Neon Senshi Evangelion

Nineteen

"You're welcome to sit in on our staff meeting," Yui noted to Setsuna as they walked together, "but I can't promise anything exciting."

"That's fine," Setsuna reassured her, "I just want to get a feel for NERV's day to day operations."

"Understood," Yui nodded sharply.

Setsuna looked at her curiously, "How is Misato? I hadn't seen her...?"

"I made her take a few days off," Yui admitted. "It looks like she was just suffering low blood sugar and overwork, but I'd rather not take chances."

"I see," Setsuna just nodded.

The meeting room wasn't far from Gendo's office, with the usual long table and computer screen. Gendo nodded as they entered, and also sitting at the table were Kaji, Ritsuko, Maya and from Japan Heavy Industries, Shingo Tsukino.

"I don't think you've met Shingo Tsukino," Yui noted, "Shingo, this is our UN representative, Setsuna Meiou."

"Ma'am," Shingo shook her hand politely.

"Kaji," Setsuna nodded to her subordinate.

"Ma'am," he echoed Shingo a bit nervously.

Yui sat down by Gendo as they called the meeting to order. Gendo ran things fairly efficiently, getting status reports from each department. Unit-02 was checked out and ready to go. The operations team was prepared. Security reported nothing amiss, other then Kensuke Aida trying to hack into the Magi. Again.

"He does this regularly?" Setsuna looked amused.

"He's a classmate of Shinji and Rei and a potential pilot candidate," Gendo shrugged. "We give him a bit more leniency than normal."

"Fair enough...," Setsuna conceded.

Shingo Tsukino got up to give his report. "The AI rebuild for Jet Alone is going well. Initial tests show the autopilot and pilot aide functions are both working within parameters," he said.

"And we're not using any Aperture Science tech," Gendo noted wryly.

"Amen," Shingo agreed.

Having heard about Jet Alone's original rampage, Setsuna could certainly understand THAT.

"We're working on a pilot rig, to conform with NERV practices as well as to provide Jet Alone with AT field capabilities," Shingo added, "that's still in early stages however."

"I saw the rough designs Naoko is working on," Yui added, "she continues to be brilliant."

"I'll pass that on," Shingo smiled wryly and sat.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"GOD I'm bored!" Misato complained to herself bitterly as she sat on her couch, much later in the afternoon.

One would expect an extended weekend would be fun, but Misato would beg to differ. Most of the activities she did after work were with work friends, and it wasn't like Tokyo-3 was a fun town to begin with. Almost everyone who lived there were either NERV staff, or provided various services FOR NERV staff.

Misato got up to go to the kitchen to make a snack, then stopped herself. She'd already had lunch, and she didn't want to over eat.

"Argh," Misato growled and headed out the door. She needed to get out of the house.

Not too surprisingly Misato ended up at the nearby game arcade. The staff had thankfully forgiven her and the pilots for the damage the brawl had done (assisted, no doubt, by NERV being very generous in paying for repairs.) She enjoyed the racing games, even if she was awful at them, and often raced against local teens.

"Hey, Misato," Hotaru Tomoe waved, the slightly younger woman giving Misato an amused smile. The goth dressed woman added, "Your early today. Your usual tokens?"

"You're getting to know me too well," Misato noted as she paid for the tokens.

"Ha," Hotaru smiled. "You'll know it's gotten bad when I reserve your favourite racing machine for you," she teased.

Misato stuck her tongue out at her.

There was a young woman manning one of the dual race machines, so Misato moved over to that one. "You mind if I...?" she asked politely.

The brown haired girl pushed up her glasses. "Sure," she grinned.

Misato put a token into the slot, sat down and her car entered the race. And within minutes she crashed violently into the wall.

"Grrr," Misato growled, glad she had more than one life...

Amusingly the other woman (teen? She looked like she might be in her twenties.) was also nearly as awful at the racing game. Tho in her case she had less issues with turns and more with just going WAY too fast.

"Ha!" she declared as they had a photo finish to the race. "Nice!" she complimented Misato cheerfully.

"You too," Misato agreed.

"Hey, there's a retro Sailor V game I wanted to try... do you play?" she grinned. "Oh, I'm Mari," she added cheerfully.

"Misato," she replied. "I don't think I've tried it, but why not?"

"Come on then," Mari climbed out of the racing game seat.

Following Mari Misato noted she WAS younger. Probably around Shinji and Rei's age. 'Wonder why she's not in school?' she mused, then decided it was none of her business.

"Do you want to play as Sailor V?" Mari asked. "I usually do..."

"Go ahead then," Misato nodded. "Who's player two?"

"It's an obscure character who teamed up with V at times," Mari said, "Sailor Moon."

"Huh," Misato blinked, remembering the odd conversation with Shingo not long ago. "Well, I'll give it a shot..."

Misato generally didn't dwell on her amnesia much. Yes, it was troubling not remembering the first fifteen years of her life, but there was nothing she could do about that.

But as Misato made the character jump, duck and fire 'moon tiaras' at the enemies, she got a profound feeling of deja-vu. She was certain she had played this before... but was equally sure she never had. It was the oddest feeling.

"Not bad," Mari said after they finally got killed. "I don't normally get that far on my own," she admitted.

"Teamwork pays off," Misato agreed, even though she still felt a bit disquieted.

Before they could start another game they heard a voice coming from the front of the arcade. "Mari!" the woman called.

"Busted," Mari sighed. "Excuse me," Mari added as she headed to whomever was calling her.

Curious, Misato followed her then blinked in surprise. "Ms Meiou?" she said.

Setsuna Meiou looked more amused then anything else. "Mari, leaving a note then taking off is not okay," she scolded gently.

"I got bored," Mari shrugged.

"You know this young lady?" Misato asked, amused.

"Mari Illustrious Makinami, meet Misato Katsuragi," Setsuna introduced them formally. "She's here in Tokyo as my ward," she explained.

"Please don't call me your ward," Mari rolled her eyes, "It makes me think you should be Batman or something..."

"THERE is an amusing mental image," Misato grinned and Mari laughed.

Setsuna just rolled her eyes.

Misato looked at the two women, then made a quick decision. "Are you doing anything this evening? I wouldn't mind trying to fix my first impression of fainting on you..."

"How about we grab dinner?" Setsuna offered mildly. "I am on a UN expense account."

"Gotta milk the UN when we can," Mari teased. "I assume I'm invited?"

"No, we were going to make you stay home and eat TV dinners," Misato teased right back.

Mari laughed as all three left the arcade together. Without Misato noticing, Setsuna and Hotaru exchanged small nods...

To be continued...

Notes: If YOU wanted to keep an eye on Misato/Usagi, wouldn't staking out the local video arcade be a good idea? Yes, that's Hotaru Tomoe/Sailor Saturn. I'm also keeping the tradition that Usagi was really, really bad at racing games.

Now I just need to figure out where Haruka and Michiru are...