Chapter Three


I had to try leaving my body.

It sounds insane, but astral travel is a skill anyone can develop, an extension of lucid dreaming. Some people say it's nothing but lucid dreaming, and any resemblance to the real world in astral travel is coincidence born of imagination, and the hidden realms traveled in the astral body are elaborate dream worlds, nothing more.

If I could have breathed, I'd have laughed at that. I was too busy counting, chasing other thoughts from my mind. I had to be totally focused before I made the attempt. What made it difficult was intermittent flashes of sensation, so short and sharp they were like the flashes of awareness I'd feel after I'd hit the snooze button and dip back into the world of dreams, floating between wakefulness and sleep.

When Shamshel came, I knew it. I heard voices, but not what was said, and knew anyway. I heard the screams, the shouts, the anger. It was like a half-remembered dream of the series, and I had to fight to stop my mind from filling in the details, to stop myself imagining Shinji's wanderings.

Other times were simpler. My eye would open and I would watch someone walk from side to side in front of me. Most of the time, they didn't notice. Sometimes, they would pick up their pace, as if aware they were being watched but not by who.

I was awake for a full minute once, as Maya and Ritsuko stood in front of me, talking.

"...flashes of neural activity," said Ritsuko. "We need to iron this out before the test."

"Are you sure?" said Maya, handing her a printout I couldn't see. "This core activity…"

"Anomalies. It may have a heart and lungs, but it's just a machine. It doesn't feel anything. These impulses may be why we had trouble last time."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Something about that troubled me, but by the time I was aware of that, I was counting again, focused on nothing else. The seven hundred steps were glowing closer and closer, my internal vision growing stronger with each cycle of the count. They were under my feet, cold and hard.

Before me lay the gates to the world of dreams- for Howard Phillips they were the gateway to the land of Ulthar where no man may kill a cat, to the plateau of Leng and alien skies where airships plied the moon, ghouls feasted on manflesh and night-gaunts plied the sky. When they opened for me, they would take me wherever I cared to go, as they always had.

Before I realized it I was standing before the Gates, my fingers working over the carven silver. I was aware of the flashing network of pain that carved me out of the void but it was somewhere else, just an anchor tied to my being by a silvery thread. The doors creaked open, and warm air flashed in my face. I took a step…

...and lay face up in a stream. Cool water covered me as I stared through it into clear skies, water just touching the edge of my lips and nostrils as I breathed. I focused on the sensation, on the coldness, the wetness, the weight of the water, the silty bottom under my body and the sand in my hair. I had walked this path before. I lifted my head and the waters parted.

This was one of the first mystical experiences I'd ever had, recorded in my diary as the goddess working. There she was, sitting on the banks of the stream. Small birds flitted around her, and little fish came to her feet. I had always seen her as a blonde, tall and somehow Nordic and Greek at the same time, but this was different. Her hair wasn't blonde, it was bleached, and there was a mole in the path of her tears.

Pain tore through my body like a hot lance. I was ripped out of the dream all at once, the iron cage of my tortured flesh slamming closed around me in a single, crushing bite. I would have screamed but had no mouth to give shape to my agony. It was like jaws crushing me, pushing in on me from every direction.

I opened my eye. It irised open, and I stared into the control room, through the new glass. Ritsuko was staring at me, made pale by it. Something about the light gave her hair an almost auburn color. There were others, but my focus was on her- she was looking at me, her and her alone as the others worked their terminals, though Maya glanced up, her face a mask of terror.

Again, I didn't need to hear them, only see their lips.

"Did you see that?" said Maya.

"Again," said Ritsuko.

The pain came back, agony raw and terrible and crushing, ripping through me, compressing me. It stole the sensation of my arms and legs. I felt squeezed, pushed out of my body. I did something, I wasn't sure what, and suddenly my vision doubled, merged. I saw her from the front and the side at once, and from the side much closer. Her posture shifted as she squirmed in her shoes.

A security camera. I was watching her through…

...the security cameras in the control room. Had I put myself into a trance? Was this a dream? I saw her from every angle now, the images merging into a single unit, as if she were in my head. I could hear now, as well.

"These readings are very strange," said Maya.

"It doesn't matter. It's the only way to…"

She was still speaking, but I recoiled, feeling my body shake. I actually strained at the restraints, not the ones in the wall, the ones in my body.

Please, please don't do this, don't kill me…

Maya froze. I could see her staring at her terminal through the camera. Blazing on the now black screen in green capital letters was the word

PLEASE

Ritsuko saw it, and froze, jaw hanging open. Her mouth clicked shut.

"Shut everything off. Now."

"But-"

"Now!"

The pain faded, and I relaxed, though I didn't move. The constant background pain was as welcoming to me now as a featherbed, nothing compared to what I'd felt moments ago.

"Clear the room."

Ritsuko stood as the others stared blankly.

"You heard me. You too, Maya."

The room emptied, leaving her alone. With me. She turned and walked to the door, and turned the lock on the knob with a soft click. Her shoes padded softly on the floor as she walked to the terminal and sat down.

She typed, "What are you?"

If I had a stomach, it would have clenched up. I did it before. Could I do it again?

I thought, and on the camera, I saw the letters flicker across the screen.

PLEASE STOP YOURE HURTING ME

She typed, "Who are you?"

DONT TYPE I HEAR YOU

She jumped back from the table and looked around, looked at me. "You can hear me?"

YES

She stood up, the chair skittering away from her on its uneven casters until it bumped into the desk behind her. Slowly, she turned to the window and stared out, into my single massive eye. I watched her from every direction as she looked back at the terminal.

"You can hear me."

YES

"Why did you try to kill Rei?"

I DIDNT TRY TO KILL REI

"Why did you try to hurt us?"

I DIDNT KNOW WHAT I WAS DOING I COULDNT SEE

"Then why-"

IT HURTS

"What hurts?"

EVERYTHING

She stared at the terminal for a moment, then turned to face me, her mouth hanging open. She put both hands on the glass and stared out.

"You can't feel anything. You're not alive. You're inert without a pilot."

I FEEL EVERYTHING

"Can you see me?"

YES

"Is that… were you watching me?"

ONLY WHEN AWAKE

She swallowed, her throat bobbing under the collar of her coat. There was a faded coffee stain where she'd spilled a little down her chest.

HELP ME

"Help…?" she trailed off.

FOR GODS SAKE HELP ME

"I don't know that I can, I…"

I CAN HELP YOU

"Help me? Help me do what?"

I KNOW THINGS

"What things?"

She was listening to me. I had to think. There had to be something I could say to get her attention, to make her understand. If I had Ritsuko on my side, I could do… something. Anything would be worse than just sitting here frozen, until they put Rei in me again, and who knew what would happen then? Was I doomed to live out the events of the television show until I exploded? What if I was in Rebuild and didn't know it?

"Are you there?"

She was leaning over the terminal.

"I swear, if this is some kind of a prank, whoever you are, you are so fired…"

I KNOW MISATO WAS YOUR COLLEGE ROOMMATE

"Everyone knows that. It's not exactly a secret."

I KNOW SHE SLEPT WITH KAJI FOR A WEEK

Ritsuko paused, staring intently at the screen. "How did you…"

YOU HAVE A PAIR OF CAT STATUES ON YOUR DESK ONE IS BLACK AND ONE IS WHITE

"That's the best you can do? That's it, I'm done here. This was funny for a bit, but-"

THE WHITE ONE IS YOU THE BLACK ONE IS GENDO

She froze, completely. So still she could be a statue. It was an educated guess, but I must have struck paydirt.

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

YOURE SLEEPING WITH HIM

"How do you know that? Who is this?"

IM UNIT ZERO I KNOW YOU SLEEP WITH GENDO

"This isn't-"

YOU COULD DO BETTER

"I am not seeing this," said Ritsuko, standing up.

IM SORRY PLEASE I DONT WANT TO DIE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

"Not funny," said Ritsuko, reaching for a switch.

She was going to turn off the terminal, or finishing deleting me, or something.

SEELE

Again, she froze. She looked around. She grew paler, until she was white as a sheet, and her hands were trembling.

"Who… how… don't…"

I KNOW THINGS. THE CHAIRMANS NAME. THE INSTRUMENTALITY PROJECT.

She looked back through the glass at me. "There's no way you could know that. How do you know that?"

YOU WOULDNT BELIEVE ME IF I TOLD YOU

She drummed her fingers on the desk. "I can't do this. For all I know this is is some kind of a test and someone is just watching me on the camera feeds and typing answers when I talk. I swear, I don't know a thing about any Seele, and…"

I WANT TO HELP YOU

"This is insane. You really expect me to believe you're in the Eva?"

YES

"And why would I believe that?"

LET ME PROVE IT LET ME MOVE

She bit her lip for a moment, then slid down to another terminal, and typed in something I couldn't see.

"Make a fist. Left hand."

It took a great effort to even sort out which part was my left hand, but once I was sure, I focused on moving my fingers, just made a fist as I normally would. My hand pulled closed, untl I could feel my fingers grinding, the armor on the joints sliding over the metal plating on my palm, like a glove. I let my fingers go limp.

Ritsuko sort of sank into her chair, and stared.

"Oh my God."

I TOLD YOU

"How did you get in there? Who are you?"

ITS COMPLICATED

"Who are you?" she repeated.

MY NAME IS CHUCK

She stared at the screen for a good half minute, then snorted, laughing into her cupped hand. Her cheeks lit up, reddening as she barked laughter into her hand.

I DONT MAKE FUN OF YOUR NAME

"An Eva named Chuck," said Ritsuko. "This is… I…"

There was a knock at the door. She looked at it, then turned back to me.

"I'm going to fake clearing your data. Don't move or say anything else. Then I'm going to shut you down."

NO

DONT

"I have to. I… just trust me."

WAIT

She turned off the terminal and stood up. I couldn't make any more words appear on the screen, as much as I tried. The others filed in as Ritsuko worked at one of the terminals.

"What was that?" said Maya.

"Memory dump," said Ritsuko.

Maya looked at her quizzically, but shrugged. Ritsuko finished what she was doing, and ordered the others to resume. Whatever she did, I could feel nothing but my constant pain, and only watched until a relieved looking crew of technicians left the room.

Ritsuko looked me in the eye for a flickering second, then entered in a command herself. My eye closed, and darkness swept in on me like a wave.

One, two, three… One, two, three… One, two, three…