Five years in.
"Basically?"
Makoto shuffled his feet.
"We're running out of money."
He was serious. "How?"
Makoto brought up a series of graphs and pie charts. "This is how much of the economy we're mobilising for Project E, most of that being production costs for the new units. This is how much we need to keep treading water at our irrecoverable casualty rate."
"Irrecoverable... so that's including salvage?"
"An optimisitic level of salvage. We haven't actually been able to re-use that much Eva material since the thirty-seventh."
"Okay. But I thought we were okay for new production?"
"We were. But The Committee has deemed the Third Series too expensive."
"The Third Series is the best thing we've had since Unit Two-" she hissed
"-They say they're too expensive. They die at an even greater rate."
"That's because the whole casualty rate is up, it's not just the new units-"
"-well, they're not listening. They want to cancel production of the MkIIIs and produce more MkIIs while they wait for the MkIV test-"
"-The Second Series are totally inadequate and you know it. These new Angels..."
He met her eyes. "I know."
After a moment, she looked to his screens.
"So what does it mean."
His reply took a while. "If the casualty rate stays the same, we'll be down to critical strength again before the fourth series gets here."
"What about the Fourth Series test-type?"
"It's got promising stats, but there's the usual problem."
"No spare parts." To her credit, she rallied quickly. "So what can we do?"
He had clearly been waiting for her to ask. "The Committee has seen the economic figures, but not our side of the picture. The mobilisation drive might have made them believe some of the hype, or maybe they just don't appreciate what our figures mean. But I don't think it's that."
He was genuinely proud of himself for the first time in a long while. She found herself grinning too, a little. "Then what?"
"They want you to back their new mobilisation policy. Look." He pointed to the charts.
"This is how much we have right now, and this one here is how much we need to rush either the Mk IIIs through or" he pointed to another "the MkIVs through."
"These two are... smaller? Our funding is less?!-"
"No. The big bit's us."
"As a share of what?"
"World economic activity."
She was no economist. "Isn't that a bit... big?"
"I thought you'd say that."
He tapped a fourth graph. "This is the level of sustainable spending."
It was less than half the current level.
"Sustainable how?"
"Long-term."
"...how long-term?"
"Five years."
He let it sink in.
"And you want... I mean, we need spending to be higher. If we want the Mk IIIs or Mk IVs."
"Yes."
"If we want to survive, in other words."
"Yes."
"...so what happens after five years?"
His look said it all. There was a long silence.
"This week, the U.N. approves Nerv's new budget. They know we need the third series at least, so they're using this to make us help them."
"Politics wasn't in my job description."
"The previous Commander would've done it."
Of course.
"We haven't got much choice. But why do they need me?"
"The delegates would respect your opinion. But they also want to ask some awkward questions. So it's win-win for the Committee."
"Right. So, I say some stuff, answer some questions, and they get us what we need. What's the catch?"
He grimaced..
The economic stuff was kind of over her head, though Makoto had just told her enough for her to know where they were headed in the 'long-term'.
But she knew what it meant when there were no catches.
Backs to the wall.
Shinji Ikari shuffled to work alone. The train car was empty. They kept it that way for him.
When he got to work, he sat at his desk with his head in his hands until it was time for class.
His students filed into his class in twos and threes. He was one of 'the old breed'. They even called him 'old man'.
He wasn't even nineteen.
He spent the next fifty minutes giving the fresh meat a lecture on the Evangelions' operational history, with reference to his personal experiences. With four years' piloting experience, he was the most senior pilot.
Tanaka was next, with a little over a year-and-a-half's experience.
The Mass Production Eva-Series was supposed to make the overly-expensive and difficult-to-maintain test-types redundant, allowing their retirement. The MPEs were designed to have an operational life of about twenty years, with regular maintenance. Tanaka had been a pilot of a second-production-run MP Eva. They'd rushed them through when they were down to just him, Enbo, Konev, Mari, and Asuka. The design was identical - and totally inadequate - but they were just meant to buy time, and everyone knew it.
Except the pilots, of course.
But Tanaka had survived. Her original Eva basically hadn't, but they'd been able to build a new one from scratch using the core of her old Eva and parts scavenged from the rest of the series. They'd even christened the new unit 'Lazarus', after some ancient European myth - though Mari had always called it 'Frankenstein'.
After the ten minute break, it was Tanaka's turn to take over. Shinji took up position at the back of the class to help enforce classroom discipline as per their instructions. Tanaka was seventeen now, and heart-achingly pretty despite the acne. LCL was supposed to be good for skin condition, or so he'd once heard someone say (he couldn't remember who) -probably Mari. But it didn't look like it'd helped.
In practice, the delay in ordering the second MP Eva run had been fatal. When the first second-run units were deployed, there weren't any first-runs left. That left them relying on the prototypes, with almost no expendable units whatsoever.
They were okay for a couple of missions. Everyone was seasoned, nobody made any dumb mistakes... and sure, they took some hits, but it wasn't too bad...
He remembered hoping that maybe...just maybe... things would be alright, even if it was only them.
The Second-Generation Mass Production Eva series, with a projected operational life of five years and by his personal reckoning an average combat life of about three minutes, were even worse than the first. They had only one thing going for them: numbers. They'd lost twenty, still had ten, and there were another ten on the way.
And the MkIIIs should be here soon, they were saying. They weren't too bad, but again it was the numbers that counted. Zongren was still kicking around in his MkIII test-type, if only because they'd confined him to support roles. He even had some spare parts now, after what'd happened to the first MkIIIs to see frontline combat. Maintenance/repairs of non-standard Evangelions, like Zongren's had been (and his and Tanaka's always would be) were "a bitch", to use the technical term proferred by Doctor Akagi.
Each time they'd promised that the new series would make the older models redundant, that the older pilots could retire, that they could have lives of their own.
Only he and Tanaka seemed seemed to realise that was a lie.
He found himself watching her as she dismissed the class and sat at her desk, head in her hands, exhausted. He knew that look: sleepless nights. He wished there was something he could do.
Reminding himself what he'd been through to get here, what he'd done, what he'd faced, he forced himself to his feet and mechanically walked over to where she was and sat on the front-row desk opposite her. He stopped thinking of the 'right' thing to say, remembering his counselling, and made himself speak.
"Can't sleep?"
She muttered something.
"That's a yes."
He wanted to touch her, to reassure her, but... something in him shied away. And it wasn't just the chance of being seen.
Overriding the feeling, he reached out and grasped her forearm. It... was awkward.
He fished through his memory, and reached for her hands instead, managing to gently pry them away and clasp both in his own.
"Memories, or fears?"
She looked him in the eye. She was so much braver than he was, at her age. "Both."
"It won't pass."
It was true, but he sensed he'd said the wrong thing. He didn't know how to fix it.
He spoke anyway. "When I was your age, I prayed that it would. I wished for it more than anything. But all you can really do is get used to it."
She was doing the eye-twinkling thing again. His heart hadn't skipped a beat like that since Mari.
"You wished for it more than not having to pilot?"
It was much funnier than it should have been. Mari had always said that it didn't really matter how funny the joke was, just as long as it dispelled the tension. So Tanaka had succeeded where Shinji had forgotten that he should even try.
"Sorry, my sense of humour's..."
"I used to pray you'd get one. But I think I'll learn to accept your lack of it."
Again, tension-relief.
The mood shifted, and his eyes whipped to the door.
He played it cool as... the freshie froze in the doorway. It was one of the more serious ones - not cocky, not arrogant. Agreeable in his own way. He'd probably outlast at least half the rest of his class as a result. Shinji thought how to present this to him.
"Bad dreams," his eyes flashed to the boy's nametag "Dylan. You'll have them soon enough."
"I'm sorry-"
"-Don't be. You're going to see people in a lot worse shape than Miss Tanaka, and if you make it to her age, you'll probably be worse yourself." He gave Dylan a wink.
...then realised what was wrong with that statement, and inwardly cringed without showing it - that had been an important part of Misato's 'leadership training'. Mari had always said that a father-figure could be a soldier, a salaryman, or a scientist - but whatever he was to the outside world, to his charges he had to be a distant authority figure who could never be pleased.
...she'd been joking. He hadn't smiled at first, the first time she told it to him. But her grin had been so infectious that he'd ended up with abdominal cramps, trying fight off the giggles while cradled in her arms. Of course, her tickling him ('to boost your sense-of-humour synchronisation rate!') hadn't helped.
Tanaka laughed. "Oh, Stoneface... you're so bloody grim all the time. I'm fine," she told the boy "just a bit tired is all. Too many sync tests. Now take your seat."
Shinji flashed her a look of thanks, and she stuck her tongue out at him as he moved to take her place for the next lesson.
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