Author: Stephen Mason Email: hagenclaw@icqmail.com
See Prologue for Disclaimer + Author's notes. Now let's continue. :)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
With a hollow click the lights in the holographic chamber flick
on. They illuminate Commander Fuyutsuki as he stands in the middle of
the room. His eyes slightly down cast in the face of the black
monoliths of SEELE.
SEELE 01: "What are you doing here 'Professor' Fuyutsuki."
SEELE 04: "Why did you contact us?"
SEELE 06: "You know SEELE had disassociated itself from NERV.
SEELE 04: "And your failures."
"And yet you still provide our funding." Fuyutsuki said, looking
up boldly. After so many years the expressionless monoliths no longer
fazed him.
SEELE 06: "With Unit 01 unchained, and Lilith still deep within
Terminal Dogma, there still exists the threat that third impact will
be initiated."
SEELE 02: "Thus NERV must still function in its primary capacity; to
guard against such a threat."
SEELE 01: "This does not answer our original question though. Why are
you here?"
Fuyutsuki took a deep breath. "The fourth child has agreed. The
Lazarus Project has entered its final phase."
SEELE 02: "Ah. The re-activation of Unit 03 and its use as a diversion
while Unit 02 retrieves the lance of Longinus."
SEELE 01: "Then we may finally see an end to this. One way or another.
NEON GENSIS EVANGELION
THE LAZARUS PROJECT
PART 2: RECOLLECTION AND RE-ACTIVATION
Where am I? (in Shinji's voice)
I can't see anything.
There is no sound.
It feels... wet.
It smells like... blood?
Is this the Eva?
It was the day of Unit 03's Activation test, and while it was not
necessary for Asuka to be there, she felt that, personally, she
couldn't stay away. If Unit 03 failed to activate, or rejected the
pilot, it would be the end of everyone's hopes. The end of her own
future.
She had taken a short cut through the NERV Special Hospital. It
was one of the closest buildings to the Activation cages, for obvious
reasons. Her footsteps echoed as she walked, there was no other sound.
The bare, white walled halls were virtually empty. There were few
current patients, though Asuka had been one of them often enough, and
only one permanent patient.
She paused at the open door of one small room. Inside there was a
single, starched hospital bed. It wasn't empty. In the bed lay a pale
girl of 18. Her blue hair lay on top of the sheets and was so long it
stretched past her waist. One thin wrist also lay on top of the covers
and several tubes, leading from various drips, were tucked to a
bandage wrapped around it. Her eyes were closed, just as they had been
for nearly three years.
There was also a small table beside the bed. On it was a small
brown glasses case and an old sdat media player. Asuka recognised it
as Shinji's but she didn't know how it had gotten here.
Asuka looked down on Rei's sleeping form with a sad expression.
Now, after three years of being the only person able to pilot an Eva,
she regretted not getting closer to her fellow pilot. And perhaps, she
even missed her.
How many times had they piloted the Evas together? How many sync
tests had they sat through together? How many times had she competed
with her against the Angels? How may times had she called her 'wonder
girl' or 'bitch'? Rei had never spoken unless it was necessary, silent
most of the time. And now, and now she would probably never speak
again.
What was the last thing I ever said to her. Asuka thought. She
found the memory and her mind recoiled. The last thing she had ever
said to Rei was; 'Your nothing but a doll, I hate you'. Asuka shook
her head sadly, her regrets rising as they always did when she thought
about the past.
Pulling herself out of her reprieve Asuka abandoned the small
hospital room. There were important things going on and she had no
time to waste on the dead.
The young technician Maya turned around in her small seat in the
monitoring room. "Where is commander Fuyutsuki?" she asked Dr Akagi.
"I would have thought..."
"The commander wont be joining us today, he has a meeting in Tokyo
2." The doctor stood slightly behind the technicians siting at the
long control panel that dominated the room. Set into the wall in front
of the bench was a wide, reinforced window that looked out into the
test cage. It also gave an ideal view of the patchwork face of Eva
Unit 03.
Inside the Eva Touji sat in the pilot's seat, the LCL tasted
strange in his mouth. He was wearing a black plug-suit, with his
synthetic limbs firmly sealed inside. He was feeling uncomfortable, it
wasn't a physical sensation as such, but rather it had to do with the
memories that being in the entry-plug brought back. He forced them
down, refusing to acknowledge them or the discomfort.
"Are you ready Touji?" The doctor's voice filtered over the
intercom.
"As ready as I'll ever be." He said dryly.
"That will have to do." She replied. "Commence first connection."
With that the dull hum of the Eva's power circuits filled the air
and the LCL.
"Pattern green."
"All restraints nominal."
"Unit 03 entering second contact."
"Harmonics normal." In front of Dr Akagi the various graphs and
monitors flashed their lights in reassuring fashion. Not a hint of a
warning sign.
"Initiating third connection."
"Self-stata mind graph; stable."
Touji began to get a strange feeling, like his senses were
becoming fuzzy and he was no long the right size for his own body. It
was not comfortable.
"Commence A10 nerve connections." Said the doctor.
"Connections 1 to 67 stable."
"Approaching borderline connection."
"There is some kind of..."
Suddenly the screen in front of Touji went blank, the lights in
the Eva flicked off and the com went dead. He was plunged into
soundless darkness. Something told him that this was not part of the
procedure. Before he could react though the screen lit back up, but
the image felt different, like it was going direct to his brain,
without bothering to ask his eyes first.
The Eva was no longer in the cage, in fact it was no longer the
same Eva. "Holy shit, no!" Touji said, appalled by what he was seeing.
Twin black arms stretched out from either side of his vision. They had
their hands wrapped around the throat of Unit 01, slowly chocking the
life of the synchronised pilot.
"No." Touji cried, clawing back in the seat, his heart hammering,
"I don't want to see this again. I don't want to remember it."
Unit 01's jaws sprang apart and it's own hands began to move.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the vision ended. Now the screen showed
him only blue sky, and flat, white clouds. For several moments Touji
just sat there breathing heavily. That had to have been a memory from
Unit 03, he knew that very well, but why had it resurfaced, was it
because he had been the pilot then too? And what was he seeing now?
Sitting up he tried to change the perspective and was surprised to
find it easy to do. It appeared he was in another Eva, this one white
rather that black. It was lying amidst the rubble at the edge of Tokyo
3 lake. There were two holes burned through its midsection. Other than
the line of sight, it was unable to move.
But it wasn't the Eva he was in that caught his attention but
rather the two that stood facing each other in front of him. The first
was Unit 01 with its back to the lake. It stood legs apart, a long,
red, two pronged weapon held in front of it. The other Eva, one of the
white mass produced ones, stood on a low hill several hundred meters
away from Unit 01. It too held a strange two pronged weapon, but its'
was blue. Touji guessed that this must bee the end of the third battle
against Unit 01.
As he watched the white Eva suddenly sprang into action. It leapt
from the hill and charged right at Unit 01, the weapon pointed at the
purple Eva's chest. Unit 01 waited until the other was getting very
close, then launched its self straight up into the air. The white Eva
responded in kind. They met in midair, their matching weapons locking.
But the white Eva had more momentum and they were both carried back
out over the water. With a tremendous splash they both sunk beneath
the waves.
The water continued to churn as the two Evas struggled beneath the
surface, but the screen was starting to fade. Then, just before all
the light disappeared, a young man appeared inside the entry-plug.
Touji recoiled in shock at the pale, red-eyed face only a few inches
from his own. Then the last of the light faded and once more he could
hear the voices of those in the monitoring room over the intercom. A
second later the lights in the plug switched back on. He was alone.
"...disturbance. Oh wait. It's gone now."
"What was that?" the Doctor was asking of someone else in that
room.
"It was some kind of abnormality in the sync graph." That was
Maya's voice. "But it's gone now. Everything appears to be normal."
"Ok." The doctor redirected her voice to the com. "Touji are you
alright?"
"Yeah." He said, sounding a little shaky. "I'm fine." Who had that
boy been? What did he have to do with the Evas? Had he really seen any
of it at all? But his confusion and curiosity were beginning to recede
in the face of the strange feeling he was now receiving.
He was aware of the Eva in almost the same way as he was aware of
his own body. It was a fuzzy, disjointed awareness, and it was nothing
like what he remembered of the last activation test he had been in.
There was another sensation too. It reminded him of the way his
artificial leg and arm felt. In his mind he raised an arm he hadn't
had in three years. The Eva mimicked this; lifting its own hand up to
the display in front of him. He flexed mental fingers, and a few
seconds later the huge hand in front of him opened and closed.
"It's like having my arm back." He whispered in awe.
While he had been doing this the technicians in the monitoring
room had been working furiously. Verifying the sync ratio, checking
connections, generally making sure the Activation was complete.
"Harmonics are all normal." Said one of the technicians.
"Ok Touji." The doctor spoke across the com. "It seems it was a
success. We'll eject the plug and you can go back to your quarters for
the rest of the day."
"ok." He said softly, and flexed the Eva's fingers one last time.
Asuka leaned against the wall at the back of the monitoring room.
There is no other way. She reminded herself. We have to use Unit 03,
or I'll be stuck here forever.
Commander Fuyutsuki stood alone in the dim command center. He
gazed silently at the desk in front of him and the chair that he had
never sat in. He still remembered the last day he saw the man who used
to sit there.
Images of his old friend flashed through his mind. Gendou; the
battered youth who he had first retrieved from the police station. The
man with the knowing smile as he sailed to Antarctica. The proud man
entering the testing room, his son riding upon his shoulders. The cold
eyed man sitting at his desk as he first outlined the Instrumentality
project. And finally the last time he had ever seen him.
It had been just after the third battle with Unit 01. They had
both been looking down on the red Eva as its pieces were being moved
into the repair cage.
"If we had just one more Eva we could..."
"No," Gendou cut him off. "The UN just banned the construction of
any additional Evas. Also, SEELE shut down the other branches of
NERV."
"What? The old men... they can't do that? Can they?"
"They can and they have." Gendou grunted what may have been a
laugh. "After all, with what has happened their agenda can no longer
be carried out. Then again, neither can ours."
"Were we wrong?" Fuyutsuki said, more to himself than to his
companion. "Was it truly not meant to be?"
"Perhaps." Gendou said, taking of his glasses and rubbing at tired
eyes. "Perhaps I was wrong to do as I have done." He replaced his
glasses, turned and walked away. "Perhaps."
"Sir?"
Fuyutsuki was pulled out of his revive but Ritsuko's voice. He
turned around to find her standing by the small door with a red
clipboard in her hands. He remembered now that when Unit 01 had first
broken free the Doctor had been nowhere to be found but after Gendou
disappeared she had reappeared, acting just as she always did.
Strange, he thought, that she should appear only when Gendou was no
longer around.
"Sir," she said again. "You requested to see me about Unit 03's
reactivation."
"Yes." He replied. "yes I did. How did it go?"
"There was an small abnormality after the borderline connection
but it only lasted 1.23 seconds. The pilot recorded no ill effects.
Otherwise it went very well. The Eva has accepted the pilot and the
preliminary sync ratio was recorded at 38%, which is very reasonable
considering he's only been in an Eva once before."
"Very good." He said, turning to look at the small panel of
buttons on the desk in front of him. They were several small,
unadorned, grey buttons surrounding a large red one with a plastic
cover. Abruptly he reached forward to strike one of the grey ones.
The large space in front of the screen was suddenly filled with a
multitude of three-dimensional, different coloured, holographic lines.
"Do you know what this is?" Fuyutsuki asked her.
"It's a schematic of the Geo-Front. But why..." he cut her off by
leaning forward and striking another key. The closest several layers
of the image pealed away and then the whole image zoomed in on four
red lined cylinders with red writing on their surfaces.
"Oh my god," she gasped. "An N^2 cluster mine. The UN doesn't even
allow the construction of... I mean."
"It is only weapon strong enough to completely destroy the Geo-
Front. It would burry this entire facility in so much dirt and rock it
would take forty years just to dig up the rubble.
"This button," he said stroking the plastic case of the large red
one on his desk. "is the one that will detonate it. It's not the only
way to do it of course, but any one who does use those mines has to be
in this facility to do it. It is the last option, if all else fails."
Fuyutsuki took a deep breath. "We will begin the training of the
Fourth tomorrow." He said, changing the subject. "See that everything
is ready. I will see you in the morning, Doctor." He finished,
dismissing her, but instead of waiting for her to leave he exited the
command chamber as soon as he had finished.
For a few moments she looked after him with a confused expression.
Shaking her head she dismissed the commander's odd behaviour.
"Magi," she said out loud, "Unit 01's status please."
The soft sibilant voice of the computer filled the room.
"Behaviour Pattern 04. Location: quadrant N22. Sync ratio: 100%. All
other data is blocked."
The holographic image disappeared and the screen behind it flicked
on. It showed an image from above the Geo Front. Rain poured from a
dark night's sky. The staccato sound played across the speakers. At
the center of the image was a massive dark shape sitting in the
shallows of the Tokyo 3 lake. There was just enough light for her to
see that Unit 01 sat with its legs curled against its chest, its arms
wrapped around them and its jaw resting on its knees. It did not move
at all as she watched it.
"So," she said, "even Gods sleep."
* * *
See Prologue for Disclaimer + Author's notes. Now let's continue. :)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
With a hollow click the lights in the holographic chamber flick
on. They illuminate Commander Fuyutsuki as he stands in the middle of
the room. His eyes slightly down cast in the face of the black
monoliths of SEELE.
SEELE 01: "What are you doing here 'Professor' Fuyutsuki."
SEELE 04: "Why did you contact us?"
SEELE 06: "You know SEELE had disassociated itself from NERV.
SEELE 04: "And your failures."
"And yet you still provide our funding." Fuyutsuki said, looking
up boldly. After so many years the expressionless monoliths no longer
fazed him.
SEELE 06: "With Unit 01 unchained, and Lilith still deep within
Terminal Dogma, there still exists the threat that third impact will
be initiated."
SEELE 02: "Thus NERV must still function in its primary capacity; to
guard against such a threat."
SEELE 01: "This does not answer our original question though. Why are
you here?"
Fuyutsuki took a deep breath. "The fourth child has agreed. The
Lazarus Project has entered its final phase."
SEELE 02: "Ah. The re-activation of Unit 03 and its use as a diversion
while Unit 02 retrieves the lance of Longinus."
SEELE 01: "Then we may finally see an end to this. One way or another.
NEON GENSIS EVANGELION
THE LAZARUS PROJECT
PART 2: RECOLLECTION AND RE-ACTIVATION
Where am I? (in Shinji's voice)
I can't see anything.
There is no sound.
It feels... wet.
It smells like... blood?
Is this the Eva?
It was the day of Unit 03's Activation test, and while it was not
necessary for Asuka to be there, she felt that, personally, she
couldn't stay away. If Unit 03 failed to activate, or rejected the
pilot, it would be the end of everyone's hopes. The end of her own
future.
She had taken a short cut through the NERV Special Hospital. It
was one of the closest buildings to the Activation cages, for obvious
reasons. Her footsteps echoed as she walked, there was no other sound.
The bare, white walled halls were virtually empty. There were few
current patients, though Asuka had been one of them often enough, and
only one permanent patient.
She paused at the open door of one small room. Inside there was a
single, starched hospital bed. It wasn't empty. In the bed lay a pale
girl of 18. Her blue hair lay on top of the sheets and was so long it
stretched past her waist. One thin wrist also lay on top of the covers
and several tubes, leading from various drips, were tucked to a
bandage wrapped around it. Her eyes were closed, just as they had been
for nearly three years.
There was also a small table beside the bed. On it was a small
brown glasses case and an old sdat media player. Asuka recognised it
as Shinji's but she didn't know how it had gotten here.
Asuka looked down on Rei's sleeping form with a sad expression.
Now, after three years of being the only person able to pilot an Eva,
she regretted not getting closer to her fellow pilot. And perhaps, she
even missed her.
How many times had they piloted the Evas together? How many sync
tests had they sat through together? How many times had she competed
with her against the Angels? How may times had she called her 'wonder
girl' or 'bitch'? Rei had never spoken unless it was necessary, silent
most of the time. And now, and now she would probably never speak
again.
What was the last thing I ever said to her. Asuka thought. She
found the memory and her mind recoiled. The last thing she had ever
said to Rei was; 'Your nothing but a doll, I hate you'. Asuka shook
her head sadly, her regrets rising as they always did when she thought
about the past.
Pulling herself out of her reprieve Asuka abandoned the small
hospital room. There were important things going on and she had no
time to waste on the dead.
The young technician Maya turned around in her small seat in the
monitoring room. "Where is commander Fuyutsuki?" she asked Dr Akagi.
"I would have thought..."
"The commander wont be joining us today, he has a meeting in Tokyo
2." The doctor stood slightly behind the technicians siting at the
long control panel that dominated the room. Set into the wall in front
of the bench was a wide, reinforced window that looked out into the
test cage. It also gave an ideal view of the patchwork face of Eva
Unit 03.
Inside the Eva Touji sat in the pilot's seat, the LCL tasted
strange in his mouth. He was wearing a black plug-suit, with his
synthetic limbs firmly sealed inside. He was feeling uncomfortable, it
wasn't a physical sensation as such, but rather it had to do with the
memories that being in the entry-plug brought back. He forced them
down, refusing to acknowledge them or the discomfort.
"Are you ready Touji?" The doctor's voice filtered over the
intercom.
"As ready as I'll ever be." He said dryly.
"That will have to do." She replied. "Commence first connection."
With that the dull hum of the Eva's power circuits filled the air
and the LCL.
"Pattern green."
"All restraints nominal."
"Unit 03 entering second contact."
"Harmonics normal." In front of Dr Akagi the various graphs and
monitors flashed their lights in reassuring fashion. Not a hint of a
warning sign.
"Initiating third connection."
"Self-stata mind graph; stable."
Touji began to get a strange feeling, like his senses were
becoming fuzzy and he was no long the right size for his own body. It
was not comfortable.
"Commence A10 nerve connections." Said the doctor.
"Connections 1 to 67 stable."
"Approaching borderline connection."
"There is some kind of..."
Suddenly the screen in front of Touji went blank, the lights in
the Eva flicked off and the com went dead. He was plunged into
soundless darkness. Something told him that this was not part of the
procedure. Before he could react though the screen lit back up, but
the image felt different, like it was going direct to his brain,
without bothering to ask his eyes first.
The Eva was no longer in the cage, in fact it was no longer the
same Eva. "Holy shit, no!" Touji said, appalled by what he was seeing.
Twin black arms stretched out from either side of his vision. They had
their hands wrapped around the throat of Unit 01, slowly chocking the
life of the synchronised pilot.
"No." Touji cried, clawing back in the seat, his heart hammering,
"I don't want to see this again. I don't want to remember it."
Unit 01's jaws sprang apart and it's own hands began to move.
Then, as suddenly as it came, the vision ended. Now the screen showed
him only blue sky, and flat, white clouds. For several moments Touji
just sat there breathing heavily. That had to have been a memory from
Unit 03, he knew that very well, but why had it resurfaced, was it
because he had been the pilot then too? And what was he seeing now?
Sitting up he tried to change the perspective and was surprised to
find it easy to do. It appeared he was in another Eva, this one white
rather that black. It was lying amidst the rubble at the edge of Tokyo
3 lake. There were two holes burned through its midsection. Other than
the line of sight, it was unable to move.
But it wasn't the Eva he was in that caught his attention but
rather the two that stood facing each other in front of him. The first
was Unit 01 with its back to the lake. It stood legs apart, a long,
red, two pronged weapon held in front of it. The other Eva, one of the
white mass produced ones, stood on a low hill several hundred meters
away from Unit 01. It too held a strange two pronged weapon, but its'
was blue. Touji guessed that this must bee the end of the third battle
against Unit 01.
As he watched the white Eva suddenly sprang into action. It leapt
from the hill and charged right at Unit 01, the weapon pointed at the
purple Eva's chest. Unit 01 waited until the other was getting very
close, then launched its self straight up into the air. The white Eva
responded in kind. They met in midair, their matching weapons locking.
But the white Eva had more momentum and they were both carried back
out over the water. With a tremendous splash they both sunk beneath
the waves.
The water continued to churn as the two Evas struggled beneath the
surface, but the screen was starting to fade. Then, just before all
the light disappeared, a young man appeared inside the entry-plug.
Touji recoiled in shock at the pale, red-eyed face only a few inches
from his own. Then the last of the light faded and once more he could
hear the voices of those in the monitoring room over the intercom. A
second later the lights in the plug switched back on. He was alone.
"...disturbance. Oh wait. It's gone now."
"What was that?" the Doctor was asking of someone else in that
room.
"It was some kind of abnormality in the sync graph." That was
Maya's voice. "But it's gone now. Everything appears to be normal."
"Ok." The doctor redirected her voice to the com. "Touji are you
alright?"
"Yeah." He said, sounding a little shaky. "I'm fine." Who had that
boy been? What did he have to do with the Evas? Had he really seen any
of it at all? But his confusion and curiosity were beginning to recede
in the face of the strange feeling he was now receiving.
He was aware of the Eva in almost the same way as he was aware of
his own body. It was a fuzzy, disjointed awareness, and it was nothing
like what he remembered of the last activation test he had been in.
There was another sensation too. It reminded him of the way his
artificial leg and arm felt. In his mind he raised an arm he hadn't
had in three years. The Eva mimicked this; lifting its own hand up to
the display in front of him. He flexed mental fingers, and a few
seconds later the huge hand in front of him opened and closed.
"It's like having my arm back." He whispered in awe.
While he had been doing this the technicians in the monitoring
room had been working furiously. Verifying the sync ratio, checking
connections, generally making sure the Activation was complete.
"Harmonics are all normal." Said one of the technicians.
"Ok Touji." The doctor spoke across the com. "It seems it was a
success. We'll eject the plug and you can go back to your quarters for
the rest of the day."
"ok." He said softly, and flexed the Eva's fingers one last time.
Asuka leaned against the wall at the back of the monitoring room.
There is no other way. She reminded herself. We have to use Unit 03,
or I'll be stuck here forever.
Commander Fuyutsuki stood alone in the dim command center. He
gazed silently at the desk in front of him and the chair that he had
never sat in. He still remembered the last day he saw the man who used
to sit there.
Images of his old friend flashed through his mind. Gendou; the
battered youth who he had first retrieved from the police station. The
man with the knowing smile as he sailed to Antarctica. The proud man
entering the testing room, his son riding upon his shoulders. The cold
eyed man sitting at his desk as he first outlined the Instrumentality
project. And finally the last time he had ever seen him.
It had been just after the third battle with Unit 01. They had
both been looking down on the red Eva as its pieces were being moved
into the repair cage.
"If we had just one more Eva we could..."
"No," Gendou cut him off. "The UN just banned the construction of
any additional Evas. Also, SEELE shut down the other branches of
NERV."
"What? The old men... they can't do that? Can they?"
"They can and they have." Gendou grunted what may have been a
laugh. "After all, with what has happened their agenda can no longer
be carried out. Then again, neither can ours."
"Were we wrong?" Fuyutsuki said, more to himself than to his
companion. "Was it truly not meant to be?"
"Perhaps." Gendou said, taking of his glasses and rubbing at tired
eyes. "Perhaps I was wrong to do as I have done." He replaced his
glasses, turned and walked away. "Perhaps."
"Sir?"
Fuyutsuki was pulled out of his revive but Ritsuko's voice. He
turned around to find her standing by the small door with a red
clipboard in her hands. He remembered now that when Unit 01 had first
broken free the Doctor had been nowhere to be found but after Gendou
disappeared she had reappeared, acting just as she always did.
Strange, he thought, that she should appear only when Gendou was no
longer around.
"Sir," she said again. "You requested to see me about Unit 03's
reactivation."
"Yes." He replied. "yes I did. How did it go?"
"There was an small abnormality after the borderline connection
but it only lasted 1.23 seconds. The pilot recorded no ill effects.
Otherwise it went very well. The Eva has accepted the pilot and the
preliminary sync ratio was recorded at 38%, which is very reasonable
considering he's only been in an Eva once before."
"Very good." He said, turning to look at the small panel of
buttons on the desk in front of him. They were several small,
unadorned, grey buttons surrounding a large red one with a plastic
cover. Abruptly he reached forward to strike one of the grey ones.
The large space in front of the screen was suddenly filled with a
multitude of three-dimensional, different coloured, holographic lines.
"Do you know what this is?" Fuyutsuki asked her.
"It's a schematic of the Geo-Front. But why..." he cut her off by
leaning forward and striking another key. The closest several layers
of the image pealed away and then the whole image zoomed in on four
red lined cylinders with red writing on their surfaces.
"Oh my god," she gasped. "An N^2 cluster mine. The UN doesn't even
allow the construction of... I mean."
"It is only weapon strong enough to completely destroy the Geo-
Front. It would burry this entire facility in so much dirt and rock it
would take forty years just to dig up the rubble.
"This button," he said stroking the plastic case of the large red
one on his desk. "is the one that will detonate it. It's not the only
way to do it of course, but any one who does use those mines has to be
in this facility to do it. It is the last option, if all else fails."
Fuyutsuki took a deep breath. "We will begin the training of the
Fourth tomorrow." He said, changing the subject. "See that everything
is ready. I will see you in the morning, Doctor." He finished,
dismissing her, but instead of waiting for her to leave he exited the
command chamber as soon as he had finished.
For a few moments she looked after him with a confused expression.
Shaking her head she dismissed the commander's odd behaviour.
"Magi," she said out loud, "Unit 01's status please."
The soft sibilant voice of the computer filled the room.
"Behaviour Pattern 04. Location: quadrant N22. Sync ratio: 100%. All
other data is blocked."
The holographic image disappeared and the screen behind it flicked
on. It showed an image from above the Geo Front. Rain poured from a
dark night's sky. The staccato sound played across the speakers. At
the center of the image was a massive dark shape sitting in the
shallows of the Tokyo 3 lake. There was just enough light for her to
see that Unit 01 sat with its legs curled against its chest, its arms
wrapped around them and its jaw resting on its knees. It did not move
at all as she watched it.
"So," she said, "even Gods sleep."
* * *
