Nine years in.
She removed the blood-pressure meter and resumed typing.
"Why are there so many siblings, anyway? We're not a daycare centre."
"Redundancy."
"Huh?"
He waited, patiently. She would almost always reply when he talked to her, these days. "Psychological casualties are up 700% in the last quarter."
He thought that over. "So what's that actually mean?"
"59.3% for the freshies, including 12.8% irrecoverable. No change for the rest."
Shinji frowned. "Wasn't your conditioning process was supposed to, I dunno, condition them for that?"
"There are certain things no amount of training can prepare one for. Last month, for example."
Shinji grunted his concession of the point. "I still don't like it. The last siblings we had-"
"-Performed well given the stresses they were under-"
"-disobeyed orders and got half my formation killed. Siblings are unreliable and you know it."
She sighed, then resumed typing. "I don't think I need to point out the fact we won't be deploying siblings together anymore. If we can help it."
He gave another grunt. Then sighed.
"Sorry, Ritsu. I'm just..."
"Stressed. I've already granted you leave for this week."
He perked up - a little.
"But what about-?"
"Dylan can handle them. He's a big boy now."
"Yeah." He could always spot the survivors. But his judgement wasn't perfect. In fact, it wasn't even 50/50.
...Tanaka.
He interrupted his own thoughts by speaking. "What should I do?"
As Ritsuko thought how to answer him, he realised it was actually a reasonable question.
"You might want to ask Doctor Tomoki for more specific advice, but I think you should get out of town for a while. There's an old resort-town up north where we recommend our personnel take time off. It's reachable by maglev-subway, so you could be there in under an hour."
Ritsuko waited patiently for him to digest the advice. "Thanks, Ritsu."
He made to leave as usual, but she surprised him. "Shinji?"
He turned to face her. "I might join you again, assuming nothing comes up."
He froze.
She turned back to her work. "See you, honey."
He shivered, not unpleasantly.
It was just him and Maya at this end of the carriage. The train was a recent construction, with no windows or seats, so they were sitting on the floor. The two ceiling-lights flickered erratically.
"Seven," he said, placing the card atop the stack. She hissed and reached for the deck. "Eight, two. Last card."
She bit her lip, then picked up two cards from the deck. He placed his ace atop the stack.
Sighing in defeat, she passed him the packet of Victory Vodka (VV). He opened it and downed half of it while she shuffled the deck. He passed it back.
She took a swig, then coughed. "This stuff is really strong..." He took the cards from her hands and set the next game up while she finished the packet off inbetween swigs from her canteen. "Misato said they have beer there."
"Really?"
He smiled. "Yeah. She knows her stuff. 'The Old Red Bar' has a special tonight, apparently. NERV personnel only."
Maya choked down the last drops and chased them down with one last gulp from her canteen.
"I... didn't even know anyone did beer anymore." She picked up her cards.
"I'm not exactly an expert on it myself. She used to have some, back when I was still living with her."
He sniffed. "Anyway, she said it's, quote, watered down to a piss-like consistency, unquote. But she told me a place we could get more VV to have it with."
She played her hand. "Misato sure knows a lot about drinking."
He grinned. "Yeah."
They continued in silence.
"Mister Ikari!"
Shinji looked up. Back in her day, Asuka had called Nerv 'The Casserole' - "Because there's nothing around here but old meat and green vegetables!"
He'd always thought she was being a bit harsh on the freshers with the 'vegetable' jibe - not all the freshers froze up at the first whiff of combat, though that was happening more and more of late despite the increased indoctrination. What'd always gotten to him about the fresh meat - right up 'til it was put through the grinder - was how it was always excited to be there, pleased to see him, eager to see action...
Was I 'ever' that stupid?
Some kid was standing in his personal space, trying to shove a poster into his face. He gave Maya an apologetic look, then turned to deal with the kid.
It was Asuka. Her Unit Two dominated the faded poster. 'Three Kills, Seven Times Wounded In Action!' it proclaimed. In one corner, posing in her plugsuit and that ridiculous cape, she was still there... looking so goddamned young.
They all were, back then.
"Do you like it, Mister Ikari?" The kid lowered the poster. He vaguely recognised them. They were probably in his Junior 2-A class. "It's from my room! It's the only thing they let me take with me." His cheerful demeanour wavered for a second, but he rallied admirably. "Can you sign it for me! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?"
"I don't have a-"
"I've got three!"
He picked the blue one, scrawled his name in one corner, tried to hand it back - but he pulled out a second poster.
Tanaka had managed to get her unit (Lazarus Unchained! Nine Kills, Four Times Wounded In Action!) to pull a grotesque, sightless grin for the cameras. Her plugsuited image, with her acne photoshopped out, was in one corner making a 'V' (for victory) sign.
She'd signed it.
"She was your teacher?"
"Yeah."
The kid was actually quiet for once. Shinji signed it, then gave him back his marker. "Why me?"
The kid beamed. "'Cos I had this poster since I was a kid!" Shinji kept himself from interrupting. "And you were Miss Tanaka's teacher, and you're my teacher, so, I'm gonna be a totally awesome pilot, right?"
He wanted to punch that smile clean off the kid's face. But the boy was only 13-14, and his student, so he didn't. Even though it probably would've been good for him.
Helped him survive, even.
He settle for shattering the kid's ilusions in a gentler fashion. He...
... decided against saying something about effective but demoralising about Tanaka, skill, and mortality at the last moment.
"Actually, I was her student."
The smile faltered and gave way to a puzzled look.
"She was only 13 when I met her. I was 14, but she was my senior. She taught me most of the things I know today. Helped me survive. Saved me, more times than I care to remember."
"Mis Tanaka...?"
"No. Miss Soryu."
He got a blank look.
"Unit Two's pilot. You wouldn't remember." He'd gotten the junior pilot's attention but, as always, he didn't really know what to do with it. He spoke anyway, knowing that he was being heard.
"Listen to your teammates. Take care of them. I won't always be able to look out for you guys, so you'd better be prepared. Prepared to do it."
The freshie was quiet at last. "Go be with your squad, son. The more you're in-sync with them in your spare time, the more in-sync you'll be on the battlefield."
He could see the kid giving his words serious thought. "Go on, shoo."
The kid trotted off, quiet.
They resumed play.
He won again. Maya shuffled the cards as he downed another packet.
"Haven't seen Unit Two in a while."
He handed the half-empty packet back to her. He shuffled the deck while she drank it in her own time.
"No."
She took a final swig from her canteen, then they started over. He surprised her when he spoke again, so soon.
"I wonder what she'd have thought of this."
"Who?"
"Soryu."
"And what...?"
He gestured 'round the carriage, including the gaggle of junior pilots at the other end.
"This." He smiled.
"She always hated kids."
"That's probably because she was just a big baby herself."
He raised an eyebrow as she went on. "The Unit Two support crew always used to call her 'Princess' when they thought she wasn't looking."
She seemed wary of his reaction. It was cute. It was adorable, actually. He chuckled, giving her his best 'friendly' smile. "Yeah, that was her alright."
He sniffed. "Whatever happened to those guys, anyway?"
She grimaced. "I think most of them are still working on your Eva."
"I thought the Mark V's were supposed to be very similar? I thought they were always complaining about being stuck with the older tech."
"Well, yeah. But Unit One needs all sorts of specialised care. She chews through about... three times, four times a MkV in maintenance costs?"
She gave him a little, hesitant smile. "But fully retiring such a venerable unit would be unthinkable these days..."
She probably thought she was being comforting.
"Ha. Yeah."
She gave him an expectant look.
"We'll lose."
"How."
He brought up a graph. He tapped the smaller bar. "Estimated production for the next five years." He tapped the larger one. "Our losses, if they remain at the rate established by the seventy-third."
"And we can't just increase funding because...?"
He indicated a pie chart. "Our current share of economic activity." He tapped another. "What we'd need to exceed losses, at the new loss-rate."
"You've asked me about this before. What's the problem?"
"Because this," he pointed to a third chart, wherein the 'NERV' portion of activity was noticeably smaller "is the level at which we can sustain minimum calorific intake at."
"For who?"
"Everyone."
She closed her eyes.
"You mean, if we increase production people will starve."
"Yes. And it's not a long-term solution. They wouldn't have enough calories to keep working efficiently after the first..." he scanned a list "...six-to-seven months."
The background hum of the electronics was suddenly very noticeable.
"You knew what I'd say. Why tell me?"
"Because..." he withered under her gaze "It's already done." He tapped a fourth chart "this is what Dr Akagi said we'd need to make the bio-wombs work."
"And."
"The Committee's already ruled it absolutely necessary. It's going to be approved next month."
She compared the charts. "That's... even more over the line."
"I know. But it's only temporary - two, three years. After that, we might even be able to get by with reduced funding. And it's the only way we even have a chance of keeping up."
"...we don't get any say in this?"
"No," he muttered "we don't."
"You know fine well what a waste of time and effort the MkV's second run is. We'd be hard-pressed, but-"
"Dr Akagi already suggested that."
"Holding off until the MkVIs."
"Yes."
"Did she."
"Yes. They want redundancy. And if the newest loss rate is anything to go by, they won't be redundant at all. In fact, we might even be short-handed."
She was deadly quiet. Makoto cringed in anticipation of her next words. "Why did she help them?"
"Because if it wasn't me, it'd be someone less competent." Ritsuko stood there expectantly, masking her own nervousness with a deliberately nonchalant drag of her cigarette.
For a moment, Makoto thought Misato would snap. A long, long moment.
She addressed him directly and deliberately. "If the pilots find out, I'll kill you myself." She marched out, visibly shaking.
Ritsuko subjected her free hand to close scrutiny and watched it tremble before her eyes. She clenched it into a fist and made her own exit.
Makoto let his forehead rest on the desk, hugging himself tight.
Calorie-wise, alcohol is a notoriously inefficient use for grain. States short of food often regulate or ban the production of alcohol to help prevent starvation (esp. in wartime, e.g. WWI Russia), but a lot of unregulated/illegal alcohol ends up getting made anyway for sale on the black market because doing so is so profitable (because the demand for it remains constant and the supply is [severely] reduced).
Thanks for the feedback! Those are some of the most interesting and helpful reviews I've ever had - please keep up the good work, and let me know what you think!