Disclaimer: Neither Neon Genesis Evangelion nor Event Horizon are my property.  That honor goes to Gainax, Paramount, and Impact Pictures.  I'm making no monetary profit off of this story.  So don't sue me.


Chapter 2: Echoes

            The harsh white light of the flashlight beams sliced through the darkness like glowing knives.  As they walked, the members of the recovery team played the lights across the walls, floor, and ceiling of the corridor, trying to take in every aspect of their obscure surroundings.  It was pitch black within the facility; even the emergency power must have failed. 

The pervading darkness had an almost smothering effect.  Misato felt the need to focus on the circles of light as she moved.  If she allowed her gaze to stray away from the light for any length of time, she found herself becoming nervous and short of breath.  After a few minutes she gave up trying; it was much easier simply to watch the light.  The thought was simultaneously comforting and disturbing.  The spots of light were like holes cut into the black shroud that covered them, possible windows through which she could escape.  Still, a flashlight seemed like a very flimsy weapon to use against the darkness.

Their footsteps continued to be the only sound; no sign of life reached their ears as they walked.  Misato remembered that Fuyutsuki hadn't been too confident about the chances of finding any survivors.  So far, at least, his prediction seemed to have been correct.  There was one problem: not only were there no survivors, but there were no bodies.  Why was that the case?  Where had everybody gone? 

"It's possible that the staff were destroyed by contact with the Sea of Dirac," Ritsuko answered.

Misato jumped at the unexpected sound and nearly shrieked aloud.  Ritsuko had spoken softly, but in the total silence of the corridor her voice may as well have been a thunderclap.  Angrily, she pointed the flashlight beam at the doctor's face.  "Don't do that!" she hissed.

Ritsuko put up a hand to shield her face from the light, but Misato could tell she was smiling.  "What?  I was just answering your question."

"I…" Misato trailed off.  Had she spoken the question aloud?

"And could you point that thing somewhere else, please?  It's not exactly polite."

Misato realized the light was blinding her friend and hurriedly diverted it to the floor.  "Sorry," she muttered.

"It's all right," Ritsuko responded, chuckling.  "Anyway, as I was saying, it's possible that the Sea of Dirac destroyed any organic material that was trapped inside of it.  That would explain the loss of the crew – and the lack of bodies."

Misato's brow wrinkled with confusion.  "But Shinji was pulled into a Sea of Dirac as well, and he's…" she nearly said "okay," but caught herself at the last minute.  "…he's still alive."

"I know, Misato," her friend said gently.  "I know.  This isn't an area we have a lot of experience with; in fact, ninety percent of what we know about this has been learned over the past day or so.  I'm just stating a possibility."

Hyuga spoke up from the back of the group.  "Maybe they're still alive, and they're all trapped further inside."

"That's a possibility," Ritsuko agreed.

Aoba sniffed the air.  "It's only been a day, but even this close to the exit the air's getting stale.  If there are people still alive down there, it's definitely going to get worse the farther we go; with the power out, the ventilation fans aren't working.  They might not have much time left."

Misato nodded, although in the dark they probably couldn't tell.  "On top of that, there's no light, which slows us down.  Furthermore, if any containment doors were shut during the emergency, we'll need to pry them open – if that's even possible for all of them."  She felt a familiar strength returning; she was slipping back into command mode, and with its arrival the fear drained away.  "We can solve all of this if we can just get the power back online.  There should be a maintenance elevator just ahead.  Hyuga, Aoba, Yashima, take the access ladder down the elevator shaft to the sub-basement and see if you can get the generator back online.  The rest of us will make for the bridge.  You know the layout of the installation, right?"

"Right," Hyuga affirmed.

"Good.  You have your portable radios, so we'll be in contact throughout.  If anything happens, one way or the other, you tell us about it.  Okay?"

"Understood."

The maintenance elevator was in sight on the left; without hesitation Yashima stepped forward and pulled open the access hatch next to it.  There was a slight rush of air from the opening, but it quickly subsided.  Yashima leaned forward and aimed his flashlight down the shaft.  "It's a long way down," he reported.

"Afraid of heights?" Misato asked.

Yashima shook his head.  "I'll be fine."  He looked over at Aoba and Hyuga.  "Either of you want to go first?"  When neither volunteered, he shrugged and stepped onto the ladder.  "See you later, Major, Doctor."  With that, he began to descend, disappearing from view.  Aoba and Hyuga followed, leaving Misato and Ritsuko with the remaining three men.

With a heavy sigh, Misato faced the darkness once again.  "We've got a job to do.  Let's keep moving."

They resumed their slow progress into the shadows, working ever closer to the answers they believed they sought.

---

            "You know," Makoto Hyuga joked as they climbed down the ladder, "I kinda feel like I'm in one of those old tomb-raiding videogames from the '90s.  Here we are, climbing down into the depths of some empty, unexplored ruin, trying to find its secrets and bring them back to the surface."

            "Sure," Yashima's mirthful voice came back.  "We've even got a babe with a gun.  The similarities are obvious!"

            Hyuga laughed.  "Want me to call the Major and let her know what you think?"

            "Aw, come on!  I've seen you looking at her!"

            There was a moment of embarrassed silence.  Shigeru Aoba seized the opportunity.  "So, if this is a video game, then do you think there'll be a horde of sword-wielding mummies waiting for us at the bottom?"

            The silence became decidedly uncomfortable.  Aoba felt a little bad about putting a stop to the levity, but he wasn't in the mood.  He'd sensed it even as they'd first walked into the building – a sense of wrongness in the air.  Every reasonable impulse in his body screamed for him to climb back up the ladder and get out.  Duty and curiosity were the only things that kept him on his course, and even they seemed to have reservations about continuing.  Whatever was going on here, it wasn't something to joke about.

            Still, Hyuga was probably on edge too.  It couldn't have helped any for Aoba to snap at his friend.  He was about to apologize when Hyuga spoke again.

            "Edgy, Shigeru?"  There was a teasing note to his voice.  Aoba sighed with relief.  Hyuga wasn't annoyed.

            "Hey, you know me," Aoba retorted, deciding to indulge him, "I always sucked at those games when I was a kid.  If a pack of mummies jumps us when we reach the bottom, it's gonna be up to you to save our asses!"

            Hyuga's laughter rang out once more, echoing about the chamber.  From the sound, it seemed that they'd emerged from the shaft and into a larger space.

            "We must be near the bottom, Yashima," Aoba called down to the other member of the group.  "Let me know when you reach it so that I don't…"

            There was a sudden, surprised cry from below, which was cut off by the sound of something striking the floor.

            "Yashima?"  Aoba yelled, ceasing his descent.  Realizing that Hyuga was about to run into him, he hissed, "Makoto, stop!  Yashima?  You okay, man?  Yashima!"

            There was a groan, followed by some muffled cursing.  Finally, Aoba heard Yashima's voice.  "I'm fine, I'm fine…" he assured them.

            "What happened?"

            "I hit a wet spot on the ladder.  I can hear water dripping; there must be a leak somewhere.  Anyway, I lost my grip and fell.  I'm lucky it was only about five feet up.  Just be careful on the way down."

            "Can you see anything down there?" Hyuga called.

            "Don't know.  I dropped my flashlight when I hit.  It must be around here somewhere…  Got it!"  There was a brief clicking sound, followed by more cursing.  "Shit!  It's broken.  Sorry, but I'll just have to wait for you."

            "Alright," Aoba acknowledged, continuing his descent.  "Just get away from the ladder.  I don't want to fall on you, or anything."

            He encountered the wet rung a few seconds later and carefully made his way past it.  Unconsciously wiping the moisture from his hands, he stepped from the ladder and shone the light at Yashima.  The security agent grinned at him.

            "Just twisted my ankle a little bit," he said.  "I'll be fine."

            Meanwhile, Hyuga had reached the floor and was looking about the room with interest.  "Well, I guess this is the place…" he announced.

            The cavernous chamber housed three magnetic turbines, which generated electricity for the entire complex.  Aoba looked them over.  Each was the size of a small house.  In order to be sure there hadn't been a mechanical failure, they'd need to inspect each one more closely.

            He unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt, switched it on, and held it to his mouth.  "Major, do you read?"

            Misato's voice crackled through the radio.  "I read you, Aoba.  Have you reached the generators yet?"

            "Affirmative.  We've just arrived.  From here they seem pretty much intact; it doesn't look like there's been an explosion of any kind."

            "Will you be able to turn them on?"

            Hyuga cut in on his own radio.  "We still need to check the backup batteries for the electromagnets.  Also, there'll have to be a closer inspection of each turbine.  We don't know yet if the thing's going to fly apart on us the moment we fire it up."

            "Understood."

            "How are things on your end?" Aoba asked.

            There was a pause, and then they heard Dr. Akagi's voice.  Ritsuko sounded out of breath.  "One of the emergency hatches has sealed.  We've been working at it with a prybar for the past couple of minutes.  Once we're through, it shouldn't be too much farther to the bridge.  Of course, if you could give us a little power…"  She let the sentence hang.

            Hyuga laughed.  "We understand, Doctor.  We'll let you know whatever we find and get these things up as soon as possible.  Over and out."

            The conversation ceased and silence settled over them once again, except for the echoing drip of a leaky pipe somewhere nearby.  The quiet persisted until Hyuga finally suggested, "Why don't we get started?  I'll check the generator on the left."

            Aoba nodded.  "Okay.  In that case, I'll check the one on the right.  Yashima, you go with Hyuga, since you don't have a light anymore.  We'll meet by the one in the middle after we've checked the sides." 

            Hyuga and Yashima walked off, leaving him alone at the ladder's base.  He stared into the dark for a minute, then shook his head.  "Sooner we're done, the sooner we leave," he reminded himself, then started off to his right, around the perimeter of the room.

            Aoba scanned the massive turbine.  The machine was gleaming like new, and looked to be well maintained.  There was no sign of cracks or flaws in the metal, and no sign of scorching or an electrical short; from this side, at least, it looked to be in perfect condition.  Why had it stopped running?

            Liquid dripped from above, spattering on the outer casing of the turbine and leaving a glistening trail down the black metal.  He looked up and saw a catwalk above.  The leaky pipe must have been up near the ceiling.  Aoba hoped that that wasn't the problem; he didn't particularly want to climb up and make repairs.

            The pooling liquid splashed beneath his feet as he made his slow examination.  Making a mental note to open the drains and clear it out, he took the flashlight beam off the generator and checked to see how much further he had to go.

            The NERV officer froze instantly when he saw the girl.

            She couldn't have been more than eight years old.  She was dressed in a pair of shorts and an oversized T-shirt, both of which were splattered with… blood?  She didn't look like she was hurt, though.  Her short brown hair was raggedly uneven and framed a face bearing the most terrified expression Aoba had ever seen.  There was blood on her face as well.  Maybe she was injured – but she didn't seem to be in pain.  Just afraid.  Very afraid.  She began to tremble visibly as Aoba took a step forward, but was unable to move or make a sound, transfixed in position by her fear.

            Christ, what was a kid doing in this place?

            Aoba wasn't much good with children, but he put on what he hoped was a friendly face.  "It's all right," he said soothingly in English, "I'm not going to hurt you."

            The girl gave no response; if it were possible, she shivered even more violently.

            "I'm with NERV, in Japan," he continued.  "We're here to help.  We're here to get you away from this place."  She still stared at him as though he was some kind of monster.  "Are you hurt?" Aoba asked.  With all the blood, it was a distinct possibility.

            She took a step back, her wide blue eyes still fixed on him.  Aoba sighed.  This was getting him nowhere.

            He put his hands up and slowly crouched down until he and the girl were the same height.  "I told you I wasn't going to hurt you," he reminded her.  "Like I said, I'm with NERV."  Aoba shone the flashlight on his uniform, letting the girl see the red logo.  "I just want to get you away from here."  He smiled as he moved the beam back to her.  "My name's Shigeru.  What's yours?"

            "Do you see?" the girl asked, unexpectedly.

            This took Aoba by surprise.  "What?"

            "Do you see?" she repeated.  Her voice quavered as she spoke, as though she was on the verge of tears.  The question had a pleading quality to it that was unnerving.  Am I that frightening? Aoba wondered.  What had scared her so much?

            "What am I supposed to see?" he pressed.

            Without another word the girl stepped to the side and pointed to the corner of the room.  Aoba followed her line of sight with the flashlight beam.  The light settled on a low desk of some sort.

            "A desk?  Is that what I'm supposed to see?"

            There was no answer.  Aoba moved the beam back to the girl.

            She was gone.

            He jumped to his feet and looked wildly about.  "What the hell?"

            The girl was nowhere to be seen.  Had she walked away while he was distracted and gone behind the generator?  No, he hadn't been distracted for that long.  Had she run, then?  No, he would have heard her footsteps.  Had she climbed onto the turbine?  Aoba looked the generator over, then dismissed that thought as well.  It was far too big, and there were no good handholds within her reach.  So where had she gone?

            Had he imagined it?  Aoba didn't think so.  He'd heard her clearly.  But how could she simply vanish?

            Maybe this place was getting to him.  He didn't like that possibility.  He fumbled for the radio and switched it on.  "This is Aoba.  Major, Hyuga, I thought I saw a little girl down here.  Keep an eye out."

            Dr. Akagi answered in an annoyed voice.  "A girl?  That can't be.  Non-employees aren't allowed inside the facility."

            "Maybe she sneaked in afterward?"  Hyuga suggested.

            Aoba didn't agree; the girl hadn't had a light.  How could she have made it all the way down here?

            "Are you sure it's what you thought, Aoba?" Misato asked.

            He considered.  He knew what he'd seen.  They didn't.  Chances were they'd think he was losing his mind – a scenario that didn't seem quite so far-fetched down here in the darkness.  "It was only for a second," he lied, "and she was a ways off.  I might just have imagined it.  Maybe this place is getting to me."

            Aoba heard Misato's sigh over the radio.  "All right.  Keep working on the power, in that case."

            "Yes, sir."  Aoba continued his circuit of the generator.  Almost as an afterthought, he lifted the radio to his mouth and asked, "How's the progess on…"

            He stopped abruptly.  Misato noticed and demanded, "Aoba?  Aoba, is something wrong?  Aoba, answer me!"  Aoba barely noticed.  His attention was occupied by something else.

            The desk, at least, hadn't vanished when the girl had, which was a small comfort to him.  What caught his notice, though, was something protruding from the darkness underneath it.

            It was a man's arm.

            "I think I've found a body," he announced, quickening his stride to approach the desk.  "Hyuga, I'm in the back-right corner.  Get over here in case I need help, okay?"

            "Roger."

            The girl's disappearance momentarily forgotten, Aoba reached the desk and crouched before it.  The paneling was too low for him to see the rest of the body.  Setting the flashlight and walkie-talkie on the desktop, he grabbed the arm just below the wrist in one hand, reached under the desk to hook his other hand around the body's shoulder, and pulled.  Surprised, he stood to regain his balance.  It had weighed less than he'd predicted.

            Aoba stared at what he held for a few seconds without comprehension; when he realized what it was, he thrust it away from him violently, as if it were a poisonous snake.

            It was a man's arm.  That was all.

            The arm struck the floor with a splash.  With a sickening lurch, Aoba realized what the liquid he'd been walking through was.  He took a step back from the desk, but his feet slipped from beneath him and he fell.

            Dazed, still unable to fully comprehend what was happening, he raised his hands into the light.  They were coated with a thick film of crimson.  He checked his pants.  There were dark smears on them; he remembered drying his hands after getting off the ladder, and felt sick.

            There were pounding, splashing footsteps as Hyuga and Yashima ran to the desk.  They both stared at the scene for a moment; Yashima closed his eyes and turned away.  Hyuga wasn't so lucky; he knelt and began retching violently.

            Aoba wanted to do so as well, but a part of him had awakened, cold and rational, as the rest of his brain shut down with the shock.  That part was telling him what to do now.  With remarkable calm he climbed to his feet, wiped his bloody hands for the second time, and walked to the desk.  He picked up his light and walkie-talkie and called Misato.

            "Major, we've found…"  He gulped uncomfortably, then continued.  "We've found… well, it's not exactly a body."

            "What is it, Aoba?" Misato asked, her voice tense.

            "Ah… we've… we've found what used to be a person," he managed.  Kneeling in the blood, he peered under the desk.  There were no more identifiable body parts; just a lot of blood and a few shapeless lumps.  "In one of the corners," he went on, "we've got a forearm, a few scraps of flesh, and some blood.  Actually, check that," he said, surveying the surrounding floor, "we've got a lot of blood.  I think that this is from more than one person… possibly several."

            "Is there any sign of a weapon?  Any trace of the killer?"

            Aoba checked.  "I don't see any weapons, and…" Something occurred to him; he checked under the desk again.  There was nothing but the blood and meat.  "Actually, there's no inorganic material here at all.  No uniform, no scraps of cloth, no weapons, no ID, no spare set of keys, no tools… nothing.  Just the blood."

            "Do you think you can determine cause-of-death?" Dr. Akagi asked, cold and businesslike. 

              His laughter at the question's absurdity was harsh and abrupt, an alien sound that didn't feel right at all.  "Kinda hard, unless you know how to reconstruct a corpse from a pool of blood," he replied.  How was he staying this calm?  By all rights he should be screaming or crying, or even doubled up in the corner like Hyuga.

            He knelt and looked more closely at the severed limb.  The edge was uneven; an inch or so of white bone protruded from the ragged stump.  No bone fragments, either, he thought distantly.  Relaying this information, Aoba added, "It doesn't look like the limb was cut off.  Torn, more likely."

            "Could it have been an accident with the generator?" Misato suggested.

            "You mean like if somebody'd been caught in the works?"  The idea was plausible – certainly it would explain the lack of recognizable body parts.

            "No good," Hyuga interrupted weakly as he climbed back to his feet.  "There's blood all over the place, not just in one localized spot.  We must have been walking through it on the other side of the room too – enough for..." He took a deep breath to steady himself before continuing, "…for multiple bodies.  I can see one person getting caught, but several?"

            "Not likely," Misato agreed.

            Yashima took Hyuga's flashlight and shined it on the generator next to them.  "Besides," he contributed, "the outer shell of the turbine extends upward about eight feet from the floor.  They'd have to climb up to make contact with moving parts… which eliminates the possibility of an accident."

            There was silence for a moment, punctuated only by the drip-drip-drip of blood from above.  Aoba listened to the maddening sound, trying to piece the situation together in his head.  There was something missing here: one vital piece that would make everything fit together flawlessly.  What was it?  Where was it?

            Something clicked in his mind, a horrible suggestion that, he thought, just might be true.  "What if something… ate them?" he suggested.

            "Pardon?" Ritsuko's voice conveyed skeptical disbelief, and not, Aoba knew, without reason.

            "I know it sounds crazy," he went on hurriedly, "but… I mean, there's no corpses, so where did they go?"

            "What could subdue and eat several grown men?" Ritsuko countered easily.  "There are no animals in this area big or fierce enough to do the job."

            "How about an Angel?" Aoba persisted, unwilling to be deterred so easily.

            There was a brief silence on the other end of the conversation.  Aoba held his breath.  Did this mean he was getting close?  How much did his superiors know?

            But when Ritsuko answered, she sounded cool and composed.  "That's not a possibility, Aoba.  The sensory equipment here would have picked up an Angel's presence, just like ours.  If an Angel had attacked, we would have known about it in Japan in seconds.  Now, I suggest that you confine your speculations to the realm of possibility; we'll have enough trouble piecing this together without idle fancies compounding the issue."

            Aoba felt his anger rise in response to the doctor's patronizing tone; his patience was nearing an end.  "Well, something had to have killed these people," he snapped.  "I don't have any other suggestions, and that's the one that makes the most sense right now.  Unless you have a more reasonable explanation, I think we should at least consider it!"

            "Lieutenant, calm down!" Misato ordered.

            "Calm down?" he laughed, incredulous.  "A lot of people died down here, Major, and I think it's still possible that we could be joining them.  When we're out of here, then I'll calm down.  Then you can court-martial me for insubordination, or whatever.  But until then, I'm gonna be a little more worried about not knowing just what the fuck is going on!"

            After shouting his response into the radio, he switched it off without waiting for a reply and angrily slammed it down on the desktop.  Without looking at the others, he took his flashlight and stalked off towards the ladder.

            "Uh… Shigeru?" Hyuga called after him uncertainly.

            "Check the batteries," Aoba answered without looking back.  "I'm going to climb to the upper level and have a look."

            "What about the monster, Aoba?" Yashima asked.  Aoba couldn't tell if the security guard was being serious or not.

            Yeah, what about the monster, he thought dismally.  I probably just earned myself a trip to the brig because of it, after all.  Logically, Aoba would be safer sticking with the other two.  But he wasn't in the mood right now.  Besides, how will we be better able to defend ourselves than the people down here?

            "Don't worry about it," he said, dismissing Yashima's concern with false confidence. 

            He gripped the blood-slick ladder in his hands unflinchingly and began to climb, leaving them behind.

---

            "I'm gonna kill him," Misato muttered as Aoba cut the transmission. 

            "Oh, come now," Ritsuko chided.  "Don't be like that.  I'm supposed to be the ruthless bitch, remember?  Killing him is my job."  In the suffocating gloom the doctor's attempt at humor seemed hollow and forced.

            "Then why don't you do it?"  Misato was only half-joking.

            Ritsuko fell silent for a moment as they watched the men struggling with the sealed door.  When she spoke again, her voice was more subdued; her speech no longer sounded like an effort of will.  "You can understand, can't you?  His concerns were perfectly valid, and so long as he continues to do his job we can chalk his insubordination up to the stress of the moment."

            Misato regarded her friend.  "You think he's right."  It was not a question.

            Ritsuko didn't meet her gaze.  "What I think," she answered in a voice too soft for the others to hear, "is that I don't have the slightest clue what's happened here.  I came up with some ideas on the way over, but what those three found just ruled them all out.  We're in the dark – figuratively and literally."  She allowed a hint of a smile before continuing.  "Aoba's idea may be the right one, if for no better reason than that I can't think of a different explanation.  Going solely by what they've found, it could very well be the case that a monster of some kind devoured the people down there.  But that leaves us with even mores questions.  What kind of creature could do this?  Where did it come from?  Is it related to the Angels?  Is it an Angel itself?  And most of all…" she trailed off.

            Misato didn't need to ask to know what the final question was.  Where is it now?  Strangely, the prospect of coming face-to-face with a monster in these corridors didn't frighten her as much as one might have expected.  At least then she would know what she was dealing with.  Ritsuko had a point – the most unsettling thing about this situation was all the unknown factors.  She would have given anything to have a few of them answered.

            There was a groan of protest as the mechanism inside the door gave way.  At this signal, all five of the NERV employees grabbed hold of the prybar and pulled as one.  The portal still resisted, but after another minute's exertions they had forced open a space wide enough for them to pass through single-file. 

Misato squeezed through the opening and stepped into the bridge.

The first thing she noticed was the smell, a thickly pungent metallic scent that clung to her nasal passages and left her feeling slightly dizzy.  It permeated the dark chamber like a cloud of mist, making the air feel so heavy and dense that walking became an effort.  It brought back memories: memories of the fights she'd been in, of people she'd known, of the Second Impact.  Misato knew the smell of blood only too well.

"I… think we've found the crew," she told Ritsuko as the doctor followed her in. 

The plating of the floor was slippery beneath her feet as she walked further into the room.  The metal shone wetly when she passed the flashlight beam across it.  After Aoba's report, she didn't need to be told what it was.  Nausea threatened to overcome her as she realized that there wasn't a dry section of flooring to be seen.

"Place smells like a slaughterhouse," one of the men commented.

"Probably because it is one."  Misato spotted a few wet lumps lying in the blood.  "Whatever happened here, it didn't leave very much for us to clean up."

"How considerate," Ritsuko added dryly.  She crouched down before the fleshy lumps and reached out to touch them.

"Ritsuko, are you sure you want to…" Misato began, but then sighed as her friend ignored her, prodding them with her fingers and finally picking one of them up in her hand.  "I can't believe you sometimes…" she muttered.

"It's flesh," Ritsuko informed them.  "Muscle tissue.  Human, judging by the size of it – probably from somebody's arm or leg.  Ragged edges, just like with Aoba's find in the basement.  These were torn loose, not cut.  It might have been from a concussive blast."

"Like a grenade," Misato suggested.  There were problems with that theory, of course, and they both knew it; nevertheless, Misato found the idea that hostile forces might have infiltrated the facility to be far more comforting than the thought of a monster rampaging through the bridge.  People were easier to come to grips with.

"When the power comes back on, we'll have a better idea of what's…"

The conversation ceased abruptly as a faint sound reached their ears: a soft rustling from one of the far corners of the room.  The sound put Misato in mind of something being dragged across a wet surface – or dragging itself.  All sound from the group stopped as they strained to listen, not daring even to breathe.  The rustling paused briefly, then picked up again a few seconds later.  Whatever the sound's source was, it wasn't moving towards them.  Maybe it hadn't seen them yet.  On the other hand, maybe it was observing them itself.

"Weapons ready," Misato warned the men in as low a voice as possible.  Despite her effort to maintain stealth, the words seemed almost deafening.  She cursed her luck and her bad judgment.  Why not bang a drum and announce your presence, she scolded herself. 

The rustling abruptly stopped.

Memories of Misato's military training whispered in her mind as she realized that the unseen creature now knew that they were there.  You're trapped, Misato.  You can't get everybody through that door quickly enough to escape, and the other way out has that thing in front of it.  Only one option left: act before you completely lose the element of surprise.

Her heart pounding in her chest, she gingerly moved the flashlight's beam away from Ritsuko and to the far wall.  The beam revealed nothing.  Misato nearly panicked and cast the beam randomly about the room, fearing that their adversary had already circled around them.  At the last second she caught herself and lowered the circle of light a few feet.

There it was: a fur-covered animal of some kind, crouched unconcernedly in the pooling blood that seemed to cover every inch of the room.  It raised its head as the light passed over it, blinking against the unexpected glare.  The thing's mouth was curled open in an apparent grimace, giving the impression of a beast that had been interrupted at its meal.  Come to think of it, that comparison may have been more apt than first consideration would suggest. 

It cocked its head uncertainly, regarding this strange intruder.  For a moment Misato thought it might simply retreat, but then its mouth gaped open, baring its fangs in anger.  Letting out an enraged squeal, it dropped back to all fours and charged.

Before any of the men could react, Misato's gun flashed into her hand from the jacket.  In the same fluid motion she squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet with unerring accuracy into the oncoming beast.  Their attacker collapsed to the ground in an explosion of hair and blood.  As the ringing echo of the gunshot died away, the silence settled over the room once more.  Nobody dared to move.  Strangely, Misato found that, this time, the quietness was comforting.

None of them needed to be told to remain motionless after this; Misato struggled to bring her out-of-control breathing back to normal for a full minute as they stood there, listening.  No more strange noises or squeals of anger were heard; the creature, whatever it was, had no companions running to its aid.

Ritsuko moved first, walking over to the spot where the thing had skidded to a halt.  "Not exactly what I'd expected," she remarked as she examined the corpse.

"What?" Misato asked, relieved that her voice didn't reflect the tension she still felt.  As she walked over to join Ritsuko, she moved to put the gun back in its holster.  No sooner had she done so than she decided to take it out again.  The weight of the metal gave her a sensation of security, however flimsy.

The creature didn't look nearly as big up close.  Its body was about the size of a cat's, with four legs ending in extended paws with tiny claws.  The gray fur that covered the corpse was filthy and matted with blood – although with all the blood in the area, that was hardly a surprise.  Its head was gone, blown into fragments by Misato's bullet.  She turned her attention instead to its other end, and noted a long worm-like tail.

"It looks like a rat," she observed.

"And an unusually large one," Ritsuko agreed.  "It's not unheard-of for them to reach these sizes, although I wouldn't expect to find them this large in the desert."  She looked about for a second, then pointed to a white shard of bone lying a few feet away: one of the rat's teeth.  "Sharp teeth, characteristic of carnivores and meat-eating animals," she continued, her voice coming out more strongly as she slipped into lecture mode, "so it's not inconceivable…"

"Wait a minute," Misato interrupted.  "You're not going to try and convince me that one rat, however big, did all this, are you?"

"Rats aren't solitary creatures," Ritsuko countered.  "Where one is found, there will be at least a small group of others – they gather wherever the food is.  And although the groups can be small, they can also be much, much bigger, numbering in the hundreds, or even thousands – even though this place isn't big enough to support that large of a rodent population."

"But where are they?  If it has an army of friends hiding in here, I'd think they would have shown themselves."  Despite her belligerent tone, Misato was getting the impression that Ritsuko was leading her on with their reasoning.

"Where indeed…" Ritsuko mused, tapping her fingers on her chin, oblivious to the red streaks they were leaving.  After a few seconds she pointed at the rat's body again.  "Look more closely."

Fighting down her revulsion, Misato did so.  It took a moment for her to realize what Ritsuko was trying to point out, but when she did it became obvious at once.  Crossing through the blood-soaked fur were lacerations and avulsions, places where the skin and flesh had been torn completely away from the rat's body.  Some of them looked like…

"Teeth marks?" she guessed.

Ritsuko nodded.  "From the looks of it.  I'd say this one somehow aroused the wrath of the pack.  Its fellow rodents turned on it, then left it for dead."

Misato shook her head.  "I don't believe it.  A swarm of rats isn't going to just bite it a few times and let it go; they're going to kill it and eat it.  And even so, all this blood should still have gotten their attention."  She looked at her friend defiantly.  "What else do you see?"

The doctor sighed.  "Nothing."

"Nothing at all?  But then this entire thing doesn't…"

"…Make sense, I know," Ritsuko cut her off.  "I'm just listing off a few of the reasonable conclusions I can…"

A violent fit of coughing cut them off at once, and they both whirled to look sharply at the source of the noise.  One of the security officers was standing near the terminals beneath the observation window.  He held one hand over his mouth and seemed to be fighting to stay on his feet.

Misato brought her gun to the ready, but the man raised his other hand to indicate that he was all right.  The coughing persisted for several seconds.  He gasped for air for a second and then croaked, "Body."  He gulped, apparently afraid to open his mouth again for fear of what might come out, but at last managed to add the word "intact" to his report.  He weakly pointed to one of the technician's chairs.  It was facing away from her, but now that her attention was drawn to it she could easily see the body.  From its rigid posture it may as well have still been alive and alert.

Together Misato and Ritsuko stood and walked to the chair.  Misato stopped just behind it, allowing her friend to go first.  Ritsuko didn't even seem to notice, so preoccupied was she with the corpse lying before her.  Misato carefully observed the blond scientist's face; the only reaction she saw was a slight tightening of the skin around Ritsuko's eyes.  That in itself spoke volumes.  Their resolve was about to be tested once again.

Briefly Misato entertained the possibility of not looking at the body at all, of simply letting Ritsuko do the investigation.  She dismissed that notion with a faint flush of guilt.  Not only would she be betraying Ritsuko in a way, but she'd be betraying herself.

You want to know what happened here, don't you?  You're not going to find out if you're afraid to look for the answers.

That was true, but would she be able to handle it?

Don't lie to yourself.  All this gore intrigues you, and you know it.

Without responding to the mental accusation, Misato steeled herself, then stepped forward to look the corpse in the eye.

---

            The maintenance catwalk was about twenty feet up, only slightly higher than the tops of the generators.  It was roughly shaped like a capital letter "E", except with four horizontal bars instead of three, allowing the crew to inspect each generator from all angles.  When Aoba realized the walkway's shape, he was suddenly put in mind of a hand with outstretched fingers.  As soon as he made this connection he was struck with an overpowering sense of vertigo and was forced to close his eyes until the feeling passed.

            Examination of the first two turbines had turned up no visible flaws, which ruled out the possibility of massive mechanical failure.  The mystery of why the power had suddenly died was becoming a little more clear – or at the very least, Aoba was beginning to get a picture of what had not happened.

            In his mind he kept going back over his aborted argument with his superiors.  Now that the initial rush of anger had abated, the technician felt slightly ashamed about the way he'd exploded at Misato and Ritsuko.  He'd allowed his fear of the situation to dominate his thinking, and it had almost certainly cost him in the eyes of the two women.  They might not consider him fit for duty any longer; after all, remaining calm under stress was supposed to be one of the most fundamental aspects of his training.

            But then again, what kind of training was supposed to prepare him for this?  Aoba had been trained for situations in which you could see the enemy.  Dealing with an unknown force that reduced grown men to bloody puddles on the floor had never been a topic of discussion at the academy. 

Whatever it was that they faced, it had clearly made the rounds: he'd discovered several bloody patches on the catwalk, the sources of the liquid that dripped down into the already copious gore on the ground below.  If an attacker had managed to eliminate both the men on the catwalk and those on the bottom level with such ease, there were two possibilities: either it was very agile, or there was more than one.  Neither thought was reassuring.

            Keep it together, he reminded himself.  If you lose it here, you could screw up the mission.  Remember, the sooner you do your job, the sooner you can get out.
            He took another steadying breath and walked down the last branch of the walkway.  The third generator seemed to be in good condition, at least on the side that faced into the room; only the remaining side needed to be checked.  When they'd restored power, at least they'd be able to see the enemy coming.  It wouldn't be as…

            The girl was waiting for him.

            She looked the same as before, with her baggy T-shirt, denim shorts, and ragged haircut.  From head to toe she was splattered in blood.  The look of petrified terror on her face had not changed.           Well, if she'd seen whatever had happened here, she had every right to be frightened of him.  Aoba didn't know how she'd gotten up here in the dark, but she must have done it in an effort to get away from him. 

And now she was cornered.  If Aoba wanted her to trust him, he'd have to be careful.  He slowly took a step back, putting his hands up to show that he meant no harm.

"You don't need to run away from me," he told her softly.  "Like I said, we're here to help."

            As before, the girl gave no immediate response.

            "I saw what it was you were trying to show me," Aoba went on.  "I can't blame you for being frightened.  It scared me too – I'm guessing you heard me yelling."  The girl didn't nod, but her shivering had lessened somewhat.  Encouraged, he kept going.  "Whatever happened down there, I won't let it happen to you.  We'll get you out of here and bring you someplace safe."

            Upon hearing that the girl's body tensed once more.  This didn't make sense; why wouldn't she want to be brought to safety?  Either she was more disturbed than he'd expected, or…

            Wait.  Everybody else was dead.  She was the only one still alive.  If a bunch of adults couldn't escape from their deaths, how could a girl have gotten away?  Why was she still here?  How had she gotten so much blood on herself if she didn't seem to be injured?  What if…?

            What if she had killed these people?

            The notion was ridiculous, but Aoba took an unconscious step back anyway.  "How did these people die?" he asked her quietly, his voice dead serious.

            "Do you see?" the girl asked.

            This again.  As before, she was pointing – this time down into the third turbine.  Without thinking Aoba looked to see what she was talking about.  A split second later he remembered what had happened the first time and snapped his light back to where the girl had been standing. 

She had disappeared again.  But this time there was no place she could have gone.

Aoba stared, as if sheer force of will would bring her back.  As it was, there was only one possibility that made any sense, and Aoba didn't like it one bit.

Was he losing his mind?

Desperate to find some confirmation of his own sanity, he ran to the spot where she'd been standing and looked over the railing's edge.

There was a body wedged into the turbine.

"Damn it," Aoba muttered.  It was a strange reaction to the sight, but it reflected Aoba's ambiguous feelings.  At the moment he was unsure whether he should feel relieved that he might not be crazy – for the girl had been pointing at something real – or disturbed that the situation was now becoming more complicated by the minute.

"Makoto!" he yelled.  "Yashima!  I've got a body; get over here."

The quiet splashing of their footsteps came to him; he heard them moving closer, running until they were directly beneath him.  "Where are you?" Hyuga called.

"Right above you."  A second later Hyuga's flashlight passed over him and he waved.  "Look what I found."

Hyuga maintained better control over his stomach this time; Yashima, as before, gave no overt reaction.  "So," Yashima mused, "what are we supposed to make of this?  Was he thrown?"

Aoba shook his head.  "This guy went into the mechanism feet-first. He wasn't thrown, he jumped."  He left unspoken the question of why the man had chosen to commit suicide.

"Maybe he was trying to jam the generator?" Yashima suggested.

"These turbines do several thousand rotations per minute," Hyuga pointed out.  "If he'd hit it when it was running full-bore, it would've torn him to pieces."

"But he's wedged into the mechanism."  Realizing that the others couldn't see very well, Aoba described the situation further.  "Just at the base of his chest, he's caught between the rotating piece and the top edge of the outer casing.  The turbine was moving when he fell into it, but it was slowing down."  Peering closer, he saw trails of blood running from the man's mouth and nose.  "The machine jammed completely when he got caught, though.  It looks like the impact crushed his mid-torso; he must have died from the damage to his lungs.  Drowned in his blood.  Not a very pleasant way to go."

"Which brings us to the question," Yashima added, "of what could drive anyone in his right mind to do something like this."

None of them answered for a full minute.  When Hyuga finally spoke up, it was to change the subject.  "Shigeru, we've checked the backup batteries.  There's enough juice to get the generators running again, if they're not damaged."

Aoba shook his head to clear out the violent images that he'd been picturing.  "Yeah, they should be good.  I don't think this third one will start with the body stuck in it, but the other two are fine."

"Those two should give us enough power for what we'll need."  Hyuga sounded relieved.  "In that case, we'd better go fire them up."

As his two companions walked off to the opposite end of the room, Aoba considered.  Maybe turning the lights on wasn't such a good idea.  He wasn't sure he wanted to see what else he'd missed.

---

            The body in the chair had no eyes.  That was the first thing Misato noticed.  Where they should have been, there instead were empty holes, like bloody stars in the corpse's face.  "The skin around the sockets has been shredded," Ritsuko indicated.  "They were torn out."

            It was the body of a woman in her mid-thirties.  She'd probably been quite beautiful in life, but now, with her eyeless stare and her mouth frozen open in a scream of agony, she was simply grotesque.

            Her shoulder-length blond hair was soaked with blood, and patches of bare skin were visible on the scalp where clumps had been torn free.  She was naked, giving an unflinching view of the tortured maze of crisscrossing crimson lacerations that covered her entire body: shoulders, breasts, back, abdomen, arms, and legs.  Here and there a piece of flesh had been avulsed away, leaving behind it a shining patch of muscle or fat.  Her throat had been viciously slashed, creating a yawning second mouth beneath her chin.  Like everything else, she was splattered head to toe in blood.

            One hand clutched a razor blade.  It, too, was bloody.

            Misato could only stare numbly at this.  Some part of her brain tried to analyze the situation, to make sense of what it saw.  She tried to reason out why one body would be left intact, but horribly scarred.  She tried to reason out why an attacker would tear out a body's eyes.  She tried to reason out why the razor blade in the corpse's hand matched the scars inflicted on its body.  Halfway towards reaching a conclusion, that part of her brain quietly disconnected itself and left Misato speechless.

            Ritsuko, meanwhile, had turned away and closed her eyes.  "None of this makes sense," she muttered.  The doctor unclipped her radio and switched it on.  "Aoba, do you read?"

            Hyuga's voice answered her.  "Aoba climbed up to check the machines, Doctor Akagi.  He's on his way down now.  Have you reached the bridge yet?"

            "Been here for a while.  It's… pretty bad."  Ritsuko paused, as if thinking of the right thing to say, and then continued.  "Tell… never mind.  How are the generators?"

            "We've got two of them running.  They're getting up to speed now, and we should have power again in a couple of minutes.  Aoba found a body jammed in the third one, so we can't use it."

            "An intact body?" Ritsuko said with interest.  She looked at Misato meaningfully, but Misato, her mind still reeling, didn't respond in kind.

            "Yeah – well, mostly.  He fell…"

            "Jumped," Aoba interrupted.  "He jumped from the walkway into the third generator."  After a moment's hesitation, he said, "I'm here, Doctor."

            "Aoba, we've found a body too.  It's not pretty.  You were correct in not wanting to dismiss any explanations."

            As disturbed as she was at the moment, Misato still couldn't help but feel admiration for her friend.  After the conflict between them that might have driven a wedge through the group, the doctor was taking the first step to reestablish friendly relations.

            Aoba seemed to have realized that as well, and seemed relieved.  "Well, I honestly can't figure out what's going on.  This guy who went into the generator obviously killed himself, but what about everybody else?  Why is there the one suicide, no more or less?"

            "I'm wondering the same thing," Ritsuko agreed.  "We have the same situation up here: one body, and it's looking like she might have slashed her own throat."

            "Neither one picked a very fun way to kill themselves, did they?"

            "I'm guessing they used what was at hand.  The one here has knife wounds all over her, and her eyes have been ripped out – she might have been trying to end the pain.  But that brings us back to the question of what did this to her – and where all the others have gone."

            At that moment the air was filled with an electrical hum as the lights flickered on.  Misato's already-beleaguered mind, which had lain dormant throughout the conversation, suddenly roused itself with a scream of anguish as it realized the day's experiences were far from over. 

            "Fuck…" Aoba's muttered oath came through the radio just as Misato uttered the exact same assessment of the scene.

            The room had gone from pitch black to lurid red.  Blood quite literally covered everything in sight: the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the computer monitors, and the observation window.  Misato was not surprised to see that the eyeless woman's corpse was the only body in sight.

            Through a clear patch in the window, Misato could see Evangelion Unit-04 standing peacefully in the testing chamber.  Its pristine silver armor gleamed in the light in an almost obscene counterpoint to the carnage in the neighboring room.  An image of Shinji flashed into her mind for a moment, and her fist clenched involuntarily.  She found herself hating the machine in the testing cage, as though it were the reason that Shinji was now in the hospital.

            Shaking herself, she brought the radio to her mouth.  "Aoba?  You there?"

            "Yeah, sir?"

            "Umm… any sign of the monster?" she asked, taking a stab at playfulness.

            Aoba laughed half-heartedly.  "No.  Just a lot more blood than I'd expected."

             "Same here.  This entire installation is a tomb.  Not one living soul in sight."  Misato sighed as she considered the scene the others likely faced in the generator room.  "Look, guys, you've done well.  With any luck we'll be ready to leave soon.  Unless there's anything else that might help us figure out what's going on, get out of there and wait in the main hallway."

            "Roger."  There was a click, followed by silence as Aoba's radio went offline.

            Meanwhile, Ritsuko had moved to one of the less bloody terminals and was furiously typing away.  Windows and files popped up too quickly for Misato to follow, until the screen resembled the bottom of a trashcan.  "Everything's been corrupted," Ritsuko groaned.  "When the power died, the storage batteries must have started to go as well."

            "Can you fix it?" Misato asked.

            "I doubt I can save all of it.  With any luck, though, we might be able to what's important.  It'll take too long to do it here, though."  Ritsuko pulled a memory dump from her shirt pocket and plugged it into the terminal, then resumed typing.  "It looks like it's just the stored data that's damaged, though.  With my clearance, I can access the surveillance network from this terminal."

            The incomprehensible mess on the screen changed to an image of an empty hallway.  Ritsuko punched a key and the image changed to a different hallway.  Again, and the screen showed a cafeteria.  She continued cycling through cameras, passing through nondescript hallways and storage spaces, the administrative buildings on the surface, the bridge in which they now sat, the hangar for the Evangelion carrier, and several views of the generator room.  The body Aoba had discovered still dangled limply from the grip of the third, inactive turbine.  Misato noted that this body's eyes were still intact.

            Apart from a view of Aoba, Hyuga, and Yashima looking about themselves warily, there was no sign of life in any of them.

            "One more thing to check," Ritsuko said.  A few more keystrokes, and the screen flashed to a schematic of the entire facility.  The word SCANNING popped up, and was replaced a few seconds later by INCONCLUSIVE.  The doctor's brow wrinkled with confusion.

            "What's wrong?" Misato asked.

            "This is a bioscan," Ritsuko explained without looking up.  "All high-security facilities are being fitted with them these days.  Sensors spaced throughout the facility search for sources of heat, motion, and bioelectric energy.  By making a composite of the three scans, it can pinpoint living creatures within its range."

            "So why is it inconclusive?"

            Ritsuko pointed at the schematic, which had gone from a black-and-white outline to being completely red.  "This means that there are faint life signs across the entire installation.  Everywhere."

            "We just saw that there's nobody there," Misato pointed out.

            "Exactly."  Ritsuko punched in a few more commands.  "I'll try refining the search, having it focus only on stronger, more concentrated signals."

            After another brief wait, the red glow faded, except for two groups of dots.

            "There we go.  We're here, and the three dots over here are the others."  Ritsuko indicated a larger dot next to the bridge.  "That's the EVA.  Speaking of which…"

            She resumed typing and the screen shifted to show the testing chamber.  A flashing arrow appeared pointing upward.  Ritsuko gave a final command and the sound of whirring machinery filled the room.

            "What are you doing?" Misato asked suspiciously.

            "We have to retrieve the EVA, remember?" Ritsuko reminded her.  "I'm putting it on automatic.  The Second Branch facilities have a fully automated loading system; conveyors will load the EVA onto an elevator and move it to the surface, where it will be fixed to the carrier in the hangar.  All we have to do is fly it back home."

            "Convenient enough," Misato remarked.  She looked at the men in the room.  They all appeared listless and ill; while Misato had mostly regained her composure, theirs seemed to be fading fast.  She felt a little sorry for them; they'd been dragged out here to see this, and to no apparent purpose.

            "I think we're finished here," she told them.  "Let's go."

            The relief on their faces would have been more appropriate on condemned men who'd just received calls from the governor.  With that order, Misato knew, she had just become their savior. 

            Ritsuko unplugged the memory dump and pocketed it.  "I've overridden the security and locked all the doors in the 'open' position.  We shouldn't need to pry any more of them open."  She walked past Misato to the door that the men were already filing through. 

            Misato took a look back over her shoulder as she followed.  Nothing moved; the room contained nothing but death.  Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching her as she left.

---

            Aoba strapped himself into the pilot's seat of the Evangelion carrier and prepared for takeoff.  He and Hyuga were the only ones in the group qualified to fly the massive plane, and so Major Katsuragi was going to be left to fly the VTOL home with her own limited experience.  Aoba could easily have flown the plane himself and allowed Hyuga to pilot the other craft, but the Operations Director had been adamant in her decision.  Aoba suspected that she didn't want either of them flying alone after their experiences in the Second Branch.  That suited him perfectly.

            As the plane took off, his thoughts wandered back to the girl.  She'd seemed… familiar, somehow.  What bothered Aoba wasn't that, however; it was the fact that he still didn't know if she was real or imagined.  Twice she'd appeared, and both times she'd pointed out things that Aoba hadn't yet known about it.  But she'd also vanished without trace both times… and in one of those cases there was no place she could conceivably have escaped to.  When he'd asked Ritsuko if there were any survivors, he'd been careful not to mention her.  He hadn't been all that surprised to learn that scans of the complex had turned up no signs of life.

            So what had he seen?  Who was she?  How was she connected to this?  What had happened to the crew?  Why was there so much blood and yet only two bodies?

            How were they going to answer these questions?

            Aoba felt the forces press him into his seat as the lumbering craft picked up speed and began to lift from the runway, the massive Evangelion in tow.

            Why did he feel like something was following them?

---

Author's Notes

Greetings, y'all.  The fun begins…

There's not too much to say about this.  My biggest concern was that I was going overboard with the gore… but then I thought back to the movie and realized how terrifying it could be if used properly.  There've been a couple of deviations from the original movie plot, but Event Horizon fans should recognize a few familiar elements as well. 

Quasi-prereading was performed by Shinji (the 6:00 assassin), who said the story was "CORRECT."  Hmm.  I shudder to think what I'd have to write to make him say "WRONG."

So, it's on to Chapter 3 – with more hallucinations, darkness lurking inside of people, and garbled Latin phrases.  Here's hoping this one won't take three weeks.

Until next time…