"Are we supposed to be getting a weird radar return from Sector Seven?" asked the Paitience's sensor officer, the only member of the crew to not come from either Britain or the African Union. Lieutenant Haenze hadn't had much chance to get familiar with the equipment; it was nothing like the Warsaw Pact-era stuff he'd trained on.

The Captain of the spaceship took nearly no time to react. "Open all missile hatches! Manoeuvring thrusters, spin us to face the contact! Iosef, get distance and heading, feed it to fire control. June, spin up the main cannon!"

The crew looked at her with disbelief.

"There are no other ships in the area! That thing's not one of ours!" she shouted, pushed into her seat by the sudden G-forces, hoping that it wasn't-

"Radar readings are... that's..." Haenze couldn't get the words out. This was supposed to be a warm-up run. "AT Field signature confirmed. It's an Angel."

-that.

"So call now, and we'll even throw in your second box-set FREE!"

"This is Hotel California News, bringing you all the things you never knew you needed to know. Our top story tonight: The UNS Patience has gone missing! The spacecraft, the first in a new line of "Star Frigates", was nearing the end of its month-long shakedown cruise when it disappeared from long-range radar scanning. UN officials refused to comment. We go live to the Iowan astronomer who reported the disappearance, Joshua McLeary. Josh, what could have caused something so valuable to just disappear? And why haven't the UN released a statement?"

The voices from the radio slowly probed their way into Michael's consciousness. He felt weak, and couldn't even open his eyes. As per usual, every single part of him seemed to hurt at the same time.

"-could be anything, Roxy. An accident, aliens, even an Angel. Or, they could be fighting a war up there between themselves. The ship vanished as it was making a pass around the dark side of the moon; astronomers like me have to rely on the UN's relay sats, so if they're hiding something..."

"You mentioned aliens? You mean we might be being attacked by two different alien races at once?"

Hotel California Radio? Really? There's people outside of America who listen to this shit? Michael briefly tried to make contingency plans for if they were being attacked by another alien race – it wasn't like he had anything better to do – but couldn't think much beyond I really hope they're allergic to water.

"It's highly unlikely, but it could be the case. It's most likely to be an accident – the UN technocrats spent a lot of money on the Patience, so they're going to stay quiet about losing it until they find someone to blame. Second-most-likely case, it's an Angel. In which case, just let the kids in Tokyo-three take care of it."

That nearly brought a laugh to Michael's lips. Maybe if we don't get sabotaged again. Hell, it was probably some Americans who I... His train of thought skidded to a halt. What... exactly happened earlier?

blood

flesh

pain

vengeance

Oh, right.

That.

"This is a mess," Misato sighed as yet another pile of paperwork was thumped onto her desk. "Of all the brainless schemes they could have come up with, they had to choose the one that burned out half the wiring?"

"You're not the one who has to find time to replace the reactor control consoles," said Ritsuko, cigarette in hand. "Between those bazookas and all the blood, it's a miracle we managed to get them restarted at all."

"Oh, that reminds me, I got stuck in an elevator with Kaji of all people." Misato leant back and stuck one hand in her pocket. "He kept going on about conspiracy theory shit. I'd really thought he'd changed since college, y'know?" Her hand closed around something – probably one of the many cards NERV saw fit to burden its employees with. She took it out, and it brought something else with it.

"What's that?" Ritsuko appeared at her shoulder. Misato looked at the objects in her hand. Photographs?

"Is that Rei as a kid?" she wondered. "That dress in this one is really, really cute. I wonder where it went?"

"I don't think the other one's Rei," commented Ritsuko. "I doubt Rei ever wore a jumpsuit with the British flag on the front." Besides, we only took three photos of her back then, she mentally added.

Misato stared in shock. "They really are identical, aren't they? They even have the same look on their faces." It was a sort of dead look, as though neither really knew how to exist.

"It's not unheard of for identical twins to be of different genders. It's rare, but possible." Ristuko carefully steered Misato towards the cover story.

"It's just... really confusing. How did they end up on opposite sides of the planet? And what happened to their parents?" There was no answer. Misato looked around, but Ritsuko had gone. Creepy, she thought, and looked at the photos again.

Wait a minute. That's... kind of impossible.

The photograph of Michael was of a dead-eyed child, standing in front of the Tower Bridge in London, a classic tourist shot.

The bridge stood proudly, far above the water below.

Initiate neural link.

Awareness slowly slid into Michael's mind as he pushed through the remote connection to Unit 07. Inside his mind, screens lit up.

Query status of Taranis drone.

The answer was immediate – part of the maintenance they'd been doing was setting the drone up to talk to the network.

Drone ready for launch. Activate Taranis drone, remote synchronisation protocol. Send following message to address/NERV/MAGI: "Please open tunnels 3-A through 12-A - Michael."

One of the things he'd figured out was that his arm socket was currently sporting a hard-line connection to NERV's internal network, which was in turn connected to Unit 07's. The other things he'd figured out was that there was something seriously wrong with him, that he couldn't open his eyes or move, and after several hours of being awake and forced to listen to Hotel California Radio he was ready to do just about anything to distract himself.

Reply received: "Reason?"

Sent message: "Aerial reconnaissance patrol. Flight plan attached."

He'd tried rifling through the network, but aside from a few public-access pages and files (some of which were probably supposed to be hidden, judging by their rather irreverent content) he couldn't do anything. There hadn't been an unprotected external connection, and Michael didn't feel like asking for a wifi password, so the internet seemed to be out of the question.

Reply received: "Opening now."

Confirmation. Tunnels are open. Activate drone cameras.

Those cameras had taken a lot of effort to get working, back when they were modifying the drone to fly from Unit 07. The problem lay in his end; getting the neural link that fed into his arm to carry optical data had not been easy. After that, it had taken a long time for him to get used to it – he hadn't even been able to take off until he'd figured out that perhaps keeping his eyes closed was a good idea.

Light flooded his vision, and the drone slowly slid out of its hangar.

Engines set to VTOL configuration. Engage liftoff sequence.

"As you can see, since we allowed him to regain consciousness there's been a low-level synchronisation link to Unit Seven, as well as something else we haven't yet identified." Ristuko stood before the Commander's desk, vaguely wishing that he'd cave in and get another chair in the room. "Separate from this, he's also used the network connection we gave him through his arm to access everything he could on the local net, and then connected to Unit Seven's own computers."

The Commander stared at her, impassively. As per usual, his hands were folded in front of his face. "It will not be a problem," he said. "Continue." And now I'm glad we're going to dinner later, thought Ritsuko.

"We allowed him to launch that little toy of his, mostly so that he doesn't figure out what we're doing." She'd been rather proud of that decision. "I also want to see just how much control he has over the drone. Anyway, we were able to do a much more comprehensive examination while he was unconscious."

"Make it short."

"The damage to the irreplaceable parts of his body has increased, but it seems the berserker state also allowed him to heal the replaceable bits. In addition, I was able to do full MRI and CAT scans, as well as the brainwave monitoring you can see on the screen." The tablet on the desk shifted to show the patient's brainwaves. "As we suspected, there's been major neurological damage. Entire sections of his brain are inactive, it's a miracle the kid's even alive." It was worse than that, but she wasn't going to admit not knowing something, especially not to the Commander. "Genetics-wise, he checks out as we suspected. He should be perfect."

"Very well." Even the Commander's dismissal sent shivers down the scientist's spine.

Ritsuko left promptly.

Asuka Langley Sorhyu was bored. That wasn't new; she'd been bored a lot in her life.

She sat at her school desk, listening to the teacher repeat something she knew for the fiftieth time.

"-and Second Impact marked the end of the so-called "Post-Cold War" era, and pushed humanity straight into the Impact Wars," the man droned. "I'll be covering those next week. For now, I'll talk about the "Post-Cold War" era."

He'd done this lecture last week, and the week before. Asuka was reliably informed that the teacher had been repeating the same introductory lecture every week for the past three years. Cutting-edge school my ass. She sighed, and let her head fall onto the desk. Not that my old teachers were much different.

"-in 1991. This set the scene for increased American interventionism throughout the globe." The teacher paused. That's odd.

"Yes?" he asked, pointing at a raised hand.

It was Tatyana. That Russian kill-stealing bitch.

"What was Impact like?"

The teacher visibly rocked at the question. "That... will be covered in later-"

"You repeat the same lecture over and over again," the Russian said, her words thickly-accented. "No-one will answer this question when I ask. What was Impact like?"

Silence. The teacher stared off into space, frozen in place.

"I think you broke him," Toji joked. "Can we get-"

"You're a pilot, Russian girl?" The teacher sounded completely different, somehow clearer. Tatyana nodded.

"So, you have been in a fight. Imagine you're facing an Angel, and you're losing. It's massive, you can't get through its AT Field, and every time you try to move it's there, facing you."

That would never happen. Asuka really couldn't imagine a situation where she'd be losing so badly.

"Now imagine you're on foot, but the Angel's just as big as ever. You try to run, but your body won't move. You try to think of something else as it pushes into your mind, but every thought just gets overwritten until there's nothing left, and you start seeing into its mind and it doesn't even see you as a person, just another ant it stepped on.

Then, it screams.

You look for your friends, and half of them are just gone. Liquefied."

The old man trailed off, panting for breath.

"That is what Impact was like."

Michael had told the MAGI that he'd be doing a recon flight. He wasn't exactly lying; his drone's cameras and other instruments were sending data back to the command centre, and he was flying along a patrol route.

That he was also having the best time of his life was something no-one needed to know.

The Taranis drone he was currently possessing was a heavily-modified prototype of the Royal Air Force's long-range drone, given to him after he'd crashed the last one. He'd had the airframe modified for VTOL flight, with special thrust-vectoring nozzles placed along the fuselage. It had cut down on the drone's speed and range, as well as replacing the last model's orbital manoeuvring thrusters, but none of that was particularly important to him. The internal weapon bays had been re-purposed for the equipment needed for him to control it remotely with his mind, but space had been kept free for a small weapon and there was always the possibility of external hardpoints.

Actual combat effectiveness hadn't been the primary aim of the project. He'd justified it as a "technology demonstrator", to show off the possibilities of neural linkage.

If he was being honest with himself, however, he'd admit that he just wanted to fly.

The endless tests and redesigns had been worth it. He pulled the drone up into a climb, feeling the ailerons strain against the wind. He span, pirouetting like a dancer, and opened up the front-most nozzles for a second just as he began to stall. He flipped, end over end, cut the engine and let himself free-fall. His airframe began to complain, and he let it. The collision detector told him there were four more seconds until he hit the ground.

Three more seconds.

Keenly aware of the limits of his connection, he opened all the VTOL jets and pushed the massively powerful engine to its limit.

Two.

One.

Heart racing, he kept the aircraft just a few centimetres from the ground. He eased the engine off, and lowered the landing gear.

He sat, perched on a mountain like a bird.

Rose woke.

It was not a fast process, like she was used to. Instead, she slowly became aware of her surroundings; it seemed she was in a hospital room. She gathered enough energy to open her eyes.

One of them didn't open.

Odd, she idly thought. I got shot in the stomach, so I can't have hurt my eye. What happened after that, anyway?

She closed her eye again, and tried to think. The memory came, all at once.

A deafening roar as she fell to the ground, and the enemy scattered. She passed out. Explosions. Debris hitting her in the face, the pain waking her up. Another roar, then the sound of gunfire. Michael, covered in blood, pulling a man's leg off like part of a toy. Michael, armour pitted and dented, ignoring bullet after bullet as he slowly strode towards the last soldier.

Michael, laughing, standing atop a pile of corpses and gore.

Michael, a grin on his face, crushing the man's throat.

Oh, shit.

Rose forced her body to move.

Shinji clutched the control paddles of Unit 01 as he turned into the third leg of his patrol route. It was rather boring; aside from Unit 07's drone buzzing him as it flew past, nothing had happened. Instead, he'd decided to use the time to think, and to download every last scrap of data the MAGI would let him access.

Especially the readings from Unit 07 itself.

So, he thought as Unit 01 walked, what do I know and how do I know it. AT Fields are partially EM radiation, partially sonic waves and partially something else that no-one seems to bother explaining.

That assumes anyone else knows what that "something else" even is.

Measurements with my equipment were enough to determine that. AT Fields can cancel each other out, or rather neutralise each other in some areas. I have no idea how they do that, just that they do. In order to project an AT Field, you need a core and a large amount of energy – that's how both the Evas and the Angels do it. I don't know what the core is, other than that it's not made of a material that makes much sense.

He sighed, taking a lungful of LCL.

There are references to something called an "S2 Organ" in the files. I have no idea what that is, either, aside from that it seems to be an energy generator. The Angels also seem to have some way of turning energy into matter efficiently, or they just have enough energy to waste it. The Evas also seem to have some sort of internal reserve – probably chemical energy locked into their biological cells, rather than some external source, but enough to get it to move.

That train of thought was going no-where. He'd been over this before.

So let's focus on the pilots. Fourteen year-olds. All seem to have lost a parent, or both.

Getting the new pilots to talk about that had been surprisingly easy.

Normally, they're also the only children in their families. Rei and Michael are the exception, and they're apparently twins. Might be useful to use this knowledge to find reserve pilots.

Need to get Akagi to do tests regarding cross-synchronisation. Hmm. Michael was able to sync from outside his Eva. Seems to be instantaneous, although I'm sure it wasn't. Need to do research on that. Trigger for external sync seemed to be his co-pilot getting injured – might indicate a low-level constant synchronisation between the two and possibly Unit Seven. Need to monitor them.

Need more tests, need more data. Switch topic. LCL. What does it-

"Hey, Shinji, you alright?" Misato's voice boomed in his ear. Unit 01 staggered a little as Shinji jumped in shock, and he sputtered.

"Wha... what?" he managed to stammer out. Damn it. I'm quite easily one of the the leading experts about the AT Field on the planet, and I can barely keep a coherent conversation.

"You jumped about ten points with your sync ratio! What's going on?" Misato looked concerned over the video screen. We haven't been home together much for a while. Why's she so concerned?

"I was just thinking some stuff over," he replied.

"Oh? Like Rei?" That response triggered the usual panic. Hell, I told that soldier she was my girlfriend pretty easily. How come this happens when Misato of all people brings it up?

"Sort of," he said, forcing the panic down. "Running over some ideas." I should take this opportunity to-

"Like... date ideas?" Misato didn't seem to be letting go.

"Ikari. It is up to you to plan the next date." That was Rei, piloting Unit 00 some kilometres away. Like I know how to plan a date. Shinji sighed again, but smiled. I suppose she didn't either.

"I'll get right on that. But that wasn't my idea." He forced the sentences out, making sure he planted the seeds. "We should do some cross-synchronisation tests, see if we can pilot each other's units. That way, we don't get caught out if an Angel attacks and one of our pilots is down and we've got a spare."

"That's... actually a pretty good idea. I'll suggest it to Rits next time I see her." That was Misato on board, at least.

Now I just need to figure out what synchronisation even is, then I can see if I can get all of us remote-piloting. I'll also need to find a way around the Angels' radio interference. Might be worth looking at how Michael controls that drone.

With that, he slipped back into thought.

Plodding along at a steady pace, Rei swept Unit 00's rifle across her field of vision. She'd seen the soldiers on Okinawa Beach do something similar, constantly moving their guns to cover every angle, and the idea had stuck. She listened with her usual focus to the conversations being played out over the radio, but didn't join in. Her replacement on the patrol schedule was moving to meet her, the Russian boy by the sound of it.

"You see, in Russia, it is the Army units who patrol. Not Evangelion." Ivan seemed to be complaining, like the other pilots liked doing whenever the patrols came up. Rei didn't mind as much; it was time to think and observe.

"Uh-huh," Misato said, "And what happened last time we let you pilots slack off?"

"We Russians do not slack off. This is Capitalist disease."

"And you're not a Communist. Seriously, it's been twenty-five years."

The debate continued, and Rei stopped paying much attention. She guided Unit 00 back to its hangar, and opened a channel to Unit 01.

"I will be cooking tonight," she said. "If Captain Ayanami is recovered by this evening, I would like to invite him and the Commander, too." It was short notice, but that was why she was bringing it up now. Shinji wouldn't accept otherwise.

"Uh... o-okay..." came the reply, just as she'd expected. "I don't think my Father's going to accept, though."

"He will not refuse." Rei was confident of that much, at least. The Commander was planning a trip soon, and prior experience showed that he would at least offer to dine with her. Thus, it was time to put the next phase of her plan into action.

The door creaked.

Michael sent a mental command to his drone, telling its autopilot to bring it back to Unit 07. One of the positive side-effects of the equipment needed for him to control it was that it had a very comprehensive AI, bordering on true sentience.

The door to his hospital room finished opening, and someone stepped through. A woman, judging by the sound of the footsteps. Heels, rather than boots. Their clothes rustled – cloth, not paper, so not Rose. A lab coat?

The woman moved with confidence – not Maya, she would be too weirded out to approach so easily. Katsuragi preferred combat boots, and the nurses wore slippers. Come to think of it, the female NERV uniform didn't call for heels anyway. All the female Navy officers who'd been transferred over would be too busy to visit, and again, their uniform called for boots.

That left Akagi.

He would have greeted the woman, but whatever had him paralysed also meant he couldn't speak. Dr. Akagi walked over to his bed, and paused. Slowly, his muscles started working.

Tensing, ready for combat, he opened his eyes. He was right.

"Good morning, Michael. How did you sleep?" The Doctor seemed... off, somehow. Strange.

"It's mid-afternoon. You're too alert for it to be morning, and you don't smell of smoke as much as you normally do. Either you've pulled an all-nighter, or you haven't had a break in a while. My body clock says it's been fourteen hours and eighteen minutes since... well, since I let the other guy out." That little tirade would serve two purposes – it should set the tone of the conversation, making it clear he was aware she knew what he'd done, and it also told Akagi that he wasn't suffering from a concussion.

"The "other guy"? Has this happened before?" Akagi was direct. Michael liked that.

"Not outside of the Eva, as far as I know. Used to happen all the time when I was piloting, before Rose became my co-pilot. The slightest injury was enough to send me berserker; I told them it was something that wasn't part of me, that I wasn't responsible." Honesty of a sort would work best here, to distract Akagi. "I'm not sure how much of that was true."

"I'm looking into that." Damn, she even sounded like she was trying to help.

He could hear footsteps outside. One pair, bare feet. They were favouring one leg, and walking with a cane.

Rose.

Things were about to get messy.

Gendo stared at Rei.

Rei stared at Gendo.

"This proposal is serious," Gendo said, breaking the silence. Even he couldn't compete against the girl in this situation.

"Yes."

Damn the girl. "Very well. This evening."

Rei turned, and walked to the door. She turned. "There is an Angel coming."

"I am aware." That was another annoying thing; the Angels were attacking far faster than they should be. It had barely been a day since the last one. "Its appearance now is not an issue."

That was actually a lie; the scrolls made clear that the Angels would not attack in such a quick succession, not that anyone else needed to know that. For now, it would suffice to keep them in the dark, which also meant making sure none of them knew about the Angel's approach.

"It..." Rei broke off. "It is not going to be easy."

"I am aware. Try to survive."

Rose stepped into the hospital room, pistol already aimed at him. Centre mass, she thought, just like he taught me. Good thing I can still use my right eye.

The boy looked at her. He was calm, collected, hands folded across his chest. Doctor Akagi jumped back from the bed, her hands already raised. I'll have to explain this after. Her finger tightened on the trigger-

"You're not going to shoot me."

Fuck.

She relaxed her grip.

"You're the one who asked me to," she countered uselessly. "Do you want me to quote what you said?"

"Go right ahead. I'll tell you why it doesn't apply." He wasn't even concerned. It's like this doesn't even bother him. Like he doesn't even care that his closest friend was about to shoot him.

Bastard.

"You said, and I quote exactly, "If I'm ever like that again, shoot me." Right after Jerusalem, in the hospital. I know you remember."

"And yet, I'm not like that. It was temporary. Isn't that right, Doctor?" Michael didn't look at Akagi as he spoke. Does he even realise what he does?

"In a strict sense, yes," Akagi said, as though this wasn't a foregone conclusion. "Although I'm not going to rule out the possibility of it happening again."

"It happened because one of us got injured. It won't happen again." He paused, and cocked his head. "Does anyone else hear that?"

There was nothing to hear. She let her finger tighten again-

"What?" Damn it Akagi. Don't let him talk his way out of this. But, of course, the good Doctor just had to have opened her mouth.

"The music. It's faint, but... beautiful." He looked up. "It's coming from up there. Damn, I almost know this song..."

The door behind Rose opened, and she span to face the newcomer. Finger off the trigger. Maintain discipline.

It was Rei.

Great. Another one.

Michael perked up as her saw her. "You hear it too, right?"

"I have orders, Captain." She held out a piece of paper to Rose, ignoring the gun. She took the paper, and holstered the pistol.

"Take the magazine out and put the safety on," Michael said, off-handedly. He got up off the bed, and took the paper. "Really, sis? Dinner with the boyfriend's family, and you're bringing me along?"

Rose sighed, and safed the gun. There was nothing else for her to do here, so she stepped out the door. Weirdly enough, Akagi followed her.

"You said this happened before?" the Doctor asked. "He told me it only happened before you were his co-pilot."

Of course he would. "Did he tell you what happened after that little escapade in Jerusalem?"

"He told Maya, who told me. He cut his own arm off to stop an Angel infection. I don't see how that's relevant." Rose grimaced as Akagi spoke. This is going to be difficult, then.

"His arm turned into a blue mass of flesh, and he was screaming in pain. Not the roar of anger you heard, a real scream. Then, he took out his combat knife – I didn't even know he had one – and started cutting it off." How do I phrase this so it sticks with her? "He got to the bone – and remember, I'm still feeling all of this myself - and stopped screaming. Do you know what he did instead?"

Akagi shook her head.

"He laughed." She took a careful breath. "I wake up in the middle of nearly every single night, and it's always the same fucking dream that wakes me up these days. St. Louis, and Jerusalem. It's not fair on him; he's normally just a dedicated child soldier, but when he gets like that..."

"You're scared of him," Akagi stated.

"Wouldn't you be?"

"I will, of course, have to do a few things before arriving. I may be late." Michael mentally scanned his sister. She looked tired, but held herself like she didn't even notice. She was scanning and re-scanning the room, constantly – he made a mental note to keep everything neutral.

Michael could still hear that amazingly beautiful music. He'd never really seen the point of it before; much like everything civilian it seemed... useless. Now, he was beginning to understand.

"Yes," Rei said. Michael wondered what that meant; the phrase was generic enough that he was genuinely confused.

He refrained from sighing. "Please also be aware that it'll be heavy on business talk. It might not be the romantic dinner you're thinking of."

"Pilot Ikari is in charge of our next romantic outing. This is my own personal project." That seemed to be all the explanation the girl was going to offer. She turned, and left, leaving Michael alone.

Not that he minded, right now.

He needed to plan, but knew he couldn't. There was the risk of the other twisting it to its own ends.

There were footsteps outside. Rei was leaving, as was Rose. One set, however, made its way into his room.

"I forgot to mention. You're free to go whenever," the Doctor said, hand in pocket. "You still have those pills I had delivered?"

Michael nodded.

"Keep taking them. There's some more neural damage from whatever happened yesterday, but it seems it might not be too much of a problem."

That was... cryptic.

Michael thought on it for a moment, trying to figure out what it meant.

Giving up, he opened his mouth to ask Akagi, but she was already gone.

Shrugging off her gunbelt, Misato collapsed onto her apartment's sofa with her customary celebratory cry. It's so rare to have the apartment to myself these days, she thought. "Pen-Pen! Get your ass over here!"

Her original room-mate slowly waddled up to her, two cans of beer in his flippers. "That's a good penguin," she said, taking the offered beer and cracking it open. "Tell you what, you and me are going to make such a mess! We're putting this place back to how it should be!"

Despite her efforts, she found her mind drifting back to the photograph. He doesn't look like he's nineteen. Hell, he still looks a lot like Rei. She forced herself to take another can of beer from the fridge. And I'm beginning to see just how weird that resemblance is; she's not exactly androgynous. Ah, fuck it all.

She grabbed another beer.

International Storage and Import Services was the sort of company that thrived in the post-Impact world. There were two key reasons for this. The first was simple; people found themselves displaced across entire continents, and needed to find their possessions. They also needed to pass on messages, or store things in case there was a Third Impact. So, demand was rather high for a something along ISIS's lines.

The second reason was that their employees were all heavily-armed, highly-trained and able to keep a secret. At least, that was the image the company maintained.

"So, I'm going to need one of you to go into locker 31-C and clean it out. Turns out some asshole put like fifty tonnes of cheese in there; it's when Pam brought that yoghurt in for lunch. Seriously though, if that thing isn't cleaned out by this afternoon I will literally rip someone in half." The man sitting behind the desk slammed the phone down and looked up at Michael.

"So... are you a guy or a girl? Because if you're a girl over the age of eighteen-"

"I'm male," Michael replied. I'm sure I recognise this guy from somewhere.

"Seriously? Because I can overlook the flat chest if you're a girl."

"I'm a guy, and I'm fourteen. Do you not keep up with the news or something?"

"I'll be honest, everything past 1969 is kind of a blur. I don't even know how I got here," the clerk said. Michael was about sixty percent sure that he was joking.

"Okay, regardless, I kind of need access to a storage lot."

The clerk wasn't paying any attention, however. "Yeah, that's actually kind of worrying. I told them all those loud noises next to my eardrums would cause permanent brain damage, but they all just thought I was whining. Bastards."

Michael waited patiently as the man went into a spiel about every single one of his co-workers.

"-and don't get me started on Mother. God, she's such a bitch. Anyway, what can I do you for?"

At this rate, murder. Michael forced the irritation down, forcefully. "57-65-82," he said. "There should be a lot associated with that sequence. I want it."

The employee tapped at his keyboard, and nodded.

"Alright, head up through the doors. Someone'll take you to whatever fucked-up collection of sex toys you've managed to hide away here."

Michael didn't even bother saying "thanks" as he left.

"Things are moving faster than they should be." The voice from behind Keel Lorenz's shoulder whispered into his ear.

It is no matter, he thought. The room shook even at that. Those who are the key are loyal to the King, and the King will not succeed in rebelling against the Emperor.

"But what of the Soldier?"

The Soldier is irrelevant. The Soldier will do as he is bid, as all soldiers do.

Tiles fell from the ceiling, breaking the circle of power keeping the rest of the cottage safe. Keel Lorenz pushed them back with a thought.

"You should let me go. I can ensure that our plans will succeed."

I know what you want. A flash of anger. That was good, Keel Lorenz thought he'd burned all his emotions out decades ago.

"I will not allow anyone to manipulate me," he thundered, shattering the walls of the room. Another thought fixed them, too. "That includes you."

The boy behind him cowered as Keel Lorenz's power washed over him.

"Well... hello, future Michael, I guess." Admiral Jones stepped away from the camera, and sat at a desk. A man in a labcoat walked over to stand next to him.

"If you're listening to this, I'm probably dead. On top of that, it means that things have really not gone well on my end, and it's up to you to fix everything."

"Like there was any doubt," Michael commented dryly.

"So, here's how this is going to work. There's a reason you can't remember anything before we put you in the Evangelion, aside from the obvious one."

The scientist on the screen spoke up. "We've spent the past five years or so implanting certain bits and pieces of knowledge in your head. You don't want to know how. The upshot of it is, you have knowledge that SEELE won't be able to detect. If we didn't do it this way, they'd know everything the moment you synchronised with Unit 07. As it is, we're going to drip-feed you. You'll remember certain creatures during the process. Stop the tape when you remember the last one you encountered, and only do one creature per day."

"The process of remembering is going to be painful and rather complicated, so make sure you're somewhere safe before starting," the scientist continued. "Michael, it's time!"

On the screen, a smiling child with blue hair and red eyes ran up and scrambled onto the desk.. "Hey hey, future-me! Okay, so I'm going to say a bunch of weird words, and you need to repeat them after me."

In the present, Michael just stared at the video screen. The boy couldn't have been him; just trying to walk quickly had been too painful to do for fun for a very long time.

"Here goes. Hope you're ready! First name: Sachiel."

"Sachiel," Michael repeated, feeling fooli-

The Third – no, Fourth? Angel, the bipedal invader, energy lances extended.

SEELE, the organisation dedicated to bringing about a controlled Third Impact under the guise of "Human Instrumentality". GEHIRN, the research arm of SEELE, developing the Artificial Humanoid Evangelion to further SEELE's goal. NERV, the military arm of SEELE, taking over GEHIRN after an accident involving Evangelion Unit 01.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, and the First Prophecy.

-ish.

Pain flooded through his body, and he fell to the floor.

"Second na-"

Michael pushed himself up, and shut the VHS tape off.

Rei was cooking. Shinji was present, but was letting her do the work.

Those facts alone were enough to make Misato question her sanity. On top of that, Rei had told her that the Commander of all people was coming to visit.

That at least explained Shinji being more neurotic than normal. The boy had hidden away all of the scientific equipment that was still clogging up the hallway, and was in the process of cleaning the entire apartment for the third time while muttering to himself.

"So... neither of you thought to ask me if this was okay before doing this?" Misato asked. Shinji looked up at her, and started vibrating. That, at least, was familiar.

"Er... oh... erm... I'm sorry, I thought Rei had..." he trailed off, brain caught in a loop.

"Ah, never mind. It'd have just been an order otherwise. Just... ask me before inviting the Commander over next time, okay?"

There was a knock at the door.

Showtime.

"Really? And I bet you're the type who thought the Nazis should have won the Second World War because of the Tiger and Me.262. You're completely forgetting about economics; you can't form any sort of military strategy without comparing your economic strength with your enemy's! Relying on a wonder-weapon is the act of an idiot."

"You annihilated the United States military by yourself. The US had a far superior economy, yet you beat them using technological means."

Misato sighed, and downed another beer. The argument had started after Rose had made some comment about how the Angels were the only reason why the Evangelion pilots still had a job, and the Commander of all people disagreed. Michael had stepped in, and things had gone downhill from there.

"We both know that was a one-off. It was a close call, too – all it would have taken is a single well-aimed bullet at any point from Birmingham to the St. Lawrence Gulf and the Americans would have won the war. Hell, if they'd have poured their money into actually getting their Evas operational before St. Louis instead of building Morris' monuments to his own ego, they'd have had two working Evangelions versus the ETF's one," the blue-haired boy argued as if they hadn't debated this point three times before.

"Unit 07 was technologically superior to the proposed designs for Units 03 and 04. You beat Unit 04 in combat, and Unit 03 was a threat only because of the Third Angel."

"Actually, I beat Unit 07. He just went berserker, which is kind of cheating," Rose interjected. Misato still hadn't gotten used to the gauze pad over her left eye. "Not that you have a point, Mikey; real wars are won through willpower and determination. You were determined not to die, so you didn't. The Nazis pushed the Soviets against the wall, and they fought back."

"So did the Poles in 1939! They had two enemies surrounding them who wanted nothing more than to carve up their country like a roast chicken! They should have been more determined than anyone, and yet Poland fell in a month."

"I wouldn't think it would be easy to fight off the two largest armies in the world." That was from Shinji, who had stayed out of the argument until then. "The Second World War was seventy years ago. Now, wars are fought with giant robots and space-based weapons; no country can make more than a few, no matter how rich they are, so it all comes down to the pilot's skill."

"Says the pilot with the highest Angel kill-count. Seriously, you should start painting them on the entry plug or something." Rose sat back, setting her bowl on the table. "That was good, Rei, I don't think I've eaten a proper meal in ten years."

Michael shot her a hurt look, but Rei spoke before he could. "I observed how Shinji cooked, and tried to replicate his movements," she said.

"I have heard good reports about your cooking, Shinji." Everyone in the room, including Pen-Pen, turned to look at the Commander. "It seems you get that from myself, and not Yui."

The dinner party had turned out to be an extremely useful opportunity for Gendo. With a simple argument and a few words of praise, he'd done more to further his aims than he'd accomplished in the past year.

"What was Mom like?" his son asked. Rei was sitting next to him, her right arm ready to push him to safety if anything happened. He could read her like a book. The others took only slightly more effort.

"She was the first person I met who I didn't immediately dislike, even though she was the kindest." That question had been too close to the mark, the wounds were still fresh. "I never saw her cry, not even after Second Impact. She was a brilliant scientist, and she was a terrible cook." Inwardly, he pushed back the memories of the four short years they had been a family. Those memories were painful, and he could never get that back.

"Looks like you got the best of both worlds, Shinji" Captain Katsuragi said, beaming.

"I guess," his son mumbled. Gendo watched as Rei took hold of his hand under the table, and mentally sighed.

He would have to do something about that, if nothing else.

"So, how does the dual-pilot system work, anyway?" Shinji ventured. "I mean, according to conventional synchronisation theory, it shouldn't actually be possible – the pilots would have to think exactly the same thing at exactly the same time in order to even move the Evangelion, but-"

Captain Ayanami held up a hand to stop the flow of tech-talk. "I'm not into the technical side of things, I just pilot it," he said. "That said... Rose?"

"Conventional synchronisation theory posits a two-way connection between Pilot and Eva," Rose said, picking up almost before the Captain had finished. "With Unit 07's system, the connection between Pilot and Eva is still two-way, but instead of the Pilot being one mind, it's a gestalt entity made up of two minds. The Pilots synchronise together using the same technology – it's like if you synchronised with Unit 01 and then the both of you synchronised with Unit 00."

"That's... surprisingly elegant," Shinji said. "And actually obvious, if you know that you can sync two people together. What sort of benefits do you get from it, though? It's a more complex system, so there has to be something."

"That one I can answer," Captain Ayanami said. "Mental stability, for a start. Unit 07 was notoriously unstable – the slightest wound could cause it to go berserker, and the longer I piloted it, the angrier I got. That problem hasn't been an issue since we started the dual-pilot system. On top of that, we've got three different brains linked to the same network, along with three bodies – the gains in raw processing power alone are exponential rather than linear, or something along those lines. The result is that we're a lot faster with all three of us than just two, and we can focus on more things."

Rose took over. "It's proven technology, and not really something that can be further developed – adding more brains to the network is probably going to result in ego border problems. Hells, we're already way too in sync sometimes."

"Enough of the business talk already," Misato carefully enunciated. "The thing that's really getting me is... what the hell is your last name, anyway?"

Rose looked down at her empty bowl, and Michael stepped in. "She doesn't have one. It's-"

"It's because I'm a war orphan," Rose said. Shinji took note that she didn't interrupt her co-pilot; she spoke precisely into the gap between his words, and he immediately stopped talking. "We were... inducted... into the military en masse; it's something the British are as culpable of as the Amercians, but the American innovation was taking every remnant of the child's previous life away."

"Whereas the Royal Army – let's not get into that mess – just handed out as many Sten-IIs as it could make to whoever was around," Michael commented.

"Aaand this conversation is way more depressing than I hoped it would be," said Misato. "Seriously, don't you two ever lighten up?"

"I seem to recall Mikey here lightening up back on Okinawa Beach," Rose answered. "Where did you wake up, exactly?"

"In a perfectly safe place," said Michael, "besides, I'm still at a loss as to how that happened. I don't remember ordering anything alcoholic."

"And yet you still managed to get black-out drunk. I'm pretty sure that's illegal, and weren't you on duty?"

"No to both, actually." Michael shot a smile around the room, his gaze lingering on the Commander. "I retroactively gave myself the day off. Being in charge really does have some perks sometimes."

Misato let out a sigh, and nearly knocked over the pile of empty cans in front of her. "Soooooo... you two, what's with you?"

Captain Ayanami glared, trying to forestall the inevitable question, but she continued anyway; "Are you dating or what?"

Rose sat up straight and looked away.

"That's... not something that's going to happen," Captain Ayanami stressed, drawing looks from across the room.

"Why not?" That was from Rei of all people. "You were quite enthusiastic when I informed you of my relationship."

"You were just saying how mentally intimate you were," Shinji said, smiling.

Michael floundered around for an explanation that wouldn't spoil the mood. Or worse, make it seem like he hated her. "Well-"

Everyone's phones rang, and the sirens blared.