March 13, 2017 - US Containment Site Gulliver, Detroit, Michigan, United States
Yui stared at her notepad, her mind wandering again. The rain soaked streets of Detroit passed her window, but they offered no visual stimulation for her either. Her mind was too full, with her destination, with where she had been, with…other things. She rubbed her stomach and grimaced.
"You okay, doc?"
She glanced at her driver, a former cop named Mick Yu-Na. He was a Korean, but could speak Japanese fluently, hence his role as being her driver. He was currently employed in the Security Division of Sarif Industries, the robotics conglomerate that had made a name for itself in the defense industry. It's owner, David Sarif, had been wanting to push out into the new field of advanced prosthetics, and he felt that making friends with the biology field was an important step in that direction. He had sponsored the conference in Chicago, and personally requested her attendance as a keynote. She thought she would fly in, give a lecture, answer some questions, enjoy the sights. Then…things happened.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she managed, trying to smile. "I think I just ate something that disagreed with me." That was convincing enough. At least she wasn't having to lie to Gendo.
What would she tell Gendo? This is all your fault, Lump, she thought with some venom, while her hand remained on her tummy. There had been signs. She was busy enough to have ignored the possibility until last week, when she started pondering drinking wine at the conference. She discreetly purchased a box of pregnancy tests. And got a positive.
Then another. Then another. She had worked through the whole box, mechanically drinking more water and using each wand. She had a collection of positives by the end. A whole happy flock of plus signs.
What would she tell Gendo?
She wanted to have babies…well, a baby. She had long had hopes for a daughter, fixated on the name Rei. After the Event in Antarctica, and being bathed with KL Particles, that dream had died for a bit. There were concerns about what aftereffects Arrival Day would have. The 4,103 people who had been on the continent were all numbered and monitored the world over, for their health more than anything else. No side effects had appeared in all this time, and the it was becoming accepted that KL Particles were probably not dangerous. They still understood so little about the damned things, after all this time. There had been a spate of pregnancies in the six months following, and observations of those gestations and births had given her no reason to be concerned. Still…
Yui was nervous, for many reasons. They formally adopted Misato, though she had kept the surname Katsuragi. Yui was concerned what the girl would think when an actual child of the Ikaris showed up. Would she feel sidelined? Replaced? She had made a lot of progress in the wake of that disaster, in the wake of the year of chaos and fear that had followed. Then there was Gendo. He did well with Misato, if distant and confused. And then that night happened, and she had to reassess things.
She had returned from the grocery store to find Gendo sitting in the kitchen, staring at the hallway. "Misato came home," he said, without any greeting, "Saying a boy had hurt her feelings. Someone she had a crush on. She's in her room crying. I don't what to do."
"That's too bad," Yui said, feeling sorry for the girl. First crushes and first heartbreaks were awful things at any age, but especially at fourteen. She began to put items away, and heard nothing else from Gendo. She turned, and saw that he had the most miserable expression on his face. He was often bland, though sweet. She had never seen him look like that.
"I don't know what to do," he repeated.
"There's…not much to do, except tell her we love her, and that this is only one boy, and she'll find someone who'll make her truly happy," Yui said, listing off all the textbook answers while studying her husband with growing concern. His gaze fell to his hands, then drifted around the room.
"I…won't be a good father. I'm not a good father. I don't think…" he mumbled, and fell silent. Yui felt like she had been hit by a car; he had never given any opinion on the issue one way or the other, and now he looked to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown over his inability to comfort one heartsick girl.
How would he react, then, to find out he was going to be a father whether he wanted to be or not? And then there was that lingering fear of Antarctica. Every baby born since had been healthy, but what if…what if this was the one to come out different? Yui shrank into her head, trying to reach out to the little bundle of cells that was divided and subdividing into a nervous system, circulatory system, heart, lungs, stomach, varied assembled organs, fingers, toes…little eyes, little nose, little ears, little mouth.
Birth control, my foot, she grumped in her mind. Well, fine! If you could make it past all that, then you clearly want to be in this world, she added with finality. She was going to be a mommy, Gendo was going to be a daddy, and they were going to like it, damn it.
They pulled up to a military checkpoint leading into a warehouse district. "This used to be a shipping district, back in the day," Mick noted, handing his credentials to the sopping MP. "Then the economy bottomed out. Never quite recovered. And then came the Bad Year. Things got better downtown, where the company is headquartered, but here…no dice."
"I understand that's working in our benefit today," she said idly.
"Yeah," he grumbled. "I love the idea of giving up progress for science experiments." Yui shrugged. They had to keep the corpses of the Others somewhere, after all.
It had been her biggest contribution in the wake of the disaster. Turning her biological talents on the others, she had been declared the foremost expert on their bizarre structures and physiology. They were physical beings, but physical beings of a simpler construct, in some ways more primitive, and in others, more advanced. They had run the whole gamut of appearance, from vaguely human to the outright bizarre. She had seen some that looked like children, three foot tall little gray things that brought to mind the old meme of alien abductors. She had seen some that looked like giant spider crabs, small bodies bouncing along attached to spindly legs. She had even seen a few geometric shapes, floating along like vehement clouds. The most common seemed to be insect or cephalopod-like forms, which made sense to Yui. That was a durable and adaptive biological format.
She did not discover the Super-Solenoid organ. That was Luthuli, working off a principle he and Katsuragi had theorized on when they made the first discovery of the KL Particle emissions. He had deduced that the organ in question, one that seemed shared among all the others, was like an infinite battery, or perpetual motion engine for a living creature. It was, in itself, a source for KL Particles as well, leading to the theory that the particles were some sort of waste or byproduct. Her own research had not confirmed it, but it put Luthuli's ideas ahead of the pack. She could be the one to boast about the AT Field.
The Anti-Terror Field was what allowed some of the Others their bizarre and frightening abilities. Yui theorized that all Others possessed one. Indeed humans probably did, as well. In essence, it was an intrinsic charge or pattern that kept all electrons, molecules and other such bits and pieces of matter together on the smallest level of existence, preventing the body from collapsing into its most basic components. Some Others had the ability to harness or focus those AT Fields, in a wide range of abilities, predominantly as shields, or means for levitation, or the terrible beams of energy they produced.
And here she was, asked to identify a new one. The Americans had found something new, and wanted her to take a peek, realizing that the premiere expert on the others was at a conference, in Chicago, run by a man whose company was based in Detroit, where it had been found. Reality had a surreal way of making ends meet some time, she mused.
Mick was waved over to a warehouse, and pulled the sedan in through the big steel doors. Soldiers in their digicam armor regarded the civilian vehicle with wary curiosity, some exiting to relieve others in the rain, others standing about in roving patrols on the interior of the structure. An older officer with a severe mustache and a more severe haircut greeted the car, opening Yui's door for her. "Dr. Yui Ikari?" he asked, "My name is Col. Alois Mortimer, I'm in charge of this sideshow." He extended a hand to help her out of the vehicle. She smiled, and accepted the uncommon gesture.
"My pleasure, Colonel. Perhaps you can explain why you've requested my presence today?"
"This way, if you please," the tall fellow said. She adjusted her bag, and followed as he began speaking. "Essentially, we've found something that does not fit the pattern of any known classification of the Others we have seen to this point. Behavior, appearance, the works. It appeared three days ago, and it's been lingering since it's been discovered."
"Lingering? Is it still alive?" Yui asked, pausing with some concern. They were walking towards a containment tent inside the warehouse, but nothing about it appeared remotely hardened. If it was alive, why was it inside such a flimsy structure? "Yes, ma'am, it is. We've had our own specialists going over it, but as soon as we found out you were in Chicago, they insisted that you be persuaded to come take a peek."
"You're being very vague about this, Colonel," Yui mumbled, handing her bag to a Soldier as the Colonel led her into an airlock. Several sets of one-size fits all hazard suits were hanging in a partitioned and seal-able alcove of the lock. He handed her one, while picking a second for himself.
"Ma'am, I have been in the Infantry for seventeen years. I have fought in engagements all over the world, and seen things that I will not attempt to explain. I am not even going to approach describing what is on the other side of that lock," he muttered, jabbing a thumb at the sealed flap. After locking into their suits, the front entrance was zipped shut, and tubing on the ceiling of the lock sprayed them with a decontamination shower. After it was completed, and they had taken a moment to clear their face plates, the inner lock opened, and Yui stepped through. Her breath ceased, and she stared in wonder.
It was amazing not merely for it's uniqueness, but how eerily human like it was.
It was…a she. A large human female, laboring to breathe on a great slab.
Yui stared in amazement at the figure. As white as starlight, fifteen feet tall from foot to crown, hairless, but…female. Human and female. At least it appeared that way.
"She's…beautiful," Yui breathed, and meant it. Her form was pristine, her face, a human face, was delicate and symmetrical. Her eyes were coal black, and glistening. She labored to breathe, lying on the tarp.
"She's also friendly," one of the scientists said. Yui's attention was torn from the Other in front of her at that. The man came forward, extending a hand and allowing her to see his brown face through the plate. "Dr. Elias Cochran, US Army Containment Services. I am honored you could come down," he said.
"It's a…pleasure, Doctor. Um…friendly?" she stammered, turning back to the female.
"It was found by three children, in a field," Mortimer explained. "It was originally local EMS that made the call to us, because one of the kids gave a 911 report asking to help the 'angel.' When EMS found them, one of the kids was holding it's hand. It was conscious, appeared lucid. We confirmed that there was a flux in the area, judging by readouts on our Akagi scopes. This is the first time that we know of where something came through and didn't try to kill everything."
"Maybe she's from a different place," Yui mumbled, reluctant to call the godlike creature an 'it.' It seemed the children who found her was right…'angel' would not be far off the mark.
"Maybe. What we want to know is why it's here, and what it wants," Mortimer grumbled. "We have a shoot first policy on Others, but this was…"
"Out of our field," Cochran said. "She's not doing so well, though. Most Others that we know of have very simple biological systems, almost like they were built for short term purposes. It's been difficult to observe them in any meaningful way given their hostility. But her…well, we can't tell if she was sick when she came over, or something here made her sick. We don't even know if we can adequately classify her as an Other."
She nodded, saying, "I agree. It's clear she is a much more complex than what we've encountered so far."
"Perhaps it's an attempt at infiltration?" Mortimer asked, "Trying to create more human-like Others?"
"No," Yui said, "I mean…it's possible, but…" she turned and fixed the Colonel with a serious look. "What does your heart tell you?" His face was baleful, and she shrugged. "All right, your guts. Your…instincts." Her accent was vastly improved, but finding words still proved an issue.
He pondered it when put that way. "Well…" he shrugged, rolling his eyes. "Yes, this doesn't have that feeling. This feels…like something else. I can't explain it."
Yui leaned over the head of the creature. The female's black eyes fixed on Yui, her expression soft and wonder in her eyes. No, not just wonder.
Pleading.
"We've started calling her Lilith," Cochran added. "Someone was feeling in a mystical mood. I wanted to call her Lucy, but…I got beat to punch." He stood next to Yui, watching with open admiration. Yui began unlatching her suit.
"Uh…wait, this is a clean environment…" Cochran began, but Yui would not be stopped.
"I can't see her in this," she said, shucking the hood. As a biologist, she knew very well that one did not want to contaminate a sterile environment, but this…woman had already been exposed to whatever contaminants the world contained. And something…Yui's gut had never led her astray before. And her instincts were screaming at her to remove the gear, and to get close. This was not an issue of biological examination, but something more intrinsic. Empathetic, perhaps. Human.
She laid the knuckles of her hand gently on Lilith's cheek. It was soft, and had an almost velvety texture in spite of being devoid of anything remotely like hair. Lilith sighed, a tremor passing through her body. The black eyes gazed serenely. Her skin was cool, and a strange comfort seemed to flow from her. This was not an Other, Yui knew. No doubt, this was something else entirely.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The beautiful creature smiled, a human expression that shocked Yui in it's familiarity and genuineness…and then with an effort, raised an arm and placed the tip of her index finger on Yui's forehead.
The world snip-snapped, and Yui gasped as images and ideas not her own and incomprehensible flooded her mind. Words disjointed and unbidden rattled through her brain, yet she was calm. A sudden image of a small lump of flesh appeared. The lump grew, to become an embryo. The embryo became an infant, the infant a child. The child grew, a skinny boy with black hair and blue eyes. In amazement, it occurred to her that…that was the Lump. The intruder she and Gendo had created.
A son, she thought in awe. That's my son. That's our son. He's beautiful.
She felt herself return to flesh, standing in a great space. She was nude, but not formed, as though it was more the shape of her as a woman than the actuality. Yui gazed about the space, stared at her hands. They glowed warm and fuzzy, as though impermanent and insubstantial. She sensed a presence, and turned, confronted by Lilith. She stood at Yui's height, statue-still and bearing an expression that was warm and embracing.
Life, she seemed to hear, a cry of joy and a prayer of thanks. Life.
"Life," Yui replied, her voice strange and floating in this…place. "My…you mean my baby."
You have made life, the words came, Such wonderful life. Such wonderful miracles.
"Are you…you're her? The one that they've been calling Lilith?" Yui asked, looking around her. The words were coming from the figure in front of her…somehow, and from somewhere. Lilith's head turned gently to the side, a look of curiosity.
There will be Messengers.
The floor fell out from Yui, and she floated over a world red and hostile. The sky bled crimson, and it seemed to her a place both familiar and utterly inhuman, beyond anything a human should recognize as legitimate and sound. She could see something, like great, white naked arm…an obscene it, demanding and imposing. Miles high, swaying like a living column of smoke. Circling it like penitents was a ravening mob of biological diversity that appalled even the biologist Yui. There, amongst and around them, were great beings, giant in frame and gait. None of them appeared similar, but all felt…hostile. Cold. Evil.
They seek the Capstone, Lilith said. They are tools. They will be the tools of your undoing. The tools of their Master's return.
"Who…who is their Master?" Yui asked. "What is the Capstone? What do you mean?"
You will know. You will use this, my flesh. Lilith held up her arms, as if presenting herself. Yui shook her head in confusion, and then understood.
"No," she said, a quiet plea. "That's…too much. You offer too much."
Use this.
"Why? What are we to you? What makes us so important to you that you would do that?" Yui pleaded, watching as Lilith began to recede. There was no answer, and darkness overtook her.
Yui woke up on a cot in field tent, Mick leaning over her with concern. "Welcome back, Doctor," he said with a smile. "You had us worried for a spell."
"I'm fine," Yui said, sitting up. Truthfully, she felt alert, if a little stiff.
"You're not," the bodyguard insisted. "You've been unconscious for eighteen hours."
"What?" Yui said, trying to stand and feeling her knees give. "I've been…eighteen hours?"
"That's what I said," Mick replied, his arms extended to spot Yui. "I've been keeping watch over you for the last four. We've been working shifts. I'll go get Dr. Cochran." Twenty minutes later, the doctor was by her bed side, with an Army medical officer.
"When she touched you, every electrical device in a five-hundred foot radius shorted," Dr. Cochran explained, "And you dropped like a load of bricks. Near as we can figure with her…she had stroke. I'm sorry to say it, but Lilith did not survive whatever transpired between you two."
"She wasn't supposed to," Yui explained, the officer removing a blood pressure cuff from her arm. Cochran blinked in surprise, and Yui continued. "She…showed me things. It's still hard to make out, but she was giving us a gift."
"A gift?"
"Herself." Yui closed her eyes, a strange wave of sadness rushing over her. She rubbed her belly, wondering at the state of her baby…her son…after the encounter. She doubted anything bad had happened. The vibe of the meeting didn't seem to imply that a threat to her or the baby was intended. "She gave herself. She gave us tools. The Others are…" She shrugged. "The Others are not the threat. They're the…tools of the threat. Things are going to get worse, and I don't know what or how it will happen, but…"
She leaned back. "Lilith was making a covenant. She was giving us her body for us to use. The cells, the organs, all of it."
"Why?" Cochran was surprised. "How do you know that? And, if that's the case, what makes it so special?"
"I don't know how I know, I just do," Yui said, irritated at her own inability to explain, and irritated by the insistent Army doctor. He was trying to shine a light in her eyes to test pupil dilation. She swatted him away. "I'm still sorting it out, but there's something special in her that she wants us to use." She leaned back, trying to gather her thoughts.
"Here's the deal," she began, "the Others are biological constructs, but constructs that behave in ways that defy what we consider the normal laws of organically based life. They're not even carbon based; there are things in their base components that don't exist on our periodic table. The most dangerous of them are capable of performing acts that seem almost supernatural, and despite all of our research, we have yet to create a conventional weapon or tactic that can adequately defeat them at the flux sources."
She closed her eyes and placed her hands on her lips. "Let's suppose for a moment that there's something different about Lilith. Clearly, she is radically different from anything else we've encountered. Perhaps the key to fighting back is locked away in her base components."
"That's a stretch," Cochran said, "But all things considered, I think it's a reasonable one."
"We have to tear her down, and see what tools we can make from her. I don't like the idea of it, but…that's essentially what she told me to do." Yui sighed, twiddling her fingers. "It can't stay here," she murmured. "I know you'll argue the point, but everything I need to analyze her in total is back in Japan, at my lab in Kyoto."
"I won't, actually," Cochran shrugged. "This is outside the ball park for us. I know that my superiors, in the military and the government, will disagree, but this isn't an American problem; it's a human one. I don't know how you'll persuade them, but I'll throw my vote in. I know a couple of others in the field that will, but be prepared for a dogfight. There are some that want to curl their claws in as soon as able. Like Kihl."
"Who?" Yui asked. The name seemed familiar, but the face or the context eluded her.
"Lorenz Kihl. German, wealthy, very self important. He's been a name in NATO weapons development and theoretical physics for years. He'll want the United States to ship Lilith out to him, or…in the very least, keep it here." That rang a bell. Yui had heard her husband talking about the man, in somewhat unflattering terms.
"Excuse me." Yui and Cochran glanced at Mick, who had been standing quietly to the side. He had refused to leave once Yui was awake. "I don't understand a single damn thing you two have been talking about, except that Dr. Ikari needs to move something and she might get stonewalled. Right so far?" Cochran nodded. Mick gave them both a 'hey, stupid!' look, pointed at the red logo on his blazer pocket that read 'Sarif Industries.' "Doctor, you've been sponsored by one of the up-and-coming names in the defense industry. He is trying to get you in his corner big time." It dawned on her what he was saying at about the same time it occurred to Cochran.
"I swear, for a couple of smart people, you're both kind of dumb," Mick chided.