Creation began on 07-04-17
Creation ended on 07-08-17
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Evangelion APB
The hospital was silent. This was because nobody was saying anything. Nobody dared to say anything until they received an update on the condition of Toji Suzuhara. But despite the silence, Shinji still couldn't stop his hands from shaking until he had a cup of warm tea in them by Hikari, who was there along with Kensuke.
A male doctor came out of the operating room and approached the Suzuhara family.
"The bullets missed his organs," he informed them, "but he's lost a lot of blood. He's going to be here for a few days."
At least he isn't dead, thought Shinji, sipping his tea as Toji's sister was relieved to know that her big brother was going to pull through.
It took the police nearly forty-eight minutes to show up at the store and another twenty minutes to get to the hospital…and two hours for Toji to be in surgery. The only thing that upset Shinji about all of this…was the lack of punctuality on the part of the police and the fact that he was put on hold by an electronic voice.
"Shinji," went Kensuke to him. "The police need to get your statement now."
He finished his drink and got up on the bench.
-x-
"…At least it wasn't the boy," said Gendo to Fuyutsuki, responding to the information that explained the current situation with his son.
"Except that the lack of response from the police is the fault of NERV," he told him; because NERV was founded by the United Nations, this left other organizations, such as the police and hospitals understaffed and underfunded around Japan and other parts of the world. "It'll be a miracle if the boy lives to see old age because of his injuries."
"Irrelevant, and have the police escort the boy here once they get his statement."
-x-
"…Like I've told you for the seventh time," Shinji told the officer getting his statement. "He ran around the aisle and must've hit the guy with the glass bottle before he was shot twice by him. I never saw him get shot."
Shinji looked around him and saw how the police station looked as though it had seen better days. There were broken printers, old computers, and a lack of personnel. He even heard several complaints from several officers about a lack of warrants, lack of manpower to deal with suspects, even talks of transfers to other police stations or cities, weeks and months of delays and so on. He was beginning to doubt that the police would even find anything that would lead anywhere to catching the guy that shot and almost killed Toji with the way things were going.
"So you're him?" He turned to face a young woman talking to him. "You're Shinji Ikari?"
She must've been around the Katsuragi woman's age…and bore an uncanny resemblance to the woman…with the exception of a small scar under her left eye.
"Miss Katsuragi?" He asked her.
"You must've met my sister, Misato," she responded. "I'm Misao, her elder sister."
"Twins?"
"Yes. I'm the lucky one, unfortunately. She was with our father when Second Impact occurred."
Shinji looked up the published story of how that so-called calamity that ravaged the world, and had nothing but sympathy for those that lost their homes, their families, their friends and had to adapt in a changed world where only the strongest would survive.
"Yes, I'm Shinji Ikari," he answered her earlier question to him. "What's with all the…lacking?"
Misao looked around them and answered, "NERV. The paramilitary agency my sister works for. The UN funds them at the expense of transferring the necessary founding the police and hospitals need to make sure they're prepared for some sort of threat that relates to what happened fifteen years ago."
Slam! The officer that had taken Shinji's statement was bashing his left hand against a faulty printer.
"Well, I see the investigation is off to a start," Shinji sighed.
"Kazuhiro transfers out of here in the next eight weeks," Misao explained. "His last partner got shot when he went to get coffee during a night shift. He's been through four of them. The crime wave got so tense that it made the new recruits back down the second they found out how bad it was."
"And the fact that you have to make do with faulty equipment and lack of warrants and evidence? Pretty poor 'A'-game."
"Yeah, well…when you play ball with little to no equipment and nobody in the stands, you tend to lose your 'A'-game faster than one can lose their virginity."
Shinji looked at her and nodded in agreement with her choice of words to explain the situation (with the sole exception the virginity aspect). It was similar to how one, such as he himself, had to go through life with little to no relatives that actually gave a damn and hardly a place to call home when no one wants you around.
"Still, it's no excuse for what happened last night," she declared. "I'm real sorry for what happened to your friend."
"Thank you."
"Shinji Ikari," said a male officer that was older than Kazuhiro, accompanied by another officer. "We need you to come with us, please."
-x-
"…So he's being escorted by the police to Tokyo-3 right now," said Ritsuko to Gendo.
"Excellent," he responded; he had hoped that his son was smart enough to respect authority figures.
-x-
Tokyo-3, supposedly established to outdo Tokyo-2 and the remnants of the original Tokyo that was slowly being decontaminated and cleared of its wreckage, was not all that impressive to Shinji as he was being escorted to his father. It was just too…soulless. There weren't any trees, scrubs, a lot of power lines and solar panels on the buildings and rooftops, etc. He couldn't imagine himself living here, even if he admired some of the technology present.
Suddenly, he felt the police car stop after driving into a dark place…and then lower into the ground.
I don't like enclosed spaces, he thought.
Flash! Bright light illuminated the outside of the car…and Shinji saw a rather-large secret that was likely the only thing that made this city stand out from other cities in the nation.
It was a Geo-Front, similar to the theories and examples of thriving underground in available space or when space became hard to obtain above ground, and below them, away from an expanse of wilderness and an artificial lake…was a metallic pyramid with the logo for NERV painted on.
NERV, Shinji realized, suspecting that his old man was the type of person that simply refused to take a declining response from anyone he targeted.
-x-
"…Hello again," went Misato to Shinji, hoping to ease the tension he was probably feeling right now. "How are you doing?"
"Disgusted," he responded, "and infuriated. What do you want?"
"Okay," she accepted; they had clearly crossed a subtle line by bringing the billionaire boy down here against his will. "This way, please."
Shinji followed her, not that he had a choice in the matter right now, wanting to get to the point of why his father wanted to see him…just so he could share his peace and then take a hike back to his home.
"You…don't talk much, do you?" Misato asked him.
"Is there anything to talk about here that doesn't relate to business or what have you?" He questioned.
"You're not big on what other agencies do, are you?"
"I didn't even want to come here. You people are either too stubborn…or too stupid to accept that 'no' means 'no'."
"For your information, we're in the business of defending mankind from facing extinction."
"And that justifies the negative effects you have on Japan? What good is defending mankind…when the crime rate is high and the mortality rate is equally high?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Maybe I've said enough and you should talk to your sister."
The door in front of them opened and draft swept past them.
Misato would've said something about how these drafts made it terrible for her to wear skirts, but instead of saying, she looked at Shinji like he'd crossed a personal line with her.
"You…you've met Misao?" She demanded.
Shinji simply turned his gaze away from her.
"You should watch where you're going," he told her.
"Yes, you should," they both heard a woman say to Misato. "You nearly walked into me."
"Sorry, Rits," she apologized to the faux-blond in the lab coat. "Not a particularly interesting conversation took place."
The faux-blond looked at Shinji and questioned, "Is he the boy?"
"Uh, yes. According to the Marduk Institute, he's the Third Child."
"Wow, a billionaire child that everyone has been talking about. Nice to meet you."
Ritsuko held out her right hand, but Shinji didn't do anything.
"Can we hurry up and see why the old man wanted me here so I can go, please?" He asked her instead.
"Uh, right," she responded.
-x-
Toji groaned as he awoke from what felt like a heavy nap, finding himself in a small room with a stale smell. His memory was hazy, but he recalled telling Shinji to stay on his phone as he tried to call the police while he tried to stop a guy trying to rob a store.
"Toji, you're up!" He heard Hikari expressed, and he saw her sitting beside his bed.
"Big brother!" Sakura cheered.
"How do you feel?" His father asked him.
"Wasted."
"Well, you did get shot twice," said his mother to him. "I doubt the police will ever find the guy that did this to you."
"But…Shinji was able to get hold of the police in time, right?" Toji asked.
"He got in contact, but…they took so long to get to you," Hikari explained.
That's when Toji noticed that Shinji wasn't around; he didn't expect Kensuke to be present, as he usually had other things to do, but Shinji not being around was a little depressing.
"Where is Shinji?" He asked Hikari.
"He had to go give his statement to the police…but he hasn't come back yet," she explained to him. "It shouldn't take so long to give a statement."
"Unless, of course, Shinji has other things obligating him from making it back here," Toji realized, which seemed likely, since they knew Shinji well enough to know that he hardly ever got sidetracked.
"What is obligating?" Sakura asked.
"That's a negative way of saying…people have to do things they'd rather not do at all," Hikari explained to the little girl.
"Like…him not wanting to see his father or other relatives because they hurt him?"
Everyone in the room was quiet then. This was something else Toji, Hikari and Kensuke knew best about Shinji; the guy and his relatives, with the exception of his deceased grandmother, just didn't go together. Building relationships, even trying to renew and mend them, was just not going to happen with the Ikari family.
"That's right, Ms. Suzuhara," they heard Kensuke say to them, appearing by the door to the room, holding a tray with a bowl. "That's something that would obligate him to no end."
-x-
Shinji hated his father's office. In his total honesty, he hated it. It looked like a dungeon with inscriptions on the floor and ceiling, with just a desk as its only furniture. There was too much black and red and not enough light.
And then, there was his father, who, despite the fact that he was older than he was from his crippled memory, looked just as cold as he had been the day he up and ditched him.
"It's been a long time," said Gendo to him in front of Fuyutsuki, Misato and Ritsuko.
"What the Hell do you want?" Shinji decided to say back to him. "I'm pretty sure that just like you, I have more important things that require my attention than you do not. So get to the point."
Straight to business, thought Ritsuko, wondering how different this boy was from what they had originally expected him to be.
"I have need of you," Gendo told him. "In a matter of two months from now, we're to be facing a threat of biblical proportions, and we need people of your age to deal with the situation."
"Oh, really? And that's the only reason? That's the only reason you stressed out that I come here, to a soulless city, to an equally-soulless, underground facility, just to see you?" Shinji asked, sounding like he was completely uninterested in what was going on with NERV.
"That's right," his father answered him.
"Kiss my ass, old man," Shinji responded coldly, turning around and walking away.
"Hold on!" Misato up and blocked him from leaving the office. "He just told you that we're facing a threat to mankind…and you're just going to walk away?"
"That's right," he answered her, "and I have every right to walk away if I choose not to get involved…and I don't want to be involved in this matter that is your problem, NERV's problem, not my problem. Free will and choice change everything."
He walked around her.
"Cowards are always useless when the future of the world is at stake," they heard Gendo say.
"Oh, I'm a coward now?" Shinji asked him, looking at him. "You know something? If you think I'm a coward, then that's your choice to think that. I really don't care. You're no better than the people you left me with when you up and did what you did. Do you honestly think I would just jump for you when you call, like some good, little boy? I never knew how to say what I meant to say to you to express my hurt from your actions, but now I know exactly what to say to someone like you. You…disgust and infuriate me…and you are truly clueless about people…and we're done here."
He vacated the office, leaving the four adults surprised by the boy's response to what they were facing.
"Wow," went Ritsuko, looking at Gendo, "he's really personal. It's no wonder he's able to run his own business the way he does. Shall we reconfigure for Rei?"
"No," Gendo told her. "He'll return."
"How can you be so certain of that?" Fuyutsuki asked him. "He seems determined to walk away from this, regardless of what our situation is."
"He'll have no choice but to accept that we need him."
Unfortunately, Misato, who had gone after Shinji when he left the office, so she had no idea of what had been said between the three of them.
-x-
"…So, you have no shame over what we're facing at all, Shinji?" Misato asked Shinji as she followed him down the hall as he navigated his way out of the building. "Are you really going to walk away from this?"
"If you're trying to guilt-trip me into reconsidering my decision, give it up, Ms. Katsuragi," Shinji told her. "I've said all that I've had to say to that man, that failure. There's nothing left to say…so there's nothing left to discuss. If this is why you came to see me, you were better off not disturbing the subtle peace that I had from not seeing poor relatives."
"He's actually very well-off."
"Not that type of 'poor'. Disgraceful, awful, neglectful, unforgivable. I won't deny my flaws. I have issues when it comes to family and other agencies…that are deep…and even severe. My family, in particular. I only had my grandmother as my support when everyone else cast me aside, so I don't really have much of a past to be proud of when it comes to the majority of relatives. Last night, I had my eyes open to nearly losing one of my friends because of a guy that decided to try and rob a convenience store, and part of the reason for why it happened…and why the police took so long to get there. I…I have something I have to do now that is a consequence of that night."
"What are you talking about?"
"Watch the news. It might be epic, it might not be, but I gotta try my hand in doing something I feel is right instead of you think I should do."
As he vacated the building, he realized that he had no means of transportation to get back home. But it was just another problem he had to resolve with careful logic and available resources. He took out his cell phone and dialed Kensuke's number, grateful that the cell reception was still strong, even after being more than half a mile underground.
"Shinji?" He heard his otaku friend speak to him.
"Hey, Kensuke, I need a favor."
"Sure, what is it?"
"I need a taxi leading out of Tokyo-3…and I need Hikari to setup a meeting."
"Okay, but what is the meeting about?"
"Law Enforcement and Healthcare Technology."
"That's something new."
"That's what I'm hoping for."
-x-
"…Did that boy say something to you that rattled you?" Ritsuko asked Misato, later that day.
"I think he met with my sister," Misato stated, sitting in front of her unopened beer can.
"Misao? Didn't she go and get divorced because of her husband and his political career?"
"That was two years ago."
"You said she had daughter, right?"
"Yeah, Momo. I'm curious about whatever she told him. We haven't gotten along since college."
"You two are as different as twins are said to be. Your own mother even said so."
"She became a police officer, I joined the military. It's not like we both made poor choices. We both just chose what we felt was the right thing to do at the time."
"She just wanted to serve people in her neighborhood, not seeing past the country or the world."
"But we have different views on who made the more-honorable choice between the both of us."
-x-
"…Toji, you shouldn't be out of the hospital so soon," said Hikari to her boyfriend, seeing him walking through the halls of New Genesis Solutions on a crutch, three days later.
"Honestly, Hikari, I'd rather be here and at home than at the hospital," Toji told her. "Besides, I won't be doing anything strenuous for a while. Just pushing recharged tablets around."
They heard a door slide open and saw several men and women in suits walk out, speaking things as they walked away, followed by Shinji, who seemed relieved about something.
"Do you think Shinji can do something like this?" Toji asked Hikari.
"All I know is that Kensuke is taking an additional position as CTO, I'm still helping Shinji with his grandmother's funeral arrangements because I offered to, and he's very committed to this new venture after our parents told him everything they knew about before that night."
"I didn't think he'd be inspired to do something of this sort because of what he saw."
"That's our Shinji for you. He's the only one we know that is willing to try something of this sort."
Shinji looked at him and gave them a small wave from his right hand.
-x-
"…What do you mean, it's mandatory?" Gendo questioned Fuyutsuki, who informed him about an upcoming meeting with the city officials and politicians on the new suggestions and propositions for select cities. "It's just another meeting."
"Your son is going to be attending this one," Fuyutsuki explained. "There was even talk about him having a proposition for the salvaged city of Tokyo."
"Like what, a new particle accelerator?"
"No, but his company has started investing heavily in medical technological advancement, among other things that started a few days ago. We both have to attend, regardless of whether or not we feel like going to it."
-x-
Despite the expanse of land as a result of tearing down the damaged buildings and clearing the debris, Tokyo, once a thriving metropolis, was looking more like an adapting city that had been cleared of its radiation remnants and was deemed habitable once more. In fact, it had been habitable for the past seven years, with a population of at least half of the city's original population. The capital, which had been relocated to Tokyo-2 ever since the devastation, had even moved back to its original location.
"…We can probably expect to build at least ten of these buildings within the next two years," one of the men at the meeting with the city officials, informing them of the construction of new buildings to house civilians; this was a project that most other companies wanted to get in on to improve city living.
"Thank you, Mr. Roku," the head official responded, approving the project. "Next, we have… Oh, we have somewhat of a celebrity with us today. Mister Shinji Ikari of New Genesis Solutions, who has a proposition of his own to share. Oh, and his father, Gendo Ikari of NERV, is here, as well."
Shinji, who was with Kensuke at the meeting, got up from his seat and approached the podium, ignoring the fact that his father was here.
"Also, I heard your protege got out of the hospital after his shooting at the convenience store. I just want to express…" The man uttered, but Shinji cut him off.
"You want to express your hopes for his speedy recovery," he uttered. "I've heard it many times. I've even had people that knew my grandmother express their condolences over her passing. But there is one thing I've not heard: What effort is being made to find the perpetrator that shot Toji Suzuhara…or the ones that broke into people's homes…or the ones that attacked women walking home in the dead of night…or any crime that was committed weeks, months, years ago."
Several voices murmured over these facts that were brought to their attention by Shinji, while Gendo and Fuyutsuki were curious to what he was getting at.
"I can understand that the world isn't perfect. I can understand that a lot of devastation happened as a result of Second Impact, but ever since one of my best friends was almost killed trying to stop someone that went beyond the rule of law, the Tokyo PD has been too busy laying off cops to even mount any investigation into why the store was hit to begin with. They have no suspects, no leads, no clues, witnesses…or manpower to find any."
"Um, if you're having some difficulty with our local Law Enforcement, Mr. Ikari, there are avenues you can take," the man informed Shinji.
"Yes, and I've been exploring those avenues," the boy explained, "even the expressways…and do you know where they all led? Right into the bureaucratically-disappointing black hole that was the United Nations and Japanese Government's decision to fund the paramilitary agency that is NERV…at the expense of other organizations that do good work."
The murmuring voices of several people got louder as some found disappointment in this fact while others had to question what was so important about the paramilitary agency that they would get so much funding at the expense of disregarding other agencies that had to make do with limited resources.
"Sorry you didn't get the proper response, Mr. Ikari," the head official apologized.
"Please, I…I don't want apologies, sir," Shinji responded, calming down, "but I do want to share my proposition. Give me the Tokyo Police Department to run."
Gasp! Many of the people in the large room reacted to Shinji's proposition to the committee board.
I could've said that I wanted justice for people like Toji, who showed me how to ride a skateboard when I was eight when I asked him how he balanced on his, who helped me break into the records room to check Hikari's test scores because he feared she was failing at her evaluations…and who was the only one of us that tried to stop somebody while I was too stupid to do something other than using the damn cell phone. I could've said anything of the sort. He thought, but it wasn't the only reason he wanted to do this at all.
"Uh, excuse me?" A female official asked. "You want to run the police?"
"That's right, ma'am," he answered. "You see, even though the city's overburdened with the reconstruction program, there still exists its budget problem. You still have a two-hundred-fifty-eight-million unfunded pension obligation to the city's police department…and I can help with that. I will personally fill that budget hole out of my own bank account, and upgrade the Tokyo PD to the best technology available…or can be built because, let's be honest, people want the latest doohickeys."
"Is he serious?" A woman asked Kensuke.
"I've never known Shinji to joke like this before," the otaku responded. "He never jokes about something as serious as what he's proposing right now."
"And y'all can actually do this?" A man asked him.
"We double-checked everything and rechecked. We can do this. Shinji just needs their permission to do this. That's why he's here."
"You'd probably never get this sort of thing from NERV," the woman expressed.
"Mister Ikari," a second male official chuckled, "a civilian, even a private civilian, such as yourself, can't take over a police department or even a district…"
"Actually, with a special appointment from this committee, they can," Shinji explained; he had done his homework thoroughly with the help of his friends and their parents. "And here's the rest of my proposal: You turn me down, and I will finance all your opponents in the next election. And you can explain to the taxpayers why you turned down almost three-hundred-million in free money. And when you lose, I will present the same proposition to the next mayor and committee."
"This is completely irrelevant," said Gendo, wishing he could just leave.
"Hey, shut up, man," someone in front of him responded. "Your son's offering to help the police force, and you can't even praise him? Kami, what a disappointment you are."
Fuyutsuki simply remained quiet and waited for the meeting to end. Truth be told, he actually wanted to see how well Shinji could pull this all off. The boy had the money and the company that could provide the technological advances the police could use…and from what he had heard in the way of rumors, the boy had already begun supplying several hospitals with new machines.
"Well," the mayor chuckles, "proposals take time to be considered."
"Yes, of course. How's the next thirty minutes? Because, you see, I called some reporters before we came in today. I told them to come at six. I don't want to be rude." Shinji revealed.
"Oh, Kami," Fuyutsuki expressed.
"This time, Shinji promised not to be camera-shy," went Kensuke.
Reporters were on their way over…and the committee only had thirty minutes to decide on whether or not to accept this proposal or reject it. If they did, it would mean less trouble financially, but it would also mean they'd be entrusting the entire police force to a fourteen-year-old kid with a company worth billions. If they rejected, then they'd be at the mercy of the next election and would have to deal with people questioning why they turned down an offer of this sort when it could've helped them.
-x-
Ping! Toji's tablet received a message from Kensuke's phone.
He tapped it, and the message instructed him to use his FaceTime.
"Hey, Hikari?" He called over to his girlfriend at her desk. "Class Rep.?"
"Coming," the pig-tailed girl responded, sliding her chair over to meet him as he turned on his tablet's FaceTime app. "What the…"
"There's been a lot of revolutions in many industries," they heard Shinji's voice as they saw him in front of some cameras and reporters. "Making computers smaller and more efficient, making phones with touchscreens and flatter batteries, even cars that have self-driving capabilities. Why not give the police a change?"
"Shinji Ikari, if this all goes well, will you be intending to expand on other police departments in the country?" A woman asked him.
This indicated to Toji and Hikari that Shinji won his proposal to gain control of the Tokyo PD.
"Well, it is similar to a pilot program, right?" Shinji explained. "If you succeed in one place, the rest are sure to follow, right? It's trial and error to find out what works and go on from then."
Behind Shinji, they saw several men and women walking by, among them being his own father, who seemed be being hassled by several with questions.
"Shinji Ikari, some would say that you've been accused of grandstanding," a man told Shinji. "What do you say to those that might think that this is nothing more than a publicity stunt to boost your company's popularity? Or your own?"
"I would say that I feel guilt about what happened to Toji Suzuhara getting shot at while I tried to call for help, and I want to find the guy responsible for that…and wanting people to feel safer," he answered him. "You can call it a publicity stunt if you want to, but I prefer to call it doing something different…and benevolent for others. What do you say to that?"
"I'd say," went Toji, "that you're a good man, Shinji Ikari. A very good man. Thank you."
"He actually did it," added Hikari, proud of Shinji's success. "Now the real work begins."
To be continued…
A/N: Here's the other half of the pilot chapter. The next chapter will be where the real work takes place and will include in some way a mention of a funeral and so on. Peace out, yo.
