X-X-X

Chapter 16

X-X-X

"Well, it's a good thing I already have a college degree."

Pain can be easy to ignore in the moment. However, as Asuka was quickly learning, it turns out that scalding one's hands often comes with longer-term consequences.

Shinji looked up from his bento to see Asuka holding a fork between her index and middle fingers. They were the two fingers on her right hand that weren't so heavily bandaged as to be taped together, but they were still shrouded in enough protective wrapping to make bending them difficult and painful.

"Oh - gosh, I didn't think to make food that would be easy to eat. Do you -"

"Psh, the food is fine. Unlike the arcane contraptions you call 'chopsticks,' I can use a fork well enough." Asuka's tone was dry. "No way I can take notes in class, though. Writing takes a bit more dexterity."

Shinji cocked his head. "I could take notes for you."

"Mm… no, you really couldn't. I know I speak Japanese just fine, but my ability to read Kanji would probably embarrass your primary schoolers. I don't take all my notes in German just for fun, you know."

"Oh." Shinji looked crestfallen. "I… I guess that rules out any other students too, huh."

"Not unless you know any other German speakers, no." Asuka pivoted in her seat, leaning over the back of the chair to look over the rest of the classroom. "Oi! Anyone else here know how to write in German?" She yelled, her tone dripping with sarcasm. "Anyone?"

She was met with a sea of blank stares. Yeah, I didn't think so. Who'd have guessed. Her mouth twisted into a smirk.

"Yes."

Was… zur hölle?! For a moment, Asuka tried not to acknowledge the person that had spoken, but the soft tone was impossible to mistake. No way. Why the fuck would she of all people be the single human being in my class - hell, probably my entire school - who knows German?

The silence in the classroom was palpable. All eyes were on the two pilots, as Asuka stared incredulously and Rei gazed back with her eternally blank expression.

Fuck, I didn't expect to be called on that… now I gotta see it or fold, and I don't fucking fold to anyone.

"Well, get on over here, then," Asuka said, her tone sharp.

Rei stood without a word, gathering the pitifully small number of things on her desk together, and made her way over to the empty desk beside Asuka. Another student had used that desk before, but they'd been killed when Sachiel attacked Tokyo-3.

Or was it that their family moved away? Can't remember. Could be either. No one who doesn't have to live here would stay.

Asuka's eyes widened as Rei pushed the desk towards her own until their edges touched. Sure, it was an obvious step towards making it easier for Asuka to read her transcripts, but it was more unprompted initiative than Rei usually displayed.

The teacher walked back in. Rei opened a notebook, apparently chosen at random; Asuka frowned slightly when she saw that the first page - and therefore, probably all other pages - was blank.

Of course she doesn't take notes. Why would she need to learn anything in school? The commander tells her how to live in every way; I bet those notebooks only exist to make a show of normalcy.

The teacher began his lecture. Rei quickly scratched 'Lt. Soryu: Aufzeichnungen' at the top of the page, then continued jotting down the lecture in almost absurd detail, apparently translating every word as quickly as the teacher said it.

Her German was not quite perfect. There were occasional errors and artifacts that clearly indicated it was a second language, and an unpracticed one at that. But it was more than comprehensible, and impressively clear given the speed at which Rei was translating and transcribing.

As the teacher droned on, Asuka tuned out most of what he was saying, listening with half an ear at best. This wasn't too unusual, especially in her interminably boring history class. However, now instead of just mindlessly dissociating the time away, she found that she had something to pay close attention to.

Rei had always sat behind Asuka, up until this point, and never - or at least, almost never - took notes of her own. Thus, although she'd only just now realized it, Asuka had never actually seen Rei writing before. Her script was a bland block print, and so consistent one might be forgiven for thinking it was produced by a printer, but that wasn't what caught Asuka's attention.

Gott, I wish my hands were that pretty…

Asuka blinked, shaking her head. Jealousy?! Really, Asuka? Over that doll? You must be losing it. She may have earned the respect due a competent pilot, but… really, what could one possibly envy about her?!

Still, her gaze was drawn back to Rei's hands. And they were pretty - delicate, precise and controlled, just like their owner. Their constant measured movement as Rei continued writing was almost hypnotic.

I wonder if they're as soft as they look. I'd have to hold them to know.

Asuka ripped her gaze from Rei's enchanting handwriting, stamping the thought out of her mind with bitter determination.

You must be fucking losing it, Asuka. Daydreaming over a pretty girl's pretty hands? Fuck, I'll admit it, Rei's pretty. Asuka's mind briefly drifted back to the smile she had seen on Rei's lips - the only smile she'd ever seen from the other girl, at the firebase below Mount Futago. At least, when she isn't wearing that 'dead inside' expression, anyway. But recognizing another girl as attractive is one thing; dwelling on it is quite another. You're not gay, are you?

If Rei noticed the fact that Asuka's eye was twitching near-constantly for the rest of the class, she gave no indication.

X-X-X

This is fucking killing me. Yep, this is definitely how I die. Forget alien kaiju, I'll choke on my own blood after biting my tongue too hard.

Mari absolutely hated keeping quiet. Her chattering, goofy demeanor was a vital aspect of her cover as a double agent: people invariably expected spies to be recalcitrant, and when she constantly overshared most aspects of her life, suspicion slid off her like so much water.

Quiet didn't come naturally to her at all.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

Mari put on an overly exaggerated grimace, resolutely keeping her mouth closed. Maya, in turn, gave her an unamused look.

"You know, I said no complaining, not that you had to go completely incommunicado."

Mari rolled her eyes. "You might as well have! I only have two topics of conversation in these checkups, griping and flirting. You vetoed option A, and fuck, I'm not quite enough of a jerk to keep it up at someone who's clearly not interested."

Maya raised her eyebrows, scribbling something on her clipboard. "Oh?" She murmured, her voice much softer than its usual stern, medical tone.

"Don't you 'oh?' at me. I'm a jerk, not a creep. God."

Maya laughed - and not the unkind chuckle she usually reserved for Mari's discomfort, either.

God damn, she has a pretty laugh. Fuck's sake, what's a girl to do…

"That wasn't what I was surprised at," Maya said, sounding amused. "I just didn't realize your interest was genuine. No offense, but you gave off the vibe that you'd hit on anything in a skirt."

Mari frowned. "Well excuse me. You're not exactly wrong, mind you, but I would have kept it at friendly flirting if I wasn't serious. I backed off because I didn't want to… push you by going too far, I guess."

Flipping a page over in her clipboard, Maya raised her eyebrow. "So I was supposed to ascertain your interest by your cessation of pursuit? I hope even you see why that might be a little backwards." She looked up briefly, meeting the British pilot's eyes. "Also, nice to know you are interested. That changes things somewhat."

"I…" Mari actually blushed, looking away. "All I can say in my defense is that I was mostly raised by Kaji."

"Well, that would explain an inability to behave normally around women." The corner of Maya's mouth quirked upwards in a tiny smirk.

God damn. I thought I had game, but she's got me wrapped right around her finger, doesn't she? Curse my weakness for the clever ones…

"So, miss Illustrious, care to ask me out properly?" Maya's smirk widened just a touch, though her voice was still entirely professional. "I assume even you uncouth English have some notion of how to treat a lady."

Mari couldn't stop herself from breaking into a wry grin. "Wow. I thought cultural slurs were more of a third-date kind of thing."

"What can I say? Your little sister has an infectious attitude."

"She does, doesn't she." Mari's smile was a little more genuine this time. "That's… sweet of you, calling her my sister. Most people hesitate on that, since we're not related by blood."

"Blood isn't everything." Maya unclipped the paper from her clipboard and stuck it in a folder on her desk. "My parents haven't spoken to me since I came out as gay. I know that found family can be more important."

"Ain't that the truth." Mari stood up. "Well… okay then. First Lieutenant Ibuki Maya, it is my intention to court you as a lady should. Would you care to accompany me on, dare I say, a date? You'll have to pick the place, though. I've barely lived here long enough to know my own commute to NERV."

Maya raised an eyebrow, although her amused smile belied any attempt to appear truly annoyed. "Well, how could I possibly turn down a proposition as chivalrous as that?" She swiveled her chair to face her computer, rapidly typing out a sequence of keys; a second later, the printer began to whirr. "Does this weekend work for you?"

The British pilot blinked. "Uh… yeah, that's perfect."

"Good. I'll get back to you to decide on the time." Maya lifted the sheet of paper from the printer and handed it to Mari. "Here is your visit and checkup summary. Now get out of my office, I'm busy."

Mari nodded sharply. "Yes ma'am."

X-X-X

It was only much later that Mari would receive a text from the busy lieutenant.

[1st Lt. Ibuki]: I'll be free Sunday after my shift. Does that work for you?

[Warrant Officer Illustrious]: Angels permitting, sure. I barely do anything most days, except sync tests sometimes, and the occasional life-or-death battle for the sake of the human race.

And investigate the cancer in the heart of NERV, Mari thought sourly, although she wasn't foolish enough to type it out. Still, it inspired her towards a more oblique tactic.

[Warrant Officer Illustrious]: I'm surprised a woman with such upstanding standards would agree to a date with a woman as young-looking as me, frankly.

[Warrant Officer Illustrious]: I'd question the whole "officer and subordinate" thing, but I don't think you actually have direct command of me.

[1st Lt. Ibuki]: I have access to your medical records. I know exactly how old you are. Besides, I can personally attest that looking 17 at 21 isn't all it's cracked up to be.

"And it doesn't exactly help to know you're going to look like a seventeen year old forever," Mari murmured.

[1st Lt. Ibuki]: and… suffice to say that there's a lot you can get away with, working at NERV. But we can talk more on that later.

Mari narrowed her eyes at her phone. Now, that sounds like 'let's not discuss this on channels that can be a monitored' to me. Curious. Perhaps Miss Ibuki knows more of NERV's corruption than she lets on.

[Warrant Officer Illustrious]: well, guess I'll see you then.

[1st Lt. Ibuki]: you'll see me sooner than that.

[1st Lt. Ibuki]: do try not to be late to your next sync test. It's not as easy to set those up as it looks!

X-X-X

Ritsuko narrowed her eyes.

Kyū's cognitive capacities seem to be maturing much faster than I anticipated. While some of this may be accounted for by the absence of sedative narcotics in her system, it cannot completely explain her burst of growth.

Although she referred to the creature as 'the Rei backup' in all official reports, she couldn't bring herself to do the same in her personal logbook. Not in light of the fact that rather than the comatose, braindead shell that was intended, Kyū was fast becoming an actual living thing - both alive and aware.

Even though she was only exposed to the dummy plug data a few days ago, she stays awake about as long as one would expect a six year old. While she's not very physically active - her motor functions seem to be maturing slower - she is clearly alert when awake, and she visually focuses on any movement or change in the environment. Her plug's window doesn't offer a large arc of vision, but a few tests with this very pencil demonstrated a clear proclivity for following moving objects with her eyes.

Ritsuko put the pencil down and raised her head, looking over to the very window in question. Kyū was asleep, after having watched Ritsuko for half the day and a while into the night. But the good doctor was focused on quite another behavior.

She'd noticed, only a few minutes ago, that Kyū wasn't lying perfectly and serenely still. Every so often her breathing would speed up, or she'd twitch a little.

Oh, and I haven't had a chance to run an electroencephalograph yet, but observation suggests that she dreams.

The dummy plug data was supposed to pass through her without leaving a mark, but it seems that it only takes a small spark to trigger the development of a mind. So far, Kyū's growth has not interfered with dummy plug synchronicity, but once she begins forming an identity of her own I expect it will.

It is too early to ascertain if she is actually retaining Rei data within herself or not. The dummy plug battle matrix, while detailed, is heavily stripped down from the complete Guf backup; and Kyū is only indirectly exposed during dummy plug testing - again, the rapture uplink is designed to read data, not write it.

Sighing, Ritsuko put down her pencil.

In her first experiment with a blank Rei backup in the dummy plug system, it seemed she had inadvertently created something unique - not exactly a Rei clone, but not exactly not a Rei clone.

An anomaly. An imperfect replica, a faulty unit. She dug a cigarette out of her pocket and sparked it up without a second thought. Really, I should have reported this and disposed of her immediately. She's just a liability! Better to put her down now, before she becomes a real, thinking person. It would win back some of the commander's trust in me, and I'd be spared the distraction of -

Ritsuko almost bit through the cigarette filter as she realized her right hand had already drifted to the .357 Ruger SP101 she kept hidden under her lab coat. She forced herself to stop that train of thought in its tracks, no matter how easily it seemed to come to mind.

"You'd really do it, huh, Ritsuko?" She murmured under her breath. "Mother would be so proud…"

She left the gun in its holster, instead pinching the cigarette between shaky fingers and sucking it like her life depended on her nicotine intake. When it was burned about two-thirds down, she angrily stubbed it out on the bare desk, leaving it where it lay.

It's my secret lab. I'll leave it as messy as I please.

She regarded the sleeping child in the entry plug for a minute longer, then closed the notebook, tucking it into one of the more innocuous pockets on her lab coat. It was an archaic way of logging information, sure - but even as the head computer administrator of NERV, Ritsuko didn't entirely trust Gendo not to watch her digital movements, and she was never quite sure how independently the MAGI were allowed to think in any case. It was better this way, a secret she could know was inaccessible to prying eyes. Can't hack paper, no matter how good you are.

Taking a last look around the lab, Ritsuko careful regarded a few of the installations.

Been two days since I swept for bugs. Too long. Better sweep again tomorrow… can't let myself get complacent.

She turned, walking out of the lab. The automatic door hissed shut behind her, and the lights flicked off.

X-X-X

Somewhere in Tokyo-3 - somewhere very deliberately nonspecific - there was a vacant apartment. The apartments above, below and to either side were also vacant; although there were tenants in the building, there was little risk of any hypothetical goings-on in this apartment being overheard. This made it a perfect kind of place for a certain kind of goings-on.

Of course, no amount of subterfuge and secrecy would ever stop Mari from slamming doors like she had a grudge against them.

"Fuck," she growled, dropping her bag and flopping into the nearest folding chair. "You have no idea how hard it is to give Section Two the slip without looking like you're doing it deliberately."

"Well, no, not Section Two specifically," replied the room's other occupant - one Ryoji Kaji. "But I think I might have some idea of what it's like to throw a tail."

"Blah, blah, blah, look at me, I'm a career spy and I'm so much more experienced than this young English whipper-snapper," Mari sing-songed, rolling her eyes. "I finally managed to smuggle my non-NERV phone out of the geofront. Do you want these photos or not?"

"Oh, do I ever. I've been just itching for them. How did you get the phone past the smart scanners?"

Mari dug the phone out of her backpack, tossing it to Kaji. "Don't ask questions you aren't prepared to know the answer to."

Kaji regarded the phone in his hands with some trepidation, then looked back up at Mari. "... should I be concerned?"

"What?" Mari laughed at his suspicious look. "Nah, I'm just yanking your chain. I wrapped the phone in my plugsuit and told them I was taking it home to mod it. Technically not allowed, but the gate guards are just grunts; I just had to talk fast and act like I owned the place to get through. And, well… it's a plugsuit."

"Which are diamagnetic and radiation-shielded. Clever."

"Yup. Even the MAGI-powered smart scanner just saw a ball of opaque neoprene." Mari grinned. "Even if Section Two gets suspicious and sniffs out my trail, they'll be thinking I've done something to the plugsuit, when it was really just a vector."

Kaji nodded, waking the phone up with the press of a button. "Alright. What have we got?"

"All kinds of things!" Mari stood up, walking around to lean over Kaji's shoulder. "Do you want them in order, or do you want to see the big one first?"

Kaji narrowed his eyes. "You tempt me… but, in order. I want to have at least an idea of the layout down there."

"You got it, big guy." Mari reached over, opening the first image. "Alright, so, I had some limitations - I just didn't have the gear to spoof an iris scanner, and the like. So, there were a few doors that I couldn't get in; in fact, what looked like an entire wing was sealed off. This is that door."

The large set of double doors was labeled in English with 'The Halls of Paradise Lost' in large letters above the lintel, with 'better to reign in hell' etched in smaller type just below it. To the side of the doors, a much more normal placard gave a few more details to the secrets within, in Kanji this time: Project Elohim autolab complex, AT Chromatography Lab, and Artificial Evolution Laboratory Sublevel: East Wing - Lilin Studies.

"John Milton, huh. I always thought Gendo was more of a Kabbalistic kind of guy, but I guess the classics are pretty good too." Kaji shook his head, putting on a wry smirk. "Some of those look even more sinister than normal. Project Elohim…"

Mari nodded. "Yeah, creepy stuff, huh? It gets better. The doors in the west wing didn't have iris scanners. Not one. Don't know why. Let's check those photos out, shall we?" She reached over Kaji's shoulder again, swiping through the photos.

A dingy cell-like room, with tiled flooring and walls, and a tiny, dirty cot in one corner - an elementary school uniform lying on the uncovered mattress. A dried-out container of wet wipes, along with some of its equally desiccated contents, littered the floor. A layer of fine dust covered everything. "I don't get this one, really. Door wasn't labeled, and the room looks abandoned. At a guess… this is where Gendo raised his pet, before tossing her out to the west side so she'd actually have a real home address."

Kaji turned his head, looking at Mari out of the corner of his eye. "Rei? You really think they raised her here?"

"Rei isn't human, Kaji, and if you haven't realized that by now you're not as deductive as you think. You saw the shit Asuka snooped out, right?" Mari's voice was hard. "And besides that, you haven't seen shit. There's more photos to come."

She swiped to the next one. "Door was labeled 'Project S2 Adjunct and Direct Research.' Make of that what you will."

"Project S2, huh?" Kaji cocked an eyebrow. "I knew that was too important to leave to Bethany Base alone."

"Spot on. It seems that branch was more concerned with artificially constructing a super solenoid unit from live observations, rather than reconstructing or reverse-engineering damaged ones. Now, check this shit out."

The room was very large, wider and longer than most warehouses and with a high ceiling. It contained two rows of immense transparent cylinders - holding tanks, it seemed - with massive assemblies of machinery and electronics clustered around the bases and tops. The two tanks nearest to the door were labeled 'replica prototyping tank A' and 'replica prototyping tank B;' tank A seemed to have several ugly clusters of a strange red crystal in it, suspended by inert wires, while tank B was empty.

In the next photo, Mari had walked far enough to capture the first two tanks behind the prototypes. They bore rather telling labels: SACHIEL and SHAMSHEL stood out in bold black text on the placards. The Sachiel tank had only a disparate cluster of small shards, but they were clearly suspended in a careful spherical pattern, while the wires between them glowed an eerie blue.

The Shamshel tank held an almost completely intact orb, like a huge red monocrystal formed into a sphere. There was a huge, cracked gash in one side - about exactly the size of an Evangelion's progressive knife - but it was otherwise clearly an angel core.

It, too, glowed blue. But in this case, the hellish light emanated from within the core itself, spilling out from the cracks in the red crystal.

"That's a little unnerving," Kaji murmured. "I wonder how close they are to a usable and reproducible unit… looks like Shamshel was an even better sample than I thought."

Mari cocked her head. "You expected this?"

"I had some educated guesses. What better to build an artificial S2 engine from, than the remains of a disabled one?" Kaji smiled, but it only showed on half of his mouth. "I knew as soon as Shamshel didn't explode that Ritsuko would be all over it. I didn't expect this kind of success, though. I doubt it'll be long before she can start building a clone unit… a few months, tops. Of course, that doesn't consider how long the construction itself will take."

"I don't know whether to hope she doesn't take long, or hope for delays." Mari made a face. "Spying under three different banners really messes with your head."

"Yeah. It sure does." Kaji looked back at his companion. "You know that SEELE contacted me again? They seem to be operating under the assumption that I'm too dumb to recognize their blatant attempt to take us out with the trash at Bethany Base. Well, I kept up that charade. But we had better watch our backs if we're still working for them."

"Fuck SEELE. They're the one faction I know I'm not loyal to." Mari's expression was dark. "Anyway. Ready for more horrors?"

"Sure, why not."

Mari touched the phone again, bringing up the next image. "So, I think this is the good doctor's little private project lab…"

Kaji straightened in his seat. "Really?"

"Yeah, look at it. This is room one. Basic medical supplies, a stash of medications, blood draw equipment, a centrifuge and liquid chromatograph - I think this is where she maintains Rei. Especially since some of those drugs match the ones we know Rei is taking. The next room is the real shit, though." Mari opened the next image. "Get a load of this."

The larger room was mostly clear. Along the walls were quite a few counters and tables, mostly with inscrutable devices or sample jars or stacks of paper on them. The clear centerpiece of the room, however, was the large red entry plug resting on concrete skids in the middle of the floor. It had a large steel plate riveted to the visible surface, which read 'REI - Dummy Plug Evangelion 2015: Rei-00' on it.

"The fuck's a dummy plug? Is it an automation device?" Kaji murmured, half to himself. "I know Gendo's been interested in automating the Evas since pretty much day one… I thought the good doctor was staunchly against it, though. Both in theory and practice. Now I'm hoping she was right about how difficult it would be."

"It seems likely," Mari said. "That assembly leading into it is clearly an uplink - I think it's the old model, but whatever. The only conclusion I can draw is that it's for simulating pilotless synchronization."

"There's a window in that plug. Did you see what was in there?"

"Nope. Glass was dark. I think it's electronically darkened, but no fucking way was I taking the time to try and break into Dr. Akagi's secret lab computer."

"That's fair. Pilot or not, there's a decent chance you'd have been shot on sight if you were caught down there." Kaji rubbed his chin. "Is that all?"

"No. Two more." Mari's expression darkened. "I… really should have gotten more photos than these, but I kind of… chickened out? Fuck, were they ever unsettling."

The next photo portrayed a dark room. Strange circles were carved in the floor in concentric patterns, with eldritch runes between them. They centered around an empty tube of LCL, with an enormously complex system of cables and pipes leading into the top of it.

The centerpiece of the room wasn't what drew Kaji attention, however. There was a faint backlight to the walls, visible with the phone screen brightness amplified and the photo zoomed in: the walls were also LCL tanks. Or rather, one large LCL tank. It was impossible to know how deep it went, largely because a large number of human silhouettes floated aimlessly in it, obscuring the light and any attempts to see through the translucent LCL.

Every silhouette was identical: a small human, no more than a teenager. The ones with a straightened posture displayed a clearly feminine figure, slightly curvy if undernourished. The faint halos of floating hair were harder to pick out - only one or two were settled into a shape Kaji recognized - but they were clearly all the same length, and besides, he already knew what he was looking at.

Or rather, who he was looking at.

"It's Rei," he breathed. "They're Rei, they're all Rei. Good God, there's dozens of them. Maybe hundreds…"

Mari looked away from the macabre sight. "The door just read 'The Chamber of Guf.' It was… pretty well sealed, even had a voice print. Took me a while to get in." She shook her head, still not looking at the photo. "I looked closer, for as long as I could take it. They've got serial numbers on their backs, but otherwise they're carbon copies of, y'know, the girl we know. Well… other than being inert. Eyes closed, barely breathing, not even a reaction to a tap on the glass. They're totally cataleptic, like… like they're empty."

"They probably are," Kaji replied grimly. "I may not know the details, but I'd bet my last yen these are some kind of deliberately vacant vessel. Who knows, maybe they're backups… after all, if you pilots are killed, someone has to pilot the Evas. Maybe they're part of the dummy plug system Ritsuko's working on, or an alternative if it doesn't work…"

"Jesus." Mari tried to keep her speech to Japanese around native speakers, but her curses still sometimes came out in English. "That's… fucking horrifying. I knew Gendo was a grade-A ghoul, but… wow. Okay. Well, the next photo's the last."

Unlike the previous rooms, this one was a cave, hewn from rough rock and apparently left as it was. The floor was paved over with slab concrete, but the walls and ceiling - where visible - were bare, and even bore some stalactites, suggesting that at least part of the cave had been a natural formation.

It was absolutely colossal, dwarfing even the central dogma floor with the Eva cages open. Three Evas could have stood upon each other's shoulders and not reached the ceiling; the floor must have spanned a square kilometer at least and the cavern walls were much further still from the edge of the floor slab. Off to the side of the camera's viewpoint - as Mari seemed to have entered through a side door - a huge set of gates stood, more than large enough to admit an Evangelion walking upright.

"The door read 'LCL Production Plant," Mari whispered. "Talk about eye opening. I can't believe I used to like the stuff…"

Huge grooves and pits were carved into the concrete floor in strange patterns reminiscent of crop circles; these depressions contained half-submerged bones. The bones of giants. The bones of angels. No, of half-angels. The bones of evangelions. But they weren't the room's centerpiece.

A few dozen meters past the end of the floor slab stood huge metal crucifix. Nailed to the cross was a huge, white-skinned humanoid - although, given its features were only partially human, perhaps the word humanoid was too charitable. It was the size of an evangelion, but much bulkier. Its arms and hands seemed normal, but instead of legs its torso simply ended in a bulbous, almost cancerous mass of flesh with what appeared to be tiny cilia dangling from it. It was hairless, and a mask concealed its face. Seven orange, luminescent eyes stared blankly through seven apertures in the mask.

Translucent orange liquid dripped and flowed in a continuous stream from its hands and malformed leg-mass. The liquid had pooled in the bottom of the cavern, submerging everything except the raised concrete floor. It didn't take much deduction to guess what the orange liquid was.

"Well." Kaji's voice held a barely-detectable shakiness to it. "That's… something, alright."

"That's one way of putting it," Mari hissed back. "What is that thing? Is it Adam? I know that's how they're baiting angels here, to NERV-J. It's gotta-"

"No." Kaji shook his head. "Adam was in the little briefcase I brought to Gendo when we landed with Moloch."

Mari narrowed her eyes at the photo again. "That doesn't make sense. How was he so small?"

"Whatever happened in Antarctica broke his physical form. He was nothing more than an embryo… although he is growing, so I wonder how long Gendo can keep him in stasis. It may not matter. I doubt Gendo's plans are far from their culmination, given how fast the angels are attacking now." Kaji smiled humorlessly. "I think this is actually Lilith. You're right in that she must be the one baiting angels here, though. Adam's far too weak yet for them to hear him."

Mari pushed off from the back of Kaji's chair, standing up straight and taking a deep breath. She rocked on her feet, visibly discharging tension.

"Well," she said at last. "Gendo is sitting pretty, huh. He's got both of the primogenitors, most of the evangelion units, all the pilots, and even the corpses of the fallen angels."

"Not necessarily," Kaji replied, somewhat cryptically.

"What do you mean?"

"Are you loyal to Gendo?"

Mari grimaced at the thought. "Fuck no."

"Is Asuka more loyal to Gendo than she is to you?"

The question made Mari roll her eyes. "No, and don't insult her like that in front of me, thanks."

"And can anyone pilot Moloch and Baal other than you two?"

"No… well, not unless Dr. Akagi's dummy plugs are much more advanced than I thought," Mari said, comprehension finally dawning.

"Well then, that's half the Evangelion Corps right there. To say nothing of other circumstances. As we now know, thanks to your sister's astute observations, Misato and Ritsuko aren't quite completely upfront with our glorious leader. And Shinji hates his father, although he doesn't usually have the spine to show it."

"True." Mari looked thoughtful. "I think a lot of NERV staff are at least aware that they're working in the moral grey area. I talked to Maya yesterday, and she… well, she seemed more savvy to NERV's corruption than I expected."

"Maya's pretty damn sharp, underneath that cutesy soft-tomboy look," Kaji agreed. "She's really quite a nice girl if you can take the attitude, though. A little young for me, and too gay to so much as give me the time of day in any case, but still. How are things between you, anyway? Stopped with the constant mutual needling yet?"

"Actually, yes," Mari admitted. "Although the circumstances of the asking were a bit… unorthodox, we actually have a date scheduled for Sunday."

"A date? Just like that?" Kaji seemed amused. "I thought she was still pining over the good doctor."

"She… is?" Mari didn't intend to make it sound like a question, but she wasn't sure herself. "I don't know if she's 'over' her crush on Dr. Akagi, but I think she's too sharp to not figure she's with someone else. Maybe she doesn't know who, but she's the good doctor's assistant and works very close to her side. I think she's finally decided to try and move on."

"Mmm… Well, if you're sure."

Mari grinned wolfishly. "For someone as cute as Maya? Sure enough to take the risk, that's for sure."

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