Chapter 29 - The Golden Doom, Part 2 of 2
Emergency lights blared throughout the command center as everyone within NERV HQ tried to respond to the crisis unfolding in front of them.
"How in the world did an Angel get inside?!" Fuyutsuki inquired over the phone.
"We have no idea at all, Sir," Ritsuko replied on the other end. "This was something none of us saw coming."
"Save it," Fuyutsuki said as he addressed the techs in front of him. "Physically isolate Central Dogma and quarantine it from Sigma Unit."
"Yes, Sir," Shigeru responded as he and the others did so. "Initiating physical isolation of Central Dogma; quarantining from Sigma Unit in progress."
[Suggested music: "Don't open it! (Intrada version)", Jerry Goldsmith, The Shadow OST, beginning at 1:49.]
Back in the Pribnow Box, Misato took command of the situation immediately. "All personnel, we're abandoning the Box! Evacuate now!" Her focus then turned to Ritsuko, who was staring with a determined fascination at the Angel spreading its way throughout the testing tank. "That means you too, Ritsuko! Move it!" Shaken from her reverie, Ritsuko immediately followed her friend as they swiftly ducked out of the Pribnow Box, just as the Angel's spread shattered the glass, causing the Box to be flooded with water.
Up on the bridge, Commander Ikari was taking care of another matter as he spoke on his station's phone. "I'm aware-please take care of it anyway." After hanging up, he turned his attention to Shigeru. "Stop the alarm, Lt. Aoba."
"Shutting off alarm, Sir," the long-haired tech replied.
"Report it to both the Japanese government and the Committee that this was only a malfunction in the alarm system," Gendo further ordered.
"Yes, Sir!"
Makoto then reported a concerning new update in the situation at hand. "Contamination's spreading further-it's now all over Sigma Unit via the Pribnow Box!"
Fuyutsuki voiced his concerns quietly to Gendo upon hearing this. "Not good-that's an especially sensitive area."
"Yes," Gendo grimly concurred. "Well within closing distance from Lilith." He then spoke up to address the techs. "Halt the infestation within Sigma Unit! If necessary, we'll sacrifice the Geo-Front itself. Status of the EVAs?"
"Standing by in cage seven," Makoto reported. "We can launch them as soon as the pilots are recovered."
"No need to wait for the pilots," Gendo stated, taking the techs by surprise. "Launch them immediately-Unit-01 has top priority. Sacrifice the other four if necessary."
"Wait, Unit-01 specifically?" Aoi asked.
"But Sir, we can't physically destroy the Angel without any of the EVAs," Satsuki pointed out.
"The EVAs won't be any good to us if they become contaminated first," Gendo counter-argued. "Now launch them immediately!"
"Yes, Sir!" the techs responded as they got to work. Soon, all five EVAs were launched out of the cages, avoiding any contamination from the Angel.
Fuyutsuki wound up asking quietly the most obvious question at a time like this. "Now how will we fight an Angel without an EVA...?"
Geofront lake, around the same time...
Wonder why they suddenly decided 'Everyone out of the pool!'...Shinji pondered as he lay floating in his test plug. From the splashes he'd heard, it seemed he and the other pilots had been ejected into the lake within the Geofront, but as to why, he was for once in the dark. Unfortunately, he couldn't exactly investigate for a couple of reasons: on the technical side, he couldn't open the plug manually due to a signal blocking the hatch controls, and on the practical side, even if he could get out, he couldn't exactly go running around HQ in his birthday suit, trying to manipulate the perceptions of others so any personnel he encountered wouldn't see him. So for the time being, he and the girls would have to wait until whatever crisis was brewing within HQ was dealt with before anyone could recover them. Shinji did know that, when that time came, as soon as he could get away, the Shadow would emerge to look into what went down.
The bridge...
Moments after the EVAs had been launched out of harm's way, the commanders and the techs were joined by the group that had just escaped from the Pribnow Box and were now comparing notes.
"Here's the dividing line between the normal and heavy water in the tank," Ritsuko explained as she pointed to a screen showing the presence of the Angel within that environment. "What can you tell me about why the two forms are so different?"
Maya answered immediately. "The Angel seems to prefer the one with the higher levels of carbon dioxide."
"Therefore, the areas where ozone is regularly vented in to maintain aseptic conditions within the environment lack contamination," Kaede added.
"So this thing's got an aversion to oxygen?" Misato asked.
"Seems like it," Ritsuko answered. "So I think you know what step to take in this instance."
"I read you, loud and clear," Makoto responded as he and Aoi began entering in commands. "Injecting ozone right now-concentration increasing."
"Looks like it's working," Shigeru noted.
"Will this work?" Fuyutsuki inquired. A couple minutes later, everyone seemed to get their answer as the Angel contamination seemed to retreat.
"Looks like Zero-A and B will recover," Satsuki noted.
"It's just the central portion that's proving to be a tougher job," Makoto added.
Fuyutsuki nodded in acknowledgement. "All right-proceed to inject more ozone, see if it continues to work."
After the techs did so, Ritsuko noticed peculiar development. "Something's not right."
It didn't take long for everyone else to see this as well. "Wait a minute-it's increasing...?" Shigeru posed.
"Not just that-the heat levels are rising," Aoi added. On the screen, the contamination, shown earlier to be in retreat, was now pushing forward again, this time crossing over the dividing line between the regular and heavy water.
"No use, then," Maya said grimly. "The ozone's no longer effective."
"Even worse, it's now absorbing it," Makoto added.
"Stop the ozone!" Ritsuko ordered, which the others proceeded to do. She observed the pattern as shifted on-screen, showing a now rainbow-colored dendritic frame, almost like the Angel was arising from a form of cellular automata. "Amazing...it's almost like it's-" Her eyes widened a fraction with realization. "-Evolving."
The pattern soon shifted again, as an 'intruder alert' notification appeared on-screen.
"What's going on? What's wrong?" Misato asked.
"Unknown intruder hacking into the sub-computer," Kaede answered.
"*UGH* Of all times...Dealing with C-mode," Makoto stated as he entered in a command.
"Unfreezing barrier," Shigeru added as his fingers flew across the keyboard. "Opening decoy entry. Eighteen seconds to complete trace."
"No human being's capable of this," Satsuki grimly realized.
When the decoy entry was avoided, another barrier was then deployed, only for that to be penetrated as well, causing a tech to create another false entry. Eventually...
"Trace is complete," Kaede reported. "Hacker's inside this facility!"
"B-wing basement," Shigeru added, "in the Pribnow Box!"
As they observed the live feed on-screen, Maya noticed something new about the Angel. "Optical pattern's changing. Almost looks like a..."
"Like a series of electronic circuits," Shigeru finished. "The kind found in a computer."
Aoi opened another decoy entry, only for it to fail. "We've been blocked," she said.
"Can we sever the main cable?" Misato inquired.
"Unlikely," Maya answered, "the AT-Field's deflecting our lasers."
More bad news came when Satsuki reported that the Angel had now accessed the main computer bank for HQ security, successfully cracking the password.
"Can you determine its objective?" Fuyutsuki asked.
"Hold on..." Shigeru said in response as he ran some scans. "Oh, no-it's trying to infiltrate the MAGI!"
Hearing this was dire enough for Gendo to try something that hopefully would buy some time. "Shut down the I/O system."
At that, Aoi and Shigeru inserted their special keys into the shutoff mechanisms. "Countdown!" Shigeru stated.
"Three...two...one! Shutting down!" Aoi responded as they simultaneously turned their keys, only to find nothing happened. "No good, we can't cut the power!"
Maya, an increasingly-worried look on her face, bore some worse news. "Angel's gotten further-it's made contact with Melchior. It's being taken over!" On-screen, the last of the four bars representing Melchior went fully red. "Takeover successful!"
The screen changed, showing three shapes representing the three main MAGI components, only Melchior was now all-red, with Balthasar and Caspar blue. An electronic voice announced that Melchior had just submitted an order to independently initiate self-destruct procedures for HQ, only for Balthasar and Caspar to reject it. In response, the contaminated Melchior soon began hacking its way into Balthasar.
"Dammit, it's fast!" Makoto cursed as red began to appear on Balthasar's avatar.
"No kidding, look at that computing speed!" Satsuki noted. She and the other techs swiftly moved to try and hold off the Angel as best as they could, and just when it seemed like they wouldn't get a reprieve, Ritsuko quickly put forth a new tactic.
"Change the logic mode," she commanded. "Change the synchronization code to every fifteen seconds."
"Roger!" Makoto and Aoi replied.
"How long will it hold?" Fuyutsuki asked.
"Considering the speed of the Angel till now," Aoi theorized, "possibly two hours at best."
"To think that the MAGI could be turned against us..." Gendo grimly stated to himself.
Minutes later, with that temporary stopgap measure in place, the group gathered together to plan out their next move. Ritsuko was going over the nature of the Angel (dubbed 'Iruel' and designated the 11th), based on the data they were able to collect so far.
"From the looks of things, it appears this Angel is a pluralistic entity made up of nanomachines," she explained. "In other words, the Angel itself is a hive-mind collective of multiple microscopic organisms. Unlike normal microbes, this collective aggregate's undergone an explosively speedy evolution in an extremely short period of time, just to become intelligent enough to pull this off."
"Evolution...You mean-?" Fuyutsuki started to ask.
"Yes," Ritsuko confirmed. "This collective is continuously changing themselves, searching for a permutation adaptable to any circumstance."
"A dark reflection of the cycle of life itself..." Fuyutsuki realized.
Misato then threw her two cents in. "Since we're facing an ever-evolving enemy that overcomes any weakness of its previous forms, the only reasonable solution as best as I can figure is to eliminate the 'host', taking the 'parasite' with it. Which means in order to kill the Angel...We'll have to sacrifice the MAGI." She then looked at Gendo determinedly. "Permission to carry this out?"
"Hold it," Ritsuko said. "Doing that would be impossible-if you destroy the MAGI, it's practically akin to destroying HQ itself."
Misato remained undeterred. "On behalf of the Operations Division, I officially request that the MAGI be destroyed."
"Then on behalf of the Technology Division," Ritsuko stepped in, facing Gendo, "I officially request that you deny that request. This falls under our purview."
"Why are you being so difficult about this?" Misato demanded of the bottle-blonde. "Our lives are at stake here!"
Ritsuko looked to the side with a solemn expression on her face. "It was my carelessness that allowed this to happen."
Misato's own expression softened. "That's not true and you know it-you don't have to shoulder this. You've always done this, taking one for the team and not letting anyone else help."
"I'm saying don't destroy the MAGI because I may just have a way to defeat this thing," Ritsuko elaborated. "It involves us letting the Angel keep evolving. Better yet, we help it do just that."
Gendo arched an eyebrow at this. "You're suggesting we somehow expedite its evolution?"
"Exactly," Ritsuko answered.
Gendo gave it some quick thought. "I see...The natural end of an organism's evolution...is self-termination. Death itself."
"Therefore, to defeat this Angel, we accelerate its evolution to the point where it willingly dies off," Fuyutsuki surmised.
Ritsuko nodded. "Should the Angel consider it the only practical survival measure, it might choose to co-exist within the MAGI."
"How do we pull that off?" Makoto asked.
Hitomi, who'd been quiet for most of the strategy session, started seeing the beginnings of what Ritsuko was planning. "If the target's a computer itself," she began to say, "we counter-hack it by linking Caspar and the Angel, and using that bridge to upload an accelerated self-destruct protocol."
"Only downside is," Maya added, having caught on to the plan as well, "we remove the Angel's last obstacle in the process."
"Therefore, it comes down to a race between Caspar and the Angel," Gendo concluded.
"Precisely," Ritsuko affirmed.
Misato's determined look returned. "Then we'd better make sure our program makes it first-if Caspar's taken over, then that's all she wrote."
"I promise you," Ritsuko said firmly, "I won't let that happen."
Within moments, the main Caspar console had been raised enough so that the door to the interior could be accessed. Once Ritsuko opened the door, Maya and Misato gaped at the sheer number of sticky notes plastered all over the place.
"What are all these?" Maya asked.
"A trail of breadcrumbs left by the developer," Ritsuko answered as she crawled inside, with Maya and Hitomi following her.
"Amazing..." Maya said, in awe by the notes surrounding her. "All this time, the MAGI's backdoors were right under our noses!"
"Who knows how many volumes of technical manuals these could fill...?" Hitomi mused. "Together they'd probably be more potent than the Konami Code."
"Are we...good with seeing these?" Maya asked as she eyed one note in particular. "I mean, this is INT-C! With all this, we could program faster than we estimated..." Maya took notice of a few of the notes, and how the sequencing depicted on them reminded her of the same coding she saw in the remains of the virus used to hack Jet Alone, again making her think of the sabotage her sempai carried out.
Said sempai, on the other hand, was unaware of her protege's internal dilemma. "Thank you, Mother," she said to herself. "We'll make it after all..."
[Suggested music: "You Need Fuel", Jerry Goldsmith, The Shadow OST.]
Soon, various components of the console were spread around the area outside the crawlspace entrance, with Hitomi on her own laptop assisting in the programming efforts, Misato looking on. Within the crawlspace, Maya was assisting Ritsuko with some adjustments to the inner workings of Caspar.
"Wrench, please," Ritsuko implored with an outstretched hand; Maya handed her the tool in question. "Now I'll need board #25." Maya handed her the tablet in question. "You want to hear something interesting about the MAGI?"
Maya was a bit taken aback by the question. "How interesting are we talking?"
"You've heard of personality transplant OS, correct?"
Maya nodded. "I've read and studied various papers on it. Most of them written by your mother." She paused for a moment. "The system implants an individual's personality into a seventh generation organic computer, giving it the ability to think. The MAGI...It was the first such computer in this regard, right?"
Ritsuko nodded as she took a small power saw to a plate with Caspar's name on it. "My mother developed the technology."
"So then..." Maya began, "her personality was put into these?"
"Correct," Ritsuko replied as she took off the piece of the plate she'd cut, revealing what looked to be a human brain within. "In a very real sense, this is my mother's brain."
Maya soon began realizing something. "That's why you didn't want the MAGI destroyed."
"Not necessarily," Ritsuko said in turn. "The truth is, my mother and I didn't get along that much. She made this decision purely as a scientist."
Outside the console, Makoto noted the avatar of Balthasar on the screen's sudden change to fully-red. "Confirmed-Balthasar's been taken over!" The electronic announcement that followed stated that self-destruct protocols had been approved.
"Dammit," Misato cursed. "It's started already?!"
The announcement that followed revealed that the self-destruct device would be activated two seconds following the consent of all three components of the MAGI. The news only got worse from there.
"Balthasar now invading Caspar!" Kaede reported alarmingly.
"At this rate, were losing more ground here," Fuyutsuki grimly noted. Undeterred, Ritsuko, Maya, and Hitomi immediately got to work to prevent the takeover from happening, even as the 20-second countdown began and Caspar's on-screen avatar became more and more red.
"Ritsuko, hurry!" Misato called out from the entrance to the crawlspace.
"Don't rush me," Ritsuko said with confidence. "I'll only need one second to spare..."
The countdown reached ten in the background. "Only one?!" Misato asked in disbelief.
"It's not a zero or a minus..." Ritsuko pointed out. "Maya? Hitomi?"
"All set!" both women replied, their fingers swiftly dancing across their keyboards in time with Ritsuko's. The countdown was getting closer and closer...
"NOW!" Ritsuko called out, as she, Maya and Hitomi all hit the 'enter' key on their boards simultaneously, just as the timer reached 1.
An eerie silence hung in the air, all eyes watching the screen as the last remaining area of Caspar's avatar hovered between going black and blue. Suddenly, the blue began overtaking the red, and it soon spread to Balthasar's and Melchior's avatars. The techs erupted into cheers, while Fuyutsuki sighed with relief. Elsewhere, within the system itself, Iruel's golden lights began dying out, until finally, the Angel of Fear ceased to function, leaving only its many, many 'corpses' all over the machinery. The electronic announcer, at the same time, indicated that the self-destruct order had been canceled, and that the MAGI was returning to its normal mode. Inside Caspar, Ritsuko slumped in relief.
"Not to toot my own horn," she started to say, "but that was probably some of the best hacking I've ever pulled off in my career."
Perhaps it was fatigue from the harrowing situation they'd all been through getting to her, combined with the 'reminders' she'd gotten on seeing some of Naoko Akagi's notes within Caspar, but Maya's response was completely unexpected.
"Even more than what you did to Jet Alone?" she asked in a quiet, but sour tone of voice.
Though Maya had meant that for just herself, Ritsuko did hear it, and it shocked her. How did she find out-?! she asked herself mentally. Probing her further would have to wait, as there was still work to be done in getting everything put back in its place, among other tasks...
Geofront lake, around the same time...
The pilots, even through their test plugs, heard the electronic announcer reveal that the state of emergency had been canceled, and all hands were to return to a first stage alert status.
Sounds like the crisis has been averted...Shinji surmised.
In her plug, Rei had taken the time to meditate for a bit, based upon some techniques she'd read about after being inspired by the background of her phurba necklace.
Maria was pondering just what had unfolded around them to send the pilots away from possible danger. Mari was singing "The Galaxy Song" from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life to herself.
And Asuka...was stewing a bit over their current circumstances. "Will someone get us out of here already?! I really don't want to find out what it's like to be a grape in jello!"
The bridge...
Ritsuko was sitting in a folding chair, mulling over what Maya had said earlier. She was supervising the restoration and repairs to the computer systems, as well as the collection of the remains of Iruel to be studied in HQ's labs. She was brought out of her thoughts when Misato walked up with a couple of cups of fresh coffee. "Feels like I'm getting old-I used to be able to power through these all-nighters."
Misato handed her one of the cups. "Well, congrats on keeping your promise. Good job, Ritsuko."
Ritsuko smiled a bit, thankful for hearing some positive words from a colleague. "Thank you. It's funny, this is probably the first time I've really appreciated coffee made by you." After taking a sip, the slight somber mood returned as she briefly eyed Maya, who was over in a corner helping Shigeru and Satsuki with some maintenance. "Misato, I've told you about how my mother built the MAGI, right?"
Misato looked at her friend as she took a sip of her own coffee. "Er, yeah. Why do you ask?"
"There was something else about her development of the system that I didn't tell you about at the time," Ritsuko said. "The night before she died, my mother told me that each of the three components contain an aspect of her personality."
Misato was a bit curious about what her friend was telling her; unknown to both, Maya was quietly listening in as well. "Which ones?"
Ritsuko took another sip of coffee before she continued. "They were herself as a scientist; as a mother; and as a woman. Each of those three aspects, embodied by the three MAGI, all struggle for dominance. When she uploaded a facsimile of her personality, she intentionally gave it the dilemmas of human experience. Though in truth, each of the aspect programs are slightly different." She paused a bit before going on. "I...don't see myself as a mother any time soon. I respected her as a scientist. But as a woman...I hated her."
Misato didn't know what to make of Ritsuko's mood. "Are you feeling okay, Rits?"
Ritsuko at first didn't know how to answer that. Eventually, she did respond. "It's just been a long day. Something I remembered when Maya and Hitomi and I were working on Caspar...that component is the one based on my mother's aspect of herself as a woman. She stayed a woman to the last...(How totally like her...)"
Gendo Ikari's office, later that night...
Hours before, the pilots had been recovered, showered, and debriefed on what had gone on. They'd all been greatly surprised by the fact that an Angel had managed to breach the Geofront in such a way, which did a little to soothe Asuka's frustration with being unable to sortie, given the size and abilities of their opponent. When they were finished, the pilots headed to the commissary for a late dinner. Shinji had told them to go on ahead, as he needed to use the facilities. When the coast was clear, he'd made his way to the elevators and pressed the button for the floor containing his father's office, and when the door opened at that level, the Shadow exited and made his way to Gendo Ikari's door. Getting past the secretary and security guards was simple enough, as he'd appeared to them as Commander Ikari himself, allowing him easy admission into the NERV supreme leader's 'lair'. Once inside, and with the door closed, the Shadow dropped his guise, headed towards Gendo's desk, and booted up his computer. The purpose this time was to gather any information on what Gendo had covered up about tonight's incident with the 11th Angel before reporting to the Committee. Bypassing a lot of the safeguards, the Shadow soon found what he was looking for, and copied it onto a secure flash drive. Before exiting out of the files, he noted one folder containing information on the pilots that might be useful later on, so he copied that as well into the flash drive.
With his business concluded, the Shadow carefully erased any trace of his time logged onto Gendo's computer, shut it down, and exited the office, fooling both the secretary and security again. However, before heading back towards the elevator, he dropped the guise of Commander Ikari, and the Shadow hypnotized those same people into forgetting they had seen Commander Ikari come in earlier. Satisfied that his tracks were now covered, he then proceeded towards the elevators, where he would then return to being Shinji Ikari as he joined his fellow pilots in the commissary.
End Chapter 29.
**Author's Note(s)**
With this, I hope I've differentiated the 'battle' with Iruel here enough from canon to your satisfaction. I knew that it was during this particular event that I wanted Maya to unintentionally hint to Ritsuko that she had discovered a bit of her more 'unsavory' activities, something I will follow up on in later chapters.
The Konami Code is probably the most (in)famous cheat code in video game history, having first appeared in the 1986 side-scroller shooter Gradius. Also known as the 'Contra Code' or '30 Lives Code', it was created by Kazuhisa Hashimoto to ease the difficulty of the Gradius by allowing players to unlock a full set of power-ups. It's gone on to appear in multiple Konami games as well as find a place in the pop cultural lexicon.
"The Galaxy Song" comes from the 1983 Monty Python film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, and debuted in the sketch from the film titled "Live Organ Transplants", where it is sung by Eric Idle's pink morning suit-wearing character to help a paramedic (John Cleese) persuade a Mrs. Brown (Terry Jones) to donate her liver.