Neon Senshi Evangelion
Twenty Nine
She didn't like admitting it, but Setsuna Meiou STILL gave Misato the willies.
"Wow she's pretty though," Aoba noted as she and Gendo left the bridge.
"Hot, but icy," Motoko offered.
"Boys, no gossip please," Misato ordered.
"Sorry," Aoba said a bit sheepishly.
"Status of the Angel lab?" Misato checked, even though they could see real time footage of it on the screen.
"All systems green, no alerts, no panic button," Motoko observed. "The Beta lab team is on site, all report green too."
"All right, keep monitoring," Misato ordered then headed back to her office.
"Also hot," Motoko murmured admiringly as she left.
"No way on Earth, buddy," Aoba noted.
Misato pretended she didn't notice.
A lot of day to day 'stuff' at NERV hit Misato'd work desk, which she had to stay on top of. Duty rosters, staff issues, holiday requests... all the minor stuff that Gendo didn't want to deal with. As well, Misato was in charge of the security forces for NERV Tokyo, which was an added headache.
There were security teams watching over all the pilot candidates, both at school and off hours. NERV staff was alsio guarded, on the basis they might be kidnapped for classified information or possibly ransom. If someone snatched Yui, as a example, they'd pay almost anything to get her back...
"Huh," Misato grunted on seeing a report on Setsuna's companion, Mari Illustrious Makinami. The young woman was evading her security tail... regularly.
'Okay, is she just dodging them for fun, or is there a security risk?' Misato wondered as she read. The men involved had no evidence she had done anything, but it was concerning.
"The other thing is, is Setsuna herself using this girl as some sort of agent?" Misato muttered.
On the surface, it was unlikely that a young teen would be operating as a covert agent. On the OTHER hand, she and NERV were using similarly aged kids to pilot giant biomechanical war machines. So she really couldn't say it was impossible.
And Setsuna was working for the UN, and was representing their boss. Not counting SEELE of course. If Misato went digging into this and Setsuna found out about it, it could go VERY bad.
"No," Misato finally decided, "I am NOT jumping on this grenade today. However, I will mention it to Yui later."
There was a soft chime at her door, and Misato noted her appointment was here. "Come in," she called.
Yuna Hosho came in, the woman looking profoundly miserable. "Major, I have something to confess..," she sighed.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"All right, let's see how it looks," Kodama said cheerfully.
"I am NOT wearing this," Mana Kirishima protested from thew changing room.
"We're all women here," Kodama pointed out to the other woman.
"... Is Mr Tsukino out there?" Mana asked.
"Oh," Kodama looked at him. "Could you...?"
"Sure, I can come back," Shingo offered, wondering what the fuss was about.
"Thank you," Naoko said mildly, supervising today.
"He's gone!" Kodama called.
Mana emerged, wearing the main part of the new Plug Suit they were going to put her in while piloting Jet Alone.
"That.. ended up being more revealing than I expected," Naoko noted, blinking.
"YOU THINK?" Mana barked.
The entire front of the new suit was semi-transparent, to allow for medical monitoring. Jet Alone was still a prototype, they did not want to take any chances with the pilot. However, the material was a lot more see-through than they expected.
"This is SO embarrassing," Mana muttered, covering her breasts with one arm and putting a hand over her crotch.
"We'll make sure no one sees the video feeds from the cockpit," Kodama offered.
Briskly Naoko carried over the new helmet, that also incorperated the connectors for the synchronizing. It looked, amusingly, like it had cat ears.
"Hold still," Naoko ordered as she fitted it, then activated the connectors to the suit. "How does it feel?" she asked.
"Comfortable," Mana admitted.
"Switching on internal air," Naoko switched on that feature. "Ok?" she asked.
"Fine," Mana agreed. "How long can the suit's air last?"
"Half a hour," Naoko noted. "How are reading from the suit?" she asked.
Kodama checked on her tablet, "Getting full biometrics. Your heart beat is a bit elevated, too."
"I can't imagine why," Mana noted wryly.
"Ha," Naoko smiled wryly. "Okay, let's get you into the cockpit, it's time to test the water cushioning." she ordered.
"Oh joy," Mana deadpanned mildly.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"They did WHAT?" Yui Ikari blurted later that day.
Misato was sitting across from Yui in her personal office, sipping a fresh cup of coffee. "Someone catfished one of our mid-level staff, knocked her out and, I assume, snuck into NERV," she said to Yui tiredly.
"Oh hell," Yui sighed. "Is the staffer okay?" she checked first.
"Yeah. Whatever they sedated her with left her sick as a dog fore a day or so," Misato said, "not sure if it was intentional."
Elsewhere in Tokyo-3, an unknowing Mari felt weirdly guilty all of a sudden, and didn't know exactly why.
"How bad is it?" Yui asked.
"The staffer didn't have access to any highly classified data," Misato said, "but by checking regular security logs, we know the intruder accessed the Magi and out main data banks."
"Did you check with Ritsuko?" Yui asked.
"She was the first person I went to," Misato admitted, "Ritsuko thinks our internal security kept them out of anything high security, but..."
"They at least got away with a lot of our information," Yui nodded. "Any idea who?"
"No, and there's a LOT of potential suspects," Misato admitted, and Yui nodded dourly. "USA, China, other countries all want our tech for their own uses. Various corporations. Heck, Japan Heavy Chemical Industries could even be behind it," she added.
"They have Naoko though," Yui blinked.
"MOST of the Evangelion tech came after her," Misato shrugged.
"Well, keep me informed," Yui sighed.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Stand! Bow!" the class rep barked.
"Morning all," Michiru waved as the music teacher hurried in. "I'm still covering for your usual teacher, today," she told them.
"SO cool," Kensuke Aida murmured.
"All right, attendance," Michiru said briskly.
Rei, Shinji and Mana were all there, as expected. Michiru at times wished Asuka was a student here too, for monitoring purposes, but what could you do? And honestly with her existing education she didn't need schooling.
"We'll be continuing with Miss Haruna's lesson plan," Michiru noted. There were groans and she chuckled, "No, I'm not letting you get away with a free period."
Once everyone was working, she went over to where Rei Ikari was sitting. "Miss Ikari? I understand you're working ahead?" she asked.
"Yes ma'am," Rei agreed. She held up a text, "I'm currently working on this."
"Have you considered skipping a year?" Michiru felt obligated to ask.
"We've talked about it," Rei conceded but added, "but I'd like to stay with my age group, for socializing reasons."
Once again Michiru was struck by how bright Rei was. "Okay," she nodded, "do you need any new materials?"
"I'm fine for now," Rei smiled.
As she was working on advanced calculus, Michiru hoped SHE wouldn't be asked to help. She wasn't that good at maths...
Michiru returned to her desk, then sat. 'Too bad Shinji hasn't joined the music club, as planned,' she mused as she covertly studied the boy. It would be nice if they could study him and confirm he was Tuxedo Kamen reborn.
To be continued...
Notes: in canon, NERV has pretty decent security, so I wanted to cover that. Plus there was the poor NERV staffer that Mari grabbed a few chapters ago, so I wanted that to come up too.