I was almost fourteen when we hit the jackpot.
Tashi and I had been working together since we had come here, five years earlier. We were a good team. We helped move out more stuff than any other team, and we also uncovered more artifacts than anyone else.
After we had been brought to Tokyo-3, the leaders had chained us at the wrist in pairs. I was fortunate enough to get chained to Tashi; there was no one in the entire group I could have stood being shackled to for very long, save him. We never talked much, but we never had to. I always knew when he needed my help, and he knew my need in return.
We were the ones to discover the lost NERV headquarters. The truth was, we had known where it was for months, but had never bothered to tell the leaders. We both felt, in those rare moments where we did talk, that the people who were holding us here had no right to the secrets buried beneath the ruins of the city. So we just never mentioned the huge building we had found. Whenever we could, we would go back to the site and uncover a little more.
I had thought that the discovery of HQ was a big deal, but it was the find of several months later that shadowed it all in comparison.
We were digging around a large, long shaft when, at the bottom, I could see a large, covered object at the bottom. My light wasn't powerful enough, so I asked Tashi if we could perhaps get a little closer. He shrugged and replied with, "Why not?" So we took our rope, attached one end to a big heavy bar right next to the shaft, and then unlocked our chains, as we had learned long ago.
It was kind of scary. Tashi looked at me soberly for a moment, then said, "You go first." I nodded in reply, hooking my light over my shoulder. Then I got myself into the shaft with a good hold on the rope and slid down easily. I jumped off and landed uneasily.
The object was so uneven. I walked across the top unsteadily, shining my light this way and that, trying to see the best way to lift the covering. Experimentally, I lifted a fold of it that seemed to be stretched between two seperate points on it. "It's cloth," I said, startled, and let it fall back into place.
"Can you pull it off?" Tashi asked, sliding down to my level.
"I can try," I replied doubtfully. I couldn't see to the bottom of the object, or what it was standing on, if anything, so I guessed that the covering was awfully big. Still, I handed Tashi the light, which he attached to his vest and we began to muscle the covering off.
It took awhile and afterwards, I threw it off the other side. It slide off with a hiss that seemed far too loud in the darkness, and I sat for a moment to rest. I was tired. There had been so much to pull up the one side and drop off the other...
"Mei...look," Tashi said quietly, pointing the light at a spot near where I was sitting.
I looked...and nearly fell off the object.
Tashi had taught me how to read a couple years ago. I still wasn't very good, but if I went slowly, I could read nearly anything. This object...it was covered in dust and who-knew-what-else, but the colours were still visible, and so was the lettering. Still, I had to wipe off a good portion before I could make out the words clearly.
The leaders had told us what we were to be looking for. And I was sitting on it.
There, now wiped clear and visible even with the comparitively dim flashlight, was yellow and black striped warning markings on a purple body, along with these words:
Warning: EVA Entry Plug Access. Do Not Use Unless in Case of Emergency.
Beside it was big yellow lettering:
EVA UNIT-01
I didn't know what to think. Here I was, sitting on a lost EVA unit, something the leaders had been searching for since we had gotten here, and probably since before then too. "What are we going to do?" I asked.
Tashi shrugged, scattering the light for a moment. "Two things," he said after a moment, centering the light on the lettering again. "We either tell the leaders, or we keep this to ourselves."
I snorted, feeling myself return a little bit. "Do you...do you think we could...you know...activate it?" I asked, looking up at Tashi.
He looked thoughtful for a long moment. "We could...if we knew how."
I sighed and looked down again at the purple body beneath me. "I wonder how you open it up...?" I asked myself. I got to my knees on the back and ran my fingers lightly over the yellow and black striped panel. I didn't think I had hit anything, but it made a creaking sound and slid open a crack. "Whoa, what'd I touch?" I said, removing my hands hurriedly.
Tashi knelt beside me. He looked thoughtfully at the panel for a moment. "There," he said at last, pointing at a small button, nearly hidden on the side of the panel. "Press that again."
I pressed the button and the panel slid open a bit more. Inside, we could see two more buttons. So I pressed the button one more time, and as the panel slipped open a bit more, Tashi stuck his fingers in between the panel's edges and forced it open all the way. Then he picked up the light again and shone it inside. I leaned over and bumped my head with Tashi's as he also leaned in for a closer look. I pulled back automatically and let him inspect it.
"Hmmm," he said thoughtfully. "I think we push this one here..." He pressed the topmost button, but nothing happened. He pushed it again after a few moments, and then frowned thoughtfully. "I don't know -- " He stopped as the head behind us groaned and jerkily slid forward. There was a larger panel directly underneath us, and it moved upward, throwing us off-balance. Tashi immeadiately laid himself flat against the panel and caught hold of me as I started to slip off, catching hold of my waist and pulling me in close beside him. "Lay flat," he ordered roughly in my ear. I did as he said, flattening myself out next to him and hanging on tight.
The panel stopped moving, and we lay still for a few more minutes to make sure that it wasn't going to move anymore. Then Tashi got up and carefully crawled on all fours to the edge of the panel and looked down over it.
"Come see this, Mei," he said, motioning with one hand for me to come closer. I crawled closer and peered over the edge.
"Wow!" I exclaimed. "It's hollow!"
"There must be something else that goes in there...," Tashi mused, lying flat again. His eyes were distant.
"Tashi, think! What if there are more of these? Wouldn't that be neat!" I was really too excited to pay attention to him. Before I could really stop to think about it or before he could stop me, I swung myself over the edge of the panel and down into the hole.
"Mei!" I heard Tashi call my name, but I was too far engrossed in what I was seeing to answer him. "Mei! Are you alright? Come out of there!"
I walked a little bit into the hole. It was so dark; I couldn't see a thing. "Tashi?" I called.
"What?" came his tired voice.
"Can you pass me the light? I can't see anything in here."
Silence for a moment, then the light came swinging over the edge of the panel. I caught it deftly, and pulled it down into my hand. I shone it around the inside of the tunnel, taking paticular note of the smoothness of the walls. Then, when I was about a third of the way down, I saw a big yellow sign painted on the floor, surrounded by yellow stripes.
"Entry...Plug...Only," I read out loud as I swung the light from one side to the other. "Do...Not...Pass...This...Point. Hmm." Never one to listen to signs and warnings, I kept going...and heard something go click.
I stopped dead. Inside, a red light started flashing.
"Mei!" Tashi was shouting. "Mei! Get out of there! MEI!"
That's when I realized that the panel was closing.
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Characters & concept: © 1997-2002 Katsura /\ Evangelion © Gainax