded slightly. "I
understand."
"Good." Maya turned to go. "I'll check back now and then,
and let you know how we're doing. Try not to worry... there are
people on this project who'd move Heaven and Earth for DJ Croft." She
took a step toward the door, paused, and murmured softly, "I'm one of
them," before leaving.
Asuka whispered, "So am I," before starting to cry softly.
She couldn't remember ever having felt so terribly small and alone,
not even as a child. She'd grown accustomed to it, before DJ came
into her life. He had replaced her defenses, and now both were gone.
"Damn you, DJ Croft," she sobbed, unable to wipe at the tears
that ran from her eyes. "Why did you do this to me?"

/--
Dining first-class can be a pain. There's too much flatware,
and you're obligated by social custom to wear the clothes on which you
least want to get food. Mother was right - I'm a workingman at heart.
I'd usually rather sit in my favorite pub in shirtsleeves and eat a
sandwich than deal with haute cuisine. The conversation is probably
better down the pub, too.
"I say, Captain - it's a truly remarkable ship you have here,"
says Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon. What a stunningly boring fellow Sir Cosmo
is! Now he's gone and given that irksome man from the White Star Line
another excuse to hold forth on the majesty of the ship.
Sure enough, before the captain can say a word, Ikari has
pushed his glasses up his nose and is intoning in his overly sombre
voice, "Thank you. We have spared no expense or effort to make
Titanic the most luxurious vessel afloat, Sir Cosmo."
Deep within me, there is a demon, a small, diabolical being
who cannot resist tweaking men like Ikari. I generally let it have
free reign; it's easier than fighting.
So it is that I say, "All that luxury makes her heavy and
slow, though. She's a pretty ship, but she'll never take the Blue
Riband away from Cunard."
Sir Cosmo and JJ Astor frown at me; a decorous man would have
avoided that subject. So too does Ikari, before he recovers his
aplomb and replies, "That is of no importance. Titanic's luxury is
such that no one will ever complain that it took them a few extra
hours to reach New York or Southampton. The first-class
accommodations aboard the Mauretania are not even equal in luxury to
Titanic's second-class berths." He pushes his eyeglasses up his nose,
a habit of his that is both deeply ingrained and annoying, and says
coldly, "There really can be no comparison."
"Hear, hear," says Duff Gordon, shooting me a look. He's
trying to steer the conversation away, but my demon isn't through with
Ikari yet.
"Will you use that in future advertising for the ship?"
Holding my hands up as if framing a poster, I speculate on slogans:
"'RMS Titanic: So Comfortable, You Won't Care That She's Slow'."
Ikari's face is colouring rapidly by now, and so are some of
the others at the table. Captain Katsuragi coughs decorously; she
hides a smile discreetly behind her napkin, but I can tell it from her
eyes. I find myself wondering how old she is. She must have quite a
bit of sea experience to hold a position of such importance in the
White Star fleet, yet she seems quite young to my eyes, and a very
handsome woman too. She must have terrific force of will to have
risen so high in an industry as heavily male-dominated as this. I
wish I knew her better.
John Trussell, the great ship's builder, isn't at the table
tonight. He has come along on the maiden voyage with the intent of
noting down improvements to be made in the ship (and in her
under-construction third sister, which I'm told is to be called
'Gigantic'), and tonight he's probably in his stateroom, hard at work
with his blueprints and drawings. Trussell understands ships the way
some people understand horses.
The crew of the ship unanimously speak of Trussell with an
admiration bordering on hero worship. He takes the time to speak with
them, from the navigation officers to the engine room crew to the
stewards, soliciting their opinions and the benefit of their
experience living and working in the spaces he designs, and they love
him for it. To his face they're always proper and call him
Mr. Trussell, but among themselves he's always "Truss". I suspect he
would approve if he knew; he's a charmingly unpretentious man, one of
the few such in First Class.
I wish he were here tonight; I want to get to know him better.
Perhaps tomorrow I'll seek him out and see if I can get him to give me
a better tour of the ship than the fivepence twirl round the Boat Deck
passengers normally get. (If not, I shall be forced to invade the
engineering spaces of my own devices.)
As it is, the only even vaguely engaging person at the table
is Captain Katsuragi herself. Everyone else is an insufferable bore
with far too much money and time on their hands. Duff Gordon and his
wife, the cream of England's relentlessly dull gentility. Benjamin
Guggenheim and his mistress, how discreet. John Jacob Jingleheimer,
er, Astor and his wife, who's barely older than me. Arthur Langley, a
pompous, overbearing boor of a German banker; his wife, a charming
Japanese lady who might be interesting if her idiot husband would ever
let her speak; and their daughter, who reminds me why it was not
necessarily a bad thing that redheads used to be burned at birth as
witches. Gendou Ikari, Managing Director of the White Star Line, who
at one turn claims to be a passenger and at the next is overriding
Captain Katsuragi on some point of operation, and whose habit of
pushing his glasses up and then staring intensely at whomever he is
speaking to may drive me utterly mad before the evening is out.
And, at the head of the table, in ostensible charge of this
entire operation, Captain Misato Katsuragi. Immaculate in her blue
uniform with its profusion of gold braid and gleaming buttons, she
surveys the table with perfect confidence despite the constant
butting-in of Mr. Ikari, her dark hair bundled under her cap. Again I
wonder how old she is. Normally she commands the Olympic, but as
commodore of White Star's fleet, it's her prerogative to take each new
ship on its maiden voyage.
Something seems profoundly odd about this assemblage, but I
can't think of what it can be. At face value, it seems a perfectly
ordinary gathering of astoundingly boring rich people, of the sort one
usually finds at the Captain's table on the first night out from land.
I don't know where this feeling of wrongness comes from, but it's
starting to make me very uneasy as I butter a roll and exchange what
passes for witty conversation with Guggenheim.
--/

R MINUS 26

Lara Croft hadn't been at her home in Northamptonshire for a
few days, but she hadn't been far abroad this time. No, just a trip
to London, to look around, do a bit of shopping, and have a wary
dinner with her father, Sir Henshingly Croft.
The occasion was inevitably awkward. Sir Henshingly and his
daughter hadn't spoken except through solicitors in almost twenty-five
years, after all. The old man made no secret of his disappointment in
the sort of woman Lara had turned out to be. He'd spared no expense
in the matter of her education, sent her to the best finishing school
on the Continent. She'd grown into a tall, fine-looking young woman,
and with her poise and charm polished by that schooling, she was
certain to have no difficulty finding a husband. She'd never given
any indication of unhappiness with this prospect; she'd been a
perfectly normal young lady.
Just before graduation, her class had taken a trip to Japan.
Sir Henshingly had seen her off at Heathrow, had spoken to her on the
phone just before the return flight left Tokyo. She'd been happy,
pleased by the trip, looking forward to coming home.
Then the 747 went down in the Tibetan Himalayas, and everyone
aboard died - everyone but Lara, who found herself, somehow, unharmed
save for a few scratches and bruises. In that one endless moment of
sliding, smashing, sparking, smoke-filled, screaming, galvanized,
mindless terror, everything that had ever seemed important to Lara
revealed itself to be meaningless. In a sense, as she would tell her
son in later years, Lara Croft the society flower died with her
classmates. It was a different person, a grown woman, fiercely
independent and possessed of a bottomless reserve of determination,
who emerged from the wrecked airliner into the shocking cold of the
mountain air.
Three weeks later, that woman walked into a village on the
Chinese border, found a telephone, and called home; but home wasn't
ready for the changed Lara. Without any common frame of reference at
all, she couldn't explain to her father the revelation on the point of
oblivion that had made her angrily intolerant of the stifling,
mindless atmosphere of high society. Unwilling to fit herself back
into the pattern of her old life, unable to make Sir Henshingly
understand that she had become, all at once, an adult, Lara discovered
that she and her father really didn't like one another very much, and
moved out on her own. Wounded and wrathful, Sir Henshingly promptly
disowned her, and so it had been.
While the Second Impact was wracking the world, Lara was in
the western United States, one of the hardest-hit parts of the world.
She came within a hairsbreadth of dying in the Great San Andreas
Earthquake. then spent the next few months searching for her lover, an
American FBI agent, and his partner, who both had gone missing in the
quake. Eventually the Bureau reported them both deceased, and Lara
returned to England.
While the dazed surviving half of the human race slowly pieced
itself back together, drawing closer, stepping back from their frantic
pre-Impact pace of life, absorbing the inevitable huge changes brought
on by such a cataclysm, Lara's life was touched by the bittersweet
birth of her son, a boy who would never know his father. Sir
Henshingly made a few harrumphing overtures of peace at this time, but
Lara was in no mood. Rebuffed, the old man's anger was rekindled.
The ensuing years saw court battles and the occasional outright plot
as Sir Henshingly sought to show his daughter unfit to raise the boy.
DJ's recent successful bid for emancipation, rendering the
entire custody question moot, stunned Sir Henshingly. Only after
it was lost did he suddenly realize that the cause he had devoted all
his energies to for years hadn't been about the boy at all. Only then
did he realize that all he was really trying to do was cause his
wayward daughter the same pain, the same loss, he himself had felt
when she turned away from him.
The shock caused Sir Henshingly, in his sixties and not in the
best of health, to suffer a heart attack. Only the quick action (and
expert driving) of Dennis Franklin, Sir Henshingly's loyal chauffeur,
got him to a hospital in time for the doctors to save his life. On
the ER table at London Mercy, as doctors fought to bring him back from
a total cardiac arrest, Sir Henshingly Croft had his own revelation on
the point of oblivion. Now, after several months of struggling and
soul-searching, he'd made his first attempt at making peace: a short,
handwritten note, without posturing, simply asking her if she would
lunch with him in London some day soon.
Lara knew of her father's recent affliction, for Sir
Henshingly's solicitor had informed hers. In a gesture which she
irritably informed Mildram was mere decency (certainly no act of
residual filial devotion!), she'd sent an aloe plant to his hospital
room. Not flowers; the old man was terribly allergic to flowers,
something Lara remembered more out of reflex than through any
conscious impulse. Still, after years of enmity, she received his
note with more than a little wariness. What was he up to now?
In the end, after seeking the counsel of Mildram, of her son,
and of Misato Katsuragi (all of whom had responded, guardedly, "Well,
what could it hurt?"), Lara sent back a similarly cordial note telling
Sir Henshingly she would be pleased to dine with him the next time she
was in London.
Lara reflected on the meeting as she entered Crofthenge's main
hall, stamping snow from her boots and shrugging out of her coat. Her
father had looked well - the doctors told him he was recovering
remarkably well from his attack, and as he was following the regimen
they prescribed to the letter, he was healthier now than he'd been in
years. She had some idea how hard it was for him to extend an olive
branch after so many years of implacability; they both had the streak
of stubborn pride that marked the Croft line.
And after so many years, it surprised Lara how easily she
accepted that branch, and how happy it made her to embrace her father
for the first time in twenty-five years.
She hummed happily as she entered her study, hanging her coat
on the well-worn brass hook by the door and then leafing through the
pile of mail on her desk. It was Mildram's day off, so she got
herself a tonic water from the miniature refrigerator under the desk
rather than ring for him to bring in some wine. Amid the bills and
letters from various museums and private collectors (all no doubt
asking to commission her to look for some forgotten thing or another)
was a yellow envelope, a Western Union telegram. She peeled it apart,
wondering if it might be a message from DJ, who sometimes cabled
rather than wrote.
Her brown eyes widened in disbelief as they saw that it was
not.

FROM NERV CENTRAL COMMAND WORCESTER-3 MA US
TO LARA CROFT CROFTHENGE-IN-NORTHANTS NORTHAMPTONSHIRE ENGLAND UK

WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR SON EP1C DEREK J CROFT IS LISTED
MISSING IN ACTION A/O 00:07 TUE 11/24/2015

SIGNED CDR G IKARI CMDG NERV CENTRAL COMMAND

For the third time, everything in Lara Croft's life abruptly
stopped, then slowly moved on again. Slowly, she put the telegram
down on her desk. For a long few minutes, she gazed out the window
behind her desk at the falling snow. Then she picked up the telephone
and called Southampton.

/--
The first-class stewardess who looks after my section is a
pretty, extremely soft-spoken and sweet girl named Rei,
who I would guess is little or no older than myself. Unfortunately
for her, my section also contains the loathsome Herr Langley and his
equally unpleasant daughter. It's too bad that money is the only
criterion for a berth in First Class... but I suppose if it weren't,
the other criteria would be stupid ones too, and nice people like the
Strauses wouldn't be among us. It's a mean and petty world under all
this gilt and scrollwork - a fact I learned, indirectly, from my
grandfather.
Anyway, Rei - who has perfect ash-white skin and hair a
remarkable shade of silvery blue (cut in a simple pageboy that frames
her lovely face with its wide, deep-red eyes that seem to look right
through you) - is a wonderful but rather sad girl, and if I could
convince her to come away with me and leave the sea behind I'd take
her back to the States with me and... Well, I don't know, try to make
her happy. Damned if Mum isn't right about that silly, romantic
streak in me, but damned if she doesn't have it herself, too, however
she tries to pretend she hasn't. Anyway, I'm so damned impulsive I
can't say for certain I wouldn't actually do it, if not for the
section steward.
The section's steward is one Jon Ellison, one of those tall,
lanky fellows who could be anywhere from an old-looking fourteen to a
boyish twenty. As all stewards must, he has the patience of a saint,
the endurance of a steam engine and the quiet, dutiful politeness of a
chaplain. It's his first cruise on so grand a ship; he was, he told
me yesterday, recruited from the crew of the Cunard single-stacker
Carpathia. He has little time or attention to spare on admiring the
appointments of the ship, though, and any he manages to hoard is spent
not on that, but on quietly mooning over Rei. I know the signs;
I've done it myself. (It occurs to me that I may yet be -doing- it
myself.) Anyway, I try to bother him as little as possible; God knows
he has enough to do with the Langleys in his section, poor lad, and I
wish him all the luck.
As if thinking of their name is enough to summon the hellspawn
from their den, the door to their suit across the alleyway crashes
open and the girl (Asuka, I think her name is) emerges.
"Honestly!" she declares, in a voice carefully calculated to
carry to as many nearby staterooms as possible. "One would think that
for the maiden voyage of their finest ship, White Star could have
hired stewards who can handle at least the simplest tasks. I'm going
up to the Boat Deck. You'd best have this cleaned up by the time I
get back."
And away she swoops, in a great rustling dress that must have
cost about as much as the Renault one of my fellow passengers has down
in the hold. A pretty dress, indeed, though I should think it rather
unsuitable for promenading round the Boat Deck on a chilly April
afternoon. On the other hand, perhaps she'll catch pneumonia. I step
across the alleyway and look into the still-open suite sitting room,
to find Rei kneeling amid the scattered remains of what was once a
tea-set tray, picking up broken cups and trying to mop up the tea with
her apron. As I drop down to help her, I can see that she's fighting
back tears, but when she sees me, she tries to protest.
"Sir, you don't need - "
"Tch, it's all right," I replied, gathering up some of the
broken china and piling it on the tray. "Beastly girl. Her parents
don't beat her enough."
At this Rei bites back a chuckle; if only for a moment, her
face threatens to smile. I very much would like to see what that
looks like, but in this I seem destined for disappointment. The
moment passes quickly, and she sets to picking up the remainder of the
china, looking resolutely down.
"She turned round as I was bringing the tea," she said, "and
knocked it out of my hands... then blamed me, naturally."
"It's all right," I said, making my own futile attempt at
mopping up the mess with my handkerchief. "I'm on your side.
First-class passengers are the worst kind of pain, aren't we? We
always want everything right away, and haven't a clue how anything
works. Plus, most of us are in dire need of a sound beating from
somebody bigger than ourselves." I considered for a moment. "Perhaps
the captain should just have the lads from the stokehold come up and
thrash each of us individually, just to show us what's what."
"What happened here?" I hear a voice behind me. Turning, I
can see it's Ellison, the other cabin steward. He doesn't know
whether to look indignant or deferential, and so ends up being a bit
of both.
"Bit of an upset with a tea-set, it appears," I reply. "Would
you be a good lad and fetch us a towel? The tea's rather gotten ahead
of my cleanup attempt."
As I set to helping Rei mop up the rest of the mess, my mind
turns to thoughts of revenge. Yes, I know, it's rather uncivilised
and petty of me; on the other hand, I think we've covered my level of
civilisation already.
--/

R MINUS 25

#My God! It's full of stars!#
#My God! It's full of stars!#
Those words had been looping through the audio playback for a
good long time now. The volume was set low, but Jon heard it anyway.
Finally he couldn't take it anymore and got up, quietly padding out of
his room and toward the source of the noise.
It was, as he expected, coming from DJ's bedroom: Rei sat on
the edge of the bed, facing away from the door and toward Hal. Anubis
sat next to her, looking up with concerned eyes as Rei repeatedly hit
the REVIEW key, making the last thing DJ had said play again and
again.
#My God! It's full of stars!#
#My God! It's full of stars!#
#My God! It's full of stars!#
Anubis glanced back at Jon and whimpered quietly as Jon
climbed onto the opposite side of the bed and made his way across.
Rei did not react at all, merely kept clicking the button, making the
sound loop through again. It wasn't until Jon was right behind her
and had rested his hands on her shoulders that she stopped.
"You've been playing that for hours now," Jon said quietly.
"Yes," she answered, even quieter.
"Why?"
"Maybe if I listen to it enough I'll figure it out."
"Figure what out?"
"That's just it..." Rei replied, with more than a little
frustration. "...I don't know yet."
Jon began to gently massage her shoulders. "You should get
some sleep."
"I don't want to," she mumbled.
"The sound file will be there tomorrow," Jon persisted.
"I know that," Rei sighed, and leaned back into his embrace.
"But I don't want to sleep, because if I do... I'll just dream about
death."
"Then I'll dream about life," Jon said quietly, holding her a
little tighter and trying to banish the unpleasant thoughts. "They'll
cancel each other out."
For a while the only sound was that of Hal's cooling fan.
Then Rei tilted her head back a little farther, so she could speak
softly into Jon's ear.
"Dr. Ikari was right about DJ... and you."
"What do you mean?" he asked just as softly.
"You're a bad influence on me. Before, I didn't care about
death, but now... now I'll be less effective in combat, because..."
Her voice dropped to the barest whisper. "... I don't want to die."
"Nobody wants to die," Jon whispered back. "I don't, DJ
doesn't... it didn't stop us from doing our jobs." He paused for a
moment. "I didn't care about death either, when I first came here.
But... that was before I found someone worth living for."
"...yes," she whispered, and Jon thought he heard a sniffle.
She hadn't wanted to admit it any more than he had, but now that their
eyes were opening and they knew right more clearly from wrong, the
situation was fast becoming unbearable.
"But you don't have to worry," he said. "You won't die."
"Why not?"
"Because...... because we will protect you."
This time a small sob did escape. For all either of them
knew, that 'we' might be figurative. Out of instinct Jon held her a
little more firmly, planting a small kiss on her neck, doing his best
to banish the lurking pain that waited for any opportunity to
overwhelm them.
After a time, Rei tilted her head back even further, looking
into his eyes. He looked right back, letting the synchrony happen,
letting the feelings flow.
"Protect me tonight," she whispered, leaning in close so he
could feel her breath against his lips and guiding his arms down from
her shoulders to a softer, more comfortable position.
"Until the end of the universe," he whispered back, closing
the remaining millimeter of distance between them. Softly, tenderly,
they kissed. "...and beyond."
After an hour or so, they fell asleep in each other's arms.
And dreamed of life.

/--
"How do I look?" I ask, tugging at the hem of my (borrowed)
starched white waistcoat and brushing some imaginary lint from the
sleeve.
"Not bad," replies the long-faced chief of B Deck's
first-class cabin stewards. "You've even the right accent for it,
more or less, if you'd only clip your vowels a bit more."
"Ah. Right." I make a mental note to do just that. "How's
this?"
"Better," concedes the steward with a nod. "I could get into
a lot o' trouble fer this," he said, "but your lordship's correct -
that girl's no good. See here, though - if you get caught, I don't
know you."
I smile. "Don't worry about that."
The worst part of the job is the tedium; garbed as a steward,
I wait for almost an hour at the service station before the light
indicating a summons from the Langley suite goes off. A thrill of
anticipation goes through me as I straighten my cap and march down the
corridor with the brisk stride of a steward answering an important
passenger's summons. It's 6:30 in the evening, ship's time; I've
missed dinner, which will no doubt be the subject of some discussion
among the men in the smoking room. More to the point, Herr Langley
will now be sitting down to an evening of smoking, drinking brandy and
talking horses with the gentlemen, while Frau Langley will be
shamelessly gossiping with all the other ladies in the Writing Room.
Young Fraulein Langley is most likely alone in the suite,
As I open the door to the suite's sitting room, I see that it
is the girl who has summoned me, just as I hoped. I watch her face
for a sign of recognition, but, as expected, she ignores me except to
deliver a demand for a bucket of fresh ice. Having seen the hat and
the white coat, she pays no attention to the face in between. I might
as well be a Turk, or an ottoman, for that matter.
"Very good, miss," I reply, and, pivoting on my heel, back I
go to the service station. So it's ice you want, eh, Fraulein? I'll
give you ice.
Seventy-six seconds later I am on my way back into the sitting
room, a silver ice-bucket full of shaved ice and water in my hands.
Fraulein Langley is sitting in a straight-backed chair at the room's
small table, her back to me, writing. Hearing me enter, she says
without looking round, "Just put it on the table and go, will you?"
"Very good, miss," I repeat; then, without hesitation, I step
up behind her and pour the ice water over her head.
Her shriek of shock and outrage is magnificent - a single
animal sound embodying shock, fright, outrage, anger, all overlapping
and blended. She stands up fast enough to knock over the chair,
whirling to face me. Her auburn hair hangs straight down, now,
plastered wetly to her head and shoulders, and her dress is wet almost
to the waist. From this it's clear she wears no corset; I wonder idly
if it's a Westernism her mother has protected her from, or if the
woman merely feels her daughter is too young yet. Either way, I'm
pleased for her. She's a beastly girl, but corsets are dreadful
things, painful and unhealthy. There's a difference between wanting
someone to suffer a bit, and wishing a life of torment and short
breath on her.
For a moment, she sputters impotently, too enraged to put
words together; then, with a visible effort of will, she gathers her
wits and screams, "YOU - MISERABLE - FILTHY - BASTARD! I should have
the Sergeant-at-Arms throw you overboard! I hope you've enjoyed your
little joke, because I'm certain your employ with this line just
ended. What's your name, cretin?"
I give her my frostiest look, then reach up and remove the
steward's cap from my head. Now she pays attention to the face, and I
see the recognition and consternation fill her eyes.
"My name, as I believe you know, is Croft. Lord Derek
J. Croft. I'll thank you to curb your language when you speak to me."
For a moment she's too startled from recognizing me to reply;
then the anger sweeps over her again, and she bellows, "What the
devil's the meaning of this? How dare you barge in here under false
pretenses and douse me with ice water! I shall have Father speak to
your guardian, who will no doubt properly tan your miserable hide for
this outrage."
"My guardian?" I laugh, although she has no way of knowing
why what she's just said is so funny. "That'll be the day. I
wouldn't make too big a deal of this affair, Fraulein - you wouldn't
wish your father to know of the language you've used, would you?"
She scowls, knowing I have a point; her fingers stiffen into a
claw-like position, and for a moment I'm almost afraid she'll try to
gouge my eyes out. Then she relaxes, her scowl becoming a sly smile,
and she says,
"You're a very clever young man, Lord Derek, but if you think
that, simply because you've covered yourself from public revenge, I
shan't seek satisfaction for this outrage, you're quite mistaken."
It dawns on me that, after all, I rather like this girl.
And so I smile, and bow, and say, "I look forward to it,
Fraulein Langley." Then I show myself out.
--/

R MINUS 22

Misato Katsuragi sat at the kitchen table, glumly surveying
the piles of unopened mail. Her motivation for dealing with bills and
circulars, never the greatest, had slipped to new depths of late.
None of it seemed in any way important now. In a hundred years, who
would care? Who would even be alive to care, come to that?
She was about to summarily consign all of it to the circular
file when the corner of a long letter envelope, edged in red and blue
striping, peeked out from the pile and caught her attention. Drawing
the envelope out, she noticed that it was addressed to her, formally
("MAJ. MISATO KATSURAGI") in a strong, somewhat squared-off,
masculine hand. There was no return address; the stamps were English.
Curious, she slit the envelope, then removed and read the letter
within. It read:

Major Katsuragi:

I learned of you through my correspondence with DJ Croft. He has had
many positive things to say of you, and has indicated that you, alone
among the hierarchy of NERV's Operations Division, are both worthy of
trust and possessed of discretion. I write to extend my condolences
on the double near-tragedy which has struck your organisation of late,
and to express my wishes for a speedy recovery for the injured pilot
and a happy resolution to the question of DJ's fate. The details
escape me - I am only an amateur historian, and not much of a
scientist! - but I am given to understand that there is hope.

For his sake as much as our own, -we must not abandon that hope.-

Before his disappearance, DJ confided to me certain details regarding
a crisis of leadership at NERV (specifically, the increasingly erratic
behavior of Commander Ikari). He was loath to come to any conclusions
on the information he had, but it was clear he suspected a reckoning,
and a possible schism between NERV and SEELE, might be in the offing.
I, like DJ, believe that in such an event, NERV's best course of
action lies in an alliance with X-COM, an organization whose
integrity, unlike SEELE's, I believe is beyond reproach.

I wish to assure you that I am in full support of NERV. Should
matters come to an open confrontation, I offer you and your personnel
royal protection and support anywhere within the Commonwealth and the
Empire. I urge you to contact Colonel J.A. Lethbridge-Stewart,
commandant of the X-COM facility in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada,
regarding an evacuation plan to this, the nearest X-COM base within
Imperial territory. I cannot send British troops into the United
States, but neither will SEELE dare use its pawns, the U.S. military,
within the Dominion of Canada.

If you doubt any part of this message, please telephone me at the
number enclosed, at any time.

Yours sincerely,
<scribble>
Stephen Fiske-Windsor

Misato stared at the letter for a good ten minutes, idly
turning the accompanying calling card over in her fingers, before she
realized that Stephen Fiske-Windsor was better known to Americans as
Stephen II, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Upon that realization, she stared for a few minutes more; and then,
slowly, as if in a dream, she picked up the telephone on the counter
and began to dial.

/--
I suppose there's really no reason for me to be in the forward
cargo hold, other than my innate fondness for lurking about in dark,
quiet places where I have no business being. For some reason, when
I'm poking round in warehouses, cargo holds, buried temples, and the
like - that's when I really feel alive. Sometimes I think I only
appreciate my life when I'm risking it.
Not that there's much risk involved in having a look round a
cargo hold. I don't think it's even strictly against the rules for me
to be here.
Cargo holds have a particular smell, and it occurs to me as I
explore this one that it must be the smell of the cargo itself. The
hold is, after all, brand new. This is its very first load, yet it
smells exactly the same as every other cargo hold, warehouse, junk
shop and such-like establishment I've ever been in.
Except... there's something different, something -wrong-,
about it. It's nagging at me, just outside my conscious reach. I
stop just past the front fender of the hold's lone automobile and try
to put my finger on what it is...
... And then it dawns on me. It's cold. Even for April in
the North Atlantic, it's -cold- down here. My breath is puffing out
in front of me in a cloud, and the tip of my nose is numbing. It
shouldn't be -that- cold. Only a refrigerator ship is that cold.
We're not hauling sides of meat in here, so why should the hold be
below freezing?
My curiosity's up now. I lick a fingertip and hold it up.
There's no wind to speak of down here, but the cooling effect is
moving some air, as I'd hoped. I follow the current to the far corner
of the hold. Whatever's refrigerating the place must be over here,
behind this frost-rimed stack of steamer trunks. I edge around the
stack and look.
It's here, all right. The most intense cold is radiating out
from under a blue tarpaulin laid across a group of long, narrow
objects which are laid out in a row on the floor against the hold's
aft bulkhead. From their size and shape, they could almost be
coffins. Transporting corpses by luxury steamer? Seems a bit
extravagant even for the Edwardian rich.
I take a corner of the tarp and bend it back; it's stiff with
ice and cracks more than it bends. The object underneath isn't a
coffin, at least, not one I've ever seen. It's a steel cylinder,
perhaps seven feet in length and three in diameter, its bottom side
flattened slightly so it won't roll. There are twelve of them laid
out in this row. But what the devil are they?
There's a dark, oblong patch on the surface of this cylinder.
Bending down, I almost touch it before I realize how stupid that would
be; then I get out my handkerchief to keep my hand from freezing to
the metal and brush away the frost that obscures that patch. It turns
out to be a White Star Line luggage label.
It appears that, whatever this metal cylinder is, it belongs
to Mr. G. Ikari.
A metallic clatter sounds from the other end of the hold.
Someone else has come down! Thinking I'd better scarper before they
think I'm trying to steal Ikari's freezer or something, I put the tarp
back and duck behind the nearest pile of trunks - I can't run back to
the companionway and leave the hold without passing whoever's come
down. I'll just have to hide and hope they leave soon.
The footsteps come toward me. From the sound of them, whoever
it is isn't worried about being detected. He's walking as if he owned
the place.
As I peer out through a gap between two trunks, he comes into
my view, and I realize that I'm not far off. The new arrival is
Mr. Ikari.
He bends down and flips back the same tarp I was just looking
under. Then his brow furrows as he notices the spot where I've wiped
away the frost. Pushing up his glasses, he leans over and touches his
gloved fingertips to the luggage label, and stays there for an
agonizing few minutes, lost in thought.
Then he straightens, replaces the tarp, turns, and leaves the
hold.
I can breathe again.
But what in God's name is going on?
--/

R MINUS 19

Worcester-3 was fading away. The population continued to
decline at a rapid rate, and no area of the city was immune to the
effects. People were moving out, and a lot of the business was
moving out with them. The people that remained were either very
hardy, very poor, or somehow still had faith that NERV and their
superweapons would carry them through this whole mess.
As he leaned against the school fence and looked out at
the city with Rei, Jon wished he could be more certain of NERV's
ability to do that. There were a lot of things he wished he could
be more certain of.
The school was almost totally empty. After talking with
numerous teachers whose classes had dwindled to near nonexistence
(never mind the teachers who had resigned and bailed), the
administration had agreed that keeping the place open was more trouble
than it was worth, and so the few remaining students had been
recruited to help move everything into storage and lock the place up.
This had taken the better part of the day, but by early afternoon all
that was left was for the superintendent to officially release
everyone and lock the gates.
Jon had mixed feelings about it. This, of all places, had
been a welcome diversion from the purgatory which NERV had turned into
not long ago. Sure, this whole school thing had basically been a NERV
public relations effort, and a lot of the kids had given him and the
other pilots a wide berth, but there was a lot to be said for
associating with people who weren't attached to the program and thus
didn't have the resultant emotional baggage.
And one by one, his links to that mundane world were
disappearing. If this kept up, before long the program would be the
sum total of his life again. Were it not for Rei, he imagined his
sanity would be nosediving along with everyone else's.
Tommy Sullivan had a very eloquent phrase for describing
situations like this: 'Man, this sucks.'
"Hey Jon!"
Speaking of whom... Jon turned around -- though Rei did
not -- to see Tommy and Ken approaching. Ken looked fairly pleased
with himself, giving a friendly wave, while Tommy seemed a little
distracted.
"Man, I didn't think we were ever gonna finish!" Ken
observed, referring to all the moving that had been going on.
"What's left to do?" Jon asked, doing his best to scrape
together some interest.
"Zip. We're done," Tommy replied. "They're going through
and locking everything now."
"Yep, s'all over but the shouting," Ken grinned.
"Great," Jon replied halfheartedly.
"Contain your enthusiasm," Tommy remarked.
"Take it easy, Tommy," said another voice, and everyone --
again, except for Rei, who still stared blankly out at the city --
turned to see Kevin Nelson approaching. "It's been a rough week."
The boys' smiles slipped. It had indeed been a rough week,
and now that he actually had time to think about it, Ken realized that
it had to be even worse for the two EVA pilots in front of him.
Ayanami had always been distant before, but now she seemed positively
withdrawn, and Ellison looked as if he really was carrying the weight
of the world on his shoulders...
...and Croft and Langley were notable in their absence. It
didn't take much brainpower to guess what had happened.
"Are they... gonna be okay?" Ken ventured cautiously.
"DJ and Asuka, I mean..."
Jon was silent for a moment, glancing sidelong at Rei, who
returned his glance with a barely perceptible nod. "Asuka will
recover. DJ..." he sighed heavily. "Well, we don't know yet."
"Damn..." Tommy replied, glancing downward. There was silence
for a moment, then he leveled his gaze at Jon once more. "Listen,
um... could you do me a favor?"
"Like what?" Jon asked.
"Well, I, uh, wanted to tell DJ I was sorry for that fight a
while back. It was a stupid thing to do. I was gonna tell him myself
but my folks are leaving tonight, so, um, I was wondering..."
"...I'll tell him," Jon replied quietly.
"Thanks," Tommy said, looking relieved. "You're all right,
Ellison." He scratched at the back of his neck, grinning nervously.
"Well, heh... I guess I'd better go see if Hilary needs any help with
her stuff. Uh... see you around."
"I don't know whether to admire Hilary or pity her," Ken
mused, shaking his head, as Sullivan passed out of earshot.
"I'm sure they'll work it out," Kevin replied, sounding
faintly amused.
"I've gotta go too," Ken sighed. "Trying to convince my
folks to hang on a little longer, but I guess they don't wanna get
up close and personal with all the military hardware." He managed
a wry grin, and Jon had to chuckle a little. "Anyway, could you,
uh, say goodbye for me too?"
"Sure," Jon nodded.
"Thanks. Hey, you take care, okay?" We need -somebody-
to save the world, he didn't add.
"We will. Same to you."
Ken left then, heading off in the same direction Tommy had
gone. Kevin remained where he was, watching Ken go. For a time,
there was silence.
"I guess things aren't going too well, are they?" he finally
said.
"... No," Rei mumbled.
A pained look passed over Kevin's face. After a moment he
spoke again: "Will they be all right? Really?"
"I wish I knew," Jon answered, sighing heavily and leaning
against the fence. "There's a lot of things I wish I knew."
Another silence.
A faint smile returned to Kevin's face. "You'll do what's
right, I'm sure."
Jon didn't know how to reply to that, instead changing the
subject: "You leaving too?"
"Not just yet. I've got some things I need to do first."
He didn't elaborate, and Jon didn't ask. "Take care."
"Yeah, you too." Not for the first time, Jon wondered if
he would ever figure that kid out.

/--
It's Sunday afternoon, and I'm avoiding the madding crowd -
well, all right, the stuffy crowd - taking dinner in my stateroom. I
still feel chilled - in more ways than one - by my descent into the
hold earlier, so I'm wrapped up in a blanket and sipping hot tea while
I catch up on some correspondence. At the moment the knock sounds at
the door, I'm reading a letter from a fellow of the Royal Society who
claims to have found some absolutely fascinating items in Egypt's
Valley of the Kings. Perhaps I'll stop by and see if I can be of help
to him once I've taken care of business in America.
But as I'm thinking about that, the knock comes.
"Enter!" I call, putting the letter down, and the door opens,
revealing not, as I'd expected, Ellison with my dinner, but rather
Captain Katsuragi. I spring to my feet, only slightly hampered by the
blanket. "Ah, hello, Captain! What brings you by? Come to chide me
for my rude absence from the dining hall?"
She smiles. "No, no. Just stopping by to see that you're all
right. I thought perhaps your tour of the engine room might have worn
you out."
"Not at all. Chief Engineer Ibuki was most kind, especially
considering the fact that I had no real reason for intruding on her
domain."
"She must have taken a liking to you," says the Captain with a
twinkle in her eye. "I've never seen her let anybody give her a
suggestion before."
I shrug, a bit embarrassed. "It was a small thing. I
commented before I could think better of it."
"Well, Maya didn't take offense." She pauses, looking
concerned. "You -are- all right, then?"
I nod. "Fine, fine... I just didn't feel up to facing the
dinner table tonight." I look round as if making sure no one is
listening, then continue confidentially, "I keep wanting to tug on
Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon's moustache and see if it's real."
Captain Katsuragi laughs despite herself. "You too? I've
been wondering about that for days." She straightens her uniform
tunic and smiles again. "I, however, can't escape my dinnertime
responsibilities as easily, so I'm afraid I must bid you good evening.
If you care to stop by the bridge later on, though, and see how we're
getting on, feel free."
I chuckle, picturing the scowl that crossed First Officer
Akagi's face when I visited the bridge the previous afternoon. "I
doubt the First Officer would appreciate it much."
"Ritsuko's a traditionalist," replies the Captain. "Just stay
out of the way and she'll leave you be, though. Anyway, I really must
go."
As she turns to go, my eye is caught by a yellow something
poking out of one of her pockets. "Er - Captain?"
She pauses. "Yes?"
"You've something sticking out of your pocket."
She checks, then pulls out a yellow telegraph form. "Oh!
Thank you. Forgot I had this."
"What is it?"
"Oh - an ice warning from some ship or another. Nothing for
-us- to be concerned about."
"Ice?" A warning bell is ringing at the back of my mind, as
it did yesterday morning in the cargo hold, and now as then I don't
quite know why. "Oughtn't you to slow the ship a bit if we're getting
those?"
Captain Katsuragi greets this suggestion with a shake of the
head. "Mr. Ikari wants to be in New York by Tuesday night."
"Mr. Ikari is unlikely to reach New York at all if we go
charging full-steam into an icefield," I point out.
"Don't be such a pessimist," says the Captain. "That's why we
have lookouts."
"All the same, I for one would feel more comfortable with at
least a slight reduction in speed." This sounds odd to me even as I
say it - I, the well-known daredevil, adventurer and bon vivant,
asking for caution? It sounds odd to the Captain, too, I can see by
the way she cocks her head at me.
"Well," she muses, "Mr. Ikari -is- technically only a
passenger. He has no direct authority over the way the voyage is
run. On the other hand, he could make life quite difficult for me if
he knew I was going against his wishes."
"He doesn't strike me as much of a mariner," I opine. "I
doubt he'd even notice until New York, and even then, you can always
claim unfavourable currents or some such. He'll never know the
difference."
Why am I trying to tell this woman how to run her ship? More
to the point, why is she listening to me?
"I'll see what I can do," she says.
I nod. "I appreciate it."
"Now I really have to go."
"It was a pleasure seeing you again."
She goes, leaving me with a strange feeling of misgiving.
--/

R MINUS 18

"Thank you for coming, Agent Stanfield," said Jon Ellison,
stepping out from behind his Avenger. Stanfield turned, wary. The
pilot was wearing one of his former school uniforms with the school
patch removed from the jacket, and black Predator sunglasses covered
his eyes - a look Stanfield found extremely familiar. He didn't know
why Ellison had called for this clandestine rendezvous, under the
Interstate ramp that passes over the far edge of the Greendale Mall
parking lot, but he felt secure in the knowledge that Edwards had him
covered from two rows down.
"Let's not waste time," he said. "What do you want?"
Jon smiled and reached into his jacket. Stanfield didn't
visibly tense, keeping his cool intact, and didn't even blink when Jon
produced only a card from his inside pocket, which he presented to the
agent.

JONATHAN R. ELLISON
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE BUREAU

X - C O M

Stanfield flipped it over and pressed it with his thumb, and
was rewarded by a strobing holographic pattern. The card, it seemed,
was authentic.
He looked up at Jon, a question in his eyes, but said nothing.
"Croft left me a message that I should talk to you," said Jon
dispassionately. "I'd like to know why you broke cover to him."
"Broke cover to him?" Stanfield smiled, just a little, and
tossed Jon's card back to him. "Hell, I recruited him. For a few
minutes there, 'til he went and got himself discorporated, he was one
of us."
Jon considered this for a moment, then nodded. "OK. Come
with me - it's time we brought you into the loop."
Stanfield looked over Jon's shoulder and nodded slightly;
Edwards, pocketing his weapon, slipped out from behind an overpass
piling and made his way over.
Jon returned Stanfield's tiny smile as Misato stepped around
from the far side of Stanfield's black sedan, tucking away her own
sidearm. Stanfield noticed her, looked at Jon, and then summoned up a
slightly wider smile than before.
"You were giving -me- a hard time for breaking cover?"

/--
It's bitterly cold out tonight, but other than the ship's
slipstream there's no wind. It's the glassiest calm I've ever seen,
and the officers have remarked of this to each other on and off
throughout the evening. It was even the subject of a brief
conversation between myself and First Officer Akagi a few minutes ago.
I'm sure Akagi disapproves of my hanging about on the bridge; no doubt
she thinks such considerations for a mere passenger improper, however
friendly that passenger might have become with Mr. Trussell and the
Captain.
Even dour Ritsuko has to admit, though, that I'm not in her
way. We stand together in fairly companionable silence on the right
wing of the bridge, listening to the sound of the ship slicing through
the glass ocean, both of us satisfied that all is well.
It strikes me as strange, then, that a moment later I'm seized
by a powerful, inexplicable feeling of dread. Dread mixed with deja
vu, as though I've been here before and something terrible has
happened, washes over me, and I stagger against the bridge rail.
Akagi glances over to see if I'm all right, but I've already recovered
my balance. Still full of dread and puzzled by it, I peer forward
into the moonless night, as if searching for the cause of the feeling
somewhere out there in the dark.
Inside the bridge, the telephone from the crows' nest starts
ringing. Still looking at me with a puzzled frown, Akagi walks past
me and picks it up, and as she does so, a horrible certainty settles on
my mind like a coating of tar.
"Iceberg," I mutter unconsciously, still staring into the
darkness. I can see nothing, but the dread and certainty is like a
stone in my gut. "Iceberg right ahead."
"What did you see?" Akagi says into the telephone, and even
from my position ten feet away, just outside the bridge door, I can
hear the lookout's shouted response:
"Iceberg, right ahead!"
I shake myself out of my reverie and run into the bridge, even
as Akagi shouts to the wheelhouse, "Iceberg, right ahead! Hard
a-starboard, reverse all engines!"
Through the bridge windows, now that I know it's there, I can
see the berg, a mountain of ice perhaps a hundred yards away, its
exposed portion large enough that it looms higher than the forecastle
deck. We're heading right for it, and in a flash I understand what
Akagi means to do - by putting the rudder hard a-starboard she hopes
to turn the ship to port, and then she plans to hard a-port to complete
a C-turn around the berg.
But the ship is so huge and heavy, with so much inertia - she
was cruising at twenty-two knots before she reversed engines - and her
rudder is so small compared to that vast bulk...
"No!" I hear myself cry. "No, keep the engines ahead, if
you lose speed she won't turn in time."
If I were speaking to Captain Katsuragi I might be heard;
Second Officer Lightoller, too, might find some pause for thought in
my words. But Akagi, bless her, is a stolid seafarer, who believes in
channels. She has no ear for the suggestions of passengers, least of
all mere boys. For that matter, I couldn't say myself why I'm so
certain, of what I just said or of what I'm about to say.
"Ritsuko, look. She can't turn in time with the engines
reversed - you'll sideswipe the berg, maybe open her side. If you
won't give her back power, then for God's sake lay the rudder
amidships!"
That gets her attention, but not the way I wanted; her brows
collide as she fixes me with a cold, incredulous stare.
"Rudder amidships? Are you suggesting I deliberately -ram- an
-iceberg-, Lord Derek?"
I'm committed now, I might as well explain the picture that
leaped into my mind, as clear as an illustration from a book. "That
will crush the first two watertight compartments, perhaps three," I
reply, jumbling the words together in my haste, for time is running
out. "She can float with that damage, we can get a tow to Halifax."
"Perhaps she could - but people would be killed by the crash!"
Akagi retorts. "This way we shall avoid it altogether."
"Ritsuko, -listen- to me - !"
"If you don't mind," she replies flatly, "I -am- the Officer
of the Deck at the moment."
Damn the woman! Trying to persuade her is like talking to a
brick wall. Frustrated, I turn back to the window, watching the berg
draw closer. Ten seconds pass, then twenty. Our conversation after
Akagi ordered the quartermaster to hard a-starboard must have taken
fifteen. Thirty-five seconds, precious speed bleeds away as the
screws reverse, and still the ship doesn't turn. Perhaps we'll ram
the berg -anyway-.
But no. No, as the berg draws near and I begin to brace
myself for the crash, the bow begins to swing ponderously to port.
Unconsciously, I hold my breath as I watch. Maybe Ritsuko is right.
Maybe we'll miss it.
There's a faint tremor in the deck below my feet and a
drawn-out but quiet shuddering noise as the berg slips by the forepeak
to starboard, gliding down the side of the ship.
My heart turns to ice in my chest. How I can be so certain I
don't know, but in that instant, I know Titanic is doomed as surely as
I know my own name.
I turn to Ritsuko, who regards me bleakly for a few long
seconds. She knows, too. I can see it in her eyes.
"Perhaps you were right," she says softly, then raises her
voice back to a commanding tone to call, "All engines stop, rudder
amidships!"
Captain Katsuragi hurries onto the bridge, still rubbing sleep
from her eyes, her uniform jacket unbuttoned. "What's happened?" she
asks.
"We've struck an iceberg," Akagi replies. "I reversed
engines and put the wheel hard a-starboard... I intended to hard
a-port around it, but we were too close. She sideswiped it on the
starboard bow."
Misato considers this for a moment, then nods to him and turns
to look out the window. The night is still calm and glassy, with a
faint haze on the horizon; no moon, but the sky ablaze with more stars
than I have ever seen. We go out onto the wing bridge again; the
breeze is dying down as the ship, her engines stopped, glides to a
halt. The berg is gone, somewhere behind us. All seems well, but I
still have that sinking feeling of doom in my stomach... and, meeting
her eyes, it seems clear that Captain Katsuragi has the same feeling.
Turning to Akagi and Fifth Officer Kaji, who have followed
us outside, she says, "Go and find the Carpenter, and get him to sound
the ship."
As Ryoji turns to obey, I notice Ritsuko regarding me, her eyes
containing a mixture of shared dread and lingering curiosity. How, she
wonders, did I know what was about to happen?
I wish I knew the answer to that myself. As it is, I can only
shrug in response to her unasked question.
It's not long before Chief Engineer Ibuki makes her report.
Water in the forward hold. Water in the mail room. Water in the #6
boiler room. In the captain's chartroom on the bridge, Captain
Katsuragi, First Officer Akagi, Mr. Trussell and I receive this
report, and as we do, my heart sinks at a pace with the deepening
frown on John Trussell's face.
As Maya finishes her report, Truss unrolls a side-elevation
diagram of Titanic on the chart table, pins it down with a pair of
paperweights, muses for a moment, then draws on it a thick red line,
below the waterline, from just aft of the forepeak to just aft of
bulkhead number four.
Then he puts down the pencil, stares at the diagram for a long
minute, and looks up at us, his eyes full of dread.
"This ship is doomed," he says, his voice hollow.
--/

R MINUS 15

They met as a sort of council of war, around the dinner table
in a suite at the Worcester Crowne Plaza Hotel: Misato Katsuragi, Lara
Croft, Ken Stanfield, Jim Edwards, Jon Ellison, Rei Ayanami, John
Trussell and Maya Ibuki. Hal was linked in from Misato's HALcomm
unit. Also present, if only in spirit, was Asuka, still in traction
but mending fast and determined to be a part of things. They had
considered linking her into the discussion via HALcomm relay, but she
herself decided that would be too dangerous - the transmission, or her
end of the conversation, could too easily be monitored from where she
was now.
Misato had just finished reading them her letter from King
Stephen and giving them the broad strokes of the follow-up telephone
conversation she'd had with him.
"Well." Stanfield sat back in his chair and looked
contemplative. "Nice to know we've got an out if we need it."
"Won't do us much good," observed Edwards, "if we have to bail
before we can figure out what's really going on. All we've got right
now is a big pile of nothing."
Jon nodded. "J's right," he said. "We have suspicions, and
we have proof that Commander Ikari's acting strangely, but nothing to
go on regarding -why- he's acting that way. Unless we can crack that,
we don't have enough to go to X-COM."
"And without X-COM we haven't a chance," said Lara.
Stanfield sighed. "Yeah... that's about the size of it."
"So for now we hold the line," said Maya.
"Keep our heads down and keep digging," Misato concurred.
"I have an appointment to speak with Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart next
Monday. He and I, with help from one of Dr. Croft's contacts back in
the UK, will set up an evacuation plan that's ready to go at a
moment's notice - the instant this thing breaks, we go."
"I've been thinking," said Truss suddenly, then stopped,
realizing he'd all but interrupted.
"Go on," said Misato.
"Well... It just occurred to me that, if we need another
inside recruit, I think I know where we can find one."
"Who?" asked Jon.
"Colonel Keller," said Truss. "He's former X-COM, and a
straightforward military type. I could be wrong, though... and in any
event, he's so close to Commander Ikari that he'd need to be
approached very carefully."
Stanfield nodded thoughtfully. "I can see that. I knew Otto
in the Hidden War, he was my squadleader when we hit their base in the
Congo. He's probably got suspicions of his own. Might be worth
looking into."
"Can you and J handle that?" asked Misato.
"We'll feel him out, see if it looks worth pursuing,"
Stanfield replied with a nod.
"All right... well... I guess we're done for now. Stay safe,
everyone."

/--
"Well, look," I say, trying to get over the feeling that I'm
beating my head against a wall. I point to Mr. Trussell's diagram of
the ship. "If you open these doors, here, here, and here, then - "
"The ship will still sink," says Ritsuko.
"I -know- the ship will still sink," I reply, struggling to
hold my temper, "but she'll sink more evenly rather than listing and
going down at the head. If we can keep the forward cargo hatches out
of the water longer she'll sink slowly, give us more time."
"Time for what?" she inquires, her voice cold and resigned.
"For the Olympic and the Carpathia to get here. You
know... the ships that are steaming to our rescue? The ships that
will be hours too late if we let things go as they are?"
"Opening the watertight doors will make the ship sink more
slowly. You have the most remarkable concept of physics, Lord Derek,"
she says sardonically.
Beyond my threshold, I slam my hand down on the chart table.
"Where's the Captain, then? If you won't listen to me, perhaps she
will."
"Who knows? Probably in her quarters getting drunk," says
Akagi scornfully. "That's her usual response to failure."
Gritting my teeth, I hold back my rejoinder and leave the
bridge. Time is too short for this kind of foolishness.
Fortunately, First Officer Akagi is only half right. Captain
Katsuragi is in her quarters, but she's not drinking; she's just
staring out the porthole at the water, her uniform's tunic unbuttoned,
shirt rumpled, cap discarded. The ship is stopped and blowing off
steam with a deafening roar, but there's no real evidence yet that
anything is seriously wrong.
"Captain?" I inquire softly from the doorway.
"Yes?" she replies, not turning to look at me.
"I've had an idea that I think may help."
"Yes, I know," she says. "Don't steam full-speed into an
icefield. Well, I should've taken your advice, but I didn't." She
puts a hand to the glass of the porthole. "And pretty soon we'll all
pay for it."
I can't believe my ears. Here's the Commodore of the White
Star Line, one of the most distinguished officers on the sea, and
there's a tone of complete hopelessness in her voice. Her spirit's
broken. She's given up.
The thought makes me angry and sad at the same time, but I
fight down my feelings and press on with the reason I've come.
"No, not that. What's done is done. Look... I have an idea
that may help the ship stay afloat long enough for rescue ships to
arrive, but the officers won't go along with it."
"Hm. That's too bad," says Captain Katsuragi
conversationally.
"They'll listen to you, though."
"Hm?" She half-turns, a look of mild interest on her face,
but it quickly fades. "Oh. Yeah, well... maybe."
"What's the matter with you?" I burst out, unable to contain
my indignation any longer.
That puts a spark of life back in her. Unfortunately, it's
aimed at me. "Don't take that tone with me!" she barks. "Don't
forget, whatever indulgences I may have shown you, you're still only a
passenger!"
"Like Mr. Ikari?" I reply hotly. "You let -him- dictate
policy. And have you seen what he's transporting down in the forward
hold? There's something extremely strange about our friend the
Managing Director."
"You don't like it, do you?" she asks me suddenly.
"What?" I reply, completely thrown off-track.
"You don't like not having control of the situation," says the
Captain. "This is a situation completely beyond your control and it's
driving you crazy."
"Of course I bloody don't like it!" I cry. "But at least I'm
not curling up into a ball and pretending it isn't happening - at
least I'm bloody well TRYING to DO SOMETHING!"
"You have no right, no right at all to come in here and shout
at me!" the Captain cries.
"And -you-, Madame Captain, have no right to simply give up!"
I fling the words back in her face, and before she can recover from
the surprise it causes and bluster some more, I roll onward: "The
sixteen hundred souls on this ship are your responsibility. You're in
command. You've had a bad break, your ship is sinking, most likely
it's the end of your career. Fine! -But the people aboard are still
your responsbility.- Without strong leadership the evacuation efforts
won't be effective - might not happen at all. You can't save your
command, but you can save lives." That's all I can say; I've run out
of steam, can't sustain the pace any longer.
Captain Katsuragi is struck speechless anyway, and stares
mutely at me, her eyes wide and almost pleading.
Gathering my dignity, I adjust my jacket.
"With that in mind," I tell her in a more restrained tone, "I
suggest you save the self-pity until your job is done. Good evening,
Captain."
And with that, I turn and leave, furious - with her for
showing such disappointing weakness, and with myself for losing my
composure.
On my way back toward my own stateroom, I pause and look down
over the railing to the starboard Boat Deck. The deck is littered
with ice knocked from the berg as it scraped past; some passengers are
playfully kicking chunks of it around, playing a kind of ice soccer.
They don't know the terrible fate that's hanging over them. I
consider trying to tell them, but discard the idea. They wouldn't
believe me - is Titanic not unsinkable? Man's technology is equal to
any challenge mere Nature can throw at it. The very idea of a modern
passenger liner being accidentally shipwrecked is absurd.
Sighing, I return to my stateroom, driven by some esoteric
desire to change clothes. As I do so, changing from evening dress to
a set of warm, comfortable tweeds wholly inappropriate for First Class
but much more appropriate for being shipwrecked, I reflect on those
I've left on shore. Part of me wishes Mother were here, but the
greater part of me is glad she's at home. As for my grandfather,
well... at least I've had the satisfaction of besting him...
Action. What I need is to take some kind of action. If I'm
left to do nothing but think, I'll dwell on the bleakness of the
situation and drive myself up a wall. Certainly I'm deceiving myself
if I think I have more than the slimmest chance of escaping, but, as I
said to the Captain, at least I must try.
Knotting my tie and squaring my shoulders, I return to the
bridge -
To find Captain Katsuragi, her uniform reassembled and
immaculate, the mistress of the situation, all her officers assembled
before her as she gives them commands.
"Maya, we'll need you to send the big lads up from the
stokehold to man davits, pull oars and work crowd control," she's
saying to the Chief Engineer as I arrive. "Mr. Boxhall, you, First
Officer Akagi and Mr. Kaji will work with the stewards and stokers and
get all the starboard-side passengers from First, Second and Third
Class, respectively, up on the Boat Deck. Chief Officer Wilde,
Mr. Pitman and Mr. Moody, you're to do the same portside.
Mr. Lightoller, once some more strong backs get here, you and I will
see to the collapsibles. Jack, Harold - " she calls, raising her
voice to be heard by the wireless operator in the radio shack behind
the bridge, " - keep working the Carpathia and the Olympic." She
turns to me, the faintest hint of a smile on her face. "Lord Derek,
would you be so kind as to assist Mr. Lightoller and me?"
"Captain," I reply, "I would be delighted."
--/

R MINUS 10

"Soryu-Langley's rehabilitation is proceeding well," said Otto
Keller to Gendou Ikari's back. Keller didn't take offense; he was
used to Ikari's habit of staring out the windows of his office while
others reported things to his back. "Medical estimates she'll be out
of traction and ready for PT by next Thursday."
"Good," said Ikari. "When she's well enough to travel, I want
her on the first ship back to Germany."
"... What?"
"There's no place for her here," said Ikari. "She was allowed
to develop too much of an emotional attachment to Croft. I won't be
able to control her now." Ikari folded his hands behind his back and
said thoughtfully, "It would have been better for everybody concerned
if she had died."
Keller, his face utterly expressionless, said nothing at all.
Several seconds went by.
"Is that all?" Ikari inquired.
"Sir," said Keller.
"Then you're dismissed."
Silently, Keller about-faced and marched from the office,
leaving Ikari gazing out the window.

In the infirmary, Asuka Soryu-Langley reflected, for
approximately the 4,249,589,182nd time, that traction was one of the
most boring ways to spend a month. There were times when the forced
inactivity transmuted all of the unused energy in her brain directly
into blank, unreasoning rage, which was only deepened by the fact that
she couldn't -do- anything about it - couldn't throw things, or kick
something, or even yell about it all that loud. Being grievously
injured and unable to move was remarkably tiring, all things
considered. That was probably the only factor that kept her from
going straight off the deep end.
That, and the periodic visits from her remaining fellow
pilots. Right now, the armchair by her bed was occupied by Rei
Ayanami. Rei was reading, but Asuka knew that didn't mean the
red-eyed girl was ignoring her. If anybody knew what it was like to
be battered and bedridden, it was Rei. Once, driven by a bout of
morbid curiosity, Asuka had asked SHODAN to pull the files on all
other serious Evangelion-related injuries, and had been treated to a
playback of Rei's disastrous testing accident. In its way, that had
been as appalling as the incident that caused Asuka's own injuries -
appalling enough that it drove one of the witnesses to leave
Worcester-3, vowing never to return.
Asuka closed her eyes and drew strength from Rei's silent
presence. She'd never noticed before how Rei's presence seemed to
fill the room with a curious warmth and lassitude, but since her
injury, it'd recently dawned on her: she'd always felt stronger with
Rei around. Stronger, and calmer, too...
Rei waited until Asuka was asleep before closing her book and
slipping quietly out of the room.

Keller got all the way to his office with his face devoid of
any expression. Only once he was inside and the door closed behind
him did he permit himself a thoughtful frown. Stanfield was right.
Ikari was rapidly losing what humanity he'd retained over the years of
his quest. But that, in and of itself, didn't justify mutiny. Otto
Keller had spent his entire adult life as a professional soldier, and
obedience to the chain of command was deeply ingrained in his
personality. Being cold and unsympathetic did not make Gendou Ikari a
bad commander, only an unpersonable one. In order to justify breaking
that chain, Keller would need hard evidence.
When he sat down at his desk and keyed on his terminal, he
found that evidence waiting.

FROM: <SUPPRESSED>
Delivery-Path: <SUPPRESSED>
Date: Mon Dec 14 15:03:32 EST 2015
To: kel...@nerv.mil (Otto Keller O6)
Subject: TO BE READ ALONE
X-AuthWord: sectoid

Col. Keller:

We think you will find the attached information interesting. Remember
to delete it when you're done reading it.

Sincerely,
the counter-conspiracy.

Keller blinked at his screen. They're certainly being
cavalier about the whole thing, he remarked to himself. Then he
considered for a moment. Delivery data suppressed, all the names
scrubbed... there's nothing here to sustain a report...
The X-AuthWord header grabbed his attention and held it for
five seconds.
The attached data held it for a solid hour.
At the end of that hour, Colonel Otto Keller leaned back in
his chair, let out a gusty sigh, and deleted the copy of the Jet Alone
command computer logs he'd just read.
Then he picked up the phone, dialed, and waited. Presently,
there came a click, then four tones, then another click, at which
point he spoke a single word:
"Reactivate."
Four more tones answered.
Keller hung up.

/--
Perhaps an hour has gone by since we learned that Titanic is
doomed. At the Captain's prompting, Chief Engineer Ibuki and her
staff tried my watertight-doors suggestion, and for a time, it seemed
to be working; but then something gave way with a crash in #6 boiler
room, and even with the after pumps working and the ship going down
rather more evenly, we haven't much time left. Not enough for the
nearest ships to reach us before she goes down, anyway.
The Captain, Mr. Lightoller and I, with a few stokers come up
from below decks, have broken out the Engelhardt collapsibles and set
up their canvas sides, placing them near the davits they will use when
the conventional boats now occupying them have gone. The stewards are
working to get all the passengers on deck. There is an air of general
confusion and some indignation - it's a cold night, and not many
people particularly want to be up on deck in the wee hours - but for
the moment, the passengers haven't been told the full enormity of
their fate. Not necessarily because the officers wish to deceive
them, but because there were so many other, more important things to
do that no one has had time to make an announcement.
Captain Katsuragi is in the chartroom, preparing the
announcement that will be made. Since the ship has no public address
system, she cannot tell everyone aboard the news at once, so copies of
the message will be distributed to the section stewards. As
unofficial first-class busybody, I've been deputised to carry the
copies bound for the first-class stewards as soon as she's written
them out.
Anxiously, she tears five copies from the copybook - she's
written haphazardly over a full page of telegraph copies without
regard for the printed forms on them, and five copies deep the
printing is a bit faded, but it will serve. There's no time for
anything more elaborate.
"Give these to the first-class staff," she tells me. "They'll
do the rest."
Nodding, I go below, shouldering my way as politely as I can
through the masses of indignant passengers and looking for the
familiar white coats. As it happens, the first one I find is being
worn by Rei. At the sight of her, all the carefully rehearsed
summations of the situation I've been running through my head
disappear, and I end up mutely handing her the copies of Captain
Katsuragi's announcement to read for herself. Her eyes widen a
little, her face taking on a tiny flicker of anxiety, and then she
looks me in the eye, all professionalism again.
"I understand," she says quietly. "I'll distribute these to
the others."
I still can't speak, I only nod. She turns to go, and as she
does I suddenly break free of my paralysis, grabbing her hand, which
makes her look at me questioningly.
"I'll tell First Officer Akagi to save you a seat on
Collapsible D."
Her expression is a mixture of gratitude and regret as she
says softly, "Neither you nor Jon will be able to go."
She knows, then, what I've been coming to the slow and
dreadful realization of since I helped Misato and Lights break out the
boats: There aren't enough of them for everyone.
"No, that's true," I reply, shaking my head. "Women and
children only."
"Then I'm staying," says Rei.
"What? Don't be a fool! You must - "
"You've been kind to me," she says, "and Jon... " A faint
flush comes to her cheeks as she continues, "Jon loves me. I won't
leave you to face your fate while I run away from it."
"We would never fault you - "
"No," she says, "but I would fault myself." She pulls her
hand from mine, then puts it briefly on my shoulder. "Thank you for
offering... but I won't go."
Then she excuses herself to see to the duty of distributing
the announcement. As I make my way topside, I reflect that she's
quite the bravest girl I've ever known.
--/

R MINUS 9

Colonel John Alexander Lethbridge-Stewart stood at his office
window, which overlooked Halifax Harbor, his hands folded behind his
back. He allowed a slight smile to mar his otherwise perfect military
bearing as he observed the preparations going on harborside, then
erased it and turned as there came a knock at his door.
"Come in!" he barked, and in came a dark-haired younger man in
the uniform of a non-commissioned officer. Like his Colonel, the
sergeant wore the double insignia of the Royal Army and X-COM; both
had been seconded to the latter organization from the former. Just
inside the door, the sergeant came to attention and saluted.
"Ah, Sergeant Benton," said Lethbridge-Stewart, returning the
salute. "Stand at ease."
"Sir," said Benton, slipping into the no-more-relaxed at-ease
posture. "Harborside preparations are well underway. Foreman expects
they'll be serviceable in ten days, complete in twenty-four."
"Good, good," said Lethbridge-Stewart. "I doubt our friends
will be needing them before the completion date, anyway. Any word on
their missing man?"
"Major Katsuragi tells me it'll be another nine days before
they know one way or the other, sir."
"Mm." The Colonel turned and looked out the window.
"Anything else?"
"Yes sir." Benton's voice dropped out of its normal military
register. "Er, unofficial only."
Lethbridge-Stewart turned, cocking one thin eyebrow.
"Just heard from Groom," Benton went on. "Otto Keller's
reactivated MIB Special Services." He pronounced each letter in the
acronym individually.
Lethbridge-Stewart's eyebrow rose a notch higher as he
pondered this in silence.
Then, turning back to the window, he said briskly, "Very well,
Sergeant. Keep me informed."
Benton came back to attention, and his voice was back to its
normal level as he replied, "Sir!" Then, saluting again, he pivoted
and left the office.
Well, well, mused Lethbridge-Stewart. Keller's come back
home, and switched on the Special Services division to boot. This is
the kind of thing the Old Man would like to know about.
He sat down at his desk and picked up the telephone.

/--
Loading the boats has gone more smoothly than I dared hope.
In part, that's because Captain Katsuragi seems to be everywhere,
bawling out a laggard here, reassuring a frightened passenger there,
keeping the evacuation operation running with the smoothness of a
Swiss clock. Another part, though, is the simple fact that most of
the passengers who remain, docile and patient, on the Boat Deck don't
know that there will be no boats left for them. Titanic carries boats
for a bit over a thousand people, and, save one, they've gone. That
leaves four or five hundred left - mostly men, thanks to the crew's
careful screening out of the women and children.
When they realize that there will be no rescue for them...
"Ridiculous! Of course my father will be allowed to go. Who
will look after Mother and me?"
My reverie shattered, I look toward the rail where loading of
Collapsible D is taking place. Yes, as I thought, it's Asuka
Langley, arguing with First Officer Akagi.
"The Captain's orders are quite clear on the subject, Miss
Langley," says Akagi stiffly. "Excepting those crewmen specifically
assigned to the boat crews, women and children only at this time."
"Asuka, don't be a fool," says Herr Langley sharply. "Go and
look after your mother. I'll catch up to you when we are rescued."
"Father, don't treat me like a child!" shouts the girl. "If
you stay here you aren't -going- to be rescued. This is the last
boat!"
Uh-oh.
From the periphery of the crowd nearby, I can hear the
murmurings. Soon they'll spread throughout the rest. Things are
about to get quite ugly.
Just as I'm having that thought, I'm shoved aside.
"You stupid child!" bellows a red-faced Gendou Ikari. He's
been lurking around the edges of the boat-loading operation all night,
his clothes and hair disarrayed and his manner much more agitated than
his usual cool, calculating self. Now he's gone so far as to take the
wretched girl by the shoulders and shake her.
"Here, now, I - " says Herr Langley.
"Be silent, sir!" snarls Ikari, still shaking the man's
daughter. Addressing her again, he hisses through his teeth, "Why
couldn't you keep quiet and get on the boat? Now there will be panic,
disorder, unpleasantness!"
Right.
Enough of this.
He draws back a hand to hit her, and I slip between them,
blocking his swing with an upraised arm. His look of shock is almost
comical as it's -him- that gets slapped across the face.
"Get hold of yourself, man!" I tell him. "You won't help
anyone by getting hysterical."
I'd hoped that the slap would bring him back to himself, but I
can see that's not the case. Instead his face darkens and he lunges,
his hands grabbing at my shoulders. I hadn't expected him to do that;
struck off-guard, I teeter backward, crashing into Fraulein Langley,
sending us both off-balance. I slam against the rail with a sudden
shock of pain that runs up and down my spine and reduces my limbs
momentarily to jelly.
With a sharp, stark cry, she goes over.
Forcing my shocked body back into action, I turn around.
She's caught hold of one of the two ropes that ring the gap between
the rail and the gunwale, but only with one hand, and the rope is
thin. It's in no danger of breaking, but it's biting into her hand,
and her grip isn't its best anyway thanks to the satin gloves she's
wearing.
"Ritsuko! Hold me!" I cry, throwing myself doubled over the
rail. Akagi grabs hold of my belt and braces one foot against a
railpost as I reach down. "Take my hand!" I cry to Asuka.
With her free hand, she reaches up. Catching hold of the rope
must have wrenched her shoulder; she's an athletic girl, she should be
able to pull herself up, but she can't. Her face is patchy, partly
red with effort and partly white with pain and fear, and her right
hand shakes as she tries to extend it toward mine.
There. Our fingertips touch, and I push myself harder,
feeling the muscles in my own shoulder cry out as I throw all my will
at making my arm that little bit longer. Her left hand is starting to
lose its grip on the rope, and neither yet has a firm enough grip on
the other's hand to replace it.
She's made of stern stuff, this girl. She doesn't cry out or
make useless pronouncements about her inability to reach or how much
longer she can hang on; she just grits her teeth and reaches,
determination burning in her eyes, which she keeps locked with mine.
Our hands slide together. My shoulder screams. Even if we do manage
to hold on, how will I ever pull her up?
Her left hand slips from the rope.
Her right hand slides through mine.
All I can see is her eyes as she falls away without a sound.
She closes them just before she vanishes into the black ice
water.
At that moment, something inside me snaps. My vision goes
red. My hearing is drowned by the roar of blood in my ears. With an
animal sound, I slip back off the rail and turn, wrenching away from
Akagi's grip, and then drive my fist into Gendou Ikari's gut with all
the force of my rage behind it. He stumbles, face sheet-white, and I
take a step and give it to him again, with the other hand this time,
planting my foot and turning a bit to get my shoulder and back into
it. I'm not consciously thinking about the boxing techniques I've
learned - I just burn with the need to hit him, as hard as I can, to
hurt him as much as possible, and the rest is instinctive. In moments
I've backed him against the rail, raining blows on him; dimly in the
background I can hear First Officer Akagi pleading with me to stop.
I back off half a step, then launch my left fist against
Ikari's face, driving it up with all my strength. There's a sweet,
sharp crack as it hits the point of his jaw, and then he's swinging
out, out, over.
By the time he makes a splash I've crumpled to my knees on the
deck, my right shoulder and left hand twin throbbing masses of pain.
My head pounds, my lungs heave. The rage drains out of me in an
instant and leaves nothing in its wake, nothing but cold, bleak
emptiness.
I didn't even like the girl.
But, damn it all! She never got a chance to get even with me.
Dimly, in the background, I hear a strange buzzing sound. At
first I pass it off as an aftereffect of the fugue I've just come out
of, but as I breathe deeply and shake my head, I realize it's not
going away, it's getting louder. Wearily, I drag myself to my feet
and turn, to see the horrified face of Ritsuko Akagi... but she's not
looking at me, she's looking past me.
I turn.
Five hundred angry men are bearing down on us.
The panic has started.
--/

R MINUS 5

John Trussell wondered if it wasn't somehow wrong for him to
be enjoying life so much when all around him was descending into
madness. Surrounded by conspiracies he'd have been happier not
knowing about, involved without his full understanding in
counter-machinations on an epic scale, and deeply worried for his
friends (all of whom were having hard lives of late), he was
nevertheless relishing a mundane action that reminded him that
normalcy was where you made it.
He and Maya Ibuki were Christmas shopping. Maya had been
raised in the Shinto faith and kept more or less to it, so her
enjoyment of the Christmas holiday was mainly secular, but that didn't
dampen her enthusiasm. Her resilience in the face of all that they'd
gone through amazed him - no less so because she didn't get it by
being hard. She cared, she hurt whenever anybody close to her was
dealt another blow by fate, but she bounced back and kept right on
going. Even when the horror had singled her out, she hadn't let it
keep her down.
One of the things most of his co-workers did not know about
John Trussell was that, underneath the diffident, somewhat indecisive
and slightly overcautious mannerisms he'd become famous for within
NERV, he was occasionally wildly impulsive. Occasionally. When the
stars were right. At the rarest and most precarious of times.
Now, as he and Maya walked arm in arm along the upper level of
the Worcester Galleria, was one of those times.
"Hey, Maya... " he said.
"Hm?" she replied.
Carpe diem, John.
"After the Christmas rush is over, would you consider moving
in with me?"
For a moment Maya almost stopped walking.
"Me? Move in with you?" she asked.
"Well," said Truss with a nervous smile, "my apartment's the
bigger one... "
"Not 'bigger' enough, though, I would think," said Maya,
shaking her head.
Crestfallen, Truss slumped a little. The look on his face -
disappointment combined with embarrassment - almost broke Maya's
heart, and she chided herself for being mean.
"So once the rush is over we'll have to go look for a bigger
place," she continued cheerily.
Now it was Truss's turn, and he actually did stop walking,
causing Maya to take an extra step and almost pull him over.
"Oof!" she said, relinquishing his arm. "Careful... "
"Sorry."
"Hungry?"
"Definitely."

/--
The wave of angry humanity is bearing down on Boat D in its
davit, and there's not much I can do about it. My initial estimate
was a tad high - of course the mob isn't composed of -everyone- still
aboard, since the engineering staff are almost all still down in the
engine room, several of the officers have returned to the bridge, and
about half of the remaining passengers are on the wrong side of the
ship. There are still more than a hundred of them, though, and the
meager four or five of us trying to guard this boat aren't going to be
able to do much against them. In their unreasoning panic they'll
probably all try to crowd onto the boat. People will be trampled, the
boat will be destroyed, and fifty people who might have been saved
will die needlessly.
Against the inevitable toll of this disaster, made that way by
the ship's shortage of boats, that doesn't seem like much of a
difference, but having just watched one life slip away and then
dispatched another myself, I feel the weight of each one of them.
The rush comes, and I steel myself to be smashed against the
rail, brushed aside into the same waters that just took both of those
lives I mentioned, or just beaten to death by the press of the
crowd...
Gunshots, two of them, ring out, and the mob freezes as one,
its collective throat giving voice to that universal human sound of
bewilderment. At the rail, First Officer Akagi has just fired those
two shots along the side of the ship from the Webley revolver in her
hand - the revolver she is now pointing at the crowd.
"That's ENOUGH!" she barks. "If any of you come any closer to
this boat, I'll kill every last one of you!"
That's a ridiculous claim, of course - at best, she could only
kill four of them - but the mob's unreasonability works both ways, and
this thought gives them pause, if only for a moment. Then a
well-dressed man at the front, his eyes glazed with panic, lunges
forward.
To my infinite surprise, Ritsuko Akagi follows up on the
spirit, if not the letter of her promise, and shoots him dead.
That takes the rest of the fight out of them; the shock
shatters the patina of fear that bound them together. Stunned, they
go from an enraged, rushing mob to a large group of individually
frightened people who happen to be standing around in a group.
Ritsuko's hand shakes a little as she tucks the revolver into
the belt of her uniform tunic; then, raking a glare across the mob one
last time, she turns and begins instructing the men at the davits to
lower the boat.
In a detached way, I have to admire the courage of Asuka
Langley's mother. She has just seen her daughter lost before her
eyes, and her husband stands, stunned, on the deck of the doomed ship
she is being lowered away from. But there are no hysterics from this
woman: just a quiet sense of acknowledgement toward her fate.
"Ritsuko," I murmur, sliding closer to the officer, "can't we
let Herr Langley go? The poor man's just watched his daughter drown.
His wife will have nothing left without him."
"Women and children only," replies Ritsuko mechanically. Her
eyes are dull and her voice has no life in it, even when she raises it
to a shout to command the men on the davits.
"Are you all right?" Having just killed somebody myself, I
feel I'm in a position to empathize with her, but she wants none of
it.
"I'm fine," she replies in that same dead voice.
Helpless, I turn back to the boat.
Frau Langley nods, once, to me, as if to say, "Thank you for
trying." There's no blame in her eyes, but the keen sting of failure
I've been feeling on and off all night comes back to me full force.
Then the boat is lowered past the gunwale and she's gone.
Herr Langley drifts away and disappears into the crowd.
As Collapsible D reaches the water and the oarsmen start
pulling it away, Ritsuko Akagi steps to the rail, her hands on it, and
looks down into the water. Her eyes aren't dull any more, but I don't
think I like the look in them.
"Are you sure you're all right?" I ask her.
"Perfectly fine," she replies. Then, to my absolute horror,
she climbs up and stands on the rail before I can reach her. She
turns around to face the ship, an unnaturally calm look on her face.
I daren't try to reach her - in trying to grab her I might just knock
her overboard, and I couldn't take doing that twice.
Behind me, I hear someone cry out her name - it's Captain
Katsuragi, elbowing her way through the stunned, silent crowd. She
bursts free just beside me, but stops, wary as I am of knocking
Ritsuko off her precarious perch on the rail.
"As Officer of the Deck at the time of the collision, I take
full responsibility for this wreck and all the lives that will be
lost," says Ritsuko calmly, her voice raised to be heard by all.
Then, slowly, she removes the Webley from her belt and raises
it.
"Ritsuko, NO!"
I take some small comfort in the fact that she's dead long
before her body hits the frigid water.
--/

R MINUS 2

#My God! It's full of stars!#
Jon looked glumly down the hall toward DJ's bedroom and
sighed. How long was she going to keep this up? It was all well and
good trying to reach some understanding of what DJ had seen and felt
when he was absorbed by his EVA, but this obsession with his last
words (Jon winced; his last -so far-, he mentally corrected himself)
was getting entirely out of hand. Jon was about to go and try again
to dissuade, or, failing that, distract Rei, when suddenly, the
monotonous playback stopped.
Moments later the living room door opened, and Rei entered,
her face beatific, with just a touch of triumph. Jon's look was a
question mark.
"I understand," said Rei. Then she smiled a little. "I know;
it's about time."
Jon looked a little sheepish.
Rei turned and looked out the window. Snow sparkled on the
WPI football field. The sun was sinking toward Institute Hill,
painting all the white surfaces orange.
"Let's go up to Bancroft Tower," she said.

Up at the Tower, bundled in their warmest clothes, Jon and Rei
stood next to each other and watched the sun set.
They felt the presence at their backs, and turned to face it,
at the same time. Before he did, Jon had a theory as to what it would
be, and he was unsurprised to learn that he was right - it was Kevin
Nelson. Their former classmate was dressed rather lightly for the
chill, snowy weather, in dark trousers, a black sweater, and a black,
unbuttoned trench coat, but he didn't look cold. He just stood there
with his hands in his pockets and that inscrutable little smile on his
face.
"I thought I might find you two here," he said.
"I thought you'd have left town by now," Jon replied.
"Oh, not yet," said Kevin, then repeated the sentiment he'd
expressed at the school: "I have a few things yet to do." His smile
became something akin to an actual grin, and he removed his hands from
his pockets, revealing a pair of small boxes, one in each. "For one
thing, I have to give you two your Christmas presents."
Rei blinked, completely taken aback. "Christmas presents?"
"Of course." Kevin held out the boxes, one to each. "This is
yours," he said, giving one to Rei, "and this is yours," he added,
giving the other to Jon.
Brows furrowed in rather comical dual concentration, both
parties opened theirs, each discovering inside a small medallion on a
chain. Rei examined hers: it was the head of an old-fashioned dollar
coin, its date stamp a century ago. It felt rather light and thin to
be an old-fashioned silver dollar, though, and turning it over, she
discovered that this was because it was only half the coin; the tail
was missing, and that side was engraved in a complex, beautiful
pattern.
Jon examined his and discovered that it was the other half,
the tail side, of the same once-thick coin, its head side similarly
engraved.
Both looked at Kevin, puzzlement in their eyes.
"Well," said Kevin with his private amusement in place, "you
-are- the sides of a coin." He smiled. "Merry Christmas, you
two. Keep warm." With that, he turned and disappeared into the
gathering night.
"He is -so- strange," Jon murmured, holding his medallion in
his hand.
Rei nodded, her eyes thoughtful, as she passed the chain of
hers over her head and then dropped the coin down the front of her
coat. "And he knows more than he lets on."
"I wonder," mused Jon, "just which side he's on... "
"... If he's on one at all," Rei finished.
They looked at each other.
"Home?" wondered Jon.
"Home," said Rei.
Arm in arm, they set off down the hill.
There were three days until Christmas.

/* The Ventures "Blue Moon" _Walk - Don't Run_ */

NEXT EPISODE:

Christmas in Worcester-3.

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION 3:2
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI
COMING 8/7/98

"On Christmas Eve, Mum always lets me open one of my gifts early."

** AND NOW... **
EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED proudly presents:
NEON EXODUS EVANGELION BONUS THEATER!!

[COMMERCIAL]

[SCREEN GRAPHIC: ESPN/NERV Ride-Along Program logo]

VO: The ESPN/NERV Ride-Along Program puts YOU in the action!

[EVA ENTRY PLUG INTERIOR. REI AYANAMI is at the controls. Behind and
above her seat a jump seat has been positioned. In this seat, wearing
a red-and-white plug suit with a Ride-Along Program patch on the upper
left chest, is NORIKO TAKAYA.]

NT: So this is an Evangelion.

RA: Mm-hmm.

[REI is somewhat busy. From the cockpit speakers the sounds of an EVA
combat can be heard; occasionally the camera shakes.]

NT: It's smaller than Gunbuster.

RA: So is the Eiffel Tower.

NT: Does it turn into a space fighter?

RA: No, thank God.

NT: I'm sorry, am I bothering you?

RA: No, not at all. I'm just a little distracted.

NT: Oh, OK. (Pause.) It's tough being the devastatingly cute, tragic
heroine.

RA: A-men, sister.

[EXTERIOR DAY. EVA-00's foot steps through the shot, leaving behind a
footprint with the ESPN/NERV Ride-Along Program logo.]

[END COMMERCIAL]

CONFERENCE ROOM 'B'
EYRIE PRODUCTIONS STUDIOS
WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS
1:12 PM, WEDNESDAY, JULY 22, 1998

One by one, the members of the NXE regular cast filtered into
the conference room, some yawning. It was a brutally hot day in
Worcester, over ninety-five degrees with near-100% humidity, and
though the Eyrie studios were air-conditioned, the recent excursion
for lunch (combined with the meal itself) had put most of them in a
semi-somnolent state. With production on the third-season opening
episode wrapped, there was little to do until shooting resumed in the
evening, so the production staff had assembled a few meetings to pad
the day out.
Asuka Soryu-Langley was looking forward to the meeting's end.
She had no greater ambitions for her afternoon than to curl up in her
air-conditioned bedroom with a book, perhaps the copy of "Doctor Who:
The Murder Game" she'd just borrowed from the director, and ignore the
world. DJ Croft had been awakened ahead of schedule by his housemate
Rei banging on the door (having accidentally locked herself out when
she went to get the paper), and wanted nothing more than to go back to
bed. For now he was nursing a cup of coffee, hoping it would get him
through the meeting. Jon Ellison was looking forward to his first
attempt at the GT Cup circuit in his saved game of 'Gran Turismo'.
Gendou Ikari planned to sit down and finally watch the previous
weekend's CART FedEx Championship Series race, which he'd taped on
Sunday. He had ten dollars on Michael Andretti for the win, and from
the smug look on Ritsuko Akagi's face, he had a sneaking suspicion he
was going to lose the ten-spot. John Trussell was fretting about the
schedule he had to work with for the master artwork of the soundtrack
CDs. Maya Ibuki was scheduled to pick up her new car at 4:30, and had
been excited about it all week.
By the time Misato Katsuragi, the last to arrive, came through
the door, all the others were ranged around the conference table,
poking curiously through the mound of various items that were heaped
on it. "What's going on?" she wondered.
"First round of new merchandise approvals this season," said
director Ben "Gryphon" Hutchins from the doorway behind her. Startled,
Misato jumped.
"You're late!" Asuka Soryu-Langley declared.
"I figured Misato wouldn't turn up until now anyway," replied
Gryphon mildly. "Anyway. Have a look, tell me what you think."
The cast approached the table warily, picking out various
items and looking them over.
Rei Ayanami spotted an item toward the head of the table,
picked it up, turned it over in her hands, and then looked over it to
the director, a look partway between quizzical and horrified on her
face.
"Keen, isn't it?" said Gryphon, smiling beatifically.
Rei looked skeptically at the box in her hands.
"What is it?" wondered Jon Ellison. Wordlessly, Rei handed
him the item.
It was a cereal box, its front cover emblazoned with an
outrageously cute cartoon caricature of Rei in her plug suit and a
name in large Project EVA-font print.
"Kellogg's Ayanami-O's?!" said Jon incredulously.
"WHAT?!" said DJ, almost choking on his coffee.
"That's what it says!" Jon protested, holding up the box so
his co-star could see it. Sure enough, it did, complete with a speech
balloon for the cartoon Rei that said, in a sprightly font, "They're
low in fat!"
"You're KIDDING!" said Gendou Ikari. "What is it?"
Jon peered at the illustration of the cereal on the box.
"Looks like frosted Cheerios with the ghost marshmallows from Boo
Berry."
"Go ahead and try some," said Gryphon. "It's an actual sale
item, they sent us a case of the stuff."
"What happened to the rest of it?" asked Ritsuko.
"Rank hath its privileges," said Gryphon impassively. "You
guys get six figures an episode, I get the cereal."
Dubious, Jon opened the box, reached in, and came out with a
handful of cereal. He sniffed at it, decided it wasn't too daunting,
put it in his mouth and chewed slowly. Then, swallowing, he declared,
"It -is- frosted Cheerios with the ghost marshmallows from Boo
Berry."
Rei took back the box, tried an experimental mouthful herself,
then regarded the box again with raised eyebrows. "Not bad."
Meanwhile, Gendou had seated himself at the table, hands
steepled before him, and was regarding the array of NXE Series 3
action figures laid out before him. Abruptly, his eyes lit up, and he
grabbed one out of the line-up.
"Oh, cool!" he declared. "I've got a spring-loaded
grappling-hook gun with a retractor crank!" So saying, he aimed the
little effigy of himself at one of the wall-mounted lamp sconces
ringing the room, launched the aforesaid grappling hook, and then
reeled the little plastic Gendou up with the crank. "How come I don't
get anything this cool on the show?"
"One of the great mysteries of the Universe," remarked Maya
Ibuki dryly. She picked up her own action figure. "Not a terribly
bad likeness, I suppose."
"Hey!" cried Misato. "Mine has a beer can permanently molded
to her right hand! Those bastards!"
"Mine comes with a bullwhip," said Ritsuko dubiously.
"Whoa! I appreciate the compliment, guys," said Asuka, "but
I'm really only a B-cup."
"Check out the wind-up waddling Pen-Pen," observed DJ.
"Aw, too cool," Misato agreed as DJ set the little plastic
penguin a-waddle across the table.
"What the hell is this?" wondered Asuka, holding up a plastic
statuette of herself, in plug suit, in a strange kind of down-pointing
position. "I look like I'm ordering in a candy store. 'I'll take one
of -those-, and one of -those-... '" She weighed the item in her
hand. "It's too light to be a solid figurine... "
DJ took it from her, turned it over, then shook it and
grinned. "Aha!" Then he took hold of the plastic Asuka's head and
briskly twisted it off.
"Gaaah!" said Asuka.
DJ sniffed at the little pull-up spout the removal of the
figure's head had revealed, and grinned again. "It's maple syrup," he
declared.
"WHAT?!"
"Once I figured out it was full of liquid, I figured it had to
be either that or bubble bath."
"That's the one of Misato with her arms folded," said Gryphon
from the end of the table, pointing with a pen.
"I will not accept a headless plastic doll of myself that's
full of maple syrup," declared Asuka flatly.
"Oh, relax, it goes back on," said DJ, illustrating his point
by screwing the bottle's head back on.
"I don't care!" said Asuka. "I don't like it."
Gryphon sighed sadly and made a note on the clipboard he
carried. Then he brightened. "Oh! I almost forgot. I just got off
the phone with some folks over at NASCAR. We just closed a one-time
sponsorship deal for a couple of cars in different series over there.
I'm really excited about this, I think it'll give us some great
exposure, just in time for you know what," he said with a wink.
"Sponsorship?" said Gendou.
"Yup!" Gryphon dimmed the room lights and switched on the
slide projector sitting on the end of the table. "Here's a
preliminary sketch of the Winston Cup car we'll be on for the delayed
running of the Pepsi 400 in October."
On the screen, a colored three-view-plus-perspective pencil
drawing of a NASCAR-style Ford Taurus appeared. It was mostly black,
with the blue-white Neon Exodus Evangelion on the hood, the NERV logo
on the rear fenders, the X-COM logo on the decklid, and the big white
number 90 on the doors and roof.
Asuka jumped to her feet. "DICK TRICKLE?!" she demanded.
"We're sponsoring DICK TRICKLE for one race?!"
Gryphon grinned. "That's right."
"Why him?" Asuka wondered. "Why not somebody cool, like Jimmy
Spencer or Rusty Wallace?"
"Jimmy's sponsored by the series sponsor," Gryphon pointed
out. "I don't think he particularly needs the extra money. Neither
does Rusty, for that matter."
"Besides, I vetoed Rusty," said Truss. "He's a jerk."
Asuka glared.
"What's the matter with Dick, anyway?" asked Jon. "He's
solid. Almost always qualifies."
"Sure, thirty-fourth or so."
"Hey, he's no Dave Marcis."
"Don't cut down Dave Marcis," said Truss warningly. "The
man's an icon of the sport. It's not his fault he hasn't got two
nickels to rub together."
"Well, then why don't we sponsor -him-?" Asuka asked. "I
mean, -anybody- but Dick Trickle."
Gryphon shrugged. "He wasn't interested. We might get an
opportunity to sponsor the 17 team next year, though we'll probably
put the UF/FI logo on it most of the time."
Rei took advantage of the brief lull to say, "I like Dick.
He's nice."
"Oh, when did -you- meet Dick Trickle?" demanded Asuka
scornfully.
"Last week in Loudon," replied Rei.
"You had a pit pass and you didn't get me Mr. Excitement's
autograph?"
"Sorry, didn't see him. Next month."
"If we could continue?" said Gryphon. "We're also sponsoring
a Busch Grand National car for one race in October." He switched to
another slide; this car was done up in the orange-and-white livery of
Unit 00, complete with the appropriate number, and sported the NERV
logo in a black square on the hood.
"All right!" said Asuka. "That's more like it. Buckshot's
the man."
"When he's not trying to kill Randy LaJoie," observed Rei,
drawing another glare from her redheaded co-star.
"That paint scheme is terrible," observed Truss. "I mean, the
Unit 00 idea is OK, but the black part with the NERV logo looks so
last-minute."
"That's OK," said Gryphon with a grin. "These are just
preliminary sketches. We knew you'd have better ideas."
Truss palmed his face; Maya patted his shoulder. "There,
there, John. You're a natural volunteer."
"Oh, that reminds me - Misato, SpeedVision called again. They
really want you for their weekly USLMRA highlights show."
Rei coughed, having very nearly snarfed a handful of
Ayanami-O's.
"Sorry."
"'s OK," Rei sputtered.
"Did they get Dave Barry yet?" asked Misato.
"How should I know?" replied Gryphon. "Just call them."
"OK, OK."
"Anyway, that's it for that stuff, so far. Any other
questions or comments about the stuff that's on the table?"
Gendou looked at his watch. "No, I think we've milked this
joke for about as much as we're gonna get out of it."
Gryphon nodded. "I think you're right. OK, let's have
everybody back here at 5. If we can get that last shot in the can by
7 we can go watch the Sox game on the big TV."

/* J.P. Sousa "The Liberty Bell" */

NEON EXODUS EVANGELION BONUS THEATER!!
was conceived, written and performed by

Ben Hutchins
John Trussell
Rei Ayanami
Asuka Soryu-Langley
DJ Croft
Jon Ellison
Gendou Ikari
Ritsuko Akagi
Maya Ibuki
Misato Katsuragi

and featured
Noriko Takaya

NOTE: The USLMRA is a real organization:
http://www.letsmow.com/
(Regrettably, SpeedVision, though a real network, does not
yet have a weekly USLMRA highlights show.)

Join the Dick Trickle Fan Club!
http://www.coredcs.com/~dtrickle/fanclub.html

(c) 1998

E P U (Colour)

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