20. (Anim)Us.
If you can't create your own identity, store-bought is fine.
~
Darkness, inside and out.
- this is your home. - we are your family. - stay with us. -
Where … was I? Why … were those voices … familiar?
- we are you. - we are the same as you are. - all of us, alike. -
Oh … oh please, no…
- this is where you belong. - do you not want to belong? - do you not seek the company of others like yourself? -
My eyes opened, sluggish even in fear, and they were there – my clones, the fraudulent echoes, the promise that was truly a threat.
Their faces as one turned to me; identical smiles bent their lying mouths. Though we were separated, each inside our own cylindrical LCL tank, scattered throughout a dark and nebulous space, the barriers of distance and substance alike felt treacherous, weak, as though at any moment any of them might reach out and take me.
- you are us, as we are you. all else is pretence. you lie and construct yourself in vain. you are hollow, a façade of being, imitating those you see – a mirror only. a copy. like us. -
"Shut up," I whispered. "I am real – I am me, the only myself."
Mocking laughter, - you are as real as we are, - and iterated hollow grins. - you have never spoken an honest sentence to any person. you hide, and deflect, and dissemble, all to preserve the fiction of your integrity, all for your connivance and advantage. nothing you say, or do, or are, is genuine; all is as your will conjures. -
As they spoke, memories surfaced of every lie I had told, every deceptive or misleading statement, every omissive silence. Ever since coming to Tokyo-3 I had spun tales and sold fables; truth had only ever been forced from me – by Kaji's discoveries, or Armisael's attack, or Asuka's confrontation.
Except…
"I told Toji of my part in his trauma. I did not have to – nobody compelled me, nobody had challenged me – I could have kept that to myself."
- you sought to alleviate your own guilt. -
"I never demanded his forgiveness. I will carry that guilt as long as I must, because he deserved to know the truth of what he suffered, of why."
- after months, according to your own convenience. -
"Getting punched is hardly 'convenient', especially whilst recovering from a mortal wound," I pointed out. But I did not try to hide the desperation in my voice as I added, "I am trying. Failing at times, but trying. It is what humans do."
Another discordance of mirth. - but you are not human. you never will be. -
I shrugged. "I have heard that imitation is the greatest form of flattery."
- is that so? - A single voice, this time.
The clone furthest away turned fully to face me, and I saw its tank drain of liquid, the glass retract, until it stood upon a vacant plinth. As I watched it descended to the floor and approached me, not walking, but held aloft by the tubes and wires emanating from its plugsuit, ambulating it along like a spider or drifting around it in the air like kelp in ocean currents. Its face was smothered by a mask like the clone in Unit 09, but in the centre of its chest was the number 11.
It stood by my tank and its uncanny eyes smirked up at me.
In a moment its appearance changed: the tubes and mask disappeared from view, the plugsuit split down the back seam, then fell to the floor and dissolved.
My own suit did the same, and there was a pulse of pressure through the LCL of my tank and my body went numb entirely – paralysis set in, deadening my nerves, immobilising even my face.
- behold, flattery. we shall see how fruitful your pretence has been, - it said, and returned to its plinth; the glass wall ascended to enclose it, and fluid filled the tank once more. There was now nothing to obviously distinguish, on sight, between myself and any of the dummy system clones.
There were only four of them left; other tubes stood empty, their glass smashed – this reality's depiction of the graves the dead clones of Units 06, 08, 09, 12, and 13 never had. I felt a twist in my chest, and was unsure whether it was horror or pity.
"/What in the actual entire hell is this?/"
If I could have jumped out of my skin, I would have. Asuka?
"/Oh my God they're naked! Why are they naked? My poor eyes, what did they ever do to deserve this?/"
She stumbled into view – hands over her face, just a sliver between two fingers to path her footsteps along the floor – clad in a silver and gold plugsuit, synchronisation clips gleaming in her hair. Below her collarbone the number 06 could be read.
"/This is officially the worst synch test ever. Psychological contamination doesn't even begin to cover it, I'm gonna need my entire brain bleached. How the fu—aah!/"
"Sorry."
Apropos of nothing, Rei had appeared, Asuka nearly bumping into her.
"Wondergirl? What're you doing here? Where is here?" Seemingly on reflex, she grabbed onto the other girl's shoulders for support; Rei began to lift her own hands toward Asuka's, then faltered.
"I am unsure where we are. Myself, Ikari, and Nagisa were combatting Unit 11 in Aomori Gorge when suddenly I found myself in this place. I assume the enemy Eva has ensnared us in some shared illusion."
"Well then how am I here?" Asuka waved wildly around. "I was minding my own business on the other side of the damn world! Just a regular synch test with Unit 06."
"Perhaps it is due to the shared nature of the Mass Production Evangelions." Rei looked around at the tanks containing myself and the clones. I tried desperately to move, to signal to her, but could not so much as twitch a finger. "If Nagisa is the basis of their dummy system, then we are also sharing this vision with the cores of the remaining units."
"What? Ugh – how did this get even creepier? There's a Nagisa-doll inside each of those nasty things? Inside my Unit 06? But I made them delete it – they purge-wiped the plug – I thought it was just data…"
"They are just data," Rei confirmed, and as she regarded us I wondered whether she was thinking of my clones or her own. "Until they are animated by the acquisition of a real soul, or contact with one, they are only empty shells, vessels without passengers."
Asuka shuddered, gripping her arms to herself. "I hate dolls."
"I know." Rei's voice was quiet.
Her former self-appointed adversary cast her a conflicted look, then stared off into the dark distance. "Hey. Not that this is really the moment for it, but. …I know I used to … say all kinds of stuff about you. To you. Back then. It … I … ugh, I thought I had you figured out. But I'm not too proud to own up when I … get it wrong. And to – to say…" She huffed out a frustrated breath. "I'm—"
"Thank you for the kinkerlitzchen," Rei interrupted. "They are agreeable."
Asuka blinked. "Um. Don't mention it?"
"Exactly."
"…Oh. Okay."
The two girls meandered through the vision's expanse, deliberately not looking at one another, and I yearned fiercely to escape so I could either hug them both or knock their heads together, I was not sure which.
"…Hey, if the Shinjidiot was fighting with you guys, shouldn't he be somewhere around here too?"
As though summoned by mention of his name, there was movement in the murky distance, and one of the empty plinths – without broken glass or residue from spilled LCL – revealed Shinji to be standing atop it. He stirred as though waking, jumped in surprise when he noticed his surroundings, and promptly fell off.
"Ow! Wh-where am I? What's going on? –Asuka?"
For she had broken into laughter at his mishap. "He's beauty and he's grace, he falls flat on his face – ladies and gentlemen, the all-conquering pilot of Unit 01!"
Shinji grumbled as he picked himself up. "I was going to ask if it was really you, or some kind of hallucination, but I guess I don't need to."
"And what's that supposed to mean?" She stormed over to him and pinched his cheek.
"Ow—!"
"Silence, please," Rei interrupted.
"What now, Wondergirl?"
"Huh? Ayanami, you're here too?"
"All the Evangelion pilots appear to be present," Rei said, "which means that one of these is the real Nagisa."
"One of what?—OH!" For the first time Shinji appeared to register the inert bodies in our containment tanks. "Wh—huh? Kaworu? But – others? Other Kaworus?" His eyes bulged.
"They are the cores of the dummy plugs."
"The cores look like Kaworu? Because they're copied from him, from his data?"
Asuka snorted. "Wonder if they talk as much crap as the original does."
"Possibly not," said Rei, and I felt torn between offence and amusement. "If we can discover which of these is the real Nagisa, we can free him."
"And then there'll be a naked Wonderboy running around." Asuka made a face of disgust.
Shinji's own face reddened (why? we shared the locker room showers at school, and at NERV headquarters…), but he peered up at the tube nearest him. I tried to bend my thoughts to his, but to no avail – whatever this vision was, it managed to accurately reproduce the psychic block currently being experienced by my physical self.
The three of them wandered between the scattered tanks, their concentration periodically broken by complaints or snide comments from Asuka – "Betcha Third Child's loving the free show…" – and flustered denials from Shinji.
At length he came to a halt before me, and a complex series of expressions crossed his face in sequence. He swallowed. "This one."
Asuka and Rei hurried over.
"Don't you ever, ever dare tell me how you knew that," Asuka said, then cringed. "Except that I do know how you knew that, ewww…" She shoved him in the arm.
"It's not like that!" he protested. "We haven't even … uh, never mind. I mean, it's—"
"The scar," Rei said, and both of them turned, stunned, to her. "It would normally be hidden by clothing."
"…How—?" Shinji started, but was interrupted by Asuka's gleeful, "What! Wondergirl and Wonderboy? You two got it together before he and Stupid-Shinji did? That's hilarious!"
Shinji's mouth had been moving soundlessly; he at last managed to summon his voice. "Is that true, Ayanami? He never said…"
"No," said Rei ("Boo!" was Asuka's verdict). "He mentioned the scar some time ago – that he had acquired it during Third Impact, and that discovering it had upset you, Ikari."
"…Oh – I remember." Shinji looked up at me again. "Yeah, it did."
"So you're not talking about a circumcision scar," Asuka deadpanned, and Shinji choked.
Rei, unconcerned, was examining the base housing of my tank. "There does not seem to be a control panel or obvious opening mechanism."
"Then we do this the fun way!" said Asuka, and pirouetted a side kick directly into the wall of the tank.
There was a dull thud, and the glass failed to give way.
"Hmph." She frowned, then grabbed Shinji's arm. "Right! Get in gear, Third Child, we're gonna dance this arschloch down."
"Huh?"
"The finishing move from the twin dance sequence against the Seventh Angel – flying heel kick – we're gonna land one right here!" She indicated the site of her recent assault. "'Course, I've softened it up for us."
"What? But – all those flips and things, we can't really do that! Not outside of the Evas."
"Speak for yourself," she sniffed. "Anyway, it's still not our real physical bodies, since we're in this vision-thing, so it doesn't matter what you can actually do – only what you can imagine yourself doing."
"Really? How do you know that?"
She flicked the centre of his forehead. "Don't question me!"
Unexpectedly, Shinji was grinning. "Sorry, boss."
Asuka glared. "Y'know, for such a passive dweeb, I'd forgotten what a smartass you can be sometimes."
"Not as smart as you," he returned.
"Rrrrr – you…!" She dragged him by the ear a distance away from my tank. "Just shut up and dance already!"
The two of them settled into a ready stance, arms posed gracefully. In the midst of everything, I somehow managed to register delight that I would be able to witness a version of what I had missed the first time around.
"Ready – three, two, one!"
With one motion they spun, mirrored; two turning steps toward the target, then gathering and launch into twin somersaults that ended with their heels embedded adjacent in the wall of the tank.
Crunch-smash!
The glass gave way under the doubled strike, cracks lightning around the surface, and LCL flooded free.
The paralysis left me in an instant as I dropped to the plinth below. I slipped and fell on my hands and knees, feeling the twinge-bite of shards in each.
"Kaworu!" Shinji called. "Are you okay?" He took hold under my arms in support.
I coughed my throat free of liquid and rasped, "Thanks to you both." With his help I was able to clamber down to floor level. "That was a very impressive attack."
Asuka folded her arms. "It was my idea. Also don't look at me while you're naked, it's obscene."
"My apologies." I concentrated, and momentarily my plugsuit had returned to me. "Is this more to your preference?"
She blinked in surprise. "Much better. How—?"
"It is as you said – this space is not strictly accurate to reality. We have some sympatico with our physical selves, but it is influenced by our will.
"And without further ado…" I turned to address the tank on the end. "I think you should come out now."
The clone of Unit 11 chuckled, and in an instant the others vanished, leaving us alone with our assailant.
It emerged from the darkness, clad once more in its tentacular suit, the limbs of its tubes and cords alternately groping along the floor or curling around it. Even above the mask I could discern the fractious ridicule of its countenance.
"You!" Asuka's accusing finger jabbed in its direction. "You rude creep, trapping us in your twisted little scenario – let us go right now, or you'll seriously regret it!"
The clone giggled, but its eyes were cold. - they knew you, - it said to me. - amongst us all they found you, even though you could not trick or lie to them. even though all you have ever conveyed to them is sophistry. -
"I have built something real," I argued quietly, conscious of Shinji's hands on my shoulders. "My origin does not define my future or limit the possibilities of my existence. This is true for you also – you don't have to do as you are ordered. Their will does not have to be yours."
It frowned. - their will is my only will. it is all that animates me – in its absence is only blank inertness. - Then it brightened. - unless i take yours. -
Slowly at first, then terrifyingly fast, the cords emanating from its plugsuit writhed and leapt towards me. Dozens of them wrapped around my limbs and torso, my neck, and began reeling me towards my clone.
"Kaworu!" Shinji gasped, and grabbed onto me. He and Rei attacked the cords, trying to unwind or rip them, only to then be caught themselves.
Asuka went straight in on the assault, dodging a pair of snatching wires and unleashing a scything kick across the clone's face.
…Which melted away beneath the kinetic force, but then glutinously reformed itself after her strike had passed. Even its mask now seemed to bear a grin.
"What the hell?" Asuka breathed, before tubes engulfed her also. She shrieked.
The coils bit into our bodies, constricting to choke and crush, and along the entire expanse of contact I could feel my life – my soul – being drained. It meant to steal my essence, and in doing so erase all that made Kaworu Nagisa a person – my memories, my experiences … my feelings.
"Asuka!" I croaked, just as the coils reached my mouth. "Your wings!"
"Huh? I don't have –oh!"
As she focused, a light shone from her – then Unit 06's wings burst from her shoulders, tearing the cables to shreds. A powerful beat generated blasting wind that scoured the snaring wires from the rest of us, and she rose into the air; another beat, and the clone's own body began to ablate, revealing—
"The core!" I shouted.
Rei was already reaching – at her side I followed, and we grabbed hold before it could disappear once more into its host's morass.
"Ikari!" she called.
"On it!" He grabbed a piece of broken glass from the shards surrounding my tank – heedless of injury to his hands, he stabbed at Unit 11's core.
But my clone had one last trick to play – the mask vanished, and with my own face it looked beseechingly at him.
"Shinji," it begged, "Not again…"
He flinched.
In that instant cables sprang up and grabbed hold of him; its body reformed around my hands and Rei's, acid burning through our suits to skin. I cried out in pain.
Shinji gasped, returned to his senses by our suffering. "No! –Asuka, help!"
"Ugh, for crying out—Eat it, freak!" she yelled, and hurled her wings down with a thunderclap.
The clone's body withered before it, and Rei forced a hand free – she grabbed the glass shard from Shinji and plunged it into Unit 11's core.
Our capturing cords dissolved, and the clone's body started to disintegrate. Its eyes on me, vivid with loathing, then faded and closed; a burst of orange fluid, and the empty plugsuit and loose cables fell to the floor.
Shinji recoiled and buried his face in my shoulder. "I couldn't," he whispered. "I'm sorry, I couldn't…"
"It's all right," I murmured, and gathered him close. "It's all right. It was cruel that you were asked."
The whole world seemed to lurch; its protagonist vanquished, the vision in which we were trapped began to crumble and collapse.
"There. Back to the real world," said Asuka, satisfied, and turned to us as her visage faded with the connection. "You're welcome, nerds."
"Thank you," I said, and Shinji nodded his seconding.
But Rei gathered herself. "Soryu."
"Yeah, Wondergirl?"
"I don't need orders."
"…For?"
"To be good friends with you." Her hands were clenched at her sides. "If it would still be convenient."
Asuka blinked, then seemed to understand whatever reference Rei was making. She laughed – but without scorn, only happiness. "Independence suits you … Ayanami."
The smile they shared was the last thing I saw as the vision faded.
# Bombers on final approach. #
# Signal channels confirmed operational. #
# All payloads prepped for drop. #
# Twenty seconds to release. #
With a cough and a spasm of deep-nerve pain, I was back in my body, and Unit 02 lurched upright.
# Belay attack run! # came Misato's voice. # Unit 02, are you there? #
"Yes," I said, and shook myself. "What is happening?"
Shinji's voice broke in. # Ah! We're back! Kaworu, Ayanami, are you guys okay? #
# I am recovered, # Rei reported.
"We seem to have all returned to ourselves," I confirmed.
# Pilots, report! # Misato ordered. # Are you all right? All the Evas had shut down – Shinji, talk to me! #
# I'm okay, Misato, # he responded. # We were stuck in some kind of illusion thing together. But we destroyed the – the … um… #
"The avatar of Unit 11," I supplied, and looked around the battlefield. The ground was drenched with blood, and scattered sections of the Evangelion's armour lay strewn about the valley. "In the shared vision, Rei stabbed its core. It looks like that caused the real one to disintegrate as well."
# You all experienced the same vision? # Dr Akagi sounded panicked. # Your minds were all linked? Dear God – the damage to their ego borderlines that would involve— #
# But we're fine now, right? # said Shinji. # We got rid of it. It – it's gone. # His voice dropped. # It's gone. #
"Shinji…" I whispered.
# We don't know that for sure, # Lt Ibuki spoke up. # There could be residual psychological contamination from the other Eva's consciousness. #
# Yes – the Eva, # Akagi muttered. She addressed the rest of the team. # Prep the deep-immersion tanks, and run up a neural-resonance reset relay. All three pilots are to be quarantined until full psych cleanse is completed. #
# Quarantined? # Shinji repeated in alarm. # How long will that be? #
# As long as it takes, # said Akagi grimly. # Who knows what the aftereffects could be of merging with … that? # She had looked at each of us in turn, but her glance seemed to linger on me.
…Possibly my higher synchronisation ratio made me more vulnerable? But even as the thought occurred to me it seemed incorrect…
As it turned out, my decontamination process was less extensive than Shinji's and Rei's – only four hours, as opposed to their projected nine. And after being freed from the hermetic pod, Dr Akagi discharged me to go home by myself, while ordering the others to be held in isolation overnight.
"May I speak to him, at least?" I asked, but the ward doors locking behind me, and the sickly green of the bio-barrier field, answered the question.
At least I could be grateful not to remain in Akagi's medical custody, and exposed to further maltreatment from her.
With an effort I restrained my concern and curiosity for our different treatment – for the most part. I did linger long enough to overhear Ibuki's own queries be dismissed with reference to Unit 02's better stability as the Production model – "After all, both the other units have gone berserk in the past." However, more detailed questions were met with a snappish response from the Sub-Commander; at her protégé's visible upset Akagi then looked remorseful, but still did not elaborate.
"It must be because she knows I am a construct," I mused, as my train ascended from the Geofront. Something in the nature of being derived from Adam might be considered more resilient to the corrosion of direct contact with another of my kind. It would explain why Shinji and Rei, both of Lilith though through different descent, were treated with more caution – though 'panic' may have been a more apt term for Dr Akagi's attitude.
At the terminus of the subterranean rail, a man in a scruffy old jacket sat slouched on a bench outside the station, idling on his phone, a baseball cap pulled down low over his face. I walked up and stepped lightly on his foot.
"Loitering is illegal, especially with malicious intent."
"Who're you calling 'malicious'?" Kaji grumbled. "Surely I've upgraded to at least 'nefarious'."
"For that you would need to look less homeless," I advised, and he barked out a laugh and got to his feet.
The next moment I was gathered in another's clutches once more, but this time infinitely more welcome. Among Kaji's varied skillset, hugs were a definite strength.
"I'm glad you're okay," he said next to my ear.
I sighed. "Hopefully we will soon be able to say the same for Shinji and Rei."
"I've got all my fingers and toes crossed," he said, in defiance of visible evidence.
We returned home together, where Kaji cooked for us both and I phoned Asuka in Germany. She refused a video call at first, claiming to still be traumatised by the nudity of myself and the dummy plug clones, then changed her stance – # I need to overwrite my mind's eye, # – with the condition that I ensure her adored Kaji be always in frame.
# How did Unit 11 do that, anyway? # she demanded, waving an ice-cream with no apparent concern for the potential of mess in her lounge room. Her own decontamination process had been thorough but efficient, with both Berlin and Hamburg's MAGI working solely on her, as opposed to the three-way split necessitated for the Tokyo-3 set.
"Unless there is something to be learned from the remains in Aomori Gorge, we may never know," I said.
# Well they need to interrogate everyone at the Arctic base then! Put their toes in the fire! #
"There was nobody at Bethany Base when Unit 11 activated," said Kaji, and Asuka and I stared at him. "They secretly shut down weeks ago, put their Eva in cold storage—"
"Is there any other kind up there?" I remarked, and he poked my arm with the reversed spatula.
"—And the entire staff dispersed to their own countries. After Third Impact, nobody wanted to be so far from their families."
# Then who was ordering it? # Asuka asked.
"Who indeed," Kaji mused. "I have my suspicions, but nothing solid enough to mention yet. Several of the other bases have strong enough ocean cable or satellite connections to the Bethany command lines that they could've hijacked the systems."
# Cowards, # Asuka decreed. # Hiding behind another base, letting them take the fall. #
"Perhaps we should have made more of an effort to engage Unit 11's avatar in conversation," I said. "It may have had some information on where its directives were coming from."
Asuka made a face. # Maybe, but at what cost? That thing was so creepy. #
"I agree."
# Almost as bad as the original, # she smirked.
In punishment I pivoted the screen away from Kaji.
# Hey, turn it around, # she whined. # I take it back, okay? #
"What I admire about you, Asuka, is your honesty regarding your priorities," as I pivoted the screen back to resume the Kaji Kitchen Show.
# What I admire about you is that you're a whole continent away from me – hey quit that! Learn to take a joke already, geez! #
"This is funny enough, though," I pointed out.
# Your taste in humour is as awful as your taste in boys, # she grouched.
I raised an eyebrow. "Forgetting your own past interest?"
She stuck her tongue out. # Don't bring logic to a snark fight. #
Kaji was chuckling as he set a steaming plate of crêpes in front of me. "I've missed this show."
# I've missed you, Kaji! # Asuka declared, eyes shining.
Some things never changed, and I could only smile. I might be unable to resolve the mysteries of NERV and its people, but I could at least enjoy the company of my friends while I was able, and resolve to reunite with and comfort Shinji as soon as I might. These feelings – these bonds – were the truest thing I could imagine.
