Geofront, AEL Headquarters
January 9, 2042
1209 hours

"Hey, doc." – Shephard quipped as he slowed down next to Yui, having hurried down the corridor to catch up to her and Maya.

Yui nodded in his direction. – "Colonel. Continue."

"The latest system check on Unit-02 is complete." – Maya replied, glancing down at the tablet in her hand.

"Excellent. Did the Beta team submit their status report?"

"Yes, ma'am. Projections indicate they will start installing the cybernetic components next week."

"I see. If they can follow that schedule, we should be able to perform the Quickening before the end of the month."

The younger woman looked up in surprise. – "That soon?"

"We had three live Quickenings already, along with several simulations ran on Lilith while Unit-02 was under construction." – Yui replied with a dismissive gesture. – "I think the crew should have enough experience at this point to have no trouble with the accelerated timetable."

"Won't it make it harder for the AI to adapt to additional synaptic connections if they're installed afterwards?"

"We can't rule that out, true. But if it's not a problem, we should be able to cut down preparation time even further. This will be an excellent opportunity to verify that."

"I understand. Can I return to my station?"

"Of course. Dismissed."

"Ma'am." – Maya nodded before falling behind, leaving her superior alone with Shephard.

"So... what did you mean by 'quickening'?" – the man asked after a few seconds.

"Synthetic consciousness installation for an Evangelion. A pre-made AI template is encoded into bioelectric impulses and uploaded into the Evangelion's organic core to function as its controlling intelligence." – Yui explained as she walked. – "The process is mostly automated, although it's an extremely complex sequence with a checklist of literally thousands of sub-operations."

"Sounds difficult."

"It took us years to map the neuronal structure of an Evangelion core and even more to determine how to transmit signals into it. Once we had that, the next step was figuring out what to transmit." – She paused for a moment before continuing. – "Frankly, the entire project's success hinged on that one factor, even more so than the development of the DNA itself."

"But you figured it out in the end."

"We did. And as contrived as it sounds, it was thanks to your wife."

Shephard's eyebrows immediately halved their distance to his hairline. –"What does she have to do with it?"

"Her research on wetware emulation theory was exactly what we needed. In essence, think of it like this. What separates intelligent life, even AIs, from inanimate matter?"

"A mind?"

"Partially, yes. Aside from conscious thought, an intelligent being also has a large number of subconscious processes responsible for sending, receiving and coordinating the nerve impulses between the brain and the rest of the body, as well as chemical receptors for the various hormones produced by the rest of the body that in turn trigger more nerve impulses in the brain. Most of the brain is not even involved in conscious thought or the senses that give the consciousness information about its surroundings it can act upon. And yet, without these low-level processes, a body as complex as that of a human or an Evangelion would not be able to operate well enough to allow conscious thought in the first place, unless the conscious thought is capable of micromanaging literally thousands of things at once."

Shephard sighed. – "Doc... you know I'm not a scientist. Just skip to the point."

"I'm getting there, colonel. While the low-level processes are required for day-to-day maintenance, so to speak, the high-level process known as a consciousness is responsible for directing the actions of the body as a whole towards survival. Neither is able to exist without the other and both are vital for the body itself. Thus, it would not be entirely incorrect to consider the union of conscious and subconscious analogous to what people might call a soul. The 'ghost in the machine', so to speak." – She slowed in her step. – "The theory that your wife developed is that a biological mind and an AI running on a neural network architecture are fundamentally interchangeable due to the fact that both are fundamentally the same phenomenon: electrical impulses between base-level components in a highly complex network of identical sub-units. Thus, it should be theoretically possible for an AI to occupy a biological substrate instead of an artificial one, in essence becoming an artificial substitute for a soul."

She turned to him.

"This is the key that allows an Evangelion to operate. Without it, we would be forced to resort to more... radical means."

"Such as?"

"Contact experiment." – Shephard could've sword he saw the woman lightly shudder at the words. – "Full destructive brain scan. We only studied it in simulations but based on the data we have, the technology we currently have available would very likely leave the subject brain-dead and produce a copy that might not even be sentient, let alone intelligent enough to follow orders. The human brain is simply too fast and too complex to establish a complete snapshot before any of the neurons' action potential changes."

"And if an Evangelion doesn't have a... soul or something, it won't work?"

"Without a soul, an Evangelion is only alive as much as a decapitated body hooked up to life support can be called alive."

With that, she resumed walking, Shephard hurrying to catch up to her. He faintly remembered Kyoko once having mentioned working on something involving AIs, but it was a long time ago.

"...aaanyway, saw a lot of movement on the road this week. Gehirn people?"

"Indeed." – Yui replied with a nod, looking back down at her tablet. – "The latest shipment included one suit of A-type and F-type equipment each. I'm hoping to start flight tests with the former next week. I presume you have no problem with your daughter getting the honor?"

Shephard shrugged. – "None, but why her?"

"According to her records, she's familiar with high-mobility battleframe combat. I had her perform a few mobility tests with storm rollers, but there's only so much maneuvering we can do indoors."

"Why don't you send her upstairs, then? Plenty of room there."

"We can't exactly maintain operational secrecy if we have Evangelions exercising in plain sight of the city."

"What about inside the Geofront?"

"There's no proving ground set up for them, so any mobility test would cause terrain damage we would have to fix."

"Why not build one, then?"

"Time and money, colonel. Not to mention the amount of materials needed to be shipped into the Geofront would attract undue attention."

"Doc, no offense but I think you're overdoing this secrecy." – Shephard remarked with a roll of his eyes. – "I mean, I get it that you wanted to surprise the military, but the top staff already knows. The civvies wouldn't care and there's no way in hell insurgents could steal or copy this. Sabotage, maybe. But it's a helluva long way away from their territory, so any attack on this facility would be a suicide mission. Who are you really hiding all this from?"

"Rival companies who could copy the Evangelions and undercut us."

"You really think they'd be able to do that? I mean, it took you guys years to get here. The one bunch who could do it themselves are already pitching in with all this crap-"

"Language, colonel."

"-and anyone else wouldn't be able to get it done until after you guys are already in business. You've got enough of a head start to not have to worry about getting overtaken, doc. Anyway... what about the F-type? Are you going to test that too?"

"Not right now. Basic functionality can be tested even in our current facilities, but of course we lack the shooting range for a full weapons test." – she pointed out.

The man nodded. – "That, I can understand. I mean, letting loose with the big guns underground is not a good idea unless you plan on bringing the roof down on our heads."

"If you mean the superheavy mass drivers, according to the documentation they have a variable yield."

"Then if we're in need of actually using it before the expo, let's hope it won't explode when it fires."

"I believe we share that sentiment, colonel. That reminds me, have you told your charges about the sync test this afternoon?"

Shephard halted in his step. Then ever so slowly, a sheepish expression appeared on his face before it briefly wilted under Yui's frown.


Asuka felt her phone slightly vibrate in her pocket, asking for her attention. Glancing towards the teacher to ensure his attention was elsewhere, she plucked the device out of her pocket and glanced at the screen to see a message from her father.

CALL IF NOT IN CLASS

Well, she was. So she just put it down on her desk before pausing and stuffing it back into her pocket instead. After all, if he suddenly texted her again due to having forgotten something (which has happened before), leaving it on the desk would cause quite the distinctive racket, shortly followed by Hikari's glare and the teacher's admonishment for not having turned it off for class.

With that sorted out, Asuka returned her attention to her school-issue tablet and after double-checking the teacher wasn't looking her way, she resumed playback of a video file that bore the header of 2040 Junior Battleframe League Semi-Finals. On the screen, a pair of Mk-III/A Durandal battleframes played a not-quite-deadly game of hide-and-seek in a labyrinth of obstacles taller than both machines combined. Even as she watched, one in a green/gray camouflage paintjob with white trimming shot around a corner, immediately spun around 180° and continued in reverse before raising its rifle skyward towards the edge of the roof it was passing by, ready to fire. The moment it reversed into the next intersection, the torso suddenly snapped to the left and opened fire at the red blur that zipped from one roof to the next but hit only empty air.

It spun around again and charged down the path to its left, weapon sweeping the edge of the roof its quarry just passed before turning around and covering its rear against a probable flanking attempt. Then it turned around again and was about to pass into the next interception on its way to maneuver around its quarry to catch it from behind when its shadow reached past the corner it was approaching and said corner suddenly exploded from the shot passing through it, nicking the battleframe in the shoulder and peppering its windshield with a grapeshot of concrete chunks. The force of the hit shoved it shoulder-first into the opposing wall, but the pilot didn't miss a beat and blind-fired a full-auto burst at the corner to buy the second he needed to recover. Instead of giving chase, however, he immediately fired his battleframe's assault harpoons onto the roof that separated them and rappeled up to gain a vantage point - only to find out the hard way its quarry having beaten him there by way of said quarry shoulder-charging straight into him so fast that the force of the impact smacked him right back down onto the ground below and onto his back.

Silhouetted against the sun, the red battleframe took aim with its rifle at its downed opponent – but the other beat it to the punch and fired first, an explosion of shrapnel and hydraulic fluid erupting from the red one's left arm before it rapidly reversed and back away from the edge of the roof rather than press the attack with only one arm operational.

Pushing itself off the ground, the camo-pattern battleframe doubled back a short distance before scaling the roof again, out of the field of vision of its opponent's previous position. It found itself alone at the top, though; as it took a closer look, though, it noticed the faint cloud of dust rising from where the other battleframe jumped off and onto the ground and immediately took off in that direction, the pilot noting how more dust kept rising down the alley as his opponent's storm rollers kept kicking it up. The cloud drew near another intersection just as he neared the roof; without wasting a single second, the battleframe leapt right over the edge of the roof and opened fire in mid-air as soon as it saw the glint of red in the dust.

The moment its feet touched the soil, however, the pilot realized there was too little red in the dust and it was too low as well... a moment before his weapon arm was all but severed by close-range fire from behind. The battleframe whirled around just in time to catch a faceful of rifle-thrown-in-his-direction which, although only a momentary distraction, did that job well enough that by the time its other hand drew the machete stored on the back of its waist in anticipation of melee combat now that both combatants were unarmed as far as ranged weapons went, the red battleframe was already on him, its own machete striking down to tear away what was left of its opponent's arm.

Not to be outdone, the camo-pattern battleframe struck back in a horizontal slash that gouged a deep gash across the red one's torso and out the other side – only for the red one to throw its half-functional left arm over its opponent's now-extended weapon arm and hold it down between itself and the torso, while in the same motion the right arm stabbed the machete right through the trapped arm's upper half, the tip banging against the side of the triple-reinforced windshield. Both combatants froze for a moment, then the red battleframe wiggled its machete to tap against its opponent's exposed windshield twice before letting go.

Asuka smirked to herself as the video ended after the camo-pattern battleframe flashed its front searchlights three times in a signal for surrender. Kicking up the dust and ripping off her left arm's armor plate to use as a decoy before doubling back slowly so as to not raise any more dust and catching him from behind when he reflexively shot at the decoy was one of her smarter moments. Passing up two chances to flank him when he was expecting it in favor of meeting him head-on by first shooting through the wall when she saw his shadow around the corner, then by beating him to the same high ground he was going for, only to follow up with a flanking once he started expecting her to be aggressive and wasn't expecting her to set up an ambush managed to catch him off-guard well enough to give her a clear shot at his back, which was all good; if she would've tried standing her ground, he would've wised up to it by the third time and shot first. He always shot first if they saw each other at the same time, which is why Asuka learned to not see each other at the same time: as good as she was, his reaction time and twitch aim was just faster than hers, so she played dirty to level the playing field. Even so, she was lucky she wasn't cockpitted by his final blow; she would've lost immediately as per the non-lethal rules of the tournament that used triple-reinforced cockpits and rifles of too low caliber to damage said cockpit in order to avoid fatalities, especially in the junior league.

It was too bad that year's tournament rolled the two of them into groups that made them face off with each other in the semi-finals; in every other year, they only ever met in the finals. In fact, the rivalry between the Red Baron and the Green Knight was something of a legend: as soon as they both got into the tournament and spent enough time in the duels to learn the ropes, they pretty much monopolized the tournament finals between the two of them to the point where none of the other contestants had any chance to reach beyond 3rd place because the two of them were always finalists, though who won and who lost was currently tied between them. That's not to say the others weren't good; some of them did give Asuka a run for her money and the Green Knight actually lost an elimination match against someone else once (followed by Asuka steamrolling over his defeater but her victory tasting rather sour to her afterwards due to not having gotten the fight she was hoping for), but the two of them were in a whole another league. They were, to put it simply, naturals. Not that it stopped rumors that the tournament ladder was rigged in their favor by the organizers.

Asuka didn't know his identity, as par for the course for the junior tournament's policy of allowing contestants to participate under aliases if they wish, but she hoped to change that someday, if only to walk up to the guy and give him a firm and honest handshake as the one and only worthy opponent she respected. Which was why she reviewed the archived official records of their duels every now and then: less to watch herself and more to watch him in order to learn some tricks and pick holes in his strategy she could exploit later.

Checking the time, Asuka noted it was five minutes until end of class, so she put the tablet aside and paid attention to the class' subject matter for once. As much as school sucked, she recognized its necessity to get where she wanted to be in life. After all, no one would justifiably trust someone without even basic education with an extremely expensive war machine.

Well, with the possible exception of Yui Ikari, if her giving an Evangelion to a random street urchin was of any indication.

For what it's worth, Kaworu was still alive despite his background and was anything but suicidally hotheaded, she gave him that. On the other hand, she still hadn't seen him in actual combat and decided to withhold judgment over him until then. And as for a general opinion... Asuka found herself conflicted. His complete and utter lack of interest in her was somewhat refreshing in a way; she has had more than enough unwanted suitors in the past already, attractive as she was. Yet at the same time, it was almost... insulting. Asuka didn't consider herself a narcissist, yet being actively ignored just didn't sit right with her. Maybe it was the attention she always got from everyone else, but she certainly wasn't about to start chasing him or something.


Ten minutes later, as Kaworu was leaning back in his chair to stretch his legs while listening to Toji and Kensuke chattering behind him in Japanese (he noticed quite a few students preferring to use the language between each other; it wasn't anything unusual, considering Kaworu himself did the same with German in his previous school), he perked up when Asuka suddenly appeared next to him, dropped a note into his lap, then left without a word. Puzzled, he picked up the scrap of paper and saw broken German in her handwriting on it:

PAPA HAT ANGERUFEN, TEST BEI 1700

Kaworu rolled his eyes. 'You could've just said so after school...' he grumbled before crumpling the note and stuffing it into his desk - unaware of Kensuke's eyes following his hand.


Chapter finished on 18/07/10.

As indicated in this chapter, a major deviation from canon is the fact that in this story, humanity has no understanding of metaphysical biology whatsoever, which also means lacking the theoretical foundations for understanding the nature of the AT-field, hence their mistaking the Angels' AT-fields for a mere energy shield when in truth, an AT-field is about as comparable to an energy shield as an energy shield is comparable to a neolithic-era wooden shield. The introduction of Combine computational technology provided access to enough raw processing power to make AI research take a giant leap forward; from there, the AEL used Kyoko's research to figure out how to use an AI as a soul substitute for an Evangelion, thereby rendering contact experiments obsolete. On the other hand, the artificial nature of a synthetic consciousness means it lacks the metaphysical component required for projecting an AT-field, thereby rendering these Evangelions incapable of projecting AT-fields as-is.

Compared to the canon Evas, these ones are more stable and safer, but the lack of an AT-field means the average SCEverse Eva would get gutted by any single one of the canon Angels one-on-one unless it's a high-end pilot like Rei, in which case it will be a stalemate until the Eva runs out of power. On the other side of the coin, the canon Evas would smear a low-end SCEverse Angel across the terrain but would go down very quickly against a high-end one like Zeruel, as it will be demonstrated shortly (as in, within a few chapters). Increased intelligence and sentience is a double-edged sword: it allows this universe's Angels to use their powers more intelligently, but it also makes them no longer stupid enough to not respond to intimidation and psychological warfare.