Chapter 6.
NERV Headquarters medical wing. 8:05 A.M.
The first thing out of her mouth when she woke up was a pained and panicked scream. "FALL BACK—!"
A second or two passed before Misato realized that she was not at the warehouse, but in a hospital bed within a plain white room.
"Misato," a familiar woman's voice said in a worried tone, "hey, hey, calm down. You're safe. You're alright."
Panting heavily, Misato began to bring herself under control, then turned to see Ritsuko by her bedside.
"Ritsu..." Misato wiped the cold sweat from her brow with the back of one hand — and immediately felt a rather prominent soreness in her lower back. "Owowowow..."
"Hey, take it easy," Ritsuko urged, raising a hand. "The LCL healing process was extensive. A good number of your vertebrae were almost shattered, and the internal bleeding was relatively severe. We had to keep you sedated for a little over twenty-five hours."
"A whole day? Shit." Misato then gasped in realization. "Wait, what happened to Alpha Team?"
Ritsuko exhaled through her nose; she herself looked like she was almost ready to vomit.
"All dead except for two, and the both of them are missing multiple limbs each and in critical condition."
Misato wanted to scream in frustration, but was too weak to raise her voice much, and thus made a noise that was more like a growl. "God damn it. It's all my fault—"
"Misato," Ritsuko interrupted, "don't do that. No one is to blame here. None of us knew what we were getting into. It is not your fault."
Misato swallowed a dry, empty mouthful. "But I led those men — good men, with families — to their deaths, and for what? I didn't even find Shinji."
Ritsuko was silent for a moment as she tried to find the right words to tell Misato.
"Actually, you did."
Misato looked up at Ritsuko, perplexed. "What do you mean?"
Ritsuko's normally fair skin was even more ashen.
"We cross-referenced the tracking data from the B.S.M.U. with the helmet-cam video recovered from Alpha Team," she hesitantly said. "We've determined that, whatever that 'creature' is..."
The doctor rubbed the bridge of her nose in a gesture of 'I can't believe I'm about to say this, but...'
"It's carrying Shinji's body inside of its own."
Misato heard the sound of glass shattering in her mind.
"You're kidding me," she said. "That has to be a mistake."
"I would've thought so, too, but I ran all the available data through the MAGI," Ritsuko replied, with a solemn shake of her head, "and the MAGI gave me a ninety-nine-point-nine-seven percent probability. And that number was exactly the same for three separate calculations."
Misato had a very, very bad feeling that the answer to her next question would break her.
"Do we know if he's still alive?"
"Now that," Ritsuko replied, "is where the good news comes in. The way that the B.S.M.U. functions is by deciphering data from changes in air composition and density caused by the minute electrical impulses in the nervous system, and those impulses only occur in living humans. Yes, Shinji is still alive."
Misato put a hand over her mouth and let out a low, very heavy sigh in relief. She hadn't noticed that she'd been holding her breath in anticipation until just that moment.
"You still need to fully recover," Ritsuko said. "I'll get someone to bring you some food and water, and then we'll brief you on the situation after you're feeling a little more solid. Okay?"
Misato, trying to recompose herself just enough to be a functioning human being, swallowed another dry lump in her throat and then nodded twice. The 'good' news hadn't lessened the sensation of a gravity well within the depths of her stomach.
Ritsuko stood up and headed for the door, but paused to say one last thing to Misato before she left the room.
"We'll get Shinji back. I promise."
Two hours later.
Misato, almost back to working order, took a hearty swig from her NERV-branded water bottle. She hadn't had a can of beer for a week, and good God did she miss alcohol, but she had to wait since things were still nowhere near settled. For the time being, she would have to make do with water and NERV's standard issue institutional coffee — which itself may as well have been very bitter water.
"We still aren't able to find any kind infrared signature," Ritsuko said, laptop in hand, "and no one else has seen anything, so we really have no clue as to where this creature is right now. The B.S.M.U.'s circuits shorted out after the last use, and we're currently working on returning the device to full function before we can mount it on a helicopter or V.T.O.L. to go mobile. Until then, we're in the dark, unless we can extract any relevant information from Ashcroft within the next few hours."
Misato perked up. "We have him in custody?"
Ritsuko nodded. "He stayed behind at the warehouse when the creature left; he didn't even put up a fight for the clean-up crew. Right now he's sitting in a cell in chains, with two heavily-armed guards at the door. Admittedly, we don't know if we can get anything out of him, or if he'll willingly give us any accurate information, but Kaji says he has his ways. Time will tell."
"More waiting around, hooraaaay." Misato muttered.
Ritsuko closed her laptop and shrugged. "Part of the job. If we wanted results right away, we would've opened a ramen cart downtown next to the train station."
Misato smirked, although she wasn't genuinely amused.
The door to the room opened, and Asuka, wearing her red plug suit, rushed inside without any regard for decorum. "Misato!"
"Asuka, what are you doing here?" Ritsuko sternly asked. "You're supposed to be on standby in the holding bay."
"I'm in the same building and I'm already dressed, aren't I?" Asuka retorted. "You're not her only friend, Doctor Akagi."
Misato gently raised a hand. "It's fine, Ritsuko." She then smiled at Asuka. "Good to see ya, kiddo."
"I only just heard what happened," Asuka said, approaching Misato's bedside with a sad pout. "You had me worried."
Misato tried to feign toughness, unconvincingly. "Meh. Believe me, I've had a lot worse than this."
Emotionally, yes, she'd been through far worse experiences. From a physical standpoint, however? A fractured spine was a first.
Asuka didn't buy Misato's response for a second, but she then directed her focus to another topic. "And what about stupid Shinji?"
Misato suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. She and Asuka were similar in a number of ways, and one such way was the unfortunate tendency to outwardly deny feelings which were so blatantly obvious that even a blind person could read them. That didn't stop them from continuing to put on the front, of course — but 'the first step in dealing with a problem is recognizing it' something something.
"We're working on that," Ritsuko plainly answered. "We still don't know where Shinji is."
Asuka raised an eyebrow. "You don't know, or you do know and you're just not telling me?"
Ritsuko sighed. "Look, Asuka, there have been some developments that have really complicated matters—"
Before the doctor could finish, the door swung open to reveal a disheveled Maya on the other side. Though the Lieutenant looked far more alert and slightly less sickly pale than she had a day prior, her hair was messy, sweat dotted her forehead, and she herself was out of breath from running down the hall at a near-breakneck pace.
"Dr. Akagi!" she addressed her superior with a worried tone of voice. "We have a lead. Several Tokyo-III Police officers have received reports over the last forty minutes about missing pets, and more than a few instances of animals 'vanishing into thin air.' What's more, a group of civilians saw something moving through the woods near a damaged tunnel on Route 75. They said that it was fast, and that it shimmered, like a mirage."
"Then that'll be where we start our search," Ritsuko said. "We'll take anything we can get. Thank you, Maya."
"Wait, 'it'?" Asuka parroted. "Hey, what are you all talking about? What's going on?"
Misato sighed. "It's a lot to explain, and we'll have to catch you up to speed on the way. Ritsuko, did any of the doctors or nurses tell you whether or not I'm good to get up and move around?"
"I mean, the doctor said that you can move by yourself," Ritsuko replied, "but you very probably should not."
"Well, either way, I need to see what's happening for myself," Misato said. "If that means that someone has to push me around in a wheelchair, so be it. Get me out into the field, and let's find this thing."
