Asuka leaned on her IV caddy as she stared at the unconscious form of the Third Child. He looked horrible, like he had gone three or four rounds with a rhinoceros. She hadn't ever seen him look as bad, even after their horribly aborted battle with the leviathan, despite losing his leg. Whatever had happened to him and Unit-01 inside of the Angel, it had done a number on the pair of them.
He was out of the intensive care wing, which was a relief, but was still on enough life support machines that he might as well have been inside his Evangelion. Despite all the machines trying to keep him alive, he looked peaceful, possibly even serene in his wounded state, but she could not shake the sense of dread she had as she watched him sleep in his coma. She felt uneasy in his presence and in the presence of Unit-01, a deep-seated despair and fear tugging at her mind and soul. He was comatose, but there seemed to be an aura about him as if he was not sleeping so much as he was simply waiting to be switched on and unleashed.
She couldn't tell how much of it was from Lilith and how much from her observations of the boy, but either way, she was sure there was more to it than just badly frayed nerves. He had been in more battles and had done more damage, not only to the Angels but to the surrounding areas, than Wondergirl and herself combined.
But even if he was waiting to be switched on, he was out of the fight for now. It was not good at all for him to be as prone to going into comas as he was, and some of the nurses had quietly voiced doubts about him coming out of this one.
The pilot corps was cut by a third with him gone. Distressing but not the end of the world.
She hobbled over to a chair and flopped down, taking care to not dislodge the catheter tube in her arm. Still watching the boy as he slept, her thoughts went to another third of the pilot corps, several floors down in solitary confinement.
Rei was confined, not necessarily as punishment, but more for her protection. The JSSDF wanted her. The government of Japan wanted her. The loss of two fighters and four pilots was not something either would let pass without comment or action. Neither was NERV going to just hand over one of their pilots. The political climate was very tense and charged, though, and NERV Command had sequestered the girl away while they argued with the national government and military complex, claiming self-defense on the part of the girl.
But until Commander Ikari could talk things over with the powers that were, Rei would remain incarcerated.
Two-thirds of the pilot corps was out of the fight. This was dangerous, if not an outright disaster, seeing as Rei was fully capable of piloting.
Then, of course, there was herself. While she would, of course, throw herself back into the Entry Plug even if she was half dead, she had to admit that her chances in combat as she was were not good. The intracranial pressure had let up in the past two hours, but she was still a little shaky and uneasy on her feet.
At less than a hundred percent, she could not say that a third of the pilot corps remained ready to defend the world against the Angels.
It was a sobering thought, NERV being defenseless against the Angels, the Evangelions without pilots. Weapons without anyone to use them were useless. The puppets of meat and armor, as powerful and awesome as they were, still needed someone to pull the strings. Without the pilots to give them purpose and life, the giants would remain in their cages in the event of an Angelic incursion, unable to do anything.
She hauled herself to her feet, left the boy's room, and headed back to her own. Until the Commander secured Rei's freedom and safety, she would be the only pilot on the active roster. She needed to get back to her usual self as soon as possible.
She paused in the hall as she saw Maya leaving her room. The older woman also stopped, watching her for a moment before a small, hesitant smile appeared on her face. "I heard that you were back on your feet. How are you feeling?"
Asuka hesitated for a moment before shaking her head. "Worried," she answered but smiled back at the lieutenant. "Shinji's still out of it, and Rei's locked up. I guess that Doctor Akagi's busy with Unit-01?"
"Yes and no. She disappeared some time ago with Sub-Commander Katsuragi, but Unit-01's mostly on the road to recovery. The damage was extensive, and we decided replacing the armor and missing systems outright was easier. It's getting the newest hardware, right down to the ancillary systems, and reacting well to the new implants. All in all, it will probably be ready before its pilot."
"What about the dummy plug systems? I saw it was on the schedule for my Unit-02, but that was for extended testing. Are we including it in Unit-01's upgrades?"
"Yes, we're putting the autopilots in both Units."
"Better than nothing, I suppose. Two halfway good systems might make for one good system, right?" Asuka joked. "Has there been any news about what's going on with Rei?"
"I haven't heard anything about it either way. I guess that no news is good news, although I don't think they would say anything if they were going to hand her over." Maya looked up at the ceiling as if she were looking to the Commander's office several floors above them, where he no doubt was sitting now, shrouded in darkness, planning and plotting, maneuvering his political pieces to ensure his aims were met. "I've got the MAGI scouring the nets for any scrap of information. The UN has condemned the act but hasn't taken any official stance."
"Have you heard anything about how she's taking it? I mean, how is she holding up in solitary?"
"If it was anyone else, I would be worried. She's isolated herself from most other people before in her life. I don't think she'll care much about the isolation except that it's keeping her from Shinji's bedside."
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Misato stared through the reinforced armored window into the cage housing Unit-01, watching the swarm of workers as they went about repairing the stricken titan. Dirty gray flesh stood out against the deep purple of the nutrient-rich coolant. The last scraps of armor that had remained after its reemergence from within the Dirac had been stripped to help prepare the Evangelion for the new armor and upgrades. The face of Unit-01 was the most human-like of the Evangelions but was a grotesque, misshapen parody. While within the purple and green armor, the Evangelion was a terrifying construction, a weapon of immense power, and a monument to the tenacity of mankind's struggle for survival. Without the armor, the defenses stripped away by conflict and violent, bloody strife, the Evangelion was a nightmarish monster.
But the nightmarish monster standing before her was not similar now to the nightmarish creature that had ripped the world asunder. Gone were the wings of pure fire, which Ritsuko said had been created by Shinji's AT-Field. The eyes that sat underneath the heavy eyelids were a deep emerald green, the same color ringing the mostly blue eyes of the ADAM sample currently growing within the Commander, not the supernovas that sat amidst a less brilliant field of living fire.
"We made the Evangelions in the image of ADAM, in the image of the physical god we had found," Gendo said as he walked up beside her, his hands clasped behind him. "I always found it strange He resembled us more than our mother, but I had more pressing matters to deal with than unraveling that little mystery. I do not know if you ever saw Him while He was encased within the Antarctic Ice, but Unit-01 is a close copy of his appearance. His armor was different, and His face was more human, having a nose and lips. While he slept in the ice, his eyes were the same green as Unit-01's."
"How do you explain Shinji's mimicking of ADAM's awakening? Has he ever heard about that day? About what happened?"
"He has not, at least not from my guidance, heard anything about the particulars of what ADAM looked like or the manner of his awakening from his slumber. Neither has he seen any of the recovered truncated and fragmentary recordings." Gendo paused, watching the activity before them unblinkingly. "I take it from your questions you never shared what you witnessed with him."
"I didn't. I told them I had been there and that I watched the breaking of the world. I never told them what it was like." She shuddered and turned her back on the window, leaning against it and staring at the floor. "I almost died when he came back when he broke free. I thought..." She trailed off and shook slightly, wrapping her arms around herself.
"You thought He had returned, that He had come back from the other side."
Misato nodded miserably, choking back a sob.
"I do not know why he chose those aspects or shaped his AT-Field this way. I told you before I did not have answers to all of your questions and that I was in the dark just as much as you were in some things." His voice betrayed nothing, no sign of what he thought of her breakdown. "In the berserker state, he is only peripherally aware of his actions. I can only offer conjecture as to his reasoning for choosing them. If it had been another Evangelion, I would say it could have been psychic residue from their source material. Or perhaps Lilith also wraps herself in the raiment of flame and fire to do battle." He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I don't know. She is difficult to speak to and often fickle. She has refused to speak on numerous occasions. The Lance, we know, at least, is hers. If He had one, it was lost long ago. Our studies on the Lance from before show that it is a single piece of metal, either an alloy or an element that is completely unlike anything we have ever seen. It is a two-pronged spear, the twin blades twisting into a double helix into the main shaft. The blades are impossibly sharp, going down to a monomolecular edge. There is no sign of wear and tear weathering or aging. ADAM suffered in His fight with Lilith, and she suffered as well. The Lance shows no signs of damage for all that it was shoved straight through ADAM, or that it was anywhere near ground zero during Second Impact, or that it had spent over a decade lodged inside the ocean floor."
"Why is it called the Lance of Longinus?"
"It was named so in the scrolls from which we derived most of our information about the secret history of the world. I expect the authors named it after the one weapon that pierced the side of the son of god. To them, only one weapon could harm such godlike creatures, these Angels, messengers of the most high." He shrugged, shaking his head. "The Lance belonged to Lilith. I gather that it was a tool as much as a weapon with which she brought about life on this world. When she speaks, you see, it is not a simple message or conversation like what you and I share. She implants thoughts and memories, recalled sensations and feelings directly into your mind. But for all that, she is our ultimate mother; her ways are different from ours. It is hard to puzzle out her meanings and the truth in those alien thoughts." He paused and turned from the activity before them to look at her. "Did ADAM ever speak to you? Did you ever feel like there were thoughts and memories, not your own, running around inside your head?"
Misato shook her head. "Nothing at all like what you've said. What does she say about Him?"
"She has refused to speak of him, except that he is a Destroyer from Outside."
"What does she think of your plans? About her upcoming death, I mean."
"That is why we need Rei. Rei will take control over Instrumentality, usurping it from Lilith. From what I gathered from SEELE, her plans were to free herself and resume her duties of overseeing the world. While not necessarily bad, it leaves the possibility of a Third Impact open. I cannot allow this."
They stood there in silence, watching the crews halting their activity, the men and women of the next shift coming on duty, quickly resuming the nearly twenty-four-hour repairs of the Evangelions.
"What are we going to do about Rei?" Misato asked, watching the crews insert metal components into waiting flesh. "Are we going to give her to the government?"
"It is a race," Gendo answered cryptically. "We are very close to being ready to trigger Impact on our terms. I am stalling the proceedings with the JSSDF, but if things are not favorable in a few weeks, some measures will need to be taken. I am in the process of setting things up."
Misato nodded slowly. "You didn't anticipate something like this?"
"No, I did not. I did plan for eventualities where the JSSDF comes against us, but in force and not like this. My agents within the Diet are working to soothe and settle the hurt feelings of the military, but it may not be enough as it is." While his face remained serious, his tone lightened fractionally. "I do not yet have plans for everything."
Misato allowed herself a small smile. "Yet," she echoed. Sighing, she shook her head. "I still have many questions, but they can wait unless there is anything else that's a big deal you think I should know about right now."
"I have another son."
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Rei ignored the spy as he regained consciousness, the man's head jerking back violently from where it had lolled forward. His eyes were wide and wild, searching everywhere he could see, struggling against his bonds.
"You will find you have been restrained with three rolls of duct tape," Rei informed the spy, looking up at him from across the room. "You will remain in my custody until I determine the best course of action."
His mouth was sealed with tape, but the look in his eyes conveyed the unspoken question.
"If you are to be freed, it will be on my terms and as my agent. However, the question remains of how to secure your total loyalty, for I do not wish to allow you to have as long a leash as the Commander has seen fit to give you. You and your lack of loyalty pose a major security risk to the Commander's Scenario and to my own." She returned to work, bending over the countertop and the circuit board she was soldering. Kaji resumed his struggles, trying to find any give in his restraints or the chair to which he was secured.
"If you are apprehensive as to the means by which I will kill you if I deem it necessary," Rei said without looking up from her project, "do not worry. It will be as painless as I can manage. With enough morphine in your system, you will fall asleep and never wake up." Setting the solder gun down, she carefully moved the stand that held the command board off to the side. Rei picked up a juice box and stuck the straw down into it. She began drinking as she watched the spy. He glared at her, but if she was bothered by it at all, he couldn't tell. Her usually impassive face was further masked by the pair of goggles she wore, the dark lenses obscuring her eyes. They were very similar to the pair Shinji wore during the Halloween party.
"I do not wish to cause you undue discomfort," she continued, "but I must protect the Commander's interests." She finished her juice, emptying the box with a final draw on the straw. Leaving the box on the counter, she stood up, removed her goggles, and dropped them into a pocket of her lab coat. "I must obtain more components for the modified control system. I will procure a number of saline packs to prevent you from dehydrating." She paused momentarily at the room's entrance, looking back over her shoulder. "The MAGI will alert me if you attempt to free yourself. Any attempt to escape is futile, Agent. My clones will be within arm's reach of you in moments. "
As soon as the door's lock reengaged with a solid-sounding click, Kaji began to assess his situation. He had escaped from dangerous situations before, and there wasn't any reason why he couldn't do so now. He was secured to a metal chair by a generous amount of heavy-duty duct tape, each wrist and forearm fixed to the arms of the chair, and each leg likewise done to the chair's front legs. His jacket had been removed, and more tape secured his chest to the back of the chair. He could not stand, and he could not move his arms or legs.
His only option seemed to be to move his arms back and forth to loosen up the tape, although he severely doubted his ability to loosen his bonds enough to slide his hands back out of them before the girl came back. But the spy was nothing if not optimistic. Slowly, he began to work at his restraints.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
The souls of Unit-00 and Unit-02 sat watching Unit-01 as he slept, the train car a ruined mess of burnt benches and scorched carpeting. The twilight sun barely cut through the hazy smoke that filled the car, smoke which refused to dissipate.
What do you think it means?
I don't know. He hasn't moved since the shutdown, and the MAGI say the boy hasn't moved at all either. He's still classified as being in intensive care, but they moved him back into his regular hospital room.
The girl says she is still locked up, although it means little to her. She's working on a modified control system for us right now, although she had to stop to deal with a spy.
A spy?
Yes. One of the Commander's little agents is a triple agent or something; Rei's not sure, and she's not all that interested, so long as he's secure and not causing trouble. She's got him safely tucked away in her lab. He's working for SEELE and Father, although the Commander knows it. I don't understand why she doesn't just kill him and dump him somewhere, but she says there might be some use to be gotten out of him.
We don't have to resort to killing everything as the first option, Unit-02 remarked, giving off the impression she was frowning at the cyclopean Evangelion. Has she seen my daughter or the boy? I don't entirely trust the MAGI's reports on them.
She hasn't gotten close enough to check up on them. She's mostly moving around on the supply warehouse levels and avoiding everyone she can. She wants to finish up the modified control system and get it installed along with the dummy plug. She says it will allow us to run everything in triple synchronization, allowing us better control over the AT-Field.
Interesting. I take it that she has plans for this improved control.
She says that she should be able to pull off the fire wings. I don't see how useful that is, as we still need to be attached with an umbilical cable, but she wants to at least try it.
I think the fire shield would be more useful. Can you ask her to get one installed for me?
Before Unit-00 could reply, the train shook violently, sending them sprawling on the ground. Unit-01 didn't stir from his unnatural slumber even as he bounced off the bench of seats onto the floor. Both Evangelions stared at each other as the tremors died down.
What was that?
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
"So SEELE cloned you like you did Shinji," Misato said, shaking her head as she flipped through the dossier on Kaworu Nagisa, staring at the pictures of the boy. "He looks nothing like you."
"A side effect of having the Angelic material blended with the human donor material is being able to sculpt the features of the new body. I chose to retain some of Shinji's features in Rei's face purely due to missing my son. SEELE sculpted Nagisa to meet their aesthetic values."
"He certainly is a pretty boy," Misato remarked. "He's got the same skin as Rei, but his eyes and hair are different. You said you couldn't resolve the pigmentation issues in Rei, but it looks like they could take care of it with him." She flipped back to the first pages, looking at the medical profile. "What's he like?"
"We've never met. He's supposed to be a surprise for me, a final trump card. SEELE will only send him here once they are ready to initiate Impact – they do not trust me not to take control to assume godhead by myself. But the boy is a child prodigy. He excels in all academic fields and plays numerous instruments at the maestro level. He is also unsettling to be around, enough to the point where several of the attending staff have committed suicide, leaving behind cryptic but worrisome notes. Kozo believes he has some psychic abilities, granted by the large amount of Angelic material in his genome. His Marduk scores show that he will be an excellent Evangelion pilot, and Ritsuko says he'll be able to force synchronization with any Evangelion."
"Is that because they used ADAM instead of Lilith for the Angelic material?"
Gendo shrugged noncommittally. "It's a possibility. It could also be because of the amount of Angelic heritage he has. Rei is a half and half, but the information my agents were able to retrieve suggests that Nagisa's genetic breakdown is closer to eighty percent Angel and only twenty percent human."
"So what have the old men had him doing all this time? Just hanging around playing music? Does he have an Evangelion on standby over in Germany?"
"Not that I'm aware of, no. He's accompanied Kiel on most of his travels and otherwise remains at Kiel's complex, but he's dropped off the grid recently. My agents haven't found out where he is or what he's up to."
"Could it mean trouble for us? If he's a spare key to the end of the world, I'd like us to know where he is before someone breaks into the house, if you know what I mean."
"Certainly, and I agree, although his disappearance act seems to be rather good. Most of SEELE seems to be unaware of his current location. The wing of rooms he normally resides in has been empty save for cleaning staff."
"Do we think he poses any special threat opposed to the obvious due to being made from ADAM?" Misato asked, chewing on her bottom lip as she studied the smiling boy's picture. "You said that Rei hasn't manifested any noticeable abilities from Lilith, and I certainly haven't seen anything like psychic… stuff… around her. Shouldn't we worry about other Angelic abilities if this boy is psychic?"
"My resources around the boy are limited," Gendo explained, leaning back in his chair. "It was hard enough to discover where the lab he was born in was. We weren't able to get any of their research documents or notes. Kiel has tried to keep the boy under lock and key as much as possible. They wanted to spring him on us like an assassin's blade in the night, a quick and sudden attack we could not defend against." He fell silent for a minute, staring at the ceiling. "I'm afraid that we can only offer conjecture on what he may be able to do."
Tossing the folder back onto the Commander's desk, Misato idly ran a hand through her hair. "What do you have planned for this other son of yours? Where does he figure in your plots?"
"There are contingencies that range between incarceration, subversion, and extermination. It mostly depends on how close we are to initiating Impact and how close they are. The best-case Scenario is that they send him a day or two before our preparations are complete, and we kill him outright. The worst case is that we have to try to sway him to our side, although if Kiel was even half as diligent in the boy's upbringing as I was in Rei's, this will, of course, be impossible. In that event, it will mean an outright war between SEELE and NERV. The Geo-Front can sustain itself indefinitely if we seal ourselves off from the surface world, although this is the worst-case resort. It would take an Angel or an Evangelion to break through our armor and defenses from the outside."
A new realization dawned on the Sub-Commander's face as the insider threat of Kaji's actions with the three power plants that kept the massive fortress city alive took on new meaning. "That's why they were so interested in the power network and infrastructure on the inside. It's not just for an invading military; it's for additional sabotage to allow them to stage a coup against you!"
"So you are starting to understand, then," Gendo said after a moment, acknowledging the event she was referencing. "Our greatest enemy was never the Angels or even ADAM; it is our fellow man. Once we seal ourselves in here, they have to break in with an Evangelion or have someone on the inside open the door. Apart from Nagisa, I hold the keys to the Evangelions, but that allows them only one Evangelion, which we can defend against easily."
Sub-Commander Fuyutuski walked into the office, his face grim. Gendo and Misato looked over at him as he spoke, his voice worried.
"There's been a terrible accident. We've lost contact with NERV-Las Vegas. Dr. Akagi thinks that something went wrong with the-"
"The S2 engine," Gendo said, interrupting his friend as he rose from behind his desk. "What happened?" he asked, already moving to the door, Misato rising and trailing after them.
"We're not sure. Our Geostationary satellite overhead showed a massive burst of EM spectrum energy and a massive spike of gamma rays right before going offline. We've got another satellite moving into position, but it will take a few minutes." Kozo fell silent momentarily before continuing as they hurried down the corridor. "The MAGI report that the conditions suggest the opening of another Dirac portal, only on a much larger scale this time."
"How large?"
"Initial assessments are putting it at just over three kilometers in diameter."
Misato cursed with a sharp exhalation of breath, her face white with horror. "That means-"
"That the entire complex could be gone."
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Shinji yawned as he opened his eyes and looked around the room. He was back home in the apartment, which was odd, considering the last thing he remembered was…
He frowned as he sat up, rubbing at his temples. He couldn't remember the last thing he had been doing before falling asleep, but he was sure whatever he had been doing hadn't been around the apartment. Throwing back his sheets, he stood up and looked at his clock, which was blinking, meaning there had been a power outage and it had reset. Twilight crept in through his room's window shades, bathing the room in an orange glow.
The entire apartment was silent and empty, and every clock blinked back at him uselessly. The apartment felt empty and unlived in, though all their things were still there, right down to the mess in Misato's room and Asuka's numerous bottles of shampoo and soap in the bathroom. Despite this, the place felt lifeless and barren, like it was all just a prop for a movie or television show. This was not a place where people lived; it was only the background of some story to be seen but not used.
He couldn't find his cell phone, and the apartment's landline gave no dial tone.
Shinji quickly changed into regular clothes and left the apartment, locking it behind him before moving down a few doors to the Section-2 apartment. He rang the doorbell several times before unlocking it with the key he had been issued. The rooms that always housed a five-man detail of agents were just as empty as his own, and their landline was just as dead.
Shinji quickly returned to his apartment and retrieved his compact pistol and a spare magazine from the lockbox in his closet. After checking the pistol, he slipped the holster onto his belt and threw a light jacket on as he left the apartment again.
The streets of Tokyo-3 were empty and devoid of all life, and the only sounds were his footsteps as he walked down the center of the road and made his way toward Horaki's home, wishing he knew how to drive. Seemingly abandoned vehicles lined the street, keys still in the ignition as if waiting for their owners to return.
Clouds hung overhead, an orange sheet as they diffused the sunlight. There was no breeze, but the air was not stifling, and it wasn't noticeably warm or cool. Shinji wasn't sweating even with the jacket and the quick pace at which he moved, and it was only after a few minutes he realized this, along with the fact that he was neither hungry nor thirsty, which he always was after waking up after a coma.
The Horaki's house was unlocked and as empty as the rest of the city. Shinji hesitated momentarily on the front steps, staring at the half-open door before pushing it open, calling out for Rei as he entered.
There was no sign of Rei or Hikari and her family or where they might have gone.
Shinji wondered if he was dreaming and how he could tell if he was asleep or awake. If he was asleep, would he be able to tell? Wasn't he supposed to be able to do things if he knew he was dreaming? He vaguely remembered hearing something to that extent from somewhere.
He sat on Rei's bed, a messy crumple of sheets and pillows. Her room at the Horaki's was cleaner than her old apartment, but it was almost as messy. For someone who had very little in the way of personal items, she kept them in surprising disarray. He smiled a faint grin as he looked around the room. He closed his eyes and thought about Rei, concentrating on her image. She would be dressed in some hand-me-downs borrowed from Hikari, a pair of blue jeans, and a white blouse, over which she was wearing her lab coat. She had blue and green striped socks on.
He opened his eyes and was disappointed to find he was just as alone as before. If he was dreaming, he couldn't conjure up other people. Frowning, he pinched his wrist, holding the skin between the nails of his thumb and index finger for over a minute. The pain seemed real enough, as did the small indentations left on his wrist. Shinji slumped down on his girlfriend's bed, staring at the ceiling as he tried to think. He wasn't very well versed in the science surrounding lucid dreams, but he was pretty sure that vertigo or a loss of balance was supposed to kick him out of the dream. He could try jumping off a building and see if that worked.
If he wasn't dreaming, it probably would not be advisable to entertain thoughts of jumping off a tall building.
Rolling over onto his side, he took a deep breath and sighed. If this was a dream, it was a sad commentary on his subconscious. Shinji frowned as he propped himself on his arm, staring at the pillow. Sitting up again, he picked the pillow up and took a long, deep investigative sniff.
The pillow didn't smell like his girlfriend. It didn't smell like anything at all.
Eyes wide in alarm, he scrambled out of the room, looking through all the other rooms until he came to what had to be Kodama's. There was a dresser upon which sat a variety of perfumes and a small jewelry box. Picking up one of the small glass bottles, he carefully opened it and took a small, cautious sniff. The pink-colored liquid had no smell. A hurried investigation revealed that none of the perfumes had a scent.
"I must be dreaming…" he said, his voice seemingly too loud in the otherwise empty house. There really couldn't be any other explanation, he thought to himself as he left the room. Whoever heard of not being able to smell things? Was that even a thing, not being able to smell? Not able to see, hear, or speak, sure, but smell? Shinji was certain that he was dreaming, but he paused as he came to the head of the stairs.
He could fall down the stairs, and it should wake him up. If he wasn't awake, and this wasn't some strange and shitty dream, then he wouldn't be too hurt. After all, he had suffered far worse than falling down a simple flight of stairs.
He stood there at the top for what seemed to be an eternity before taking a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he stuck out his prosthetic leg and stepped out.
Down at the bottom of the stairs, lying in a tangled heap of bruises and limbs, he opened his eyes again.
There was no denying the sickening loss of balance as he fell down the steps, nor could he deny the aches and pains that ran through his body, all as real as any of the sympathetic injuries he had ever sustained in battle.
Swallowing down bile and fear, Shinji stood up, rubbing at his head. If he wasn't asleep and dreaming, then something was seriously wrong. He had to get to NERV. If anyone was around, they would be at NERV, and if anyone knew what was wrong, they would be there.
Ignoring the minor aches and twinges of pain, he ran out of the house, racing into the perpetual orange twilight, anxious to get to the nearest entrance to the Geo-Front.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier!
Kaji made a disgusted sound as Rei returned, rushing into the room, her eyes wider than usual. She dropped the box she had been carrying down onto the counter before hurrying over to his chair, eyeing his restraints before stepping right in front of him.
"Do you know what happened at NERV-Las Vegas?" she asked with a slight edge of worry in her voice. Kaji quirked a questioning eyebrow at her before shaking his head in the negative, wondering what she was going on about.
"Was this a plan of SEELE's?" Rei asked, obviously not believing him. Kaji rolled his eyes in response, at which point Rei slapped him hard across the face.
"Was the accident at the American facility part of SEELE's plan to stop the Commander's Scenario?" Rei asked after he was done blinking in pain and surprise, interrupting his grunt of protest. Rei ripped the tape gag from his mouth and repeated her question.
"Rei, you crazy bitch, I don't know what you're going on about." He protested, blinking back tears. "I'm not exactly privy to everything that SEELE's doing or planning, and I've been stuck here for the past few hours. How could I possibly know what's happened halfway across the other side of the world?"
Rei regarded him momentarily before returning to the counter and sorting out the contents of her box. He stared at her from across the room, trying to think. Whatever had happened, it had to be huge to get such a reaction out of her. This was almost as bad as when she had threatened him with a knife over Shinji's breakfast.
"What happened?" he asked, trying to figure out the parts she was piling up. She continued to work, ignoring him. Sighing, Kaji shook his head. "Rei, I can't help you if you don't give me something to work with. I might be able to tell you if this was something they might do or did have planned. If you want me to work for you as an agent, you must give me something."
Rei paused in her work, looking up at him. "The NERV-Las Vegas complex was destroyed when a Dirac portal approximately three point four two kilometers across opened. The crater's depth suggests the portal appeared at the level of the S2 Engine labs, and the time of the accident is consistent with the timeline for the experimental S2 Engine activation." She paused as the captive spy absorbed the information. "Almost the entire facility was lost, along with over ninety-five percent of the staff."
Kaji shook his head, his face white. "No, if SEELE planned something like this, I don't know about it."
"There are several widespread riots around the other NERV facilities in North America, as well as in France, Spain, and Russia. The United States government is threatening to seize the NERV facilities, which would mean, among other things, the loss of several in production Evangelions."
Kaji whistled, grimacing. If this was part of a SEELE power play, he hadn't been informed about it, but he was hardly the only deep cover asset the group had, nor did he think he was their highest-placed one.
"What's the Commander doing about this?" he asked, carefully watching the girl. She didn't respond, returning to assemble some of the parts and fitting the different components into a control housing. "Rei," Kaji spoke again, "what is the Commander doing?"
"He has ordered the facilities in question to dump their MAGI mainframes into the NERVnet and ready the denial protocols to destroy the systems. The Evangelions are to be prepared to be destroyed during a hostile seizure. All work at those facilities is to cease, and all existing experiments and labs are to be locked down until the order to resume work or destroy them is given. The Evangelion Unit-04 is closest to completion and is being prepared for emergency retrieval."
"Rei, you have got to let me go. I need to be available to the Commander for this. I'm his highest placed agent in SEELE; he will want to use me to figure out if this was an accident or planned sabotage." Kaji pleaded with the girl, trying to convince her to free him. "I can promise that I'll serve you as your agent as well as his; SEELE has no idea you have a lab here; hell, not even the Commander knows about this place as far as I know. I'll keep you in the loop on what they are doing and keep your secrets. The Commander wins, you win, NERV wins."
"I do not trust you, Agent Kaji. Your past behavior displays a consistent disregard for warnings and instructions and does not suggest loyalty or trustworthiness. That the Commander has allowed you to act as a triple agent does not endear you to my services, and you have acted detrimentally towards my plans and experiments in the past. I do not think I can allow you to continue to be a variable in my equations."
Asuka glared at her tablet computer as she scrolled through the news reports, cursing under her breath as she sat next to her comatose wingman, wondering how they were going to fix this latest disaster. As if it was not bad enough that they had lost practically an entire research and development complex with all the assigned staff, the S2 Engine work that had been lost was beyond price. The ability to field Evangelions without having them tethered to the city's power frame was invaluable, and who knows how much this fiasco had set them back. That a few governments around the world were capitalizing on this and other recent events to try to outright steal from NERV from the people trying to save their sorry selves was beyond the pale.
Just as Unit-04 had been shipped out from NERV-Detroit, the facility had been stormed by the FBI and police. A terrible firefight had broken out, and the Section-2 agents torched the labs and production facilities.
Maya had told her that just after that, the Commander had given the order for all American NERV stations to destroy everything. All the relevant data had been backed up on the NERVnet, but the loss of the actual labs and the experiments being conducted therein was horrifying.
Too disgusted to continue reading, she set the computer off to the side and looked back over Shinji as he slept, his slumber seemingly unbreakable. None of the doctors seemed to have any hope of him coming out of the coma anytime soon. Of course, if he wasn't in a coma, he would still be out of it, on so many painkillers and sedatives that he might as well be in one. He still had massive internal tissue damage, even if they had stopped all the internal hemorrhaging. Even with the LCL they were pumping through him, it would be some time before he was ready to be off of the machines.
"Shinji, you stupid idiot." She said, not unkindly. "You need to stop falling asleep on the job, and you really need to do something about your anger management issues while in the Evangelion."
She smiled as she chuckled at the somewhat hypocritical humor before wincing at the sudden stab of pain behind her left eye. "You also need to stop trashing the sensor systems and data recorder in Unit-01. How will I figure out what you're doing if you don't give me any data to work with?"
If Shinji could hear her, he made no sign of understanding or recognition. Asuka looked up as the door to the room slid open. Misato came in and leaned against the door frame, sighing as she looked at her charges.
"Keeping vigil?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest. "I'm surprised that you're not supervising the work on Unit-02."
"I got ordered out by Doctor Akagi," Asuka replied. "Besides, his stupid girlfriend's not around to watch him, and somebody's got to keep an eye on him."
"Well, he won't be your problem much longer. I'm sure that you heard about Unit-04?"
Asuka nodded in return. "It's being delivered to Matsushiro for the final stages of completion and the activation tests."
"That's right. We've made the pilot selection, and I want you to get him spun up as much as possible. This whole issue with Las Vegas and the riots is a bit of a mixed blessing because it means that we got Unit-04 instead of it staying overseas." Misato sighed as she moved out of the way of the door. "You'll have full access to the simulators for his training."
"Who's going to be the pilot?"
Toji Suzahara walked into the room, looking both uncomfortable and unhappy. He winced as he saw his friend laid out on the hospital bed and wouldn't meet Asuka's eyes as he nodded in her direction.
Misato coughed and then cleared her throat. "I'll leave you two to it, then. Asuka, you know what he'll need. The first activation tests won't be for at least another week. Toji, Asuka's the Flight Commander, and the most experienced pilot we have available to train you. Pay attention to her. I know that you didn't exactly hit it off, but-"
"I'll be fine, Sub-Commander," Toji said, his voice a little sick. "I know what's at stake."
Asuka looked between the two, wondering what that was about. Misato brushed the boy's slightly hostile tone off with a nod and then left.
"How's he doing?" Toji asked, breaking the silence as he stared at his friend. "How are you doing?" he asked, almost as an afterthought.
"He's refusing to wake up." She replied, shaking her head. "You're really going to be the new pilot?" she asked skeptically.
"Yeah, I'm gonna be the new pilot." Toji's tone was hostile and surly. "I ain't gonna give you any grief if you don't give me none. You know I've been inside the Evangelion before. You know I'm strong enough. You know I can fight. I play team sports; you know I can follow orders."
Asuka slowly nodded. Everything he had said was true. "You saw him in Unit-01. You've seen what we're up against."
"Yeah. I've seen it."
"Does Hikari know?"
Toji nodded silently before speaking up. "She knows. She screamed at me and started crying, but she knows. I had to tell her so she would know why I wanted her and Kodama to look over Mari." He sighed, slouching against the wall. "I figure I'm going to be too busy to watch her, and Dad and Gramps are working on fixing the Evangelions up."
"She'll be in good hands," Asuka said after a moment. "Hikari's almost like an older sister to her," she offered. "Nozomi will keep her company too."
"Yeah."
"So…" Asuka trailed off, grasping for something to say to lighten the mood. "Um… I'm surprised that Aida didn't volunteer. Does he know?"
"Kensuke's dad shipped him off their relatives out of the prefecture," Toji said. "He hasn't been online, and his cell's been out of service for the past two days."
"Oh."
"He wouldn't have volunteered. He doesn't like the idea of the whole bio-feedback deal. He's more interested on a technical level, he says." Toji shrugged, looking up at the ceiling. "He also says something about the whole thing not making any sense unless the stuff he's managed to hack is all lies."
Asuka regarded him silently for a moment before nodding, holding a finger in front of her mouth. "He might be right, Toji. A lot of things haven't been making sense around here lately, I've noticed." She stood up, casting a final glance at the machines that monitored the sleeping boy as the beginnings of a plan began to form in her mind. "Do me a favor and tell him to drop me a line the next time you see him online, okay?"
Toji looked at her, confused, but then nodded.
"I'm going to get something to eat, and we can talk some more. Interested?"
"Sure."
Asuka smiled. "Welcome to the First Evangelion Flight, Pilot Suzahara."