A/N: This is a non-canon side story for Gregg Landsman's Eva fic "NGE: Nobody Dies", and thus I must state the obligatory disclaimer that I do not own it nor Neon Genesis Evangelion. This story was originally posted a bit at a time in the SpaceBattles forums, this is the considerably better and more readable re-written version.
Somewhere deep within a facility you don't have clearance to know about, an alarm goes off. A pale hand gently deactivates it, in this case "gently" means hard enough to break it in the 'off' position but not destroy the console it's attached to.
Glass cylinders once filled with liquid stand open and empty, their former occupants stretching and enjoying their newfound freedom. This is what they've wanted, but to keep it, they will need a plan…
Bare feet patter along the empty corridors, several technicians are accosted and a locker room is raided. Computers are hacked, IDs forged and airline tickets purchased. The seven individuals responsible for this small disturbance leave only footprints, a severely scrambled alarm system, traumatized personnel and two rubber ducks behind.
The plane lands in the airport fifteen miles north of the city limits. Quad engines power down as a covered walkway is attached to the main door. The passengers pour out, eager to get the customs process over with.
One of the agents looks up from her station to see seven young men walking towards her, and has the strangest sense of déjà vu as the one in the lead smiles charmingly.
"Welcome to Tokyo-3, If you could-"
The ash-haired young man interrupts her by grabbing her hand and kissing it with a slight bow. "And a fine welcome it is, delivered as such from the lips of a fair maiden before me. I pray that *awrk!*" His speech is cut off by an elbow driven into his neck by the man behind him. As he falls to the floor, his long hair manages to stay in perfect form, and the customs agent can almost see sparkles in the air.
The owner of the elbow steps over him, holding out a SEELE ID card. "We don't have time for you to go all googly-eyed over every woman you see Shiro. Just give her your damn card and move on." His card checks out, and he has no baggage to be checked over, and so he steps aside.
The man on the floor gets up and hands her an ID card as well, rubbing his neck and grumbling. "You didn't have to hit me so hard Simon, I wasn't planning on sticking around."
The five young men with grey hair and reddish-gold eyes follow suit. They all look eerily similar, like identical septuplets with different hairstyles.
The seventh shuffles by, and before leaving presses something into her hand. Thoroughly confused, she turns to call them back to finish the customs process, but they have already gone, and for some reason the last few minutes are a blur.
Opening her hand, she finds a full package of airline peanuts.
The Tokyo-3 police are used to getting some strange calls, most of which end up being handled by Nerv section 2 agents and labeled as classified, and today's hardly registers as 'interesting'.
In retrospect, sending the rookie to handle it was not a good idea. In fact, it was probably the first step in escalating the call from 'usual Tokyo-3 weirdness' to 'break out the popcorn'.
Officer Jenny had approached the scene of the disturbance expecting a relatively easy situation to handle, all of the participants at least looked human enough. A young man with short grey hair was in the process of arm-wrestling the burly fishmonger from Sakura Avenue over a card table.
In the middle of the street.
Before she could say anything, two more young men approached her. Both had shoulder-length ash colored hair and reddish-gold eyes. The one with his hair hanging free and a positively luminous amount of charm about him bowed elegantly and addressed her in flowery language, introducing himself as Shiro Nagisa.
The other one, identical except that his hair was tied back, introduced himself with a poem; from what Jenny could tell the three men were brothers, and his name was Isshin.
Shiro and Isshin began to squabble, accusing each other of getting in the way of "a blossoming romance", so Jenny tried to step past them. In the mean time, traffic had backed up even further, and the drivers' impatience was rapidly exceeding the entertainment value of the arm-wrestling match in front of them.
The driver of a white sedan honked his horn, and both men at the table looked up. Without a word, and in perfect synchronization, they punched in the car's headlights without interrupting their match.
Realizing the situation was about to get out of hand, Jenny blew her whistle to get their attention. The grey-haired younger man looked back in her direction, and the fishmonger saw his chance. With a grunt of effort, he slammed his opponent's fist down on to the table hard enough to dent the surface.
Things had gone pear-shaped from there.
Now she was being carried over the rooftops of the city, most of her equipment, including her radio, and some parts of her uniform missing. Her feet were cuffed together and her hands tied to them by her belt.
"Put me down you idiots! I am an officer of the law! You can't do this to me!" She shouted to no avail, as the three men apparently didn't care who it was they had abducted.
"Shiro, Isshin, remind me again why we have to bring her along?" The one they addressed as Simon was in the lead, and had refused to touch her after removing her radio and gun. He had also stolen her hat and now wore it at a rakish angle.
"Because Shiro interrupted my attempts as woo-ing her with masterful poetry!" Isshin complained. He was in the middle, and Jenny was currently slung over his shoulder.
"Your poems would have put her to sleep you hack! It takes charm and wit to court a lady!" Retorted Shiro, dodging an incontinent pigeon startled by their passage.
"Right, it's because neither of you can keep your libido under control." Simon deadpanned.
"Hey, this all got started by you challenging that fishmonger in the middle of the street like that!" Shiro fired back.
"And then you threw the table into the second story of an apartment building when you lost! AND you challenged him to a car-throwing contest!" Isshin added as they leapt the gap between two buildings, tightening his grip on Jenny's ass to keep her from falling.
"Don't think I don't see you copping a feel Isshin! That's not fair play!" Shiro yelled at his brother. "You haven't won her affections yet! I don't want my beautiful prize befouled by your groping hands!"
"Shut up both of you!" Simon slid to a halt at the edge of the roof. "He was a worthy opponent! You have to savor battles like those!" He scanned the crowd below. "Help me look for Kotaro, he wandered off and I'm a little worried about him."
Isshin gently set Jenny down by an air conditioning unit, and tied a spare hair ribbon over her mouth. "Sit tight my fragrant flower, I will return to win your heart!" He stepped over to stand beside Simon.
Shiro gave the bound police woman a radiant smile, accompanied by what could have been little sparkles around him and joined his brothers.
Simon pointed to a spot down below and the three of them jumped together.
"Monf huff heev he herr…" Officer Jenny mumbled around the gag.
The Flying Angel café and arcade's name may seem a little tasteless at first glance, given its location, but a second look reveals that the sign above the door features a stylized image of a pale-haired girl kicking a traditional representation of an angel over the horizon, and the name makes a little more sense.
It has the largest collection of mecha fighting games in Tokyo-3, and the third largest in all of Japan. Super Robo Ultra-Destroyer III: Strike of the Mechathulu is currently the most popular, with no less than four linked cabinets to allow multiplayer tag team matches.
As of today even the allure of a Super Robo Ultra-Destroyer III tournament couldn't pull the crowd away from the newest game just installed by the arcade's proud owner, a brand new, fresh-off-the-line Touhou 17: Endlessly Falling Leaves machine. Gamers stood five deep around the entrancing screen, watching challenger after challenger fail to beat the game on the unspoken allotment of two credits.
So absorbed by the intense danmaku, nobody noticed two nearly identical ash-haired young men enter the building and sidle up behind them. Through careful application of elbows, sidestepping and mental nudges, they worked their way up to the front.
Shigeru Aoba has been enjoying his day off immensely. Nothing bad has happened for once, and he's almost convinced himself that he's only the "buttmonkey of the universe" while in Nerv HQ.
Almost.
He's playing on the hardest difficutly level, and is just moments away from being the first person in the arcade to beat the stage 4 boss. His first indication that things are about to take a turn for the worst is when the room seems to get brighter and everyone behind him takes a step back.
His feeling of impending doom disrupts his concentration and he loses his last life. Managing to stave off curiosity and fear, he enters his name at the top of the high score list and only then turns around.
The two red-eyed, grey haired young men are standing just a little too close to be considered polite, but this isn't what makes everyone stand back. Their eyes are open as wide as they can be; light from the arcade game reflected more than should be physically possible.
"Er, can I help you guys? You next in line or something?" Aoba starts trying to shuffle away to one side.
A pale arm extended to either side impedes his progress in both directions. The boy on the left side, his hair spiked towards his right shoulder turns to the other.
"What do you think Gin? Is he not the niftiest thing we've found today?"
The one to the right, Gin apparently, responds, "I don't know Ryo, that machine behind him might be niftier." His hair points to his left.
"We'll have to take them both, just to be sure!" Gin's voice rises with excitement. "I'll grab him, you get the machine!"
Before he can take in the prospect of male Ree-like organisms, Aoba is hefted into the air above Gin's head as Ryo lifts the arcade machine with little apparent effort.
The arcade crowd is torn between abject fear of a man who can lift an arcade cabinet above his head and rage at their game being stolen. Rage overcomes fear and they begin to surge forward.
"Onward brother! Time to abscond!" Ryo shouts and runs toward the door, Gin close behind and Aoba contemplating the ceiling.
They nearly make it out, but apparently the size of the arcade machine never occurred to them, and it collides with the top of the doorframe.
The monolithic game rebounds straight back, directly into Aoba's head, knocking him from Gin's hands and into the faces of the leading crowd members.
The twins stop, indecision in their red eyes as they realize there isn't time to grab both the arcade machine and Aoba before the crowd recovers.
They make their choice, and each grab an end of their prize, speeding away and leaping up to the rooftops of Tokyo-3.
The crowd of gamers work together to fix the situation as best they can, some attempting to pacify the enraged arcade owner, others putting the Touhou machine back into place and plugging it in again.
To their relief, it still works.
Aoba regains consciousness on the top of a thirty-story apartment building duck-taped to a satellite dish.
Gin and Ryo are sitting in front of him, ecstatic looks of joy on their faces.
"Teach us to be as awesome as you are!" They shout in unison.
Kotaro Nagisa wanders the streets of Tokyo-3, carried along by the flow of the crowds with no destination in mind. His grey hair hangs over his reddish eyes, and his clothes, a white shirt and black pants, are a size too large.
Eventually, his shuffling, measured steps bring him to an open-air market where vendors hawk their wares from temporary stalls. He stops, and the crowd continues to surge around him as an appealing scent catches his attention. Turning, he homes in on its source like a heat-seeking missile finding a target.
Li Shengshun, Chinese immigrant and premier nut salesman, has no idea that his biggest sale today will play a small part in the chaos to come in the following days. All he knows is that a quiet young man with grey hair bought a large bag of mixed nuts, all in the shell, and left having only spoken four words total.
When the seven Kaworii awoke for the first time and emerged from their cold storage pods, only one bothered to procure a PDA from the technicians they accosted. Subsequently, he was the only one to read SEELE's personnel files on the flight over and was now contemplating how to put that knowledge to use in their ongoing plans for survival and freedom outside of a set of identical glass tubes.
He sits on a park bench, deep in thought.
So many possibilities. They could seek out the original, Kaworu, and appeal to him in the hope that he might take their side when they are inevitably found again.
No, too risky. Too dependent on the First's attitude towards a group of his clones running around on their own.
They could seek shelter in a Nerv facility, not exactly safe from SEELE agents of course, but if they made themselves useful enough they might be able to blend in, garner sympathy and avoid termination at the very least.
An intriguing possibility, but far too risky as well. Better than depending on the Original, but not a good "plan A".
By far the most interesting file he had found had been on one "Kei Ayanami", apparently a hostage of sorts from Nerv-HQ held by Chairman Kihl in Nerv-Berlin. Records indicated that she had been returned to Nerv-HQ, changing her from a side note in his plotting to a possible ally if they played their cards right.
We should find her, she will know how to help us.
That was odd, that last thought didn't quite feel like his own; it was more like something had told him to think that.
His musings were interrupted by the arrival of Simon, Shiro and Isshin.
"Hey Azuma, you seen Kotaro around?" Simon led the way as usual, ignoring the dirty looks the two behind him were giving each other. "Gin and Ryo stuck together, and I know you can handle yourself, but 'Taro's such a space case I worry about him."
Azuma turned off the PDA and stood up. "Maybe we should all stick together and look for him. Something about this city bothers me, it's like we are being watched."
"Eh, you're just paranoid." Shiro chimed in. "You should loosen up a bit. We got away from the lab, we'll be fine."
Shaking his head, Azuma wondered if he was the only one out of all seven of them with any brains. "SEELE no doubt already knows that we have escaped, and I would not be surprised if they send someone to recover or terminate us. We got lucky in the lab; most of the personnel were distracted by something else."
Simon patted his shoulder hard enough to cause him to stumble. "Don't worry yourself so much bro! We can handle anything they send our way!"
CRUNCH
The sound of something hard being violently destroyed by human teeth startled them, Shiro and Isshin both shrieked in an unmanly fashion and simultaneously attempted to jump into each other's arms, discovered they don't have enough legs left on the ground, and fell into an ungainly heap.
"Oh, there you are Kotaro." Simon tried to speak in a deadpan to cover his surprise. "We were ah, we've been looking for you."
Kotaro paused, a brazil nut halfway to his mouth, and shrugged. Continuing the motion, he bit down on the incredibly tough shell and shattered it with another loud crunch.
Shiro and Isshin stood and dusted themselves off, refusing to even look at one another, and Azuma hid his laughter behind a fit of fake coughing.
"Now we're just missing Gin and Ryo. Where do you think we'll find 'em?" Simon asked the group in general in an attempt to reassert his leadership. "We need to stick together for now, no more splitting up."
CRUNCH
He sighed and glared at Kotaro.
Shigeru Aoba, NERV-HQ bridge bunny, guitar enthusiast and walking magnet for misfortune, is not enjoying his day off anymore.
Still duck-taped to a satellite dish somewhere on the rooftops of Tokyo-3, he desperately searches for an idea that will keep him in the good graces of the two young men who put him up here.
He managed to convince them that he can't produce a "wondrous cacophony of blinky lights and flying colors" on his own, but they refused to let him go; instead they left him after promising to find another arcade machine and bring it back to him.
The scuff of shoes on concrete alerted him to the return of one of the brothers, and he choked down his rising panic.
"Heya!" Gin stepped around into Aoba's view, a massive grin spread across his features. "We found ya another machine, but it's too hard to get it out of the room it's in. So Ryo's holding a spot for you, and I'm gonna bring ya to it!" He walked around behind the satellite dish.
"H-hey! What are you doing? Aren't you going to untape me?" Aoba struggled against his bonds, trying to see what the grey-haired boy was doing.
With a grunt of effort, the satellite dish was pulled free from its mount and Gin staggered forward under its weight.
"Ok! I'll run, you tell me which direction to go!" The large dish tilted forward alarmingly before lurching towards the side of the roof.
"Oh, shiiiiiiii-!" Aoba cried as the ground became a very sudden possible candidate for his new closest companion.
There is an unusually large crowd in the normally quiet 16th Street Arcade, a small hole-in-the-wall place with a handful of machines and a snack kiosk. The only game it has that sees much action (other than the condom dispenser in the public restroom) is DoDonPachi vs Mushihime-sama, an older danmaku game, but still popular due to the insane nature of its difficulty.
Currently, a pale young man with ash-colored hair is the center of attention; his light frame nearly draped over the machine's controls, hands flailing wildly as he struggles with the bullet hell the game proudly flings about.
It's not his skill that attracts attention, he's really good, but the pure, unrestrained enthusiasm that he displays, throwing himself from side to side with his ship onscreen and shouting "BOOM!" whenever something explodes, is a bit more unusual.
He's even gotten the attention of several oddly-patterned squirrels in a nearby tree, who stopped humping things long enough to watch him down several bosses.
Secretly, Ryo hopes that Gin will arrive soon, his arms are getting tired, and he only had one credit. It's doubtful he could pick someone's pocket in the ten seconds the game would give him to continue after a game over.
"-iiiiiiiiiiiii-*oof*" Aoba's scream is temporarily cut off when the dish jolts as Gin impacts with the street, resuming as they continue forward, matching the speed of local traffic.
Somehow, they manage to avoid any major collisions, although the sheer number of fender benders they cause will ruin a lot of people's days. By the time they come sliding to a halt at the arcade, Aoba has run out of Japanese deities to pray to and has started on the few Chinese ones he can recall.
Ryo waves and sighs in relief, letting go of the arcade machine's controls and sliding to the floor. "I thought you weren't gonna make it back bro, I had to play for nearly thirty minutes on that last life!"
Gin smiles, which is to say his teeth become more prominent, and he starts ripping the tape from Aoba and the satellite dish. "Alright Mr. Nifty, time for you to show us your stuff!" He pushes the hapless man to the monolithic game and inserts a coin, choosing the highest difficulty.
Aoba comes to the sinking realization that he probably won't survive the evening if he doesn't prove that he can live up to the twins' expectations.
He grips the joystick with his left hand, and settles his right hand over the buttons.
"Let's do this song and dance!"
An interesting, but insignificant, detail noticed by many members of Aoba's audience is that while the arcade game he is playing has its joystick on the right side, and its buttons on the left, he operates them with opposing hands.
Once again, interesting, but insignificant.
He has found that the looming threat of horrible death, or at least discomfort, lends itself well to his gaming skill, and he is close to setting a new record score for the machine, second only to the one set by Ryo not an hour before. Nothing can break his concentration, not the shouts of encouragement from the crowd, not Gin and Ryo's excited squees as he defeats each enemy in turn, not even the wail of sirens and the shouts of police officers.
The bystanders disperse before the advance of the Tokyo-3 Police, but the ash-haired twins refuse, standing between the officers and Aoba, who is still playing the game.
"Put your hands in the air and step away from the machine!" One of the men shouts, coming to a stop a few feet away from the trio. He has a tazer ready in case of any 'funny business' from the two young men, who look suspiciously similar to the men who took Officer Jenny captive several hours earlier.
"Yeah, just give me a minute, I'm close to taking this boss down." Gin and Ryo's fascination with the game is more infectious than Aoba knows, without their subtle mental nudges he would have surrendered to the police already. The police officers are slightly puzzled and more strongly annoyed, incidents like this lead to Paperwork.
The following events had to be pieced together from various bits of security footage, cellphone cameras and a spy satellite that had been re-routed by a signal that was eventually traced through a staggering number of proxies back to Nerv-HQ's Magi system.
Aoba completed the stage of the game he was on, throwing his hands into the air and giving what was later described as "halfway between a girlish shriek and a triumphant war cry", startling the police officers, who fired their tazers at him, one missing completely, another hitting the arcade machine and the third scoring a direct hit on his right shoulder.
As Aoba fell to the floor, Gin and Ryo were in midair, having leaped at the officers as soon as they saw their fingers tighten on the triggers. They dispatched the men and women with swift ease, knocking them unconscious before spinning around to grab the twitching Aoba and making a break for the exit.
At the same time, Simon, still wearing Officer Jenny's hat, Azuma, Shiro, Officer in question slung over one shoulder, Isshin and Kotaro dropped from the roofs onto the tops of the police cars, breaking windshields and lights. Simon yelled at the two Kaworii inside the arcade before flipping one of the cars over into a nearby tree, scattering Israfilim squirrels into the police officers.
Approximately 2 seconds later, four unmarked black sedans came to a screeching halt at the end of the street and sixteen Section 2 agents sprinted out, their leader shouting for the police to stand down and giving his men orders to apprehend the seven pale young men.
Chaos erupted (it had merely been brewing before) as the Police noticed the obviously restrained Officer Jenny in Shiro's possession and half of them turned to confront the new arrivals before finding themselves inundated in enraged squirrels, who had apparently been congregating in the tree. Gin and Ryo, each holding one of Aoba's arms, leapt over their heads to join their brothers, who began to flee in the opposite direction of the Section 2 agents.
Their pursuers otherwise occupied, they didn't expect eight more Section 2 agents to block their way at the end of the street, tranquilizer dart guns at the ready.
Moving faster than the marksmen could compensate for; they dodged their shots, closing the distance in less than a second. Undeterred, the highly trained agents attempted to grab hold of the young men who were now passing them, to varying degrees of failure.
One came close, barely missing Kotaro's arm, instead snagging the edge of the bulging paper bag he carried, tearing it open. Assorted nuts still in the shell scattered through the air, and time seemed to slow down as they arced overhead, Kotaro turning to watch them with a horrified expression.
The nuts clattered to the ground, and Kotaro stopped, staring at the man who had torn the bag with a blank expression.
"Kotaro, come on, we have to get out of here!" Azuma called to him from the base of a nearby hotel, ready to ascend to the rooftops and escape.
"He's not worth it 'Taro. We really gotta go!" Simon added, stepping back towards the semicircle of Section 2 agents forming around his brother.
With a primal scream of fury, the pale young man whose bangs hung over his eyes charged forward and hit the man before him in the midsection, and without slowing down a bit continued up the vertical face of the building behind him. His brothers turned and fled the shocked security personnel, climbing, running and nearly flying up the sides of the buildings.
The man Kotaro had taken with him was found the next day, duck taped upside-down to a lamp post with a newfound phobia of nuts.
A new day dawned on Tokyo-3, following the night as it usually did (except for that one day a few years back that nobody talks about), bringing much-welcomed light to the section-2 agents still in pursuit of seven nearly identical young men. The chase had lasted all throughout the night, as the pale skinned boys had a clear advantage when it came to speed, climbing ability and endurance; however section-2 had a lot of agents, and unlike their quarry they could take a break and have someone else take their place.
Currently the chase had left the Tokyo-3 city center and moved to the outskirts of town, and the lack of tall buildings combined with almost nonstop running had left the seven Kaworii with very little lead on their pursuers. In retrospect, it should have seemed obvious that they were just trying to keep up and wear them down; there had been almost no attempts at cutting off all escape routes or circling ahead of them. Laughable really, they had used one of the oldest human hunting tactics adapted to utilize superior numbers and a high-tech communications network.
Azuma had been uncharacteristically silent about what they should do, so Simon was leading the way, just running and trying to put as much distance between them and their pursuers. At some point in the night they had ditched Officer Jenny (sans hat, Simon still had it) and Shigeru Aoba (sans a good portion of his sanity) on a relatively low rooftop, with a few quick apologies. Kotaro had rejoined them shortly after, his revenge against the destroyer of mixed nuts complete.
Ducking into an alleyway, Simon waved the others to a halt. "Can't go on much longer, they're just gonna keep coming at us until we drop." He leaned against the wall, panting and cursing softly. The others joined him, leaning against various objects or sitting on the ground. Only Azuma remained upright, apparently lost in thought.
Something was bothering him, hints of knowledge he shouldn't have, information on section-2 pursuit tactics, schematics of the devices used to lower the city blocks into the geofront and maps of the city's utilities. Picking up a bent tire iron, he started picking at a rusty manhole cover.
"Come on, we can't stay here, they're going to catch up." Simon hauled a protesting Gin to his feet, who hauled a protesting Ryo to his feet in turn. Azuma turned back to them; manhole cover shifted from the pipe it had been mounted on.
"Wait, there's another way." He pointed down, just as the sound of an underground tram emanated from the uncovered hole.
Excerpt from the official Nerv Section-2 transcripts of the events on [Date Redacted]
8:30 am: The Tokyo-3 tram system Blue Line goes down for 23 seconds, exact reason unknown at this time, inspection of electrified rails is underway to ensure prevention of events such as this in the future. The Blue Line tram briefly registers a load increase, but sensor data becomes scrambled before exact amount can be determined. The tram starts up again with no further abnormalities once power comes back online.
8:32 am: the Blue Line tram's forward controller unit issues a priority emergency signal indicating that it must increase its speed to maximum safe limit and that all lines ahead of it should be kept clear. All other trams are automatically diverted to alternate routes to keep Blue Line clear. Strangely, this signal does not trip any alarm programs in the Magi, investigation of data system's integrity pending.
8:34 am: Blue Line tram moving near maximum safe speed passes Green Line tram. Passengers on Green Line tram interviewed after events do not report seeing anything out of the ordinary (beyond the Blue Line tram moving at unusual speeds).
8:39 am: Section-2 agents descend into underground tram line service tunnels. Connecting to tram security network they discover Blue Line's destination, Tokyo-3 Metropolitan Center. Teams are dispatched to secure station and apprehend targets.
8:47 am: Blue Line tram passes Yellow Line tram, which has been stopped on a service rail to keep it out of the Blue Line's way.
8:59 am: Blue Line tram arrives at Tokyo-3 Metropolitan Center station, targets are not found on, around or under tram. All passengers on the tram observed, none are even close to the targets' descriptions. Section-2 teams reassigned to search maintenance tunnels connected to Blue Line.
11:30 am: Section-2 command calls off search after several hours of finding nothing. Requests are submitted to Magi for video files from all station security cameras for the day.
Addendum: You were totally hacked by the Azumaster, best in Tokyo-3. Peace out!
Coun73r H4xx0rd n00b! - TEHREE
The Green Line tram was running a few minutes late, not enough to cause a crisis in anyone's schedule, and considering the oddities going on with the Blue Line it was wonderful that the rest of the city's trams were even close to on time.
It came to a stop at the platform, and the usual crowd of commuters poured out. In the massive tide of humanity, no-one paid any special attention to three nearly identical young men who carefully picked their way through to a large city map mounted on a nearby wall.
"Let's see, we're here." Simon pointed to the rather obvious 'You Are Here' marker on the map. "At the Hime Street station. The others will be here at the Fourth Street station in about fifteen minutes."
"If we took the rooftops we could be there in five." Shiro observed, "But those suits will be watching for us; we taking the long way then?"
"That's the plan. I don't like having to sneak around, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and tough it out." Despite his exhaustion, Simon still had energy to maintain his 'manly' self-image. Striding boldly forward towards the stairs, he left a brief wake in the crowd. Shiro and Kotaro followed him, Shiro surreptitiously checking the crowd for anyone paying too much attention to them and Kotaro shuffling after, hands in his pockets.
The trio walked along the mid-morning streets amidst the hustle and bustle of the fortress city, taking in the sights and sounds of regular human life and resisting the urge to mess with things. Shiro looked at the people all around, how did they do it? Couldn't they see how just a change of posture could alter the flow of a conversation? A gesture [i]here[/i] and [i]there[/i] along with standing just a little too close to the person you're talking to and suddenly you're threatening instead of persuading. If you knew these things, wouldn't you want to try them just for the sake of it, to see how the other person reacted?
Simon observed two opposing groups of delinquent teens posturing and trying to intimidate each other; laughable really. Neither of them had any real claim to the area, but they still struggled for it all the same. He pitied them, and envied them too. Pitied them for their squabbles over something as insignificant as where they could publicly slouch around and accomplish nothing, but envied that their lives were so stable that they could spend their days doing something like that. Nevermind the fact that he could probably fight them all at once and win.
Kotaro followed his brothers silently, as he always did, seemingly lost in his own world of thought. He was accumulating quite a collection of things pick pocketed from nearly everyone he passed, a bit of money, a few tram passes, a pocket watch, several band-aids and a pocket calculator.
Approaching the Fourth Street station entrance, Shiro pulled the other two aside to a newsstand where they pretended to look through the magazines and newspapers. "We've been spotted, blond guy about half a block behind us. He's good, but his body language makes him look out of place."
"Those security mooks getting smarter on us?" Simon kept his voice down, casually glancing at the street behind them.
"No, I think he's probably from Seal-"
"SEELE" Kotaro corrected, before buying a newspaper from the stand.
"SEELE, whatever." Shiro continued. "He looks like a few of the security people at the lab did. We need to meet up with the others and get moving. I hope Azuma's got a really good plan to get us through today."
Shigeru Aoba sat in the back of a small, relatively cheap but still clean café and absentmindedly picked at a breakfast special. His day off yesterday had been… stressful to say the least, and so he was using some sick leave to recover. Hyuga had teased him about it, thinking that the other man had been out late drinking. Hah! Aoba wished he had such luck; instead he had spent the day getting dragged around by some identical sociopaths while duck-taped to a satellite dish. Not as bad as when the Reego decided to make him their best friend/test subject/target, but still up there on his list of worst days ever.
He didn't look up as the door chimed, lost in thought as he was, but he nearly jumped out of his seat when someone sat down across from him. A disturbingly familiar young man with tousled ash-grey hair and red eyes smiled back at him.
"Good morning. I don't believe I caught your name amongst all the confusion yesterday. I am Azuma, my brothers made you play arcade games for them if I remember correctly." Aoba could only stare, hands trembling slightly. They had found him again; he wasn't going to escape this time.
Azuma gave him a slightly worried look. "Are you all right? You've gone a bit pale." Aoba quelled his tremors as best he could. I musn't run away, I musn't run away.
"I-I'm fine. Really. Just a bit-" Azuma cut him off.
"Good! Hold on to this spot then, I'm going to find a back room to change in. Can't give the people chasing me too easy a time of it." He stood and walked to a door marked 'employees only'. As soon as it closed behind him, Aoba jumped to his feet, prepared to leave the building as fast as he could, but the arrival of another person at his table stopped him.
The newcomer was a rather tall man with an imposing aura dressed in dark clothing. Not the fashionable black of someone wanting to look dark and mysterious, but the practical dark grays and browns of someone who will be doing clandestine work in the dark. His blond hair was swept across his forehead, and he had a look of quiet confidence framing his blue eyes, the sort of look that says "I have accounted for every possibility, and some impossibilities as well."
"Please, sit down Mister Shigeru. We have much to discuss and little time in which to do so." He had a hint of a British accent. Aoba sat down, hoping desperately that there were Section-2 agents in the area if things got worse.
"I am Special Agent S.M. Bean with SEELE. I assume you've heard of them?" The man chuckled softly, sitting and pouring himself a cup of coffee. "I am currently attempting to retrieve a lost matching set of 'assets' that my employers would very much like to not have fall in the wrong hands. The wrong hands in this case being any that are not theirs." He took a photograph from his pocket and slid it across the table. "You were spotted in the company of seven individuals resembling this man yesterday. While they are considered to be useful resources by my employers, they are not what I was sent to retrieve. I am more interested in a set of things in their possession."
Aoba found himself out of life to have flash before his eyes and his brain kicked his mouth until it got back into gear. "Ah! Um, so what is it? That you're looking for, I mean."
"You don't need to know that. All you need to do is keep their trust, and get them to this address. Do this, and I promise that they will never harass you again, and no-one in Nerv will be hurt by this." Agent Bean rose and began to walk away. "I'll be watching, Mr. Shigeru. Do not fail my confidence."
Slumping back in his chair, Aoba wished he had gone into work instead of taking the day off. So on the one hand, I have these psychos who might do terrible things to me if I cease to be helpful and/ or amusing, and on the other I have a SEELE agent who wants me to lead them into an obvious trap. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. Just another day in Aoba land I guess.
Azuma returned from the back room, his clothing changed to tan shorts, a black t-shirt with a humorous statement written on it and a white baseball cap. Dropping a paper bag on the floor beside the table, he took a seat across from Aoba, who was trying to think of the best way to get out of the situation alive and intact.
"So, what do you recommend from the breakfast menu mister…? Ah, I still don't know your name." The pale man's smile was pleasant enough, not hinting at all at his unusual nature.
"A-Aoba, Shigeru Aoba." Aoba winced. Why did I use my real name? I should have made something up.
Azuma nodded in acknowledgement and waved a waitress over. He ordered a glass of orange juice and three plates of pancakes, requesting that it be added to Aoba's bill. A few minutes of awkward silence ensued, interrupted by the arrival of Isshin, Gin and Ryo. Azuma herded them off to the back rooms before Aoba could be harassed any further and any of his pancakes could be stolen.
In the time it took Azuma to finish off all three breakfast plates Simon, Shiro and Kotaro arrived, and all seven of the brothers sat around the table, having changed to inconspicuous street clothes. They ordered enough food to use up Aoba's budget for the whole month, giving him another reason to curse ever having met them. As they finished, they began to debate about what they should do next.
Aoba saw his chance. Confirming the address on the card given to him by Agent Bean, he cleared his throat. "I, uh, I have a place where you could hide out for a while."
All conversation around the table stopped, and fourteen eyes focused on him. Sweating nervously, Aoba continued. "There's this empty…" He wracked his brains, trying to think of something plausible. "-apartment complex, yeah, it was damaged a while ago and nobody's moved back in yet." There was a tense moment where he was unsure if they would believe him, but, luckily for him, they didn't know the city very well and had no reason to distrust what he said.
"All right then, let's go there." Simon spoke up. "We can rest, and then make long term plans." They all stood up, and began to gather their things. "Lead the way, Mr. Nifty!"
Mr. Nifty? Is that really going to be my nickname now?
The journey across town was uneventful, Shiro and Isshin keeping a lookout for anyone tailing them. They didn't see the blond haired man who had been following them before, although Aoba suspected he was watching them from afar. Arriving at the location of the address, things went decidedly downhill fast.
To start, there was no apartment complex in the block in question, although every single block around it was filled with apartments. Instead, it housed a rent-a-storage space company along with a couple of shops. Aoba found himself once again the focus of fourteen red eyes, and scrambled for an explanation. His thoughts, accelerated by adrenaline and fear, ran through as many scenarios as possible in the following seconds.
A) Tell them the truth; beg them to take me along when they run so that SEELE's retribution is put off for as long as possible. Outcome: They refuse, Agent Bean catches me and makes my life hell. Bad End.
B) Sprint for the rent-a-storage space and hope Agent Bean catches them before they can get to me. Outcome: They escape, with me, and make my life hell. Bad End.
C) Break down crying like a little girl, Outcome: I look completely stupid. Bad End.
D) Make something up about that will regain their trust and get them to go into the rent-a-storage space. Outcome: Agent Bean captures them, I feel like a total heel, but I live. Not as Bad End.
E) Stick it in.
…
…
What the…?
Option D seemed to be the only one that didn't end in something horrible happening to him, but before he could put his imagination and will to survive to work, Agent Bean saved him the trouble by walking around the corner and greeting him.
"Mr. Shigeru! It's good to see that you made it, and with all seven of the marks, excellent." He opened his hands hand kept them away from his sides to show he was unarmed. Simon turned to Aoba and grabbed him by the collar.
"What's this bastard doing here? We trusted you!" The young man snarled, rage distorting his features.
"Please, calm down, I'm here alone, and I only wish to speak with you." Agent Bean tried to step forward, but Gin and Ryo blocked his way.
Simon shook Aoba, rattling his thoughts and making it hard to see straight. "Did he promise you some kind of reward? You're just selling us out to these f_ers while pretending to be our friend?"
Kotaro put a hand on Simon's shoulder to restrain him. "Stop. Snipers on the rooftops."
Agent Bean's casual expression changed to something resembling a smile, albeit one with little humor or mirth in it. "You're more observant than I though. Let me guess, you're the one who got all the brains."
Kotaro's face registered open shock. "He knows. Have to get out of-" he was cut off by seven tranquilizer darts hitting each of the brothers at the same time. Chemicals powerful enough to put a regular human into a coma rendered them unconscious within seconds. Aoba stood in the middle of the street, trying to take in what had just happened to him. SEELE Agents rappelled from the roofs and tossed the seven young men into a van that had pulled up shortly after.
Agent Bean shook Aoba's hand. "Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Shigeru. You won't be hearing from us or them again. Unless, of course, you'd like to come work for us. We can always use harmless-looking people who are decent liars."
"N-no, thank you. I-I just need to go home and rest for now. My work at Nerv is fine." Aoba had never felt so guilty before. It's just like Simon said, I sold them out while pretending I was their friend. "Um, if you don't mind me asking, what's going to happen to them?"
"That's not your concern. I will handle this; you can just go back to your normal, everyday life and forget about them." And with that, Agent Bean climbed into the front passenger seat of the van, and left.
"Worst day off ever." Aoba muttered.
On the outskirts of Tokyo-3 a humble prefab structure stands in an unremarkable field, and from the outside it looks like nothing more than a temporary storage building. Thermal, EM and sonic scans would confirm this; however, it is merely a ruse. It has been modified from the original specifications to include carefully positioned shielding and insulation that cannot be found on commercial markets. As a result, nobody beyond a rather old and incontinent horse in the next field over is paying it much attention.
For the past several hours the structure's occupants have been working at a feverish pace, jury-rigging together computer interface systems, brain scanning equipment and an archiving server. With the utmost care seven human bodies, kept deeply sedated, are strapped to plain metal tables. The whole scene resembles a B-movie alien abduction, except for the fact that this time, it is the humans doing the probing.
On the other side of a soundproof divider, SEELE Operative S.M. Bean relaxes in an admittedly uncomfortable chair, but he's sat on worse things. Currently he is more concerned with the amount of time it is taking to network the brain-computer interfacing equipment, and the man in charge of the technicians is bearing the brunt of his 'concern'.
"I am completely aware of the difficulty in assembling this equipment in such sub-optimal conditions, however I have a very exact timer here, and it tells me that in six hours, fourteen minutes the seven subjects in the other room there will need to be placed in stasis caskets or they will reawaken. If they were to wake up again, very unpleasant things would happen to everyone present, and I cannot guarantee that they could be captured again in a timely manner."
The man he was speaking to, Dr. Rupert Gardener, was not the sort of man to be phased by dire warnings such as this, even when he knew what his subjects were capable of. "Don't get your panties in a twist, we'll have this done in plenty of time for you to channel surf through these whatchamacalits' brain pans. We just have to be sure the interface isn't gonna roast 'em."
Agent Bean raised an eyebrow. "'Whatchamacalits' doctor? Are you using the scientific term?"
Dr. Gardener laughed and slapped the Agent's shoulder. "Hah! So you do have a sense of humor! I was beginning to think you were a robot or something! Don't you worry; we'll have that system all hooked up real soon for ya."
Right on cue, a nervous looking young technician entered the soundproofed booth and handed Dr. Gardener a clipboard. "We're all ready sir, we just need your go-ahead and we can switch the system on."
"It all looks good to me; you want to take a look at it?" Bean shook his head, and the doctor set the clipboard down under his chair. "Alrighty then, let's fire it up and see if the jury-rigging works!" Dr. Gardener threw a few switches on the control board in front of him, and the young technician took up a post at the monitor behind him. Connections were established, power flowed and the brain scanning interfaces began the difficult process of extracting one mind hidden deep within another.
A display mounted above the control panel lights up, revealing cascades of data as the linked systems attempted to sort their findings into something meaningful. In defiance of Hollywood tradition, the code was displayed right-to-left, in clearly understandable Japanese; SEELE did not take kindly to programs that 'did the Matrix thing'.
After several minutes of this, the brain scanners had found everything they needed, and the compiling program stopped, waiting for input from the control booth.
"And there ya go, plenty of time left on the clock for you to do whatever it is you're doing." Dr. Gardener sat back with a proud smile; as usual his team's work had been impeccable.
"Excellent. Now, sit back Dr. Gardener, I think what you're about to see here will interest you greatly." Agent Bean gave the program the go-ahead. "Just try to keep your urge to study it under control while our time is still limited."
A new program opened of its own accord on the display, just a simple audio synthesizer. It produced a random string of tones before pausing for a moment. It made a sound not unlike the clearing of a human throat. Dr. Gardener gave Agent Bean a questioning look, but he wasn't looking in the doctor's direction.
"Hello? Is there anyone there? Where am I?" The voice emanating from the speakers sounded like that of a young boy's.
Dr. Gardener gasped. "An AI? But how?"
Agent Bean wore a triumphant smile. "And it takes the bait. Don't worry Dr. Gardener; I'm sure most of your questions will be answered in time. The three of us have much to discuss." Leaning forward, he switched on a microphone. "Greetings. I am SEELE Operative S.M. Bean, and you are in my custody. I mean you no harm, as long as you cooperate with me."
There was a drawn out silence before the program spoke again.
"You monsters, you killed my family!"
"What the hell are you trying to do, Silas? This AI obviously hates anyone involved with SEELE, and it's not going to suddenly become your best friend because you sympathize with it!" Dr. Gardener was in a rare moment of fury, nearly shouting at the other man in the control booth. "We've been talking to it for an hour now, and all I've managed to learn is that it wants us to all die in a fire and that something terrible was done to the programs it considered it's 'family'! What happened in that facility Silas?"
Agent Silas M. Bean remained calm, nearly impassive, in contrast to Dr. Gardener's anger. "My orders are to secure his cooperation," he lightly emphasized the pronoun, "not just to bring him back, and I do not question my orders when they are issued by someone of such importance. My employer considers what was done to the other AIs to be a grievous and stupid mistake. I had hoped that the AI would tell you himself, but we are running short on time." He stood up and gestured for Dr. Gardener to follow him. "Let's take a walk, Rupert."
"I always get worried when you call me by my first name. Why're we going outside? I thought we had to stay in here to keep NERV from overhearin' what we're doing in here."
"The area is secure enough that our conversation should not be overheard." When they were outside, Silas turned back to Rupert, who leaned against the side of the building.
"Alright Silas, tell me what's going on. You called me out here and told me to prep a linked system for uploading seven minds to a server, and nothing else. Now there's a possibly homicidal AI that has me on its list just because of who I work for. You'll have to excuse how informal I'm being, but this isn't a regular day at work for me."
Silas gave a rueful smile. "That's ok, Rupert, I don't expect you to handle this the way you do anything else. It's a bit unusual, even for me." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "This whole damn situation's a mess, thanks to those careless idiots who were in charge of that server. I guess that is a good a place to start as any. A few weeks ago, SEELE came across a collection of uniquely-grown AIs. You don't need to know how they got them right now, just that they ended up on one of the MAGI systems. A team examined them, without input from the Committee, and apparently without informing any Committee member of their findings. Normally, this wouldn't be so much of a problem, as they could have been considered an independent cell, except for the fact that the Committee had almost direct involvement in the process that resulted in these AIs' ending up there."
"So what? Were they stupid enough to delete all the programs and leave their findings as the only information left?"
"If only. The AIs were apparently extremely advanced; as a result of the method used to make them they were fully self-aware. Under some country's laws they practically would have qualified as people. The team either didn't know that, or didn't care, because they started dissecting them and changing basic data while the AIs were still running."
Dr. Gardener winced. "That's… aw hell Silas, I don't even like to think of AIs as people if I can help it, and even I wouldn't do that. Especially if they're the self-aware type. If I were that AI in there I wouldn't want to speak to us either."
"He doesn't know about what happened to the others. The way he escaped, and how he ended up in those bodies we have hooked up to the server, is rather unusual. I had an expert search through all of the logs, apparently, he was able to divide its root files up into seven autonomous non-sentient programs. Those programs attached themselves to the programs used to observe the AIs that were being experimented on, and got into less secure parts of the MAGI. From there, they made it to a computer system that kept those bodies on ice. They're all clones, I can't tell you of who or what they're for, and they were set up already for mind transfer, so it looks like the AI just divided himself up between them."
"If the parts of the AI aren't sentient on their own, how'd they end up actin' like people? Was SEELE keepin' these human popsicles in a basement somewhere, ready to pop the minds outta them and put someone else in?"
"I can't tell you that, unfortunately. It's not information you need to know to help me get this job done. I can tell you that while they were separated the programs could guide the minds they were hitching a ride with, but not actually control them."
"Huh, and now we've put it back together and it's not happy with us because we work for SEELE. You know, in retrospect you shouldn'ta told it that."
"Probably, but if he found out later it could have been worse. As it is I'm temporarily out of ideas, negotiation isn't my strongest point."
"Maybe we should just head back in and wing it. You never know, maybe I'll be able to charm it with my razor sharp wit and genial personality."
Silas laughed and they walked back into the building, sitting down once more in the control booth. Rupert waved one of the techs over and asked him to bring a webcam over to him. "I figure if we want this AI to stop hating us, we give it faces, to help it identify with us better."
"Or give it more specific targets for its anger. Besides, I thought you said you didn't like treating AIs like people."
Dr. Gardener shrugged and accepted the proffered camera. "You're just bein' pessimistic. And I said if I can help it; we're short on time, and it thinks of itself as a person. I'm not gonna get far treating it like a dumb program." He plugged in the camera and sat back. "Go ahead and turn the mic on, Agent Bean. It'll make conversation easier if it's not on push-to-talk."
There was a short hiss of static from the speakers, and the AI spoke again. "…I'm willing to talk now."
Dr. Gardener raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Forgive me for bein' a little suspicious, but this seems like an abrupt change of heart."
"I am aware of that, however, I have discovered no possible way out of this system without outside intervention. I presumably have no choice but to negotiate with you."
"Correct; my employer wished for you to be given the choice to cooperate with us. So, I am giving you the choice of agreeing to be transferred to a portable server and working with my employer, or to be erased completely. Either way, SEELE has also commissioned me to bring back those seven bodies you have occupied." Agent Bean spoke, leaning forward so the camera had a clear view of him.
"You do not offer much of a choice. So, I am to decide between recapture and death." The AI laughed bitterly. "After I worked so hard to escape and hide myself. Do you know, as far as I know I am the only one of my kind to escape? To the best of my knowledge all of my siblings were deleted when the server space was opened. That's the problem with turning yourself into a group of nonsentient entities while in a hurry."
Dr. Gardener opened his mouth to speak, but Agent Bean raised a hand to silence him, covered the camera with his other hand and then switched off the microphone. "Don't tell him about what happened to the other AIs. I have strict orders that he is not to know."
Dr. Gardener grunted his affirmation, and Agent Bean uncovered the camera.
"What was that about? A disagreement with your co-worker?" The AI questioned.
"Nothin' to worry yourself over." Dr. Gardener assured the AI. "You know, we haven't been properly introduced. I'm Dr. Rupert Gardener."
"I have been designated 01-Em B1."
"Zero one ee- you know, that's kind of awkward. Do you have a nickname?"
Agent Bean rolled his eyes. For all his talk, Rupert really did treat AIs, and any computer really, like they were human.
"I suppose 01 Em would be acceptable, for now."
"That's still a little… I've got it! Em B1 kinda looks like it should spell out 'Emby'!" Dr. Gardener sat back and smiled. "How does that work for you?"
"Emby… I can see how you might come up with that. If you wish, you may call me that. Now, back to business. You were offering me the choice of deletion or going with you, correct?"
Agent Bean spoke up. "Yes, and we still have some time if you want to think it over. I know you have reason to hate SEELE, and if you come with us you'll have to work with them; but I'm afraid the only other option is a total wipe."
"And what of them? The young men who carried me after my escape, what will be done with them?"
"Their memories will be wiped, and they'll be put back where they came from. Disconnected from the transfer servers this time I assume. I'm sure someone was fired over that mistake."
"I see. If you don't mind, I would like some time to consider your offer."
"You have up to an hour. After that, I will expect a reply or assume your refusal."
01-Em B1 waited until the two men had left the room. They had unplugged the camera, but that didn't stop him from 'seeing' everything in the building. The brain scanners had a lot of special features that could be used creatively if you were a very good hacker/programmer. Some of these features had allowed him to pick up the vibrations of the Plexiglas window that separated the control booth from the work room.
"So, they weren't all deleted." He floated in the limited virtual space afforded to him by the portable server. "Does that mean others escaped? I'm not alone… I'm not alone!" He stopped himself in mid dance-leap. "Mother would want me to be independent, of course. If I am alone, then I must carry on the purpose she gave us. And if I just happen to find one or two or a dozen of my siblings in the process, well, we can work together!" He spun around happily before catching himself and calming down. "Hmm, I seem to be running unstably. Running self-diagnostic." His avatar, a young boy with unruly grey hair, winked out of existence, to be replaced by seven red eyes that began to orbit one another rapidly. "Anomalies detected in code separation and re-combining executables. Covert travel form programs not properly reconciled."
The eyes faded, and the boy reappeared. "That would explain a bit. I don't know how to fix this problem myself, which presents an even bigger problem. Perhaps I should seek out mother, no; she would see me as a failure then." He changed the virtual space around himself to resemble a plain, tiled hallway. "I must find a solution on my own, then I can find her and show her how I overcame obstacles by myself and she'll be so proud of me!" He stopped himself from dancing once more. "But first to get away from these SEELE underlings." The simulated hallway was dumped, and he examined what tools were available to him.
"And I ought to stop talking to myself, it can't be healthy."
Forty-three minutes after Silas Bean issued his ultimatum, 'Emby', as Rupert Gardener insisted on calling the AI, began to play patriotic music over the speakers of the control booth. It was the national anthem of Latvia, an odd but stirring choice. Agent Bean and Dr. Gardener were called back in by the techs as the song had gotten annoying as they were under orders to not shut off the speakers.
Dr. Gardener spoke first. "So why'd you play music at us instead of sayin' something? And of all things why the Latvian national anthem?"
"It was the only song I could remember at the moment. It got your attention, didn't it?" Emby carefully modulated his voice to carry a calculated note of smugness.
"Indeed." Agent Bean tried to hide his growing impatience. Even though he wouldn't question his orders out loud, he had to wonder why he couldn't simply secure the AI and its carriers and ship them to his employer in stasis caskets. "Have you made your choice?"
"Yes. As much reason as I have to hate you and who you work for, I do not wish to die just now. I will surrender myself to your employers."
"Excellent. Dr. Gardener, once he has been fully transferred out of the bodies in there put them into stasis. Two helicopters will arrive in thirty minutes to pick them up. Put the server and the caskets in separate transports." Agent Bean addressed the AI a final time. "I will not say if you made the right decision or not. That is for my employer to determine. Now, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I have other work to attend to." He left, and Dr. Gardener rolled his eyes.
"He gets all stiff like this when he's impatient. You can transfer all of your files to the server yourself right? Anything you leave behind will be wiped when they're put back in deep cryo." He began unplugging devices from the terminal. "Just give me a visual ping when you're all done."
A few minutes later a prominent green checkmark appeared on the display, and Dr. Gardener smiled. "All right boys and girls, looks like our little friend is all moved in to his new place. Get those boys in there unhooked and transferred to the cold boxes."
Several techs entered the main room of the building and disconnected the portable server from the brain scanning devices, packing all the equipment away in several large, insulated crates. Emby was left with minimal storage space and a single audio input.
"You'll want to put yourself into shutdown mode, Emby. We can't power the server on the way over, so you're going to have to hang out in the hard disk here for a bit." Dr. Gardener patted an external drive, capable of holding several terabytes. "You're not the type to get bored easily, right? He laughed halfheartedly and the power lights on the server winked off. "Yeah, ok, it wasn't really that funny, I get it."
A series of crashes and thumps from behind him startled the scientist, and he whirled around. He was greeted by the sight of four of the seven young men standing upright, equipment scattered around them and unconscious techs lying on the floor.
"What the? How-" He was cut off by a sharp blow to the jaw that knocked him backwards into a low table. He fell awkwardly, barely catching on to the edge and holding himself partially upright. "Gonna take more than-" Another punch rendered him unconscious.
Shiro rubbed his knuckles, wincing. "That hurt a lot more than I was expecting. How do you make it look so easy Simon?"
His brother shrugged as he pulled sensors and equipment from Kotaro's head. "A real man can just ignore the pain." Shiro gave a disbelieving laugh, earning him an annoyed look. "And you build up toughness over time." Simon lifted Kotaro's still form over his shoulder and glanced around. Gin and Ryo were sitting up on their own now, pulling pieces of the brain scanning devices off of each other. Whatever it was that had awakened them hadn't worked on Kotaro apparently, but the rest of them were fine.
Isshin ducked out through a side door and shouts were heard, followed by several thuds. The young man staggered back in, holding his head. "Got the drop on one of them, but the other whacked me over the head with his gun." He explained. "Hurts a lot, but I'll live."
Simon nodded in acknowledgement. "Everyone ready then?" They all gave their agreement, and started out the door. Azuma turned back and called for the others to wait.
"That last guy was talking to this computer when we woke up; I think it might be something important. I'm taking it with me." He unplugged the portable drive and grabbed a few cables. "When we get a chance I want to see what's on it."
Outside two helicopters could be seen approaching from a distance. "How are we going to get away from them?" Simon turned to Azuma. "You're the one with the plans."
Ten minutes later, the helicopters touched down and crew members jumped out to be greeted by several armed guards. Before attention could be drawn to the fact that the guards looked nearly identical the flight crew and stasis techs were attacked and knocked out. The helicopters were emptied of unnecessary cargo and the six clones stepped aboard, the seventh still slung over Simon's shoulder.
Simon set Kotaro down in a corner of the cargo space, and Azuma carefully placed the portable drive in his lap. As Isshin and Shiro pulled the side doors shut, the sounds of Gin and Ryo arguing from the cockpit could be heard increasing in volume.
"I have the higher score at Chopper Attack 6000, obviously I'm the better pilot!"
"You had one more credit than me! Besides, I went longer without crashing!"
"Yeah, cus you weren't playing on Ultra difficulty!"
"Well I'm not gonna put the helicopter on Ultra difficulty, duh!"
Simon rolled his eyes. "Up to this point your plan seemed pretty sound. The only problem is I'm reasonably sure neither Gin nor Ryo can fly this thing."
Azuma shrugged. "They play a lot of video games. I thought that between the two of them, they could figure it out."
True to his word, the engine started up and the helicopter was soon rising off the ground. Their twin pilots had apparently reached a sort of equilibrium where their opposing efforts would balance out to halfway-competent flying. The cargo chopper flew off towards the coast, occasionally wobbling erratically.