Six holographic lights turned on in indeterminate space.

"You have some serious explaining to do this time, Ikari," said Red.

"The thirteenth Angel was destroyed, as required," Ikari replied. Above, repair crews were removing the last of its corpse and clearing away debris. They would be done for 98% of the city by morning. Apparently the Second Child had had to be sedated after almost hospitalising the worker who pulled her out of her downed Eva.

"You used the girl to pilot Unit-03, not the Fourth Child as was agreed," said Green.

"We agreed that Nerv would have operational autonomy, as required by circumstances. We didn't have time to synchronise the Fourth without risking another incident before the attack."

"You lying little –" began Red. Kihl's hand twitched; Red's hologram stuttered, and he fell silent.

"We will overlook this one time," said Kihl, "and you will give the girl to us."

Ikari considered how best to reply. "The Angels have proven able to attack in rapid succession. We must retain full operational effectiveness at all times."

"Which is why you will use the Fourth, effective immediately, and give us the girl. I will not tell you again."

"Very well." Ikari moved for the first time, glancing over his shoulder. "Fuyutsuki. Make it happen. How long will it take?"

Fuyutsuki continued to stare directly ahead. "Three days at least, sir, unless we wish to relax security on other assets. There's typically looting and unrest immediately following an attack, and we simply don't have the agents to spare for an apprehension."

This was, of course, a gross exaggeration. Ikari knew this, but saw no profit in undermining his subordinate and therefore himself.

Green scoffed. "You cannot simply order her to return to us? I had assumed you exercised proper authority over your underlings."

"My authority is quite intact, thank you," Ikari said. "I merely assumed you had already tried that and been rebuffed, as otherwise you would do so yourself and would not be wasting all our time right now."

"This is intolerable," said Blue. "We shall send our own agents to collect her. You shall not interfere."

Ikari was silent for a time. "Very well," he said.

"Dismissed," said Kihl, and the holograms faded.

"You didn't fight for her," Fuyutsuki said, a note of disapproval in his voice.

"I can't defy the Committee outright. Not without knowing what her value may be."

"Have you considered the morale effect on the other pilots, if one of their own is removed?"

"I have. We won't be the ones removing her."

…

On Monday morning, Misato gave a lift to Asuka, Shinji, and Shinji's cello; all except Shinji got out at the school.

"You'd better remember to come after the test," Asuka warned him.

"I'll come straight over," he promised dutifully. "If you don't trust me, you could go instead."

She snorted. "I got stuck babysitting those rookies twice already. I'm not doing it a third time. Thirds are your thing."

"Asuka, thank Shinji for your bento," Misato said, wearing a bland smile.

Asuka gave Misato a look of disgust, and she drove off. Asuka tried to lift the cello, but it was too bulky for her. She looked around and saw Toji loitering by the front door.

"Hey! Jock-stooge! Get over here!"

He gave her a look like he might a growling dog that may or may not have rabies, but approached anyway, cautiously. "What do you want?"

"Where's geek-stooge?"

"Ran off to Ashitaka for the day to perv on the new base there."

"Perv doesn't mean that."

"Not for people who aren't Kensuke, it doesn't."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. You'll do. Help me carry this to the music room."

Toji gave her a look. "You realise I'm Toji, not Shinji, right? I don't take orders from you."

"Look. This is his. Do you really want to tell him that someone stole it because you were too lazy to help carry it inside?"

"What's the magic word?"

"Krav Maga?"

He rolled his eyes right back at her and lifted the cello's base; she took the neck and tucked its bow under her arm. "You know, one day he's not going to put up with your crap any more."

"Don't try to think, Suzuhara, it doesn't suit you."

"I'm just wondering who you think will after he's gone."

She considered hitting him, but she couldn't without dropping Shinji's cello.

Back in her car, Misato hit the radio for some teen pop music.

Shinji hated it and thought it was on much too loud, but he said nothing about it. "Not that I'm complaining, exactly," he said, raising his voice a little over it instead, "but why are we doing this, again? And why does it have to be today? Mogami piloted fine, and we probably have weeks before the next Angel attacks. We almost always have before."

"We don't know that." Misato turned the music down. "Not any more, not after the twelfth. We can't predict their arrival dates in advance; Magi says there's about a twenty percent chance one attacks within a week, I think."

"How did Father know to send for me on the exact day the third Angel attacked, then?"

Misato thought about this. "That's … a good question. I don't know. I'll ask Ritz. As for Mogami … normally I'd say it was so we'd have a backup pilot for in case something happened to Nagisa" such as death "but this time it came from above."

"You're the third-highest ranking officer at Nerv, aren't you?"

"Ish," said Misato, unwilling to go into the complicated question of which of her and Ritsuko outranked the other. "This was from your father. I think he received the order from the UN."

Shinji's fist clenched without him noticing. "Right."

"So," she said, sensing the downswing in his mood, "you liked her, then? Thought she was cute?"

He blushed. "Not like that! Just that, well, she was nice. And she did help kill the Angel. It doesn't feel right to be trying to replace her after one battle, not if she wants to pilot." He paused. "You know, if she and Nagisa both want to pilot, and you don't have enough Evas, you could let one of them use Unit-01."

"Do you want that?" Misato asked. "You said you piloted Eva to hear words of praise from your father."

"I know. But … they both must have reasons to want to be here, too, don't they? Wouldn't it be selfish not to let them? We could take turns. It's not running away, is it? It would have been earlier, when there weren't enough pilots, but there are now, and I could stay on as a reserve."

"We'll see," said Misato. "We don't want to get ahead of ourselves. The Fourth Child still isn't synched, for one thing. That's what today is about."

"Hopefully he does better than when Asuka was watching him," Shinji said.

"Ritz thinks that was a problem with Unit-00, not Nagisa. In Unit-03, he should be fine, touchwood. I mean, it worked fine for Mogami, so we have to hope it was just a prototype issue."

"I guess. Today's her first day at school, isn't it? I hope she's alright."

"You're sure you don't have a crush?"

"Misato! Come on. Aren't you a bit worried?"

"What could happen?"

…

"Why would China try to invade Vietnam?" Chitose asked.

The teacher and most of the class blinked in surprise. No-one ever asked him questions. "The sea level rises of Second Impact reduced their arable land. They had to seize more or starve."

"I mean, didn't they realise the Vietnamese would try to stop them?"

"Yes, but China is bigger and more powerful than Vietnam. They thought they would win, and they were at least partly correct. As I was saying before you interrupted –"

"Then shouldn't Vietnam have thought the same, and then offered to give them some food if they didn't invade? I mean, people die in invasions; wouldn't both sides have wanted to stop that?"

"Miss Mogami –"

"And there were supposed to be lots of local conflicts like that all around the world. Surely someone somewhere should have thought of that. I mean it's not that complex. Or is it? Is there maybe some sort of political reason people can't do that sort of thing? Or emotional?"

Toji sighed and stared upward. Hikari smacked her hand to her forehead. Asuka ran her hand through her hair in exasperation. The other girls sniggered. Even Rei gave the new pilot a look.

…

"Clearing absolute borderline in 0.3 … 0.2 … 0.1 … cleared! The Fourth Child is synchronised with Unit-03! Standing by for synchronisation data."

Misato stood behind Ritsuko, reading her monitor over her shoulder. Last she checked, Asuka's synch rate was 85.4%, and slowly drifting upward. Shinji had been catching up for a while now, and stood at 78.8. Chitose had begun at 41.3% and slowly ticked upward during her battle, to 44.7, before spiking to 60.9% just before being knocked out; they hadn't tested her since then. Nagisa was at 80 flat on his first try, without so much as a flicker.

"Why isn't he even pretending not to be spoofing the system?" Misato asked, pitching her voice too low for the techs to overhear. "Is he mocking us?"

"It might just be less effort to leave it like that," Ritsuko said. "Rather than letting it fluctuate. And frankly, I'd be insulted if he thought we might even for a moment think he couldn't cheat. I wasn't born yesterday."

"Why wouldn't you think that, if his synch score wasn't such an even number?"

"Because he's with Seele, and they always load their dice."

"Does this mean he can set his synch ratio to whatever he wants? Would the Eva respond?"

"Probably yes to both. There might be limits to his ratio; safeties to keep him below 95% so he can't suffer sympathetic injuries, for example. You'd have to ask him."

"Hmm."

"You seem distracted."

"I'm still thinking about the last battle. It's far too much of a coincidence that Mogami just happened to arrive in time to be synched when she did, right before the Angel showed up. She knew it was going to attack then."

"Either her, or the people she was with before did."

"The only other people who've ever known down to the day when an Angel would arrive was … well, us. When the third attacked. Why was that?"

"We weren't the only people, or even the first. The first were to know were Seele. They told us. They knew it from the Dead Sea Scrolls."

"Why do you know that and I don't?" Misato asked, affronted. "We're the same rank."

"I needed to know. They had a lot of information pertaining to Project E."

"I'm Chief of Operations, we can predict attacks, and I don't need to know?"

Ritsuko opened her mouth to give a non-answer, before realising that she had a potential ally here. She led Misato out of the room. "Maya? Take care of this for a minute." The door hissed shut behind her; leaving them alone. "Keep this to yourself …"

…

Chitose sat with her hand up and a bitterly resentful expression, while the teacher roundly ignored her. A message appeared on her laptop.

HorakiH: Stop interrupting, Mogami! It's disrespectful and disrupting the class.

Chitose dropped her hand to type with both. She touch-typed extremely quickly, and used the public forum, even though Hikari had sent her a private message.

MogamiC: But I don't understand it! What's the point of school if we don't learn things properly and how can we learn them if we don't understand them?

MogamiC: There are so many details he's just ignoring! Politics, emotions, economics, social situations, science! How am I supposed to understand the material without that?

MogamiC: How is *anyone* supposed to understand it? How do you? Wait, if you know, why don't we split up and have you teach half and he does the other? That way, if I'm 'disrupting' things, I'd only be disrupting half the class, not all of it.

HorakiH: Slow down I cant keep up

MogamiC: Can I just send you messages and have you explain things? But how do you know, if you're not allowed to ask questions either? Is it just intuitive for you?

MogamiC: Is it like this everywhere in Japan? If I wasn't allowed to ask questions about piloting Eva, we would have lost the last battle! And isn't the entire point of science to query the natural world?

MogamiC: Or maybe we learn about the politics and sociology and everything else in other classes? Or in later years? But I would have thought it would be more effective to teach all those things at once? Because I don't think I'll remember much of what he's saying because I can't integrate it into a single story. Will anyone else?

HorakiH: This isnt a science class its history

MogamiC: But why should we be learning about history when we can't even do it properly without understanding the scientific context? Or the political etc.

MogamiC: There are so many wonderful things in this world! Why should we be restricted to only seeing a tiny fraction of it, without any context?

SuzuharaT: hahaha dude what the hell

MogamiC: Hmm?

SuzuharaT: is it like a rule that eva pilots all have to be weird or something

MogamiC: No. Why would you think that?

There was a pause, while Toji searched for an answer which would be socially acceptable to say to a girl in public, but Hikari pre-empted him.

HorakiH: Suzuhara! You're being rude. Ayanami and Soryu are right here.

MogamiC: Rei's not weird. She's really nice and pretty! So are Shinji and Asuka.

MogamiC: And Kaworu, of course. But it goes without saying that I like him.

Tsuruko raised an eyebrow. She was much prettier, but Chitose and Kaworu were both pilots, and they apparently already knew each other.

MogamiC: I suppose we're all unusual, in that not many people can pilot Eva. But that's kind of circular reasoning, isn't it? I mean, there are probably more Eva pilots than people named Suzuhara Toji, but I don't think that makes you weird.

MogamiC: Or does it?

SuzuharaT: really nice asuka seriously

Toji glanced at Asuka. She was resting her head on her keyboard, her hands crossed over the back of her head, possibly covering her ears, making little groaning noises like one with a hangover, just below the teacher's threshold of hearing. Toji could see the computer cursor printing one character over and over. She obviously hadn't read more than a few lines of the conversation.

MogamiC: Oh she absolutely is! I'm probably her oldest friend. :)

MogamiC: As in the one who's been her friend the longest, not the oldest person who is her friend.

MogamiC: I thought about moving in with her but she's already living with two people so there might not be space and I don't want Rei to be lonely.

The other students turned as one to Rei, who was watching the conversation on her laptop. There was maybe the tiniest pink tinge in her cheeks. In the momentary lull in conversation, Chitose's hand shot back up.

HorakiH: Mogami!

MogamiC: I wasn't going to ask about the lecture!

MogamiC: I was going to ask how to connect this computer to the Internet proper. I could look up the answers myself that way.

SuzuharaT: hahahaha yes

Hikari's eye twitched.

HorakiH: That was disabled because some students were using it very irresponsibly.

MogamiC: But I haven't. Why not disable it for anyone who has been using it irresponsibly but not for me? I don't see why I should be punished for something I wasn't even here for.

MogamiC: Or why not allow it for everyone? Why do you care what others do?

MogamiC: Wait, what's your definition of 'irresponsible'?

MogamiC: Have people been hacking into Nerv or something? Why would they do that? None of us wants them wasting time dealing with that; that would help the Angels.

MogamiC: Is this a sex thing?

…

"The Scrolls were found shortly before the Katsuragi Expedition that triggered Second Impact," Ritsuko said. "Among other things, they're a sort of instruction manual for Adam, the Giant of Light. They're how the researchers knew where to look and what to expect, and it gave them a lot of the preliminary framework for their research. It's how we knew about AT Fields in advance, for example, and it was how they were able to contain Second Impact."

"That was contained?"

"Yes. If it hadn't been stopped when it was, the world would be populated exclusively by Angelic life forms now."

"What exactly was Second Impact, then? Because I get the feeling even I don't have the complete picture, not any more."

"It was the forced slumber of a Seed of Life," said Ritsuko. "Adam is supposedly the first Angel, but that's a misnomer, as is the second. He's the progenitor of all of the proper Angels; the things we've been killing, the third onward. The 'second Angel' is Lilith, the progenitor of all other life on Earth, including humankind. This is all ultimately a war between those two beings. At the time of Second Impact, Adam was dormant, but the expedition awoke him. He immediately regenerated and began germinating the Angels, so the expedition had to silence him; this liberated massive amounts of energy, called Second Impact."

"Did – did the expedition know this would happen? In advance?"

"I was only told anything about the Scrolls because I needed to know. The Evas are all at least partly grown from Adam's cell cultures; that's what lets them project and neutralise AT Fields. There'd be no way to engineer that without knowing some of the the Scrolls' technical information, so I was shown those parts, but I don't know much about the history."

"Seele holds the scrolls," Misato mused, wondering at the thought that she'd been using Angelic technology this entire time. "So they must have at least suspected. Why? Why would anyone want that?"

"I wasn't told, but I assume they have an agenda. As does the Commander. Shouldn't you be more interested in the Angels?"

"I joined Nerv as much for revenge as for saving the world." Misato stopped and thought about Shinji, and Asuka, and Rei and Chitose and even Kaworu. Her mind even twitched toward Kaji for a moment. "But maybe I'm not the same woman I was back then," she admitted. "What do you know about them that I don't already?"

"The Scrolls told us what their minimum gestational period was. Fifteen years. They don't grow like humans do. Remember the eighth? It took less than a minute to hatch to full power. They spend their time dreaming up what their form will be, and then, when they have one that seems good enough, they quickly grow into it and attack. After that, they only tinker with it, like the third gaining its second face. The ones that are coming now have had longer to dream; that's why they've generally been getting stronger. I don't know why the twelfth was so weak; I'm provisionally assuming it was an outlier, that it settled on a weak form purely by chance. That notwithstanding, the last Angel we fight will probably be the worst.

"The Scrolls only told us that the shortest gestation would be fifteen years, and that the others would tend to space themselves out; they didn't give specific dates. That's why we have to keep the pilots on call, rather than just having them on-base on the days of attacks."

"But Mogami did know. Could there have been a part of the Scrolls you weren't told about?"

"I'm sure there are several. Seele likes to withhold as much information as possible, and I only ever saw partial transcripts; I assume they creatively abridged them. That's part of why I wanted the eighth captured alive, so I could verify what I was told. Are you suggesting the girl might be a mole, and all the evidence against that is just reverse psychology?"

"It's the sort of thing Seele would do," said Misato. "Don't you agree?"

"It would be in character for them, yes. But … it's the sort of thing fictional conspiracies do, not real ones. It's like they trained her specifically to raise red flags, sent her in with no handler, and then begged us to give her back to them. There were so many opportunities for us to get rid of her, and then the entire gambit would have failed. She's only still here by luck."

"But she is still here. They might have planned for that."

"If we don't assume that they can perfectly predict every single one of our decisions, which are after all based on a chaotic mix of emotion and logic, and that they realise this, then allowing so many chances for their plan to fail suddenly becomes a liability for them. A much simpler explanation is that something went wrong. They're not infallible, after all, no matter how much they like to pretend they are. My guess is that she's betraying them. They groomed her to be their cat's paw, and she's decided for her own reasons that she won't do it. I suspect she wasn't even supposed to come here at all, or at least, not like she did."

"Suppose that you're right. How did she know when the Angel would attack?"

"At a guess, they told her before she went rogue. Maybe that was even the impetus; maybe she thought she could ingratiate herself with us by defeating it. She knows part of the Scrolls that I don't, or at least Seele's interpretation. Perhaps she arrived when she did so that we would take her in and protect her from Seele, or maybe to thwart whatever Nagisa was planning."

"If that's true, we need to interview her about the Scrolls," said Misato. "Oh. Crap. If that's true, they're already after her."

Ritsuko considered this. "I can't believe I didn't think of that."

"Finish the synch," Misato ordered, turning to leave. "I've got to get to her before Seele does."

…

"Rise! Bow! Sit!"

The final syllable was barely out of Hikari's mouth before Chitose was out of her seat. She made for Rei, took the shorter girl's hand and, with surprising strength, pulled her out of her seat and tugged her out of the classroom. Hikari narrowed her eyes as they went.

"Ugh," said Chitose, as soon as they were outside. "I felt like I was suffocating. How do you stand it? I was there for two hours, but to go back, day after day …"

Rei said nothing.

Chitose glanced down, saw she was still holding Rei's hand, and released it. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dragged you out here. Maybe you like it in there. Do you?"

Rei had never directly considered whether she liked school. It did nothing to alleviate the ennui of her existence, she didn't exactly like most of her classmates, and she disliked the crowds (she had a very low tolerance for large groups); but, by and large, it wasn't any worse than lying on her bed.

"Let's go home," Chitose said, taking her silence for indifference.

"Why?"

"Because it's so fucking boring here," she said earnestly.

Rei stared.

"I'll make lunch for you if you come with me," Chitose added.

"We are supposed to stay in school."

"What will happen if we don't?"

Rei thought. The Commander would be displeased. But she had already disobeyed his implicit orders, in allowing Chitose to share her apartment.

Chitose gave a triumphant smile and a half-shrug, and turned to leave. Rei followed her.

"Is there a library in this city?" Chitose asked. "I've heard about those but never seen one. I should buy a city map. Or a computer, so I could look it up online. I wish I had my old desktop, but it blew up. I like the idea of having lots of free books in one place. Is there a computer store here? There must be; Tokyo-3 is supposed to be a city of science."

"My apartment does not have the infrastructure for an Internet connection," Rei volunteered.

"It doesn't? You need infrastructure? Like what?"

Rei thought. She'd never stopped to wonder before, because she had never needed the Internet at home, but she'd overheard people discussing it before. "Cables," she said.

"The computer shop people would probably know," Chitose said. "Anyway I was thinking I should get some cookbooks because I don't actually know how to cook anything, except for copying that stir fry you made last night. Are you a vegetarian? If one isn't a vegetarian, does it count as a new experience to stop eating meat? Because it's what I'm used to, but it's not like I'd be starting doing anything new, just stopping doing something old. Maybe I should try it for a bit and see what it's like? It would be easier while I'm living with you, since I wouldn't need to cook two different meals. But then it might be fun cooking two. It all depends on the cookbooks."

Rei was beginning to get a headache. She'd barely ever questioned anything before; having Chitose around was like someone who'd been deaf their entire lives having their hearing restored in a rave club.

Chitose led the way up to the apartment, chattering incessantly. Rei tuned her out altogether, until she opened the front door and abruptly fell silent. Rei looked up. Inside the apartment stood Kaworu's handler, Mrs Bauer. Around her were four men who could have been Section Two but who weren't.

"Hello, Chitose," Bauer said, then switched to German. « I'm here to bring you back. »

Chitose lowered her centre of gravity and positioned her feet in what would be a martial arts stance if she raised her hands and made fists. "Rei," she said, speaking very slowly and clearly, her voice half an octave lower than usual and her face perfectly smooth, not taking her eyes off Mrs Bauer, "why don't you make some tea for our guests."

"I have no tea," said Rei.

"Then it would be a very good idea for you to go down to the shops and buy some, wouldn't it." Without breaking eye contact, Chitose reached into her bag, fished out a wallet, and handed it to Rei.

"I," said Rei.

There was silence, except for the ever-present cicadas and the banging of construction crews.

"A good host doesn't keep her guests waiting, Rei."

Rei took the wallet, turned, glanced over her shoulder, and left.

« I'm not going back there, » Chitose said.

« You know you're not allowed out, » Bauer replied. « You broke the rules. »

« I don't care. I don't care. I'm not, I'm never going back there. »

« Oh, yes, you are. »

« I've grown more in the last three days than the past seven years. I'm not the same little girl I was. You can't make me. »

« I'm sorry, but I can't let you decide that. Seize her. »

The men moved forward.

…

"Asuka," Tsuruko said. Asuka had chosen to sit by herself under a tree; her mood was visibly bad enough that Hikari had taken the hint and found somewhere else to eat. "Do you have a moment?"

Asuka really wasn't in the mood, but on the other hand, Tsuruko was one of her few anchors to normalcy, almost the only person she knew who didn't spend their time killing Angels. "What is it?"

"That girl … she said she was a pilot. What's she like?"

Asuka sighed. So much for normalcy. "You saw, didn't you? You were there this morning."

"Surely that was a once-off. She can't be like that all the time."

"I wish."

"Really? Is it a problem when you're, you know?"

Asuka hadn't yet got around to watching the videos of the battle, but she gathered that Chitose had helped, at the cost of wrecking Unit-03. "No. It's annoying as anything the rest of the time, but she's not stupid enough to get distracted when we're fighting for our lives. I mean, she's not really any good at it, but she can make Eva move."

"Okay. What do the other pilots think about her?"

Asuka shrugged, irritated. "How should I know? She just got here."

"I don't know. What's your first impression? Humour me."

"I guess Shinji likes her, but he likes everyone. Ayanami … I can't tell, but I think she likes her? She's staying at her apartment, so I guess. They haven't had to put up with her for too long yet, though."

"I see. What about Kaworu?"

Asuka shut her eyes and rolled them. Tsuruko was less subtle than she thought she was. Asuka didn't really care about Kaworu's love life, or lack thereof, but one thing she didn't need was to put up with schoolgirl drama. "He never seemed interested in any girls at all."

"Really," Tsuruko said, offended. "I thought he was very nice."

"Oh, he's polite, sure. But not interested-interested."

"I see. Thank you, Asuka. I'll see you in class." And she got up and walked off.

Asuka silently thanked God she was gone.

…

Misato pulled up outside Rei's apartment, and made it all of two steps toward the apartment block's stairs before Kaji waved her down.

"Good morning, Misato," he said, with only a perfunctory smile this time. "I wouldn't go any further if I were you."

She drew her gun. "I swear, if I find out you've done something to one of my pilots …"

He raised his hands in surrender. "I'm not doing anything. I'm just watching and waiting. That warning was in good faith. Things could get nasty up there, and not just for you."

She narrowed her eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"A large number of men with guns, no necks, and immunity from all prosecution," Kaji said. "And they're expecting Nerv to interfere."

Misato pressed forward angrily. "Then I'd hate to disappoint them."

"They also have orders to, quote, 'scorch the earth' if they can't complete their mission," he added. "Mogami isn't the only one who lives in there."

Misato clenched a fist and considered shooting him right there. "What is she to them?"

"I honestly know less than you seem to think I do" she pulled back her gun's hammer "but I think she was supposed to be a pilot cum spy. In case an Angel got Nagisa, I suppose, or he annoyed Ikari and had an unfortunate accident. But she didn't like wherever they were keeping her – I expect it wasn't a barrel of laughs – and broke out and came here rather than wait for him to die. Having two of them here at once was never part of their plan, not when one of them isn't following orders and is getting in the way of the one who is. Ritsie seems to have guessed this, and she wants to use Mogami out of spite."

"I don't really blame her. Tell me, Kaji, what do you know about the Dead Sea Scrolls?"

"Seele has them, has for about twenty years now, I think. They contain some sort of information about the Angels, but I don't know what. They guard them pretty tightly."

"What if I told you that part of that information was what would happen at the Katsuragi expedition?"

Kaji read her eyes. "I'd ask how certain you were that whoever told you that wasn't trying to manipulate you. I doubt you've seen the Scrolls first-hand, not if I haven't – no offence – so my best guess would be that Ritsie told you that. I also know that she has a grudge against them for other reasons."

"If you asked me that, I'd ask you whether you weren't just trying to rationalise your own job. Because if they really did deliberately cause Second Impact, that would be a pretty damn good reason for her to hold a grudge. And given how much else they've known about the Angels, that they knew how to identify them by haemochromatography and how to build an AT Field and the exact day the third would come and even where almost all of them would attack, given all that it'd be a pretty damn big snafu if they didn't know what would happen when they played with the Giant of Light."

Kaji blinked at this last. "That … is actually a really good point. I need to verify it."

At this point, Rei walked up, carrying shopping bags laden with about a year's supply of tea, in at least thirty different varieties. She hadn't known which kind Chitose wanted.

"Major Katsuragi," she said. "Why are you pointing a gun at Mr Kaji?"

Misato put her gun away. "It's a grown-up thing. What are you doing out here? And more importantly, how did you get out without Kaji seeing?"

"He did see," Rei said.

Misato reached for her gun again.

"I never said she was in there," Kaji said. "I said other people were. I assumed you didn't want to get civilians killed in a shoot-out. My apologies," he added.

Rei blinked. "Excuse me." And she made for the stairs.

Misato blocked her. "Rei, there are bad men up there."

"Mogami told me to hurry back," Rei said. "I infer this meant she would deal with them."

Misato blinked. "You mean you saw them?"

"Yes."

"In your apartment? With her? They knew she was there?"

"They spoke to one another."

"What did they say?"

"They spoke in German, Major."

"But … why would … how long ago was this?"

Rei thought. "Approximately fifteen minutes ago, Major."

Misato looked at Kaji. He frowned.

"I assumed they were checking every apartment one by one," he said. "I haven't heard anything. They couldn't possibly have taken that long to …"

He reached for his gun. Misato was faster.

"I promise I won't shoot you, Rei, or Mogami," he said, raising his other hand in surrender.

"You definitely won't if you're not armed," she pointed out. He sighed, then took out his gun and offered it to her butt-first. She took it, holstered it in her waistband, and motioned him back. "Lie down. On your front."

"This is undignified," he complained, but complying. He knew exactly how far he could push her.

"So is bleeding out from your crotch."

"There's a sexist joke in there somewhere."

"There surely is. Now, don't move. Rei, stay here and watch him. And call Section Two, tell them I want reinforcements."

She kicked off her shoes for silence and turned and began climbing the stairs, slowly and quietly, every sense straining, glancing over her shoulder periodically to make sure Kaji was staying where she'd told him. At length she made it to Rei's floor; her door was shut. She slunk toward it and knocked twice, standing off to the side, in case someone inside had a shotgun.

"Rei?" came a girl's voice.

Misato twisted the handle and pushed the door open. It was lighter inside than she remembered; the curtains were open. Chitose stood in the corridor, holding a mop; a bucket was beside her, and the floor gleamed with fresh water.

"Major Katsuragi?" Chitose asked. "What are you doing here?" She noticed the gun in Misato's hand, and her voice dropped from its light, airy tone to her slower, darker one. "You're with them."

"What? No. I heard there were men in here, I thought you were in trouble. Where are they?"

"Oh!" All at once, her tone was high and carefree again. "No, they left."

"They … left."

"Yes! That's definitely what happened. They wanted me to go with them, so I explained that I had to stay here and pilot, and they agreed with me and left."

Misato holstered her gun. "And you randomly decided to start mopping."

"Ah!" Chitose said, jumping guiltily. "There was a woman with them, and she mentioned she thought it looked dirty in here, and I thought she was right so I decided to clean up. Hang on, just let me get rid of this water."

She took the bucket and mop and loped to the kitchen, then wrung out the mop and poured the bucket down the sink. Misato sniffed; there was a strong coppery smell in the air.

"Right," she said, quickly turning to leave. "Well, it looks like you have everything under control here. Sorry to bother you."

"It's no bother, Major!" Chitose called. "I enjoy your company. We should have dinner together sometime. I'm going to learn how to cook. By the way, do you know if there's a library in this city? I want to read a cookbook."

"There is, but I'm not sure where exactly. Somewhere north of here, I think. Well, I've got to go, so …"

"Of course! Goodbye, Major Katsuragi!"

Misato left and waved Rei up. She let Kaji back up, gave him his gun, and waited until Rei was out of earshot to hiss, "What the hell is she?!"

"I take it there are five missing persons?" he replied, dusting himself down. "She's an Angel hunter. If you thought a couple of yakuza rejects could beat that, you don't give the Angels enough credit. I did warn Ritsie she was dangerous."

"Pilots are only supposed to be dangerous while they're inside Eva. They're fourteen-year-olds!"

"She wasn't supposed to be dangerous at all; they told me they could control her. I'm asking for back danger pay."

"Five men, and she isn't even scratched. If I were to tell her she couldn't pilot …"

"Maybe you shouldn't tell her that. I know I won't. If it's any consolation, you can probably trust me now when I say she isn't working for Seele any more."

"Just tell me one thing. Is Rei safe with her?"

"I assume so. The file I read didn't suggest otherwise, although the file also said she'd do as Seele operatives ordered, so maybe take it with a grain of salt. A better question would be, is there anything you could do about it? What exactly do you suppose she would do if you ordered Rei to leave this apartment suddenly and with no explanation?"

"God damn it." Misato massaged her temple. "So what do we do now?"

Kaji shrugged. "Well, I know I'm not going to do anything that might annoy her. As for you, I don't know. Nothing, I suppose. You need all the pilots you can get, and she can do that fine."

"But what if she snaps and Rei's there?"

"Ask Ritsie to give her a psych evaluation, maybe. We could talk more about this later if you'd like, but would you mind if I left? I have a report to write."

"Fine," she said, then, grudgingly, "I'll see you around."

He beamed and waved as he walked off.

She pulled out her phone and called Section Two. "Where the hell were my reinforcements?" she asked. "Not to the damn school! I'm at – never mind. The situation's passed. What I want now is video footage from the spy sats for the last hour of the block around the First Child's apartment waiting on my desk by the time I get back. Pretty damn soon." She hung up with disgust. "Useless …"

She thought about calling Ritsuko, but frankly the woman had enough on her plate already. She put her phone away and headed back up the stairs. She still needed answers.

…

Shinji watched Kaworu as they rode the tram back to the surface. Nagisa stared out the window, eyes criss-crossing the Geofront; he was clearly memorising every detail.

"Thank you for your assistance today, Ikari Shinji," he said without turning; Shinji started. "I have hoped to pilot for a long time now. It was annoying to be forbidden."

"That's fine," said Shinji. "All I had to do was sit there; there weren't any problems. If there'd been any real danger, we would have done it in Ashitaka again."

"Even so," said Nagisa. "That is how Lilin help one another, isn't it? Something which is less trouble for you than it saves another."

"Lilin?"

"It means human," Nagisa said. He turned at last and gave Shinji a high-wattage smile. "Really, that's what separates us from the Angels. If two of them arrived at once and cooperated, we'd have no chance. It's by helping one another that we – that you – have beaten them so far."

"I, um, thank you, Nagisa."

"Call me Kaworu, Ikari Shinji."

Shinji smiled back. "Then no more Ikari from you. If you don't mind me asking – why do you want to pilot Eva? Asuka and Mogami like it, I think, but I don't really. I'm not really sure about Ayanami."

Kaworu turned back to the window and ruminated on this. "I suppose that one could say that we define ourselves in terms of other people," he said at length. "From that perspective, I choose to pilot for the same reason the rest of you do. Except Schätzchen," he added, smiling as though at a private joke. "Chitose. She's too selfish for that."

"Asuka told me she piloted for herself."

"She probably tells herself that, too. Do you care for her?"

Shinji chose to misinterpret the question. "Of course. Pilots have to stick together."

"We do," Kaworu agreed, smiling at Shinji again, choosing not to press the issue. He opened his mouth to continue, but at that moment his phone chirped. He glanced down at it; his brow furrowed. "I'm terribly sorry, but this is very important. Excuse me."

"It's okay," Shinji said, even though he did find it rather annoying, as Kaworu opened his phone and read a text. [Kaworu? I may owe you an apology. On a scale from zero to ten, how attached were you to Mrs Bauer?] His name was written without an honorific.

"I see," he said, and put the phone away.

"What was it? If you don't mind."

"Not at all. My handler has died."

"Oh. I'm sorry. What happened?"

"Don't be. She was old, and it was quick. Schätzchen was with her in her final moments."

"I thought she was living with Rei?"

"I think my handler was visiting. They knew each other from when we were young."

"You and Mogami must be pretty close?" Shinji prompted.

"Yes. We haven't seen each other for years, although we do talk by IM; I'm sure our reunion will be something special. We met in Berlin. We have a lot in common. She was the only person who could empathise with the pressure my destiny exerted on me, and conversely. May I suppose that you care for the Second Child for similar reasons?"

Shinji remembered when the fifth Angel had first blasted him, and Rei had talked to him. If she hadn't, if he'd had Dr Akagi or Misato giving him a pep talk, he probably wouldn't have piloted. And then they'd all be dead. Rei was kinder than people gave her credit for, but Asuka had a vitality and presence that she didn't. "Yeah, I guess so."

The tram pulled to a stop, and they got off.

"Where are you going now, Kaworu?" Shinji asked.

"I'd like to see more of the city. The people fascinate me. Will you come with me?"

"I promised Asuka I'd find her after school. She wants to play a duet with me; you know how there's the music room in the west wing?"

Kaworu perked up at this. "There is? I'd wondered about that. Would you mind if I came too? It's been too long since I last played."

"What do you play?"

"Piano and violin. I tried oboe once, but it wasn't for me."

"Do you have a violin? Asuka wants the piano. And, um, no offence, but she said a duet. I mean, I wouldn't mind, but she can be sort of … possessive?"

"If it's a problem, I'll sit out today and come back later," Kaworu said.

"I guess that should be fine," said Shinji, who knew full well that Asuka would blow up at them both but who didn't have the heart to refuse Kaworu after he had been nice to him.

…

Misato sat down on Rei's bed, Chitose beside her. Rei sat at her desk, working on homework. All three women had glasses of tea; Rei hadn't owned any teacups.

"What did you want to ask me?" Chitose prompted.

"Do you know anything about the Dead Sea Scrolls?" Misato asked bluntly. Normally she'd ask for privacy, but Rei already probably knew more top secrets than she did.

"Yes," said Chitose.

There was a pause.

"Oh! You want me to tell you about them? Well, Seele owns them, and they have information about the Angels."

"Right," said Misato. "I was hoping for a little more detail. What do they say about the Angels' gestational periods?"

Chitose's voice slowed down, although it stayed at its usual pitch. "They said that the first would hatch on the date it did, and that the others will hatch after then, but they didn't give details."

"Then it was lucky you arrived in time to help against the last Angel, wasn't it?"

"Very."

"Please," Misato said. "I'm the Manager of Operations. I need to know when battles will take place if I'm going to plan for them." She took a risk. "And if Seele's trying to keep it secret, it'd really annoy them if you told me."

Chitose brightened, and her voice sped back up. "That's true, Major Katsuragi. Well, I personally didn't know it would attack then, and I can't predict any future dates. I arrived when I did because I wanted to follow Kaworu-chan here. We're … old friends. Seele sent him here, and they might have known about the Angel and sent him with enough time to maybe do some training, but I don't think so, I think that was a coincidence. I never got the feeling they knew the dates of attacks, and I think they would have told me if they did because they told me a few other things."

"Such as?"

"The Angels are powerful, but did you know that they're really, really stupid?" Chitose asked. "Seele thinks almost none of them is any smarter than a moth."

"That can't be right," Misato said, thinking of the computer virus Angel, which had successfully hacked two of the Magi. "You weren't there for the fifth, but it knew where Shinji would be before he even got to the surface."

"I watched the footage last night," Chitose nodded, "and it was operating on reflex. It's not like it magically knew what the catapult tower did, when it couldn't even see it because there was another building in the way, right? It could sense an AT Field approaching, and it panicked. Did you know that AT stands for Absolute Terror? The Angels aren't intelligent enough to feel many emotions, but they can feel that one, and they do whenever they sense another AT Field nearby. That's why they prioritise attacking Evas over other military hardware, even before they start neutralising the Angel's AT Field; it went for Shinji when it couldn't even see him, rather than any of the gun emplacements around the city."

"We sent in a dummy balloon after it first shot Unit-01, to see how it reacted," Misato said. It was possible Chitose was wrong or lying, after all, although probably not lying: she was terrible at that.

The virus Angel had done well with the Magi, but that could almost have been luck: it was a physical infection, so it could take over the Magi without needing to know how to break the digital security. It just happened to have ridden in on a part installed where it had easy access to the supercomputers' physical memory banks, and then tried to use the most obvious attack it could find. If it had, for example, broken out the Bakelite, which didn't require approval of all three Magi, it could have easily suffocated them all; it could have cut their power or deactivated life support or done any number of other crippling things. And at the time, the talk about evolution leading to death had struck Misato as odd; she wasn't an expert and so didn't argue with Ritsuko, but she thought that evolution generally led to fitter organisms, not mass suicide. Ritsuko probably only said that because she couldn't be bothered explaining what she was actually thinking; she did that all the time when she thought other people wouldn't understand her.

Chitose nodded. "And the Angel zapped it, because it looked like Unit-01. It wasn't smart enough to imagine the concept of a decoy, so it assumed it was the same as the other big purple thing it saw earlier, even though it couldn't feel an AT Field the second time. When Shinji tried sniping it and it shot before he could, it detected him by his Field."

"That … might be very useful, Mogami, thank you," Misato said, and her mind began whirring with potential applications. "Do you know anything else like that, which could be useful tactically?"

"I know where you can find them?" Chitose offered. "Would that help?"

"… Yes?"

"Second Impact flung the Angels' embryos across the world. Most landed in the ocean, just by luck, because two thirds of the world's surface is covered by water. One went up into space, and then its AT Field pushed it into circular orbit, and it grew into the tenth. One was shot downward, into the Earth's mantle, then migrated toward here, winding up in Mt Asama and becoming the eighth. The remaining … seven? that we haven't killed yet, they all would have done similar things. I don't think any others are in space or the mantle, so probably two or three are on land somewhere, buried I suppose, and the rest are in the ocean."

"Oh," said Misato, disappointed. "I was hoping you could give coordinates so we could raid them before they matured, like with the eighth."

"I don't know GPS coordinates, but I'm positive that at least one of them didn't go very far," Chitose said. "It probably wasn't one of the ones that came already, and if not, there's an Angel foetus in Antarctica."

…

With no Kensuke or Shinji to wait for, Toji was first out the door. Hikari rolled her eyes and made for Asuka with dignity.

Outside, Toji's phone chimed. It was a text from Murakami Yuki.

[Hey, Toji. Mum wants me to help clean up the garden. Angel damage. It's just some rubble, nbd. You want to help? I'll shout you takeaway and a movie after?]

He hesitated. Kensuke did ask her out first. But she obviously hadn't been interested in him. For whatever reason it had been him, Toji, who had caught her eye. So it wasn't as though he'd be depriving Kensuke of anything. And she was asking him for a job, not a date. He could firmly but politely tell her no if she got any ideas. He would never betray his best friend, after all.

Asuka and Hikari brushed past him. "Sorry, Hikari, but the Idiot wants me to wait for him here," Asuka said. "I swear, he follows me around like a lost puppy."

"I see," Hikari said, neither arguing nor believing. "Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Bye." And Asuka continued on to the music room. As she approached, she could hear a piano thundering away the first movement from Beethoven's ninth. Shinji was waiting outside for her. "Hey, Idiot, you were supposed to keep everyone else out."

"It's not –"

She pushed past him and opened the door to throw the pianist out. Her face fell when she saw who it was. "Smarmy, what the hell are you doing here? Shinji and I are playing."

The room was a small auditorium. At the back was a slightly raised stage, large enough for about ten musicians, faced by twenty seats; on it was Kaworu's baby grand piano. There were a few lockers at one end where the school kept a few old instruments; Kaworu had picked a lock and retrieved a violin, which he had sat against the piano.

He finished the bar and turned on his stool to face her. "My apologies, Pilot Soryu. You weren't here yet."

"Well I'm here now." She paused. "Beethoven's ninth?" she added gleefully. "You're still playing that? What are you, eight? That's like the easiest piece there is."

"It's a fine piece," he said, unoffended, not mentioning that he'd played the first movement of Beethoven's fifth a few minutes earlier.

"Let me show you some real music," she said. She strode forward, elbowed him off the stool, and did some warm-up scales. She made a few mistakes, but quickly fixed them. "Watch this." Then she played the first twenty-six bars of Bach's prelude and fugue in C minor, the hardest, fastest, most impressive piece she knew. "What do you think?"

"Very nice," Kaworu said, applauding lightly.

"That was … good," Shinji said. "I don't think I can keep up with that."

"Well, of course not," she said. "They say that when you first try a piece for two people, it should only be half as hard as you can do by yourself. Do they have any sheet music here?" Her gaze immediately alighted on the score open on the piano's stand, which happened to be Pachelbel's Canon. "Perfect."

Kaworu smirked without either other Child noticing, and picked up his violin.

"Do we have to?" Shinji groaned, seeing it. "That's just semibreves for cello."

"Didn't I just say a warm-up piece should be easy?"

"That arrangement is for two violins, a viola and a cello," Kaworu noted.

"I'll take first violin and the viola. Is there a second copy –? You two can share that one then."

Shinji sighed and set it up on a music stand. She despaired of ever managing to get him to stand up for himself. Kaworu moved behind him and readied his violin.

…

"You'd better not screw this up," Asuka said.

Shinji blinked. That was the first time he'd ever heard her say that to someone other than himself.

The three combat Evas stood in a loose line on the beach, with Asuka in the middle with her trusty glaive, and the two boys flanking her with pallet rifles. They could see the water swirling and eddying as the next Angel approached.

"We won't beat the Angel if I do nothing," Kaworu said. His orange-and-white plugsuit reminded Shinji of how Unit-00 had looked, until they removed what was left of its armour once the fifth Angel was finished with it, and replaced it with blue plates to fit the rainbow colouring scheme.

"Why not? We've beaten all the others without you," Asuka pointed out.

"You had help with most of them."

"Could you two possibly give it a rest for two goddamn seconds?" Misato asked, massaging her temples. "Asuka, if you can't work together with the other pilots, I'm sure Chitose would."

Asuka scowled. "Just make sure you don't shoot me," she said. "That goes for you too, Third."

"Why do you call him that, Asuka?" Chitose asked, from a transport VTOL one kilometre from the front; it should theoretically be possible for her to tag in for Kaworu if he was incapacitated, although realistically this seemed unlikely.

"Because, Fifth, it's his rank, and in combat situations, that's how pros address each other."

"Major Katsuragi doesn't," Chitose pointed out. "In fact, I don't think anyone here does, other than for superior officers. Is it a thing in normal armies? What if there are several people with the same rank? Most armies have lots of people with the lower ranks, I think."

Asuka rolled her eyes, and the Angel broke the surface of the ocean. They gasped.

"Well," said Misato grimly. "I thought that was too easy. It can resurrect itself."

It was the twelfth Angel, mostly. There was the same misshapen appearance, like a bag of rancid yoghurt that would fall apart by itself under a stiff breeze, but now there were thick brown bands around its yellow torso and foreleg, where Asuka had chopped it apart last time; they glittered with iridescence.

"I thought you said it was dead," Asuka said.

"It was," Ritsuko said, frowning. "We tested a sample, it was nothing but LCL. Regenerating from that without some sort of blueprint is impossible."

"I don't think that word means what you think it means," Chitose said. "I mean, if it happened, obviously it's possible. What does happen is a subset of what could possibly happen, right?"

Misato ignored this. "Ritz, any idea on how to kill it permanently?"

"Capture the LCL it bleeds out when it dies," Ritsuko said. "I don't know how it regenerated, but it can't do it without the raw materials."

Misato scanned the map. "There's a depression four kilometres north of your position. Lure it there and then destroy it. Ritz, get a team prepped to hose up the LCL; the crater probably isn't watertight."

"That's going to be hard on battery power," said Asuka. "And –"

The Angel made a surprisingly fast lunge toward her; she stepped backward and swung her glaive around to drive it off. The blade bounced off the brown band around its foreleg, throwing sparks; she pivoted to dodge its other paw, and it backhanded her, forcing her to stagger back. Kaworu levelled his gun and opened fire, point-blank; the first few rounds bounced off its AT Field, before the rest penetrated and tore through its hide and ripped it apart. LCL sprayed out of the wounds; in moments, it was just an empty, disintegrating skin. Asuka was not pleased.

"You idiot! What part of 'lure it to the depression' did you have trouble with? Now it's just going to regenerate again!"

"It was attacking you."

"Well imagine that, an Angel attacking an Eva. Obviously that was how I was going to keep it from ignoring me and just heading toward the city."

"You wouldn't have succeeded," Kaworu said. "Four kilometres, without you hurting it or it killing you?"

"Firstly, yes I would have, because I'm the top pilot around here."

"That doesn't make you invincible."

"Secondly, shut up. Thirdly, if by some miracle it did somehow get the upper hand over me, that is when you're supposed to step in, not before, not while my plan is obviously completely intact."

"Um," said Shinji.

"Remember point two, Third?"

"It did have the upper hand. It hit you."

"You might consider a love tap like that a hit, but I most certainly do not."

"Children," Misato said wearily. "Report back for recovery and debriefing. We'll get it next time. Hyuga, finish up here, then send me the paperwork."

She trudged into her office, slumped back into her chair with a groan, and then groaned again, seeing Kaji behind her door, pointing a gun at her.

"Your situational awareness is terrible," he said, putting it away.

"What do you want?"

"To help, of course."

"Of course."

"Asuka and Shinji beat the seventh by synchronising to each other and the song. If a trick works once, why not try it twice?"

"Because I don't have a fourth room, and also Asuka will go on a murdering spree if I make her room with both Shinji and Kaworu."

"Homo sapiens, 200,000 BC – 2015 AD: killed by a lack of apartment space."

"Them's the breaks, huh? But even if I did have the salary to afford a decent place, you know I'd just spend it on booze. You know, you probably have space, with your bottomless Seele expense card."

"I prefer not to sleep in the same building as Asuka," he said, shivering.

"Can't keep your hands off her?"

"I can't keep her hands off me. I wish you'd hurry up and hitch her and Shinji."

"I haven't a clue what you're talking about."

"Right. Anyway, I wasn't thinking the dance routine. You don't want specific muscle memories, you want them to learn how the others move. Have them play music together."

"Dancing the seventh to death was one thing, but this …"

"I'm serious," said Kaji. "They'll get familiarity with each other's natural rhythms. They already did it the other day. Give it a try; I'll bet you a drink we get results by the next battle."

Misato picked up a pen and twirled it around her fingers. "You're on."