(I'd like to take a moment to thank all the readers, here and elsewhere, whose support has kept this story going.)
The fact that this airtel is dated on Halloween day is purely coincidental; it could have been worse, and dated on the first of April. – FBI communique pertaining to Majestic-12 documents, October 1991
Part 21: Where are Monsters in Dreams?
It probably wasn't a coincidence that Blue's alarm tone was reminiscent of a whale's call. "Warning," the shipboard AI intoned, "warning... Emil Force Drive rotations increasing. Chamber pressure reaching critical levels. Damage to ship imminent..."
The recorded voice of the mainframe repeated its doleful warnings as the flickering holographic ghost of Onomil glided across the cavernous engine room. Azanael already knew what came next.
"Onomil! Can you hear me, Onomil? It's too dangerous, fall back!"
The petite navigator payed the voice no heed as she settled into position at the emergency control terminal. "The commander's... I have to protect Commander Ekaril's ship..." Her fingers frantically danced across the keyboard. "Rotations increasing, pressure rising... but why?"
"Onomil, it's not safe! Come on!"
"This is it! The excess is flowing back through the bypass channels!"
"Onomil, move!"
"This mechanism almost looks like..."
"Onomil, there's no time! Get out of there!"
"Commander... Commander, this ship is – !"
She never finished the sentence. The hologram projectors recreated the sequence with agonizing fidelity: the port and starboard external manifolds explosively ruptured almost simultaneously, flooding the control booth with superheated coolant. There was nothing left of Onomil but a tarnished golden pendant lying in a pool of reddish slag.
"Onomil..!" A strangled sob escaped Azanael as she buried her face in her hands. "Why? Why do I have to see this again?"
Tsubael wasn't there to offer hollow words of comfort this time, and Azanael's voice disturbed a tomb's silence. The oppressive stillness about the place weighed more and more heavily on her senses until at last she fled to the exit, desperate to put the feeling of suffocation behind her. Her boots pounded the deck plates as she navigated the empty depths of the ship by memory, unerringly hurrying towards the place in this cursed hulk where her persistent attachment was anchored: room B5037 in the crew quarters block.
Onomil's room.
The door was already open when she arrived, the twisted and charred control circuits left exposed after Tsubael attacked them with a plasma torch. Azanael didn't touch the hologram projector on the desk inside: she'd seen the recording enough times. Instead she sprawled on the round bed with a moan of despair.
"Why?"
The question elicited a giggle. Startled, Azanael sat up to find the diminutive figure of Onomil standing in the doorway. Her blue-green eyes shimmered with open amusement. "Are you fretting by yourself again?"
That clinched it. "This can't be real," Azanael sighed, sinking back onto the sheets. "I'm dreaming."
"Dreaming?" Onomil padded towards her lover, a wily smile playing about her lips. "You're alone and dreaming you're with me?" She climbed onto the bed and, meeting no resistance, mounted the large woman. "Or are you really here with me and dreaming that you're alone?"
"But..." The pilot frowned, trying to ignore the shiver of anticipation which ran through her as Onomil straddled her waist. "You're dead..."
"Silly." The navigator leaned forwards, placing her hands on her partner's shoulders. "I was here all along, waiting for you, but you... You were too full of hate to see me."
There was no accusation in the words, but there didn't need to be: Azanael knew it was the truth. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so, so sorry..."
"I know." Onomil leaned forward and kissed Azanael's forehead. Her fingers toyed with the collar of the bigger woman's bodysuit. "Can I..?"
All the tension dispersed from the pilot's body. This was how it should be, the two of them together as they once had been... What did it matter if she were dreaming? "Please..."
"Get away from her, you bitch!"
A burst of strobing light dazzled Azanael's vision, her ears hearing only a stuttering, quasi-electronic squeal. She blinked, struggling to see past the afterimage burned into her retinas. Onomil was withering away, dissolving from head to toes into an ephemeral white mist: naught but an Emil Force projection, sustained by Azanael's own fantasies.
"What..!?"
The flesh-and-blood Arume's eyes snapped to the door. Akane stood there, silhouetted against the brighter lights of the corridor. It was the adult Akane whom Azanael knew so well, but she was clad in the knight's costume she'd worn as a teenager, on the day they first met. She cradled an automatic rifle with a chunky brown housing. "It's game time." Akane jerked her head backwards. "Come on."
Azanael pushed herself off the bed, utterly baffled by this turn of events. "What's going on?"
"We got problems." The forime started down the passageway, a badly confused Arume in tow, and entered the nearest primary elevator.
"Akane," Azanael repeated as the lift's doors closed behind her, frustration mounting, "what are you talking about?"
"Haven't you noticed something's wrong?" Akane jabbed the button for the fourth deck. "Something that's out of place?"
"I don't know what to think any more..."
"Does anyone?" The elevator came to a halt and Akane stepped out. It dimly registered in Azanael's mind that they were now heading for the mess hall, though context and significance remained beyond reach. "Well, we're here," Akane announced curtly as the mess doors parted before her. "See for yourself."
Azanael followed Akane into the wide room and immediately wished she hadn't: Renaril sat weeping on the floor in front of her, tightly clutching the severed head of Kang Li. The Chinese woman's dismembered torso lay on the nearest table, her hacked-off limbs and entrails piled on the plates of those who sat on either side. Azanael recognized Daebaril, Benacirael, Spiegel and Isobael among them. The pilot turned away, hurriedly clapping a hand over her own mouth before whatever was in her stomach could make a bid for freedom. In doing so, her eyes happened to fall on the plaque beside the door. It was a navigational aid, one of many placed throughout the ship, but the schematics and labels were gone. In their place Azanael saw only a single macabre directive, repeated over and over: EAT PEOPLE.
"Akane, why – "
Birrrrrrrrt! An arm-length tongue of flame erupted from the weapon's muzzle as the forime swept it over the oblivious cannibals' backs, sending shreds of pink flesh and showers of white blood flying everywhere. Birrrrrt-birrt-birrt-birrrrrrrrrrrrrt! Birrrrrrrit-birrrrrut-bibirrrt-birrt-birrt-birrt! ...Shrick-shack! Toomph!
The grenade's explosion knocked out two of the overhead lights and sent part of a gore-caked tabletop tumbling. Azanael squeezed her eyes shut, clamped her hands over her ears and waited for the explosions to end. Akane lost no time in reducing the mess to a wreckage-strewn cavern weakly lit by flickering, sparking circuits. "I told you there was something wrong," she concluded flatly. "You understand now, don't you? What has – uuurgh!"
Azanael almost screamed as the shimmering metallic spike pierced Akane's chest from behind. Its base was connected to – no, seamlessly merged with – the extended forearm of Onomil, who stood blank-faced in the doorway and looked not at all the worse for having been blasted to bits. There was a harsh clatter as the pulse rifle fell to the deck, its ammo counter displaying a cold crimson pair of zeroes, and then the spike withdrew.
"..!"
"That's not nice." The cloying saccharine quality had left Onomil's voice. Her hand shot out, clamping around Azanael's throat, and she threw the pilot to the floor with a strength the real Onomil could never have possessed. "Running away with her and leaving me all alone... Have you forgotten your promise?"
"Promise..?" Azanael tried to push herself away from the apparition, only to be grabbed by her ankles. "Uwah!"
"That's right." Onomil knelt and pried her squirming victim's thighs apart. "A promise to have lots of beautiful babies."
"No..." All struggle proved futile as the false Onomil's fingers slipped under the nadir of Azanael's uniform, roughly stroking her softest parts. "No!" Tears welled up as the intruder pushed inside. "Please... Please don't – "
Pachachacha!
Onomil jerked sideways. Suddenly there seemed to be a cluster of silver flowers erupting from the skin under her left arm.
Pachachachachachachacha! Pachachachachachacha!
More flowers bloomed in rapid sequence. The impostor fell away from Azanael, slumping heavily on the deck. The terrified Arume flung herself backwards, trying to get as far from her assailant as possible, but didn't get far before her back collided with the doorframe. Escape through the mess was plainly impossible now that it was knee-deep in corpses and smashed benches, small fires already flickering here and there among the rubble.
Tap-clank-tap-clank-tap-clank...
Azanael's head snapped around. The hulking figure of Roland Schuhart was limping towards her, a dot of red glowing in the ruined pit of his right eye. The lower part of his left leg was torn and bloodied, a metal skeleton gleaming in the gaps where flesh was gone altogether. An empty Thompson magazine hit the floor and was left behind as he approached. Ignoring Azanael, he seized Onomil by the upper arm and hurled her across the burning mess.
"You..."
"She'll be back." There was no emotion in Schuhart's voice as he pulled the woman to her feet. "Go to the bridge if you want to live."
"What..?"
Something stirred beyond the veil of smoke. The cyborg reloaded with cold efficiency. "Go – now!"
As if on cue, the general alarm sounded again: "Warning, warning... T-minus fifteen-point-one-nine-three-seven-nine-two-one-zero-two-one-five-eight-E-plus-nine years until the universe closes..."
Azanael couldn't take any more. She ran headlong down the long passageway, back the way she'd come, shutting out the gunfire behind her. Shots gave way to sounds of a violent physical struggle as she reached the elevator and practically dove inside. The machine lurched upwards promptly when commanded, affording her precious moments of security. I want to go home, she thought numbly. Home!
Then the bottom fell out.
Azanael plummeted an indeterminate distance, landed on an uneven surface and tumbled down a dirt slope. Rolling onto her back with a pained cough, she saw plumes of fire-lit smoke wafting overhead. A starry sky was faintly visible beyond the pollution. As she sat up, the pilot discovered she was at the bottom of a large crater... and she definitely wasn't aboard Blue any more. She started to climb up the wall of the pit, only to frantically press herself against it when she heard a loud, mechanical grinding noise approach. Looking upward, Azanael saw the green flank of a heavy tracked vehicle rumble past the crater's lip, sending little stones and clumps of dirt tumbling down. It left a stench of diesel exhaust in its wake.
The machine was followed by men, some in brown caps and others in round helmets. One of them was rancorously singing: "...Pust' yaaarost' blagorodnaya... Vskipaaaaaet, kak volnaaaaa! ...Idyot voina narodnaya... Svyashcheeeeennaya voina..."
Azanael waited until the soldiers were some ways from herself, then gingerly clawed her way to the top. Another rude shock awaited her there: she really was home – not Akane's restaurant, where she'd go to decompress in between rush weeks, but the quiet farming community in which she was born half a century ago. It didn't look as she remembered it, though, with the houses reduced to rubble-strewn shells and dancing flames eagerly consuming whatever remained.
Looking down the street, she spotted the SU-100 and its noisy entourage taking a left at the corner. That left one front clear. Looking the other way, she made out the forms of more infantry coming her way and realized she really didn't want to stay in the crater any longer. Judging the alley across from her to be a place of relative safety, she furtively hurried to it and melted into the shadows. Azanael had to feel her way forwards, cautiously edging between obstacles. The last one, a section of wall fallen outward so that it rested against the face of the structure opposite it, forced her to crawl on hands and knees in order to pass.
Sticking her head out of the far end, the pilot encountered a new horror: a naked Arume lay on the pavement not far away, a bare-legged soldier above her. The female's head lolled to the side, glassy eyes staring blankly. Each thrust of the man's hips elicited a feeble whimper. He seemed to be getting a lot of encouragement from his compatriots across the way, most of them sitting on or leaning against the IS-2 parked there. For a long moment Azanael simply stared in shock, then shuffled back into hiding. She stood no chance against bayonets and submachine guns, and if she couldn't find another route –
"Got you."
The false Onomil's chilling giggle sounded close behind while iron-hard tendrils snaked around Azanael's arms and legs, wholly immobilizing her. Her suit was stretched and torn asunder by the constricting coils encircling her torso, leaving her helpless when the probing members forcefully invaded mouth, vagina and anus in unison. She wanted to cry out but could only gag as a slithering chill spread through her churning insides.
"Eep!"
Azanael awoke not with a scream, but a whimper. Once her pulse had gone down a little and her gasps subsided into weary sighs, she rolled onto her side and blindly reached for the alarm clock on the table besides the bed. Her fumbling knocked The Complete Lu Xun, The Soviet and Russian Armed Forces 1945-2010 and The Atlas of 20th Century War onto the carpeted floor before she located the clock. Its liquid crystal display shone a soft cyan and generated a faint buzzing whine when she mashed the largest button: 3:08 AM here in Japan, an hour ahead of her station in Guangzhou and an hour behind her coming destination, Vladivostok.
The nightmare had left her limbs slick with sweat, and the room was by now quite stuffy. The Arume carefully padded across to the window and eased it open, admitting a lukewarm breeze. It wasn't enough: a damp bodysuit pooled on the floor, leaving the woman standing nude in the soothing current. She tipped her head back, eyes closed, and focused on controlling her inner disquiet.
I can't go on like this.
She rarely remembered her dreams as more than jumbled fragments or impressions, but she loathed them all the same. Elaqebil's movie nights weren't having a positive effect on her nocturnal psyche, which was already stressed by the demands of her recent duties. She might be able to skip the upcoming screenings – Elaqebil had more Cameron films listed for the next two weeks before moving on to Coppola – but she still had to get through the final episode of Ostfront in the meantime.
The real problem lay deeper than that, though, and she knew what she needed to do. In truth she'd known for a long time, but her courage had always failed her.
Akane...
Ikari Shinji woke up on the morning of April 24th with a profound sense of there being something very wrong with the world looming over him. He dressed, combed his hair and brushed his teeth without figuring out what it might be, then went downstairs. There was nobody in the modest house except himself, but that was a depressingly common state of affairs on Sundays, so it couldn't be the cause of his worry.
He found a note on the dining room table, a short message in his father's distinct scrawl: Shinji, your mother and I have been called into headquarters. There's some breakfast in the refrigerator. Call Colonel Katsuragi if there are any problems.
Shinji's father was still commander of Nerv despite all that had transpired during his tenure, but he wasn't the same man who had first called the boy to Tokyo-3. He went clean-shaven now, wore glasses with untinted lenses and was actually nice to his son when he thought nobody was looking. Still, that wasn't it.
Shinji's mother was another story. After spending the majority of the boy's formative years as no more than a vital spark inside a monstrous war machine, she hadn't yet entirely adjusted to being yanked back into a physical existence, her elaborate plans for the future rudely rendered moot by unforeseen consequences. That wasn't it either.
Touji would be off with his girlfriend and Kensuke had been all but impossible to find for the last few weeks. Asuka was still in Germany and he hadn't gotten a letter from her since the end of March. That left Itsuki, poor conversation partner though the mute was, or familiar solitude. Shinji pondered his options as he ate, deciding at last to just get his camera and wander the city for a bit.
The morning sun shone strong over Tokyo-3 as Shinji left home and headed south towards the heart of the community. Even today he could hear the distant chatter of jackhammers as refugee laborers diligently earned their keep by repairing the devastated districts. Perhaps he should pay them a visit later, since their domain was Itsuki's as well, but right now it was shaping up to be a good time for a walk to the lake.
The feeling of trouble nagged at him as he ambled through the streets, yet he seemed no closer to divining its genesis. The weather was fine, his camera batteries were charged and he had no onerous Eva-related duties to look forward to, so just what was bothering him? He was so engrossed in this problem that he almost walked right into the tall woman standing at the next corner, catching himself just in time. Words like statuesque and well-proportioned ran through his head before he realized he'd narrowly averted a collision with an Arume.
Shinji had seen only a few of the alien females in Tokyo-3 in the long weeks since that first shuttle landed in front of him, and he'd instinctively steered clear of those individuals. This one, unlike the others, was dressed like a tourist: white t-shirt, khaki shorts, backpack and sneakers. She held a paper map in her hands and looked as startled by the sudden encounter as he himself felt. "Excuse me," the boy fumbled, hoping this wasn't his first meeting with one who couldn't speak Japanese, "are you lost?"
"No." Her voice was surprisingly deep. "That is..." She turned the map around so that he could see it. "What's the best way to get to here?"
"The hot springs? Well, you follow this street until you get to the auto repair center, then you make a left and follow that road out of the city. It runs right past the springs."
"I see. Thank you."
The alien folded the map and went her own way, leaving Shinji to carry on. Her manner struck him as skittish, now that he reflected on it, but he could understand that – he well remembered the day the refugees, who welcomed him as if he were one of their own children, turned away the Arume delegation at bayonet point.
Wait... That's it!
The bothersome mystery was suddenly clear as day, but before he could make more of it, he ran headlong into another tall woman. "Oof..!"
"Ikari Shinji?"
Shinji craned his neck, a chill scurrying up his spine. "Sh... Shinano-san..."
Colonel Shinano looked particularly unhappy today. "Shinji, have you seen my son?"
"I haven't seen Itsuki-kun today, sorry."
"Neither has anyone else," the SSDF officer replied grimly. "He left the Wakamiya home this morning and disappeared. They told me he took his sword – not the practice one... I'm afraid he might be trying to reach Hiratsuka."
"Why did you want to meet me here?"
"Why not?" Tsubael settled into the water with a contented sigh. "There aren't any good springs where you're posted, right?"
Azanael entered the pool with trepidation. "I wouldn't have time anyway," she opined, immersing herself up to shoulder level. "I'm lucky to have even one day off."
"You're in demand." The smaller Arume stretched her arms. "Well, congratulations on having your rank reinstated."
"Mm..."
"So what's next for the Liaison now that General Lin is out of the way?" the ex-navigator asked impishly. "More high adventure?"
'Adventure' was too mild a word for the operation Kang Li had devised to neutralize her opponent, a plan which one week and one night ago placed Azanael and five others in the cockpits of the most rickety aircraft the flight chief had ever seen. They were Chinese copies of a seventy year old Soviet biplane, fitted with wooden propellers and canvas-covered wings, and their very primitiveness was their greatest strength: the mission was launched from a dirt runway constructed in mere hours, supported by barely more than a truck carrying a battery charger and drums of fuel.
"I suppose," Azanael sighed at length. Against her expectations – no thanks to Elaqebil, who convinced Renaril that all twelve episodes of Currahee must be included in the training curriculum – Kang's stratagem worked perfectly. Not a shot was fired as the biplanes silently glided over the drop zone, their slow, flimsy profiles offering such weak radar signatures that Lin's early warning crew hadn't realized what was going on until the paratrooper sticks descended on their heads.
"The edited highlights have been making the rounds at Cent-Intel, but it's mostly second and third wave stuff. No glory for the brave pathfinders."
Not that the second wave's pilots and crews had failed to earn their time in the limelight. Dawn was just breaking when their four-engine transports – Chinese derivatives, like the biplanes, of an Antonov design – reached hostile territory. They scattered numerous parachutists over the enemy's land, but these planes also dropped a swarm of fighting vehicles to clear a path for the third wave, the heavy tanks and mechanized infantry.
The veteran pilot shook her head. "We were just doing our jobs. The people who had to jump were the brave ones."
"I bet." Tsubael's expression turned contemplative. "So... is it true none of the jumpers were Arume?"
"Yes." Azanael stretched her legs, sinking just a bit deeper. "There weren't any who qualified."
"I hear the Liaison is pretty short-charged all around," the smaller woman remarked with a touch of sourness. "Renaril had to buy the operation's BMDs from the creeps in Hong Kong, didn't she?"
"That's right." Azanael had to admit there was a certain perverse genius about those miniature tanks which dropped straight onto the battlefield with their crews on board. They were also amphibious, a feature the Russian deliverymen gleefully demonstrated by navigating one across the Pearl delta. "We did get a thirty-percent discount."
"Because of the special relationship, I'm sure." Tsubael submerged herself deep enough to blow bubbles for a few moments. "Do you see much of Eto Delo at work now?"
"Only the technical assistants." And select weirdos, the pilot mentally amended as images of Keiko and the Darwin brothers flashed before her eyes. "I haven't had any problems with them."
"Command has a problem with them," Tsubael said quietly. "Sometimes it feels like they're downright terrified." She put on a cheerier face, but it took evident effort. "Eh, why are we talking about this on your day off? Let's just relax."
Easier said than done, Azanael thought with a touch of irritation. Terrified, are they?
She could almost believe it. The Arume outreach missions in the third layer had produced more losses than profits, and for a time it seemed inevitable that the China front would be the biggest loss of all. Renaril and Colonel Kang were salvaging the mess little by little, so that in itself couldn't be what the Arume high command was worried about. They should and would be worried about the wild card, Eto Delo, and the humiliating precedents the organization defiantly set, but this Arume was convinced they also had darker concerns.
"Tsubael," she said awkwardly, unsure of a safe way to approach the subject, "have you... heard any rumors about a conspiracy?"
The other stiffened. "Please don't tell me you've been doing something that could get you in trouble."
"I haven't." It was the truth, more or less. "While I was in Hong Kong, I had a run-in with an... intelligence operative who intimated that there's something the Council wants kept quiet."
There was an awkward silence as Tsubael regarded Azanael with uncharacteristic wariness. "Okay," she said at length, slouching forwards in the water, "but keep this strictly to yourself, understand?" When the pilot nodded, she sat back against a flat rock at the pool's edge. "You remember that pesky document, Who are the Arume?"
"I've read it."
"Obviously Cent-Intel wants to know where that came from, but the trail is completely cold. The source file originated in this planet's civilian Internet, disseminated by somebody using the name 'Majestic Seven'."
"That's it?"
"I wish." Tsubael folded her arms. "At the same time that file was released into the networks, another document with the same style and format was transmitted to us by a person or group calling themselves 'Majestic Nine'. The document's title was What are the Evangelions?"
"Evangel... Some kind of super weapon, right?"
"Exactly, a biomechanical super weapon unique to this layer... Officially they've all been destroyed and the forime governments are still squabbling over whatever is left of the project. It seems these things are extremely expensive, but we must absolutely watch out for attempts to rebuild them."
Azanael frowned. A double leak meant somebody didn't want either side to have an advantage. "Who would do this? Why?"
Tsubael shrugged. "If I knew that, I'd be more than a lowly analyst. We think the senders' aliases are a reference to an old forime hoax called 'Majestic Twelve', secret research on flying cups or some such thing, but that hasn't given us any useful insights."
"I see." You have no idea. "And that's everything you know?"
"You know I don't have especially high clearance."
"It's enough." And it's even worse than I thought. "Thanks."
"Just as long as this doesn't come back to bite me... So anyway," the former Blue officer added brightly, "what about these rumors concerning Renaril and Kang, hm? Are they... doing it?"
"I doubt that," said Azanael bluntly, trying not to appear overly grateful for the change in subject. "Renaril's definitely interested, but the colonel is a complete professional. She's even busier than I am."
"No time for love, huh? I gather she's quite disciplined."
"She is, but..." The large Arume bit her lip. "The colonel didn't go straight from cadet cadre to officer training like Renaril or Elaqebil... or like you and me. She has experienced things I've only ever watched on a screen."
"Every account I've read says the Chinese intervention in Cambodia was a disaster," Tsubael agreed. "A woman who survived that has got to be worth something."
"Yes..." Azanael desperately wanted to spill her guts, to tell Tsubael about Kataphel and Isanil and Phil and all the rest of the sordid affair, but she couldn't forget that pleading look the sapper had given her when they last parted.
"I'm glad Kang is on our side," was all she uttered.