Neon Genesis Evangelion and its associated properties are owned by Gainax Co., Ltd., Tatsunoko Production Co., Ltd., Netflix, Inc., and Hideaki Anno.
Note: Realistically, the characters in this work would be conversing in Japanese. However, for both the author's and readers' convenience, the characters' dialogue is instead written in English.
"THE LOWER BRIDGE"
A NEON GENESIS EVANGELION FAN FICTION BY R. E. SCOTT
one
The lukewarm summer downpour cascaded endlessly against the glass, distorting the outside world into a bleary clutter of navy with the occasional shimmering gold of street lamps and passing headlights. The conditions outside contrasted heavily with the dry, yet comfortable environment of Rin's apartment bedroom on the sixth floor.
Rin opened her eyes, rolled onto her side, and glanced at the digital clock on her bedside table.
"03:13", it read.
Rin groaned and flopped back into a lying position, staring at the ceiling. Her mind raced with thoughts of the prior day's battle.
Rin Miura, a twenty-three-year-old Kobe native, had been working as an engineer at the United Nations special agency NERV, headquartered in Japan's decoy capital Tokyo-3, for nearly two years. The agency was named after the German word for "nerve", although its pronunciation was a topic of debate among its employees. Rin was staunchly Team Nehrf, closer to the German pronunciation, although her side seemed to be just barely outnumbered by Team Nerve, who insisted it should be pronounced like the English word.
Rin stared at the ceiling and thought of so-called "Angels", the enigmatic entities that had recently begun attacking Tokyo-3. She thought of the primal roar that the pilot of NERV's primary weapon against the Angels, Artificial Human Evangelion Unit 01, had unleashed while plunging a car-sized hypersonic knife into the flesh of an Angel the day before. She thought of the pressure that the pilot, a mere boy of fourteen who happened to be the son of NERV's commander, must be shouldering from carrying such a responsibility. She thought of her childhood home in Kobe, now submerged forty meters underwater by the skyscraper-sized waves triggered by the cataclysmic Second Impact fifteen years prior. She thought of the pilot for the Evangelion Prototype Unit 00, an aloof albino girl whose hair was a peculiar shade of grayish-blue and whose eyes were a piercing crimson that gave a shiver to anyone she made eye contact with. She thought of her superior Lieutenant Ibuki, a boyish yet petite young woman, reprimanding her for leaving a NERV-brand coffee mug on the control panel.
The last thing Rin remembered crossing her mind before she finally fell asleep was that time two weeks earlier when she could have sworn she noticed some kind of bird's feather stuck to Captain Katsuragi's jacket as she walked by.
The digital clock on Rin's bedside table blared its six o'clock alarm. Rin slowly sat up in bed, stretched her arms, and scratched her head.
Come six-fifteen, she was in the shower, spreading conditioner through her dark brown hair.
At six-thirty, she was fumbling with her brassiere's hook with one hand and combing the side locks of her hair into their trademark arches with the other.
By six-forty-five, she heard the toaster oven chime to signify her breakfast was ready as she scooped the contents of a can into the bowl belonging to Kojiro, a tomcat with jet-black fur and bright green eyes that she had adopted shortly after moving to Tokyo-3.
Rin locked her apartment's front door just after seven o'clock and departed for NERV headquarters.
"Thirty-four seconds late," jokingly chided Satsuki Ooi, a NERV technician and Rin's best friend of four years. "I counted in my head.". Satsuki was a woman of twenty-five, tall and sporting long blonde hair, courtesy of her mother's Russian blood.
"Close enough," retorted Rin, swiping her identification card at the gate. "How was I supposed to predict my train would be behind schedule?".
Rin and Satsuki walked through the corridor, en route to the locker room where their uniforms were stored.
"What's on the agenda for today again?" inquired Rin.
"Unit Zero's sync test," answered Satsuki, stepping onto an escalator. "Second time's the charm, I suppose.".
Rin remembered the first test a month prior, in which the Evangelion had lost control, injuring its pilot, the albino girl. "Is the pilot in good enough shape?".
"Not like the Commander cares."
"If he heard you say that, you'd be out on the street in minutes," sneered Rin as she and Satsuki disembarked the escalator. "You'd have to live with me and Kojiro.".
"How's he been, anyway?"
"Fine. He could stand to lose some weight, though. Maybe it's the brand of food I switched him to last month.".
Rin and Satsuki smiled and greeted Lieutenant Hyuga, one of their superiors, as he passed by. He was a lanky man with thick glasses. "Good morning," he replied, oddly sterner than usual, and kept walking.
"Everything okay with him?" asked Rin. "He's usually more … chipper.".
"Probably stressed about the sync test today," answered Satsuki. "Can't blame him, after how the first one went.".
Rin shuddered, remembering the sight of Unit Zero's pilot practically wrapped head to toe in bandages.
The pair approached the women's locker room door, swiping their cards to unlock the door. As they entered, they noticed Lieutenant Ibuki donning her uniform, looking just as nervous as Hyuga had seemed to be, if not more. She closed her eyes and sighed as she zipped up her jacket.
"Good morning, ma'am," said Satsuki, forcing a smile. "I hope the test today goes well.".
"Still another six hours until then," said Ibuki. She possessed a rather meek-sounding voice, but she could be assertive with her subordinates if she needed to. "The suspense is killing me. I'd honestly rather get it over with at the start of the shift.".
Ibuki seemed off in thought for a moment, before blinking and quickly turning to face Rin and Satsuki. "Oh, er - good morning to you too.".
Rin smiled an uneasy smile and walked towards her locker. The wheel on the padlock clicked as she turned it while reciting the combination in her head. Twenty-six, eleven, thirty-one, four - CLICK. She swung the locker open, revealing her uniform neatly folded on the rack.
"Shift starts in eight minutes, so please don't dawdle," Ibuki called out to the pair as she left the locker room.
Rin pulled her uniform's shirt over her head. Another day that could be the last, she thought to herself.