"Before and After," by Muphrid. After the battle with the Twelfth Angel, Rei begins to reexamine who she is and whether she can accept the fate Gendō's dealt her.
After Zeruel
Chapter Four
The books I've read tell of many ideas and theories—of how man has embraced knowledge and science to make himself great, even when, compared to lions and elephants and whales, his body is small and frail. They tell me the role of RNA as a template to construct proteins in our cells. The pictures show how a double helix splits into two and gains complementary strands to divide, to replicate. The authors speak of Miller and Urey, American biologists who, sixty years ago, thought the old Earth was a soup for organic life to emerge from, thrive in, and grow.
I glimpsed that world once, in my sleep. In that time, the Earth was hot and rocky. The air was heavy and oppressive, but it did not bother me. Past lava floes I walked. I descended into an ocean, a sea that would boil should the weight of the air give way. I know, for I felt the heat on my skin, yet I ignored it. I kept walking until the waves lapped at my waist, and in the dark, tinted blue, I saw it—a film, a streak, of red.
It came from me.
It came from inside me.
And when I looked down and glimpsed my reflection in the water, the pale white giant with seven eyes gazed back.
That's when I woke up. It was a blue place. A dark place, lit by the moon. A bandage covered my left eye, but with the right, I saw.
I was still alive. I'd charged the Angel, but that did nothing. I shoved the N2 mine through its AT Field, but that did nothing, so why must I still be alive?
Why were any of us alive?
I got up. I've been in a hospital room before. It's blank. It's empty, and the view from a single window tells little. Cradling my bandages, I limped to the hallway. There should've been damage, destruction outside, but the rubble hid in moonlight's shadow.
"Rei."
He sat outside my room, his hands folded. In the white moonlight, the tint of his glasses is almost imperceptible.
The smudges, traces of blood on his jacket, his glasses, were not.
"Commander?"
"The Angel sliced off Unit-01's arm in the cage," he explained. "I'm fine, as are you."
I did not ask that.
"It's unlike you," he said, "to be reckless."
"I felt there were no other options."
He looked at me, watched me, studied me. The Commander's gaze is unavoidable. It follows you. It sees everything. I could feel his stare at times, even if he were behind me. It used to be that was a tingling feeling, something to seek out, but since then…
His eyes were cold. Even with the stain of blood on his glasses, his gaze was icy. You dismissed my pain, Commander. Why are you here now, watching over me?
"I'm tired," I said.
"Sleep then." He rose. "Sleep as long as you need."
"Good night."
He nodded, walking off.
"Commander Ikari?"
He stopped.
"Why are we alive?"
The Commander turned his head slightly. "Unit-01 defeated the Angel."
That…was not what I asked. "How?" I said. "Who?"
"That boy."
Ikari-kun did? He came back for us?
Click. The double doors down the hall shut, and the Commander walked off, into the next section. He left me to the pale moonlight and my own reflection in the glass.
In truth, I didn't want to sleep at all. I followed the Commander's footsteps from afar. I left the hospital ward and descended, back to the Geofront.
Back to the cage.
On the way down, I heard the story of what happened in whispers. I saw the damage. The Angel had smashed its way into the control center, leaving it in ruins. The blood of an Eva stained the cage walls, but Ikari-kun had been inside the Eva. He fought the Angel until the Eva's reserve power failed, and even then…
The Eva came to life. It devoured the Angel, consumed the S2 engine. It could no longer be limited by power, by time.
That's why it sat in the cage with bandages and improvised restraints. It was something to fear, something uncontrolled. It had Ikari-kun inside, unwilling to let him go.
"A bit unsettling, isn't it."
Though the cage was quiet, it wasn't wholly empty. Major Katsuragi stood on the catwalk before Unit-01, looking up as one admires a statue, a work of art. She yawned. She scratched herself. She rolled her shoulders, yet still she kept her eyes on the Eva.
"It's alive," she said. "It's alive, yet we keep it caged, like a beast. We use it, we drive it, but we hardly know what goes on inside."
Perhaps not, major. If you did, you wouldn't call it an animal, though it may behave as such. You would look at that exposed eye, green and unwavering, and you would know it's not just a creature's gaze. It knows. She sees you. She feels what's inside her. She protects what's inside. That's her son she's cradling. Ikari-kun came back, even though he didn't want to. He did what was needed, knowing it would hurt, and now his mother comforts him. Even in that shell, that armor we put on her, she knows. She acts.
She watches us.
"Should you really be here?" asked the major. "All banged up like that?"
"Should you?"
"True that, true that, but…" She frowned. "It's been two days, and I can hardly bring myself to sleep, let alone go home. I keep looking at it, and I wonder—what are we doing here? These Eva are great weapons, you know, and as long as they worked, I thought I could ignore what I didn't know about them. They killed Angels, and that was good enough. It was. It used to be, but now…" She gestured to the Eva. "What do you think's going on in there, for Shinji-kun?"
He must be happy. Mothers are important to people, and Ikari-kun—he misses her. He missed her, even though he can't remember her face, but that doesn't matter: he's seen it in me many times now. He may not know what she looks like, but she left an impression with him. Not quite a memory, but an imprint, something he could recall fondly as he visited her grave site, as he watched me wring out towels for school.
But how a mother would comfort her son—I've never had a mother. All I could tell the major was the truth of that.
"I don't know," I said.
"Don't you?"
The major watched me from the corner of her eye. Her pose was relaxed, lazy, unkempt, but she focused her attention on what interested her: not the Eva but me instead. Sometimes, the major is irritating. She makes jokes—I'm told they're amusing, or at least that they're meant to be. I may never understand what is amusing about an inflated cushion that makes noise when one sits on it and releases the gas inside. Apparently she did this to the control center staff once. I'm not sure what she had against them, but for all of the major's unprofessional tendencies, when it comes to fighting the Angels, she is business-like. She is competent. She leads, knowing that others will follow. Her quick thinking is valued here, needed even, but in that, she is a tool, like me. A tool for the Commander, a tool for men who have even greater plans than that. She cannot know what the Eva are, what they represent, but she wants to. She brings the same energy to that quest as she does the killing of Angels. That's why, instead of the lazy, inattentive prankster, a clinical mind stood before me, hiding behind a mask of idleness, of ignorance, but I would give her nothing. What she wanted I had no power to give.
"I don't," I said.
"Really? Then tell me, Rei, what drove you to make a suicide run on that Angel? You're lucky to be alive, you know."
"No."
"You're trying to tell me you didn't think you'd die?"
That's not what I said. As much as the major has earned respect for her tactical successes, she is too persistent. She misunderstands. All people do.
"Now listen to me," she said. "I won't have a pilot taking extreme risks without orders, without at least some discussion, but you don't care about that, do you. There's a reason you went out there with a mine and blew yourself up. That Eva—it moves by itself; it's alive. It's not just a hunk of flesh. What did it do—did it speak to you, Rei? Is that what it's doing to Shinji-kun right now?"
You must stop, major. These questions will do you no good. The people around you all know more than you think. Doctor Akagi? The Commander? They are the ones who keep the knowledge out of your grasp. Me? I'm nothing. I'm no one. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be. I'm only here because you saved me. I'm only here because he brought me back for her.
And she was watching me. I froze in place; I couldn't move. She was watching me!
The major—she saw it, too. "You know, the Eva aren't the only mystery here, Rei."
I pulled my foot up from where it stuck to the catwalk. I stepped, slowly at first, but my strides hastened. Like with the Commander, I could feel her eye on the back of my neck. They never wavered. She wouldn't let me go.
"Rei!"
I walked faster.
"There's a reason that green eye is following you!"
Of course there was. Ikari Yui recognizes her body. She knows herself. She knows I walk with something that belongs to her.
I left the cage that night, and I didn't return for some time. For days after the attack, Doctor Akagi and her scientists worked to free Ikari-kun from inside Unit-01, but their preparations were long and extensive. After a few weeks, Major Katsuragi stopped hounding the doctor for updates on her progress. The Eva was left to its cage alone.
And I?
I was allowed to stay in my apartment until I healed from my battle wounds. Even after the doctors removed the bandages and told me I was fit to go to school, I declined. I had books to read at home, and she would be there—the pilot of Unit-02, angry and resentful for being alive, for being saved by someone else. In one respect, I can understand those sentiments, but the way she yells about it—the way she screams—those reactions, those expressions, are things I could never do. Nor do I want to. I think her shrill shrieking would shatter an AT Field, given the chance.
A new Angel had yet to come, and to pass the days from dawn to dusk, I'd read. I read of generations upon generations of Drosophila flies, whom Woodworth and his colleagues observed for every minute of their short lives. I read of Mendel and his honeybees and peas. What a parent gives to her child is divided. She can only give half of herself, nothing more, and more often than not, what give brown eyes over blue, black hair over blonde, are unrelated, determined only by randomness and statistics. Our fate is dealt by rolls of dice, and only in the long run can they average out. The Central Limit Theorem is God, you see. That's what the books say. I finished them, and there was nothing more to read. I put on my uniform and went to the library.
It's an experience—walking in public, I mean. At Nerv, the doctors, the technicians—they know me. They know my name, even if they don't quite know (not all of them, at least) what I am. I think, for that, they can overlook the strange, but the people I meet on the sidewalk, as I wait to cross an intersection, they don't understand. They can't. They glance for a moment, and then they seem to catch themselves. They look away. I think that's supposed to be polite, for the children—they don't know any better. They stare. They ask their mothers, their fathers, their brothers and sisters, "Hey, what's wrong with that girl? Why does she look like that?" The mothers chide them for asking and insist they be silent. The fathers follow their sons and daughters gazes and flinch when I catch them, but even as they set their eyes on the crossing signal, some of them are daring enough to look through the corners of their eyes. They study me. They watch and they wonder, even as their attention should be on the red sedan to their right whose engine roars, its driver impatient to get on his way.
It's for this reason, though I read much, I make few trips to the library. The journey to and from it is withering.
I'd been to this branch several times now. The staff have come to notice me. Because I return and check out books in the same day, it's necessary to get my account cleared by hand rather than drop books off in the bin. That is why I know the librarian: a woman in her late twenties, she is polite, and unlike others, she doesn't stare. She never has. She smiles at me, from time to time. She seems glad, I think, to see a student reading books.
"It's just a little rare these days," she'd said once. "Since the Impact, children seem to think the world's changed too much, that everything from before has no meaning, but humanity has an eternal quality about it, don't you think? Science, philosophy, fiction—they all survive the ages. They change and evolve, true, but we can't abandon what we know, what those who came before us have learned. Don't you think so, too?"
I'd said nothing then, and the librarian's cheeks flushed, but despite her reaction—her embarrassment? —she's spoken to me every time I've returned books. That day was no exception.
"You're a week early," she said.
I was?
"Ah, forgive me for noticing, but Ayanami-chan is like clockwork," she said. "She always takes just enough to get by until the due date."
I didn't realize I was so methodical. I opened my bag and took out the books one by one. The librarian scanned them in without further comment until…
"Oh? This one doesn't have a barcode. Did it come off?"
That—that was a mistake.
"It's yours?"
I nodded.
"It's a beautiful copy. A beautiful story, too, don't you think?"
I blinked.
"You haven't finished it?"
That…was not the issue, but the truth would take too long to explain, and you'd likely be shot if I told you.
"Oh, I see then. Well, I'm glad you've read it. It's one of my favorites."
An assistant placed the returned books on a cart, snickering. "Every book is Bookstore-san's favorite."
The librarian blushed. "Well that's true. Even so…" She examined the dusty leather jacket. "It's a nice change for you, Ayanami-chan. Is this something for yourself?"
Not precisely. It was an assignment. The others, the textbooks, those are "for me," but yes, in a way, this one is different. "It was a gift," I said.
"Ah, I see. It's always better to read with friends, isn't it?"
I do not know. Perhaps it is.
"Oh, are they, they're not—" She winced. "Are they not here anymore?"
"It is…unclear."
"Well, hopefully it'll give you both something to talk about when they come back, right?"
Possibly. When Ikari-kun is freed, we can discuss Dickens' use of symbolism well after the due date for our reports has passed.
"Or if you prefer something else, that's fine," said the librarian. "There's always something to read here. I know it's not your usual taste, but there's been an expansion of the fantasy section. Perhaps that's something you'd like to try?"
To read of worlds that have never existed, will never exist, based on rules and ideas, dreams and principles, than can never be?
"You don't have to, of course. Wizards and spellcraft aren't everyone's taste. And it's true, a little courage is the real magic of the world. Try to remember that, won't you, Ayanami-chan?"
I've written it down. Whether it's forgotten…
"My best to you and your friend Ikari-kun."
I nodded and placed my book back in the bag. All mention of witchcraft and mages aside, I considered what to take back to my apartment for the next few weeks. Something by Freud, perhaps, or Feynman. Not the librarian's suggestions, I realized, but I don't care for fantasies, for things that have no basis in the real world. What exists must ground us, keeps in touch with the universe, or else the world we perceive is ephemeral, volatile, and it is no more real than luminiferous aether. The speed of light—that is physical, a bound on reality. It constrains what others can know of us.
Wait.
If knowledge is so constrained, how did the librarian know Ikari-kun's name? I watched her, over my shoulder, but she caught me. She smiled. I fled. I walked off, looking for some place away from her. Between the shelves I found a cushioned leather bench, and I settled there, safe behind the works of Edogawa Ranpo and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
I took out the duty, old book. As I'd told the librarian, it wasn't that I hadn't finished it. There's just…nothing else to hold on to. Most other books must, at some point, be returned. They belong to the library, to people, to others that aren't me. There are texts I've asked for, that the Commander has had delivered to me on my request, but by men in uniforms with clipboards and scanners.
This one? It was a gift. It wasn't something I sought out. It's mine.
I can read it anytime I choose.
I held the book open to that last page. There are two men in this story, the barrister and the marquis. The barrister is identical to the marquis, so much so that few, if anyone, can tell the two apart. The revolutionaries want the marquis executed, but the barrister intervenes. He has the marquis smuggled from the prison. He takes his place at the blade. He thinks those words, but has no chance to write them.
" 'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to, than I have ever known.' "
It's fiction. It's not real, but the sentiment expressed—does it linger? Does it persist? It's on the paper, after all. It's printed in dozens of languages even now, a century and a half since the writer, the author, sent out the last installment.
The barrister forward to rest, as I do, and the French revolutionaries give it to him, but he and I are not the same. He sees his rest as a reward for a good deed. He imagines how justice will come in the days after he's gone, how the marquis and his wife will name their son in his honor and be thankful for his sacrifice. To go to the guillotine for another man takes loyalty, devotion. It takes, as the librarian said, a bit of courage. That's why I'm not like the barrister. The barrister doesn't seek death; he accepts it as a consequence. To show devotion, to go against one's wants and desires—that takes courage.
It was warm outside, a perpetual summer, and the citizens, the people of Tōkyō-3, took refuge in the library to read in the shade and air-conditioned comfort. They would've perished long ago were it not for me, for the pilot of Unit-02, for Ikari-kun, and that day the Angel came, two of us had orders. One of us, I'm sure, relished the chance, but the Third—he had no orders, and I think he disliked that he had to, but he, more than the rest of us, had the ability, the prerogative, to choose.
I think you're the stronger one, Ikari-kun, stronger than I. But are you strong enough—do you have the will—to escape your mother's womb? To emerge from that comforting, safe place?
You might. And if you do, that's another reason why you'd be stronger. I wouldn't want to come out.
I collected five texts take back with me and checked them out with the librarian. There wasn't enough room in my school bag for them all, so I kept Ikari-kun's book tucked under my arm. As I left, low clouds settled over the city, and though the sun still shined brightly, the first drops of rain hit the concrete, spread out, and dried. It was for a moment, then, that I hesitated by the door to the library lobby. Ikari-kun's book would get wet if I walked out with it exposed. A library text would get wet if I interchanged them. I could've returned a book, even so soon—that would resolve the matter—but I'd yet to decide.
That's when I noticed it. The passers-by took out umbrellas or covered their heads with briefcases. Most did, though some were unprotected and merely scurried for shelter.
The men in black suits and sunglasses did not.
Were an Angel coming, I would hear the sirens. There were no sirens. There was just the rain. There were raindrops and their black sedans, gathered in a row on the far side of the street. There was no reason for them to be there.
Unless they'd come only for me.
I went back inside.
"Something the matter?" asked the librarian.
I could imagine so. I knew so. These men follow his orders. They do his bidding, and they don't ask questions. What I'm wanted for and why—they may not even know. I've doubted him, and I think he knows it. He's not one to let that be. He's not one to forget.
I went back through the aisles, but they came. They walked in step. They took off their sunglasses. They searched the shelves with their eyes. I peeked between the books, looking back at them.
"I'm sorry," said the librarian, rising from her desk. "Is there something we can do for you?"
"You will not interfere," said one.
"Oh? On what authority do you say that? What is your name?"
The man in black touched the device in his ear. "Lock down the building. No one comes or goes."
"You can't do that!" said the librarian. "You have no right!"
"We have every right under the authority of the United Nations Special Directive. Stand aside."
"You may say that, but I think we both know this has nothing to do with the UN and everything to do with one man's orders. Ikari Gendō, is it? Your 'Supreme Commander'?"
The man in black glared. "Take her, too."
She pulled; she yanked. She struggled to free herself. "Go, Ayanami-chan!"
I went. I ran. Away from them, I made it to a steel door in the back corner and pushed the red bar.
KII-KII-KII! KII-KII-KII!
Despite the cry of alarms and sirens, I waited. I stuck to the wall. The patrons of the library rushed out obediently, and in their midst I fell into line. I did not look up. I descended the steps to street level, but I heard them. I picked out their footfalls, even among all the others.
I reached the street and ran down the alley. Into a sea of umbrellas I waded, I watched. The crowd rushed for cover from the burgeoning downpour, and I followed them. Not into another building; I'd be trapped there. I went down, underground. I swiped my card at the turnstile, and a set of traincars rumbled past. It was humid down below, with the rain still falling and the heat of the day unreleased. The air was heavy. Oppressive. Like the Commander, when he's thinking, when his focus is only on destroying Angels and protecting what is dear to him. What stands in front of his gaze, what dares to crop up before his sight…
Whatever it is, it dies.
I've run from him. I've strayed. I tell myself I wish to sleep, but I don't. I sleep every night. It is no solace. My only solace is in the light—that yellow, glowing beacon of light in the black, in the emptiness of the underground tunnel. It cast shadows on the track, and the riders at the platform leaned over the gap, to look for it, checking their watches.
I stepped among them. I touched the tip of my shoe to the bright yellow line. "Caution," read the paint. "Step back." But I didn't. I felt the rumbling, and even as the others moved, I stayed there. I watched the headlight, and it grew bright. It overwhelmed the shadows. It was a harbinger of time, a path to new places, to relief, to solace—to a far better rest than I've ever known…
"Pilot Ayanami."
A hand caught my wrist. The man pulled, and I stepped back. I backpedaled. The light zipped by, and a collage of metal and glass ground to a halt.
"Come with us," said the man in black. "Commander Ikari wishes to speak with you."
So it was. The Commander's voice cannot go unheeded. Such is against the nature of things.
I went with them, let them drag me along to their armored black sedan. The rain seeped into my clothes and wrinkled the pages of the leather-bound book. They drove easily to the outskirts of town, for the agents of Nerv's security intelligence are methodical and sure of themselves. In the hills are the cargo movers, and the convoy descended, into the Geofront. Unlike the city above, the Geofront is regulated. The light inside varies depending on the sun and clouds, but "rain," if one could call it that, comes regularly at ten in the morning and ten at night. The air was dry and cool. I shivered.
We left the three sedans in a warehouse at the base of the cargo mover and walked the grassy, unbeaten path. Near the perimeter of the Geofront, we approached a structure, a home. It was a log cabin, the wood and bark almost black against the pale surface of the great wall behind it. Smoke escaped from the chimney. Two steps down from the main door, he watched our party approach, hands behind his back.
"Come, Rei," he said. "Let us eat."
On his orders, the men in black suits left us alone. The Commander opened the door and showed me a closet to leave my shoes. The floors shined with a glossy finish. A great window opened from the main room, but it showed only the gentle curve of the Geofront wall. To the right, through a hallway, there were marble countertops and a stainless steel sink, but we didn't go that way.
"We are to eat?" I asked.
"Indeed."
Then why were we leaving the dining table, the floor mats, the great window…?
"Not here," he clarified. "Downstairs."
He led me down a bare corridor, with lines in the wood to adorn the walls. We passed two bedrooms, one on either side, but the beds were covered in plain yellow blankets. The floors collected dust.
"Here," he said, pointing out a square outline in the floor. A pair of metal flaps secured the panel, and the Commander fingered the exposed latch. The trapdoor opened upward and away from us, resting on the end wall of the corridor. A single fluorescent bulb lit the gray, concrete steps. The trapdoor led to a bunker, and from the reflection of sunlight that flooded the Geofront, we descended into a domain of phosphorescent glow. Unlike upstairs, framed photos and sketches adorned the walls. In one, a series of lines connected eleven spots in three rows, forming the shape of a paddle, a boat, or, perhaps, a tree. In another, wings of light sprouted from an icy landscape. In a third, a toddler, a boy in a striped shirt, sat on a curb and cried over a skinned knee. A woman wearing a labcoat crouched beside him, dabbing at the wound with a cloth, but all that could be seen of her face was her fine brown hair and a slight hint of comforting smile at the corner of her lips.
Though a heavy steel door, the Commander showed me to a dimmer place, a large square room. A single candle burned in the darkness. There were a table, two chairs, and plates for each of us.
"It's been some time," he said, sitting, and motioning to me to do the same, "since we last dined together."
That was so, but before, it was in your office, and the vice commander was never far. This place is strange to me. This place I do not know.
He folded his hands before his mouth. "The security agents tell me you fled from them."
"I did?"
"You disagree?"
"I was brought here in a timely fashion."
"And the librarian? The one who told you to run?"
"She checks out books for me."
"She knew my name."
"I did not tell her."
"No?"
I hesitated. From the Commander's perspective, it must've appeared that I did. I was at a loss myself to explain otherwise. "She's being held, then?" I said.
The Commander sat back. "No. One would think the world had changed in the last fifteen years, but a friend of a the Fujiwara is still difficult to touch."
I understood. The Commander is…well, he is the Commander. To him, there can be only friends and enemies, just as the Angels are our enemies. He makes alliances, agreements with others. He has a goal, and he furthers it with every dealing he makes—in negotiations with the Fujiwara clans for release of their friend, in lobbying the JSDF to become the sole Angel defense in all the land. The Commander knows exactly what he's doing all the time. I've seen that. We're here, dining together in a different place. That is no accident, no impulse. The Commander wants me here and nowhere else.
A waiter arrived from the far door, carrying a glass bottle of mountain spring water. He bowed before each of us, undid the cap—
"No." The Commander waved him off. "Bring us some wine," he said. "The Chinon."
"Very good, sir." The waiter bowed again and left. The Commander squinted, scratching something off his wine wine glass.
"Today was not the first time security intelligence has followed you, Rei," he said. "It seems they've been observing your actions for some time."
I said nothing.
"You face scrutiny. You were reckless with Unit-00. Its damage will take weeks to repair."
"I'm sorry."
The Commander averted his gaze. "Truthfully, perhaps there was nothing else to be done. Unit-00 can be repaired."
"Or replaced, if it is no longer useful."
He glared. His eyebrows twitched. "It is not merely those old men who wish to monitor you, Rei. I was the one who ordered security to observe. I'm the one who's concerned."
Concerned? For me, Commander? Is that why you waited outside my hospital room? Is that why you brought me here? I'm not sure I can believe that. I remember the look in your eyes when I stood before your desk in the dark. You played the footage of Unit-01 and Unit-03 in battle over and over. Back then, my pain—my arm that hung dead and lifeless at my side—was irrelevant to you, so please, stop. Don't make me go back any further. I don't want to do that. I don't want to. I don't.
"Have I given you reason to doubt me?" he asked.
"No."
"I see."
From the distant door, the waiter approached, carrying the wine bottle with both hands. The Commander made no move to acknowledge him, nor did I. The waiter adjusted his bowtie and drew a corkscrew from his pocket.
"No," said the Commander. "Leave it."
"Sir?"
"I'll pour it myself."
"Of course."
The Commander turned the bottle toward him, eying the label as the waiter left. He took off his glasses and held the candle over the text. "I never liked this wine," he said, "but it's unique. It's special. The grapes were grown in the Loire Valley. It's gone now, since the Impact. Decimated. Ruined for decades, they say. It was a favorite…"
He replaced the candle; he slipped off his gloves. In the shadows of the flame, I glimpsed his palms—the irregular folds of skin, the discoloration, the wounds that would never heal. The cork came out quickly.
"You're not yourself," he said, starting to pour. "And it would be I'm to blame. At first, I thought to be stern, to shelter you as best I could."
"Shelter?"
"What must come when the Angels are gone is a task only you and I can perform, Rei. That weight of the future on us is isolating, oppressive. That is what you feel, isn't it? I know because I've felt it, too." He sniffed the wine glass. He sipped. He closed his eyes and touched the red liquid to his lips.
It was strange to see him like this—his hands bare, his eyes exposed. I think, in retrospect, I'd seen him that way only once before: in the entry plug, as he leaned through the half-open hatch.
He set the glass down. "Interesting," he said. "It's just as I remembered—too dry, too light, though perhaps…" He tilted the glass, and the wine sloshed within. "Perhaps it is my taste that has soured, not the grapes." He shook his head. "As the time grows closer, the world slips away from us, doesn't it? It feels farther and more distant with each passing day. Tell me, Rei."
He touched me. He touched his fingers to mine.
"Is that how you feel, too?"
I—
I don't know how I feel. I don't know if I ever have. What I feel should be simple. It should be just the warmth in the Commander's hand, the texture of his fingertips. He was right: people reach out to me, and I have to turn them away. The librarian, the major—they won't understand; they can't understand, and I don't want them to. I keep the truth inside, but when I'm with the Commander, he knows my secrets. He knows me. He knows everything about me. There is so little that stays hidden from him for long. I've changed, and he's noticed. He's noticed, and he's touching me. He wants to help me. He wants me to be something new after all.
There was a subtle, sloshing sound. My eyes focused. The wine flowed from its bottle, spinning in the glass.
My glass.
"Try it," he said. "It might agree with you."
The wine settled. The last traces slid along the inside of the glass, mixing, merging with the rest. It was bright. It was aromatic, like the smell of fruits and berries in the spring.
It was red.
"Go on," he said, squeezing my hand.
I held the glass by its stem. I tilted it toward me. The wine was red. Red with a tinge of purple, and in the dim, flickering candlelight, it looked like the beginning of a deeper sea—a current in an ocean of red.
An ocean of blood.
"It would be natural," said the Commander, "for us to take solace in one another. To take comfort—"
"Oh?" said a voice. "Comfort in what, you say?"
The Commander recoiled. He eased my hand down, to the table, and set the wine glass aside.
"Doctor Akagi," he said. "You're early."
"Not early enough, it seems," said the doctor, standing in the doorway behind me. "You've already opened the wine."
The Commander put on his gloves. "Give us a moment."
"Shall I wait on the porch?"
"That will be fine."
The door inched shut, and the Commander polished his glasses with his jacket. Blinking, he took another sip of wine. His eyes drifted around the room.
"Rei," he said.
"Commander Ikari?"
"You're excused. You remember the way out?"
"Yes."
"Good."
I bowed once on my way out, but the Commander looked only to his dwindling glass of wine.
I reentered the sunlight to a puff of smoke. Doctor Akagi rocked in a chair on the Commander's porch. She wore a white blouse, a khaki skirt, and tan stockings. It was…not how I was accustomed to seeing her.
"Tell me, Rei," she said, exhaling so the smoke rushed out. "Did he touch you?"
"Yes."
She gawked.
"You saw."
"Ah." She laughed to herself. "So I did." She tapped her cigarette, spilling the ashes on the floor. "He's very charming, but don't be taken in by him. There's only one thing that man sees when he closes his eyes, even as he dreams, even as…"
She shook her head, snuffing out the cigarette on the armrest.
"It's her face, you know. That's why, even if you care nothing for yourself, you should be wary of him. You should protect yourself. Everyone who doesn't ends up cold."
She left the cigarette on the railing and opened the front door.
"Cold and alone."
I stood on the porch, in front of Doctor Akagi's chair. There was a window behind it, shaded by the roof, and it was only thanks to that, thanks to a bit of protection from the reflected sun, did I glimpse my reflection, my face.
Her face. He touched my hand, and he saw her face. He drank the wine and gagged on it, but he swallowed it anyway. He swallowed it not because he favored it, but someone he knew, someone he cherished, loved that wine instead. She did, and everything I do, I do for her. I live to resemble her, to imitate her, like a girl's inanimate plaything. I pilot Eva not for humanity, not for the safety of the city above us, but to fight the Commander's war. When I'm done, he will use me, and only then can I no longer be. If I don't follow him, if I don't listen, I can be replaced. I have been replaced.
I want to die.
I want to die, but I can't. He'll bring me back, over and over, and what will I become? What will I be but a shadow, a demon like the part of me inside the Eva has become?
No, that's wrong, too. I'm already a shadow. It's just that I thought, I hoped, I wished that I could be something different, that if I piloted Eva, I could bond with them? That I could become something like them?
Even my reflection in the window doesn't know how to react. It may never know.
I walked back along the grassy path. The men in black suits had left me to walk alone, and I liked it better that way. I could walk slowly. I could take my time. There is no reason to go quickly when one goes nowhere.
"My," said a voice. "Look who one finds strolling through the Geofront these days."
The path took me through a field, a melon patch.
Why there is a melon patch in the Geofront I still don't understand.
"Come to help a man with his weeding, perhaps?" said Inspector Kaji.
No. That wasn't what I'd come for at all. At that point, I'd wished I had walked faster. Perhaps I wouldn't have been seen.
"Ah, wait!" said the inspector, dusting his hands and planting a weeding tool in the soil. "Don't run," he said. "I don't bite. Well, not too hard at least. Where are you going?"
"Home," I said, crossing the patch.
"Home is where you make it," he said. "And I've seen that complex of yours. It looks like something that shouldn't have survived the Second Impact."
Maybe it shouldn't have.
"You're coming from Commander Ikari's place, aren't you?"
I stopped. I didn't know about the cabin before today. Doctor Akagi did, though, and this inspector—what does he 'inspect'? —knows about it, too?
"He's quite persuasive, isn't he? Commanding? Magnetic, even?"
"And?"
"I know he was surprised to see you sacrifice yourself to destroy that Angel," said the inspector. "Him, Katsuragi, Doctor Akagi."
Irrelevant.
"Even Shinji-kun."
Ikari-kun?
He saw me?
He watched?
"He stood where you stand now." The inspector shaded his eyes, looking toward the Nerv pyramid. "I take it he was in a shelter, but something must've made him come out, see the fighting. Even he, as much as he wanted to be somewhere else, couldn't stay away. Seemed he thought he had something left to do."
I nodded. "Ikari-kun stopped the Angel, saved humanity."
The inspector laughed. "It may be a terrible thing to say, but you can't guilt-trip Shinji-kun with the fate of mankind. I'm sure Katsuragi tried, but such a responsibility he doesn't feel adequate to holding up."
"Then why?"
"I think he saw Asuka beheaded, saw you go up in flames and be cut down. It's hard to care about what happens to people. It's easier to care about a person, though."
I shifted my weight, and the book between my arm and my body slipped an inch.
"So what did he want with you?" asked the inspector. "Commander Ikari, that is."
What did he want? To drink wine he didn't care for? To sit in candlelight with a ghost, a shadow?
"To relive a memory," I said.
"Seems there are people like that. All they want to do is relish in the past." The inspector wiped the sweat from his brow, crouched to his knees, and took up his tool, digging through the soil. "They're dangerous, you know. They corrupt the future to reconstruct the past, and it never comes back quite the way they think it should."
"You don't do that?"
"Call it foolish, but I prefer change for change's sake. Let the past stay pristine and treasured. I make my own goals, my own future. I decide what I want to do and who I want to be."
"You want to tend melons?"
He looked up, surprised, but quickly, his expression changed to a smile. "Let's just say this patch is strategically located for maximum yield."
As curious as the inspector's philosophy was, I couldn't subscribe to it. Perhaps for someone like him, who has little more to worry about than crickets and cutworms, it would do, but I don't have that kind of freedom. I don't have that kind of choice. I went home for the rest of the day, the rest of the week. After ten days, I was summoned to Nerv again. Doctor Akagi's work to revive Ikari-kun had progressed far enough. I was needed for other research, and I complied. I saw the Commander in the hall; he looked at me, but said nothing. Every day I returned to Nerv, I circled Unit-01 on the catwalk, and even with the armored helmet replaced, her eyes still followed me. They watched and followed.
Until day thirty-one. That day, Doctor Akagi and Major Katsuragi supervised the operation from the backup control center. They meant to bring back Ikari-kun, and with their instruments, their tools, their scientific weapons, they meant to push and prod him from his mother's grasp, but it was as the barrister said—there are far, far better rests to go to than exist in this world. The plug opened and vented hot, steaming LCL. Ikari-kun's clothes washed away in the flood. I read the last line in the book and closed the back cover. He'd made his decision, and I couldn't blame him for it.
"Shinji-kun!"
But there was a splashing, commotion. From the open heart and core of the Eva, Ikari-kun came out. He was naked. He was wet. He coughed LCL from his lungs, and the major embraced him. What I felt, in that moment—I thought I would fall over the railing. Why the major cried, why she showed such grief and sadness over Ikari-kun's return, I can't understand.
The white glow of the Eva's eyes through its helmet dimmed and faded. Did the mother let the son go, or did he choose to return to this place himself? It was, I imagined, a little of both, and from that, I could take solace, take hope. I'm not like the inspector. I can't make a future, a purpose, out of nothing, but Ikari-kun is back now, and I can watch over him—not as a shadow of his mother, but because I want to. Because I choose to. Because he willed himself back into this world, this place I've so desperately wanted to leave, too. Maybe, if we stand together, like we did that night on Mount Futago…
No. I cannot hope for that, but I could be satisfied for a day. I left the catwalk with my book and bag in hand. I entered the elevator, pressed a button to return to the surface, and from the polished steel, a reflection looked back at me. It was pale; it was white. It wore a purple mask with slits for seven eyes.
I blinked. I looked away. I'm tired of looking at myself in mirrors and seeing other people, other things.
I think I might go to school tomorrow.
Author's Notes
It's a pleasure for me to return to this story, after having worked on Identity for so long. As always, Rei's voice is elusive and hard to pin down, but I've tried, as best I could, to capture her essence, her spirit. This episode in the anime doesn't feature her for long at all, so I was given considerable leeway to depict her journey toward humanity. I hope the creations here, then, are acceptable, enjoyable.
A more in-depth commentary on the various facets of this chapter should be on my blog later today. You can read it at westofarcturus [dot] blogspot [dot] com. As for the rest of this story, I intend to finish it before returning to other projects, so chapter five should come in a more…reasonable timeframe. Until then, see you soon.