IV. Effect

Asuka was curled into a ball in her Eva's cockpit, trembling and sobbing. The probing, invasive sensation in her mind had ceased, but she could feel it now as though it were still there.

"My mind," she whispered to the air. "It was inside my mind…" She gasped, unexpecting, as another sob wracked her.

The sound of the rain outside seemed to have intensified, beating down on her Eva relentlessly, filling her thoughts with its constant noise.

A truck came rumbling down the street, its own sound lost to the pounding of the rain. Riding in it were four NERV techs, the extraction team assigned to the Second Child.

Some distance away, Unit 00 had already retreated into the launch shaft, returning to the depths of the base.

The truck stopped at the foot of Unit 02. "Require ejection of the plug before retrieval can commence," one of the techs said into his radio.

"Negative," a voice came on the other end. "Pilot is in no condition to eject the plug voluntarily. You're going to have to use the manual eject."

"Roger that."

The tech shut off his radio and motioned to one of his comrades. The truck rolled away from the robot, turned, and backed up against it again. Two of the staff climbed onto a portable lift set up on the back of the vehicle, which groaned mightily as it stretched to the sky with the techs on board.

When they had fully extended the lift, they contemplated how to make it across the surface of Unit 02, now slick with rain, to eject the plug.

"Wait, I see something," one of them said, pointing through the rain at the robot. Small metal protrusions rose up along the construct's surface. The techs could not divine what they had originally been intended for, but now they were to be appropriated as hand-holds.

They began the slow, treacherous climb across Unit 02, the fronts of their uniforms instantly soaking through with water.

"Here!" the first one called. "I've found the release switch! Stay back!"

He toyed with some buttons inset beneath an access hatch, trying to find the right combination.

Inside Unit 02 Asuka thought she could hear bodies and voices mixed in with the rain, but she did not know if they were real or hallucinatory, nor did she care. She had surrendered again to the sobbing, at a loss to control it. "Ich bin vollkommen," she whispered to herself, "Ich bin nicht wertlos…"

She felt the something rumbling below the plug, then it shifted outward; the techs had committed a manual eject.

"No," she said to the plug, "No, don't abandon me…Don't get rid of me…"

One of the techs was radioing headquarters. "Manual ejection of the plug has been achieved. But how do we get to the pilot herself? She's obviously not coming out on her own."

Ritsuko's slightly annoyed voice replied to him. "Then go in there and fish her out. You can breathe in that stuff just as well as she can."

"Y-Yes m'am!" He shut off the communication without further remark.

"I'm going in there," he called to his companion.

"Alright," the other man returned. "I'll be waiting right here for ya."

The first tech pulled himself a little closer to the ingress hatch, struggling along the handholds, and finally tumbled into the plug.

The first problem was that he was suddenly surrounded by water. It's just LCL, he tried to convince himself. He knew all about the workings of the Eva, knew its circuits and operations inside and out. But he still had never had the sensation of deliberately breathing liquid, and for a moment he choked on the stuff.

When he regained control of himself, the tech turned down toward the cockpit proper. A young girl was huddled before the controls, which still blinked and flashed with life. She was shaking and murmuring to herself, her long brown hair running down the back of her crimson plug suit.

"Have located pilot," the tech said into his radio, surprised at how clearly he could speak through the liquid. "Commencing retrieval."

He kicked his feet, swimming down toward the girl. He could just barely make out what she was saying, switching sporadically between Japanese and a language he could not understand.

"Ich bin vollkommen…I don't want to die…Ich bin nicht wertlos…Don't make me die…"

He reached her at last and considered how to dislodge her. She seemed oblivious to his presence, never ceasing her muttering. The tech took her arm and tugged lightly to see if she would react. The only effect was to shift her; she did not aid him nor hinder him, but neither did she now return to her fetal position. Her eyes stared off into space, obviously in shock, in a manner which more than slightly unsettled the man beside her.

The tech turned to his radio. "We're going to need another man up here. I'll pull the pilot out of the plug but someone else will have to take her and pass her to my friend there."

"Roger that," a new voice responded. "Dispatching third retrieval personnel."

The tech waited with his charge for what seemed like hours. The only sound was the rain on the Eva, and Asuka's mantra.

"Putting in a new order," the tech said into his radio. "Have the medical staff check her out for laughs, but what this girl needs is the psych ward. I don't know what that critter did to her, but it broke her brain."

"Understood. Prepping medical and psychological teams."

It was at that moment that the tech could hear a muted knocking above them. Must be our man, he though. He grabbed Asuka's arm and pulled, gently at first and then harder, until she came free of the chair and began floating through the plug. The tech shifted her under his arm as though he were merely carrying a book or some luggage, then began to swim back upward with his legs and his one free arm.

When he finally reached the surface of the mech, he hefted the girl halfway through the egress hatch, and felt her supported anew by strong arms. The nameless limbs pulled her the rest of the way out. The first man could only imagine how precariously his assistant must be balanced.

"Give me the okay when I can pop out myself," he said into his radio.

"Will do."

In only a few minutes he got the word that the pilot had been passed successfully down the line, though both other techs had also noted her strange muttering. The first man pulled himself out of the plug, thinking he would be glad if he never had to climb into one again.

If he hadn't been wet enough from the LCL, the rain soaked him to the bone, somehow seeming to have intensified in the interval. He climbed, very carefully, across the surface of Unit 02, finally reaching the lift where his first companion and a tall, handsome man waited with the girl in his arms, who was still shivering and talking without pause.

"Thank God," his companion said when the rescuer arrived. "I thought we'd be standing out here forever."

"Right. Now let's get this kid back to base and then maybe we can hit the staff lounge for hot coffee and some dry clothes."

The other man thumbed a switch on a nearby control panel and the lift settled back toward the ground, its decidedly outdated materials screeching in protest.

"We should get this baby checked out, too," the newcomer said, patting the side of the machine. "Probably'll be rusted through by the time she's dry." The other two nodded, and all three sighed in relief when a firm clack announced their arrival on terra firma.

There were already several teams of medical personnel waiting for them.

"Do you have the pilot?" a young woman demanded.

"Sure do, just as ordered," the tall man replied, carefully transferring the girl from his arms to hers.

"Alright!" she shouted to her crew. "Get this girl inside before she dies of pneumonia!" She turned back to the trio of rescuers. "Commander Ikari said you're dismissed for now. Major Katsuragi said to thank you."

"Well tell them thank you and you're welcome," the tall man replied, grinning. The woman turned and followed the other medical staffers who were retreating into the base. The tall man surveyed himself and his companions, soaked through and freezing cold, but relieved.

"How about that coffee, boys?"