Chapter 3

Fort McMurray, Canada; 4 August 2019

The trip from Paris to the center of operations established in Fort McMurray was hellish. The plane had been the worst sort of red-eye, turbulence had buffeted them the entire way through, and it was an old model that didn't allow cellular access on-board, so she couldn't get updates on how the other pilots were doing. She hoped they remembered what she had drilled into them. The worst part; however, was that the ride from the airport had been within Chiwetel Tersoo, the lanky head of Section-3, the 'Angel Chasers'. More dangerously, it was a ride with his music collection. Asuka promised herself that if she could die without ever having to hear Wham! again in her life, she would have died a happy and fulfilling life. In most other ways he was wonderful, but if she had to listen to more of "Wake Me Up" while he rambled on about his mother in Kano she would likely start screaming. At least "Careless Whisper" never came up.

"What do we know?" she eventually managed to interject, stemming Tersoo off as he was about to ride off into a tangent about Simone de Beauvoir. "About the Pattern Blue?"

"More than we did about Shamshiel. The official designation for the fourth angel," he added in after Asuka gave him a look of confusion.

"How are they?"

"Pilots Suzuhara and Horaki? They'll be fine," Tersoo answered, and Asuka let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Heard Unit-03 got banged up, but otherwise they're fine. How was Europe?" he added. "Didn't get too lost in those cities."

"Not too lost," she answered. "I just hope that Shinji doesn't get too lost on his own."

"You pilots always stick with one another?"

"Who else have we got? Not much out there except the Evas, the fights, and each other." She paused, regretting she had said so much. "Still, I think Shinji should be fine. Now, what do we know."

"Managed to narrow it down to a few dozen klicks we're looking over," Tersoo said, shifting his grip as he spoke. "We expect to get things further narrowed down tonight, maybe even to the exact spot. That would be perfect, really. The cage we used on Sachiel is being shipped over, and NERV-5 will also be getting into orbit above us during that time, so we can drop the Aegis if we need to." Asuka grinned at the image.

The sky was dark by the time they arrived in Fort McMurray, and Asuka felt exhausted. An elementary school had been partially converted into an ops center, and Asuka took Tersoo's advice and got some rest on a cot in the gymnasium. Her dreams were the same as they had always been: her mother, the doll, her failures. Little there to surprise or shock her.

By the time she woke up, the place was the center of a frenzy, technicians and Section-3 agents moving around quickly. Tersoo was standing in the center of the room, dressed in what looked to be an all-white hazmat suit, giving orders over a radio. As he caught the sight of Asuka rising up, he waved her over. "We got lucky. Two separate groups managed to stumble upon the best instance of hotter-colder and cut down the region to look through. We're looking at a kilometer now, squared. The team is suiting up. If you want to come with, might be good to have you on hand if things go to hell."

"I'm up," Asuka said. Her exhaustion impeding enthusiasm played well with her desire to not seem eager. Finally, something to actually cut my teeth on. "I guess you'll want me to," she trailed off, gesturing lamely at the suit, which she now realized quite a few people were wearing.

Tersoo chuckled. "If you're coming with, yes. Still not sure what bioorganic dangers angels might have, so we take precautions. Now you get to see what the groundwork for the extraction in the Falklands looked like."

"Not quite true," Asuka retorted. "The ops center there was in a tent."

"True. Ramiel was kind enough to be close to a town."

"Ramiel?"

"Designation for this angel, assuming it ends up being one. I kinda hope it is. For a non-canonical text, the Book of Enoch was fascinating. It would be a shame for such a name to be used for a wild goose chase."

"What else could it be?" Tersoo shrugged. "Get me a suit then," Asuka declared. "And I'll show you that I can keep up with you all."

The suit was, thankfully, nowhere near as uncomfortable as Asuka had thought that it was going to be, though she would have liked some more flexibility, particularly in the wrists. For all the constructive criticism she had given on the plugsuit over the years, at least it flexed properly.

They set out a half-hour later, Asuka sitting in the middle of a truck surrounded by Section-3 agents, most carrying firearms of some kind, and all silent. "What are they for?" she asked one of them.

"So that in case the angel wakes up, you'll live long enough to get to the Evangelion," the agent answered, her voice muffled through the suit.

"But guns can't hurt an angel."

"Can get their attention," the agent replied, and that was the end of the conversation. A few light jokes went through the group, but beyond that the rest of the voyage was made in silence, the only noise made being the rustle of equipment and the occasional bump in the road. Eventually they stopped and disembarked.

It was early in the morning, still pitch black out, though the glow from all of their flashlights illuminated a paved road and the woods next to it. Tersoo stepped out from the driver's seat, and got to speaking with a number of the agents, pointing to a map that he had placed on the hood. The agent from before; however, approached Asuka. "We're on the northern edge of the expected area," she explained. "We've got scanners, so we'll be moving in closer. Stay behind us, alright?" Asuka nodded. "Good. Remember, you're the important one here." It didn't make Asuka feel as proud as it normally did.

From that point the group fanned out, each member spreading to a few dozen meters from each other, always moving south. It was difficult to see in the woods, and a few times Asuka, or one of the agents ahead of her, stumbled on some log or dip that they hadn't seen. Tersoo walked with her behind the group, occasionally calling out to one of them or communicating with the other teams over the radio. When he had a moment free, Asuka coughed to get his attention.

"Who is that?" she asked, and waved with her flashlight. "The woman who talked with me."

"Agent Nasheed. One of the last of the Maldivian people after Second Impact. She was in Russia when it happened. Joined up with GEHIRN when it was first created, and came over to NERV."

"She's brave." The comment felt pathetic for Asuka to say.

"You have to be in Section-3," Tersoo said. "No rules for engagement that say an angel has to wait for an Evangelion. If we die, then we die, at least that's how we see it. Section-3 gets the bravest, the most zealous, and the most resigned. But one thing unites all of that."

"Oh?"

"We all cheer every time an angel gets taken out of the picture. We all cheer for you pilots."

"With how good a job we'll be doing, you'll be cheering until your out of breath," Asuka assured him.

"That's what I'm hoping for. You know—" he was cut off by a voice on the radio. After talking to them for a minute, he turned to Asuka. "Looks like they found it."

The team joined two of the others at a small building sitting next to a creek. Despite all there being connecting it to the outside world being a dusty road, it looked well put together. "What have you found out?" Tersoo asked as they approached, Asuka sticking doggedly to his side. Around them, agents were working to erect barriers that were being driven in, testing the soil, and all in all being sure to make as much noise as possible.

"Some rich city denizen's country get-away," his second-in-command answered. "We think the angel is beneath the building's foundations. Instruments get too high for a proper reading once we're inside. But that isn't what's interesting?"

"Then what is?" Asuka asked, ignoring the odd look the man gave her.

"We had an agent back in town ask around about this place, as well as pull any documents about the title holder. Owned by a man named Gabriel Abe, whose a Vancouver based therapist, brings his son out here every summer. Apparently they've been regulars for a few years now, but this year they left uncharacteristically early. And by that, I mean three days ago. We've got someone digging up more info on Abe, but I found it odd, to say the least."

"Not necessarily," Asuka said. "There was localized seismic activity around Sachiel when we recovered it, could have been the same here. Man spending time out in the middle of the woods gets spooked by an earthquake only he can feel and decides to leave. Lily-livered, but not unusual."

"And you know that because?"

"I have a degree in psychology myself. Knowing how people work is what I do."

"Regardless," Tersoo cut in, "we'll keeping looking into it. For the moment, though, we'll work on the house. Might be something inside that is notable."

Expectedly, the house was sparsely filled, mostly with non-perishable food and dull, modern furniture. A few pieces of decoration were scattered around the small living room, as well as a collection of board games. After determining that whoever Abe believed there was no such thing as too many editions of Trivial Pursuit, she left that room. Most of the agents were scouring through the basement, removing box after box as they tried to get to the foundation.

Asuka herself moved on to one of the two bedrooms, something which seemed far more interesting to her. While still sparsely filled, it at least had character, from the bed whose linens were strewn across it, to the stack of a magazine called Traceurs that was stuffed in one corner. In the closet was a genuinely overwhelming collection of hair dye, and a number of articles of clothing, including what seemed to be a small shirt made out of elastic. Asuka moved through the items with little else than a passing interest before moving on to the other bedroom.

She had expected for the room she thought of as the son's to be more scattered, but Gabriel Abe's was by far worse. The entire thing was upturned, with books scattered across the floor, a chair's cushion halfway across the room from the chair itself, and the closet cleared out. Really must have panicked, Asuka thought as she toured through the room. All of the books were commonplace, the most interesting thing about them being the variety of languages they were in: English, French, Irish, and Japanese. Of those she could read the titles to, most were of fantastical adventures, though there was at least one which Asuka would describe as a bodice-ripper. Regardless, it seemed that the most interesting thing about the room was the state of disarray it was in. If one were to clean it up, it would simply be a case of the bedroom of a therapist.

Idly, she picked up the chair's pillow to place it back on the offending piece of furniture, and felt something poking her. Looking down, she pulled the zip on the cushion more fully down, and pulled out the items in question: a collection of photographs. She flipped through them, wondering what about some pictures of the Irish countryside, or his son's high school graduation would justify such a hiding spot. Then she came to the last one, and she realized. Suddenly, this therapist had become much more interesting.

Asuka found Tersoo fairly easily, overseeing the moving exploration of the basement. "I found this," she said as she handed him the photo of two men sitting together, one seemingly in his late thirties, presumably Japanese in ethnicity, presumably Abe, hair straight from the eighties covering much of his face. The other was ancient, white, with short greying hair and what might have once been muttonchops.

"And this is? Abe goes to bingo night as well, I suppose."

"No," Asuka replied quickly, taking the photo back. "During my classes, I learned a lot, a lot, about times when psychology went wrong. And this man," she pointed to the older one, "is connected to one of those times. I think, the picture I saw was of him in the nineties, so he may not be the same man. But if he is, then that's Emmanuel Wellings."

"And who's that?"

"You ever heard of MK Ultra?" Tersoo nodded in response. "Some of their work was done in Canada, and Wellings was one of the men who led the research there during the fifties. The type of person that makes me sick."

"You sure about this?"

"Of course I am," Asuka declared. "Once we get another picture of what he looks like now, we can be sure, but I am certain this is him. Which makes Abe infinitely more interesting than before."

"Maybe," Tersoo said, bringing a hand up and strumming it against his chin as best he could as he thought. "But it could still very well be a coincidence. Even if it isn't, there is an angel beneath our feet. So until we get the cage here, and get it into that cage, we aren't going to worry about some therapist whose being pals with people who've lost their medical licenses. Alright?"

"Yeah, okay, I just—" She didn't get a chance to finish as the ground spasmed beneath their feet, knocking Asuka to the ground. She groaned, twisting to get up, when she saw the floor a few meters away crack, paved cement jutting upwards as out from the center something rose. A blue octahedron, barely the size of her fist. It steadily climbed, until it was near the ceiling, and rotated slightly, chittering as it did so.

The moment she saw it, Asuka scrambled back and onto her feet, helped up by Tersoo, who began shouting into his radio. Two agents moved past them, firearms raised. For a moment there, the only movement was from Asuka steadily moving backwards and getting to her feet, and the only sound being from Tersoo. Then there was an ear-splitting chitter, and one of the agents jerked and fell, the angel having stabbed a piece of itself through them. They were silent as they died, but the air was filled with the firing of a gun, the roar of the other agent, and Tersoo's hurried voice as he grabbed Asuka's arm and tugged painfully on it, the two of them moving up the stairs as quickly as they could. Behind them, Asuka could hear the other agent cry out, and she glanced behind them to see the angel moving forward, now larger, though only slightly so. It darted for them, only to be stopped as more gunshots rang out, as more agents came between the angel and pilot.

Tersoo let go of Asuka as they stumbled out of the building. "Can you call the Eva?" Tersoo asked, his voice raw. Asuka nodded. "Then do it. We'll buy you time." At that, he drew his gun and moved back towards the house. Asuka watched for a moment before her brain kicked into gear, and drew her phone quickly. The model had been given to her by NERV, and had very specific functions to go with the normal ones. After a moment of navigating a screen, she tapped through several confirmations, removed her glove, and let it scan her hand.

"Accepted," a digitized voice told her. "Dropping to north at minimum safe distance. Please proceed to landing spot." Asuka nodded numbly, judged the directions, and began sprinting to the north. The sky was beginning to brighten, ever so slightly, and as she ran she was able to jump over the obstacles that had troubled her before. As she moved she thought: she had been told before that it would take two minutes for the Evangelion to land, and then she would need to scale it. Three minutes, most likely, before you'll be moving. Get it done quickly, and some of them might live.

Her legs were starting to burn when she saw her Evangelion drop ahead of her, a red blur which smashed into the ground with the sound of thunder. Ever as far away as she had been, the force caused Asuka to buckle, and she watched as trees closer to the unit fall over from the force.

She forced herself back up, sprinting towards the Evangelion as she tore off the hazmat suit. Finally she reached her Eva, where it was buried partway into the ground, and jumped onto it. She clambered up the too-hot surface, wincing as the rungs that adorned the outside for her to climb up burned at her. A moment later she was at the top, and pounded on the access hatch release.

Asuka fell into the entry plug, stashed the photo from before in the watertight storage space, and began flipping the switches. Not enough time for a plugsuit, she told herself, but she still grabbed the A-10 connection modules and attached them to her scalp. Around her, the interior of the plug began to light up as electronics turned on, and the LCL valves opened. Asuka ignored the liquid as it enter the plug, instead working to establish communications. Three channels were opened: NERV-1, NERV-5, and to Tersoo. "Evacuate your people," she told him. "I'm operational."

Groaning came from the other side, before she heard Tersoo managed to gasp out. "Thank God."

"NERV-1, NERV-5?" she then said. Two voices called out in affirmative. Asuka breathed out in relief at the contact. Inside of the plug, LCL had finished filling it, and the Evangelion activated. A power counter came online in the corner: with the help of the bag-mounted power supply, Asuka could operate for half an hour. I'll need it, she thought grimly. Ahead of her, she could see where the house was. Had been may have been the better term. Rising from that location, now barely smaller than the Evangelions twenty meters, was Ramiel. Dawn broke.

"I'm engaging."