Chapter 7: Trinity Church
You're just too good to be true
Can't take my eyes off of you
You'd be like heaven to touch
I wanna hold you so much
Misato's expression changed from one of enjoyment to a hardened glare at Kaji. She spoke up from the current scene in the theater.
"We shouldn't be here. They could be getting-"
"Misato, if now is when you decide to start worrying about Shinji and Rei, you're about 18 months too late. You never acted like this when they were fighting towering alien beasts."
"That's because I was always watching them!" She snapped, getting frustrated stares from the audience around her.
"Misato, Shinji and Rei are experienced soldiers because of your actions. After they sat in that cockpit for the first time, there was no going back. Their innocence died and those children became adults. This is the logical conclusion to that path. They're operating on their own, but they're not going to be in danger, I've seen that first-hand. They're now capable of seeing outside the human spectrum; they have infrared and ultraviolet vision. They can hear and smell as well as a bloodhound. Their brain is assisted by a billion-node computer network, and they're both stronger than some of our career security agents; all thanks to experimental biology. I trust them to dig up the information we need, you should too."
I love you baby, and if it's quite all right
I need you baby; to warm my lonely night.
I love you baby...
"So then...is that it?" Shinji asked the young shipmate.
"Until tomorrow, yeah...There's really not enough that I'm involved in to tell you anything useful."
"And your father will be accommodating?" Rei asked him.
"He's paranoid, but he's not an ass. He'll help you guys out, and I can guarantee that he wouldn't hire anybody to kill two kids..."
"Then I guess we should go ahead and get out of here."
"Don't worry about getting noticed. If somebody asks you, tell them I was hosting you."
Shinji and Rei didn't need to slither out of the docks this time, so they walked their way back to the harbor parking lot where they called their cabbie, just now realizing they'd need to use a pay phone.
"Hey Rei, my cell was destroyed on the train...do you still have yours?"
"No, I don't. Our radio uplink does not connect to cellular towers, either."
"Then we'd better get used to carrying change. What do you have on you?"
"Probably exactly what you're carrying. My NERV ID, Sarif ID, firearm, stolen pepper gun and tazer, and a few American bills."
"Yeah, that's what I have...you know, this was our first assignment, right?"
"Yes."
"We didn't kill or really even hurt anybody. Sure, we had to whack those guys on the side of the head, but they ought to be fine by now."
"Our purpose here is not yet complete, Shinji. Perhaps Mr. Dowd will not be as accommodating as his son predicted."
"That's pessimistic for you, Rei."
"We are operating outside of the law now, Shinij. We must prepare for the consequences of our actions, and Mr. Dowd is a wealthy and powerful individual. That is but one of their ships, and we have not researched their railroad and aviation influence."
Their self-reflection ended when their ride pulled up to the curb. They pulled away from the harbor, with no real trail behind them, only three guards' testimony that they were knocked out by two anonymous teenagers...
Kaji and his fiancée found Shinji and Rei idly sitting on a couch together when they returned from the theater. It didn't take long for Misato to revert to being an overprotective guardian...
"Omygod you two are safe! How did it go? Did you have to kill him-"
"We are not finished, Misato. We need to appear at Trinity Church tomorrow morning. Mr. James Dowd is Stanton's father, and he is our connection...According to his son, he's also rather eccentric."
She furrowed her brow at Rei's answer. "Then we're coming, too. Right, Kaji?"
He sighed and rubbed his eyebrows. "Misato, for the head of a special operations division, you still don't understand covert operations. We can go as far as the entrance to the church and maybe sneak in the back of the sanctuary, but if this guy sees four people ganging up on him, he'll take it as an attack. Quit smothering Shinji. He and Rei will handle whatever happens."
"Quit smothering him?! It was me not smothering him that got him nearly killed!"
"Misato." Shinji interrupted the hysterical woman. "Me being in danger hasn't ever been your fault. I hated being an Eva Pilot, sure, but what would've happened if I quit? Is it your fault that I was sitting on that train? Is it your fault that SEELE consists of heartless bastards?"
"It IS my fault that you're involved in this at all! I could've just as easily refused to drag you into all this hell when it began!"
Rei looked away from Misato and Shinji's current argument. "Inspector Kaji, did you enjoy the theater?"
"Misato's constant worrying kind of held it back...She never really acted like...this" He limply waved over to Misato's inelegant bickering "...until after Gendo was taken care of. Before all that, she was perfectly okay seeing you launch out to your deaths." He dragged Misato away from Shinji and turned in for the night.
"Ready for our second day of work, Rei?" Shinji said as they finished their now-routine breakfast.
"Of course I am; fighting to prevent SEELE from dominating the world is why I was created. Are you ready, Shinji."
"...I don't know...Misato's so messed up about all this..."
"As is her inalienable right, Shinji. We only see our need to succeed in our tasks. Misato sees our current condition as a reflection of her failure to protect us."
"Misato didn't fail-"
"She promised us a normal life after Lillith died, and she considers everything that has happened to be a failure to keep that promise." She checked the time. "We need to leave for the Church, if Misato and Inspector Kaji are still in bed, we won't have time to wait for them."
They hailed a cab at the hotel's curbside and left for the historic place of worship. They arrived at the church's steps to be greeted by the Bishop. They'd been expecting them.
"You two young things are here to speak with one of the church Elders. We're very proud to call the Dowd family our own...they've given so much to the people over their time. Just walk into our sanctuary and he'll meet you there."
They obeyed the old fellow and entered the sanctuary, looking forwards to the chior box and massive stained-glass mural of Christ and his Disciples.
They saw the old man, sitting alone at the very first pew under the pulpit. He was a chubby fellow wearing a leather trenchcoat and a full, greying beard. He was looking directly towards the pulpit, though he heard their entry.
"Mr. James Dowd?" They quietly approached him.
He spoke, still looking directly forwards. "Would you believe that I once sat in this pew beside the heirs to the Rockefeller and Rothschild fortunes? Compared to them, the Dowds are young money...My grandfather started out buying small fishing boats before moving onto heavy cargo ships, and he even swindled the Vanderbilts for control of much of the railroad traffic on the East Coast. My father secured dominating shares of various air freight carriers, so the modern Dowds have a near-monopoly on all three methods of transportation. Even when we were at our most unfriendly competition, the old, wealthy families met at houses much like this one to pray for the stability of the financial world...Trinity Church, the Paris Cathedral, the Church of England...When Christ wrote that the love of money was the root of all evil, he didn't give his opinion of those who exist to protect it."
"Basing a system of belief around the defense of greed hardly seems to be a goal worthy of reverence." Rei countered. It seemed to the pair that this man would be a talker.
"We do not exist to defend greed, we exist to contain poverty...We may be forced to allow individuals to go without basic needs or wants, but we have never failed to ensure the livelihood of those nations crucial to the stability of the world...In 1929, when the US stock market crashed, the individuals making up the unenlightened masses panicked and reacted, rather than responding with intelligence. Individuals pulled their entire estates from their banks and stuffed their money into mattresses. Had they simply done nothing, there would have been no Great Depression, as the currency supply would still be traveling between the financial centers, even as businesses closed and houses went empty. In 2008, Greece went bankrupt from within, but it was kept alive by the EU. Back here in the States, insecure housing loans and allowances made mandatory by 'compassionate' individuals in government failed and went unpaid en masse, forcing loan and mortgage holders into bankruptcy and resulting in foreclosures by the millions...Let me ask you, is it better to work for happiness and want, or stability and need? Every living person wishes for prosperity, but whose responsibility is it to give it to them? The individual exists to collect wealth, but the group, the ideal exists to prevent poverty. As soon as the individual is of the means to succeed without the group, then they become responsible for themselves. So again I ask, what is a better topic to pray for than stability? Should I pray for everybody to become a millionaire? If that were to be the result, then people would line up at gold-plated soup kitchens."
"Forgive me for being critical, but why make a statement on prayer to an individual who may not share your faith?"
"Because my faith and the actions you have performed almost perfectly coincide. I pray to the creator of the world. You defended him from a race of beings intent on destroying it and rebuilding it in their own image. I believe we were all saved from destruction by the son of the creator, and you watched him as he prevented the apocalypse, didn't you? Indeed, you're feeding this conversation to him right now, aren't you, Miss Ayanami?" He turned to look at her.
Shinji looked terrified, Rei showed mild fear, and around the world in NERV's command bridge, late at night, Kaworu and Mari dropped their headphones and gasped.
"How do you know who I am?"
"Paranoia is a drug, my dear. It can become addictive. Take off your sunglasses, let me confirm it for myself."
Shinji looked at Rei. She answered the question he didn't ask. "Yes, Shinji, we should do it, it appears he already knows..."
Their glasses came off, and James looked at the glowing electronics inside their eyes. "Let me ask you, would you have wanted what has been done to you? There are some people who would crawl all over themselves to become a superhuman agent like you are. Even before now, did either of you have any desire to fight against the Precursors? Yes, I also know about the cyborg machines the two of you used to defend the planet. Most of the Illuminati do."
Shinji didn't hesitate. "You're right: I never asked for this. But I'm not going to pretend that being an Eva pilot didn't make my life better after it was all over, and I'm not going to pretend that the things Mr. Sarif did to save my life won't help me get back at the people who attacked us."
"Very good. That's the answer I was hoping to hear. There are individuals who would curse God for what you've been through if they were in your place, and there are those who crave adventure and heroics, but don't ever consider the price they would pay to experience it."
"Mr. Dowd," Rei began. "Only a few militaries and governments outside of Japan know the extent of the Evangelion Program...You are a member of neither-"
"To answer the question you're about to ask...Paranoia is a drug, again, and all the government and forces of the world are addicts. NERV spies on SEELE and the UN, SEELE spies on NERV and its leadership -as a certain young man's late father would have been the only one capable of subverting their plans- while the UN spies on all its member nations."
"And which are you a member of?"
"The Illuminati spies on everybody, constantly."
"And you believe that all the other organizations do not spy on you?"
"Yes, because the Illuminati is not so much an organization as it is an Idea: Instrumentalizing wisdom into the tools that will guide civilization...The compass and square edge, masonry's tools; the sword and Cross, the icons of the Templars...The Illuminati is not an organization, but it does regularly give birth to them. The Templars formed after they freed Solomon's fortune from the Muslim-held Jerusalem in the First and Fourth Crusade. The original Masons were French, German and English craftsmen that used their knowledge of architecture and mechanics to create the infrastructure that allowed them to build not only facilities, but implements of progress. An agrarian gatherer saw a fortress rise from the ground and, instead of learning the trade, worshiped the craftsman as a wizard. The Freemasons brought the European Masons' skill for craftsmanship and subterfuge to America, where the great minds of our history threw down the first empire to cover the entirety of the planet...Now, SEELE is only the latest to be birthed from the Enlightened Ones, this time voluntarily created by the United Nations, an organization that only has power from its ability to file documents and record names. Tell me, does SEELE or the United Nations fight for 'world peace'? No, NERV and the Combined Forces do. If the Combined Forces were to disband and return to their mother countries, what power to enforce resolution would the United Nations have? Without NERV or various corporate interests, what power would SEELE have?"
"SEELE has the power to create their own Instrumentality, or to murder those who stopped them from completing it."
"Really? Was it the 'SEELE army' that attacked you?"
"No, the son of ADAM -as you referred to him- identified them as Belltower Private Security forces."
"And who pulls Belltower's strings?"
"Mr. Sarif said Tai-Yong Medical did."
"Why would a substandard medical device company attack two retired robot pilots?"
"Because they have ties to SEELE."
"And did a colleague of yours not just eliminate one of the leadership very recently?"
"Yes, but she was already familiar with him...he was the only real lead we had, we came to you after Kaworu managed to link SEELE and the Illuminati together."
"And SEELE and the Illuminati were linked because SEELE grew out from the members that weren't content with guiding the human race to prosperity, no, they sought to make themselves gods, and you stopped them. They used their wealth and influence to get the UN to create SEELE and authorize it to oversee NERV: Keel Lorenz, German intellectual with more money than he knows what to do with, his time in the German Bundestag is what got him into the UN; Lucius DeBeers, House of Lords, he's currently a vegetable. Congratulate your friend for that.; Zhao Yun Ru, Chinese chairwoman of Tai-Yong Medical, she's a bootlicker and a fraud. She uses others' success to come to her own power. Tai-Yong was her father's company, but he's senile and close to death, she took over through her family's controlling stock and succeeds by paying off the Chinese government to ignore crimes and trust violations, all the way up to using Belltower as her private assassins; Bob Page -unlike Zhao- he brought Page Industries to success through innovation and quality. Their mechanics and electronics division create mass-producible cyber and robotic and weapons, such as their Bravo and Delta Peacebringer combat robots, while Versalife's pharmaceuticals are some of the most effective drugs ever synthesized."
"Then you know the names of the SEELE Units."
"I told you what I do know, but that's everything I can offer you."
"Then I suppose we owe you gratitude." Rei stated.
"Pay it forward by stopping SEELE's stupidity again, you've already done it once."
"We plan on it. May God grant everyone 'stability'."
The pair took their leave. They called a cab and rode back to the Hilton where Kaji and Misato had already packed.
"You won't believe what we learned."
"It must be good, you two didn't bother to wait for us this morning." Kaji complained.
"You were still asleep at 0930." Rei countered. "We were not going to jeopardize our chances to acquire this intelligence."
"And what intelligence was that?"
"James Dowd confirmed that Keel Lorenz, Lucius DeBeers, Zhao Yun Ru, and Bob Page are SEELE representatives, formed when they gathered together amidst the belief that the Illuminati is too benevolent."
Misato contemplated for a moment. "So...SEELE is the result of the idea that the Illuminati, THE ILLUMINATI, isn't far fetched enough? Am I the last sane woman on the planet!?"
"No, Misato." Kaji snaked an arm around her waist. "You are most definitely not a sane woman. We need to get back to our postings before we make any further decisions. You two get packed fast, Misato's flight is a mid-afternoon takeoff, and it's the early afternoon right now..."
They rode to LaGuardia, waved to Misato as she boarded her airliner, and made their way back to the helibase.
"I don't know what got into her." Kaji mused as they approached their VTOL, sitting static on the pad they arrived at. "She was just supposed to come check up on you two and we'd spend some vacation time together, but she turned into a nervous wreck."
"She refuses to accept our condition, regardless of our recovery."
"She just needs to trust you guys to succeed..."
24 hours later, in a conference between a Detroit apartment and the GeoFront...
"And why shouldn't we consider the Illuminati a threat?"
"Because, based on our findings, the existence of the Illuminati is simply a glorified attempt to maintain the status quo." Rei handled the debrief to Ritsuko. "SEELE did have ties to the Illuminati, but they severed them on their own accord."
"And what of the Illuminati's espionage activities?"
"What of NERV's? What of the UN's or SEELE's? We should certainly be concerned, but they are not the opponent we should focus our attacks on, at least in the near-future. James Dowd, the Illuminatus we approached, was aware of the SEELE separatists. They created SEELE by manipulating the United Nations, and the identities matched what we already know. Kaworu should have already compiled the updated intelligence."
"Indeed I did, Rei." Kaworu's face appeared on the videoconference monitor. "I'll publish my findings now."
A database document appeared on the monitors logged in to the conference.
SEELE-01: Lorenz, Germany. ALIVE
SEELE-02: Page, American. ALIVE
SEELE-03: UNKNOWN. UNKNOWN
SEELE-04: DeBeers, England. COMATOSE
SEELE-05: Yun Ru, China. ALIVE
Ritsuko read the file, going through the names. "Wait...Page? PAGE! THAT SON OF A BITCH! FUCK! FU-"
"Ritsuko, what's wrong!?" Mari grabbed they hysterical woman by the collar and shook her out of her daze. Shinji, Rei, and Kaji stared at the television they were watching, dumbfounded by Ritsuko's breakdown.
"Get the Professor down here! This is a disaster! Page Industries is at Area 51 right this instant! They're the ones responsible for cleaning up the Unit-04 explosion! They have complete diplomatic immunity! We can't touch them! And for that matter, we still don't know who SEELE-03 is!"
A new voice entered the conference, playing over NERV's loudspeakers and repeating to Shinji and Rei's apartment. There was no video stream. "God, Ritsuko, have you completely lost it? You sound even more screwed up than Misato."
"WHO'S THAT!?" The stressed-out blonde shouted to the air around her.
"Okay...you really have gone nucking futs, you're supposed to be the level-headed one."
"It's hard to be level-headed when you're getting played like a violin! Fuyutsuki and I approved the Page Industries contract! And now we've been made out as fools because of it! Even God won't know what they're building at that place behind our backs!"
"Well then, it's good to know I can help you out with SEELE-03."
"How the hell do you know who it is!?"
"Come to Paris...I'll show you."
Ritsuko furrowed her eyebrows, she didn't like talking to ghosts. "Who the hell are you?"
The voice giggled a bit. "Call me...Scarlet."
A/N: So many conspiracies, so little time! And who's in Paris? Please Review!