Under the Rug -Dirt Blast from the Past-
by The Guy on the Couch
Heylo again, same as the first chapter things will seem muddled but as things progress you'll get answers and the gaps will be filled in, If you've ever seen a Quinton Tarentino or Guy Ritchie film you'll understand this pretty easily... hopefully anyway.
Disclaimer: Gainax owns Eva and you all know that, as do I. In the words of Bluntman & Chronic from Jay and Silent Bob in the New Jersey Chronicles, "Snoochy Snoochy! Lets burn this bitch down!"
Chapter 2 - Comfortably Numb... Is There Anybody Out There?
We don't need no education... we don't don't need no thought control... No dark sarcasm in the class room... Teacher leave them kids alone... HEY! TEACHER! Leave those kids alone... All in all its just a-nother brick in the wall... All in all your just a-nother brick in the wall...
"What...?" Shinji sleepily started as he woke up to his clock radio going off. He got up slowly and listen to the rest of the song as he slowly got dressed until the DJ came back on and stopped talking about Pink Floyd and began waffling on about some competition of the sorts.
**Click**
He turned off the radio and went to make breakfast for all parties concerned. The issue of being hungry wasn't as bad as the issue of Asuka and or Misato being hungry which could only result in more serious issues for Shinji. He thought of seeing what was on the radio while he made breakfast and wasn't as disappointed as he thought he would be. Ben Folds Five got him jumping into gear and in a better mood, then the same annoying DJ came back babbling on about the laughable decade known as "The Now 90's" and the stations 'Now' 90's weekend starting that friday morning.
Misato slowly entered the kitchen and greeted Shinji a groggy "Good morning.." as she retrieved a beer from the fridge. "Morning Misato, there's something on the radio for you this weekend you know?"
"YYEEAAHHH!!" she yelled as she finished her morning beer. "Hmm? Sorry Shinji, what's on?"
"From this morning the station is playing the "Now" 90's weekend." he said as he mocked 'now' with finger quotes. "All the old music from way back then." he said with a slight smile.
"Hey! The 90's was good, that's when I was a kid! Don't bad mouth the 90's!" she said in her defence.
Shinji smiled and laughed quietly. "I'm sorry Misato, I knew you'd get worked up."
"And rightly so, oh, could you get me another while your up?" she said as she suddenly went to kawaii mode again. Shinji nodded and brought her another poison can of light beer. (She could at least make it half worth it and drink mid strength but hey...)
The DJ was now introducing the next song, "We've had a request for one that is right out of the box, this maybe the "Now" 90's weekend but this should get you all in the mood for the weekend, here's The Easybeats and by the looks of things they have the exact same thing on their mind that a lot of us do, Friday on my Mind."
Monday morning feels so bad, Everybody seems to nag me... Comin' Tuesday I feel better... Even my old man looks, good... Wednesday just don't go, Thursday goes too slow, I'll have Friday on my mind! Gonna happen in the City, Be with my girl 'cause she's so pretty, She looks fine tonight, She is outta sight to me... tonight, I'll bet my friend tonight, I'll lose my head tonight, I've got to get to night... Monday I'll have Friday on my mind...
"That's a good idea actually Shinji you should get out tonight, see what your friends are doing and cut loose, Asuka should too." Misato quipped cheerfully.
"I dunno Misato... I was just going have a quiet night, you know..." he was suddenly cut off.
"Oh come on Shinji, your always having a quiet night. It's OK to go out and fun." she mused persuasively.
"Things are busy with school... but I'll try OK?" he said to get her off his back.
"So whats going on tonight?" asked Asuka as she entered the kitchen.
"Well as I told Shinji, I think that you both should get out and have some fun, see your friends, go to the movies, hang around, loiter, all the fun things when your young." Misato beamed as she remembered her own teenage antics... then she remembered where those antics led and what they led to.
"Well just have fun... not trouble fun." she corrected herself. Asuka and Shinji looked slightly confused but agreed with her anyway.
"Now Shinji, what is for breakfast?" Asuka announced, not asked as one would believe.
"Well it's fried." he replied cautiously.
"Baka! If it's all fried do you know what that will do to a girls figure such as this?" she whined as she pushed her arms and shoulders back slightly and placed her hands above her hips and examined them.
"Well, your lucky this time, at least Misato isn't cooking." she pointed out.
"And what do you have against my cooking!" Misato retorted.
Shinji quickly lay down breakfast and all went silent as soon as it was done.
They left for school shortly after leaving Misato to take her time to prepare for work. The day began uneventfully with the usual stand, bow, sit down. Shinji passed back and forth between conscious and day dream consistently throughout the first lesson and Rei had her normal time killing hobby of staring out the window. It was all too typical and something had to give.
"Before my bowel cancer was removed I used to visit Lithuania for treatment..." the teacher came to a steady halt as the lights flickered throughout the whole room and it seemed through the whole school, note book computers and lap tops shut down from luck of power while others became brighter for a couple of seconds. TV sets, monitors and billboards where not immune in that section of the country either.
Meanwhile in an undisclosed building in an undisclosed city...
"OK, we've done the third region. Beginning power check of the fourth region."
The government's paranoia had emergency services double checking, over hauling, re-testing, refitting and taking diagnostics on all equipment, machinery (mechanical & electrical), basic services, and electricity was no exception. In the Kyoto area an old government building received enough of a spike and drop out to cause the emergency generator to kick in. In Sub, Sub, Sub Basement Delta computer interfaces lit up, Machines began moving, and a 14 year old program began to compile and boot systems completely unknown to anyone else.
Meanwhile Back in Tokyo 3
Shinji sat vacantly minded and glassy eyed in complete boredom, as did many of his class mates. Then the sweet clicking fingers to break the trance rang out across the school in the form of a bell ringing. Silence, silence, silence and then BOOM! School kids everywhere. The sounds of 'have you asked him out', 'when's next match', 'are you serious dude', 'he's sooo cute', 'she's a babe', 'so I made it passed the liche', ' 'the next stage is so hard I downloaded the cheats', 'Yeah we'll see it this weekend', and comments alike filled the air of the school yard and cafeteria. Shinji and his two friends sat and chewed the fat, Touji literally chewed the fat though.
"Misato wants me to go out tonight and have fun." Shinji said lowly.
"And what's wrong with that?" Kensuke replied.
"I just think she thinks I need to be babied into doing things on my own." Shinji contemplated.
"Let her baby you, let her baby you as much as possible... to get that sort of attention from such a babe! You don't know how lucky you really are Shinji, you just don't know..." Touji added.
"He's exactly right Shinji, I'd take that advice." Kensuke added as if he could actually picture it.
"Well I think if Misato is telling Shinji to go out and fun I think we should help him." Touji said confidently.
"I like the way Misato thinks and I believe we should get you out." Kensuke said to lay the pressure on.
"But what will we do?" Shinji pointed out.
"What else." Touji stated and looked at Kensuke.
"Window shop." he said bluntly with a smile.
"Window shop?" Shinji replied confused.
"Window shopping is where you look at clothes but don't actually get to touch them or try them on, right?" Kensuke explained. Shinji nodded still confused.
"When guys window shop we look at chicks and hopefully we get to touch but don't expect to." Touji related. Shinji started to go a slight shade of red and pink.
"And this is entirely amusing?" he asked weakly.
"Oh its amusing alright." Touji assured him. Kensuke nodded and smiled sleazily.
"I dunno about this.." Shinji said to the ground.
"You'll love it, trust me. Girls dress up so they can get guys to do that, and if we didn't it would be rude!" Kensuke pointed out in an odd sense of irony.
"But how do you know for sure? I mean, why would they like guys leering at them?" he asked in a confused state of learning.
"Why would they smile back then or pretend your not there as they suddenly become sooo self conscious about the way they walk past with their hips in an orbit that can't helped but be marvelled." Kensuke announced in such way it almost brought tears to Touji's eyes.
"Yes, Yes man! That was beautiful!" Touji applauded.
"But it's... it's just.." he was cut off by Touji putting on more pressure.
"Come on man, it'll get your mind off everything else for a while, away from Eva, away from school, and hopefully away from she devil too." Touji said with what seemed like actual feeling in his voice.
"I dunno.." Shinji wavered and Touji saw it so he produced his Trump card.
"It helps just relax your mind off things, It helps me not worry so much about my little sister you know..." said Touji in such a way that Kensuke was even surprised at how sincere he 'sounded'.
"OK... I'll come out tonight..." Shinji gave in. The tag team high fived one another and slapped Shinji on the back reassuring him that he won't regret this evening.
--------------------------------------------------------
"Ohhh... I need to piss..." said a bleary and disorientated boy. He struggled up enough look around the room he was in, it was familiar like a dream is familiar. Slowly and carefully he stepped down onto the ground which felt like jelly beneath his feet.
"I knew this shit would happen... I need to piss and I forget where the gents is..." he grumbled as he used the wall for walking support. "Maybe up here... I dunno... where the hell am I now... ahh smeg it..." he groaned as his eyes adjusted slowly. "Here we go... I don't give toss if it's the ladies either... I'm confused and need to piss. If there's anyone in here don't call the security until I'm finished!" he half shouted in a very weak voice.
The familiar sounds of a toilet flushing were heard as he washed his hands and tried to wake himself up with the cold water. He slurped up some water from the tap to at least wet his croaky throat. It didn't take long before he was able to actually realise the unison between reality and what he saw. He looked n the mirror and saw that he was naked. "Oh shmeg!" he said loud enough to surprise himself.
"I should get out of here before someone comes in and tells security there's a psycho waiting in the toilet to rape people or something." he covered his bareness as best he could with a 'Please wash hands sign' and a toilet seat he broke off. There was no need to worry though as there was no one else in the whole building. Carefully he made his way back to the room he came from, as his mind began to start re-functioning properly again. He remembered where he was, and what he was doing and most importantly at the time, where his clothes were and what people called him, Sirhc. Then he remembered his real name and shuddered. He wandered on tip toe through a door on his right then past some steps into a small storage room where some lockers stood covered in dust... sort of like everything else, but everything else seemed like it was maintained in some way except this room. That appeared odd to him but then again getting up before 11:00AM seemed odd to him.
He open up all the lockers and checked them all. He found everything that he owned of importance was there in sealed plastic air tight bags which contained his wallet, his chain, his watch he never wore, his pack of winnie blue cigarettes, his hip flask oddly enough which was full, his short brimmed black fishing hat, some of his long pants and shorts were sealed as well, as were some of his jackets and shirts with some underwear and socks and finally his black skate shoes.
He checked his wallet, it had some cash left in it as well as his ID: Christopher Holden O'Davis, 10 January 1985, Research Level Code Yellow. The card had a magnetic strip on it and his signature and photo.
"This is weird and strange and I want a taco..." O'Davis griped as he tried to make sense of everything. It wasn't long before he resolved to getting dressed then untangle this knot of a problem.
Soon we was comfortably out fitted in his old clothes again and was left sitting on the table he woke up on. It was shiny, gleaming, stainless steel and seemed relatively unused, then he examined his ID again and decided the first thing was to find out the date.
Equipped with his daily standard essentials such as his wallet and cigarettes, he slowly began to work his way the stairs till he reached the lobby. He checked the front doors but was quickly reminded of the security system so breaking anything would be a no no. Then he remembered the skate board he had stolen of a punk who was giving him crap and hoped that it was still in the security box down stairs after it was taken off him for riding it through the garbage chute on his back. Besides he wouldn't have taken it in the first place if the punk hadn't tried to get his 'posse' o' dick heads on to him. But low and behold it was still jammed away in the same place that was always guarded.
"This should help me blend in I hope." he though to himself as he made his way to the garbage chute.
Now O'Davis isn't stupid but he's damn near smoked himself retarded.
"Maybe I should crawl down the chute this time, at least I knew what was at the bottom last time." he thought surprisingly sensible. Slowly he began his decent down the chute which was metal and sloped at just under 45 degrees to the horizontal which meant it wasn't a very steady decline at all. After 30 meters of crawling down the chute it simply drops off the last 5 meters which can hurt a bit if one was to fall that distance straight down. With his board strapped to his back he slowly slid down the last couple of meters feeling his arms legs beginning to strain from supporting him the entire distance. Working his way down the drop off he began to tire quickly and let go with a few feet left from the end. Silence, "Ummph!"
"That was intense." he said to himself as he panted to get his breath back.
"Now, to find out the date without looking like a derro, there should be a news agent or somewhere I can buy papers near I think." he mentally reassured himself.
Lucky he could skate well enough to not look like a toss though otherwise he would drawn unwanted attention to himself.
Unfortunately this part of town was pretty uninteresting and mainly used as an industrial estate. So he continued to skate back towards his old place where him and his psycho mate used to stay. Memories quickly returned of how everything came to be. It was actually his psycho mate that brought him to Japan then tripped out, flipped out and went bananas on some crazy pill he scored at a night club and was never seen by O'Davis again. Unfortunately though O'Davis still had to pay his rent and when he met Mr. Ikari at a local bar, known for its darts and fights, he said he was looking for young people such as himself and offered him an easy way to make money. Naturally O'Davis took it.
It was almost half an hour before Sirhc could see the city slowly take over the landscape. He continued on knowing he'll have his answer soon. 5 more minutes passed and he felt himself speeding up. It was about 2:30 in the afternoon and few people were around really but he spied a man sitting on a bench reading a paper and having a sandwhich whilst waiting for his bus it would seem. Slowly Sirch approached and said "Excuse me sir? Mind if I just take a quick look at that article on the front page?" taking care to sound polite and friendly. The man obliged and handed him the paper. Eagerly he held the front page up and looked at the date: Friday 21st 2015.
Immediately he could feel his eyes bulge. He began to carefully breath then he asked the man if bought this paper today and he replied with a nod and an "Of course." Slowly Sirhc handed back the paper and began to skate off. He could feel his ears beginning to haze with fuzz and noise and his eyes blacken as they began to dilate. He stopped his board and sat down in the gutter with his head between his knees breathing deeply and freaking out simultaneously. As he leaned forward a small piece of paper tightly folded up fell from his top pocket on the front of his shirt. He watched it fall and hit the ground giving it only recognition of its existence but not its importance. After regaining some composure he picked it up with shaking hands and examined it, then slowly open it in case it tore easily. This was only thing he had that would explain anything at this moment, and anything could only help. So he thought anyway.
Dear Chris,
I'm sorry if you are having to read this but if you are it means your alright as well, I have been reassigned to the Geo front, the new sight for Tokyo 3. Gendo is also going to be joining me here soon too, as is Shinji. I hope that if do read this that you come find us.
My sincerest apologies,
Yui Ikari
"...I must breath... Tokyo 3!? This is crazy!? I must be dreaming..." he exclaimed and folded up the paper again after checking that what he thought he just read was correct. He sat and tried to think rationally.
"I need to get to Tokyo 3 somehow..." he thought. Soon he had formulated the best thing to do was to find out when trains or if trains go to Tokyo 3, then he needed to get whatever money he had in his account out and get back to the lab to retrieve the rest of his possessions and then cover up the fact that he was even there. Fortunately luck was running on his side as trains were constant to and from Tokyo 3 and his bank account had been paid weekly until the lab was shut down and everybody was sacked leaving him with a hefty load of cash in his account.
He skated his way back to the lab and realised how was he supposed to get back in. All he could think of was all those movies where swat would crawl through the vents and so he came to the conclusion that it was possible. So he scaled the fire escape and reached the roof and looked at the vents that were staring straight at him. Sirhc studied the vents and came to the conclusion the easiest way in was by simply unscrewing the faces off or wedging them off. Since he had no power tools he decided a visit to the neighbouring factories and sheds in the area would be wise, he didn't have to go far to find a nice chunk of metal that would be a prime bashing utensil but settled against it as he wants no evidence of his presence in case something blows up in his face.
He wandered down the road a short way and saw a heavy machinery mechanics work shop and logic dictated that they simply had to have the right tool for the job. He approached the work shop and peered inside. All he heard was the radio playing and to his surprise he heard the start of what sounded like but chances weren't, Time of Your Life by Green Day. The radio continued playing and he couldn't help singing it out aloud.
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road, time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go, so make the best of this chance and don't ask why, Its not a question but an answer learned in time, Its something unpredictable but in the end its right, I hope you have the time of your life.
A head poked up over from a stack of boxes in the corner and looked at Sirhc.
"You look a bit young to know the words to this." the head said with a small amount of disbelief.
"Yeah of course I know Time of Your Life, doesn't everyone?" Sirhc said then died down quickly as the head walked out and chuckled.
"How can I help you anyway?" asked the mechanic.
"I'm after a power drill to plot some new screws in my speaker box, I was wondering could you help me out?"
"Yeah we should do." said the mechanic cheerfully.
"Could I borrow it for this amount of money?" Sirhc said as he reached into his side pocket and pulled out a few notes of what ever was there.
"No prob." said the mechanic who ran off to find a power drill. He returned with the drill and the screw fittings.
"OK, here's your money and I'll return back with this is in a jiffy." said Sirhc casually. The mechanic gave him a wave then returned to having a kip with his hat over his eyes.
Sirhc rescaled the fire escape and wound off the vent face and made his way down into the vent system. It wasn't long before he was in the stairwell running towards the basement, he bundled his few possessions into a duffel bag and made the scene looked as it did before his disturbance. Then to make the final touches, he destroyed the code that initiated his auto reanimation sequence. He had planted that there a short while after he had first started working there, he didn't trust this cryogenics and wanted to make sure that if he was frozen for more than six months the system would automatically begin reanimating him but the power was cut back to a minimum and only life support systems remained. Thanks to those spikes in the current the emergency generator kicked in and started everything running again as a precaution procedure its designed to follow.
Once he had replaced the sign and the broken toilet lid back to the their original places he crawled back out of the vent system and screwed the face back on. He returned the power drill and the drill bits to the mechanic and was shocked to hear Learn to Fly by the Foo Fighters playing in the garage this time.
"What is going on?... What's with all this music from my time?... Maybe I should get a walkman or something 'cause I don't mind this at all." he thought intriguingly about it then decided that it was time for a taco or some Maccy D's or KFC. Some chew and spew of the sort anyway.
==========================================
Idiot's/Authour's Notes: Well, a little bit more excitement in that chapter, but you know what they say, third times a charm and the third chapter is where things will cook up. There will be a few shocks for our out of place friend and who knows what he'll end up doing in the next couple of chapters.
To all the readers out there, thanks for taking the time to look at this.
da_rusky_@hotmail.com