Dual Plug Experiment #1 - Pilots Ayanami and Ikari, Evangelion Unit 01
Asuka closed her eyes and felt Rei slide into the front seat between Shinji's legs. At least she didn't have Misato making crude jokes about the position the dual-user plugs put the pilots in. She had her own disgusting imagination for that. Despite having had repeated convincing assurances to the contrary, and being able to see them in their plugsuits on the video feed, some part of her subconscious insisted on feeding her images of a naked Rei sitting in Shinji's lap with a satisfied smile on her face.
They'd naturally walked together down Nerv's seemingly endless corridors between the entrance and the elevators with Rei in the middle. From a distance it probably looked like they were escorting Rei, in practice it meant that any accidental contact was with the person it was safe for each of them to touch.
Changing into their plugsuits hadn't broken the synchronisation, but it was not much more uncomfortable than getting dressed in the morning. In some ways it was actually helpful feeling Shinji get dressed because her imagination tried to convince her she could feel Rei getting dressed, but they were shaped differently so her imagination was clearly wrong.
Ignoring the very short-lived disaster which was putting Rei in her Eva months ago, the only data point they had was when she'd shown Shinji how to fight the stupid fish angel in a real Eva. She'd thought he was just another stupid perverted boy at the time, what would happen between two people who liked each other? Even if they insisted it wasn't that kind of like, Rei and Shinji were a lot more comfortable with each other than she had been when she made Shinji wear one of her plugsuits. Which was still funny, but in retrospect she was really glad they hadn't been synchronised back then. That she and Shinji were also a lot closer, at least in some ways, was something she could leave thinking about until tomorrow when she'd be the one settling between baka-Shinji's legs.
They really needed another word for whatever this interpersonal synchronisation is to distinguish it from them synchronising with the Evas. Or words, they could be dealing with several different things. Was the simultaneous speech the same as the moving together? Was the awareness of each other's bodies the same as the awareness of where they were? Was whatever happened after they fell asleep that allowed touch to be painless at all related to the process of connecting to an Eva? Was it just slower because they didn't have the technology? But leaving a Eva was abrupt whereas Shinji faded out gradually or in pieces. Why were the symptoms getting stronger but the chances of it hurting seemed to be getting lower?
They had already been in physical synchronisation when they walked out to the Evas, moving together without thought. She barely had to think about it to know where Shinji was.
It certainly was different. Even sitting here beforehand she could feel it around her like a comforting enclosure, something Shinji couldn't do no matter how much she made him try. Maybe that was what Hikari saw in Toji, that there was physically more of him, perhaps that was reassuring in a similar but totally inadequate way compared to an Eva. She'd need two or three Shinji's to come close, or maybe a Shinji with eight arms like a mythical creature. Now that was a strange but funny thought.
If it wasn't different enough, what might happen between them as they connected to the Eva together? Some sort of three way synchronisation? Would they each get half an Eva? Akagi had assured them there was no more risk of mental contamination between the pilots than there was between the pilots and the Eva. Somehow she had sounded even less reassuring than she usually did.
Asuka's thoughts were rudely interrupted by the aforementioned Dr Akagi.
"Are you ready, Mandelhörnchen?"
Asuka ignored Akagi's increasingly annoying dessert joke entirely, "Captain, I'm ready when you are. "
"Initiating synchronisation," came back Ibuki's calm voice.
Shinji settled into the seat and listened to Asuka going through the startup sequence next to them. Things felt really strange. The last time he'd been in an Eva with more than one person he'd been wedged naked between Rei and Asuka. Now Rei was sitting in front of him in a more comfortable position but one that meant the only physical contact he could easily manage would be putting his foot in her face. Not something he planned on doing. He could feel Asuka as if she were sitting in the same seat as he was, which was another item on the weirdness pile. Normally he could only feel what she was physically feeling, and of course they never physically occupied the same space - even if when he woke up it sometimes felt like she was trying to.
"Excuse me? Dr Akagi?"
"Yes, Shinji, we'll get to you in a few minutes, is there a problem?"
"How many dual plugs do you have?"
"Just the one, we'll reset the connections for each of you. Why do you ask?"
"This one is set up for myself and Ayanami. Neither seat is going to be comfortable for Asuka."
Asuka butted into the conversation "What are you on about now baka? It's just for a test."
Shinji momentarily wishes the sync really did come with telepathy. They needed to come up with some non-verbal communication if they were going to keep trying to hide the synchronisation. Maybe Kensuke would have some ideas, there were probably hand signals or something that the bridge crew wouldn't recognise. Shinji winced at a memory, but it lead to the thought that Kensuke would probably enjoy coming up with something you could use with a one-armed Eva far more than he would using it.
Bringing his thoughts back to the way the overlapping sense of Asuka didn't quite fit, he reached up and pressed at various points on his neck trying to find where the corresponding spot would be on her.
"Do you want a lower synchronisation score because the seat is jabbing your neck uncomfortably?" If he hadn't been distracted by the weird sensation he might have thought of a better way to say that. Asuka's scores were always a sore subject unless she was higher than he was.
Asuka's angry retort was interrupted by Ibuki, "Actually he's right. It's not just the neck either. It's not a big difference, but it's enough to misalign some of the sensors so we wouldn't get the all readings we're looking for. We'll see if we can work something out for the next test."
"Anything else Pilot Ikari, or can we get on with the test?"
He closed his eyes and watched his mother die, letting the familiar grief overwhelm his sense of the outside world and Asuka sitting with him.
"I'm ready when you are."
Rei was not sure what to expect synchronising with Unit 01 to be like. Or if it would even happen. So the sense of (un)familiar comfort that wrapped (her)Shinji was no more or less surprising than anything else. The sense of curiosity that seemed directed at her was at least less painful than the way 00 lashed out at her. She could feel the connection between the Eva and Shinji fade as the focus on her intensified. How curious.
'Hello again Yui. I am Rei Ayanami. We have a number of things in common. The relevant one is an interest in protecting your son. I hope we can work together to that end.'
Rei's sense of Shinji and Asuka cut off completely. Shinji started to breathe quickly in the seat behind her, as if the LCL was not supplying enough oxygen.
'Stop that right now. Whatever that is he needs it.'
She could feel Shinji's brief panic calm and her sense of being probed receded. She wished she could actually hold a two-way conversation rather than trying to interpret whatever it was her senses were giving her. Yui obviously had an idea of what was going on if she was able to interfere with it.
Rei opened her eyes. Shinji opened his eyes. Unit 01 opened its eyes.
"Synchronisation stabilised at 134%," Aoba's familiar voice came over the comm.
"How are you feeling?" asked Ibuki.
"Fine," they replied.
Ibuki sounded concerned, "That was one of the most erratic synchronisations I've ever seen, are you sure?"
Shinji peered down at Rei, who looked up and nodded.
"We're ready to continue when you are."
"Sempai, take a look at this," and Ibuki pulls up multiple graphs with a greyed out version of the attractor in the bottom corner.
"Pilots Ikari and Ayanami are fluctuating seemingly randomly mostly in the plus or minus five percent range. There's some spikes up to ten percent off the average. More than usual but that's not the interesting thing.
"Their combined sync rate with the Eva is consistently within a variation of less than one percent. They've been like that for almost fifteen minutes now."
"Interesting. Alright, we'll continue with the motion test sequence."
"I assume the little red dots are Asuka."
"Yes Sempai, as you can see she's mostly bouncing around a different part of the attractor. But every minute or two she'll flicker over to this section here, usually at the same time as either Ikari or Ayanami. It doesn't seem to correlate with anything so far."
"Any sign of mental contamination? Or 'ghosts'?"
"No, their psychographs are clear. Nothing unusual there after the initial synchronisation."
Akagi took an empty cigarette packet out of a pocket, glared at it and tossed it at the nearest bin, not paying any attention as to whether it made its intended target. There was obviously something going on here, she just couldn't work out what it was. Maybe the next tests would give them something more to work with.
When Shinji emerged from the changing rooms he was not surprised to find Asuka waiting for him. He knew exactly where she was after all. He was not at all surprised that she appeared to be angry, that was a normal state for Asuka despite this morning's cheerfulness. He wasn't even all that surprised when she threw herself at him, that was easily explained by the aforementioned anger. What did surprise him was that she didn't pull up in front of him but kept going until the impact pushed them against the wall behind him. Even more surprising was that the only thing that hurt was his lungs when he started to run out of breath after a minute of the tightest hug he'd ever experienced.
"sorry. need to breathe" he gasped into Asuka's ear.
Asuka backed away blushing, muttered "Shit. Hikari." and dashed off.
Shinji watched her go, struggling to get his breath back, "What was that about?"
"She will tell you later."
Shinji looked at her sceptically. Rei didn't lie, but he did notice that she hadn't specified just how much later his explanation might arrive.
Shinji took yet another break and wondered if Rei actually needed to breathe.
It was strangely quiet at the pool without Asuka alternating between berating him for not swimming enough and showing off. So he was taking many more breaks than he would have if she were there.
Not that he was slacking off completely, he wasn't going to risk Asuka finding that out, and after sitting still in an Eva for almost two hours the exercise was actually helpful. He just kept stopping to watch Rei.
Maybe there were some humans that could swim the full length of this swimming pool underwater at full speed, but Rei did this when she felt like it. Not as if she were training for the Olympics. Not at a speed that outpaced Asuka to the point she'd just given up trying to race and gone back to doing showy dive moves after Rei had lapped her twice without even coming up for air. Shinji hadn't pointed out that he'd seen Rei do the same dives with far more grace and precision, barely making a ripple as she hit the water. He might not particularly care about his continued existence, but being drowned by Asuka wouldn't be a pleasant experience.
If he'd actually been watching Rei and not thinking about Asuka, he might have noticed her before she emerged from under the water behind him, slid up his back and wrapped her arms around him. At least he hadn't had to remind her to wear a swimsuit.
"Are you alright?" despite her low volume, her voice carried across the water returning in a faint echo.
"Fine. Just thinking."
She rested her head on the back of his shoulder and waited to see if he would elaborate. Which did not help as what he'd been thinking about was Asuka's assumptions about what he and Rei did together. And the way Rei was hugging him from behind, the way Asuka had hugged him earlier and the way she'd woken him up.
"Um. Maybe I'll do a couple more laps before we go home."
He ducked out from between her arms, hoping the water would cool his face and swam off to the farthest side of the pool.