In which "nihilism" is the word of the day
"There's no future for you." - God Save the Queen, by the Sex Pistols
Agano Kaede looked over at the new girl and her friends and smirked.
Ooi Satsuki followed her gaze. "Ugh, you're staring at them again?" She brushed some of her hair back, looking at it critically. Like several other girls lately, she'd taken to dying her hair (in her case, a particularly light brown). It was a lot cheaper than other ways of looking different. Clothing had become so expensive.
"Yeah, well, it's just funny."
Aoi Mogami pushed up her glasses. "You've been saying that for awhile now, Kae-chan. What's so funny about them?"
"Oh! I guess you don't really know." Kaede gestured for both girls to lean in and began explaining. "You both know Aoba's older sister, Miki, right?"
The other two girls nodded, not quite sure where this was going to go, and not entirely sure that they cared. Kaede brought up all sorts of stupid things. This would probably be one of those, and they'd have to laugh before she would finally drop it and let them talk about something interesting.
"She hangs out with my older sister, you know."
Satsuki and Aoi nodded again, hoping Kaede would get to the point so they could get back to their lunches.
"One date I got to see the Aoba apartment, and this is what makes it funny. Turns out Aoba has a little brother too. The kid was hospitalized after that first Angel attacked; injured in the battle or something. And now Shigeru-san is hanging out with the girl who didn't kill the Angel fast enough to save his little brother." She giggled a little. Neither of the other girls laughed. "Well? Isn't that funny?"
"That's really kind of sad, Kae-chan," Mogami said. Kaede wasn't really surprised. The girl found everything depressing. She too had dyed her hair (a blue-black) because she said it fit the way she felt better. Satsuki had quipped that Aoi had looked pathetic beforehand and that the dye hadn't changed much.
Ooi shrugged. "I'm sure the kid'll recover. I saw the Angel's body when my dad drove us home. If that thing didn't kill him right away, it doesn't look like it could have done anything major."
"Yeah, but I still feel bad for him." Mogami looked down at her lunch of stupid ramen noodles. Again. "Ugh, does anyone want to trade?"
"I still have my egg left," Kaede volunteered. "What flavor ramen?"
"Pork."
"Okay." The two girls exchanged lunches quietly. Satsuki shook her head. They did this every other day, always bringing the same lunches because their families couldn't afford anything else. Most people couldn't. The world's food supplies were entering their yearly recession again. At least in a couple of months the Siberians would have quite a large crop grown.
Kaede was still staring at the group around Maya. "I thought she was leaving," she muttered. "I guess she just said she was for the attention."
"Kae-chan, leave off," Satsuki said. "She is the Commander's daughter, after all."
It was Kaede's turn to exchange glances with Mogami. They'd both (well, okay, just Mogami) explained that Maya could only be the Commander's daughter if she'd been kidnapped after Second Impact, which was much more unlikely, but she'd refused to listen, convinced that there was no reason that Maya'd be a pilot otherwise.
"If you have to be the Commander's kid to pilot," Mogami whispered, "then explain Rokubungi."
"Maya's fraternal twin," Satsuki replied. "He looks even more like the Commander than she does, after all. It only makes sense."
"You're worse than that Kaji kid. At least he doesn't take it seriously…" Kaede dug into the egg, relishing every bite. "At least, I think he's joking." She giggled a bit. "I think he's doing it to get Ibuki's attention, don't you think?"
Aoi shrugged and led the conversation in a different direction.
3876:13:52
Yamada Daisuke opened the letter hurriedly. His grandparents had given it to him when he'd gone home for lunch, but he had decided to get to class so he'd have something entertaining to do during the literature section. Since Strasberg-sensei was busy talking about some dumb, happy, kid-friendly book, like all the others they'd read in school, he barely even had to hide it.
Dear Daisuke,
My business in Hannover is nearly concluded. I have bought my tickets and will be coming home soon. As you requested, I have obtained several photographs, and as I will be flying home on a different route (to Bucharest, then over the Pole to Tehran, then New Delhi, Changsha, and lastly Saga), I will attempt to get more during my layovers. I am sure you will find them far more beautiful than the photos I took while in Nevada last year.
Europe is very nice this time of year, as the snow has finally melted and the birds are singing again. It's amazing how quickly they changed their migratory patterns, but even listening I can tell that there used to be many more kinds of calls in the chorus. Thousands of species have died, it seems, but they haven't even begun accounting for which ones are gone.
Ugh, that turned rather depressing, didn't it? I'm sorry. My colds always leave me a little down. I hope you're in good health, though.
I have arranged for a "Captain Soryu" to escort you to my ship when I arrive. Hopefully, if my planes and ship are not delayed, I will be arriving the twenty-sixth of July. I regret that they made school an all-year activity a few years ago, for otherwise we could enjoy your summer vacation.
Your loving uncle,
Kaito
Daisuke smiled to himself and folded the letter back up again. His uncle, one of Nerv Section 2's most respected workers, would finally be coming home. The coming Sunday was looking to be the best day ever.
3874:49:34
People move slowly, but that's alright, for the Earth moves slowly too. Most of the time. The advent of Second Impact had, like First Impact before it, heavily affected the rotation, climate, and geography of planet Earth, and few people had moved from their homes, despite all the hardship they faced.
The most affected region was Antarctica itself. Whatever Angelic weapons had touched down there, the effects had been disastrous. The ice cap had been blown away, and the resulting waters had flooded the world. The continent itself had been turned into a strange red liquid that defied normal physics. The only thing that kept the ocean life alive was that it had been diffusing into the seas nearby very slowly.
A year after the explosion, a new ice cap had begun forming to replace the old one, but near French Polynesia. The old North Pole slowly melted into a temperate sea, and a new one began forming over the Arabian Peninsula, nicely ending all Middle Eastern conflict at the cost of creating thousands of refugees. Well, thousands more than expected, anyways. Worse on the polar front, where the Antarctic polar ice cap had contained fourteen million square kilometers of ice, the Arabian polar ice cap wasn't even two and a half million. The sea levels rose hideously.
Australasia lost all population and most artificial constructions following the attack, but the environment began to recover, and the new weather patterns led to an immense rain forest where the Outback had once lain. People began to move there, to conquer the continent once more, and life actually felt like it could get better.
Most of southern Africa had been destroyed too, but Africa became a continent stretching across an arctic and a temperate zone, and while chaos followed initially, stable nations crawled out of the chaos, and they turned to Europe to find out what happened. Europe, now a true landmass and not a mere peninsula, had suffered immensely in its new domain, but eventually it too recovered, and the nations there had created the Committee and Nerv's predecessor, Gehirn.
The Americas had moved into the tropics, but the rainforests had been destroyed by Second Impact, and a vast plain incapable of growing anything stretched around the new Amazon Sea. Argentina was the only temperate region, and the only one capable of supporting mankind. People starved. North America fared little better, for while the immediate environmental devastation was limited in comparison, slowly but surely the Great Plains became a dry waste.
Southeast Asia was fine, a little sunken but as much of a jungle as ever. Southeast China sank, and the rest remained desert, stretching all the way into Kazakhstan. The jungles of India became forests. Siberia became farmland. Japan barely changed at all; such a mountainous terrain barely sank whatever the sea level, but now sat in permanent summer.
The world was barely capable of holding the three billon people it had left, and even then there would have to be massive migration. But people don't move. They find home, and they'll stay there, come hell or high water. Or, more appropriately, come heaven AND high water.
Shigeru spread out on Ritsuko's couch, stretching. "Another day, another afternoon where Maya gets to suffer."
Ritsuko glared at him. "Don't put it like that," she said. "It can't be that bad for her if she's staying… can it?" She looked to Kaji and Makoto for support, but they were looking at one of Kaji's stupid magazines, this one about alien abductees and what probably ended up happening to them.
"How could aliens and humans breed with each other, anyways?" Makoto asked Kaji.
"Probably they just insert alien DNA into some poor woman and then the alien DNA makes a new baby that's sorta-alien."
Ritsuko grumbled and turned on the TV. "I think I got a kid who might be interested in joining up with our band, Shigeru. She's named Zeppelin and she can play all sorts of instruments."
Shigeru didn't answer, looking in the general direction of the TV but not really paying attention. "I wonder if the space between Angels will be bigger this time around. Nine days isn't enough time for training."
"Can we not talk about it?" Kaji asked. "It's bad enough living in fear, let's not make things worse by considering the logistics." He sighed. "I wish my dad didn't work at Nerv. We could move out of town and wouldn't have to worry about it at all."
"Yeah. You could live in Greenland and farm watermelon and be completely oblivious when the world suddenly ends and everyone dies. Sounds like great fun."
"What's wrong with farming watermelons?"
Shigeru glared. "It was just an example. Would carrots be more pathetic for you?"
Kaji shrugged. "I still wouldn't be thinking about it. Wouldn't it be worse if an Angel won but it would take five minutes and we'd spend all that time knowing we were going to die? At least being caught unawares wouldn't be so frightening."
"I thought we weren't going to talk about this," Ritsuko muttered, flipping past a science channel talking about the latest failures in working with purely artificial gametes. "Wanna play a video game or something instead?" She looked at her old Sega Dreamcast, one of the last consoles to enter the market before Second Impact, and thus, one of the last consoles made.
"We've played them all. We should save up and buy one of the new ones that came out last year. The Nintendo one looks pretty cool."
"Cool, but expensive." Ritsuko sat down. "Ugh…" She flipped to a different news channel.
"Heavy Chemical Industries has recently invited people from several different organizations to their conference for their latest product. Shockingly, the conference will take place close to the ruins of Old Tokyo, and rumors suggest that it will be a giant robot designed to rival the Evangelion. Our attempts to meet with a Nerv spokesman failed, although at least one worker who wishes to remain anonymous stated that Nerv is unconcerned about the rumors."
The kids exchanged glances, some smiling. If this project succeeded… Maya just might be able to get out of piloting after all.
3873:05:36
japaneserockergirl: Thanks for all your reviews! I am glad you are enjoying this story!
Hugh Haiter: Your critiques are important, and I am aware of both. Concern number one will be addressed. As for concern number two, Chapter 4 I believe notes that Asuka is dyeing her hair. As for her being friends with Rei, the circumstances of their meeting are vastly different. For one thing, neither had the particular mental issues of the TV series. For another, no Evas were involved.