Chapter Thirteen
He asked for a black plugsuit, and they gave it to him. Toji flexed his fingers, listening to the material creak, and took a deep breath before walking out into the area they called the cage. It was cold and there were dozens of people around, and the plugsuit fit him like a second skin, which meant his skin was exposed, which meant he was naked, which was quite uncomfortable. He resisted the urge to hitch himself up and press his legs together as he walked. The vast space made him feel small- every sound echoed. Even though this was just a test, his stomach lurched and he felt a sort of buzzing along his spine. Yet, Shinji had commanded that he pilot Unit Four, and he would obey.
His Eva stood at the far end of the cage, hunched and bestial. He'd seen what Shinji could do before, but there was something otherworldly and alien about the Evas that the pictures couldn't capture, like it was watching him. It was lower and broader than the others. They told him it had been modified somehow and then converted back, explaining the deeper chest and thicker back, the way it hunched forward a bit. Oddly, they asked him what color he wanted the armor painted, and he went with black.
Hikari was sitting near Unit Three, clutching herself and shaking. Her plugsuit was a bright yellow, and her Eva was mostly the same, with black highlights that made him think of a hornet. She had the things in her hair, they called them nerve clips, but had let it down. He sat down next to her, trying not to stare to hard at her. It seemed like her suit was even tighter than his, especially around the chest, almost as if they were designed to be more form-fitting and revealing on the girls. He put his arm around her without looking.
"I'm scared," she whispered. "I don't think I can do this."
"You'll be fine."
"These things are monsters," she whispered. "You saw what happened to Asuka. Her face."
"What about my face?"
Asuka loomed over them, and any other time, Toji would have relished the chance to see her walk around in her plugsuit. She'd modified it, or had it modified, anyway, armoring up the chest while paradoxically thinning the material around her midriff and thighs, letting the skin show through orange-tinted transparent fabric. When she turned he could see the scarring on her back and around her side, where it pulled at the shape of the muscles on her belly, which seemed more pronounced than he'd expected.
He avoided looking her in the eye. Not because he was afraid, mind you, but because everyone did. She had her left eye covered with a black patch and draped her hair over the scars, but they perpetually twisted her face into a sort sneer, worsening when she grinned at them; the scarring turned white and pulled tight.
Asuka ran the fingers of her good hand down Hikari's cheek. "Don't worry, cupcake. We'll keep you pretty."
Hikari stifled a sob.
"Hey," said Toji, "back off."
"Or what?"
He stood up. "I'm not scared of you, devil. I don't care how torn up your face is."
They looked at each other in the eye, and her face went slack. Her single exposed eye bored into him, but he held his ground, even shifted forward on his feet a little. "You wanna go? I don't care if you're a girl or not, you mess with Hikari, you mess with me."
That sick grin spread across her face again. She slapped him on the shoulder. "Good boy." She glanced at Hikari. "Just let this meathead protect you."
She spun on her heels and left them, heading for Unit Two. Since the volcano, the armor was being reworked, more feral, more visceral. The shoulder pylons were sharper than the other Evas, and where Unit One sported a single horn, Unit Two now carried two, jutting from its head on either side, and the armor over the lower part of the mouth was left open, exposing the creature's teeth. Toji didn't like looking at it.
"Are you okay?"
Hikari nodded silently and stood up.
"I'm right here. This is just a test, right?"
She nodded, again in silence, and headed up the stairs to the entry plug.
Hikari hated closed spaces. She hated the clingy plugsuit squeezing every part of her body that allegedly covered. She hated the clips on her scalp, pulling at her hair. The inside of the plug, they called it, was cold and reminded her of a coffin, and didn't look like the cockpit of a giant robot at all. When she was inside, she had to awkwardly work her way along the curved wall while they sealed her inside, then slip into the pilot's seat, which mostly looked like just a chair. At least it was padded. Once she was seated, there was a simple control yoke- two handles with triggers, and nothing else- that she had to pull down over her waist. It locked into place and she sat there, waiting, while they ran some sort of tests.
After an indeterminate amount of time, a stinky, orange-colored liquid halfway between blood and motor oil began to flood in from vents around her, and her stomach clenched in reflex. It stank of fresh blood, a piece of meat lying out on a counter, and she shivered when it touched her feet and legs. It drew the heat out of her, stinging her skin, and she kicked at it involuntarily.
"It's cold," she said, but she didn't think anyone heard her.
The liquid continued to rise, almost to her chin, and it was even colder somehow when it touched her skin. She tilted her head back to avoid it until it lapped up over the point of her chin and her lips, and her eyes teared up as she forced herself not to breathe. She heard a chime, and Asuka's voice, muted in the liquid.
"Just breathe it in. You're going to do it anyway. Get it over with."
She fought it until her lungs burned, until it soaked into her hair and pressed into her ears, muffling the world. Finally, the burning was too much, and she let out a puff of air into the liquid, bubbling it, and it forced its way down her throat, cloying and cold, and she swallowed a great mouthful of it before it forced its way down her airway, and she wanted to cough and scream and vomit at the same time. She thrashed against the seat until she realized that the burning had faded, replaced by the icy cold, and she was still alive. She wasn't drowning after all.
There was a buzz and a thrum, the way that an electronic device hums when power flows into it, and she felt a tingling wherever the fluid touched her, even in her eyes and in her lugs, itching at her chest, making her cough even more. It started to swirl around her and gradually warmed, until she felt comfortable settling against the seat.
The interior of the plug changed- the metal walls vanished, replaced by swirling colors, patterns of dots and lights like a nightmarish night sky, the deep purple-black of the void replaced with reds and blues and greens and a hundred colors in between, some that she couldn't put a name to at all, and looking at them made her head hurt. She felt something slide along the back of her head, like a hand resting on the nape of her neck, and a sudden closeness around her chin and shoulders, like arms draped around her.
"This feels weird," she squeaked.
"It's supposed to," said Asuka. "That's how you know it's working. Just go with it."
She sucked in a gasp of the stinky fluid as the world around her shifted, and it felt like the heaviness in her lungs that accompanied a cold. The colors and static faded away and she could see the cage around her as though she were standing in the Eva's place, dozens of orange-suited technicians standing around staring at her. At the same instant, she felt something crawling along her skin, a sudden awareness of a much larger, heavier body around her. When her arm twitched, she felt immense muscles and grinding mechanical joints move with her.
"Be careful," Asuka snapped, and Hikari jumped. Her voice was in Hikari's head, somehow.
"What's going on?"
"You're synchronized," another voice spoke, older, deeper, a mild rasp from cigarette smoking. "Your synch ratio is stable at thirty-four percent. Congratulations, Hikari. You're better at this than Toji."
"Forget the technobabble," said Asuka.
Hikari turned her head, and realized that Unit Two had turned its head to her, quadruple eyes gleaming. As she watched, those horrible teeth under its mask moved up and down, glistening with thin coats of drool. The whole thing shifted visibly in the cage, straining against the bolts that held it in place. She watched its chest rise and fall and listened to the creaking and groaning through Unit Three's augmented ears and it felt like frozen acid flooded into her stomach.
It was looking at her.
It was alive.
That meant that hers was alive.
"Get me out!" she screamed, LCL bubbling against her lips. "I want to go home! I don't want to do this! I quit!"
"Oh grow up," Asuka snapped.
"I mean it," Hikari moaned, "Let me out of here."
"Hikari," Toji broke in, "It'll be okay, you-"
"No!" she shrieked, "All of you leave me alone! Let me out!"
As she thrashed in the seat, Unit Three moved with her. She felt a sudden pressure on her chest, and a pulling sensation at her arms, as though there were hooks buried in her flesh, and she bit her lip and pressed her eyes tightly shut, tears stinging them.
"Hikari?" Toji said weakly.
"I hate you!" she screamed, "I hate all of you! Let me out!"
"Asuka-" the older woman whispered.
"Be quiet," said Asuka, her voice soft, and reverent. "It's happening faster than I thought."
As she lay sobbing in the chair, the pressure increased, as did the feeling of pulling at her arms. The tightness in her chest grew into a rumble, and before she realized it, a cry forced itself from her throat, except it wasn't hers. It shuddered around her like an earthquake, pressing in on all sides. She felt an impact on the back of her head but it wasn't her, it was the Eva, thrashing against the cage. She felt pulling on her cheeks, but it wasn't her, it was the Evangelion's mouth armor tearing away as it roared in torment, the sound cutting through like the cry of some primordial predator from a lost age.
"I'm scared," she wept.
Don't cry, a tiny voice whispered.
Everything changed. The sensations of pressure doubled, grew, and she couldn't tell what she was feeling, and what the thing was feeling. People were saying things, but she didn't hear them, something about third stage connections and berserks. She ignored it, sucked into the profound sensation of being cradled in the arms of something much larger and warmer than her, of a familiar cheek resting against hers, an intense scent, not an odor or a smell but a scent that made her feel warmer and softer, more content with each breath. She relaxed back into the seat and luxuriated in it, let it flow through her.
"Mommy," she whispered, her voice so tight it was almost a squeak.
Yes.
"Well, meathead," Asuka said, "it seems like you have a lot to learn. The little girl beat you."
"Damn it," Toji muttered.
"Asuka, this is dangerous," the older woman said again, "We can't risk-"
"I said shut up," said Asuka. "I am the field commander. It's my decision."
"But…" the older woman trailed off, "oh no. The bridge is reporting a blue pattern approaching."
"Good," said Asuka, her voice dripping with hate and hunger, "Feeding time. Hikari, you're with me."
Hikari felt a surge of excitement flow through her, flood through the Eva, and she wasn't sure if it was her tiny hands that balled into fists, or the Eva's own, but she felt the tightness in her jaw, the need, like hunger but more so, the crushing desire to open her jaws and clamp down on something and tear at it with her teeth.
No one will ever hurt you again, the voice whispered.
There was a time when every movement was a precisely controlled action, when piloting Eva was like playing chess and dancing ballet at the same time. Now, the reverse was true. She wasn't controlling Unit Two, Asuka was restraining it, pulling it back, and with it herself, as she felt the urge to shove Unit Three out of the way and charge up the hills, wailing and gnashing her teeth, to leap onto the thing ambling towards them and tear it apart, feel its viscera burst under her fingers and the acid tang of its death in her teeth. Before she got in the plug she'd torn her eyepatch off, and there she felt it strongest, like the Eva was trying to push into her skull through her eye socket. She couldn't help but grin and run her tongue over her fangs.
Unit Three was shaking, its armored body creaking and swaying as it moved ahead of her. She kept her Eva in check, reining it in so they would let the new pilot approach the angel first. She would have to talk to Hikari about removing the troublesome armor sections around some of the joints and the head, convince her of the virtue of speed. Ahead of them, the angel approached, scrabbling along the ground on four long, spindly legs, as if it had tried to be a spider and failed. Its main body was huge, bigger than an Eva, and hairy, a ball of fur from which dozens of blinking eyes stared out. As it moved, it left a trail of steaming slime that dribble from its many eyes, like tears.
"Be careful," Asuka growled, "that's acid. See it burning the ground?"
"Yes," Hikari whispered. "What do I do?"
"Kill it," said Asuka, "before it kills you."
"But-"
"Here it comes."
The angel let out a strange, wailing cry, like a knife blade running along a violin's strings, and then descended into the city, skirting between the buildings. It quickly trained its attentions on Hikari, skittering towards Unit Three at astonishing speed. It went into a flying leap and slammed into the Evangelion, bowling them both over. Hikari screamed as acid sprayed against Unit Three, hissing and bubbling on the armor.
"I'm scared! Help me!"
"Help yourself," said Asuka, though she drew nearer, just in case. "Reach through your fear and find it on the other side. You know what I mean."
She waited, Unit Three struggled feebly, pinned down by the much larger angel, and then, it happened. Hikari roared, the sound rumbling over Asuka like a breaking wave, and her grin grew wider, so much that it made her scars hurt, and she didn't care. She leaned forward in anticipation and she could feel Unit Two hunch down, eager and hungry. If it weren't for the LCL, she would have been drooling.
Unit Three put both feet under the angel and kicked it back. It rolled, awkward, spindly legs crack under its own weight, and cried out in pain. Unit Three pulled itself into a crouch, resting on all fours, bellowed, and jumped on the angel, ignoring the burning acid. Asuka was genuinely curious as to who was in control when Unit Three bent down, sank its teeth into the angel's body, and twisted. She could hear its insectoid carapace cracking under the pressure in a series of thudding booms, and soon Unit Three plunged head-first into the creature's body and reared up, a chunk of pale, bloody flesh quivering in its mouth, eyes aglow with red hate.
"Concentrate," said Asuka. "Focus your will. Find the core."
Hikari said something through the comlink, but it was garbled and unintelligible. Unit Three plunged both hands into the creature's body, took hold of something, and quivered as it pulled. With three jerks, each followed by wet snapping sounds, the core came free. Hikari screamed, raised it over her head, and slammed it into the ground, over and over, and when that had no effect, curled around it and began chewing on it. Finally, it began to crack, coming apart in sharp chunks and a shower of red, red blood. When Unit Three reared up and cried out in fury, it was wearing a thick coat of shining angelic blood.
"Good," said Asuka, "Good. You have done well."
It took a few minutes for Hikari to calm down. Asuka had to carefully take hold of Unit Three and guide her to the launch tube and ride it down with her, cramped as it was. It took some paint off her new armor, which annoyed her greatly, but it was worth the loss. She helped the Evangelion amble back into the cage, where it locked down, and she retreated to her own.
When Asuka made it to Hikari's section of the cage, the girl was already stumbling down the stairs to the main walkway, clutching her stomach. Her eyes were wide and she was flushed and panting. She stared at Asuka from under her disheveled, LCL-slicked hair and her open mouth twisted into a feral grin. She ran her tongue over her lips.
"The taste," she hissed, "I like it."
"Hikari?" Toji called, running down the platform towards her. "Are you okay? Did it hurt y-"
Before he had the chance to finish, Hikari trotted over to him and rammed her face into his, prompting a shocked, muffled cry from him, his eyes going wide. He stood in bewilderment, touched his fingers to his lips, and she pulled back, grabbed his arm, and all but dragged him on his feet into the locker room.
Rei found Shinji's rearrangement of the Commander's office relaxing.
He kept the black-on-black scheme, which with the low ceiling created the impression of a cave. Everything else, such as it was, he'd discarded. The desk was gone, after he'd gone through it and examined all of the contents in detail, even an old bottlecap from a bottle of whisky, in exacting detail, searching for something he would not reveal to her. When the desk was gone, he brought long rolled carpets and furs spread them out on the floor. Where the desk had stood, he arranged a series of pillows into a sort of throne, where he would sit for hours, staring into space with his chin propped on his fist.
Rei was alone now. She lay against one of the pillows, her book propped on her chest. When Asuka stormed into the room, she sniffed at the smoke from the incense burners, coughed once, and strode in past the flaming braziers. Shinji had smashed out the window at the rear of the office, letting cool air from the Geofront filter inside, and when the heat of the sun was not being channeled into the vast structure, it became cold quickly. As Rei spent most of her time wearing nothing but one of Shinji's old shirts, the fires in the metal pots were necessary for warmth.
Asuka wandered past her and peered into the small apartment beside the office. Shinji had eschewed the sliding door that fit perfectly into the wall panel, literally throwing it out the window after he'd pried it off. She poked her head into the domicile, which was really just a bed chamber and a water closet with a shower, and emerged again.
"Where is he?"
Rei shrugged, without looking up from her book.
"What are you reading now?"
"It is called 'Galaxy in Flames'."
"Whatever," Asuka shook her head. "You haven't seen him? I need to talk to him."
"About what?" Rei said over her book.
"I've been in the Eva. You know what that means. I want him to hear the lamentations of his women," Asuka smirked. "Besides, we killed the latest angel. Hikari is progressing nicely."
"Good," said Rei, returning to her reading.
"So," said Asuka, "he's not around."
Rei put her book down. "No."
Asuka drummed her fingers on her thigh and ran her tongue over her upper lip, lingering on where the scar pulled it into a sneer. "Hey," she said.
"What?"
"How would you like to try a little… experiment?"
Gendo opened one eye when Shinji walked into the room, and then promptly feigned sleep once more. As always, Shinji simply ignored it. Unlike the other days, however, he skipped the preliminary fumbling attempts and psychological torture, getting right to the point.
"Where is it?"
"What?" Gendo rasped, eyes still shut.
"What Kaji brought you from Europe. It made the angel attack the fleet. It has something to do with your Scenario, and I want it."
Gendo smirked. "You do realize that, no matter what you do to me, I won't tell you."
Shinji was silent. Gendo opened his eyes.
"So," said Gendo, "we are at an impasse."
"You expect me to negotiate."
"Yes. In your position-"
"Fine," Shinji said quietly. "We'll negotiate."
Gendo smirked at the sound of steel rasping on leather as Shinji drew his ridiculous sword from his side and examined the blade. He turned it in his hand, examining the mirror surface of the flat, then touched the edge with his thumb. It thrummed when he flicked the edge.
"Here's the deal. You tell me where the object is, and you can keep your other nine fingers."
"What do you-"
It had been a long time since Gendo Ikari screamed that loud.
Kaji was seriously beginning to doubt his own sanity. He was on an international flight at the behest of a fourteen year old boy. Now, they could dress it up any way they wanted to. Katsuragi was nominally in charge, but it was plainly obvious that she was taking orders from Shinji, who had set up shop in Ikari's office. He had Gendo squirreled away somewhere, probably maimed, and they'd tasked one Ryoji Kaji with helping to maintain the illusion that Gendo was still in charge while ferreting out the true identities of Seele members, presumably so that Shinji could personally stab them to death. With an actual sword. That he bought on the Internet. At the moment, sanity was not Kaji's strong point.
The worst part was how naked he felt in situations like this. He had a gun and papers ready to retrieve at the bank in Berlin in a safe deposit box, but he had to leave his hideout gun and false identities behind before he boarded the plane. Something about post-Impact life left people with something of a lassies-faire attitude about human life, but airport security was never going to go away, and trying to run a suitcase through the x-ray machine brimming with passports and identification with the same picture and different names along with a pocket pistol and a box of ammunition was a decidedly poor idea.
He had less than an hour before he would arrive, and he was carrying his own death warrant on his person. The files he'd gathered all but proved he'd double-crossed Seele. He had a limited amount of information on Seele, essentially what he needed to work for them. He'd pieced together that the Human Instrumentality Committee was a front, and so he thought working with those names was his best bet to turning out others. He needed to see the chairman of the committee, Kiel. He had to give him something worthy of seeing the reclusive old bastard in person, and flying halfway across the world to do it, something that merited a little more than a phone call or a folder slipped into a dead drop.
Nerv knew why he was going of course, which left offering a convincing rationale for the trip to the Japanese government. He'd told his government contact that he had a lead on new Seele members, which was technically accurate in a vague sort of way. The truth was, he had no choice but to work against them, as well. He had the strong sense that Katsuragi, and therefore Shinji, saw them as a threat, ordering him to feed information to them about imaginary movements and activities of Gendo Ikari, who was, apparently, now out of the country. He told the Japanese government that Gendo was travelling south to Antarctica for reasons unknown, and he was leaving the country to ferret out why.
He felt the lurch in his stomach as the plane began its descent, paradoxically leaning backwards as planes do when they begin a landing. He crossed his hands over his stomach and tried to breath. The truth was, he hated flying, or at least hated flying when someone else was actually piloting the plane. It was comforting to have a sense that he was in control of the fate of the machine, and when someone he couldn't even see was tasked with that responsibility, less so.
When the plane touched down and rumbled up to the gate, he sat in his seat until most of the passengers had disembarked, then stood up and walked out with his hands thrust in his pockets, casual as can be. He had to give them credit. They were polite enough to wait for him to pass through customs and out of the baggage claim before they started following, and had the good graces not to put a black bag over his head and shove him into a waiting car until they were out of sight of the rest of the passengers.
At least his kidnappers were professionals.
Misato awoke with a grunt to the sound of her phone skittering across the floor. She'd set it to vibrate mode, but naturally that hadn't helped and it woke her up anyway. Her head was pounding and she was in a peculiar position, namely curled up on what appeared to be a fur rug spread across a hard floor. She had to blink her eyes a few times and really think about where she was. It didn't help that she felt a peculiar pressure on her chest. When she cleared the cobwebs a little bit more, she became decidedly aware of the taste of beer in the roof of her mouth, and the face that someone was lying behind her and had their arms up under her shirt.
Shinji looked over her shoulder, and rested his chin on her cheek. "Who is it?"
"Go back to sleep," Asuka muttered, rolling over beside her.
Blearily, she picked up the phone, hit the send button, and pressed it to her ear. "Kaji?"
"Misato," he used her given name, which was unusual, "Listen, there isn't much time. I did something I shouldn't have."
She sat up. Shinji shook himself free of her and sat up beside her, looping an arm around her waist.
"What?" she whispered, "What is it?"
"Listen, they… they knew why I was coming. Seele. They know everything. I don't want you to get hurt. Get out, get out now."
"What?"
"They're coming. They'll kill you all."
She held the phone in her hand for a moment, shaking. Shinji slid his hand up her forearm until his hand covered the phone and pressed the end button, and she listened to it beep as the call ended. Frantically, her head swimming from her hangover, she turned to him.
"What do we do?"
A feral grin spread across Shinji's face. "What do you think I'm going to say?"