It was the hands that were the creepiest part.
The entire thing could be taken for a crazy modern art installation if it weren't for the energy readings, really. Yes, it was in the middle of Antarctica, but God knew people had done crazier stuff than risk their lives trekking down into the cold loneliness in the pursuit of beauty. After all, was not truth beauty and beauty truth?
So, really, they'd be here for the same reason he is. Just creating a strange, hidden miracle instead of finding one.
Or this could be a leftover of some ancient civilization, like the one that built those statues on Easter Island. This looks like something out of someone's mythology. Except he knows better.
A great, twisted behemoth lies impaled by a spear of light. Above it stands, or rather floats, since the entire structure is encased in ice, something that looks like a combination of a mermaid and a four-armed Hindu god.
People imagined that a mermaid's tail would replace legs. Crocodiles and alligators, on the other hand, still had front and hind legs in addition to a strong tail that did most of the work propelling them through the water. So this thing was plausible in a way six-limbed dragons and eight-limbed Hindu gods weren't: an aquatic tool-using creature wouldn't need feet, but wouldn't have any reason to discard an extra pair of limbs that could become hands instead. Maybe this is what humans would look like if the theorized aquatic stage of their development had gone on a lot longer, he thinks, and then looks at those hands and it doesn't seem funny anymore.
Because this is definitely a tool-user. And those hands are far too human, despite the skin that's somewhere between a dolphin's grey and pearly white. And the fingernails (claws would be somehow less menacing, perhaps because claws would get in the way of weapons) that seem to be tinted blue. Before they melted the ice away from part of it, he'd thought that was just a trick of the ice. According to their chemist's spectroscope, that's something like keratin.
Just with cobalt deposits, waves of them as though how much cobalt was in there depended on how much was in the thing's diet as the nail grew, like how flamingos were only pink if they ate shrimp or other crustaceans. Oh, and it would either melt or catch fire at room temperature. Depending on how it was heated up.
The figure holds more spears of light in those hands, one between the thumb and index finger, another between the index and middle fingers: four in each of the top two hands, three on the lower: fourteen in all. When they bored through the ice to get at them, they found that there was no ice around them for about six inches in every direction. He's still not sure what exactly they are. They seem to be solid, from the way they have glowing orbs impaled on them, but according to the spectroscope there aren't any elements in there. Plasma? Something with focused magnetic fields?
Goddamned lightsabers without hilts, unless there's something hidden in the closed hands they stick out of?
The hands aren't webbed like those of your usual Creature from the Deep: actually, they've got a little less webbing than his hands do. According to the marine biologist they dragged down here, that's how it should be: human hands are actually designed very well for swimming. Any more surface area, which webbing creates, and there'd be too much resistance. So this kind of arrangement makes sense, oh, for something that lives in deep water, with lots of water above it pressing down. Or denser water.
It was only a few months ago that he was laughing at an XKCD that pointed out that humans really don't know anything about what's down there in the deep ocean. It's not quite so funny now.
The tail is more like an eel's or a sea serpent's than a dolphin's, too. He doesn't have to be a marine biologist to know that whatever this species is, wherever on their family tree it sits, they're fast. The 'good news' is that the arrangement of those hands means that it would be as awkward as anything on land… unless it could stand up on that tail and glide along like a snake. That thought hasn't helped the creepy factor. Especially since his Indian colleague mentioned naga, and that would explain the connection to multi-armed Hindu gods…
Except for the temperature issue. The deep ocean isn't cold enough for whatever this is. Not when it's closer to the earth's core, not when there are currents sweeping up from the tropics, not when there are volcanic vents and that's what all the life clusters around. Not when the cell sample they needed lasers to get, the one that was being handled with the kind of biohazard treatment they'd give ebola, revealed that this creature used liquid methane the way humans used water. That if the water in its cells melted, and there certainly was plenty in there, its cells would destabilize like the worst case of freezer burn in history.
And that would have meant alien, that would have pointed to something that came from the seas of Titan, if it weren't for the fact they'd gotten a look at this thing's DNA. And it did use DNA. Same number of chromosomes, in fact. Closer to humans than chimps were, despite the tail, despite the chemistry, and apparently humans and chimps were very close, close enough humanity didn't really deserve to be considered part of a separate family. Looking at raw percentage, humans were barely a different species. Except one was bald and had lasers.
Except one was aquatic and had laser swords, or spears, or whatever the hell those were.
He hated the idea of a coverup as much as anyone, but the more he thought about it, the more he looked at those hands, all the more disturbing for how human they looked, the more he looked at the corners of those eyes and the arrangement that hinted at more eyelids than just a crocodile's two, the more he wanted to kill it, kill it with fire and never speak of this again.
It wasn't like it wouldn't go up like a torch, given all that methane. They'd thrown a bucket of water over the sample site as soon as they took it, to cover it over with ice again and protect it from atmospheric corrosion. It had to be dead, and even if it was in cryogenesis or something, just taking it out of the ice would kill it. Even though this was Antarctica, he had it on good authority that its cell structure couldn't handle Earth's atmosphere. Much less earth's oceans: water was apparently a hell of a lot more corrosive than methane.
It was stupid to worry about an alien invasion when whatever this was couldn't survive here. No matter how human it looked.
Right?
He'd heard about the uncanny valley, but he didn't think that was the only reason it was the resemblance to humanity instead of the alien features that bugged him. People, people were dangerous. This was like them, it had to be at least as smart as they were, clearly war was a part of the culture if this one was posing with a defeated enemy. Or was the thing beneath it a statue, was this their idea of some sort of symbolic or honorable burial? Preserved forever in death: it seemed to have worked better for this than for the pharaohs, from the dating of the ice around it.
He would have thought that at least someone here would find a discovery like this exciting, but everyone, even the people who weren't SEELE and weren't being professional about a potential threat to human advancement seemed… not just worried, but watching their backs. Waiting for the first shoe to drop. Tip-toeing around something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
The nose: that was too-human too. Shouldn't it be flat-faced? Shouldn't it look less human, maybe not have a nose since those were gills on the sides of its neck, going a fair ways down its back?
He didn't think it was his imagination that he could read the creature's expression on that too-human face. Calm. Meditative. Peaceful. As though it was waiting, content to wait and dream through endless ages until the time came.
He almost might have preferred rage, triumph or megalomania. That meant enemy. This meant? Hell if he knew.
He'd like to believe that this was still a hoax, that the geneticists were trolling them or someone had fucked with the sample. Or that these creatures were extinct, since this thing was older than humanity. Much older. End of the age of the dinosaurs older.
So maybe a civilization from Titan, realizing it was dying out as something happened, screwed with Earth's development so that something like them would arise and could eventually discover its heritage, carry on their legacy? Then why weren't humans descended from whales instead of chimps? Why would an aquatic species make a land-based one when Earth was still mostly ocean? Maybe it was something happening to their oceans that wiped them out?
He was trying not to be afraid, not when SEELE had finally given them permission to let the dependants back in here, and his fear had to be why Misato, normally such a brave girl, was clinging to his coat with her mittens. She was a perceptive girl, too.
Honestly, he was hoping that actually seeing the thing would make her less afraid. She'd had nightmares ever since she came down here, and they'd gotten worse when they'd actually managed to bore their way close enough to start getting a good look at the thing they'd found. It was probably the air of unease in the camp: they'd thought the power source they'd detected might be either alien technology or something dangerous even before they found this thing. Still, the unknown was scarier than the known, and the thing wasn't that scary-looking if you ignored the implications. The tail wasn't scaled or all that snakelike.
Misato didn't show any signs of wanting to get close enough to the edge of the platform to look down over the low wall and see the other thing this thing was standing over, and he wasn't going to encourage her to do so.
"Is he sleeping?" was the first thing she said, after a long silence.
He hesitated, torn between wanting to say that he was probably dead so she was probably safe and remembering that dead things were also terrifying to children. "We don't know. If he is, he might not ever wake up."
Apparently he'd said the right thing, since he felt her death grip on his coat loosen a little even through all the layers he wore. "What are the things on the glowsticks?"
"Glowsticks?" That was a new description. They were too long, thin and weird to be glowsticks… Or for all he knew they might be. If they were anything like humans, these guys probably did like to party. That startled a laugh out of him, and he rubbed the top of her outermost hood since he couldn't get at her hair to ruffle it.
"They're scary."
"The glowsticks?" When just calling them glowsticks made them instantly less scary?
"No," she said, and he could hear her annoyed frown. "The things on the glowsticks."
He looked at them, but they were just a bunch of glowing spheres of different colors. "Don't they look like Christmas tree ornaments?" They were giving off power readings, but aside from that they looked a bit too pretty to be menacing. He would have thought they were just ornamentation if it weren't for those readings.
He felt her lean out from behind him now, leaning forward to get a better look, and that was when the ice began to crack.
As he watched, the left arms broke free easily: those were the ones they'd melted their way to in order to get the samples and clearer readings. He didn't think the ice would hold the other arms much longer, not when those glowsticks could carve their way through the ice.
And when ice turned to steam…
That was when realization overrode shock and he turned around, grabbing Misato to him with one arm and flinging them down, keeping her from being crushed by hitting the ground first with his other arm.
It was shocking when ice didn't fall on them.
After the initial cries of alarm there was silence, save for the sound of more ice falling and the security detail readying their guns.
It was Misato's struggling that made him push himself up, carefully turn around while trying to keep as much of himself between the thing and his daughter as he could.
"Is it time?" someone said, sounding young and apologetic, but still as though he was mostly talking to himself.
"Not yet," the head of the SEELE team with them said shortly.
"No," Dr. Katsuragi heard the first voice say, as the creature shrugged the last bits of ice off its tail, looking up towards the ceiling as though it could see through the roof of the ice cavern. "You have launch capacity, but it's still so expensive." Now the creature looked down at them, outer set of eyelids open but another, translucent one still half-lidded.
Its skin glowed with a pale light that seemed almost like moonlight, or the aurora, or something radioactive, even though that had to be the fear talking. A force field?
So it wouldn't die just from Earth's atmosphere. Not if it could keep itself from being exposed to it.
"You're almost ready, already reaching out to the stars," that voice added, and Dr. Katsuragi realized that although the creature's lips weren't moving it was talking. Somehow.
But it sounded proud of them, as well as calm?
"But for now, I should sleep, until there isn't anything important you would learn from me that you haven't already discovered with your own power," it, he said, and began to lower himself down onto the ice that still covered the other thing, tail curling up around him, although he was careful not to touch what Dr. Katsuragi couldn't help but think of as the glowsticks to itself or the floor or walls of the cavern. Dr. Katsuragi saw both sets of eyelids close, and it was obvious the creature intended to go back to sleep. "I'll answer all the questions you like then, if you wish," he said apologetically, as though to make it clear that this wasn't because he considered them inferiors or anything, it was just for the best that he return to his slumber now. "Be well, child of Lilith."
Child of Lilith?
Child?
Misato was the only child here: none of the others had brought children to Antarctica. He wouldn't have if she wasn't very sensible for her age and wasn't likely to freeze to death.
"Goodnight, Mister," Misato said, and one of her arms moved, as though she would have waved if Daddy wasn't holding her too tight for her arms to escape.
The ice around the …naga? It began to glow, lifting up into the air and stacking itself around him. "Sir?" Dr. Katsuragi heard, and turned to see one of the guards holding out his arms, looking at Misato. Was it alright if they got her out of here, just in case?
Misato didn't seem to want to go, but just in case… Her father pushed her gently towards the nice man. "I'll be there in a minute." He wanted to see this.
So the white light allowed telekinesis as well as an anti-hostile-environment forcefield?
When it melted the ice around it into place, the shell wasn't more than a couple of feet thick, and that seemed to be mostly to bear the weight of the tubes of ice around the glowstick than because the naga felt any particular need to protect itself.
"Report."
"The Traitor's AT field is weaker than before it was awakened." As the Dead Sea Scrolls predicted. Why? Had it been forced to weaken its imprisonment of Adam and the other angels to awaken?
Well, it would all be meaningless shortly.
"Good. Proceed with the scenario," the distorted voice on the other end ordered, and the call disconnected.
The explosion of the N2 mine was followed an instant later by the explosion of Adam's power.
Misato never forgave herself for being the one to awaken the angel, that lying demon.
Yes, I realize this has very little resemblance to canon Dr. Katsuragi. However, it's a good rule to never make things easier for the characters, and thus we have Misato with a vendetta.
Misato's young, brave and curious, so she's not hiding behind her AT field all the way. Since Tabris was used to semi-casual use of telepathy, he felt someone questioning him and woke up. He didn't feel the others because they were shielded. She still wouldn't be up to attacking with it, she was just going poke.
Nagisa, in addition to meaning 'messenger,' the same thing 'angel' does, if spelled with different kanji, means 'seashore.' Which is where Shinji first meets him in the anime, in addition to being the border between two different worlds, the land and the sea. Or land, sea and sky. Then when he dies, his body falls into the sea of LCL.
Because of this, it seemed appropriate to make the variant of humanity that made him, and that his default humanoid form would have been based on before SEELE made him a body the way Rei was made, was aquatic. This is also why he has a preference for worlds with seas and isn't especially interested in Mars – he'd have to drag a hell of a lot of water asteroids over there before he could even get to work on the biosphere, if he wants his creations/descendant species to have proper oceans. It's not just a matter of personal preference: aquatic civilizations and ecosystems are the ones he was loaded with data on and is therefore confident he could do a good job with.
It's also why he's a bit unsympathetic to the others insisting on all going after the Earthlike world when there are a lot of other potential planets and planetoids humanity could be adapted to in the system. It's not like living on a Titanesque planet prevented the technological development of his homeworld.
Originally coming from different worlds and cultures and traveling in a carrier group/convoy with Adam would explain why the angels take such different forms. They're not only alien to earth, they're alien to the cultures of each other and don't have a shared symbolism set or reference pool.
Snakes aren't actually that fast on land unless they're already in strike range, btw.
