Interludes After the 11th Angel, Part 1
Note, the parenthesis indicate languages other than Japanese, in this case, English, French, German, and Interlac.
Please Read and Review. I'd like to know what I'm doing right (to keep doing it), and what I am doing wrong (to correct it).
Tokyo-3
GeoFront, NERV HQ
Central Dogma
Inside the MAGI System
Dr. Ritsuko Akagi put the metal plate back into its place. Idly, she read the text neatly printed on the surface:
(Casper.
Drei.
MAGI-System
V. Stein.)
She looked around, there were two similar plaques covering the cloned brain tissue of the other two MAGI computers.
(Balthasar
Zwei
Magi-System
C. Stehlen)
((Melchior
Eine
Magi-System
Das Gehirn (namenlos))
She wondered once again who had been the donors of the original tissue. Naoko Akagi, her mother, had programmed the brains with aspects of her own personality. For obvious reasons, she had to use the brains of other people. Casper contained a brain formed from one V. Stein. Who could have been that man? Or was it a woman? Ritsuko shrugged.
Balthasar's donor was a similar mystery, C. Stehlen.
Well, they must have been geniuses on their own right. But the biggest mystery was Melchior's donor. Apparently, it had been either unknown or classified, as the only clue to their name was their nickname, 'the Brain (nameless)'.
Any way, it was time to get to work. She sprayed a soft disinfectant over the exposed part of the cloned brain, before setting the cover back. Carefully, she adjusted the position of the metal piece she had removed to access the cloned tissue, and began the delicate work of first sealing the piece, and once the biosterile glue had set, she welded the piece back with a small blowtorch.
Quintessence Plane
"(Better, partner?)" Deadman asked. He had managed to return to the Quintessence place with the Phantom Stranger on tow.
The two floated next to the image of the Earth. The Stranger nodded. "(I am recovering, Deadman. It will take me a while. I am not at my best in overly technological locales. And a mental simulation of New York run in an organic computer is one of those. I'll recover in a few days.)"
"(So, metaphorically speaking, you need a nap and some chicken soup for the soul.)" Deadman shrugged.
"(Metaphorically speaking, yes.)"
"(You'll be okay if I leave for a little while? I think the kid will be worried. And I don't trust Commander Badshave.)"
"(Go ahead.)"
Somehow, Deadman got the impression that the Phantom Stranger had closed his eyes, despite being perpetually hidden in shadows.
New York
S.T.A.R. Labs
Dr. Victor Stone's Office
(Mental Plane)
"(Is this everything?)" Dr. Stone asked, carefully balancing an ice pack on the organic half of his head.
"(Yes, Vic.)" Dr. Karen Beecher answered. "(Those cyberbugs almost dissolved when they were done for. This is everything we managed to recover. It looks somewhat familiar, don't you think?)"
He groaned, while his wife, Dr. Naoko Akagi, pushed him a bit to his left, to examine the tech. "(Alien tech?)" she asked.
"(Oh, yes. And this particular tech hadn't been seen on Earth for a good while. New Gods' tech. Almost alive.)" Cyborg answered, rubbing his temples. "(I'm not sure if this came from Apokolips. New Genesis rarely makes anything that looks threatening. Their tech is streamlined, flowing, even beautiful. Mr. Miracle let me examine many examples of Neogenesi tech back in the JLU. Still…)" he mused.
"(What, honey?)" Naoko used a magnifier to examine the remains of a head.
"(This doesn't look like Apokoliptian either. It's not threatening enough for Darkseid's standards. The cyberbugs look… utilitarian. Neither beautiful nor ugly. Functional. Organic. Like something that evolved on its own.)"
Karen pointed at a joint. "(Now that you mention it, Vic, look at that. This looks athrophied!)"
Victor set the piece in the holoimager, and expanded the image of the joint. Just as Karen had said. There was a small protuberance in the endoskeleton. It was small, but with some adjustments, it revealed that a set of muscular fibers had been discarded, allowing a more efficient placement of the others, increasing the available force in 0.68%.
"(What does this mean?)" Naoko asked.
"(It means that somewhere, these bugs might be a part of an ecosystem.)" Karen supplied.
"(Damn…)" Victor commented. "(I don't what to know if there is something that eats them.)"
August the 16, 2001
Project Noah HQ
"(That's it, my precious. Slow… slow…)" A thin man with a black, badly cut moustache directed his creation. Dr. Dabney Donovan, certified genetic genius, and also certified mad scientist, had managed to create a retrovirus to replace specific DNA sequences in the species designated for Project Noah.
And right now, one of his G-Nomes, diminutive, and obedient creatures of his own making, maneuvered himself through the air ducts hidden in the walls of the Project Noah underground base.
The G-Nome carried a small vial, and once it and Donovan were sure there was no one to see anything out of the ordinary. The creature put a micro-drop of virus in the container of the first cloned tissue it found.
A few moments later, the G-Nome heard noise from the hall. Steps! Somebody was coming! Quickly, it hid behind a refrigeration unit.
Donovan cursed fluently. It was Dr. Roquette! She was a nice girl, despite her extravagant sense of fashion and tendency to meddle with his plans. Even unknowingly!
She took the gene samples, all of them! Before the G-Nome had managed to alter more than a single sample!
"(Oh, well… the results should be interesting anyway.)" Donovan rubbed his chin, perpetually covered by a three day stubble.
A Ranch Not Very Near Reno, Nevada
(Mental Plane)
Cliff Steele sat on the remains of the couch. "(Dang it! I had just made this one!)"
Dr. Naoko Akagi sat next to him, and passed an arm over his mechanical shoulders, patting his pectoral plate a couple of times, for emphasis. "(Don't worry, Cliff. We will replace it.)"
Cliff grunted. "(But I liked that couch!)"
Tokyo-3
Katsuragi-Ikari Apartment
Later that Night
Shinji Ikari watched some show on the TV, once the three pilots had been recovered from Lake Ashi, they had been immediately taken back to their apartments. For once, no one wanted to wait for a home-made meal. The three took one instant ramen packet from Misato's stash. And ate in silence. They were all bone tired.
After their meagre dinner, Asuka and Rei had departed for their own apartment.
Somehow, Shinji found himself suddenly sitting at the small table he had in his room. The computer was on, and there was a short text displayed on the screen. The pilot gasped when he read it.
"Hey, kid. Sorry to hijack you without your permission. Our fedora-wearing friend got a bit of a shock to the system, and will have to rest for a while. I'll be keeping an eye on you kids for the next few days. D."
"Boston-San? Are you here?" Shinji whispered.
Once again, he felt a blip on his memory. There was a new text on the screen. "For the night, yes. Tomorrow morning I'll go back to the office and see what the big guys are planning."
"Okay. Is the Stranger well?"
"He just needs some rest. I'll be checking on him later."
"Thank-you, Boston-San. Please give my regards to the Stranger."
"Will do, kid. BTW, you should go to bed. This was a nerve-wracking day."
"Why? What happened? We got sent to the lake, but no one told us anything. And Misato is staying the night at the GeoFront."
"Oh, boy. I just remembered, Comander Badshave has ordered a full denial operation. Officially, there was some malfunction of the alarm system, and there was a brief lockdown of NERV HQ. Officially, there was some test of the systems, and the alarms sounded without reason."
Another blip of Shinji's awareness, and anther text followed. "But very unofficially, and also very truthfully? There was an Angel attack, directly on NERV. Actually, to the computer system. Remember that Rei's simbody began to act up? That was the Angel hacking the systems. You kids got ejected before the Angel could do anything to you."
Shinji's blood froze in his veins for a moment. "What happened? How did it…?"
"How did they defeat it? (Smiley face) Well… Dr. Dyejob managed to use some kind of mad hacking skills (1) to do to the Angel what I do to people. She hijacked it, and now the Angel is working for NERV! No pay, no dental plan, and no vacation time. Much like myself, now that I think about it…"
"Wow…"
"I'll tell you more some other day. Right now, you shouldn't really know any of this. So stick to what you knew five minutes ago, okay?"
"I will, Boston-San. Thank you again."
Another blip, and when he came back, all the text had been erased from the screen.
Shinji exhaled a breath, and leaned back on his chair for a moment.
Ivory Coast
Deep Underground
Brotherhood of Evil Secret Base
(Mental Plane)
Dr. Naoko Akagi sat primly while she ran simulation after simulation. She tapped the arm of her chair with a fingernail. Thinking.
The Brain was still in shock. Monsieur Mallah took care of his partner, with a delicate touch no one would expect from such a massive gorilla, he inserted the feeding tubes, and a nutrient solution refilled the internal tank that kept the organ alive. Another set of controls managed the cleaning of the clear fluid that contained him safely. Mallah had done the same maintenance hundreds of times. By now, it was almost a comforting ritual for him.
Undisclosed Location, Somewhere in the Nevada Desert
USA
NERV 2nd Branch
Evangelion Unit-04 Cage
"(Very well, guys. Good job.)" Colonel Ulysses Hazard II (2) said, satisfied, as he made the rounds in the Evangelion cage, congratulating scientists and technicians as he walked. He was a tall afro-american man, his left eye covered by a patch. A reminder of an old war wound. "(The guys in charge will be safistied with our progress.)"
"(I hope so. If this works, Unit-04 will be the first free-roaming Evangelion. The core fragments from the Fourth Angel allowed us to build an S2 Engine, or Organ. However you wanna call it, sir.)" Hazard's aide, Jackie Burns, offered. He was certainly not a career soldier, but was a very good administrator. "(At the moment, the S2 is inert. We need to feed it energy before it starts.)"
"(Connect it to the tertiary reactor. If it works as the egg-heads think it will, then we could solve the energy crisis in a swift stroke.)"
"(Suppossing we can make it work, I guess we could.)" Burns was a pessimist by nature, while Hazard tended to throw everything at a problem until it was either solved or squashed flat.
"(Did you see the report on the Fifth Angel? That monster generated so much energy that its energy beams couldn't even be measured!)"
"(That's what worries me, to be honest. I shudder to think of what that kind of energy could do to a city.)"
"(Then, be glad we are right in the middle of nothing!)" Hazard slapped Burns back, making the man stumble.
"(Now, how are things going with the Problem Child?)"
"(Her synch rate has been rising fast. I dare to say she's chomping at the bit, while the ther pilots have been getting all the action, she has been stuck here at Bethelem since she was transferred from Bethany. I hope once we have ironed any problems with Unit-04, we will be able to ship her to Tokyo-3. Ah, another thing, she has been complaining about the plug suit. Apparently it's getting too tight for comfort. And she doesn't like the color scheme.)"
"(Hah! Order a new suit for her, I don't care if it is in hot pink, as long as she can synch properly with Big Trophy.)" Unit-04 had gotten the nickname the first time Mari Ilustrious Makinami, or Problem Child as she was better known in Bethelem Base, saw it. 'That's the Big Trophy for the bowling league around here, right?' she had said, and the name stuck. However, she was the only one in the base who didn't use it!
"(Immediately, sir.)" Burns gathered his papers, and made a note to remind himself to send the order to Section 5. And just for kicks, he added "(Make it hot pink.)"
Vega System
Psion Homeworld
"(Hurry! We have to get out of this place right now!)" Jor Max-El yelled at his companions, Nightstar was in his arms, very annoyed with the bridal carry she was currently subject to. The Psions had tried to replicate the experiment that had granted her mother her energy blasts. And the ordeal had caused a paralyzing numbness in her body, as she already had inherited those same powers. Still, feeling was returning to her. Soon she would recover completely, at least, she hoped it would be so. At the moment, her fingers and toes tingled uncomfortably, and she couldn't move arms and legs. Well... at least she could move her head and speak coherently.
Aleea Strange flew a few feet behind them, shooting back at the Parademons pursuing them. "(I told you to not push that button!)"
"(Hey! It was red! I thought it was to release Mar'i! How was I to know it would arm a missile right inside the silo? Stupid big-headed lizards!)"
"(Shut up you two! This is the worst rescue in history!)"
They turned at a junction, and took an ascending passage. Mar'i asked "(How long until the warhead detonates?)"
Aleea checked her chrono. "(Not enough, I think. We are going to do something really desperate. Jor?)"
"(Like what? Blow the whole place up?)" Mar'i interrupted, arching an eyebrow. "(You already did that!)"
"(Waaaay worse than that…)" Jor shook his head. "(I'm gonna have to call my dad to pick us up. Think your Mom will grant me asylum for a few years? He's gonna be pissed off!)"
"(Look out!)" Aleea yelled. Jor managed to atomize a group of Parademons ahead with his heat vision. The group crossed through the ash cloud that was the only proof those Parademons had even existed.
Titan, Moon of Saturn
J'Onz'Zahar (J'onz's Remembrance)
October the 19th, 2002 (Earth Calendar)
"(I am very sorry, Professor Strange; we have no means to contact Rann at the moment. There's a lot of interference. I asked the comms techs to inform me if the situation changes.)" Mender Ordeen seemed very sorry. "(Maybe we will have more luck securing transport for you. I think Captain Destiny would appreciate having another human in his ship.)"
Adam Strange leaned back on his bed. "(Who?)"
"(Captain Destiny (3), he was born on your planet, I think. His full name is Horatio Destiny. Some time ago, he got involved with the arrival of His Majesty. He's quite mercenary, but never backs up on a deal. We have found it's easier to keep him on retainer than to try to curb his… enthusiasm for the pirate life.)"
"(A pirate and a mercenary? Doesn't really inspire much confidence at the moment.)"
"(I understand. But he might be your chance to go back to Rann.)"
"(Let's keep that option open Mender Ordeen.)" Adam laid down his head. "(Hmm… I would like to do something. Is there anything I could help you guys with? I hate to be a freeloader.)"
"(Well…)" Ordeen pulled at his goatee, thinking. "(There is a little project I have been working on, but I will have to ask for permission.)"
"(Sure, but in the meanwhile..? I don't want to be a bad guest. I'd like to contribute with something.)"
"(How about a course on etiquette? I am sure the Their Majesties will want to talk to you at length, and depending on the length of your stay, you might be considered as an unofficial ambassador for Earth.)"
"(Great! I love learning about other cultures!)" Adam rubbed his hands together, ready to begin.
Author Notes:
1 I couldn't resist to insert a Doctor Who reference in this chapter.
2 I needed somebody to be the boss in NERV-2, and a quick check in the DC Wikia showed me a few interesting characters with a military background. As I am only really familiar with Sgt Rock, and the Haunted Tank, and neither fit my plans, I decided to create a new character, based on one I thought appropriate: Ulysses Hazard, AKA Gravedigger, was an Afro-American soldier in WWII. He debuted in Men of War issue 1 (Aug 1977). As a child, he suffered from polio, but thanks to a grueling training, he managed to overcome the polio sequels and achieve top physical condition. As a soldier, he and his squad mates were relegated to menial tasks, like kitchen work, delivery of supplies, and of course, grave digging.
After a friend of his was killed, Ulysses decided to break into the Pentagon to prove his worth as an operative. He was then assigned as a lone operative, with a codename based on one of the tasks he had been assigned before. After the war, he had a son, Achilles Hazard, who joined the United States Marine Corps, and a grandson, Perseus Hazard, who was the leader of Squad K, a group dedicated to stop Superman, should he ever go rogue. Perseus debuted in Superman issue 664 (Aug 2007). However, as I don't really have much info about either Achilles or Perseus to characterize them correctly, and they debuted after the cut-off date of 2000 (Second Impact), I decided to create a new character, based on the original Gravedigger. Enter Colonel Ulysses Hazard II, grandson of Gravedigger. His aide is an OC.
3 Captain Destiny, the space pirate, was created by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake, during their run in Martian Manhunter. He was part of the cast for the four-part saga "The Rings of Saturn" (Martian Manhunter, Issues 13 to 16; Dec 1999 to March 2000). As far as I know, he hasn't been used since. A pity, as he was quite a colorful character.
Much of the background I'm using for the colony on Titan comes precisely from this saga.