January
Erin Forrestal breathed in the cold winter air as she walked towards the student center at The New Institute. It was the first time she had been on campus since the kidnapping attempt on Rei, and while she was glad to get back to her education Erin still felt great apprehension upon returning to the school.
With the new semester there had been a few changes, the biggest one being that Erin's other half, her twin brother Patrick, was now far north at Camp X being trained by the Alliance Intelligence Service. Because trainees at the camp were held incommunicado, Erin had heard nothing directly from Patrick since the day he left, and if even all went well it would be that way until February when he was scheduled to return.
None of the former pilots had needed to complete their schoolwork for the remaining part of last semester as Chancellor Gallatner was surprisingly understanding regarding the circumstances and permitted Erin and Rei a free pass for the semester, holding their GPA at their last confirmed status and allowing them to skip their final exams. Patrick was also allowed a "drop" without penalty, which meant that he was technically still enrolled at TNI but not registered for any classes. His entire first semester record was also expunged, something that Erin knew Patrick would have been happy to find out.
As a result the two girls had all of December free to themselves and Rei spent another week at the Vinson home in Maine, then returned to Japan for the holidays. Rei invited Erin to come to Japan with her but she declined, wanting to spend more time with the Vinsons. But then Mari showed up at the Maine house on Christmas Eve, all dressed in Red and White furs like a sexy Santa Claus, and Erin was promptly whisked away for a ten-day holiday to London-2 and Europe in her company. The sudden vacation had done much for lifting her spirits, allowing for actual unbridled fun along with Lusty as they partied with abandon, visited Mari's social friends in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, and travelled around the region. Through her connections Mari had also kept tabs on Patrick's status at Camp X and informed Erin that he was "miserable but healthy." Erin was satisfied at the answer.
Now in the first few days of January Erin had returned to TNI. The weather had changed to biting cold winds and visible snow on the ground, and trees were laid bare of their leaves save the firs. Because of the security situation involving the pilots Erin had not permitted to contact Diego since being whisked away from Cambridge following the attempt on Rei at the bookstore. She knew Diego was being investigated by the Alliance security team, as they wanted to know more about the perpetrators and were checking any lead, but she didn't know how she could explain any of this to him once she saw him again on campus.
Erin had also not heard from Rei at all past Christmas Eve and had wondered if she was even returning to TNI. Given her status at the target of the prior attack, it wouldn't be surprising at all to her if Rei had decided to remain in Japan or if others had instead decided for her. So in the end Erin expected this new semester to be a rather lonely one.
Reaching the student center, Erin entered through the double glass doors. Following her inside at a discreet distance were two bodyguards in dark suits and winter coats, as the security presence around her was now doubled in response to the still-unknown threat. She paid them no mind and walked inside the center until she reached the coffee and tea shop.
Ordering a hot latte from the counter, Erin found a booth and unbundled herself. She had on a tan winter coat with a heavy scarf wrapped around her neck and she promptly took both off, revealing a brightly colored orange, green, and white pattered heavy sweater and a black skirt with grey tights and dress boots. Her books and laptop were in a backpack that she laid down on the booth bench, and she then took a seat for herself and sipped her coffee while she pulled out her mobile phone and started to check messages and mail. There were several texts from classmates met in the last semester, asking if she had returned, and there were nearly a half a dozen messages from a new phone line she didn't immediately recognize.
Erin checked the new message source and found a Cambridge-area mobile number it was connected to. She read the first message.
6023534443: Darling if you can read this please answer me back. I have a new number now and wanted to touch back with you as I have heard nothing in weeks. I hope that I have not done something wrong. D.
D. She knew it was Diego. It wasn't the first time he had tried to contact her after she suddenly left either, but until she received an "all clear" from her security she wasn't allowed to reply to him, and Alliance Intel was either taking their time or had perhaps found something suspicious. Erin was frustrated and knew she had to be patient, but felt that another chance for happiness may have been interfered with by EVA yet again, even if very indirectly.
As she sat at the booth and read her phone a boy came up to her. "Excuse me?" Erin looked up to see the boy Rei had earlier called Zummy-kun. Looking excessively bundled up in coats, sweaters, and scarfs she could barely see his face beyond his glasses.
"Are you…Forri-chan?"
"I'm Erin," she introduced herself.
"Ah!" Zummy realized and then started to unwrap himself from his winter clothes. "I wasn't sure of your actual name. I only remember Reiko calling you that."
"It's okay," she told him with a smile. "She called you Zummy."
"It's David. David Zumwalt." The pair shook hands and then the boy sat down opposite Erin at the booth. "Did you get back today?"
"Yup. It's my first day back on campus."
"Cool. Have you heard from her at all? I mean Reiko."
"No, actually," said Erin. "Last I heard from her was during Christmas, but she went back to Japan."
"Is she coming back?"
"I have no idea. She hasn't tried to contact me at all. Now that I'm back I think I'll check on her place and see if she's returned or not."
David pulled out his own bookbag and then set a book on the table. "I took her advice and started reading this term's textbooks during holiday. I'm hoping that it goes better that way."
"To be fair," Erin told David, "She reads scientific papers in her idle spare time. My brother had to give her jokebooks in order to help her branch out her reading a bit more."
"Well, I read a bunch during break so I'm super-prepared at least. How about you?"
"I had waaaay too much fun this holiday," Erin told him. "Now I got to get back to speed but at least I'll be distraction-free this semester."
"Are you a CIS major?" Asked Zummy, CIS standing for Computer and Information Science.
"Yup! How did you know?"
"You have a security badge," David observed. Erin pulled out the lanyard with her ID card on it.
"Oh, my work study is at the main computer center."
This somehow made Zummy quite interested. "Do you get to work with the MAGI?" he asked with sudden excitement.
How much should I tell him? "Actually, I just do data entry," Erin said, not wanting to tell someone who she was still unacquainted with more than they needed to know, and Erin did much more at the campus computer center than data entry.
"Oh, too bad. But at least you interact with them. That's cool!"
She was surprised at Zummy's interest. "Really? They're just computers."
"Just computers? The MAGI are the world's most sophisticated artificial intelligence! I would die just to get to access one of them."
Erin decided to play along. "What would you ask them if you got the chance?"
"I'd ask, 'how does the Evangelion actually work?' It's a big mystery you know."
"Are you interested in that sort of thing?" Erin asked David, now wondering about his earlier motivations in getting to know Rei.
"Oh, yeah!" replied Zummy with excitement. "I did my high school senior project on Evangelion. Got it published in the local news, in fact! That's part of why I'm here at New Institute."
"To study Evangelion?"
"Well, it's Robotics actually. That's my major. But that's the point, I've read everything I can on it but nothing about the Evangelion makes sense as far as being a robot goes."
Erin was now increasingly suspicious of the boy, but knew she needed to know more before jumping to a conclusion. To her, Zummy didn't seem like someone who'd want to harm anyone. "Well, I'm sure they keep a lot of secrets about those things," she told him, still playing along.
"I know. I mean, there's a whole lot that's still classified about them, and there's not nearly any information about everything that happened after Tokyo-3 was attacked. But they're not robots! There's no way that they can be! Just the way that they're built doesn't make sense if they're mostly mechanical."
"But aren't they biomechanical?" Erin teased, trying to see how much the boy knew.
"Biomechanical is a very vague term. I'd say that they're probably not mechanical at all! But then what are they?"
"Maybe if you're really interested in EVA you've got the wrong major," Erin quipped, and then prepared her backpack so that she could leave. "Anyway, I've got my first class. Hey," she told him with a friendly smile as she stood up. "If I hear from Reiko, I'll definitely let her know you were looking for her."
"Yeah, thanks. We missed her at the front row in math last semester. But I heard about that shooting and figured maybe she got scared and left."
"Well, Reiko doesn't scare easily, I'll say that for her," Erin told him. "See you around, sport!" She then put on her coat and her scarf and left the café.
I don't think he's much of a threat, Erin concluded to herself. Just another fanboy who doesn't know anything.
Still concerned about Rei, after her classes Erin decided to go visit Doctor Foch at his home in the faculty residence area. Rei's loft was in Foch's back yard, and Erin figured that as they worked closely together Foch might be the best person to ask about Rei's current whereabouts. She knew she could have called either Rei or Misato back in Japan but didn't want to do that just yet, as Rei might want her privacy and Erin didn't want to have Misato over-react.
Around five-thirty in the afternoon Erin arrived at the Foch house, a New England colonial style wooden two-story home pained white with a red roof. She knocked on the door and it opened within a few seconds, as Foch himself came to see who the visitor was.
"Hi, Uncle Bernard," Erin said in greeting.
"Bon jour, Mademoiselle Erin," Foch replied, pleased to see her. "Entre-vous, s'il vous plait."
Erin promptly entered the house and took off her coat, scarf and boots. The house itself was toasty warm and smelt of cinnamon and tea, with a wood fire already crackling in the fireplace. She took a deep breath and let it out slow, enjoying the scents of the place. "Nice and warm in here!" she cheerfully commented.
"Ah, yes! Well these New England winters do chill things a bit so there's nothing like a warm hearth to come home to. Madame?" Foch called out to the kitchen.
"Yes, Bernard?" a voice called out.
"Little Erin is here, can you get her something to eat and drink?"
"But of course!" Within a minute as Erin waited Bernard's former laboratory assistant and now wife Beatrix came in the living room, holding a tray with a pot of warm tea and a small pile of cookies on a plate. Beatrix sat the tray down on a coffee table and Erin promptly plopped down on the adjoining couch as Foch found his easy chair next to the fireplace. There were three teacups for the tea on the tray, and Beatrix gently poured all three as Erin snagged a couple of the cookies.
"So, my dear," Foch asked Erin. "You're here for the new term."
"I just got back last night," Erin told him. "And…" she quickly munched on another cookie and then grabbed a fourth one as she continued. "I wuff wobering," she said as she chewed while she spoke, "God I juff wuv these cookies…if you'd herrd fwrom Rei at awl." She struggled to swallow while continuing to speak, then gave up and took a good swig of her tea to wash them down.
"I'm here," a voice came from above. Erin looked towards the staircase and was startled to see Rei start to walk down towards the living room. She was wearing a bathrobe over blue-tinted pajamas, her blue hair was down and all over her shoulders. Erin immediately got up off the couch and went to her.
"Rei!" she said, hugging her once she made it down the stairs. "Where were you? I tried to call you!"
"I know," Rei replied, sounding tired. Erin realized that not everything was quite all right with her. "What happened to you?"
"I had an operation," Rei said to her. This was a surprise to Erin, who turned to Foch as Rei and her both found places on the couch.
"Is this about the fertility thing?" Erin asked.
"It is," Foch confirmed. "After some additional experiments we decided that the genetic material from Unit 01 could provide suitable donor tissue and I asked Rei to return here right after Christmas for the insertion. She's been in recovery since then, so I have her at the house so I can more carefully keep an eye on her."
Hearing all of that made Erin even more concerned. "Are you feeling okay now?" she asked Rei.
"I feel fine, but weak at times," Rei told her. "I will be able to start school again."
"She'll have to restrain physical activity for a month or so until she's fully recovered," Foch added, "and it will take a couple of months for her body to completely adjust, but if all goes well she should have a functioning ovary."
"Well that sounds good," Erin said. "I wonder how your kids will turn out, don't you?"
Rei nodded, smiling a little. Despite the comfortability she was happy with the procedure and what she hoped would be the eventual result. "It is bearing through a little discomfort," she replied to Erin. "For the moment I cannot resume dance, or go swimming for that matter."
"Oh, no!" Erin exclaimed at first. "Well, I guess this is worth giving up a few things." The two girls sat down on the couch as Foch himself went back to the kitchen with the teapot to get more tea for himself.
"Have you heard from Forri-kun?" Rei asked Erin in a soft tone, her expression becoming more serious.
"No," Erin replied. "Mari's in touch with people she knows at Camp X, she's heard that he's doing alright so far. She also says the training will get more tough as they go, so it might be really hard for Bro in the next few weeks. They're still not allowed to send out messages or receive them so there's no way to really reach him right now."
"I see," said Rei, appearing sad at the news. Erin patted her on the shoulder.
"He'll be alright, Patrick always seems to have a way to get through sticky situations like this." Rei didn't say anything in reply, but instead just stared into space, and Erin herself knew that loneliness all too well.
After having dinner with the Fochs and Rei, Erin left around 8 o'clock and started back for her apartment. It was much colder now outside, and she wrapped her scarf around her neck tightly to keep warm and brace against the chilling winter winds. About half-way the distance to her apartment Erin's mobile phone buzzed and she picked up. On the other end was Olivia Perry, the senior agent in charge of the pilot security detail. "Hey ya, kid!"
"Hi, Olivia," Erin replied.
"So how was merry old England?"
"Had a great time, almost forgot about this place."
"Good." Olivia then got to the matter at hand. "Just so you know, we finally cleared your Casanova. Nothing to do with the kidnap attempt on Rei or with anything else bad."
"Finally. Why did it take so long?"
"As you know, most of Latin America is sort of a mess even now and Senior Diego grew up in a pretty bad place." Erin knew that well, as Diego had told her about his rough childhood on the streets of Peru, one of the few spots south of the equator to survive Second Impact somewhat intact.
"Anyway, he had membership in a street gang for several years in his teens, and while Peruvian courts dismiss all of that when you turn eighteen, we still want to know what he was doing. Some of those Peruvian gangs have ties to Japan, given that there's a sizeable minority of ethnic Japanese who still live there. So we had to do a deeper dig to confirm his whole background. The short of it is that he's clean, clean enough that we don't worry about him."
"Well that's a relief, thank you."
The agent was apologetic. "I'd thought you might like to know as soon as we got the green light. I know sometimes we get in the way of your personal affairs, but we're just trying to keep you safe."
"I know. I just hope that one day he'll understand."
"You might want to explain it to him yourself," said Olivia. "He's standing in front of your front door right now."
"He's there?"
"He's been there for about six hours."
"Oh my God! I'd better go. Thanks, Olivia!"
"Don't mention it." Erin then hung up the line and then ran as fast as she could to her apartment.
From the grounds below Erin could see Diego standing in front of her front door just as Olivia said, wrapped up in a winter coat but looking frigid and frozen over. She rushed up the stairs and made it up five flights, herself panting for breath as she ran over to meet him by the door.
"Erin!" he called out loud upon seeing her.
"Oh, God, I'm so sorry! I didn't know you were waiting so long for me to come home! You must have frozen nearly to death! " Erin reached for her key and opened the front door, grabbing Diego by the arm and pulling him inside.
Fortunately the apartment's heater worked quickly to warm up the space, and Erin sat the freezing Diego on the couch as she unbundled herself from her coat and scarf and went to the kitchen to make something warm. Within a few minutes he had a couple cups of black coffee ready that she brought back to the boy on the couch, who was finally showing some pink color in his nearly frozen face.
"Here's something to warm you up," she offered Diego the cup and he gladly accepted it. Erin then took her own cup and curled up on the couch a foot away from him. She was unsure how things would go, as she had not been permitted to contact him for nearly two months. But Diego simply sipped the cup of hot coffee and let himself get warm, and she sipped her own cup and watched.
Within a few minutes Diego managed to get back to normal, finishing his coffee. "That was very good, darling," he told Erin in his accented English. "I'm glad you finally made it back, otherwise I would have been a popsicle outside your door, yeah?"
"It's really good to finally see you again," she replied. There was a long pause between the two of them, with Erin knowing she had to at least try and explain her silence of the last two months. But how much of the truth could she or should she tell him. "Diego, I…."
"You are a very interesting girl," Diego interrupted. "And certainly very well protected."
"I really don't think about it too much."
"Imagine my surprise when suddenly last November I find myself in an interrogation room, surrounded by dangerous looking people who all want to know about my past. I thought I could leave it behind by coming here," he told her. "But I guess not."
"Oh, Diego," said Erin. "It's not what you think at all. None of this is about you."
"You could not return my phone calls at least?"
"I wanted to, but I wasn't permitted to."
"By who? Your parents?"
"Not my parents," Erin told him. "But something more important."
"Your brother?"
Erin laughed a little. "Definitely not Patrick. No, I," Erin paused a bit, still trying to figure out how to say what she needed to, then knew there was only one way to do it. She had to decide now, did she like this boy enough to go all-in? Erin looked at Diego, at the tall, muscular boy with the dark curled hair and dark eyes, and charm oozing out of every place, and knew she liked what she saw despite his sometimes "suck-uppiness" and how he often tried to over-do the Don Juan romantic approach. She could forgive him for that as she could forgive him for a lot of things. And one of the things she liked most about Diego was that he had absolutely, positively nothing to do with EVA at all. No, she knew she had to decide if this was time to fish or cut bait, and with Diego after tonight she'd never get another chance. Erin wanted to be happy and she knew it would be risky, but she decided to dive right in.
"Actually, I've got a story to tell you, Diego, and it's not a nice one. Can you hear me out?"
Diego looked just a little impatient, he had already been through a lot for this girl and hoped this would at least be worth the suffering. "Alright," he said more quietly.
"Let me start with this. Those people who asked you questions, and who kept you in interrogation, and who also asked me to keep my distance, at least for a while. Those people are from Alliance Intelligence."
"Oh, really? Not the regular police?"
"No."
"Are you related to someone important, perhaps?"
Erin sighed. "Um, no. It's not my relationship with anyone. Rather It's me that they're protecting. I'm sort of in a very exclusive club." She wondered how to start explaining and then realized she had one way that might be convincing. "Here, let me show you something." Erin left Diego on the couch and went to her bedroom, coming back a minute later with something in her hands. She showed it to Diego.
"How much do you know about Evangelion?"
The remark surprised Diego considerably. "Well, I know as much as everyone else does I suppose. I know the story we all learned from the news about giant robots and 'angels' and the battles that saved the Earth."
"And you know who the pilots of those…" Erin cleared her throat, "'robots' were, right?"
"They were children, from Japan. Teenagers."
"Right, and you also know that what you heard in the news is only part of what actually happened, right?"
"There have been lots of other things going on around the world, with the military and such, yes I know some of these. But what does any of that have do you with you?"
"Here," Erin showed Diego what was in her hand. "This is an actual, genuine, A10 neural receptor, only used by Evangelion pilots." Erin handed the orange and black-colored headset to the boy. "This one belongs to me."
Diego took the A10 and held in in his hand, feeling the weight. He looked skeptically at her. "You are saying this is yours? That this is real?"
"Yeah. That's what I'm saying."
The boy sat back, only now truly realizing the gravity of what Erin was trying to tell him. "if you had told me this, say, last October when we first started going together, I would have though this something of a joke, or perhaps a Halloween costume idea. But those people who took me aside were quite real. And this is too."
"Yeah."
"Why did you not tell me this before?"
"We're not supposed to," explained Erin. "I mean we're not even enrolled in school under our real names! We're supposed to keep our background secret. And really, I'd rather just move away from all of that stuff that happened to me." Erin moved closer to him, reaching out to Diego with her hand. "That's why I liked you, because I felt like you could take me away from all of that. I didn't want to think about what happened to me, I just wanted to think about what could happen to me. And I liked the way you made me feel."
"This is quite amazing, my dear," Diego told her. "I always knew you were something very special, but even this is…quite incredible."
"I know, and now I've burdened you with this too," Erin responded. "So, if this is too much for you, I'd understand."
"Quite the opposite," Diego said to her, now feeling his full confidence. "If this is you, the real you, then I want to stand by you even more now. Now I see why I was so attracted to you, that you had this mystery that you were holding back. It makes me even desire you more now!"
"That's great that you think that way," said Erin, "but it's not really something I'm all that proud of. A lot of really bad things happened to me, to Patrick and to a lot of people I knew. If I tell you the full story one day you really will be shocked."
"But I love you because you are you," Diego told her, "not because you are….piloto or whatever. Do you think we can have a relationship between just two people? If you want to forget the past, then let's forget it! Can we do that?"
"I wish it were so simple," Erin told him, "But just like last November, and what happened to Rei at the bookstore, sometimes it just comes back when don't want it to. That's why there's bodyguards, and fake names, and all that other stuff."
Diego came up close to her, taking both of his hands and putting them on her cheeks, gently caressing them as he spoke. "Then at least let me be your shelter. If you are worried about the past, come to me and I will protect you from it. "
Erin leaned on Diego and let him hold her tight. She wanted his warmth, she wanted to feel normal, and not to be alone.
"I'm sorry I left you in the cold like that," she said to him softly. "I guess that must have hurt."
"I will admit I was quite distressed, not knowing if I had perhaps done something very wrong, or if you had found out about my own sordid past," Diego replied.
"Well, I figure if you're willing to wait outside my door in the freezing cold for six hours then…"
"I'm willing to do more than that to take care of you," Diego said. Erin looked up at him and saw his smile, and knew that was all she needed right now, and at that moment the two of them shared a long, slow kiss as he held her in his arms.
"Thank you for putting up with me this time," Erin said, giving him a smile. Diego relaxed his grip and picked up the A10 headband again. "May I ask you a favor, darling?"
"Of course!"
"May I keep this?" he said, showing her the A10s. "I would like the memory of this moment with you."
Erin didn't see any reason for him not to have it. "I'm not using it anymore anyway, so sure. You can have it. Just don't show it around or anything, now that you know my secret you gotta help me keep it."
"It, and you, will be safe with me." Erin smiled at him again and put her arms around his neck, and she then let Diego passionately kiss her on the couch for the rest of the night.
Headquarters, Alliance of Free Nations Intelligence Service (AIS)
Outskirts of the ruins of Tokyo-3, Japan.
Ryoji Kaji entered the seventh floor of the AIS building from the elevator bank and was greeted by a lone receptionist sitting at a semi-circle desk, a pretty young Japanese woman with a neat professional appearance.
"Good morning, Director," she greeted him as he entered the office.
"Good morning, Eriko-chan," Kaji replied with a wink. "How are things going today?"
"Seems quiet, sir," she told him honestly.
"Let's hope it stays that way." He then passed her and went through a set of glass doors behind her desk.
Kaji entered the operations center of the Alliance Intelligence Service, a room filled with the desks of agent controllers and operators who read surveillance and message feeds from AIS' many intelligence assets as well as those from military units and allied nations and organizations. As he walked through, he was greeted by many in the room, but in a very brief but still respectful way. When setting up the AIS along his own ideas of how an intelligence agency should work, Kaji did not want a working atmosphere that was too chokingly formal, and this showed in the operations "pit" as it was often called, as officers and others wore business casual attire, often with shirts and jackets without neckties. Under Kaji's own guidelines there wasn't going be any bowing, or pecking orders, or tea served to the male staff by the female staff at three o'clock or any of other corporate bullshit so prevalent in Japan and much of the Western world before Second Impact. He wanted the best for his people and he wanted them focused on what they were there for: to keep the new world order safe and especially to prevent another Impact of any kind.
Still moving with a slight limp, a residual of his nearly life-ending injuries during the Alliance assault on SEELE's mountain compound years before, Kaji walked through the Pit checking on various officers and getting quick briefs on anything that they found interesting during the previous day. He preferred to get summaries from the officers directly, and not via a briefing, as he didn't want to miss anything important, and wanted officers in the pit to feel like they could speak more freely on anything they encountered.
After satisfying himself that the Pit staff had informed him to their best knowledge, Kaji then moved to his own office at the far end of the floor. The office was large without being cavernous, and consisted of two sections, one for his secretary and one for himself separated by a wall with a security door.
Upon entering his office, his secretary Satsuki Ooi looked up from her desk and greeted him. "Good morning, Director." Ooi was a former NERV officer who once worked as a second-string controller, and while there was known for both her glamourous looks given her long, luxurious light brown hair and feminine figure as well as having unflapping coolness even in the direst of times. Kaji prized both assets and had hired her as one of the first to work at AIS.
"Good morning, Satsuki-chan," Kaji said.
"Did you make the rounds already?"
"I did. Apart from the usual trouble in Venezuela and the Kyber Union it seems fairly calm from the regional feeds. Are my appointments here?"
"I'll send them in once you're settled in. Oh, and your wife called."
Kaji raised an eyebrow. "Funny she calls you instead of me."
"She said it was just a reminder that you're having dinner with the Hyugas tonight and no excuses for being late will be tolerated."
"Then please help me to keep on schedule. Anything else from her?"
"Yes, she said for me to also remind you to give me a promotion sooner rather than later and then place a much less attractive secretary in my place," said Ooi in complete mock seriousness. "That is if you want to be sure you won't be sleeping on the couch starting next month." Kaji laughed with a hearty tone, as Satsuki and Misato got along quite well.
"Well, we'll have to see about that. Thank you, I'll just need a few minutes and you can send them right in along with AD Stephenson." He then walked through his own office door and made his way to his desk.
Kaji kept his office as organized as he could manage, as he often held small meetings here throughout the day and it was a daily challenge for Ooi to reduce his clutter given his own habit of smoking and drinking several iced canned coffees while going over reports or presentations. He had a relatively modest desk that faced a small conference table and several chairs, a large LED video screen mounted on one wall, and on another wall an illustration that was Kaji's one and only splurge on his interior decorating: a twelve-foot wide reproduction of Aoki Toshi's "Shoki and Demons." The painting on first inspection appeared as a crowded mess of hundreds of demons surrounding Shoki, the legendary King of Ghosts, originally painted in the late 19th century. The tale of Shoki was an old one, originating from China of a man who scored highest in the examination for the imperial officials, but was still rejected due to his ugly looks. Despondent, Shoki committed suicide but when arriving in hell the gods saw his intellect and drive and assigned him the job of hunting down all of the malevolent ghosts haunting the world. It was a story Kaji knew well, and he at times saw himself as Shoki, resurrected from the dead and now hunting the ghosts of the old world to protect the new one.
Ooi's voice came out of his phone's speaker. "The first one's here, sir."
"Please send him in."
Kaji walked over to a credenza and took out a cold pitcher of iced tea, setting aside two cups from a cabinet. Normally Ooi would perform the task but Kaji was meeting an old friend today and wanted the service to be personal. There was a knock on the door and he turned towards it.
"Well, well," the man said to Kaji, "aren't you the Emperor now?"
"Koji!" Kaji exclaimed, extending his hand to him. "It's been a long time!"
Koji Takao took Kaji's hand and shook it strongly. He was about Kaji's age, but larger and more muscular, and with a head that was shaved bald and a face with a neatly trimmed beard. "Heard that you made it out on top. I guess the cat really had nine lives after all."
"Perhaps not nine but I'm grateful for second chances, as well as third and fourth ones." Kaji handed him the tea and motioned for him to sit in one of the chairs, while Kaji sat in another. Koji sipped the tea and let out a refreshed "aahh" after drinking it.
"You know, you really should replace that with whiskey working in a place like this."
"My wife is concerned that I'm starting to feel my age a bit," Kaji quipped in reply.
"That's right, I heard you're married now. Who's the lucky girl?"
"Katsuragi, of course."
"She finally let you catch her," Koji mused. "Must have been some promise."
"Memorable," Kaji replied, taking a sip of his own tea.
"So, you got me here now. What's this all about?"
"I'd like you to meet someone. We have a project that requires, let's say, a delicate yet firm touch with a big heaping of discretion. I'd rather not work within the regular channels and I heard that you were doing some 'contracting' as it were."
"If you want to call being a Private Eye a 'contractor' I suppose that's true. After the UN collapsed, there were a whole lot of pissed off people wanting their day in court and that's keep me fairly busy chasing down criminals."
The phone speaker buzzed again and Ooi's voice came on. "She's here, director, and AD Stephenson's on his way."
"Thank you, please show her inside and once Stephenson's here close my door. No interruptions, please."
"Will do," responded Ooi.
Through the office door walked in Mari Illustrious. She wore a soft pink long-sleeved cashmere sweater and a long patterned silk skirt with high leather boots, her hair was worn long behind her. "Good morning, sir!" she cheerfully greeted Kaji.
"Good morning, Lusty. Did you just arrive in Japan?"
"I made a stop at the hospital in Shokaku. They did some 'adjustments' and then gave me a clean bill of health and sent me on my way." Kaji directed her attention to the other man in the room as Assistant Director Stephenson, a British man in his mid-fifties with firm looks and a pinstriped business suit entered. Unlike nearly everyone else at the top floor of AIS Stephenson wore a necktie and kept his appearance formal and dapper.
"Everyone this is Koji Takao, an old friend from my schooling days." Stephenson only gave Takao a cursory nod, while Mari was much more interested in him. "Hello, there!" She offered him her and he shook it gently.
"Hello, Miss…"
"Illustrious. Mari Illustrious Makinami." Koji looked at Kaji curiously. "How old is she?" he asked him.
"Mari's a former Evangelion pilot," Kaji informed him, and with that Koji was surprised to silence.
"Shall we all begin?" Stephenson interrupted, and the rest of the group took their seats. Ooi then shut the door closed from the outside.
"Director," the AD motioned to Kaji to start the discussion.
"Nearly two months ago," Kaji started, directing his attention to Mari and Koji, "there was an attempt to kidnap the First Child while she attended university in America. Her security detail was able, with some outside assistance, to prevent the attempt but at the cost of several lives. Unfortunately of the four assailants none of them survived. We were however able to make forensic connections between that group and two earlier attempts to infiltrate the NERV laboratories at Tokyo-3's Geofront. They were in turn linked to a religious society based in Totori prefecture. The Japanese interior ministry raided their offices but found little to identify any type of motive behind the recent actions of what appeared to be a few of the society's members acting on their own."
"However, the attack on the First Child was highly coordinated, and done with considerable skill. It nearly succeeded, and we believe that we will likely see another attempt against her or perhaps some of the other EVA pilots now living in the outside world."
"What do they want with her?" Koji asked. Kaji then looked to Stevenson to explain further.
"We're not entirely sure, except that she seems to represent to them some sort of figure of reverence. The society they came from is nominally a Shinto cult but this sort of action is quite outside the norm for such groups. We're thinking that this could be a front for something more sinister."
Kaji then continued. "Needless to say given our mission this matter is our highest priority, and after nearly two months we don't have any particularly strong leads. What I'd like the two of you to do," the director looked at his two guests, "is to conduct your own investigation with fresh eyes. Stephenson here will provide you with any details we've learned, including financial information and any social connections from any of the known assailants. But I would hope that you could lead us in a better direction to identify who these people are."
"Will we be working together?" Mari asked as she smiled at Koji.
"Yes. Each of you brings your own talents and experience, in Koji's case he's not only an excellent investigator he's also a quite a good engineer. And I should add I definitely would want him on my side should I find him a dark alley. Miss Illustrious here," Kaji continued, "is very well-trained in a number of fields, and has invaluable experience in matters involving EVA, not to mention that she has a considerable amount of charm that can prove quite useful at times."
"I'm not here to babysit," Koji mused, still skeptical of Mari's role in the investigation.
"I wouldn't expect you to," Mari replied in her own defense. "I've taken down bigger enemies than this."
"I'd hope that between the two of you, each can work out their part of the investigation and then coordinate to cover each other should the need arise." Kaji told them. "Stevenson will be your contact and able to assist if you need any additional assets or assistance. Remember," Kaji looked at Mari. "Your mission is to identify who's behind this, not to try and take then out on your own."
"Oh, you just took all the fun out of this!" Mari pouted.
The great wooden hall was filled with smoky darkness, illuminated only by rows of candles on either side that glowed in red and orange flickers swaying with an incoming wind. At one end a man waited, shrouded in white robes, standing in front of a monolithic figure thirty feet high. At the other were a set of double doors that rose to the ceiling, doors that now cracked open.
Three other men came through the ancient wooden doorway, two large men dressed in dark tactical clothing dragging a third one by the arms. The hall remained silent except for the howling of wind from the outside as the three of them walked towards the other end.
The two men unceremoniously dropped their captured prey in front of their master, and the third tumbled to the floor, sprawling and wriggling as he struggled to make himself upright. Dressed in rags, he was disoriented and frightened, not knowing where he was now or why he was here.
The master slowly walked towards his captured prey, watching as the wretched man's face was illuminated by the moonlight as he struggled to at least get on his knees. Satisfied that he was the person whom he had been searching for, the master addressed the hunters.
"Where did you find him?"
"Living under a railway bridge outside of Tokyo-2" said one of them. "He looked like this when we found him."
The master walked slowly around the man in rags as he shook his head in panic. "Such a tragedy," said the master. "From such high perches of society to the lows of the sewers and garbage pits."
"Who…who are you?" asked the man in rags. "What am I doing here? What do you want with me?"
"Tell me, my friend," the master addressed the man in rags, "What brought you to such a terrible end while the rest of the world lives in a new age of brilliance and happiness?"
The man in rags scoffed at the description. "I didn't make myself like this, if that's what you're asking."
"Then who did?"
"Someone who wanted me out of the way," said the man in rags. "My life's work destroyed in minutes. I was humiliated, my position taken away from me, my wealth vanquished, my family disgraced…and I was thrown away like so much trash."
"Nobody wants a loser, do they?"
"I didn't lose!" the man in rags protested loudly. "They stole it away from me and left me like this! Did you know I was once the most powerful man in Japanese industry!"
"Yes," the master answered, "I do in fact. And I also know who it was who tore your life asunder." The man in rags didn't reply, but instead looked up at his captor, his face illuminated by candlelight as the master continued.
"What you seek, my pilgrim, is redemption, yes? For the wreck of a man I see here is not really you, is it?"
"It is not," the man in rags said. "But what do you want?"
The master knelt down and looked at the man in rags, the man suddenly becoming surprised when he saw who it was, he was speaking to. "Do you know who I am," the master asked, "who I once was?"
"I think….I do!" the man in rags struggled to remember the face that he saw.
"But I certainly know who you are, and if you want a chance at a new life it is we servants of the Holy One that can help you on that path. But you must leave behind what you were and embrace what you must become."
"Anything is better than this," the man in rags replied despondently.
"Very good," the master said to him. "Now tell me what you know, everything of what you know, of your own creation, and all of your troubles with those who call themselves NERV."
It was a very busy holiday season for me, as my daughter returned from Australia and prepared to go to school in Louisiana, but I've finally caught up and we have another instalment. There's been a time gap of a couple of months from the last chapter, but after an update things get moving and we now have our first glimpse of some of the other players in this drama.
I expect to go fairly slow in the next 2-3 months with other installments, and much of the storyline will center around Rei and Erin's relationship. So this will still be running at a somewhat gentle pace before we pickup the action. So please stay tuned and I'll try to work on more installments as quick as I can manage.