Disclaimer: see part 1.
Survivors
Part 4.5
Godsend
By Random1377
"No… please, God NO!!"
Behind me, someone I knew very well was begging for their life.
"NO!!!"
I inched forward along the narrow corridor, pulling myself along with one hand and my knees, my other hand clutching at the hole in my lower chest, trying to staunch the flow of blood leaving my body.
"PLE-"
Gunfire again.
"Sempai…" I moaned, trying to crawl faster as my superior's cries for mercy were forever silenced.
It had happened all at once, like the transition from a calm, soothing dream into a nightmare. I was talking to my superior, Ryouji Matsura, on a quiet Friday afternoon, feeling that surely today he would invite me to dinner. I had been infatuated with him ever since I had started working at NERV, and we had come fairly close to kissing a few times. You know, both leaning forward, then kinda realizing how inappropriate it was.
I was playing with the idea of asking him to dinner myself, and propriety be damned, when the door to our department, EVA Second Lumbar Analysis division, burst open. The woman who had stumbled in, wild-eyed and desperate, had saved us, even if only briefly.
'Coming…' she gasped, turning to close the door, 'they're co-'
Whatever she had been trying to tell us was lost as a number of bullets slammed into her body, hurling her back into our section like a discarded doll… and just as lifeless.
Ryouji saved me. He took my hand, shouting for me to move as what seemed like a swarm of black-uniformed men rushed down the hallway towards the open door.
I'll never forget those five minutes. We ran… we ran deeper into NERV, screams and gunfire following us and cutting us off everywhere we went. We were turning a corner when a bullet had hit me, throwing me against the wall with a muffled cry. Ryouji… he never hesitated.
'Get away,' he had whispered, easing me down onto the floor, his eyes wide with terror, 'I'll get you some time…'
He had smiled, then gotten to his feet and run down the opposite hallway.
"Sempai…" I whispered again, trying to get to my feet, or at least my knees, and failing.
"Got a stray."
My blood ran cold.
"Yeah, I know," that calm, level voice behind me said easily, "I'll take care of her. Out."
I didn't turn around at the click of his gun. What good would it do me? I lowered my head to the cold, hard floor and waited for death to take me, my tears dropping unheeded from my cheeks.
"Ryouji…" I whispered, closing my eyes, "thank you for trying…"
Do you know… how many thoughts you can have in the time it takes to draw a breath?
I inhaled.
"Maybe we should do that some time… if you wanted to"
"What? You mean… like a date?"
"Mmmmmmaybe…"
"Well, then mmmmmaybe I'd say yes."
"Maybe I'll ask you sometime, then."
"Maybe you should…"
I exhaled.
"No, mother… Tokyo-3 isn't a bad place."
"I know that dear, just be careful – especially with that Ryouji character, he sounds like trouble."
"Yes mother… I'll be really careful. Ok, I gotta go. I love you."
"I love you too, honey… I miss you."
"I miss you too, Mama… I miss you too…"
And the world exploded into sound all around me. I screamed. God help me, I screamed. It was as if knowing that I was going to die had registered on some deep, primal level, and that hidden corner of my soul simply couldn't let me leave silently.
It took me a full minute to realize that I was still screaming, and therefore still CAPABLE of screaming. Ironically enough, that's why I stopped.
"…you she was still alive," a voice to my left was saying, "corpses don't keep screaming that long, kid."
"You're sure?" another, younger sounding voice replied, "I mean-"
"Trust me," the first voice cut in dryly, "I've seen a few people die in my day."
Shaking, I opened my eyes, firmly believing that each breath would be my last, and turned my head.
"Can you walk?"
I flinched as I found myself face to face with a young man crouching at my side, a small pistol dangling between his knees. I took him in at a glance, guessing he was about sixteen or seventeen, though his dark blue eyes made him look even older. He had short brown hair, and was dressed like a junior high student.
It was so preposterous that I almost lost my mind. A teen… with a gun… in the middle of hell. It was almost more than I could bear.
"Can you?" the older-sounding voice asked, "Speak up, we don't have time to waste."
I tilted my head at a steeper angle, spying the boy's companion. He was tall, well-built, and would have been handsome had he not been carrying what looked like about ten guns of various sizes. "I…" I swallowed, trying to regain my voice, "I don't know…"
"Let's go," the older man said, taking one more glance at me before looking away and starting off down the corridor, "she's dead weight."
Let me tell you something about human pride – it leaves in a big hurry when the threat of death looms big. "Don't leave me!" I begged, forcing myself to my knees and grimacing at the pain it caused, "Please… please don't leave me alone here."
I focused my plea on the younger one. Why? I don't know, I really don't. Both of them, in spite of the difference in their ages, looked like hard men… the kind of men who would leave an injured woman to die rather than risk their own lives.
I know it sounds ignoble, but at that point I really couldn't have blamed them. If I was alive, safe, and armed, I would have gotten out as fast as I could – and never looked back.
Think I sound like a monster? You try being in that place… all of your friends either dying or dead, and your own head practically on the block, and try and give me a noble, self-sacrificing answer.
I dare you.
"Can you walk?" the boy asked me again, meeting my eyes.
I nodded. I could see it in his eyes, you see… he would leave me if I couldn't. It would probably hurt him, he would probably never forgive himself for it, and he would probably lose sleep every night for the rest of his life, but he would leave.
I would have run if he had needed me to… just as long as he would protect me.
"Leave her," the older man said once more as I struggled to my feet, "or don't you want to save your friends?"
The boy slipped his free hand around my waist and guided my arm over his shoulder, shocking me to the core. "I can do both," he said calmly. Though I could feel his body shaking when he said it.
"I can help!" I said quickly, wincing as my side throbbed, "I have codes… access numbers… I can help you get out. The doors will all be locked."
The older man looked at my ID badge for a moment, then shrugged. "Might make things go a LITTLE faster," he shrugged, "but you weighing us down will more than compensate for you being able to open the locks we can't blast open. And besides, we're not getting out… we're getting deeper in."
For a horrifying moment, I thought he meant that they were part of the invading force. Then the boy murmured, "I'll make sure she keeps up… now let's go, before more of them get here."
"Thank you," I whispered pathetically, feeling tears streaming down my face as we started off, "you saved-"
"Don't thank me," he cut in, his voice sad, "you're not safe yet. You can thank me when we find an elevator and get you to the surface."
I closed my mouth, focusing on the hallway in front of me as we stagger-ran down it, heading further into the complex.
"Thank you," I whispered again, keeping my eyes facing forward.
He made no reply.
**
"So she missed?"
We were stopped at one of the doors, entering access codes, when the boy spoke up again. We hadn't wasted much time on words as we hurried through the complex, and I was thankful for that. You see… I had started coughing. Each cough brought a little more blood out of the hole in my side, and it was getting harder to breathe.
But I would be damned if I let that show. I was thankful to them for taking me with, but I held no illusions of them keeping me if I started hacking up blood, or asked them to slow down.
"She didn't miss," the bigger man commented, scanning the hall behind us for any signs of the intruders. "She just didn't hit a vital point. When I got to him, he was almost gone, and I don't think he'll ever walk again."
"And that's why he didn't tell Misato?" the boy asked.
-Misato?- I thought, finishing the sequence to open the door, -Wonder if he means Katsuragi, the operations director?-
I had met the purple-haired woman once, right after her promotion to Major. She had toured our section, her eyes missing nothing as she looked around at our equipment and personnel. She had insisted on meeting each of us personally, shaking our hands and repeating our names, though I have no idea if she retained mine – I was just a low-left spinal technician… but she made us all feel important.
A strong woman.
"Yeah," the bigger man murmured, scratching his chin. "Why bother raising her hopes if you can't even walk, right? Hell, he was barely able to stay awake for more than an hour at a time the first few days. Lost a lot of blood. Besides – if she knew he was alive, she would be relieved… and that would show." He grinned. "Of course, he WANTED to see her… damn fools in love, you all get on my nerves. The thing about it, and the reason I didn't tell you who it was, is that I wasn't sure he was right about who it was. I couldn't move until I KNEW it was that woman… because she might have been a flunky… or he might have seen things wrong – it WAS dark, after all."
"It's open," I managed, leaning once more on the boy's shoulder, "we should be about-"
Have you ever seen combat veterans in their element? They just… move differently than normal people. One minute I was leaning on a kind-eyed boy's shoulders, telling him how far we were from the nearest surface-access elevator, and the next I was being supported by a trained killer.
"Take the right!" the boy shouted, whipping his pistol up as five soldiers appeared at the end of the corridor we had just come down.
The idea that I could have screamed in terror never occurred to me. I was too caught up in the change in the boy's demeanor. No, that's not right – I didn't scream because I was afraid it would bring his attention to me, and God help me I didn't want his eyes on me when they looked like that.
"Get through the door!" the bigger man yelled, pulling a shotgun off his back and cocking it. "We'll seal it on the other side!"
In the movies, firefights last forever. The two sides vie for position, trading shots back and forth, trying to dig the other side out. In real life… it's a bit faster. We were in a wide-open corridor, with nothing to hide behind and nowhere to run. The only thing that saved our lives, I believe, was the fact that they weren't expecting us to be so heavily armed. I think they were used to techs and admins, screaming and pleading for their lives.
I hate to admit how good it felt when the bigger man's shotgun boomed, catching two of the soldiers in its deadly net.
"Go, GO!"
The return fire was immediate, but hurried. How can I say that, when I've had no formal combat training? Easy – had they taken time to aim, we would have died.
As it was, the entire exchange lasted thirty seconds, and it concluded with four of them dead, the last one wounded, and us on the other side of the door, keying in the locking sequence.
"It's always a good time with you, kid," the big man grinned.
It scared me to think that he was enjoying this.
I turned to the boy, on the verge of saying thank you again, but the words changed on my lips. "You're hurt!"
The boy nodded grimly as the door slammed closed and locked. "It's not too bad," he muttered, wiping the trickle of blood from the shallow cut on his cheek.
"This isn't working," the big man said seriously. "Where's the elevator? She can't be with us anymore."
I swallowed as the boy reluctantly nodded. "It's about five minutes from here, if we hurry."
I felt myself pale as the big man leaned close to me. "Run," he said flatly, "or we leave your ass."
"Y-yes sir," I managed.
I ran. I ran for my life, literally, ignoring the increasingly angry throb in my side and the tickling in my throat that insisted that I cough. With more adrenaline in my body than ever before, I forced my body to move. For Ryouji. For my mother. For me. I ran… and I never felt so damn alive.
"It's something, isn't it?" the big man whispered as we dashed down one of the never-ending corridors deep inside NERV. "That rush… that thrill… that knowledge that every step could be the last one, but you're still moving…"
I nodded, focusing my eyes on the boy's back as he took the lead.
"He lives for this," the man went on, smiling broadly as a sign reading, 'Emergency Surface Access' came into view. "Damn kid's a natural… he's just like me."
"N-no…" I panted, tightening my lips into a thin line. "He's not…"
I think I caught him off guard, because he almost stumbled… but I don't think I've ever seen anyone laugh as hard as he did when we reached the elevator.
"What's so funny?" the boy asked, pushing the button to summon the elevator.
"Nothing," the big man chuckled. "Just glad you decided to bring her with, is all… she's a live one."
I leaned against the wall, gasping for breath and covering my wound with my hands.
"Will she be ok?" the boy asked, removing his shirt and holding it against my side, "She looks kinda weak…"
I didn't mind them talking about me like I wasn't there. Hell – they could have called me a whore right then and I would have shrugged and ignored it.
"Eh," the older man shrugged, "doesn't look too bad, she should make it." He grinned at me, "I give her seventy-thirty. Once she's on, I'll secure that other elevator we discussed, then you go get your friends and meet me there."
The boy nodded, sighing as he turned back to me. "The elevator is a slow one, I think," he said quietly, pressing the shirt tighter against my chest and avoiding further talk on the issue of my life or death, "so just try and rest, alright?"
I nodded, and a moment later, the door opened. He stepped in with me, pressing one of the extra guns into my hand and offering me a small smile.
As he backed up, I reached out and caught the front of his undershirt. "Wait," I said quickly.
"What is it?" he asked, "I really have to-"
I pulled him to me, kissing him deeply… trying to convey the gratitude that simple words could never express. As we parted, I whispered, "Thank you…" releasing his shirt and stepping back into the elevator, "thank you…"
I pushed the button and the elevator slid closed, cutting off his blushing, incredibly shocked face from my sight.
**
So now here I am… still bleeding… still coughing… still waiting for the elevator to reach the top. The boy had said this elevator was slow, but it seems like it's taking forever.
Am I going to die?
Yeah, I think maybe I am. I read somewhere that time does funny things when you're dying, and God – this elevator has been moving forever.
And what if the JSSDF is waiting for me at the top? I have this gun… but I don't even know if I can lift it.
So I guess I'll wait here… and pray.
The elevator is moving… isn't it? I can feel it… I think… or is that me? I don't know anymore… I'm so tired.
I close my eyes.
"Oh yeah," I whisper, slumping back against the wall and hoping my eyes will open again when I tell them to, "what's your name?"
I never even asked him
He came to me like a godsend, answering prayers for salvation that I didn't even have the nerve to utter for fear of having them not come true… and I never even knew his name.
I think the elevator is clicking off floors.
I think I closed my eyes… didn't I?
Why do I smell lilacs?
I think I'm going to live…
I think I'm going to live…
I think…
I… think…
I…
think…
…
The End
Author's notes: "I give her seventy-thirty…" I hope you liked this little companion piece to Survivors. I wanted to kinda give a little look at part of Shinji and Martin's trip to Terminal Dogma, and explain a bit about why Kaji seems to be miraculously alive at the end of chapter 4. At the same time, I didn't want to make a plain old 'two guys storming through a bunch of enemies' story, so I knew I would need a different focus. By shining the light on our nameless little technician, I was able to do both in one neat little bundle. ^_^ I hope it came out well.
Pre-read was by Ryoma… thanks man, you rawk… or something like that.
Feedback is always welcome at random1377@yahoo.com