CCST3K's Magical MSTery Tour Productions Presents
Me, Myself
And Ayanami
A Neon Genesis Evangelion Parody Fic By CardCaptor Schlueter (aka Syaoran-kun)
Disclaimer: "Neon Genesis Evangelion" belongs to Gainax. However, if you act now you too can buy you very own Rei clone for only 10 payments of $29.95 plus shipping and handling!
Prologue: Prelude To Insanity, Confusion and Lunacy
It was another typical day in Tokyo-3, or at least a typical day that did not involve fighting angels, fleeing from angels or cleaning up huge piles of rubble left by angels.
So maybe it *wasn't* that typical. Just play along.
Dr. Ritsuko Akagi was in her office, sitting at the desk and labeling several small vials of clear liquid. The vials contained the latest series of chemical injections for Rei's numerous back-up copies stored in the Dummy Plug system. It was hardly a thrilling task, but they can't all be winners, can they? Maintaining the clones while they were in stasis was important. After all, it wasn't like they could take them out for a morning jog every now and than, now could they? So, there were several measures taken to keep the clones from aging or deteriorating. Special measures had o be taken to keep their senses active, their muscles from atrophying.
'The lot of them are more trouble to take care of than the one that's awake,' Ritsuko thought to herself as she placed another vial back in its case.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. The door opened slightly as a familiar face peeked in. "Excuse me…"
"What is it, Maya?" Ritsuko asked.
Maya stepped into the office with a small box under her arm. "I brought something for you from the labs. They said it was urgent." She set the box on Ritsuko's desk.
"Oh?" Ritsuko opened the box and withdrew a couple of vials. She briefly read the labeling. "Oh, not this again…"
"What is it?" Maya asked.
Ritsuko set the vials on the desk. "One of the guys downstairs is trying to sell me on this artificial memory injection system."
"Artificial memory?" Maya replied.
Ritsuko sighed. It looked like some explaining was in order. "Basically, you take some cerebral fluid out of the subject's brain. You mix it in with a specific formula, inject it into another subject and voila! The second person has all the first person's memories."
Maya tilted her head slightly. "But… What use is that?"
Ritsuko knew full well what the answer to that was. This lab geek was looking to prove himself by presenting her with a more effective was to transfer Rei's memories to one of her copies if, God forbid, the current model was to buy it in battle. The problem was that the vials this dope had provided didn't contain Rei's cerebral fluid. The labels read 'Sohryu, Asuka Langley' and 'Katsuragi, Misato'. How this dork had gotten hold of this stuff was something she didn't want to know. If she tested these formulas on any subject, that person would be stuck with two conflicting sets of long term memory, assuming the stuff actually worked. Well, from then on it would be a short period of time until the selected lab rat snapped and started shooting at themselves or others.
Not a good thought.
But, if the injections were given to a blank, for example one of Rei's numerous back-up copies, then it would be ruined. The clone would forever think it was Asuka or Misato or whoever's memories it had. And having another Asuka or Misato around didn't seem pleasant to Ritsuko either.
Pay attention, folks, this will all be very important soon enough.
"It's of no use, Maya," she said. "Just some lab twerp with too much time on his hands."
"Has it ever been tested?" Maya asked.
"No," said Ritsuko absentmindedly. "And it probably won't for some time either."
"Should I take these back then?" Maya asked.
Ritsuko paused. "Yeah. You may as well." She finished packing up the last of the vials she had been working on.
"Okay," Maya packed up the two remaining vials into the box she had brought with her. "Oh! And Commander Ikari wanted to speak with you as soon as possible." She said before she darted out into the hallway.
"Right," Ritsuko replied.
**
Maya was about halfway down the corridor when disaster struck. The young lieutenant tripped causing the small box to slip from her grasp. The results were predictable. The loud cracking sound when the box hit the floor was not something Maya had wanted to hear.
"Damn…" she muttered. "This isn't good…" She opened the box and, sure enough, the two vials inside had shattered. "Well, at least it wasn't anything important." Maya said to herself remembering Ritsuko's contempt for whatever weird experiment had been involved in that artificial memory stuff.
Maya shrugged, picked up the box and set off to find a someplace to dump it.
Unfortunately, what was in the box was not what everyone thought it was.
Let this be a lesson to read labels.
Meanwhile, Ritsuko was off to with her own box of vials, blissfully unaware that she was about to set a chain of very, very confusing events into motion.
**
NEXT: It's the middle of the night… The lab is quiet and dark… But all is not well. And soon Shinji and a great many others are going to find out just how unwell things are. A dark and stormy night lead to an ATTACK OF THE CLONES!
Or possibly not… But they do curse, brawl and drink up Misato's booze, which is bad enough.
**
Notes: Well, this is my first Eva fic. I hope this set-up meets with approval. For all I know someone has already used this idea or this title. I am hoping to provide a somewhat plausible little comedic fic in the always wearing genre of Rei-Acts-OOC fics. It took me some time to come up with a reasonable explanation for Rei clones acting wacky. C&C is welcome, even if it's just from Eva fanfic veterans who want to tell me that this idea is tired and worn. ^-^
-CardCaptor Schlueter (aka Syaoran-kun)