Chapter One: Shooting the Messenger
- - - O - - -
"More accurate and to a deeper degree, the precision of modern equipment makes the findings of 50 years ago look like rough estimates. But in a few special cases such as the study of human evolution, particularly DNA adaptation between species shift (primate-human), the preconceived notion of acceptable data divergence is falling farther and farther from explaining the differences between us and our distant cousins.
This expansive void of DNA data, which I have termed the Castaway Gap, takes on a new spin when we cross-reference the modern findings of other scientific fields. For the purposes of this book, I have teamed up with experts in archaeology, physics, and cultural anthropology to form an ad hoc detective organization. Together we dedicated our time to solving exactly what road our DNA took to get from its ancient state to that of modern man."
~Dr. Jonas Volman, The Castaway Theory (2004)
The titular theory concerns two notable inconsistencies in the human genetic lineage dated to approximately 150,000 and 100,000 years ago.
- - - O - - -
1620 Hours (local time), August 19, 2547 (Military Calendar)
Sol System, Planet Earth
Ohiradai, Hakone, Japan
15 Years after Second Activation
"Why now? Goddammit, why does that thing have to show up now of all times?" Major Misato Katsuragi cursed her luck as she continued out towards the last recorded location of the boy's Chatter signal, buildings and nature alike transformed into a blur as she passed them. He had been on the train to Tokyo-3 before the wireless part of the civilian communications grid was shut down all across Hakone, so she couldn't be entirely sure of where Shinji would be. However, the Hakoneyumoto Station was the last stop for the train line he had been riding outside the first of the area's defense perimeters, the concentric rings of hidden gun emplacements, missile launchers, and bunkers that covered the Hakone region, ripples of military hardware spreading out from Tokyo-3, the fortress city that crowned the north end of Lake Ashi.
Hopefully, Misato thought as she pressed down on the accelerator, he'll stay put so I can find him. I mean, I did send him that postcard, after all…
- - - O - - -
Shinji Ikari gently placed the phone back into its place on the terminal and sighed. There had been no signal, only a message alerting him of that the city was currently under a state of emergency and that he should head to the nearest shelter, the screen on the terminal being kind enough to offer directions. His Chatter had stopped receiving a signal as well, so whatever the emergency was, the whole civilian communications grid seemed to be shut down as a result. And not just the communications grid, he realized. The trains had stopped running due to the emergency as well, forcing Shinji off miles away from his intended destination.
He turned around and glanced up and down the otherwise empty street outside the train station once again. It was almost creepy, how the whole area just seemed to be abandoned. It was no ghost town left empty and unmaintained by Second Activation, to be fair, but whatever evacuation might have happened here had been fast and complete. The other passengers who had been on the train with him when it stopped had already left for a shelter, leaving Shinji as the only one hanging around outside. It was truly strange, the silence in the city. It wasn't pure silence, of course. The Hakone region of Japan was still more nature than city, and the sounds of birds and insects filled the summer air. The strangeness, however, was the utter lack of any of the sounds of civilization that he was used to. A few cars were parked along the other side of the street, but none were moving throughout the city. He glanced back at the train station, the occasional reminder of the emergency situation the only artificial noise around. Not even the hum of air conditioners graced the city.
Then Shinji felt the ground shake.
As if it had been waiting for that moment, the world around him seemed to spring to life. Engines roared to life, armored doors disguised as walls clattered as they opened, and the low whine of jet engines suddenly filled the empty city with the noise of civilization once more. Within moments a caravan of Warthogs and Scorpion tanks had emerged from side streets and the armored garages. On the roofs above, barriers and more armored doors slid open, exposing gauss turrets and missile batteries, transforming the abandoned city into a makeshift fortress in under a minute. The whine of jet engines became a roar as a flight of Sparrowhawks swooped overhead, and for a moment, the tremors that had triggered the sudden mobilization were forgotten as UNSC Army and Marine troops alike continued down the road towards a destination unknown.
As the convoy continued to pass him, not sparing so much as a glance in his direction, Shinji looked back at the letter he had received three days ago. A letter from his father. It was a summons, though for what, Shinji had no idea, as there was more black ink covering it than a "declassified" ONI document. The only thing that wasn't blacked out was the short message "Come to Tokyo-3 in three days." So he had done just that.
Or at least, he had tried to. Shoving the letter back into his pocket, he pulled out the postcard that had arrived with it. On the one side, there was a small message from one Major Misato Katsuragi, letting him know that she'd be the one to pick him up, and where to meet. The other side was a picture of said major, doing her best to catch the attention of the adolescent boy she had sent it to. And between the short shorts, loose-fitting tank top, and the arrow pointing towards her two greatest assets, Shinji had to admit she had done a rather good job.
His line of thought was broken off when the source of the tremors he had been conveniently ignoring finally came into view. The young teen could only stare as the…creature stepped out from behind a hill, a massive swarm of Sparrowhawks and Falcons backing away from it as it advanced. Giant monsters had always been a part of Japan's movie industry, even in the twenty-sixth century, but this…this was something else. It stood on thin legs that shouldn't – no, couldn't possibly support the weight of something its size, and its waist was only slightly less impossibly thin. Three-fingered hands dangled on spindly arms below the massive shoulders, the latter covered by cream-white armor-like plating. There was nothing above those shoulders, the closest thing resembling a head a simplistic bird-like mask of the same color as the shoulders with two hollow eyes, framed by the dark gray flesh that composed most of the creature's body. It jutted forward from the middle of what would have been the chest had it been a human, the long, thin beak of the mask hanging down vertically in front of a red orb half-buried in the being's torso, a bony ribcage-like structure braced around it.
The roar of cannon and missile fire from the convoy that had just passed Shinji also had the effect of shattering his focus on the terrible creature before him for a moment. He instinctively ducked his head at the first shot from one of the tanks, the sound ripping through the air like thunder. The barrage of missiles and cannon fire from both the aircraft and ground forces enveloped the monster in a shroud of flame and smoke, eliciting a horrifying shriek. Five seconds after the first rounds found their mark, the bombardment ceased, a thick veil of smoke still rising from both the creature and the buildings around it.
As the smoke cleared, however, it became apparent that the bombardment had done little more than piss the two-hundred-foot-tall abomination off. The being had obviously felt the blast, as it was just now righting its torso, which had previously been bent backwards enough for its long, gangly arms to touch the ground behind it. And despite how solid the mask looked on first inspection, it blinked and tilted the mask at an angle like a human would tilt their head, seemingly studying the aircraft surrounding it. As it rose, it lifted its right arm, the spike behind its elbow elongating and beginning to glow a bright pink. It then held out its hand palm-open towards one of the Sparrowhawks.
What happened next could only be described as a blatant violation of the laws of relativity and causality. At one point in time, the spike was fully extended. The next, the tip barely protruded from the creature's elbow, and a lance-like pink beam half again as long as the being's arm just appeared from its palm, the VTOL it had aimed for instantly pierced through and through. Almost casually, the monster swung its arm in an arc, the pink glow lingering in the wake of the swing and delineating its path through half a dozen more aircraft that had the misfortune of being in front of it and more or less in line with each other and the first Sparrowhawk. In another blink, the lance of energy was gone, the spike on the elbow back to its normal length. The pink afterglow of the attack began to fade away, and as it did, the VTOL's, which until then had simply hung in the sky, began to feel the effects of causality once more. Four of them simply blew up where they were, and two more fell from the sky, the Falcon among them bursting into flames as it obeyed gravity's call.
The last VTOL, however, was different. It was a Pelican gunship, and being a larger aircraft than the others, it wasn't instantly compromised by the attack. However, it was also the last aircraft to be hit by the monster's swing, and thanks to the creature's apparent disregard for several of the laws of physics, all of the momentum of the blow was transferred to the gunship. Missing an engine and with the pilots likely smeared into a paste against the sides of the cockpit by the physically impossible forces the gunship endured, and with no hope for anything better than a crash landing, the Pelican spun out of control, heading at high speeds in the general direction of one Shinji Ikari.
It glanced off one of the many office buildings in the city before continuing its uncontrollable flight into another office building, this one attached to the maglev station and directly above the unfortunate teen. Shinji could only let out a yelp and duck down with his hands over his neck as glass rained down towards him. As glass began to hit the concrete around him, his fight or flight reaction finally kicked in all the way, and he quickly ran with his head down away from the cascade of shards.
It was then that the monster finally showed its true colors, in a more literal way than the human mind was capable of comprehending. However, what could be comprehended was that a brilliant white ring appeared above the creature's shoulders, and that once it did, the monster seemed to change. Its form remained the same, but its interaction with the parts of the electromagnetic spectrum visible to human eyes was greatly altered, at the very least. The dark-gray flesh that composed most of the creature's body suddenly turned blacker than night, as if it was sucking all the light in the area towards itself. The calcified armor of the creature, in contrast, radiated the same brilliant white as the halo above it, and the orb in its torso shone like a red sun behind its cage of light.
All Shinji could do was stare in a combination of wonder and absolute terror as the being simply lifted off the ground and sailed on an arc straight towards another part of the city. Unfortunately, that part happened to be right next to him. He found his voice returning in the form of a scream as a massive black foot crashed down barely twenty feet away, right on top of one of the few cars parked along the side of the street. The youth threw his arm in front of his face in anticipation of the inevitable explosion. The blast knocked him to the ground, as he expected, but with the squeal of skidding tires, the heat wave suddenly found itself cut off.
Greeting Shinji when he looked up was a blue sports car, the passenger side door swung open for him. By the artificially purple hair and easygoing smile of the woman driving, he quickly summarized that this was the Major Katsuragi that had been assigned to pick him up. System still flooded with adrenaline, he clambered into the passenger seat before she could say anything, slamming the door closed behind him. The next few moments were a blur as Misato threw the car into reverse, barely avoiding the Pelican as it fell from the building it had previously crashed into, then slamming it back into drive as a black foot came down on the spot where they would have otherwise been.
- - - O - - -
The belief in leading by example was a trait that almost all UNSC officers shared, regardless of whether their dress uniform was white, navy, green, or gray. Even senior officers, like the retired Admiral Preston Cole, would take the risk when possible in order to provide the soldiers under their command with a morale boost. Thus, when the battlefield moved to Earth, and the potential outcome of a failure became the complete annihilation of all existing life in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way, it only made sense that the commanders would be in the middle of the fight. And so, as a result, four people, all of whom proudly wore five stars on their lapels and shoulders, were personally overseeing the struggle to stop the Fourth Angel from the command deck of NERV Headquarters. But at that moment, the four-man lineup of the most powerful officers in the UNSC were silent as they watched the battle against an enemy they knew precious little about, attempting to stop a disaster they knew even less about.
The four officers, their uniforms making a line of snow white, navy blue, forest green, and slate gray, ruled from the top level of the command center. The main part of the bridge of NERV headquarters was a four-story step pyramid, each level below the top a step down in the chain of command as well as elevation. The bottom level of the command tower extended along the side walls of the room, two minor command decks flanking the central holographic projection screen two stories below. Currently, the massive hologram being projected was a topographical map of the battlefield, displaying troop positions and the status of the city's defenses, more tactical aspects of the battle against the Angel that the main video feed on the wall above it tended to miss.
"Status report," Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood ordered.
"Damage to city defenses is still minimal. No detectable damage to target," one of the bridge technicians reported, the holographic displays before her shifting rapidly as her hands flicked across them. "We're detecting minor blue-shifts in the spectral analysis whenever it prepares to attack, though we aren't getting any coherent data on what those attacks are."
"And how is that detail relevant to our ability to kill it?" Field Marshall Samus Hartford asked, her intense, stony glare focused on the unfortunate technician. Even halfway across the command center, and without the frame of red hair surrounding her face and her commanding voice, the look alone would have been enough to cow the junior officer.
"Well," another technician on the bottom level of the command deck answered, "the data could be useful for future enga-"
"Then hand it over to Halsey when this thing is dead, Warrant Officer," Field Marshall interrupted, dismissively waving her hand. "Do you have anything more immediately useful?"
"Not much, I'm afraid," one of the senior bridge technicians on the level below them replied. "However, Magi analysis of the data so far is indicating that it's significantly weaker than the Third Angel."
"Thank God for that," Hood sighed, the wrinkles on his face lightening slightly. Even so, it was still far too small a comfort, as the Fourth Angel was within twenty miles of being able to cause the end of the both humanity and the Covenant at once.
"If it's weaker, then we might actually be able to kill it before we have to nuke Japan for the first time in six hundred years," General of the Army KyousukeTakeno observed, brown eyes narrowing as he continued to watch the holographic display of the battle.
"Then why don't we start by trying?" General of the Air Force Mikhail Sukhoi's hat hit the desk as he ended his question, as if to drive the point home. An overly enthusiastic display, perhaps, but none of the other officers commented on the blond Russian's excess, especially since they all agreed with him.
The Field Marshall smirked slightly as her fingers tapped out a rhythm on her control panel, opening a communication channel to all of the soldiers on the battlefield before leaning forward and uttering five words that would unleash hell on the Angel.
"All units, fire at will."
- - - O - - -
And with those five words, the sound of thunder ruled the air. Howitzers and tank cannons once again blazed away in an infernal chorus as missiles flew screaming like banshees from their launchers. Air Force Vultures joined the fight, their vast missile batteries emptying themselves into the creature's hide. The near-ultraviolet lasers on the noses of the Sparrowhawks fired, brilliant pulses of purple light flashing out from the dozens of aircraft one after another, each accompanied by a corresponding burst where they hit the Angel, warfare temporarily turned into a strobe-light party at a nightclub. An unholy scream erupted from the creature as the barrage continued, a hint of ozone joining the gunpowder as roof-mounted gauss cannons simultaneously created a network of ionized contrails centered on the red orb in its chest.
The VTOL's suddenly pulled off the attack, though the tanks and fixed missile emplacements continued to pound the monster with high-explosive and armor piercing rounds. The reason soon became clear, as a squadron of Longswords passed overhead, the delta-winged fighter-bombers leaving a dozen fuel-air explosives behind them. The firestorm completely engulfed the creature, the roar of the flames drowning out any sound it may have made.
Before the flames could die down, batteries of Archer missiles hidden in underground bunkers flew open, four salvos of ten missiles each blasting upwards before twisting inward, trapping the Angel between each other as weapons that could instantly cripple anything short of a UNSC corvette exploded around it, tearing up the city as they did.
Moments later, two heavy gauss cannons built into the mountainous terrain around the city sprung to life, electricity crackling along the length of their barrels as the Onager MAC's sent ferrous-tungsten penetrators crashing into the monster at Mach 11, the air split by the thunderous cracks of the weapons firing.
From within the fireball, two points shone bright as a star for a moment. One of the two gauss cannons disappeared, replaced by a massive red cross-shaped blast of energy that stretched towards the sky. The other managed to fire once more, but this time the round stopped against a shimmering orange field that manifested before the creature, rippling from the impact with a fell radiance like a tainted pool of water disturbed by a thrown stone. It strode triumphantly out of the fireball, steam still pouring from its skin. Its eyes flashed again, and the second cannon suffered the same fate as the first one.
But Sachiel wasn't finished yet.
As if exacting retribution, the Covering of God locked its eyes on one of the Archer missile batteries and repeated the destruction it had wrought on the Onagers. As the other batteries unleashed another set of salvos at it, the Angel calmly waited for them to draw nearer before extending its AT-field behind it and raising its arms to track the missiles approaching from its sides. As the salvos drew closer, the spikes on its elbows extended, the unnatural pink color returning to them as they gathered energy. When they were close enough, the beams shot out from its palms once again, and seemingly without looking, Sachiel swished the lances of light across the missiles, as if it were drawing symbols on the sky to swat the pesky missiles down. As quickly as they had appeared, the lances retracted, turning the Archer missiles they had sliced through into little more than expensive fireworks.
The salvo from the rear battery only succeeded in splashing against the Angel's AT-field, sending waves shining with the sick refracted light of an oil slick over liquid amber across the fluid-like field. Methodically, the monster turned towards each battery and destroyed it as it had the other heavy defenses before turning back towards its destination. An armored company that stood in Sachiel's path was unceremoniously wiped out with another sweep of the Angel's lances, and the survivors crushed underfoot as it continued its march towards Tokyo-3.
The Angel seemed to hesitate for a moment after destroying the tank company. If it were human, one might say it looked as if it were contemplating something. Regardless of whether or not it was actually thinking about its next move, the halo over Sachiel's head once again ignited in a burst of brilliant white light, as everything in caught within a hundred meters of the Angel of Water simply liquefied. Concrete, steel, carbon fibers, glass, titanium ceramic – all melted like ice cream on a hot summer day, pooling into messy puddles of fluids that shouldn't have been able to exist. The halo dimmed and disappeared less than five seconds later, but everything above ground within the radius of the Angel's attack had been rendered into liquid.
Trudging through the viscous fluid that was slowly spreading out along the streets and draining into the underground sections of the buildings that had been destroyed, the Fourth Angel resumed its march with impunity.
- - - O - - -
"New Yumoto city defenses are down by fifty percent!"
"Archer batteries three, five, eight, and twelve have been completely destroyed!"
"Target has crossed the outer Hakone defensive line. ETA to the Komagatake-Gora absolute defense line, twenty-seven minutes."
General Takeno's shoulders slumped in frustration. All the attacks seemed to do was slow the monster down, and as they stepped up their offence, so too did it step up its response. Not only that, but the amount of collateral damage to civilian property was rising as well. At least the Angel's path would have it covering mostly countryside until it reached Tokyo-3.
"Attention all UNSC Marine Corps forces, this is Field Marshall Hartford. All ground forces are to withdraw from the battlefield immediately."
"What the hell are you doing?" General Mikhail shouted at Samus, slamming calloused fist down onto the table, crushing his hat in the process. "How can you of all people give up while fighting this thing?"
The Field Marshall ignored him as she continued. "All aircraft, cease fire. Pursue from a distance and await further orders." With the orders issued, she flicked the switch to close her comm and turned to the Russian, her cold brown eyes locked with his vibrant green. "It's obvious that the measures we've resorted to so far are insufficient to destroy the Angel," the Marine stated matter-of-factly, brushing a loose strand of sunset-red hair out of her face. "There's no more sense in delaying the inevitable."
"Are you transferring control of this operation to NERV, then?" the elder of the two men viewing the proceedings from the desk behind them asked.
The Field Marshall's eye twitched slightly at the interruption. Those two were still watching, waiting for conventional measures to fail before taking the lead themselves. Of course, that wasn't all there was to the situation, but is still irritated the Marine to have the other of those two men simply stare impassively at their backs while they struggled to kill the Angel. Fortunately, her irritation didn't last long, and she quickly smirked back at the former professor.
"Not yet, Sub-Commander," she replied evenly. "We still have room for one more shot at killing Sachiel. If we keep trying to escalate beyond this, we'll be unable to resort to the measures we required against the Third Angel without destroying NERV headquarters in the process." Of course, those measures would destroy quite a lot more than NERV headquarters, but that didn't need mentioning.
"I agree. We'll only have one shot at destroying this thing once and for all." Hood lifted his hat to run his hand across his short gray hair before returning the officer's cap to its rightful place. "The UNSC Trafalgar will be in optimal position for a MAC strike in approximately fifteen minutes."
"Better to be safe than sorry…" the Field Marshall muttered as she turned to the Army commander to her right. "General Takeno, I have to request that you authorize the deployment of a Fury tactical nuke in the Fourth Angel's path to coincide with the MAC strike." Sensing his surprise and hesitation, she continued. "Remember, this is our only shot at killing this thing. We have to put as much firepower as we can afford to on the target at once."
Takeno sighed and hung his head. "I understand, Field Marshall," he said, less than enthused at the prospect. An antimatter-catalyzed fusion weapon like the Fury was one of the cleanest nuclear weapons in the UNSC's arsenal, but a nuke was still a nuke. "Let's plot this thing's path, and my troops will have that mine in position in under ten minutes."
- - - O - - -
The drive from New Yumoto to Motohakone on the southeast corner of Lake Ashi was, according to Misato's navigation system, supposed to take thirty minutes. It was a testament to Misato's technical skill at driving that she managed to negotiate the switchbacks on the Tokaido roadway and still manage to cut that time in half – a testament that left Shinji almost more afraid for his life now than he had been during the monster attack. Almost.
Fortunately, fifteen minutes was more than enough to put a comfortable amount of distance between the two and Sachiel. There was no time to sit back and watch as the VTOL aircraft began to pull away from the Angel, and Misato knew it. The announcement that the UNSC was planning to use a "hammer and anvil" strategy involving the use of a so-called "clean" nuclear weapon was far more than enough motivation to keep the Major's foot firmly planted on the gas pedal.
There would be no time for them to watch the imminent firestorm, either, as the car screamed past on the highway south of the Angel, but the first signs of the attack were already visible to the target. Two bright stars appeared in the daytime sky above the Angel, their positions shifting somewhat as they left whitish-gray trails in their wake. As it stepped into a valley, Sachiel lazily tilted its head skyward, watching the two man-made meteors screaming towards it at speeds far, far greater than the roar of their passing could propagate as the ferrous-tungsten slugs plowed through the atmosphere towards their target. The Angel's eyes flashed, the briliant flare-like shine holding for a full two seconds.
In orbit, the coils of the Trafalgar's MAC's began to overheat as the coolant boiled away. In an unlucky break, a few Archer missiles in the forward pods exploded, blasting a chunk of superstructure and armor out of the supercarrier large enough to have destroyed a frigate instantly. Alarms blared throughout the crippled warship as emergency thrusters fired, desperately trying to carry it away from the invisible cone of energy coming from the Angel's attack. A few crewmembers that were unfortunate enough to be near the forward windows of the ship screamed in agony as their eyes boiled in their sockets.
As horrific as the Angel's attack was, it very nearly proved to be costly, as the creature only barely managed to project its AT-field above itself before the MAC rounds slammed into it, blinding white light and searing heat issuing from the energy released by their collision with the orange field.
At that moment, cracks spewing light opened in the ground below Sachiel's feet. Before it could react, blazing white hellfire poured out from beneath the Fourth Angel and consumed it.
- - - O - - -
"Hah! Burn, you motherfucker, burn!" General Sukhoi sprang from his chair and shouted as the white light engulfed the Angel just before the video feed cut out, his hat suffering further indignity as it continued to be crushed under both his hands.
"Sorry, Ikari, but it looks like we may not require your assistance today after all," General Takeno remarked, glancing back with a smirk at the NERV commanders. Commander Ikari himself simply continued to watch impassively, but the Sub-Commander seemed to be focusing on the battlefield displays more intently than before.
"Not so fast," the red-haired Marine next to the Army general said calmly, leaning forward in her chair. "We can't be certain we killed it yet."
"Come on, Samus, you saw that explosion," Mikhail urged her. "It's over, there's no way anything could have survived a hammer and anvil strike like that."
The Field Marshall didn't respond, as the phone on the desk before her was already in her hand, a secure call going out to the field commander of the Marine forces who had participated in the defense.
"What can I do for you, ma'am?" the colonel's gruff tone greeted her after a moment of waiting.
"Colonel Hoffman, put me in contact with Spartan Three-Twenty-Seven," she ordered. "I need her to answer a question."
"Aye aye, ma'am, patching you through."
- - - O - - -
In movies, books, and games, psychic powers were often represented as grand, potentially world-shaping forces, letting one defy gravity, bend the minds of others to their will, and predict the future, among other things. And being such earth-changing forces, only a few people could possess them.
In real life, it was far rarer to have no psychic capabilities at all.
Of course, this commonality was far more technical than anything else. All the great majority of humans had was varying degrees of sensitivity to broadcast psychic waves. That said, the lack of broadcast thoughts in everyday life meant that this sensitivity would do absolutely nothing for the vast majority of humans.
Those who tended to be sensitive to a wider range, however, did occasionally find use for their abilities. Back in the Interplanetary War, scientists had stumbled across a way to produce an extremely basic form of psychic projection artificially, nothing more than a single "tone" that could be projected at varying frequencies. Nearly four hundred years later, the understanding of how psychic abilities worked had advanced very little, though the genetic factors that made one a Listener, as they were now called, were known. Telepaths did exist, but only four had been officially recorded since documentation of psychics began. Telekinesis had never been demonstrated, and was widely believed to be physically impossible.
Aside from that increased sensitivity to broadcast thoughts, Listeners were also capable of "hearing" echoes of the past trapped in the fabric of reality on a metaphysical level that human beings knew next to nothing of, and that even the Forerunners hadn't properly understood. To most of the world, this meant say most Listeners found business hunting ghosts and paranormal entities of legend. In reality, the average Listener did nothing with their abilities, and most certainly did not have their names on a list held by the Office of Naval Intelligence while Section-III most certainly wasn't conducting ethically questionable research into how their brains worked and whether or not their abilities would transfer to an AI. A few did become archaeologists and anthropologists, searching for any lingering metaphysical patterns from the past hundred-thousand years, but even fewer had any luck actually finding anything.
Spartan-327, better known to her peers as Third Petty Officer Catherine Hartford, Cathy, or "the Field Marshall's kid," was not on the battlefield to listen to ghosts or look for lost civilizations. In fact, she wasn't even there because she was a Listener or a Spartan. She was there because she was the primary pilot for Provisional Evangelion Unit-05 back at Bethany Base where she had spent most of the past two years of her life, and because her mother had wanted to see if she could pilot Unit-01.
Of course, the attempt hadn't worked. No one had expected it to, anyway. But in the meantime, she had felt quite a few strange psychic projections within NERV HQ. She kept her mouth shut about it, of course. Her ability meant that metaphysical anomalies that most people couldn't see were clear as day to her, and her mother had explained to her in no uncertain terms – which she agreed with – that it would be best to keep quiet about the things she knew.
And so, one brown-haired, blue-eyed girl of fourteen lay back against the grass, unfelt through her armor, immersing herself in all the oceanic sounds, images, smells, and textures that the aptly named Angel of Water projected through its own Song. That is, until the horizon flashed white and a mushroom cloud rose over it, the song abruptly changing to a shriek that forced her to push it out of her mind.
Rising from the indent in the grass that marked where she had lain, Cathy picked up her rifle and slung it onto her back as she returned to the tents marking one of the makeshift camps the UNSC had set up for the defense against the Angel.
"Yo, Spartan." She turned towards the source of the voice, finding it to be an ODST in full armor minus his helmet, an unpleasant grin on his face. "Momma's got a call for you."
Cathy's only response to the Marine was to raise her middle finger at the man as she flicked through comm channels on her HUD. She'd heard plenty since she'd learned who her mother was, but that didn't make the insults and accusations of nepotism sting any less.
"Petty Officer Catherine Hartford reporting, ma'am," she reported formally when she found the channel.
"Dia duit, a iníon," the Field Marshall addressed her daughter in Gaelic, the archaic language hiding the words' meaning from anyone else who might have been listening to the conversation. That is, when the meaning wasn't obvious from the context.
"Haigh, a mháthair," Cathy replied, a slight smile creeping across her lips at the informal greeting her mother had chosen.
"An bhfuil sé ag canadh fós?"
The young Spartan closed her eyes for a moment, as if focusing on listening to something. Which, in a way was exactly what she was doing, but not the way a normal person would. Several seconds later, she opened her eyes again. Checking the area around her for Marines, she quickly confirmed that she was more or less alone, but she still walked a few paces away from the tents, just to be safe.
"Yes, I can still feel the Song in my head," the Spartan finally answered, her own words whispered back so there could be no chance that anyone could eavesdrop on her end. "It was calmer earlier, but it feels like boiling water or roaring rapids now." She paused, closing her eyes briefly before resuming. "It's getting louder by the second, too."
"Damnú air…" Samus sighed in frustration on the other end of the line. Cathy could easily picture her mother slumping in her seat as she did so. "Thanks for the confirmation, Petty Officer. You're dismissed."
"Thank you, ma'am," The girl replied. "Slán, a mháthair," she added, before the line clicked dead.
- - - O - - -
The phone slammed back into its cradle. "It's not dead."
"You're certain of that?"
"Of course," the Field Marshall scoffed as she corrected her posture. "I'll take the word of a Listener over megaton-based guesswork."
"But that's just conjecture as well!" General Sukhoi interjected. "Nothing of this sort has been conclusively-"
"We are dealing with an entity that clearly operates on levels of physics that we do not understand," she cut him off, leveling the same glare at him as she had done earlier to one of the hapless bridge technicians. "As I said, I'm going to take the word of someone who also has a connection to metaphysics over the blind ramblings of victory from a do-nothing Air Force general who's too busy comparing the size of his explosions to actually think things through." With that said, she folded her arms and turned back to scowl at the static-filled screen on the far wall, leaving the General of the UNSC Air Force glowering back at her.
"With the respect that the Field Marshall refuses to give you, Mikhail," General Takeno intervened before the Russian had a chance to say anything stupid, "something that size would have barely scratched the Third Angel. You know just as well as the rest of us just how many HAVOK warheads and MAC rounds that took, even with the damage that the Covenant did to it after they woke it up, and how badly we affected Mars in the process."
"Blue pattern is still active, sir," one of the senior bridge technicians, the male lieutenant with the short hair and glasses, reported, offering a much needed distraction from the military officers' internal disputes. "Visuals should be coming back on line right about now…"
On cue, the static covering the main screens ceased, replaced by the hellish aftermath of the failed attempt to kill Sachiel.
At first glance, however, the indications were all quite the opposite. There was no figure left standing at the epicenter of the blast, or a sign of any life at all in the blast zone. Scorched earth gave way to black glass, then to molten glass, and then to semi-molten earth as one drew closer to the crater that marked where the Fourth Angel had stood.
A closer look revealed a ring of light hovering over the depression in the earth that had been dug out by the Fury's explosion. Within the crater, a half-melted, beaked mask floated in a bubbling, churning pool, an impossible black mixed with the dark gray color the Angel's skin normally took, white streaks and star-like red spots the only evidence of its other features.
Slowly, the pool began to ripple and churn in ways it shouldn't have been able to on its own, and without warning, a white shape broke the surface. The new mask, beak shorter than the original that floated beside it, sat atop a small island in the middle of the pool that was distinguishable from the liquid only by its defiance of the physics of fluids. Seconds later, three points formed on the surface, congealing into the Angel's claws as they gradually pushed towards the sky. The mound where the new mask sat pushed upwards as well, the old mask clinging to the new flesh like a wet scab as the monster shifted its body.
"Unbelievable…" Mikhail muttered, falling back into his seat.
"So, we did injure the bastard…" Takeno said, watching in a horrified awe as the creature's spindly arm continued to reach skyward, claws outstretched, from the stygian tar pit.
"Yes," the Field Marshall agreed. "We may have failed to kill it, but we should have bought Tokyo-3 and NERV a little extra time to prepare."
"If it's been this badly injured by that attack, what's stopping us from hitting it again before it regenerates?"General Sukhoi asked cautiously.
"The Trafalgar has reported taking heavy damage," Lord Hood replied. "The MAC cannons are offline for the time being." He watched as the Angel's eyes flashed, and one of the recon planes circling over the blast zone on the holographic map suddenly turned red, a message that the aircraft had been destroyed springing off the fading wireframe. "Besides, it's getting smarter. I don't think the mine trick will work twice, and there's no way it will let us get a nuke close enough by any other sort of delivery method."
"I'm inclined to agree with the Admiral and Field Marshall," General Takeno said. "Besides, I can't risk any further collateral damage to the area. The Fury is the most powerful weapon we can use unless it breaches NERV's own defenses."
General Sukhoi clenched his fists in resigned frustration. "Damn it…"
As if taking his cue, the bearded man who had been sitting behind them, silently watching them like a predator stalking prey as they struggled in vain to kill Sachiel, walked to the middle of the platform before them. To the officers, distracted by their own conversation and the inflow of tactical data from the battlefield, both on the holographic map and to their neural interfaces, he almost seemed to appear beneath them like a wraith, eyes hidden behind the amber-tinted lenses of his glasses, the faint lights from tactical displays on the inner layer enhancing the uncanny stare with which he regarded the UNSC's top commanders.
"Before we officially decide to hand over control, Ikari," the Army general addressed him, "we have one question. All of us have read the reports on Unit-02 and Unit-05's combat records against Covenant and Insurrectionist forces, but I need to hear this from you, as the Supreme Commander of NERV." He leaned forward over the desk, interlacing his hands before his mouth in a mirror of the pose the man before him had taken earlier. "Can you stop this thing?"
Gendo Ikari adjusted his glasses as he smirked ever so slightly. "That's why NERV exists, ladies and gentlemen."
"In that case, then, I propose we hand control over this mission to NERV." The Field Marshall spoke up, glancing left and right at the other officers. "Admiral, Generals?"
"I approve." Hood's answer was immediate.
"As do I." Takeno joined him in approval a second later.
The beeping of minor alerts drifted up from the lower level stations and filled the command center for a few seconds before the Air Force general spoke. "…seeing as there's little left we can do, I approve of transferring command to NERV."
With that, the Commander walked away, leaving the officers to pack up the few physical files they had brought with them. Lord Hood and General Takeno were the first to vacate the level, leaving the General of the Air Force and Field Marshall alone for just a moment. Unfortunately, that was just a little too long for the tension between the two to go unresolved.
"So, your little Spartan daughter's a better Angel detector than all of the military's sensors. It seems nepotism does have its place on the battlefield after all," General Sukhoi remarked, earning him an ice-cold glare from the Field Marshall.
"I may play favorites, General," she responded in a stern yet even tone, "but I assure you that I only favorite those who show actual promise. And even then, I spare no luxuries beyond what they have earned."
"That doesn't change how much you've abused your position, especially with you worming your way into a place in NERV as the Director of Bethany Base." He narrowed his eyes. "And that's to say nothing about your daughters."
"I think you've made your point, General." The stern tone and her cold expression both dropped a few more degrees. "And I will remind you, my position with NERV is as the military's primary liaison and as the watchdog over this organization. And before you take exception to that, I will remind you that I am entirely dependent on the good will of Admiralty to maintain my position. If they thought I was there solely for my own gain, I'm sure they would have me replaced as quickly as possible. Now, if you don't mind," she said as she folded her arms across her chest, tone lightening slightly. "We've handed over control of the operation, so there's no need for you to remain. As a member of NERV, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the bridge."
"You're a bitch, Samus," Mikhail shot back at her before storming off after the other officers, hat in hand.
"So I've been told." The Director of Bethany Base watched as he walked away. His aide met him at the exit, and she managed a small smirk as she saw the younger officer exchanging the general's crushed hat for a new, undamaged one.
"I trust Commander Ikari briefed you on the situation earlier, Director?" Her gaze snapped to the source of the voice, finding it to be the gray-haired Sub-Commander.
"Vaguely, yes," she admitted. Even though she was technically a high ranking member of NERV, the Commander still hadn't told her much in the way of details. "I know enough to understand that if the Third Child can't deliver a miracle for us, then the only options left both involve the city being destroyed in a massive ball of nuclear fire. And in the event we don't all die," the Field Marshall added, "someone has to evaluate Major Katsuragi's performance as Operations Director when she arrives. Given my position, it might as well be me."
The former professor's previously neutral expression shifted slightly, a hint of worry or concern crossing his face. "I see you don't share the Commander's confidence in our chances."
"You're right. I don't." She turned back to the screen, watching as the last remnants of the black pool beneath Sachiel's feet disappeared as it was subsumed into the rest of the Angel's flesh, before sighing and speaking again to no one in particular. "Tá an t-am istigh do dhaoine."
- - - O - - -
"Sorry about the rush back there," the purple-haired Major apologized, brown eyes glancing over at the boy in the seat next to her behind the tinted lenses of the sunglasses she wore. "Thanks for waiting for me where I could find you, though."
"I suppose I should be thanking you for going out of your way to get me, Major Katsuragi," Shinji replied, smiling lightly.
"Please, just call me Misato. And don't worry about it. It was my job to pick you up no matter where your train would have stopped." The conversation was interrupted there for a moment as a strange, synthesized warbling roar began to emerge from her hip.
Misato fished her Chatter from its hiding place in her pocket and answered immediately without checking who had called. "I've got him…Don't worry, his safety is my top priority right now…Right, it was my idea to drive out to meet him, so I'll take responsibility for that. Still, it's not my fault that his train got shut down at New Yumoto and that I ran into a bunch of military roadblocks on the way there…Yeah, the attack kinda screwed up the schedule. Best laid plans and all that…Right, we just got through the checkpoint at Motohakone, so we'll be there shortly. Make sure you've got transportation ready for us…Thanks, bye!"
With the call ended, she turned back to the brown-haired teen next to her. "Good thing I got you when I did. Another minute and we'd have been caught up in the shockwave from that blast. And I really doubt my car insurance covers tactical nukes."
As the Major continued talking, Shinji absently glanced forward at the road they were on, rather fortunately abandoned considering his recent experiences of Misato's driving style. This time, that glance elicited another, longer look ahead.
The road wasn't abandoned after all, though no other cars moved on it. In the distance, Shinji could see a figure standing in the middle of the road, getting closer every second. Soon he could make out the mop of blue atop the figure's head, and the vague outline of what was likely the green skirt of a school uniform blowing in the wind. And still the figure drew closer.
"Uh, Major," he said, the alarm in his voice growing with each passing millisecond. "There's a girl in the road."
Misato looked forward, finally noticing the girl standing in their lane, now dangerously close at the speeds the Major was driving. With a quick, loud curse, she hit the brakes before swerving into the other lane to try to avoid her.
Suddenly, everything seemed to slow down. The light squeal of feedback began to emanate from the car's speakers – or was it his own head where the sound originated? – and the car failed to correct its direction, even as Misato spun the wheel. The girl remained still throughout it all, her only motion the turning of her head to follow the vehicle – no, to follow him. As the car began to pull towards the girl in the road, under the influence of some force as irresistible as a black hole's gravity, his vision tore, much like the distortions he had seen on a few of the antique analog films his aunt and uncle had possessed. Like a mirror or lens that fractured along a perfectly straight line, images that should have overlapped now appeared on both sides of the delineation, which blurred as his brain tried to make sense of the impossible broken visuals it was receiving.
The squeal of feedback increased and time slowed further as they got closer to the girl, the distances between them distorting such that Shinji couldn't tell how far away she was any more, even as he tried to sink into the seat to escape her terrible gaze. The tearing across his vision increased more and more as the screeching feedback that had forced his hands to his ears dissolved into a cacophonic hiss of static until all he could see was the porcelain white face and the blue hair and the sunken black eyes with the rings in the centers their -
Groggily, Shinji looked up, dull pain radiating through his head as his eyes caught the bright light above him. The first thing he realized once his eyes adjusted was that he was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. The second thing, which followed from this recognition, was that he was no longer in Misato's car. After taking a few seconds to confirm that, yes, both he and the Major were laying on the metal floor of a hallway that he didn't recognize, a certain part of Shinji's brain finally caught up with the situation.
"Wha- Where are we?" he shouted in panic as he bolted upright, his words echoing down the sterile metal corridor and beyond the curve that took the hallway's path out of sight.
The immediate answer was a groan as his cries woke Misato, who winced at the harsh light as she lifted herself off the floor. Squinting as her eyes adjusted, she slowly glanced both ways up and down the hall before finally staring off towards one end.
"This…looks like one of the hallways inside the base," she said uncertainly, "but I don't know where we are. Are you okay, Shinji?"
"I think so." As he stood, he winced. "I've got a bit of a headache, though," he admitted, rubbing his forehead.
"I'll take that as a yes," Misato said as she stood. "Now, let's get moving. We might be in the base, but I still need to get you to the right spot. Who knows, maybe we'll even get a chance to find my car on the way there."
Several minutes into the walk along the gently arcing hallway, it became clear that neither one of them knew where they were. The only sign that they were even covering ground at all and not walking the same circle over and over were the numbered branch-off corridors they passed, and the red logo, on the outer wall, a half fig-leaf with four Latin characters written to its left, and an arc of English words beneath them: God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.
"NERV?" The name came out as a question, rather than an observation.
Fortunately, Misato was quick to answer. "Yep. We're an independent organization that answers directly to the UNSC, and to a lesser extent the UEG as well."
"The key to the preservation of mankind, and securing our place among the stars," Shinji quoted. When the Major raised an eyebrow at him, he continued. "That's what my teacher said, though he always sounded a bit sarcastic when he said it."
"Well, I won't blame him for that. We do have a rather pretentious motto, after all. But still, we do a lot of important research and other work for the UN." She paused for a moment to glance at the boy before continuing. "Your father works here too, you know. He runs the organization."
"I know that much," Shinji replied, looking away. "It's been three years since I last saw him. He must need me for something, otherwise he wouldn't have called me here. That's the only reason he talks to me in the first place."
"Ah. Sounds like you're not the only one who doesn't get along with your dad."
Before Shinji could properly process the Major's comment fully, she perked up a bit and rushed ahead. The reason turned out to be a phone terminal embedded in the wall, right next to another branch corridor. Before the boy caught up with her, she had already placed a call and explained what happened to the people on the other side, who Shinji assumed were her superiors. Including his dad…
"Yes, he's with me right now…Yes sir, he's fine, as am I…Right now, we're in…" she turned to read the dark red lettering on the opposite wall of the corridor, which seemed to indicate where in the base they were, "…Hallway A-73, which I think is…" she trailed off uncertainly. As she listened silently to the person on the other end speak, her expression fell, indicating to the teen next to her that they were more lost than he'd thought. "Oh…alright…uh-huh…alright, thanks, Sub-Commander. We should be able to find our way there now. Oh, by the way, sir, I have a question. Do you know what happened to my car?" She smiled at the answer. "Oh, so they recovered it? Well, that's good. Also…Rei's still in the infirmary, right?" And again, her expression fell. "I see…Thanks, sir. We'll be there shortly."
She sighed as she lowered the phone back to its terminal. But when she turned back to Shinji, the same smile that had greeted him when she'd picked him up had returned. "Well, at least we know where we're going now."
For some reason, Shinji didn't feel all that reassured.
- - - O - - -
A different phone slammed back into its cradle once again. "Catherine didn't feel anything, so we can rule out direct influence from the Angel in whatever happened," the Field Marshall relayed, before turning back to face the Commanders. "Still, this is rather disconcerting."
"Another extranormal event?"
She nodded. "All the observing soldiers report fuzzy memory of the event and violent headaches, especially when they try to think about it, so it matches what's happened around Bethany." Samus frowned and furled her brow as she processed the full wording of the Sub-Commander's reply. "I take it this has happened here before."
"Rarely, but yes, it has," Commander Ikari answered, fingers once again clasped in front of his mouth. "However, the frequency appears to have increased recently."
"You think the Angel's awakening and arrival has been triggering them?" the white-haired former professor suggested. "Or that it might have something to do with the fact that there's currently two nephilim in the area right now?"
"Either, or even both, is possible," the Field Marshall answered. "It's too localized to tell, and there's been an understandable lack of research on the subject."
"Still, the fact that this didn't happen during the Third Angel's attack is a good sign that the pattern here on in will adhere to the Scrolls' predictions."
"Good." The stony-eyed officer turned back to the holographic battlefield map. "Even though it's just the barest minimum of information, every little bit we can gather on this enemy is valuable."
As she resumed her observation of the Angel's ongoing march towards the city, Fuyutski glanced over at Gendo.
"This is more troubling than we anticipated. The fact that it happened to them specifically is-"
"I know," the Commander acknowledged evenly, despite cutting off his subordinate. "It doesn't matter. It's not something any of us can control, so we'll just have to adapt as always to ensure the scenario proceeds smoothly."
Gendo paused as he rose from his seat. "Fuyutsuki. Take command here. I'm going to activate Unit-01."
"You're sure about this?"
"I am," he said as he began to walk away. "We're out of time."
- - - O - - -
"Are we lost again?"
Shinji could practically hear Misato frowning at him over the sound of their feet stamping along the cold metal floor. "I'm new here, okay? Besides, if they didn't want to make this place so confusing to navigate, they should have put in more distinctive landmarks." She paused, her tone shifting from defensive to worried. "Are you sure you're alright? That's the first question you've asked since we started moving. And you still look on edge."
"I'm fine," the youth answered quickly.
Perhaps a bit too quickly, though, as instead of allaying the Major's concern, it only served to draw more of it. "You're not staying quiet because you're still freaked out over that girl in the road, are you?" she asked earnestly, drawing even with Shinji as they walked.
"Huh?" As he processed what she said, memories of her skin so white and inhumanly pale like porcelain began to play through his mind. "No…I mean, I'm still scared and confused," he admitted, "but I just didn't feel like talking, that's all. Sorry."
"It's nothing you need to apologize for," Misato reassured the boy, her expression back to her usual bouncy smile. "And hey, I got a bit shaken up by her too. I was just expecting you to have asked about what's going on by now. Like, 'What was that huge thing back there that almost stepped on me?' or 'Why was there a creepy girl standing in the middle of the road?' You know, natural responses."
"Oh…" Shinji trailed off as they rounded a corner. "I guess I figured you wouldn't answer even if I asked," he said a second later.
"Quick to assume the worst, huh?" she observed. "That's a pretty pessimistic outlook for a kid. I mean, it's not like we're ONI."
The boy turned his head away, looking ahead at the seemingly endless hallway. "I'm just doing what my uncle told me to do, that's all."
For a few seconds, silence reigned between the two, before Misato finally broke it. "Anyway, the monster back in New Yumoto was a being we call an Angel," she explained, answering the question her young charge had declined to ask. "If you're wondering what happened back there on the road, well, I'd like to know that too. Just between you and me, though," her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper as she leaned closer to him, "I've heard this isn't the first time weird stuff like that's happened around NERV."
Shinji shivered slightly at the unavoidable thought of that happening to him again. It was bad enough the first time, especially with the eyes, the red rings sunken in black staring right into him. He shook his head to clear the thought before it could get any worse.
The gesture didn't go unnoticed. "Really, though, are you sure you're alright?" she asked as she straightened up. A second later, though, a thought hit her, and the worry on her face found itself replaced by a sly smile. "Or are you keeping quiet because you find creepy girls like that cute or something?"
Had Shinji been drinking anything, the wall and floor in front of him would have found themselves coated in it. As it was, he ended up sputtering for a good second before turning to the Major with shock and just a hint of anger writ across his face. "How can you be joking about things like that already?"
"Well, you are a boy, aren't you? Besides, I'm just trying to lighten the mood." When the teen just glared sourly back at her, she sighed and continued. "Come on, don't be so straight-laced. A cute kid like you shouldn't be so boring."
Misato's last comment caught the boy slightly off guard again, and he took another second to recover. "…you think so?" he asked uncertainly.
"Oh, cheer up, Shinji," she exhorted the boy, who clearly wasn't used to her brand of teasing. "You're still a kid after all."
"And you're supposed to be an adult," he shot back.
One brown eye twitched as Misato resisted the urge to give her young charge a light smack on the head. If only they were still in her car. Then she could have taught him a little lesson without worrying about getting jumped by overzealous Section Two agents for "abusing" the boy.
- - - O - - -
In a room far away from the mismatched duo, a boat floated lazily in the red-orange liquid that filled a good two thirds of the room's total volume. The humming of electrical equipment and the rapid-fire clicking of technicians typing away at data pads filled the room and echoed off the recently frost-coated walls, yet went unnoticed by both of the zodiac's occupants. One was another technician, clad in the thick, cold weather version of the bright red and orange uniform of the maintenance engineers that kept NERV's facilities and materiel functioning, legs stretched out and insulated cap pulled down over his face as he leaned back in his seat to catch a quick nap. The other occupant, a woman in a winter coat, brown hair just starting to show the slightest hints of gray, furiously typed away at the keys of a data pad linked to her glasses and comm headset, the light of the streaming images creating a ghostly glow around her eyes. An equally spectral layer of fog clung to the placid surface of the liquid beneath them like an ethereal white moss.
"The repairs to Weave C on the left calf armor appear to be holding," a voice, a younger woman's, the Japanese accent still detectable through the distortion of her dive equipment's radio, announced in English in Doctor Catherine Halsey's ear. "We can't detect any more leakage of the liquid metal crystal layer into the surrounding LCL. Looks like the patch is working, doctor."
"Good." The doctor paused to take a sip from the cup of coffee, which had long since ceased steaming. "I've worked out the problems with the self-sealing function of the armor for now, so we shouldn't have any more issues with it until we can get a proper armor refit. How's the damage to the left leg?"
"One moment." A second later, a dark shape began to rise next to the central walkway in the room. A head, shortly followed by a pair of arms broke the surface, fog abandoning the area as if a wind had just blown through. The woman, bottle-blonde hair tinted copper by the LCL dripping from it, hauled herself out of the viscous liquid and onto the edge of the walkway, legs dangling over the side, dipping her flipper-encased feet in the sanguine substance. She shrugged, letting the re-breather pack drop from her back to the bridge with the clatter of plastic on metal as she removed her dive mask. Emerald green eyes blinked unconsciously as they met the biting chill of the air in the room, a breath expelled from purple lips turning to fog that drifted downwards, dissipating before it could claim the space just vacated by her legs as she lifted them over the edge to remove her fins.
As her coworker rose from the depths, Halsey turned to the technician sitting behind her in their zodiac, only to find the man asleep in his seat. With a sigh, the doctor fished around in the boat in front of her, smirking ever so slightly when she found what she was looking for.
The technician woke up to the contents of a beaker of cold LCL being thrown into his lap. A few choice curses in Japanese escaped his lips with all the grace a grown man just woken could be expected to muster as he sat up and glared at his superior.
"What was that for?" he asked as he adjusted his hat and keyed the boat's motor.
"Professionalism, Mr. Horaki," she responded dryly. "Try not to fall asleep next time."
The man continued to sputter as if he had just drowned in the liquid, before giving a resigned sigh and sitting up a little straighter, all the while guiding the boat into a position alongside the walkway.
"The contamination is primarily in the surface tissue," Doctor Ritsuko Akagi said as her superior climbed out of her vessel, the partially suppressed chatter of teeth punctuating the pause between sentences. "We flushed the affected area with LCL in the course of making the repairs, so it should be regenerating as we speak."
"Report to Dr. Akagi," the loudspeakers in the room courteously picked the break in the conversation to blare their message. "Arrival of Major Katsuragi of Operations Section One and one additional member confirmed in Shaft S-36."
"Don't tell me," the blonde groaned, "she managed to get lost again?"
"Unbelievable. How does she do it?" Halsey asked rhetorically, before letting out an exasperated sigh. This was why she preferred working with AI's. "I'll finish the calibrations and circuit tests. Go get our Operations Director before she manages to get herself even more lost."
"Pressure is stable, ma'am," a feminine chirp announced from behind a stack of humming and buzzing monitoring equipment. "Should we finish thawing out the limb?"
"Yes," Ritsuko, still clad in her wetsuit, answered as she walked towards the room's exit. "And don't forget to chart the apoptosis data during the procedure."
"Yes, ma'am," the technician replied, the only visible sign of her response the orange hat and ponytail diving back into her nest of warm electronics.
"Doctor?" Mr. Horaki, still sitting in the zodiac, voiced once Ritsuko had left the room. "There's a priority call for you from the Commander. Line three, sound only."
Halsey felt like someone had just taken the frigid LCL from beneath her feet and injected into her veins. There could only be one reason that Gendo Ikari would be calling down now. She tapped the earpiece twice to confirm the call. "Yes, Commander?"
"It is time," the man said simply.
"Right, understood." With that, the call ended. Only seven words had been exchanged, but the mood of the entire room had changed noticeably. There was a tension hanging in the air, fear and anticipation charging every click, every beep, every word exchanged in report.
It fell to the doctor to dispel the unease through certainty. "Hurry up on thawing out the Eva," she ordered the technicians waiting on the other parts of the walkways. "Commander's orders are to get this thing ready for activation as soon as possible."
"Leg will be done in three minutes," the head engineer replied confidently. The room transformed into a buzzing hive of activity as the technicians frantically worked to shift the weight of the world to a set of shoulders better built to take the burden than their own.
- - - O - - -
"Alright, this time there's no worries about getting lost," Misato said, attempting to reassure herself as much as Shinji. "We got specific directions, and they're actually sending someone to-"
As the doors to the elevator opened, a woman in a one-piece bathing suit, overlaid by a lab coat, stepped off the elevator and into the directionless Operations Director's personal space, leveling an annoyed glare all the while.
"Oh, uh, hey Ritsuko!" the officer fumbled as she attempted to recover from the scientist's unexpected appearance, their proximity forcing her to take a step back. "Uh…bet you'll never guess what happened to us today!"
"I already heard, Major Katsuragi. And while I suppose I can excuse getting attacked by a so-called violation of reality, that doesn't apply to your poor sense of direction."
"Eh heh, sorry," the purple haired Major replied sheepishly.
"I should have known better, considering that you took you over two weeks each semester to finally remember where your classes were without help in college," Ritsuko sighed, "but I'd been hoping your little stint with the Special Forces would have fixed that problem." While her embarrassed friend muttered something about having satellite maps and motion trackers in the military, the doctor turned her attention to the youth watching them. "So, this is the boy, I take it?"
"Yep," Misato affirmed cheerfully. "One Shinji Ikari, as ordered."
"Ritsuko Akagi," the blonde introduced herself, "Vice-Director of Project E, technology division. Here," she passed Shinji the datapad she had been carrying, "you may want to start acquainting yourself with the organization."
So, Shinji thought as he began to examine the document, starting with the large "Welcome to NERV" currently displayed in English characters on the device's screen, I suppose I really am going to be working for them now. His musings continued as the doctor led the Major and him around a few corners and down a flight of stairs to where an internal-transit tram awaited them. But that means working for Dad, too…
The tram, despite being an old, wheel-driven contraption instead of a maglev, nonetheless pulled itself along its tracks at a rather rapid clip, seeming to fly through the different layers of the NERV base towards its destination. It passed rooms full of active machinery, the cicada-like hum of which could be heard even from within the cabin, and labs hidden behind tinted glass, offering only the briefest moment's glance into the rooms full of uniformed personnel before sweeping away again. Most noticeable, though, were the vast rooms full of a red-orange liquid, square artificial lakes that betrayed their nature as such only by the ripples the wind-wake of the tram left as it passed between the surface and the harsh, actinic lights high above, through air permeated by a smell like oil and blood.
They finally came to a stop at a large, barely-lit room, the darkness cloaking its full size from the three observers in the car.
"We have arrived at Cage Seven," the voice announced from the overhead speakers. "Please exit the tram now."
The trio stepped out into the brisk air of the dusky room, the door of the tram closing behind them with a soft hum and a click, followed by the whine of motors as it left the cage for the next person who had called upon it. Shinji shivered slightly as he glanced about, unable to discern anything in the dim of the metal cavern beyond the patch of light where they stood. Below them, could hear the roar of rushing water – or more likely, given the smell, that same liquid from earlier – punctuated by the sound of footfalls on metal, which, the teen realized as he looked up from the electronic guidebook, were steadily getting louder. With his eyes more adjusted, he could begin to make out details in the room, such as the human figure walking towards him on what seemed to be some sort of walkway or catwalk, from the railings on either side of it, and off to the figure's left, a large yet indistinct black shape looming in the gray darkness.
"Welcome to NERV, Shinji Ikari," the figure said as it stepped out of the shadows, turning into a middle-aged Caucasian woman in a lab coat as she moved into the light. "I'm Doctor Catherine Halsey, the current director of Project E." The boy recognized that name from his schooling. He knew the doctor was the UNSC's top scientist and AI expert, but that recognition only raised more questions about why his father had called him there. "Now, follow me, please. We have something to show you."
As they started walking, Ritsuko turned to her superior.
"You're draining the LCL already." It was an observation, not a question, but the statement demanded an answer all the same.
"We didn't have much choice," Halsey returned. "The Angel's approaching the innermost defense perimeter, and we predict it'll be in range to start attacking the city as soon as it crests Mt. Kami. Every contingency's been prepared for."
Misato's eyes went wide. "You mean…you're actually going to-"
"Don't act so surprised, Major. You helped write the plans for this."
"Every contingency," Ritsuko repeated. "Does that mean Rei-?"
"Only if it's absolutely necessary," the senior doctor answered before the younger could finish. "I'd like to avoid that scenario if at all possible, but it's not looking good at the moment, especially from my perspective." She turned to Shinji, who had tuned out of the conversation shortly after it had ceased to involve him and resumed his analysis of the guide on the datapad in his hands, the soft glow from the screen casting his face in an eerie light. "Now, let's show the boy why we've brought him here." At that the lights began to come on, gradually cutting away the darkness and illuminating the massive shadow that had dominated the room by its presence without definition.
That dark shape revealed itself to be a face. A demonic, metallic, grinning visage that slowly emerged from the retreating gloom, it glowered down at them like a malevolent Oni of lore.
"This is Evangelion Unit-01," Halsey announced matter-of-factly, "a cybernetic, bio-mechanical combat platform designed for tactical battlefield dominance. It's also the last option we have to stop the Fourth Angel without destroying the city above our heads in the process."
"This…is my dad's work?" Shinji asked hesitantly, eyes still locked on the monstrosity before him even as he took a single step towards it.
"Correct." That one word, spoken by a voice both confident and condescending, echoed from above, ripping through Shinji's attention and drawing his gaze up, following the horn of the Evangelion to the command deck that sat above it, and the much smaller, yet no less imposing, figure staring back down at him.
"Father…"
"It's been a while."
"Three years," Shinji confirmed, staring up at the face of the man who he'd almost thought had forgotten him, until three days ago, "and all I get is a summons. Why now?"
"I think the answer to that should be fairly obvious."
"So, this is it?" The boy found himself wishing, for once, that his father really had forgotten him and spared him all this mess. "You just called me here to pilot this thing?"
"I did," Gendo answered plainly. "We're short on time. Either get in, or leave. I have no use for you otherwise."
"You have to understand, Shinji, Evangelions are fickle machines," Ritsuko explained. "You're one of the only people predicted to be capable of synchronizing with it."
"Why me, though?" Shinji asked quietly, lowering his eyes back to the purple behemoth before him. "Why not a soldier? I don't know how to pilot this thing…"
"You'll receive instruction," his father returned. "The onboard AI's will also be able to assist you."
"We have a backup, Shinji." His attention briefly left his father as Halsey spoke up. "You have a choice. If you don't pilot, she will have to do so in your stead."
"Then why?" His eyes jumped back and forth between the scientist and Gendo. "Why did you even call me here if you didn't need me?"
"Because you were preferable to the alternative," the boy's father answered neutrally. "Now, will you or will you not pilot?"
"No, I won't. I can't!" Shinji protested. "I've never even seen this thing before! There's no way I can be the pilot!"
"Are you absolutely certain, Shinji?" the elder doctor asked slowly and calmly. "You can still change your mind. By refusing, you're forcing someone else to take your place."
Before Shinji could answer, a tremor shook the room.
"Lieutenant Hyuga, I need a Sit-Rep, now!" Misato shouted into her comm.
"The Angel's crested Mount Kami," the lieutenant in question announced, over the cage's intercom as his face materialized on one of the display screens built into the walls of the room. "It just shot down one of the city's Onagers and cracked two layers of the superalloy armor plating."
Halsey looked back at Shinji expectantly.
The youth turned his head away. "Better someone else than me," he muttered.
"I see." The doctor's tone was cold, with a hint of disappointment. "Akagi."
"Right," the blonde replied as she raised a hand to her ear to trigger the tiny earpiece comm she wore. "Maya, start reconfiguring the core data to optimize the Evangelion's performance with Rei as a pilot; I'll be there to oversee it in a moment. And get her out here and in the entry plug before those tremors get any worse!"
At that, it was like a switch had been flipped, the scientists and technicians moving on to the task at hand, leaving Shinji forgotten save for a short, regretful glance from Misato. His jaw and his hands clenched in conflict and frustration, uncertainty racing through his mind. Feet rooted where he stood, he shifted his gaze even further down along the armor of the biomechanical monster in front of him, replaying his decision over and over in his head.
Yes. His father didn't need him, so this would be for the best.
- - - O - - -
The weather of the Geofront was constant and perfect, tainted only by the occasional overcast day on the surface. Disappointingly so, in the opinion of Rei Ayanami. She missed the rain down here. For all her love of precision and consistency, she found the chaotic, arrhythmic rhythm of raindrops pattering against her window to be comforting.
The sound of wheels rolling across the metal floors of the hallways of NERV headquarters was no substitute; instead, it was a grating sound to her ears, exacerbated by her inability to move about on her own.
"Rei," the commander's voice broke into her musings, drawing rapt attention from the girl at only a single, soft mention of her name. "The Third Child has refused to pilot. You will deploy in Unit-01."
"I understand," she replied quietly, almost reverently. "I will pilot in his place."
"Will your injuries hamper your ability to pilot?"
"I predict there is a thirty-percent chance I will be able to defeat the Angel," she answered curtly, without a hint of trepidation in her voice, even as she recited the less-than-stellar odds. "I have a ten-percent chance of surviving the engagement. This remains the best available scenario."
When the "sound only" window to her side closed and the screen returned to blackness, Rei resumed her counting of the lights that passed over her supine form.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
One, two, three, four…
- - - O - - -
Doors on the other end of the walkway opened with a hiss, the boy turning his head to watch two doctors begin to wheel a full hospital stretcher, the blue and white Optican logo displayed clearly on the end facing him, into the room. As they drew closer, the first thing that caught Shinji's eye was the blue mop of hair, heart quickening as his thoughts flew back to the Girl he had seen on the road.
So pale.
Were it not for the rising and falling of her chest as she breathed, and the periodic flicker of her exposed eyelid as she blinked, Shinji would have thought her to be a life-sized porcelain doll. Her uncovered right eye flicked over to him as she passed by, holding there for a moment as if she were inspecting him. Blood stained the bandage over her left, a light blue smear of freshly applied MediGel coating the pallid skin around it.
The girl – who must have been the Rei the adults had mentioned – attempted to pull herself into a sitting position. After a few tries, and a little help from the medical doctors who had been moving her, she succeeded, arms shaking beneath her as she attempted to hold herself upright and catch her breath. The ragged gasps that escaped her mouth finally brought Shinji out of his stupor, and he glared up at the Commander in disbelief.
"How, how could you-"
"You're the one who decided not to pilot, Shinji." It was Doctor Halsey, not his father, who interrupted, her tone cold and unapologetic. Not that he would have expected any difference even if it had been his dad who answered his incomplete question.
"This isn't fair! You didn't tell me-"
He was cut off by a rumbling boom as a fourth tremor, much stronger than the last ones, wracked the cage. Almost everyone lost their footing, save one of the random technicians and his father. The datapad slipped from Shinji's hand as he hit the floor, clattering across the walkway and falling off the edge, to splash a few seconds later in the remaining LCL below.
The girl was not so lucky. The doctor helping her up lost his footing and fell, his head crashing on the railing as he did so. With no one to catch her, the girl tumbled off the gurney, rolling over once before crumpling into a heap of limbs and bandages. As she lay there, chest heaving as she painfully gasped in air, she looked just like a broken doll casually discarded by a bored child.
So fragile.
Shinji was the first back on his feet, running over to the girl without even thinking about what he was doing. He heard Misato shout something to one of the technicians, but didn't register it as anything other than background noise. All he knew as he crouched and reached under the girl to support her was that he couldn't leave the lying there. She was far warmer than he'd expected her to be even as she trembled in pain in his hands. And against the white, skin-tight suit she was wearing, her skin no longer seemed to be as unearthly pale as it had when she'd been on the gurney.
The girl gasped again, a light yelp of pain leaving her lips. Feeling a growing warm spot on his right wrist, Shinji shifted his grip on her, letting him pull his arm and hand out from under her. They were smeared with the wet crimson of her blood.
So human.
"Fine!" Shinji shouted in both rage and resignation up at the observation deck, at the unmoving figure of his father as the medical doctor and one of the technicians removed the girl from his arms. "I'll be the pilot."
- - - O - - -
Minutes later in Central Dogma, the officers and doctors were all gathered around a small set of holographic displays manned by the three senior bridge technicians. On one of the screens, a nervous looking Shinji, still in his school uniform, sat in Unit-01's entry plug, waiting as the adults prepared to start up the Evangelion.
"Filling the plug with LCL in five seconds," the mousy-haired female lieutenant, Maya Ibuki, stated, cuing a countdown on her control panel.
"Just relax, Shinji," Ritsuko reassured him. "The LCL is oxygenated. You'll be able to breathe normally once it's filled your lungs."
"Wait, you mean I ha-argh!" he gagged as he sucked in the rapidly rising liquid, and did so again once the taste of it hit him. "Ugh…this stuff is disgusting…"
"If you don't want to be breathing your lunch, do your best to keep it down," Halsey returned.
"Ready to initialize stage two," the technician continued. "Setting plug depth to one-eighty, ionizing LCL."
"How are you feeling, Shinji?" Misato asked him.
"A little cold, this stuff tastes horrible, and I've got this tingling sensation all over my skin," the boy complained, a barely-noticeable shiver running through him as he did so.
"That's all normal, the temperature should adjust shortly, and the tingling will go away once you're synched," the younger doctor answered.
"Ready to begin third stage," Maya announced. "Here's hoping for a miracle."
While seemingly psychedelic lights and images played on the walls of the plug to Shinji, the only hit of what he was seeing evident to those on the bridge was the widening of his eyes in surprise.
"What's his synch ratio?" Ritsuko asked almost immediately.
"One moment, waveform still stabilizing…" her subordinate replied, hands running across the hologram. "Got it. Synchrograph stabilized at…41.3%" She let out a low whistle. "And that's without the benefit of either a plugsuit or any training…"
"That's good enough." The interruption from the top level of the command center drew some gazes, but Samus merely tapped her fingers impatiently. "Move it out of the cage and out to the launch rails, we don't have any time to waste."
"You heard the lady, get Unit-01 to the launch catapults!" Misato ordered, not noticing the glares the doctors both directed towards the Field Marshall for her interference when she was just supposed to be observing. "Makoto, what's the Angel's ETA to the armor breach?"
"Just under five minutes," Lieutenant Hyuga reported.
"Barely enough time to teach him to walk and shoot…" Halsey muttered under her breath before taking another sip of coffee.
"The remaining UNSC units in the city report that they're ready for your orders if you need them, ma'am," Lieutenant Shigeru Aoba, the last of the three senior bridge technicians, informed the Major.
"Unit-01 is in position, and the track to the surface is clear." The spectacled lieutenant leaned back in his chair as he spoke.
"It'll have to do." Misato paused, turning away from the holographic displays to look back at Gendo. "Last chance to abort, Commander."
"You and I both know that's not an option," the man returned simply, the only hint of motion the slight contraction of his facial muscles as he spoke from behind his hands.
The Major gave a curt nod, and turned back to the man's son. "Shinji, prepare for launch in five…four…three…two…one…" As she counted, she watched the youth breathe deeply, trying his best to calm his nerves.
"Eva launch!"
- - - O - - -