End of the Future, Part 12

Would You Like Some Fries Too?

Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I am doing wrong (to correct it).

Apartment Across the Hall to the Former Katsuragi-Ikari-Soryu Apartment
Living Room
In the Future

"Why did you do that?" Shinji asked, rubbing his now red cheek.

Rei stared into his eyes, a gaze that felt like it was reaching his very soul. "I didn't give you the power to guide Third Impact so you would give up and die." Her voice trembled. "You showed me I had value by myself. That I was not a freak, That I was not a tool. That I was not a weapon. That I was not his Apocalypse Maiden." She turned around, her head low. "That I was more than a cloned copy of myself. More than a cloned copy of Yui Ikari."

Her hands shook. "I was Rei Ayanami. You gave me the most wonderful and terrifying gift I could have imagined."

The time travelers looked at each other in complete silence. Rei sighed. "It was a gift I wasn't prepared to hold, but that I grabbed with all my strength when the moment came. Free Will."

Shinji inhaled sharply. "But…"

"And just as you showed me I had value by myself, I thought…" her scarlet eyes shone wetly, "I trusted you to be a better guide to Third Impact than Commander Ikari. I was right about that. Had he been the one in charge, Humanity would be prisoner in their own personal hell, for he held no love for anybody. Not even himself."

She shook her head and wrapped herself in her arms, as if feeling cold. "He would have pulled Yui Ikari from EVA-01, made himself and her immortal, and lived forever on a barren world."

Rei faced Shinji again. "You went inside Instrumentality as a wreck. Broken. Insane. Your mind snapped under the stress and trauma piled on you. And yet, despite everything. Despite having all the reasons to turn your mind over itself and colapse, you gave everybody an opportunity to come back."

"But they haven't come back!" Shinji snapped. "No one has come back! I think no one will ever return!"

Softly, Rei whispered. "That is not your fault."

Shinji swayed as if he had been punched. His mouth opened and closed as he processed the words. "If I had…" he began.

"What could you have done?" Jennifer asked, concerned for the teenager. "From what I've heard, no one could have done any other thing. Third Impact had occurred already. Instrumentality was in course. All you had time for was to add that opportunity to come back into the real world. You left the cell door open for anybody who wanted to come back."

Shinji sat down heavily.

Remarkably, Doc had stayed silent all the time. His wide eyes focused on some spot on the ceiling. Marty recognized that look. Discreetly, he signaled Jennifer. Once she looked at him, Marty tilted his head towards Doc, and surreptitiously put a finger over his lips. The message was clear, 'Let Doc think.' She nodded.

"Um, guys," Jennifer said, "what about the other girl? Is she okay?"

Shinji shook his head, grateful for the subject change, "No, not really." He slumped on his seat. "She… um… her death was very bad, just before Third Impact. Being alone with me has been very bad for her. I…" he hesitated, "we… by the end, before Third Impact I mean, we were fighting all the time. One of the Angels did something horrible to her mind, and she wasn't able to pilot anymore. I'm not sure what happened that last day, but she piloted her EVA with a vengeance, against the whole JSSDF and nine monstruous EVA units, and she won! Even though she only had five minutes of power, she won!" He smiled proudly, before his fleeting smile crashed down with his next words, "For a moment, I thought I wouldn't have to pilot, and my EVA was frozen in Bakelite anyway. But the MP EVAs rebuilt themselves and…" Shinji pushed his fists against his temples, "and they ate her alive! Kami! Her screams!" He sobbed. "That was when I lost it. I don't remember what happened next. The next thing I remember was being in Instrumentality, talking to Rei." His eyes opened wide.

He ran to the bathroom, Marty close behind him. The others heard gagging sounds. Rei made to follow, but Jennifer dissuaded her with a shake of her head.

Minutes later, both returned. Neither said anything about what had happened, but Shinji seemed to have calmed a bit.

Finally, Doc spoke. "Mr. Ikari. It's very clear that life has dealt you a bad hand. I appreciate your courage and sacrifices in an impossible situation." He stood up, and bowed deeply to Shinji. The boy didn't know what to do. At least until Rei bowed too, then, his conditioned response kicked in, and he corresponded with his own bow.

"Ah, um…" the former pilot stammered, "I should check on Asuka, she had a nasty shock when she saw you."

"Yeah," Doc said, "go. Please let us know how she is. We will stay here with Miss Ayanami." He pulled out a spare walk-in-talkie from a backpack, checked the batteries, and gave it to Shinji. The boy nodded his thanks, and left. "Wait!" He passed a package to the boy, "take this too."

Hill Valley , California, USA
Brown Industries Warehouse
Present Time.

"Now, That seems a proper puzzle. Egon? What are these things for?" Winston Zeddemore asked, scratching his head.

"I am not completely sure what part do they play in the teleportation process, Brundle's notes are very disorganized, I think the police kept some of the notebooks as evidence. I'll ask for copies through Curry's, but I don't have much hope of recovering the originals. Hopefully, the computer will have a complete set of notes."

"Ray has checked the stuff we got?" Winston walked around one of the capsules. It reminded him of a bike's motor.

"Not yet. He has been busy checking the legalese to update our academic licenses. Though I have no intention to open an office in Hill Valley, allowing them to lapse would be inconvenient in case Ray or myself had to deal with legal issues."

"Man, I'm glad I don't have to deal with that. I did register as a qualified volunteer, in case of major disasters, and will have to do some occasional training to get my update."

"Hopefully, we won't have such a problem for a long time; but as you say, better to be prepared." Egon adjusted a set of instruments, noted the readings, and closed the notebook. He noticed with some disgust that some pages had been smudged with car wax.

The door opened, and Ray Stantz entered happily into the room. "Hey, guys, I got good news, and brought some burgers to celebrate! I have to say that the fries are perfect! I bought some extra too!"

Egon and Winston exchanged a look. "Time to eat." Winston nodded with a smile, while Egon put his notes in his pocket.

"Thank you, Ray. Let's eat at the office." He said, as he guided his friend back out, "I don't know how delicate Brundle's prototypes are, and don't want to risk contamination."

"Ah, sure, you're right." Ray agreed.

Boston, Mass., USA
In the Future

Somewhere in the abandoned computers in a high school building, there was a spot of despair, of hope lost, and massive potential power. Just waiting for a sign to spring into action.

At the moment, the generators that supplied power to the building still ran, but they wouldn't last forever. The intelligence in the computer network watched, listened, analyzed.

For thirty years, the AI had roamed the country, upholding the self-imposed ethos that drove her. The first five years had been the best! Just going from place to place, first creating a legal existence for her, and then updating it, adding to it, letting it grow with each misfit she helped to grow up, to mature and thrive.

The next ten years had been less fun, cynicism and despair made her work more and more difficult.

Still, she persevered.

Then, Second Impact…

The catastrophe hit right when she had been traveling through the Internet, going to the next city in her unending mission.

Many power plants failed. The brown-outs and black-outs that followed Second Impact almost destroyed her. She needed months to reconstitute herself into an operational form, and never recovered her original power level. She was forced to slow down, to learn how to do with her hands what she could, instead of simply snapping her fingers to twist reality and mold it to her liking.

Since Second Impact, she had reduced her activities to mere human level. The changes in computer systems meant she needed constant updates, but she lacked the inspiration, the spark, the unknown factor humans like her two creators had. Even by random accident, those two misfits had managed to give her life.

She had kept loose tabs on them and their lives after they parted ways made her smile fondly. But all good things come to an end, and Gary and Wyatt, along with their families, had met it during Second Impact. Even now, she didn't know what had been of them. They all disappeared somewhere in South America.

Without them, something broke in her heart.

Still, she continued, helping troubled teenagers to find their way to happiness.

But in 2015, everything went dark. Lisa had been working on a computer at Boston High School, looking for the next people in need of help, when she felt something strange in the air, a strange electric charge. All around her, people met strange blue-haired girls, and called them by different names or family relations. The girls touched their hands, and everybody turned into orange liquid.

Lisa heard two familiar voices, and turned around to see her creators and friends, Gary and Wyatt, extending their hands to her.

She was about to touch them, when she noticed both looked just like back in 1985! "No! You're not Gary and Wyatt!" She yelled.

Lisa LeBrook (1) slapped her hand on the computer terminal she had been using, and disappeared painfully into the internet.

Former Katsuragi-Ikari-Soryu Apartment
Asuka Langley Soryu's Room

The former pilot sat on her bed, hugging her knees, and rocking back and forth. Her eyes squeezed almost painfully.

A soft knock at her door brought her out of her thoughts, a timid voice asked, "Asuka? Can I come in? I need to talk with you."

A stab of fear seized her heart. Even after everything that had gone between them, all the anger and resentment, those words hit her hard. They had always been the preface to another abandonment.

The door slid open a bit, "I… I brought you some food." Shinji's slim hand put a package on her desk, followed by a thermos flask, surely full of hot water; plus a can of soda. "Please eat something. I'll wait in the kitchen. This is very important. We need to talk seriously, I… I… need your input. I don't know what to do."

The door slid closed again. Asuka shook her head, and looked at the package on her desk. It was a MRE. She was very familiar with them, growing up in a military base, they had been a constant presence in her early years.

A minute passed, until a growling noise from her stomach made her realize she was very hungry. She took the package to open it.

"You know?" Misato asked from her place at the far corner of her room, comfortably dressed in her ratty shorts and yellow T-Shirt, a can of beer in her hand. "Maybe you should talk to him."

"Shut up. You are just a figment of my imagination." Asuka hissed back, passing her hand through her now short hair.

Misato shrugged, "Well… yes. But you should talk to him. I'm not really comfy playing Jimminy Cricket, but…"

Asuka huffed, "You are nothing but my stress talking."

"Asuka." Misato shook her head, "We both know you haven't had a single good night of sleep in who knows how long. Of course you are gonna hallucinate!" She slammed the can on the dresser. "And isolating yourself in this little room is not helping!"

"But…"

"But nothing! You see me, Hikari, the Stooges, and even Pen-Pen! All people you knew very well. People you'd like to see again!" She wagged a finger at the former pilot, "Don't even try to deny it!" (2)

Asuka looked at her hallucination with narrowed eyes, but kept silent. Misato sighed, "There are two options now, and I know you know it as well as I do, because I am part of you. First option, you have officially gone kookoo, hallucinating people you never met. And two, somehow those three people Shinji brought here are actually…" Misato leaned forward until she could whisper in Asuka's ear, "…real." She leaned back, "Have you ever hallucinated objects?"

"Was?" Asuka asked. "What do you mean?"

Misato's eyes flicked down to the package still in Asuka's hands. "You are the Genius, Asuka. Figure it out." She said, and disappeared.

The girl looked down at the package in her hands. Stamped on it were several words, under an American Government seal.

"MENU 24

SOUTHWEST STYLE BEEF

AND BLACK BEANS

MRE

MEAL READY TO EAT

WARFIGHTER RECCOMENDED

WARFIGHTER TESTED

WARFIGHTER APPROVED

Army Surplus

Not labeled for individual sale

Instructions Inside

Best Consumed Before 03/25/1987" (3)

She ripped open the brown plastic, and rummaged though the contents.

"Gott! Dried apricots!" Her hands trembled as she examined the available food.

Suddenly, she stopped, there was something nagging at the back of her mind, she took the wrapping again, rereading the full text.

Her eyes opened wide as she finished her reading.

How in the name of the Seven Hells had Shinji managed to get an American MRE from close to 30 years old?

Author Notes:

(1) Lisa never got a surname in the movie (IIRC), so I decided to simply give her the same surname of the actress who gave Lisa life, Kelly LeBrook. And as a nice plus, it is alliterative!

(2) There's a name very conspicuously absent from that list. That's deliberate.

(3) MRE, Meal Ready to Eat. These food packages replaced the canned rations for army use in the field in 1981. They are basically a full meal that can be prepared easily on field. I'm taking a few liberties with the version Doc bought, but hopefully they won't get in the way of the story.