Answers: MonSTR- Welcome to FFnet! And I pmmed you about your comment, so thanks for fav-ing!

Chapter 13: Trade Secrets

= Oww! Hey! AAUGH! = * THUD *

Shinji looked up at the pale feet that kicked him off of his side of the bed. Her toes were cute to look at, at least, but the hardwood floor was a painful alarm clock for the morning. She slid from her side of the bed and walked over to look down at him.

"Why, exactly, did you find it necessary to kick me out of bed, Rei?" He asked from his crumpled position on the floor.

"You were asleep."

= Great. This is going to be one of those conversations. = "And? I'd like to remain that way."

"I'm taking a shower."

"Okay, fine. You take a shower, I'll sleep."

"No, you're coming with me."

"…Why didn't you just say so?" His mood changed considerably after hearing that statement. He hopped to his feet.

"You're incoherent enough in the morning that you'd have had no idea what I was talking about. You usually can't speak a complete sentence until after you start cooking."

"That's Misato, not me!"

"How many times have you tripped over your own feet on your way into the bathroom?"

"I'm a light sleeper! You know how often I used to wake up from those stupid dreams in the middle of the night!"

"Yes, you have an endless subway train running through your mind."

Shinji groaned and rubbed his forehead. "How can you be so wonderful one moment then be totally irritating the next?"

"I have a post-high school education and an eidetic memory. I'm skilled at bringing up uncomfortable facts at inopportune moments." She started tugging him towards the bathroom. "Now come on, we're getting up early so the others won't bother us…"

Asuka's mood in the morning wasn't improved when she entered the bathroom door to see a damp Idiot and Wondergirl wrapped in each other's arms, sharing a poorly-fitting bathrobe. She turned about, marched into Kaworu and Mari's room, and screamed.

Mari jumped up from the training project she and Angel Boy were working on. "What the hell is wrong with you, Soryu!?"

Asuka's eye twitched. "Shin-…Blue…THEM!"

"So…translating that from psychopathese; you caught Shinji and Rei mid-snog and you got a glimpse of Rei's –presumably blue- carpet."

"YES!"

"I'm kind of jealous of them, finding the time for a morning session like that. Why can't I ever get any action?!"

"Because you have a disassembled rifle on the desk and I haven't stopped my watch." Kaworu spoke from over her shoulder.

"DAMMIT! Come on, Kaworu, we've been running this drill for forever!"

"And if you can't handle a distraction from Asuka, how are you going to field strip this thing during a firefight?"

"I can manage! Old DeBeers knows that from experience!" She turned back to the parts spread she was assembling as Kaworu checked the time again.

"Every second you can't fire is another hole in the plugsuit."

"Shut Up! I know what I'm doing!" She closed the last of the several torx screws on the new barrel of her weapon, and shouted at Kaworu to stop the time.

"Three minutes, Fifty-Nine seconds. It should be entirely possible for you to do it in less than two."

"Soryu, keep your mouth shut! Kaworu, start over!" Kaworu clicked his stopwatch and Mari repeated the process on her weapon.
One who understands their weapon, every component of it, uses their weapon as an extension of their own body. Repetitious training leads to understanding, and understanding leads to perfection.
Perfection with the weapon leads to lethality.

Asuka made a gagging expression as Shinji and Rei emerged from their bedroom, dressed in their de-facto uniforms.

"Your jealousy is palpable, Asuka." Rei said, exaggeratedly leaning into Shinji to appear as an even more disgustingly perfect couple.

"Oh My God, you two…just…fight! Argue! Disagree on something! Two people can't constantly act like perfect matches for each other!"

Exercising his mind for philosophy, Shinji decided to infuriate Asuka even further. "We disagree all the time, Asuka. Conflict does not entail 'fighting'. Conflict entails resolution, and as the greatest of questions must be answered with the greatest of conflicts, the smallest of questions are solved by the smallest of conflicts. Rei and I do (not) argue; we discuss. Ignorant extremists resort to shouting and insults, the intelligent seek consensus."

"Okay, Professor Douchebag!" Asuka waved her hands around, wildly gesturing at Shinji. "Forgive me for projecting my outrageous stupidity onto everybody in the room! I grovel in the shadow of your stupendous intellect!"

Emphasizing her play on words, Rei whispered into his ear. "I think you struck a NERV, Shinji."

"Bright idea!" Mari shouted over Asuka's ranting. "We should skip the warfare and just make some popcorn and watch Shinji and Asuka argue all day!"

"As entertaining as that would be, how about we discuss today's objectives?" Kaworu wrangled the teenagers back into some strange form of order. Shinji and Rei nodded and sat down at the kitchen bar, to seemingly start talking to themselves.

"It's still weird seeing you two talking on the radio without a headset." Mari observed. "Who're you calling?"

"HQ. We need to get Kaji off the ground for a quick extraction, and that means he'll need to be wheels up as of this minute…Ayanami to NERV Transport, Special Investigator Kaji...We need a no-landing extraction at the Hengsha upper-city executive landing pad for Tai-Yong Medical's world corporate center…ETA: Four Hours confirmed." She looked up and back to the rest of the team. "It's several minutes before 0900, Kaji will be taking off soon, and we have several hours before he'll make the city limits. Let's not waste it: The Jiu Schichang subway will take us to the employee entrance to TYM's lower building, we'll need to make our way up to the executive offices at the top of the Table to reach Zhao. I don't need to remind everybody that if interrogation fails, Termination is authorized. Shinji and I require our biofuel, and we all need to take a double dose of the painkillers we've received."

Shinji stood and began placing out drinking glasses for the group, scooping a measure of his and his girlfriend's powdered nutrients into two glasses and opening several Cyberboost bars to be consumed.

"The pills," Rei continued, "should provide six hours of blunted pain response. Amongst the five of us, Asuka and Mari are the most vulnerable. We'll be compensating by keeping the two of you close to those more capable. If the worst should happen, the injectors we received from LIMB will neutralize one injury."

0930

The five emerged from the subway station to look on the LIMB clinic and the entrance to TYM's lower-city manufacturing plant. Enforcing the class divisions of the Chinese supercity, line workers, assemblers, and mechanics rarely ascended the tower, reserved for TYM's corporate staff and research scientists, who were able to enjoy the sunshine atop the Pangu.

"Asuka and I are in charge until we penetrate the facilities' security." Rei and Asuka kept their clothing and effects concealed within their labcoats, while Mari and Kaworu carried briefcases containing gifts for Zhao. Company identification cards hung from lanyards around the two young women's necks. "You three will remain silent until we are inside."

Asuka took the lead and strode up to the gate security station. "Julia Ziffer. Master's candidate for Humboldt University. Miss Hayashibara –undergrad from Tokyo University- and I are hosting three Fudan University exchange students." Her card swipe passed, granting her temporary nonsecure access to the facility. Her three students followed her in, with her blue counterpart bringing up the rear. The Belltower security guard at the gate gruffly nodded at them as he watched the automated security clear their passes.

"Julia Ziffer? Miss Hayashibara?" Shinji asked as they walked.

"German and Japanese voice actresses, Shinji. Unlike you, I actually pay attention to pop culture."

"And he fell for it?"

"I'm guessing that corporate muscleheads like him don't get out much."

They walked up a flight of stairs and came upon a pool of saline coolant several hundred meters long and wide, surrounded by catwalks with guard stations situated at intervals along the facility. Asuka approached a scientist overlooking the complex.

"We don't want to interrupt your work, but my students are visitors in the complex."

The researcher in charge was all too happy to take a break from the corporate grind and stood up to give them an introduction.

"Welcome! TYM manufactures physical prosthetics on both microscopic and gargantuan scale. As we design new devices, they must be test-deployed in massive scale before we can shrink them to human size. You students may have been born after the 'Second Impact' disaster; TYM was deeply involved in the construction of cybernetic machines used to reverse the effects of the Impact-"

"We were born after it, but we're quite well read regarding our history. You're referring to the 'Mass Production Evangelion Series', Unit 7 through 16, correct?"

"…Yes, I was. Very impressive observation, you're very well informed."

"We're caught up in the current events of the era. We know that the original production run, Eva Units 0 to 6, were not built on an assembly line."

"That's right. They were built –one at a time- at facilities other than TYM, but once the design was standardized, the production was moved here to increase capacity. Now that the production run is complete, we can revert our focus back to human augmentation. It's fortunate that we can adapt the designs for the Eva Series robots into human limbs."

= So TYM bases their prosthetics off of the MP Evas…There's our SEELE connection right there! = "What about firms such as Sarif Industries? They use original designs for their enhancements."

"They also cost two to three times the price per individual component."

"So by reusing a design from an 80-meter tall robot, you're able to undercut the rest of the market by that much!?"

"Not reusing, miss, adapting. There is a significant difference. We still have to spend significant research resources miniaturizing them, but it costs less than building microscopic components from conception -as Sarif does it."

"Well, thank you, sir. The connection between the Eva program and TYM is exactly the information we were hoping to receive." Kaworu emerged from behind Asuka and struck the overseer on the side of his head, knocking him unconscious.

"Mari, this glass isn't bulletproof. Prep your weapon and get ready to engage the security stations. Rei, what can you access from this terminal?"

Rei was focused intensely on the overseer's computer. "The ICE breaker software in the nanite biochip can flood any encryption algorithm with millions of attempts per second...the problem is the sheer number of binary values the encryption hardware in a modern central processing unit can generate, ranging from the predictable 4.2 Billion values on a 32-bit system, up to 1.7977 X 10^308th power in a 1024 bit encryption program."

"English, please?" Mari interrupted the blue genius.

"It can take a very long time to guess the numbers."

"And what will we be able to do once you 'guess your numbers'?"

"Exactly what we need to do. Unlock the doors, turn off the lights, maybe disable security cameras-"

"So...we'll have as much power as a janitor." Mari antagonized.

"It's more power than we have now."

"What do we do until then?"

"Wait, ensure our host doesn't die of asphyxiation, kill any Belltower soldiers who check on this office..."

They waited a few minutes.

"Anything we can do while you're being a computer nerd, Wondergirl?"

"If we leave this office, we'll be spotted and recorded by the security cameras in this facility, which will surely trigger an alarm. We don't have the power to engage every member of security in this skyscraper...Wait, I think I just broke in...I've read amongst the information security community that even experienced executives use simple passwords, but 0011 0000 0011 1001? Really?"

"Seriously Watergirl? A bunch of zeroes and ones? What the hell does that even mean?" Dammit! Mari was a soldier, not a mathematician!

"1-2-3-4-5"

"'12345'!? That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!"

"Admittedly, a human would not inject a string of numbers as its first guess, but a brute forcing program begins its flood with numeric values. It was probably well-protected against a human, who would have to sit at the desk and type. I don't have to do that because the nanite network allows me to count to extreme values very quickly." The computer logged in to the plant overseer's account and brought up the interface for the automation controls for the plant floor. "Amongst the automated controls are: Doors, security alarm grid, and 'access bridge'?"

"Maybe it's that thing up there." Mari pointed to a catwalk high above the office. Rei toggled the control labeled 'Draw'. The bridge moved across the ceiling to a door matrix above the teens' heads. "...Cool. Send me out on it." She picked up her weapon and noticed an industrial ceiling ladder after exiting the office from the catwalk door. Climbing up to the bridge level, Mari removed the overcoat the plugsuited teens wore in public and spoke into the microphone in her glove, radioing her teammates. "In a semiautomatic configuration, I can put three shots into the air in a second, but I'll need a spotter. Any volunteers?"

Rei answered. "I have a solution." She opened the primary security interface and rotated the camera network to look down into the coolant pool. "If this facility was really used to construct Units 07 through 16, then that liquid will either be LCL or a simple deionized saline solution." She removed the labcoat, emptied the contents of her tunic's pockets onto the desk, and handed her customized FR-27 to Shinji. "Take over at this console." She stood and turned to leave.

"Rei, I know what you're thinking, and it's crazy."

"So? Stay here."

"Unlike some people, I don't like crazy."

"That's why I'm leaving you in the office." She walked out, climbed the ladder, enabled the AquaLung and her thermal vision enhancement, and dove into the coolant. The cameras tracked the descent and security offices burst open, armored Belltower personnel and mechanical TYM security pouring out to cross the catwalks and surround the splash.

"Watergirl, you just lived up to your nickname." Mari rested her SCAR's bipod over the safety railing, and showed a menacing fanged grin to the densely packed collection of mercenaries, shouting and repeating orders in Chinese.

'Was that a victim!?'
'Looked like a fucking Olympic Dive!'
'Quit discussing and extract that woman! We don't have time to argu-'

"Boom, headshot."

'Gunfire!' * BOOM *
'Security Brea-' *SPLATTER *
'Where is it-' * MULTI KILL *
'CONTACT! 6 'o clock hig-' *SILENCE *
'SNIPER-' *SNIPED *
'SHOOTER-' * SHOT *
'CRAZED GUNMAN-' * GUNNED DOWN *

"I am NOT a Crazed Gunman, I'm an ASSASSIN!" * BANG * "Yes, there's a difference, Princess! One's a job and the other's mental sickness! Shinji, you extend the bridge and move out, NOW! The guards are down but there's still two autonomous security drones patrolling the perimeter."

"And how do you expect us to get around them?"

"I don't know, run?"

"Seriously!? They're drones with machine guns!"

"We could disable them." Rei swam to a conduit pipe, grabbed hold and climbed up from the water onto the catwalk, and stepped over the corpses, finding handgun ammunition, UN Credit chips, and police gas grenades on the more heavily armed security.

"How?" Shinji looked from the office to the two catwalks along the perimeter of the coolant reservoir. The bots were at opposite ends of the walkways, gun barrels pointed down the aisles; aiming wouldn't even be a concern, as the line of fire would cut down anything on the walkway.

"The robots will be controlled by a security hub, and there are several of them in this facility. They are hardened against gunfire, but they'll target anything that attacks them. Mari, place a round into the robot on my side of the reservoir."

"And get pumped full of lead!? Girl, you crazy!"

"I don't intend to allow that to happen, now do it."

The heavy, armor piercing 7.62 millimeter round, despite being a popular and exceedingly lethal cartridge, did little against the titanium-plated robot. It rose from its position, compacted into the vague shape of a cube, up into a complex wheeled vehicle sporting a three-barreled, rotating heavy rifle.

"Rei, that only made it angry!" The machine took aim at the catwalk above and poured its barrage of fire into the walkway, the rounds chewing up the metal framework currently protecting the bespectacled young woman as she attempted to dodge the fire. "ARE YOU TRYING TO GET ME KILLED-…Wait, what!?"

Almost as soon as the robot began firing, it ended its assault, retracted into its normal, docile configuration, and rebooted.

"Watergirl, what did you do!?"

"After you redirected its fire, I ran to the nearest security office and accessed the security computer hub via one of our fallen adversaries' accounts. I was then able to add our portrait into the robot's IFF software, and –more importantly- remove the identification database for TYM's security staff."

"Once again Rei, English or Japanese, whichever you prefer."

"The robots are ours."

"Oh. Cool. So, the threat level as of now, is?"

"Nonexistent. Everybody rendezvous at the west security office nearest to the foreman's room."

Shinji, Asuka and Kaworu climbed down the service ladder to the catwalk floor. Mari returned from her sniper's nest to gather in the security office for this assembly area. They all looked over Rei's shoulder as she directed the two robots on a path out of the manufacturing area and into the data entry employees' cubicles of the next wing.

"That should give the security staff reason for concern. Silence, please."

The sound of gunfire and shouts of terror and pain bled through the distant halls of the facility.

"Now, we continue on. Our first task is to find an elevator."

Finding an elevator was more difficult than expected. The teens walked through the cube farm occupied by cowering employees and stepped over bullet-riddled victims of the robots' new programming, yet they hadn't yet come across any options to travel up the skyscraper.

Asuka came across a dying Belltower mercenary. She grabbed him by his head and interrogated him.

"You don't get permission to die yet, pig! Where is the elevator shaft?"

He wheezed and groaned around his gunshot wounds. "Y-…You aren't going…anywh-where…"

Asuka drew a hypostim and offered her pragmatism. "This little marvel of medicine will keep you alive and suffering. Either you tell us and you get the quick and painless way out, or you resist and we make your death last for hours."

He coughed blood. "T-take the corridor through filtration! The elevator there is for executives and safety inspectors to view our equipment…There! I-I've told you…now help me!" Asuka took mercy on the suffering man. The shot to his head was painless, and it killed him in less than one second.

Following the guard's instructions, the teens found themselves in an electrical room containing wiring routes and transformer boxes protected by barbed-wire fences.

"Hmmm…Safety inspectors would have to look at all of this stuff…but why would a manager in a suit and tie want to walk through all this greasy machinery?" Asuka looked at one of the transformer boxes, its radiator fans humming with electricity.

"Probably because we're being led into a trap." Shinji deadpanned. He opened the elevator door and they all shuffled inside. Riding it up to the highest level it offered, they found the doors opening before a checkpoint, home to Belltower mercenaries and a long line of employees waiting to have their identification checked.

Asuka whispered. "I've got an idea..." She cut into the line of employees somewhere around the middle of the pack, behind an old man that looked like some form of executive.

* SLAP *

"YOU PERVERTED BASTARD!" Everybody in the hallway was now looking directly at her. "I'm a college graduate, not some love doll! Do not even LOOK at me!"

Several of the guards now approached Asuka and the terrified man. "What is the problem here?"

"This old freak just couldn't resist shoving a hand through my labcoat and groping me…you know…down there!"

"And you are?"

"I'm a graduate intern! This bastard is treating me like a sex toy!"

"I…I did no such thing!" The suit was –rightly- terrified. He started receiving stares of condemnation from the employees around him. "I've never seen this girl before!"

"All the easier to assault me, then, right!?"

"Leave me alone!"

"I'll leave you alone after security gets you out of my sight!"

The guards from the checkpoint decided to do just that. "Apologies, workers, but we will have to hold the line up while we detain this man." Two guards grabbed him by his arms and several more escorted them away from the checkpoint. Asuka smirked and waved the teens over, then turned her attention to the crowd.

"You all really want to wait for this to end? Skip the line and just go to work, I'm getting out of here." Quite a number of the stunned employees slowly began to nod and agree, and the crowd dispersed.

The teens gathered in the now-empty security checkpoint and looked at the hastily-abandoned computer terminal. Rei disabled the camera network for the floor, preventing an alarm from being raised in the future.

"This terminal has a floor plan for the facility…The next elevator leads to the upper tower…this building actually forms the center of the Hengsha Pangu, the table radiates out from it…Makes sense, considering TYM funds the majority of its construction. Above us are the cybernetics research facilities, then the executive suites."

They made their way to the next elevator, following Rei's map. This lift felt like it traveled upwards for an eternity, until they broke through the surface of the upper city. Lower Hengsha was eternally dark and dirty, as machine oil from the roof's labyrinthine network of machinery and plumbing leaked down the pillars and onto the structures of the surface. The upper city? It was a sculpted, living paradise. Glistening metal and glass towers rose cleanly from the ground, where they meshed with the cultivated forest and grass, in a human display of the marriage of nature and technology. The second supercity in the world was clearly proud of its artificial upper level.

The windows from the elevator shaft allowed the teens to look out over the panorama, Kaworu was the first to publish his thoughts. "Tokyo 3…The vast network of weaponry and equipment is on the top…The GeoFront is the pristine forest. It's like the two cities are inverted copies of one another."

"And if that's our evidence of the lifestyle of the upper city, everyone act professional. We don't know what we're going to encounter when we reach the laboratories…Keep your weapons concealed."

The doors opened on yet another panoramic view of the top, and the teens emerged to see suited executives and labcoated scientists gathered together in this public lounge. Two guards were situated at the far end of this hall, leaning on a vending machine and watching the new arrivals.

'Three civilians…two staff. Look like guests.'
'Just check their cards.'

One of the security strode down the hall to the five.

"ID Cards."

Rei and Asuka took the lead. "My associate and I have valid ID. These three are guests."

"Are they properly registered for today?"

"We brought them to security down below, and- " *CRASH *

The guard at the end of the hall screamed and choked as he struggled underneath the vending machine. Some employees ran to it to try and render aid while others panicked and ran.

"I-I don't know! He was just standing there, and then-"

"It just went down and crushed him! Somebody could use one as a weapon if they wanted to!"

"It's killing him!"

"Somebody do something!" "We're trying…It's…too…heavy-"

"Please help him!" "We can't! It's 300 Kilos!"

"Everybody. Stand. Back." A teenage boy and a blue haired college student appeared at the back of the crowd. "Rei, good to know we ate our breakfast this morning."

She nodded to him. They took stances on opposite sides of the trapped man, and lifted. It hurt, the weight was still so much…Their arms and faces became streaked with mixes of red blood from dilated vessels and glowing blue from the electrics working at the limits of their strength. The vending machine rose…slowly…the trapped man was lacerated and punctured from the glass window and the mechanics inside.

"Get…him…OUT!" The other guard arrived and drug the mangled human from underneath the machine, and Shinji and Rei dropped it to the ground with another crash. The employees gathered around them were jointly amazed and horrified. The pair caught their breath and checked their power levels…it took a lot out of them. A first aid crew arrived with a stretcher. TYM had extensive medical facilities of its own, but even the prompt treatment he would receive wouldn't be enough to eventually save the man, who would go on to die several hours after the accident.

"How…how did you two, teenagers? How did you do that?"

"We are prototype augmentees." The blue one answered. Their entourage arrived as did more security to block off the scene of the accident and disperse the crowd. The guard checking their ID's arrived.

"You kids-"

"Don't thank us. If you had mechanical personnel on this floor they'd be able to do it, too."

"Well, sure, but-"

"Take care of all of them." Shinji pointed to the crowd, many of the employees still in various stages of panic.

"You're right! We owe you for this." He paid the group no mind as they left the scene.

"Lucky break for us…" Asuka noted as the emergency crew hauled out the fatally-injured guard. "As long as they stay distracted…"

Kaworu made an admission. "I may have shoved, slightly…I didn't intend for it to kill a man, I just wanted it to fall over and make a loud bang."

The other four turned to stare at him.

"And nobody saw you form an AT Field? Kaworu, you sick, sick, genius."

The five walked into the research laboratory proper, various specialized offices networked throughout the hallways. They looked at the robotic arms in one room, a scientist would type a command into his terminal and an arm being tested would cleanly lift a barbell, loaded to its maximum weight.

"Just how strong is it?"

"Excuse me?" The scientist turned to the redhead that entered the room. "I didn't know they cleared guests today."

"We're not going to interrupt."

"No problem…The electric wire mesh making up the artificial muscle can support a linear factor of weight over 50 times its own. This two-Kilogram artificial Bicep can easily lift over 100 Kilos at will."

"Why aren't they in mass production?"

"Because the arm is significantly stronger than the human skeleton it's installed against. I'm here to create a skeletal reinforcement to allow this stronger prosthetic to function without ripping it off the user's shoulder."

"Sounds like a difficult problem."

"Yes, I may spend a good portion of my scientific career testing different treatments."

"What about the users who already have robotic arms?"

"Most of them are relatively weak, utilizing standard mechanical servo motors and a DC power supply. The electric mesh will behave as natural muscle fiber. The servos in a standard prosthetic allow it to move in a 2D plane. The mesh will offer the full human range of motion in an artificial prosthetic."

"How does Sarif do it?"

"The Americans have been focusing on shrinking the servos and making them more efficient. It's a faster, more convenient solution, but it doesn't evolve the science, as TYM's artificial muscle will…Would you young people like to see it?"

"What's 'it'?"

"The Lee Geng Theoretical Research Laboratory. It's where we develop the virtual models of our products before we begin machining them." The scientist took a break from his work and led the group through the sealed double doors of the high-security facility.

Scientists sat at computer workstations with wide, triple and quad monitor setups showing super-detailed graphics. The next, next generation of TYM's prosthetics were being designed in this room, and in the center of the facility, a glowing, levitating image of a human being, fully augmented. Every extremity, his chest and waist, his individual organs, all artificial.

"This is the final step to Human Immortality, being developed in this very room."

The other four stood, rather impressed at the merger of machine and man. Asuka decided to get a comment in. "A hologram? Cool, I'll admit, but I prefer having a real body."

"The hologram is just a graphic. What he really is, is a human who has had every natural weakness replaced. His heart? Microfibral muscle like I just showed you. His brain? We are in the process of growing a crystal that conducts electricity and can form artificial synapses. We weave it around the neural tissue in the brain, and as neurons die of age, the crystal continues to transmit the electric pulse that makes up human brain activity."

"What about, perhaps, microscopic robots that would do the same job?"

"Possible, but much more difficult to mass produce. This is a simpler solution. The crystal would not require an artificial supply of bioelectric energy to function."

"So it would be grown throughout the brain, and exist there, permanently?"

"Exactly, and it would require no post-insertion maintenance. The other artificial components would last for decades, and they can be repaired or replaced. Our model here is Jaron Namir, an Israeli soldier nearly killed in the fighting over there. He's in a coma, on life support until we can create his new, artificial body. When we do that, as long as he keeps himself maintained, he'll be the first immortal human."

"One of your colleagues told us that TYM built the Eva Robot Weapons."

"Oh, yes, but that was quite a while ago, and it's actually quite easy to grow a synthetic skeleton or synthetic muscle cell. Artificial organs are usually more difficult, but they don't require the incredible supply of proteins, calcium, other nutrients –what have you- to grow synthetic organs, especially on the gargantuan scale of an Eva robot. I assume you're familiar with the Asteroid strike?"

"We work with the people who used the Eva Units, so yes. Incredible, fascinating, no words match the scale you guys are shooting for, but we have a destination to reach, so we need to continue. Thanks for the sneak peek, Doc."

"Asuka, do you know where you're going?" Shinji asked her.

"We need to find out way up, so yes."

"Uhhh." The scientist interrupted. "Above us is the supercomputer floor, and nobody has permission to go in, except the system administrators. As a matter of fact, the entire elevator system above this level is off-limits to regular employees and guests."

"It's a good thing we're neither, then." Asuka stated. She pulled her concealed weapons and fired into the air, causing alarm sirens to sound off, employees to panic, and elicit a response from the level's security.

"ASUKA! You just started a fight with us out in the open!" The five teens clustered around Kaworu, who now encased them in a geometric orange shield.

Mari dropped down, opened her briefcase, and began her process of converting her weapon to its close-range configuration. Kaworu held the shield and Rei took one of her specially-loaded magazines, threw her labcoat to the ground, and revealed her stolen assault rifle, the new targeting computer attached to the rear gunsight. The computer projected a crosshair onto the sight, and the word 'ACTIVE' revealed itself. She began inching towards the limits of the AT Field, reacting with flashes of light and a metallic sound as the level's security attacked them. Mari extracted the long barrel from the SCAR and screwed in the close-range model. After tightening the screws on the upper receiver, Mari loaded the weapon and took a stance beside Rei.

"KAWORU, DROP THE FIELD!"

The two women sprinted to opposite sides of the room, both of them ducking under workstation desks, occasionally trying to lean out to look at their attackers, moving in from the corners of the room and the level above, connected by several spiral staircases. Rei held the rifle out of her cover and blindly waved it towards one of the attackers until a beeping tone sounded from the computer. She fired, and the fin-guided flechettes flew up and over the desk to puncture the Belltower mercenary's helmet.

"None of this would have happened if your people had never attacked NERV." She stated as she glanced out for a look at the dead opponent.

Mari laid out, flat on the ground underneath the workstation, to look at the insectoid legs of some of TYM's augmented security agents. She pulled the pin from an explosive grenade and rolled it in between more than one pair of legs. The explosion destroyed their mechanical limbs and caused the security to be thrown around the room in heaps. She leaped from her position to shoot one augmentee that survived the explosion, he was now crawling along the ground, pulling himself along by his hands, struggling to aim a revolver at her when he was finally killed.

"Holy crap, it's like fighting a tank!"

Asuka shouted the actual purpose of her idea to her fellow NERV personnel. "Find somebody in charge! They'll have the security access we need!" She took Kaworu's shotgun from him and ran out from the shield as he briefly lowered it a second time. "Look for rank and grade on a uniform, get a close look at ID badges, do something!"

She noticed that a group of security would get choked into a line, and crouched behind the door of one of the stairways from the upper level of the lab and began blowing holes in Belltower soldiers as they ran, single file, down the staircase. "At this rate-" * PUMP * "-we're going to kill-" * PUMP * "-everybody in the building before-" * PUMP * "-we find the guy we need!" She stuck her leg into the doorway and tripped the next soldier over onto his face. He scrambled back to his feet to receive a kick to his groin. Asuka rolled him over onto his back and grabbed him by his hair.

"WHO'S YOUR C.O.?!" She stomped on his hand as he tried to reach for a weapon.

"GYAAAHH! He-He's not with us!" * COUGH * "His security office is on the next level! I-I surrender- AAUGH!"

She kicked him in his chest and threw him to the floor, wheezing and hacking up mucus.

Kaworu and Shinj split up and began following the women across the lab. Kaworu caught up with Asuka as she climbed the now-empty staircase, and awkwardly stared at her…

"I've killed Angels and Humans, Nagisa, don't act surprised when I give these fleas what they deserve!" She handed the shotgun back to him and drew her TMP's. "We exit this lab via the second-floor hallway and find the next security office. The guard commander is there with access to the executive levels!"

Shinji, Rei, and Mari –all having heard the message- followed the pair out the doors on the higher level of the bloodstained laboratory.

Shinji read the nearest sign.

"DATA CORE.
ARMORY & TEST RANGE
ELEVATOR: SECURE

I think we're at the right place. Find the security office and let's get inside."

"How do we tell if this glass is bulletproof?" Mari asked as she peeked out from around a corner of the hall to look at the security office. This facility took up a large portion of this floor, yet there was only a single agent inside, shouting orders to keep searching for the attackers into his office telephone.

"As opposed to 'busting in'," Rei pointed to Shinji, "follow me."

The pair ran as quickly as their dwindling power supply allowed, moving to the two separate side doors of the room. They simultaneously knocked, the commander took notice and began shouting into his phone again before drawing a weapon and moving to the door occupied by the skinny boy wearing a trenchcoat –presumably to make himself look bigger than he actually was.

The door opened, his handgun found itself on the floor, a Tazer unloaded its electrical charge into the security commander's neck, and Shinji coughed and spit up copious amounts of mucus as the Zyme's accelerating effect wore off. Shinji dropped to his knees and spit some more as Asuka directed Kaworu to carry the commander to a nearby men's room.

He coughed and choked before his vision cleared. "WHERE AM I?!" He roared out, only to find himself held, his arms in a painful position, by an unnaturally strong boy with red eyes and silver hair.

"The mirror and sink in front of you should've tipped you off, dumbass. Our three friends are making sure we have a nice, quiet bathroom to ask you a few questions in."

"I won't tell you terrorists anything!"

"Oh, we're the terrorists? Was I a terrorist when a Belltower sniper shot me in Berlin? Were Shinji and Rei terrorists when their CIVILIAN SUBWAY TRAIN was attacked?" She slapped him, and he tried to fight back, but couldn't move against Kaworu's Angelic strength.

"I've got no idea what you're going on about. My men work in this tower, and this tower alone!"

"Well, then I'll take it out on you anyway. You need to understand something: This is going to happen either way. You tell a lie, you get dunked. You act up, you get dunked. You are uncooperative in any way, you get dunked. If I feel like giving the order, you get dunked."

"Go to Hell!"

"…Kaworu, humans drown after six minutes underwater, right?"

"For a non-diver, yes."

"Seven minutes, then."

The Belltower Commander for TYM found himself splashed down into the full sink of water, the strong arm behind him holding his head below the water level, the faucet running full blast, flooding water into the floor below. He gurgled out and struggled, realizing that these teenagers were willing to resort to torture to get what they want.

"You see, Asshole. We were perfectly willing to leave well enough alone after all that Angel shit happened, but you pricks just wouldn't let us live in peace. I survived a sniper –from Belltower. Nagisa here got poisoned –by somebody saying something about a 'Dragon Lady'…Ring any bells?"

Kaworu dragged the man up from the water. "OKAY, OKAY!" * HACK, COUGH * "The Dragon Queen is our security callsign for Zhao Yun Ru!"

"Good, you're seeing things our way. Give us every access code we need."

"N-NO!"

"Splashy splashy, Kaworu!"

The man screamed as he experienced the act of drowning a second time. Knowing they needed the man's intelligence more than his corpse, Kaworu pulled him from the water after five minutes.

"Shinji and Rei? They got it the worst of the bunch. A bunch of your guys in FULL FUCKING COMBAT EQUIPMENT blew up their train –with them still inside! Two kids! A railway train! ROCKET PROPELLED GRENADES! Want to know how they're still alive? The guys over at Sarif saved their lives! They actually came to Japan from America to save Shinji and Rei, and you pieces of shit are the ones that tried to kill them! Splash, Kaworu!"

"NO! GOD NO! AAAUGH-" * GURGLE *

"WE CAN KEEP THIS UP ALL DAY, WORM!" Asuka's hellish roar actually caused Shinji, Rei, and Mari to stick their heads in to the bathroom to get a look at the frightening scene in front of them.

"Asuka, this…this is going too far-"

"If he cooperates, there's a slim chance he might live to wake up tomorrow. That's more consideration than these bastards were going to give you and me!"

Kaworu pulled him from the water. "ALRIGHT!" * CHOKE * "Take-take me to my desk…I'll give you everything." The mercenary's face was broken and weak, not to mention sopping wet.

"And if you try to double cross us-"

"I won't 'live to wake up tomorrow'…I heard you."

"Good boy."

Kaworu dragged him back to the room. Asuka kept the shotgun pointed at him through the entire process, while the commander wrote the administrative access codes to a portable drive. He handed the drive to Asuka.

"You…you have my word. Those are all valid codes. You won't kill me, I know, but when she finds out…I think I'd rather be dead."

"That can be arranged, you know." She struck him on the side of his neck, knocking him unconscious.

The team unlocked the armory attached to the commander's post. Apart from the standard handgun and SMG ammunition that the corporate security is found wielding, a second lane was open, and it extended back, nearly to the outer wall of the skyscraper. Two items stood out: a long-barreled rifle attached by some form of hose to a sleek metal backpack, and an awkward implement that looked more like a bent fork than a weapon. The teens looked down the range, and Asuka tried to hoist the backpack weapon, and failed.

"What the hell!? It weighs, like, a ton!"

"Perhaps it is intended for use by those with strength enhancements?" Rei walked up behind her. The color of her arms shifted to a slight blue tinge, she handed her rifle to Shinji, and she struggled to strap the backpack onto her small frame, but she stood with straight posture and held the barrel in her hands, and there was something, to Shinji, completely irresistible about watching Rei hoist and wield a power weapon.

Kaworu read the inscription on the backpack's surface. "Railgun, Tungsten Electromagnetic."

"Railgun?" The group asked as one.

"See if there is a power switch on the backpack." Rei aimed at the faraway target and backdrop, and altered the weapon from SAFE to FIRE.

Kaworu found the switch, and the backpack began to hum with the sound of several cooling fans. A small monitor on the barrel lit with the number '25', and Rei put her finger on the trigger.

"Stand Clear of the line." Rei squeezed, and the air was blown out of the room as the tungsten rod tore from the weapon and shattered the target and the safety backdrop.

The team all stared, dumbfounded.

"Zhao is going to love this stuff!" Mari shouted as she picked up the strange weapon in the other firing line and read the label on its side. "Portable Energy Projection System…ever heard of one?" She looked at her other teammates, they all shook their heads.

She stood in the firing line, aimed at the target, and a glowing, sparking electrical bubble emerged from the fork-like barrel and traveled down the range to the target. The bubble burst, and arcs of electricity burst out in every possible direction upon impact with the target. The teens smelt the ionized air and felt the hair on their arms stand as the voltage passed through the air.

"Here, Kaowru, it's a lightning gun!" She handed the weapon to the Angel and walked back to the security terminal. "The door to the Data Core server room is open and the elevator to the executive suites is in the same hallway. Let's see if any of these passwords will get us on their server system, we can probably find some good stuff."

The signs to the Data Core room led the Children to a set of cleanroom double doors that filtered and circulated the air in the facility. The area was protected by a laser grid that focused on a revolving mirror and projector in the center of the room.

"Any idea on how to deal with the lasers?"

"…As a matter of fact, yes." Shinji drew one of the black-market EMP grenades from a pocket in his coat, pressed the button on the casing for the weapon, and threw it across the floor to the emitter in the room. Arcs of lightning burst from the small device and the laser grid emitter began to accelerate and intermittently cease fire until what was left was a rapidly-spinning, haywire light device like one would see at a rock concert.

The Data Core interface was kept behind a blast shield inside an even more protected zone of the server room. The team arrived at the small office…There really was no need for the strange monitor layout, other than some clever design decision. The computer screens were arranged via extensive decorative metal brackets strewn about the room, all focused on a central platform where a user could stand and be immersed in data. Frankly, a desk with a keyboard and mouse would be more efficient.

Asuka plugged the portable drive into a port on one of the monitors, and the system welcomed the administrative user. A synthetic voice asked her for a command.

"Uhhh…"

'Apologies, 'Uhhh' is not a recognized command.'

"I know that! Wait! Search 'SEELE'."

'Documents regarding 'SEELE' not found. Extend search to Internet locations?'

"No…Search 'Instrumentality'"

'Documents regarding 'Instrumentality' purged approximately 96 days ago. Attempt Document Recovery?'

"Uhhh…Estimated time to completion?"

'Estimated time to completion: 17 Hours.'

"Uh, no. Search for 'Lorenz'"

"Encrypted MP4 file regarding Lorenz found. Decrypt and run?"

"Yes."

Synthetic S2 Core miniaturization is complete, prepping surgical bots for implant.

And the spare Core?

Still on hand.

Is the Chairman ready?

Indeed.

I feel for Lorenz, really. He's been planning for this moment since the discovery of the Scrolls.

And yet, the Scrolls did not predict the survival of the Final Angel, nor the Death of Lillith –especially death due to the son of Ikari and his sheer force of will.

That surprises even me. Ikari manipulated his son to the point that he would be a living tool. The hammer that drove the nails into humanity's coffin. The son broke that mold, a feat of strength that I still cannot believe.

You think he did it on his own?

…The Unit-00 Pilot, the other nano-aug prototype. She survived as well, even against Ikari's plan for her death. She was becoming too unpredictable, so he never would've allowed her to live beyond the Fifteenth Angel. The son destroyed that prophecy as well.

About the son, and the Unit-00 Pilot, Sarif's information security chief has prevented TYM's contract hacker from breaking their security. This fellow goes by the handle 'nucl3arsnake' and has blocked Windmill at every turn.

So you haven't been able to steal the design for the Nanite Biochip.

No. Still, at the moment, the implantation is more important.

The video feed shifted to an operating theatre. An old man wearing some form of augmented reality visor was draped on the operating bed, a network of robotic arms prepared to perform surgery.

The Fruit of Knowledge finds its home in the mind. The Fruit of Life dwells in the heart. He is the first to lay claim to both. Aquinas spoke of the mythical City on the Hill. With this power, we will be crowned its kings…

…Better than kings. Gods.

The Children were shocked and appalled when the surgical bots removed Lorenz's heart and severed the vessels running to it. The surgery bot then placed a small, orange sphere inside the cardiac cavity and sewed the arteries and veins into certain locations on the sphere. The surgery bots were pulled away and the sphere glowed a bright red light and caused Lorenz's incisions to heal and his chest cavity to close. He stood, of his own free will, and turned to look at the camera.

"This is…"

"Bad. Is that really-"

Kaworu answered her. "Yes, Asuka. The S2 Cores of the Mass Production Evangelions have been miniaturized and used for implant into the SEELE members. To eliminate them, we must attack the S2 user with an AT Field."

"Only you can do that!"

"Then I'd best be prepared for battle..."

The elevator up to the Executive suites arrived at a museum of sorts. Examples of TYM's expertise in the field of medicine, and displays of the various mechanical augmentations they designed and sold filled the hallway approaching the CEO's penthouse, clearly intended to impress and educate when Zhao was hosting guests. When they reached the door, Asuka stopped the team and held them there.

"Listen up. I say we abandon all pretense of an investigation and just put a tungsten rod in her head, right Wondergirl?"

"I suppose that can be arranged." Rei adjusted the backpack.

They entered the penthouse. It was everything the home of a multibillionaire would expect it to be. Greco-Roman architecture made up the design of the real estate, floor to ceiling windows flooded the area with light, and complex geometric sculptures decorated the room.

The five teens crept forward, approaching the staircase up to a landing making home to Zhao's business office…She wasn't there. The office area looked similar to Sarif's. Several monitors were tuned to the security layout of the skyscraper, more than one had an up-close view of TYM's research programs, and at least one television was tuned to a stock floor report; TYM was still ahead of Sarif, in profit if not quality.

Another staircase led to Zhao's living quarters. They ascended and stopped at the door. Rei and Shinji couldn't make out a human outline due to the object radiating infrared light in the center of the room.

"It's possible she has a space heater, but I don't know how our vision augmentation is receiving this much interference-"

"Welcome, Children." A voice sounded throughout the facility. "I must say, you all made it farther than Page expected. He told me to allow you to make it to Hengsha and you'd all lose here. With NERV's strength broken, the Singularity will complete without any interference."

"So it's a 'Singularity' now? Instrumentality was too hard for you SEELE fucks?!" Asuka shouted to the ceiling.

"Oh, we very much intend to rule mankind as gods, but data communication is far easier than de-evolution and re-evolution."

"And how the hell are you in any way qualified to be a ruler, god, or a fucking secretary!? You don't get to decide the future for anyone!"

"I'm qualified to rule over mankind because I have the power to do so."

The large blast door to her living space rose from the floor. Rei targeted the young Asian woman, seated with her back to the teens, at a desk in the center of the room.

The tungsten rod, moving at eight times the speed of sound, shattered against the orange hexagon behind Zhao.

She stood and turned to them. She held a small orange sphere in her hand; it excreted a miniscule amount of a red liquid in her grasp.

"LCL." Rei stated, recognizing her mother's blood. "That is a miniature S2 Core."

"Indeed. An AT Field, in my very hands. An immovable object, ready to stop the unstoppable force."

She stepped forward, to everybody's surprise, and thrust the Core into Kaworu's chest. The boy screamed and dropped to the floor, writhing in pain.

"KAWORU!" Mari screamed. She rushed over to the fallen Angel's side as the other teens turned to open fire on the now defenseless woman…

She should have been defenseless, but the blast door fell to the floor before they could fire.

"KAJI!" Asuka shouted into the plugsuit radio. "MISSION FAILURE! MISSSION FUCKING FAILURE! It's a panic room! She's got a goddamn panic room!"

"I'm nearing the city limits, now, Asuka. Don't be surprised. David Sarif and the Professor both have one, too! Forget about Zhao, just make sure you did some damage to TYM-"

"We Didn't! They-they made an S2 Core…it's a weapon now! IT'S KILLING KAWORU!"

"We've got more problems than that!" Shinji shouted over everybody. TYM security poured into the facility, an entire army of them.

"FUCK ALL OF YOU! YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!" Mari shouted as she picked the PEPS from Kaworu's side. She aimed and launched a ball of electricity right into the crowd of soldiers, the electrical explosion instantly acting on every soldier with the effect of a Taser. With them all stunned to the ground, she ripped Rei's FR-27 from Shinji's side and placed the computer crosshair over every soldier, pouring guided, automatic fire into the pile of unconscious security. She emptied the 30-round magazine and reached into Rei's tunic to pull out another, shredding the dead bodies with 30 more flechettes before switching back to her own weapon and putting semiautomatic rounds into the corpses.

Shinji pulled the weapon from her hand. "MARI, STOP, STOP! They're dead! That won't save Kaworu! Set…plant your high explosive grenades at the base of the door…let's try to blow it open. If anybody deserves that treatment, it's Zhao."

The blast door lived up to its name. Five grenades dented and burned the structure, but it held.

"Rei?"

"Absolutely, Shinji. Clear the area."

The railgun discharged. The door held, again.

"…WHAT!?"

"KAJI WHERE ARE YOU!?"

"I'm descending onto Zhao's landing pad. Two Page Boxguard robots patrol this area, so-"

"We've got EMP Grenades. Kaworu's got…I can't explain it…there's an S2 Core stuck to his chest and it's weakening? Poisoning him? I don't know what's happening!" Even with the distortion over the radio, Kaji could tell Asuka –Asuka- was terrified.

"Carry him out if you have to-"

"ALREADY TAKEN CARE OF, RYOUJI!" Mari growled. She was carrying Kaworu in a bridal hold, and still had 'that look' about her face. She was ready to kill any body at any moments' notice.

Even the gargantuan Page Industries Boxguard robot can't overcome an EMP attack, and the two robots securing the landing pad fell quickly to Shinji's explosives. The VTOL lowered to surface level and opened its doors; the teens clambered inside, trying to keep Kaworu comfortable as they all got themselves locked down. Kaji launched upwards, climbing out of Hengsha airspace, only for the bird to shock and rattle as an airburst missile went off within its kill range.

"Shit, we've got bandits! One, two, three! 2 o'clock, 6 o'clock low and 7 o'clock low! You kids hang on!" Kaji ended his ascent and rotated the VTOL engines forward, flying conventionally. He gripped the controls and rolled the bird over, diving into a Split-S. The three armed Belltower aircraft pursued him down to city level, flying between rows of skyscrapers and directly over one of the roadways built atop the Pangu. The unarmed aircraft began taking gunfire as Kaji attempted to outrun Belltower in the close confines of the highway. "We can't take this much damage! We're an unarmed transport!" he shouted over the radio across multiple public channels.

"Inspector Kaji."

"What is it, Rei, I'm kind of busy-"

"Open the loading door."

"What!?"

"Do it."

"Alright! Alright!" The VTOL's side opened. The teens were blown around in their harnesses as the 400 knot wind blew in their faces. Rei took aim…Miss. Miss.

"Slow down and fly straight!" Miss. She looked at the monitor: 20 shots remain. Miss. 19.

"Shinji, reach into my pocket and feed me a Zyme vial."

"That's kind of gross, Rei." Asuka said through her radio.

"Watch." Shinji opened the bottle and poured it into Rei's mouth. The drug slowed the world down to the speed of glacier, and Rei took aim again. The unfortunate Belltower aircraft was torn to shreds from the inside out as the Mach 8 rod pulled the nose of the airplane out through its tail. The remaining two began to pursue the VTOL more closely and Rei targeted another. The wing was torn from the body, the remainder of the doomed aircraft spiraled in to the surface of the Pangu. "Third target is fleeing. Repeat, bandit 3 is bugging out...I feel sick." She said as the drug wore off.

"I think we can drop radio silence." Kaji said as he reached the ocean. "NERV-Japan...NERV-Japan...No response? Seriously? Wake up, Ritsuko...Kids, looks like NERV doesn't want to give us a homecoming party..."