The Angel of Embryos.

Rei walked the night drenched streets of Kaibyaku, searching. What she was searching for she couldn't recall, but it was important she found it, and as soon as possible. Everyone she had ever been close to was in terrible danger; the only way to save them was to find what she was looking for.

But she had no idea what it was.

The city was lightless. A power cut, maybe, or the angels damaging the local grid; something had happened to shut off the illumination she needed to find her way. The only thing lighting her path were the dim stars of a moonless sky, shining high above.

Shinji stood on the other side of the street. He was impossibly lit by some unknown internal source. Looking at him was like looking at an angel from myth, brighter than the world around it, yet easily defined by the viewer. And yet, he wasn't lit like a sun, all radiance and blinding light, he was simply in the day time, while the rest of the city was in the night.

He would not look at her.

"Why are you here?"

The voice spoke out of the darkness. Distant... heard, but almost not heard. It was a familiar voice, but it spoke in a way she had never heard before, so the identity of its owner escaped her.

Rei moved on, stumbling in the dark, leaving the downcast Shinji behind. He couldn't help her anyway.

"Why are you here?"

The voice wasn't asking anything she hadn't already asked herself. Why she was here was the reason she had sought out Asuka. They would find the answer together, she was certain of it.

Cold laughter trickled from the darkened alleys around her, though who was laughing remained a mystery while they remained out of sight. Shinji disappeared into the gloom behind her as she fought her way onwards, pushing against the shadows that gathered around, like malevolent creatures. His expression had been sad – but then hadn't it almost always been sad? Rei hadn't been able to ease his burden, even at the end of all things. Now he had the weight of the world on his shoulder's once again, but this time he was alone. Even Misato had abandoned him, though it was true it had been with great cause.

She pushed thought of him from her mind. Shinji was not her immediate concern. Something was coming. A presence that brought with it great destruction. She could feel it in the dark, as it crawled inexorably closer.

Looking up, Rei saw that the night wasn't moonless, after all. It hung there, huge in the sky, but somehow darker than it's surroundings. It was an impossible moon. A black moon, blacker than the sky that held it.

"You are alone. No one will help you."

Ahead, a light bloomed. Rei lowered her eyes from the Stygian firmament and saw her: Asuka. For a moment her heart lifted, but then she saw what had become of her comrade and companion.

She was crucified on metal spars, against the massive glass wall of a huge skyscraper at the centre of the city. Her bones were twisted and broken in her plug suit, leaking blood down the glass and across the pavement. She was dead.

"No!"

This time, the voice was her own. She raised it in denial of what she was seeing. It couldn't be. She was going to save everyone, she was going to save her! They were supposed to find the answer to her existence together!

But the lie of that belief was shown, bloody, stark and undeniable, in front of her: it was too late, she was already dead.

"No." she said again, suddenly understanding. "This isn't real."

"Isn't it?"

The Asuka-corpse lifted its head and regarded her. Her skin was ashen and rent, her eyes were missing. The empty sockets stared at her accusingly, even though the face itself was expressionless, with none of the young German's usually undeniable vitality.

Blood continued to flow across the pavement, now becoming a wave that lapped at Rei's feet, even though she stood many tens of metres away. More blood gushed from Asuka's empty eyes, becoming a river, then a torrent. The torrent engulfed Rei, forcing her several steps backwards, swirling around her, pushing into her mouth and nose, clogging her eyes and ears.

None of this was real: she was drowning in nightmares, drowning in red, in blood, in lcl...


Rei opened her red eyes. The room into which she awoke was red.

Red in red.

For a moment, it was as if the dream had become reality, but then she saw the red wasn't dark lifeblood, a swirling monsoon of vitae. It was bright flashing light. The room was flashing red warning lights. No sirens accompanied the lights: there was no immediate emergency.

With the faintest of groans, Rei sat up on her bed and saw her door was open. Asuka leant against the frame, alive and whole, arms folded in front of her. She was dressed in her plugsuit. As Rei rose, sleep dulled and confused, her comrade spoke.

"They're bringing it in."


Misato's command vehicle headed a convoy of vehicles as it rolled through the night dark streets of Kaibyaku. Behind it, three limousines followed in close order. An old salvaged American humvee transport brought up the rear, its roof mounted machine gun manned and pointing back down the road from which they had come. The limousines were old as well, but they were well maintained, with tinted windows that looked bulletproof and prevented anyone outside from seeing the occupants.

Inside the command vehicle, Misato sat with her arms folded and her legs crossed, back pressed against the padded seat. One finger tapped against her red jacket in time with the gentle bounce of the vehicles wheels on the road. A full squad of soldiers surrounded her, fully armed and ready for any trouble.

"Ten minutes," said Makoto over her earpiece.

"How is the ambassador doing?" she replied, not looking up from the floor.

"Having kittens," replied Makoto, sounding amused. "Though I can't say I'm feeling much better about the situation. It's getting warm in here."

"He'll be on his way to his original destination as soon as we make the rendezvous." said Misato. "Tell him to keep it together until then. Asuka, are you still awake?"

"Very funny," replied the German, sourly. She was the sole passenger in the foremost of the limousines, fully armoured in her eva-gear and ready for any eventuality, but she'd been tense and snappish ever since they set out. "I'm fine, just keep your eyes on the city. I don't want to be caught unawares like we were with Matarael."

The commander chuckled darkly. Asuka certainly wasn't alone in that.

"Rei?" asked Misato.

"No problems," replied Rei in her usual half-whisper. She was in the third of the limousines, and was similarly armed and armoured, but where Asuka was bellicose, the blue haired girl had hardly made a peep since they had set off. Misato was about to direct further enquiries to other members of the convoy when the young girl unexpectedly spoke again. "I agree with Asuka."

Misato's mouth twitched in amusement. Was that the closest Rei had ever been to a rebuke?

"Noted," she replied. She changed frequencies. "General, how are things at HQ? Are we ready to receive our guest?"

She had to wait a few moments, but then the voice of general Forster came over the airwaves, loud and clear and not a little brusque. Sounds of frenetic activity permeated the line over which he spoke.

"Your chief technician is still bringing the supercomputer on line. I trust you have a plan in place in case the security of your so-called 'guest' cannot be guaranteed?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, General," replied Misato, "though I have every confidence in Maya's ability and her... sense of timing."

The general harrumphed.

"You have more faith than I do," he replied.

"I do," agreed Misato. She paused. "And general... you have my permission to give the chief technician a boot up the backside if she doesn't look like she's trying her damnedest to be ready on time."

That elicited a dark laugh from the general. Misato smiled. It wasn't quite good natured comradeship, but it was a start, at least.

And it was certainly a welcome one. Forster's close encounter with Shamshel had done much to change his opinions on the seriousness of the threat the Angels posed, however it had not changed his attitude towards the personnel at Nerv in the same way. Misato had been surprised when he hadn't immediately shipped back off to America after nearly being killed by the so called 'fourth Angel' (not that such designations meant much any more, what with the fulfilment of the terms of the Dead Sea Scrolls), and had instead elected to stay and keep watch over the survivors of his anti-Angel unit. Misato allowed him to sit in on briefings and debriefings, during which he maintained a subdued, yet simmering, presence.

Not that there was much to debrief about. In the four weeks since the double assaults of Shamshel and Matarael, there'd been neither sight nor sound of any of the other Angels. It was theorised by some that the remaining Angels were lying low because they were unseated by Nerv's success at killing two of their number in quick succession. It was a hopeful theory, one that Misato didn't believe for a minute.

The surviving members of Daemon continued to recuperate under the care of Doctor Coulsen, who had reluctantly taken over leadership of the medical team after Ito Sugihara's untimely, and rather gruesome, demise. The unfortunate doctor had been burnt almost beyond recognition, in much the same way that Shamshel and the homeless man had been. His pass-card had been found on Matarael's corpse, explaining how the Angel had managed to penetrate the most secure parts of the Nerv facility quite so easily. Three security personnel, two technicians and the poor doctor himself had paid with their lives for that mistake. The corpse of Matarael himself (itself?) had been interred in one of the glass pods in the research labs, where he was apparently facilitating great strides within the scientific departments – who were all falling over themselves in excitement at the chance to run tests on a near undamaged Angel. Enhancements and modifications to the armours now officially designated 'Eva Gear', that had been assigned to the first and second children, had already been undertaken based on the results that were already coming back.

As a result of Matarael's incursion, the security systems in place were substantially upgraded as a matter of urgency. Part of that process involved the bringing online of the Disciple supercomputer, however the sheer complexity and ambition of the design set out by Maya left some of the technical staff wondering in not so quiet whispers whether it was even achievable in the first place.

Maya had ignored the doubters and built a close-knit team of technicians and engineers around herself, all striving for the same goal. They had achieved the extraordinary already, simply in creating the many servers and processors and thinking engines and artificial intelligence units necessary for each core, and by integrating them into the structure of the Nerv facility, until the facility itself could have been argued to have been a living, sentient being, capable of communicating intentions and even defending itself. The real trouble came when she attempted to turn all of the separate parts on at the same time.

The seamless integration of twelve AI cores would prove to be the greatest challenge the team faced. Three times already, Maya had attempted a full reboot to bring the entirety of the supercomputer online. Three times the reboot had failed, when unsolvable conflicts had emerged between the cores. Three times Disciple had denied her.

They were working on the fourth attempt as the convoy sped towards the Nerv facility. But what made it's functionality critical was the passenger they were carrying.

A week ago, the Kaibyaku central council had been openly contacted by the United American City States, the current governmental body drawing the survivors of America back together. Nerv had been contacted previously, with the view of an exchange of expertise and materials, but since the existence of Nerv was still a secret, the general populace were naturally unaware of this. Now the Americans wanted to make a public gesture, to pull strings which would draw the disparate nations of the world back into some semblance of an international community. Thus, it was decided an ambassador would be sent to Japan, to be received by the council in a show of a renewal of friendship, of standing together and reforming bonds, so that antipathy and enmity could not grow in their absence.

In truth, it was an honourable goal, though perhaps a distraction that Misato could normally have done without. As it was, however, it also provided the perfect cover for a critical Nerv operation.

The ambassador had arrived early that morning, flying into a newly built airstrip just outside Kaibyaku. The Americans had wanted to make a big show of the ambassador's debarkation and procession through the city, they had wanted the streets thronging with onlookers and well wishers. Misato had seen to it that would not happen. Not during the ambassador's arrival at least.

She had deliberately arranged flights that would bring the ambassador to Kaibyaku in the early hours of the morning, so that few, if any, spectators would bear witness to their arrival. Local media would report on the event, but only on the news bulletins the next day. Meanwhile, the ambassador would be whisked through the city in an armoured cavalcade, towards the rising skyscraper at its centre, the seat of the council... with just a brief stop off on the way.

When the reason for the stop off was made clear to the ambassador, the terrified man had almost called the whole trip off. Misato, with the backing of the Council and the new American administration, had forced the matter. Even so, she had worried that the ambassador might back out of the trip on his own, going AWOL, or even injuring himself to get out of the operation. It had been a bit of a relief when she had personally observed the man stepping out of the jet, earlier that night, descending to the waiting cavalcade. The ambassador had looked pale, drawn and tired. Fortunately, he had kept his self composure as the middle of the three limousines had opened its door and Makoto had welcomed him into its interior. Misato needed anyone watching to buy the whole charade, or the situation they found themselves in might have rapidly deteriorated.

"How is the package, Makoto," asked the commander, checking her watch and the map displayed on the computerised table in the command vehicle.

"We're registering temperature fluctuations and signature changes. I hope whatever Maya has cooked up as containment for this thing is effective, or we could be making a hell of a mess for ourselves."

"I understand the theoretical physics for the device is sound," replied Misato, "but the processing power required to maintain its operation mean only Disciple will be able to keep it running. So this whole operation could be for nothing if it's not up and working by the time we get back."

Asuka's voice broke into their conversation.

"Well, she'd better get it working, then. It'd be stupid if we fool all the other Angels, just to let one we've brought into HQ ourselves go berserk on us!"

"You don't like my plan, Asuka?" asked Misato.

"Huh!" muttered the young German. "When do I ever like your plans, Misato?"

She cut the line, leaving the commander grinning slightly. Makoto spoke up again.

"I have to say, I agree with Asuka," he said, "and not just because the ambassador and I are the ones that'll die first if our little egg hatches prematurely. This seems a little reckless, commander. We have to assume that one or more of the Angels have means of gathering intelligence that go beyond human ability..."

The 'egg' that Makoto referred to was being carried in a strong box in the limousine that the ambassador had entered. It had been discovered at a construction site to the east, at the edges of the city limits, closer to the New Tokyo Sea, the large body of water formed by the evacuation of Lilith's Egg during Third Impact. When they had been digging the foundations, a section of floor had collapsed, revealing a lava cave in which the embryo was interred, inside a translucent egg made of a solid material that couldn't be identified and which ferociously burned the skin of anyone touching it directly.

As soon as Nerv got wind of it, the site was closed and sealed, those that had seen or touched the egg isolated from the wider city. Scientists were sent to analyse the find, but without the facilities available at Nerv HQ, not much could be discerned, other than that the embryo was alive. It was apparent that it needed to be transported back to Nerv if the nature of the embryo was to be understood.

But how?

If the embryo was a proto-Angel, what if it awoke during transit? What if another Angel attacked while it was being moved? The members of Nerv had already discovered that one Angel had no qualms about killing another. If they were truly in competition with one another, would one or more not see the opportunity to remove a rival should its existence become known to them?

"I guess we'll know the answer to that before we reach HQ," Misato told Makoto. "Until then, all we can do is remain alert and rehearse our contingency plans and alternative routes. How long?"

"Five minutes," said Makoto.

"Disciple?" asked Misato.

"Still offline," replied her second in command. Misato tutted and retuned the radio again.

"General," she said, "I hope you've got your boot ready."


"How is it coming Miss Ibuki?"

Maya gritted her teeth as she fought with the wiring and AI contacts within the core designated 'Andrew'. The space was cramped and she was having to work on her back, underneath a bank of processor modules and server nodes.

"My rank is 'Chief Technician', general. I'd appreciate it if you would refer to me as such."

"Last I checked, Nerv was a private military," replied Forster gruffly, "I have no requirement to do as you ask."

"Still," said Maya as she slid a board back into place, "some common courtesy would be nice in that department."

Forster just grunted in sarcastic amusement.

"How long?"

"Misato hasn't given us enough time to complete modifications, we're running into unexpected parsing issues between the cores. If you were to ask for a time frame, I'd say an hour after she wants it up and running. Under normal circumstances, that is. Her deadline is insane."

"Nevertheless, this is the deadline the Commander has given you. You have a responsibility to meet it."

Then why don't you come down here and try connecting up some quantum circuitry, she thought, blackly.

"Don't you worry, general, we'll be ready," said Maya, as she slammed the AI processor casing shut and moved onto the next. "Cho!" she called to her assistant, "check server three. Do it right, we can't afford any mistakes now."

Cho was a young half-Chinese, half-Japanese girl who was said to be every bit as much of a prodigy as Maya had been at her age. She looked up from the laptop she was feverishly tapping away at, the surprise clear on her face.

"I'm supposed to be assisting you," she replied.

"We don't have any more time for double checks," Maya told her, "at this point, we need as many different tasks being completed by as many different hands as we have."

"Yes chief!" replied her assistant, and she scurried on all fours over to the server Maya was indicating, plugging her laptop into the port on the casing.

As she worked, Maya took a moment to check on the other teams working at the other cores dotted around the base.

"Yuki, how is Philip?"

There was a pause and then the voice of another technician replied over the internal speakers.

"I think we've got the fluctuations in the AI processors under control, chief, and the dummy and decoy systems seem to be operating within parameters. We shouldn't have a repeat of the Sons of Thunder identifying Philip as hostile this time."

"Good," she replied. "Sergei, have you brought Nathanael's verification programmes up to speed with..."

Maya continued to tick off the various tasks of the various workers of the various cores around Nerv HQ quickly and efficiently. Disciple was modelled on the twelve apostles of legend. The technicians and engineers working around her had named each of the twelve cores after an individual apostle and tailored their programming appropriately. In Maya's original models, she had suggested that individuality between the cores would lead to a harder system to crack, as complexity was ramped up, so too were the raft of responses to hacking Disciple could employ. The engineers that had first begun laying out the groundwork for the full implementation of Disciple in Nerv HQ, before Maya had even returned, had taken the next logical step, giving the cores personalities that both clashed and complimented one another, so as to create a gestalt that was as complex and adaptable as a team of human scientists, or a unit of human soldiers, could be.

The problem with that was getting them to agree on anything at all. It was clear some of the cores would have to be more powerful than others. In the end, none of the cores could be more powerful than the one that held the source code for the entire array of cores. Peter was that core, the rock on which all the other cores depended. If Peter were to be compromised in some way, the rest of Disciple would likely quickly follow.

Maya was confident, however, that it would never come to that.

Well, it certainly wouldn't come to that if Disciple never started up in the first place...

As the last group of technicians reported themselves ready, Maya slammed her processor casing shut and pulled herself out from under the machinery. Even so, she couldn't stand erect within the core housing. The cramped space was a mess of cables, wires and pipes, and programmers notes adorned every free surface. For a moment, the scene reminded her horribly of Magi, and of working in concert with Ritsuko...

She shook herself and looked to Cho. The younger girl nodded and closed her laptop.

"Okay, everyone," said Maya, "let's give this another go."


As the convoy sped onwards, Rei found herself staring out of her limousine window at the large building standing at the centre of Kaibyaku. She only saw it in flashes between the block buildings they raced beside, but it was an imposing sight when in view. The residents of the city had taken to calling the growing skyscraper 'the Spire' and from its shape it was understandable why they had. It was like a tapered spike driving up into the sky, a glass monolith that looked like a blade, a wizards hat, or a church steeple. The spire was as yet unfinished, though its construction so far had been progressing at record pace. The building was projected to be completed by the third quarter of the following year. It was intended to be the city's centre of government and by extension that of wider Japan as well. In fact, many floors were already in use, and the Kaibyaku central council were well into the process of taking up residence. The Kaibyaku emergency housing committee had been working from the building for several months now.

Why had the building been in her dream? Was there some significance to its presence?

In truth, the nightmare had been just one of many. The recurring dreams had started around the time she had returned to Nerv. They often involved Asuka and, for some reason, the Spire as well, the setting only ever varying slightly. But none had been as intense as the one she had suffered earlier that night. Flashes of the nightmare returned as she caught glimpses of the building, flashes of Asuka crucified against its walls, on spars of twisted construction metal, of flowing blood and –

Rei blinked and brought herself back to reality. She couldn't afford to be distracted from the current mission. Anything might happen at any time, and if she wasn't aware, she could not react. Focusing herself, she glanced at the limousine in front of her. Makoto was inside. He would keep the ambassador under control and monitor the proto-Angel. It was her job to protect him from outside threats – hers and Asuka's. She knew Makoto was good at his job, so she had a responsibility to be good at hers.

Briefly she wondered if Makoto or any of the others at Nerv suffered from nightmares...


Makoto didn't have time to think about dreams and nightmares. The one that could potentially overtake him at any second was occupying him sufficiently as it was. He pulled a towel from the limousine mini-bar and used it to mop his brow. It was getting uncomfortably warm in the luxury car and he was starting to sweat profusely.

The squat metal carry case containing the embryo sat on the floor, between himself and the ambassador. He leant forward to check the display next to the handle once more. Whatever was happening to the egg, this highly advanced container Maya had cooked up appeared unable to fully halt or even monitor its processes. The metal was hot to the touch and was warming the interior of the car to near unsafe degrees now.

The ambassador himself was slumped in the opposite chair, suit jacket open and tie pulled off. He looked haggard, perhaps understandably. A long haul flight, followed immediately by a nerve-wracking dash through a night time metropolis in the company of a real life Angel could do that to a man. Makoto smiled inwardly as he remembered the meeting on the tarmac of the airfield, less than an hour previously.

He had watched the man descend the mobile steps from the private jet with stiff reluctance. He had shaken hands with the few members of the council present to greet him before he had made his way to the waiting limousine. An aide had already opened the door and Makoto looked out as the ambassador stooped and looked in. His face was already pale and his fear darkened eyes darted immediately to the case sitting on the floor.

"Is that it?" he'd asked, without preamble. His hands had fidgeted with the hem of his suit jacket.

"It is," Makoto had replied. "Welcome ambassador. Thank you for doing this."

The man hadn't answered. He didn't seem to want to get into the car. Instead he looked around the assembled vehicles, all ready to be off into the night.

"Is she here?"

Makoto had nodded towards the command vehicle.

"She is."

"Crazy bitch," said the ambassador. "She think she's impressing anyone getting this up close and personal with something like that? Why isn't she overseeing all this from her underground bunker?"

"The commander prefers a more hands on approach," replied Makoto, wryly. "If you wouldn't mind, ambassador, we shouldn't be wasting time here."

With one last wary look at the case, the man climbed into the limousine. The door was closed behind him and with that, the cavalcade swept across the runway and began its winding journey into the heart of Kaibyaku.

It wasn't long after that the case had begun to give off heat.

"How much longer?" moaned the ambassador.

"Just a few more minutes," replied Makoto.

"How do you do it?" asked the man, looking at him.

"Do what?" asked Makoto, looking up.

"Remain so calm when you're within feet of that... thing. When you're potentially moments from death."

Makoto smiled.

"I've been looked down on by gods and lived, ambassador. I've known I was about to die, vaporised by an Angel's fury and yet lived on. I've been a pawn in the games of immortals and madmen. I'm still here. When you've been through what I have, you learn that death isn't necessarily the worst of experiences. Death isn't necessarily as bad as knowledge, or madness, or even failure. It isn't as bad as failing someone important."

"You're talking about your duty to your commanding officer? Your uniform, is that it?"

Makoto's smile widened, and shook his head, making the ambassador frown.

"Not for a rank or badge, no. Nor for a superior's expectations."

"A woman, then? Someone you love?"

"Interesting that in this day and age we still assume a lover of the opposite sex," said Makoto, a little ruefully, "but yes, it is for someone I love... and, yes, she is a woman."

The ambassador snorted.

"So you're doing all this to impress a girl? I heard you people were all crazy, but I didn't believe it till now."

Makoto was about to respond, but a shrill beeping cut across the enclosed space before he could. He turned to the case immediately, studying the feeds on the readouts set into the top.

"What is it?" asked the ambassador.

"Thermal spike," said Makoto, his eyes narrowing, "and something else... something..."

An unearthly screech cut the quiet inside the limo to shreds, a pulse of white noise that momentarily drowned rational thought. Both the ambassador and Makoto clapped hands to their ears and the limousine slewed sideways on the road.


Asuka felt the pulse as much as she heard it. She turned in her seat and, looking back through the rear window, she saw the limousine skew and then right itself on the road, before it skidded again as another pulse of sound radiated from it. The pulse was like a wail of machine static, even as it felt like a shriek of torment.

"What's happening?!" shouted Asuka over her link.

"I don't know!" replied Misato.

"It sounds like screaming," added Rei.

"Rei!" said Asuka, turning forward in her seat. "We're going out there!"

"Wait!" said Misato, "we don't know what we're dealing with, yet! Makoto!"

"Still alive," replied Makoto, rather too loudly, "though I'm afraid you're going to have to speak up. My hearing seems to have taken a knock..."

"Is the Angel still contained?"

"Negative," replied Makoto, "the case Maya constructed is fried. I'm getting no information from it... It could emerge at any second!"

"Stop the convoy," said Misato, "we're evacuating. Asuka, Rei, –"

"Wait!" cried Asuka. "We can contain it! Rei and I. The eva gear! We'll force an AT field around it!"

"But that will leave the convoy defenceless to outside attack," replied Misato.

"Do you want this thing or not?" asked Asuka. Misato was silent. That was enough of an answer for the German. "We're going out!"

She pulled the release that blew the door of the modified limousine and climbed out of the speeding vehicle, pulling herself onto the roof. Across the top of Makoto's car, she saw Rei was doing the same.

"Whatever happens, don't stop this convoy," said Asuka. Then, at the exact same moment as Rei, she leapt.

The power assists in her leg armour made her soar through the air, coming down on the roof of Makoto's limousine. Rei did the same and they clashed together in an embrace as they landed, fighting to keep themselves on top of the swerving car.

"Open the doors, Makoto!" cried Asuka.

Both side doors opened and two faces peered out, one considerably paler and more terrified looking. Each releasing the other, Asuka and Rei rolled in opposite directions and swung in through the open doors feet first. The ambassador stumbled backwards in surprise, falling onto the floor of the vehicle, narrowly missing landing on the case, which now appeared to be glowing with heat. He scrambled away from it, whimpering. The interior of the limousine was like an oven, though heat was now escaping from the open doors.

"Rei!" shouted Asuka, moving to the case.

"Do it, Asuka!" agreed the blue haired girl, right beside her.

They both expanded AT fields, directing them at the case on the floor.

Another pulse of noise exploded from the case, but suddenly it sounded muffled. The sound died, quickly and without strength. Immediately, the temperature in the limousine dropped several degrees. Asuka gritted her teeth, forcing her field inwards as Rei did the same.

"They have it!" said Makoto's voice over the radio.

"Increase speed!" ordered Misato. "Get us back to HQ!"

"Commander Katsuragi!" cried her driver in alarm. She pushed her way to the front of the vehicle so she could see out of the windscreen at what had caused the man's exclamation.

On the road ahead, a figure stood. It was dressed in a long cape coat of midnight black and wore a mask that gave the sinister impression of a skull in abstract form. The figure appeared unconcerned at the vehicles speeding towards it.

"I'll ram him!" said the Driver, pushing his foot forward on the accelerator. The command vehicle lurched forwards, quickly picking up speed.

The figure hunched, its cape coat billowing up in a phantom breeze. Misato's eyes widened in recognition.

"Wait!" she cried. "Don't! Avoid it!"

But it was too late to swerve, too late to avoid the monster in the road. Misato flinched back, expecting the storm to hit the command vehicle at any moment.

Something dark hit the Angel in the road, something half seen, black with the merest flash of white. The storm never came, nor did the impact of collision. The Angel was knocked flying, tangling with the black object, and was lost to view down the side of the command vehicle.

"Zeruel!" shouted Misato. "That was Zeruel! Where did it go?"

"I can't see it," replied the driver, looking in his mirrors. "It's gone!"

The machine gun on the top of the humvee at the rear of the convoy opened up briefly and then was silenced.

"Did we get it?" asked Misato.

"No," replied the Driver listening to his radio, "the gunner couldn't hit it. Both Zeruel and the unknown object have disappeared into a side alley.

Misato gritted her teeth.

"Keep driving," she instructed him. Then over the radio she instructed the rest of the convoy to keep a look out for Zeruel and other potential Angels, before returning to her seat and slumping into it with a sigh.

"General," she radioed, "get HQ to despatch clean-up teams. Discharged automatic ammunition and possible tyre tracks. Tell them to be careful."

"Understood," rumbled Forster.


"Stage six integration complete."

The female voice of the general address system spoke the words with a deadpan insouciance that completely failed to capture the tension of the situation: the convoy was mere minutes away and Disciple was still in the final stages of powering up. It seemed there had been an incident en-route and the proto-Angel had slipped the bonds of its prison transport. It was more urgent than ever that the supercomputer worked and worked now.

Maya stood in one of the elevators as it whisked them upwards, towards street level and the hidden facility entrance that the convoy were speeding towards. She needed to be there, because she needed to see the device working. The device she had made.

Cho stood at her side, her laptop held open so they could both watch the progress of the reboot while they rushed to meet Misato and the others.

"Final integration stage initialising," intoned the computerised voice. "Opening dialogue channels. Networking cores. Conflict detected. Resolving..."

Maya clenched her jaw. A conflict so early in the last stage was not a good sign.

Up until this point, the reboot had been progressing smoothly. The cores had powered up, had accepted their situation and identity and had integrated with their individual systems. The final stage of integration was simple. The cores themselves had to agree to merge. Each individual within Disciple had to recognise the function and necessity of the other eleven cores. The problem child would be Judas. It was always Judas. Not because he rejected the others, but because they rejected him. His function was complicated, but (in Maya's mind at least) entirely necessary. It was getting the other cores to realise that fact which was proving the final stumbling block.

Peter was the key. He was the rock on which all the other cores depended and the only core that understood Judas's true function. If Disciple were to function as one, it would be down to Peter convincing the others. In the previous three attempts at bringing the supercomputer online, he had spectacularly failed to do so.

The elevator doors hissed open in front of them and she and Cho ran down the short length of corridor that led them to exterior security and the secure garage. As the guards there checked them through, Maya asked about the status of the device.

"The technicians set it up as per your specifications," replied the guard, "there's a whole team of them out there..."

"And the convoy?"

"Arriving any second."

Maya nodded and pressed out into the secure garage, Cho following on behind. The room was large, meant for embarking and debarking vehicles of significant size. A wide, shuttered door filled one wall, a tunnel leading down into the facility branched off another. In the centre of the room, a tall contraption sat, fat cables and heat-pipes trailing from it into the tunnel entrance, down and away. The device looked like a wide doorway, with a heavy metal frame, but no handle or hinges, and sat on a technological plinth covered in monitors, keyboards and lights. The 'door' itself appeared to be constructed of smooth, featureless stone, and what looked like telescopic light fixtures attached to the frame all pointed inwards to the centre of the blank stone façade.

A gaggle of technicians crowded around the device and another clustered around the shuttered door, awaiting the arrival of the convoy.

"Conflict resolved," stated the laptop in Cho's hands. As close to the city as the secure garage was, the general address system was not in operation here, for fear of alerting residents and locals beyond the shuttered door. The voice sounded small and unsure on the micro speakers of the laptop.

"Conflict detected," stated the laptop again.

"It's not going to work," muttered Cho. Maya glanced at her. The girl might have been right. If further conflicts could not be sorted out, the cores might start turning on one another again. That would inevitably lead to stronger cores overpowering weaker ones. When that had started happening before, they had shut down before things had gone too far. They could no longer afford to do that. Worst case scenario was the subjugation or even destruction of individual cores in order to achieve some sort of equilibrium, but that would mean the loss of vital processing power and lead to a fundamentally unstable gestalt personality.

"Conflict resolved," stated the laptop. They waited tensely for further conflicts to arise. They waited for a long time.

"Final integration stage complete."

Cho let out a little yelp of triumph and Maya sagged in relief. However, any further celebrations were cut short as the shuttered door rolled up.

"Get that device online!" Maya yelled to the technicians. "Quickly! We're out of time!"

Now they just had to hope Disciple didn't object to what they were about to do.


The command vehicle rounded the corner into the wide alleyway and rolled swiftly towards the fencing at the far end. As they approached, showing no signs of slowing, the chain-link fence suddenly retracted into the ground, leaving the way to a yawning shutter door clear. Technicians had spilled out into the alleyway when the doorway had rolled up, waiting in excitement for their charges to arrive.

"Asuka, is it still under control?" asked Misato.

Asuka's voice in reply was tight with strain.

"Just tell me Disciple is ready for us! I don't know how much longer we can suppress this thing!"

The command vehicle swept into the garage, followed closely by the limousines and the humvee. Each of the vehicles peeled off and parked smartly, leaving the ambassador's limousine to head straight for the device.

The shutter door rolled back down, all of the technicians from the alley having re-entered the garage after the convoy. In the confusion, nobody noticed that another technician, this one wearing black tinted goggles that obscured his eyes and much of his face, had joined the throng...

Misato and her soldiers debarked in time to see the limousine pull to a halt before the strange contraption. She headed straight towards the figures of Maya and her assistant, becoming aware of the flashing warning lights that had started up almost as soon as the vehicles had arrived. Distantly, a warning klaxon could be heard, sounding from further into the base.

"Disciple detected the presence of Sandalphon as soon as you arrived," said Maya as Misato joined her. The soldiers surrounded the car, aiming their rifles at the doors.

"We don't know for sure it's Sandalphon, yet," replied Misato.

"What other Angel could it be?" asked Cho.

Misato ignored the question and instead looked at the device.

"Is it working?"

"It's coming online now," answered Maya. "Disciple is resolving the dilemma of using it as we speak."

As she spoke, the device began to hum, the sound quickly rising to a high pitched whine. The light fixtures on the frame flickered on, though no light played across the surface of the stone doorway.

"If you've miscalculated..." began Misato.

"Then a lot more than Nerv HQ will suddenly cease to exist," finished Maya. She flashed Misato a smile. "Disciple won't let it go that far. If I've made a mistake, Disciple will shut it down."

"As long as you haven't made a mistake with Disciple," muttered Misato.

A black spot, like a dot of darkest ink had appeared in the centre of the doorway. It slowly spread, like an oil slick, across the surface of the stone until a circular disc of purest black, approximately three feet wide, had formed.

"A Dirac sea..." breathed Misato, in amazement. "It worked."

The door of the limousine opened and Asuka and Rei emerged, carrying the case between them. It appeared heavier than it had any right to be: both lugged it like it was a tree trunk, freshly felled from the oldest of oak forests. Steam rose from where their armoured hands contacted the case's handle.

"Quickly!" gasped Asuka.

One of the technicians ran forward and attached a tow cable to a side handle on the case. The line was attached to a reinforced spool and automatic winder which was built into the base of the device.

As the technician retreated, Asuka and Rei began staggering towards the device. As they reached the base, another pulse of shrieking noise engulfed the garage. All those present flinched and cowered, and those close to the case were even knocked to the floor.

The sound increased in volume as the Eva pilots dragged the case closer to the device. It was as if the occupant knew what was intended, where it was going. The scream intensified further.

Asuka yelled something that was lost in the raging noise then she and Rei heaved the case with all their strength. The metal box flew in a short arc through the air and vanished on contact with the disc of blackness at the centre of the device.

Immediately, the screaming sound was extinguished.

The the winch unrolled rapidly and then pulled taught and held. All that remained of the case was a cable plunging into the blackness of the circle.

In the sudden silence that followed, the second door to the limousine opened and the ambassador stumbled out, helped by Makoto.

"Insane," muttered the man, in a voice loud enough that all could hear. He staggered towards Misato who straightened herself and signalled for another limousine to be brought up. The new vehicle purred up beside them, even as the ambassador stuttered to a halt before her.

"You have my thanks, ambassador," she told him and offered her hand. The man just looked at it, then looked up at her face.

"You're all insane," he told her. Then he jerked around and stumbled back towards the waiting limousine with Makoto in tow. Misato called after her second-in-command.

"Makoto, see the ambassador to the Spire. Take the command vehicle and humvee, leave the limousines with blown doors."

Makoto saluted her with a smile.

"Worked out this time," he told her.

"This time," she agreed.

Misato watched them go and heaved a sigh of relief.

"All right, everyone, those that are on duty return to your posts. Everyone else, get some sleep."

Those assembled around her broke up and went their separate ways, some grumbling, some chatting animatedly. Asuka caught her eye and gave her a hard look, her eyebrows raised, but then did likewise. Misato was about to make her own way to bed, but then became aware of Rei standing awkwardly behind her. She had removed her helmet and held it loosely in one hand.

"Rei? Is something the matter?"

"Could I talk with you?" asked the girl.

"Go ahead," replied Misato.

"No..." said the Rei, glancing around at the technicians still working on the device.

She was standing clutching her arm just above the elbow, she wouldn't look at Misato. It was an unusual sight, but Rei was the picture of discomfiture.

"You want to go somewhere private? I was going to turn in," said Misato, then she sighed, "but I suppose a few more minutes of lost sleep won't make much difference. Why don't we go to my office?"

Rei finally did look at her. She nodded.


Five minutes later, they were walking into Misato's darkened office at the back of the command room. The automatic door slid shut behind them and Misato brought the lights up to a pleasant level.

"Do you want to sit?" she asked the younger girl. Rei shook her head. "Well, then I suppose you'll have to tell me what's wrong standing up."

The girl nodded.

Misato waited, a faint frown on her face. She was about to say something else when Rei finally spoke up.

"Asuka told me... when I needed support, I should ask."

"That sounds like good advice," replied Misato, wondering where this was going. She waited until Rei spoke again.

"Misato-san. What do dreams mean?"

"Dreams?" asked Misato, looking puzzled. The blue haired girl merely nodded. "Why are you asking me? Isn't this the sort of thing you'd want to talk to Asuka about?"

"I can't talk to Asuka about this," replied Rei, simply. When she elaborated no further, Misato frowned harder.

"What do dreams mean? Well, they don't necessarily mean anything... they're supposed to be jumbled up memories, events from the day, pieces of long term memory, that kind of thing. I think they're also supposed to be rehearsals for certain emotional or physical situations. Fight or flight, that kind of thing. I read somewhere that the feeling of falling you sometimes get when you are half asleep is a throw-back to when we were primates living in trees."

Rei looked confused.

"You never get that?" asked Misato, to which the girl shook her head. Misato sighed. She often forgot how different Rei was, beyond the blue hair and the placid demeanour. "Am I right in saying you've had a dream that you didn't like?"

Rei looked awkward again.

"I've had... more than one," she agreed. "Since coming to Nerv. A recurring dream."

"Is Asuka in it?" asked Misato, suddenly understanding. "Is that why you can't talk to her about it?" Rei looked up, surprised. She nodded.

"Asuka is there. Shinji is, too."

"They aren't... together?" asked Misato, feeling uncomfortable for a moment. But Rei shook her head.

"Shinji is alone. He won't look at me. But Asuka..." she stopped. "Dreams don't tell you what will happen in the future, do they?"

There was real alarm in her eyes, and suddenly Misato felt some concern for the young girl. She stepped forwards, taking hold of the girl's shoulders.

"No," she said, "dreams aren't prophetic. There isn't anything mystical about them. Like I say, they're a jumble of memories and emotions. You're scared for Asuka, aren't you?"

Rei dropped her head again and nodded.

"I see her... dead. I see blood and I can feel something coming. Something I can't see."

Misato pulled her into an embrace.

"It's just anxiety," she told Rei, "just your dreams manifesting your fears for Asuka. She's important to you, isn't she?"

Rei nodded.

"You... love her, don't you?"

"I... don't know what love is..." replied Rei, quietly, "but I think so. Yes."

Misato pushed her to arms length again and looked at her seriously.

"Does she know?"

This seemed to take Rei by surprise, as if she couldn't conceive of Asuka not knowing something she knew.

"Why wouldn't she?"

"Because she's an idiot!" replied Misato. "Haven't you figured that out yet? She's like Shinji, she gets wrapped up in herself and doesn't see what effect her actions have on other people. Though, I'll admit, she has got a lot better since... well, since you came back."

"What should I do?"

Misato regarded the young girl for a while, then made a decision. She crossed to her large desk and opened a drawer, taking out two keycards.

"I was going to save this until things had calmed down a little, but..." she shrugged. "I guess things will never calm down until the Angels are gone."

She handed the cards to Rei.

"One for you and one for Asuka. She said you could move in together. I hope she's right and you don't end up killing each other..."

Rei looked at the cards in her hand.

"It's a nice place," said Misato, "I picked it out myself. It's not huge and it has a direct elevator entrance into Nerv HQ, but... well, at least it's on the surface."

The young girl looked up, her eyes shining. There was the simplest, most genuine of smiles on her face that was warming to look at. It quite astonished the commander.

"Thank you, Misato," said Rei.