Asuka stared out over the expanse of the Geo-Front, shading her eyes with one hand. While the priorities for cleanup and repair were still focused on the surface, some efforts had been made to remediate the once pristine garden that had been secreted beneath layers of armor, tunnels, and earth.
Staring at the squat forms of the point defense buildings in the distance. Before the disastrous battle that had seen Shinji absorbed into Unit-01, this place had been a beautifully kept garden and one of the only things hinting at the Supreme Commander's humanity. Most of the area had been devastated between the Angel and Rei's stunt with her atomic lance. Besides the fortification efforts, there were ongoing projects to restore the natural beauty of the subterranean garden.
Rei and Shinji apparently had claimed a small section for themselves, and small shrubs and trees were planted in neat clusters, surrounded on all sides by other project areas. Evidently, with the widespread migration of the remaining inhabitants into the fortified dorms of the underground complex, many people, even those who would not normally be assumed to like the idea of gardening, had taken up responsibility for different sections. The area claimed by Rei and Shinji was ringed by areas worked by the Evangelion support crews. The men and women who serviced the titans were very protective of the pilots, and there was an unspoken agreement amongst the crews to keep them safe.
Turning back to survey the pilot's selected area, her gaze lingered on the black-suited security agent who sat on one of the benches that populated this area. Apparently, there was a feeling of animosity between those who wore overalls and those who wore dark suits. The support staff was not happy with the security forces, but there was little they could do about it except maintain a presence where they could.
Asuka's frown deepened as she watched Rei lean back after planting a new flower of some sort or another. The girl's coveralls were covered with dirt and grass stains, and her long hair was pulled back into a ponytail, keeping what had once been a messy bob out of her face as she worked. There was something about the girl that irritated her. Well, she thought, something new. Rei had always irritated her for a myriad of reasons, but now there was something else to the girl that raised Asuka's ire. She just couldn't put a finger on it, and that irritated her as much as the feeling of unease and distrust she had.
Ever since she had come out of the fugue state, Rei and Shinji had both been underfoot, treating her almost like an invalid. Putting up with it was insufferable for someone who had declared her independence fairly early on from the adults in her life. With Shinji, she could believe it was just his dopey way of showing that he was relieved she was okay, but his girlfriend was as inscrutable as ever.
I suppose I should be grateful, and I am, that she defeated the Angel and orchestrated my recovery during the fall from orbit, Asuka thought to herself, bending down to stab at the ground with a trowel. However, I still can't feel like I can trust her. It just feels like she's up to something, but whatever it is, I have no idea.
Rei looked disgustingly wholesome, picking through the bed of the Kei truck for the next plant she wanted, but it left a foul taste in Asuka's mouth, like an oily film. It seemed so fake to her. Almost everything about the girl seemed fake.
Rei seemed intent on spending as much time with her as she did with Shinji. She wanted the three to eat together, spend time together, and train together. It was a wonder that she hadn't mentioned bathing together.
Satisfied with the hole she had gouged out of the earth, Asuka plopped a somewhat wilted plant into it and began packing dirt back in and around the base of the stalk. Grabbing the watering can to her left, her eyes brightened as she generously bathed the bush with water, which ran down in rivulets to soak the dark brown earth.
"You'll be okay," she whispered to the indifferent plant. "We'll all be okay."
Sitting back, she watched Shinji as he watered a row of flowering bushes. He had returned while she was out of it, but while the manner he had returned was visually impressive, it had apparently stripped him of his ability to synchronize at all. They had tried him in all three Evangelions, but he could barely get any reaction from the giants.
It was also interesting that Rei had not been able to synchronize with Unit-01, unlike before when they faced the twin Angel.
Her experience had hinted at something else being at the center of the war machines, something else that had brushed the edges of her mind during the fight with the last Angel. Steely blue eyes narrowed as she studied the boy, now refilling his own watering can from the large tank of water on the truck. She would need to gather more data and observe him closely, but he didn't seem too different from what she recalled.
Even if something hadn't hitched a ride in his cerebellum on his way out of Unit-01, that experience would change anybody. Resisting the urge to rub her temples, she considered her own case. Shinji had established a precedent for periods of unconsciousness and non-responsiveness after rounds inside the Evangelion with spiked synchronization scores, and it seemed like she had followed in his footsteps, if only slightly.
An involuntary shudder ran through her as she considered the differences between her incident and Shinji's.
Her score had just begun to climb, ramping up into the theoretically unsafe range, when she felt a second awareness brushing her mind. Feeling the undiluted hate pouring off from the Angel was bad enough and probably would have disabled her by itself, even without the subsequent synchronization crash following that first exposure.
Two separate awarenesses, one utterly alien and one maddening familiar.
Scowling, Asuka got to her feet, brushing dirt from her clothes. Initial tests were due to being in the morning. She would put these doubts to rest once she synchronized with Unit-02.
Rei surreptitiously observed her two primary research subjects as they all worked in the recovering gardens. Shinji was moving between the clusters of plants they had previously planted, creating small groupings of trees, bushes, shrubs, and flowers and watering them. Asuka was angrily digging a hole for a new plant that waited off to her side.
The girl's recovery, while welcome, was unexpected. It was obvious their altercation and the manifestation of the AT-Fields within the interface of their minds was key to her coming out of the fugue state, but she was still unsure what it meant. The doctors had finally cleared her from the hospital wing, though, and she was about to begin testing in Unit-02 to see how much her performance had degraded since the disastrous space mission. They could expect her synchronization and harmonics scores to be down anywhere between eight and fifteen percent if Shinji's previous dips following his incidents were anything to go on.
The mood was generally cheerful, though, what with having the girl back to normal, even if she was still a little unsteady on her feet and could not remember the culminating events of the disaster.
Beyond the bond they had formed, it was reassuring to have Asuka back. While she was perfectly happy to conduct combat operations solo, the utility of having backup had been repeatedly demonstrated.
No matter how many shoulders she might have, one person could not shoulder the whole weight of the world.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
Asuka panted as she pushed through the burning objections of her muscles as she ran in place on the treadmill. The weeks of her incapacitation had left her disgustingly out of shape. In fact, her incapacitation left her in an entirely disgusting mess, apart from her hair.
Incapable of piloting Unit-02.
Incapable of concentrating on technical aspects of Unit-02.
Out of shape and more than likely incapable of handing the other two pilots their asses in hand-to-hand combative exercises.
The fact that her hair was still a relatively healthy and luxurious mass on her head irked her. She knew she was being irrational about it, but it still bothered her.
Firstly, she was upset that it was Rei Ayanami, the First Child, who had taken it upon herself to tend to her hair. She was upset that Rei had the temerity to even touch her, for one and for another, that the repressed girl had even thought to do it. Secondly, it just felt wrong to have had someone else take care of her hair like that. If it had been Hikari, maybe, but Rei? Out of the question.
Again, she knew she was being irrational about it, but acknowledging that did not make it easier to accept. She knew the nurses had done much more intimate things to her while she was out of sorts. She also knew the nurses would not do more than the minimum to clean her hair. It was a wonder they had not trimmed it all the way down for ease of care.
It was the bizarre sort of thing that Rei would fixate on, she mused to herself as she continued her punishing exertions. That girl is so odd.
She glanced over at the silent girl, who was likewise running on a treadmill, looking only slightly out of breath as the ground sped beneath her feet. Past her, Shinji looked even more out of breath than she felt as he thundered along on his machine, arms and legs pumping in a blur of motion.
When did he get so good at running?
Today, Maya was putting them through their paces in the gym. They were all hooked up to a variety of sensors, and the MAGI was capturing and analyzing their movements. One of the recent simulations had given some promising data, and a new round of modifications was being done to Unit-02 and Unit-01. While they worked on the Evangelions, they wanted to conduct new physical assessments of the pilots.
When she was much younger and new to the pilot program, Asuka hated being poked and prodded by the doctors and hated the physical assessments. Now, she didn't even notice the mask on her face measuring her O2 intake, the sensors measuring her pulse and electrical signals sent through her body, or the dark empty gaze of the various camera lenses capturing every motion she made.
Rei looked similarly nonplussed, as she always did. The First Child was such a faker. Always playing at being so above it all. Always being the Commander's favorite. Under the mask, her lips twisted in a sneer. A perfect little doll.
Recently she had been faking concern over her well-being. Ever since she had woken up out of the fugue state, Rei, while not exactly being a mother hen, had spent an inordinate amount of time with her. It seemed to Asuka that she barely had any time to herself. It was only when Rei was in Unit-00 or off with Shinji that the girl wasn't practically hovering over her.
Some days, it seemed like Rei skipped spending time with Shinji and followed her around instead.
Rei had tried to get the three of them to do group meals in the cafeteria when her additional piloting schedule permitted. After the first few, Asuka flatly denied further invitations. When pressed on why she kept offering them, Rei said only that she did not want their bonds to suffer.
Trying to focus on her breathing, Asuka tried to push the bothersome girl out of her mind. Rei's near-constant hovering was not anything she wanted. Asuka did not need anyone's pity. She did not want anyone's sympathy. What she wanted was the praise and accolades due to her for her accomplishments.
She had fallen far and hard from her once lofty perch of being the Pilot-Captain of the Evangelion Flight, and it looked like the path back up was a vertical incline.
She glared as a series of beeps sounded, and the treadmills slowed down to a halt. The distance she had covered on this test was not terrible, but it was far from her personal best.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
Asuka didn't quite glower across the table at Shinji as he picked at his dinner, but her expression came close. Rei was off assisting the reconstruction efforts in Unit-00, leaving the two of them on their own following the day's tests. There had been no noticeable differences from the preceding week and a half of daily runs through the simulator bodies, despite the latest round of modifications done over the last two days, which had given the pilots ample time out of their plugsuits. Time they had been told to use to relax and clear their minds.
Rei had wanted them all to spend the time together. She had been very insistent that the three spend as much time together. Asuka wasn't sure what the girl's game was, but she wasn't having it. The girl might be able to guilt-trip Shinji into it, but she had no such hold over Asuka.
This wasn't to say she hated spending time with the other pilots. It was nice, up to a point. But spending so much time around the others was driving her up a wall. Part of it was her own fault; she could admit that to herself, if not the others. She was supposed to be the leader, she was the leader, but she had displayed a distinctly sub-standard performance in the Evangelion ever since she had woken up. She was currently only slightly more useful than Shinji was, which was not at all. Being useless was not a position that one could lead from.
Compounding this issue was that despite his own uselessness in the Evangelion, Shinji had found his spine somewhere while she had been asleep and now snarked at her almost as much as Toji had during his train-up. His attitude was annoying and rapidly approaching infuriating.
She was stuck in a bizarre limbo. She could not get any trustworthy data to do her own experiments, and the only person she could trust was unable to assist her and wanted her to open up to Rei, whom she still viewed with distinct distrust. Her previously idolized mentors were now distant and preoccupied with their work addressing the issues behind the problem of two-thirds of the pilot corps being unable to pilot.
"Quit picking at your food and just eat it," she finally snapped at the boy. "It's not going to get any better the more you move it around the plate."
"Oh, shut up, "Shinji replied, looking up from his plate at her. "You've barely touched yours at all. It's not going to get better the longer you wait to eat it, "he said, throwing her words back in her face.
"No, it's not, "she agreed, shoveling rice into her mouth with a glare. She was so sick and tired of eating rice. She wanted bread, she wanted potatoes, she wanted any other starch in the world other than more rice.
Shinji silently watched her wolf down the substandard food, his face not as unreadable as his girlfriend's but close to it. Whatever it was he was thinking, Asuka couldn't tell. As the last of her rice vanished from the plate, he sighed and began to finish his own half-eaten food.
He didn't say anything as Asuka picked up her things and left the cafeteria table to drop the dishes off to be cleaned.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
When Kaji awoke next, he was no longer seated by his mind-copy Rei clone. The girl's seat had been taken away, as had her IV caddy. If he hadn't known better, it was as if she never existed in the first place. He looked around the room, catching sight of his captor.
"Is she dead?"
Rei looked up at him from her desk, where she was sketching something out. "She did not suffer." She bent back down over her work.
"Is that it?" Kaji asked, voice dripping with a venom he didn't know he still had in him after his long incarceration and bouts of human experimentation. "She didn't suffer? No other remorse for the torture you put her through?"
"It was necessary, Agent Kaji. You are not trustworthy, and I required uncompromised and accurate data." She did not look up as she spoke, making some notations in one corner of her paper.
"You tortured us!"
Rei looked up again at him, and once again Kaji could see the work of Gendo in the way she held herself as she sat there studying him. It was a cold, empty stare that one might give a partially interesting bug that was crawling up a wall. Gendo's little super-human monster, a cold and methodical mind without any human emotion, copying the only parent it ever knew, tied up in a little girl's body.
Gendo had called the Angels an alien threat once. Rei was at least as alien as they were. Possibly more, for all that she went about in the guise of a human girl.
"I needed to know if copying Pilot Ikari into a drone body was feasible. I regret that it was unpleasant for you. That was not my intention, nor was it my expectation."
"Rei, you can't use people as experimental subjects." Kaji sighed and rolled his head back to stare at the ceiling. They had been over this time and time again, but the girl maintained that everything and everyone was a valid subject for scientific experimentation. That her definition of scientific experimentation belonged in front of a war crimes tribunal was also something he had tried, and failed, to get across to her.
The sun rose and set on Gendo Ikari in her eyes, and she worshiped him in her insane interpretation of his actions and behaviors.
Seeing no further conversation forthcoming, Rei returned to work.
"You can't possibly keep justifying this course of events, can you? Torturing people? Kidnapping people? Do you honestly think what you're doing is right?"
Rei looked back up at him, eyes and face betraying nothing of her thoughts or feelings.
"It was not a matter of right or wrong, Agent Kaji. It was necessary."
"Necessary for what? Don't try to tell me that it was necessary for Gendo's sake."
"I needed to know if Shinji could be downloaded into a clone."
"Why was that necessary? What purpose of Gendo's would that have served?"
"My purposes are the Commander's purposes."
"How convenient! Is that what you tell yourself? That everything you do is in the service of the Commander?" Kaji sneered at his captor.
"I serve the Commander and NERV. I seek to strengthen our position against the Angels and SEELE. You serve only yourself."
"Rei, you know that you are being used, right? Please tell me you know that." Kaji broke the silence after several long minutes, carefully watching the girl. This, too, was an area they had verbally sparred in. She was dogmatic in her obedience to Gendo's will, even as she rationalized activities that Kaji knew would cause even that madman to take pause.
"We all are being used, Agent Kaji. I serve the Commander. You serve the Commander, SEELE, and the JSSDF."
"I don't mean like that. You're being used as a replaceable thing, something to be picked up and used until it's broken and then discarded in favor of a new tool."
"That is why I was made, Agent Kaji," she reminded him.
She was utterly unconcerned over being used and abused until past the breaking point.
"He's using Shinji too, you know."
If the sun rose on Gendo in her eyes, the moon rose and set on Shinji. Engaging with her on the subject of the boy was a risky prospect. He couldn't exactly dodge any thrown knives in his current predicament.
"Pilot Ikari serves the Commander's Scenario. We all must serve his Scenario, for it is-"
"What do you think you know about his plans, Rei? What do you think he's doing with the Angel in the basement of Absolute Dogma? What is he doing with the Evangelions? What do you think he is doing in SEELE's service?"
"Commander Ikari does what needs to be done. We do what we must in the service of his Scenario because we can. There is no one else to stop SEELE, to ensure Mankind's survival."
"Survival? What kind of survival? One built on top of the blood and bones of the dead?" One built on suffering, on the using and discarding people like they are things? What sort of world does that make?"
"One where Mankind survives. The Commander seeks to provide a world that transcends humanity's current state, one where it is the master of its own fate. His Scenario will end the threat posed by SEELE and the Angels both."
"One where he plays God. One where he's in charge, instead of SEELE."
"You do not know what SEELE has planned."
"What if you're wrong, Rei? What if Gendo's plan is just as bad as SEELE's? Have you considered a third path?"
"There is no other option, Agent Kaji. Without the Scenario, Mankind is doomed. Doomed either at the hands of the Angels or the hands of SEELE. Extinction or enslavement, these are the only alternatives to the Commander's Scenario."
"So that's it. The only way forward is the Commander's path, and you'll let him sacrifice any number of people along the way."
"It is not my place to question the Commander's Scenario."
"No questions, then? Nothing at all that would make you pause? Would you sacrifice yourself if he commanded it?"
"Yes."
Kaji groaned, still not believing the nonsense the girl mindlessly parroted.
"Without hesitation? No second guesses?"
"I was born to die, Agent Kaji. My death is necessary for the Scenario."
"You don't see anything wrong with that? You don't see how twisted this is? You've sacrificed all your humanity in service of a genocidal madman."
"My purpose was set the day the Commander made me. My purpose is to serve the Scenario. My purpose is to be used. I am a tool, Agent Kaji. I was created by the Commander to unlock the path to Third Impact."
"Rei, that's not a life! Your life is not just being some cog in somebody's plans! It's about the choices you make, not blindly following orders!"
"You are a cog in the plans of SEELE."
"I'm a free man, not some slave to somebody's machinations!"
"You are my test subject."
Kaji fell silent again, watching Rei. She watched him in return, seemingly unmoved by their conversation.
"What about Shinji? Where does he fit into this?"
"Pilot Ikari serves a vital purpose in the Scenario."
"Don't avoid the subject, Rei. You know what I'm asking you. I'm not talking about 'Pilot Ikari'; I'm talking about Shinji, the person. You love him, don't you?"
Here, Rei hesitates for the first time in their conversation. Her face betrays nothing, but her eyes shift so slightly that anyone not used to watching her would miss it.
"Pilot Ikari is important to me. His importance does not change my purpose."
"He's far more than just important to you, Rei. We both know that. He's not just another part of the Scenario for you, is he?"
Rei remained silent for several minutes, watching her captive but not returning to her work.
"Let's say Gendo's plans come to fruition. Let's say they work out how he expects- what happens to you, Rei? What happens next?"
"I will die in the service of the Scenario. I will not see the end."
"And you are just going to accept that?"
"It is my purpose."
"What happens to Shinji?"
Here was Kaji's first triumph in all the verbal sparring he had done with Rei since his capture and subsequent testing. It was minuscule, but he caught it as it happened, the single look of doubt that crossed Rei's face for a fraction of a heartbeat.
"I do not know what his ultimate fate is. That is the Commander's decision."
Kaji opened his mouth to respond but then closed it.
"You can't be happy with that. Please tell me that you're not satisfied with that, Rei. You have to want something more than just death for yourself and an uncertain future for Shinji. What is it that you want?"
"The only thing I want is time, Agent Kaji."
"Time?"
"Time to spend with Pilot Ikari before the culmination of the Scenario."
"That's it?" Kaji asked, despair and disbelief heavy in his voice and face. "You're not going to question anything, not do anything to extend the time you have with him, not seek to change the path you're on, and just give up and die?"
"Nothing I do is just giving up, Agent Kaji."
Groaning again, Kaji leaned his head back to look at the ceiling.
"Wait, if the only thing you want is time before you die with Shinji, why are you here with me right now? Why aren't you with him?"
"The others think I am assisting remediation efforts in Unit-00. Pilot Ikari is currently in the gardens with Pilot Sohryu. I will be joining him soon."
Kaji stared at Rei in confusion. "What?"
"You know firsthand that I am not bound to a single body."
"I thought those were just mindless slaves..."
"I am here, conversing with you and neglecting my research. I am in Unit-00, working to prepare Tokyo-3 for restoration. I am in the third and fourth labs, conducting experiments. My drones carry out their tasks. Soon, I will spend time with Pilot Ikari. When he is sleeping, I will resume my work, all in the service of the Scenario."
Does Ikari know what a monster he has created? Does he care? It was the sheer matter-of-fact manner with which she described her activities, the dry manner in which she swore suicidal allegiance to Gendo Ikari's still unknown plans. Papers rustled as she returned to her work, working in silence until one of her drones came to swap out the IV bag hooked into his arm.
The drone was silent and ignored the meager movements his restraints allowed him. When it left, the body wearing the lab coat had walked over to him and intently watched him like a hawk watched a rabbit.
"Why do you keep up this pretense of keeping me alive?" he asked, jerking his head towards the IV bag. "You know that you're going to have to kill me eventually."
"You are a threat to the Commander's Scenario," Rei admitted. "You are a threat to my relationship with Pilot Ikari. You are, however, a valuable test subject. I will not terminate you out of hand."
"I thought you said I was a disappointment!"
"The failure to correctly copy you was a disappointment. While you refuse to share the information you have, you have value in reference to other ongoing projects."
"Asuka," Kaji said, sudden understanding and new fear washing over him like a tsunami. "You're doing something to Asuka."
"I am attempting to resolve certain ongoing issues with Pilot Sohryu to further the aims of the Scenario, "Rei said, her tone clinical. She wasn't about to tell the man about the nature of those efforts or their bond.
"Leave her alone! Leave her out of your sick experiments!"
Rei blinked at the emotive fury behind his shouts, his anger hot and fresh, a departure from his recent attitude of resigned defeat.
"I am trying to help her, Agent Kaji. She is in no danger from me."
Kaji stared at her, trying to decide if he believed her. Trying to decide if she was actually trying to help the girl or trying to 'help' her in the same vein as her experiments on him. He was a student of humanity, but the inhuman creature before him was inscrutable. Whatever her interest in Asuka, he knew where she stood on the subject of Shinji. Asuka was another ultimately disposable tool in the service of Gendo's twisted plans, but Shinji was nearer and dearer to Rei's heart.
"Is Shinji in danger from you?"
"You know that he is not."
"I don't know that, actually. Does he know his part in Gendo's grand plan?"
"He does not need to know. The Commander has stated that it is better he does not."
"Does he know that you are going to die?"
Kaji was rewarded with another pause and a look of uncertainty on Rei's face. "That is irrelevant."
"Do you really think so? What do you think Shinji will do when you kill yourself for all-important Scenario?"
He could almost see the wheels turning in her mind. Kaji allowed himself to feel the slightest amount of hope. If he was going to have any chance of figuring out this mess, it involved turning his captor off this dogmatic path of suicidal self-sacrifice.
"You know what he did during his fight with the Sixth Angel. You know what he did in the fight with the Fourteenth Angel. What do you think he'll do when he sees you kill yourself for Gendo's plans?"
Rei's jaw clenched as she stiffened. "You are attempting to sow discord. It will not work. "She turned and walked away, sitting on the chair her body occupied while her attention was elsewhere. "It is time for me to be with Shinji, "she announced, more for her benefit than Kaji's. "We all must serve the Scenario. It is the only path forward where Mankind lives."
The clone's posture slackened as she left it, eyes vacant, but Kaji had seen the faintest seed of doubt present before the transition was complete.
It wasn't much, but it was a start.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
Rei watched her clones floating in the sea of LCL. The clones seemed to be in a sort of bio-stasis when she did not occupy the bodies, filling them with her awareness and will. It had always been remarked by those aware of their existence that they were empty vessels waiting for a soul to fill them. They would blindly mimic the behavior and actions of those near them. If taken outside of the LCL, without her sense of self filling the body, it would begin to break down and die, eventually collapsing into LCL itself.
Another mystery of her Angelic heritage that defied her current understanding but something that had been very low on her list of priorities. In the past, her attempts at manifesting an AT-Field of her own had failed. The manifestation of one inside the shared interface with Asuka was unexpected but not unwelcome.
What was the AT-Field triggered by? She had never been able to use one by herself in the past, so she had not believed herself capable of it.
But Asuka had also displayed an AT-Field of her own within her mind. Was this something they expected as Evangelion Pilots? What exactly was the AT-Field?
The AT-Field was largely regarded as a weapon and defensive field. Shinji had challenged that conception, with his unorthodox utilization opening avenues of research and use previously unguessed at. Already the pilots had been able to use it in large-scale cleanup and remediation efforts, but the true depth of its limits remained unplumbed.
The Angels and Evangelions were beings that defied common knowledge and basic understandings of biology, physics, and chemistry. They exhibited biomorphic capabilities, increased regeneration, and flaunted the laws of thermodynamics, to list only a few other other-worldly powers. She and her sibling also skirted these understandings, thanks to their unique genetic blends, but Tabris' increased Angelic genome empowered him in ways she was not.
Or, at least, empowered him in different ways. The AT-Field had manifested as an unconscious reaction to the threat of a thrown chair within the mental interface. This suggested to her that she had some nascent ability to manifest the field.
She had witnessed Tabris generate an AT-Field strong enough to manifest as a visible barrier. She had witnessed both herself and Asuka generate AT-Fields within the mental interface. She had not seen anyone generate an AT-Field within Sheol, the interface where she could speak with the souls of the Evangelions.
When she filled a clone body with her mental awareness, there was no interface, nothing at all like the mental connection with Asuka or the imaginary train of Sheol. It was more like the sensation of a numb arm regaining blood flow and feeling. When she first began her work at controlling the clone bodies, it had been difficult at first. Still, she had progressed from changing possession of bodies to being able to give them simple instructions to carry out for some time before refreshing her control of them or returning them to the LCL tanks. From there, she was able to increase the time outside of the tanks, the complexity of instructions, and finally, an increasing number of bodies she could fully occupy and operate simultaneously.
It had been difficult at first to adjust to the sensation of multiple fields of view, hearing and locomotion, but now she was completely at home with occupying upwards of eight bodies with full concentration on different tasks, and she was in command of several hundred autonomous drones.
Was the generation of an AT-Field more of a mental ability rather than physical? Why was Asuka able to generate such a field within the mindscape as well? She did not have any Angelic DNA, nor did she have the opportunity to expand her mental capabilities through the use of clone bodies.
She had never used the clones swimming below her for any of the myriad things she set herself to do. Thousands of clone bodies were sitting in storage, taking up minimal resources for the possible utilization value of having an unlimited number of her. All they required was LCL to reside in, and Lilith produced a prodigious amount of the liquid. Rei had barely scratched the surface of the potential biomass available to her.
Her mind spread forth from her body, seeping into the empty vessels. New awareness filled her as their eyes opened, hundreds of pairs of eyes peering into the gloom of the LCL-filled tank. Concentrating, Rei pushed everything that she had, every ounce of mental effort, into filling those bodies, trying to find a connection amongst them like the interface she had shared with the Pilot-Captain. Failing to find such an interface as each body shuddered under the mental strain, Rei frowned and pulled herself back inwards. As she released each body from her control, she tried to pay attention to how it felt as the pressure in her skull eased.
Pursuing the AT-Field would require much more experimentation, but the utility it would offer her to be capable of generating one was too alluring to relegate to a back-burner project. She would have to devise a proper, systematic series of experiments.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
Ritsuko stared at the screen, resisting the urge to pull her hair out. Nothing they had done had gotten them any closer to separating the core from Unit-01. Even without half of Shinji's soul stuck in the machine, even with all the power he had used to make his catastrophic escape from the machine, Unit-01 resisted giving up the unlimited power organ.
She could see Yui Ikari's fingerprints all over the current debacle; this stupid situation was something she actually desired almost seventeen years ago.
Having the ghost of Yui Ikari running rings around her from almost two decades in the past was enough to make a lesser person scream in frustration. Dr. Ritsuko Akagi was no such lesser person, and not only because she had the last laugh of knowing Gendo had finally put that ghost where she belonged.
Still, though, it was frustrating. Dealing with the Evangelions was the work of several lifetimes, and trying to untangle the mess that was Unit-01 was even more so.
The tests they had done with Shinji in the other two Evangelions were less than promising, which, to be honest, was what they had expected. Whether it was the time he had spent stuck inside of Unit-01 or the way he had pulled himself out of its AT-Field, his soul had merged back together. Barring splitting him in two again, nothing was going to make him a capable pilot candidate in the other two Evangelions.
Their only hope lay in praying that enough psychic residue was left over that he could activate Unit-01. He had spent half his life occupying the machine, so hopefully, he could manage at least a marginally useful score. Something enough to at least trigger Third Impact on their own terms.
They didn't want to risk exposing an unstable synchronization attempt to the S2 organ's unlimited energy potential, but it was looking increasingly like they would have to conduct the test without the safety of a five-minute timer.
Dealing with the Evangelions had always been uncharted territory, and the interplay between the pilot and cybernetic war machine only added to the uncertainty. The Evangelions were a triumph of esotericism, engineering, and science, rewriting conventional wisdom and understandings in the face of a war for the future of Mankind. While she remained awed by the work, Dr. Akagi was still firmly convinced that the entire project fell squarely on the insane side of the genius/madness spectrum.
They had slowly built precedent with the pilots through trial and error, but all three of the current pilots constantly wanted to throw that precedent out the window.
At least Shinji isn't doing it on purpose, she ruefully thought, leaning back in the chair, hand grasping for her pack of cigarettes. He's mostly only ever done what Gendo expected him to do. She sighed as her hand closed in on the empty package, feeling it crumple.
Both of the girls were a problem, though. Both were entirely too bright for their own good, and somewhere along the way they had both independently decided that they needed to do experiments and tests of their own on the Evangelions or clandestine weapons development. We really should have taken a firmer hand in raising them. We were going to be using them as child soldiers and test subjects anyway, so why bother with the halfway illusions of 'normal childhood'? She blamed Gendo for that, to be honest. For all the callous use of people, the cold weighing of their lives versus furthering his plans, he was such a softy underneath it all. They could provide all the socialization needed in other ways to ensure a decent psychological profile.
The damage was done now, though. While she was a brilliant scientist and engineer who, by necessity, dabbled in a far wider range of subjects than she would normally, Ritsuko had no idea how to address the issue of reigning in the pilots and improving their capabilities.
Rei was a special case, integral to their plans to usurp Third Impact. Keeping her on the straight and narrow was mostly a function of ensuring that most of her time was spent inside the Evangelion or with the other pilots. Asuka would be a moderating influence on any extracurriculars Rei and Shinji got up to without needing a more visible Section 2 babysitter. That was if she could be counted on to spend time in the presence of the other two.
Asuka was wildly independent, and understandably so. She was strong-willed but brittle. Although she did spend some time with one or both of the other pilots, she more often than not sought solitude in the lab space assigned to her.
Shinji was the other special case, also integral to the plans for Third Impact but now a devasting problem case. They needed Unit-01, which meant they needed Shinji. Even beyond that, thanks to Gendo, they needed Shinji to keep Rei from possibly going off on her own. Gendo remained convinced that the girl would do as they wanted in the end, but Ritsuko wasn't so sure. A woman's heart was not something to casually toy with under normal circumstances, and if anything could be said about Rei, being normal was not one of them.
She might have come around to the idea of allowing the two their little dalliance, but it did not mean she was blind to the potential dangers. Or blind to other worrisome behaviors. Rei might currently be the only capable pilot, but she was also the largest loose cannon.
Pushing away from the workstation, Ritsuko sighed again as she stood, leaning back and stretching out the kinks in her back. She would need to let Maya know they were going to shelve the removal of the S2 organ and have the teams prepare to resume testing Shinji in Unit-01 as it was.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
The walls between the locker rooms were not thin, but even so, Shinji could hear Asuka screaming incoherently in the showers next door. What little he could make out was in German, naturally, and he could not decipher the meanings of the words. He did, however, know what she was screaming about.
She was screaming her anger and frustrations at her inability to get Unit-02 to properly activate. Whatever had happened to her in the fight with the last Angel had left her catatonic and unresponsive for quite some time, and though she had recovered, now she could barely activate her Evangelion. Its movements were slow and sluggish, and it was obvious how the controls were unresponsive to the girl's movements inside the entry plug. Her current scores were the absolute worst Shinji had ever seen from her.
To say that she was taking it poorly was an understatement. Asuka had always set high standards for the other pilots and herself. She demanded results and made clear her displeasure when those results were not forthcoming. She would work herself ragged to achieve her goals—even when the manner in which she threw herself into her projects was detrimental to both her health and her ability to get those results.
Her time in the fugue state had not changed that about her. So, now, after yet another long day of disappointing results and harmonics tests, she was screaming herself hoarse in the girl's showers while Shinji tried not to concentrate on his own continued failings.
They had given up on the possibility of changing up the pilot rosters. He had continued to show absolutely no results with either Unit-00 or Unit-02. While his results with Unit-01 were even worse than Asuka with Unit-02, it was at least something, and the support crews hoped that he could build upon it and be returned to the active roster. The long days of testing were not just harmonics tests or activation attempts. They did not want their tactical training to go unattended, so they interspersed his time in the simulator bodies with improvised training scenarios.
Normally, the pilots would conduct this training in the simulator bodies, but as that was not currently a feasible option for two-thirds of the pilot corps, Captain Ibuki had Asuka and Shinji run through the NERV Hazard Course most NERV personnel had to qualify on annually. It was also to help clear their minds from their inability to synchronize and avoid a self-perpetuating cycle.
So far, it hadn't worked in that regard, but the course had helped Shinji become reacquainted with his body and having two legs. He had never really enjoyed gym class before, but now the runs through the obstacle courses were the only thing apart from Rei that he looked forward to when reporting to the briefing room in the morning. There were lanes with just obstacles to maneuver over, and then there were the shooting lanes. He was stronger and faster than he had ever remembered being before, and while he had been trained on three-gun style lanes before, the hazard course was more in-depth and much more exciting.
Rei did not need to participate in the hazard course training, as she could synchronize with Unit-00. She wanted to participate, though, for reasons obvious to everyone. She had, however, argued it would help with team cohesion and foster new bonds between the pilots, and on that basis, they permitted her time from the regular simulator training to run through the course with the other pilots.
The results were not promising.
While all three pilots excelled in the individual lanes, things would go sideways in the lanes where they were expected to work as a team. Despite his frustrations over not being able to pilot Unit-01, Shinji was willing to participate as a team member with either of or both the girls. Asuka, however, was snippy, frustrated, and angry at everything and everyone. None of them were fast enough, reacted quickly enough, strong enough. The obstacles were too high, too far apart. The targets were too fast or too small.
At some point during the afternoon, Asuka quit speaking in Japanese entirely, only barking what Shinji presumed were commands or expletives at them in German.
Rei took it all in stride, her face and voice never faltering from mere irritation or anger. Shinji tried to mimic her, telling himself that it was just Asuka being Asuka and her being upset at herself more than at him, but it was hard just to brush it off.
He had found, among other things, that he was quicker to get angry. Really angry, too. A few scattered instances aside, he had been a very even-keeled boy who found it easier to accept things and give up than to get angry. Now though, his temper flared as Asuka called him an idiot in three different languages, or a clumsy oaf, or called Rei a bitch. He wanted to call her names back, and once yesterday, he had to force himself not to give in to a flash of anger and knock Asuka off the balance beam they were trying to cross.
It would be stupid and pointless, counterproductive to everything they were trying to do. He knew that, but still, the urge had been there, and it had been a strong urge to get her to shut up, to show her that he wouldn't just put up endlessly with her bullshit.
This new temper worried him a little. It, and some other things, made him wonder if there had been some mental contamination the medical staff had missed. They had finally given him a clean bill of health, but with everything going on, he had to wonder. Shinji could tell that Rei was, at the very least, a little worried about something- if only from how her eyes seemed to be searching for something each time their gazes met.
The other thing that made him wonder if there were some hidden issue behind his obvious problems with synchronizing was the persistent feeling of being watched or not being alone when he clearly was. Shinji found himself constantly looking around, checking over his shoulder for someone watching him, sitting in some corner of the room he was sure he was alone in.
He was checking rooms now to ensure they were empty before showering or sleeping. No matter what, it often felt like someone was just behind him. He knew that he had been tailed before, but the sensation of being watched he had now was different; it felt more intimate, more of a violation of his privacy than the blanket of agents that monitored his movements and alleged safety in Tokyo-3. It felt different than even acknowledging the constant video surveillance of the MAGI.
Of course, it all could just be a combination of stress and puberty. That's what Dr. Akagi had told him after humoring him with another round of scans and finding nothing out of the ordinary. But what could he do to fix things if it was just stress and being a teenager? There was no more school to attend; his friends were all gone, sent away from the city and the catastrophic fights. Training and testing took up so much of his time now. He needed a change of pace and scenery, but his options were limited.
The best options were to go out into the 'outside' of the Geo-Front or to the surface and walk about Tokyo-3. The Geo-Front had once been a beautiful park, a secret garden kept secure behind the strong walls of the fortress city. That garden had been devastated in the fight with the fourteenth Angel, that disastrous fight where so much had gone wrong.
Work continued apace on repairing the fortress city, but very little effort had been made towards restoring the forests and gardens that had surrounded the interior offices of NERV. No longer was the Geo-Front an enclosed space buried beneath layers of armor plates, tunnels, and earth. Instead, the cavern was exposed to the sky above.
Preliminary estimates had placed completely repairing the damaged armor and restoring the overhead earthworks to be unfeasible with current manpower and financial resources. Instead, there was a focus on closing off exposed tunnels, rerouting utility grids, removing debris, and installing new point defense systems. Rei was assisting with a lot of the cleanup with Unit-00, keeping her otherwise occupied for large periods of the day. Besides the tremendous boost in productivity she brought to the cleanup operations, Misato was very reluctant to let her only capable pilot go too far from her Evangelion, even when not conducting training or supporting the repairs.
In the time off she did have, the pair were too happy to isolate themselves away from others but remained aware of the strongly worded order to behave themselves. They had both agreed that the desolate environment surrounding the still-damaged pyramid was a sad state of affairs. They had started to build a small garden, hoping to help bring back some level of greenery and nature to the devastated landscape.
Shinji found himself enjoying it more than he had thought he would, and what time he did have off, he often spent trying to improve and expand the budding growth.
Asuka sometimes accompanied him to the gardens but was often sullen and irate. She constantly refused to talk and would work on small sections by herself. She would bicker with him and Rei if they tried to help her move debris or dig in the earth, and both tried to take it in stride.
Shinji doubted that Asuka would be interested in doing anything in the gardens today, or anything at all, judging by the volume of her unrelenting frustration. He also wasn't sure if he wanted to work in them either, and as he finished rinsing off, he decided he would exercise his second-best option, walking around on the surface of Tokyo-3.
The surface of the fortress city was more or less abandoned, save for security and repair crews. Misato didn't like it when he went to the surface, but she let him go anyway. He knew his security detail had strict and specific instructions about where he could go and how long he could stay on the surface. Being up top was fairly depressing, seeing all of the ruins and abandoned buildings that used to make up the city he had started to call his home, but it was a change of scenery. It had been strange, looking at the ruins of his old school or the empty lot where the apartment had been.
Checking all the lockers and toilet stalls again before dressing, Shinji decided to go for a walk on the beach.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
Shinji stared out over the bay's waters, watching the sun slowly move towards the horizon, a red and orange glow starting to paint the land. It was strangely nostalgic, although the scenery also dredged up feelings of worry and trepidation. He felt like a fight was about to break out, but with whom he wasn't sure.
He could feel the eyes of his security escort on his back. Two men had followed him along the beach as he had walked at a not-so-discrete distance behind him. Beyond their vigilant gaze, however, he did not have the feeling of being watched that had followed him around the halls of NERV and the Geo-Front over the last few weeks.
He would have to return back to headquarters soon. While he was permitted to wander around the cleared areas, they didn't like him being out and about above ground with how empty the surface portions of the city were. While the sensor nets and security systems were in place to monitor things, they did not have the manpower to follow up with active countermeasures. They relied entirely on the MAGI to alert them to potential issues. The supercomputers were powerful, yes, but they were not omnipotent. While the Geo-Front had been shown to not be unimpregnable by either Angels or Men, it was more secure than the surface by far.
Misato wanted him to be safe and sound even if he couldn't currently pilot. Dr. Akagi also wanted him readily available for more testing, even if she wasn't conducting the tests anymore, having assigned that task to Captain Ibuki. Sighing, Shinji turned back to face the agents and headed toward the road. Their armored car would be waiting to pick him and the agents up, having shadowed his movements along the frontage road running parallel to the beach. In the distance, he could see Unit-00 likewise heading back to the Geo-Front, slowly making its way through the working areas where debris was being sorted and prepared for reuse, recycling, or disposal.
After the day's training and tests were completed, they had her report to the surface to assist with the continued efforts for a few hours. She accepted the task as she did all other orders, silently and obediently. They would meet up soon to share a meal in the cafeteria. While there were small kitchenettes in the living quarters, there was not a readily available supply of things to make their own meals. After dinner, they would probably hang out for a few hours before deciding whether to risk Rei sleeping over.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
Asuka glared at the schematics laid out in front of her, trying to ignore the pounding in her skull. Shinji, the coward, had vanished today after training, and Rei was busy being the workhorse for continued cleanup efforts. She was all alone again. Part of her hated herself for feeling like this, and part of her hated everyone else.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples. She sat alone in the lab space she had long ago claimed for herself. Working in isolation no longer brought her the joy it once had. It was strange how quickly she had adapted to having Maya in the lab with her, and then, while not quite the same, her work with Toji and then Kensuke. She did a lot of her best work independently, but where coming into her lab had once been welcoming, now it was oppressive. She needed to do something useful, to prove to herself and the others that the current problems with Unit-02 were only temporary. That her star was not falling.
Asuka's eyes snapped open, and she sat up straight in her chair, glaring around the room. The brightly lit laboratory was completely free of shadows and other people, but she could have sworn she heard someone chuckle.
It was spacious but not overly large, and she could see everything from her seat on the long bench running along one wall. It was laid out in a sensible and meticulous manner, and there was nowhere someone could hide. It was a functional space, clean and reasonably uncluttered. She was completely alone.
Still, the hairs on the back of her neck pricked up, a shiver running down her spine as she surveyed the room again. Eyes narrowed, she kept looking around the room as one hand opened the drawer to her right and pulled out a hefty crescent wrench that she often used to open up equipment casings for Unit-02's components. It was not one of Shinji's pistols, but it would do just fine to open somebody's skull up.
Reassured by the weight of the wrench in her hand, Asuka stood up and walked around the room, trying to reassure herself that she was both alone and not going mad. She was not going mad. She was not going mad.
Taking another look around the empty room, silent save for the background hum of machinery and electronics, she decided that she needed some fresh air.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
Asuka grumbled as she waited for the elevator, her mood dark as she stared at her distorted reflection in the sliding doors. Another day, another fruitless round of tests. She had been in the actual Evangelion this time, and the results were still the same. She had been barely capable of activating the giant.
The only saving grace was that Shinji was doing no better than she was. He was doing even worse than her, actually.
They had given up on trying to remove the Angel's core from Unit-01 and had finally started their tests with Shinji inside of it again. Sure, they had done a few preliminary tests with him in Unit-01 in the beginning, but after his failure to fully activate the Evangelion, they had started to attempt the removal of the stolen alien biology. It wasn't like Dr. Akagi to give up on something, but apparently the issue was bad enough that they were willing to risk full activation tests.
Right now they had Unit-01 in an isolation cage under lock and key and, more importantly, out of casual observation. Most of the exterior armor had been removed; when not in testing, all of the termination systems were engaged. After his triumphant return, the energy output from the core had vanished, almost as if he had used up the limitless energy stores inside of it to fuel his return. What little of the notes she had read upon her reawakening were vague, and neither the MAGI nor the other techs were interested in sharing more with her. They told her to focus on herself.
Her thoughts were interrupted as the elevator doors slid open. Rei was waiting inside, standing along the back wall. Asuka glared at the girl but entered the elevator, immediately turning and staring at her reflection in silence.
There was no noise except for the elevator as it made its way down the shaft, but her hopes of getting through the unplanned and unwanted encounter without having to engage with the other girl vanished as Rei softly murmured something just loud enough for her to hear.
Teeth grinding and eyes narrowed, Asuka spun on one foot to direct her glare at the First Child.
"What did you just say?" she asked, voice loud and sharp, an undercurrent of warning in her tone. Where Rei's soft comment had been offered without emotion, it was clear that Asuka was spoiling for a fight.
"You have to open your heart to the Evangelion," Rei repeated, louder now, looking straight at Asuka. "Your connection-"
"Shut up!" Asuka interrupted, her hands balled into fists and planted firmly on her hips. "You don't know anything about my connection with Unit-02. You don't know anything!"
"You must open your heart," Rei started to say, but Asuka was not having it.
"You must open your heart," she recited in a mocking sing-song voice, sneering at Rei. "Is that what you tell Shinji? That he needs to open his heart to Unit-01?"
Rei glanced away from the icy blue eyes. "His problem is different."
"Oh, how convenient! The wonderful Shinji's problems are different from dumb old Asuka's! What does he need to open to get Unit-01 to work, then? Your legs?" Asuka snapped at the, not quite regretting the words as they came out of her mouth. Rei's arm twitched, face as inscrutable and emotionless as usual.
They rode the rest of the trip in silence, glaring at each other, but when the doors opened to Asuka's destination, she stopped just short of leaving the elevator.
"Tell me the truth. What are you trying to get at?" she asked, leaning against the door frame.
"I want you to be able to pilot."
"Yeah? Is that what you want?"
"Yes."
"And opening my heart to the Evangelion is supposed to help with that?"
"Yes."
"Open my heart. What a load of nonsense! The Evangelion is a machine! A cybernetic war machine! My heart has nothing to do with it!"
"It has its own feelings."
"You know something. "Asuka's words were less an acknowledgment and more an accusation.
They stared at each other in silence, the elevator doors starting to close only to be kept blocked open by Asuka.
"You must open-"
"Don't tell me to open my heart to it!" Asuka growled. "You know something that I don't. Why are you trying to drip-feed me hints? Tell me the truth."
"I cannot."
"You mean you won't. I'm not stupid, Rei. I might not be the Commander's favorite doll, but I'm not stupid."
"I am not a doll." Rei snapped back, prompting a sardonic grin from Asuka.
"Prove it. Prove you're not some blindly obedient puppet of High Command."
The doors tried in vain to close again.
"You know what, forget about me and my problems. You said Shinji's problems were different. Tell me about that."
"I cannot…"Rei started to say but trailed off. "I am not certain. I have been told that it is not mental contamination."
"I'm not contaminated." Asuka hissed in a low, angry voice. "I'm not."
"No," Rei agreed. "But that is what I thought was wrong with him."
"You really don't know, do you?"
"I don't."
"But you know what's wrong with me. "Asuka studied the girl, watching Rei watch her in return. "The support crews haven't told me to open my heart."
"They would not."
"I'm starting to think you know much more than you let on, Rei. In fact, I'm starting to think that you know more than most people here do. Either that, or you're insane."
Rei was silent in the face of the accusation, but from the subtle shift in her posture, Asuka knew she had struck a nerve.
The elevator tried to close again, and Asuka decided to try a different line of questioning.
"You caught me when I fell from orbit."
"Yes."
"They say you sat with me like you've done with Shinji."
"Yes."
"You took care of my hair."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Rei looked much more comfortable with this question. "We have a bond."
"A bond," Asuka repeated, voice flat.
"You are the Pilot-Captain. We fight the Angels together. We protect Mankind."
"So because of this supposed bond, you sat with me and played hairdresser. This bond made you think you should play with my hair."
"You would not have let your hair remain in the state it was."
"And you felt you needed to fix that."
"Yes."
"You defeated the Angel. You saved my life, and you took care of my hair while I was in a coma. All because of this bond you feel you say you share with me."
"Yes."
"So tell me what's really going on then, if this bond is really all that important to you."
"I cannot."
"Despite our supposed bond. "Asuka's frustration was an almost tangible thing.
"I am sorry. I cannot. "Rei's eyes slid away from Asuka's. "I do not agree with the MAGI."
Asuka stepped back out from her spot blocking the doors. "You know what's the most messed up thing about this? I believe you."
The doors closed with a metallic ping and the machinery hummed as the elevator continued on its way, leaving Asuka to stare at her reflection.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
Kensuke grabbed the phone the second it started vibrating, his eyes widening once he saw the number on the screen. "Hello?" he said, wanting to believe but unwilling to give up any information if it wasn't who he thought it was.
There was only ragged breathing on the other end of the line. "Hi," Asuka finally muttered out in response, her greeting devoid of energy, her voice hoarse. "How are things?"
Kensuke stared at the wall, trying to think. "They've been slow," he said, testing the conversational waters. "I hit a wall some time ago and have been trying to work my way around it. "He left his words vague, mindful of both potential surveillance and emotional landmines. Rei and Shinji had been very evasive about the nature of Asuka's indisposition for reasons he understood well. She sounded exhausted and, frankly speaking, more lifeless than Rei had been at times. "I think I have something promising, but it requires actual testing. Computer simulations only go so far. "He paused, hearing only the background hum of his computers in the dark garage. "How are things on your end?"
There was a sharp, bitter laugh. "Slow. I hit a wall too," came the response, a dark irony entering her voice. "I was out of commission for a while. Seems like chasing Shinji's shadow made me duplicate one of his less impressive abilities."
"Was it a miscalculation on our end?" he asked, dreading the answer. Asuka's background and familiarity with the systems of the Evangelion had been proved to not be as in-depth or comprehensive as they had previously thought, to say nothing of his own shallow knowledge. Making changes to systems that fed into a bio-feedback system linking the human body and mind with the giant cyborg was a risky business, even for people like the vaunted Dr. Akagi. At least two senior researchers- Asuka and Shinji's mothers- had lost their lives testing out the systems. If it was their work, and he could only assume that it was, that had prompted her extended stay in the hospital, he didn't know if he could go on with their project.
There was another long pause before Asuka answered him. "Yes and no," she sighed, and he could picture her flipping her hair back in annoyance, some semblance of her old self finally creeping into her voice. "Our system worked. It exceeded initial expectations. From what I remember, anyway. A lot of it is a blur, but I do know that I was able to match Wonderboy's use of the AT-Field."
"That's good…"Kensuke offered, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"There is something else inside the Evangelion. Something more than a limited-mode MAGI AI system. Something… else."
Fear clenched at his heart as he processed her cryptic statement. Even over modes of communication they thought secure, they had tried to be only as specific as they needed. The threat of electronic snooping was too great for them to risk, especially as they progressed in their clandestine cooperation and the extent to which things Asuka had been lied to came to light. She had only hinted to him about the ultimate secret held by NERV, but what little he could glean from their talks and his own observations of the Evangelions and the Angels painted troubling pictures. Neither of them was completely confident that their channels were clear of automated monitoring, and neither wanted to test the limits to see what would trigger action by the MAGI.
"A fragment of something? A memory?" Kensuke thought about the images he had seen of lobotomized brains filled with cybernetic implants. "Pure instinctive reaction?"
"No." The frustration in Asuka's terse reply was palpable. "It's hard to explain. It was less than the residual noise of having someone else in the entry plug and more like when we fought the Seventh Angel. I could feel something there, just beyond the horizon of synchronization. It… it could feel me too, and it drew back from me."
They sat in silence, Kensuke trying to digest that information and Asuka trying not to hyperventilate at the blurry memory of terror and fear. After engaging their modified system, the battle with the Angel had been a heady rush of sensation, and her skin crawled at the memory of feeling that other presence inside the Evangelion first reaching out and then drawing away from her. It was not at all like the overwhelming intrusion of Lilith, nor was it like the hateful presence of the Angel. There was something sickeningly familiar about it, but it eluded her ability to recall or adequately describe it.
"Were you able to recover any sensor data?" Kensuke asked, quiet but hopeful. While much of their data was less than comprehensible, it was better than trying to go at it blindly.
"They said the systems were purged. I've also had a lot of my access restricted to the MAGI and the archives. Dr. Akagi says it's only temporary, but I don't know how much I believe her."
It was hard to disagree with the pessimistic perspective. While it was gratifying to hear his partner did not think the incident was the fault of faulty work but more of the fact that they did not know the truth behind the war machine, if he had been the senior technician in charge of the project, he would have restricted her access, too—indefinitely.
"I can send what I do have," he offered. "If you still have the old data from before the last mission, it might help. Or if you can run it against the simulator body,"
"There's an issue with that," she cut him off. For now, we won't be able to get any test data from the simulator bodies."
He waited for her to elaborate, but no further explanation was forthcoming.
"They have you locked out from those too?"
"It's more than that. I can't get into it right now."
"O-okay," he said, struggling to find something to say. "Is there anything you want me to try to work on?"
"I don't know," she said before disconnecting the call. Kensuke closed his phone and stared at the blinking lights of his MAGI node, trying to think. The utter defeat in her voice at the end shook him to his core. Asuka was many things, but defeated was not one of them.
As the MAGI node continued to blink away while processing his latest simulation model, a new idea began to form.
"This is a bad idea…" he muttered aloud, reaching for a screwdriver.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
Rei looked up from her workbench, looking around the room with all three bodies that were currently present. All three drone bodies wore NERV jumpsuits and work boots pilfered from a storage warehouse. These three were her current secondary focus as she was preparing a new weapons system for Unit-00, while her primary focus was within her Evangelion assisting with the continued clean up in the southern central block. All eyes narrowing, she returned these drones to their work and stretched her mind back to the tertiary holding tank to summon additional drones.
Eight smiling bodies ceased their aimless floating within the LCL and made their way to the open hatch. Silently, they passed towels around them and dried off, dropping the sodden fabric into a waiting laundry cart. They dressed quickly, each donning the tan jumpsuits with eerie synchronization, the only sounds being the zippers, clasps, and finally, boot laces being done up. Two bodies took work belts from the table by the door, securing them around their waists as they left. They walked through the dim corridor two by two in synchronized silence, intent on their new task.
Glancing at the time, Rei considered her options. Shinji and Asuka were supposed to be having dinner in the cafeteria. As uncooperative as her fellow pilot was in other ways, Asuka did at least make an effort to dine with them. Her careful study of both Shinji and Asuka had been for drastically different reasons, and while she could not claim to perfectly understand them, it had enabled Rei to somewhat guide them along with her goals.
If there was not a threat of mental contamination to Shinji, as Dr. Akagi claimed, there was something else behind the lack of a soul in Unit-01 and Shinji's difficulties in piloting it. Asuka's case was much simpler to understand but not easier to correct. Nonetheless, the Commander had placed great stock in the value of socialization for the pilots. Beyond the obvious goals of having a fully functional wing of Evangelions, Rei genuinely wanted them to be happy.
Turning back to look down at the heap of rubble that used to be an electronics store, Rei formed her AT-Field into a broad shovel and scooped up a large helping of the ruined store front. The work she and Asuka had done to drain the floodwater from this part of the city had been completed some time ago, but there had been significant mold and fungus growth in this part of the city by the time the workers were ready to tackle it. Rei's current task was to take these collapsed and partially collapsed buildings and spread out the jumbled materials in one of the cleared city blocks to allow the workers to sort and remove items that were recoverable or recyclable from the pure trash without unduly exposing themselves to biohazards.
The work was making slow progress, and at current estimates, it would be years before the damaged sections of the city were cleared and ready to be rebuilt, but with current resources, it was all they could do. It was practically all they could afford to make payroll and not dip too deeply into the stored food and fuel reserves inside the Geo-Front.
Things were tenuous enough without any additional annoyances lurking around. She had warned her brother before. She would not warn him again.
Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier
Captain Ibuki patiently waited as Dr. Akagi reviewed the submitted proposal. After reviewing the summary, the senior researcher had flipped through the pages and was now going through the paper again more thoroughly. Finally, Ritsuko looked up at her primary assistant and nodded with a smile of approval.
"Very novel idea, Maya. I should have thought of it myself." She returned the folder to the eager woman, who accepted both it and the praise with an eager smile. "Adjusting the control mechanisms and the neural nets to run the Dummy Plugs in a parallel sequence with the active pilots should enable them to consistently clear the borderline for activation and smooth over any bumps."
"It probably won't get their scores up to their past performances," Maya said, face aglow with happiness but her voice filled with warning, "but it, at the very least, will prevent complete deactivation during a sortie."
"I'm sure that after we start the tests and get more data, we'll be able to refine and improve the systems," Ritsuko replied, taking her data pad and jotting in some notes on her to-do list. "I can also see a potential in reducing the effect of sympathetic injuries, if not removing them outright, save in the most catastrophic events. I want your teams to start finalizing the initial designs and begin work as soon as possible."
"Of course, Doctor." They both stood up from the desk and left Dr. Akagi's office. "I really hope this can build a good baseline to let them recover and improve."
"They could all use a confidence boost," Ritsuko agreed. "Self-destructive feedback loops of reinforcing negativity have always been a shadow looming over the piloting system as a whole. My predecessors wrote reams of paper on the problem it posed and the potential issues with causing otherwise stable pilots to implode, and I must admit that I haven't ever found a way to remove it."
"Wasn't that the reasoning behind the enforced socialization programs for the pilots? I mean, making sure they had other things important to them than just piloting."
"A large part, yes." Ritsuko sighed as they came to the bank of elevators and pushed the call button. "Truthfully, that was the primary reason, even before basic human decency. But somehow all three of our current pilots managed to turn out to be…" she paused, searching for a polite way to describe the pilot corps and their array of social issues.
"Oddballs?" Maya tentatively suggested, picking up on the meaning behind the pause. "Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with them, but"
"That's probably the best way to say it." The elevator doors opened, and they stepped inside. Maya hit the button for the command deck while Ritsuko tagged the one for the command suite. "Asuka became fixated on the technical aspects of the Evangelion Project instead of branching out to other things. She was always a bright girl and wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps. Even beyond being a pilot, she wasn't ever going to be a 'regular' person. The truly brilliant never are."
"Shinji really benefited from the program though, but with the collapse of the civilian population, he only has the Evangelions to occupy his time and attention." Maya sighed, thinking about how dreary life had become for everyone in general with the loss of the greater Tokyo-3 populace. "Suzahara was probably the most rounded and normal of the group."
"He was that indeed. He was more focused on the athletics program and his family. If only things hadn't happened the way they did."
"You could say that about a lot of things," Maya said wistfully. If only a lot of things hadn't happened the way they had…
"Well, we can only move on from the present. Reminiscing about the past and what might have been won't get us very far in securing our situation now and in the future." The two women fell silent, each engrossed in their own thoughts. Ritsuko was thinking about avoiding the pitfalls the three brilliant scientists before her had fallen into. One had given in to the megalomania of SEELE's grand design, an enthusiastic participant in their schemes. Yui Ikari had been a terrifyingly brilliant woman, and her actions had orchestrated their current predicament. Kyoko Sohryu had been fooled by her lies, unwittingly deceived into thinking that her modifications to the system would correct the 'mistake' that had seen her friend taken into the core of Unit-01. Trusting in one's friends and fellow scientists was not supposed to be a pitfall, but this was an unkind world to the unwary. Finally, her mother, who had murdered a child before throwing herself off the command deck. What had prompted such a thing? She had always wondered about it ever since the day she had seen the security footage. Naoko Akagi had never been the most pleasant person, and while she could be outright cruel to her peers, Ritsuko never would have thought her capable of strangling a young girl.
Whatever had prompted it, it was lost forever, though. Gendo and Kozo were certainly at a loss to explain it. The first Rei Ayanami had been a strangely precocious child, but what could one expect when dealing with an artificially grown Angel-Human hybrid? She had been prone to following people around the base, watching them, and saying odd things. Kozo blamed some failure in the hybridization, where the alienness of the Angels shone through. The second iteration had been more subdued, closer to what one might expect from a child. Gendo had thought it was a byproduct of the memory transfer. In all likelihood, they would never know.
Maya was thinking about something completely different from her supervisor- something much less professional and more personal. How could she patch things up with Asuka? Should she patch things up with her? Could she? The girl hated pity. With the current troubles, Maya couldn't see her taking any attempt at reconciliation as being offered out of pity for her current troubles.
Yes, they spoke on a personal basis shortly after Asuka woke up out of the fugue, but most of their interactions were in the context of Pilot and Supporting Technician. They were cordial and strictly professional, if only because Asuka refused to give any sign of struggling. The blend of stiff-necked German stubbornness and Japanese pride had bred true in her despite the injection of American casualness and disdain for polite hierarchy. Even if it was visible to all that she was struggling, she would never be the first to admit it and would instinctively spurn any offered helping hand.
Getting her to accept direct help would be a challenge. Getting her to focus on something other than her abysmal scores would be impossible. Seeing if she wanted to assist in the new work on the Dummy Plugs was probably not a good idea either, as she had been firmly against them in the first place, and when combined with the idea of using it in addition to herself to 'correct' her lackluster performance, you could just forget about that. Maya made no claims of being able to tell the future, but she knew how that conversation would go.
Hopefully, their new plan would bear fruit, and serve as a firm platform towards getting things back to normal. Having more reliable Evangelions was always comforting, especially in their current circumstances.
Hopefully the Supreme Commander has luck on his current trip. Maya offered a polite goodbye to her mentor as she stepped off the elevator. The doors closed again, leaving her alone in the lift. We could all use the confidence boost of a new line of support.