Disclaimer: Neon Genesis: Evangelion is not my property. It belong to
GAINAX and all affiliates. I am not asking for any money for this
written work. It is permissible to copy, quote, distribute, or in any
other way reproduce the following texts only if they contain this
disclaimer and credit to the author, or I will strike you down with
great vengeance and furious anger.
*Angelic Invader/The Ghost of the Machines*
Ritsuko paced around the large collaboration of Nerv staff from
various technical divisions, thoughts flowing freely through her mind
about any one of the thousands of things that could go wrong. Central
Dogma was much more crowded than it normally would be, and was for a
good reason and important task; the diagnostic checks on the Magi
system. It would be a much simpler operation if all three of the giant
computers could be shut down - or at least put off-line -
simultaneously, but that would be far too great a risk; if the Magi
were inoperable during an Angel attack...
"What's the status on Melchior?" Ritsuko asked Maya, clearing her
mind.
"Forty-four percent of the diagnostics completed. If all goes to plan,
we can switch the testing to Balthasar in a little over an hour."
"That gives us enough time to work in the test, if the children arrive
here on time, doesn't it?"
"Plenty of time." Maya looked up from her screen for a moment and
turned to face Ritsuko. "This isn't as big a job as you made it out to
be."
"Well, it's not a small job either, so don't make any mistakes."
Maya nodded sharply and restored her focus on the screen.
The door leading out of the kitchen in Misato's apartment slid open,
to reveal a dishevelled, yawning Misato.
"Good morning, Misato."
"Good morning, Misato."
"G'morning, Shinji, Rei," she yawned as she walked (staggered, Shinji
thought) further into the kitchen. "You're up early."
"We have to be up early. There's a experiment this morning," Rei
pointed out.
"Oh, right...aren't the Magi being shut off for today?"
"Yes, but if they can take time out of our day, they will. They're so
_demanding._" Shinji, after finishing his statement, got up from the
table to take his dishes away, moving past Misato, who was currently
rummaging in the fridge for a beer. Rei soon got up to follow him, and
as Shinji turned around, he saw that Misato had found what she was
looking for.
"Now, what can I have with this? I think there's some food left over
from last night..." Misato proceeded to search through her freezer, a
can in each hand, for anything edible among the collection of instant
frozen dinners.
"I made breakfast. There's still some left over, if you want it...,"
Rei said.
"Oh." Misato pulled herself out of the freezer. "Don't you think I can
make myself a meal?" she asked the pair, giving each of them a stern
(for early in the morning) look.
"Well..." Both pilots suddenly found small spots on the wall very
interesting.
"I'm _kidding!_ What did you make?"
Misato, after a few drinks and the remains of Rei's breakfast, got
prepared and left for work, with Shinji and Rei sitting the back seat
of her car, cuddling. From the glances Misato took in the mirror, she
thought they were a really cute couple. However, she later thought as
their group descended into the Geofront on a car-train, there were
some people that didn't share the same opinion...
"Guten Morgan, Misato!"
"Hello, Asuka," Misato said as she noticed the young girl standing
near one of the escalators.
"Hi, Asuka," said Shinji, arms around Rei, following behind Misato.
Asuka instantly lost her morning zest as she saw her fellow pilots
together.
"I'll leave you three to get to the changing room on your own. See you
all in ten minutes!" Misato quickly hurried off: she wasn't late,
exactly, but from what Shinji could gather, after she stopped and talk
to everyone she knew, she would be. At least she wasn't like this in
emergencies...
"Stop standing around, idiot! We have a test to get to!" Asuka
proceeded to half-storm off in the direction of the changing room.
Shinji and Rei, after exchanging a glance, sighed and followed her. It
was going to be a long day, thought Shinji.
Ritsuko stared at her reflection in the mirror, thinking over the
testing and processing of Melchior, and how swiftly the time has
passed when she wasn't being worried. She knew that there wasn't
really anything that could go wrong, on the wide scale of things that
could go wrong at Nerv, but still, there were no countermeasures she
knew of that she could take to alleviate her stress.
She shook her head slowly. Ritsuko hated knowing that she was possibly
the only one who saw the Magi as more than the computers that ran
almost all of Tokyo-3, but it also gave her a sense of pride, of
self...
"Too many conflicting emotions...I always get like this during
mother's checkups," Ritsuko said to herself, as she left the bathroom
to head off to the simulation room.
"Hello, Ritsuko!" Misato exclaimed, appearing in Central Dogma with a
cup of coffee she had...borrowed from someone she passed on the way
there.
"You're late again," Ritsuko said with her custom dispassion, not
looking up from the screen she was observing over Maya's shoulder.
Misato only grinned meekly; both of them knew it was a situation that
wasn't changing. Misato changed the subject, deciding to skim past
pleasantries until a later date.
"How are the Magi tests going?"
"They're almost finished for Melchior. Things ran on time, for once.
Where are the children?"
"They're getting changed. They'll be here any moment."
Shinji felt the air suck itself out of his plugsuit as he compressed
the trigger on his left wrist. It was a sensation he could never get
used to, much like most of the tasks he had to perform at Nerv; being
surrounded by LCL, feeling things he knew didn't come from his own
mind, synchronising with the Eva...
He slowly became aware of Rei's shadow showing up against the
partition; standing close to the thin wall, one hand resting slightly
on it, near her face. Shinji could imagine her over the other side,
her pert nose almost touching the material of the partition, both of
them being so close yet so far...
Shinji stood and in doing so, saw Rei's shadow move to track his own
movement; she was watching him, probably much to the disgust of Asuka,
if she had noticed. He slowly moved over to the partition, and raised
his own hand to touch the shadow. Due to the thickness (or lack
thereof) of the false wall, he could feel Rei's fingertips respond to
his touch. There was something deeply intense about this; not being
able to see or feel fully what each other was doing, yet knowing on
some level they were strongly connected...
"_Hey!_ Would you two knock it off? We're _supposed_ to be getting
ready here!"
Asuka began muttering about how much the pair of them were idiots to
herself as the intensity between Rei and Shinji was shattered.
Shinji looked to either side of him; Rei on his right, Asuka on his
left, half-obscured by a shoulder-level partition. He depressed his
thumb on a button marked as the intercom switch, and spoke.
"We're here."
"And not pleased at all about being naked and standing next to
this..._pervert!_" Asuka, as usual, voicing her objections in the
bluntest manner, all while managing to call him a pervert. That had
come about after Asuka had found out about that incident when Shinji
had to deliver Rei's new ID card...and Rei had somehow been able to
avoid the full wrath of Asuka, leaving him to try and explain, which
he did rather poorly. Shinji decided he would let it go, this time, as
he happened to agree with her. The sooner he could get into the entry
plug, the better, as he wasn't entirely comfortable being without his
plugsuit, either.
"Don't call Shinji a pervert!" Rei.
"What would _you_ like me to call him, then?"
Shinji was sure that Asuka had been about to make a suggestion, until
Ritsuko cut her off.
"Stop bickering. We've got a test to run, and we're on a tight time
schedule."
"Sorry, Doctor Akagi."
"Yeah, sorry."
As Rei felt the air around her become replaced by liquid, she
instantly sensed that something was wrong in the entry plug. It could
have been due to the fact that they weren't using the Evas for this
test, but rather large mock bodies suspended in one of Nerv's large
Eva testing rooms. She wasn't completely sure on where these
new...objects had come from, and didn't want to be; what she did know
about the secrets Nerv held made all the more certain that she didn't
want to know the rest of them. But that part of her mind was closed
now...
The wrongness still remained, and Rei was sure that she would be
reassured if she could just place where it-
"Rei, can you hear me?" The intercom.
"Yes, I can hear you."
"I want you to try and move the left arm."
Rei's hand went to the metal grip, and the alien sensation increased.
Regardless, she tried to raise the grip to correspond with the command
Ritsuko gave her.
The grip stuck solid, and the LCL felt like it was condensing around
her. A sharp, stabbing pain came over her arm, and she knew from long
experience that this test was going to be aborted.
Something was definitely wrong.
"Her input isn't registering. There's something wrong with the
calibration, maybe," Ritsuko thought out loud.
"No, I don't think it's that," Maya replied. As if on cue, a siren
went off. A message showed simultaneously across every display screen
in Nerv: Alert!
"An Angel? Where the hell did that come from?" Ritsuko, shocked by the
fear in her own voice, suddenly saw all the situations she had been
thinking of this morning coming true.
"It's disrupting readings across the entire system! We can't get a
trace on it!"
"Find it! We can't let this happen! Not now!"
"There's too much interference!"
Rei's scream over the intercom and a loud crash, muffled by the liquid
in the holding bay, gave away the Angel's position.
"Eject the pilots! We can't allow them to be contaminated!' yelled the
Commander from above them.
As Misato released her breath seeing the three entry plugs being
jettisoned from the thrashing body in the tank, she was, for one of
the few times in her career in fighting the Angels, completely blank
about how to beat it.
"Use the lasers! We can't let it get out of the tank!"
Several wall-mounted lasers swivelled to target the simulation body,
warmed up, and fired. The red beams hit the body, and bounced off what
looked like small, glowing shields."
"That's an A.T. Field! Cease fire!"
"Something's trying to access the test data!"
"Oh my God! The Angel's hacking into our system!"
"Initiate total isolation! We can't let it infiltrate!"
Makoto pulled a manual lever beside his control panel, and all
displays, lights and anything else electrical in the testing room shut
off. In the silence that followed, everyone watch the large test body,
which now looked like it was covered in some alien virus, giving off a
pale yellow glow.
As everyone in the darkened room stared at the giant tank, Misato
noticed a rapidly flashing light on a control panel near Makoto. The
intercom hail light.
That would be...
"Hey! Somebody go and do something about the pilots!"
A group of orange-suited technicians jumped to their feet and hurried
out the door. Silence once again followed their departure.
"Why isn't it moving?" Ritsuko asked, to no one in particular.
"This Angel is like no other we've encountered before. Unlike all of
the previous ones we've intercepted, this Angel contains no biological
elements at all. This means that..."
"No biological elements? Does that mean it's not alive?" asked Misato,
interrupting Maya as she so often did. Maya, unperturbed, continued
here short report to Misato and Ritsuko in the small conference room.
"This means that it can be likened to a computer virus, and that it is
currently using the simulation body as its host. We've taken into
account the need to protect the Magi and..."
"What about the Evas?"
"They're on a separate system," Ritsuko replied, speaking for the
first time in the conversation. "This will possibly be the only Angel
where the Evas aren't an issue."
"But with the high degree of protection on the Magi, they have been
put on temporary standby, so they cannot be infected," Maya stated,
emphasising the beginning of her sentence to try and keep Misato and
Ritsuko's minds on the task at hand. "The trade-off for the loss of
the Magi is that all of the other systems in Nerv are currently open
to the Angel."
"So we have no protection?"
"That's right."
"Well...what do we do?"
"Just _watch_ it? _That's_ your idea? Just _watch_ it?"
"Yes. It's a perfectly good idea; the Angel seems to be in a
stationary position, and we need to observe it if we are going to
eliminate it."
"It has access to the workings of this entire facility, and you want
to let guard down and watch it?"
"Would you be reasonable about this?"
"I don't believe Commander Ikari would have given you power over this
mission if he knew all you were going to do was watch it!"
"Believe what you want, Misato. I'm in charge of destroying this
Angel, and I believe this is the most effective way of doing it."
Misato glared at Ritsuko for a moment, and then walked off.
"Rei?"
Shinji stepped slowly into the room unaware of what reaction he would
get from the balled-up Rei in the corner of the changing room.
"I...I lost control. I...felt it in my mind." She spoke slowly,
seeming to almost go back to her previous emotionless state. He hated
hearing her speak like that...without any emotion but fear.
"Rei...it's okay...you didn't do anything." Shinji moved over to Rei
and sat down beside her.
"I know...it's just..."
"Rei...I don't know what to say."
She turned her head towards him, and Shinji could see the impact this
event had made on her.
"Then don't say anything. Just...hold me, okay?"
Shinji, obligingly, put his arms around her.
"I hate it...when it's in my head," Rei said in a voice barely above a
whisper, and began to cry quietly.
The two pilots stayed in the same position for what seemed like hours.
A telephone in the Commander's desk began to ring. The line from the
Committee.
"Yes?"
"Ikari!" came Keel's voice from the phone. "What happened down there?"
"Malfunction in the simulation. One of the bodies gave off an entire
range of odd readings."
"Is there any record of this?"
"All the data was lost due to a system shutdown."
"You had better not be lying to us, Ikari..."
"There is no Angel," the Commander said bluntly, and hung up.
Makoto walked into the lunchroom and turned on the coffee maker,
although not entirely of his own volition. He had been walking down a
hallway, and he had seen Misato looking not quite in the best of
moods, and so he asked her what was wrong. She promptly responded by
yelling out a stream of incoherence accusations, most of them aimed at
Ritsuko, and the only thing he could make out clearly was at the end
of her spiel, about getting her something to drink. And, seeing as
Nerv didn't allow alcoholic beverages (mostly for Misato's sake,
Makoto thought sometimes), he thought the next best thing was some
coffee.
"The Angel is showing some signs of activity, Doctor," Maya reported,
conveniently as Ritsuko passed by her.
"What's it doing?"
"It seems to be accessing the control for the video surveillance...and
the drink dispenser in the lunchroom."
Ritsuko's brow furrowed. "You're joking."
"No, really. Take a look for yourself."
After a brief moment of scanning what Maya had on her screen, Ritsuko
was convinced, but not certain about what anything would want with
control over a soda can dispenser.
Makoto, in an effort to alleviate boredom from waiting for the so-
called instant coffee, sat one of the tables in the lunchroom and
humming a song he had heard on the radio in the morning. In his
rendition, he failed to notice that one of the drink dispensers was
ejecting cans for no reason, until one struck him rather forcefully in
the leg. He then looked up and saw the machine in the corner fling out
a can, which hit the wall behind him, making a small dent in it.
Had Makoto not been so surprised by the extreme oddity of this event,
he perhaps would have reacted with a little more caution. He got up
from his chair, and walked closer to the drink machine.
The last thing he could remember coherently on that day was a bright
orange aluminium can flying out of the machine's slot in his general
direction.
"Makoto? Are you awake?"
"Mmm...yeah, I think. What happened?"
"You got hit in the head with a can of soft drink. You've fetched
yourself quite a nasty bruise." A short giggle, and Makoto felt a hand
pass lightly over his forehead.
"How...how did that happen?"
"It doesn't matter. Just rest."
He stopped trying to place the voice that spoke to him, and let
himself be consumed by sleep. Misato looked at him for a moment, and
left the room.
"The Angel seems to be doing something again."
"Anything like the last time?"
"No...it seems to be disengaging itself from its host...and taking
hold in the security camera system."
"I don't like this." Ritsuko paused to look up at one of the thousands
of scanning cameras in Nerv. "It's watching us."
After a brief moment of thought, Ritsuko spoke to Maya again.
"Send down some technicians to the main power supply."
"What for, Doctor?"
"I have an idea."
"Whoah! Something's searching through all our files!" Shigeru, from
his terminal, almost fell out of his seat.
"What? Is it the Angel?"
"It has to be...no human can move this fast! What do we do?"
After a second, Ritsuko regained her composure. "Nothing. It can't do
anything. We need to know what it's looking for." She walked over to
Shigeru's console.
"It's going for all the document encryption codes...every one of
them."
"Those files have the highest security...but what could it use them
for?"
Shigeru's screen went blank.
"What the hell?" Shigeru asked to the blackened screen.
Random numbers and symbols appeared on the screen rapidly. Slowly, the
symbols became only letters, and then began to break themselves up
from one continuous string.
_Is it trying to communicate?,_ Ritsuko thought, as three words
appeared on the screen, separate from the rest of the letters,
confirming her thought and fear.
Where is Adam?
"What...what is this?" Shigeru craned his head to look at Ritsuko, who
was finding it very hard to accept what she saw before her. More words
appeared on the screen.
Where is Adam? Where is Adam? Where is Adam?
Faster.
WhereisAdamwhereisAdamwhereisAdamAdamadamreturntoadamreturnbecomeOnew
ithAllWhereIsAdam
Faster still, until the letters became a blur.
The screen exploded, causing both Ritsuko and Shigeru to jerk
backwards, and snapped them both back to reality.
"What _was_ that?" Shigeru asked, rubbing his eyes but not managing to
remove the expression on them.
"I have no idea." Ritsuko turned to the panel of technicians behind
her. "Find out what just happened down here! Trace everything!"
A chorus of, "Yes, ma'am!"
"You may want to have a look at this, Commander."
"What is it?"
"Doctor Akagi sent it straight from the testing room...she said it was
important."
Fuyutsuki handed the Commander a folder marked with the custom
security notices. Inside, however, was nothing as elaborate. A few
sheets of paper sat inside the folder, all except one being recorded
movements the Angel had made in the last twenty minutes. However,
sitting on top of these was a handwritten note, signed by Ritsuko.
Strictly against protocol, but he was planning on destroying all
evidence that this little incident had ever occurred. The Committee
might not be able to replace him, but they could certainly remove him
from a position of power if they didn't trust him enough. He glanced
over Ritsuko's note.
_'The Angel appears to have found record of Adam, and tried to make
contact with Lt. Aoba and I via our own computer system. Is Terminal
Dogma secure, Commander?'_
Ikari thought to himself. All of the key systems for Instrumentality
were separated from the main system of Nerv, and from each other:
Seele had covered themselves well in case of all events. If Ritsuko
didn't realise that...she must be in a great state of shock.
"Tell Ritsuko that there's no need to worry. Everything is secure."
"Yes, Commander."
As Fuyutsuki left, Ikari glanced over the envelope. It was an express
type, marked as being able to be hand-delivered without being filed
officially first. Good. That meant it could be run effectively through
the shredder before it could be filed officially.
Asuka, as she walked back to the changing room, decided that she was
not in the best mood she could be in. It had taken forever for the
technicians to get them out of the entry plugs, she hadn't been able
to find Kaji anywhere, the new plugsuit they had given her was over-
starched, or something, and she had hit her head trying to put it on
inside the entry plug, and was sure that there would be a bruise there
in the morning. The whole test was a stupid idea, anyway. What was the
point of getting test results, if they weren't from when they were in
their Evas? She just wanted to change into some clothes with room to
move, and be left alone for the rest of the day. However, Asuka
thought, all hopes of her being left alone went down the drain when
she saw _them_ in the changing room.
"Well, isn't this cosy? How long have you two been here?"
"Asuka? What are you doing here?" Shinji recognised well the look in
Asuka's eyes (which he often mentally referred to as the Devil's
Glint), and know she was not going to handle being aggravated further
very well.
"Why do you think I'm in here? To change, idiot!"
"Then do it on the other side," came Rei's voice, faint and slightly
muffled by her knees, which were pulled up close to her face.
"Oh, I'm _sorry_. Am I intruding on something?" Asuka asked
sarcastically.
"Just go over the other side, and leave us alone."
"What's the matter, Shinji? Are you-"
"Dammit, can't you think about anyone else for a change?"
Shinji and Asuka locked eyes. Asuka could clearly read the message
written in his eyes: leave her alone.
Asuka, intent on leaving with some face, spun around sharply, never
lowering her eyes, and changed silently over the other side of the
partition.
"Are you in position? Can you see the breakers?"
"I can see them. Why does it have to be so dark here?"
"We went through a lot of extra security to prevent anything like the
blackout that happened before. We don't want anyone being able to shut
us down that easily again."
Ritsuko cupped her hand over the small microphone bud suspended from
her headset and walked over to Maya's console.
"How much of the Angel is left in the simulation body?"
"Two point seven percent, Doctor."
Ritsuko removed her hand. "Shut off the power."
Through the speaker in her ear, Ritsuko could hear a large lever being
pulled. The diminished yellow glow over the body in the tank faded.
"What's the status of the Angel?"
"The two point seven percent left in the simulation body has been
removed from the system." Maya looked up from the screen. "That means
we can beat it, right?"
"We'll see about that." Ritsuko spoke into the headset again. "Turn it
back on."
The changes in the test body reversed itself.
"The removed section of the Angel has returned."
Ritsuko sat at Shigeru's terminal, as Shigeru was occupying Makoto's
area due to his screen no longer working, trying to figure out a way
of removing the Angel from all of the primary systems. The figurative
bulk of it was residing in the security cameras, which they had lost
control over about an hour ago. It was then spreading itself
throughout the system, possibly trying to acquire information on Adam.
They could just leave it be, as it was unable to access any of the
important facilities of Nerv; the LCL plant, the Dummy System, the
Evangelions...the Magi. But no one in Nerv would be willing to accept
that.
"If we isolated it in the cameras...passcoded off everything else...we
could shut off power again...," Ritsuko thought out loud. As her train
of though gathered steam, she became certain that this way would work.
"Maya, mind my post. I have to go talk to the Commander."
"And what are you doing, gorgeous?"
Misato was so absorbed in scanning the surveillance camera screens
that she hadn't heard Kaji come into the room. She almost cringed at
the sound of the familiar voice. "_Don't_ call me 'gorgeous'."
"Okay...gorgeous." Before Misato could talk back to him again, he
said, "You look upset."
_Because you're here, maybe?,_ she thought, but didn't bother saying,
as she always seemed to come off worse when she argued with Kaji.
"Is it because you're not allowed to work on this Angel?" he asked in
her silence.
"Funny _you_ should talk about work. What have you been doing here,
Kaji?"
"Odd jobs." He then directed his attention to the wall of television
screens Misato had been intently staring at. "Looking for anything in
particular?"
"If you must know, I was trying to find the children, before you so
rudely interrupted me."
"Oh."
Kaji walked over to the chair that Misato was sitting on, and rested
his hands on the back of it. Fine, let him keep his hands there,
thought Misato, but if he moves them _anywhere_ he's receiving a swift
backhand to the face.
"You propose the total removal of the video surveillance system?"
"That is correct, Commander. I see it as the only possible way of
defeating this Angel."
"It is a small price to pay: you have full authority to go ahead with
the operation."
"Thankyou, Commander."
"How do you feel, Rei?"
"Better, I guess."
Shinji gave her a loving kiss on the forehead, and she responded by
holding him closer.
"Thankyou, Shinji."
"For what?"
"For being here."
"Is that them?" asked Kaji, leaning over Misato and pointing to a
screen. Misato looked at the monitor that his finger rested on, which
showed an overhead view of one of the changing rooms. Sitting in a
corner were Shinji and Rei, in each other's arms. Misato and Kaji
looked on as Shinji kissed Rei.
"Ah, young love. You know, we were like that once, Katsuragi."
"Don't get any ideas, Kaji."
From the shifting weight on the chair and the feel of his breath when
he spoke next, Misato could tell that Kaji was leaning close to her.
"What, not in the romantic mood?"
"I said don't get any ideas."
"Prepare for system encryption."
"Yes, ma'am."
Maya began typing on her keyboard, inputting the necessary motions to
place all of Nerv under total shutoff.
Ritsuko watched the graph of the Angel's inhabiting space slowly
increase, as it's various dispersed parts were barred from entry to
systems all over Nerv. The small percentage bar at the bottom of the
graph reached seventy.
"It can't be this easy," Ritsuko said to herself, watching the graph
climb.
It wasn't.
Simultaneously, all of the Commander's desk phones began to ring. As
Ikari picked each of them up, all he heard was electrical exchange
signals. Several lights in Central Dogma began to flicker on and off.
The wall of television screens Misato and Kaji were watching showed up
a broken transmission signal for a second, and then restored
themselves.
The graph reached eighty.
All of the drink dispensers in the lunchrooms fired off a volley of
aluminium cans. Fortunately, this time no one was in the rooms to get
injured. One of the coffee makers in the test room was hit with a
surge of electricity, and exploded in a rain of burnt plastic, causing
all of the technicians around it to cover their faces with their arms.
"Keep going!" yelled Ritsuko. "We can't let it stay in the system!"
The graph reached ninety.
One of the mounted lasers in the simulation tank activated itself, and
rotated to face the glass panel looking in on the tank. Ritsuko,
alerted by the coffee maker and the only person in the room not
focused on a screen, saw it move and begin to power up.
"Put everything on automatic encryption. We have to get out of here."
Her voice seemed calm, but inside her head, a very uncomfortable
mental image was coming to her; a small rock, the key to holding a
landslide, slipping painfully slowly.
The laser fired, focusing on a small spot on the screen and starting
to turn it red.
"Go, go, go, go, go!" Ritsuko yelled out as the glass began to crack.
The various programmers began to move from their seats and run for the
door. Ritsuko, after a momentary glance over the room, turned and ran
as well. She heard the glass crash behind her.
As Ritsuko ran through the already closing doors, she turned to see
the water filling the room be sealed into the test room by the airlock
doors.
Several glances were exchanges among the escapees.
"It is...gone?"
"We'll just have to find out." Ritsuko turned on her headset and spoke
into it. "Shut off the power."
The switch was thrown for the surveillance power, and the wall of
screens, the lights, and all other electrical devices were shut off in
the surveillance room.
_Whap!_
"Ouch! What was that for?"
"Like you don't know!"
"My hand slipped."
"Oh, sure!"
"Begin the scanning."
The Nerv technicians, now relocated to the large display room that
housed the Magi, began to check the system for any traces of the
Angel.
"System check...clean." Maya looked at Ritsuko. "We got it."
A cheer went up from the programmers.
"Reactivate the Magi! Begin assessing damage on the simulation room!"
The technicians dispersed themselves to where they were needed.
"Good work, Maya."
"Thankyou, Doctor."
-Derek Zischke
ageless_strange@optusnet.com.au
"Do you suffer from long-term memory loss? I can't remember..."
-Chumbawhamba
GAINAX and all affiliates. I am not asking for any money for this
written work. It is permissible to copy, quote, distribute, or in any
other way reproduce the following texts only if they contain this
disclaimer and credit to the author, or I will strike you down with
great vengeance and furious anger.
*Angelic Invader/The Ghost of the Machines*
Ritsuko paced around the large collaboration of Nerv staff from
various technical divisions, thoughts flowing freely through her mind
about any one of the thousands of things that could go wrong. Central
Dogma was much more crowded than it normally would be, and was for a
good reason and important task; the diagnostic checks on the Magi
system. It would be a much simpler operation if all three of the giant
computers could be shut down - or at least put off-line -
simultaneously, but that would be far too great a risk; if the Magi
were inoperable during an Angel attack...
"What's the status on Melchior?" Ritsuko asked Maya, clearing her
mind.
"Forty-four percent of the diagnostics completed. If all goes to plan,
we can switch the testing to Balthasar in a little over an hour."
"That gives us enough time to work in the test, if the children arrive
here on time, doesn't it?"
"Plenty of time." Maya looked up from her screen for a moment and
turned to face Ritsuko. "This isn't as big a job as you made it out to
be."
"Well, it's not a small job either, so don't make any mistakes."
Maya nodded sharply and restored her focus on the screen.
The door leading out of the kitchen in Misato's apartment slid open,
to reveal a dishevelled, yawning Misato.
"Good morning, Misato."
"Good morning, Misato."
"G'morning, Shinji, Rei," she yawned as she walked (staggered, Shinji
thought) further into the kitchen. "You're up early."
"We have to be up early. There's a experiment this morning," Rei
pointed out.
"Oh, right...aren't the Magi being shut off for today?"
"Yes, but if they can take time out of our day, they will. They're so
_demanding._" Shinji, after finishing his statement, got up from the
table to take his dishes away, moving past Misato, who was currently
rummaging in the fridge for a beer. Rei soon got up to follow him, and
as Shinji turned around, he saw that Misato had found what she was
looking for.
"Now, what can I have with this? I think there's some food left over
from last night..." Misato proceeded to search through her freezer, a
can in each hand, for anything edible among the collection of instant
frozen dinners.
"I made breakfast. There's still some left over, if you want it...,"
Rei said.
"Oh." Misato pulled herself out of the freezer. "Don't you think I can
make myself a meal?" she asked the pair, giving each of them a stern
(for early in the morning) look.
"Well..." Both pilots suddenly found small spots on the wall very
interesting.
"I'm _kidding!_ What did you make?"
Misato, after a few drinks and the remains of Rei's breakfast, got
prepared and left for work, with Shinji and Rei sitting the back seat
of her car, cuddling. From the glances Misato took in the mirror, she
thought they were a really cute couple. However, she later thought as
their group descended into the Geofront on a car-train, there were
some people that didn't share the same opinion...
"Guten Morgan, Misato!"
"Hello, Asuka," Misato said as she noticed the young girl standing
near one of the escalators.
"Hi, Asuka," said Shinji, arms around Rei, following behind Misato.
Asuka instantly lost her morning zest as she saw her fellow pilots
together.
"I'll leave you three to get to the changing room on your own. See you
all in ten minutes!" Misato quickly hurried off: she wasn't late,
exactly, but from what Shinji could gather, after she stopped and talk
to everyone she knew, she would be. At least she wasn't like this in
emergencies...
"Stop standing around, idiot! We have a test to get to!" Asuka
proceeded to half-storm off in the direction of the changing room.
Shinji and Rei, after exchanging a glance, sighed and followed her. It
was going to be a long day, thought Shinji.
Ritsuko stared at her reflection in the mirror, thinking over the
testing and processing of Melchior, and how swiftly the time has
passed when she wasn't being worried. She knew that there wasn't
really anything that could go wrong, on the wide scale of things that
could go wrong at Nerv, but still, there were no countermeasures she
knew of that she could take to alleviate her stress.
She shook her head slowly. Ritsuko hated knowing that she was possibly
the only one who saw the Magi as more than the computers that ran
almost all of Tokyo-3, but it also gave her a sense of pride, of
self...
"Too many conflicting emotions...I always get like this during
mother's checkups," Ritsuko said to herself, as she left the bathroom
to head off to the simulation room.
"Hello, Ritsuko!" Misato exclaimed, appearing in Central Dogma with a
cup of coffee she had...borrowed from someone she passed on the way
there.
"You're late again," Ritsuko said with her custom dispassion, not
looking up from the screen she was observing over Maya's shoulder.
Misato only grinned meekly; both of them knew it was a situation that
wasn't changing. Misato changed the subject, deciding to skim past
pleasantries until a later date.
"How are the Magi tests going?"
"They're almost finished for Melchior. Things ran on time, for once.
Where are the children?"
"They're getting changed. They'll be here any moment."
Shinji felt the air suck itself out of his plugsuit as he compressed
the trigger on his left wrist. It was a sensation he could never get
used to, much like most of the tasks he had to perform at Nerv; being
surrounded by LCL, feeling things he knew didn't come from his own
mind, synchronising with the Eva...
He slowly became aware of Rei's shadow showing up against the
partition; standing close to the thin wall, one hand resting slightly
on it, near her face. Shinji could imagine her over the other side,
her pert nose almost touching the material of the partition, both of
them being so close yet so far...
Shinji stood and in doing so, saw Rei's shadow move to track his own
movement; she was watching him, probably much to the disgust of Asuka,
if she had noticed. He slowly moved over to the partition, and raised
his own hand to touch the shadow. Due to the thickness (or lack
thereof) of the false wall, he could feel Rei's fingertips respond to
his touch. There was something deeply intense about this; not being
able to see or feel fully what each other was doing, yet knowing on
some level they were strongly connected...
"_Hey!_ Would you two knock it off? We're _supposed_ to be getting
ready here!"
Asuka began muttering about how much the pair of them were idiots to
herself as the intensity between Rei and Shinji was shattered.
Shinji looked to either side of him; Rei on his right, Asuka on his
left, half-obscured by a shoulder-level partition. He depressed his
thumb on a button marked as the intercom switch, and spoke.
"We're here."
"And not pleased at all about being naked and standing next to
this..._pervert!_" Asuka, as usual, voicing her objections in the
bluntest manner, all while managing to call him a pervert. That had
come about after Asuka had found out about that incident when Shinji
had to deliver Rei's new ID card...and Rei had somehow been able to
avoid the full wrath of Asuka, leaving him to try and explain, which
he did rather poorly. Shinji decided he would let it go, this time, as
he happened to agree with her. The sooner he could get into the entry
plug, the better, as he wasn't entirely comfortable being without his
plugsuit, either.
"Don't call Shinji a pervert!" Rei.
"What would _you_ like me to call him, then?"
Shinji was sure that Asuka had been about to make a suggestion, until
Ritsuko cut her off.
"Stop bickering. We've got a test to run, and we're on a tight time
schedule."
"Sorry, Doctor Akagi."
"Yeah, sorry."
As Rei felt the air around her become replaced by liquid, she
instantly sensed that something was wrong in the entry plug. It could
have been due to the fact that they weren't using the Evas for this
test, but rather large mock bodies suspended in one of Nerv's large
Eva testing rooms. She wasn't completely sure on where these
new...objects had come from, and didn't want to be; what she did know
about the secrets Nerv held made all the more certain that she didn't
want to know the rest of them. But that part of her mind was closed
now...
The wrongness still remained, and Rei was sure that she would be
reassured if she could just place where it-
"Rei, can you hear me?" The intercom.
"Yes, I can hear you."
"I want you to try and move the left arm."
Rei's hand went to the metal grip, and the alien sensation increased.
Regardless, she tried to raise the grip to correspond with the command
Ritsuko gave her.
The grip stuck solid, and the LCL felt like it was condensing around
her. A sharp, stabbing pain came over her arm, and she knew from long
experience that this test was going to be aborted.
Something was definitely wrong.
"Her input isn't registering. There's something wrong with the
calibration, maybe," Ritsuko thought out loud.
"No, I don't think it's that," Maya replied. As if on cue, a siren
went off. A message showed simultaneously across every display screen
in Nerv: Alert!
"An Angel? Where the hell did that come from?" Ritsuko, shocked by the
fear in her own voice, suddenly saw all the situations she had been
thinking of this morning coming true.
"It's disrupting readings across the entire system! We can't get a
trace on it!"
"Find it! We can't let this happen! Not now!"
"There's too much interference!"
Rei's scream over the intercom and a loud crash, muffled by the liquid
in the holding bay, gave away the Angel's position.
"Eject the pilots! We can't allow them to be contaminated!' yelled the
Commander from above them.
As Misato released her breath seeing the three entry plugs being
jettisoned from the thrashing body in the tank, she was, for one of
the few times in her career in fighting the Angels, completely blank
about how to beat it.
"Use the lasers! We can't let it get out of the tank!"
Several wall-mounted lasers swivelled to target the simulation body,
warmed up, and fired. The red beams hit the body, and bounced off what
looked like small, glowing shields."
"That's an A.T. Field! Cease fire!"
"Something's trying to access the test data!"
"Oh my God! The Angel's hacking into our system!"
"Initiate total isolation! We can't let it infiltrate!"
Makoto pulled a manual lever beside his control panel, and all
displays, lights and anything else electrical in the testing room shut
off. In the silence that followed, everyone watch the large test body,
which now looked like it was covered in some alien virus, giving off a
pale yellow glow.
As everyone in the darkened room stared at the giant tank, Misato
noticed a rapidly flashing light on a control panel near Makoto. The
intercom hail light.
That would be...
"Hey! Somebody go and do something about the pilots!"
A group of orange-suited technicians jumped to their feet and hurried
out the door. Silence once again followed their departure.
"Why isn't it moving?" Ritsuko asked, to no one in particular.
"This Angel is like no other we've encountered before. Unlike all of
the previous ones we've intercepted, this Angel contains no biological
elements at all. This means that..."
"No biological elements? Does that mean it's not alive?" asked Misato,
interrupting Maya as she so often did. Maya, unperturbed, continued
here short report to Misato and Ritsuko in the small conference room.
"This means that it can be likened to a computer virus, and that it is
currently using the simulation body as its host. We've taken into
account the need to protect the Magi and..."
"What about the Evas?"
"They're on a separate system," Ritsuko replied, speaking for the
first time in the conversation. "This will possibly be the only Angel
where the Evas aren't an issue."
"But with the high degree of protection on the Magi, they have been
put on temporary standby, so they cannot be infected," Maya stated,
emphasising the beginning of her sentence to try and keep Misato and
Ritsuko's minds on the task at hand. "The trade-off for the loss of
the Magi is that all of the other systems in Nerv are currently open
to the Angel."
"So we have no protection?"
"That's right."
"Well...what do we do?"
"Just _watch_ it? _That's_ your idea? Just _watch_ it?"
"Yes. It's a perfectly good idea; the Angel seems to be in a
stationary position, and we need to observe it if we are going to
eliminate it."
"It has access to the workings of this entire facility, and you want
to let guard down and watch it?"
"Would you be reasonable about this?"
"I don't believe Commander Ikari would have given you power over this
mission if he knew all you were going to do was watch it!"
"Believe what you want, Misato. I'm in charge of destroying this
Angel, and I believe this is the most effective way of doing it."
Misato glared at Ritsuko for a moment, and then walked off.
"Rei?"
Shinji stepped slowly into the room unaware of what reaction he would
get from the balled-up Rei in the corner of the changing room.
"I...I lost control. I...felt it in my mind." She spoke slowly,
seeming to almost go back to her previous emotionless state. He hated
hearing her speak like that...without any emotion but fear.
"Rei...it's okay...you didn't do anything." Shinji moved over to Rei
and sat down beside her.
"I know...it's just..."
"Rei...I don't know what to say."
She turned her head towards him, and Shinji could see the impact this
event had made on her.
"Then don't say anything. Just...hold me, okay?"
Shinji, obligingly, put his arms around her.
"I hate it...when it's in my head," Rei said in a voice barely above a
whisper, and began to cry quietly.
The two pilots stayed in the same position for what seemed like hours.
A telephone in the Commander's desk began to ring. The line from the
Committee.
"Yes?"
"Ikari!" came Keel's voice from the phone. "What happened down there?"
"Malfunction in the simulation. One of the bodies gave off an entire
range of odd readings."
"Is there any record of this?"
"All the data was lost due to a system shutdown."
"You had better not be lying to us, Ikari..."
"There is no Angel," the Commander said bluntly, and hung up.
Makoto walked into the lunchroom and turned on the coffee maker,
although not entirely of his own volition. He had been walking down a
hallway, and he had seen Misato looking not quite in the best of
moods, and so he asked her what was wrong. She promptly responded by
yelling out a stream of incoherence accusations, most of them aimed at
Ritsuko, and the only thing he could make out clearly was at the end
of her spiel, about getting her something to drink. And, seeing as
Nerv didn't allow alcoholic beverages (mostly for Misato's sake,
Makoto thought sometimes), he thought the next best thing was some
coffee.
"The Angel is showing some signs of activity, Doctor," Maya reported,
conveniently as Ritsuko passed by her.
"What's it doing?"
"It seems to be accessing the control for the video surveillance...and
the drink dispenser in the lunchroom."
Ritsuko's brow furrowed. "You're joking."
"No, really. Take a look for yourself."
After a brief moment of scanning what Maya had on her screen, Ritsuko
was convinced, but not certain about what anything would want with
control over a soda can dispenser.
Makoto, in an effort to alleviate boredom from waiting for the so-
called instant coffee, sat one of the tables in the lunchroom and
humming a song he had heard on the radio in the morning. In his
rendition, he failed to notice that one of the drink dispensers was
ejecting cans for no reason, until one struck him rather forcefully in
the leg. He then looked up and saw the machine in the corner fling out
a can, which hit the wall behind him, making a small dent in it.
Had Makoto not been so surprised by the extreme oddity of this event,
he perhaps would have reacted with a little more caution. He got up
from his chair, and walked closer to the drink machine.
The last thing he could remember coherently on that day was a bright
orange aluminium can flying out of the machine's slot in his general
direction.
"Makoto? Are you awake?"
"Mmm...yeah, I think. What happened?"
"You got hit in the head with a can of soft drink. You've fetched
yourself quite a nasty bruise." A short giggle, and Makoto felt a hand
pass lightly over his forehead.
"How...how did that happen?"
"It doesn't matter. Just rest."
He stopped trying to place the voice that spoke to him, and let
himself be consumed by sleep. Misato looked at him for a moment, and
left the room.
"The Angel seems to be doing something again."
"Anything like the last time?"
"No...it seems to be disengaging itself from its host...and taking
hold in the security camera system."
"I don't like this." Ritsuko paused to look up at one of the thousands
of scanning cameras in Nerv. "It's watching us."
After a brief moment of thought, Ritsuko spoke to Maya again.
"Send down some technicians to the main power supply."
"What for, Doctor?"
"I have an idea."
"Whoah! Something's searching through all our files!" Shigeru, from
his terminal, almost fell out of his seat.
"What? Is it the Angel?"
"It has to be...no human can move this fast! What do we do?"
After a second, Ritsuko regained her composure. "Nothing. It can't do
anything. We need to know what it's looking for." She walked over to
Shigeru's console.
"It's going for all the document encryption codes...every one of
them."
"Those files have the highest security...but what could it use them
for?"
Shigeru's screen went blank.
"What the hell?" Shigeru asked to the blackened screen.
Random numbers and symbols appeared on the screen rapidly. Slowly, the
symbols became only letters, and then began to break themselves up
from one continuous string.
_Is it trying to communicate?,_ Ritsuko thought, as three words
appeared on the screen, separate from the rest of the letters,
confirming her thought and fear.
Where is Adam?
"What...what is this?" Shigeru craned his head to look at Ritsuko, who
was finding it very hard to accept what she saw before her. More words
appeared on the screen.
Where is Adam? Where is Adam? Where is Adam?
Faster.
WhereisAdamwhereisAdamwhereisAdamAdamadamreturntoadamreturnbecomeOnew
ithAllWhereIsAdam
Faster still, until the letters became a blur.
The screen exploded, causing both Ritsuko and Shigeru to jerk
backwards, and snapped them both back to reality.
"What _was_ that?" Shigeru asked, rubbing his eyes but not managing to
remove the expression on them.
"I have no idea." Ritsuko turned to the panel of technicians behind
her. "Find out what just happened down here! Trace everything!"
A chorus of, "Yes, ma'am!"
"You may want to have a look at this, Commander."
"What is it?"
"Doctor Akagi sent it straight from the testing room...she said it was
important."
Fuyutsuki handed the Commander a folder marked with the custom
security notices. Inside, however, was nothing as elaborate. A few
sheets of paper sat inside the folder, all except one being recorded
movements the Angel had made in the last twenty minutes. However,
sitting on top of these was a handwritten note, signed by Ritsuko.
Strictly against protocol, but he was planning on destroying all
evidence that this little incident had ever occurred. The Committee
might not be able to replace him, but they could certainly remove him
from a position of power if they didn't trust him enough. He glanced
over Ritsuko's note.
_'The Angel appears to have found record of Adam, and tried to make
contact with Lt. Aoba and I via our own computer system. Is Terminal
Dogma secure, Commander?'_
Ikari thought to himself. All of the key systems for Instrumentality
were separated from the main system of Nerv, and from each other:
Seele had covered themselves well in case of all events. If Ritsuko
didn't realise that...she must be in a great state of shock.
"Tell Ritsuko that there's no need to worry. Everything is secure."
"Yes, Commander."
As Fuyutsuki left, Ikari glanced over the envelope. It was an express
type, marked as being able to be hand-delivered without being filed
officially first. Good. That meant it could be run effectively through
the shredder before it could be filed officially.
Asuka, as she walked back to the changing room, decided that she was
not in the best mood she could be in. It had taken forever for the
technicians to get them out of the entry plugs, she hadn't been able
to find Kaji anywhere, the new plugsuit they had given her was over-
starched, or something, and she had hit her head trying to put it on
inside the entry plug, and was sure that there would be a bruise there
in the morning. The whole test was a stupid idea, anyway. What was the
point of getting test results, if they weren't from when they were in
their Evas? She just wanted to change into some clothes with room to
move, and be left alone for the rest of the day. However, Asuka
thought, all hopes of her being left alone went down the drain when
she saw _them_ in the changing room.
"Well, isn't this cosy? How long have you two been here?"
"Asuka? What are you doing here?" Shinji recognised well the look in
Asuka's eyes (which he often mentally referred to as the Devil's
Glint), and know she was not going to handle being aggravated further
very well.
"Why do you think I'm in here? To change, idiot!"
"Then do it on the other side," came Rei's voice, faint and slightly
muffled by her knees, which were pulled up close to her face.
"Oh, I'm _sorry_. Am I intruding on something?" Asuka asked
sarcastically.
"Just go over the other side, and leave us alone."
"What's the matter, Shinji? Are you-"
"Dammit, can't you think about anyone else for a change?"
Shinji and Asuka locked eyes. Asuka could clearly read the message
written in his eyes: leave her alone.
Asuka, intent on leaving with some face, spun around sharply, never
lowering her eyes, and changed silently over the other side of the
partition.
"Are you in position? Can you see the breakers?"
"I can see them. Why does it have to be so dark here?"
"We went through a lot of extra security to prevent anything like the
blackout that happened before. We don't want anyone being able to shut
us down that easily again."
Ritsuko cupped her hand over the small microphone bud suspended from
her headset and walked over to Maya's console.
"How much of the Angel is left in the simulation body?"
"Two point seven percent, Doctor."
Ritsuko removed her hand. "Shut off the power."
Through the speaker in her ear, Ritsuko could hear a large lever being
pulled. The diminished yellow glow over the body in the tank faded.
"What's the status of the Angel?"
"The two point seven percent left in the simulation body has been
removed from the system." Maya looked up from the screen. "That means
we can beat it, right?"
"We'll see about that." Ritsuko spoke into the headset again. "Turn it
back on."
The changes in the test body reversed itself.
"The removed section of the Angel has returned."
Ritsuko sat at Shigeru's terminal, as Shigeru was occupying Makoto's
area due to his screen no longer working, trying to figure out a way
of removing the Angel from all of the primary systems. The figurative
bulk of it was residing in the security cameras, which they had lost
control over about an hour ago. It was then spreading itself
throughout the system, possibly trying to acquire information on Adam.
They could just leave it be, as it was unable to access any of the
important facilities of Nerv; the LCL plant, the Dummy System, the
Evangelions...the Magi. But no one in Nerv would be willing to accept
that.
"If we isolated it in the cameras...passcoded off everything else...we
could shut off power again...," Ritsuko thought out loud. As her train
of though gathered steam, she became certain that this way would work.
"Maya, mind my post. I have to go talk to the Commander."
"And what are you doing, gorgeous?"
Misato was so absorbed in scanning the surveillance camera screens
that she hadn't heard Kaji come into the room. She almost cringed at
the sound of the familiar voice. "_Don't_ call me 'gorgeous'."
"Okay...gorgeous." Before Misato could talk back to him again, he
said, "You look upset."
_Because you're here, maybe?,_ she thought, but didn't bother saying,
as she always seemed to come off worse when she argued with Kaji.
"Is it because you're not allowed to work on this Angel?" he asked in
her silence.
"Funny _you_ should talk about work. What have you been doing here,
Kaji?"
"Odd jobs." He then directed his attention to the wall of television
screens Misato had been intently staring at. "Looking for anything in
particular?"
"If you must know, I was trying to find the children, before you so
rudely interrupted me."
"Oh."
Kaji walked over to the chair that Misato was sitting on, and rested
his hands on the back of it. Fine, let him keep his hands there,
thought Misato, but if he moves them _anywhere_ he's receiving a swift
backhand to the face.
"You propose the total removal of the video surveillance system?"
"That is correct, Commander. I see it as the only possible way of
defeating this Angel."
"It is a small price to pay: you have full authority to go ahead with
the operation."
"Thankyou, Commander."
"How do you feel, Rei?"
"Better, I guess."
Shinji gave her a loving kiss on the forehead, and she responded by
holding him closer.
"Thankyou, Shinji."
"For what?"
"For being here."
"Is that them?" asked Kaji, leaning over Misato and pointing to a
screen. Misato looked at the monitor that his finger rested on, which
showed an overhead view of one of the changing rooms. Sitting in a
corner were Shinji and Rei, in each other's arms. Misato and Kaji
looked on as Shinji kissed Rei.
"Ah, young love. You know, we were like that once, Katsuragi."
"Don't get any ideas, Kaji."
From the shifting weight on the chair and the feel of his breath when
he spoke next, Misato could tell that Kaji was leaning close to her.
"What, not in the romantic mood?"
"I said don't get any ideas."
"Prepare for system encryption."
"Yes, ma'am."
Maya began typing on her keyboard, inputting the necessary motions to
place all of Nerv under total shutoff.
Ritsuko watched the graph of the Angel's inhabiting space slowly
increase, as it's various dispersed parts were barred from entry to
systems all over Nerv. The small percentage bar at the bottom of the
graph reached seventy.
"It can't be this easy," Ritsuko said to herself, watching the graph
climb.
It wasn't.
Simultaneously, all of the Commander's desk phones began to ring. As
Ikari picked each of them up, all he heard was electrical exchange
signals. Several lights in Central Dogma began to flicker on and off.
The wall of television screens Misato and Kaji were watching showed up
a broken transmission signal for a second, and then restored
themselves.
The graph reached eighty.
All of the drink dispensers in the lunchrooms fired off a volley of
aluminium cans. Fortunately, this time no one was in the rooms to get
injured. One of the coffee makers in the test room was hit with a
surge of electricity, and exploded in a rain of burnt plastic, causing
all of the technicians around it to cover their faces with their arms.
"Keep going!" yelled Ritsuko. "We can't let it stay in the system!"
The graph reached ninety.
One of the mounted lasers in the simulation tank activated itself, and
rotated to face the glass panel looking in on the tank. Ritsuko,
alerted by the coffee maker and the only person in the room not
focused on a screen, saw it move and begin to power up.
"Put everything on automatic encryption. We have to get out of here."
Her voice seemed calm, but inside her head, a very uncomfortable
mental image was coming to her; a small rock, the key to holding a
landslide, slipping painfully slowly.
The laser fired, focusing on a small spot on the screen and starting
to turn it red.
"Go, go, go, go, go!" Ritsuko yelled out as the glass began to crack.
The various programmers began to move from their seats and run for the
door. Ritsuko, after a momentary glance over the room, turned and ran
as well. She heard the glass crash behind her.
As Ritsuko ran through the already closing doors, she turned to see
the water filling the room be sealed into the test room by the airlock
doors.
Several glances were exchanges among the escapees.
"It is...gone?"
"We'll just have to find out." Ritsuko turned on her headset and spoke
into it. "Shut off the power."
The switch was thrown for the surveillance power, and the wall of
screens, the lights, and all other electrical devices were shut off in
the surveillance room.
_Whap!_
"Ouch! What was that for?"
"Like you don't know!"
"My hand slipped."
"Oh, sure!"
"Begin the scanning."
The Nerv technicians, now relocated to the large display room that
housed the Magi, began to check the system for any traces of the
Angel.
"System check...clean." Maya looked at Ritsuko. "We got it."
A cheer went up from the programmers.
"Reactivate the Magi! Begin assessing damage on the simulation room!"
The technicians dispersed themselves to where they were needed.
"Good work, Maya."
"Thankyou, Doctor."
-Derek Zischke
ageless_strange@optusnet.com.au
"Do you suffer from long-term memory loss? I can't remember..."
-Chumbawhamba