DC Evangelion
Chapter 14: The Modern Prometheus
Five minutes ago, Ritsuko Akagi was ready to pull out her hair by the roots out of sheer frustration. She had done practically everything except go over there and kick the stupid thing. And the only reason why she hadn't was that she'd only break her toe. If she was lucky.
EXO-Frame 01 had proven stubbornly resistant towards all attempts at activating it. She had wished for the obstinately nonfunctioning pile of junk to do something ... anything.
Now as the alarms blared and alert panels were flashing stridently, she was sorely repentant that she had even thought such a damn stupid thing.
It was daunting really, thought Snapper Carr, President of the United States of America as he peered out through the window of Air Force One. Surrounding the massive aircraft was an entire squadron of high-speed Firestorm Hoverjets, escorting their Commander in Chief across the Mojave Desert to Fortress 3.
He had seen the Firestorms before of course. Hell, he was the one who signed off on the expense of building them after all. He had read their technical specifications, seen them in computer simulations, observed them in digitally enhanced videos, and even stood close up to them spiffed up and polished on the ground during a few military inspections and reviews.
But he had never actually seen them before like this. Not in the field. Not in flight.
Unlike the Kamikaze-class Aerodynes which were like flying tanks, the Firestorm Hoverjets were a whole different breed of cat. Small, lightweight, and sleek, they looked like a bird of prey in flight. Or perhaps a phoenix, Carr mused as he watched the fiery trail of hot plasma that each Firestorm left in their wake and incidentally the source of their name.
The Firestorm were the most agile fighter ever built. And they owed their extraordinary agility to the fact that the designers had deliberately stripped it of anything the craft couldn't absolutely do without. That included fuel, engines, or even conventional weaponry.
It sounded bizarre. Even insane when Carr first heard the proposal but he had forced himself to listen to the engineers discuss their idea and he admitted that it did sound logical. Sort of.
Built into the central body of the aircraft was the main rotor fan which gave the Firestorm the power to defy gravity and hover. But for thrust, smaller ducted vents sucked up the air around the craft and blew it into the fusion furnace. The hydrogen molecules in the air combusted and became incredibly explosive plasma which was contained through a magnetic bottle which squeezed the mass of plasma to vent outward as a roaring jet of white-hot flame for propulsion. Which meant that the craft possessed an effective unlimited range and an unlimited supply of fuel.
And a small quantity of the plasma could be tapped for other purposes. Such as a series of offensive plasma bursts that were far more effective than say a bullet. They lacked the ability of a missile to turn in midair to follow a speeding target, but the plasma bursts were by far much faster than a missile and they could fire over half a dozen shots per second, in addition to having a relatively unlimited supply of ammunition. Which was a worthwhile trade off thought most of the pilots.
Snapper turned away from his window gazing. He crossed his legs and then adjusted the armrests and then uncrossed his legs nervously. He was just delaying things. Trying to ignore things. But he couldn't. Well, he in particular could not. That might be an option for other men or women but not him. They could deny, delay, or dodge responsibility. But he could not. Not when his decisions would affect the lives of millions and perhaps the entire world itself. He leaned back into his plush seat with a sigh. He could hear the murmurs throughout Air Force One. All of the whispers. And the questions that was on everyone's mind. Everyone glanced at him and then quickly looked away. They were wondering if he could handle this. More than a few had some doubts about him.
He wasn't Presidential, his critics had protested. He had no experience, no proven record of leadership. No formal military service or even training. He was not a politician, a legislator, a lawyer, or a savvy public relations expert. 'The Accidental President' one witty pundit had dubbed him.
And they were right.
More than that, he felt it too. He was a fraud. A fake. He had never asked for this. He really hadn't. Snapper closed his eyes as his mind whirled back to how this whole gigantic practical joke on him had begun.
It just seemed like yesterday that Snapper was merely the Deputy Secretary of Education. Then Second Impact. And most of Washington D.C. got hit by a series of tsunamis which left it a couple of feet underwater.
The sitting President, most of Congress, and a good deal of the functioning government had been killed in the disaster. Including Snapper's former boss, the Secretary of Education.
Snapper had just been settling into his unexpected promotion when he received a summons from the former Vice President who had been out of town and had ascended to the Presidency.
Actually, he hadn't had the wit or ability to refuse the dozen or so Secret Service Agents who suddenly descended onto his new office and politely but firmly asked him to come with them. They hadn't threatened him or anything, but he got the distinct impression that refusal was not an option.
The new President had welcomed him, shook his hand, spoke in glowing terms of his boss and how his boss had spoke of Snapper in turn, and then walloped him with the 2x4 he had hidden in his back pocket.
Simply put, he needed a new Vice President.
Snapper hadn't even known that the Secretary of Education was even in line for the position of President. Fifteenth actually, but most of the others had been killed in the wake of Second Impact; or in the case of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, both had been ineligible for the job as neither had been born in the United States.
Unlike him.
The former Vice President appealed to his sense of patriotism, his sense of duty, the need for the citizens to know that their government was still functioning, the appeal of political continuity, and had claimed that it was all just temporary.
Lying bastard, Snapper once more mentally cursed the smiling politician for the umpteenth for the past fourteen years and feeling the urge to throttle him. Even if he had to go and dig up the damn corpse to do it.
Of course, the new President probably hadn't foreseen falling ill to one of those new antibiotic-resistant virus strains that had sprung up after Second Impact, much less dying from it.
Five months after accepting the Vice Presidency, a bewildered Snapper Carr had shakily stepped up and had taken his own Oath of Office and with it the Presidency of the United States of America and the task of rebuilding a country and reestablishing a functional government.
It wasn't easy. Civilization had practically collapsed or had collapsed in a few places. A few small despots had cropped up. He was forced to declare martial law and send in military forces to secure certain towns and installations.
It had taken almost five years before Snapper was able to restore the basic infrastructure throughout what remained of the United States. Before he could seat a new Congress and a Supreme Court. Then watch as the illegal military junta of Mexico casting envious eyes on their recovering and more prosperous neighbors, had staged a military invasion. Snapper had been extremely pissed when he found that he couldn't count on any support from the United Nations which apparently viewed that when nations did this sort of thing, it was considered statecraft. Whereas when individuals did it, it was considered armed robbery.
By the time the US military had barely gotten them beaten back; one of the splintered Canadian Governments had taken into their heads to emulate the Mexicans. Snapper shook his head wearily as he wearily sought to recall which one of the three (or was it four now?) separate Canadian Governments it was. All of them were busy proclaiming themselves the one real government and the others were all pretenders.
Snapper hadn't even bothered paying any attention to the reestablished elections taking place during all of this. He had thought that his last act would be to hand this mess off to his successor and wish him good luck as he sprinted off to freedom. Or so he thought.
The general public however had different ideas and had staged a massive write-in campaign of his name on the ballots. Congress had upheld it as it was clearly a demonstration of the general public's intent and desires. And probably more than a little scared of what would happen if they didn't, considering that Snapper had received nearly 95 percent of the total vote.
He was the most popular President since George Washington. Snapper was effectively drafted and decided that he would just have to grin and bear with the whole thing for the rest of the term and then quietly retire. He didn't even bother campaigning for his next term. He had been sure that someone else would be chosen for this. Somebody who actually wanted this damn job. Anyone else.
His 'opponent' conceded before the polling was even halfway finished. It was clear that Snapper had managed to win over 80 percent of the vote and incidentally the voter turnout was the highest ever seen in nearly three decades.
The public loved him. He didn't know why. All he did know was that he was cursed. Cursed to never leave. Trapped in a job he didn't want. The only way that the public would ever let him escape would be if he keeled over from a heart attack. Or, he whimsically mused, if he died from terminal writer's cramp from signing the thousands and thousands of reports. He snorted. On second thought, it was much more likely that he would be smothered under the mountains of paperwork. The damn things seemed to multiply like rabbits.
Congress even made some rumbling about overturning the two-term limitations of the Presidency about two years ago due to public outcry that Carr wouldn't be able to be reelected again. It had taken some serious arm twisting and even more blatant threats, but he had managed to squash that little brainstorm. Snapper got down on his knees nightly to thank God for the cowardly (and otherwise useless) politicians he bullied into voting against the measure.
This whole thing reminded him vaguely of an old fairy tale his grandmother had told him about a vain Emperor who had gotten swindled by a couple of con men who proclaimed they had invented a marvelous cloth that was invisible to fools and idiots.
Not wishing to proclaim himself a fool or an idiot, the Emperor had praised these swindlers and ordered himself a fine set of clothes fashioned out of this material and promptly paraded around for all of his citizens to see him in it. Naturally none of the citizens wanted to say that they were idiots or fools either so had all applauded and praised their Emperor's imaginary finery. Until a young child had innocently pointed out that the Emperor was wearing nothing at all.
He was the President of the United States of America. Leader of the Free World. Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Proclaimed as the Most Powerful Man in the World. And he felt like that silly old Emperor who was standing out in public in his birthday suit. For nearly fourteen years, Snapper had been waiting and waiting for the young perceptive child to appear and point a finger at him and loudly proclaim, "He's no President!"
At which point everyone would be stunned and horrified and amazed. And then he could go home and hide in his bed and pretend none of this had ever happened. That this had all been one big practical joke the universe had played on him.
So far though, no prepubescent and precocious tykes had bothered to show up and make their marvelous insightful statement. Which meant Snapper was stuck. Or screwed. It was the same thing really, he thought ruefully.
Lieutenant Maya Ibuki looked up from her work station to orally give her negative report. As it so happened, her eyes wandered towards the armorplast viewport when the one of the fingers of EXO-Frame 01 twitched.
She blinked as her mental processes came to a screeching halt. Did she imagine that or—she opened her mouth to say something to Doctor Akagi as the entire hand flexed spasmodically and then violently.
They were the most obdurate of metals. The strongest, the most durable alloys ever forged by man. Resilient. Unyielding. Crafted to form a series of unbreakable restraints in order to safely contain one of the most powerful entities the planet had ever known.
There was a horrible shrieking of metal as EXO-Frame 01 tore itself free, shredding those restraints like tissue paper. It's hands clenched and unclenched themselves and the creature began to rise to it's feet. It brushed aside railings and scaffoldings, swept aside platforms and catwalks. And now the shrieking of twisting and snapping metal was accompanied by human ones as several technicians were sent hurtling through the air.
Belatedly the alarms started whooping and every single panel appeared to be going berserk, flashing scarlet and crimson.
Ritsuko Akagi deep in thought at the problem of getting the giant machine moving, gaped at the sight of EXO-Frame 01 lumbering to it's feet entirely on it's own. Well, part of her mind inanely remarked, at least we know that it works. The other part was just plain gibbering.
The head unit raised itself and the optic sensors were burning a bright gold color as they swept back and forth, searching for something and then seemed to fix on some distant point. The optic sensors flickered, changing in hue to a dark, blood red.
And then the EXO-Frame moved, taking one titanic step forward. The single footfall created a small earthquake and rattled even the armorplast window.
It also managed to shatter Ritsuko's momentary shock. She whipped her head around and pointed frantically at Maya, "Deactivate the EXO-Frame! Emergency Override! Cut all of the nerve circuits!" she barked.
Maya whirled to her control panels, her fingers flying over the keyboards.
Ritsuko wasn't waiting though, "BRAINIAC!" she screamed to the ceiling and the built-in audio sensors that were connected to the quantum computer, "Activate Emergency Restraint Foam!"
Ritsuko turned back to the armorplast window and stared out into the Hanger. She heard metal tearing and more screams as the EXO-Frame tore through the jumbled web of interconnecting platforms and catwalks that the technicians used to service, monitor, and repair the EXO-Frame.
Various technicians were scrambling, running, trying to escape, to flee the ponderous moving mountain of metal bearing down on them.
Ritsuko saw one slip and fall over a dozen feet to the concrete floor. He staggered to his feet and stumbled away. Another lost their balance by the hysterical and panicking crowd and went tumbling off and wasn't quite so fortunate.
Ritsuko shuddered as she saw the man land on his head. She didn't hear the snap of the man's neck but the acute angle which it was bent left no doubt in her mind that he was dead. She hoped that he had been lucky and that it had been too quick for him to feel anything.
But her attention was drawn to others. She watched a pair of technicians frantically hugging a catwalk that was dangling in midair, even as she watched, a cable snapped and the already precariously titled catwalk lurched even further off balance.
There was a scream as one of the technicians lost his grip and fell over a hundred feet to the floor with a sickening thud.
The EXO-Frame took another ponderous step accompanied by another brief tremor causing the catwalk to tilt even further.
"Shit!" Ritsuko cursed herself and struck at her control panel. She slapped several buttons as she belatedly activated the Hanger's integrated shock dampeners. Too little, too late, she thought scornfully.
The EXO-Frame took another step although this one was muted as the seismic forces were absorbed, reducing what would have been another tectonic disturbance to a mild vibration.
Cables and various hoses still connected to the EXO-Frame were being stretched to their utmost. Finally one snapped. And another. Now as an added obstacle, the technicians were having the dodge the cables and hoses flailing and cracking around like gigantic whips while others sprayed various chemicals and fluids adding to the chaos.
Panels sprang open all over the interior of the Hanger and a series of high pressure nozzles extended themselves as jets of a thick viscous fluid came gushing out as BRAINIAC activated the last ditch emergency restraint foam.
The liquid goop splashed over the EXO-Frame, pooling onto the floor. Then the polymer strands in the gel reacted. They sensed the presence of oxygen and greedily fed off it, bubbling furiously as it underwent a chemical reaction, changing into a highly rigid foam barrier.
Within a matter of moments, the foam had anchored the malfunctioning mechanoid's feet and were at ankle height and rising steadily to engulf the EXO-Frame's knees.
The liquid polymer foam was yet another technological marvel extracted from Kal El's lifepod. It was an emergency safety device, an anti-crash protection system that functioned much like a high-tech airbag. Stronger than steel yet yielding and cushioning.
The EXO-Frame paused, momentarily stymied. The foam started to tremble and shake. Cracks formed and chunks of foam flew as the EXO-Frame waded forward relentlessly. It was a race between the rushing fluid flowing into the gaps and fractures and new foam layers forming themselves against the unstoppable EXO-Frame.
Maya snapped her head up, her eyes wide with panic and a hint of fear, "The EXO-Frame is rejecting all of my override signals!"
Ritsuko watched helplessly as a group of technicians formed a human chain to haul the still dangling woman to safety from the sagging catwalk. Just in time as the final cable parted and the catwalk plummeted to the concrete floor and shattered. "Do a forced detach of the Solar Batteries! Blow 'em!" she ordered.
While we still can, Ritsuko added mentally as she watched as the level of foam had risen to the mechanoid's waist and was still climbing. If they didn't hurry, they wouldn't be able to execute a forced detach the Solar Batteries at all. They'd be smothered in the embrace of the immobilizing foam cocoon along with the EXO-Frame.
Maya pressed her thumb at a security scanner plate. It obediently read her fingerprint and satisfied, the computer unlocked an armored glass panel.
Maya flipped the panel open, exposing the large emergency switch and stabbed it.
A series of bolts responded to the emergency signal, detonating as one, simultaneously separating the gigantic winged flanges mounted to the shoulders of the EXO-Frame from the EXO-Frame itself. A split second later, a series of shaped charges exploded sequentially as well, forcibly blowing the shoulder pods away from the EXO-Frame.
"Solar Batteries Ejected!" Maya called out triumphantly.
Ritsuko winced as one of the Solar Batteries almost casually spun through the air to cleave through a huge section of scaffolding. A group of technicians who had somehow managed to escape death so far were instantly reduced into paste. The other oversized shoulder pod impacted against one of the walls, rebounding and landed on a bed of foam harmlessly.
"EXO-Frame is on Internal Battery!" Maya reported as her screens switched to a graphic chart. A glowing green bar was draining itself rapidly downward.
"Power levels?"
"At 43 percent and falling!" Maya reported, her eyes locked on her displays, she rapidly typed in a few commands, reconfiguring the display to a digital counter that was rapidly scrolling itself to zero. "One minute until power depletion!"
Slowly, ever so slowly, the mechanoid's flailing limbs began to slow like a toy winding itself down until they finally ground to a halt. The radiant pentagonal chest shield flickered and faded. Illuminated capacitor panels grew dim. Finally only the glowing optic sensors remained. And they too faded in and out unsteadily until unwillingly, stubbornly, defiantly, the last crimson spark guttered out.
"Internal Battery at Zero Charge!" Maya confirmed, "Shut down!" she cried out and then professionalism reasserted itself and in a more normal tone of voice reported, "EXO-Frame is shutting down."
Ritsuko Akagi sank into her padded seat and took a deep shuddering breath. "Holy shit…" she muttered, "…what the Hell was THAT all about?"
Shinji struggled to slow down his heart to keep it from bursting from his chest. After seeing a giant monster fighting the JSSDF, he had nearly gotten run over by a crazy woman in a sports car.
Crazy as in irrational. After cussing him out, her attitude abruptly did a 180 and she began fawning over him and asking if he was alright and did he want anything as she hustled him into the passenger seat and personally did his seat belt for him as if he was a five year old.
Shinji idly wondered if the JSSDF were so hard up for personnel that they lowered their screening procedures as the uniformed woman shut her door and turned the ignition key. His eye flicked to her nametag which read KATSURAGI.
Then she slammed her foot on the accelerator and his body was abruptly pressed into the padding of his seat as the car took off like a rocket. "Err … Miss?" he gasped out.
The woman turned and gave him a wide smile that looked almost painful, "Oh, call me Misato!" she said brightly.
"Uh … alright, Misato," Shinji said tentatively, "If you could just drop me off at the next train station I'd appreciate—"
"Oh no, I suppose to take you to Tokyo-3 Shinji," Misato interrupted cheerfully. Despite a bit of a rough start, things were going rather smoothly, she thought to herself.
Just once, Matsuda mentally cursed, just once, could things possibly go smoothly?
His plaintive address went unanswered however as he strode into the EXO-Frame Hanger Command and Information Center. Over a dozen conversations were taking place. All at high volume. Dozens of scientists and technicians and even a scattering of military personnel were all arguing and mainly pointing fingers at each other like a couple of kids trying to properly assign blame to somebody else.
His scowl deepened and he felt his fists tightening even further. He wasn't having this … this petty crap. "ENOUGH!" he roared in a hoarse bellow.
Everyone in the CIC froze and turned to look at him. Apparently the expression on his face was sufficient to cow everyone into submission. He snapped out a single finger to point out Ritsuko Akagi, "What's going on?" he demanded.
The Blackhawks arced through the air and came roaring back to lash out at Sachiel again.
Lieutenant Ken Kenichi studied his tactical readouts with care. All of the meters were redlined but so far everything was alright. Besides he knew the engineers who wrote the safety margins tended to be a bit conservative in their math. It looked like they had another full power shot remaining so they had better make it count.
"Line us up for another shot Sanada," he said calmly. His pilot, Reiko Sanada didn't even turn in her seat, "Roger."
The targeting reticule burned green and Ken stabbed the fire button.
He was unaware of it but a small microscopic crack in the wielding of one of the plasma prefire chambers had formed. Under normal operating procedures, the energetic plasma still would have been contained safely thanks to the magnetic bottle, a containment field that reinforced the integrity of the prefire chamber.
But these were not normal operating procedures.
At the moment, the extreme heat from overloading the plasma emitters had overwhelmed one of the magnetic capacitors in the containment ring and caused it to fail.
The magnetic bottle fluctuated momentarily at the other magnetic capacitors struggled to take on the additional load of their malfunctioning companion. And the mass of high-energy plasma found the crack.
What happened next was catastrophic.
It blew out of the prefire chamber like a blowtorch from Hell.
Kenichi gasped as alert sirens started screeching and clamoring a split second before the breeched chamber exploded outward, vomiting forth the mass of plasma.
He felt a wave of intense heat boiling outward. He saw a roiling, out of control mass of flames erupting outward. He opened his mouth to scream … but there was no time.
A second earlier, they had ten aerodynes flying in formation. A second later however, they had nine.
The other aerodynes fluttered and shook as the shockwave blast washed over them. Goro whipped his head around, "What the Hell!" he cursed and blinked momentarily as he saw the aerodynes in formation and quickly counted them.
Then he quickly recounted again just in case he had made a mistake.
He hadn't.
"What happened?" he demanded a split second later.
A white faced Sora looked up from her screens, "Plasma breech. It happened too fast for anything else."
Air Marshal Luo Zhang strode into CIC as he mentally composed his successful report that Captain Katsuragi had located Shinji Ikari and they were presently en route to Fortress 1. It would appear that things were finally going their way for once. Then he saw Matsuda.
Over the years they had served alongside one another, Zhang had seen Matsuda in various moods. But he had only rarely had ever seen him as coldly furious as he was now.
The JSSDF General was shaking. His trembling was not one of fear, or terror, or panic, or even fright. It was of someone who exercising extreme and enormous control over volcanic fury. Like Krakatoa intensity.
"I have over a dozen dead people, three dozen more injured and you don't KNOW what happened?" Matsuda barked in a furious, tautly controlled tone of voice as a vein throbbed menacingly in his temple, "What the Hell was Rei doing Akagi? Can't she control—"
"She wasn't controlling it." Ritsuko snapped.
"She's the Pilot!" Matsuda broke in, his hands twisted together as though strangling something … or someone, "She has a direct physical and mental interface with that oversized tin can, don't tell me she—"
"It would be a bit difficult for her," Ritusko interrupted, "BECAUSE SHE WASN'T IN IT!" she screamed the last five words at the top of her lungs and slammed her clipboard down on a table, cracking it in half.
Shinji slowly unclenched his death grip on the dashboard with great reluctance. The road was no longer twisting and looping around but was a gradual upward winding curve. Which meant that the ride had smoothed out considerably so he no longer feared for his life every tire screeching second.
He glanced at his companion and wannabe NASCAR driver who was replacing her cell phone in an inner pocket. "So you work with my mother Miss Misato?" he asked curiously.
"Sort of. You might say, I work for her." the woman dressed in a blue military style uniform confirmed.
"So exactly what does this JSA group do?" Shinji asked.
Misato glanced sidewise at him, a look of surprise on her face. "You mean you don't know what your mom does?"
Shinji scowled and looked away, "Not really. She told me that it was government work and was top secret. I just know she thinks it's real important stuff." More important than me, he left unsaid.
"Well, yeah, it is." Misato said lamely feeling like she was tiptoeing through a potential land mine field.
"By the way," Shinji paused thoughtfully, "what the heck was that thing back there?" he asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder towards Sachiel.
Misato coughed, "That's uh … classified." she said and then after a moment, she grinned and waggled her eyebrows playfully, "I could tell you, but then …" she paused dramatically, "I'd have to kill you."
Shinji raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You don't know either do you."
Misato drew back offended, "Of course I do!" she protested, "That's a …" she suddenly had a mental image of a scowling Marshal Zhang upon hearing her release classified information to a civilian, "uh … a big … big thingie." she finished lamely.
"Huh. Thingie. Is that a technical term?" Shinji asked sarcastically.
Misato twitched as she fought to keep a pleasant expression on her face. Little snot, she mentally snorted as she concentrated on the road ahead of them.
Matsuda rocked back on his heels. "Explain that," he ordered coldly as a tic jumped at the corner of his mouth.
Ritsuko took a deep breath and drew out a cigarette and flicked a lighter. Zhang twitched at the sudden burst of flame and said sharply, "No smoking Doctor," he reprimanded, pointing at a NO SMOKING sign clearly posted nearby.
Ritsuko gave him a dirty look and ground her cigarette out. "After the last activation attempt, Rei's neurological patterns were pretty erratic so we took her out of the Control Sphere," she reported, "We were in the middle of a full programming purge of the OS and a reboot when the EXO-Frame activated itself and went berserk. We tried to regain control but it rejected all of our override signals. We had to resort to the restraint foam and blow off the solar batteries to contain it."
Matsuda turned pasty white, his anger visibly draining away. "That's impossible," he protested feebly.
Ritsuko gave him a malicious grin at his discomfort. "Tell me about it," she drawled.
Matsuda stared, "But the EXO-Frame CAN'T activate itself without a Pilot! How the Hell—"
Yui spoke up, "It's Shinji."
Everyone turned to face her. Yui then continued, "I've been looking over the scans," she held up a wad of printouts, "and a split second before EXO-Frame 01 went berserk, the monitors picked up a brainwave spike," she held up the graph of a single straight line that abruptly turned into a series of jagged peaks and dips.
"A very strong one too," Ritsuko remarked with narrowed eyes as she studied the graph.
Zhang frowned, "That doesn't make sense. None of the other EXO-Frames have ever responded to the Pilots outside of the Control Spheres! None! Not Ayanami, Langley, or Jordan were ever—"
Yui shook her head and interrupted, "But none of the others were EXO-Frame 01."
Matsuda looked confused, "But it's never reacted in this way before either—"
Yui shrugged, "And Shinji has never been in such close proximity to EXO-Frame 01 before either. And I understand that he's in close proximity to the XT as well so there might be some understandable panic. If I'm reading this right, he had a bad shock. I think he was scared. Scared out of his mind. And the EXO-Frame reacted to that fear."
Zhang studied Yui for a long moment, showing curiosity on his normally impassive features. "And the EXO-Frame was trying to … protect him?" he said slowly.
"Oh my God," Matsuda said. He shook his head and slowly walked over to the armorplast window and leaned against it heavily. He stared out into the still foamed hanger.
Already an army of workers were frantically busy. Loops of cable were being wrapped around one of the solar batteries as a temporary sling to right it even as another crane was busy lifting the other large winged flange and a squad of technicians were swarming over it, scrutinizing it for possible damage.
Some were restringing cables and lines. Sparks flew as others cut bent and twisted metal while replacement equipment, even new scaffolding and catwalks and platforms were being hauled into place.
More were spraying the foam with a compound that broke down the polymers into a liquid sludge that was draining out from the built-in ducts.
Others were snaking hoses that were alternatively spraying water to wash the remnants of the sludge off the various surfaces or vacuuming up the waste.
It was amazing. It was impressive. At the frenetic pace they were working, it appeared that a good one-third of the cleanup and repairs were already mostly done. And the steady pace continued.
And above them all towered the gigantic EXO-Frame 01. It was frozen, motionless. Whenever Matsuda had seen it before, it wasn't difficult to imagine it as merely sleeping. Slumbering peacefully.
But not now. Not frozen in mid-stride, braced in a wary cat-like stance, balanced on it's toes, ready to spring forward. Not with it's fingers frozen, outstretched like claws as they sought to rip through the foamy barricade imprisoning it.
Not now.
Not ever.
It was not sleeping. Staring at this stationary thing, Matsuda got the disturbing feeling that it was merely quiescent. Like a predator who was merely feigning sleep and was perfectly aware of what everything that was happening around it. Why exert itself when it's prey could do the job for it and wander into it's grip?
He stared at the dark optic sensors. He peered at them trying to see past them and what lay beneath. Into the EXO-Frame itself. He stared at it and the thing looked blankly back at him.
He shuddered as he stared at this thing that they had created. At this mechanical monstrosity. They had been so sure, so confident, so smug that they were the ones in control. That they were such marvelous geniuses at having harnessed this beast. Only now he found out that their control was really a tenuous thing. More the product of wishful thinking than reality.
He was forcibly reminded that just because you were successful in putting a collar around a wild animal didn't mean that the animal was tamed. Eventually it would figure out a way around the tether. Around the leash and the collar and break free.
"What the Hell did you build Yui?" he asked softly.
Yui Ikari was silent for a long moment, her gaze pensive and remote. Finally she looked up. "Our last and best hope for victory. But I'd be lying if I said I totally understood just what we created ourselves."
Standing in a quiet corner, almost unnoticed and forgotten, Professor Fuyutsuki spoke for the first time. In a soft voice he recited solemnly, " 'How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form?' "
Maya Ibuki looked at him blankly. "Is that a quote or something Professor?" she asked.
Ritsuko looked pained. "Yes. By a 19th Century English author by the name of Shelley."
"Really? What did he write?" Ibuki asked innocently.
"She. Shelley was a woman," Ritsuko corrected absently. "And most of her works are largely forgotten. Except for one. She called it ... 'The Modern Prometheus'." Ritsuko paused for a moment before continuing; "Everyone else though remembers it simply as 'Frankenstein'."
A/N: Just for trivia sake, the Firestorm-Class Hoverjets owe their namesake from a DC comic hero. I thought it would be fun to pepper the storyline with bits and pieces of the actual DC Universe.
Oh and before anyone asks, Snapper Carr has indeed been President for close to fourteen years. And I do know that this is technically impossible. Or illegal.
Simply put, the United States Government was in a State of Emergency for the first five, six years after Second Impact and Snapper was never officially confirmed. He would probably be technically considered the 'Acting President' or filling in as the Vice President.
It took that long to reestablish a working government and then he got involved in a war with Mexico and then Canada before Congress got around to declaring the State of Emergency over. By that time, he got officially voted in twice and is now on his second and final term as President. This is actually his last year. Of course, knowing Snapper's luck, Congress will probably delay elections again with the XTs so he might not be able to leave just yet!
And many apologies to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, authoress of "The Modern Prometheus" whom I humbly borrowed from her both the title and a brief quotation. And as always, much thanks to my prereader and editor Arthur Hansen without whom this chapter would not have been quite as good.