Disclaimer: Same as Chapter 1.
Chapter 41: Philemon
Once the darkness had been dispelled by the emergency lights, Misato stood up from her place on the ground, vainly attempting to get a few wrinkles out of her skirt in the process.
What the hell just happened? One minute everything was fine, next thing, all the lights go out. The violet-haired woman remembered the last time NERV had suffered a power outage, the one Kaji had set up.
Sabotage, maybe? Or...
The words of the members of SEELE came back to her instantly.
...Or...
She physically shook the thought from her head as she pulled out her cellular phone, dialing the code for the bridge. Sure enough, a disconnect signal rung in her ear.
Just as I thought, wireless communications are down. And I don't know how close the nearest hardline is...
She decided to simply focus on getting to the bridge as fast as she could, and set off at a brisk pace straight ahead.
The former Chief Scientist of Project E lay awkwardly on her back deep inside the maze of tubes and wires that was BALTHASAR, typing into one of nearly a dozen small laptops hooked into various plugs and outlets throughout the construction. Ritsuko paused to sigh and wipe the sweat from her forehead with her right arm, then immediately continued with her work.
"Hmph. You certainly did a number on this thing, Maya." She said with a bit of a smirk to her subordinate sitting just outside the casing of this particular MAGI. The short-haired girl immediately jumped into a lengthy apology, as if she'd been expecting this as soon as Dr. Akagi arrived.
"I'm really sorry, ma'am! I don't even know what I was thinking, I just acted on instinct--" Ritsuko responded with a patronizing chuckle.
"What doyou have to apologize for? You probably saved everyone here in exchange for a few extra minutes of work. It's not a crime to follow your intuitions." Maya blushed in spite of herself at hearing praise from her sempai, then directed her attention back to the uplink she had unceremoniously broken. Ritsuko smiled to herself as she put the finishing touches on the new security barrier. She set down the laptop she was using and picked up another with a '#4' taped onto the lower left corner. After a few more minutes the 666 program was complete. She didn't alert Maya to this fact immediately, however. She took out a small disk she'd grabbed from her desk and slid it into the laptop's drive. The screen flashed red in protest at first, but after quickly circumventing BALTHASAR's logic circuits the laptop made no further protestations. The blonde gently caressed the smooth domed plate that housed the supercomputer's CPU.
Naoko Akagi the scientist, she mused as she recalled what the MAGI's creator had told her about the three aspects of herself that made up the triumvirate.
The cold, logical side. If any part of you understands why I need to do this...Then it'll be this side, Mother.
"Dr. Akagi, I'm ready to reinstall the uplink!" Maya called from outside BALTHASAR. Ritsuko quickly came back to reality.
"Good, I've finished up here. All right, now listen carefully: we need to install both at precisely the same time for this to be effective. Otherwise they'll be able to begin hacking BALTHASAR before the program has a chance to load itself. Understand?" Maya grunted in assent as she positioned the soldering torch above the last electrical connection. "On my mark, I need you to re-connect BALTHASAR to the other MAGI. Ready?"
"Whenever you are, ma'am."
"All right...Three, two, one, mark!" As one, Ritsuko downloaded the program while Maya made the final connection. Within seconds, the red indicating compromised data of the MAGI disappeared onscreen, resulting in an outbreak of cheers and accolades from the bridge crew as the remaining systems sprung back to life.
"Monitoring systems restored!" Aoba called from his console.
"Same for radar! We're back in business!" chimed in Hyuga. Ritsuko crawled out of BALTHASAR and hit the switch that lowered it back into the platform. No one noticed the darkly pensive look on her features as she climbed the ladder back to the main level of Central Dogma.
"How were they able to reject 11 sets of MAGI?" the monolith representing the third member of SEELE spoke into the darkness.
"It appears they've initiated the Triple-6 defense program. A remote takeover of NERV is now virtually impossible."
"I had hoped to resolve this peacefully," SEELE 01 said with a tangible hint of annoyance.
"Launch the invasion forces immediately!"
"Commander!" Hyuga said urgently to Fuyutsuki, who turned away from the printout of the damage done to the MAGI to look at the bespectacled young man before him. "There's an urgent call coming in for you from the Tokyo-2 Diet office!" The grey-haired man tensed slightly at the mention of the Japanese parliament, but if he felt any sort of apprehension he hid it quite well. He picked up the phone hooked into the desk that Gendo normally occupied.
"This is acting Commander Fuyutsuki..." Within moments the older man turned pale. After a few minutes he set the reciever back onto the hook and looked up to see the bridge trio staring up at him.
"...Sir? Is something wrong?" Maya innocently asked, concerned for her superior's health. It took Fuyutsuki a moment to put what he had heard into words, as though saying them out loud would make them true.
"...As of five minutes ago, the nation of Japan declared war on NERV."
At this simple utterance, everyone on the bridge stopped what they were doing and turned to gaze at the Sub-Commander. A few people looked like they were on the verge of tears, while others simply stared in confusion and disbelief. Nearly a minute passed before Fuyutsuki spoke again. "I want everyone on Level-One battle stations. Get perimeter defenses up as quickly as possible and get the lower levels locked down-- we can't let them get into Terminal Dogma at any cost!"
The personnel immediately set about preparing themselves for the coming seige, despite the fact that the shock of Fuyutsuki's statement had yet to wear off. Fuyutsuki sighed as the crew set about frantically scrambling from place to place, knowing that it was all futile in the end anyway.