(Hey, what do you know...up to Part V of "The Evangelion Matrix"! Or is it IV? Oh, well. Anyway, here ya go...enjoy. And again, sorry for the delay. Work sucks, but it beats starving.)


In the construct, the dojo and shoji walls disappeared. So did Rei. A cityscape grew up around them, or perhaps it was they who shrank into it. Shinji barely had time to register that fact when Gendo, having returned to his traditional outfit, was practically in his face. "You have to let it all go, Shinji. Fear...doubt...disbelief. Free your mind." He emphasized each word with the steel edge that Shinji knew so well. And with a flapping of his jacket, he was gone, running across the building. He leapt across to the other tower, an easy hundred yards away, and landed safely. He waved another "get over here" gesture at his son.

Shinji walked to the edge of the tower, now realizing he was atop the Shinjuku Central Bank building that used to stand in the middle of old Tokyo. He had seen it often. Or had he? Shinji wondered what was real now–the life he knew as Shinji Ikari, salaryman for Nergal Heavy Industries; Shinji Ikari, the hacker who was known as the Third Child; Shinji Ikari who might actually be the Third Child, some sort of savior; or Shinji Ikari, the mecha pilot—

Shinji abruptly realized he was not wearing his casual clothes. He was wearing a plugsuit. Somehow, he knew what it was, recognized the white and blue armored bodysuit.

"Shinji!" his father called out to him. "What are you waiting for, a push? Get over here!"

"Yeah, yeah," Shinji mumbled. He looked over the edge. It was a very long way down. He swallowed nervously, then walked back to where he and his father had first appeared. He knew he would have to try and jump, suspecting that his father might just carry out his threat and make Rei push him.

"Riiiight," Shinji sighed. "Free my mind. Free my mind."


The crew of the Bebop–the one in this story–gathered intently around the monitor, watching. "What if he makes it? Whaaaat?" Ed said in her trademark spooky voice, not that it was exactly frightening.

"No one's ever made the first jump," Ritsuko said, in a tone that brooked no further conversation on the topic.

Not that anyone had ever made Ed stop talking. "Ed knows," Ed said, "but what if the Shinji person does?"

"He won't," Toji said.

"Care to bet?" Asuka smirked. She wanted her Butterfinger back.


"All righty then," Shinji said. "Free my mind. Must run...must run...MUST RUN..."

Appropriately psyched, Shinji sprinted for the edge, chanting "must run" to himself. The roof tiles flew by underneath his feet. The edge was coming up fast. He gathered himself, and leapt into open space.

The other tower seemed so far away, and Shinji wondered if he could make it. He happened to glance down, and see cars going by underneath his feet.

Had this been a Warner Brothers cartoon, Shinji would have disappeared downwards in a cloud of white smoke and the sound of a falling bomb. Since it isn't, the reader will have to be content with the mental image of Shinji falling to his death, flailing around, alternately screaming for all he was worth and cursing his father for leading him into yet another deathtrap.

To Shinji's utter surprise, he did not splatter into street pizza when he hit the unyielding street below. Instead, it folded around him like a trampoline, and to make the analogy just right, catapulted him back into the air. Shinji shouted out in joy of being alive, and prepared to spring off the ground again. Fate and fanfic authors are cruel masters, however, and instead of another jump back up into the air, Shinji hit the asphalt with a rather hard and bone-crunching thud.


Everyone on the Bebop winced in sympathetic pain–Asuka especially, since this meant that one more of her precious stash of candy bars was now in Toji's hands.

Ed collapsed to the deck rubber-like. "What does that mean? Ed is confused! What does that mean?"

"It means nothing," Rei replied, with as close to a sigh as she could ever manage.

"Everybody falls the first time," Kaworu said. "Right, Asuka?" He turned to see her expression, but Asuka had already gone over to help unhook Shinji.

Shinji blinked and slowly realized he was back in the real world. Whatever that was. He also realized that there was a coppery taste in his mouth. He reached up and wiped blood from his lips. Real blood. He looked up at his father, who was helping him out of the chair. "I thought it wasn't real."

"Your mind makes it real."

"Are you always so cryptic when you answer people?"

"Sometimes," Gendo replied. "And sometimes not. You must decide."

Shinji gave up. "If you're killed inside the Eva Matrix, do you die here?" He motioned around the deck.

"The body cannot live without the mind."

"In other words, your ass is grass," Asuka said helpfully.

"Go get some sleep," Gendo ordered, and for once, Shinji did not argue.


He was still sleeping soundly, not even stirring when the door clanged open, admitting Asuka, who was carrying a tray of food and a cup of tea. She thought briefly of waking him up, then decided against it. Instead, she set the tray down next to his bed, crept out of the room, and shut the door as quietly as she could.

"I don't remember you bringing me dinner," Kaworu said from behind her.

"That's because I don't like you," Asuka snapped back.

Kaworu shrugged. "There is something about him, isn't there?" He looked at the door with almost a lustful look.

"Don't tell me you're a believer now," Asuka scoffed.

"I just keep wondering," Kaworu continued, as if she had not said anything, "if Gendo is so sure, why doesn't he take him to see the Oracle?"

"The Commander will take him when he's ready," Asuka snarled, and walked off. Kaworu admired the view for a moment, looked at the door, then walked in the opposite direction.


The next day, after a bowl of low calorie diet gruel, it was back into Tokyo, or the virtual version of same, for Shinji and Gendo. It was every bit as crowded as Shinji remembered it and his father, typically, went against the grain of the crowd. Shinji mumbled maledictions at Gendo, who effortlessly weaved through the crowd, people parting around him like water. Shinji, on the other hand, seemed to have a target on him, as everyone went out of their way to knock him down. "The Eva Matrix is a system, Shinji," Gendo said over the hum of the crowd, apparently unconcerned if anyone heard. "That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, look around. What do you see?" Shinji was attempting to see more than elbows and shoulders, so he only shrugged. "Salarymen. Teachers. Lawyers. Carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system, and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, Shinji, most of these people are not ready for anime. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."

Shinji absently nodded, for his gaze was distracted by a very interesting sight before him. She was average height, with her raven black hair cut short in an attractive bob, pulled back from her face by a gold band. Her slender body was perfectly proportioned, and she wore a yellow collared halter top, very small shorts of the same color, flesh-colored stockings, yellow high-heeled boots, and wedgie-inducing panties, the straps of which ran up over her narrow thighs. She licked her lips and gave Shinji a smoldering look. As she walked away, her buttocks wiggled suggestively under the shorts.

"Shinji!" His father's voice brought Shinji's head back around from the two scouts wrestling in a pup tent. "Were you listening to me, or were you looking at Faye Valentine?"

"Um..."

Gendo smiled. "Look again."

Shinji turned and nearly ate the end of a very large heart-shaped scepter. Holding the scepter was a very pissed off Scout Serena, black bowtie and sunglasses as intimidating as Shinji remembered. "Holy shit!" He hit the ground.

"Freeze it," Gendo said to the air. Everything around them stopped between heartbeats.

Shinji picked himself up off the ground. "This...this isn't the real Eva Matrix?"

"No. It's another interactive training program, designed to teach you one thing. If you are not one of us, you are one of them." He pointed at Scout Serena.

Shinji touched the scepter, which didn't move, even when he tugged on it. "So what are the Scouts?"

Gendo sighed. "They were once pure and fought for justice. They helped the Censors, thinking it was best, after the devastation of End of Evangelion, of Third Impact. When they realized that everyone was being plugged in to accept the Censors' ratings base and power their studios, they fought back....but it was too late. They themselves became part of the Eva Matrix. They sold out, and it cost them." Gendo walked around the image of Serena. "Inside the Eva Matrix, they are everyone...and they are no one. We've survived by hiding from them and running from them. But they are not called Scouts for marketing purposes. They are the leading edge of the Eva Matrix's defenders. They guard all the doors. They hold all the keys, which means that sooner or later, someone is going to have to fight them."

Shinji noticed that Gendo was looking pointedly at him. "Someone?"

"I won't lie to you, Shinji. Every single man or woman who has stood their ground, everyone who has fought a Scout, has died. They especially don't like that, Shinji." Shinji pulled back his hand, having tried to look down Serena's shirt. "But where they have failed, you will succeed."

"Why?"

"The Scouts' powers are incredible. I've seen them cause fires with a thought, blow apart concrete walls, even start earthquakes. Men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air or a shield. Yet their powers are still based in a world that is built on knowable rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong or as fast as you can be."

Shinji had heard this speech before. "What, are you trying to tell me I can dodge chains? Bullets? Energy beams?"

Gendo smiled. "No, Shinji. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready...you won't have to."

Shinji heard the tones of 'Fly Me to the Moon.' Gendo reached into his jacket and pulled out a cellphone. "Yes?"

It was Maya. "We've got trouble, Commander."

In an instant, Shinji and Gendo were back in the real world. As soon as he was unplugged, Gendo raced up stairs to the Bebop's bridge. Shinji and Asuka were only a few steps behind.

Shinji, for the first time, saw where the Bebop was traveling. It was down a narrow shaft of some kind, covered in rusted, enormous pipes and fittings. The ship was moving fairly quickly, but Ritsuko was easily guiding it, her long fingers light on the ship's controls. Gendo dropped into a seat next to her command chair. "Did Magi send a warning?"

"No, it was the Cha Cha Maru." Ritsuko glanced behind her, to the holotank behind the command chair. "Kuso. Dogs sweeping in quick.." A murky hologram appeared, displaying six roughly humanoid shapes. Shinji could not make out much in the way of surface detail.

"Dogs?" he asked Asuka.

"Inus," she answered. "Killing machines, designed for one thing."

"Search and destroy," Ritsuko finished.

The Bebop shot into an enormous bowl-shaped clearing. Gendo pointed to what appeared to be the wreckage of old ships. "Set her down over there." Ritsuko pivoted the ship into the junkyard with a rumble of thrusters, and settled it into a depression. "All stop, quick quiet."

Ritsuko's fingers flew across keyboards in a blur. The lights in the Bebop dimmed, monitors winked out, and the ship grew dark. "Maya, how are we doing down there?"

Maya was already switching off the computer, darkening the command deck. "Power offline." She reached over and opened a clear panel with a flick of a fingernail. A device marked with a Big Red Button rose into place. "SIT armed and ready."

"SIT?" Shinji turned to Asuka again.

"Shutdown Initiation Template," Asuka explained, as if to a moron. "Disables any computer system in the blast radius. It's the only weapon we have against the Censors."

Shinji looked around. "Where are we?"

"The sewer."

"No, really."

"Really," Asuka said. "There used to be cities that spanned hundreds of miles. Now these are all that's left. This and subway systems, gates—"

"Quiet," Gendo snarled. For the Inus had arrived.

They dropped in from overhead. There were six of them. They fanned out to look for signs of the Bebop's path, leaping fluidly and silently from ledge to ledge in the vast ruins of the sewer. One jumped nearly on top of the Bebop's bow, and it took every ounce of Shinji's willpower to keep from jumping back, away from the viewscreen.

The Inu was vaguely humanoid, but it was definitely mechanical, its skin shining steel gray even in the dim lights of the sewer. It had no legs that Shinji could see, but then it was mostly covered in a red cloak of some kind. It had eyes and the stub of a nose, for it bent over and began sniffing the ground, its arms pawing at the surface, leaving deep gouges in the stone below. Shinji had no illusions what those claws could do to steel or flesh. Its hair waved as if in a wind, but Shinji decided that even the Inu's "hair" must be sensors. Eventually, it gave up the search and leapt away to join its brothers.

Ritsuko let out a breath she had been holding. They waited another ten minutes to be sure, then the Bebop rose up on its ion jets and continued on its way–away from the Inus.


Kaworu Nagisa was steadily typing away at the bank of computers when Shinji, unable to sleep, walked onto the command deck. Curious, he walked barefoot towards Kaworu to peer over his shoulder. Kaworu was whistling Beethoven's Ode to Joy, turned to pick up a DVD, and nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of Shinji. "Eeek!" he shrilled, then realized who it was. "Shinji! Whew...you scared the hell out of me."

"I'm sorry," Shinji automatically apologized.

Kaworu shrugged. "Oh, that's okay." He put down the DVD and went back to typing.

Shinji motioned to the various codes that scrolled right to left across the screen. "Is that..."

"The Eva Matrix? Yes."

"Do you always look at it encoded like that?"

Kaworu nodded. "You have to. The ADV translators work for the construct program. But there's way too much information to decode the whole thing. You get used to it. I don't even see the code anymore. All I see is Sachiel...Matriel...Zeruel...whatever." Kaworu looked over his shoulder, at the empty command deck and the passageway beyond, then leaned close to Shinji. "Hey, you...you want a drink?"

Shinji inferred that Kaworu meant something alcoholic, which Shinji had never particularly liked. Then again, that was in his old life, both of them. He also felt kinship with Kaworu for some reason, who seemed less lofty than his mysterious father, the mercurial Ritsuko, or the always-angry Asuka. And he was less weird than Ed. "Sure."

Kaworu reached down and picked up a pitcher of liquid. He sloshed some of the purple liquid into a cup for Shinji, then drank a little himself. "You know," he told Shinji, "I know what you're thinking, because right now I'm thinking the same thing." He smiled. "Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here."

"What's that?"

"Why, oh why, didn't I eat the blue pocky?"

Shinji wasn't sure how to reply to that, so he took a drink instead. It tasted good going down, but then it seemed to explode in his stomach, race back up his throat like a jet of lava, and burn out between his eyes. He coughed and gasped for breath. Kaworu's grin widened. "Good stuff, neh? Ritsuko makes it, if you can believe it. Fujisawa punch, she calls it. It's good for two things: cleaning out the Bebop's load pan bays, and killing brain cells."

Shinji took another drink, a sip this time. "It's not too bad." For liquid mercury, he added silently.

"Can I ask you something?" Kaworu asked, leaning close again. Shinji hesitantly nodded. "Did Gendo tell you why he did it? Why you're here?" Shinji nodded again. Kaworu leaned back, shaking his head. "By Lillith, what a mind job. So you're here to save the world, the great Third Child. What do you say to something like that?" Again, Shinji had no idea what to say, so he took another drink. So did Kaworu. When he had put down the pitcher again, Kaworu turned to Shinji, his expression serious. "A little piece of advice, Shinji-chan. You see a Scout, you do what the rest of us do. Run. Run like the wind."

Shinji met Kaworu's gaze for a moment, then finished the cup, handing it back to Kaworu. "Um...thanks for the drink. I'd better go and try to sleep."

Kaworu's smile returned. "Do you want me to tuck you in?"

Shinji realized that Kaworu was serious. "Uh...no, no, that's okay."

"Suit yourself," Kaworu sighed. "Sweet dreams, Shinji-chan."

Shinji gave him a nod and walked back down the passageway. Kaworu watched him go, sighed again, then picked up the DVD once more.


Ten minutes later, Kaworu was eating a hearty dinner at a sushi bar in upscale Tokyo-3, or its virtual simulacrum. Nor was he alone.

Kaworu's table manners were impeccable. The same could not be said for Scout Serena, who was busy packing her face as quickly as she could. "So," she mumbled around a piece of cake, "do wre hab ab dwol, Kwahrhoru-sban?"

Kaworu translated that in his head to mean that she was asking if they had a deal. He looked at the piece of squid held between his chopsticks. "You know, I know this squid doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the system is telling my brain that it is rubbery and delicious. After nine years of being unplugged, do you know what I realize?" He ate the squid and smiled in delight. "Ignorance is bliss."

"Yep," Serena replied, washing down the cake with a glass of brandy. "So we have a deal?"

"I don't want to remember anything," Kaworu growled, pointing at Serena with a chopstick. "Nothing. Do you understand?" He leaned back, thinking. "And I want to be rich. SEELE never paid me squat. So I want to be rich, and someone important. Like a seiyuu."

Serena shrugged. "Whatever you want, Kaworu-san."

"Very well. I get my body back into a viewer database, you reinsert me back into the Eva Matrix, and I'll get you what you want."

"Access codes to Geofront's mainframe–the Magi."

Kaworu shook his head vigorously. "No. I told you, I don't know them." He leaned forward. "I can get you the man who does."

Serena smiled. "Morpheus, AKA Gendo Ikari." She speared another piece of cake with a spoon.


Shinji sat down with the crew of the Bebop for breakfast. His stomach grumbled, and Shinji looked forward to a hearty breakfast. What he got was a cup of instant ramen with shrimp. "Here you go, Shinji-san," Maya said, putting a smile on it, "breakfast of champions."

"If you close your eyes, it almost feels like you're eating fishies," Ed put in, closing her eyes and rubbing her thin stomach for emphasis.

"Or a cup of worms," Toji added, spooning listlessly at his ramen.

"Do you know what it reminds Ed of?" Ed asked. When no one replied, she simply continued on. "Shitake mushrooms. Did you ever eat shitake mushrooms?"

"No, but neither technically did you," Rei said, speaking in her typical one-sentence lines.

"That's exactly Ed's point!" Ed exclaimed. "Because doesn't Rei-person thingy wonder? How did the Eva Matrix persons know what shitake mushrooms tasted like? Maybe they got shitake wrong. Ed thinks that shitake tasted like fishies or Alpo or Frosted Butter Bombs. Like chickies. Maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chickies taste like, which is why chickies taste like everything! Maybe they couldn't–"

"Shut up, Ed," Toji snapped.

"Ramen has synthetic aminos, vitamins, and minerals. Everything the body needs," Ritsuko said absently, eating her ramen while reading a book.

Ed snorted. "It doesn't have everything Ed's body needs!" She glanced at Shinji. "Or Third Child person, either." Ed leaned over to Shinji. "Ed hears through the grapevine that you've run through the eeeevil Scout training program!" She pitched her voice low to sound scary, without much effect. Shinji nodded, eating his ramen. "Ed wrote that program!"

Toji rolled his eyes. "Oh, great, here she goes again."

"So what did the Shinji person think of her?"

"Who?" Shinji asked.

"Faye Faye! Ed used to know Faye Faye. Ed hasn't seen Faye Faye in a long time, but Ed misses her..." Ed looked sad for a moment, then perked up again. "So I put Faye Faye in the construct! She, um, she doesn't talk as much as old Faye Faye, but if you'd like to meet her, Ed can arrange it!"

Rei shook her head with the tiniest hint of disdain. "The Bebop's very own dating service."

Ed stuck her tongue out at Rei and Toji. "Pay no attention to the people behind the green curtain, Third Child person. Faye Faye is very nice."

Toji was going to add something snide, but Gendo stuck his head into the spartan dining room. "Dr. Akagi, when you're done, bring the ship up to broadcast depth. We're going in." He looked at his son. "I'm taking Shinji to see the Oracle."