When the third child awoke for the second time he was filled with a relaxed curiosity. His ears perked, and he thought nothing of it when he instinctively tucked his long strands of auburn hair behind his pale, freckled ears. The hum of the air conditioning unit in the recovery room sounded more aggressive than before, decidedly confirmed by the cool temperature of the room that brought bumps to his skin. His milky white skin.

The nightmare never ends.

His calm meditative disposition was obliterated by panic and fear flooding him both once again as he bolted upright in the hospital bed. With his eyes he followed the wires from his hospital gown to the computers and devices they were hooked up to, his face aghast as his mind replayed key flashes of the incident earlier. He remembered Katsuragi, and also Dr. Akagi, and something about a transference. Frantically he groped at the machines reading his vital signs and periodically administering measured doses of serotonin, dopamine and other complex neurotransmitters to his addled brain. He had no idea what any of them meant or what they were for, but he hoped the note he discovered resting beneath a mobile phone placed atop the hospital utility table beside his bed would answer some of the more obvious questions.

He pushed aside some of the miscellaneous medical paraphernalia—a brain cannula, a calibrated intravenous administration set, an electronic nerve stimulation electrode and several other implements—and stared for a moment at the phone. The device was a rectangular black Fujitsu feature phone, the model outdated by several years but co-opted by NERV's computer engineering division who in turn made several noticeable alterations and improvements to the phone's hardware and design. Hardly a technological prodigy, Shinji Ikari regarded himself as possessing below-average knowledge of electronic devices. This was largely due to the oldfangled couple who had raised him, a man and woman both who shunned technological progress with as much zeal and vigor as Gendo's avoidance of his own son. While other children his age toted around portable digital music storage devices in their pockets, the third child was still lugging around a cassette player. He'd only dared to taste the forbidden fruit of ear buds that very year, forsaken his ancient, uncomfortable headset for a more discreet and stylish option.

Shinji didn't do anything with the phone immediately. Instead, he set it aside and unfolded the letter, immediately recognizing Misato's careless scrawl.

Shin-chan,

Sorry about before. You sort of had a freak-out, and we had to sedate you. SO, so sorry I didn't warn you! But hey, all things considered, I personally think you handled everything quite admirably. I'm sure you have a lot of questions, and you have a perfectly good reason to be confused and afraid, but I want you to know that I—(the 'I' had been crossed out)—that we are all here for you. We're all working round the clock to figure out the best and safest way to get you back to your old self, so please put your faith in us as we've put our faith in you every time you pilot the EVA. I know you'll do your best! And if you don't act out or make a fuss again, I'll take you out for ice cream later. My treat! (Nothing too expensive though, OK?) Call me if you need anything. I got you your own mobile phone so that you could reach me directly in case anything happens. I'll always have my phone with me.

—Misato

p.s. While you're temporarily female, if you want to borrow any of my clothes, I'm totally cool with it. That goes for my panties too, but I seriously doubt you'll be able to fill any of my bras.

p.p.s. Don't break the phone I left you. Even with my department discount, it was outrageously expensive. But a girl's gotta have a phone, right?

Shinji read the letter from start to finish three times (he read the post-scripts only once), then examined the phone. He placed the letter back on the tray, then picked up the phone and flipped it open. He took a couple of minutes to acclimate to the menus of the phone's operating system before opening the list of contacts. As he expected, there was only one, and it was Misato's contact profile. The thumbnail image associated with her profile was a strategically cropped duplicate of a certain portion of the post card he'd had in his possession when he'd first arrived in Tokyo-3.

The third child didn't dial the number. Instead, he closed the device and placed it back on the hospital utility table. He gently pushed the table aside then swung his legs around to the side of the bed, swinging them gently forward and backward, curling and uncurling his slender toes. He scrunched his hands into fists several times then drummed his fingers upon his svelte thighs. It was like learning to play a video game, and he had to get used to the controls. Even still, none of it felt real. It was as if meat space and dream space had become one and the same.

Placing his palms flat on the bed, arms at his sides, he pushed himself off the bed and nearly stumbled to the ground, not for lack of balance but from surprise at how much lighter his own body felt. He marveled at how differently his hips moved as he did something as simple as walking forward. His breathing was faster and shallower. He even felt the added weight of his long, silky hair gathering about his bony shoulders and cascading down his shoulder blades. He padded over to the wall adjacent to the recovery room door and gazed into the mirror mounted there. He gawked at the reflection of the second child staring back at him. Asuka Langley Sohryu.

Whether it was a dream or not, Shinji only now seemed to realize that for the moment he was going to have to simply accept the fact that he was the second child. Or rather, he had adopted her physical trappings. To his knowledge, he was still turbulently aware and conscious of himself, or whatever part of himself that was uniquely Shinji Ikari. He could remember what he'd eaten for breakfast that morning. He could remember listening to Haydn's Op. 51 for string quartet on the way to NERV that afternoon. He could even remember most of the extraterrestrial assault leading up to the incident. The incident that had caused him to switch bodies with his fiercest rival. What was, however, perhaps most troubling of all was that what he couldn't remember was the last time he'd ever had a dream with such an incredibly detailed back-story and sequence of events.

He also couldn't remember ever having experienced the physical nausea of being exceedingly hungry in a dream either, and yet both the gastrointestinal growling issuing from his belly combined with the lightheadedness of a low blood sugar level brought the needs of his new body to his attention. Fortunately, whatever God, supernatural entity or sheer force of nature was keeping him locked in this awful dream-state had not removed his knowledge of the layout of NERV's headquarters in the Geofront, and he decided immediately to head down toward the cafeteria to satiate his snarling gullet.

When the door to the recovery room slid open, he nearly screamed when he found himself face to face with the crimson-eyed, expressionless demeanor of the first child, Rei Ayanami. He leapt back, shooting his hands defensively out before him awkwardly. The first child showed no sign of alarm. She simply took a step into the room—encouraging Shinji to take two more backward—allowing the door to close softly behind her. There was an uncomfortable silence between them. Ironically enough, it was Ayanami who broke it.

"Have you been awake long?" she asked in familiar monotone.

"W…what?" stammered the third child dumbly, unable to speak effectively while he struggled to regain his composure.

The girl stared at him clinically, betraying nary a sliver of emotion. "I was told that the sedatives would not wear off for at least another half hour. I apologize if my arrival comes as an intrusion. It would appear the Commander's intelligence operatives have erred."

Shinji suddenly began to feel unbearably self-conscious. Rei was wearing her school uniform, and he was garbed in nothing more than a pastel pink hospital gown. But if the third child had been wearing clothes to match how vulnerable he felt, he might as well have been naked.

"Wh…what are you doing here, Ayanami?" the junior Ikari choked out.

The blue-haired girl gestured toward the tote bag she held in her hands. Shinji's eyes registered the bag for the first time, slowly realizing that it was filled with an assortment of garments as well as a vanilla folder containing an assortment of documents.

"You'll need clothing," the girl continued, ignoring the third child's question. "In this bag, you should find some things that will fit you well enough until arrangements have been made to acquire a wardrobe suitable to your situation and requirements." She extended her arms, thrusting the bag in Shinji's direction insistently. He took it acquiescingly.

"Um, whose clothes are these?" he asked as he ruffled curiously through the items. He flushed a deep shade of crimson as he accidentally fished out a pair of carnation pink panties with a small red bow along the waist band.

Rei didn't even flinch as she replied, "They are mine."

"Whaaaaaaaa?" Shinji squeaked, dropping both bag and underwear onto the floor. He reeled back in shock, bumping up against the hospital utility tray. Rei knelt down and began to scoop the clothes back into the bag.

"It is only temporary, but it was the most practical solution on such short notice. Asuka and I share similar measurements, although…" She squared herself and stared directly at him with a penetrating stare. For a split second, Shinji Ikari thought he saw the semblance of some kind of emotion glimmer through her eyes, but it was so fleeting he couldn't tell what it was. "…although your chest is… slightly larger."

Shinji covered his chest self-consciously, his ears turning beet red with embarrassment. Rei simply continued with her report. "Also in the bag is a folder containing your schoolwork, lessons and homework that you've missed as well as a review of the rules for girls at the school since you are more than likely only familiar with the boys' portion of the handbook. Naturally, when you are attending classes, you won't be able to use the female lavatory, but using the boys' washroom may lead to unintentional disruptions, so the school has been instructed to set aside several of the bathrooms for your use specifically. One of them is beside the teacher's lounge, there's one near the cafeteria, and another in the sports wing."

"Hey, wait a minute!" Shinji balked, cutting the first child off. Panic was setting in again. "Who said anything about school? I can't go to school like this! I can't go to school in Asuka's body!"

Rei placed the tote bag on the floor beside the hospital utility table. She glanced briefly and curiously at the Fujitsu feature phone before turning her full attention back to the third child.

"Don't be such a child," she said sternly and robotically, almost as though repeating something she'd heard elsewhere. "You go to school to be educated and to learn. What difference does it make whether you do that in your own body or the body of someone else?"

"You don't understand!" the junior Ikari shrieked. "It's just not that easy to do something like that! I've never been a girl before! I can't let my friends see me like this! I'll be teased by virtually everybody—girls and boys alike! I couldn't possibly deal witlh something like that, Ayanami!"

The blue-haired girl now stood only a foot away. There was no way to escape the annihilating glow of her withering stare at such close range. He felt helpless, the confident tone of his assertions reduced to an impotent whine.

"You are right, Ikari," the girl said at length. "I do not understand why someone who has saved the lives of thousands of people by piloting a 25-story tall biosynthetic robot and killing supernatural hostiles from other dimensions can't attend school in the body of another human being. Is it so much more unusual to pilot the body of another person than it is to pilot the body of a living machine?"

Shinji reddened with embarrassment. "I see your point, but… the thing is, this body isn't mine. It belongs to Asuka. I can't just go and use her body without her permission. That would just be an invasion of someone's privacy. It would be wrong. And besides, 'piloting' another human body is way different than piloting an EVA. I mean… our body is who we are, right? An EVA is just… it's just… it's just a weapon."

Rei's brow twitched, though whether from confusion, annoyance, or disagreement Shinji wasn't certain. She simply turned and began to walk slowly away from him back toward the door to the recovery room where she stopped and paused. She gazed over her shoulder.

"So, in your mind, it is an issue of ownership," she stated rhetorically, inferring the core of Shinji's argument from his statement. "One has to own a body in order to use it."

Although the third child felt like he was being lead into a trap, he took the bait nonetheless. "Y… yes. Something like that is right, I suppose."

"Then… who gave you the permission to use your original body?" Rei asked with cold, pointed clarity to her question.

And Shinji had no answer to that which he indicated by the dumbstruck, slack-jawed expression he now wore upon his face. Then Ayanami was gone without another word. The silence that followed resulted in heavy brooding during which he realized that the first child had made a legitimate and salient point. Whatever body a person ended up with was, in reality, simply luck of a draw. A genetic jackpot. You didn't earn or get awarded permission to use a certain body. You simply played the hand you were dealt. And if that was true, then it seemed to follow that everything superficial and material involved in expressing oneself through physical externalities was, in truth, a result of occupying whatever body you ended up with, not a cause. Following the same trail of thought even farther, Shinji began to wonder if internal functions of the mind and soul were similarly functions of the same chaotic equation. Was consciousness a cause or an effect of the evolution of life? Why did life arbitrarily deal some individuals a worthless hand while others were awarded a royal flush?

Just as the despair of existential angst began to tighten its grip on his psyche, his stomach vied for attention once more with a thunderous gurgle. Shinji rubbed at his slim waist, then picked up the tote bag and stared sorrowfully at the clothing Rei had brought him. At length, he sighed deeply and reached for the pair of panties once more. As quickly as his new body would allow, he removed the hospital gown and, trying as best as a fourteen year old boy in the spring of his adolescence could, managed to slip into the pair of underwear viewing the least amount of skin possible. He pulled the garment up his trembling legs, running his delicate fingers along the bottom of the garment to fix a snag in the elastic. Oddly enough, the subtle maneuvers involved in the exercise felt quizzically natural for a teenage boy as antisocial and clumsy as Shinji Ikari.

A tepid breeze swept up and over the frescoed walls of the La Tantra café and bistro. The seasonably warm Mediterranean zephyr swept up through the labyrinthine, alabaster streets of the city before dissipating at the entrance to the Sanctuaire du Martyre, one of the few heavily forested areas beneath the glistening white casbah crowning the top of the slope. The torches girding the balcony section of the café bent and gyrated like modern dancers while the palm trees above them cast long shadows making the flames look like fireflies in the waning light of approaching dusk.

Ryouji Kaji had some difficulty staying focused on the wine list he had been trying to work his way through. He was having one of those feelings again. He couldn't shake the bizarre and looming sense that something big, some game-changing event was about to occur, and no matter how remote and unsuspecting a place he managed to wind up in, he was always inexorably dragged back into the game. He had become so mired in the disquieting perturbations of his intuition that he hadn't even noticed the waiter standing next to him until the olive-skinned Arab gently touched his shoulder with his unusually small yet pristinely-manicured hand.

"Sir?"

Kaji stared blankly. "Huh?"

"You are Mr. Kaji, yes?"

Ryouji looked the man over carefully, analyzing the man's center of balance, potential to conceal weapons beneath his clothing, and whether or not he had the look of a killer in his eyes. The analysis took only a few seconds—a habit of his trade—but the Arab seemed to pass the test. Kaji nodded.

"There is a phone call for you," the waiter explained. "It sounds like it is something important, sir. You can take the call inside the foyer, or I can arrange to have a mobile phone brought out here to the terrace for you."

"Did they give a name?" Kaji queried carefully.

"He would not say," the Arab replied. "However, if I had to guess, I'd say it's an older gentleman. He will only speak to you specifically. He gave your full name and a matching description."

Ryouji's shoulders sagged as he acquiesced. "Fine. I'll take the call at the bar."

"Very good, sir."

Kaji followed the Arab over to the bar where he took a seat at the very end. While the waiter brought him a phone, Ryouji Kaji ordered an Iceball with Hibiki whiskey aged 17 years in a clean glass. The reason spies always drank such rich cocktails and alcoholic beverages, Ryouji always thought, was because they knew they could very well be dead tomorrow, and many like himself thought it would be a terrible shame to leave this world without a classy and tasteful sendoff. The bartender had just begun to chip away at the giant cube of ice when the Arab returned with a large black phone that was several generations obsolete. Kaji took the phone and pressed his ear to the receiver.

"Yes?"

"It's been quite a while, Ryouji Kaji," said the voice on the other end of the line.

"Fuyutsuki," Kaji replied grimly. "After the last time, I didn't think I'd ever hear your voice again."

"Burning a bridge doesn't have permanent consequences if you can remember how to swim."

Kaji stared out the full-length glass paneling at the terrace. He watched the palm trees bending slightly in the breeze. "How did you find me? NERV doesn't have any assets or leverage in Algiers."

There came a dry laugh through the receiver. "Come now, Kaji, there's no reason to be disrespectful. You know that I've got my own book of contacts beyond the sanctioned roster. And besides, we've got one agent in the region. Don't we?"

Ryouji Kaji scoffed at the inference. "I don't work for you anymore. Or for The Company. Those days are over. I'm out."

"Things have changed since the old days."

"Nothing changes with him," Kaji rasped. "Akagi's death wasn't even enough to stop him."

"Katsuragi seems to think things have changed," Fuyutsuki probed, hoping to bait Kaji into revealing his weakness during the negotiation.

As the bartender began to pour the whiskey, Kaji's mind was instantly jolted back to the memories of his days as a young man, a patriot and one of the most dangerous forces against the threat of a militarized police-state swelling to global proportions. He had been young, idealistic, naïve even, but Misato Katsuragi had always been just what he needed to keep his restless soul on an even keel. Whenever he doubted himself, whenever he was hurt, desperate, angry or afraid, she would be there to take it all away from him. She was beautiful, caring, nurturing and gifted at a great many things. And it was for that exact reason that he had disappeared from her life after she'd ended things. He'd never wanted to see that woman end up like him. He simply wanted her to live her life and to find happiness as far away from NERV—that festering, evil sore on the post-Impact, planetary landscape—as possible.

"I thought she was out for good," Ryouji relented at length. He could practically hear the broad grin stretching across Fuyutsuki's victorious face through the received.

"She came back. Wrangled back into it all like so many others."

"You promised me you'd do your best to keep her out of this!" Kaji rasped, beginning to lose his temper.

"And I have, Kaji, but I can't work miracles. She wanted to come back. I tried to talk her out of it, but…"

"What did he offer her?" Kaji snapped. "What insane offer did he make that could entice her to come back to the people responsible for killing her father?"

There was silence for a moment on the other end of the line. Kaji took the opportunity to take a sip of the whiskey. It was chilled to perfection and packed just the right punch. A nice, stiff, well-made drink did wonders for a man's confidence, the Japanese informant reasoned.

"Come back to Japan and ask her yourself," Fuyutsuki entreated him at length. "Besides, for you, seeing Katsuragi again will be an added bonus. For the job he wants you to do, your remuneration will be much greater than hers, rest assured."

"I'm listening."

"Your usual freelance rate—you won't be on the books—plus immediate access to a travel and leisure account for personal expenses that we won't monitor or check."

Kaji snorted. "Yeah. Uh huh. What else?"

"Information."

"What sort of information?"

Kaji heard a soft shuffling of documents over the line. A moment later, Fuyutsuki's voice returned, darker and more ominous than before. "I am not at liberty to say exactly what we are prepared to offer, particularly over an unsecured line, but let us just say that I've read some of it myself, and with this, some of the people you spent years trying to bring down will disappear for good with evidence as damning as this."

"I'm sorry, Fuyutsuki, but you're going to have to be more specific. I've tried to take down a lot of people in my career, people that deserved to go down, and go down hard. Most of the time I've been successful, which is why in many areas of the world I've run out of both time and friends. What you'd be offering would have to be something as reprehensible as it is provable, and the target would have to be unfathomably unique because, like I said, I don't really do that kind of work anymore."

Fuyutsuki knew he'd baited the hook adequately enough and that Kaji had already taken the bait. He just needed to drive the point home.

"Just pay us a visit, that's all I ask. If you aren't satisfied after reviewing the data for yourself in person, we will put you on a military-chartered plane to any country you'd like and you can disappear again and we won't bother you any further."

"Fine, but I'll charter my own flights, and I'll need a few days to prepare myself and wrap up my business here in Algiers."

"Your flight to Japan leaves in just over four hours," Fuyutsuki asserted. "You'd best wrap up that business quickly. Your tickets will be held at the JAL counter at the airport. I'll see you tonight."

The line clicked, then went dead. Ryouji Kaji placed the phone on the counter of the bar and finished his drink. "Damn it, Fuyutsuki," he muttered, paid his tab, and left La Tantra café, walking out into the wan light of dusk and lighting a cigarette. He walked the six blocks back to the hotel he was staying at. He packed his things, leaving his laptop computer for last. Before he shut the computer, he opened a small image file taking up only 106kb on his hard drive. It was a medium-resolution photograph that had been taken with an early-model mobile phone camera many years ago. The photograph showed both he and Misato, the two of them blissfully happy on some nameless beach somewhere, tangled up in each others' arms, Misato planting an impish kiss on his cheek while he flashed his pearly whites at the camera, a tropical drink in one hand, his other around Misato's slender waist.

"God damn it," he growled again before closing the laptop and placing it inside his messenger bag.