Neon Genesis Evangelion

A Thousand Years of Secrecy

Disclaimer: I own neither Evangelion nor Altered Carbon (or any other book in the Takeshi Kovachs series). If either Gainax or Mr. Morgan have an issue with any of the content presented, please contact me by e-mail to remove it.

Eight – Method / Madness

Shinji could see the twitch in the girl's legs. He could see her freckles, sparkling over a pretty face that looked far too out of place with tears streaming down its sides. She wore her brown hair in a way that faintly reminded him of Asuka. A sharp nose, and a body slightly less petite than Rei's. She was a beautiful girl, no doubt about it. The knife lingered before her, the attacker making frantic motions towards her pocket with it and shouting an abomination of English that he'd only recently discovered to be some form of gangster slang. Touji met his eyes, instant understanding in their expression.

The four of them strode to the edge of the street, through fleeing couples and yuppies which were too busy yelping frantically into their cell phones about the mugging to actually do anything about it. Some of them even sounded genuinely excited but no one was going to confront the trio of baggy-clothed men—no one except them of course.

Both they and the girl, Hikari Touji had called her—a Japanese name?—were far too busy in their dance of robbing and being robbed to notice as the four of them halted, examining the situation from across the street. As Shinji scanned up and down the boulevard, all of the shoppers out remained frozen a safe distance away, stunned and staring at the fiasco. There were no police, something he would have expected by now with the abundance of cellular phones and the fact they were in one of the classier parts of the city.

"Let me handle this, I owe her one," Touji said under his breath, excitement filling his voice.

"Rei, you go with him just in case, me and Asuka will hold back so we don't get in each other's way. If anything gets out of hand we'll step in. Don't make it look too easy, remember, we're just some classmates here to help out. Asuka and I will pretend to be distressed. Try to not kill any of them."

They all agreed silently and Touji nodded at Rei to begin their careful, slow progression across the asphalt, trying not to startle their targets. Shinji and Asuka meanwhile did their best to look nervous and distraught and succeeded with flying Envoy colors. A part of him wondered if he should have sent Asuka instead of Rei; but he knew, given Rei's overzealous conditioning, it was unlikely she could genuinely pretend to be nervous over the outcome of the encounter and, if Touji went a little overboard she would at least be the emotional anchor in the situation.

Touji was about halfway across the street when he got their attention.

"What are you divers doing in this part of town?" Shinji had heard the insult before, a mix of racist/classicist slang for the way that youth gangs made their money: going through the colossal amount of trash Californian suburbia could generate every day. It worked and the three boys quit jostling Hikari, turning silently.

"What you say, pretty boy? You and your girlfriend want a stick in your side now too?" Shinji did not have to see the scowl behind the ski mask to know it was there.

He watched as Touji's head barely turn in Hikari's direction; her bawling had transformed into a look of utter disbelief. She did not even notice as the knife jutted marginally in the direction of her stomach.

He took out his wallet and Shinji congratulated his roommate internally; it was a good idea to get their attention away from Hikari, lest they wind up hurting her.

"I've got five-hundred dollars saying I can knock your three Juano punkasses out by myself."

Shinji didn't suspect Touji held any real aggression for them, despite the racist slur—he had seen a few Latinos on Touji's martial arts team who had seemed more than willing to help whip his ass. But as he saw the two behind the ringleader shaking with rage, he knew the verbal snipe had gone off well.

"You chinky bitch!" the one with the knife screamed. The sliver glinted through the sunlight, flashing towards Touji's impossible grin. He slipped out of its path with a shift in his stance and it clattered onto the asphalt just before Asuka's feet. Or maybe they were shaking from the tetrameth they're dosed to the eyes with. Cheap, dirty, angry tetrameth.

It was the kind of street drug these types loved to peddle or use themselves. The kind of shitty, home-brewed concoctions that would let you keep punching after your arm was broken and throw you into a clinical depression when you finally came down. Nothing like the military-designer stuff Shinji had seen in effect before. Less precise, more uncontrollable, much more dangerous.

Touji must have recognized its effects as well because he closed the distance between himself and the leader before the knife had hit the ground, snapping a palm into the base of thug's jaw; it sent him airborne in one knockout strike. As the adrenaline-induced conditioning set into Shinji he watched the slow motion shockwave ripple across the black ski mask, sliding up the cheap fabric tugged over guy's face.

He was now most certainly out of commission, tetrameth or not, and probably needing a new jaw as well. It might have been a little overkill for someone that was supposed to only be a martial arts champion. But with tetrameth in the equation, acting sloppy took a backseat to ending the other two's potential to seriously hurt Hikari.

And that's when the gun came out.

Oh you have to be fucking kidding me.

"The other two are exiting the building," Grigori sub-vocaled from behind the oculars. His heat image was perched in a tree on across the street from Xander, cloaked imaging equipment protruding from the front of his face as a cluster of vaguely angular shapes. The IFF tags were still pretty basic when it came to their more esoteric equipment, only suggesting the outlines of the monocles without properly capturing it the way they represented the agent squatting in the branches and looking down the sights.

"Roger, keep the audio focus on the boys and see if we can catch the girls when they join up."

From his own tree, Xander could not as easily make out the group of them as their sitting place was obscured by the foliage between him and them. An inconvenient trunk blocked most of his view of the table and he only caught the wildest of gestures—there'd been few; he found it odd how subdued they remained for teenagers, except for the German girl anyways. He pushed his focus back onto the priorities at hand.

"Al, send 'saylay' to our Langley relay and see if their algorithms pick up anything useful. Security: total secret, full encrypt," he whispered as the children's conversation bubbled in the background over his ear-jack, wavering slightly with the sympathetic resonances being eliminated.

"Major, you know how these mobile units are with high-level encryption. That's gonna take a while."

"We're on a stakeout, Al. I think we can afford an extra five minutes. Besides, you heard what those two said—whatever it is, they don't want someone else finding it out—all the more reason to start the inquiry now," he barked back through their channel, annoyed.

"Trouble across the street, Xand'," Chavez chirped at him, urgency trembling beneath the man's gravelly voice.

"What's up?" he responded, shifting his view away from the arcade. He spotted the gangsters before Chavez could even reply.

"Looks like a mugging in progress. I don't think it's really cold enough outside to be wearing ski masks."

"Orders?" Grigori piped in.

"Have the van impersonate a call to the nearest police station as one of the shopkeepers but do not engage. Repeat, do not engage."

"X-ray shows a small amount of metal composite within each of their pockets. At this distance and with a moving target I can't confirm anything. Could be a knife, could be a cellphone," Pascale broke in, her voice growing agitated.

"Continue to stand down. Sight the three of them but do not take a shot unless one of the US citizens is endangered."

"That seems a little—" Grigori started.

"Not now, Greg. Just not fucking now, okay?" he snapped.

This was supposed to be a cakewalk run. Observation, info relay, kick back and soak up the sun. Four kids, barely even legal adults, probably puttering around downtown for the rest of the day and then going home like they were supposed to. As long as the SFPD had a half-decent dispatcher on hand they were still gravy. Never mind Homeland security's rather peculiar threat assessment for the four of them; terrorists or not, they were still just four fucking kids and they certainly weren't going to bump heads with a couple street thugs cruising for quick, high society cash—

"Hold on, hold on! The kids have noticed the muggers. Did you hear that—I think they're going to try and confront them."

They're just four kids. They wouldn't do anything that stupid.

"One of the metallic objects is out in the open. It's a knife!"

"Sir, the one with the knife is definitely on some sort of upper. He's jittering around like a hypothermic."

Stay calm. The police will intervene. Don't blow your cover.

"Stand down and do not take a shot until I say otherwise!"

"They're leaving the table. Two of them are crossing the street!"

"I can't get a clear pupil dilation enlargement with my current angle and all the movement, but my guess is all three of them are on some sort of amphetamine, street dosage."

"Keep your sights on the three of their heads and do not take the shot until my order!"

It was supposed to be

"Did you see that! He threw it—he threw the knife—"

a cakewalk.

"One suspect confirmed as disabled. That guy knocked him out with one punch!"

"We have a firearm in the open—"

"The girl has also—"

"Where'd she—the hell? She just broke both his arms!"

"He's out—either dead or disabled.

"Disabled for life you mean."

As the Tokugawa era barreled full speed ahead with the establishment of Edo and the continual construction surrounding the capital, more and more foreigners appeared within the city limits, many from China or Korea seeking wealth and fortune. It would become the densest city of the world, far out-weighing its renamed predecessor two to one in the volume of its populace. And Edo, being a famed and quite wealthy place tended to attract the strangest of patrons.

One was a traveler from an even farther place than Asia and, standing a good foot taller than nearly all the inhabitants of the city, he was instantly recognizable. While foreigners had become a familiar sight, none quite so foreign was ever remarked to spend any significant amount of time in the place, let alone grow to the status he did. "Sutoraasu" was the only name they knew him by and the only name given. With his thick beard, brown hair, and deep-set blue eyes he was a marvel to behold and a quick favorite of the pleasure quarters.

And Sutoraasu, for all his obvious European heritage, had a gift for language and quickly developed in his Japanese to where he could carry himself in idle conversation. He made many friends, outgoing and forward to the point that most were either offended within the first five minutes of knowing him. That or absolutely enamored with the gaijin which seemed to have no regard for their quiet tact or what some called manners. His tales of traveling across mainland Asia became legend, requested by name or content at the tea houses and bars he would frequent. His stories of Europe were even more bewildering and exciting though they always lacked in any detail about himself.

Shopkeepers always remarked of how you could see that strange white object dangling around his neck between the folds of his yukata—a "kuruzafikusu" he had once called it. To the distress of many of the local priests, Sutoraasu knew little of Zen Buddhism though he seemed eager to learn, and for that they were able to forgive his astonishingly simple knowledge and chalk it up to his "gaijin ways."

Soon enough, he found himself embroiled within the samurai politics of the city for which there were plenty to be found with the Shogun's castle growing taller by day in the center. Through a confusing string of alliances, some forged from sheer curiosity of his total different-ness and others out of his loyalty to friends, Sutoraasu, all by accident, had entered into the political world of Edo quite swiftly. And with that move, Sutoraasu was forgotten; from then on he would be known only as Yoshito, infinitely preferable to his hard-to-pronounce gaijin name.

He bought one of his favored concubines from the Yoshiwara houses with his new-found status and quickly earned an even odder reputation for taking her last name, a particular quirk that would become the common joke to be made about him: "Though we offered him many good names, Yoshito took a woman's!" "What, really? Surely they lie!" "No, indeed I did," he would reply, "because I've always wanted breasts." They would all chortle merrily at each new answer and there seemed to be no end to their companion's good humor. Yoshito Katsuragi was a part of city legend now.

Though he would never earn the rank of samurai under the careful plotting of the priesthood against his unseemly foreign blood, he learned to wield a katana and followed the bushido judiciously; many envied his fearlessness in battle and he was all the more revered for his great respect of both his comrades and those he faced in battle. He studied Zen fervently while at home and quietly imbued the secrets of his other sacred religion to his wife.

When he passed away, his only son was given the white possession that had seemed permanently chained to the man's neck, and unto him the secret passed through the mother's lips. With it he took the burden and the knowledge of his destiny; he grew from it the un-spoken society that would permeate and infiltrate the city's rise and fall throughout history; their power spread invisibly, reaching across continents as modernity dawned on Japan. Slowly the "Hikari no Kodomo" were born anew. The Children of Light.

There were a handful of techniques Misato could always perform better than him no matter how hard he trained, no matter how hard he tried. She readily agreed his intellectual capacity at times rivaled even Fuyutsuki but, Misato had a way with the physical that Shinji was always envious of.

During the tail-end of the NERV evacuations she'd shoved him onto the last working transport, torn the cross from her neck, pressed into his hand, and kissed him on the forehead. He screamed for her as the airlock snapped closed on the single-person carrier and the AI quickly snatched away the controls and got him airborne. He screamed, trying to tear his way through the view port as she zipped away right before his eyes, clawing, literally clawing, at the plexisteel interior and then nearly totaling all of the cockpit's instrumentation in an effort to get the thing to turn around and just save her. But without his plugsuit it was impossible and when he began to bleed under his fingernails and the conditioning gave up on maintaining his adrenaline, all he could do was listen to her communications link and pray that he could do something to save her.

That was when he got his first real taste of Misato's conditioning—all her previous operations while she'd mentored him were classified beyond his clearance. She took three rounds, two the stomach, one to the right leg when they found her. She killed six of them unarmed. She ended another eighteen of them before the blood loss became too much and the conditioning snapped her body into hibernation mode, knocking her out on the spot.

After the bridge crew had finished the frantic disassembling of the JSSDF security hierarchies, they found her again being operated on by one of the field medics to stop her bleeding. When the anesthetic was tackled by Envoy anti-drug autonomics she bit two of his fingers clean off before passing back out again from the pain.

That was Misato. And that was more or less why Fuyutsuki had the good sense to name her sub-commander rather than any of the other Envoy Council hopefuls. Most agreed with the choice.

However, Misato for all her infinite stamina and will had always praised Rei for her incredible reflexes, particularly with regard to unarmed combat and the handful of moves they learned under the incredible stress of an Envoy's full battle-meditation.

The principle was pretty simple. Conditioning was more or less a trance-like state in many regards. The further you could slow down your heartbeat, the deeper you would fall under its control and the further out into la-la land you flew. The more mental control you had, the more muscular control, and when you could concentrate enough to unify your actions over the entirety of your body's muscles your body could do some pretty unbelievable things. Rei, with her impeccable self-control, could lower herself to this point nearly invisibly unless you tuned your vision so deeply onto her chest that you could count her heartbeats—something Shinji found to be too dangerous strategically when sparring her.

It shouldn't have surprised him then, as she popped into the air between the gun and the thug. It shouldn't have surprised him when her hands clasped his and broke every finger clutching the pistol. It shouldn't have surprised him when she held the arm and twisted it underneath herself as she cleared his head, reversing the shoulder. And it shouldn't have surprised him when she did nearly the same thing with his other arm.

Touji didn't break pace after knocking the first one out. He barreled an elbow into the ribs of the stunned partner, breaking a few of them Shinji could see. He swept a leg behind the would-be mugger as he tumbled backwards onto the pavement and hooked it, putting him flat on his back. He twitched once after he hit the ground and did not move again.

"Woah, blue is on another level…" Asuka was whispering at his side, awestruck.

"Misato-chan says she's better than most of the Council," he agreed quietly.

Touji was dusting his hands over the three bodies and Rei was guiding a stunned Hikari back towards he and Asuka with an arm around her shoulders.

"I'm gonna regroup with Touji, you two handle her for the moment."

"Hai, hai."

Hikari's confused gaze met his eyes for a moment as he strode past her, recognition flashing in her hazel eyes.

"Touji-san, daijoubu desu ka?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. More than I can say for these three dipshits." At least they were still breathing. Slowly maybe, but breathing. "What a fucking mess, eh?"

Shinji didn't respond, just bent over one of them and pulled the mask off. He was thirteen or fourteen at the oldest with patches of peach fuzz facial hair and eyes rolled up into the back of their sockets. Dirt and other sorts of filth was plastered to all the exposed skin. Shinji shook his head angrily, looking away.

"Is it like this a lot here?" he asked Touji when he felt back in control.

"Well, they don't usually come to the nice parts of town—"

"You know what I mean. They're fucking kids, Touji. Younger than us."

"Yeah," Touji frowned, suddenly sounding not so satisfied. "That's the way it goes man. Street trash, youth gangs, whatever you want to call 'em. Usually orphans or runaways. I wouldn't even have to lift up the other two masks to be able to tell you they're all black or Hispanic."

"You say that like it's their fault," he growled.

"Fuck if I know who's fault it is." He kicked the curb with his shoe. "That's just the statistics for ya."

"Statistics," Shinji spat. "And what happens when they go to the hospital? Who takes care of them then?"

"Whatever shitty HMO the cops can get rid of them with. They end up in some run-down joint where they're probably more likely to get sick than better. If they're lucky they stay comatose for long enough on the morphine that they don't re-break anything when they sneak out and back to their pusher for another fix of meth." Touji sighed. "Kids like this, Shinji, nobody gives a fuck about them. That's why they do shit like rob people in the first place."

"What the fuck is wrong with this place?" he asked, looking around at shop windows filled with thousand-dollar hand bags, diamond-crusted shoes, and parked BMWs. Looking around at seas of well-tanned faces, either staring back at him or bored and off to their business again. Looking back at the arcade, still full of kids these thugs' age dumping $50s and $100s at the pool tables and videogames.

"Hey man, welcome to America! Land of the free, home of the brave baby," Touji muttered.

Disgusting.

That's when the police car came cruising down the street, lights flashing and siren off. It pulled to a stop and an overweight thirty-something with a mustache and a crew cut greeted Touji and he with guns drawn. His partner did the same.

"Hands on your head! Do not move!"

Touji and he looked at each other, shrugged and did as they were told—no point in taking your chances with another moron with a gun, Shinji decided. The officer continued shouting his orders, ignoring their nonchalant attitudes.

"Now walk slowly towards me and the vehicle! No sudden moves."

Shinji chuckled to himself as he winked at Rei and Asuka. Asuka blew air at her bangs, rolling her eyes while Rei nodded.

When they stopped in front of the hood of the shiny new cruiser, Hikari came to life.

"Officer those two saved me, they—"

"Ma'am please don't distract me. This is for your own safety," he commanded, holding an index finger in the air and keeping his eyes aimed at Shinji. Shinji glared right back at him.

Touji grumbled something under his breath about "these fucking pigs" just quietly enough to not get their attention.

The younger partner approached and cuffed the two of them and neither resisted. The other man radioed in something about the "muggers in custody" from behind the dash board of the cruiser. Before Shinji could say otherwise, a certain redhead snapped into action.

"Hey assholes!" Mr. mustache was turning, face flushed and furious. "Did you ever notice the three dudes on the ground in skimasks or were you too busy having your little ego trip?"

He watched the man freeze in his anger, swear something to himself under his breath and step past Shinji, Touji, and his dumbfounded partner. He swore louder when he got closer to the three knocked out boys in street clothes. Hesitantly, his partner called back to him.

"Should I uncuff them?"

"No you should not!" he whined, reaching down and fumbling with them one by one. "These kids are really beat up. Were going to have to question those two at least."

"There's a gun right by that one's feet! Are you retarded?" Shinji was surprised to hear Hikari's voice, not Asuka's this time. Touji was grinning ear to ear, enjoying the show. "They were trying to mug me. My... boyfriend and, and that guy," she said, jabbing a finger at the two of them, "rescued me, okay? Get it?"

"That true? You her boyfriend?" the partner said, cocking an eyebrow.

"The one and only, officer," Touji replied, playing up the lie in true Envoy fashion. No, better than Envoy fashion even. Shinji wondered just what his history was with the girl.

"Cam, I think they're telling the truth," the partner called back at the mustache.

"John, you just do me a favor and leave the detective work up to me okay? Good. And put those two in the back of the cruiser."

"Does he always treat you like this," Shinji whispered totally innocent at the thoroughly annoyed partner.

"You can't do that, you know. He's got diplomatic tags on his passport," Asuka interrupted.

"I'm afraid she's right officers." A very handsome blond man was walking up to the cruiser now. Where he'd come from Shinji could honestly not recall. It bothered him, itching a little Envoy paranoia scratch. He flashed a beaming smile.

"And just who the fuck are you?" the mustache roared, striding back to the police car.

The man whipped out a wallet in a very practiced gesture, revealing three big, blue capital letters on the inside.

F. B. I.

Misato's going to hear about this.

"I'm with the Bureau. These are the children of some very important diplomats. I was taking care of them but I had to go make a phone call. I was on my back when Claudia called me and told me some street boys were trying to mug them." Asuka snickered at the name when he gestured in her direction. "Thanks so much for intervening officers, I got here as soon as I could. I'm sure we understand each other now, don't we?"

Mustache switched his glower back and forth between the two of them and the agent. He sighed, defeated.

"Yeah, we understand. Let 'em go, John."

Shinji and Touji were not even out of the handcuffs before Asuka had sprinted into the agent's arms, practically knocking him over as she sobbed melo-dramatically. Touji almost, almost, started laughing right there.

"Oh, Francis,"—Payback's a bitch—"thank God you came back! They had guns and we were so scared. If Ferdinand and Huxtable"—Now that was totally uncalled for—"hadn't been here to protect us, oh, I just don't know what we would have done!" she moaned.

The agent made and awkward smile, slowly clasping her in his arms and making a "rich kids, what are you gonna do?" face at the partner taken aback by Asuka's emotional one-eighty.

He took the five of them down the street and away from the two bewildered cops while Asuka clasped his hand firmly and visibly enough that he could not risk letting go. When they were safely away he stopped.

"Alright, you've had your fun," he said, pulling his hand free.

"What the fuck kind of name is Claudia?" Asuka guffawed, ignoring her quite obvious German heritage for the moment.

He frowned at the five of them, ignoring her. Then he put a finger to his ear and his lips started moving. Sloppy sub-vocaling. But he probably had no idea who they were or how every Envoy was taught lip-reading.

Shinji read it easily. "The van's on fire, you said? I'll be right there."

He looked at them hard for a moment, then relented.

"No more trouble today, alright? Now get out of here. Scram." He walked across the street and disappeared into the crowd without another word. Shinji found himself losing track of him much sooner than he'd expect to. The Envoy itch tingled again.

"What was that all about? Are you guys really diplomats?" Hikari mumbled, lost again.

"Shh, it's a secret," Asuka said, winking at her.

"Please don't tell anyone. Only the school knows of our status here in the country," Rei continued.

"Oh, that reminds me," the sprightly girl said, suddenly turning on Rei.

She grabbed her into a hug, one which Rei very much did not return. The crimson eyes leered sideways at the other girl, looking trapped, perhaps even desperate, like a drowning fish. Hikari squeezed her a little harder.

"Thanks for saving me," Hikari gushed.

"Looks like someone has got a new friend!" Asuka whispered to Shinji, smirking at him.

"Can you let go now? Please?" Rei said finally.

Hikari giggled and squeezed her hand once.

"How else am I supposed to thank you?"

"Thanks is not—"

"What about me?" Touji complained, puffing out his chest. She grabbed the side of his face and kissed him once on the lips before he could react. Then he was busy blushing.

"—necessary."

"Oh shoot, I've gotta get back home before my sisters freak out! It's been a great... well, a weird day. Touji, call me!"

And she took off running down the street.

"Okay. I'll do that," Touji said after he'd recovered and her galloping backside was much too far away to hear him.

"Looks like Huxtable has a girlfriend," Asuka teased.

"You mean I'm Ferdinand? Come on!" Shinji whined.

"I think Ferdinand is a pleasant name," Rei announced.

The three of them laughed. Rei's smile, just the barest curving of the lips, lingered for a few moments in the midday California sun.

Rei is telling jokes now? A weird day is right. Still, it could have been worse.

"I don't know if we have any other options. The UN is putting pressure on our inspectors to withdraw. Most of Europe has already informally delegated the investigation to the Japanese."

Admiral Turner adjusted his collar with one hand, irritation glazing over his mild face.

"To the Japanese? When they know they are responsible?"

"Everyone is pretending that they aren't. For right now at least. The drink may have been knocked over, the carpet may be stained, but no one is admitting they saw whose elbow it was." The other man's tone held an annoyed amusement with the bureaucracy.

"This is ridiculous. We practically already have the signed orders from the Prime Minister himself to bomb the damn city and they're just going to hand over the whole investigation? I can't believe we are willingly going to let them get away with murdering those people. Thirty million dead. If the UN can't prosecute this, why the hell does it even exist?"

The spy grunted behind steepled fingers.

"Careful where you're going with that one, Turner. I don't think I need to remind you what fleet you're supposed to be in command of," he warned.

The admiral shifted in his chair, seeming to disregard the threat entirely.

"This barbarism is unacceptable. We both lived through the floods and I have no intention of doing so again. We have within our grasp those who are responsible. Now is the time to send a message to them and to the rest of the world." His stare remained intense and fixed on the other, held still in anticipation.

"That's why we haven't removed our inspectors yet. Look, you've made your point. Hell, I agree with you. But we've been getting pressure from our allies to let this one sit. Plus it's no big secret who they were aiming to blow up. And they sacrificed one of the biggest cities in the world to do it. How afraid would they have to be to do something that drastic—that obviously stupid? How nervous do you think that makes everyone around here, especially with that branch on the west coast? China is getting protests every day now to have their branch shut down like Germany's was. What the hell was NERV hiding under there that was so scary the Japanese were chomping at the bit just to blow them up and then send in half their own army to make sure the job was done?"

He stared out into the darkness of the sea before and aimed at the vessel he knew contained the answers. The one secretly loaned to NERV.

"Yes I suppose that would be of concern. Of course we forget that NERV also gave us most of the clues to work on investigating the parliament. Clues without which we would be much farther away from any firm conclusion on the bombing."

"Well that doesn't change the fact that the defense contractors are practically foaming at the mouth to figure out what sort of weapon created the second blast and start on a prototype." An ugliness hovered in his colleague's eyes as he spoke. "The DOD have re-labeled this as priority one for us Langley boys; the investigation of the N2 attack is practically an afterthought at this point."

"Don't you have R&D people for that sort of thing? Besides, you know I won't let that weapon be reproduced. I cannot." Something heavy drifted into the old man's gaze. Memories of a time and place etched into the deepest wrinkles of his face. Memories of burning children and flooded cities. And what it took to survive in those times.

The man in the screen across from him stroked at his red beard thoughtfully then nodded.

"I concur. We have enough ways of destroying ourselves and I don't intend on finding any more. And I do want to catch the bastards that did this, Japanese or otherwise. Keep the inspectors in the know and keep them pushing for answers. If we get enough evidence the UN will have no choice but to get to the bottom of this. I'll try and keep the DOD's investigation stalled on my end of things. Any ideas on where I should not be looking?"

"NERV. Anything and everything surrounding them."

"That's a hell of a big bull's-eye to try and miss."

There was something fierce about the navel officer as he shifted in his chair, something dangerous in his taught lips.

"Yes. They seem to be at the crux of this, Alfred. And perhaps your daughter as well, I fear."

"I know, James. I'm keeping one eye open." The spy paused, contemplating some part of that thought. "It may have been inevitable. This mess."

"This mess," the older man agreed.

The picture disappeared into black as the link cut off leaving only the ghostly glow of the moon reflecting off the imperfect mirror of water stretching into darkness. The admiral watched its surface shift from beyond the helm of the largest military vessel the world had ever built. Watched and planned for what he was certain would come.

Eight Fin

A/N: This chapter was gravy once I figured out how to have the mugging play out. I hope you don't mind the flash back. I think it might have dragged a little more than I wanted it to but I'm trying to weave in how we got to Chapter One and it turns out, based on the scope of this thing, I'm gonna need a fuck-ton of weaving to get there.

So. Exciting? Interesting? Confusing? I made another blundering stab with humor here. I figured it lightened up the middle nicely. Next chapter will explain a little more what happened towards the end there as well.

It's that time again. If you're at all confused about how we got here, I would suggest re-reading Five through Eight. They explain almost exactly what's going on here plus a little bit of what's to come if you collect your clues properly. ;)

Gosh I could almost put this under mystery, couldn't I? Haha. This chapter might have been a little confusing in terms of what language was being spoken by the children. That's mostly because it wouldn't really matter one way or the other. It will only be explicit when it's necessary to understand another character being out of the loop.

I like the violence here. Real and to the point. Expect more of that soonish. Oh yes, and there will be blood. evil laugh

Oh by the way, my readers rock the heezy for sheezy. You guys are the coolest! A little reassurances now. More Rei, I promise! I like Rei! No really! What's Operation 176? I ain't tellin'! I'm glad you guys pay attention to the little things though. I've gotten a few critiques about Tatsuki-sensei being very un-sensei-ish. Keep in mind his Envoy training was pretty much abandoned. Other than that, I will explain. It's coming. Trust me! Also, I won't pretend I can match the original candor of Anno—I'm not him, I'm not depressed, I'm actually quite upbeat. What I can promise is that the tone of this story will become more similar to the series as time goes on (more action, more psychology, more emotional insanity).

Japanese lesson for this chapter:

-"daijoubu" means pretty much "okay" as in, are you okay, is everything okay, is it okay if I do this, etc. We can assume Shinji's usage here is more out of habit than intended purpose because what he asks is quite easily translatable as "are you okay?"

-if you somehow did not know, "hai" means yes. "hai, hai" can be taken as a much more idiomatic expression based on tone to be something like "okay I'll do it," "no problem," or even "right away." This is all inferred by context and tone of voice but translating it as simply "yes, yes" would be pretty inappropriate.

You'll be seeing more of me soon. Thanks for reading. Tell your friends!