In which Maya arrives

All right, so. A long time ago I wrote a 40+ chapter epic that was somewhat popular but ultimately fell apart. This was tragic. To correct this horrible tragedy I am going to start up again. However, the old fic is abandoned.

For starters, who will remember forty chapters after like a year of absence? That's crazy. So we will begin again, with a few rewrites here and there, as a nice refresher course for the old fans (if there are any left) and a good jumping on point for the new fans (who will hopefully be less intimidated by ONE chapter). Here we go! Chapter One, begin!

"It wasn't a dark and stormy night. It should have been..." - Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

The train pulled into the station, and a lone girl got off of it. Any observer would have said for certain that she was the only one on the platform, let alone disembarking. But there were no observers. No one was present for several miles.

It wasn't that the train station was abandoned, for indeed it was well-maintained. The rails still glistened in the sun, vending machines were lined up and fully-stocked, the displays above the platform announced the state of emergency in bright red lettering.

Maya Ibuki didn't like this state of affairs at all. Pushing back a few bangs of brown hair, and straightening her uniform just in case someone was watching, she left the station, looking around nervously. She didn't even think she heard any birds.

"Hello?" she called out at the front doors. Nothing.

After a minute of absolute silence, she shuddered slightly and began a mad dash to the parking lot. Several cars sat, abandoned. Maya looked in each window, but saw no one. Still there was silence, excepting her feet, the sound of her bag bouncing against her, and her breathing, which was slowly picking up speed.

After she'd thoroughly inspected each and every car, she angrily pulled out a letter from her bag. With care, she unfolded it and began to read it aloud. Her voice was soft, perhaps because she always spoke that way, perhaps because of fear that being loud would attract too much attention. There wasn't any visible danger, but isolation was a human fear that Maya had not moved beyond.

"Ibuki Maya, your presence in Tokyo-3 on the date of July 11th is requested by the Japanese government. Failure to appear will result in your arrest. Enclosed is a train ticket, with the time and station of boarding printed upon it. Transportation beyond the rail network will be arranged. Nerv Headquarters."

A ticket had been enclosed, and she'd used it to get this far. Now what? Transport should be here, or at least, the letter implied it would be (it didn't technically say when it was arranged, Maya had to admit), but there was no reason to suspect that Nerv would simply abandon her. She decided that the state of emergency must have affected them too, which meant obvious trouble.

Uncertainly, Maya left the parking lot, hesitating for a moment at the sidewalk before she remembered which direction Tokyo-3 was. The railway lines didn't even go as far as it; she was in another city, though she wasn't sure which. The ticket had been unlabeled, and the station made no announcements.

"I've got a long walk ahead of me," she said as happily as she could. "At least I wore tennis shoes." So she began to walk towards the sun, which was slowly approaching sunset.

4158:09:19

The letter had arrived at five o'clock on the first of July, and though Maya didn't realize it, it was effectively a countdown until the end of the world. Two hundred and sixty-seven hours exactly until an Angel arrived. Four thousand, three hundred and ninety-nine hours remained before it was all over.

Six minutes after the letter was placed in the mailbox, Maya's grandmother retrieved it and all the rest of the post, and went to put them on the kitchen table. She sighed to herself, because even though Maya had been privileged enough to not know her own destiny, the family had known from the day Maya's mother had abandoned her on their doorstep.

The old woman looked at her husband. "It's time," she said sadly. He nodded, and the two of them left the kitchen and knocked on Maya's bedroom door.

She opened it and bowed politely. "Is it dinner already?" she asked. "It's barely after five..."

"No dear," her grandmother replied. "You received some very important mail. We thought you should take a look at it."

Maya left her room and slid the door shut, looking quizzically at both of her grandparents. She didn't often receive mail; it was expensive and the internet was usually faster. Slowly, Maya walked into the kitchen, both of her grandparents following. She wondered how important this mail was that her family would behave so oddly.

The kitchen was a small one, square one, with barely enough room for the table, some counters, a sink, and the oven. Despite this, Maya's grandmother had found a way to personalize it by hanging photos on the small amount of wall space available, most of them of the family. Maya's deceased mother was the subject of many of the photographs, well over half of them.

Maya had asked why once, when she'd been very small. Her grandfather had frowned for a moment, and then said simply, "Death isn't the sort of thing you can ever forget." Every house Maya visited showed evidence of this. Small shrines were erected to family members or friends, most of whom had died fifteen years ago, on the same day. It was as if every home was at least part-graveyard.

The letter sat on top of the pile, menacing in its own right. Maya fumbled for a moment with the envelope and finally tore it open. Its contents fell to the table. Maya read them.

"What?" she asked very silently. "They want me to go to Tokyo-3? Why?"

She turned, but neither grandparent answered. Over the next week and a half, despite Maya's pesterings, they wouldn't. But they did make it clear she had to go, and helped her pack. They even threw a going-away party, which Maya's few friends attended, crying. She'd said her goodbyes, and set out. The train ride had been a pleasant if lonely one; no conductor nor passenger were in sight after Maya boarded. The arrival was perhaps less enjoyable.

4158:19:14

Half an hour of walking later, with the sun now harshly illuminating the towers of the nearby (but so far away) city, Maya discovered that her strategy had several flaws. She had barely gotten anywhere, it was entirely possible her ride had shown up late, and while she wasn't tired, the constant paranoia over the situation was beginning to drive her nuts. She hadn't seen a single person along the road, nor heard them. The only sound were her footsteps on the hot concrete of the roadway.

But then Maya heard the first noise that she hadn't caused herself. Above her, several airplanes flew by in close formation. They looked military, and moved faster than any plane Maya had ever seen. Because of that, soon they were out of hearing range, and loneliness settled back in.

"This is ridiculous," Maya said shortly thereafter, to keep the silence at bay. "What on Earth could have caused an entire city to be evacuated for half an hour? If it was so bad, surely the city would be destroyed by now!"

The silence seemed all the louder for her talking. Maya gulped again, and decided that talking probably would just make her feel worse, so she fell silent, choosing to shield her eyes and face from the sunset instead.

After another half hour, she spoke again. "Come on…" she muttered to herself. "There's nothing to be scared of. It's just-" She paused and swung around suddenly, convinced she'd just heard something.

A boy stood a few meters away, watching her coldly and intently. He had dark hair that nearly went down to his eyes and wore strange glasses, both of which made it feel as though he were staring at her. He reached out his hand, slowly. Maya took a step towards him, but blinked.

No one stood there once her eyes were open. The streets were empty and it seemed they always had been. Maya briefly considered the possibility that she'd just gone crazy, hallucinating human company out of loneliness. But that was ridiculous. She'd only been alone for most of the day.

"This place is creepy," she decided finally, shaking her head. She turned around again and kept going, though she stopped every few steps to look all around her. Desolate. Not even the cicadas were out today.

Finally, she saw something reassuring. A car was zooming down the streets, coming in her direction. She smiled and waved. The car stopped beside her and the door opened. "Ibuki?" the driver asked, smiling.

Maya nodded to the driver, a brunette with blue eyes. She wore a simple red uniform and cap, and she smiled quite warmly. "I'm Captain Soryu," she said. "Our planes spotted you, so I came here as quickly as I could." She laughed a little, embarrassed. Her face seemed perfect, soft but with a sharp bone structure.

"It took you over an hour!" Maya replied, completely disbelieving.

Soryu shrugged. "It took me awhile to get here, okay? I was supposed to arrive here the same time you were, but my train got a bit waylaid." She reached into a purse on her other side and pulled out an ID card. "Here," she said. "So you know that I am who I say I am."

Maya sighed as they accelerated off. The Captain clearly had no conception of speed limits or, if she did, didn't feel the need to pay attention to them while the roads were this abandoned.

"What's going on?" Maya asked. "Why is the city so empty?"

Soryu darkened. "An Angel attacked today," she said. "The city has been evacuated because of it. We need to hurry."

Maya couldn't think of anything to say. An Angel. She could practically imagine the public service announcements in her head.

"Fifteen years ago, we were attacked via asteroid by an alien race," the announcer would say, "dubbed "Angels" for their catastrophic power. For seven years, we worked on recovering. But now, we are preparing for defense." That would be about the time that the Nerv logo would appear. "The best and the brightest of mankind from over a dozen nations, united together to save mankind." Then there'd be some videos of Nerv employees, all smiling and wonderful. "But they need *your* help. Join Nerv today!" Then finally, a picture of some guy would be displayed, the commander of Nerv or something.

The whole thing was stupid and badly written, but that's how all PSAs were, Maya thought. Propaganda at best, maybe.

"Do you know why you were called here?" Soryu asked after a few minutes of silence.

"No, ma'am." Maya didn't look at her, preferring the window instead. Captain Soryu was pretty (Maya felt rather envious of her overall appearance, which was far more exceptional than her own. Maya, fourteen, was definitely growing up, but her face still looked like a child) but it would be rude to stare.

Soryu didn't say anything for a while after that. Maya recognized it as the silence that came when adults had to say something that would be hard to take but didn't want to hurt the "kid" they were talking to. When she finally spoke up, her words were simply, "You're going to be doing a great service to mankind."

Maya knew that didn't bode well.

4156:54:27

Others might have been amazed when they entered the Geofront, but Maya wasn't. Again, all that came to mind were the public service announcements and brochures encouraging people to sign up. The Nerv pyramid was practically on the US dollar bill. She had to admit though; it was impressive they'd dug this out in just eight years.

Captain Soryu smiled at her as the car was let off the rails and into a parking garage. "We'll be at the meet-up point in no time."

"Meet-up?" Maya asked, still uncertain of what the actual plan was or the reason she'd been called here. She didn't have anything to do with the military.

"Yes. You're going to be meeting Commander Ikari, the man who runs Nerv."

"Wow…" Maya tried to sound enthused, but really couldn't muster anything.

"Yeah, you're pretty lucky!" Soryu exclaimed, completely fooled by Maya's transparent statements. "Not every kid gets this chance, you know!"

'That wasn't the kind of 'wow' I meant', Maya thought bitterly.

The rest of the ride was spent in silence, again. Somehow neither could find a good conversational topic to stick on, so Soryu compensated by blaring the radio instead. Maya was relieved when they got to the underground garage, but less so when they began their hike into the facility. Every hallway was gray and uniform, with English and Japanese signs littered across them, unhelpfully pointing in a thousand locations at once. Worse, the captain was navigating randomly at best, turning left, right, randomly turning back the way they went... It was like being in a maze.

"We're lost, aren't we?" Maya asked as they went down a set of stairs and found themselves back in the parking garage.

"This doesn't make sense!" the captain said angrily. "We haven't gone UP at any point!"

"Some of those hallways were sloped," Maya noted.

"Still!" Captain Soryu looked around accusingly at the garage around them before she saw something that interested her. "Ah! An elevator! We'll take that!" She grabbed Maya by the arm and pulled her to it.

When the doors opened, a blue-haired woman of about the captain's age wearing a lab coat was standing in the elevator. Her eyes widened when she saw Captain Soryu, but quickly returned to a dull look, staring ahead at the two lost individuals in front of her. She seemed bored, almost.

"Rei!" Soryu shouted. "I haven't seen you in forever!" She let go of Maya and embraced the other woman ecstatically. "How are you?"

Rei smiled very slightly, though Maya noticed that none of her other expressions changed. The smile itself seemed thin and perhaps slightly forced. "I am well. I did not know you were transferred here."

Maya joined the two women in the elevator and pressed the "Close" button, standing awkwardly between them as they chatted. She wasn't sure if she should contribute to the conversation, or simply remain silent. Reunions were uncomfortable. She decided ultimately just to shut up.

"Oh, yeah. Well, Shinji-sensei requested me." Maya wondered who Soryu was talking about, but didn't ask. Presumably a higher-up of some sort.

Rei's eyebrows rose. "I didn't know… but…" she sighed. "He seems to have gotten everyone from that class here." She smiled again, just as slight. "I'm sure we will work together well."

The elevator doors opened, leading Maya into a new life.

4156:30:46