Disclaimer: I make no claim to owning any of the fictional characters referred to within this document.
It was an ignominious sight, had anyone been there to observe it.
Gehirn's chief scientist, a distraught white lab-coat and jeans man lay unmoving on an unkempt double bed, having had the foresight only to remove his shoes. He lay curled in the foetal position on the rumpled bed, hard Asian features bordered by a not-quite-receding fringe of black hair.
He pushed his hands against his closed eyes, applying as much pressure as he dared. Trying to block the visions.
Under his breath, he muttered quietly to himself, "Yui..."
Another breath. "Oh, my dear Yui..."
Like breath itself, "...Yui..."
Pushing his head hard up against the pillow of the double bed, which so recently had felt the heat of two bodies, his anguished cries were absorbed into the dark and otherwise silent bedroom.
"No, Yui no..." the grown man groaned. The tears had mostly having run out, cheeks now lightly crusted with salt. The back of his throat felt burned and bruised, the pain that triggered a hollowness that started between his eyes and somehow descended deep into his chest. A shattered core dissolved by a devestating blow.
Exhaustion set in, calming his fevered mind to a disheveled slumber. He rolled over, feebly reaching out to his wife's side of the bed in his stupor. Blissful oblivion was briefly attained, only for him to wake enough to wonder, then to remember.
He convulsed bolt upright in the bed. "No...!" he gasped, feeling the cold sweat on his brow. Gendo held a hand to his mouth to help stifle the dry retch that threatened to consume his body. Gagging, he barely contained a mouth of saliva that his renewed hysteria brought forth. Settling into a mournful sob, Gehirn's Research Coordinator and Technical Director covered his head with his pillow in a vain attempt to see out the night.
Several eternities more of tortuous stupor, a shrill (and fiendishly chirpy) sound tore Gendo from his hellish reverie. His mobile ring tone sung out for attention, as if the world still existed outside of his grief. Sitting up, he wondered in a stupour what he should do for a moment, before grabbing it from his bedside. He stared at the caller ID.
AKAGI, NAOKO
Naoko. 'What could she want?'
Stupid cow, she's no use to me. She's not Yui!
A deep breath allowed a sane thought to prevail. 'Calm down. She's a friend...Yui's friend...we had her over for dinner a few nights ago.'
A fugitive whisper. Yui cooked hagfish stew that night...
An unhinged murmur. She babysat Shinji on Saturday night so that Yui and I could...
Gendo cleared his throat before accepting the call. "Hello?"
[Hello, Gendo? So sorry to bother you...but I had to check on you.]
Yui's not here right now...
"Yes, uh, hi. I'm...ok. Well. I am."
[Of course...sorry. Look, really I called about Shinji. I remember when I found out about Keisuke and the plane accident, I...I didn't look after Ritsuko the way I should have. So...I thought I could take Shinji for you for a little while.]
"Uhm, well I...I...Shinji is...I think he's still sleeping. I put him to bed...a while ago."
How long ago was that, anyway?
[Oh my, I hadn't realised the time...well, sorry to bother you. I just got home. But, my offer stands. For tomorrow, I mean. And afterwards as well, of course.]
"Yes, well. Thank you, Naoko. We appreciate...I appreciate it. Can we talk tomorrow?"
[Yes, of course.]
"Very well. I should let you sleep."
[Of course. We're all exhausted after...Please remember, we're all here for you, and again, we're all so sorry.]
"Yes, of course. We all are."
"Hmmph."
Gendo glared with contempt at his alarm as it buzzed the start of another working day. Of course, he had watched the minutes tick up to the trigger moment.
With a flick he switched the bleating machine off. Standing, he took a moment for long and strenuous stretch. With a grimace, he considered his immediate prospects. At least now he could follow the morning routine, etched into his memory from years of office life. His autopilot let Gendo's fevered mind forget for a while, going through the motions of showering and dressing and only faltering momentarily as Yui's customary breakfast was not prepared; no matter, he switched to the "Yui's at a conference or long-run experiment" scenario.
Making his own toast, miso and tea and consuming it mechanically, he walked to Shinji's room.
Carefully opening the door, he looked in at the still slumbering toddler, rolled onto his side in his purple-and-green cot. Repulsive as the colours of the gift were, it had given them a challenge to make the room's colour scheme work. They had relished the task, taking to it with zeal and creativity. Yui and he.
"Shinji..." he whispered. Shinji, your mother's gone...
Cradling the babe in his arms, he grinned a pain-filled grin as he jostled the waking boy, tears streaking down to flavor his mouth with salt and regret.
"Your mother loves you, Shinji."
You must never lose anything so important to you...
Gendo's brow squared and his jaw hardened as he set his resolution.
"I'm sorry that we have lost her, she is still so precious to us." 'To me.'
I will spare you such miserable a fate as this, my son.
A labcoat-clad Dr. Naoko Akagi greeted Gehirn's Technical Director as he entered the test chamber, all business and computer tablet in hand. A countdown timer listlessly continued to count up since the incident; +13d 00:23:36 and counting. The panic and adrenalin-fueled anguish had died down, the smell of fatigue and terror extracted by the air conditioning. While inevitably unkempt, the laboratory was once again returned to a place of work and research, but some precious aire of joy and verve was missing.
"Doctor. Any progress with the core?"
She nodded. "Some. We're staring to think that the pilot's proximity to the core had to do with it."
There was no need to clarify what "it" was.
Gendo fixed a steely eye on her. "Explain." He ordered. She could feel his skepticism, laced with irritation.
Unconsciously biting her lip, the scientist explained. "The proximity of the A10 link reduces the physical time for neurological signals to be routed between the interface, so...the cycles in the feedback loop get faster..."
"Unitl they start resonating." Gendo supplied, connecting the concepts and finishing the conversation as his features softened. "Well deduced, Naoko."
But Akagi wasn't finished. Calling up a plotting routine on her tablet, she continued. "The ego border...the speed at which the ID boundary was decayed can be shown to correlate with the depth of the pilot's plug."
"I don't see it."
"Neither did I, but CASPAR was able to puzzle out a relationship."
"Indeed. So it was able to identify signal paths resembling vortex shedding...impressive. When the MAGI are complete, our work will advance considerably."
"Well, we do what we can."
"As we must. Very good." Gendo took a moment to close his eyes and rub his temples.
"Oh Gendo...are you alright? You don't look well."
I'm not well.
The man straitened his shoulders as if caught out. "A lack of sleep. It has been hard to get Shinji to settle."
Akagi nodded sympathetically. "It is difficult to settle others when one is unsettled themselves."
Unsettled? I am not settled. I'm not with Yui.
"Yes..." he looked meaningfully through the test chamber's reinforced glass windows and past the barriers at the object in the center of the facility.
Naoko followed his gaze and cautiously put a comforting hand on the troubled man's shoulder. "She's still in there. The ego border is gone, but the psychograph is holding steady."
"Is there a way to restore the border?"
"I don't know. Perhaps...perhaps if we could create a suitable physical construct...I'll get back to you on that."
"Thank you. However I need you to concentrate on other things, so I will look into this myself."
"Gendo...I hope you don't mind my saying, but you're taking an awful lot of work onto yourself, and that's just what I'm aware of. You aren't an army, nor a computer. Let us help."
Gendo reached to grasp her hand in his, holding it without looking away from the center of his world. "I appreciate it. Nonethless, we must all be diligent. And patient."
She is waiting.
"Ritsuko, one day you will meet a man. It will come as a shock, but I know that side of you as I know myself as a woman. Logical deduction does not always rule in our lives."
Ritsuko Akagi, still dressed in her college getup of slacks, a green sweater and a gold hair band to offset her black-brown hair, rolled her eyes. "Sure, Mom." she answered, leaning against the kitchen counter and continuing to demolish a small box of pocky.
The elder Akagi continued, "As the chaos cuts the strange path, entropy's increase allows things to fall into place, as they should always have done. Man meets woman, but sometimes it isn't that simple. Complementing pairs, every set unique and yet sometimes two pairs are broken and a new combination is realised."
"Mother, you're trying to give dating advice from an eigenvector simile."
"Would you prefer something from a pre-impact television drama? Or perhaps I should advice you to enjoy some college debauchery, like that wild-cat Misato child?"
Ritsuko shrugged. "She certainly isn't dumb, but she knows how to let loose."
Naoko Akagi threw here head back and laughed. "Let loose! That little strumpet gave our Director the finger! She should be gagged and thrown back into that cell."
"She was catatonic for years, Mother!"
"And how do you know that?"
Ritsuko looked away, contrite. "I heard it from some girlfriends." she muttered.
"Mmm hmm, of course Ritsuko-chan. She's a crazy little hellcat, that's what I have heard from my girlfriends. And everyone else at Gehirn seems to agree."
"She's nice enough, not that I've spoken with her very much."
Haughtily, Naoko went on like her daughter hadn't opened her mouth. "Still, I can't believe she's Katsuragi's daughter. He was so devoted to scientific method and following the disparate collection of clues to their bewildering conclusions. Whereas that girl? Well, I never did meet her mother, but...I'm sorry, but I just can't see her doing anything important for the world."
The woman smirked evilly.
"Oh but wait, what am I saying? The world needs breeders now more than ever."
Ritsuko turned away, having to repress the urge to retort by gritting her teeth. The elder Akagi always had the final word. Ritsuko had learned her place too well to continue.
And yet, when were the Doctor's words meant to provoke, and when to manipulate? The girl repressed a shudder and made her way to her room.
"You should go home."
Gendo rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose to relieve his sinus. "I have not been getting enough sleep."
Professor Fuyutsuki peered over the younger man's shoulder at the computer screen now solely alighting the open-plan office space. The facility was eerily quiet at this late hour. "Headache again? You may need your eyes checked."
Spinning around on his desk chair, he rolled his eyes and smirked. "I do not believe that glasses would suit me."
"I'm sure you'd make them your own."
Will she recognise me when she comes out?
With an ironic glare, he changed the subject. "In any case, unless you can explain what this half-starved Slovak meant in this theological monstrosity, I would ask you to leave me to it." Gendo said, gesturing to his screen.
Fuyutsuki sighed. "Doesn't Shinji need you these days? You've hardly been home this last week."
"My sister is currently looking after him. For the moment, I am needed here."
"She can't look after him forever."
Forever?
A raised, amused eyebrow. "Are you offering?"
"No. Of course not."
"Then perhaps someone could be persuaded to take him. No-one else but we two can decrypt these manuscripts with anything resembling efficiency."
Fuyutsuki crossed him arms behind his back. "Hmmph. Or figure out which ones actually contain meaning, as opposed to the mad gibbering of an imbecile with a once-deferred messiah complex. Have the Old Men been unable to send us anyone with the necessary skills?"
"It seems that men like us are few and far between."
"Sometimes I think that's a good thing. That passage you sent me was total bunk, by the way. But somehow I think you knew that."
"You've found more than one gem that I've missed. They can't all be good."
The Professor smirked, then let the mirth fade from his face. "Enough, Gendo. Go home, shower, take a walk. Maybe even sleep."
"No, Professor. My work is here. So much is before us, I cannot let this wait."
Fuyutsuki grimaced. "Your boy needs you."
Closing his eyes, Gendo steepled his hands in front of his face as if in meditation. "My boy needs a future. I cannot give it to him from home. It is here that we will forge our new Genesis, and now is when it's exact form must be honed."
"Gendo, calm down. Yui would want you to look after Shinji."
Eyes snapping open, Gendo stood and looked beyond the office walls toward the hidden center of the facility. "Yui is waiting for me, waiting for us to achieve our goals and guarantee the future. She is waiting!"
Taken aback, Fuyutsuki slowly shook his head. "You've lost it, Rokubungi."
Not Rokubungi. I am Ikari. Gendo Ikari.