At World's End
S-Michael
Chapter the Eight
The Short Life of Don James
The train cars had been airlifted to Mexico City to be repaired (and because the tracks they were on had melted), and all the time, they had to repeatedly reassure Kensuke that he was going to be fine. "Are you sure? I mean, I was on the roof when that nuke went off."
"The satellite's AT-Field protected you," Ritsuko said. He'd been on about it for three days.
"How do you know?"
"Because if it hadn't, you'd be a cinder," Ritsuko said. As a matter of fact, he ought to have been blind, having looked directly into a nuclear explosion. Well, it was Ramiel's AT-Field, which had been so powerful that it warped light passing through it. Perhaps that was why they didn't have four blind fourteen-year-olds on their hands.
Misato left them, and headed for the dining car. What she saw when she got there were several televisions had been taken from their rooms and set up in here, and several younger HALO soldiers, as well as the three Eva pilots, were playing a videogame on them.
"Damn it, how did you get your army over the Waianae Range?" Shinji cursed.
"I'm just that good," an American who didn't look old enough to be in the army and who was playing on the same console said in pretty good Japanese.
"What are you playing?" Misato asked.
"It's a new videogame. Part RTS, part—whatever, I'm not fluent in Gamer. You take a country from WWII and see how history would have been different if you had been in charge, I guess. Sort of. This guy's playing as Japan, and I'm America," Shinji said.
"Really?" Misato asked. That was faintly ironic. "You attack Pearl Harbor yet?"
"I'm launching a full-scale assault on Oahu," the American said. "Once I've conquered Hawaii, I'm going to attack the west coast."
"He's already conquered China," Shinji said.
"Really?" Misato asked.
"Well, to be fair, the guy playing it was a moron," the American said. "Did not understand the importance of keeping his morale up. Also, I assassinated six of his leaders, including Mao Zedong."
"Kid's a tactical genius," Browne whispered in her ear. "He's enrolling in officer's school. Sometimes I wonder if he wasn't made in a lab or something."
"Die, Nazi! Ha-ha!" Asuka shouted at her TV screen.
"Banzai for the Emperor!" shouted the American.
"You Jap bastard," grumbled Shinji.
Misato managed not to burst out laughing. "So, kid, you even old enough to be in the military?"
"I'm eighteen, ma'am. Name's Don James. I go by the entire thing, because I think it sounds Mafia-like."
"Only to you," Asuka said.
"You know you want me," Don James said.
"You're projecting," Asuka said.
"Of course I am. Actually, you are kind of cute—how about you call me in about four years time?" Don James taunted.
The words hadn't been aimed at Misato, but she felt them like a punch to the stomach. Don James was a lot closer to Asuka's age than Misato was to Shinji's, just this side of legal himself, but he still wouldn't get involved with a fourteen-year-old. Yes, it was just a taunt, and a half-hearted one at that, but it really drove the reality of what she was doing with Shinji home. Misato turned, and left the dining car, going back to her room. She slammed the door behind her, sat on her bed, and hyperventilated a little. It passed, and then she just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling for a while.
There was a knock on the door. "Misato, it's lunch time," Shinji said.
"Coming," Misato said. She opened the door and walked with him to the dining car. They couldn't show affection in public, especially not now that the world knew that Shinji was having sex with someone, but Misato wanted very much to reach out to him right then, having just been metaphysically bruised. But they couldn't. Alas. "So, who won?"
"The game isn't over, it has just been saved," Shinji said. "Still, it's not looking good for me. The Japanese have invaded San Francisco." Well, if that wasn't a surreal statement.
"I see," Misato said.
"It's going better on the European front, though," Shinji continued. "Asuka has invaded Germany and Spain. Did I mention she is France?"
"Spain?" Misato held the door open as they entered the dining car.
"Apparently, even though they didn't actually enter World War Two, it was a near thing. You can involve them or not in this game, dependant on whether or not someone wants to play them," Shinji said.
"And someone did?"
"No, Asuka just invaded them," Shinji said. "Apparently, taking on Nazi Germany wasn't challenge enough for her."
Misato laughed at that. They got their meal and then sat at a table with Asuka, Rei, and Don James. "Hey, Shinji," he smiled. He looked at Misato, and his smile turned into a smile of another kind. "Hello there."
Oh, fuck damn it. Misato said the first thing she could think of to rebuff him: "You're too young for me, sport." Oh, what a lying hypocrite I am. Well, She couldn't very well tell the truth, could she? Shinji and Asuka both struggled to keep their faces straight. Then the train lurched to life, and began traveling down the intercontinental railroad once again.
-
Asuka banged on the bathroom door. "Hurry up in there!" she called. Since they were out of the "Danger Zone," the Eva pilots didn't have to work in shifts, but they were still traveling by train so that the Evangelions would be usable as weapons, just in case of another assault.
"Use the other bathroom," Browne called from the shower.
"It doesn't have a shower."
"Then wait your turn."
Asuka waited for five minutes, and then pounded on the door again. "What's taking you so long?"
"Be patient, would you?"
Asuka put her ear to the door. "The water's not even on!"
"I've got to shave and junk, don't I?" Browne asked rhetorically. After a while, he finally opened the door.
"Took you long enough!" Asuka said.
"I was trying this new skin cream to reduce the size of pores…"
"Mother of Christ, could you be more of a woman?" Asuka asked while passing him and then slammed the door without waiting for an answer.
Oh, whatever! Browne thought, making sure the bathrobe was tied tight and returning to his room. He turned on his computer and then searched his bookshelf. Finding the proper book, he opened it so that something would fall out of the spine. A couple of years ago, long before the SEELE scandal, HALO had developed a new and powerful piece of technology, a device that could store massive amounts of memory. This "flash drive," as the techs who created it liked to call it, could plug into almost any computer and could store massive files on it, such as SEELE's translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls they had secreted away long before HALO had ever even existed.
He read through them, for the millionth time, and for the millionth time, he thought, What am I not seeing? It was absured to think that SEELE would have been able to induce their plots. Hell, the only way one could even tell that they predicted such a thing ever happening was retroactively, and even then, you had to make some assumptions. Damn it, was he going to have to learn Hebrew to do this? That probably wouldn't help, actually. The scrolls were encoded by their writers, and SEELE had done the decoding (and they weren't about to give him any pointers).
He glared at the text suspiciously. Then he rubbed his eyes, performing a breathing exorcize. He looked at the screen again, and the first phrase his eyes landed on was Israfel shall walk on the surface of this Earth, but if daemons should attack him, he shall split in twine as surely as Moses used the truth to part the Red Sea, and if one half of him shall die, the other half shall heal him, so that the only way for the Lilim to defeat him would be to kill both halves at once. O…K… Browne swore that every time he read that passage, it got more nonsensical and harder to comprehend. He thought of something: Browne highlighted as Moses used the truth to part the Red Sea, hit underline, and then went throughout the (many hundreds of pages long) document, underlining anything that seemed…wrong. He looked over the document, and found that all the phrases included the words "the truth."
Browne looked at various SEELE members' travel histories over the last two dozen years. Israel. Egypt. Ethiopia. Why Ethiopia? He remembered something that was trivia at the time he had heard it, but just might mean something now. Ethiopia claimed to possess the Ark of the Covenant. Browne went through the document, replacing "the truth" with "the ark," wherever he had underlined it. This made more sense, and was also a lot scarier. They had never found any reference to the Ark in any of SEELE's files or any of SEELE's other stuff. They had made sure to get rid of all of it before they abandoned ship. That meant it was important. Very important. Fuck. And the only person who might have discovered the truth was dead and buried. Double fuck.
This is going to be a suicide mission, isn't it? Those were among the last words Ryoji Kaji had said to him.
I don't know. But it is entirely possible.
Kaji had sighed. So be it.
-
Misato awoke to Shinji stroking her face. She smiled.
"Hey, beautiful," Shinji said, moving in for a kiss. It was an almost chaste kiss.
"You sure I'm not too old and wrinkly for you?" Misato teased.
"N-no, not in the least."
Misato sighed. "Relax, I was just teasing you."
"Sorry," Shinji apologized.
"Don't worry, I understand that I can hardly wake up one morning and have you magically become assertive," Misato said. "These things take work."
"I don't want to be assertive," Shinji said.
"Yeah, I know," Misato said. Changing the subject: "We'd better go to breakfast soon."
"And not together," Shinji added. "If we always arrive at the same time, people will start to thinking, and then start to talking. I'll go first." They kissed again, and then Shinji got out of bed and got dressed. He left the room. Misato stretched, put her hands behind her head, and relaxed for a while. She turned on the TV, and learned that the siege of Tokyo 3 was over. This was good news, but after a half hour of their non-stop blabbering about it, Misato was sick of the twenty-four-hour news networks' coverage of it. Then she saw Toji and Hikari telling about their experiences while under siege, and she decided to watch it, anyway. She noticed Hikari sporting crutches and an ankle cast, and of course Toji was in a wheelchair. There was an odd sort of symmetry between them now, thought the back of Misato's head.
She turned off the TV, went back into her room, and then got dressed herself. It was time that she went to breakfast. Asuka, Rei, Shinji, Kensuke, Don James, and a few of the other young HALO soldiers were all sitting at a table.
Ritsuko called Misato over to her table, and after a moment's hesitation, she did. After all, she had to be careful to not be sown to the hip with Shinji. Besides, it was high time she and Ritsuko mended their relationship…even if Ritsuko had known the truth about Human Instrumentality all along.
"It's good to see them act like children, for a change," Ritsuko said. "It's so easy to forget that that's what they are, to treat them like adults, to ask them to sacrifice like adults. They're not, though."
"Tell me about it," said Misato, who managed not to wince at Ritsuko's words.
"You know, you could go a little easy on me," Shinji was saying to Don James.
"As grateful as I am to you all for the fact that I am not a radioactive cinder right now, I'm sorry, but I don't have it in me," the American said.
"Rei, you're Russia—couldn't you attack him?"
"I'm fending off a Nazi invasion from the west," Rei said.
"The way things are going, I'm going to have to pull my forces out of the European Theater in order to keep Don from conquering all of the western US," Shinji said. "Seriously what do you have against the nation of your birth?"
"It's purely strategy. You're playing as what was the most powerful nation in the world at the time, and as my enemy. It makes sense for me to throw everything I've got at you."
"Shinji really is beginning to come into himself," Misato said, a touch wistfully.
"Hmm? Ah, that's good," Ritsuko said. "I hear he has a girlfriend. Any idea about who it might be?"
Misato managed not to jump or otherwise act suspiciously. She took a sip of her coffee (she had gotten used to the fact that there was no beer on this train by now) calmly, realizing that there hadn't been any sort of tone of accusation in Ritsuko's voice. "Not a clue," Misato said finally, lying smoothly.
"Ah, well," Ritsuko sighed. "I suppose that if he wanted us to know, he'd tell us."
When lunch ended, the people at Shinji's table left and returned carrying televisions, presumably the ones from their rooms. They set up their game as people were leaving. "Sure seems to be addictive," Misato said. "Did you happen to catch that game's name?"
"I was hoping you did," Ritsuko said.
There was a sound indicating that Shinji had a message. "What the hell, you're invading Panama? What is the deal?"
"Think about it Shinji. Without Panama, how are you going to get your navy from the Atlantic to the Pacific?" Don James told him.
"Damn you," Shinji cursed.
"Eh. I play to win."
Asuka yelled something in English to one of the other players, who flipped her the bird.
"Tell Britain that I'm going to have to pull out. I've got to save my own ass over here," Shinji said to Asuka, who interpreted it. The same player who had flipped her off said something.
Asuka apparently decided that it didn't need translating. "You know, the four of us should be a team. The others can't understand us when we speak Japanese, but Don James and I can understand them."
"A tempting idea," Don said. "I was planning on being Italy next. Which Axis Powers do you guys want?"
"I want Japan," Shinji said.
"Figured you've learned a few tricks from watching me clean your clock, eh?"
"Oh, I doubt that I'll have the good luck to have China collapse under me, like you did, but I figure that if I can take Hawaii, I the Americans will have to launch their pacific war from San Francisco, and I'll be able to conquer the pacific at my leisure."
"Now there's some good thinking," Don James admitted.
"I learned the hard way how difficult that is," Shinji said.
"I'll be Spain," Rei said.
"Hey! Don't leave me with the Nazis!"
They played their game and talked about it for a while. In spite of Shinji's best efforts, Japan conquered California and the rest of the coast. "Pining over an ill-spent youth?"
This time, Misato did jump. "Sorry. Yeah. We didn't have these kinds of games when we were their age."
"When we were fourteen, Second Impact happened. Most of us were lucky if we had electricity in the year that followed," Ritsuko said.
-
A routine of sorts had been established. In the morning, Shinji would get up first, and have breakfast. Sometimes Misato would get up first, just for variety, but the important thing was that they would never get up at the same time. Misato ate breakfast with Ritsuko and sometimes Browne or some other high-level HALO functionary would join them (but more often Browne ate with Valaskas, and talked business, she supposed), while the pilots ate with their new friends. When breakfast officially ended, they'd set up their game and play until lunch, and Misato would watch TV or else see what Ritsuko was doing. Not very often the latter, however. Friendships took time to heal. At lunch, Misato would eat with the pilots, and more often than not Don James would hit on her.
"I'm too old for you," Misato had said.
"No you're not. I like older women," Don James countered.
"Well, you're too young for me," Misato said.
"I told you that I am eighteen."
"Yeah, well, you look sixteen."
He would continue to pester her, and the conversation would always go pretty much like that. One day, Shinji said, "Hey, would you cut that out already?"
"C'mon, Shinji, you should be rooting for me," Don James said. "If I manage to seduce her, she might decide that she likes her flesh young, and who knows? Maybe it'll be you who gets access next."
"I already have—" "access," as you call it, he was about to say, but he corrected himself, hardly skipping a beat, "—a girlfriend."
"Oh, yeah, I had heard something about you buying condoms a while back. Smooth move, bro. Tell me…is it Asuka?"
"I'm not telling you that," Shinji protested. Asuka had yelled at him, too, but he hadn't paid attention.
"Of course you're not. So, is she good in the sack?" Don James had continued to pester him about it, but Shinji remained tight-lipped as a clam (and for good reason).
After lunch, it all depended on what they felt like. Sometimes they'd watch a movie, or play a game. Sometimes Misato and Shinji would lock themselves in their rooms and fuck themselves silly (but, of course, they'd be all cloaks-and-daggers about going to their rooms so that no one would suspect that they were going together). Sometimes everyone went off to do their own thing. Then came dinner, which was less regular. Sometimes she ate with Ritsuko, sometimes with her pilots, sometimes with people she didn't even know. It was hard to make friends with the people from HALO's Santiago 2 branch, as most of them didn't speak Japanese, and she didn't speak English or Spanish. After diner, Misato would read for a while in her room, and then after it got dark, she'd knock on the door connecting her room to Shinji's (to make sure that there was no one in the room with him), and then they would fuck. If the sound of them fucking every night bothered Asuka, she never mentioned it, and that part of their routine had been established long ago. They closed the blinds on their windows when they did it; yeah, the train was going ninety miles per hour, but you could never be too safe when dealing with the paparazzi. (Fuck, when had they become superstars?)
WWII ended when the Japanese invaded Washington DC, and then they started a new game, after looking at their scores and listening to Don James brag about how he had carried the Axis. This time, it was Shinji who invaded Hawaii, and he took the Galapagos for good measure, severely crippling America's ability to fight in the Pacific. Rei and Asuka divided France between them and then set their sights on Britain, but Rei did most of the attacking there, as Asuka wanted to invade Russia before the weather made it difficult for her men. Don James conquered large swaths of Africa, feeding the continent's resources to his allies. He also instructed them in how to maximize what they had and soon there were recruiting stations and factories all across what the Axis had conquered. Japan didn't outshine its allies as it did in the last game, but then, Shinji had neither Don James' skill nor the incredible luck of having conquered all of china early in the game. As this went on, in the real world, the train sped through Mexico and America, up the eastern side of the Rockies, and then when they got to where the snow was on the ground year-round, they were in Canada, and then the frozen ghost town that was Edmonton.
"Well, the North Pole is only about a couple hundred miles from here, and we're surrounded by the mass of Canada on all sides, so I doubt we're going to need Eva protection. Apparently, the brass agrees," Don James said. "Still, you guys are cool, and I'd like to hang with you at some later date." He and the pilots traded information. "Well, see you." He hopped into the convoy and rode off.
-
"I thought they'd enjoy the launch," Browne said, explaining the presence of Misato, the pilots, and Kensuke in the control room. Valaskas shrugged.
"Private James reporting," Don James said. Apparently, he was the one holding the camera. "All systems appear to be nominal, and as soon as we get—what the hell?" The camera swung wildly, and they saw a massive army attacking. "Damn it, the Separatists tricked us! How did I not see this coming?" as if the blame rested squarely on his shoulders.
The HALO soldiers fought well, but there were only a couple hundred of them, and thousands of the enemy. Valaskas knew that they couldn't win. Don James put the camera down and started messing with something.
"What are you doing, Private James?" Valaskas said.
"Your next orders are going to be to initiate the self destruct, correct, sir?" This wasn't a question.
Damn straight. "Only as a last resort. Wait for backup." They both knew this was a lie. The train was three hours away and headed in the wrong direction.
"We're getting slaughtered, sir. There is no time. All we can do is keep the Separatists from claiming the satellite and take as many of them out with us as we can." He lifted something to the camera that looked like a stapler with some thick wires sticking out of it. "Impromptu dead man's switch," he explained without being asked. "I let go, the north pole goes boom."
"You don't need to do that," Valaskas said.
"Yeah, I know that when this thing goes up, it'll be so big that any enemy soldier far enough away not to be instantly killed is too far away to worry about at all, but what can I say? I want to go down shooting, sir. One second."
The door to their makeshift mission control burst open, and North Korean soldiers came running in. Don shot two of them, and then one shot him. He fell, dropping the dead man's switch—and then static. Even from as far away as they were, the people on the train could feel the shockwave from the explosion like a hundred thermonuclear bombs.