Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. The author does not own anything concerning Gainax's IP Neon Genesis Evangelion. The company gives the word, and this comes down.
Acceptable Losses
C-II
2015
Edwards Air Force Base, California, USA
Aki witnesses the first light of dawn breach the horizon. Centuries past or seconds before the Room existed, she remembers the dawn and its entreaties. Beginnings are fickle things remembered only as dreams and dismissed just as quickly. But seeing it now, she recalls a hazy dream…
Watch it from the window overlooking the apple trees. Watch it just as the sky turns amber, try not to cry out how pretty it is (Mother and Father sleep in the next room, you know).
Watch it. Watch it, lest you forget. Don't think to the contrary.
She sits on the edge of Runway Six, heels digging trenches in the hard clay of the dry lake bed. The new shoes hurt her feet, but it's nothing. They're new shoes. Vaguely, Aki doesn't care about ruining them. Nor the new clothes too, covered in streaks of grit from sitting here on filthy ground. No one on the base cares for the clothes. People prefer staring at the blackened veins crisscrossing her arms and the fittings lining her neck, not the rest of her.
They want to see the freaky sideshow attractions.
Or they stare at the Shadows. Aki thinks the sobriquet fits; all four men dress in black and follow her everywhere. Occasionally, they hold their ears and commune with the air from time to time. Funny creatures. Like the wraiths that stalked the halls of the Sub-Basement in the Crèche.
And people call Aki strange.
Their cold faces and curt speech refresh her. They follow without question. Aki doesn't even ask, they simply move. They never yell or raise their voices, not with her. But the gawkers in the oddly colored uniforms part like a split skull when they walk the UN Barracks halls.
People don't stare at the veins or the fittings when Shadows are near.
It makes her happy, those shocked looks. Seeing shocked faces takes her back. It brings to mind the scent of alcohol and doesn't remind her of sickness or decay. Her fingers go numb. It reminds her—
—Tennyson gasping for breath, body writhing like a gutted fish on the linoleum—
—gushing out of ripped trachea, vibrant, lovely, going so well with that ridiculous Hermes scarf she—
—the guards' horrified faces—
—thumb prying out that mocking grey eyeball—
—screams from the stricken—
—pressure building in her temples—
Memories are perfect crystals to be cherished for their unique properties. Isn't that right, doctor? Doctor? Oh, I'm sorry.
"Hee…"
She stares ahead.
The sky lightens. Venus burns brightly in the pre-dawn light. It intensifies, reminding her of the halogens they lit at awakening. The air coming off the lake bed is cool, refreshing, with the strangest hint of cloves. Too many years behind screens and sitting in sterile rooms diluted memory of the sky, the stars, the soil and the wind.
Each time the wind comes calling, Aki closes her eyes. And smells the clean air and how painfully cool it is on her cheeks. Brittle fingers of recycled stale air were all the Crèche offered. The only shift in paradigm is when the obliged to turn on the heaters.
Cold fingertips drum over her lips.
White skin turns hilly with gooseflesh, her legs pebbling as shades of orange begin to creep across the flatlands.
Because you're here.
She thinks of the lotus Doctor Goodwin kept in his office under the window. She squints as the burgeoning tip of the sun pierces the horizon, suddenly rimming the whole earth in a band of red hot iron. The first true warmth hit her; it's a slow heat. A good heat.
She closes her eyes. Light shines into the Room.
Aki smiles and loosens the massive overcoat from around her bony shoulders. A requisition from a Shadow, he gave it without thought. Not disingenuous in any way. Bizarre man. There're always sneers and shouts. He doesn't seem to be a piece of shit. Not a Yushida-man.
Yushida. Bootlicker King.
"Heh, hehe…hmph-hahaha…" Aki flares and settles in the span of six seconds.
The laughing fit fades.
A great hand of light spreads out across the lake bed, touching the whole world, touching the God of the apple and fig leaf. Who is in His Heaven. Aki spits at the thought, unable to stop it. She misses the look her Shadows give one another, the shakes of the head.
Seeing the sun sphere again pleases her and reminds her of the mindless violence.
The day she left home by the canal. The hand scrabbles to grab a rock in the garden. The scent of smoking meat fills the house for hours. The sounds of sickness from the bathroom.
Aki sits perfectly still watching the sun. The fire replays. It starts on pause.
She remembers the broken vase in the hall and the sad spilled lilies blackening in the intense heat.
The shoji lining the hall were aflame, fire spreading, licking, feeding on the hardwood floor, the fuliginous stains growing where ash landed. The shoji blistered like flesh before the flames ate them whole. Light trampled through the disintegrating rice paper. The sudden bright white light blinds her like the doctor checking the pupils and reminds her of innocuous questions. Nothings.
She ducked low and crawled along the wall, swatting at burning embers singing her hair, avoiding inquiring tongues of stranger-flames. Someone was screaming for her. Where?
OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT! Fuckin' freak!
Then she saw it.
Beyond a fire-claimed door there is a waxen face melting on the floor, ropey hair smoldering, and curdled white streaming down tallow cheeks like runny eggs. They had been watery celadon eyes once. A single hand was all that remained untouched, outside the threshold of the fire, with broken fingernails. Blue flames began to lick at it, singed the hairs, turning the skin scarlet.
The memory plays at speed now. Flashes and smells and tastes.
The house and its apple trees sent great plumes of smoke high into the sky. No one came to put it out. She remembers that.
Aki rests her face against dirty knees and grows very still. The sun's warmth does not reach her. She mouths a short prayer. "…In His Heaven." Her laugh is empty and soft as a loved one's lies.
No God, Momma. No God.
Still, a surge of heat burns behind the eyes. The pressure bottles up, wanting an outlet. Anything, be it tears or shouting or sullen guilt. All of them are preferred. Sheer force of will refuses its utterance.
The gear shifts to neutral and conscious thought slips through the bolthole. The Room is quiet. The same twilit shadows cover the sparse setting. Broken mirrors lean against the far wall, covered in dunes of dust and webbing. Canvas covers a pile of moldy boxes. A thousand distorted reflections of stare back wide-eyed and surprised. Aki crawls back against the wall very slowly.
Something growls.
Each reflection smiles.
Her throat clicks dry. Aki ignores the looks of longing. She suddenly recalls Orderly Jacobs. He is forgotten swiftly.
They will not hear her cry. It's all they want. All that drives them. Not to console her or give comfort. The mimes strive to reach, and consume, and violate her. One of them whispers enticements of such depravity Aki nearly recalls what shame is. The mirrors ebb and stretch, reaching out for her.
Don't touch me.
Aki sinks deeper and lets the world burn.
Outside, in the waking world, she feels the Shadow come to collect her. His footsteps quietly clap on the hard concrete, now drowned out by the roar of jet engines high in the cirrus.
"C'mon mousy, plane to catch," says he, carefully kneeling down beside her. He is studiously polite, like the others. Ng-man. The largest Shadow, he towers a foot-and-a-half over her. Arms as thick as tree trunks slowly reach out to offer a meaty hand. The hairy wrists peeking out of the sleeve make her smile. There is a fluid undertone to his voice. He can speak French. She doesn't understand him then.
His movements are measured, trying to not move too fast. No repeat motion sickness. They all move slowly around her now. She likes that, shows adaptation. And willing adjustment to her needs.
They don't stare or start at the fittings that run down her neck and vanish below the collar of her shirt. They are…something she can't remember.
The foreign sensations and pleasantries are long gone.
Inside, the reflections stop smiling, hiding their mouths full of needle-sharp teeth. Dozens of glinting eyes look on sullenly. Their naked bodies covered in injection stubs, distended veins projecting in vulgar road maps across their chalk white bodies.
A knock at the door.
C'MON LET US IN! GODDAMMIT LET US IN! LET! US! IN!
Aki shies away, burrowing under her covers, dragging the pillows around in loose fortification against the oily shadow seeping in from under the door. Bloodshot eyes fly open in beholding her tormentors.
A quieter voice speaks from the depths of the oil slick.
Hello there.
Another from beyond the door, strained, the edge of control.
Can you see these fingers? Do you see this knife? Look at it. I swear to God, you take your eyes off, I'll cut something off. What do you see?
Don't…don't be scared, Aki! Ha.
Hands cover ears. There is nothing wrong, she thinks. There is a dawn sky before me. I am outside. The wind feels good.
The petro-slick chuckles darkly. Great bubbles of glistening ephemera rise up and pop. Humanoid shapes dance in the mirrors, wall-eyed and grabbing for Aki.
Hands hammer on the door. They've come again. Aki digs her fingers into the soft skin and matted hair round her ears, trying to tear them off. It'll make all the sounds go away. Sweet peace will be hers. A wild feverish thought plucks out of the ether: I must hear Mother again.
Momma?
Yes, Aki baby?
…Why'd you die?
I don't know why. It was easy.
She looks across the Room at her myriad reflections teeming in webs of splintered glass. The gears turn inside, ticking down to the answer.
They are the precipice. Any and all of them are what she can be in moments. Without the Room, they'll flood into her, change her. Turn her back to what she was. All those rotting parts will eat her soul. The good doctor told her about that. The Mix lets them out so she doesn't go mad. They break free. Free. Like Athena from Zeus' head. Oh yes. It doesn't hurt so much then.
-OBEY-
They claw at their prisons, begging for succor. 'Just a minute of freedom. Let us roam. Please.'
…
I know how to shut you up.
Aki's smile turns feral.
The reflections reel back, mouthing 'no, please.'
Aki pivots her hips, facing the mirrors, locks her shoulders and rockets back against the shoddy cement walls. Her head crumples into her chest. Red and black novae bloom in her eyes. Copper and loose teeth fill the emptiness. Pain so transcendent she can feel it in her toes.
A stream of blood and a sliver of tongue tumble out, abandoning ship. The homunculi scream and snigger from putrid lips, hammering at their silvered prisons. Aki replies in kind. They'll leave or her head cracks like an egg and out comes the yolk and thick whites dyed red. Either way, it's release.
The voyeurs watch from under their inverted blankets, from under the beds, or filling their mirrors with lurid reflections of her own face. Aki feels sick. It's all her.
No more.
Thock-blood streams down the wall, painting the dust in reds and whites and black. Crimson waterfalls runs down her back. Hair clumps and ropes around the new wounds. She can't see. Nausea loosens her bowels.
A mime straight ahead licks at the polished surface, whimpering.
THOCK-A collective sigh of pleasure emanates from the mimes. Some howl in pleasure, working hands and fingers between necrotic thighs, chuckling in slobbery voices. Others beat their chests. Others weep.
HA. Don't be scared! Aki thinks, overflowing with slurring giggles at the sounds of weeping from them.
Thock-little clumps of hair tear away, sticking on the wall, her little banners, the only craft she knows.
-KILL-
Thock-blood occludes her eyes, mingling with her tears, pink rivulets run down sunken cheeks, tracing every weary line and the single pocked scar on her chin-
Hate you all.
Thock-the wraiths watch, lusting. Wanting freedom. Aki's laughing, high and wild. Laughing with the mimes. She drunkenly falls forward. They start screaming as one. Clutching great handfuls of sheet, she hurtles back until the-
THOCK- egg breaks. A lifeless lump slumps to the bed.
Silence falls.
The mimes sit on their tattered beds and ogle the bloody mess with abiding hunger. The shadows no longer laugh; the maleficent specters outside the door recede with the tides. Every mirrored eye traces the thin waterfall of crimson spilling on the floor. Such lovely caramel sheets dripping down.
Hungry tongues wait to lap it up.
The body twitches. The head bursts, a rotten bruised apple oozing out rusted gray pulp.
There is an ending, the unpleasant one.
And there is nothing wrong.
The sunlight hurts her eyes.
Aki licks her lips, ignoring the sudden flush in her cheeks. And resonant pain floods through the byways of her brain. The small things twitching there, waiting there.
Maybe.
Still alive.
The numb girl takes Ng-man's rough hand. His smile is tight. He knows she won't smile back. He finds her hand clammy, the skin burning. He has her checked by the medics before takeoff. Thin fingers wrap around three of his and she tumultuously stands on shaky feet. Aki looks back at the rising sun.
"Pretty isn't it? Move it, shorty stuff, time for the flight. NERV waits."
It means nothing to her.
Pass me around like a whiskey bottle to this new Yushida-man.
And that's there is. The passing of the baton, here you go, off to someone new. Perhaps another time, someone will stick around.
Vacantly Aki walks to the sedan, where they will drive her to a waiting C-17. One of the many giant beasts nestled in cavernous hangars with the smaller, sleeker jets and bulky VTOLs.
The ride to the hangar goes quietly, only curt words between the Shadows. Japan waits, they said.
She's going home.
There is nothing left. Melted statues. What big eyes you have.
Behind dull eyes, the animals test their cages.
2015
Outskirts of Tokyo-03, Fuji-Hakone Highway 03, old Route 138
Two days later…
Aki stares at the aluminum can in her hands.
The sloshing sound the liquid makes pleases her; tip it, the liquid weight shifts and hold steady. Tip it back, the juice flows back like a pulse. Felt, but not held. It gleams in the rapid-fire flashes of orange lights lining the route. Each moment in the spotlights, a little caricature appears on the can, the little blue mascot sighing in pleasure.
Grape Qoo is printed on the can. She only knows this because the driver said so. The kanji hurts Aki's eyes.
Weird name. Her fingers fiddle with the slim tab, producing a disjointed clicking. The sound is soothing. Rain on a tin roof.
The driver talks often. Aki ignores her, watching the world blur. Idle fingers flex, insistent. Every muscle trembles with unspent energy. Something burns in her gut, just above her navel. The auto-tab. She needs a tab. The bad word plays around in her head. The fucker is somewhere in the duffel bag. They tried to search for contraband, but even the Shadows missed the sleek injector.
Aki savors a secret smile. The extra modules she's palmed will keep her sated. Aki ignores the sweat breaking out on her cheeks. All in due time…that's all. The bad word burns into her retinas.
The driver speaks and laughs at empty things and tries to win her over with flagrant appeal.
It surely bewitches most, maybe if she were male. Maybe then this woman's cavalier style would matter. She's seen how this works. A man makes a crude remark, begs for a fuck with swagger, sweat, daily harassment, and a loud mouth. The woman takes it in stride with a feigned reserved nature. Then they fuck in one of the emptied cells, the sticky come staining the pillow of a dead child. Empty sounds of apes grunting, fucking.
Yes.
Love, hate, meaningless terms.
If only Aki cared.
She sees things about the 'captain': prettier than any of the female nurses or Tennyson, a prettier smile than Ophelia's slow one, hair black enough that it shifts violet in the light. It amuses Aki, and is the first thing she notices about her. So bizarre. Aki wonders who painted it. Maybe a battery of injections shifted the pigmentation? She'd certainly be like Ophelia then.
Would she die like Ophelia too? No, the captain knows people who want her to live.
Aki's smile is so quick and vanishes so fast that it can't have happened. Her fingers drum against parched lips. Tick, tick, tick goes the aluminum tab.
She misses the look the violet-haired woman gives her. The Sixth sees things about this 'captain' and wonders if it matters. Will she pass her off too? Take her drink, gain prestige for using Aki's presence, and off the child will go to the next asshole who wants her to dance like a marionette.
It doesn't matter. They'll give her Mix. She'll dance for that piece of release. It shows in every jerking movement. Desperation. The bad word.
Withdrawal.
The car speeds along lonely roads high in the mountains. Mile markers and signs blur by in reflectorized blue.
The moon sits on high, holding a staring contest with Aki. It refuses to let her win. There are no clouds to aid her.
A carpet of stars glitter in the sky, so rich and full that Aki can safely say she's never seen their like. Between those moments, Aki sees the distant hard lights of homes and towns on the mountain or sitting in massive clusters on the plains far below them. Fallen stars from the sky. Each desperately trying to signal home and ascend again.
Aki sees the flickers of moonlight in the farthest distance. The silver lines of light wink out one after the other on some great black thing. Beyond the land stars and the stink of humanity. There lies the sea. That long stretch of violet tinged light, the edge of the world.
The Red Memory, people call it.
Home, Aki calls it.
The bloody sea is peace. Peace of mind.
Her head rests against the cool window, the can forgotten, clutched by numb fingers. Is it all a waste of time thinking about the sea? Why not simply crawl inside and lie in the Room forever? Let the world well and truly pass her by. What is there to see? People went on without her already. The world grows again. The Mix lets her crawl inside, sleep, and the mimes come out to play.
Aki's reflection grimaces.
She misses her Shadows. They rarely spoke, they did not judge, and the kept all the staring folk away. Why couldn't she have ridden with them? They didn't look at her fittings. Not like this woman whose eyes seem glued to them.
Professional. I know you, captain. Yes.
The Shadows follow in another sedan, not forty feet back. Their headlights cut through the dark, not fading from sight once. Still there, waiting, in the dark.
She turns her head slightly, and regards the driver.
Won't she shut up? Aki doesn't know what curry is, but the woman blathers on about it, smiling and glancing over every few seconds. The road would be more important to watch. Aki's fingers grip the arm rest. Aki sees the tightness in her eyes, hears the cracking in her voice. How hard she's riding the gas pedal. Uncomfortable being near a child.
How quaint.
You're not a people person like the good doctor. Heh.
Aki hiccups, finally popping the tab of the drink. This pondering is thirsty business. Drinking and gulping down the sweet grape juice, Aki blithely ignores the woman's pleased grin. Her stomach barely revolts at the slightly fizzy confection. She likes the taste. She'll pass blood later.
2015
NERV Headquarters, The Gardens
"What do you know about her, Carter?" Misato glances over at the aloof Pilot. Aki Yamato stares up at the blue moonlight filtering down from the vast mirror array far overhead. She watches the way her fingers spread and try to feel the wind rushing by. All created by wind turbines placed on the perimeter of the dome working together via MAGI control.
One artificial world to another, the wool's pulled over her eyes again. Misato doesn't linger on the thought.
"Much as you do I'm afraid." The big man shrugs, pauses, and brings a finger up to his earpiece. Shakes his head and continues.
"Apologies. I've read the same files you have, seen the same things you have. She's…gone. In the head." He runs a hand over a buzzcut of salt-and-pepper. "Doesn't speak, stares a lot, gets this odd smile playing on her face every so often, and reams of classified back history. Gives you the willies just looking in her eyes… We're still trying to piece things together." He smiles apologetically. "I don't know what to tell you other than that."
Misato nods, pushing through a haze of memory, "That's enough, I suppose. She creeps me out, I won't lie. Aki makes Rei seem like a playful kitten, so far."
"We're all agreed that the Sixth leaves the First in the dust, captain. No contest." He starts when she begins laughing.
"I'm sorry. Long day and…that's just an amusing image. I've not had much sleep recently. You're doing good work. I mean it."
"We do our jobs, nothing else."
"Mmm, um, something else?"
The agent hesitates. "Have you noticed the…the nozzles? And the-the…I don't know what to call it. The corruption there on her back? She tried to change right then and there when we gave her new clothes. We got a view of her back before we ushered her off with a nurse. It's… Imagine a highway map. Black taint, every vein."
Misato swallows down something bitter and sighs. "Yes. Only saw the nozzles, I've not seen the aftereffects on her veins. Whatever they did to her in America won't fade—that's permanent."
"I've never seen people stare at another human being like the way a lot of personnel did at Edwards. And they didn't even see what we had seen."
Quiet. Soon, they part with a salute.
She watches Aki for a moment stretching to hours.
Watching slim fingers feel the air, eyes looking at the carved out hills and lakes and forests inside the 'Front. Letting her see and absorb the better legacies people can build. Though Misato can't help but think if that's just a pipe dream. Aki Yamato gives not one wit about the world around her. Dulled to sensation and wary of human interaction through psychological torture, there's a reason not to give a shit. Thousand yard stares and scars are all she needs to wander through crowds. No need for the struggle of companionship or the warmth of people, just the perfect silence inside her bubble.
Misato remembers college and all that catching up. The screaming debates with her professors. Kaji. Her mother's suicide. Meeting Ritsuko. Forming friendships petty or lasting, using said girlfriends as leaping off points for their betters. So many petty strings. Bull-rushing everything as if the silence would come crashing down again if she stopped.
It never did. One could argue that life was simply a game since the day she came out of it. Since Impact. All of it wasted playing catch up, trying to shutter out that constant screaming in the night.
Two years silent. I was quiet for 731 days, fourteen hours, sixteen minutes, Aki. File says you've breezed by me by six months. What do you see in the mirror? Do you see anyone?
Aki looks back at her. Something clenches up inside. Maybe not. Some things better learned one step at a time. She watches the Sixth sit down on a bench near a pentacle of fountains. Nothing moves her, not even a wide-eyed expression on the ride down via the car tram. None of it reaches the child. Only the cool breeze succeeds breaking through and only in the simplest way: tactile sensation.
Heavy feet carry her closer. Misato looks down every third step, unsure of the course.
"Guess they never let you out much, huh?" Misato whispers, approaching the bench. No reply.
Green eyes peer out their corners at Misato. Wheels turn. Thoughts drop down like an IV drip. They accrue in the filters and simply wash through her system. There are no words to represent them. Sorted and stored away in a great reservoir inside. Drip, drip. It's for everything inside.
It's how I did it.
There are only a few people who can recover from such things. It takes an act of will and so much time. Misato looks at the girl. Can she even do this? Laughing and carrying on in some college? Does she even have a formal education? Does she have family? There's nothing after this. And it's a taste the captain doesn't like. Misato stands with her palms placed flatwise on the bench, figuring out her next move.
She speaks.
"I come here sometimes to just look at it. We made it, you know. Dug it all out, built it all, this…well; this is your home now. You can take quarters here or in the city if you want. Anywhere you want. You can…" The words fail her. "You'll have all the support you need…" Aki stares on dully, eyes locked on the NERV badge dangling round her neck on punched eyelets.
Dammit.
"Do you understand me at all?" Misato asks, trying to avoid a landmine.
Aki narrows her eyes, turning round to face her fully. The mine triggers. She stretches, popping her back. After a moment, miraculously, she nods. Defused.
"Heh, okay. I'm sorry. I-uh-just…" Don't fuck this up, Misato. "May I sit?" she said, after a moment.
The Sixth utters nothing, only hefts the bland olive drab duffel bag onto her slim thighs and wraps her arms around it. She makes no sign. You can almost measure the exact moment when the light finally went out in her eyes. At least she's breathing. The Sixth's face holds the rapturous lucidity of a fruit fly.
Misato stares at the child, her mind unconsciously overlapping the x-rays from the report. A puzzling disassociation, she imagines this is how Ritsuko feels daily. Detached, looking at everything from a view of how the universe works, not how it lives. The finest cynical mindset, yes sir.
She looks.
She sees a tangle of bright white viscera and all the little filaments of silver chloride lingering in her brain, in her spinal cord, weaving their own pathways deep inside. And the implants themselves, the fittings, connectors for the injection tubes. All of it went directly into her spine. Direct saturation of the brain with psychotropics. Misato looks down at her shaking hands.
"How…?"
There's no telling how it works in reality. So far beyond her comprehension it's mind-boggling. And the answer may haunt her dreams more than Angel wings. Better not to know.
With no answer forthcoming, Misato settles back, letting her eyes unfocus. She falls into a loop of ferocious sanity, gripping it with both hands, clinging to empty promises of brighter days. Of catching up and speeding up, blurring through the motions and assimilating them simply to live, to not slow down for anything or anyone. Piecing through everything significant after the ghost in the mirror faded away.
Looking back at lost opportunities and paths taken, Misato tries to ignore the empty spot inside. That hollow place just behind the scar tissue. It's all scar tissue. There's no disconnect anymore. In that moment, she fears there were no connections, it was all lies. Simply expedient to her goals. Doubting and replaying every encounter.
Now sitting here with this bizarre little girl she's disquieted. Call it projecting one's circumstances upon another. Misato looks in Aki's eyes to see the vacancy. If only she'd talk. No. She won't. The kid knows what looking at death is like. And it stole her voice away, leaving the husk in the field, waiting to rot.
And that's all there is. This husk.
All there is to do is simple waiting.
And there is no talking between moments.
2015
NERV HQ, Geo-Front
"It begins."
"Mmm?" Sub-Commander Fuyutski squints, looking through the blinding white light enshrouding the form of NERV's Commander. The light always plays with his eyes, pouring in through the massive windows behind the desk, occluding everything save a single silhouette. The man wouldn't have it otherwise. Kozou pinches his nose, thumbs massaging his eyes, looks again.
There, the center, where Gendo Ikari always sits. The black shape casting long shadows. It moves.
"The Sixth has arrived, Kozou. Last night with Captain Katsuragi."
The Sub-Commander sighs, setting down the paper and gazing up at the hints of color in the ceiling. The Tree is hidden. Strange.
"I know. I don't understand why the Committee thought this was a good plan."
"Pressure, plain and simple. Maybe they believe dropping their little psychopath in our lap is beneficial." Gendo snorts. He shifts, casting a nuclear shadow against the far wall. "Kiel thinks himself clever, trying to emulate the Dummy Program."
"Yes, but they have actual hard data to back their claims," Kozou calmly states. Folding his hands atop his paper, he waits for the sigh.
Ikari sighs, typing something into his personal terminal. "Correct as always, sensei. And with Rei recovering in the hospital, we're behind schedule. And now, we may actually have to rely on this Yamato girl until the Third arrives. Doesn't that seem so very fortuitous on the council's part? Here we sit, hands tied, so to speak, and Project-M wraps up. Hmm." Gendo's fingers drum five rounds rapid against the gigantic hardwood desk. Both men are frowning.
"Wrap up is one way to put it."
Silence crawls into the room. Something's changed. The Old Men altered the scenario. Willingly. What did it mean? Any deviation threw surety out the window. That council of geriatrics preferred argument and chastising and their brand of half-logic. And a strict policy of fundamental adherence. The fate of the Project-M command staff proved that. Send the surviving candidate off for use; execute the fools who bungled the process so badly. Send their prodigal child to Headquarters. Perfectly rational.
God help them all.
"What do you think?"
The old man shrugs, feeling the first pangs of genuine worry. Thoughts swirl around in his head for a time, formulating a thousand responses. The old days come back to him; the university days. He's in the classroom again, helping a student ferret out a thesis from a tangle of ideas. The thought brings a wan smile to his lips. If only his reply were more erudite.
"Frankly, they're handing us the gun and praying we pull the trigger." Straightening up, he looks out the windows to his left. Through the mirror-bright light a vague impression of the world outside shows in smudges and smears of dull color. This absurd game of will brought him into the fold long ago, so why not play on? The only other option is death. He composes himself.
The words come easily.
"What I worry about are inevitable questions. Questions will be asked among the ranks. 'Where are the other Children? Why the Sixth? What happened to this poor girl? Who is she?' And so on. We can't get proper records even if we beg the Committee. So are our lies just as good as their silence? None shall buy it, Ikari." The words come naturally, being able to vocalize reservation for once.
"And perhaps the best I can imagine: Why in God's name are we pumping her full of drugs? Yes, this will go swimmingly for us, Ikari. Why hamstring the operation? Years of careful work jeopardized by a ham-fisted operation to get rid of evidence."
A bony knuckle raps on the phonebook-thick report sitting there on the table. The Sub-Commander can't reign in the contempt coloring his voice.
"Look at the photos. We've seen the others not included in this fantastic scholarly piece. Whatever Kiel's little game is, it's dangerous. Word of this gets out and NERV's ruined. The UN and SSDF will be on us in moments, smelling blood in the water." The Commander makes neither move nor reply. He lines up his thoughts, throat drying, then: "They'll parade us out before The Hague. The cavalcade of horrors in Terminal Dogma and the data in the MAGI memory banks won't win us any friends. End of scenario.
A cough and Fuyutski balls his fingers to fists.
"That is my honest opinion of the matter. We should drop her, Ikari, but there's no asylum yet built for this… This." Fuyutski swallows his next statement, instead relying on a refined sense of realism."There's also no way to refute the Committee right now."
No need to see the frown on Ikari's face. Frustration is such a rare emotion to witness concerning Gendo Ikari, the Sub-Commander feels privileged whenever it arises. The man attempts to be implacable so much, you forget he does in fact harbor other emotions.
But then again, most of those died years ago. Didn't they, Ikari?
Words close the distance, "—played, Kiel. I'll speak with them soon."
"We have no core data, no Pribnow simulation tests, and no real idea of how her personality works." The report sways clumsily as he hefts it up, shaking it contemptuously. "This psychological evaluation is three years old. They didn't even try to keep updates. She should be in an asylum, not a war machine. But here she is. And we have no answers as to why."
The only utterance is an 'hmm.'
Kozou presses on, feeling no reason to quit the advance. "The Old Men throw a spanner into their own works, why?" Answers are commodities traded in blood. There is none to give. Not now. The glossy cover of the Project-M report mocks him. His eyes linger on the fig leaf and the inverted apple stamped there. There isn't enough blood in the seas to get the answers. He represses laughing at the sheer absurdity of it.
Why perpetuate the cycle? Why put a decidedly human stamp of approval on it? As if things weren't bad enough with what's sprung from scientific minds after Second Impact.
Current Children and candidates for Project-E are their own breed of future psychosis and little else. An entire classroom of candidates sits within the city waiting to be drawn upon if the need arises. Cheap, disposable infantry. The war machines matter far more than the Pilots—for the most part—ever will. There are no more children. A frown neatly parts his face.
Project-M ostensibly began to artificially recreate E's conditions for candidates and focus that ability with conditioning both mental and chemical. Along with the automated delivery systems, forced synchronization, parents eliminated to introduce necessary trauma, invasive surgery and a dozen other atrocities under any set of rational laws.
And it succeeded. From a certain point of view.
The old man sighs, lamenting the fate of any of those children is a useless gesture. An attempt for self-pity or rationalizing what they were doing here at NERV. Inevitably, Fuyutski finds himself doing just that nigh weekly. There are no words of reconciliation or aid to give these children. There never will be. All he can do is play this sick game and pray for a favorable outcome. Tempering his erstwhile pupil's forceful hand in matters is the highest hope he can achieve.
Never has he felt so impotent.
Picking up the newspaper, he stares through the kanji scrawled on the pages. No true prodigies or portents dwell in the headlines, nothing has changed in fifteen years save for the slow death of the human race in conscience and conflict.
In a small room somewhere in the halls of NERV, a closet shuts violently. The room is quiet now. A moment ago, a muffled cry and the shattering of glass.
A black duffel bag mars the uniform white of the quiet room. The bed is a mess, sheets torn away, long ragged strips hanging off the edges of the cot. Prison bar shadows stretch across the room from the hard yellow light streaming through the window. Between the bars, bits and pieces of winking glass slide and settle here and there. A pile of roots and stomped petals are all that remain of the daisies that gave the roof a touch of life.
Someone mutters in the closet. Then long stretches of silence.
A girl wraps the ripped sheets and blanket round her body in the dark of the closet, slamming her eyes shut against the voices whispering in her ears. A single piece of sheet is wrapped round a bloody foot, staunching the result of a moment of anger.
Her eyes fly open and bloodshot eyes stare at the single line of door light piercing the dark.
"Momma…"
No one hears.
A/N: Holy crap have I written and re-written this chapter a thousand damn times. I think the final product came out okay. The first draft of this wasn't even done at about forty-five hundred words. But roughly half of it was…unsatisfying to the extreme. I've been chopping off two thousand words at a time from each rendition. That's why it's taken a while. I've cut at least 5000 words total.
Overall, a shorter chapter, but a solid one.
And I'm enjoying my portrayal of Misato quite a bit. Sure, she's still bubbly on the outside, but I always felt there should be a stronger twist with her semi-PTSD and her own unique Hedgehog dilemma. When I thought about it, Aki makes a nice little connection with Misato. Not on any real level, but as a reflection.
Roughly the same thing can be said for what I'm doing with Fuyutski. I love his character. Fuyutski, Ibuki, and Kaji are probably my favorite characters in the whole show with Aoba's apathetic ass not far behind them.
And yes, I know reflectorized isn't a word, but I ran into it in a novel once and fell in love with it. So there.
I enjoyed writing it. Hope you enjoy reading it.