Chapter 1b: NERV
It took nearly twenty minutes for the car train to be brought back online, leaving Shinji to page through the "Welcome to NERV" book. It was quite amazing how it managed to go into such detail about meaningless procedures while saying absolutely nothing about what the agency actually did. By the time the train finally started moving again, Shinji was more confused than ever.
Even when they finally arrived at the pyramid-shaped building that was NERV's main headquarters—or "Central Dogma", which both Misato and the handbook occasionally called it—Misato and Shinji's journey was far from over, as they had to navigate a seemingly endless series of corridors and walkways marked only with numbers, while armed only with a less-than-adequate map and Misato's alleged navigational skills.
"You know," Misato said after some time, "these walkways were originally supposed to be moving. Like the ones they have at airports?"
"What happened?"Shinji asked, doing his very best to sound interested.
"The budget cuts. Just like with everything else." She glanced down at her map again. "Crap...are we going the right way? Wait, yeah, I think we are," she said, in a tone that did not inspire much confidence.
Especially since Shinji had just noticed that one of the numerical markers was quite familiar. "We passed this spot just a little while ago," he replied evenly.
Misato sighed again. "Sorry. I'm just not used to this place yet. Don't worry about it; we'll figure it out eventually."
After a few more minutes of wandering around, Misato finally managed to match their location to a spot on the map, and headed straight for a nearby elevator.
As they waited for the elevator to arrive, Shinji finally brought up something that had been bothering him. "Where is everyone? I mean, a lot of people work for NERV, don't they? But we haven't seen a single person."
"Well, I imagine just about everyone is in or around the command center right now. Either that, or..." Misato let out a brief, obviously fake cough. "Plus, there aren't as many people working for NERV as there used to be."
"The budget cuts, right?"
"You catch on quick, Shinji."
The elevator pinged, and Misato confidently began to step into it, only to stop just a few inches short of colliding with the blond-haired, lab-coated woman already occupying it.
The other woman raised an eyebrow as she stepped out of the elevator, not bothering to let Misato get out of the way. "So Major Katsuragi has finally decided to grace us with her presence. You know you were supposed to be here an hour ago?"
"Heh. Sorry, Rits!" Misato affected the same cheerfully apologetic chirp that she had used upon first meeting Shinji.
The eyebrow did not fall as "Rits" turned to face Shinji. "So this is the boy? The Second Child?"
"Yes. Shinji, this is my friend Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, NERV's chief scientist and head of most of NERV's special projects. Rits, this is Shinji Ikari."
"I'm glad to meet you, Shinji," Dr. Akagi said, finally letting the hint of a smile creep onto her face.
"Oh. Uh, right, glad to meet you." Shinji couldn't help but notice the rather deep shadows under her eyes, undisguised as they were by cosmetics. She looked as if she hadn't slept in a week.
Misato smiled. "I think you'll like him. He's about as talkative as his father."
Ritsuko's own smile widened. "So I see." She checked her watch. "Speaking of the commander, he'll probably be waiting for us by now. This way, Shinji."
The scientist led Shinji and Misato through the maze of Central Dogma, finally taking them to a large, open-air freight elevator. As she pressed the activation button, sending them diagonally upward through a room so vast that the floor and ceiling were shrouded in darkness.
As the elevator made its slow way upwards, a PA system clicked on and sent its message echoing throughout the vast room. "All units, assume level 1 battle stations. Prepare for secondary ground interception. Repeat, assume level 1 battle stations..."
Misato spoke up. "So, here we go. How's Unit 01?"
Ritsuko sighed. "We brought it out of refrigeration not long after you left. But...even the basic B-type equipment is incomplete, and we still haven't run the full suite of tests on the core systems."
"How incomplete are we talking?"
"The targeting systems are still completely nonfunctional; so combat will be limited to melee. And even if we did have targeting, we only have a couple of guns up and running. At least the reactors are working smoothly; it would've been a nightmare if we'd had to use the umbilical." She sighed again. "And the sync matrix itself...it should work, especially with the Marduk precautions, but we've never tested it in anything but simulations."
"It's still our only chance. We have to take it."
Ritsuko buried her forehead in her palm and shook her head. "I know, it's just...it could've been ready. It could've been perfect; we could've even had the prototype running and tested and ready to serve as backup. We just needed more time. And people. And money, always more money. God damn Jet Alone."
The elevator abruptly came to a stop. Shinji saw that they were now at the edge of a truly massive tank of some kind of liquid. There was a small hovercraft docked by the platform they were standing on; Ritsuko boarded it, followed by Misato, who motioned to Shinji to do the same.
The hovercraft took them across the tank (easily large enough for Shinji to think of it as a lake), to a huge wall with the letters "EVA-01" painted above a massive hangar door. (Shinji was beginning to notice that everything seemed to be on a huge scale when it came to NERV. No wonder they had budget problems.) Wedged between two sections of the wall was a gigantic, metallic...thing?
Ritsuko punched a few numbers into a keypad by the door, then put her eye up to a retinal scanner. The door slowly creaked open to reveal only pitch blackness behind, then creaked closed behind them once they entered, leaving them in the dark for a tense few seconds.
Then the lights clicked on.
"Whoa!" Shinji took an involuntary step back. He was staring into a metallic face at least the size of a bus. It was a dull silver, the color of unpainted steel, with glowing yellow eyes. A single horn rose from its forehead, reminding him of nothing so much as a mythological oni, come to devour unsuspecting humans. The head sat atop a torso that looked as wide as a city block. The rest of the thing was submerged beneath the surface of the lake, preventing Shinji from getting a clear look at it. "Is that...is that a giant robot?"
Ritsuko's response sounded very, very rehearsed, though not without a hint of pride. "This is humanity's ultimate weapon: EVA-01, the first model of the Evangelion synthetic organism slash humanoid weapons platform."
I'll take that as a yes. "Is this what my father's been working on?"
"Indeed," replied a very familiar voice from overhead. Shinji looked up to its source, and for the first time noticed an enclosed observation deck overlooking the rest of the chamber. Standing in the center of the chamber was none other than Gendo Ikari.
Shinji's father.
"...Father?" He hadn't changed much since Shinji had last seen him, three years ago.
"It's been a while, Shinji." A smile was across his face, a smile that bore more resemblance to that of a child with a new toy than anything that could be described as parental or affectionate. "Dr. Akagi. Is Unit 01 ready for launch?"
"As ready as it's going to get without six more months and thirty billion yen."
"Good." He pressed a button on the intercom panel in front of him. "Rei. It's time."
Despite his amazement at seeing EVA-01 (and up close, no less!), one question hovered at the back of Shinji's mind. Why was he brought here? What was the point of taking a 14-year-old boy into one of the most secure locations on Earth, and showing him this massive, top-secret...science project? Was it some bizarre apology on his father's part, trying to make up for his absence by saying "See, look what I made!"?
Misato had taken him up and around to the observation room he had just seen his father in, "for his safety". (Naturally, the elder Ikari was gone by the time they entered.) As she prepared to return to the command center, he asked her that nagging question.
Misato frowned. "Can't tell you that, Shinji. Not yet, anyway." She looked down and mumbled "...hopefully, not ever," as she left.
There was now quite a bit more activity around the Evangelion. Shinji noticed that it seemed to be focused on one person. More surprisingly, it was a person he recognized, though barely: the girl he had glimpsed immediately before the...Angel appeared. Of course, it would be difficult not to recognize her—albino-white skin, whitish-blue hair, red eyes...all on a face that seemed oddly familiar...
"So that's the girl they're getting to pilot the Evangelion. Heard she was just a kid, but...my God, she's so young."
Shinji nearly jumped at the unexpected voice from behind his shoulder. He quickly turned to face it. What he saw was a auburn-haired, lab-coated, and strikingly beautiful woman whose age he...couldn't quite place. She must have picked up on his anxiety, because she smiled and said, "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. You're...you're Ikari's kid, right?"
"Yes. I'm Shinji Ikari."
"Nice to meet you, Shinji. I'm Mikaela Jansson. Doctor Mikaela Jansson, if you want me to start bragging." Her Japanese was flawless, but had a trace of a foreign accent Shinji couldn't place.
"Are you part of the, uh, Evangelion team?"
She laughed lightly. "No. As a matter of fact, if every researcher at NERV had a list of people they hated most in the world, I'd probably make the top ten in most of them. I'm the leader of the Jet Alone project. You've heard of Jet Alone, right?"
"The...other big mecha, right?"
"That's the one. The one that got completely wrecked by whatever it is we're fighting. So what're you doing here? Is it Bring Your Kid To Work Day, or something?"
"I don't know. My father sent me a NERV ID and a note saying "Come", and nobody seems to want to tell me why."
"Classified information, eh? That brings back memories...Oh, look, they're loading her up now."
Shinji watched as the blue-haired girl entered a large, pill-shaped...thing, with one of the technicians closing the hatch behind her.
"So that'd be the 'entry plug' thing they were talking about..." Dr. Jansson muttered to herself. Without warning, the level of the...fluid Unit 01 was submerged in began dropping, draining away to reveal the true size of the mecha (and it was huge indeed; taller than even Jet Alone). A mechanical arm lifted up and positioned the 'entry plug' above the Evangelion's neck. The mecha's head slid forward, revealing a hole which fit the plug perfectly. The arm gave a sudden twist, screwing the plug deep into the mecha's body. The neck slid back into place, leaving the plug—and the pilot—encased within the mecha's body. "Hmm...there's obviously some kind of reason why they just can't use a regular cockpit...I really don't know how they expect this thing to fight this, this Angel or whatever it is when JA went down so fast."
Shinji had to agree; what could a simple (albeit impressive) giant mecha do against a creature that could shrug off an N2 blast?
The various technicians had now cleared the bridge around the Eva's torso; it looked like they were preparing for the final launch. Though Shinji could not hear the status updates being shouted around the command center, he nonetheless could tell that something important was about to happen. He waited, almost feeling a little excited...
And waited. And waited. Nothing happened. After about a minute of silence, the bridge was moved back into place, the entry plug removed from Unit 01, and Shinji was treated with the sight of a very large number of NERV technicians and researchers completely losing it. He couldn't tell what exactly they were shouting at each other from where he was, but eventually he noticed Dr. Akagi throwing up her hands and walking away from the whole mess. "What happened?" he asked Dr. Jansson.
"Couldn't say. I guess something didn't work," she responded. "Hope they have a plan C..."
Dr. Akagi entered the observation room soon after, and immediately threw a truly terrifying glare in the other lab-coated woman's direction. "Jansson. I don't know who gave you clearance to enter this facility in the first place, especially this level, but you're going to have to leave now."
"Your boss, as a matter of fact. But all right; I wouldn't want to wear out my welcome." Her smile did not falter as she left the room.
"The commander? Why would he...never mind." Ritsuko turned to face Shinji as the door closed. "Shinji. Rei, our primary pilot, has failed to synchronize with the Evangelion. We need you to pilot Unit 01 instead."
"...What?"
"We. Need you. To pilot. The Eva."
"...Why me?"
"There are many, many reasons 'why you', but virtually all of them are above either your intelligence level or your security clearance. Suffice it to say that you are the only one that can pilot it. Follow me."
Shinji found himself obeying, despite his continued protests. "So...this is why my father called me here? Just because he needed a pilot?"
"I don't know, and honestly I couldn't care less about your dysfunctional family life at the moment." They were now back on the umbilical bridge, and were facing the open-hatched entry plug. "Get in."
"But...no, I can't just...I'm not trained..." Shinji sputtered, immediately before a massive shockwave shook the entire building, nearly knocking him over.
"Damn it, it's found us...Shinji Ikari, let me make this as clear as possible. If you do not get into that entry plug right now, everyone in Tokyo-3, the Geofront, and possibly all of Japan is going to die. Do you want that on your conscience?"
"I...I..."
"No, you don't. Now GO!" She shoved him—actually shoved him—into the entry plug, and shut the hatch behind him.
Immediately, a tinny voice spoke up. "Entry plug sealed. Shinji, can you hear me?"
"Y-yes." Despite his anger at being pushed around, he retroactively decided that no, he didn't want thousands of deaths on his conscience. He'd go along with this insanity, at least until he had the chance to get some answers.
"Good. I'm Lieutenant Maya Ibuki; my job is to guide you through the startup sequence and make sure you don't die horribly as soon as we launch the Eva. Now, sit in the pilot's chair."Shinji did so. The seat currently had its back directly downwards, leaving him feeling a bit like an astronaut. "There should be a headset on your left; put it on so that the hooks are behind your ears."
There was indeed a headset. It had no speakers, oddly enough; just two white clip-like objects attached to the top. A wire led from it to behind his seat. "Okay."
"Good. We're going to load the plug into the Eva now; I suggest you hold on tight."Shinji felt the plug rotate so that he was now vertical again, then jerk up, forward, and down again (with a bit of a twist).
"Entry plug loaded, primary systems connected. Dispensing LCL. Now, Shinji, don't freak out--" He was, in fact, freaking out, due to the fact that the entry plug was rapidly filling up with an unidentifiable orange liquid and oh God it's above my mouth my nose I'm going to drown "--LCL is oxygenated. You can breathe it like air."
After a few seconds of panicked hesitation, Shinji, very tentatively, and against all common sense, attempted to breathe in the strange liquid. To his very great surprise, his lungs did not complain. Too much. "Ugh...tastes like blood...I think I'm gonna be sick."
"Man up, kid. Don't start puking on me now." A different voice this time, and one he recognized—it was Captain Katsuragi, though with a authoritative, businesslike tone he wouldn't have believed she was capable of.
"Right..." He sighed, and was somewhat surprised to realize he could sigh.
He felt rather than heard a deep hum from the heart of the Eva. "Microfusion reactor online, power output within optimal range. A10 headset online; connecting secondary nervous system...Shinji, this will feel a little weird."
Without any more warning than that, Shinji suddenly felt as if he was ripped out of his own body. No, not ripped, because 'ripped' implied that the process was painful, which it wasn't. Just...extraordinarily weird, as Lt. Ibuki had said. His eyes weren't seeing the inside of the plug, they were seeing the outside, and everything looked so small...He blinked, and felt his eyes close, but his vision did not flicker as he'd have expected it to. He tried squeezing his eyes shut instead, and this time, after a split-second delay, the outside view flicked off, then back on when he opened them again. He tried moving his hand experimentally...and he saw the Evangelion's hand move.
"Shinji, you still with us?" The formerly tinny voice was now as clear as if Lt. Ibuki was standing right next to him.
"Yeah...wow..." The anger and apprehension he had been feeling were just melting away. He was in control of a giant mecha. He was in control. "This is NKRNT, isn't it? That mind-reading thing I saw on TV."
Lt. Ibuki laughed. "More or less, but make sure you don't let Ritsuko-senpai hear you say that."
"Hear what?" A voice Shinji recognized as Dr. Akagi's came in from a distance.
"Uh, nothing, senpai! Sync ratio is 62% and holding. Loading up the heads-up display interface..." A single line of text appeared in front of Shinji's face: EMNUL Online. It disappeared, replaced by more streams of text flying through Shinji's field of vision faster than he could read. Suddenly there was a bewildering array of information floating in front of his face: a compass, a damage/status display, what looked like an ammo counter (though with an incomprehensible error message instead of anything useful), power output, overhead map...
A box opened up in the lower left corner of his vision, marked "LT M IBUKI". It was black for a second, then switched to a video link showing a young woman with short brown hair in a NERV uniform, presumably the lieutenant. "EMNUL loading complete. Harmonics normal, no disturbances detected." She turned to face someone behind her. "Everything's running perfectly." She sounded surprised. Very surprised, in fact. Shinji felt the apprehension coming back.
The window expanded to show the people Maya was speaking to: Misato and Ritsuko, the latter of whom nodded. "It actually works. Who'd have thought?"
Misato chimed in. "Then we can do this. All right. EVA-01 and all support personnel, prepare for launch!"
Author's Note: Three months into the third version of this story, to say nothing of the first two versions (started more than a year ago) and I've almost launched EVA-01. That's got to be some kind of record for unproductivity. Still, the idea refuses to leave my head, and so I will keep on grinding it out, one sentence a day if necessary, until it is finished. Reviews always appreciated.