Chapter 3

Becoming a Child / There was a listening fear in her regard

AEON

~'/|\'~

"...and no matter what others may claim, it has been, and always will be the position of the Church that the so-called 'soul' is nothing of the kind, that it is not the perfect, inalterable gift blessed upon us by God, and that, in fact, to call it a 'soul' is a gross inaccuracy. The True Soul is a blessing by the Lord; it is the self in a very real sense, and so is far beyond the understanding of Man's reason. It grows and swells with Virtue, and suffers and withers with Vice. By contrast, the arcane construct which, sadly, has been given the title of 'soul' by a secular scientific establishment, which, by that very deed, seeks to denigrate faith, is not, and cannot be the True Soul. One can live without an animaic waveform, and many do; to lack it is a mere medical condition, which removes the possibility that one can study sorcery or possess parapsychic powers. But no person is born without a True Soul, and one cannot lose one's True Soul, though the weak and foolish may give it away to the servants of the Adversary. The True Soul is the concern of faith; the animaic waveform is nothing but secular physics. And the two are fundamentally different."

Carlos Fernadez, Bishop of Brazilia-A
Excerpt from his speech, February 19th, 2091.

~'/|\'~

25th of August, 2091

The two figures faced each other over the expansive desk. One leant forwards, face utterly impassive, his eyes obscured. That one was impossible to read. The other was slumped back in his seat, eyes skipping from the man's face, to glance around the room, never settling on one place for too long. Nervousness, fear, tiredness, an underlying current of simmering anger; all these could be read with ease in the bright white light that filled the room.

Around them, in this vast hollow space, occult symbols floated, the light from the drone-screens occasionally painting Shinji and Gendo Ikari in colour when they moved close, only for the hint to be overwhelmed as soon as they moved away.

They didn't actually mean anything, to anyone who could actually read Enochian, Tsath-yo, Salaamian Standardised Code, or any of the various formats in which sorcerous rituals were commonly. That did not really matter. Gendo knew that his son could not comprehend them, and they looked really impressive. Even if the modern sorcerer was more of akin to a doctor or a scientist than some tower-dwelling demon-summoning occultist, some things never changed.

Of course, Gendo Ikari did actually have a tower. And he was scrupulous in denying that he summoned unsanctioned extra-normal entities.

Shinji, for his part, was feeling suitably intimidated. And tired. And a bit nauseous, because Major Katsuragi had decided that he shouldn't take public transport yet, and so had driven him here, even if it involved going up to the surface, and back down. The thing was, Shinji liked nice, predictable, smooth maglevs. They didn't induce motion sickness. Or require the use of fighter pilot-grade restraints.

The inconsistently locked gazes were broken by Fuyutsuki's cough.

Gendo nodded, once. "Shinji," he began. "You are aware of why you are here."

"I can guess, father," the boy replied, trying to keep his voice neutral, level, and failing.

Good, the man thought. He is in the right emotional state. Some might have queried whether one really wanted to negotiate with someone who was angry at you. Those people missed the point. Gendo had no intention of negotiating. As far as he was concerned, there was only one way that this could end, and in the pursuit of that goal, it was his task to ensure that the conditions were optimal.

"Then we can skip the unnecessary preamble." One finger pushed a slipping pair of arglasses back up to the bridge of his noise, as he stared down at his son. "You have a natural talent for piloting the Evangelion. That talent is needed; in all the time that we have been searching, we have found only two other people, and you have seen Test Pilot Ayanami already. She is in no state to do so at the moment. Therefore, we want you to join the 'Children' Test Pilot programme."

Shinji glared up at his father. "Really? In that case... no. No, I will not."

There was an almost unnoticeable shake of the older man's head. "You failed to enquire about what it would involve, or what the alternatives are," he said, a faint noise of disapproval entering his voice. "Fuyutsuki, explain what the Test Pilot programme entails."

The white-haired man cleared his throat. "The Test Pilot programme is designed to ensure that candidates can be involved in the activities demanded by the Evangelion Group and the necessities of training and testing, while ensuring that the ethical concerns are minimised. It enables a normal life to be maintained by the candidates, including full-time, mainstream education, rather than tutoring, to prevent them from ending up detached from society. The candidates, the so-called Children, are paid as a full-time test pilots, despite a greatly reduced work schedule, and count as employees of the Ashcroft Foundation when it comes to access to IPLibraries. The programme has been vetted by both the Foundation committee on Ethics, and the New Earth Government, as being legally compatible with child-labour and risk laws."

Shinji cocked his head, a faint sneer creeping onto his lips. "Very nice presentation," he said, only glancing to Fuyutsuki for a moment, before his stare returned to his father. "On the other hand... I could just not be a child soldier, especially not in a giant Engel, and especially, especially not after how I ended up hospitalised after the first time. So, really, no."

"Fine." Gendo's words were flat and level.

"Fine?" Shinji echoed.

"Fine," the man repeated, the corners of his mouth turning up in a disconcerting manner. "I cannot legally force you to do it. Of course," he added, as if the thought were just striking him, "I also cannot prevent your institutionalisation on global security grounds."

The boy groaned. "And here comes the stick," he subvocalised, as his father's head remained unmoving, presumably staring at him . "Explain?" he said out loud, trying to keep the shake out of his voice.

"The genetic factors that contribute to a talent for synchronisation with an Evangelion are not understood, and that makes them dangerous," the man said, in a level tone. "It may be a form of Outsider Taint which somehow has evaded detection . It may be a previously unknown form of parapsychic ability; he is about the right age for manifestation, is he not?" Gendo asked Fuyutsuki, rhetorically.

"Indeed, he is," was the response.

"It may be even be something more sinister, like..."

"I get it!" snapped Shinji, visibly paled and shaking. "You first give me the nice option, then you threaten to have me declared non-human

"Of course not," his father said, flatly. "You would have to choose to join the Test Pilot programme of your own free will, so we cannot therefore be threatening you, if we want you to join... which we do. And," he added, "do you really think I would do that, that I would be able to do it, if there wasn't a real risk? You think that I would not be affected by the fact that I too would be under suspicion for carrying the same factors?" There was a sudden forceful tone under Gendo's voice. He paused, the motion of his eyebrows showing the fact he was blinking. "You have a choice," he said.

Shinji glared at the opaque glasses that covered his father's eyes. What was that man looking at under there? he wondered. Did he not even want to give Shinji his full attention? Well, he thought, okay. I'm going to end up doing this, because he has given me no other choice. But... it can't be too bad, right? Well, yes, it can, because that thing, that Harbinger-thing, was horrible. But they called it Harbinger-3, which, logically, means that it must have been the third one they identified. Or maybe the fourth. Do the numbers start with zero, or one? He shrugged, mentally. But if this is only, at most, the fourth, then they must be rare. I mean, this was a massive story, and I'd have heard about it if they were more common. So they shouldn't be that frequent. And it's not like I'd have to do it alone; there are other Evangelions, so it's not like I'd be sent out on my own to face the next one. This was just a special case because the sidocy was injured. It's going to be all right.

No, it's not going to be all right. But I'm going to have do it anyway.

"No," he said out loud. "No, I don't have a choice. If I didn't take the offer, then I'd be crazy enough that I'd probably deserve to be declared mad and mentally unfit."

Gendo leant further forwards. "Good," he said. "Kozo, you will take him to the briefing room, and give him the full details and explain in full. After that, come back so we can sign them."

The older man nodded. "Yes. Come with me," he said, turning down to glance at Shinji, who, with one resentful glare at his father, stood and followed.

Gendo Ikari was left sitting, alone, in the cavernous office, staring blankly at the door. Shaking his head, he took off his arglasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose, running gloved index finger and thumb over his closed eyelids. That had been harder than he'd thought it would have been. The boy had Yui's jawline, and the sight of it set like that had been a far, far too familiar experience. Well, that and the tone of voice.

No, there was neither time for sleep nor remorse yet. He had far too much he had to do before he could spare the time for either.

The glasses went back on, and the mask returned, as if it had never been removed.

~'/|\'~

26th of August, 2091

"Okay, Shinji. This time we're going to take it slowly. We're starting with," Ritsuko checked the data stream on her harcontacts, "simple limb movements. We're not even going to ask you to try walking again, until we're sure that you have control over your limbs... we estimate that we might be able to try some time today."

She stared into the fluid-filled testing chamber, at the vast shape which hung, too-long limbs restrained, impersonating the Vitruvian man. Of course, this exercise had an equally important purpose; calibrating the user profile and synchronisation tests. She would have loved to have used the simulation bodies for this, but that wasn't an option, sadly, as experience with previous Test Pilot candidates had shown.

A small window opened up in her left eyeball, from one of the Operators. "Dr Akagi," reported Second Lieutenant Cheung, her body down in the full immersion chamber, "we are ready. I am pleased to report that my Direct Magi Interface Node is stable. We can begin building a personalised profile as soon as we start getting the data."

Ritsuko unconsciously nodded at the amlaty, a human reflex quite separate from the fact that the other woman was only an image on the permanent hard contact lenses fused with the front of her eyeballs. "Yes, thank you, July." She closed the window with a gesture, and leant down to one of the conventional technicians. "You can begin now, Aoba; start running him through the checks."

~'/|\'~

27th of August, 2091

"You know, Rits, it probably would make sense to get him to learn how to stand up on his own," Misato said, as they waited, once again, for the superheavy lifters to pull the Unit back up to an upright position, the cables tied to it straining under the tension of a forty metre high arcanocyberxenobiological monstrosity. At least it was a nice day down in the Geocity. Of course, when one controls the entire moisture cycle of a self-contained self-sufficient sphere with a false sun, there is very little excuse for not knowing what the weather will be like. Even in the British Isles.

"Yes," the scientist snapped back. "And when he's capable of the complex series of motions required to get him to stand up on his own, he won't be falling over so much."

"At least he's doing it less."

"Yes, that is something."

Misato threw the other woman a sideways glance. "You're just annoyed that he's damaging the paintwork, aren't you?"

"You're one to talk, getting irritable about people damaging your paintwork. And, no, for your information," the blond added, "we're specifically using the test paint, not the standard deployment camouflage. It's easier to check for cracks."

"It is very... purple. Except when it is very green," said Misato, solemnly. "Looks almost like an A-War 1 Vadoni."

"Same type of paint, actually," Ritsuko admitted.

"Makes sense."

There was a pause.

"So, how long do you think he's going to last this time? He's been improving... I'd say he's going to last," Misato wobbled her hand from side to side, "...hmm... half an hour, as long as he doesn't have to run."

"Misato! We are not starting a betting pool, especially when sensitive and, yes, potentially breakable military equipment is involved!" snapped Ritsuko.

You might not be, but I'm already ahead against the Operators, is what Misato Katsuragi very much did not say.

~'/|\'~

1st of September, 2091

The weather outside had apparently stayed clear for over a week; something that the hazard teams in charge of the clean-up after the battle against Harbinger-3 had been thanking whatever deities they believed in. Already, the debris was largely cleared, the contaminated, chromatically-drained areas demolished and the remains reprocessed into blocks. Some were fated to be used; there was certainly a use for such a material, but inevitably with such vast quantities produced, most would simply be deposited in underground storage facilities, ironically used as shielding and containment for Colour production facilities. It was important to distinguish chromatically-drained regions from arcanochromatically contaminated substances; the former were merely dead, anathema to 1-state life, while the latter contained traces of the Colour, which could contaminate other things, and breed. The slightly... off nature of vegetation in many parts of the world spoke of improperly contained Colour.

The concerns of clean-up were not exclusively concerned with such arcane matters. There were also more conventional worries; munitions did not have a 100% successful detonation rate, and vast quantities had been hurled at the monster, let alone the ones which missed, their smart systems safely disarming the dangerous weapons, leaving them littered across the ruins of Old London.

For that reason, more than a few illicit organisations had been expressing interest in the area of the conflict. One of the major restrictions what could be produced by the kinds of nanofactories available to civilians, and even most private groups, was the limits on arcanotechnology in all its myriad forms. And a major component of almost all arcanotechnology was variant r-state elements, the so-called elem-n-ents. Compared to the amount that could be obtained by breaking open D-Cells, to extract the minuscule amount of elem-n-ents in the superconducting battery, the existence of a vECF warhead was a motherlode.

The New Earth Government was quite aware of the fact that there were people interested in such things, of course. A restricted state of martial law was still in effect, under the Environmental Safety Act of 2084, and a truly comprehensive network of security cameras and CATSEYE scanners (the latter to detect the presence of warding sorceries designed to obstruct electronic or human-visual detection) had already been set up as a perimeter. LAI-controlled drones, the car-sized bulk nevertheless hard to see, as their colour shifted to match the background sky, hovered, armed and permitted to fire upon invalid persons within the excluded zone, guiding patrols of armoured vehicles and powered armour.

Sadly, this was Old London. A city which had been the site of population for millennia, a dead metropolis lying on the corpses of its ancestor-selves. It was not exactly short in underground routes, and, although the extranormal-entity-infested remnants of the old Underground network were sealed off, it was not as if anyone capable of surviving a trip through the expansive catacombs down there was not capable of making their own way out.

In the filthy, vile-smelling darkness, a middle-aged woman knelt, fingers pressed into the dark mud. She was of Indian sub-continent origin, that much was certain, but beyond that... there was an uncertainty about her features; something slightly blurred, as if there was a thick layer of glass that moved to cover her, no matter which angle one looked at her from. "Death..." she muttered softly, to her companions. "Rot... carcass, multiple days dead." She nodded. "Our contact is here."

The teenage amlaty beside her, waif-like in her proportions, but similarly blurred, gripped the almost-comically-oversized submachine gun in her hands tighter. "Sure?" she asked, a hint of a Nazzadi accent in her voice.

"Yes."

"Good, 'cause, well, we've been looking for him for too long. I don't like it down here. It... tastes bad, smells bad, you know what I'm saying? I just want to get outside, out into the proper air."

"I'm less sure about the taste... but, yes. I just hope we get to him. There are too many butterflies flapping around up there. They've got their own sources, but they know we'll be after it."

"You know we can go when we find our contact, Many, and not any sooner."

The girl slumped. "Yeah, I know."

The woman stood up, adjusting the strap on the rocket launcher slung on her back (a cumbersome weapon, especially in such tight quarters), and pointed down one of the paths splitting from the intersection. "This way. Not too far."

'Not too far' in this case involved half a kilometre of slow, ponderous climbing down old maintenance hatches, as the scent of rotting mud and sewage grew stronger. This wasn't a place for convenient bioluminescent bacteria or faintly glowing magic crystals; this was a made place, the only light coming from the all-too-irregular emergency lights, which remained embedded in the flesh of this dead city, kept alive by... someone.

And then they found their contact. Sprawled on the ground lay a body several days dead, the bloated rigidity speaking of clotted blood in veins. There was not even the mercy of an intact funeral for this man (not that bodies were buried nowadays; they were broken down into their raw materials, as a precaution against the myriad uses there were for an intact corpse); things had obviously feasted on his body, the flesh gnawed off and the guts picked out. That was not the thing that the two women were paying attention to, though; there were moving shapes packed around the edge of the room, pale, leathery-skinned things, with a canine set to their features. They were clad in clothes so covered in the filth of the down-below, that their original garments were almost invisible, under the layers of caked-in muck. In the light, their teeth, thin, dagger-like things, the teeth of a carnivore on a too-wide jaw, gleamed.

But their eyes; their eyes, in blues and greens and browns, were all too human.

The older woman broke into a grin. "Ah, Christopher!" she said, to the largest of the needle-toothed ghouls, as she looked at the stacked piles of military-grade munitions, high-explosive and microfusion warheads stacked on top of each, while utterly ignoring the commonplace sight of the body. "You have done well. I think that's enough to have earned your bonus... if they're all intact. If they're not, of course, and you're trying to cheat us, I'll have to set Mantodea on you, but... it looks hopeful. We will be able to use this to good ends."

The monster echoed the smile, pieces of flesh caught in his stinking mouth. "I am not dumb. I will not lie to you," it gravelled, the words made in the back of its throat. "I do not want to die."

~'/|\'~

Shinji looked around Misato's apartment, and stretched, aching muscles still sore from the extended periods spent in the entry plug. The control chair wasn't actually uncomfortable, it was not as if the New Earth Government or the Ashcroft Foundation were unfamiliar with the fact that being stuck in a fluid-filled capsule for hours at a time was not the most pleasant thing that one could be doing. The problem was that he had been stuck in it, for the majority of each day, for a week. And all that sitting down and thinking was really hard work.

Shinji was aware of how that would sound to a purely hypothetical observer capable of hearing his thoughts. Or a mind-reading parapsychic, who could actually be doing it. Either way, if they objected, he was going to hold their heads in a tank of LCL until they dro... damn it!. Hmm, he should think up some other ironic punishment.

Or he could just sit down, and do nothing for once. That was probably easier. At least he had got the apartment cleaned up, and therefore could actually touch the surfaces without his skin creeping. There really was no excuse for that. Seriously, had Misato never been taught to clean up after herself, or was she just a slob?

No, he corrected himself. Had she never been taught to clean up for herself, as well as being a slob?

Either way... Shinji groaned. He had been able to properly walk... uh, that is, he while piloting the Evangelion had been able to properly walk since Sunday, which had been the first day he hadn't fallen down at all (which had, he was pleased to say, resulted in some compliments even from Dr Akagi and the technical staff, though, he frowned, Misato had seemed a little disgruntled, which was confusing), and now they had started weapons training.

They don't seem to get how hard it is, he thought. The control sticks interfere with fine manipulation with the hands, and it's hard to keep the chains of thought separate. Aim with the Evangelion, fire with the controls. It couldn't be worse if they made the thing have to pull some oversized trigger; at least then, I wouldn't have to think-pull my body-fingers, not the Eva-fingers. So what if I make a few mistakes?

At least they had been feeding false sensory data to the Unit, as a form of a simulation. It would have been mortifying to have actually levelled a non-negligible area of the pseudo-arcology around the pyramid-structures. And in his defence, he had thought that the Ouranos Limited Information Tactical Analysis Network that was apparently the interface between the superconducting QUI devices on his head and the actual Evangelion, was meant to stop that kind of thing. And then he had been scolded by both Dr Akagi and Major Katsuragi for relying on an LAI for target discrimination, instead of thinking for himself, and things had gone downhill from there.

This entire thing was stupid. If they wanted proper, professional pilots, then they should have got them. And if they didn't want to do that, for whatever stupid reason, then they should expect him to act like a person forced into something that he didn't want to do because of his father metaphorically offering him a carrot or a stick to pilot, and then threatening to stab him with the carrot.

Pulling out his PCPU, a scowl on his face, he flicked through the most recent squirt from the Japanese networks. At least he'd got his archives transferred over, and his muse operational, but it was still annoying, the fact that there was now a good ten minute ping for even pure text transfers over approved free channels, and up to six hours for more complex items, as the files were quarantined and checked by vast arrays of ghost LAIs. For someone used to near instantaneous links to everyone he knew, this was just another burden in the heavy weight that was a move to an unfamiliar place. Of course, it was possible to get faster transfer, and even live interaction; the condition was that you were willing to pay for it.

That was specifically relevant because there was a message from his foster mothers, demanding that he contact them, and telling him that he should pay for it, because they hadn't heard from him in two weeks.

Ah.

...

Ooops.

As the boy searched down his contacts list, and waited for the system to guarantee approval the request for a valid link, his thoughts were in turmoil. Very guilty turmoil. He really should have thought of that. He should have even told them that he was alive; they wouldn't even have known that he hadn't been caught up in everything that had happened... well, actually he had been caught up, but he hadn't been caught up terminally, and that was what was important, right? No... no, they had to know that he was alive, because he'd be getting a lot more worried messages, so someone, maybe his father, more likely someone else, had to have told them that he was okay. And when he thought about it, it was perfectly understandable that he had forgotten to contact them. First there had been the whole hospitalisation and the tiredness and the check-ups, and the almost immediately as soon as he had been let out, he had been in the training. He groaned. Fourteen hours down in the Geocity, and then another hour eaten up by travel. It was inhumane. He just wanted to collapse after the end of it. Well, he would certainly have a thing or two to say...

Oh.

Oh. Yes. He was going to have to reassure them, without actually telling them anything. The lengthy secrecy contracts he had been forced to read and sign (and he had read them all, despite the growing irritation of the Deputy Representative as he poured over the fine print) had been quite clear about this; that, quite specifically, he was not permitted to tell anyone outside the Group anything about what he was doing without express consent from a very small list of people. This was going to be complicated.

Shinji Ikari seriously considered just hanging up, and working out what to do tomorrow, but by now the transfer had already been approved, and the hum of the pre-connection line activating had already started. It was probably better to apologise as soon as possible.

"Connection approved," said his muse, the emotionless voice clinical and precise. "Waiting for response from other end."

Shinji waited.

"Hello?" asked a young girl, in Japanese.

Shinji took a breath. "Hello, Hikary," he said. "It's Shinji. Can I talk to Yuki or Gany, please."

There was a pause on his end, as he waited for his six-year old foster sister to calm down.

"I've missed you too, Hikary," he said, patiently, once it had got a little quieter on her end of the phone. "But where are Yuki or Gany? I want to talk to one of them, please."

"Mummy's already left for work," the girl explained. "Memany is getting Haruhy ready up stairs because she managed to spill food all down her front, and make a mess everywhere!" The line crackled, the noise of what was almost-certainly-the-phone-being-swung . "She's clumsy and silly."

"Left for work?" Shinji paused. "Oh. Time zones." He sucked in a breath. Ah. Well... that was broadly keeping in with how well he had organised this. He was tired, for goodness sake. He was just lucky that the nine hour difference had bumped them forwards to... he checked his watch, okay, it was 08:26 there, if he added nine hours.

"Time zones?" the little amlaty echoed. "Oh, I know all about them! We did them in nosesukasi! When it is mid-day in Toyko-kei, it is 9 at night the previous day in Chicago-twi and twelve hours ago in Brasila-twi and..."

"Hikary..."

"And it is three in the morning, but on the same day, in Londoni-twi, and..."

Shinji sighed. This was hard work. And actually quite impressive, if she'd memorised... wait a moment. "Hikary?" he asked. "Are you just reading them off the map in the hallway?"

"... which hallway?" asked a guilty voice.

"The downstairs one."

There was a patter of bare feet. "Nuh-uh! I'm not even in the hallway, so I can't do it. Unless I can see through walls. Oh. Oh! That would be so awesome. I could see everything on the other side, and then they couldn't see me!"

Shinji smiled to himself. "Okay, now, Hikary. I want you to go fetch Memany. She wants to talk to me."

"'Kay!" The patter of feet resumed. "Why aren't you here any more, Shinji?" she asked. "When are you coming back?"

He winced. "I did... um, well." He gave up. "That's one of the things I need to talk to Memany about," he lied.

"'Kay!"

He could hear the fuss in the apartment, as Hikary's sister (it was complicated) protested. Shinji took a deep breath, which turned into a yawn despite his best efforts to suppress it.

"Hello?" he heard a voice say in Nazzadi-accented Japanese.

"Um... it's me," he managed, his jaw aching.

"Oh, someone remembered to check his PCPU," Gany said, her voice acidic. "You have had us worried sick... two weeks, and not a word, not even a message from you... it's Shinji, darling... and... no, he's fine, and isn't in trouble... asisi," she added, in a warning tone.

The boy winced. "Da seraba resoreni," he said, in a peace offering, switching to Nazzadi to prevent the younger two from being able to follow it properly. "Da ginozakrona, pla dedifatabi ni soli salenitukasi." He braced for the inevitable outburst that was to come. It really, really would have been easier to explain this to Yuki; she was less... volatile.

It did not erupt. "Hikary, Haruhy," he heard over the phone. "Go downstairs... I'll be down in a moment. And... Hikary, don't throw any more food at your sister, understand? I will find out, and if I do, you certainly won't be getting that Zinabi doll you wanted... no, no protests from either of you two. Okay? Good. I need to talk to Shinji, don't worry." She paused. "No, we're still going to make it to school on time. Good. Now... downstairs, please."

Shinji waited. The voice, once the noise of his foster-siblings had gone, was unnaturally controlled and calm; the kind of calm that speaks of a great deal of internal pressure. "What exactly do you mean that you were hurt, and that you had to spend time in the hospital?" Gany asked quietly, her accent thickening.

"It wasn't anything too major, " he hastened to reassure her. "Bruising... nothing broken. But... well, you know that a thing happened on the day I arrived in L2?"

"Yes. It was all over the news. A maj... well, it certainly wasn't a small extranormal incursion. It got worryingly close to the arcologies, before they managed to stop it." The woman made a tutting noise. "You think it's a wonder we've been worried about you?"

"Uhm..." Shinji massaged that back of his neck, feeling an acute mixture of guilty and embarrassment. "Well, uh, I really didn't mean to worry you!" The words came out in a rush. "It's just a lot of things had happened... and my PCPU got broken, as in actually physically snapped, and I'm really sorry and I should have listened to you two when you told me that I should have got a soft one, not a hard one, and then it took several days to actually get a new one and get it to grab my archives and move it to the London severs and before that I had to prove that I was actually me, and that ended up taking a blood check to actually get a proof of ID before I could move my full archives here and... and I'm babbling, because I'm nervous, and I'm in a strange city and I'm not going to be able to move back and I've been worrying you and..." he choked.

"Shinji!" his foster-mother snapped. "Breathe! Stop talking!"

He gulped down a few breaths of air.

"I've only ever seen... well, heard you like this a few times before," she said, more calmly. "You don't normally go wobbly like this. Just... calm down."

Shinji breathed out, slowly. "O-okay."

"Listen, let's get the important things out of the way. You're physically fine, yes?"

"Yes. Yes. It's all healed."

"Good. And you're feeling all right? That is, you're not feeling any more wrong than you should be feeling, when you've suddenly been moved to a new city?"

No, he thought, but I can't explain any of it to you. "Yes," he lied. "I... I think it might just have been hearing your voice."

"Sure, Shinji." There was doubt in her voice, but it was a generalised, unfocussed suspicion. "And you're getting on all right with Gendo? Uh," she corrected herself, "with your father?"

Well... where do I start? Oh, let's start a week ago, last Wednesday, Shinji thought, angrily. The day after I got out of the hospital. He didn't come visit me once while I was actually in there. Not once! Oh, I'm sure he checked my records. He didn't want one of his precious prospective Test Pilots to suffer too many complications. But once I'm out, then he demands to see me... in fact, he orders Misato to drive me there! That's monstrous! If he wanted me off balance when he saw me, then that's possibly the best way to do it. He knows I get motion sick!

Shinji paused in his mental rant, and took a metaphorical breath.

And then, and then, he sits me down in his obviously-designed-to-be-intimidating office, along with his second-in-command, and tells me that 'it is necessary' that I become a permanent pilot, and so I'm being moved to here for the indefinite future. I get told that there are two ways I can do this; I can be a 'test pilot', and get paid and a more normal life, or I get basically held as a research subject, or whatever was going to happen. Well, of course I took the first one, and then I had to sign lots of things explaining everything. And then got dragged immediately off to get a proper plug-suit fitted. That's all I've seen of him, apart from the occasional glimpses in the building. I've been forced into being a child soldier by my father, who doesn't even seem to care that I exist apart from this. Oh, we're getting on just fine, thank you very much.

He longed to say all this, to let it out in one vast outpouring to Gany, but, of course, he couldn't.

"Yes," he said.

"And can you say anything apart from yes?" The tone was joking.

"Yes..." The boy made an annoyed noise at the classic linguistic trap. "Um... I mean, certainly." He smiled, before the smile turned into a yawn.

"Oh, yes, it must be pretty late over there, mustn't it?" said Gany, rhetorically. "Well... it was nice to know that you're alive and well, but I have to..." there was a pause as she checked the time, "Okay, I really have to get the girls to school, before I have to go to work. So... well, I'll talk to Yuki, and we can get a proper talk when it's better for both of us, and keep in touch. The feed time isn't bad for pure text, anyway, so you have no excuse for not doing so. I want to hear from you at least twice a week, okay?"

Shinji nodded. "Okay."

"And you will remember this, right?"

"Yes. Yes, I will."

"I will be sending messages to check that you do, if you don't."

"I know," he said, a slightly harassed tone entering his voice. "I promise."

"Good. Well, then, it was nice to hear from you, Shinji. And the girls have been missing you," she added, a note of sadness present. "Okay, then. Goodbye."

"Goodbye." The connection ended.

Shinji let his hand fall, and stared at the PCPU, tired eyes vacant.

~'/|\'~

4th of September, 2091

The purple and green of the Evangelion, still in the testing colour scheme, was bright in the false sunlight of the Geocity. The Unit was operating freely, this time permitted to roam as it wished, lacking even the superlifters and binding cables to right it should it fall.

Shinji removed his hands from the joysticks, and carefully willed his hands, specifically, to move. The fact that the Evangelion did not mimic the gesture was proof that he was managing to keep the trains of thought separate; that was a good thing. There had very nearly been an accident, the day before yesterday. But at least he'd managed to stop in time, and from the remarks that Dr Akagi had made, some other Test Pilot hadn't.

He could feel the viscosity of the LCL through the thinner material over his hands as he massaged his face, feel the difference between the soft flesh of his face, and the hardened cowl that wrapped around the rest of his head. They said that it was there to stop him breaking his neck if the Evangelion was thrown about excessively, and provide a more secure mounting for the A-10 superconducting QUI devices. Which was, in Shinji's opinion, not at all reassuring, given that he'd already been thrown around to a degree which was certainly excessive; it had been bad enough to fight a horrible giant monster-thing, but to know that he'd been at risk of breaking his neck throughout was almost embarrassing.

Admittedly, it was not as embarrassing as having to wear the breathing apparatus each time he climbed out of the Evangelion, being fed a supply of LCL until he could get it removed properly. The orangey-red fluid was not only vile (almost unutterably so), but too viscous for the lungs to cough up without possible damage to the fine structure, so every time he went back to breathing air, it meant that he had to connected up to that machine, which temporarily shut down his breathing (which was... strange) while it exchanged LCL for air. He had been told that it was possible to clear it naturally, but it was very unpleasant and potentially dangerous; after how, on that first day, he had seen the White (Rei, he thought her name was) choke on it, he was inclined to agree.

In fact, generally, Shinji had decided that a lot of things to do with the Evangelions were so stupid that they must have required geniuses to implement properly.

He lowered his hands back to the controls, and signalled that he was ready.

"Good morning Shinji," said Dr Akagi, her face appearing in his left eye. She paused. "Oh... wait, is it still morning? Yes, yes it is. Just. Prompt with the ready signal as always, I see." Her figure jumped sideways slightly, as if she had just been elbowed in the ribs. "Well!" she could be heard to mutter, before she looked back at him. "Today we'll be doing your first formal evaluation; complete with independent operations and a full firing drill. If you're deemed to have passed this, you will enter the Test Pilot programme properly, and be formally referred to as the Third Child."

Shinji nodded, reluctantly.

Ritsuko flicked onto the next page, wincing slightly, as she saw all the things that she had to read to him, for this to be a valid evaluation. "Okay. In this evaluation, you will be piloting Evangelion Unit 01, the Test Model of the "Evangelion" series of arcanocyberxenobiological Titan-grade capital-class humanoid combat war machines." The scientist took a deep breath. "The Evangelion Units utilise a standardised configuration of six DEV12/DDV13 Dimensional Engine / Dimensional Refrigerator pairs in the torso, with a further one in each limb. This has the function of balancing the constant power of the D-Engine with waste heat produced. This means that... you will not be mandated to observe heat levels in this test." Inwardly she groaned. There were pages of this stuff, old warnings and instructions dating back to the first tests with arcanotechnology, which had accumulated like sedimentary rock over sixty or so years. Like these heat warnings. They may once had made sense before the D-Refrigerator (or D-Dump, as it was more commonly, if inaccurately, called) was invented; a thermodynamically violating perfect refrigerator which fed heat back into the same source where the D-Engine drew it from (it was, after all, a D-Engine run in reverse), but now, it was just detritus. And, worse, as the Director of Science for the Evangelion Group, the regulations insisted that she, as head of the science team, personally read them to any new candidate, as opposed to simply have a text-to-speech programme do it. How annoying.

She was going to petition that a committee was set up to deal with this, that was for sure. There was no way she was going to have to do this again.

Further back, the Director of Operations was congratulating herself on having dodged this task, by the medium of job descriptions. Normally her job description forced her to do things that she didn't want to do; it was a too-rare event that it saved her from something like this.

"Are you worried, Major Katsuragi?" asked an elderly voice from behind her.

The black-haired woman glanced back. "In all honesty... no, Deputy Representative," she said to the white-haired man, shaking her head. "This is pretty much a triviality... we've seen that he can pilot, and whether he passes this time or the next one, he's going to be the Third Child." She paused. "From what I've heard," she added, picking her words carefully, "the previous failures have all been early; they've washed out after at most two or three sessions." She shrugged. "Haven't even got as far as walking."

Fuyutsuki was silent for a moment. "Yes," he said, eventually. " That's broadly true... a few have got a little further, and dropped out for other reasons, but... yes."

"And, anyway..." Misato added, "... we've seen that he's fully capable of piloting when pushed to it. Really, if things were going to have gone wrong, they'd have gone wrong when Harbinger-3 showed up." She licked her lips. "I mean, sir, that was basically the worst possible time for a first test... from what Ritsuko has told me, at least. He'll be fine under these calmer conditions."

The pair listened to Ritsuko's mechanistic reading of the safety precautions, and the more lively technical babble among the technical staff.

"Is Representative Ikari still in Chicago-2?" Misato asked.

The old man nodded. "Yes. He has to liaise with another Group, and he has more reports to make in person to other Representatives, and to the Cabinet in person. There's still a lot of fallout from the Asherah Incident; the NEG is," he smiled, faintly, "somewhat disturbed by the appearance of a Harbinger."

"It's just..." Misato paused, "I would have thought that he would have been here for... this."

Fuyutsuki shook his head. "The Representative and his son don't get on," he said, a guarded expression on his face. "Before that day, they hadn't seen each other in years, hadn't lived together since Yui... his wife, Shinji's mother died. And," the man winced, "the events of the last month haven't done anything to endear Gendo to the boy."

"Oh."

"I know." Fuyutsuki winced. "It's a shame, but... when you look at everything, what is one more minor tragedy?" He gazed up at the screen with eyes which had seen the events of the last seventy-two years, seen the wars that had reduced the human population from a peak of over eight billion to just over two billion, and the appearance of monsters which none would have believed possible. "Nothing on the cosmic scale."

~'/|\'~

The technical and scientific staff were pouring over the data from the test.

"The tweaks to the pilot profile seem to have fixed the stability issue, once and for all," declared Cela, one of the civilian Operators, with a proud glint in his purple eyes.

That, naturally, drew an immediate counter from Lieutenant Cheung. "You mean, of course, that, from the available data, it appears that the anomalous synchronisation spikes have been fixed, of course," she said, her voice cold. "Or, at the very least, have not reoccurred in the time period that we are dealing with."

"That's what I said! You're just inserting in semantics which were implied by the use of the word 'seems'!"

"Yes, because implications are so very useful for precise arcane engineering!"

Maya sighed to herself. This happened every single time those two spent any time in the same room. No matter what the topic, it degenerated into petty bickering and semantics. And they seemed remarkably resilient to the logical (or at least narrative) conclusion of this kind of tension, preferring just to maintain a just-below-the-borderline-of-unacceptable level of mutual disdain. "What do you think, Dr Akagi?" she asked out loud. That was the most sensible option, if they wanted to cut this pointless argument off; the Director of Science would know. She always did.

Ritsuko was staring up at the waveform, her fingers flying through augmented-reality projections only she could see. "Yes," she said, tilting her head to one side. "It is holding a lot smoother. After the initial start-up, we have a nice stable 56.1 +/- 4.2 % synchronisation... which, incidentally," she added, "... is still amazing me, even after a few weeks. He's talented, certainly. No..." she corrected herself, "talented implies learning. Test Pilot Soryu is talented. He's gifted."

"The replacements after the damage taken against Asherah have been integrated perfectly," added Lieutenant Hyugi, continuing the previous line of discussion. "The slight dislocation fracture suffered in training the day before yesterday was found to be due to improperly-bonded rods in the endoskeleton; they have been resunk, and the problem did not recur today."

"And the Ouranos reports that the Evangelion has adjusted to the enhanced regime of immunosuppressants and regrowth inhibitors, after the incident against the Harbinger," said Lieutenant Aoba. "It does, however, suggest that this should be something we should keep an eye on. It seems that, at times of stress, the Unit is capable of exceeding its natural restrictions, beyond the abilities of the systems to keep it under control. This is... alarming."

"True. It will be necessary to look into this further... which will be hard, as Unit 02 has not exhibited the same behaviour. This is an anomaly." Ritsuko paused. "What do you think, Misato? Not specifically on that, but in general," she added.

"Well, speaking as Director of Operations," the Major said, leaning against the wall, "I don't feel happy clearing him as having passed the initial training phase. He needs another week of full-time practice, at minimum."

"Really?" Ritsuko raised her eyebrows, echoed by surprised noises from the other staff.

"Yes. His synchronisation scores may be excellent, but tactically? Tactically, he's a child in a massive mecha with too much firepower for me to feel comfortable about it." The Major's words were clinical. "He doesn't have any kind of combat instincts, and that's not surprising. Just watch the actual performance, as opposed to the technical aspects. He freezes, he hesitates too much, he takes too long to aim; all classic signs of an untrained mecha pilot. Speaking now as an officer in the NEGA, I wouldn't want him supporting my troops with his current capacities. The Ouranos LITAN can't compensate for an untrained pilot."

Ritsuko sucked in a breath. " Well, I suppose..."

"I have already consulted with Captain Martello," the Major continued. "Compare the Third Child's performance to the data he forwarded on the most recent test for Unit 02; an actual live-fire test on the Eastern Front. The difference is immediately obvious. And any NEGA officer familiar with mecha will be able to see it."

"That is true," Dr Akagi said, with a nod. "I'll forwards the recommendation to Deputy Representative Fuyutsuki. Looks like we have another week of intensive training," she added, to the Operators and the technical staff in the room. "At least." A generalised, non-local groan could be heard. "Now... I have a few things I want to look at from the black-box, and discrepancies with the feed..."

"Just one more thing though, Rits," Misato said to her friend after the end of the meeting, as they were leaving. "Can you..." she sucked in a breath through her teeth, an embarrassed look on her face, "can you sort of put it to Shinji that this is for technical reasons? Please?"

The scientist paused, frowning. "Why?" she asked.

"Ah. Well. Um." Misato stared blankly at the blond. "It's kind of... uh."

Ritsuko fixed her with a level gaze, one flat-shoed foot tapping against the ground.

"Well, you don't have to live with him!" Misato finally managed. "He's basically taken over the house! He leaves politely written notes on any bottles or cans I leave lying around, and makes me feel guilty. He emptied out the main sections of the fridge of my noodles and stuff, as he said that, if he was going to have to do the cooking...

The foot had stopped tapping, frozen in mid-air. "Did you make him do all the cooking, Misato?" interrupted Ritsuko, in a slightly shell-shocked tone of voice.

"He volunteered, if I would keep the nanofac loaded. He seemed," she frowned, "oddly happy about persuading me to do that, even when it's a lot more work." She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he likes cooking." She frowned as Ritsuko laughed, for some reason. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," said the blond, with a smirk. "No, really, it's nothing. It's... it's scientist humour."

"The kind that's not actually funny, you mean," said Misato, with a hint of a pout.

"The kind that needs a sound foundation in the sciences before the more refined elements can be appreciated," corrected Ritsuko near-automatically.

"So... what I said."

"No... but, what were we talking about?"

There was a pause. "He's taken over the house!" said Misato, again, the mock-outrage and real-embarrassment fresh again. "I don't want to have to take the blame for making him go through another week of training, so can you just say something about needing more synchronisation testing...it's... it's not funny, Rits. Really, it's not!"

"Sure... sure it is-is-isn't," managed Ritsuko, before she gave way completely. "I-I-I just think it's h-h-hilar..."

Misato crossed her arms, and held her face perfectly level, the image of the sainted martyr.

It didn't help.

~'/|\'~

The girl was almost invisible in the hospital bed, surrounded by whiteness. Only the haemoglobin-red which had seeped into the bandages over her ruined eye, and a slight hint on the thinner skin around her mouth and visible eye, gave her any semblance of human life, that she was flesh and blood, rather than a marble statue. Even her breathing was barely visible, a slight slow flow of the blankets. And she was alone. There were no nurses in here. After the issues with the unexpected rejection of the first transplanted eye, they had decided that she just needed rest, to build up her strength, before they would try again.

"Yes, Representative Ikari," she said softly, voice almost inaudible, in response to the question from the face on the screen before her.

"And your opinion?" asked the glassed man.

"He has a talent for synchronisation. His mean synchronisation ratio is 29.3% better than mine, with a standard deviation 4.6 % better. However, his training is inferior. Major Katsuragi will not pass him."

Gendo nodded. "Correct. It is satisfactory."

Rei sat up slightly, a slight wheeze of breath the sign of the exertion. "It is?" she asked.

"It is."

"Then it is satisfactory, Representative," she said instantaneously, her words almost overlapping with his.

The man looked at her in silence. She gazed back, unmoving. "How are you feeling, Rei?" he asked.

"My right eye remains absent. They are preparing another transplant, and the operation will occur on the 7th of September. They have attributed the failure of the first to correctly connect to the optical nerve to a flaw in the growth." The girl paused. "I did not correct them. It was not necessary," she said, with a slight tilt of her head.

"Good, Rei." Gendo Ikari could be seen to relax slightly. "But I did ask how you were feeling."

"The combination of arcanetherapeutic-aided cellular regrowth, and the limited amounts of pain-inhibiting compounds which I am permitted have ensured that I am currently in limited discomfort. I can tolerate it with ease. I have suffered worse. Yesterday is an example of a day when I have suffered worse," she added, with a straight face.

"So you are feeling better, then?" Gendo asked.

Rei paused for a long while. "It still hurts to breathe," she said, eventually. "The alveolar damage has not healed. But, yes, I am better."

The man looked at her, noting the stained bandage over her eye. Yes, she does look better than before, he thought. Even if...

The pale girl coughed, gasping with the sudden pain. "I am aware of that," she said, attentively.

Gendo frowned, blinking in confusion. "What was that a response to?" he asked. "I have not asked any more questions." Perhaps Rei was not as well as she had looked, if she was still doing that. He might have to tell them to reduce the dosage of painkillers, if she was getting detached from the present.

She simply stared at him, head tilted slightly. It was not pleasant to see that familiar face with the repressed pain evident in the way that her jaw was set.

"How are you keeping up with your school work?" Gendo asked, almost as a triviality.

"I have completed all the tasks set of me by the teachers. The cover story that I was involved in a car accident is holding. There has been one bouquet of flowers, and twenty-five "Get Well Soon" messages. Of those messages, twenty-three were sent under coercion. One was from an individual from whom I have had to repeatedly turn down mating requests."

Gendo paused for a moment, squinting slightly. "You mean he was asking you on a date, Rei?" he asked with a hint of trepidation.

"Yes." She paused, for just a beat too long to be quite comfortable. "He is genetically unsuitable," she added, coldly.

"Rei," Gendo said, in a warning tone.

"I understand. I will avoid such things. As instructed."

"Yes." The man frowned at her. "Try to get some more rest," he commanded the girl.

"I will try." Rei paused, her one eye locked on the Representative's face. "You should not talk to me. You are late for your meeting with Director Wade. She is not late yet, but she will be."

Gendo managed to keep his expression calm, as he cut the connection.

Rei Ayanami lay back on the bed with a slight gasp, as stiff muscles screamed their warnings. Slowly, a hand went up to her empty eye-socket, palm flat against the bandage. Her lips moved, as she mouthed something, but no words came out.

~'/|\'~

The man with the newly trimmed short brown hair fumbled in his pocket for his PCPU, a muttered curse emanating from his mouth when he realised that he had left it inside the house. Sighing, he turned around, belatedly patting his other pockets, in the hope that he might find it. No such luck.

What he did find, however, was a slip of paper.

I remember you, Mr Habegger, it said.

The man's heart ran cold, and he dropped the scrap of white, which fluttered to the ground like a chicken coming home to roost.

~'/|\'~