It might be because I take this place a little more seriously than SB. It might also be because there's more traffic on that sight, so I'd be more likely to get a response before the next chapter went up and just made me look silly.
Moreover, I would like to point out that I have admitted before that I am a compulsive foreshadower. Not quite enough to make me a Batman villain, but I find dropping cryptic hints and dramatic irony to be hilarious.
And on that topic, the next chapter!
Seriously, this time.
Chapter 11
To Play Always
~'/|\'~
The Deputy Representative was waiting for Gendo Ikari when he returned to his office.
Ah. The old man is exceptionally annoyed about something. Now to see if this will this escalate to a true confrontation... I do not believe so.
Gendo held a small, faint smile on his face, as much to mask the annoyance that he was experiencing as to annoy his former mentor.
“Where were you?” asked Fuytusuki, his voice perfectly level and impassive, perhaps with a hint of curiosity. That alone showed the man's irritation; he was normally more expressive than that.
Gendo didn't answer at first, instead walking straight to his desk, and ensuring that the wards remained intact. He nodded once, in satisfaction, then spoke;
“Some mutual friends had information about a potentially useful asset. It was necessary to liaise with certain of them, as well as pass on information about activities of AHNUNG.” Gendo pushed his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose with an index finger. “Certain individuals compromised will suffer accidents over the next week.”
The white-haired individual merely stared at the younger man. He quite obviously wasn't going to accept it without more information.
Gendo sighed. “The potential asset was a TDE available and detected both by the TPDD flare and the characteristic amnesia in the individual suffering Type-6
Seelenversetzung.”
“A Temporally Displaced Entity?” queried Fuyutsuki. “Intentional or accidental? Human or xeno?”
Gendo gazed out over the top of his glasses. “A Yithian TDE, to be exact. The individual suffering Type-6
Seelenversetzung was, prior to the incident, resident in Toyko-3. The entity had only just entered this timeplane, and since the subject was still at school, the personality change and amnesia set off systematic alarm bells. You can see now why I felt it was so urgent to obtain the asset.”
The older man leant forwards. “Did you get it?” he asked, in an urgent tone of voice. “All prior attempts have either lead to the death of the
Seelenversetzung Y-Entity or its escape via TPDD.”
Gendo's mask cracked then, a flare of real anger surging through, muscles tensing in his jawline. “It was captured, but not by us.” The anger was suddenly gone, locked away behind an utterly neutral face. “The Children of Chaos got there first. They had subverted the local OIS; during custody transfer, the subject just disappeared. Not literally, but the data trail goes dead.”
A look of worry filled Fuyutsuki's eyes. “Oh dear,” he said, quite fully aware of the inadequacy of that statement.
“Quite,” stated Gendo, clamping back down in his emotions and hiding them behind the mask again. “We can but hope that the Em model of Temporal Dynamics is the true one. If the Fujiwara Static Hypothesis is true, then the Children of Chaos have just obtained a map for the events that are to come.” The man fell silent. “And we are all doomed.”
“No entity which is in any way comprehensible to our mode of thought will be able to resist a dedicated interrogation by the extranormal assets that Chrysalis have available,” replied Fuyutsuki, his voice morose. “Even assuming
He will not involve himself.” The old man shuddered. “And the records we have, of the Peaslee, Bhati and Alvarez Cases, show that the Y-Entities can be understood; they operate fairly close to us on the Mabbott Logarithmic Sapience Scale” He paused. “Our best hope, then, is that the individual was suffering from Type-6
Seelenversetzung for reasons unrelated.”
Gendo got out of his seat, and walked over to the edge of the room, his gait that of a much older man.
“We can but hope,” he said softly, gazing up at the false stars in the night-time ceiling of the Geocity. “ If the Fujiwara Static Hypothesis is true, then everything has failed. I will devote an ORACLE cycle to trying to intuit anything about what they have found.”
He stood there, staring up.
Fuyutusuki cleared his throat.
“Have you read the PsychEvals for your s... for the Third Child?”
Gendo did not turn to face his former mentor.
“Yes. First Stage AWS, of the Navidson sub-type, if I am any judge. Frankly, he was lucky to escape with so little.” The Representative exhaled. “He will be fine. Do not remove him from the active duty rosters. No more Heralds are predicted before CATO, which exists to fulfil the Texts, and so there will be a period of relief.”
The white-haired man made an annoyed noise. “I do know that, Ikari, just as you do. There is no need to explain things to me in that manner.”
“It is necessary to keep such things in mind. We must never forget that we are shaping events to fit the Texts so that we may break from then when we wish, not playing their game to the end. Ultimately, the greater good of our plan means that we must sacrifice some pawns, but it would be foolish to dispose of assets before their full use has been extracted. And so we must conserve resources by whatever means we can extract.”
“It is fortunate that the EFCS exists.” Fuyutsuki paused, a faint aura of nervousness suddenly radiating around him. “That is, the noetic filtering side-effects of the EFCS are fortunate.”
“Indeed.” Gendo continued to stare out the transparent walls.
Behind him, Gendo heard the Deputy Representative turn and leave, his shoes clicking on the clean white surface.
I'm sorry, Yui.
This will not have been for nothing, I promise you. I will make sure of it.
~'/|\'~
Misato leant on the balcony, and gazed down at the lab area, cup of coffee in hand. Ritsuko was explaining the latest research idea to Asuka and Shinji.
“... and so we'd like you both to be wearing the A-10 Clips while we put you through the new intensive training regime.”
Asuka shrugged. “It makes no difference to me. I wear them already. And I don't really see the point of the training. I don't need it.” She paused. “Now, Shinji, on the other hand, needs the practice to get him up to my level...”
“You know, that's exactly why you both need it,” called down Misato.
Asuka glanced up towards the elder woman, eyes momentarily widening as she recognised her presence. “Why?” she asked bluntly, with a hidden undertone of hostility.
“Because, frankly,” the Major replied coldly, “the last operation was a mess. You obstructed his lines of fire, he isn't used to operating with others, and both of you failed to operate as a small unit. Now,” the Major admitted, “it is our fault for not having done this as soon as you were positioned together, but we see now how necessary it is.”
“But...” protested Asuka, before the Major cut her off.
“Protest will not be tolerated.”
The red-headed girl flinched slightly, at the singularly un-Misato-like attitude, before her face settled in a blank mask.
“And will the girl w... that is, the First Child be joining the training?” she asked in an excessively polite tone, hiding her disappointment.
“It was deemed that the First Child was unsuitable for the intensive training programme,” answered Ritsuko, stepping around into the line of sight between Asuka and Misato. “She will practice with you in Immersion Training Simulations in the dummy bodies, but the real issue, at the moment, is the level of animosity between you two. This is, in part, what the regime is designed to remedy.”
“There isn't animosity between us two,” Asuka countered. “There might be a... healthy exchange of ideas, sometimes, but I wouldn't call it animosity.”
Both Ritsuko and Misato stared at her for a while, silently. Her eyes flicked between the two of them. “That's right, isn't it, Shinji?”
The boy slowly turned to look at the other pilot. Slightly bloodshot eyes stared out from over noticeable bags. He stared at her for a moment, as if not quite comprehending.
“I suppose,” he finally said.
Misato winced. The after-effects of the fiasco that had been the fight against the most recent Herald (assigned, almost retroactively from how fast the thing had been slain, the code-name Shalim-Shacar, in recognition of its apparently dual nature) had reminded her of what they had been really doing. Namely, sticking teenagers in arcanocyberxenobiological weapons of war, up against monstrosities even more horrific than the ones she had seen back when she had been in the frontlines in the Aeon War.
All but one, that is, a small voice whispered in her ear.
It was horrifically amoral, only avoided violating several major laws due to the technicalities they had managed to find, and undeniably effective. That was the worst part.
I wish those two had been in Tibet.
For Shinji, it had been the sight of that pseudo-Zone which had briefly formed before its closure which had left in his current state, afraid of the dark and having problems sleeping. When they had finally released him from the Clinic, three days after they had given Asuka a clean bill of mental health, she had seen the diagnosis notes. The Navidson sub-type; a comparatively milder variant, at first, in that the symptoms could be contained and the cause attacked and removed, was still no laughing matter. She had found out what had happened to the first individual to exhibit those symptoms, after reading the Clinic notes, and it had not been pleasant reading. The second individual mentioned had watched an illicit text authored by the first, and the subsequent breakdown of his mental state had been fortunately recorded in personal, analytical notes on the book. Even the censored, OIS provided summary had provided too much information.
And stirred certain memories, best forgotten.
the coal black eyes stared up at her, the man-sized figure somehow dwarfing her Blizzard
Misato shook her head, and focussed back on the figures below. She frowned, as the conversation seemed to have jumped.
“... so we're to do a mixture of martial arts training... small-units...” Asuka was saying, as she ran her eyes down the list on a tablet PCPU, “in-Eva practice...”
Ristuko nodded. “And quite a bit more. But the main thing will be to spend as much time working together as possible. By the end of it, we want you utterly familiar with each other, and, more importantly, fully trusting each other.”
Both Asuka, and Shinji, snapping out of his reverie, recoiled slightly at that.
“You have to be able to co-operate in perfect unison,” continued the scientist, who apparently hadn't noticed the dual flinches. “Ideally, as a squad you could be perfectly synchronised, but... issues arise with that level of precision, so we'll have to see how coordinated we can make you two. You're already living together, which makes things easier.” A slight smile crept onto her face. “But I think you're going to be seeing quite a bit more of each other.”
The two glanced at each other, eyes locked for several long seconds, before they both looked away together. The mimicry of unison was somewhat spoiled by Shinji letting his head slump down, hands covering tired eyes and massaging his forehead.
Asuka made an annoyed noise in the back of her throat.
“I'm already getting a headache,” she muttered.
“You'll live,” was the heartless reply from the blond woman. “Now, you have a training exercise in the gym on level 12 in ten minutes. Don't be late.” When they hadn't moved, she added, “That means, 'Please leave my lab, as we have work to do'. Shoo.”
Misato watched the pair walk out, especially noting the look of disgust on Asuka's face from the Doctor Akagi's patronising tone.
“Was that really necessary?” she called down.
Ritsuko shrugged. “Not necessary, no, but it seemed like the easiest way.” She sighed, an undercurrent of resentment and annoyance evident in her voice. “I wasn't lying, though. You know, the Foundation and the NEG have together ordered me to strip all of the armour from 01 and 02 and submit it for independent analysis.”
Misato paled. “What? Are they mad? That leaves us with only Zero-Zero operational!”
“I know. It's stupid, and both Representative Ikari and the Deputy Representative fought it.” She sighed again. “They were overruled by higher ups in the Foundation.”
“It's funny to think that
Gendo Ikari has superiors,” the black haired woman said in a thoughtful tone of voice. “You get so used to his authority that you forget about the Board of Directors and the CEO.” She paused. “I don't think I even know any of their names. It's the continental Representatives you always hear about; Gendo for Ashcroft Europe, that woman... Mariscy? Marescy? You know who I mean, the one with blue hair for Ashcroft South America.”
“Meresky de Terra,” corrected Ritsuko. “She's one of the ones who chose to take one of those Earth-centred “surnames” as a way of distinguishing themselves from the Loyalists back in the Nazzzadi Civil War.” She paused. “But we're going off on a tangent.”
“As usual.”
“Quite. The point is, they've only left us one with operational Eva, and the least advanced one at that.”
“But... I can't see a reason why they'd do that?” Misato protested, in an exasperated tone of voice. “Are they trying to get us killed or something?”
“They claim,” Ritsuko said, rolling her eyes to show what she though about the claim, “that they have to see what the effects of immersion in an aleph-one dimensional space has upon the armour, whether the AT-Field really shields the things within from the Zone effect. I can't see why they can't be content with one set, personally. As it is, it takes us down to the back old days of no replacements whatsoever.”
“Rits, those 'bad old days' were two weeks ago,” Misato replied, with a bitter smile.
“I know.” The blond woman sighed. “As it is, I don't think we can carry out proper in-Unit training. We just don't have the spares. And I think that's why they did it.”
Misato nodded. “The idea that the Evangelion,when they are active are somehow summoning the Heralds. Yes, that would make sense. After the attack of Yam, in C2, and all the attacks which have occurred since 01 was started up, I can certainly see how military counter-intelligence might think that.”
Ritsuko snorted. “I'm not even going to make the obvious joke about the military and 'counter-intelligence'.” She shook her head. “They want to keep us inactive,until,” she looked around, “we're needed for
it.”
The black-haired woman scowled. “Typical handwavers and theorists. No idea on how we actually have to run a military operation, and little things like the necessity for live training.”
The scientist massaged her brow, and forced a smile onto her face. “Talking about handwavers, you still haven't finished all of the masses of after-action and phenomenon reports that the last deployment generated.” She saw the woman up on the balcony visibly slump, which made the smile somewhat more real. “Now, you can shoo too. I have a lot of work that needs to be done” The smile vanished. “We lost another Magi Operator, you know,” she added in a soft voice.
Misato winced. “Another one? Who was it?” she asked, more gently.
“Olivia Pierce, one of the newer immersion technicians. You wouldn't know her. Barely six months out of surgery.” She sighed. “The DMIN, specifically the Etemennigur sub-module glitched while they were analysing the data from the pseudo-Zone. Less than a second of full exposure, without protection, but it was enough to induce Terminal AWS. She's alive, but...”
The way Ritsuko's voice trailed off spoke quite clearly about her expectation that any recovery from Terminal-Phase Navidson Syndrome could ever occur.
The black-haired woman inclined her head. “I'm sorry,” she said, as she left, disappearing from the balcony.
Dr Akagi shook her head, as she returned to filling out the Health and Safety report for the accident.
I am far too familiar with Form 1198/CTR, she thought.
And someday someone is going to have to fill this out for me.
She shut down the morbid thoughts. She was still sane, and still functional. She had dodged the bullet so far, and Dr Miyakame had dodged it even longer. There was still hope.
Is it really hope to not be permitted to give in to the blessed oblivion of madness and no longer be forced into an endless mantra of 'I did what had to be done'?, a little part of her brain asked. It was, likewise, ignored.
Hopefully, the new training regime should enable the two Children (and children, she reminded herself), to actually co-operate. It had been a rather good idea, after all, for that little modification to Misato's plans. Really, she was quite surprised that no-one else had spotted it, that recurrent little theme in their interactions. A moment of serendipity, induced by the Second Child's pride.
Such fortune.
Of course, smugness over what she had found out (even if the people she could actually tell could be counted on two hands) would probably prove to be necessary for what she was about to do.
She was going to have to take Doctor Miyakame up on his offer.
~'/|\'~
The remotely operated drones swarmed over the entity, diamond-bladed drills digging into the polypous, partially-unreal material in those brief moments when it existed. These holes were filled by the second set of autonomous probes, which flew in and extruded a fine lattice of superconducting fibres, plant-like, into the body of the beast. Around these tendrils, the flesh hardened and solidified, the curvature of space-time around the D-Engines of the probe forcing the creature into solidity.
The trapped fiend screamed, a thin whistling noise which extended far into the ultrasound. Its call heard no answer.
From the other side of a viewscreen, the autocensors sanitising the sight, the spectacle was being watched.
“How is it going?” asked Doctor Anton Miyakame, stepping up to the team supervisor.
The man jumped slightly, the motion slopping black coffee over the floor and Doctor Miyakame's shoes.
“Sorry... sorry... sorry,” the supervisor apologised. “Let me just find something to mop this up with...”
The older man shook his head. “It's okay, Mr Xi. Shoes dry. Now, how is it going?”
“The base organism has been isolated, obviously, and the wards are holding,” Chen said, as they moved away from the spill. “We've got roughly 12% of its body by volume subverted and under control, and a further 31% is contested.” He took a deep breath. “I'm sorry, sir, but this is going much slower than usual due to the fact that the extra-normal entity is only 'real',” he made inverted commas with his fingers, “less than 30% of the time. We won't be able to meet the deadline for complete control.” His face took on a placating expression. “I'm sorry this means that that the build team won't be able to start on the Erel prototype as predicted.”
The younger man glanced at the head of Project Engel. The other man didn't even appear to be paying attention, instead gazing at the autocensor screen.
He waited for a moment.
“For that reason, sir, I believe...”
Dr Miyakame made a noise in the back of his throat, a sort of mix between a gurgle and a hum. “I'm sure you do. Nevertheless, your group's tardiness is holding up work on the Erel. We need a counter to the Dragonfly desperately, Chen. I don't think I need to explain the stakes here.”
The supervisor nodded his head. “Yes, sir.”
“I assigned you, along with many of the others from Daeva, here because of your previous experience in the militarisation of unconventional ENEs. Was I mistaken?”
“Before, we had more than a few weeks!” Chen snapped back, his frustration overcoming him. He flinched slightly, as he realised what he'd done. He could feel the eyes of the rest of the room upon him.
Evidently, Dr Miyakame could see the others, too. “Get back to work, all of you!” he said, his tone angry despite the fact that he hadn't raised his voice. “Xi, come with me!” he added, as he turned to leave, his visage like thunder.
Chen Xi followed the man who looked so much older than he really was. This was worrying; very much so. Dr Miyakame was rumoured, from the time he had spent with the long-term Engel members, to have a real temper, and very little patience. He was said to barely sleep; a driven man who would not permit himself or anyone else on the team to perform at less than 100% efficiency. And, in darker whispers, he was more than a little crazy, leaving his teams on edge around him. Brilliant, yes, but brilliant like a cracked diamond; fundamentally broken and flawed. And sharp, very sharp, in the mental sense, but also with people around him.
The older man stopped, so suddenly that Chen almost walked into his back.
“Yes?” he said, in a more normal tone of voice.
“Nothing, sir,” Chen stammered.
He received a glare for his troubles. “Not you.” Anton Miyakame paused for a few seconds, turning so that the younger man could see that one finger was pressed up against an ear in the way that showed he was using implanted headphones.
“Sorry.”
The doctor removed the finger. “Just go,” he snapped. “Make suer you have more progress next time I check.”
He let the younger supervisor move out of sight, before he put back the finger, resuming the conversation.
“Sorry, you said there was an incoming call from Project Evangelion?” He paused. “What's the reference number?” There was a lengthy pause, which continued even after his secretary had stopped speaking. “Will, divert all other calls. I'm going to a secure room; shift this up to the highest security protocols,” he told his secretary, eventually, as he began to walk rapidly towards the nearest one, his pace putting a lie to the premature ageing of his face.
It took a few minutes for the high security to synchronise. The quickening of his breath showed the stress that the wait induced. Slowly, the breath slowed down again, as he clamped down on the primitive fight-or-flight reflex.
Finally, there was the short tune, generated procedurally from the machine chatter, which told him that the link was made. Slowly, he pressed a button on his PCPU.
There was silence on the other side of the line, too.
“Doctor Miyakame,” a voice finally said.
“Doctor Ritsuko Akagi,” he replied. It said something that he still unconsciously distinguished between the two women who would have responded to merely the title and the surname.
“I...” there was a catch in the woman's breath, “... I would like to, on behalf of Project Evangelion, in my role as the Director of Research and Development, to take you up on your offer of cooperation between our two Projects.” The reluctance in her voice was evident.
Anton Miyakame struggled to keep his voice calm. “I understand,” he said, trying to conceal his elatement. “I will instruct my subordinates to liaise with your subordinates, both for the access to Project Engel's nanofactories and the offer of more arcanotechnicians and -engineers.” He paused. “I must admit, Ritsuko, I was not entirely honest with you at the first meeting,” he confessed. “It was not just a spontaneous offer. I have lived with the guilt for twelve years now. I have tried to work out what went wrong, and failed. I thought I could keep it under-control, drive it into the work on Engel, but... the sight of Yui's son, and Kyoko's... daughter bought it out.”
There was a frigid silence on the other end of the line.
“We all have our debts to pay.” He laughed bitterly. “That's the real message of
Frankenstein, not what pop culture would tell you. It isn't a warning about 'playing god'. It's that you should not mistreat or abandon that which you create.”
He coughed.
“I abandoned Project Evangelion the day after the second accident, driving myself into other work to salvage what I could from what I saw as a failed project, to make some use of it. You've seen the Engels; what they share with the Evas and how they differ. But like it or not, I'm one of the fathers of the Evangelions, and I owe the Project a debt.”
~'/|\'~
The only noise in the room was a periodic thick, viscous splash. The false sunlight from the arcology dome streamed in through the windows, giving light to the small room through the clouds of incapacitating gas which had still not fully dispersed.
What it illuminated was mostly red.
Agent Mary Anderson let her orange eyes skip across the room, not looking too closely at the decorations painted in vital fluids in the walls nor the lifeless ragdolls, that were once people, piled on the floor. The autocensor installed in the helmet was necessarily turned off, in case an Extra-Normal Entity like, for example,
talpa bustum, had burrowed into the corpses, waiting to ambush anyone who investigated the bodies. She was simply glad that her armour had an independent air supply; to add smell to the sensory experience would simply be intolerable. She just grasped her LCG tighter, peered through the eyesockets of the helmet, and hoped that if whatever had killed all these people showed up, it was vulnerable to 5mm railgun rounds.
And she was annoyed.
This is the fourth tip-off for a cult headquarters. And, again, they're all dead before we can take any of them in.
Someone is fucking with us.
The floor shook as a three metre figure made its way down the hallway. Although the building met the mandatory construction standards, Special Agent Tennant, in his Centurion Powered Armour, was still leaving dents in the floor. The splintering synthwood just couldn't take the mass of metal and arcanotechnology upon it.
“The rest of the building is clear, too,” he reported, voice metallic and distorted over the external speakers. “Nothing alive. Four more rooms like this on the top floor, two more on this level.”
“Any signs of Extra-Normal Activity?” asked Agent Ilosa, another one of the specialists, like herself, dragged out on these missions.
Normally, the dedicated strike teams which the OIS had would have performed missions like this, but everything was utterly chaotic for the Office of Internal Security throughout London-2. There had been a eruption of Zoners, those maddened parapsychics who gained power in return for sanity; although it was not a conscious trade. One of those, even when newly erupted, called for a Powered Armour team to take down; if they had gravikinetic powers or could tear a man's mind apart with a glare, often that would not be enough.
And they were not the only problems. In most cases, the OIS would have been able to call upon the FSB and the arcology police, despite the traditional dislike between the forces. But, dating back to late August, the arcology had suffered elevated levels of extra-normal activity, And she wasn't thinking about the attacks by the Dagonite prototype walker in mid-August, the arcanobiological missile-like lifeform that hit the arcology in late September, or the destruction of that Migou battlestation. No, there had been spates of summoning, unlicensed sorcerers seemingly going crazy and calling as many xenoentities into the city without care for being caught, monsters breaking though the arcology defences and preying on citizens, and waves of ordinary citizens succumbing to Terminal-Grade Late Onset Aeon War Syndrome (without any prior record of mental illness).
“No ENA,” answered Tennant. “The house was warded, too. Wards are still up.”
“That means that either they were killed by something conventional,” Mary said, the scepticism in her voice evident as she gazed over the mass of bodies, “... or whatever killed them is still in here.” She had been awake for almost thirty hours, and was already approaching the legal limit for operational deployment. Only the drugs in the systems of the OIS team were keeping them operating at full capacity, and and all across London-2 people were being pushed well beyond what the base human could cope with, just to deal with all the incidents flooding in.
“Or someone lowered the wards to let them in, before raising them again,” said Ilosa, his voice nervous.
The consequences of this was that the forces that were trained to deal with the extra-normal were just as occupied as the OIS was with the sorcerers and parapsychics. Fresh agents were on emergency transfers, but you couldn't just get on a plane and go somewhere. You needed a safe flightpath, and preferably one of the comparatively rare stealthed plans.
And in the meantime, people like me get to cover the gaps, Agent Anderson thought.
The OIS training covers the basics for extra-normal entity combat, and dealing with rogue parapsychics and sorcerers, but, damn it, I'm a TSEAP operator, not a field agent. I wasn't recruited to do this kind of thing.
And now cases like this.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh ebg gu'vegr'ra vf gu'r pyhr, ebg gu'vegr'ra vf 'gur x'rl. G'uebhtu ebg 'guvegr'ra, guv'f zr'ffnt'r n'aq ny'y gur erf'g bs gur cf'rh'qb Ybirpensgvna oy'ngure v' j'vyy vafreg z'nl or haq'refgb'bq, read the visceral messages on the wall, the words scrawled out individually, sometimes taking small parts of the plaster with them.
The helmet radio crackled into life, the slightly artificial sound of the voices carried on it evidence of the heavy encryption the comms systems was subject to.
“An L2AP team has been freed up to hold this site until the analysts arrive. ETA, 15 minutes. Keep frosty. Goldsmith out.”
Despite the warning, several of the agents could be seen to relax, even under the full body armour. Oh, sure, the standard Extended Operation Enhancements kept you awake and alert, but after around thirty six hours, it started to get uncomfortable, especially if you were stuck in heavy body armour.
And they were pushing forty eight.
~'/|\'~
Code: Select all
SECURITY AUTHORISATION QUERY:
[RFID Check] - Present
Subject [Name]...
...
...
...
Overridden.
Override Authority... <REDACTED>
...
...
[REDACTION CODE]: UmVk-\-YWN0-\-aW9u-\-IEF1-\-dGhv-\-cmlz-\-ZWQg-\-Ynkg-\-UHJv-\-amVj-\-dHMg-\-UGFy-\-YWdv-\-biBh-\-bmQg-\-RXZh-\-bmdl-\-bGlv-\-bg==
...
[Redaction Code] Accepted
AF|SpecResPr|PrPara/PrEva – Dual Redaction
...
[Assigned Subject Identifier]: “Orpheus”
[Sex]: F
[Birth Sex]: F
[Species]: Homo Sapiens Amlati
[Clearance]: <REDACTED>. Clearance is sufficient.
Registered [Sorcerer]: No
Registered [Parapsychic]: No
...
Confirm [ID], Priority 1
...
Run [Full ID] Match...
[Facial Recognition Matches]: Subject Matches Records.
[Fingerprints Match]: Subject Matches Records.
[Skin Sample Match]: Subject Matches Records.
[Blood Sample Match]: Subject Matches Records.
[Outsider Contamination]: Recorded as Negative on Central Database.
<Approved>
...
Guest is provisionally confirmed as [Subject “Orpheus”]
...
Run [Security] Check...
[Chemically Propelled Firearms]... Negative
[Gas Propelled Firearms]... Negative
[Electromagnetic Accelerator-Based Firearms]... Negative
[Biological Contaminants in Bloodstream]... Positive
Running [Analysis]...
...
...
Please wait.
...
...
[Biological Agents] match known infectious diseases in population.
Are the diseases within the parameters to be a threat to security?... Negative
Genetic engineering for increased morbidity or virulence?... Negative
Analysis: No Hazardous [Biological Agents] in Bloodstream.
Proceed with checks.
...
[Micromachine contamination]... Present. Within expected Levels for Arcology Inhabitant.
...
[Micromachines] match approved list.
[Hazardous Micromachine Contamination]... Negative
[Nanite Contamination]... Present. Within expected Levels for Arcology Inhabitant.
...
[Nanites] match approved list.
[Hazardous Nanite Contamination]... Negative
[Radioisotope Contamination]... Within Approved Limits
[Sorcerous Wards]... Negative
[Bound Extra Normal Entities]... Negative
[Subject Mass]... Within Approved Limits
[<REDACTED>]... Negative
[<REDACTED>]... Negative
[<REDACTED>]... Negative
[<REDACTED>]... Within Approved Limits
[<REDACTED>]... Negative
[<REDACTED>]... Within Approved Limits
[Miscellaneous Checks]... Within Approved Limits.
...
...
...
Subject Approved for Entry
~'/|\'~
The inside of the lift was a cold, sterile white. Frankly, when the make-up of this apartment complex, buried deep in the guts of London-2 and so filled with Ashcroft workers who wanted to minimise their commute to the Geocity below, was considered, it was hardly surprising. These individuals had both the money and the exclusivity from the somewhat over-the-top security to ensure that something as simple as a lift remained clean.
Ken shivered. “How can Shinji live in a place like this?” he asked. “It's so... cold.”
Toja shrugged. “It's not. I mean, it's a few degrees colder, but I think this area is meant to replicate the climate of an area a bit further north or something.”
The other boy shook his head. “That's not what I mean. It's just so... seventies.”
“Hey, people in the seventies liked white and these rounded corners. There doesn't seem to be a sharp angle in the place. But, yeah, modern stuff is just prettier. More personal.”
“The outside arcology area is nice, though.”
“Yeah. Most places, the rich places are around the edges, close to the real light. That's what I've heard But L2 has the rich places around the edge and in the centre, with everyone else in between. Like Tokyo-3, according to my dad.” The Nazzadi paused. “I guess it's a Geocity underneath that does it.”
Ken cocked his head. “Why don't people live there, come to think of it? You've got all these people living right above it, and all that untouched wilderness underneath.”
Toja shrugged. “Dunno. My dad told me he refused housing there, back when we were moved here.” He snorted. “Plus, it's not like Shinji would get cold if he's forced to live with the Red Devil.
Gareny raygi tyunadi lo pura zinabi, after all.”
“Huh?” Ken sighed. “I don't speak any Nazzadi, remember. Well... no, I don't speak any. At all.”
“Sorry. Um. 'She has sufficient anger to melt a blizzard', basically,” the black-skinned boy translated. “One of the Proverbs from the Falsehood,” he said, referring to the name most commonly used by Intergrationists to refer to the fictional culture created by the Migou for the invasion fleet, “...about a female fire demon who stole winter, I think.”
They stood in silence for a few moments.
“This is really a very slow lift,” Ken pointed out. “It really shouldn't take this long to go up this many...”
The doors pinged open.
“... floors.”
Toja sniggered slightly.
“Look, I'm serious. There's no way that we should have taken that long to go up.”
The snigger became a snort.
“Oh, you're useless,” the human sighed. “Forget about it.”
The question, “What are you two idiots doing here?” drifted from the left, in a tone of voice which had both boys unconsciously straightening up.
“Ah, Class Rep,” said Ken. “Why are you here?”
Hjikary rolled her eyes. “I asked first, but all right. I'm here to visit Asuka. She's been absent from school all week.”
“Same here,” blurted out Toja, “... only not for the Red... Asuka. We're seeing if Shinji is all right. He hasn't showed up at all, and hasn't been answering his PCPU.”
“I think it was something Evangelion-related, personally,” added Ken. “Certain rumours I've picked up mentioned some kind of massive ENE incursion which was pushed back. If that's true, it's not surprising they're absent.”
“But if that's true,” Hikary pointed out, “then why wouldn't they deploy Rei? She's been at school all week.”
That was a question which could not be answered.
Ken summed it up with a 'Huh' as the trio approached their destination.
Pressing the buzzer produced no audible noise, but an eye-like camera swivelled on the ceiling to focus on them. Only after a few second could a noise be heard from the other side of the door. The display screen above the button changed to display the message, “Please wait.”
After even more of a wait, the door finally slid open, to reveal Shinji and Asuka, stood side-by-side, A10 clips on head. They were wearing very tightly fitting grey one-piece suits which covered everything but their heads.
There were a few moments of shocked silence.
“Yes?” the two chorused together, in a somewhat weary tone of voice.
“Wha... what are you doing?” asked Hikary, shocked at how form-fitting the suits were and general appearance of impropriety. “What are you wearing!”
Shinji and Asuka sighed, simultaneously. “
We didn't chose these things. It was decided that we should train in full suits. But,” they added, eyes narrowing, “they wouldn't release the normal plug suits, and so we got put in these old ones from the original Project.”
“Original Project?” queried Ken, stepping forwards, any shock overcome by the mention of the development of military technology.
The pair of Children gave him a simultaneous glance, which, despite their differing opinions of him (and, incidentally, him of them), had very strong undercurrents of exasperation. “The normal plug suits are actually Project Engel technology, built off these,” they jammed a finger towards their chests, “
things.
“Okay...” replied Hikary, somewhat mollified by the reluctance. “Now, next things next. What on earth are you two doing? Why are you talking like that?!”
“Teamwork exercises,” they answered.
“And stop talking like that,” she snapped back.
“Sorry. That's also part of the,” and the synchronisation was broken by Shinji's yawn, while Asuka continued, “teamwork exercises.” She turned to glare at him. “Idiot! That was going really well!”
“Sorry,” Shinji apologised, running his right hand over his face. “
You know I haven't been able to sleep enough.”
“But that was working really well, and then you had to go and break it!” she retorted back.
Toja and Ken relaxed, as the Red Devil verbally tore into Shinji.
“And the natural order of the world is restored,” they said, before looking at each other and flinching slightly.
Hikary shivered, and then groaned, one grey palm colliding with her forehead with a loud slap.
“Not you two as well.”
There was a snort from behind them. The trio of visitors turned to find a uniformed Misato leaning against the wall, her hand clamped over her mouth, trying not to make a noise. Beside her, Rei stood, her face as impassive as carved marble, head tilted slightly to one side.
“Don't... don't,” gasped Misato, in between peals of laughter, “don't... let me inter...interrupt your little c...comedy.”
Shinji and Asuka glared at her. “You're not helping,” they said in unison, tones equally annoyed, which just set her off further.
~'/|\'~
Once everyone had been sufficiently calmed down (a process which would have been easier for Misato if she had permitted herself alcohol, in Asuka's suspicions), there could actually be an explanation to the by-now-rather-confused visitors.
Hikary sat with the penguin beside her. As she listened to the rather convoluted (and she felt, contrived) exposition, she began to feel a certain degree of kinship with the uplifted bird. It appeared that it was the only sane individual in this household, even if it was a red-eyed penguin with a mohawk. Well, and the fact that despite it was funny looking, it was also quite cute.
She was pretty sure that its toothed maw was smiling at her, despite the fact that it was manifestly impossible for a beak to do that. She patted it on the head, which produced a “Wark”.
She tuned back into the conversation.
“You should have told us earlier,” said Toja to Misato, an amused smile on his face.
“So, how is the training going?” Hikary asked, glancing over at the network of... contraptions set up on the other side of the room, the morass of cables protruding from everywhere and the fact that they had torn out part of the wall to get access to more power cables, speaking of the fact that the gadgetry was new.
“Idiot!” yelled Asuka, sitting bolt upright in the long chair to glare at Shinji beside her, the AR goggles pushed up onto her forehead lit up in bright red. “You just hit me in the plug with the charge beam!”
“You didn't get out the way!” Shinji snapped back, in a manner quite a bit more adversarial than normal. He yanked his goggles up, and turned to face her, eyes flashing with the same rage. “I told you I was on A.”
“B was further away! You're the one with the long-range weapon!”
Misato winced. “See for yourself.”
Ken stared at the long seats, correct in his guess that they were pretty much replicas of the ones in the entry plugs, with eyes filled with technophiliac hunger. “So, what's exactly going on in these sims?” he asked.
“At the moment?” said Misato, before she was interrupted by the two Children.
“He's being useless!” stated Asuka, angrily.
“She's being useless!” was Shinji's simultaneous comment, with an identical emotional content.
“... yes,” sighed the black-haired woman. “Well, they're getting rather good at mimicking each other, but it's not really producing an improvement in their effectiveness. They were
meant to be,” directing a glare at the pair, “doing teamwork combat exercises. We've analysed their independent combat styles, and they're up against a pair of Virtual Intelligence opponents that mimic their styles exactly
without working together. The VIs have been set at a theoretical 100 synch rating, while they have been given a fixed rating of 50. It's
meant to force them to work together to overcome their own equals.” She paused. “I'm not sure that I'm explaining it that well.”
“Oh, no, it makes perfect sense,” said Ken, nodding eagerly, his eyes slightly vacant.
Hikary shot a glance of disdain at him. She wasn't sure if it was the technophilia or the Misatophilia (she was sure that the boy was enjoying the sight of the uniformed Major a little too much for it to be proper) which was annoying her more at the moment, because, really, that wasn't a very good explanation at all.
“How am I meant to be able to deal with such an idiot!” the redheaded girl declared, face turned up to the ceiling. “It's not fair that I have to deal with someone who can't even manage to not shoot his own team-mate!”
“Say, Misato,” observed Toja, smirking, “I really don't think this is fair on Asuka.” That comment induced suspicious gazes from both the red-headed girl and Hikary; with the former focussed more on his jugular than his face. He spread his hands wide. “What? It's obvious that
das Ubermench is obviously far too good to lower herself to
team training,” he said, layering on the sarcasm as he glared back at Asuka. “Perhaps Shinji should be practising with Rei, given that the NEG really does need its pilots to work well together.” The smirk was wider now. “I'm not sure that someone who can't play with others even has a place on a basketball team, let alone a military force,” he added, watching the flashes of emotion that his words induced on the redhead's face. It felt good to annoy that dislikeable bitch.
Asuka's fists contorted into balls.
It would feel so good to just punch him in the face. Once, twice, three times, again and again. What does he know? About the Evangelions? About the military? About me? He's just some ignorant, stupid, ugly baby
who knows nothing and does nothing ever! He'll never risk life or limb against anything like a Herald, so he can't comment!
She could feel the ice-cold presence of the other pushing against those thoughts. She forced it back down.
“Toja!” snapped Hikary. “Apologise!” The Nazzadi actually appeared to be under some physical pain, as the force of the Class Representative's inexorable, unstoppable will bore down on him. “That kind of behaviour is completely out of order!”
Misato raised a hand. “No... that's a good point, actually. Military doctrine shows that cooperation and teamwork defeats individual brilliance on the strategic level.” She looked up at the ceiling. “And, certainly, Rei is a lot better at following orders,” she added, idly.
“But the Evangelions are, despite their strategic importances, still fundamentally operating at tactical levels due to their limited numbers,” retorted Asuka, suppressing her burning rage so that she could talk to someone who really mattered, unlike the Nazzadi idiot. She tried to hide the hint of desperation in her voice, but it still crept out. “Small unit tactics still rely upon individual brilliance.”
Piloting is all I have! I am the designated pilot of Unit 02. And I am the best!
“One-on-one, the Evas are inferior to the Heralds,” pointed out the Major. “Ever single Herald since the first one we encountered has been a joint operation, whether with conventional military forces or other Evangelions... or, indeed, both. And, fundamentally, the pilots need to be able to work together.” The Major narrowed her eyes, drawing to mind the Second Child's psychological profile. “I'm not sure we have a place for a soldier who cannot subjugate her ego to the greater good.”
That remark cut right to the core of the redhead's sense of self. As Asuka saw it, she had two options. She could storm out of here. That would be cathartic. She could release the anger and frustration (and fear, she admitted to herself) in one way or another. And they'd have to apologise to her, or at least reassure her, or... something.
A sudden, ice-cold lucidity washed over her mind.
No. They won't.
Misato, when she's like this, in her officer mode, only really cares about the mission. She puts the human feelings aside, along with the drunkenness and slobbery, and becomes some kind of perfect commander. I've seen her do this only a few times, but it's there. She wouldn't hesitate to remove me from Unit 02 if she thought she could get someone better
I'll show them that I'm the best. I'm the best that there can be.
And so, the only way to beat them is do play their game. I'll co-operate with the incompetent Third Child. I'll show that, together, we can beat anything they can throw at us. I'll force up his standards, and make it so that they can see that I'm
the one responsible for the increase in his skills. Whatever game they want to play, I'll beat them at it. No matter how much it takes.
She yanked the AR goggles back over her eyes.
Inside, tears welled up, hidden behind the projected display. It was okay. It was safe here. They couldn't see how much it meant.
She threw a glance at Shinji. “Get back in the seat, Third Child. We are going to do this until we can beat these mockeries,” she said, the sudden lucidity levelling out her voice and leaving it suddenly monotonous. “I will
not accept failure. From either of us.” She cocked her head at Toja. “And next half-term's sport is Martial Arts, or so I've heard.
Be afraid.”
Shinji slid his goggles down, too. This whole interruption had been incredibly annoying when he had been trying to concentrate on the training routine, making him almost irrationally angry when Toja had gone and provoked Asuka like that. Luckily, he was feeling calmer now, the anger gone, allowing him to focus with fresh clarity on this really difficult programme. He wrapped his hands around the joysticks, and triggered the “Ready” signal.
Misato relaxed, inside, even as a new AR simulation began, and as Hikary dragged Toja out to the kitchen and began shouting at him. She had quite a bit to say on his lack of manners and his spite. Even from the other room, Ken was still flinching as the words echoed through.
It worked. Thank goodness. The psychologists told me that that was the emergency button for forcing her to do things, but I didn't expect Shinji's friend to just stumble on it like that. It worked, though.
I hope she never finds out that it was a paper threat. Ritsuko was very absolute that Rei could not do this special training, and did not need to.
And Rei's eyes widened slightly at what she had just seen.
This will need to be evaluated. All of this. Pilot Ikari, Pilot Soryu. Everything.
And I can feel her
. The entity grows stronger.
Representative Ikari will want to know of this.
~'/|\'~
The thundering of the train beat out a staccato rhythm in the dark tunnel.
And that in itself was unusual, as Shinji had only ever seen old-fashioned trains in films. The noise he associate with a train was the quiet hum of an A-Pod propelling it over the magnetic rails, and that only if you were near the engine.
The inside of the train, despite the anachronistic method of movement, was perfectly modern, a duplicate of an ArcTransit carriage, the mainstay of the mass transit systems of the arcologies. Well, lit, with comfortable seats. This one was clean too, the pale blue floor and white walls spotless.
He looked through the window. Outside, it was pitch black. No, he thought. Pitch wasn't like this. This was too dark, a Stygian night which filled all around the train like an oil made of the concentrate essence of the night sky, that utter darkness that was only given by gazing into eternity.
The wall of the tunnel was less than a metre away. Who could have known that eternity could be encompassed in such a small length?
Instinctively, Shinji knew that the darkness... the dark walls were malevolent. No, that was not the right word. Malevolence implied intent, a care for what might be done. Malevolence required sapience.
Call it anathema, then, if you were to apply the futility of human labels to such a thing. But no label, no tag could truly describe that which ran less than a metre from the glass against which Shinji Ikari had pressed his face, the beat of the tracks a pounding rhythm that filled his head and matched his heart.
He pulled his face away from the glass. No breath marks were left on the glass, despite the temperature on the train, akin to that of a cool autumnal day. Curiously, he reached out one blue-grey hand and and poked a finger through the glass, which proved to be nothing of the kind, a fractured network of arachnid threads that shone like illuminated diamond. With one clean movement he tore through the shining lattice, and tensed his legs, ready to throw himself out into the darkness.
He blinked twice. His hand rested flat against the glass, pale skin the only point of contrast against a dark background.
What is going on? he thought, with a strange lucidity that overlay the rising panic.
What is going on? What is going on? With the hand... and the window... and everything. Why I am I here?
He had to keep away from the dark. The dark was evil... strange... wrong, in every possible way.
He looked up and down the carriage. At one end, to his left, the number '25' was illuminated in scarlet. At the other end, its twin read '26'.
The staccato beat of the train grew louder and louder, faster and faster, synchronised with his heartbeat so that he could not tell where one began and the other ended. As the train sped up, his heart thumped louder and louder, for such speed merely took him faster and faster into the unknown (and, indeed,unknowable), rushing through an eternity of void-wrapped tunnels with no way of seeing what lay ahead.
Or was the train speeding up as he grew more afraid, the terror that now gripped his body and mind empowering this strange place?
Or was there no difference? Was he the train, running into darkness, no clue of what lay ahead?
Breathing quickly, he headed towards the '26' and the door that adjoined to the next carriage. If he got to the end of the train, it might be possible to get off.
Shinji broke into a jog, eyes darting to either side. The door slide aside, parting down the middle to admit him to the next carriage. Breathing quickly, he gazed around the next carriage, slowing down but not stopping in his rush.
It was darker in this one. The lights overhead were dimmed, almost imperceptibly. Indeed, all the senses were muted, for the beat of the carriages was quieter too. Even the chill was dimmed.
Something inside Shinji snapped then, and the terror overcame his mind.
I have to get out of here! I need to run away! I have to get out!
An almost feral cry of fear escaped his mouth.
The jog became a dash, and then a sprint. The train beat faster and faster, as if trying to overcome his attempts to reach the end, and his heart pounded in his chest, and the two were one. Through seemingly endless carriages, he ran, doors opening at his passage only to seal themselves behind him.
If he had been thinking clearly, he might have noticed how, in each of the new cars, the lights were dimmer again, the train sounds weaker. But the observation that the terrible walls of the tunnel were getting closer, each new carriage bringing them centimetres closer would have been impossible, because the lack of a comparison against that loathsome planar void meant that such precision was not something that a human could have done on their own. But although each movement of the walls inwards could not be discerned, the way they closed in (or was it expansion of the train?) was inexorable.
Shinji Ikari fell to his knees, exhausted by the mad, mindless rush. Slowly, he looked up.
Before him, in the near total darkness, shone the number '26' in a now-dimmed red.
He whimpered slightly, and spun nervously, his breath coming quickly. Behind him, its baleful twin, '25' glimmered.
He could not escape this endless repeating cycle of '25' and '26'.
Slowly, he picked himself off the ground, pulling himself up using a seat. It no longer felt like something that someone would willingly sit in; the surface was rigid and cold, sleek like polished stone. Something crumbled under his hand as he stood, panting from the exertion.
Slowly, he turned his palm face up, dreading at what he might see.
There was a layer of what looked like paint, old and flaking, covering his hand. Looking down, the seat had a hand-print of solid darkness on it. The paint which had concealed the fact that it was made of the same materials as the tunnel walls had come away in his hands.
Shinji screamed, and backed away from the chair, looking above it through to the window. He bumped, moving backwards, into the other side of the carriage, falling down into the stone-hard seat. There was the crack of aged paint when he recoiled back up.
The train had stopped moving. The beat that had thrummed through his head and linked to his heart was gone. And that terrible solidified void, the figment of his nightmares, was right up against the glass. And it was inside the glass, too, because there was only a thin layer of paint between him and that utter darkness. He froze, the only noise the thud of his heat; the only light the crimson glow of the numbers at each end of the carriage.
I have to get out of here! he screamed within the confines of his own mind. Or did he say it out loud? He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure if there was a difference.
The red light seemed to be fading, leaving him alone in the terrible darkness. Operating on instinct, he darted the other way, towards the '25'. The light had faded as he ran towards the '26', he realised belatedly; perhaps the light in the world would return if he went backwards.
The door opened and he fell through it.
There was no carriage in front of him. Shinji let out a half-moan, half-sob, and rolled over onto his back.
There was no train door behind him. There was no train behind him.
Perhaps there had never been. Perhaps the train had never been anything more than a shadow, cast by these insane night-black hallways. A thin veneer of paint, a lie, that sealed him off from the horrific nature of reality and kept him safe.
In front of him, an endless corridor. He did not know how he knew that in the dark, the last vestiges of light gone with the vanished vehicle, but the way the air moved conveyed the immensity of aeons, where time and distance became one. Where time and distance became meaningless.
Behind him, the same.
Shinji screamed them, though no sound escaped, a voiceless call up to the dark ceiling above him. He scrabbled desperately for the light.
The side-light cast its glow around the room, revealing nothing odder than his bedroom.
Hyperventilating, breath coming out in sob-like gasps, Shinji ran his hands over his nightmare-sweat slick face, the cooled arcology-night air chill against the moisture.
Not again.
The PsychEvals and the counselling weren't making this go away any faster. Too many times, he had run down that carriage, only ever able to escape from the dream when he was stuck in those black hallways. And in the dreams, he was never able to remember that he'd been here before. Though at the time the terror was fresh, when he awoke, he could see that he had made the same decisions, run the same way. A program, fed the same cues, reacting in the same way.
The world seemed so thin, after what he'd seen. That terrible rip in space after... whatever had happened with the last Herald. The hallways were so much like the swirling chaos he had seen, codified and reborn as architecture.
Slowly, he got out of bed, legs shaky, and went for the main light switch. He wouldn't be able to sleep again after that, and he was not inclined to. More light was better. It kept the darkness away.
Outside his room, the hallway was dark, shadows filling every corner and crawling up the walls.
He swallowed hard, and closed the door, returning to bed.
And so it was that Shinji Ikari was sitting upright in his bed, the light beside and above him keeping the paint-thin layer of mundane reality safe from the darkness which lurked beyond the door, which cast the world as its shadow, when he heard sobbing. A woman was crying elsewhere in the house, the burble muted by distance but still audible in the pre-'dawn' silence.
He could have gone to see what was making the noise. But that would have involved facing the shadows that lurked outside his room, and he would not... could not do that. In such a place, the paper-thin walls would have torn entirely.
All the boy could do was hug his knees, and stare, his bloodshot eyes unfocussed, as fatigue coursed through his brain.
I want to sleep. I don't want to sleep.
I want the nightmares to stop.
~'/|\'~
That's still in process, although until I reread it, to get a feel of where the chapter was going, this section was a 3000+ word segment in the middle. Basically, I need this in the public domain, because I need to introduce the Children of Chaos as a faction playing in this grand game, but it would be completely wrong to have them make their first appearance in Chapter 12, 13 or 14 (as they're focussing on CATO and the Dagonites), and having these words in the middle really broke the flow of Chapter 11. So, I decided it was long enough for this section to be worthy of its own little chapter (although, officially, this is an "Interlude").
