Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. The author does not own anything concerning Gainax's IP Neon Genesis Evangelion. The company gives the word and this comes down.
Acceptable Losses
C-IV
2015
Central Dogma, Test Chamber 3
Click-click goes the pen.
"—connection 331 steady. Start-up 1.1.73—"
Captain Katsuragi's pen clicks incessantly and communicates at the perfect frequency to fray the nerves of everyone gathered in OBOPS (Observation-Operations) after the fiftieth click. She's hardly paying attention to their ire. However, Katsuragi savors the subtle twitch growing in the corner of Ritsuko Akagi's lips. The doctor still carries a haggard gait, but she seems to be in far better spirits than last week's engagement.
At least she's blond again. No more stringy mud and stress.
The doctor arrived for the test with a vibrant, nearly platinum blonde head of hair. She looked more than normal, fresh-eyed, immaculately dressed, and ready to commit to the first live test of the M-Type equipment and Pilot. The first live test Headquarters had fielded since the First Children's incident.
"—tal signs steady to Sixth Children stand—"
Captain Katsuragi finds herself thinking about Rei Ayanami often. She thinks of Sub-Commander Fuyutski's words and of that morbid meeting in his office about the Sixth. Misato ignores the irritated glare Doctor Akagi gives her, eyes flicking from face to the depressed pen button.
That awful video tainted any effort at sleep. Haunted by plague dreams, Misato saw charnel houses and sick wards, dreamt of a slim white death slowly lowering its thumbs over her eyes to pry out the juicy pulp. It wore the thin, stinking, translucent cloak of a dying child. Captain Katsuragi wakes often with the sheets soaked and afterimage specters receding into the shadows of a locked closet.
"—internal temperatures nominal, no power spikes in—"
She wonders about Rei Ayanami now, sleeping in a stiff hospital bed. Perhaps it would have been a better gesture to ask for Rei, she thinks. The sad reality is they can't all be saved from their lives.
"—doses primed and ready, CO2 levels—"
Click-click goes the pen.
A recent medical prognosis declared that the First would make a full recovery. Misato still wondered why she remained in the hospital. Shouldn't she be mostly healed by now?
Yet it is peace of mind and a good omen before this test with their newest pilot. If she can do anything like what unfolded in that video, it will be the end, or something so similar as to be no different. Will they even need Rei if it all goes to plan?
NERV wants to harness this decayed child and focus her and sic their pit-bull on the invaders from unearthly realms.
"—Children resting easy in Plug—"
That registers.
Captain Katsuragi shakes her head clear and watches a waterfall of interference flicker across the screen as the LCL charged. Aki's pale, unblinking face reappears seconds later, listing like a crippled ship. But Katsuragi notes how alive the Children's eyes are. How hungry they are.
Stepping lively aren't we, Aki?
She had gone to visit Yamato earlier in the locker rooms on a whim. Wish her luck, offer a few words, she still doesn't know why. That's a lie.
Perhaps not the smartest move knowing what lies under the apathetic exterior, but she went. And Misato stopped cold when the door opened. There was utterly nothing out of the ordinary to the untrained eye. Walking in, she saw only the rows of shining lockers with NERV's army of one suiting up in a suit of flabby, burgundy-colored neoprene.
She was so precise. The Children had never shown this much energy except to scuttle into the closet.
Misato stood rigid with shock when she saw what appeared to be a luxurious tattoo on the little girl's bony back. A river of black lines sprawled across the Children's drooping shoulders, crawled down the spine with lesser waterways and tributaries fanning to the flanks and it tapered off at the river delta of on the small of her back. Maybe Scandinavian iconography or a new weird American fad like barbed wire tattoos, she thought.
Yet it was all wrong, too organic to be real ink.
Then it came to her—the stain.
Agent Carter's admission weeks ago replayed word for word followed up by a rolling wave of nausea.
The Captain saw the Children then.
The vibrant red, serrated, smiley-face surgical scars peeked out from below the limp, stringy ponytail.
A breadcrumb trail of freckles wound down her left side, yet not the other, standing exultant against white canvas skin.
The chilling set of insertion scars to the left and right of her spine, each a tiny pinprick navel set an inch apart down either side, glistening wetly in the harsh fluorescent light.
The strange, almost happy sound came out of Aki's pinched features. It took the Operations Director a few minutes to realize the Sixth Children was humming an old, old nursery rhyme whose name escaped out the open door. Misato left without ever saying a word.
For that right there she's still angry with herself. A word of encouragement, she thinks. Any damn thing would have done well. Now they wait.
Wouldn't it?
"—M-Type plug is piggy-backed…assuming direct con—"
Click-click goes the pen.
Out of the huge reinforced layers of safety glass (tested to withstand force and kinetic energy as well as steel can) stands the behemoth Test Type. Violet armor gleams in the even white light of the room and the giant casts no shadow. With Unit-00 still encased in a hard cyst of Bakelite, the long silent Unit-01 was deemed ready for Pilot Yamato's activation test. Though, the Captain's told, it would not be her assigned Evangelion Unit during combat when the rumored Third Children arrives.
Her Unit 04 hasn't seen completion or trial runs yet.
"—parasitic clamps locked, core program overwritten—"
Katsuragi sighs, fingers stilled, slipping the pen back into her breast pocket. She comes back to the waking world. Doctor Akagi issues a small sigh of relief at the cessation of noise warfare and strides up behind Lieutenant Ibuki.
"How is she looking, Maya?"
"All monitors nominal to the Sixth's profile. No abnormalities." Ibuki intones. Her fingers fly across the keyboard. "All the insertion devices are—we're green, ma'am."
The Operations Direction takes small comfort that she isn't the only one uncomfortable here. The Sixth stretches in the Plug, cracks her brittle knuckles, and sighs impatiently. That…surprises her. The captain says as much.
Akagi favors her with a shrug and glance over the shoulder.
"She's an addict, Misato. She knows what's in store. You know that," her voice barely audible. "Anything of note, Aoba?"
"Unit is quiet, won't know until it activates, ma'am." Aoba stares down at his console which is slaved to the main readout projected on the glass before them. For all intents and purposes…everything is okay. Ritsuko Akagi nods, smoothing her shining hair back, the right hand then hovers over the aspirin pocket, drifts away, and settles on her protégé's shoulder.
"Okay. Let's start. Emergency exits are already open and the countermeasures in place. Start the recorders. Unit-01 Activation Test, Doctor Ritsuko Akagi presiding, begins at 1600 hours exactly."
Out comes the pen again as Katsuragi watches the walls of the test chamber filter through the colors of the rainbow, settling to neutral gray. Lancets of white streak the wall. Aki visibly settles as the reinforced seat split down the middle. A strange aurora bleeds into the image. A hard crimson light spears the right corner of the screen before fading out. There's a strange pattern to the light. Fluid luminosity runs quicksilver quick over Aki's form and solidifies.
The illusion of a thousand hexagons ripples across the inner armor shell.
Reaching for the geometric heavens, Pilot Yamato begins to sing.
Misato closes her eyes and holds in a revolted shudder. This is necessary. Get over it. Simple truth…but what did it mean? What changes now? Is there even a threat out there to use this child against? There must be one; otherwise Hakone would not have been turned into a modern fortress with arsenal skyscrapers, twenty-three layers of reinforced titanium plating trailing down hundreds of meters to the dome a mile over their heads; complete reconnaissance satellite coverage, the very hills surrounding the city for twenty miles converted to lavishly camouflaged batteries of long-range American-made cruise missiles, and more non-nuclear firepower than has ever been assembled in one place since the Cold War.
Is there anything out there so fearsome that cannot be awed by that? She pictures four golden wings.
It's screaming, dad. Did you hear it?
A leaching numbness settles inside her gut. Feeling helpless is probably the one thing in life she allows herself to completely hate. And that's exactly what all of this is—helplessness. Watching, but not involved.
The test chamber glows with cold amber flames and quickly falls as dark as an eel's belly. The only light venturing in to that darkness is a cone of orange from OBOPS cast over the faceplate of the shrouded behemoth, throwing up strange shadows and giving impressions of movement in the deep.
"Launch."
A sudden hiss erupts in the video feed as the injectors leech onto the child's back.
Horror writes across a half-dozen faces when the Sixth lurches, violently vomiting something not unlike pancake batter before settling back in the chair. Unaffected by the globules of partially digested soba sliding along her cheeks, the filters pluck the offal out. The teenager gasps, growling, spitting, lips peeling back in a feral grin. Blackened veins crawl and leap out against her shockingly white skin. She leans forward to grip the butterfly controls with gloved hands.
"Is she…?"
"Maya, audio only channel, turn on the voice modifier. Now."
Lieutenant Ibuki nods, hands visibly shaking. She speaks, trying to add an insincere sweetness to the quaver in her voice.
"Aki, sweetie…"
"Mom-maaaaa…" says the Sixth, the single word a quivering vibrato.
Maya mutes the channel, closes her eyes, whispering a small prayer to stop the shakes. Makoto reaches over to place a calming hand on the First Lieutenant's shoulder. Ibuki jerks away, "I'm all right, Hyuga…I am all…right." Taking a deep breath, she keys in.
"Honey…what are you in the dark?"
"And we have activation!" Aoba calls out. "Core feedback loop nominal, pressure steady in the plug and all the readouts are…fine. I'm getting some weird readings from the Unit, though…but nothing threatening."
Inside the test chamber, a pair of eyes gleams, winking in the pale orange rectangle from OBOPS, and sends up eerie winks of light. Light given off millions of years past from dying stars.
Evangelion Test Type, Unit-01
Aki slips inside her bolthole as the world goes white. The drugs seep into her eyes until the shock-cataracts formed. The ferryman's eyes, the technicians called it. Her body moved on instinct and blindsight. The Sixth Children crawls away with her ego to shake hands with her Id and to shirk away from the anima.
She finds the Room burning. A million pools of melted sand shine on the fading floor in dribbles of poison mercury. The reflections walk; they are free to do as they want for now. Synchronization guts the Room. There are no carrion men at the door, no hands, none of the giggling oil slicks. The dim twilight peeks through the bubbling wood obscuring cracked, dusty windows, casting oblong orange bars across a smoking floor. Little tallow dolls burn and weep in the fire.
Everything collapses in sparks and fury.
With a flash and the sound of birds screaming, Aki Yamato finds herself a stranger in a strange land. Her own mind is no man's land. Beyond the hidey-hole of the Room, she stands naked and alone, out with the beasts.
A stretch of lonely road wanders through a dim, smoky pine forest.
There is a pitted road, wending away in great heaps and crags leading off into a dark mist. The evergreen forest is silent. Ragged mandibles of mountains chew the sky in the hazy faraway. There comes soft rain. Exposed to the elements, she hears whispers swimming through that terrible mist. Voices a thousand light years away cry from the Hyades. People long gone, or things heard in passing, or things whispered in quiet friendship, or things being shouted in the present, so many tumbling words taking lovely shape and peeking out from behind all them big trees.
"Hee…"
Lost opportunities play out on the lonely road before her, erupting from the dark in great gouts of living charcoal ink. The slurry takes the shape of perfect three-dimensional mannequins standing in half-assed ranks. There's Jude. Behind him and three people to the left stands Maddy. Ophelia, Reese stand to either side of Aki. Little Naejima. The rest are smooth of face and lacking in many details. Aki grants herself something close to her memories of what guilt was. These were the vaunted saviors of mankind. These were Marduk's sacrifices toward the betterment of humanity.
A new era of warfare, they said. A glorious age and they would be the tip of the spear. One dull fucking spear—tipped with tin and rusting. Their perfect soldiers suffer from utter physical atrophy and their minds slowly decay with each new battle, each new test.
Aki knows how things filter out of the grease trap that is her brain. Noxious slurries of details, scents, even context, facial detail (all her plastic dolls, where did they go?), her favorite flower, those excruciatingly familiar faces melting in the fire, all of it gone. And with each injection test, they just clean out the trap a bit more.
She wanders down the craggy road. When the trap fills, she thinks, the forest blooms. All that rich food for thought, Aki Yamato laughs at her caged wit. Darkness may cloud her mind, but here is the path. A path that always has been and always will be in some shape or form. But there are gaps and canyons and pot holes in this place, both real and imagined.
Voices bubble up unbidden in a glee club of manic memory.
A couple of yards away, flowing and forming out of the mist, she sees Doctor Goodwin standing with a wraith. Her younger self—fleshier, livelier and not some ragged butcher's leavings stretched over a vampire's thin frame. Long ribbons of mist flutter from their bodies in a sudden breeze of anguished wails, smelling of burning hair and sausage. A projected training cartoon sprawls over the evergreen sentinels beside them babbling happily in a clown's voice, but she knew the real message underlying the multicolored retardant:
"Kill them. Eat the cores."
Yes, they always demand that they eat the cores of the snow-owl-ghosts. Sticky business. The shiny candy apples needs must be cut and the rich red syrup sucked out. Like juicy Starbursts at snack time…
"Curling finger exercises, a fine motor control exercise, sure to aid in attack patterns one through fourteen. They're super-effective!" the projection extols.
Neither the doctor nor his test subjects paid much attention to the day's lesson. Aki remembers Ophelia and Reese playing tag in the halls tabbed out of their skulls, stumbling into crates of fiberglass insulation.
Aki feels something in her throat click as the ghosts run down the dying road. It doesn't matter, only echoes, she thinks. Sinking, sloshing echoes try to breathe in all the black around her. She stays the course and walks along the pitted road. She focuses on the colossally arrogant fat man speaking to the bright-eyed child.
"What is your theoretical synch ratio at half dosage, Aki?" Goodwin queries, stroking his impressive white whiskers, other hand resting on the top of his moon-sized stomach. He did love his Twinkies.
"Thirty-two, sir."
Was I really that tan? Aki peers at them as they drift off into the mist. Voices trickle back from farther off now.
"Full dosage?"
Now, they're just a quiet whisper between synapses.
"Fifty-seven."
Anywhere and everywhere, the dead voices come and there's only the quietest whisper caressing the earlobe.
"Excellent, child. There's hope for you yet. Would you like to go visit Ophelia? She's quite calm now."
Now they're gone. Faded from sight and still Aki walks the road, by turns it becomes a skip.
I'm dancing, Mother. I'm dancing for you and all those fucking Yushida-men and the woman with the violet hair. And I can't find the capacity to care. Look Ophelia, we're dancing with Jude!
She cannot find solace or joy in the thought.
There's so much black fog, how can one ever find one's way back to the rolling hills? Cold and wandering in the lonely woods is never pleasant. A misty iodine rain sprays her, sticking to every exposed bit of skin, staining it. There are no shapes in this place, no shady woods, no distant mountains, no deer trails, no three-dimensionality, no Room. Everything becomes a blur as she walks further on.
Am I out of my mind? A nearby shadow curves back in on itself, spiraling, flexible as paper. A head full of spring rolls wrappers. The image makes her giggle, but the noise is stilted, nervous. The road disappears into arm-thick vines under her feet. The mist begins to glow in a brilliant shade of violet. The world turns to the immediate—the few feet of visible, glowing mist around her.
And soon, even that goes dark again. There is nothing. And that is good, she thinks. She shrugs. Where is God now? Hiding in the Room?
The Sixth listens to another distant wail, keening and high, like a tea kettle ready to blow its top. Soon, the pig squeal of a breaking train reaches her ears. The elongated coffin shape of a tram pulls to a fluid, silent stop. Everything moves like a low-budget nineties TV movie, sped up into the uncanny valley.
She blinks at the absurdity pulling through the darkness of her own mind and feels what moves between synapses long since euthanized and the inured nodes of pain and memory. Doors open with a polite bell, the abrupt sound catches the Sixth Children unaware; she falls back on her rear and looks in, trying to see through a harsh orange miasma.
Suddenly, she knows—better still, she sees.
There is another in here with her. There, sitting there with her hands folded, gazing at Aki with the prettiest smoky eyes.
"Hello."
Yamato walks inside.
NERV Central Hospital, ICU
Agent Ng walks back to the post with two cups of tepid coffee. None of the staff had put on a fresh brew in two shifts, the lazy pricks. Apparently medics preferred their caffeine to taste like boiled shit. At least there's cream to cover that up…mostly, he thinks.
Handing off the second paper cup to his partner, Ng sits in the chair just five feet from their post. Pilot Yamato's slept for thirty hours already. Physical strain, they say. Ng and his cohorts aren't paid to theorize on their Pilot's jobs or their general state of mind (the UN Treaty is quite clear on that), but Ng isn't sure. Sipping his sewer sludge, he ponders.
Carter had been quite aggravated when the news came in.
"Big fucking surprise. The suits throw her in for more tests, what do they expect? They've read the personal files—we all have! Idiots."
No, none of Carter's men are paid to care, but the rotation is quite protective of their silent ward. He sighs. It's so unprofessional. Detached is the name of the game. The men covering the First have zero issue there. Even the command staff's pool of agents has no issue. But things happen and here they were. Didn't really slow them down on their job, merely frustrated them when the kid is laid up for their collective superiors' blind fucking stupidity.
Thirty hours of near catatonia from a test? Pure horseshit. But what did he know? He's just some gaijin soldier with a nice suit and a gun.
"Doc finally come around?" He says after a few minutes of quiet reflection.
"Nah, Hiroki hasn't shown since 1023 hours," says Oglivy, the section newbie.
"Guess they're not worried."
"She's under a lot of pressure. I imagine it can fuck with anyone."
"She's under more than pressure, Misha," says Ng, chuckling. Russian diminutives always amused him. He downs the rest of his coffee. "Take twenty, I'll watch the door."
He stands and stretches and looks out the window at the motes of dust spiraling in the window down the hall. The blued light is broken only by the crossing silhouette of a nurse. All quiet. Oglivy slips down the break room, voice carrying off down the hall as he reported in.
Ng assumes a stance of polite attention, glancing at either end of the hall every minute or so and adjusting his throat mike on occasion.
Nine minutes pass. On his ninth check of the hall, there is a pale young woman standing next to him. Nearly backhanding her away out of instinct, Ng wills himself from taking any offensive movements. Slow, even breaths, Ng realizes at once he's treating her like Yamato. His heartbeat rapidly returns to its normal rate and he bites his cheek to not show any displeasure on being snuck up on by a fucking fourteen-year-old waif.
Shit.
The First Children stares up at him impassively. He's never seen a human being be so completely vacant save his own charge laid up in the room behind them. He's met more expressive people amongst the FSB and the French Foreign Legion. Stone-cold killers, who could smile, cherish, cry, express rage, and had families. Emotion. There is a standing bet amongst the Section Two shifts that the First is autistic or a mute like the Sixth. Cruel, sure, but what can one expect from bodyguards? They're not paid to be kind.
"Evening, ma'am. Can I help you?"
She stares at him with a single red eye. A thick gauze patch held on by a thin piece of plaster covers the left eye and her right arm is in a silk sling.
Ng sighs, "Can I get you anything?"
"I would like inside, please."
Ng's eyebrows shot up. Well. Well, well.
"She's unconscious. My orders are no one other than E4 clearance allowed in."
"Commander Ikari will not mind." She produces a slim blue phone from her only pocket in the gown.
Ng sighs, not feeling up for demotion for not letting her in. And someone will hang for this. Shit always rolls downhill. But orders were orders. He told her to dial. She does. And the Commander's placid (yet sluggish, freshly awakened) tones say she is allowed in after an update on the Sixth's condition.
"Do not allow Rei to linger. She must have bed rest. Is that understood, agent?"
"Yes, sir. Very good sir.'—he closes the phone, returning it—'I'll go on in with you, ten minutes, no more," he keys his mike. "Misha, I'm taking the First to the Sixth. Don't ask; just get down here to watch the door. I—look, get the number later; get your ass down here now. That's an order, greenhorn."
Agent Ng mutters something about 'pusshounds' and gestures to the First. Stepping aside, he keys the door. "Ma'am."
The First disappears inside when the hydraulic locks silently slide free. Ng shakes his head as he follows.
"C'est la vie." His smile is bitter.
Room 201
-ADAM-
The ghosts dance before her eyes.
Aki lies in the bed and stares at an all-too familiar ceiling. Stares through the thin ceiling tiles, the pipes, the wires, the other floors. She has done so for thirty-one hours now. Complete catatonia. And no one knows why except her. The soft beeps of the EKG and the EEG readouts show nothing out of the norm—her norm that is.
But the sound of the door opening and the strange presence suddenly near her dislodges a rusty gear and the machine begins to putter to life again. Little hills and jagged peaks appear in sickly green readouts for an eye blink. There is the subtle scent of blood in the antiseptic room. It almost offends Aki. She blinks, moisturizing long pruned eyes. Horrible irritation and the scent and taste of tears flood her senses, pushing her further into the waking world.
Tears leapt down onto the pillow in thin rivulets from twitching eyes. A sickly popping sound accompanied each shuttering of the eyelids.
It had been such a beautiful dream, she thinks. It still is a dream. Sitting in that tram… Yes, the train to nowhere, lit by a twilit sun, the dying sun which burns the sky and blackens the earth itself. It had been a good conversation. Hadn't it?
The presence is near her bed. White-as-the-driven-snow skin clad a cloak of fresh bandages, and staring straight at her. Rude little bitch, look at her.
The eyes begin to focus, the irises shutter to pinpricks and then blossom. A raspy, gurgling chuckle ushers from cracked lips.
The presence's eyes widen. Aki likes that, because she doesn't care for this new presence.
-KILL-
Say it. Speak and I'll rip those red eyes out, Tennyson. Wait, no, your face is wrong. Not Tenny…
-CALM-
Her hands twitch and search for an auto-injector that is not there. She needs the fire running wild inside her. Slowly, she looks up to see Ng-man leaving the room, calling for a nurse or some such nonsense. Why would her Shadow need one? Is he hurt? Poor Ng-man. She looks at the presence and takes in all the details.
And what more did this woman want from her? And why was her hair blue now? And the barest hint of veins crawling under that translucent skin made her stomach churn. Creepy milk skin. And people say Aki is strange.
"We already spoke…earlier," she croaks, her throat clicks and closes for just a second. It hurts to talk. It always hurts to talk. Where the fuck is her auto-tab? And why is this girl staring at her so? All that is said is true, as is everything incubating behind that damning red eye. This snow-owl knows the truth. They spoke on the tram. Stupid girl. Dumb as God and twice as ambivalent. No one ever likes their talks with her.
"I have never spoken with you, Pilot Yamato," the confusion in the girl's tomb-whisper annoys Aki. A discomforting fervor grips her heart, forcing the blood and the adrenaline through the veins. The forge bellows fan the flames and now they wait for the hammer to fall.
Say it. SAY. IT.
"Yes, you…huh-have. In the train. In the train…are you b-blind? It was in the train with you wearing your pretty. Little. Blouse." Aki lets out a sickly rattle. It hurt. Her eyes blaze with pain and something feverish. So much water to lubricate them, she can't keep up. Every time she blinks it away, more wells up and up. Drip-drip-drip! Strange. Her head is bracketed in a soggy semi-halo. Oh, how Maddy and Ophelia will cluck over this. Aki hates this girl for seeing a disgusting hurt.
"Are you ill, Pilot Yamato? You're—"
"The fuck do you care? You didn't care earlier, did you?" The albino furrows her brow at that, her tight little lips curving to a pissy half-moon frown.
"I do not know you."
"Liar…you're dead."
-KILL-
"I—"
"Dead."
"I am not d—"
"Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. DEAD. DEAD. DEAD. DEAD! DEAD! DEAD YOU FUCKING BITCH, DEAD. HEAR ME NOW?! YOUR EYES WERE BLACK! HAIR BROWN! SKIN PINK! AND I WRAPPED MY HANDS AROUND YOUR NECK! DEAD!"
Things grow very, very silent the world over in that instance. Not even the crickets outside chirr. A wind stirs a thin wave of fog from the hills and rolls its thin fingers through the wind-whispering trees outside. The presence's face fights to remain a Galatean mask of banality, but there's creeping horror—signs of life, Pygmalion!—brewing in the eyes and in the slight tremor of the fingers.
Say I am not me.
"I—"
"You're dead inside," says the Sixth. "Like me. You can fade away now."
There are no more words needed.
"Make your report, Fuyutski."
They are role-playing their ominous Illuminati game today, he notes. Arrayed in front of him is a semi-circle of eleven [Audio Only] labeled monoliths. SEELE loves their games. Especially Kiel. The old man looks at SEELE-01.
"Our first activation test was, in fact, a complete success with the M-Type equipment," he states simply.
A long silence follows followed by quiet conversation rippling through the gathered monoliths. Here is another piece of the puzzle missing context.
Sub-Commander Kozou Fuyutski has no time for these pathetic games. He needs to speak with Ikari about the incident between the First and the Sixth. Undoubtedly the Commander knows, but it only drove home Kozou's belabored point of the stability of their new Pilot. And they have these men to thank. The questions he wants answers to lie with the men in this room, but with no inroads for that. What were the plays here? Who made the real decisions? Who demanded that their thinly veiled Dummy Program be accelerated two years ahead of schedule for one serviceable pilot? And who sent that pilot to Tokyo-03 before the pilot's Evangelion Unit was even complete?
"We require a full report, Fuyutski," SEELE-01 snaps. Lorenz Kiel, old as God Himself. No acknowledgement of Fuyutski's rank or even respecting his status as a doctor. Kiel never did respect anyone outside the confines of his mirror.
And that is why you only have my contempt, you blind little mole.
"Very well," he shrugs.
"As I stated, the activation test of Unit-01 was a success. The Sixth Children was inserted into the Evangelion with her M-Type equipment at 1600 on March 23rd—three days ago. Start up procedures ran…smoothly. The child was injected with a full combat dose of Codename Mix and exceeded all our expectations. Her heart-rate never climbed past ninety beats a minute. After injection, though, she became very coaxable and violent. The change was remarkable. Despite…an incident in the past, the Sixth is a mostly passive human being—withdrawn and mute. With the sedatives she's on and a much more stable atmosphere, we've seen little trouble from her.
"When Codename Mix was introduced into the bloodstream, the Children's demeanor changed and she became something…'—closer to what she really is—'…far more in line with the Project projections—a snarling animal wanting out of the cage. Brain activity surged, the shimmer protocol went into run down, and Lieutenant Ibuki began the phrase-activated trigger program. Her synchronization ratio was 45.8 percent'—a record for a first time start up—'and trials were held within the test chamber."
"Example?" whispers SEELE-08.
"Simple walking tests, one foot before the other to see if psychokinesis took effect during synchronization. Grappling tests, tests to see how she handles rapid momentum and high-gee maneuvering associated with A-Type equipment. For thirty minutes, Pilot Yamato engaged in combat simulations with Adam-class facsimiles…"
Briefly, Fuyutski sees Doctor Akagi's pale face when she related the Sixth's combat statistics and the accompanying in-Plug recorder. Very illuminating viewing.
"And?"
"She performed admirably and prosecuted combat operations with extreme prejudice."
Pleased murmurs emanate from the Committee.
"As far as her combat training goes, she's superb."
Open discussion now. They pat one another on the back for their foresight and wisdom in greenlighting Project-M. Fuyutski ignores the arrogant old men; nothing he can say will sway them. The axe hangs over his head, not theirs. It's why he was forced to join NERV to begin with.
I myself am coaxable, Reiko. I am sorry for that.
He sighs and sees a sudden vision of burning Tokyo and the single human-shaped pile of ash, blowing away when the shockwave comes. Fuyutski shakes his head and comes back to the world.
He didn't think too much about the combat footage. The Sixth's technique is flawless and what they needed in a pilot. She had ripped the targets apart, even when their intelligence was dialed up for added difficulty. Granted, these were just tests against motes of light and digital imaging and all plans do shatter in the face of enemy action…but.
But neither of the other Children fights with such vigor or brutal efficiency as he had been witness to. Rei is pragmatic, but slow on adaptation. And the Second Children, Pilot Soryu is a complete unknown, but the few trial runs from Germany showed the vagaries of promise. But elegant promise, nothing like the blunt-force trauma approach of the newest Children.
And there were other issues unveiled during the test.
Fuyutski clears his throat, "Gentlemen, if I may?" The quiet swallows up the room greedily. He takes their silence as leave to continue. "Ah, when the combat trail completed…she tried to consume the body. Tore at it like a wild animal. Why—"
The entire Committee save Kiel vanishes. The Old Man berates him thoroughly for bringing up such nonsense and the Deputy Commander is dismissed.
Thank you for that, Kiel.
NERV HQ, Geo-Front
"The Sixth Children…shouted at the First?"
"Yes, sir." Agent Ng stands at perfect attention, looking straight ahead at the opaque windows silhouetting the Commander of NERV.
"And what was the reaction?"
"None observed, sir. When we brought the doctor and nurses in, they were…quiet. The First stood there glaring at the Sixth. The Sixth merely stared up at the ceiling as she had been."
"But you saw her coming to when Pilot Ayanami entered?"
"Yes, sir."
The squelch of mass shifting on leather reach his ears. The Commander leans forward staring at him over those church-steeple fingers.
"Do you have any idea what was said?"
"The Sixth was screaming 'dead' or 'death' or something like that, sir. I couldn't quite discern what it was all about. The rest was muffled by how fast she was screaming. Then it stopped. Like that, switch was flipped or something. A few more words were traded…and that was it. Neither came to physical blows."
The Commander seems satisfied by the answer.
"Dismissed. Send for Carter."
Ng salutes and smartly gives an about-face, feet leading him toward the massive doors. His eyes fight to keep on the level and not look at that freakish tree on the ceiling. It did things to his head.
"Sergeant."
He froze, "Sir?"
"You never heard or saw any of the incidents, correct?"
"What incident, sir?" So easy to deny it all and turn on the blinders. The man in black steps out of the room with the Commander's approving nod. Ng still doesn't know what to make of the eerie stare the two Children shared when the First left the room.
"So the readouts show nothing abnormal. I can't believe that, Maya."
"I'm telling you, ma'am, there's nothing here. I can't explain it. Look for yourself!" The lieutenant slides the inch-thick folder of test results over. Katsuragi makes a face and slides them back, ignoring Doctor Akagi's grin and Lieutenant Hyuga's sudden cough.
"I'll take your word on it. I just find it hard—very hard—to believe that Aki's forty-six hour stint in Central Hospital is due to physical stress. She's been adapted to this damn drug! How can any of it be against her previous experiences? We're doing it by the Second Branch playbook." Misato shakes her head, looking at the bound graphs, piles of brain EEG and biometrics, the purely technical readouts of the Evangelion itself.
"We're keeping an eye on her, Misato." Ristuko shrugs, taking another bite of spice cake. The mess hall is quiet at the late hour, Ichi and his staff was on break. The group help themselves to the tables of ready-made food. Katsuragi plucks at an uninspired salad of romano lettuce and kale.
"I know we're keeping an eye on her, but she came out of that thing catatonic. Isn't anyone here concerned about that development?"
It's Hyuga, surprisingly, who breaks the moment of silence.
"Ma'am, we are…but we have no answers. All the readouts show nothing wrong at all. It's…weird." How eloquent, Misato thinks.
"I should have asked Aoba to come along as well."
Maya clears her throat, "That wouldn't be highly unlikely unless you made it a direct order."
"Huh?"
Lieutenants Ibuki and Hyuga share a look.
"Aoba's kind of a dick," Hyuga says at last, not paying attention to his compatriot's painfully red cheeks. "He just doesn't associate with us outside of work all that often. We catch him at the Laundromat or the movies sometimes, but…eh. He'll clock out for his shift and just vanish." Hyuga's face is tired and his shrug languid. "I think he has family, a brother or something, in Minami. Maybe he heads there."
"Minami?" Doctor Akagi leans forward. "That's part of the fallout zone, what the hell is his family doing there?"
"They cleaned it up pretty well after the Valentine Treaty…" Maya adds weakly.
"I suppose. Minami was cleared for resettlement in 2009…" Akagi produces one a 520 and lights up. "Still odd. I did not know that about him. Huh. Hell, I don't really know much about Aoba."
"Yeah, neither do we," Hyuga says, subduing a slightly bitter tone. Maya simply shrugs.
"Back to the subject at hand," Katsuragi interjects, "he monitored the Eva during the test. I know those results are collected here as well, but I'd prefer to hear it from him."
"Jesus, Misato, give it a break," Akagi says between pulls of the slim. "We can't be sure of what anything does to Aki. A piece of Pocky could be doing her in for all we know. The staff at the Crèche just didn't record such things unless it actually happened to one of the subjects. They didn't care."
"Do we care?" Maya asks. Wrong words, dear.
"For the love of—I have had it with this roundabout nonsense," Ritsuko spits. The room stills, seemingly holding its breath "All this pointless moralizing does absolutely nothing for what we're here for. These machines cannot be piloted by anyone other than select child-candidates of the Marduk Institute. You know why we're here: to prevent something like Second Impact from ever happening again. We make do with what's at hand."
The doctor takes a long pull of her cigarette, a loose finger of ash falls to the tray. "Lives were destroyed long before NERV or Project-E or M went active. What we do is incidental. Think about that too." The doctor takes another bite of her spice cake, chewing slowly, jaw muscles standing out taut and strained. Misato stares at her friend with a very level gaze, knowing any glib comment will overtake the precipice neither of them wishes to go near.
Shaking her head, Doctor Akagi throws the cake against the plastic tray and leaves the room swiftly. The other three sit and stare to one another for answers. There are, of course, none.
She dreams of a twilit tram full-up with bending light and the fading ephemera of the dying red star enveloping the world outside the tram. The plastic children of her past rattle their heads with quick cracks of the neck in the seats around her. Two sit next to her, clasping her hands in cold factory-molded fingers. The boy rests his weary head on her shoulder and a mask of tragedy carved in his face. The girl a mask of mirth with ropes of clotted blood falling from still lips.
The woman-in-white sits across from her.
"Is this sufficient?" She asks.
Aki mulls her words before speaking over a thickened tongue, "I-I have…have…have not heard th-the…I have not heard the words."
"There is an ending."
"…I know."
"All you have to do…is let go."
"I do not wish it."
The woman smiles warmly, it is a loving expression and Aki feels her eyes well up.
"It's okay to be afraid, little rose."
"Don't call muh…no, not th-that."
"There is no shame in it. You were meant to be called that. The title has purpose through you."
"Hate you."
She smiles again, a pearly, gleaming expression in the flares of starlight.
Aki feels the rain-on-a-tin-roof patter of blood hitting her left hand. A disturbingly warm bead runs into her palm, another hits her wrist, yet another hits her naked belly and traces along a distended vein running down from her navel.
On her right hand, the plastic boy is weeping and cannot stop. Aki wishes to smash that awful face in.
The woman's eyes widen. "You cannot. You know what the cost is."
"I…I didn't want this…"
The woman's face burns in the light and reforms as stone.
"It was your choice. Now regret is useless. Let go. Withdraw, Aki."
"Nuh-uh."
The woman-in-white shrugs. "Then wake and live in fear."
Aki crashes awake in the middle of the cavernous hospital room, Room 201, swinging blackened fists wildly at strong hands trying to restrain her arms. People in coats and scrubs.
Her only words are loud and clear.
"GET THE FUCK OFF ME!"
It is some time before the NERV medical staff can sedate the Sixth Children.
A/N: Thrill at my mediocre offerings!
This one was a bit of a pain, not for ideas, I only had to do a few rewrites and was only really stumped once. Nah, this one was a pain from work. Stupid jobs and their paycheck trends. Barring any unforeseen consequences or snags, this story'll last probably three or four more chapters. No more than ten total at the outside.
And yes, shock-cataracts are some asspull of mine. I'm not proud, but it makes sense for my pseudo-magical Mix.