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Episode 20' -
Moonchild
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Blackness. Thick, opaque, impenetrable blackness. An unending, unquantifiable panorama of boundless, omnipresent, all-encompassing blackness.
A gleaming red line blasted horizontally through the center of the nebulous space, splitting the lightless obsidian vacuum into distinct upper and lower halves.
Beep. Two sharp fluctuations in the otherwise invariable rigidity of the line—a meteoric rise directly preceding a precipitous drop—rippled from one end of its infinite length to the other. Numerous linked pairs of diametric spikes rolled across the axis at routine intervals, each heralded by a strident beeping noise.
Soon, the coupled sets of peaks and valleys began to traverse the boundary at an elevated rate, recurring alongside their corresponding beeps with regularly-accelerating frequency until the beeping converged into one earsplitting sustained tone. The line went flat. Redness swelled as the northern and southern hemispheres were cleaved apart at the border. Divided, the jet-black membranes began to separate, prised open by hazy splotches of colour.
Ritsuko's eyes opened just wide enough for a sliver of light to cruelly worm its way through the slim gaps in her eyelids.
The velvety womb of sleep ejected her from its tranquil recesses, and she tumbled out through the breach into the waking world.
Thankfully, the shrill din of the flatlining heart monitor curtailed to a dull whine before the nails-on-a-chalkboard sound could drill any deeper into the raw, tender nerve tissue of her inner ear; however, this was a cold comfort—lousy shelter from the ensuing sensorimotor blitzkrieg commonly known as a hangover.
The sticky folds of her eyelids peeled further apart, and her vision was crowded with blotchy abstract shapes. Angry light scorched her corneas. Her pupils converted the light into fire, and her inflamed optic nerves transmitted that to her brain, which condensed it into a rhythmic pounding concentrated wholly behind the bridge of her nose.
A pressure exerting itself against the inside walls of her head made her skull feel like an overinflated balloon, and the throbbing in her sinuses was busily trying to push her stinging eyeballs out of their sockets.
Her mouth tasted like ash. Stale saliva thickened into a mossy coating on her withered tongue, and her throat was so parched it felt like she'd swallowed a handful of sand.
Blinking as her vision acclimatised to the searing brightness, something squished in her left eyelid, and Ritsuko understood that she'd fallen asleep wearing her contact lenses. Gradually, her eyesight sharpened until she could identify most of the amorphous shapes in her immediate vicinity: the screeching ECG that tore her from her slumber was actually an alarm clock, and the grey blob closest to her face was a stuffed elephant. This was not her bed.
As her unfamiliar surroundings came into focus, she replayed her mental recording of the night before and discovered a loose cluster of glaring burn-holes stippled all along her memory reel.
Compressed clips of fuzzy visuals and trimmings of muffled soundbites blinked through her mind. She tried playing fill-in-the-blank, but couldn't match the distorted scraps of missing footage to their respective gaps in her fragmented recollection of the evening.
...what did she do last night?
Aside from her lab-coat and pumps, she was still fully dressed... she supposed that qualified as a small mercy.
A rumbling groan arose from her chest as she rolled over, the bedsheets clinging to the spots on her clammy skin where cold sweat had congealed into a sticky film. Chills swept over her exposed limbs, and the sheer cloth felt like sandpaper scraping against her grimy skin as it came unglued. Nausea churned her stomach when she tried to move—her guts lurched all at once as if the span of her digestive tract was knotted into a single gnarled, heaving mass.
Rallying her tolerance for motion, she was able to move again with relatively limited difficulty. Managing to twist her body all the way around, she could discern the outline of a petite figure at the end of the bed, invoking a smattering of memories from the previous night. She remembered going to the bar, drinking, trying to dull the sting of the latest blow to her self-respect, and reevaluating her life choices... she remembered getting upset, and—thinking of only one name, one face, above all others when impelled to seek comfort—she remembered calling Maya, asking to be picked up, and getting in the car.
As far as Ritsuko could gather... well, she couldn't recall much else; the blackness must have taken her shortly thereafter. Did she go home with Maya?
"Maya?" she called out tentatively, her hoarse voice creaking as it clawed its way up from her coarse throat.
The figure on the edge of the bed pivoted toward her. "Oh, you're up," came a rosy, upbeat voice. It was Maya. "How are you feeling?"
"Terrible." Ritsuko admitted, squinting at the indistinct shape until she regained enough visual clarity to differentiate the younger woman's individual features.
Although most of Ritsuko's clothes were intact, Maya was notably dressed in only a white cotton tank-top and baby-blue boyshorts.
She wasn't wearing any pants.
"I can imagine," she said softly, her friendly jesting tone interlaced with compassion, "You were pretty wasted."
Embarrassment occluded Ritsuko's airways. Unable to conjure any coherent images of the night beyond a certain point, she couldn't establish a cohesive sequence of events. The timeline was riddled with big, gaping empty spaces, and there was no telling what she'd done in those interludes.
Looking into Maya's face, Ritsuko exhaled through her nostrils and held her breath, almost afraid to ask: "Did we...?"
Maya looked confused for a second before realisation flashed across her face and she emphatically shook her head 'no'.
Ritsuko inhaled.
One of Maya's arms unfurled and extended toward her, and Ritsuko noticed that Maya was trying to hand her something. She sat up, carefully and deliberately as to minimise any pain that might've been spurred on by the sudden movement, and held out her own hand to receive what Maya was presenting.
Taking it, Ritsuko's fingers coiled around a smooth cylinder, and the cool, textureless surface felt good against her burning skin. It was a glass of cold water. Precious, life-giving water.
After the glass left her grip, Maya's hand folded, but her arm remained outstretched toward Ritsuko, who presented the upturned palm of her own free hand, presupposing that Maya had something else to give her.
Maya spread her fingers and let something small and round, like a button, fall into Ritsuko's flattened palm. Lifting the object close to her face to verify what it was, Ritsuko recognised it as an extra-strength paracetamol tablet and wondered if it were possible to nominate this darling girl for sainthood.
"My hero," she thanked Maya.
She popped the tablet onto the dusty tip of her tongue and took a swig of water.
When the cool liquid touched Ritsuko's cracked lips, streaming past to wash over the dehydrated interior of her mouth and esophagus, the soothing effect was instantaneous—the crisp, clear fluid automatically quenched the torrid rainless-desert sensation, and rinsed away most of the foul taste and scummy character. She felt such a monumental swell of relief that, without thinking, she turned the glass bottoms-up and chugged.
"Don't drink it too–" Maya started to advise, her voice faltering as she watched Ritsuko heedlessly down the last few swallows, "–fast."
Obviously Ritsuko wasn't quite done making poor decisions based on impulse... She regretted this action almost immediately, almost before Maya finished warning her against it. The revelation of her mistake hit her like... like the water hit her vocally-disapproving stomach, along with the solid wall of resultant nausea that hit her seconds later as the liquid sloshed in the inhospitable depths of her belly. Indignant, her innards burbled their complaints and belligerently stewed in opposition.
Soon, Ritsuko knew, her body would reject the unwelcome water as if it were a foreign object; and, feeling the bile climb in her throat like science-fair volcano ingredients, she could only muster a half-baked, ultimately futile attempt to stymie the eruption.
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It would be dishonest for Maya to pretend she wasn't aghast when Ritsuko abruptly buckled over the side of the bed and vehemently expelled the contents of her stomach; but simultaneously, Maya couldn't say she wasn't prepared for just such a contingency—by the time Ritsuko keeled over, she was already by the bedside with a wastebasket in hand.
A caucus of sounds like a dying combustion engine issued from Ritsuko as she spat bits of residue into the basket: an elongated whine, checkered with intermittent hacking and sputtering. She sniffed and withdrew from the precipice, shivering as she reclined in the bed.
Maya lowered the trash can onto the floor near the foot of the bed, and used her other hand to gingerly sweep Ritsuko's hair back, tucking the blonde locks behind her ears to keep them out of the way in the event of repeat incidents.
After setting down the basket, Maya sat on the edge of the bed adjacent to Ritsuko. She laid a hand on the doctor's right shoulder and gently massaged the tightly-wound muscles where the shoulder curved into the neck. It hurt Maya to know that her mentor was in pain, and gauging the level of discomfort she appeared to endure, Maya determined that Ritsuko must be in significant agony.
Angling her upper body outward, Maya reached for the nightstand with her free hand and picked up the second glass of water she'd placed there earlier.
"Sip it." she instructed, offering the glass to Ritsuko.
Accordingly, Ritsuko accepted the glass and warily took a couple dainty drinks of water. "Thank you," she said between reluctant sips, "You're really too kind."
In response, Maya shook her head bashfully, coyly underplaying her actions with a swishing hand gesture. Her mouth curled into an unintentional close-lipped smile.
Ritsuko repaid the smile. It was a winsome, enchanting smile despite her infirm condition and disheveled appearance... Regardless of Ritsuko's unkempt hair and splotchy complexion, marbled in perspiration and smeared with the vestiges of yesterday's makeup, Maya thought she looked radiant.
Swallowing another gulp of water, Ritsuko presented the glass for Maya to take. Once Maya retrieved it from her, she retracted her hand and toppled backwards into the heap of plushies.
"Did you pick me up from the lounge?" she asked without moving. Her laboured speech was still laden with a rough, throaty timbre.
"Yes," Maya answered, having to consciously abstain from tacking on the word 'ma'am'.
Boosting her upper body onto her elbows, Ritsuko shifted forward slightly and excitedly inquired, "What? From where? Were you in the area?"
"I was a couple miles away, here at home. I'd just gotten in bed, about to go to sleep, then you called me saying 'where are you' and that you were at the bar alone... so I got a taxi to bring me to you, and you got in the backseat with me," Maya explained, then conceded: "I would've come if I was on the other side of town, wide awake, or whatever—I really care about you, and you were in quite a state."
By the end of Maya's response, Ritsuko was lying flat on the bed gaping up at the ceiling. She yawned. "I barely remember that... did we go anywhere else?"
A squeezing pressure enclosed and constricted Maya's heart like a python... did Ritsuko have no memory of the intimacy they shared? Were the evening's events of any consequence if her mind had no record of them, or was the closeness they forged in the shadows of the night nullified by the light of day? Most of all: was the kiss merely a convenient salve for Ritsuko's wounded pride in a moment of weakness? Was her breathless admission of feelings in the car no more than an admixture of alcohol with grief and gratitude, synthesized into emulated affection... or does a drunk mind speak a sober heart?
Was all of it meaningless?
"You had the driver take us to another bar, but we were only there for a second." Maya recounted. "I had a couple of drinks when we got there; but you were so gone by the time we arrived that when you ordered another, I knocked it off the balcony and pretended that it was an accident... You didn't need any more."
"No wonder I feel awful." surmised Ritsuko. Again balancing on her elbows, her torso suspended a few inches above the bed, she cleared her throat. "I don't know what I need."
Maya sighed. "Food, maybe?" she guessed, twisting toward the nightstand, "I made you some breakfast."
She hunched over to reach the tray she'd prepared a few minutes before Ritsuko woke up: little more than a slat of thatched bamboo holding a bowl of steamed rice, green tea, and a pickled plum—a classic hangover treatment consisting of simple, wholesome items she reckoned would be easy on Ritsuko's assuredly volatile digestion.
Securing the tray, Maya turned around to present her with the food, but was stopped when Ritsuko hooked a hand around her wrist. The two women locked eyes, and Ritsuko tugged at Maya's arm, compelling her to drop the tray. Maya relinquished her hold on the tray and planted it flat on the bed, anxiously searching Ritsuko's eyes for answers.
Tilting toward her, Ritsuko pulled Maya in, leading her by the wrist to bridge the distance between them. Maya's throat clamped shut and her heart-rate palpably increased, beating out a tribal drum pattern as the doctor's face neared her own. Ritsuko released Maya's wrist and draped both arms around her neck, drawing her closer, then leaned in, closing the gap completely.
Once more their lips met, hesitantly at first—tightly-sealed, timid, almost experimental in their restraint—then growing impassioned with a swift expansion of fervor. When their lips initially touched, Maya stiffened in shock, but soon went limp in Ritsuko's arms, swept up like a rag-doll in a squall of helplessness. Pressing lightly at first, the surfaces softly dusting one another, she felt Ritsuko testing the elasticity of her lips for a tacit affirmation of consent. She closed her eyes, and Ritsuko pushed against her mouth more decisively, adding weight and gaining boldness as she yielded to the building pressure.
The pressure filled to burst, but just as the volume swelled to a crescendo, Ritsuko pulled away before they could truly open up to each other. Her arms slid from Maya's neck and she collapsed into the pile of stuffed animals.
Maya looked down at Ritsuko, blinking back up at her with wild, pain-brightened eyes flitting across her face searching—pleading—for some inscrutable thing that Maya knew she probably couldn't provide.
Then, before she had the chance to react, Ritsuko folded both hands around either side of her face.
Closing her eyes as she yanked Maya downward, Ritsuko bent her head, rushing up to meet Maya's readied mouth. No fear impeded this next kiss, giving it a sense of urgency; without delay, this kiss had weight when Ritsuko's insistent mouth hungrily opened Maya's lips. Her hands glided up Maya's head, fingers winding through the younger woman's short brown hair, and brought their bodies closer together.
Sharing her hot, ragged breaths, Maya gasped against Ritsuko's mouth and melted into the deepening kiss.
For the second time, the exact moment the whirlwind sensations achieved dizzying heights, Ritsuko separated and fell away from Maya.
"I'm sorry." she apologised, lapsing back onto the bed.
Baffled, Maya speechlessly pondered the borderline shellshocked expression on the doctor's face for a second, then replied: "It's okay."
A Mona Lisa smile graced Ritsuko's lips. Her eyes were opened wide, fastened unblinkingly to Maya's, their dilated pupils set amid starry irises. She seemed to stare through Maya's eyes into some æther miles beyond, as if scrying—observing a potential future hidden within them.
Beneath Maya, Ritsuko looked diffident and vulnerable, sharply contrasting her typically unflappable composure. The steadfast presentation Maya normally found so intimidating and impressive about her mentor was nowhere to be found—that effortlessness was lost among the guesswork of human desire.
Perhaps Ritsuko's drunken behaviour last night was fundamentally shaped by an armature of authentic emotion... Maybe there was an element of veracity to her words in the car.
As Maya scrutinised Ritsuko's face scanning for pertinent emotions, hues of remorse and doubt began to adulterate its harmonious colouration.
"I'm sorry," Ritsuko lamented again, "We can't do this."
Maya's heart skipped and started beating irregularly, pumping ice into her veins. A fist knotted in her chest and a heaviness settled over her. She crossed over Ritsuko, to the other side of the bed, lying down next to her, wondering why this should/would come as a surprise... Throughout Maya's entire life, when it came to romance she had always been plagued by notoriously inopportune (or otherwise unfortunate) timing; one might think she'd be used to it by now.
"I understand." she replied plainly.
Still, she would likely forever be haunted by the look in Ritsuko's incandescent eyes in the moments following that last kiss: entranced, begging, dreamy... desperately in love with her for a full five seconds.
Turning her attention to the tray of food Maya had placed beside her, Ritsuko situated it in her lap and took the chopsticks between thumb and forefinger.
"Maya?" she began, glancing up, "Thank you. For everything."
For days, the main screen on the far wall of NERV HQ's nested command center had been filled with a gridded array of closed-circuit video feeds, each displaying the hibernating Angel from a multitude of different angles.
On the screen, men wearing khaki-coloured fatigues and berets were positioned roughly equidistant from one another, rifles slung over their shoulders, fortifying the barricade around the Angel's humongous immobile frame. Its bony mask sightlessly watched them, seeming unamused. Scattered along the perimeter, a number of red-suited engineers were calibrating a variety of complex-looking contraptions as manifold other NERV employees shuffled about soundlessly shouting into radios.
On the central platform Misato stood with one knee cocked, other leg jutting outward, inattentively glaring over the railing at the big screen. Truthfully, nothing happening in any of the individual frames was of any interest to her—she wasn't even processing the images; she was only looking in that direction under the pretense of being mentally present at work.
Currently, Misato's thoughts were preeminently centered on Shinji's question from the other day: what kind of relationship did Rei and the commander have? She hadn't been sure how to answer that... The precise nature of the dynamic between the two was something she never afforded very much consideration, to the extent that she was sparsely even aware of what scant little information she had in regards to it. Clearly it was more than purely professional... Was it familial? Platonic? Intimate? Did they have a father/daughter, or a teacher/student thing happening? An oddball friendship? Or something more nefarious? One thing Misato knew for sure was that they weren't solely work colleagues; Gendo evidently valued Rei considerably more than the average employee. He often gave her exclusive attention, spending untold hours in clandestine meetings with her, doing god-knows-what in NERV HQ's many, many sub-rosa backrooms. Additionally, there was the time Gendo severely burned his hands on the blistering-hot turn-bar of Rei's battered entry plug while wrenching open the hatch in order to rescue her. She was undeniably special to him somehow.
Conversely, Rei graciously treasured the pair of glasses, cracked and warped from the heat, which fell from his face as he wrestled with the latch. Though she might have cherished them mainly out of appreciation, for a long time she carried them with her everywhere she went, plausibly suggesting the dedication was requited.
Meanwhile, on the contrary, Gendo seldom exchanged more than a few pithy words with his own son... so what was it that made Rei so meaningful to him?
In fact, now that Misato thought of it: what did she really know about Rei Ayanami?
Rei Ayanami, the First Child. As long as she'd been at NERV, Rei managed to remain utterly mysterious.
The girl was a cipher—Misato lived with her and still knew honestly next-to-nothing about who she actually was.
Not only was Rei withdrawn and reticent to a degree approaching nigh-mute, but all records of her had been scrubbed clean, all official documents purged of any substantial biographical information. Nothing Misato could access, with the full resources of a UN subsidiary organisation at her disposal (at least at her clearance level), could do so much as corroborate Rei's date of birth.
Misato could recall a conversation she had with Ritsuko a while back, around the time Shinji first arrived in town... Ritsuko attested that all of Rei's records had been erased, claiming her past was a 'blank slate'. Tabula Rasa.
Nonetheless, how could anyone be perfectly free of the past, totally devoid of any history? Who could possibly exist for years in this Post-2I world without leaving the slightest gossamer hint of a paper-trail, and why?
At the time Misato hadn't pressed Ritsuko on it, but now she knew that a plethora of secrets were hidden in NERV's sprawling underbelly, and her supposed friend had assisted in keeping them from her.
Of course, when directly confronted she flagrantly denied withholding any facts from Misato, but Kaji had already proven there were plenty of things about the agency that Ritsuko was helping to conceal. In fact, there was a decent chance Ritsuko herself was responsible for redacting parts of Rei's files.
Hell, as the head of the Research & Science Division and the entire Technical Branch, a close confidant of the Commander, and the only one with a working knowledge of the Magi, she was conceivably the nexus where all surreptitious information coincided.
The big screen blinked as the grid cycled through the next collection of camera angles. Turning to support her weight on the other leg, Misato regarded each frame sequentially and spotted Fuyutsuki in the lower-left corner, idling outside the ring of workers with his back to the camera.
She decided to contact Kaji and request to review any intel he might have come across concerning Rei's life outside of and/or before NERV.
Furthermore, she decided that—if those answers still didn't satisfy her—once she had the opportunity, she would seek out Ritsuko and force the doctor to tell her everything about Rei, by any means necessary.
The well-done extra-crispy computer terminal sat in the corner, pushed as far back along the wall as the table would allow, looking like a charcoal briquette after it exploded while playing the last Angel's 'speech'.
Sagiri opted to focus on the burnt remains of the monitor as much as he could to avoid the sight of Ritsuko and Maya's insecure interactions, not unlike his method of staring intently at a spot on the ceiling to divert himself during dental procedures.
The air between the two women was thick with some unidentified awkwardness. Crossing the lab roving back-and-forth to perform their respective duties, they noticeably refused to acknowledge one another. They floundered about, continually shunning eye contact, narrowly dodging each other when one had to pass by, and allowing for a wide berth when they didn't.
Whatever it was—whatever went down between Ritsuko and Maya—Sagiri couldn't abide the bumbling evasiveness with which they were going about their work, sometimes to the detriment of their productivity. To him, it was incredibly distracting, and as the frustrating lack of communication persisted, he grew more and more uncomfortable with the surrounding environment.
Right as it became exasperating, a mounting desire to break the silence boiled over inside him, and he whipped around to see Ritsuko and Maya do the same. All three traded looks, their mouths hanging agape, prepared to address the proverbial elephant in the room. Then, one by one, each of them appeared to almost physically hold themselves back, waiting for someone else to crack first.
First, Ritsuko and Sagiri spoke at the same time. Neither fired off more than one syllable before both of them paused to cede the floor to the other, and thus silence temporarily reclaimed the room.
Next, Sagiri opened his mouth to continue speaking, and Maya started to say something as well, inadvertently talking over him. Once more they both stalled and deferred to the other person in anticipation of them speaking first.
For a short time, the room was quiet again as Sagiri stood by restlessly. The escalating tension was tangible.
Ritsuko's head swiveled. On top of her jittery avoidance of Maya, she seemed somewhat lethargic today. Her gaze alternated between the two others in the room and the clipboard in her hands before ultimately settling on Sagiri. In the seconds before she spoke, he noted that she looked to be a little under the weather.
"Sagiri, were you ever–" she began.
That was all she was able to say before she was jointly interrupted by Sagiri and Maya yet again accidentally talking at once. All three of them clammed up, visibly antsy but otherwise rooted in place, then Maya and Ritsuko looked at each other and laughed nervously.
With this one small act, the level of awkwardness in the room was instantaneously sliced in half—it was the first time they looked directly at each other's faces since entering the lab, and the first debatably positive interaction Sagiri had witnessed between the two all day.
"Sorry, ma'am." Maya said, a lopsided grin on her face belying the relief granted by that little giggle she shared with Ritsuko. She nodded to the doctor and scurried down the row of processors to her next task.
"What were you saying, Dr. Akagi?" Sagiri solicited.
"Were you ever able to determine anything from your examination of the tissue sample?" Ritsuko related. Like Maya, she wore a subtle but nonetheless kind of dippy, satisfied smirk under her tired eyes.
"Yes ma'am. We found out a few interesting things about the physiology of the Angel," reported Sagiri, signaling for her to accompany him to a different section of the lab, "I'm not sure how useful they could be, though."
He guided Ritsuko into another area with a decoupled floor, packed with high-throughput tissue processors, embedding stations, electrosurgical units, chromatographs, and miscellaneous other equipment. Navigating around a number of cumbersome biomedical apparatuses, he brought them to a long console comprised of interconnected computer systems. Situated next to the console there was a desk supporting a few ancillary appliances such as centrifuges and microscopes, along with any number of more cryptic devices designed for quantum information processing and other equally singular purposes.
Sagiri slid out a panel on the console, exposing a keyboard, and tapped a key, bringing up a display on one of the screens. A rotating 3-D model of a helical ribbon rendered, followed by another identical model, then both sprouted pegs which bridged and connected them like the rungs of a ladder until the object was recognizable as a strand of DNA. With another pair of keystrokes, Sagiri brought up two columns of rapidly-scrolling letters.
"One of the first things I noticed about the tissue sample, biologically-speaking, was the gene product: interestingly, the nucleotide sequences in the majority of the DNA share a nearly 99% similarity with the human reference genome. Keep in mind it's not my field, but considering that most contemporary people have an average 0.6% difference in alleles from the reference point, you might imagine Angels would have at least somewhat more humanlike phenotypes—genetically they're like, a couple hundred generations of mutation away from essentially being us... It's almost like we have a common ancestor." he proposed, then tapped another key causing the screen to refresh.
"Then again..." he said, stretching out the last syllable. Two circular white outlines popped onto the display next to a vertically-aligned rectangular box. Ritsuko moved closer to get a better vantage point. The circles filled with legions of smaller circles dancing about, sometimes colliding and bouncing off one another, while the box showed an arrangement of green meters attached to multicoloured gradients.
"The next thing that I found fascinating was that, on a subatomic level, it's Dirac matter, broadly composed of exotic fermions that have about twice the relative mass of a neutrino but also exhibit wave behaviours." Sagiri continued once the new display had loaded. Then, wanting to be thorough in case questioned, he specified: "I know technically all quanta display some degree of wave-particle duality, but this is what I'd classify as... significantly non-negligible; closer to the properties of a photon than anything you'd find in the atoms of the typical solid."
"That's consistent with what we know about the atomic structure of most of the Angels so far. I wrote extensively about this phenomenon, which I termed Particle-Wave Matter, in my paper on Crystalline DNA Theory." Ritsuko stated, bending closer to appraise the onscreen data.
"I'd like to read that." Sagiri said, and mashed the same key as before. This time the image on the monitor zoomed in on the interior of one circle until the bounding dots within had definable depth and were zipping around nearly too fast to see. "However, perhaps most intriguing are their emergent properties: it contains quasiparticles that could qualify as discrete time crystals, which are temporally asymmetrical and could theoretically be resistant to entropy." he remarked.
Straightening herself and taking a pen from her lab-coat, Ritsuko jotted something down on her clipboard.
"So it has motion without energy, in a sense—thermodynamically, it's functionally immortal. That must be what it is to have the Fruit of Life." she postulated.
Making a mental note to ask her what she meant by the second half of that later, Sagiri repeated his action and the interior of the circle zoomed out again as a frequency band appeared beneath it.
"There are also some that behave as superconductors and produce a chiral magnetic effect in macroscopic groups, sometimes emitting electromagnetic radiation—sort of like radio waves." he imparted.
"Its latent asymmetry may allow or even cause it to generate an electric current among its magnetic field... this could have potential applications to the further study of AT Fields." said Ritsuko as she continued writing. She dramatically tapped her pen against the page, presumably marking a full stop, then looked up at Sagiri. "Radio waves?"
He shifted to directly face her, nodded, and commenced, "One particular bit has been acting like a transmitter on-and-off since being placed in its current state, but the signal is encoded, somehow... like those noises from the last Angel."
He threw a final glance in the direction of the blackened husk of a computer when he said the latter part, but couldn't see it from where he was.
Ritsuko's brow arced in thought.
"If it's transmitting..." she pondered, "Then where—and what—is the receiver?"
Something about the interior of the test plug always felt slightly off to Shinji... the faintly metallic, oddly sweet blood-like scent of the LCL was present, as was the pervasive low hum, but one indeterminate element of his real entry plug was prominently absent: whatever it was that bestowed it with the warm, soothing quality that Shinji felt inside it. When he was in the cockpit of his Eva, he felt a certain sense of comfort and safety, even in the face of danger, but the test plugs comparatively felt airless and clinical. He tried to relax and concentrate on raising his synch rate, remembering his poor performance during the last test, but it was difficult with his father's unexpected visitation last night still fresh in his mind. The first time his father had ever been to his home, and it wasn't even to see him. That fact, combined with the way Gendo callously dismissed him upon entering and soon after dragged a hesitating Rei off on some unspecified after-hours venture, provided Shinji with an abundance of fresh anxieties to preoccupy his thoughts.
Rei hadn't returned to Misato's apartment afterwards, but Shinji briefly glimpsed her on his way to the locker room, loitering at a nearby docking bay, already wearing her plug-suit. Currently she was in one of the adjacent plugs, submerged halfway in the LCL flooding the chamber with its upper half jutting out diagonally into the open air.
Wondering what her business with his father had been, his mind continually returned to the image of the pair engaged in friendly conversation, both uncharacteristically smiling as he spied on their inaudible discussion. Past endeavours to talk to Rei about his father had not only raised more questions than they answered, but discouraged him from broaching the subject with her in the future. Recalling the incident on the escalator where she castigated him after he expressed doubt in his father, Shinji mentally relived the instant her speeding open-palmed hand cracked against his cheek in retaliation.
Every thought he had about Rei ended in a question mark. He envisioned her sitting inside the plug, placid and meditative as ever, curious if her readings were stable.
Reminded of the task at hand, Shinji sighed, and a cascade of yellowish-orange bubbles rushed from his mouth. They floated upwards, then reversed, popping in quick succession as he sucked in a deep breath, trying to keep himself grounded. It wasn't necessary that he score the highest—recently he'd been hailed as 'number one' for his performance on a synch test, and the confidence it allotted him only bloomed into a reckless arrogance that caused more pain for everyone—but there was a mandated minimum value he needed to meet. Other than that, a pitiful score was acceptable... If he ranked last, at least Asuka would satisfied that she outperformed him, something he figured was probably for the best.
More and more lately, he'd been struck with a compulsion to lift Asuka's spirits—to keep her content and happy, for reasons beyond a basic interest in keeping the peace. It upset him when she was distraught, distressed or angry; it made him feel good to see her smiling.
This wasn't the time to assess these feelings, however—he could figure out what they meant later... All these thoughts were certainly interfering with his test results. He adjusted his position in the seat and gripped the levers situated in front of him, visualising himself piloting Unit-01, but remained distracted by seeing the new staff member in the control room.
With the mystery of the latest Angel hanging over everyone's heads, labour had to be divided among the Technical department, thus the new guy was running synch tests with Misato while Ritsuko was busy elsewhere. The process was going smoothly enough for it to be his inaugural effort, but overhearing specific announcements about 'harmonics' and 'neural feedback' in a voice other than Dr. Akagi's sounded unnatural to Shinji.
Something Sagiri—whatever his name was—was cheerful and animated as he worked, chatting and occasionally laughing with the other engineers. Whenever Shinji caught sight of him, he looked lively and brimming with vitality; he boasted a naturally buoyant temperament. Come to think of it, although clearly tired, the guy was still oddly jovial the first time Shinji saw him. Even on the tail of an undoubtedly stressful day, he had no trouble interacting with Misato and matching her enthusiasm. Shinji didn't understand people like that. How was anyone capable of working through their emotions, seemingly never letting anything get to them? Were they impervious to the effects of pain, or just extraordinarily gifted at ignoring it? What was it that made this Sagiri person so chipper?
The radio crackled awake as someone in the control room employed talkback to address the pilots, and Shinji snapped to attention. Mildly embarrassed knowing that they were able to see him jump on their screens, he tried to conceal how much the sound startled him by continuing to wriggle around as if easing a cramp.
Another crackle gave way to a dry hiss, and a voice filtered through: "Alright, we've got what we need... you guys are all done in there for today." said the new staff member.
When making the announcement, he again sounded more confident than he logically should given his inexperience. Perhaps it was projected, Shinji considered—maybe it was like a defense mechanism, and this Sagiri was only affecting airs to compensate for staggeringly low confidence. Whatever the case may be, as a loud buzzing reverberated through the chamber to signal the LCL draining, Shinji figured he'd soon have opportunities to study the new staff member more closely.
————
Rows of caged bulbs lit up red as the buzzers fell silent, endowing the chamber with an alarming fiery hue. Bit by bit, gravity drank the reservoir of LCL until it diminished into a sprinkling of shallow, ebbing puddles. A stable slurping noise evolved into a hideous gurgle as the last dregs of orange liquid formed into whirlpools surrounding grated drains on the floor of the chamber.
While the volume of fluid in her plug decreased, Asuka prepped herself for the jarring change in oxygen density. She exhaled a stream of bubbles, waited for the liquid's surface to drop below her face, and inhaled a lungful of dry air. Hydraulic whooshing permeated the interior of the plug, underscored by a sequence of ratcheting clicks, and the hatch opened with a barely-audible squeak.
Activating the release to slide the seat back, Asuka pushed herself up from her sitting position and shimmied toward the door, kicking through a couple inches of lingering LCL pooled at the bottom of the pod. Amber waves sloshed around her feet, spilling out of the opening as she climbed through the hatch.
Touching down on the floor, she noted that Rei had already left the room. There was a smaller antechamber of sorts sandwiched between the testing area and the control room, intended for decompression. The adjoining spaces were separated by thick reinforced steel doors with circular windows resembling portholes—Rei's blue hair was visible through the window in the closest door.
Asuka dashed forward and sidled up next to Shinji, matching his pace on the way to the next room.
"I knew you beating my score was just a fluke," she bragged, teasing, "You better watch out, or pretty soon you won't be the favourite anymore."
Shinji's jaw moved as if he was opening his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a sort of grunt consisting of a truncated 'M' sound, and he rolled his shoulders in a stunning display of disinterest. With no further affirmation of her, he continued through the pair of heavy doors. Suffice to say, this was not the response Asuka was looking for.
"Hey! Shinji, wait!" Asuka cried, tailing him into the control room.
As she and Shinji entered, Misato glanced up at them. Sagiri followed Misato's gaze to take note as well and he smiled at them. From what Asuka had seen of him so far, he seemed affable enough, but she couldn't help but nurse some suspicions that it was all fake. She naturally distrusted anyone who acted that friendly for no discernible reason... surely no one was that nice.
Allegedly Sagiri was some kind of scientific prodigy, hence his relatively important position despite being only a couple of years older than her—a real whiz kid type, probably deprived of a childhood and driven beyond his limits by overbearing Japanese parents, unlike Asuka's thoroughly independent, self-motivated academic achievements. All that pressure must have culminated in a deeply embittered individual who was likely far more uptight than his generally pleasant disposition would suggest. Doubtless he was highly conceited, too... Asuka was willing to bet he'd convinced himself he was the smartest person in the world.
Stomping to catch up with Shinji, she smacked him in the shoulder with the back of her hand.
"I'm talking to you, stupid," she growled.
Shinji craned his neck to look over his shoulder at her and apologised, "Sorry Asuka–"
"Good job, Asuka!" Misato cheered, cutting him off before he could say anything else, and Shinji turned his head away again.
"Yeah, congratulations Miss Soryu," Sagiri concurred, "You scored the highest, with the best synch rate out of anyone today."
At least he was capable of offering credit when credit was due.
Finally, Asuka was getting the recognition she deserved for her superior abilities. She semi-consciously adopted a lofty heroic pose, thrusting one knee out and placing her hands on her hips.
"Hmph, of course! Did you honestly expect anything else?" she blustered, "Who was gonna beat me—the First, or that idiot Shinji?"
Predictably, Rei paid her no mind, but frustratingly, neither did Shinji, who hardly reacted to his name, opting instead to stare straight ahead with his eyes pinned to a spot somewhere between Sagiri and Rei. His shoulders were slumped and his face was twisted in an inquisitive expression.
"Sorry Shinji, but your good-luck streak couldn't last forever." Asuka smirked, elbowing Shinji in the ribs.
His torso folded when her elbow made contact, and he cast her a side-eyed glance, but continued withholding any manner of verbal reply. What was his deal? Was he purposefully ignoring her?
Misato, who up until this point had been leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, suddenly kicked herself upright, unfolding her arms. "Well Sagiri, if you think you've got it covered, I have some errands to run," she announced, strolling toward the exit, "You can tell me more about the Hecate Cluster next time I see you."
"It's no problem; all that's left to do is configure this data, and the Magi will handle most of the compiling." Sagiri said confidently, "Other than that I think we're done here. Good luck with your errands!"
He gave Misato a quick salute, then entered some kind of code into the console behind him.
A device next to the door beeped twice as Misato swiped her ID card through the slot, and a minute red LED light on the device blinked green to indicate the door was unlocked before it opened, permitting her to pass into the hallway.
That briefest little taste of commendation was all Asuka had earned, apparently, and it wasn't close to the level of accolade she deserved—that she craved. Only receiving a nominal dose of attention, she seethed with frustration at being cast aside. Self-doubt boiled inside her, churning violently. She felt overlooked, and that was beginning to make her feel small. More than that, she was beginning to feel invisible, almost like when her mother would... no, don't think about that.
If stupid Shinji wouldn't pay attention to her, she would find a way to make him. So far teasing him hadn't worked, and neither had outright insulting him, nor had literally physically ribbing him been very successful; but Asuka knew one technique she hadn't tried yet—a surefire way to make Shinji take notice of her. Drastic times call for drastic measures.
While Sagiri was still facing the other direction, she circled in front of Shinji, shut her eyes and arched her back, slowly running her hands upwards along the sides of her body.
"Shinji," she purred as her palms slid over the curves of her breasts, "Don't you think my boobs are really starting to fill out my plugsuit?" she asked softly, gently kneading them through the fabric.
Heat spread through her limbs stemming from a tingling sensation between her legs, and she quickly withdrew her hands, dropping them to her sides.
These measures would only be mildly embarrassing as long as the only witness was Shinji, but when Asuka opened her eyes, he was no longer in front of her. She anticipated him in a bowed stance, red-faced with bulging eyes, potentially gushing blood from his nose, but instead he simply wasn't there. Befuddled, she spun around, and saw the moron had cluelessly wandered away, strolling past her and over to the console next to Sagiri, where the two of them were wrapped up in what she was almost positive was a very stupid conversation.
At first, Shinji's obliviousness stung, but truthfully Asuka wasn't sure why she expected anything different. Shinji was a child, after all—he was shockingly unsuited to understand her advances. He wouldn't know what to do with her if she stripped butt naked and jumped in his lap.
Regardless, Asuka was practically shaking with the force of her irritation at this point, so absorbed in her ire that she barely noticed when Rei flatly informed her that everyone else was leaving the room.
————
Trekking through the circuitous, interminably winding corridors of NERV Headquarters (to get from any given point A to any specified point B) had always been a tiresome slog through what felt like miles of frequently indistinguishable, often dank passageways; but ever since the blackout, Asuka also associated hiking through the dreary halls with the indignity of having to rely on the Commander's pet to avoid getting lost wandering their convoluted layout.
If there was one thing Asuka couldn't abide, it was appearing inferior to an impassive doll like Rei, so from then on she normally made a point of walking in front of the blue-haired girl whenever she could help it, but today she intentionally hung back on the way to the locker room so she could keep watch of the interaction between Shinji and Sagiri.
The pair of them were a few steps ahead of her, side-by-side, chattering away like old friends as they came across an intersection where the corridor split into branching paths. Asuka glared at them with narrowed eyes and a clenched jaw. Although she couldn't hear their discussion, just before Sagiri departed down a separate hallway, to her utmost disbelief she thought she saw Shinji laughing. Actually laughing.
Why was Shinji laughing? What did Sagiri say to make him laugh? Was it something about her?
Glass cracked behind Asuka's eyes. Her skull resonated with a noise like a rockslide, and she realised she was grinding her teeth. At first, instinct told her to yell at, berate and batter Shinji, but at the same time intuition told her that wouldn't be satisfying in this case. Less satisfying than normal, even.
In this instance, Asuka's insecurities had identified a new target for her resentment: the brunt of her animosity was currently aimed squarely at Sagiri.
Being ignored vexed Asuka to no end, and being ignored by Shinji especially infuriated her, but it made sense when say, the other two members of the Idiot Trio stole focus from her—they were his friends. Shinji wasn't someone who made friends fast, and he certainly wasn't someone who laughed easily... That in itself was enough to suggest to Asuka there was something strange about Sagiri—something she would be hard-pressed to put her finger on if pushed, but could nonetheless sense lurking, buried somewhere beneath the surface, just under the veneer of his 'people-pleaser' personality and all his 'boy genius' posturing.
Around the time she heard the other pilots' footsteps resume, Sagiri was long gone, having disappeared into the aggressive shadows down the far end of the perpendicular hallway.
Minutes later, they were grouped by the elevator waiting for the mechanism to tick down to their floor. Asuka made eye contact with her reflection in the elevator doors. Her doppelgänger glared disapprovingly back at her, eyes slightly askew from being vertically sliced in half by the line where the doors met. The mechanism clicked, and she watched her face cleanly open along the line, the two sides of her head pulling back to reveal...
"Kaji!" she squealed.
One man who could bring comfort to her in the bleakest of times, and here he was just on the other side of the doorway when she needed him. Her knight in fashionably-messy business-casual armour. She threw up her arms, prepared to hurl herself at him—seriously tackle him, maybe with a running start, and ensnare him in a big hug.
Kaji exited the elevator and advanced straight towards Asuka in long, deliberate strides. The distance between them was quickly shrinking; Asuka could almost hear romantic music playing as he hastened to her opened arms. Very soon, he would sweep her off her feet, scoop her up, and carry her far away from the misery of this moment.
Just as Kaji was nearly on top of her, mere inches away from finding himself swathed in her loving embrace, he paused and said, "Sorry, Asuka; I'm busy right now."
Sidestepping her, he took off racing down the corridor.
The romantic music slowed drastically and melted into a sludgy drone before falling silent.
Asuka whirled around and cupped her hands into a makeshift megaphone.
"You're just going to see Misato, aren't you!?" she shouted, stamping her feet, "Aren't you!?"
Without so much as a glance back, he continued. An answer wasn't necessary, of course; his lack of response told her everything she needed to know: no one wanted her.
Skidding around the last corner like a baseball player stealing third, Kaji doubled over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. As his frenzied panting steadied into heavy, quasi-meditative puffs of air, his whole upper body rocked back and forth and his heart threatened to beat out of his chest.
His mind was yelling at his body for being in such a wretched state after a relatively short run. Cigarettes may have been the prime suspect in the case of his lungs, except his muscles were on fire and soreness was creeping into his joints as well... He knew he wasn't a teenager anymore, sure, but he wasn't that old yet, was he?
Standing up, he peered along the wall and spotted an irrefutable clue that he was too late to prevent the precise thing he'd sprinted most of this way to avoid: the door to Ritsuko's office was unlocked.
"Damn it." he murmured to himself.
There was no use denying the door was unlocked, because it was ajar. One noticed these sorts of things in his line of work.
The first thing he was able to ascertain from his approach was that the person who had broken into the office was still in there: a thin light, unmistakably a flashlight beam, swung past the crack in the door. Potentially, this development was the luckiest outcome he could have hoped for next to intercepting the trespasser beforehand.
He cautiously laid his hand on the outside of the door and gingerly pushed it open, allowing light from the hallway to stream through the gap. In the column of newly-illuminated space he could see numerous papers strewn across the floor, principally photocopies of documents, sprayed outwards in haphazard arcs when the beige file folders that once enshrined them dive-bombed the tile. Dull shades of deep blue cyclically washed over the opposite wall, presumably generated by the computer's screensaver.
Slipping the toe of his shoe through the entryway, Kaji preemptively raised his hands palms-out above his head before his completed step brought the rest of his foot across the doorframe. From behind the cloak of darkness, a medley of auditory rustling could be heard. Once he had both feet on the other side, his faltering right hand clambered for a light switch, then promptly reunited with the other above his head. He was perfectly aware what kind of encounter awaited him.
When the shadows rescinded, the first thing unveiled to him was a the barrel of a gun, trained directly on him, shortly followed by the person holding said gun.
Roughly a meter away, separated from him by Ritsuko's computer desk, was Misato, standing with her feet shoulder-width apart and her pistol held at arm's length. Her folded hands stayed steady as a rock—she was poised to pull the trigger at the slightest provocation.
"Kaji?" she exhaled as she lowered the handgun.
"Katsuragi," Kaji replied, dropping his hands, "I got your message... I see I was a bit slow on the draw in getting here, though."
Misato holstered her weapon and straightened her red jacket.
"On the contrary, you're just in time to help me look through some of this stuff." she said, and nodded to the scattered files near his feet as she set to rifling through the desk drawers.
"What do you expect to find in here?" he inquired, "There won't be hard copies of anything confidential, much less top secret, just lying around Ritsu's office."
He crouched to snatch a sheet of paper off the floor, examining it for a moment before standing up and proceeding: "NERV isn't nearly that careless with evidence of things they'd prefer to keep under wraps—info on some of their shady dealings is so well-hidden it's possible we may never know all the details."
"Can't know for sure unless you look," she countered as she shuffled around fistfuls of notes, beseeching him, "Come on and help me dig."
Kaji reached down again, gathering a collection of like-documents, and began stacking them into piles on the desk.
"Watch out, Katsuragi: if you're not careful digging, you just end up slinging dirt everywhere... please let me handle the investigating; it could be dangerous."
"If it could be dangerous, that's all the more reason for you to help me, because I'm going to do this with or without you." insisted Misato.
Tucking papers into according folders, Kaji sighed.
"I suppose it can't be helped... just know that if we're found out, I'm still going to assume 100% of the responsibility. Now, let's start fixing this mess—I'm going to show you how to do this right."
Squeaking intercut with the class rep's barked directions and the scent of citrus pervaded the classroom as the students of Class-2A drifted about, brandishing their assigned cleaning supplies.
On his knees near his desk, Shinji gripped his short brush in one hand and dustpan in the other, eying them like alien implements, miles away inside his head. A loud smack nearly caused him to fling the tools aside, and he looked past them at Toji, hovering over him with a mischievous smirk.
"Hey Ikari, trade with me." Toji suggested, pushing his long broom toward Shinji while simultaneously reaching for the shorter brush.
Defensively yanking the brush away, Shinji rose from his kneeling position to bring himself closer to Toji's eye-level and asked, "Why?"
"I feel like I'll have a better... view from closer to the floor." hinted Toji in a conspiratorial whisper.
"View of what?" Shinji questioned.
"He wants to try and look up girls' skirts." Kensuke explained, perhaps a bit louder than intended, as he pretended his sweeping led him closer to them.
Kensuke suddenly looked frightened and hurriedly faux-swept in the opposite direction. Immediately afterwards Toji grimaced and backed away as well. Turning to find out what they were fleeing, Shinji found himself inches from a scowling Hikari and spun back around to follow them.
In his scramble to escape the class rep's wrath, Toji made no effort to watch where he was going.
"Watch out!" Shinji cried, and waved his brush like was signaling a plane to land, looking on in horror as one of his friends backed into the other.
Tottering, Kensuke stumbled forward, slinging his broom and spinning his arms to retain his balance. He stayed on his feet only to slip on a slick patch of freshly-mopped tile and go down anyway, practically hydroplaning halfway across the room. He came skidding to a halt milliseconds away from a violent collision with a bucket of soapy water, his foot softly thudding against the bucket's exterior. On the other side of the bucket, an unaffected Rei crouched down and dampened a washcloth in its sudsy contents.
Shinji placed his brush on a nearby desk and offered his free hand to Kensuke.
"S-sorry, Ayanami." he muttered as he helped his friend to his feet.
She said nothing in return, but grasped the ends of the washcloth in her slight hands and twisted.
As she wrung out the cloth, Shinji squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head, trying to ignore the sound of the water. Last time he'd watched her wring out a cloth, it gave off an unexplainable matronly impression that reminded him of his own mother. Now he understood it was misguided and conceivably dangerous to project a maternal role onto Rei. He may not have known who she was, but he did know she was not his mother.
Noticing his reaction to Rei, Toji inquired, "What's with you and Ayanami today?"
"Yeah bud," Kensuke chimed in, "It's like you've been avoiding her."
"It's just..." Shinji began, looking around, "I was thinking about how you told the new kid that since we were both Eva pilots, I probably knew her better than anyone." He surveyed the room, locating Yori, who was off by himself spritzing desks with some kind of spray bottle, in isolation whereas nearly all the other students had clustered into groups... he was only a few meters away from them, but may as well have been on a different planet.
Shinji proceeded, "Well, she actually moved into Ms. Misato's apartment the day before that, so we live together now as well, and I still feel like I don't really know anything about her at all."
"Hold on, you live with Ayanami now, too!?" Toji broadcasted to the class, hushing all nearby conversation and drawing stares from their peers. He'd zeroed in on that part of Shinji's statement, selectively omitting the rest of it. "Sharing a place with three girls—you lucky bastard!"
While Toji decreed his envy, Kensuke hopped up dramatically to join.
"It's like the plot of a harem anime!" he declared, and grabbed Shinji by the collar of his school shirt, shaking him, "As if I wasn't jealous enough already."
After Kensuke released him, but before he could cough out as much as an 'it's not like that at all' rebuttal, Shinji's ears pricked at a familiar growl, and he spotted a certain redhead combusting like a human fireball between his two friends.
"A harem?" Asuka scoffed.
The two boys barely had time to register her presence her hands snaked around either side of their heads and clapped them together, slamming their skulls against each other.
"What did I tell you about insinuating anything might ever happen between me and stupid Shinji?" she roared as they scuttled away from her, rubbing their bruised scalps.
"Nothing will ever happen!"
"A-Asuka," Shinji murmured. His chest cavity was a vacuum—hearing her talk like this always scooped out his insides.
"Shinji is just a child! A little boy who'd be too scared to try anything even if he knew how, or was smart enough to recognise the opportunity!" she continued yelling,
"So even if there's other girls it's not like it matters anyway!"
At this point, drawn to the unfolding drama, the rest of the students had set aside their cleaning and convened around the disruption.
Undeterred, Asuka pressed on, "And besides, they aren't options! Misato's too busy with Kaji... and Rei?" she seethed as she rotated her hips to face the blue-haired girl, gesticulating sharply toward her, "Yeah right! Rei is a robot—an emotionless doll!"
Shinji glanced around the room, noting the other students encircling them, silently gawking. Catching sight of Rei, he felt a pang of sympathy for her, although her usual stoic countenance hardly betrayed any hurt she may have felt, somewhat illustrating Asuka's words. Her eyes were downcast, and she had an almost imperceptible aura of indignation.
Rei's eyes locked on Asuka.
"I... am not a doll." she said.
"What was that!?" Asuka demanded.
"I am not a doll." Rei repeated, somewhat more assertively despite the relative softness of her voice.
"Yes, you are!" Asuka retorted, "You have no personality! You basically never talk, and you've never once shown any emotion!"
"Hey!" a voice piped from somewhere within the congested assemblage of students.
A few kids on the far end of the circle began shuffling, then parted in different directions, breaking the circle to make an opening for the speaker. It was Yori. This stunned everyone; whispers swept along the line of onlookers.
"What do you want, new kid?" Asuka asked.
Having clearly acted before he thought, Yori sputtered a false start, then took a deep breath and tried again.
"Leave her alone," he insisted, "Just because she has trouble expressing her feelings doesn't mean she doesn't have any."
The murmurs from the crowd persisted, and Asuka's head swiveled as she looked at each person gathered in turn, her face turning roughly the same shade as her hair.
"Whatever!" she shouted, throwing up her arms in aggravated concession.
Aiming to escape into the already-dispersing group, she pitched forward and shoved Shinji aside, barreling into him shoulder-first like a rugby player. Hikari tailed behind her, offering Shinji a rushed apology after bumping into him also.
Hollow on the inside, Shinji could only stand by haplessly.
He was useless.
————
Excess dust particles danced in thick squares of sunlight channeling through the classroom windows. Cleaning restarted shortly after the excitement ended, and was well underway—the attendees of 2A bustled about, wiping and sweeping until every surface sparkled.
Rei's head swam with questions about what just happened.
She crouched by the plastic bucket and dipped the cloth into the water, immersing her hands in the lathery, lukewarm liquid. Submerging them up to her wrists, she held them under, letting the sensations of the state change enfold her skin as she peered down into the sloshing blue contents of the bucket. It made her feel safe. Paradoxically, the closer her proximity to those around her, the further away they seemed. The open air was cold; it was warmer beneath the water.
She lifted the now dense, soaking cloth, and wound it tightly, squeezing the superfluous water back into the bucket. It dripped through her fingers and drizzled down with a reposeful sound like her own personal rainstorm as thoughts of the new student infiltrated her mind once more.
She studied Yori as he wiped down the desk at the end of the row in compact circular motions, and her head became muddled. Her thought processes jumbled into a thrombosis of misshapen, half-formed images and disorganised questions with no logical answers.
Something about him just bothered her, in ways she couldn't categorise. He was a problem that couldn't be assessed mathematically. He was emptiness in the shape of a boy, defined by his absence like an optical illusion where the outline of a bigger picture was visible in the negative space.
What had been his intention in speaking on her behalf? Did he somehow stand to benefit from rousing Asuka's enmity? Why involve himself at all?
One prospective guess, which Rei dismissed offhand as baseless, was that his interests may have appertained to her... Though improbable, there was a possibility—however remote—that he may have been acting in defense of her, but even if this were necessary (much less invited), he had no plausible motivation for doing so; feasibly, the most he could hope to gain for his trouble was an award of thanks. To Rei, the average person's quest to seek gratefulness was a perplexing enterprise—on their own, thanks held no pragmatic functions.
She again revisited the time Commander Ikari came to her aid after that disastrous activation test... and how the kind man she thought she knew—who she believed to be capable of such a selfless act—was fading, gradually morphing into someone brutish.
Yori's bid to help (if it was such) was admittedly less grand in scale, but some facet of him reminded Rei of the Commander, in a way. How the Commander used to be. However, reason dictated it didn't fundamentally speak to some cosmic parallel between the two—it could be as obvious as them both wearing glasses.
Repeating her process of dunking the washcloth, she inhaled deeply while wringing it out, filling her nostrils with the soapy scent and listening to the soothing sprinkle of the water droplets. She considered the wavy, distorted splotches of her face, reflected in the bucket's interior like an expressionist painting as she breathed out through her mouth. Her breath quickened as she spied Yori advancing on her in the reflection, having moved down the line of desks to clean one closer to her.
Raising her head, she glared at him with a tightness spreading in her chest, able to perceive a kind of barrier around him, separating him from everyone else—protecting, but also sequestering him. An insular glass prison, much like the one besetting her through most of her life.
Rei stood up, dropping the washcloth into the bucket. As she closed in on Yori, he froze. Light glinted off the lenses of his glasses from behind a curtain of messy burgundy hair, shielding his eyes from view.
"Why did you speak up for me?" she asked.
Yori's eyes darted back and forth for a second before he stammered, "It-it wasn't r-right, for her to yell at you, and attack you like that. It wasn't f-fair. I don't know... I wanted to help."
Hearing this theory proven surprised Rei, but she knew the appropriate response was to bestow words of gratitude.
"Thank you." she said.
"It's no big deal," Yori said, anxiously twisting the rag in his hand, "I'm sorry she said those things."
"Why would you apologise for someone else's actions?" Rei questioned.
Yori shrugged, "I don't know, to express empathy, I guess."
The word barbed in Rei's mind.
"Empathy?"
"Yeah," Yori said, "I know what it's like to be a target for that kind of treatment... and about what she was saying—you're not a robot. I also know what it's like to not be able to interpret what I'm feeling. I think that's part of the reason I started writing poetry; it helps."
Poetry, as a practice, was another concept which mystified Rei—words were insufficient tools for depicting the abstract, and striving to verbally capture beauty was a futile undertaking, a fool's errand; but his poetry could provide a window of insight into his inexplicable allure.
An idea planted itself in Rei's head.
"Could I... read some of your poetry?"
After camping out in the dark, empty room for what seemed like forever, at last Misato heard the door to Ritsuko's office unlock. She'd affected acquiescence to Kaji's appeals, helping him clean up and agreeing to conduct things 'his way' primarily to placate him, then returned to finish what she started once the coast was clear. His methods, while not ineffective, just weren't her style—they were too subtle, and too slow. Misato preferred the straightforward approach.
The lights clicked on, and she pressed her body against the wall, waiting for her prey to present itself. When Ritsuko was within a foot of her desk, Misato swiftly stepped out from the cut, gun drawn, looking down the top-sight centered on her friend's blonde head.
She cocked the .45. Technically needless, but it produced a satisfying, and more importantly, intimidating click.
"Hey, Ritsuko," she said, "You and I need to have a little chat."
————
Even with a gun to her back, Ritsuko was almost too willing to lead Misato through hall upon hall upon walkway, elevator, and lift into the fathomless, spiraling substrata of HQ. She was oddly ready to follow through with her purported promise to reveal 'the true origin of Rei Ayanami', as if she'd predicted this and long resigned herself to its inevitability. More than that, she had an eagerness to unburden herself of the secret suggesting it had become too much to bear alone, arduous to maintain with no avenue for sharing. The one thing she said when Misato explained her demand was "I'm tired of keeping his secrets, anyway."
Without another word exchanged between them, Ritsuko escorted them though miles and miles of identical Byzantine corridors bristling with unseemly piping, into the deepest bowels of Central Dogma.
Their hike took them past pits chockfull of oversized human-looking bones Misato deduced had belonged to abortive Eva units, and through concrete cells arranged into ascetic stopgap bedrooms.
At the end of their odyssey, they came to a large circular chamber with a climate of nearly religious mystique, constructed around a mysterious floor-to-ceiling mechanical installation in the center of the room, resembling a gigantic human brain with most of the stem and the beginnings of a spinal column attached.
From the center of the bulbous snarl of metal ducts forming the 'brain', a radial netting of hoses lashed out and a thin pillar coated in segmented vertebral plates descended until it intersected with a glass tube atop a dais on the floor. In the center of the floor itself, illuminated by the orange glow of the tube, there was an expansive engraving of some kind of glyph or sigil which (knowing NERV) Misato assumed had an amount of Western occult significance.
"What is this place?" she demanded, her Heckler still trained soundly on Ritsuko as they entered the cavernous space.
Taking a few steps forward, Ritsuko twirled around to face Misato and took another step backward, arms outstretched. In one hand, she grasped a tablet—possibly a remote control—she'd uncovered from within the folds of her lab-coat.
"This is the core of the Dummy Plug System," she announced, "And this is where Rei Ayanami was born."
She swiped the screen of her tablet and the black walls turned yellow.
Floodlights switched on, exposing the enormous volume of LCL surrounding them on all sides, the walls of the room actually having been thick translucent panes holding back hundreds of gallons of liquid, not unlike an aquarium exhibit. Then, bleary shapes stirred inside them. Something was swimming in there, silhouettes gamboling about, shadows assuming humanoid forms and eventually clarity of detail as they swam closer to the wall. What Misato saw once the shapes were fully in focus was unexpected and frankly shocking: they were Rei—they were all Rei.
Misato was at a loss for words, which she would be the first one to admit was an incredibly rare event. Her mouth hung open, and the pistol drooped in her grip as her stiff arms slackened.
"This is...?" she hesitated.
"These are dummies. Spare parts for Rei," Ritsuko explained, "Fifteen years ago, humans discovered God, and being humans, were obliged to recreate God as human, to possess him. This led to disaster." she narrated.
As she spoke, she strolled along the edge of the room, tracing the forefinger of her free hand across the glass wall. A few of the Rei-things inside the tank paddled after her, convening near her and playfully circling one another.
Misato couldn't help but shudder; they looked exactly like Rei, but virtually mindless, carefree, blissful in their ignorance. They had an implacable uncanniness to them.
"Second Impact." Misato said.
One of the Reis pressed a flattened palm against the edge of the tank, and Ritsuko placed her opened hand in the same spot on the other side, fingertip-to-fingertip like a mirror image.
She continued: "Humanity was not chastened, and next tampered in God's domain by creating a human from God. The project succeeded, and Eva was created; however, it was born without a soul."
"What does any of this have to do with Rei?" Misato interrogated her.
"A human woman gave her life to imbue Eva with a soul," Ritsuko replied, "In desperation, two men tried to resurrect her, and from their grief and despair, Rei was created... borne of God, and Man. She was the only one born with a soul—the Chamber of Guf was empty; the rest of these... things are just empty vessels. Soulless."
She suddenly reared back and punched the wall, slamming her knotted fist into the spot where her palm had been with a resounding thud. Shaken, the Reis flocking inside the tank scattered.
"I used to think Gendo cared about her, at least," she said. She spoke softly, but her voice carried, amplified by the design of the room. "Even if he would never choose me, at least he cared about her..." she sniffled, on the cusp of tears, and went on, "Because she represented his link to Yui, and as long as he held onto that, it meant he was still capable of love."
At this point, Ritsuko was sobbing, resting the top of her head on the wall with her arms hung limply at her sides. She went quiet for a moment, then lifted the tablet she still held.
"Now I see, though: he doesn't care about anything... so what's the point in keeping these empty things around? I hate them!" she bawled, bumping her head on the glass. "So I'm going to destroy them."
Misato had never seen Ritsuko like this before, and the sight of her friend—who was commonly levelheaded to the point of seeming cold—primed for irrational behaviour, fraught with unrestrained, unruly emotion... unnerved her.
"Ritsuko, think about what you're about to do," she urged, cautiously approaching.
Spinning around, Ritsuko held the control near her face with a shaking hand, the extended index finger of her other hand hovering threateningly a couple inches above it.
"Don't come any closer!" she screamed, and raised her finger, glancing down at the tablet's screen.
Staring at something on the screen, her face untwisted from its coil of despondency and her arms slowly dropped before she whirled back around, prudently scanning the walls for something.
"This isn't right..." she murmured, "My count starts at three. There's one missing."
"Missing?" Misato asked, "Where would it have gone?"
"I should have known." Ritsuko said, repeating, "I should have known. How could I have thought..."
Nonplussed, all Misato could do was look on, blank-faced, as Ritsuko ran from the room.
Pacing anxiously back-and-forth across the decaying floor of the dilapidated, bombed-out structure they designated as the rendezvous point, Pierre Bretagne checked his watch again for the fifth time in as many minutes, curious and concerned as to where his contact was. They agreed to meet at this secluded cesspit of a derelict way-station at precisely 01800 hours... it was treacherous for him to remain in one place for too long; the rest of the committee had eyes everywhere. What could Ikari be doing?
He checked his watch again only to be confronted with the reality that less than a full minute had passed since last time. If anything, time seemed to be slowing down the longer he lingered here. It was extremely remote, and not exactly out in the open, but it still made him feel too exposed—as long as he was sedentary at all, he was a sitting duck in Keel's shooting gallery. Especially considering the nature of what he'd come to do.
Eyes cast downward, he kicked a pebble near his left foot, sending it careening off the edge of the splintering, mildewed wood floor, to where it clattered to a stop on a patch of clay with a wisp of red dust in its wake.
When it finished rolling, the clacking persisted, and Pierre's heart stopped, his limbs petrified, certain he'd been discovered.
These were to be his last few moments of freedom, and he was spending them in this piss-stinking abandoned building, having been drawn here by a known grifter, foolishly convinced that even entertaining the thought of indulging in his shameful fantasies could've ended in any way other than his utter ruination. Within seconds, the police, or the JSSDF, or SEELE's private security team would storm the vicinity, haul him off, drag him before a kangaroo court, and toss him down a hole where he'd never be seen or heard from again—if he was lucky.
God damn Ikari... he was probably kicked back in the cushy office the council gave him, laughing at Pierre for his gullibility.
"Councilman," a voice intoned from the direction of the entrance, an empty doorway with a cracked, flaking frame.
It was Gendo, and he'd brought... her. The pilot of Unit-00. She stood behind him, bashfully hiding, using his body to shield herself from Pierre's view.
Pierre raised his hand to wave to her, assure her that he was friendly, but the instant he moved, she shrunk away sheepishly, ducking behind Gendo and peeping out fearfully. This wasn't ideal, but if she didn't become accustomed to him naturally, it was something he could train out of her.
From the moment Pierre first saw the shy young girl, with her bright, innocent red eyes and shaggy blue pageboy haircut, he'd been enraptured, and swore to himself that she would belong to him one day. She taunted him with her naïveté and her nubile body. Through whatever unscrupulous means he need employ, he would possess her as his own. Now, this precious creature was physically in the same room as him, still teasing him, playing up her coyness with her lithe physique wrapped in that form-fitting white bodysuit. He had to steady himself, curb his excitement until they had officially made the exchange.
"You have some information for me?" Gendo prompted, keeping himself between Pierre and the girl as if he'd seen Pierre drooling.
He was speaking English; one of the disadvantages of meeting in such a dump was that they didn't have the luxury of automated translation. For Pierre, though, the pros still far outweighed the cons—he didn't want to imagine what fate might befall him if the other members caught wind of this little tête-à-tête.
"Oui... I mean, yes," Pierre said, "Have you ever heard of Project Arjuna?"
"It was a Gehirn project spearheaded by Naoko Akagi, intended to circumvent some of the complications involved in synchronising with an Evangelion. It was abandoned when it was discovered to cause mental instability in test subjects... many of them died, but the research was salvaged and became the basis for the the prototype of the A10 Nerve Interface headsets now worn by the pilots.," Gendo divulged, "In essence, Arjuna was the precursor to the current synch process."
"Partially correct," Pierre smirked, impressed with Gendo's resourcefulness despite his disdain for the man himself, "But did you know that before they gave up on it completely, the project scientists attempted to repurpose the technology to allow for communication between humans and Angels?"
Tucking his bony hand into his black coat, he fetched a disk drive from an interior pocket and crept forward, offering it to Gendo. The girl flinched.
Pierre carefully backed away once Gendo received the disk, and resumed: "SEELE intends to reinitiate Project Arjuna, for their own needs. It will be their secret weapon, their—comment dites-vous—trump card."
"Impossible," Gendo balked, "All records of it were erased, and the physical evidence was destroyed in a mock weapons test."
"It would seem not all of it—some information survived, and can be found on that drive." Pierre informed him. "Now, our agreement, Ikari? The girl?"
Reaching behind him, Gendo wrapped his fingers around one of her birdlike wrists and wrenched her out from behind him, then laid his hands on her shoulders, nudging her toward Pierre. Pierre sprung forward and threw his arms around her, stabilising her as she stumbled on the uneven flooring. She squirmed in his clasped arms at first, but he held fast to mollify her, softly and reassuringly shushing her until she stopped struggling.
"That's my sweet girl," he whispered, and brushed a lock of her icy blue hair out of her eyes before nodding toward Gendo, "Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Ikari."
A toothless grin creased Gendo's face, and he bid goodbye to Pierre in Japanese, disappearing back through the empty broken doorframe through which he'd entered.
Taking the girl's shoulders in his hands, Pierre spun her around to gaze into her ruby eyes. At last, this exquisite creature was his, to have and to hold and to do with as he wished.
With one hand, he caressed her hip, walking his fingers up the side of her torso, cupping her chin in the other hand.
He leaned in to taste her soft lips, but halted when her left eye began twitching erratically.
Before he could process what was happening, the eye ballooned to twice its size, bulging from its socket, as the other eye grotesquely swelled and popped in a spurt of orange liquid. Her mouth hung open, and a torrent of the same fluid gushed forth as her lower jaw appeared to come unhinged, eventually detaching from the skull. It swung from side to side momentarily, dangling from a strip of flesh before breaking away and falling to the ground, splashing in a growing pool of the orange liquid.
Appalled, Pierre tilted his head away as the skin of her face bloated, her forehead and cheeks becoming distended before bursting into liquid as well. Within seconds, all that remained of her was an empty white plugsuit draped over his hands and a puddle of LCL.
In his shock, Pierre didn't react to the thumping of boots on the ground—the sound was muffled even as the soldiers forced him to relinquish the dripping plugsuit and twisted his arms behind his back to clamp the cuffs around his wrists.
God damn Ikari... he was already long gone, unquestionably laughing at Pierre for his gullibility, his absolute idiocy.
No... it was more than just him. Ikari was laughing at all of them. The whole council.
Dusk stretched its gaunt fingers over the skyline of Tokyo-3, and cued the crickets to accompany the cicadas in the first movement of the evening symphony. Yawning, Fuyutsuki scrunched his eyes together and stretched, grasping for heaven from the tiny patch of Earth where he stood.
He opened his eyes to the pandemonium of soldiers sprinting past in a veritable stampede. Some were firing sporadic bursts from their SMGs at something behind them, others tumbling over as they scampered like terrified rodents.
Tentatively, Fuyutsuki turned around and saw why they were running: the Angel was awake.
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つづく
To be continued
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Fly me to the moon
and let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
on Jupiter and Mars
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, darling, kiss me
Fill my heart with song
and let me sing forevermore
You are all I long for;
all I worship and adore
In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you