Forword- first of all, thankyou for taking the time to look at this fic.

Secondly, this was origionally just going to be a one shot, hence the chapter that's floating around totaly out of context, but rather than just looking at the final moments of instrumentaly from mearly Maya's pov i began toying with the idea of telling the whole (or at least some) of third impact from the perspective of several of the other charaters.

Chapter 1: Around a cup of coffee

It's times like these a guy can pretend that the logo printed on the side of his issued mug is true. I twirl the cheap, ceramic thing in my hands, trying not to wince at the mug's painful shade of yellow as I read the bold red text;

'God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.'

Heh, after all I've seen these last few months, I'd really like to meet the jackass who came up with that particular motto and tell him where to stick it…

As far as I'm concerned, nothing's been right with the world for the last fifteen years (but that's a whole other story) and god must have taken a long look at humanity one day and decided to roll over and go back to sleep.

I sigh and slip my self back into the running conversation. Anyway, it's probably not healthy to contemplate something trying to pass itself off as coffee so deeply… not that any of the things I've seen while working here has done my state of mental health any favours in the first place.

"All access to and from head quarters has been restricted?" Ibuki looks as though someone just shoved a toster under her nose and asked her to reconstruct the MAGI's main-frame from it. She's frozen up completely at whatever bombshell Makoto just dropped into the conversation and forgotten all about the biscuit she's left dangling in her own plastic flavoured beverage. Makoto just shrugs, pushing those glasses of his back up his nose.

"We're on first level alert." Jeeze, what a casual observation, the guy may as well have just stated something like 'it's raining today'.

Maya sits back in her chair, brows creased.

"But that doesn't make any sense, I though Kaworu was the last angel…"

She's right, it doesn't make any sense. Last time I checked there were going to be seventeen angels and, unless my maths has really gone downhill, the evas beat the living crap out of one to seventeen. There's no reason for us to be here… yet here we are, still sitting round a bunch of computers (that probably cost more money than the three of us combined will ever see in our life-times) making small talk and pen pushing.

"He was." I add. "All the angels have been defeated."

"So," It's Makoto's turn to creak back into his seat as he leans back, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "If we're all safe, what are we doing on first level alert?" He looks back and forth between Maya and me but neither of us can say anything. Hell, we've all been brain storming over why we're standing by for an attack when there's nothing left to launch it ever since the 'guys up-stairs' issued the order two hours ago. You'd think that being in the position we are, they may have dropped us a hint…

Ibuki finally breaks the silence. Good thing to, I'm going to drive myself nuts trying to work out the logic behind this if I think about it for much longer.

"What's going to happen to NERV and the evas?"

Ah, so someone finally popped pressing question number two. Sure, I knew from the start this wasn't going to be a permanent position but I never actually realised that one day us, NERV and even the evas themselves were going to be put out of business. Even though tomorrow was bound to bring a whole load of fresh shit, I'd always taken it for granted.

And now it's finally gone… Somehow this sudden break and uncertainty that been dumped in the routine that's my life seems more scary than the though of getting blown up by a giant cube. Of course, I probably wouldn't be saying that if an angel decided to barraged through the wall right now…

Ibuki sighs.

"I wish Dr. Akagi was here…" She goes to lift her forgotten biscuit of the pool of grey coffee but the damn things so sodden it just slops back in. The girl just degectaly watches it as it sinks and dissolves.

God, this is depresing...

Don't worry, she's beenmoping aroundlike this even since they hauled the 'good doctor' away, but I just don't get why she's so hung up over it. I mean, from what's been going around it sound like the grand high slave driver completely flipped out and went all nutso on the dummy plug system. Of course, the official version isn't as colourful, all they told us was that she 'did something to compromise the running of NERV' but then, I don't think we've ever got a full story out of them.

Makoto peers over the rim of his mug as I clear my throat.

"Well I think that NERV's just going to be disbanded and I don't even want to think about what they're going to do to us…"

Makoto nods. He's already on the same wave line as me. Just like me, he's more than aware of the fact that the three of us in particular know a hell of a lot about the technology running this place…technology people would kill to get their hands on.

"All we can do is wait and see…"

8 8 8

Makoto lent back in his chair once again and all too quickly, silence fell over the colossal room. The only thing that broke the quiet was the monotonous ticking of the main system's clock display, each digital click bringing whatever it was that was coming to NERV a second nearer.

A/N: I must appologies for any spellings you may have come across. The spell checker and I do get most of them, but the occational one will slip throgh. I'm going to try and include the pov's of Asuka, Ritsuko, the MAGI (though, i'm not sure if that's really going to work), Rei, Gendo and prehapse Yui (but that's another one i'm not to sure of). If anyone has any suggestions of other charaters then that would be appreciated.

Thanks once again. Any C&C would be hugely appreciated.