Author's Note: Sorry for the lateness of this chapter, but I recently started working, and things have been hectic over here. Also, this chapter may be subject to drastic revisioning. If it happens, I'll notify anyone who has R&R'd this story or added it to their favorites (sorry, but that's the only way I have of knowing who actually read it). It probably won't happen, but keep the possibility in mind.

At World's End

S-Michael

Chapter the Eleventh

The Ants Go Marching One by One

Jose Valaskas sat at his desk at HALO's new Canadian Branch. Most of HALO's top minds were here with him, piecing together what was left of Sahaquiel II. This time, when it went up, there would be no errors in its system. The time for pussyfooting around was over. The world government had been formed, and it was run by HALO-backed politicians. Politicians who would make the laws that HALO wanted made. There were still a few loose ends to tie up—the war (which the UN forces had been winning, anyway), finding out what happened to SEELE (it wasn't safe to have people who knew so much about the angels running around in HALO's world), and then launching the Sahaquiel II and destroying a few angels with it. That was important. Maintaining the Evas and their pilots was expensive and a nuisance, not to mention dangerous (there was no telling when one of those kids would snap and start destroying stuff with their superpowered mechs). Valaskas no longer wanted people to be afraid for their lives, so once it had been demonstrated that the satellite could destroy angels quickly, conveniently, and without the angels getting anywhere close to a human settlement, the Evangelions could be retired, their pilots rewarded and thanked for saving the world almost twenty times before they even reached the age of consent, and then they could be forgotten about.

He looked out the window at the black marble obelisk that marked the center of the Polar Crater (as it was already being called). Beyond it was Sahaquiel II, or maybe it ought to be called the Sahaquiel III now. Nah. This crater would actually be pretty handy in the future. It would be convenient to have a big flat empty space to store shit you wanted to blast into space. His phone rang. "What is it?"

"Sir, we've had a breach."

"What sort of breach?"

"One of the a—the beasts has escaped. I'm sending the data to your laptop now. We're keeping track of it with the All Seeing Eye," the unofficial name of HALO's other satellite, the one that had "found" the "nineteenth angel."

"And you suspect foul play."

"The operative that appears to have been responsible is dead. Also, those things don't just get up and walk around on their own."

It seemed obvious to Valaskas that SEELE was behind this. If anyone was capable of bringing a brain-dead angel to life, it was SEELE. "Good. I'll call you when I have orders."

"Wait. Sir, shouldn't we do something?"

"Seal off the secret lab, both exits, tighten the building's security, and then forget about it until I order otherwise."

"Sir…"

"What are you—worried that the beasts will starve?" Angels didn't eat. Or breath, for that matter. "We do not need them at the moment, so make sure that the garage is locked up tight so that no one can steal my Porsches, as it were. Is there a problem?"

"No sir. We will wait for orders."

Valaskas hung up, and looked at the info. Then he looked at the what the All Seeing Eye had to show him. The angel was headed straight for Antarctica. "Well, this is obviously a trap." Yes, but why? What did SEELE hope to gain? Assuming that they were still after Third Impact, there were only a couple of things they could want: Adam's or Lilith's DNA. It seemed unlikely that they would be lacking one or the other, but as Valaskas wasn't liquefied and SEELE apparently thought it was strong enough to attack him and had something to gain from doing so, it could be nothing else.

Alright, so SEELE had somehow failed to gather one or both sets of DNA before they disappeared. Stranger things have happened. If it was Adam's they were after, it was quickly on its way there, albeit in a highly corrupted form. Could it be that this wasn't a trap, that the reason they were being so careless was that it was endgame, all or nothing? No, if they wanted Adam's DNA, they would have gotten all of the angels to come to them. They'd know what they could expect to have happened to the DNA of these things. They'd be lucky to be able to recreate Adam from all twenty of Valaskas' manufactured angels. Therefore, they had to be after Lilith's DNA.

Which existed in two living carriers: Unit 01 and Rei Ayanami. Both of which would be sent to deal with the angel. Clever. Very clever, SEELE. Valaskas looked at the course of the angel again. Still headed towards Antarctica, and presumably the white egg. He smiled. SEELE had gone through all of this trouble to get his attention. He might as well send them a message by taking his own sweet time at showing up.

He called the Santiago 2 branch again. "This is Valaskas. Here are your orders: Sever the beasts spinal columns, and then partially rip out their cores. Not all the way, though; I don't want them dead. Just so that they can't move if their brains start working, and they that if they do, their cores fall out and they die. I want to make sure that our friends at SEELE can't pull the same trick twice and also that we can fix them easily when the time comes." He hung up.

Pressing the intercom, he asked, "When can the satellite be ready for launch?"

"Two weeks."

Valaskas' phone rang. He turned off the intercom and picked up. "Hello?"

"It's Browne. James was a spy."

"Are you sure?" Valaskas asked. He would never have guessed, not in a million years.

"I'm sending you the information via satellite connections as we speak. Check the computer."

"I'll do that. Thanks. And, uh…"

"Yes, I'm alright."

""Well, its just that, he was awfully close to you."

"I know. I just…I just…" Browne hung up. Was it Valaskas' imagination, or was Browne mumbling by the end of that conversation?

-

Browne watched as the twentieth angel fell to earth, destroyed. This had gone exactly as planned. His mind was a million miles away at the moment, though. He was staring down at Don James' letter to him.

Hey old man,

If you are reading this, I am dead. Court marshaled and executed, no doubt. Somehow, I always knew that you were going to win in the end. I had to try, though. I had to know if I could get away with it. I want you to know that I feel no and have never felt any animosity towards you, and that my betrayal is in no way your fault.

Damn it, I'm no good at this emotional BS. There are three codes written at the bottom of this letter. Go to my personal computer and type in the first code as the password to my account. You'll get an error message. Then type in the second. You'll get another. Then type in the last. You have to go through all of that in order to get to my shadow account. Don't try to hack it, I designed the firewalls myself. Once you're there, you'll find that I have recorded and/or otherwise documented my entire career of spying for SEELE. Every last scrap of data is there.

I know that you're probably hurt by this betrayal. I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself…well, you probably heard all of this already when you executed me. No need to explain it again. I hope your next protégé won't be a cocky asshole like me.

Farewell forever,

Don James the One and Only

Browne hadn't of been able to believe it, until he actually did as the letter instructed. He had then called Valaskas and told him, but even as he spoke, he could feel himself slipping, falling from his persona. He had tried to meditate, but nothing came of it. He just came back to the same disturbing fact: Don James was a traitor.

Don James was a traitor, and Browne hadn't even known. How was it possible, that he had been deceived, of all people? But then…a couple years ago in New Honolulu, Don James was sixteen at the time, they were eating in a restaurant, and he began to hit on the waitress. He swore up and down that he was eighteen…and Browne wouldn't have been able to tell that he was lying if he hadn't known for a fact that he wasn't.

Don James had had the wholly unique ability to lie without the slightest sign that he was lying. There were lots of people who could lie with a straight face, even a few that could lie with their eyes, but what Don James did was above and beyond that. He could fool a lie detector. More impressively, he could fool Browne, who had caught people lie detectors had missed before.

Don James… How? Why?

It could be worse. Browne could have been having this mental breakdown earlier. It didn't matter now; his duty here was complete. With Unification completed, there wouldn't be any more angels until the satellite was up and running. Then it will prove the Evas obsolete, and then…

The phone rang. Browne answered it without speaking.

"You there?" asked Valaskas.

"Of course."

"We have a problem. Something is happening in the white GeoFront, and we think SEELE is responsible. The Evas must get there ASAP."

"Is it bad?"

"There's a stream of white light shooting skyward out of Antarctica. And, uh…I didn't say anything earlier, but one of the beasts has escaped, and ran there. The centipede."

That is not according to plan. SEELE? Must be.

"You've got nothing to say?"

"Yeah, actually…" he handed the phone to Misato. "Talk to him. I'm going to bed."

-

"Shinji, lets dance," Kowaru had said.

"Okay."

"Wrap your arm around me like this, and take my other hand like this." They were now in a waltz. "Stand on my feet."

"Why?"

"Trust me"

"Okay. Like this?"

"Perfect." They began to lift up off the ground.

"What the hell? Are we flying?"

"Relax, Shinji, or you'll fall."

Shinji relaxed. "How is this possible, Kowaru?"

"Exactly how you think it is possible, Shinji. I am an angel. My name is Tabris."

"Why are you doing this?"

"So that you would believe me when I told you that I was an angel. I need to prepare you, Shinji, for what I fear is the inevitable end."

"Are you breaking up with me?"

Kowaru laughed bitterly. "No, Shinji. But I cannot suppress my angelic urges for much longer. Some day soon, I will try to find and merge with Adam, and then I will no longer be me. Naturally, NERV is going to try to stop me, and…if one of us has to die so that the other may live, I'd rather you be the one who lives, Shinji. You deserve to live, my dearest."

"Please…no."

"I'd change it if I could, but every day I resist the urge to merge with Adam is a day that I tempt fate. And I must make you make a promise for me, Shinji."

"What promise?"

"If I should die, don't follow me into death. Live, Shinji. Live, or I would have died for nothing."

"Damn you."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

"Thank you, Shinji. Now, then, there are things that I need to show you…"

"What are you thinking about, Shinji?" Misato asked.

"Huh?" Shinji asked, shocked from his memories. "Oh, nothing really. You?"

"How cute you are," Misato replied. They kissed.

"I still can't believe you didn't freak when I told you my plans for the future. You're not exactly the think-about-the-future type," Shinji said.

"I did freak. I have no idea how I managed to say anything, much less the right thing."

"Kind of like when I first confessed my feelings to you that first time. I had no idea what I was going to say or even that I felt that way until I said so. Hey, Misato? Why did you…you know, do what you did?"

"You, you mean," Misato received a slight smile for her cheesy joke. "Honestly, I have no idea, and frankly, I don't fucking care anymore. I admit that I spent a lot of time wondering about it, wondering about what kind of person I was, but you know what? Fuck it. I love you."

"I love you, too."

Misato toyed with a lock of Shinji's hair. "Still, it amazes me how much more confident and self-assured you have become since that day."

"It makes you feel less like a creep," Shinji said knowingly.

Misato paused for a moment, the lock of Shinji's hair still wrapped around and between her index and middle finger. She realized in that moment that the entire reason he had been coming into himself, the entire reason he even wanted to, was to make her less anxious about their relationship. In his own way, he was protecting her as much as she was protecting him. A similar epiphany had caused her to burst out in uncontrollable nervous laughter towards the beginning of their relationship. This time, Misato smiled; "You know, this may sound pathetic, but this is the healthiest relationship I have ever been in."

-

Why? Browne asked himself. That Don James had been able to lie to his face would have shook him enough. The fact that the young man who had been like a son to Browne would do such a thing did more to loosen the bolts on Browne's mental rig than the fact that he could ever could. Browne went over that sentence again. Could ever could. Yeah, it was grammatically correct, strangely enough.

"The Separatists have surrendered!" shouted a gleeful voice on the radio. English, South African accent. That made sense: the ship was probably passing the tip of Africa at this very minute. "That's right, ladies and gentlemen, the war is over. The Separatists have surrendered, and agreed to the world government's terms…" He went on to describe in detail what they were. Browne already knew the gist. Separatist nations were now conquered territory. Those born there from this date forward were citizens, but those already extent weren't. They were subject to all of the world's laws. There would be money spent on schools and stuff, officially to bring them up to the level of the rest of the world's people and help smooth over the war, unofficially in order to look good, but in reality so that they could shove fist world values down third world throats. Ironically, the Separatists were getting exactly what the feared all along. And quite frankly, in Browne's opinion, it was exactly what they deserved. He admitted to being a cultural imperialist, but only in a loose definition of culture.

He ignored the radio, and flipped over onto his back. What was he going to do with himself? There came a knock on the door. Browne ignored it. "I know you're in there, damn it!" Asuka shouted. "It's not as if you go anywhere else, these days." Browne remain silent, trying to will her away. "God damn it." Asuka threw the door open.

"Hey. You have no idea what I could have been doing in here," Browne complained.

"It stinks in here. You stink. And look like shit. When was the last time you showered? Or shaved?" Asuka continued as if she hadn't heard him. "You're rarely seen out of your room any more, and when you are, you never make eye contact with anybody or talk to them. What the hell happened to you?"

"I…that is…ugh."

"What the hell was that? Damn it, man, what are you doing? What the hell has happened to you? Aren't you the psych guy? You're not allowed to have mental breakdowns."

She was saying all the wrong things (though she meant well), but the way she said them, and the way she was holding herself… "You know, you remind me a lot of Don James."

"Thanks." Asuka didn't know about his betrayal. For the best, Browne supposed.

"Why are you here?"

"You saved me from a catatonic state. I'm returning the favor."

Browne laughed. "You're right." He gathered a clean uniform, his robe, and various grooming implements, and he headed towards the showers.

He washed himself thouroughly, and used more shampoo and conditioner on his hair than any other ten people onboard this ship combined. All the while, trying to regain some semblance of the control he once had. He did battle with millions of snags in his hair, and then dried himself off. He shaved his face, and then noticed some gunk in his armpit hair that wouldn't come out, so he shaved those, too. He dyed his hair back to its normal shade of deep brown, and then really noticed for the first time that there were two rows of sinks, and so two rows of mirrors above them. It created an eerie effect, making it look like there were an infinite number of rows, and an infinite number of him, all standing in pairs, staring at one another. Was it his imagination, or did they begin to change slightly in the "distance"? It was like looking into alternate worlds… The quantum wave does not collapse…

Browne snapped out of it. It was just a mirror, and another mirror. It did not have the power to look into alternate universes, and neither did he. There were times when he liked the idea of the quantum wave not collapsing (there would be a world out there where Second Impact never happened), but most of the time he didn't (there would also be a world where Third Impact did happen, and also one where Hitler won WWII), but whether he liked it or hated it, it did sound like something the God he believed in would do. " 'And lo, for I have created the infinite universe, and populated it with stars, creating the processes of random chance and nonrandom selection so that on each world only the best would survive and that no two worlds would be alike, and to be sure that all possible worlds come to be and thus ensure that sentience arises by default, I have built into the fabric of time the ability to shatter whenever an event of random outcome occurs, each timeline following a different outcome. And now that this is done, let us watch, and see what happens.'" Browne chuckled at himself internally.

Taking advantage of the same trick of mirrors which had disoriented him for a second, Browne tried to braid his hair. It took a while, but he finally got it, and then, as he was mostly dry by now, he put on his fresh clothes. He left the bathroom, and saw that Asuka had been waiting for him. "Thank you, Asuka, for—" An alarm rang. "It's time."

They parted ways, Asuka to the Eva prep area, Browne to the bridge. Confident. Be confident. Confidence is the key to everything. It was time to find out how good an actor he was without his self-hypnotic tricks. "Status report."

There was a moment of silence that lasted forever. And then: "Sir, we're at the location of the white egg, and ten meters to our port side…"

-

There was a column of light shooting out of the water, and circling it like vultures circling a dead animal were nine flying…things.

"What are those?" Asuka asked. "Angels?"

"I've never imagined angels so uniform, but anything is possible," Shinji said.

"Valaskas says that they're 'mass produced Evangelions,'" Browne's voice whispered.

"How do we fight them?" Asuka asked.

"Honestly?"

"Yeah."

"I have no idea."