Disclaimer: See Part II.
Deus Ex Machina
Chapter 5
Shinji awoke slowly. He was under a bright light again, blinding his tired eyes. He squinted in the light, and made out a shape circling around the bed.
"Oh, so you're awake," said the man, leaning over Shinji. He had long hair and deep-set eyes.
"Where am I?" Shinji rasped, his throat painfully dry. He managed to sit up, turning to face the speaker.
The man offered him a cup of water. "You're back on the Neb. It was decided that you should be taken to Zion quickly, and this ship is faster than the Casper. I'm Shigeru Aoba. I came along to monitor you, to make sure that you didn't suffer any after effects from the battle. How do you feel?"
Shinji finished drinking. "I...don't know. I don't feel much of anything, I guess."
A hand suddenly reached over his shoulder and pinched his cheek.
"OW!"
"You felt that." Shinji turned his head and saw Misato grinning at him. "You must be okay," she declared.
"What was that for?" asked Shinji, trying to glare at Misato as he rubbed his wounded cheek.
"You gave us a scare, you know," she said. "We thought we had lost, and then you get up and destroy the Angel."
Shinji looked confused. "I destroyed it?"
"What do you remember?" asked Shigeru.
Shinji stared into space for a moment, searching his memory. "I was trying to fight the Angel. It had shot me several times. I charged it, it broke my arm..." Shinji turned and looked at his left arm. He raised it up and wiggled his fingers experimentally.
"It didn't really break, Shinji," said Misato.
"Huh. It broke the Eva's arm then, then grabbed its head and started hitting it. I could feel every blow like it was my own head, though. After that...after that..." Shinji shook his head. "I don't know."
Misato and Shigeru exchanged a glance. Shigeru made a note on his clipboard, while Misato shrugged. "Well, that doesn't matter," she said happily. "What's important is that we won. We're gonna have to party when we get to Zion!"
Shigeru sighed. "That would be nice. Commander Fuyutsuki and Doctor Akagi will want to get right back to work when they reach Zion."
"Aww...poor Shigeru. Maybe we should start early, then." Misato winked at Shinji as she reached into her pocket. A small metal flask appeared in her hand. "You're too young to drink Shinji, and I wouldn't want to poison your system anyway. So please, don't mind us." She took a quick drink from the flask. "AH! That's good."
She held the flask to Shigeru, who eyed it suspiciously. He took it from the operator and took a quick drink, gasping as he swallowed. "Bleh...that stuff's worse than what Dozer makes."
"Now don't say that," chided Misato. "This is Dozer's recipe. I just modified it a little. It's got even more alcohol, and degreases better, too."
"Better at killing the brain and liver too, I'm sure." Still coughing, he turned back to the boy. "Do you feel anymore pain, Shinji?"
Shinji shook his head. "No, I guess not."
"We're still a day away from Zion," said Misato, between drinks. "Why don't you go down to your room and get some more rest. You're going to be busy when we reach the city."
While the Evangelion Shinji had used was a several days behind him, it's sister units were in their bays in Zion. Catwalks surround the bays, overlooking the machines. A tall, dark man in a faded yellow sweater leaned on a rail, looking down at the red unit.
He was so deep in thought that he didn't notice another man's approach until he spoke. "Commander Lock, I didn't expect to find you here."
Lock turned to the new comer and greeted him. "Councilor Hamann." Both men stared down at the machine, quiet for a moment.
"I can't help but think," began Lock, "that we could have built a half dozen hovercraft for each of the Evas. And that's not mentioning their transports and everything else that's here. But in the end, Unit 01 was able to defeat that monster." Lock shook his head. "I may owe Commander Fuyutsuki an apology."
"No, I don't think so," said the older man. "You two buried the hatchet years ago. You should probably congratulate him, though."
Lock nodded, and both men continued staring at the machine beneath them.
"You think we should tell her that's dangerous?" asked Hamann, pointing at the girl perched atop the Eva's head. She was watching the work going on around her intently, and occasionally yelled her opinions about their progress to the technicians below her.
"You think she would listen?" asked Lock.
Hamann laughed. "The Second Child? Never."
On the main deck of the Nebuchadnezzar, another Child was being discussed. "So how is he?" asked Trinity.
"Physically, he's fine. Neurologically, there doesn't seem to be any damage." Shigeru leaned back in the link chair, placing his hands behind his head. He absently ran a finger around the plug on the back of his head as he spoke. "It's just a matter of how he copes with all this, though."
"Copes?" asked Neo. He was leaning against the back of another chair, which Trinity sat upright on.
"It took me a while to adjust to the real world, after I got out. And I had an idea of what I was getting into. From what I've heard, Shinji had no clue what was about to happen." Shigeru sighed. "And as soon as he come to grips with the real world, we shove him in Unit 01 and send him out to fight."
"So you're saying it was too much, too soon?" asked Misato from her seat at the Operator's panel. "We didn't have any other choice," she said defensively.
"Yeah, I know that." Shigeru closed his eyes. He was starting to look very relaxed. "I guess what we he needs is to get settled into life in Zion. Getting a normal routine established will help him adjust."
Shigeru yawned loudly. Misato got an evil glint in her eyes, and before Trinity or Neo could say anything, she snatched a disk off the desk and tossed it into Shigeru's wide-open mouth. "Hole in one!" she shouted, as the man gagged and spit the disk out.
Shigeru glared at Misato, who winked at him and pulled out her hip flask. She took a quick drink, and passed it to her victim. Shigeru stopped glaring long enough to cough down a drink, and passed it on to Neo.
Trinity leaned forward and read the label on the disk. "Uh, Misato? Isn't that Rei's disk?"
"Hmm?" Misato picked up the disk and read it. "American Sign Language? Uh-oh." She grinned weakly. "Let's pretend this didn't happen, okay?"
Shinji slept for almost fourteen hours. He didn't wake until a concerned Shigeru tried to move him back to the infirmary, fearing that the boy had suffered some mental damage. Shinji insisted that he was fine, if still exhausted.
He didn't feel quite so fine after a meal of the goop that the crew ate. The promise of real food in Zion was enough to keep him from being completely disillusioned, and the fact that the city was only hours away had him a bit excited.
Eventually, Shinji found himself back in his small room, lying on the bunk. He was bored. With everyone else occupied with getting the ship to Zion, or preparing to leave once it was there, he had nothing to do. He had no belongings to pack, and had no position on the ship that required him to do anything. He lay on the bed, reviewing the things he had gone through.
How long since his freeing? He didn't know exactly how long he had laid on that bed while they worked on his body. Even the first few days after that were hazy; he had slept whenever he wasn't jacked into the Construct or the Matrix. Then the Evangelion, and more sleeping while he recovered from that experience.
He had slept for fourteen years already, so why was he doing so much more of it?
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his door. "Come in," he called, sitting up on the bed.
Switch leaned into the room. "Hey, we're almost to Zion. You want to see it when we get there?"
Shinji nodded and got out of the bed. He followed Switch up to ship's cockpit, noting that most of the crew had already left their bags at the ramp.
Morpheus was seated in the left pilot's seat, and Switch took the one on his right. Shinji stood behind them, and watched the tunnels pass by the windows.
"We're still underground?" he asked.
Morpheus nodded without looking back. "Zion is deep underground, where we can defend ourselves from the machines."
Deep meant four miles down, Shinji soon learned. He asked how they could have dug so far.
"The location was discovered shortly before the war with the machines began. It was partially explored back then, but never used, until the first people to escape the Matrix went down to it. It's been the salvation of humanity."
The ship turned a corner in the tunnel and quickly slowed. Switch turned on the floodlights, bathing the entire tunnel in light. Ahead stood a huge metal door, guarded by numerous large cannon turrets. All the guns were trained on the Neb.
Just as Shinji started to get nervous, Morpheus slipped on a headset and spoke into it. "Nebuchadnezzar to Zion Control. Requesting permission to enter Zion."
A woman's voice came out of the speaker a moment later. "Nebuchadnezzar, this is Zion Docking Control, please transmit your authorization code."
"Transmitting." Morpheus tapped a code in on a keypad. A moment later, the gun turrets turned away from the Neb, and the door began to open.
"Code accepted. You are cleared for the west dock, bay nine. Welcome home, Neb."
"Thank you, Control." Morpheus took the headset off. "Here we are, Shinji."
The ship continued down the tunnel, around a corner, and past another set of turrets. Beyond the turrets the tunnel abruptly ended.
"Wow..."
"Welcome to the Geofront. The last free territory on Earth."
Shinji stared in awe as the ship descended. Vast didn't begin to describe the cavern. Lights stretched out into the distance on the plain below, to the far wall of the cavern. More lights twinkled on the dome of rock overhead like stars on a clear night. Shinji felt like he was in an airplane, flying into a city at night.
"This is incredible," he breathed.
Switch laughed lightly. "It is, isn't it? That's the City of Zion down there," she said, pointing to the densest cluster of lights. "That hill in the center is the Temple Mount."
The Neb banked to the right and swiftly dropped altitude. The half filled dock rose to meet them. The Neb took its place between two other ships, settling down on its landing pads.
They quickly left the cockpit, reaching the bottom deck as the ramp finished lowering. Misato stood at the top of the ramp, not bothering to conceal her flask. "Thank you for flying Neb Air, we hope you join us again." She took a drink from the flask. "Now, it's time to Party!"
"Getting an early start on that party?" asked Apoc.
Misato shouldered her bag and started down the ramp. "Of course. Why waste time? So, who's with me?" She glanced around the group, getting headshakes from everyone. Morpheus had to check in with command, Shigeru wanted to get to the Project Center to enter his info on Shinji's recovery, and the rest of the crew just wanted to go to their homes.
"Well Shinji, what about you?" Misato asked.
"Umm, well, I'd like to rest, too. But, where do I go?"
"Don't worry about that, Shinji. There's a place for you," said Morpheus.
"You're not going to toss him in with the orphans, are you?" asked Misato.
"Orphans?" asked Shinji.
"The children taken out of the Matrix," explained Morpheus. "The teachers there will help you get settled into your new life. Most of us lived there when we were your age."
"He's not an ordinary orphan, though," argued Misato. The woman's expression was unmistakable; she was planning something again.
"What do you have in mind?" asked Trinity.
"Well, he could stay with me. I have an extra room now, and this will put him closer to the Project, and to the other pilots."
Shinji felt a little uncomfortable, having his fate discussed like this. "Really, I don't want to be any trouble."
Misato threw an arm around his shoulders. "Nonsense! You'll stay with me. I won't tolerate any argument, okay?"
Shinji looked at the others, who didn't try to argue with the Operator. He smiled. "Okay, then."
Across the city of Zion, two girls stood at the top of a residency building. Rather, the redhead stood at the very edge of the roof, staring down the street, while her blue haired friend sat carefully at the center of the roof.
"Are you sure that was the Neb?" asked Asuka.
"Yes," Rei signed in response. "This is the right time for it to arrive, and the pad configuration was correct for that model."
Asuka pointed at the distant cluster of lights that indicated a tunnel. "That was miles away from here. How could you tell?"
Rei held up her small binoculars.
"Those things aren't that powerful, are they?" Asuka scoffed.
Rei shrugged. "They are sufficient."
Asuka rolled her eyes, and turned her gaze back down the street. Rei remained seated, lost in her own thoughts. Several minutes passed, before Asuka shifted her stance. "I think I see Misato."
Rei stood and walked across the roof, stopping a safe distance away from the edge.
"Do you see her?" asked Asuka, pointing down the street.
Rei nodded. "Who is with her?"
"Huh?" Asuka looked again, squinting slightly. There were several other people on the street, and it took her a minute to determine that Misato had a companion. It took another moment to figure out who it was. "Why is he with her?" she muttered.
Before she could call to them, Misato was yelling at her. "Asuka, if you fall and break you neck, I'll kill you!"
"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled, before leaning out and grabbing a pipe affixed to the side of the building. To Misato's horror, she slid all the way down from the fourth story roof. Ignoring the woman's gaze, she marched up to Shinji. "So what are you doing here, Third Child?"
"Who, me?" Shinji asked, not ready for the third degree. "I'm, umm..."
"Say hello to your new roommate, Asuka," Misato said cheerfully.
"Roommate?!" both teens shouted. Rei arrived then, having used a ladder and then stairs to get down, and was puzzled by their expressions.
Misato smiled. "Yep, roommate. I figured that this was the most convenient for him. This way, he's closer to the Project."
Asuka tried to protest. "But, but he can't stay with us. That room is-"
"Available," Misato interrupted. Under her glare, Asuka swallowed back any other argument.
"Fine," she sighed.
Misato's bright smile returned. "Wonderful! I'm going to take a bath. I'll leave you kids to get to know each other." She turned and climbed the stairs, leaving the three children on the street.
Asuka stared at Shinji. Shinji stared back, then shifted his gaze to Rei. Rei stared back at him. He looked back to Asuka again. "So, uh..."
"How was it?" asked the redhead.
"How was what?"
"Fighting, moron. What was fighting the Angel like?"
"Oh, that." Shinji sighed. It wasn't his favorite thing to think about at the moment. "It was...painful. I felt everything that the machine, I mean, the Eva felt. When the angel broke its arm, I thought mine had broken."
Asuka nodded sagely. "That's the sensory input from the Eva. To pilot it properly, we have to feel what Eva feels. That includes pain, too."
Shinji "hmm"ed in response.
"So how did you defeat it?"
"I really don't remember. I...kind of blacked out."
"What do you mean, 'blacked out'?" she demanded.
Shinji shuffled back a step. "I, uh, lost consciousness, and the Eva destroyed the Angel on its own."
Both girls were perplexed. Rei's hands danced in the air, as Asuka nodded. "I suppose. Personally, I bet stupid here has some kind of short-term memory loss. There's no way the Eva could fight on its own." Rei signed another response.
"What's she saying?" Shinji asked, ignoring the insult.
Both girls stared at him for a moment. Remembering the earlier problem, Rei's shoulders sagged slightly.
"Misato never found that disk, did she?" asked Asuka.
Shinji shook his head. Rei reached into her pocket and pulled out a disk, labeled "Rei's ASL Disk."
"I know," said Asuka, "let's head over to the Project Center. We can show Shinji around, and use one of the terminals to upload that program."
Rei nodded, and turned to Shinji. "I guess so," he said, answering her questioning gaze.
The walk to the Project Center was over a mile, so the Children had some time to talk.
"What is this place were going to?" asked Shinji.
Since he still couldn't converse with Rei, Asuka answered. "It's the center for Project E, the group that designed and built the Evangelions."
"There's more than one?"
"We have three. Unit 00, the prototype; Unit 01, the test type; and Unit 02, the final model."
"Three Evas." Shinji thought for a moment, then turned back to the two girls. "I'm just the third pilot, right? So there's one for each of us?"
Rei and Asuka glanced at each other. Rei signed something, which Asuka nodded to. "Rei has mainly worked with Unit 01, and I've been using 02 since its construction was finished last year. They'll probably put you in 00, since you have the least piloting experience."
Rei signed something else, which caused Asuka to glare at her. "I doubt that will matter very much."
"What won't matter?" asked Shinji.
Asuka turned her glare on him. "You're the only one with combat experience."
"I am?"
"Yes. But don't get too cocky, Third Child." Asuka spun in front of Shinji. "Just because you got to face the first one, doesn't make you the best. I guarantee that I won't faint during a battle," she said, poking his chest to emphasize her point.
Shinji nodded. If she wanted to fight the Angels, she was welcome to them.
The Project Center was enclosed by a simple fence, meant more to direct people to the proper entrances than keep them out. The gate was manned by a single guard, an old man who made sure people thumbed the print scanner when they came and went. He admitted Shinji after the boy's status as Third Child and a victorious pilot was clearly (and loudly) explained to him by Asuka.
Asuka grumbled as they entered the facility. "His job doesn't include delaying us," she said to Rei, who had signed something to her.
Shinji was beginning to get annoyed with the one sided conversations. "When can we use that disk?" he asked.
"We just have to get down to one of the labs," said Asuka.
Shinji turned at a tug on his sleeve. He saw Rei walking to the left, her eyes beckoning him to follow. She led him toward several odd structures. Thick steel columns rose out of the ground, and were connected at the top by narrow massive beams of equal size, giving the appearance of a large building that had neither walls nor a roof.
Shinji followed Rei as she walked to a railing that over looked a massive, steel walled room. The floor, the same color of green as the walls, was hundreds of feet below.
Shinji gasped at the monster attached to the far wall. "An Evangelion?"
"That's Unit 00," said Asuka, leaning on the rail and looking down at the orange machine. "The first Eva. Come with me, Third." She grabbed Shinji's collar and drug him along the railing and around the corner. Another railing ran parallel to the first. Shinji leaned over it, looking down on a red Eva.
Asuka spoke proudly. "That is Unit 02, the newest and best Evangelion."
Shinji looked down on the machine, then turned and looked back at the orange one. Seeing two Evas together was an awesome sight. While the bodies were virtually identical to that of the Unit he had used, the heads were very distinct. They were shaped differently, and these two were somehow less menacing, he thought.
Shinji considered that for a moment, until his train of thought was derailed by the redhead. "Hey, Maya!" she shouted. A figure down in the Eva bay waved back. "Let's go down there," said Asuka, heading for a small lift. The platform rode down an angled rail set in the wall, dropping them off on a catwalk that went behind the Eva's shoulders.
A young woman with short, dark hair greeted them. "Hey girls, what's up? Who's this?"
"Him? That's Shinji, the new pilot." Asuka quickly switched to more important matters. "Is there a lab we can use to load a program?"
Maya blinked in surprise. "You're the pilot who destroyed the Angel?"
Shinji shrugged, a little embarrassed. "Yeah, I guess that's me." He blushed slightly as the woman shook his hand, congratulating him on the battle and welcoming him to Zion. She then excused herself to return to her work.
As the three teens left the bay, Shinji stared at the ground, uncomfortable with the attention he was receiving.
"Come on, Third. You should take some pride in what you do," scolded Asuka. "You're not going to be the hotshot around here for much longer, so enjoy it while you can."
"I just..." Shinji started. He hesitated for a second. "I didn't really do anything special out there. I don't know how I defeated it."
"I don't believe this," she grumbled as she pushed open a door. "Let's get this disk loaded into your stupid head so that Rei can maybe talk some sense into you."
Asuka snickered, amused by her comment. Shinji looked around the room. It had several large consoles and a dozen interface chairs, like those on the Neb. Rei went to a console, while Asuka led Shinji to a chair.
She picked up a plug and instructed Shinji to lie back. "Hold still," she said, positioning the plug.
"OkaAAY!" Shinji yelped as she rammed the plug into place.
"Wuss. Rei, you ready?"
The blue haired girl nodded. With the press of a button, knowledge that would have taken months or years to learn was placed in Shinji's brain. Consciously, he could do nothing, but his brain didn't need direction from its higher functioning levels to assimilate, sort, and store the information.
In a few seconds, the upload finished. Asuka removed the plug as Shinji sat up, rubbing his eyes.
"Did it work?"
"I guess so...Rei?" Shinji started as his mind caught up to his eyes. He had understood Rei's hands. "Say something, anything."
Rei looked at him for a moment, before raising her hands into the air. "Something. Anything."
Her companions stared for a moment. Shinji laughed, while Asuka rolled her eyes. "He didn't mean that literally," she grumbled.
Rei nodded, accepting this information. "It appears to have worked. I should go, Father will be returning home soon." With that, she grabbed her disk, pocketed it, and walked out of the room.
"She wasn't joking?" asked Shinji.
Asuka shook her head. "She's so weird sometimes." She explained further as they left the Project Center.
"Rei got out of the Matrix when she was four years old. She was the youngest person ever freed, I think. Native children aren't taught sign language, so Morpheus was really the only person she had to talk to, when he wasn't away on a mission."
Asuka leaned against the rail as they rode the lift up. "I guess she never got to act like a normal little girl, so she doesn't act like a normal teen now. You should have seen her when I got here. I couldn't get more than two words out of her."
Shinji stared down at the red Evangelion. "When did you get out?" he asked.
"When I was nine. I lived with the Oracle for three years, until they needed another pilot for the project. She chose me for that."
The lift was rapidly approaching the top of the bay. "What did your family think, when you went to the Oracle?"
Asuka's eyes narrowed slightly. "It didn't matter." The lift stopped, jolting slightly. "We better get back to the apartment," she said.
Shinji took one last look at the red Eva, then glanced at the orange unit. He turned away and followed Asuka out of the Center. The walk back to the apartment was spent in silence, as Shinji marveled at the Geofront.
They reached the apartment building and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. "We're back," called Asuka after they entered.
Misato's head appeared around a corner. "You're just in time, I made dinner."
Asuka shuddered slightly as Misato disappeared again.
"What's wrong?" Shinji asked.
"You know the protein soup you ate on the ship?" Shinji nodded. "You'll be wishing for some of it soon."