Unit-02 was a falling star of judgment. Asuka marked the cargo being dropped alongside her in the holographic interface, then confirmed her status with the cargo plane before cutting communication—this was going to be between her and NERV Command. She keyed judiciously on the button pad in front of her yoke controls, and an array of thrusters in her shoulder pylons compensated for the chaotic wind. Her landing solution locked into place, she prepared for the next phase by pulling on both controls with all her strength.
The white flesh beneath her crimson armor bubbled and shifted, and in a few seconds the hulking titan's weight went from that of a small mountain to a fraction of the magnitude. Her battery indicator recalculated unreliably as the particle-wave matter worked its magic. She crossed the unit's arms tight on its chest to keep from flailing in the wind, and once her altitude indicator blared at the impending doom closing in beneath her, she engaged the main retro rockets located on the pylon's sides, powering through g-forces that threatened to knock her out.
Her momentum was decreased just enough to prevent major damage to either ground or unit when she landed. The missing weight sinked her into the dunes as it returned, and her battery timer stabilized on a little over fifty seconds. A ghostly white whip slammed down on her, and when she instinctively dived to her side, a jet of sand shot up where she last stood. Her sense of position and direction was still catching up to the situation, so she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, willing her unit to its feet. She slowly exhaled as she opened her compass and raised her arms in a defensive stance.
"Asuka, your battery!" Misato warned.
"I'm getting my bearings, dammit!"
She braced for a follow-up strike that never came; the creature had rotated itself with its arms until it faced toward the Great Pyramid, and the carousel of tentacles kept pushing it forward.
"I'll teach you to ignore me!" Asuka snarled, then ran at top speed toward the nearest cargo drop which had landed on a far away river, and the sheer force of her sprint cleaved the water into a hazy rain. Arriving at the tributary, she dislodged the equipment, extracted the black cylinders within, and installed them on her pylons. She felt a prickling sensation on her shoulder blades as her battery indicator soared back to four minutes and fifty seven seconds. She reached for her progressive knife and charged toward the enemy.
She noticed the holographic marker that pointed behind the angel, and briefly wondered if that particular cargo had been stolen out of malice, or merely swept away by a mindless beast. The Sonic Glaive within had a proven record that she planned to exploit. The angel shot two tentacles at her while using the rest for locomotion, and an idle, smaller, and previously unseen one coiled around the battery pack that had landed on the side of the pyramid and plucked it off the rocks, pulling it into its folds.
Asuka sidestepped the first tentacle and raised her hand to cover from the second one as it pushed her to the side. She put a palm on it, testing its bristly surface, then leaped in the air to avoid the accelerating sweep below her. Landing on the tentacle and running on top of it, it was hard not to fall into an extremely vulnerable position. She heard the battery pack under the angel creak and explode, and its flesh began to bubble and morph. Suddenly, a new tentacle spawned and it bolted out, smacking Unit-02 in the head and throwing it over the edge. She hung on to the now rising tentacle with one arm, stabbing viciously with the knife, but instead of a screech or a howl of pain, a deep, low pulse shook the very land beneath them. Asuka's fleeting grin died as a second tentacle rose to meet her with uncanny speed. She let go and lowered her head in the air, barely escaping the thunderclap of both tentacles smashing against each other.
A couple of wide strides after landing was all she needed to reach the weapon crate, and just as she pushed the unlocking mechanism and grabbed on to its long handle, she was pushed backwards and headfirst by a tentacle into an adjacent one, leaving her momentarily stunned as she fell flat to the ground and was partially swallowed by the dunes.
"Asuka!" The static-ridden voice of Shinji ringed in her entry plug. She blinked twice.
"I'm… okay... got the axe," she grumbled through gritted teeth. She willed Unit-02 onto its hands and knees and lifted the right leg to plant a foot on the ground, when another tentacle flew in her direction, trying to make some distance between the angel's body and her unit. She grabbed the weapon with both hands, slammed her foot down and jerked into a retrorocket-assisted leap, slicing upwards until the blade met flesh and cleaved it in one go. The creature writhed in pain, flailing wildly and hosing her unit with a short-lived arc of purple sludge.
"Oh my God, that's disgusting!" She tore the congealing muck from the unit's face with a hand and whipped her wrist repeatedly to get rid of it.
As her view was finally unobstructed, she saw the now blossoming topmost hide of the angel unfurl into a fractal pattern, darkening into a glossy black, until a multifaceted dome took shape. It was akin to a fly's compound eye, but she quickly snapped out of her disgust as the strange orb concocted a light show from within.
The repeating reflections gave Asuka a very hard time making out just what ungodly powers the angel was invoking. To make matters worse, Command would not be able to analyze the thing from this far away.
Back in NERV HQ, Maya almost jumped out of her seat before announcing, "Pattern orange detected near the GeoFront!"
"What? Here?!" Misato's turned to her in disbelief.
"Yes, ma'am. It's an enormous concentration of energy. The Magi are pinpointing its exact location based on extreme changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure."
Ritsuko stepped forward. "I'll deal with this. Misato: you stay with Asuka." She turned to Shinji and Rei. "You two go change and stand-by in case we need you."
"Yes ma'am!" The two kids nodded and ran toward the elevators. 'Good luck, Asuka,' Shinji thought.
Acutely aware that her time was limited, Asuka charged forward despite the far-away development, and the creature seemed to escape her grasp by orbiting around the Great Pyramid. Her unit's proximity to the last battery cargo drop elicited a soft beep in her interface. 'That's right', she thought, and glanced at her battery timer: three minutes left.
"It looks like it doesn't want to destroy the pyramid. Could that be significant?"
"I don't know, Asuka. Keep an eye on it but don't stop attacking."
"Roger." Her grip on the axe tightened. She ran up the structure in a diagonal path, leaning to her right to compensate for the somewhat steep angle. The great limestone bricks cracked and crumbled under the weight of the red titan, and she lifted her axe with both arms, aiming for a downward strike directly across the enormous eye. A pair of tentacles rose to meet her but this did not stop her whatsoever. Having no qualms about getting rid of these as well, she hacked three times in quick succession as the first was sliced off in one motion but the second required an additional strike to come off. With half of its limbs now severed, the creature lost its balance and toppled over as a pond of purple sludge formed around them. Asuka cautiously approached what looked like the bottom of the beast as it lay on its side, but then the black sphere disappeared inward and moved through its length. The eye suddenly protruded from the opposite side, directly in front of Unit-02, and a familiar red shimmering came to life from within, accompanied by a high-pitched shriek.
Asuka gasped sharply in realization. "AT-Field full pow—"
A blinding explosion crashed against her, and she tripped backwards as a corner of the pyramid lay behind her right foot. She tumbled twice and was pushed back hundreds of meters as a horizontal cross of light enveloped her, vaporizing water and melting concrete and sand alike into dull glass.
Blinking repeatedly, Asuka was glad that her tears of pain dissipated within the inundated entry plug. Her forearms, clavicle, breasts and knees felt raw and tender, and she felt the armored plates installed on analogous places in Unit-02 dig into her own flesh. Her eyes shifted to the side: a minute and forty seconds left.
The creature shifted in place to accommodate for its new form-factor, with a longer and thinner torso and only four tentacles at its base. The pattern of light within the black sphere returned to its previous configuration. Asuka dug through the dunes for the axe handle, and as she gave the angel a wary glance, her eyes widened at the sight: The contour of the pyramid began glowing with crawling streaks of pink and red lightning, and for a moment, her vision seemed to double with an afterimage of a blueish glass prism superimposed on it.
"What is that?" She asked, mostly to herself.
"Asuka, you have to stop that, now!" Misato ordered.
She lifted the axe and quickly got up, wincing as she felt the sand dig in whatever space existed between her armor plates. The pain made her clumsy, and she swung recklessly at the creature as soon as she got within melee range. With its new shape and flexibility, the angel avoided each strike as its torso bounced back and forth like a balloon and its tentacles coiled and twisted erratically. The ridiculous sight was having a terrible effect on Asuka's already worn down patience, and as the half minute mark approached, she began to get desperate.
"There's a battery pack two hundred meters away, to your seven-o-clock," Misato reminded her.
"I know... I just, there's no time!" Asuka protested as she kept hacking the air fruitlessly.
"Go get it Asuka, that's an order!"
"Fine!" Asuka snapped, mostly to stop her from distracting her further. She turned around and made to run when suddenly, the angel coiled a tentacle around her calf and pulled hard. Unwilling to lose her grip on the axe, she kicked back with her free leg without looking back, and her unit was whipped around in the air and finally slammed against the pyramid wall.
The NERV HQ pyramid shook with an echoing tremor.
"That can't be a coincidence." Misato turned to Ritsuko, aghast. The latter nodded, then pressed a button on Maya's console and picked up the phone beside it.
"Pilot Ikari, Pilot Ayanami, you are to board your units immediately and exit directly within the GeoFront through gate 96F."
As the boarding and launch procedure began, Unit-02 slid down the pyramid and landed on its feet. Asuka's voice was tired and almost pleading. "Misato, let me use the glyphs, there is no time." She hoped there'd be no precious seconds wasted on arguing about safety or procedure.
"It's going to hurt," Misato simply said, and Asuka smiled. "I know."
She held down the button on her A10 connectors, making the green lanes glow incandescently. Rotating the handle of her controls inwards and pushing slowly, she felt the low hum of an engine and braced for the psychic impact. She let go of the axe and rotated a hatch on the side of her unit's knee, and the compartments beside her legs opened outwards, ejecting a pair of long, extending rods with an array of red glyphs carved all across their surface. She actually had to bang twice on the left one to extend it, since the melted metal plates were too bent for clean telescoping.
Surprised at having these few seconds without interruption, she looked up and watched in horror as the ground beneath the angel began to split open, like a hidden mechanism was opening the way to a previously undiscovered catacomb. She threw one of the rods across the gap and the enemy seemed too distracted in its incantation to intercept it.
She dug the other one into the sand in front of her with both hands and then extended her unit's arms forward as she activated the glyph system. Asuka felt a spike dig into her head from an unknown direction, and she grit her teeth as the carvings on the surface of the rods began glowing and rotating. The effect was immediate: The angel stiffened and its tentacles jutted outwards on the ground like frazzled cat tails. With the chasm still opening, the angel sank partially, being slowly dragged down by the curtains of sand sliding into the abyss.
Paralyzed inside her unit, Asuka realized she had twenty seconds to finish the job. Plan after plan ran through her addled brain, but there was too little time for any of them to work. Misato was yelling something but she wasn't listening anymore, and as if she wasn't under enough pressure, the ravine that now almost engulfed both giants went from a deep black void to a swirl of colors similar to that of core synchronization. She willed her unit's hands closed to break the paralysis, then swiftly kicked the axe handle on the ground in front of her, sending it flying up to her hands. She had no time to revel in her display of dexterity as the angel swept a tentacle under her legs and pulled her forward as it fell through the chasm.
She felt a pit in her stomach from falling and couldn't help but close her eyes as she brought the axe down with all her strength, and her arms trembled as the weapon hit and cleaved through the alien eye, yet when she opened them again nothing made sense anymore: she was falling in front of NERV HQ's main building. Before she could even muster the energy to voice her confusion, a fire crawled up her leg. It was so mind-numbingly painful that she immediately fell unconscious.
Shinji watched from Unit-01 as the tear in spacetime shrunk into nothingness, cleanly slicing Unit-02's leg at the knee as it dematerialized. The depowered Eva fell in a tangle of white tentacles straight into the lake within the GeoFront, causing the rising waves to crash against surrounding buildings and to flood the nearby man-made forest. His mission was now one of rescue, and any association his mind made to swimming was overwhelmed by his drive to save his friend.
"Thank you." Shinji carefully took the hot beverage and sipped, letting the cup rest on his lap afterwards. He shuddered. "That's uh, very strong... but not bad. What brand is this?"
"Doctor Akagi grows it."
"Ah. Didn't know she had a green thumb."
"She doesn't."
"Oh, a green thumb is when a person—"
"I know the expression. NERV grows a series of genetically-modified coffee shrubs among other angiosperms down in the botanic labs located in floor -11D."
Shinji was stunned, yet amused. Knowing that her irritation had spurred her on to over-explain pleased him—it was something not everyone would get. He pondered the circumstances that could've led to NERV building a bunch of greenhouses deep underground, then shrugged and drank again.
Rei glanced up from her cup. "Ikari—"
The sound of the automatic door made them turn. "Shinji, good news!" Misato entered the hall in a jog, stopping once in front of them. "You're here too, Rei. That's good! Asuka's fine. She'll be released in a few hours."
"That's great!" Shinji said. Rei sipped her coffee.
"Yes. There's a little hiccup with her leg from the damage in her Eva, but she should be back to normal in a few days." She signaled victory with her hand. "I'll be in my office finishing some work in the meantime, but you guys can return home if you want."
"Okay, I can get started with dinner."
"You better make something good, alright? She might not be in the best of moods once she wakes up."
"Tell me something new," he said, scratching his cheek. "Alright, I need to go get some groceries, then."
Misato crossed her arms and turned to the other pilot. "Why don't you go with him, Rei? You can join us for dinner afterwards."
Shinji hid the sudden panic on his face by looking at his old friend, the potted plant. He missed the look that Rei and Misato exchanged with each other.
"Yes, ma'am."
As the afternoon neared its end, the two children walked to the train station carrying a pair of grocery bags each, navigating through the crowded streets of after-work hours. Seeing the train arrive and stop, they both frowned at the throng exploding out of the car. They barely made it inside before the doors closed once more, with Shinji pushing with his back to secure enough space between them. They'd have to take the trip back standing. Rei grabbed onto the crossbar near the door and stared through the windows.
Looking around him, Shinji noticed a pair of salarymen staring at the back of her head, and a woman scolding the little girl siting beside her for asking about her "funny" appearance. He turned to Rei, wondering if she'd heard, but she seemed as entranced with the outside as she often did while in class. Shinji instinctively hid his frustrated expression by looking down at their shoes.
"It doesn't matter" Rei said absently, drawing his attention. He thought about refuting her, but the train began to move and he lost his nerve. Settling in, he let his bags rest in the space between their legs.
During a particularly tight turn, they jostled against each other in a rather embarrassing manner. An apology escaped his lips, and he couldn't help but glance down in surprise at the top of her head when her reply to it was a quiet "I don't mind". She was close enough that he could smell her hair. To Shinji, this was more anxiety-inducing than alluring—he was still playing with fire.
Rei, who was hiding a small blush by tilting her head, felt Ikari stiffen at her response. There was something captivating about his almost untraceable AT-Field, in that it was often a perfect reflection of his body language. This was something she'd never find in most other people, including herself. She felt a strange urge to lean on him for support, but the unassuming men in black suits at the back of the train car were a sobering reminder of the potential consequences.
They arrived at Misato's apartment a few minutes later. Rei stopped walking directly into the kitchen when she saw Shinji removing his shoes. After a few seconds of consideration, she returned and did the same. They were having a brief exchange about their distaste for crowded places when the flapping of wings and a flustered "Wark!" welcomed them home.
"Hey, Pen Pen! You must be hungry." He put his hands through a pair of the bags so he could carry all four and continued to the kitchen. "Ayanami, could you do me a favor? There's a big can of sardines in the counter to your left. Could you open one for Pen Pen while I put the groceries away?" He lifted the bags and placed them on another countertop before getting busy.
Rei nodded and found the can fairly quickly, struggling for a few seconds to open a container with such a big pull tab. Pen Pen pecked at her ankles in anticipation, producing a tiny gasp from her.
"Pen Pen, she's our guest! Be nice."
"Wark!"
"I'm unharmed," she reassured him. She walked to the bowl in the corner and emptied the can's contents, and the bird was there like a homing missile. She sidestepped it and returned to the kitchen, tossing the empty can in the garbage and walking to the sink to wash the smell of fish off her hands. After thoroughly scrubbing the back of her fingers and knuckles, she glanced at Shinji, who'd been looking at her.
"Ah, do you also not like fish? Sorry."
"No, but there's no need to apologize. I dislike red meat and fish, and poultry I've never had, though I suspect I might not like it either." She turned to finish washing.
"You've never had chicken?" He asked in amazement. The twitch in her eye made him remember who he was talking to, and he surmised that this type of scene was probably a common annoyance for her.
"No."
Attempting to establish some common ground while pushing a few cans inside the cabinet, he said, "I've never had duck, nor turkey—unless you count the processed meat they use for 'turkey ham', but I wouldn't be surprised if they put other weird stuff in it to keep it cheap. I mean, it gets really slimy after just a few days. Kensuke said that horse breeders sometimes—" He stopped when he closed the door and glanced at her expression. "I didn't mean... Is this a gross conversation?"
She immediately nodded while staring at the sink.
"Sorry," he stammered and then winced. "I know I keep saying that stupid word, but like I've said, I mean it."
She closed the faucet and reached for the hand towel beside it. "I know." She turned to face him and tilted her head as only she knew how while studying his face. "I trust you."
Shinji couldn't tell why, but her words made him want to cry. He also chastised himself for being so weak. He cleared his throat and pulled two glass tumblers out of the nearest cupboard, placing them on the counter beside her. "I'm thirsty, would you like some water?"
She nodded and picked up the glasses to fill them herself, earning a small 'thanks'.
Shinji put on his green apron and prepared the kitchen for cooking dinner while Rei watched from the table. He decided to concentrate on his work, trusting that she wasn't talking simply because she didn't feel like doing so. The plan was to make a vegetable cream stew as a starter, and potato croquettes with cabbage salad as the main course. This way he'd simply hold the beef for Rei's portion of the meal while catering to Asuka's growing weariness of rice and fish.
Once the two trays of patties were done, he covered them with a transparent film and put them in the fridge, then returned to the counter to clean the area again and to put away the ingredients he wouldn't be needing anymore. "Alright, we just need to let that chill for fifteen to twenty minutes, and then we can start frying." He washed his hands and turned towards Rei, who was currently following his hand movements.
"Ayanami?"
Rei stood up from her chair and walked toward him with a strange determination in her eyes. She gently took his hand in hers and examined it carefully, and eventually looked him in the eye. "Ikari. Does this make you uncomfortable?"
Her hand felt delicate and cold, and he looked away. "Yes... a little. Why are you doing this?"
"There's something I want to understand, but there's no one else I could ask. Would you trust me?"
He looked back at her. His face still displayed his confusion, but he absently nodded.
"Close your eyes."
Even at his paltry fourteen years of age, Shinji had consumed enough media up to this point to become extremely anxious at the request. 'No. Surely, it can't be... right?
Forcing his trembling lips into a thin line, he closed his eyes, then flinched as he felt Rei cover them with her free hand for good measure. He heard her breathing become deep and slow, and could feel a soft buzz in the palm of his grasped hand. He wondered if it was a mere product of his nerves, when a faint crinkling sound made his ears pop harmlessly. Rei pulled away and Shinji opened his eyes once more.
"I think... I understand," she murmured while looking at her palm.
"What did you do?" He asked quietly. She looked up at him.
"I cannot tell you. But I believe I've learned something. May I hug you once more?"
Maybe a bit eager and definitely curious, he nodded and slightly raised his arms. She slid one arm over his shoulder and the other under his other arm, resting her chin above the latter, and her hands lay gently on his back. Shinji was stunned with how different it felt compared to last time, and slowly lifted his arms to her back. This time, they landed naturally in place. The sound of her breathing comforted him, but he soon became self-conscious about it.
"I see," her voice wavered.
"Are you okay?" He asked softly beside her ear. She squeezed him lightly in response.
"Yes... I am now," she exhaled contentedly. After a few seconds, she let go and stepped back, giving him a small bow. "Thank you."
"Ayanami, you're crying."
She took a hand to her face and confirmed his words. "But, why?"
"I don't know. Are you sure you're okay?"
She wiped the tears with the back of her hand and smiled. "Yes, I enjoyed that. Did you?"
"Mm." Shinji nodded, and to his wonder, the feeling of comfort was overriding his anxiety. "I should get started with the stew. Would you like some tea while you wait?"
After a few minutes of drinking tea and cooking, the main door of the apartment opened with a hiss.
"I'm just saying, it better be good." Asuka's voice trailed inside, and the thudding of crutches followed her toward the living room. Given the layout of the apartment, it was inevitable that she'd stumble into Ayanami drinking tea at the kitchen table.
"...And what is Weirdo doing here?!" She blurted, probably louder than she meant to.
Shinji turned from where he was frying the last croquettes, but before he could call her out, Misato appeared behind her. "Asuka, what did I just tell you!"
Asuka flinched, then looked back at her. "Well, you could've warned me!" She turned to Shinji. "What are you staring at?" But before he opened his mouth, she was already shuffling to the living room.
Misato gave the kids an apologetic smile and walked to the fridge. "Hey Shinji, that smells really good."
"Thanks, it'll be ready in about ten minutes." His smile was lessened somewhat by the two, make that three, beers she pulled out.
"Great! Lemme just change and I'll be right back. Rei," she turned to the girl and skipped a beat when she saw what was definitely a smile return to nothing as she did. "Be a dear and set up the table, would you?"
"Yes, ma'am."
It wasn't long before they all sat down for dinner.
"You're really improving, Shinji." Misato said before having more stew. "This tastes amazing! Right, Asuka?"
"It's fine." She said between bites, and Shinji's hopeful look faltered.
"It's very agreeable," Rei said, before picking up another piece with her chopsticks.
Noticing Asuka's souring expression at Rei's words, Misato tried to pivot. "So, Asuka. Can you explain to Shinji what the Doctor told you?""
Her fork clinked against the bottom of her plate. "Right now? It's embarrassing enough that you two see me like this, and you want me to explain my failure in excruciating detail in front of her?"
"What's wrong with Ayanami listening?" Shinji asked with a frown.
"It's about dignity!" Asuka's expression went from covert anger to seething. "You're just a child, you wouldn't get it."
"Pilot Soryu." Rei placed her chopsticks beside her plate. Misato and Shinji's eyes met briefly, mirroring their concern. "Defeating the angels is our purpose as pilots. Eradicating the Angel of the Earth was your mission, and you were successful."
"So? That's my job. Speaking of which, aren't you jealous that the Commander picked me?" She asked in a haughty tone.
"If the Commander chose you, it means you were the best choice. I'm simply attempting to convey that the negative consequences of your success are irrelevant at this time. Your victory is what matters."
"Are you sucking up to me now, First? What's your angle?"
"There is no angle. The angel has been defeated. Your victory is a good thing."
"You keep saying stupid and obvious things."
"What I think Ayanami is trying to say—" Shinji started, but Rei talked over him. "Pilot Soryu, I... We do not mind that you're injured, we do not see it as a failure on your part. Ikari would not mind tending to you while you recover."
Asuka looked at Shinji expectantly and he flinched, but recovered. "Y-Yeah, that's true. You did great, and we're glad you're back. We're a team, remember?"
She exhaled and looked down at her food, poking at it with her fork. "Yeah, I guess."
Not wanting to ruin Rei's save, Misato dropped the subject, and they resumed eating in silence for a few minutes. The three were surprised when Asuka suddenly spoke up again: "I can't feel my leg below the knee—it's the sympathetic damage. Ironically, even if my Eva had its leg completely fixed, I wouldn't be able to move it until I'm healed. So, I need to do some physical therapy for a few weeks. And no, I don't need your help." She said preemptively, then rolled her eyes at Shinji's concerned face.
They finished eating in a guarded silence, and as Shinji retrieved the dishes for washing, Misato insisted that Rei take some leftovers home before putting on her red jacket. After a curt goodbye from her fellow pilot, she and Misato left the apartment.
Shinji was still looking at the entrance door when Asuka's teasing lilt caught his attention.
"So, had fun with your little girlfriend?" She leaned back on the wall near the living room entrance.
His face went bright red. "She's not...! What do you care?!"
"I don't! Jeez, learn to take a joke, will you?"
"Jokes are supposed to be funny."
"It's not my fault you have no sense of humor. That's another reason you two downers are perfect for each other!"
"Don't do this, Asuka. We were having a nice time!" He said indignantly, and her face soured.
"Oh, here goes Mr. Dramatic again, 'Oooh, don't do this, Asuka'," she quoted in a nasally, whiny voice. "You'd think I'm killing hostages here!"
"I just don't know why you're so angry all of the sudden."
"I'm not even angry! You just love to paint me as the villain. At least Misato is not here so you two can gang up on me."
Shinji's hand tic manifested itself. "If that's how you see it..."
"'It's not my intention'," she completed without humor. "Yeah, I'm sure. I'm also sure you're very, very sorry, because that fixes everything." She looked at him with disdain, hoping he'd say something to prove her wrong. When he couldn't even look her in the eye, she leaned on her crutches and walked away, saying, "Thanks for the dinner. I'm going to my room."
An unmarked elevator moved within the deepest confines of NERV-Germany. With a cane in one hand and a transparent plastic bag in the other, Keel Lorenz waited as the platform slowly deposited him well below the depths of civilian infrastructure. At his advanced age, walking most places was a tiresome, yet necessary exercise to keep his bodily functions running in a somewhat acceptable fashion. He ran the events of the previous weeks through his cybernetically-enhanced heuristics.
The child's targeted brain scans had turned out to be devoid of any signs of betrayal. Every memory accounted for, every waking hour backed up by hours upon hours of surveillance footage showing him reading, eating, sleeping, relieving himself, or playing music. The thought-pattern scans for the Dummy Plug System were also impeccable: Not only was he able to synchronize with the cores at will, his mind was free of the tiniest noise or unrelated thoughts while being scanned. It was too perfect.
But Chairman Keel did not reach his ripe old age, let alone the the apex of human society, by relying solely on evidence. Intuition and luck were often defining factors when committing to actions of grave consequence, and he was one of the best at it. For his part, Ikari's two-faced puppet had disappeared from everyone's sight, and SEELE's satellites had detected the faintest traces of a Pattern Orange near the Jordanian coast soon after. A few days later, a much more definitive signal was detected in a small Iranian town, and the UN agents that reached the area had reported some very interesting sightings by the locals.
Then, there was the Angel of the Earth—a second apocryphal angel. It was enough to send most SEELE members into a panic, and wrangling them back into submission had required some rather unsightly methods. It would not do for members of the Committee to waver so close to the end of days. There was also the growing instability in the Middle East, and the logistical nightmare of returning the missing limb of the red Evangelion without meddling eyes attempting to copy the technology.
He finally arrived at the reinforced door, touching his gray thumb with his middle finger to activate its mechanism. The lights inside the room went from dim to bright, and the prisoner within awoke and slowly sat up, glancing absently at the bag in Keel's hand. The old man snickered.
"What's the meaning of this?" Kaworu asked. His voice was remarkably controlled.
"A reminder, child, of who owns you."
"I've done nothing wrong."
"Then you have nothing to fear," Keel growled and threw the bag at Kaworu's lap. Frozen with impotence, he didn't try to catch it as it ripped open upon impact, saturating his white clothes and bedsheets with deep red. The mangled head of a familiar doctor rolled off him and hit the ground with a wet thud, leaving a bloody streak in its path.
"If you're involved in what's happening out there, this is your last warning." The old man turned and exited the room.
Kaworu looked at the head with a practiced, neutral face. It would be foolish to break right now in front of the cameras. But this act of barbarity from the Chairman helped him put some of the pieces in his head into place—another betrayal, another justification. He slowly nodded, his purpose further crystallizing in his mind. He was the angel of free will, after all.
Misato opened the door to the small laboratory, and noticed that the air conditioner was much colder on this level. She watched Ritsuko type something in her console and then close her open programs before locking the display and standing up.
"Hello, Misato."
"Hi," she replied curtly. "I'm ready."
"In the interest of following protocol, I'd like to warn you one last time before we proceed. Once we go through that door, your security clearance will be elevated, but there will be no going back. You will not be able to leave Tokyo-3 at least until we win the war."
"I'm ready," she repeated simply.
"I do hope so."
They walked to the nearest elevator and once in it, Ritsuko pressed a button that required a swipe of her card for clearance purposes. The lights dimmed and the red LED in the security camera died out.
"I must explicitly forbid you from relaying what I'm about to tell you to Shinji, as it will certainly affect his synchronization rate. You will likely learn or deduct further information based on what we tell you, but I strongly recommend that you abstain from asking, or I won't be able to protect you from the Commanders. Rest assured that you will learn everything there is to learn about the situation, in due time."
"What does Shinji have to do with any of this?"
"We'll get there, but there are things to explain first, like the fact that one of Gehirn's first forays into metaphysical biology resulted in the discovery of the soul." She looked at Misato's expression and resisted the urge to light a cigarette in such a confined space—this was going to be hard. "Don't be distracted by the terminology. What we know is that all living beings are tethered to a cluster of virtual information that have the potential to individuate from each other. It's part of Quantum Field Theory, the specifics of which are irrelevant to this conversation. What you must know is that as soon as the natural soul was discovered, our benefactors immediately requested that we find a way to extract it and place it in a different vessel. As you might imagine, this alone would be a scientific breakthrough of unprecedented magnitude."
Misato nodded in confirmation.
"For a long time, we failed. Well, it was my mother and Commander Fuyutsuki leading that project. They were stuck for almost three years before they were able to conduct a successful salvaging operation, the main reason being that humans have such imperceptible barriers of individuation that it was basically impossible to detect them, let alone manipulate them."
"You mean the AT-Field."
Ritsuko nodded. "As you've seen by now, only angels and Evas are able to project AT-Fields that are strong enough to be used as a form of defensive weaponry. This was known ever since the first contact experiment in Antarctica, so we decided to use a sample of Adam to test our AT-Field manipulation capabilities. That is another fact that's been withheld from the public—Adam survived Second Impact, though it reverted to an embryonic form because of it. The being currently imprisoned in Terminal Dogma is actually the second angel, Lilith."
Misato was aghast and confused. "You said that was Adam. Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"
"I'm telling you now." She gave her a grave look. "Yui Ikari travelled to Europe to work in NERV-Germany, since only they had the energy infrastructure required for the experiments. The extraction was a success, but depositing it into a different vessel failed every time. The soul was not destroyed in the process, but it couldn't be brought back to Japan because it had to be kept in a specialized facility. Since SEELE insisted on keeping the embryonic body as well, Yui returned to Japan to replicate the experiments using Lilith instead of Adam. We did not bring Lilith down below Hakone, by the way. We found it here, and the GeoFront and Tokyo-3 were built on top of it."
"We'd successfully created Unit-01 out of Lilith's body, or rather grew it from its body—you will see the failed attempts in the disposal chambers down ahead. In any case, other countries did the same with samples of Adam for the other units. But at some point, SEELE did something not even the Commander expected, and here's where Kaji's findings enter the picture. SEELE managed to reinsert Adam's soul into a vessel by growing a humanoid body from its physical remains and enough human donors to replace the many unstable genetic markers. I once told you that particle-wave matter was remarkably similar to human DNA..."
"99.89%" Misato quoted, then noticed Ritsuko's mild surprise. "It was an oddly specific number."
"Right, well, they've essentially grown a person made partially out of Adam's flesh and put a soul in it. The only reason why we know all of this with any modicum of certainty is because, apparently, Kaji's informant is a spare that escaped."
"A spare body? So, first you tell me that the soul exists, and then you tell me that there's a way for a person to just not have one?"
"There's much we don't know yet. Assuming our memories and personality can be mapped completely from the brain, then what would the soul be? Philosophy aside, all we know is that an individuated body cannot exist without it, its molecular bonds dissipate as soon as it's removed. So we don't know how SEELE managed it, but this informant seeks to gain our favor by sharing his knowledge of the upcoming angels with us. As long as we protect him from SEELE, we'll stay one step ahead, and the predictions have changed enough that we'll need it more than we ever thought."
"How do we know it's not a trap? And if these SEELE men are as rich and powerful as you imply, what more could they even want out of the war?"
Ritsuko sighed in frustration, not at Misato, but at the situation. "Back when I first brought you to the conference room, you asked me about SEELE's involvement in Second Impact. There's a lot of history to cover, mainly because we need your skills in a much larger theater of war. Have you ever heard the term 'Human Instrumentality'?"
The elevator stopped with a shudder, and the door to the deepest complex within NERV HQ opened. Misato swallowed and walked inside, realizing that by the time she returned to the surface, she might be an entirely different person.