Woah. A big chapter, by recent standards. This one kinda got away from me.
X-X-X
Chapter 25
The Siege of Hakone: Iscariot (part 1)
X-X-X
Hikari, missing a day of school? She would never.
Asuka glared at the empty seat, as if hoping that her scrutiny might reveal some hidden secret. School classes had been operating on half-day schedules ever since the siege, even though it was clear that most students weren't terribly attentive under the stress; but the class representative had remained extraordinarily meticulous about her attendance.
I didn't hear from her, so she's probably not sick...
It took a conscious effort not to bounce her leg as the professor droned on, babbling about basic algebra that Asuka already knew by heart.
Her pen traced idle patterns along the otherwise empty page of her notebook - a sunflower, a knife, a ragged doll - no, no doll. She quickly scratched it out into a dark inkblot, trying again.
The head and shoulders of an imposing figure, its silhouette clearly armored. Its head leaned forward, four eyes glaring.
A relatively realistic rendering of the NERV logo, but the text was a little crooked. The motto wasn't too hard to translate into German; unfortunately, it took up space in different ways than Kanji.
A hand. Crude, not at all as elegant as it should be, but worth the effort. An arm, attached to the hand, connecting to a shoulder. A neck, circled by the ends of a bob of hair - shame I didn't bring a blue pen...
Asuka blinked, finally realizing what she was doing.
Fuck, she's been on my mind a lot, lately.
The memory of holding Rei's sleeping form in her arms was... hard to shake off. She'd been a little heavier and warmer since the last time Asuka had held her - the bones no longer painfully easy to feel below her skin. It had gratified Asuka immensely, to know the other pilot was no longer killing herself slowly on a bare-bones diet and prescription poisons.
And that smile...
Asuka gritted her teeth, growling softly to herself. Don't dwell on it, you fool. Those are dangerous thoughts.
Unfortunately, it seemed to be a choice between dreamy thoughts of Rei or worried thoughts of Hikari.
There were still three hours left in the school day.
Scheisse.
Every head in the classroom turned as its door abruptly opened, without the courtesy of a warning knock. Several tall men in black suits and sunglasses stood at the door, and two entered the classroom, moving with purpose.
Asuka sat up straight immediately. The men looked like section-2 goons, or worse, goons of some other description. Either way, they had to be here for her.
"Warrant Officer Langley-Soryu?" One of the goons asked.
"I'm nobody's soldier," Asuka shot back, ignoring the fact that all eyes in the classroom were on her. "I've been suspended from duty, in case you didn't check."
"You are hereby reactivated for duty under NERV's emergency contingencies. Please come with us."
Asuka hung back. "Emergency contingencies?"
"Code blue."
Her spine stiffened, and the familiar terror churned in her gut for a moment, but then she squared her shoulders and pulled on her well-worn mask of confidence.
"Come crawling back to me to save the world again, huh?" She spat, her tone derisive even as she stood up and grabbed her backpack. "Alright. Let's do this."
X-X-X
Finally, the red and white titans slowed from their breakneck sprint, drawing their pallet rifles as they stepped into the wide, shallow valley that had been established as their first line of defence.
"Sound off," Asuka muttered, trying not to glare at the menacingly silent silhouette of Commander Ikari in the 'control' comm window.
"Baal, green. The swarm's broken off us for now. Guess the breakthrough charge scared them."
"Ishtar, green."
"Asherah, green."
Asuka nodded. "Stay sharp, home team. We can fall back if you need us to."
"Acknowledged, Moloch."
"Asherah, hold up at the headland hill there and cover me."
"Yes." The white evangelion moved to her position, crouching and lifting her rifle.
"Control, are you tracking our target?"
The Commander didn't say a word, but his head shifted subtly as he looked at someone else in the control room. It was Maya's comm window that popped up in response.
"Affirmative, Moloch. It's not far out. You've got five minutes at most."
"At most?" Asuka frowned.
"Its pace is somewhat... irregular."
"Great." Asuka looked back down at her weapon, cycling the bolt and checking its systems. "Do you have a visual on it?"
"... Ah, no."
On her teamcomm window, Mari's eyes narrowed, and she silently glanced over at Asuka.
That sounds like a lie. The last - the only time I've ever deployed blind was against that freakish sea beast. I don't believe this angel can possibly have destroyed every camera drone in the air before being seen.
"Let me know if that changes," Asuka growled, raising the rifle to train it on the entrances to the valley. She didn't miss the way Maya's eyes flickered towards something offscreen before she nodded.
I bet she was looking at the Commander. Why would he hide operation details from us? Doesn't he want us to win? Or is this just another one of his dark schemes...
With a great deal of effort, Asuka slowed her breathing and forced herself to relax.
"ETA to engagement range, one hundred and eighty seconds," Maya said.
There was a scratchy, uncomfortable feeling confirming the report; like a long-distance projection of sandpaper against her brain. Asuka's sync had fallen slightly in her days off duty, but she still knew the task of piloting inside and out.
Doesn't hurt to be sure, though. With a thought, she activated Unit 02's internal self-diagnostics and checked the AT amplifier array. There was no mistaking it - the signature was real.
Strong one, too.
Asuka resisted the urge to check her gun again, and focused on slowing her breathing. There was nothing to do now but wait.
"ETA one hundred and twenty seconds."
On the teamcomm, Mari looked up abruptly. "Eyes on two. They might be regrouping." Her expression hardened. "Look alive, Ishtar."
"Acknowledged." Shinji, too, wore a determined expression, and a bittersweet feeling rose in Asuka's chest, pride mixed with a curious sense of loss.
I knew he had it in him. Look at him now... he doesn't need me to hold his hand anymore.
The Evangelion's gyroscopic feedback began to pick up a subtle vibration in the ground. A human would probably miss it, but the instruments and augments in an Eva's electronics were surprisingly sensitive.
"You feel that, Asherah?"
"Yes." Rei's voice was as neutral as ever, but Asuka could see the microscopic narrowing in her eyes and forward shift in her posture. Hmm, they didn't uninstall my command comm system or override authority, else that'd be 'sound only...'
"ETA sixty seconds. Lock and load, Moloch."
Asuka couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes. I was locked and loaded by the first warning. What do you take me for, Maya?
The vibrations increased. A human would definitely feel them by now. Their pattern had become more distinct, too - a rhythmic, regular pulse that drew icy lines of fear down Asuka's spine with every beat.
Those are footsteps. The footsteps of something huge... something familiar.
"ETA thirty seconds."
Moloch's tactical data system gave Asuka a mini-map of the nearby battlefield, showing relevant nearby items in visible pointers over the terrain relief - the approaching target, a blue dot, and Asherah behind her, an orange one. Despite knowing the other Evangelion was there, and despite her on-demand info feed showing green lights across the board from the other pilot's transponder, Asuka couldn't help but turn her Eva's whole head to look back for a moment.
Still there. On her teamcomm screen, Rei looked as relaxed as ever, cold as ice even under fire.
"ETA fifteen - " Maya cut herself off. "You should have eyes on the target."
Asuka's grip tightened. She didn't even register the creak of the pallet rifle's gunstock bending under pressure; her attention was focused solely on the dark figure at the far end of the valley.
I was right. It's an Eva. A new one. Why? Why is it one of us?!
"Confirm, control," she hissed. "It sounded like you just said this Evangelion unit was our target."
"That's correct, Moloch. The entity in control of the unit has been designated the angel Bardiel."
"Is there a human in there, Maya?"
Maya looked like she was about to respond, but then her controlcomm window disappeared entirely.
"You have your orders, Pilot," came the Commander's menacing monotone. "Engage and neutralize your indicated target."
No, this can't be right!
"Asherah, aim for non-destructive incapacitation," Asuka ordered, glancing at the controlcomm as she did so. Gendo said nothing, his face and posture still completely unreadable; Asuka figured that was as much approval as she was going to get.
Taking a knee, Asuka lined up her rifle's sights. "Take the right shoulder and fire on my command."
"Yes."
The black Evangelion paused, stopping in its tracks for a moment. Then it threw its head back and let out an earsplitting shriek, the same deep, drawn-out roar as the berserking Unit 01 had let out in her first fight - more like the sound of a hydroelectric turbine speeding up than the voice of a living thing.
What, no pithy comment about how it'll kill us all?
Then it snapped its head back down and charged.
Asuka was already squeezing the trigger of her pallet rifle. "Asherah, fire at will!"
The hypersonic flechettes slammed into the hostile Eva's AT field, flashing white and orange as the steel and tungsten vaporized in the impact. Although their enemy did seem to at least notice the barrage of heavy fire, it certainly wasn't deterred.
"Asherah, move up west-northwest," Asuka barked, stepping back as she aimed again.
"Confirm, Lieutenant?" Rei asked, although the white Evangelion began moving immediately.
Asuka's eyebrow twitched, torn between irritation and surprise. "There's only one target," she explained, as rapidly as possible. "Good chance to flank."
"Acknowledged."
... Does Rei not know I was demoted back to Warrant Officer?
The black Evangelion - no, the monster, the angel Bardiel - stayed straight on course, clearly aiming for Unit 02. As it approached, it lowered its head and shoulders into a tackling pose.
Asuka cast her rifle aside, ignoring the crashing boom as the hulking metal assembly tore down several trees in its landing. She leaned forward, pushing all available power into her anterior AT amplifiers.
Bardiel slammed into the shield hard - and shattered it instantly. Fortunately, the beast did not successfully barrel through, and the discharge of the collapsing energy field staggered Bardiel just as hard as it staggered Unit 02.
"Asherah, support!"
"Yes."
Several pallet rifle rounds hammered into the back of Bardiel's AT field, dissipating harmlessly in bright showers of shattering metal. There was another loud series of metallic sounds as Unit 00 stowed her own rifle, and the next sound was the reverberating whine of discordant AT frequencies repelling each other.
The angel braced its feet, turning one shoulder towards Unit 00. Asuka took the opportunity to strike -
Only the be blocked and cast aside, hard, by a second set of arms that sprouted from the monster's shoulders in a shower of gory chunks of flesh and shattered armor. Asuka rolled into the fall and staggered to her feet, trying to fight down the reflexive panic.
Four arms, fuck, okay. She shook her head violently. That's a setback, for sure, but don't give up! I've got two units on the field, that has to count for something!
"Don't get grabbed, Asherah!"
On the teamcomm, Rei nodded, apparently too focused to verbally reply. Asuka drew her prog-knife and made to advance.
As before, the thing's freakish arms moved against her - this time, two from the same shoulder. Asuka dodged the first swing, then caught the second, focusing her AT resonance as fast as she could.
The blue field flickered and died. Asuka lashed out with the knife, carving through the unarmored flesh with ease, and dismembering the arm at the elbow. She almost tried to advance on the opening, but a gut feeling held her back.
She was right to hesitate. The stump of the arm whipped back around, a whole new forearm and hand growing back onto it in seconds, as if it had never even been injured.
"Fall back, Asherah! There's no way we can take it down like this," Asuka growled. "Control, can I trouble you for a bigger butter knife?"
"We'll send off some cargo helicopters with gladius-type knives, but be advised it'll take some time," Maya replied. "Two?"
"Four, actually," Asuka replied quickly, then looked over to Rei's comm. "You comfortable with two long knives, Asherah?"
"Yes."
Dual-wielding blade weapons was technically optional training, in the grand scheme of NERV's system of martial rigor for its pilots, but all of them had taken at least a few hours to familiarize with it. Early on, Asuka had asserted that it would be useful to deploy against numerous or many-limbed angels; however, that claim had yet to be tested.
Well, it's sure gonna be tested now.
Units 00 and 02 kept close together, making sure to cover each other's flanks as they retreated. With its four limbs, the angel would have a strong advantage if it could get between them again.
Unfortunately, the number of limbs was not the only advantage in Bardiel's arsenal.
The mutant Evangelion halted its stalking advance, leaning back briefly. Then it whipped its whole torso forward, staggering as it threw itself off-balance - and its arms stretched.
Even with her high sync, Asuka couldn't react fast enough. Her left hand jerked away from the attack, but one of the Angel's hands closed around her right wrist, pinning the hand that held her prog-knife.
The angel jumped forward, and the newfound elasticity of its flesh sling-shot it towards Units 00 and 02. Rei had managed to retain the use of her knife, and quickly hacked off Bardiel's hand where it gripped her; Asuka was not so lucky. Bardiel crashed heavily into the ground behind them, dragging Unit 02 off balance with it.
The black-armored monster recovered quicker, leaping to its feet before falling upon Unit 02 with a single-minded drive to kill. Flat on her back, there was little Asuka could do to defend herself; every titanic bone she broke would knit itself instantly, and every hand she struck off would grow back in mere seconds. The fact that she was fighting against four arms only made it twice as bad.
Her vision went dark for a second as a jarring pain lanced through her head. Dimly, she registered the faintly beeping HUD alert for a damaged helmet. She sucked a deep breath, trying to draw her arms across her chest -
Bardiel sagged, its grip weakening for a moment.
A moment was all Asuka needed. Re-forming a compressed AT field around her vambraces, she keyed a discordant frequency and pushed. The mutually repelling forces knocked the angel back like it'd been struck with an Eva-sized sledgehammer, giving Asuka just enough time to roll to the side and stagger to her feet.
Re-orienting herself, she looked over at Unit 00. Conspicuously, the white-armored Eva was missing her prog-knife, which now appeared to be buried deep under one of the Angel's shoulder blades.
Scheisse... whatever hapless fool they drafted into piloting that beast is gonna have a hell of a recovery period...
Bardiel was, uncharacteristically, hanging back. Perhaps the body strike had injured it more than it showed, but whatever the reason, it fell into the pattern of hesitantly circling its opponent instead of constantly dashing and lunging.
WARNING: MUTAGENESIS DETECTED IN RIGHT FOREARM EPIDERMIS. Lilithian homeostasis may be at risk - check for blue pattern IMMEDIATELY.
Asuka rolled her eyes. "Asherah, move to cover my right flank," she said, folding her arm behind her back to bring it near the lowermost safety valve. The brief spray of boiling, radioactive heavy metals burned the Eva's skin slightly as it cauterized the sticky pathogen, but a little pain and a slight loss of core pressure was far better than a full-on infection.
Rei appeared to notice the tactic immediately. "Moloch, it could be possible to reclaim Unit 03 relatively intact," she said, her voice subtly hesitant.
"You think so?" Asuka didn't take her eyes off if Bardiel.
"Two experiments, including your field solution, have confirmed that angelic pathogens can be sterilized under exposure to extreme conditions."
Asuka couldn't help but smirk. Of course Rei had watched the battle footage as soon as it had been available. It was doubtful that Shinji or Mari would have been so diligent.
"It won't be easy," Asuka said, her eyes still on the target. "This one's stronger. Risky to fully vent reactor juice - that's a win or die gamble."
"That is true..."
"You're right, though. There's got to be a way to pull it off."
Bardiel whipped out its disgusting elastic-flesh arms again. This time, the pilots were ready, deflecting the first and second strikes almost in perfect sync.
"Be advised, Moloch, my reactor is approaching the yellow line."
Asuka growled softly as she looked at her own heat guages. "Drop output and fall back. I can cover you for thirty seconds."
Rei nodded, stepping back and moving behind Unit 02. Bardiel lashed out another limb, attempting to strike the unshielded Evangelion - but Asuka deftly caught the hand and struck it off with her knife. Unsurprisingly, the hand grew back almost instantly.
"Field team, we've set up a rally point on the ridge line directly south. Fall back for refuel and re-arming."
"Acknowledged," Asuka grunted. "Asherah! Can you cover?"
"Yes."
Asuka turned and sprinted, downshifting her reactor output as she did so. She stepped hard to the left, then back to the right - and was rewarded by the sight of a grotesque arm lashing past her in a clean miss.
Good reflexes, me. Remember, no AT shield now!
A sharp series of booming thunderbolts drew her attention back ahead. Rei had managed to hold on to her pallet rifle, and seemed to be laying down suppressing fire as she backed slowly towards the rally point. It didn't stop Bardiel, but it did slow the creature's bloodthirsty dash down to a determined march.
"Pass!"
Rei didn't answer, but as Asuka brought Unit 02 to a skidding halt just past her position, she tossed the rifle to her squad leader and turned to hasten her own retreat.
The ridge they were running for was just beyond the end of the valley - an immense distance for a human on foot, but not far for a titanic alien flesh-golem. The pilots took turns covering each other's retreat, passing the gun back and forth as they timed their reactor cooling intervals.
Bardiel was as determined as a hungry dog, but about as easy to mislead. In combination with constant pallet rifle fire, the monster wasn't a challenge to delay enough that they could make a semi-orderly retreat.
As long as we don't mind running dry on ammunition in the process, Asuka grumbled to herself. Still, it's not like the pallets were effective in any other way. As long as we don't run into any of the seraph swarm, I doubt we'll miss them.
Finally, Rei staggered up onto the plateau of the ridge, and Asuka followed a moment later. The rally point was marked by several red flares, though it was impossible to miss the four immense shortswords and two fuel rod bundles lying in their airlift slings inside the ring of colored smoke.
"Gear up, Asherah. I've got you covered." Asuka slapped her second-last magazine into the rifle and kept firing, resisting the urge to turn on her AT amplifiers as the angel drew nearer.
Not yet! Got to give the heart as much time to cool as I can.
X-X-X
This body is 10.64 years old and its heart has beat 448,369,118 times.
The teamcomm crackled. "It's getting... crowded here, Squad Leader," Shinji said. "I don't think we need the field team back yet, but we're falling back to the inner perimeter."
Rei had already cycled forward Asherah's secondary fuel cell, moving the mostly-depleted primary back. Swapping the new cell in from the secondary loading port was work of a moment - and docking the gladius scabbards on Asherah's belt racks was even quicker.
Fuel: [92%]
Rei pivoted, returning her attention to the battle as Moloch ducked back. There was a loud crashing noise as the red Evangelion discarded the pallet rifle.
Bardiel stopped its steady advance, and Rei drew Asherah's shortswords immediately. A split second later, the angel leaned forward and lunged.
The black-armored Evangelion was no faster than Asherah, but Rei found herself pushed to the limit of martial skill. It took all she could muster to keep her blades moving - she only had two hands, with which she had to counter four. The only way to achieve an advantage was to strike to cut through two limbs at once, forcing her enemy to cede ground as it regenerated the lost flesh.
Still, this is significantly better than a single progressive knife.
The red figure appeared out of the corner of Rei's eye, moving around behind Bardiel. Moloch stepped in, aiming for a killing blow - only to be blocked by a third set of arms.
"Just how many new limbs is this fucking monster going to grow?!"
Standing between them and fighting two other evangelion units to a standstill, Bardiel was the picture of a biblical seraphim, its six formidable arms not unlike the six wings attributed to such creatures. It wielded the strange limbs with no apparent loss of strength or coordination, despite the twisted mess of shoulder tissue anchoring them.
The fact that Asuka was favoring incapacitation over kill certainly didn't make the battle any easier.
"Get on with it, Pilot." The Commander's voice seemed a little rougher than usual. "I will not allow the rearguard to be compromised over hesitancy."
I do not think the Lieutenant will obey... she is rarely as compliant as myself.
"Ahh, don't listen to him, Asuka! We're fine back here," Mari quipped cheerily. "We pushed the swarm back to the median perimeter and we're holding. We're good for another -"
Mari's comm cut off abruptly, vanishing from view. On the other open comm, Asuka looked absolutely shocked.
Did the control room deliberately disconnect Pilot Illustrious? But why would the Commander do that...?
"Asherah. How do you feel about AT stunts?"
"I have kept up with all appropriate combative training, Lieutenant." The live-test firing range had, after all, essentially been built for the sole purpose of testing AT capabilities. Misato had certainly not neglected their training regimen over the siege.
If anyone, the pilot who might be behind on training is Lieutenant Soryu. What a strange thought.
This body's mean age is 12.52 years and its heart has cycled 178 HEU fuel rods and 65 HE-MOX fuel rods since its first full-temperature test.
"If we can pin this thing down, we'll have our best chance at non-destructively disabling it." Asuka's expression was hard. "You ready?
"Attempting to immobilize this angel is dangerous," Rei replied. The link circuit picked up on the undercurrent of worry, interpreting it as a command to run a self-diagnostic on the AT amplifier array. "It is very strong."
"Yeah, I wouldn't even consider it without using AT fields. Alright. I need to you circle around, opposite -"
The comm cut off. Rei frowned, attempting to reestablish the connection, but the subsystem returned a simple CONTACT DENIED CONNECTION error message.
A wave of uncertainty washed over her, then, cracking her normally bulletproof calm. Asuka had been speaking - there was no way she would have intentionally cut the feed. It had to have been some kind of mistake, and in a life or death duel with an angel, there was no room for mistakes.
The red Evangelion charged, suddenly and aggressively, ignoring Rei's presence. Rei circled, looking for an opening, but the combatants moved too quickly for her to be sure she wouldn't strike Unit 02 instead of their enemy.
Clamping down on the tiny voice in the back of her head that was attempting to panic at the loss of contact with her most trusted commanding figure, she keyed open the comm settings and pushed the signal gain to maximum.
An unpleasant crackling of static filled Rei's entry plug. There was no change in the status of the automatic reconnection attempts - but there was a change in the remaining open comm, to the Central Dogma control room. The main microphones were muted, but it seemed that Lt. Ibuki's two-way sound was still open.
"... Hasn't even been a full-platform test, sir! The system is simply not ready - not ready for field tests, let alone a cold override on a battlefront deployment!" The words were faint, almost lost in the static, and clearly not meant for the comms microphones.
"The Second Child's uncooperative actions necessitated it," the Commander replied coldly. "The dummy plug will simply have to -"
"She was trying to save you the loss of an Evangelion unit, sir!" The other voice was harder to identify, but Rei was relatively certain it was Dr. Akagi. "These are the most costly weapons in the world - and the only ones with any meaningful efficacy in the field of counter-angelic activity. If Unit 03 is destroyed, it could be years, even a decade before she can be replaced! To say nothing of the loss of a viable pilot!"
Bardiel staggered back, finally overwhelmed by Unit 02's vicious onslaught. Rei made to strike its exposed side, but it took her first blow on its third set of arms - and before she could follow up, Unit 02 was attacking again, leaving no opening in the furious melee.
"My decision is final. This field test, while unorthodox, is clearly vindicated. The dummy plug is already showing superior results over a disobedient human pilot."
"Disobedient?! At what point did Pilot Soryu directly defy your orders, sir?"
Static.
"And! To reiterate my previous point! The system is simply. Not. Ready." Rei had never heard such impassioned anger in the doctor's voice. "It must be easy, carelessly issuing commands without considering the implementation behind them, but us research engineers don't have that luxury. The dummy plug system can be prone to catastrophic - even self-destructive - failures under stress-test conditions; you might have known this if you'd consulted me before shooting from the hip!"
There was another pause. Then - "That will be all, doctor. Dismissed."
Even through the static and distortion, the Commander's voice was colder than Rei had ever heard it. She metered her breathing, suppressing a shudder only through her ironclad sense of discipline.
A 'dummy plug' system... an Evangelion autopilot? Something that can override the pilot's control over their unit, it seems.
It must have come from me. Where else could Section 3 have acquired a large repository of piloting activity data with which to train an artificial neural network?
This body is 10.64 years old and its heart has beat 448,370,001 times.
A furious string of strikes from Unit 02 clove off two of Bardiel's arms. The Angel was left open, and the red monster pressed its advantage, swinging one blade in a wide strike that went deep between Bardiel's ribs and the other overhead, cutting through the faceplate of the black helmet.
An upper torso strike could have hit the entry plug, and those blows were not as carefully aimed as my knife was. The human pilot may now be KIA.
For a moment, the black leviathan seemed paralyzed with shock. Then it twisted and thrashed, wrenching both swords away from Unit 02's grasp, and regenerating its arms as easily as before.
Its posture was sloppier, its movements perhaps a touch more pained - but it was far from defeated, and now Unit 02 was unarmed.
Bardiel stepped forward and struck with its first pair of arms, once to Unit 02's torso, the other to her opposite shoulder. The unknown force that piloted the Evangelion was clearly not as skilled as Asuka at rapidly shifting AT shield strength; the strikes broke through the orange field easily, caving in Unit 02's ribcage and dislocating her titanic bones as the armor and limiter assemblies shattered.
Asuka!
X-X-X
The phone hadn't finished its first ring tone before Ritsuko had it out and open, pressed against her ear. "Yes?" She snapped, tapping her foot against the elevator floor.
"There's a problem, doctor. Rectify it."
"Oh, you think I didn't know? You think I turned off my monitors when I left the control room?" She scoffed openly. "I warned you. It needed so much more testing. I'm already on my way - but I don't think there will even be much left to salvage, based on these error codes."
Gendo was quiet for a moment, and Ritsuko briefly entertained the mental image of him fuming silently on the other end. Finally - "You'd better do your best, doctor."
Ritsuko was about to shoot off another provocative reply, but the phone hung up before she could do so. She scoffed and rolled her eyes, dropping the phone back into her lab coat pocket.
It clacked gently against the plastic case of the tiny, button-activated analog killswitch that was also in her pocket. Ritsuko kept her grim expression on for the cameras, despite a stab of internal satisfaction.
The elevator doors opened.
Convince him that I'm trying my best and frustrated with the pressure - behavior he expects, from me - and I draw his eyes away from the possibility of sabotage.
Finally, Ritsuko drew to a halt outside her private laboratory. There were no cameras here, and finally, she let herself grin cruelly.
Perhaps he thinks me too entrenched to work against him. But I'll dig my own grave if it means I get to pull that bastard down with me.
The door to the dingy workspace hissed open, and Ritsuko stepped inside, folding her arms.
"Well now," she murmured. "What in all the hells shall I be doing with you, I wonder?"
X-X-X
I feel a little bad for leaving this on a cliffhanger :(
Still, I don't feel bad enough about it to rework the flow. What with the real-time disintegration of society going on in my country, it's been a struggle just to keep up my regular routines.
Stay safe, y'all.