Aeon Entelechy Evangelion (ANE rewrite)

[EarthScorpion]

Table of Contents

Yes. It begins.

Perhaps a little information, for those who are not familiar with the history of this fic. Aeon Natum Engel was my first major fanfiction. It was long, complicated, and intricately plotted. It was, also, in an act of deliberate barbarism, throttled by me; killed off in a mean-spirited and cruel way long before I felt it was complete. Why? Because it amused me. Actually, that's not true (well, it did a little, but that's because I'm a bad person); the real reason for the death of Aeon Natum Engel was to enable the birth of that which is contained within this thread.

See, Aeon Natum Engel was indeed my first project that went over 10,000 words (in fact, as it stands, it is the only one that has done so, much to the chagrin of the people who read Grimdark Battlefield Rhapsody and Unity is Hollow, in disproportionate numbers to how much effort I put into them... I am pleased, but it's mildly annoying, in a not-that-annoying way), and in that time it evolved. And I got better at writing. And reread my earlier chapters, and winced. For those familiar with Aeon Natum Engel, compare Chapter 2 to the CATO sequence, and you might see how I have an issue with it.

So, I killed everybody in ANE (and, yes, everybody who appeared in ANE was dead by the end, with the sole exception of Nyarlathotep, because you can't kill the Messiah... uh, Entropy), and started again. I do not plan to do so again... honest.

Aeon Entelechy Evangelion is not a mere textual rewrite, though. It will be different in quite noticeable ways. Starting with the fact that it... well, it starts with a Prologue. Because this time I actually know what I'm doing with the story, and where it's going, and how its going to end.

The poetry, by the way, is both beautiful, and important. At least try to read it. :rolleyes:

So, with that out the way... thanks-time, I guess. No, I'm not letting you have the story yet.

The authors of the Cthulhutech setting of RPG books. Although I may not agree with some of the things that more recent books have done, they're still a primary inspiration source, and the corebook and Vade Mecum come recommended. They gave me a solid base, and if I may have pulled down some of the structure that they build on it, and established my own Cyclopean edifices, bedecked with technohorror and hard-sci, well, that doesn't speak ill of the base.

The developer of the First Encounter Assault Recon series. Because that ladder fucking terrified me, and instilled a lasting a) fear and b) belief in the awesomeness of creepy little girls.

The Neon Genesis Evangelion team. Because, despite the budgetary issues and the fact that some people seem to find the whole series as confusing as hell, you must have done something very, very right. Or something very, very wrong, that calls to something hidden deep in the human soul. I'm not sure. It may, on an outside bet, be because people like giant robot-cyborg-gods beating up giant-alien-gods. It's more probably because people like Rei.

Uh... HP Lovecraft, I guess. You may have been a racist old bastard even by the standards of your less enlightened time, but, man, you came up with some gems. Ia! Ia!

... look, we're going to be here all day, if I start citing all my inspirations.

Certain members of the closed-and-horribly-literaturely-incestuous small closed circle of Evangelion epic-full-rewrite-fic writers (yes, you know who you are), for general fic inbreeding, whether from providing examples of how to write social situations better, how to make characters in ways which are more than just deadpan snarkers, or simply in giving me awesome things to read, even if you're diametrically opposed in tone. Specific thanks must go to Academia Nut, though; Thousand Shinji is not only only the reason that Aeon Natum Engel exists, but he's the reason I watched Evangelion in the first place. And Nanoha. And Haruhi. Uh... now that I think of it, worrying amounts of my anime viewing material are due to his recommendations. And to flip the inspiration relationship, LatwPIAT also gets thanks, even if he has been thoroughly spoiled in what might be about to come, in how he has been used as a sounding board and thing that I throw ideas at, only to be told that perhaps it might not be the best idea to <REDACTED BY ORDER OF THE OSS>.

Aeon Entelechy Evangelion

A Rewrite of Aeon Natum Engel

Prologue: The Words That Began the End of Everything

~'/|\'~

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic
Orders? And even if one were to suddenly
take me to its heart, I would vanish into its
stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but
the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear,
and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains
to destroy us. Every Angel is terror.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the cry
of a darkened sobbing. Ah, who then can
we make use of? Not Angels: not men,
and the resourceful creatures see clearly
that we are not really at home
in the interpreted world. Perhaps there remains
some tree on a slope, that we can see
again each day: there remains to us yesterday’s street,
and the thinned-out loyalty of a habit
that liked us, and so stayed, and never departed.
Oh, and the night, the night, when the wind full of space
wears out our faces – whom would she not stay for,
the longed-for, gentle, disappointing one, whom the solitary heart
with difficulty stands before. Is she less heavy for lovers?
Ah, they only hide their fate between themselves.
Do you not know yet? Throw the emptiness out of your arms
to add to the spaces we breathe; maybe the birds
will feel the expansion of air, in more intimate flight.

Yes, the Spring-times needed you deeply. Many a star
must have been there for you so you might feel it. A wave
lifted towards you out of the past, or, as you walked
past an open window, a violin
gave of itself. All this was their mission.
But could you handle it? Were you not always,
still, distracted by expectation, as if all you experienced,
like a Beloved, came near to you? (Where could you contain her,
with all the vast strange thoughts in you
going in and out, and often staying the night.)
But if you are yearning, then sing the lovers: for long
their notorious feelings have not been immortal enough.
Those, you almost envied them, the forsaken, that you
found as loving as those who were satisfied. Begin,
always as new, the unattainable praising:
think: the hero prolongs himself, even his falling
was only a pretext for being, his latest rebirth.
But lovers are taken back by exhausted Nature
into herself, as if there were not the power
to make them again. Have you remembered
Gastara Stampa sufficiently yet, that any girl,
whose lover has gone, might feel from that
intenser example of love: ‘Could I only become like her?’
Should not these ancient sufferings be finally
fruitful for us? Isn’t it time that, loving,
we freed ourselves from the beloved, and, trembling, endured
as the arrow endures the bow, so as to be, in its flight,
something more than itself? For staying is nowhere.

Voices, voices. Hear then, my heart, as only
saints have heard: so that the mighty call
raised them from the earth: they, though, knelt on
impossibly and paid no attention:
such was their listening. Not that you could withstand
God’s voice: far from it. But listen to the breath,
the unbroken message that creates itself from the silence.
It rushes towards you now, from those youthfully dead.
Whenever you entered, didn’t their fate speak to you,
quietly, in churches in Naples or Rome?
Or else an inscription exaltedly impressed itself on you,
as lately the tablet in Santa Maria Formosa.
What do they will of me? That I should gently remove
the semblance of injustice, that slightly, at times,
hinders their spirits from a pure moving-on.
It is truly strange to no longer inhabit the earth,
to no longer practice customs barely acquired,
not to give a meaning of human futurity
to roses, and other expressly promising things:
no longer to be what one was in endlessly anxious hands,
and to set aside even one’s own
proper name like a broken plaything.
Strange: not to go on wishing one’s wishes. Strange
to see all that was once in place, floating
so loosely in space. And it’s hard being dead,
and full of retrieval, before one gradually feels
a little eternity. Though the living
all make the error of drawing too sharp a distinction.
Angels (they say) would often not know whether
they moved among living or dead. The eternal current
sweeps all the ages, within it, through both the spheres,
forever, and resounds above them in both.

Finally they have no more need of us, the early-departed,
weaned gently from earthly things, as one outgrows
the mother’s mild breast. But we, needing
such great secrets, for whom sadness is often
the source of a blessed progress, could we exist without them?
Is it a meaningless story how once, in the grieving for Linos,
first music ventured to penetrate arid rigidity,
so that, in startled space, which an almost godlike youth
suddenly left forever, the emptiness first felt
the quivering that now enraptures us, and comforts, and helps.


- The First Duino Elegy, written by Rainer Maria Rilke. Translated by A. S. Kline.

~'/|\'~

A single red drop fell from the once snow-white ceiling, falling down, down, though an empty void, only to splat into the crimson ocean that lay below. The concentric circles ran outwards, a wave through the clotting ocean, only to hit the shores of this sea of death, and rebound off; an endlessly intricate pattern of interference. Destruction and creation in one.

The pale girl kneeling by the scarlet pool reached down, and with a pair of fingers, gently closed the eyelids, letting no emotions reach her face. Whatever she felt about this, to the outside world, she was a blank book. If there were words there, they could not be read. She adjusted the arglasses that perched precariously on her nose, perhaps a size too large, reading the data overlays that were still active in this pace, and tucked a dark brown lock of hair back behind an ear.

She took a step forwards, an echoing retort in the near silence of the hollow space. What else was audible; the swish of her clothing? The inconstant rain down from the profaned ceiling? Her breathing?

No. Not that.

The second footstep was muted; a wet splat. Further steps would leave an asymmetric trail on those bits of the ground which remained untouched by the massacre which had occurred.

Slowly, uncaring of the blood-drenched floor, but stepping around the drips that fell from the rounded ceiling, she made her way to the desk. Just as the droplets that rained down from the dome above left their own patterns of ripples, so did the sounds of her steps reverberate and echo in the chamber, setting up odd harmonics. The staccato pulses of the falls, the flowing beat of the interference of the footstep; they set up a rhythm that filled the empty space. All too soon, though, there was silence again; the silence not of the grave, for that is one of both decay and new beginnings, but of the void; hollow, empty, and meaningless in its immensity.

With a few simple hand gestures on the surface, the desk shifted; carefully applied pressure breaking unnoticeable seals, the memoform underneath flowing upwards like liquid mercury to form a shelf-like structure. A flash of light; a triggered ward, simply ignored by the pale girl. Not even the dignity of acknowledgement was given to the ineffectual wards that should have fried her; mind and soul. The second layer, of activated orbs, in shifting yellow, purple, and a strange hint that burned at the eye awoke. The semi-autonomous constructs were programmed to attack anything that activated their trigger condition.

They too were destroyed; their radiant light extinguished in her grasp.

The bound extranormal entities did not even get the chance to be destroyed. The pale girl, dark hair not even displaced, stuck one hand straight through the surface of the desk; a brief, unnatural radiance flaring before immediately being extinguished, as she withdrew the untouched limb. The arglasses flared red, lighting up her eyes, as the augmented reality systems warned off a collapse of the waveforms of the sorcerous binding procedures. The things that had been anchored here fled; taking their new found freedom, and leaving. They could feel her, and it scared them to depths that their alien minds had never before experienced.

It would have been better if she had smiled in satisfaction. She did not. There was not even the normal easing of tension from a job well done. She merely scanned her eyes to the contents of the desk revealed by her actions.

Books in neat plastic wraps, every page individually sealed, to allow them to still be read while preventing damage to the antiquated tomes. Media storage devices, both modern isolated units and more ancient ones. An old combat knife, dating back to the 2060s, the black paint intended to reduce its shine peeling off. An picture, neatly framed, of a man and a woman together, standing by a beach, the sky red with the setting sun. An album, sealed with a DNA lock. The artefacts of a life; the anatomy of a relationship.

Irrelevancies. The thing that should have been here was not here.

She reached out, and lifted the knife, straightening as she did. “I know that you're there,” she said, her voice soft. “I knew that you would come here for it.”

Another voice spoke, echoing in the empty room. “Naturally.” The voice was similar, but not identical; the intonations and speech patterns were subtly different.

“It is not yours, you know. You should not be allowed to possess it.”

The other voice let a hint of amusement creep into it. “Define possession.”

“I had changed subjects.”

“I know.”

The dark-haired girl turned to stare at the ghost-like figure behind her, taking note of the bare feet that emerged from the bottom of the long garment, the blood smeared across the ground pooling around them. Two grey eyes stared from under a veil of white hair, crudely hacked to jaw length without much care or attention.

She was covered in blood. Drenched in it. Her hands were red up to the elbow, caked in gore, rivulets still dripping from the hands.

The dark-haired girl spoke. “That was tasteless.” She paused. “There are more efficient ways to kill.”

There was a one-shouldered shrug from the ghost-like girl. “It was not inefficient. Inelegant, perhaps. But aesthetic preferences are nothing to the universe, while efficiency is a well-defined term.” A faint smile passed her lips. “Can you not say that you have not done the same?”

There was a pause. Then; “Perhaps.”

“I do know, you know.” A pair of hands were wiped against the overly-long garment, leaving the white hands somewhat cleaner, although still caked in dry blood. “They were not all human, you know.”

A deep rumbling could be heard from outside.

“That phrase has two meanings. Were not all of the individuals in the group human, or were they, individually not fully human? Actually,” she continued, without letting the other girl say anything, “both are applicable. And you knew that. How could you not have?”

The corners of the white-haired girl's mouth twisted up. “That was nicely done,” she remarked. “It is astonishing,” she added, “the similarities.”

This was also given due thought. “I would not say it is astonishing.”

“No, you would not. So.” The girl brushed a stained lock of white hair behind an ear. “What will you do now? Try to kill me, perhaps?”

There was a shake of the head. “No,” the other girl replied, face held impassive. “I would succeed in doing so, should I make the attempt. But I will not. Even though you deserve to die. You, of all people, deserve to die.”

A subtle tension left the air. “I did not think that would be what you would do,” the blood-drenched girl admitted. “Last time we were this close... that was not what you believed at the time.”

“Do not consider that representative,” said the other one, her face mask-like. “There were reasons for that; good ones.”

“Was it necessary?” Something glittered in the back of the eyes of the white-haired girl, like a nova.

“No. Necessity is false.” There was perhaps a hint of bitterness in the voice. “Nothing is necessary; everything is permitted.”

“That is not what Hassan-i Sabbah said.” She matched the bitterness of her counterpart equally with her own amusement.

“That is because he was incorrect. I have seen outside what others would call reality, out to the limits of what I could comprehend, and the statement “Nothing is true” is a counter-factual statement. If nothing, it is an absolute statement which includes itself in the list of impossible concepts.”

“You attack it on the grounds of the fact that it is inherently self-contradictory?”

“Why not?”

The blood-drenched girl turned, and began to pace up and down, the slap of bare feet in coagulating blood echoing. “It is a valid target.” She paused, one foot aloof, and pushed some unidentifiable scrap of flesh out the way. “But you speak of reality, and self-contradiction? Have you ever thought...”

“There is no need to explain that to me, especially not in such a transparent manner,” the other girl answered tersely. “You have no idea of how many times we have had this conversation. I already know what you plan.”

Grey eyes locked with brown ones. “Really.” It was not a question.

“Really.”

“Well, you are...” she paused. “What would you have me call you now?”

“Do not call me 'you', for one,” was the answer. “That is not who I am. Nor am I nothingness, some real part of an imaginary thing. But I am not unity; the imaginary part of an imaginary thing, either. Yes,” she continued, “I do understand it. Perhaps no-one else did. But you were not aware of her, the second one. That was not what you would have wished for.” She gave an identical one-shouldered shrug to that which the other girl had given not much earlier. “Call me Gilgamesh, then.”

“Unusual name,” remarked the other one.

“A name is an identifying tag, nothing more; an attempt to abbreviate an understanding of another person into a source for reference, which conveys impressions, rather than true knowledge.”

A grin. “What would you say that the qualia of “Gilgamesh” is, then?”

“Quite. Even though it is not precise.”

“Oh. Why so?”

“The proportions are wrong.”

“And the gender.”

The dark-haired girl stared back. “That is a lesser concern, as you know quite well,” she chided.

“It does break the naming conventions,” the other girl pointed out, making her way over to one of the other bodies, evidently searching for something to dry off her hands. “The obvious one would have been degenerate with the last, of course. If we are changing things, should I call him Pallas Athena, then, wise one?” There was a certain trace of sarcasm in the words.

“No. That is also deliberate. I am not who he was. And, anyway, it was not him who you should have called Pallas Athena.”

Something could be heard from outside the cavernous office; some kind of voice, booming down from the heavens above. The noise was warped by its passage through the immense volume, channelled and funnelled in ways that made it hard to understand.

“You know what that is,” said one of the two girls, their nearly identical voices indistinguishable in the noise.

“Yes,” replied the other. “How could I not? I have been counting on it.”

“It is time.”

“Yes. It is time for Entelechy to begin.”

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 1

A Harbinger / But where the dead leaf fell

EVANGELION

~’/|\’~

If the thing did happen, then man must be prepared to accept notions of the cosmos, and of his own place in the seething vortex of time, whose merest mention is paralysing. He must, too, be placed on guard against a specific, lurking peril which, though it will never engulf the whole race, may impose monstrous and unguessable horrors upon certain venturesome members of it.

– Excerpt from the first entry of the Peaslee Documents, written by Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee (a tragic victim of xenobiological-assisted Type-6 Seelenversetzung), in 1935. This version of the text was republished under the auspices of the New Earth Government, for the 150th anniversary of the discovery of the second known pre-human civilisation.

~’/|\’~

August 19th, 2091 CE



Below an ash-coloured sky, the sea lapped at the remnants of Old London. Those buildings which had survived the First Arcanotech War rose like macabre tombstones to those who had died under the Nazzadi bombardment, while between them, smothered by the devouring tide, were craters, burned into the ancient city by indiscriminate bombing from orbit and the lightning waves of mecha that had swept through the city, putting all to the sword. The flooded streets, grey channels between grey buildings, under a grey sky, seemed to tell a melancholy tale of the hubris of a city that had once considered itself centre of the universe. Once, Old London had sprawled over most of the south of England, a revocation of the anti-urbanisation laws of the twentieth century allowing a phase transition that had turned large amounts of the country into one massive metropolis.

Now, Old London was slowly being eaten by the rapacious appetite of its child; a mother devoured by her daughter, as old ruins were torn down and their rubble fed to the nanofactories of the newer arcologies, and in the gaps, nature was reclaiming that which had, for a few years, almost negligible on the geographic timescale, been the domain of mankind. The deciduous growths that blossomed in such places had started off as natural regrowth, but in the last few years, a deliberate policy of environmental restoration had been implemented, to cover the scars of the many wars which had affected Earth in the twenty-first century. But even in this return to nature, the injuries poked through; some of the trees swayed and moved in ways not quite as they should have, and leaves displayed the hectic and prismatic shades indicative of arcanochromatic exposure. In between these areas of ruin and regrowth, a few areas of habitation could still be seen; the Enclaves of those who chose not to dwell in the areas around the arcologies (and so were, perhaps ironically, subjected to increased scrutiny by the New Earth Government), and the military installations that formed the network that protected the civilian populace.

The first signs of trouble were the blasts which spawned vast columns of water from the surface of the fat, lazy Thames that flowed well above its historic banks, as a minefield unmade itself, to no effect. Through the mist that suddenly filled the air, a dark shape could be seen moving. The fog flowed aside, as if it were afraid to touch the figure that stood, towering over the remnants of the majority of the buildings. It was vaguely ape-like at a glance; almost excessively anthropic in its shape by the standards of the other beings that mankind had encountered. But when observed more closely, that resemblance vanished. It was a night-dark hole in the world, in which objects spun and floated; strange bone-like arcs that shifted and flowed as they stayed perfectly still, a white mask with a hooked beak which looked vaguely like a plague doctor, if the plague it was trying to remedy had infected an entire ecosystem, and visceral organic protrusions which jutted from its void-like skin. But all this was diminished by the thing that hung in the middle of its chest; if the creature was the night-sky, then the crimson orb that nestled in a bony grip was a dying sun, illuminating the landscape around it with its fell radiance.

A herald of strange aeons. A harbinger of that which was to come.

It was here.

It was time.

~’/|\’~

Stretching his shoulders, while still trying to maintain his somewhat precarious grip on the heavy bag held in both hands, Shinji Ikari attempted to work out the kinks in his neck, while looking around for some kind of trolley. Gazing at the empty stalls, it looked like he'd have to wait until they bought some more around. So, in an immaculate display of logic, Shinji was of the opinion that he might as well sit down. The bag became a perfectly valid improvised seat, and it was only when the crunch occurred that he remembered that there were some potentially breakable things in there.

With a groan, he let his head fall into both waiting hands.

“Welcome to the Victoria Arcology and London-2,” announced a male voice. “We hope you have a pleasant and peaceful stay here. Transport may be obtained to other surface arcologies, and to the remainder of the city. All individuals are reminded that they should have their passports ready, and the linked HC-82 forms filled out in full. If you have not done so, your biometric profile may not be linked from your region of origin, and you may be subjected to extra analysis upon arrival. If you see any unattended baggage, or individuals acting in a suspicious manner, please report them to the nearest member of Arcology Security. Remember; this security is here for your own safety.”

Well, at least he was past that hassle. The genetic scan had confirmed he was who he claimed he was; one sixteen-year old boy, dark-brown hair, perhaps a little shorter than average for his age, no real distinguishing figures, one-hundred percent Homo sapiens sapiens.

With a sigh, he gave up, and slumped back down again, this time on the cold floor. He could have sworn that he hadn't put anything breakable in the hand-luggage, precisely for that reason. Another, somewhat self-consciously melodramatic sigh bought an end to that chain of thought, and he fished in a pocket for his PCPU. Glancing up, he could see that they still hadn't bought any trolleys. A girl with dark brown hair was standing by the racks, presumably waiting for the same thing, and she would get to them first. His eyes lingered on her for a moment, dipping, before rising... yes, she was rather cute. She caught his glance and held it, until a bleep from his device drew his attention.

I should probably move, come to think of it, he thought, glancing down at the screen, as the device booted from internal memory. Yet another thing to do once he was clear of the airport; wait for the auto-update for the local arcology protocols, so that he wasn't stuck on internal memory. Which sucked. How were you supposed to cope without access to PAN or the Grid? Even his muse was shut down because of the lack of processing power; nothing more than a heuristically-derived list of saved and extrapolated preferences, rather than a proper LAI.

Shinji glanced up. At least the girl didn't seem to be waiting by the trolley rack any more. Of course, that most probably indicated that she'd got one of the returned ones first, and he had missed it. Either way, it would make sense to lug the bag over to that place, and wait.

Seated in his new position, he opened up the local copy of the message that had caused all these problems. It was so simple. A message from his father; the instruction “Come” the only text in between the automatic filled-in header and footer.

“I have no idea why I did,” he said, barely vocalising the words, as he shook his head. He glanced at his watch. Twenty-five past twelve. He should already be waiting for the woman who had sent the second email, explaining how she would be picking him up. He groaned. He really was behind, and didn't want to leave... he checked the name.... Major Misato Katsuragi waiting. That meant that he had to carry the bag. Luckily, he had a picture of her, at least.

It was very much a demonstrative picture. Many people would have just resorted to sending a picture of their face. Not this Major Katsuragi, apparently. No, she was apparently so diligent that she wanted him to be able to recognise her even if he couldn't see her face, and so had sent a picture which exposed considerable more flesh than would be normal. And an annotation which had practically been an instruction to look at her breasts. Add that to the fact that the picture had apparently been taken in Nazza-Duhni, in what had once been Cuba before the territory had been given to the Nazzadi in the aftermath of the First Arcanotech War, and which had been declared the world's first “clothing-optional” city, and it might be deduced that the boy had “appreciated” the photograph. Technically, the skimpy bikini that the woman was wearing fulfilled the criteria for not being naked. Most of the individuals in the background were not so clad.

Blearily, he rubbed one hand against an eye, and glanced to his right. I might was well just go. He still wasn’t really wasn't feeling that well, quite beyond the jet lag; he was still getting over the airsickness which afflicted him whenever he flew; a fun little gift from the genetics fairy (who was, by all reckoning, a capricious bitch). And that was even before the meeting, which he loathed the idea of, but which filled his foreseeable future like an iceberg looming from the mists, was taken into account. It was still possible that it might go well, of course... it wasn’t as if his father had given any explanation for why he had to attend. Perhaps it was an attempt at reconciliation. But that wasn’t likely, was it? Was it? He didn’t know, and the unknowing nagged at him, even through the tiredness.

Shinji Ikari felt that he had a rather good reason to be feeling nervous and sick, all in all.

He had no idea.

~’/|\’~

“Today, at 12:27 pm, a special state of authority has been declared by the New Earth Government. All citizens in the surface levels of the Victoria Arcology are to head immediate to the closest designated secure bunker. Access to surface levels in London-2 is forbidden. All citizens who fail to obey these instructions risk personal injury including a-chem exposure, or death, and may be dealt with as threats to internal security. Temporary martial law is in full effect.”

“Asisi radisi, ni plancki solilaki-twi pla twilaki-reski, soli Newi Earthi Governmenti canalabi absul homisapi. Absul homisapi ni absul piwuteri oi Arkologi oi Victoria serakausi mandatuchanposakausi sulucerpos velecuscipubuyuteri. Absul ui opuvami ot piwuteri oi arkologusufiki Londoni-twi. Absul homisapi whiku opuvulakausi peruginozakausi, pla arkanokemiki, altna perutermakausi, pla peruserakausi constresi. Vuli-oi-gurilutermi, delo estru radisi, serabi canalabi.”

“Today, at 12:27 pm, a special state of authority has been declared by the New Earth Government. All citizens in the surface levels...”

~’/|\’~

The serried ranks of armoured vehicles and static defences were dug deep into the fortified positions which surrounded the civilian targets. The mainstay armoured units of the New Earth Government Army, the Type-M055 and Type-M057 main battle tanks presented a bristling front of railguns, relativistic charged particle beams, and lasers. The hovertanks, tactically more akin to gunships than anything bound close to the ground, were landed, positioned hull-down against what might come. Interspersed were tracked tank-destroyers, bringing the massive firepower of the charge beam on the Type-H045 and the arcanomagnetically-confined directed-plasma weapon on the Type-H047 to the field. From all over the surrounding area, missile systems prepared to fill the clouded skies with a rain of smart projectiles, covered by a defensive umbrella of anti-air-and-missile systems. The anvils and the hammers of the armoured forces of the New Earth Government were ready.

Beside them, in underground hold-outs, for use in counter-attack, were the lances. The conventional mecha of the NEG were angular things; much more organic in their shape compared to the brutalist aesthetics of the armoured forces, and painted in the same urban camouflage as the armoured vehicles. The designs were not, technically speaking, terrestrial human in origin; to be exact, almost all the mecha in the army's arsenal came from the basic designs of Homo sapiens nazzadi, the black-pigmented, red-eyed cousins of humanity, made by the alien Migou to subjugate the Earth. And accompanying them, were their superiors; the Engels. Arcanocyberxenobiological war machines, altered and played with by the hand of mankind; improved, armoured, armed, lobotomised, and piloted by cybernetically modified pilots that dwelt in uterine capsules within the guts of the thing. They had been one of the great triumphs of the last decade; tougher, faster, and stronger than normal mecha, able to regenerate their unnatural flesh, and despite the problems that the first few steps into this field of technology had suffered, the establishment of the Engel Group had solved them, to produce things from the monsters that mankind encountered.

In the skies, were the naval and aerial forces. Flocks of gunships, distinguishable from the hovertanks only really in the orientation of their turrets, hung low. Above the clouds, the aircraft waited, holding position until they had authorisation to fire. And the cigar-shaped bulks of the capital ships waited, lifting off from their armoured docking points.

Such defence was necessary. There were twenty million people in London-2. That was half a percent of the global population. It was estimated that it would take a massive Migou deployment, on a scale never-before-seen, to break them; and such risk taking was not a characteristic of the Yuggothian fungoids which had controlled orbit, ever since the start of the Second Arcanotech War. And as for the cults, the fish-fuckers of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, or the ravening worshippers of the Unnameable One, the King in Yellow, who sat on his throne in Tibet-that-is-Leng; they didn't stand a chance. The New Earth Government was not about to make the same mistake again.

What they did not have was a target. And as the minutes ticked by, the military was getting more and more worried. They'd picked up the Pattern Blue of a massively altered r-state. But they couldn't find it.

And that was a matter of some concern.

~’/|\’~

“Major Katsuragi, you have a phone call from... Dr Ritsuko Akagi, Director of Research at the Ashcroft Founda...”

“Yes, yes,” snapped the black-haired woman, pulling a terminally unsafe turn that took her car far closer to the edge of the building than the designers would have ever wished. “Just put her through,” she instructed the muse. The inside of her car was noticeable in that it neglected such things as leather seats and a stylish dashboard for things somewhat more essential for those subjected to the quirks of its pilot. Like high-quality advanced control systems, and military-grade crash seats. And things that wouldn’t break when subjected to sustained multiple-g accelerations.

In the opinion of the driver, speed had a style all of its own.

“Where are you, Misato?” asked an equally frustrated voice. “We're under attack!”

“I know! They're locking down the city; do you have any idea of how long it took me to,” she yanked at the control throttles, narrowly pulling her way through the gap between a pair of buildings, “... damn it. Engage autopilot, to set destination,” she told her muse, flipping a switch on the dashboard, and then leant back. “... yeah. I got really delayed by the checkpoints at the Geocity exit. They didn't even accept my Advisor status until I shouted at them for a bit,” she added, with a hint of a pout.

“Yes! And Harbinger-03 has shown up! We need you back in Command, so you can manage the operation,” the woman told the Operations Manager.

“Yeah, well...” She paused, leaving the statement hanging. “I've already directed an ArcSec squad to secure him, so I can pick him up,” she added. “I'm not stupid.”

You could hear the other woman's nod. “Good. Well, get back soon. The army don't seem to be doing, well, well...” There was a sigh. “Don’t crash the car because I told you to hurry, either,” she said somewhat drily.

“Not likely.” Misato paused, a smirk on her face. “I wouldn’t want to give you the satisfaction of being right. End call.”

With a flick of a switch, the autopilot was disengaged, and the car once again returned to its default behaviour, as it violated four major, and twelve minor traffic laws with the steep ascent.

Damn it, damn it, damn it! Why did it have to be today, of all days! Why did that thing have to show up now!, she silently bemoaned.

~’/|\’~

At the sound of the sirens, and the dual warnings in both Reformed English and the Nazzadi tongue, the dark-haired boy froze, listening to the message. This was not good. This was really not good. The airport was at the peak of the pyramidal arcology, and if they were calling a full evacuation to the sub-ground levels... well, if this place was structured like Tokyo-3 (and it looked to be), it was going to be... he really didn't know where on earth he was meant to be going.

Slowly, he swallowed, and controlled his breathing.

Then common sense reasserted itself, and he scanned the walls, finding the inevitable displays active, which were guiding the travellers to the evacuation routes. At least he wasn't going to be left standing here, alone in a strange city, while... whatever was happening (they'd been overly vague about it, in his opinion) happened. That would have been really quite bad.

The high, well-lit corridors were no longer so bright; armoured plating rolling down to obscure the windows as the city went into battle mode, locking into place before the rattle of more could be heard through the first layer. The noise of footsteps was a dull roar, as people swarmed in the directions instructed, the calls of the security staff in the illuminated overalls guiding the evacuating horde.

Figures in the trim blue and white light combat armour of Arcology Security, the branch of the police with jurisdiction over local events, were patrolling the lines, rifles in hand and the illumination of the smartlink in their helmets visible on the transparent faceplates of their helmets. They were looking for something, it seemed; well, that was logical, Shinji thought. With this kind of evacuation, it was obvious that there had been some kind of threat, although whether Migou or cult-led in origin, that was unclear. Perhaps if he just asked...

And that was when the terrible noise, audible even through the sealed arcology walls, the very ground shaking in a way which showed that it had ceased to be noise and started to be seismic activity started; a cacophony of chaotic collisions calling to the cold cosmos and causing cries of concern among the cosmopolitan crowd. The boy gasped, and covered both ears with his hands; he could feel his jaw ache and bones throb with each pulse, and they came near constantly.

The evacuation turned into panic. The queues, no longer a line but now a mob, broke, despite the efforts of the airport staff and the ArcSec officers. The rational urges were gone, washed away by the ape brain, which just demanded that they get away from the noise. Baggage was discarded to be trampled underfoot and snarl other people, often then to be stamped on by their fellow men.

~’/|\’~

The long wait of the military was broken by sudden, immense violence. Violence of a nature quite beyond anything they could have committed.

The first positive confirmation they had of hostile action was when the first line was hit by an opaque wave. It was even a wave of fluid. What it was not, was a wave of water. It was a terrible black thing; a delineated night's sky shot through with dying red stars that cast their vile radiance over the area, and ossuarous structures painted on the surface which somehow seemed to be immersed in the inky void.

Take the air, take the ground, take concrete buildings and broken glass and tarmac and all the legacies of human innovation and hubris, take even the precious laws of physics which generations had worked to deduce... and render them as nought before something much greater than them. Individually compared to that which they faced, they were nothing.

Perhaps, unified, they could do something.

Perhaps the entity which was the intellect behind the wave found that idea amusing.

One of the most interesting phenomena accurately predicted by quantum theory, the outmoded schema for describing reality which had been replaced by arcane theory in the same way that relativity had replaced Newtonian dynamics, was a legacy of the indistinguishablity of particles. Specifically, under the statistical mechanical model, the assumption that the number of particles in a non-relativistic bosonic gas was constant turned out to create a minimum temperature above that of the defined absolute zero. The root of this was a flawed assumption in the base model; as the temperature of the system fell, the assumption that there are no particles in the ground state was rendered invalid. Instead, the equations had to be adjusted to account for the fact that there was, in fact, a macroscopic number of bosons where ε = 0, and so they had to be counted separately, rather than ignored in the integral. And when they had a macroscopic number, they imparted some exceedingly odd properties to the system, indeed. The particles in the ground state carried no energy, and did not move; a consequence of their stationary wavefunction. No internal energy, no pressure, no viscosity. They did not even increase in pressure when compressed, to name but one of their oddities.

Now, imagine the consequences of a macroscopic, non-uniform system degenerating into that state.

Such a thing was impossible, of course. Apart from the fact that the theory had modelled a gas, not a solid (and had even required heavy modification to be able to handle helium-4, which was a superfluid), matter was not purely bosonic. Electrons were fermions, with a half-integer spin as were any species composed of an odd number of fermions. And that was not even to get started on the odder phenomena that arcane theory had discovered could exist in altered r-states; yions, Clark-Davenport coalescence... the list was packed with complex phenomena tagged with the names of early twenty-first physicists. It would require a massive violation not only of the classical and quantum models of reality, but also of what humanity knew of the arcane, too, for such a thing to be. It was flagrantly impossible.

Quite.

And a little ironically, the wide-area spread, the grand symbolism, the callous disregard for this planet, was eminently unnecessary. There was nothing special about humanity or their vehicles, after all, and the human body was merely the sum of its components; a macroscopic assemblage of electrons and protons and neutrons, ordered and structured in predictable 1-state configurations. Nothing special. Far less would have been needed to disrupt the squishy organic matrices of dirty water with which they mimicked sapience. A relatively small tweak in the vacuum permittivity, perhaps, such that their component electrons were no longer bound quite as strongly, and the resultant homeostatic breakdown of such a sensitive system would have been quite adequate. Not this, not this sudden constriction of every component fermion and boson into their groundstate, even while their energies remained the same. It was a gratuitous, flashy display that left reality screaming from the violation.

Two brigades had been stationed in the area the wave had covered, ready to hold off the barely detected threat.

They died quickly and painlessly.

And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the wave of impossibility coalesced into a discrete, shaped form; the black giant, with the sun on its chest, staring forth (was it? Was that mask its face? Why should such a thing be assumed?) over the forces arrayed against it, in hidden in cover which meant nothing to those who it had already eradicated. Reality screamed at its return to this shape; white noise and white light flooding the spectra from a crystalline, fractured radiance which briefly flared over it.

And what had it done to those people? It was not indescribable. It was not even that horrible to look at; the waveforms collapsing back into discrete particles, leaving a fused mess of carbon and silicon and metal and gases and trace elements, while above the air crackled with static electricity as the atmosphere through which it had passed reformed. The violation of reality was retained; the release of energy which should have resulted from so many bond formations did not occur, as the r-state snapped back down; impossibility negating impossibility. The horror came from the knowledge of what had been there before, across those fifteen square kilometres, reaching far down into the earth, in that expanse that had flowed to a terrible flat plane.

And that was horrific indeed.

The crack of laser-superheated air, particle beams, and hypersonic shells filled the air, as the survivors opened fire, the targeting LAIs trying as best within their dumb parameters to maintain order and standard firing protocols, but the monster had cut the heart out of the morale of too many of the defenders. The morale, and the sanity. Humanity was a flawed species, whether human, Nazzadi, amlati or sidoci. Their neural architecture was a product of an evolution which had selected for survival in a low r-state, to enable the foremost ape to grab the fruit, with less-than-stellar adaptations to deal with the far-too-few generations of civilisation, and the even-fewer of knowledge of the arcane.

Against such a thing, that shaped itself for survival in an impersonal universe, and was as a god to them... was it any surprise that tank crews and mecha jockeys alike broke and panicked?

Nevertheless, the target was enveloped in fire, bracketed and isolated, as incredible yields slammed into it. The tanks and mecha, emerging from their shelters, might as well merely have been providing illumination. Stellar-bright plasma beams made a slight indentation on the surface of the thing, swallowed up by the void of its body. The missiles were as rain to it, bursting like cherry blossoms in spring to produce an obfuscating veil. The attempts to take out its legs were entirely futile; it either massed implausibly much, or the momentum of a little something like a relativistic particle beam was entirely irrelevant to it.

And always, the sick, crystalline, fractured light, radiating forth and casting the clouds in stark contrast, that shimmered like a broken diamond around its skin.

The night-dark shape chose to ignore the petty fire of the insects that surrounded it, striding onwards, and raised one hand. The red sun that burned on its chest flared briefly, and the air screamed. The line of distortion traced from its palm and lamprey-like fingers, to slice up through a Skuld-class frigate. A heartbeat, then the two halves of the ship fell out of the air, separating as they did, rolling and crushing a company beneath them. Even the blue afterglow of its passage that burned into the retina was mute, compared to the suns being thrown against the monster.

A flash of light, and the figure jerked backwards as it was wrapped in a fireball, which swallowed the beast whole. As the sudden light rushed outwards, the entity could be seen as a dark figure in the middle of the blossom of flame, long ape-like arms trailing on the ground behind it, torso bend at an impossible angle such that its shoulders almost touched the floor rear of its feet. The blue-green trail of the nitrogen ionised by the relativistic particle beam which had just smashed into the head of the thing, fired by a stationary anti-capital defence, was barely visible. The afterglow was blanked out, as the Pachendale, the quadruple battery of near-ultraviolet capital grade lasers, began to slice into the darkness, frying the atmosphere around them, the inhumanly precise targeting getting all four beam to hit the same point with an integer wavelength difference. Spewing lesser weapons from its surface arcs to reinforce the cutting beam, the bulk of the battleship rose above the armoured cradle in which it had been stationed. Rivulets of liquefied flesh poured off the night-thing as the lasers jumped back and forth across its surface, dodging the radiance which gathered in places which it lingered too long.

A hand was raised, as the torso of the monster snapped back upright, interposing itself into the path of the laser. And space-itself seemed to bend, so that no matter where it was directed, the propagation of the wave inevitably led in into the barrier. A second hand pointed at the Pachendale.

The Invictus-class battleship failed to live up to its name, and fell apart just as easily as the lesser frigate, its greater bulk only giving it scant seconds of extra life as the titan sliced through the major nodes in its distributed grid, leaving it to crash to the ground.

The monster continued its path, not even pausing as it eliminated the anti-capital charge beam which had knocked it back, drawing ever closer to the arcology cluster which made up the bulk of the city.

~’/|\’~

The command centre was surprisingly bare for a place of such importance; a low room, the armoured walls heavily buttressed, buried deep into the earth. It was a hub, not a processing centre; data was fed here from the Tactical Information Total Analysis Networks, for strategic decisions, rather than rely on a single centre. For those wearing arglasses or with the harcontacts or optical jacks of the modern military, though, the place was aflame with Augmented Reality displays; the images as potentially solid and sharp as anything real. There was the purposed babble of ordered informational relay, as both people and the LAIs; a babble in which notes of frustration, horror and concern could be heard.

“We're getting feed from Themis,” reported a male Nazzadi, his hands flowing through images that only he could see on the display screens that made up the surface of his eye. “We report; the Pachendale has been destroyed. Hit from unknown weapon directly to D-Engine-1, then zero point three seconds later to D-Engine-2, then zero point oh seven second later to Primary A-Pod cluster. Telemetry indicates that autoshutdown was successful... we do not have a Horizon Event, I repeat, we do not have a Horizon Event.” That at least was some small mercy. Far too small.

“Damage mechanism unknown,” added a woman on the other side. “Non-negligible r-state flux, though...” and she paused, “I can't say how much. It's faster than the resolution of the Shaws.”

“What the hell does that mean?” snapped Field Marshal Lehy, red eyes aflame under her tightly tied iron-grey bun.

“Uh... well, basically,” the junior officer paused, and decided that now was exactly the time for both honesty and profanity, “... we don't know what it's doing when it does the...” she waved her hands, looking for the right words, “...the arm-blasts, but when it's doing it, it's fucking up spacetime. And it's doing it faster than the sensors can respond to the changes, so we can't even see what it's doing. Um, well, not see, but detect.”

The Field Marshal frowned, wrinkles settling into familiar patterns. It was almost ironic, she felt. The hostile had still caused less damage to the city than she, who had once been a young, fanatical junior officer in the Nazzadi invasion fleet, back before they had found out the truth and turned on their masters. It was not amusing, because what she had done had been monstrous, but she could at least see the potential for it to be at least drily humorous.

“We have a positive classification! I repeat, we have a positive classification! Target is exhibiting behaviours characteristic of a Herald-class entity; specifically, one in the Harbinger sub-category. We're trying to narrow it down!” announced a worried looking man, clad in the uniform of an agent of the Global Intelligence Agency. “We recommend that you pull back all mobile forces, and prepare for a counter-attack, once we have a ID for the entity.”

There was a crack as Field Marshal Jameson slammed the side of his balled fist into the table, a winced shake of the hand the only clue that, in retrospect, he could have chosen something softer. “Damn it!” he shouted, blue eyes staring angrily from behind lit arglasses. “Why aren't they doing anything!”

Beside him, Admiral Tatuta pointed angrily at the central screen, to the autocensored image of the leviathan. “Look at it. It just took a harangi capital-grade charge beam to the face, and it didn't even dent the mask-thing!” snarled the male Nazzadi, unconsciously parting his lips in a not-at-all-friendly smile. “That would have left a Swarm Ship crippled if not dead! We should pull back, disengage; the GIA are right. Just throwing away men and ships like this is useless!”

Field Marshal Lehy groaned. Admiral Tatuta was right, loathe though she was to admit it; he was another one of the younger, ambitious Nazzadi, to whom AW1 was a childhood memory, like Field Marshal Kora (fortunately away, on the Eastern Front against the Migou forces coming in from fallen Russia). They really did need to pull back.

Out loud, she said, “I'm ordering the mass dispersal of scrubbers.” She paused. “Does anyone want to countermand that?” There was a hint of challenge in her voice.

“Scrubbers?” The Admiral paused. “You're going to...”

“This close to a population centre, yes.”

Field Marshal Jameson nodded. “Yes. Do it.”

“It's the only way,” she said.

Almost unconsciously, she glanced to the back of the room. A man sat there, the light reflecting off his orange arglasses, his mouth obscured by his interlocked fingers, arms propped up by the sides of the chair. There was a feeling of stillness around him, even in the packed command centre; others avoided the man, bar the grey-haired figure that stood beside him.

He was waiting, she just knew it. Sitting in a little patch of silence which almost sucked at the noise.

Waiting for his time.

~’/|\’~

Shinji Ikari lay face down on the floor, hands clamped over his ears, groaning. Weighed down by the heavy bag, he just hadn't been able to keep upright when pushed from all sides by the seething mass of humanity, as the mob turned from panic to terror. In retrospect, it almost hadn't been the best of ideas to put the strap over his shoulders, even if it left both hands free. The anchor which had weighed him down was, as he raised his head, lying on the floor, strap broken, quite clearly utterly trampled; even more so than he was. And that said something.

He could feel the massive bruise which was going to make sitting down an exceptionally uncomfortable experience for the next week or so.

Outside, the noise was dying down, much more sporadic, and it was discretely noise now; not some omnipresent white wall of sound with physical force.

Unless I've gone deaf, he thought, propping himself up on his elbows with an not-inconsiderable amount of bleariness. Getting up seemed to be an improbable amount of effort, but he just about managed it, with aid from the remnants of his bag, levering himself into a sitting, and then a sort of crouched vertical position. Making his way over to one of the seats, he slumped back down, ignoring the nagging voice which told him that it was just going to make things harder when he actually had to move again, and fished in his back pocket... his back pocket.

Ah.

Yes. The back pocket. Where he had put his PCPU. Which the almost-certainly foot shaped bruise lay under.

With an almost comical flopping motion, the device swung on the hinge of the plastic covering he'd been keeping it in, slick with the fluid welling out of the broken screen. The actual device was snapped clean in two.

Why didn't I listen to Yuki, ran his distracted chain of thought. She said that I should get a soft-form one; that a hard one would only get broken. But, no, I wanted the increased internal processing power, and better screen resolution.

If I ever see her or Gany again, I'll have to apologise.

Shinji took several deep breaths, swallowing down the up-swelling of bile, and wiped his suddenly sweat-slick brow, aware of a sudden chill. The damn announcement was playing in the background,

“... sulucerpos velecuscipubuyuteri. Absul ui opuvami ot piwuteri oi arkologusufiki Londoni-twi. Absul homisapi...”

and he didn't... well he did know a little first aid, because Gany had insisted that he learn some, but not much, and he didn't have any equipment and he didn't know what exactly he could do to deal with bruises and he wasn't sure how to deal with broken bones and the warnings were still playing and he wasn't perfectly awake and he didn't want to make things worse by fumbling when they should have a professional. So that made it okay to leave these people here, above ground, when those warnings were playing, and that noise was outside, didn't it? He wasn't a coward. This made perfect sense.

The next impact tore through the wall behind him, punching through the exterior armoured arcology barrier, and the reinforced interior wall like tissue paper. The air was filled with dust, the impact excreta enough to overcome the slightly higher pressure of the air in the interior of the structure; hot and choking compared to the pleasant air of the interior. A harsh, almost painful red light shone through the gap, casting the hallway in a dream-like glimmer that seemed to co-exist only uneasily with the pre-existing lights.

The boy's mouth fell open at the sight of the... it was a foot, wasn't it. A foot. A foot of something that just stepped through the arcology wall. His head swum, and he gagged, the rapid passage of breaths producing a sort of screaming whimper. The cold floor impacted with his behind, the pain of the impact negligible compared to the mental trauma running through his head, and he scrabbled furiously back, ignoring the discarded baggage in the furious, atavistic, instinctual flight from that which he could see. Higher thought shut down almost entirely, he merely blindly fled, legs flailing. Anything to get away from that harbinger of fell tidings, of which he had barely caught a glimpse.

The foe knew nothing of this. Soon the foot disappeared, tearing up the wall further, as it climbed further up the pyramidal structure. Matter degenerated under its footsteps, and one long simian arm reached down, scooping up an insect-like automated emplaced weapon, which buzzed wasp-missiles at it. A casual flick of an arm sent it spinning through the air, arcing, only to slam into the ventral laser of a frigate, the point defence entirely useless against an object with that mass and momentum. The ship lurched, the orange blossoms of ammunition explosions calling forth their own counterpart from within the ship. Uncaring, it strode on, crushing the peak, and began its decent down the other side.

Meanwhile, down in the Victoria Arcology, Shinji Ikari's flight from the monstrosity only ceased when he slipped over, foot moving under him on a wet patch on the floor. No longer able to maintain purchase on the ground, he slid straight into a wall, bouncing off onto his back. As he lay on the floor once again, for the... how many times in a very short while, he wasn't really sure, he could feel the hot, running feeling of blood welling up inside his noise, and the iron-taste on his tongue.

What... what.... what? his stunned thoughts ran. What? What was... that thing! Why did it exist! It shouldn't! Rolling onto his side, hugging his knees close in a foetal ball, he sobbed, deep gasping breaths that wracked his lungs and pained his chest.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, as his breathing slowed. The remnants of a discarded drink, bright blue stickiness smeared across the smooth floor, explained the fall. Licking his lips unconsciously, all he could taste was the blood running from his nose. A rummage through his pockets revealed nothing of use. After a pause, he pulled off the jumper, folding it up, and wiping at his face, clamping the folded fabric to his nose to soak up the blood-flow.

Sitting up, Shinji Ikari, aching even more, looked for the nearest evacuation sign. He really had to get to safety, he was sure of it, now, breaking into a stumbling jog, despite the flow of blood from his nose.

~’/|\’~

The smart blue and white body armour worn by ArcSec officers, although lighter than that which was used by the military for frontline duties, was still exceptionally tough. The advent of the nanofactory had made diamond (which was, after all, nothing more than an allotrope of 1-state carbon, an element not known for its rarity) as cheap as glass. The composite material that made up the majority of the plates was basically immune to pistol calibre bullets; momentum transfer was still enough that the wearer might be put out of action, but the fatality rate was much decreased.

The female Nazzadi officer, red blood gushing from where the knife had been thrust through the neck seal, and worked until it had hit her jugular, was proof that the figures in blue and white were by no means invincible.

The stun baton that came down in a smart arc upon the head of her assailant was swung with more force that was strictly necessary, and as even as the woman with the knife stumbled back, collapsing under her own weight, the second blow made a sick crack which echoed through the suddenly silenced crowd.

And the whole mood suddenly changed.

Perhaps it was just a desire to maintain control, to prevent more people being crushed, and further assaults upon officers. Perhaps it was more malevolent. Either way, one cluster of ArcSec officers, three levels below where Shinji Ikari’s current location, were a little overly heavy with their stun batons...and the mob struck back. The automated microwave emitters that descended from the ceiling kept most of the civilians back, but some seemed insensitive to pain, and a burst of flex rounds, set to plastic deformation, were needed to keep them down. Those individuals were dragged immediately off to security, for confirmation of mortal status; something which did not help the worsening mood.

The crackle of gunfire was almost inaudible over the dreadful noise from outside, but the herd feeling spreading faster than any one person could spread the word, rivalling the speed at which the messages passed between the ArcSec officers themselves, advantaged by radio communications. Rumours spread in those areas deeper into the structure (and thus somewhat quieter), with no apparent source; standing alone from any obvious person to blame or thank for the information. The Migou were attacking. The Dagonites were attacking. The military was opening fire on completely innocent protesters at the airport, unprovoked, as part of some coup. The arcology wall had already been breached. It was some top secret government to scare the populace and ensure that President Nyanda could push through the Post-Natum Modification Bill. The rumours ran like water, from areas of high suspicion to low, and none could really say what was true or false. The fact that this put the crowd even more on edge, and slowed it down in its panic, the disorganisation breaking the clean lines of evacuation, was surely just coincidence.

What was not a coincidence, nor could be construed as something innocent or a simple proclivity of humanity, was the way that, scattered throughout the airport, clusters of private individuals drew weapons. Because they should not have owned those weapons, they should not have been able to even get them into the airport, past security, and they certainly should not have even been able to fire them in an area broadcasting a weapons-lock signal. There was no target profile, no suspicious youths or embittered Enclavists. The suddenly-armed individuals were from all ethnicities, subspecies, and backgrounds; a mix of machine pistols and sharders their choice, all small enough to be concealed against the person.

The crackle of automatic weapons fire became a staccato counterpoint to the immeasurable volume outside, as ArcSec engaged these unknown forces. And turned on itself, as entire squads turned traitor and opened fire on their own, mowing down the masses that milled in the chaos just as willingly as they did against those who fought back.

~’/|\’~

The grey-armoured squads, the skull-like visages of heavy combat armour masking their features, and their Nephilim escorts were clustered outside the entrance to the airport. They had regained local control of the security network, so they were making better time than they would if they didn't have the aid of the profusion of cameras that filled all public places in the New Earth Government, but they were still going slowly. Yes, it was true that no-one should have been let into the airport with the kind of sorcerous warding that would render someone invisible to surveillance, but it was also true that no-one should have been let into the airport with firearms, and that had turned out exceptionally well, hadn't it?

And a careful onlooker would have seen that they were not all marked with the insignia of NEG forces, whether police or military, but instead some badges showed three connected squares, the top one filled in with a circle, tilted onto their side and arranged into a shape which bore a vague resemblance to an “A”. That was because, quite simply, they were not part of the NEG. They were forces from the Ashcroft Foundation, and they had one task here. They were heavily armed and accompanied by their own Nephilim, in itself an anomaly.

Major Katsuragi glanced sideways at one, and shivered slightly. Tsuchigumo were creepy; there was no two ways about it, and as Operations Manager for Project Evangelion, she knew creepy. But the Nephilim were a product of the Engel Group, not the Evangelion Group, so it wasn’t like she had to put up with them every day.

“Do you have a fix on his location?” she asked one of the technical staff, back down in the Geocity, with access to the areas of the network they has secured.

“No, Major,” responded the woman, with an almost audible shake of her head. “The LAIs aren't getting pings off facial recognition in any of the areas we have access to, and his PCPU isn't active in the airport grid. No trackers, either.”

Misato blinked heavily once. “Fine. Tell me if you get anything,” then shrugged, retuning her radio back to the command frequencies.

The babble across the tactical channels confirmed that they had eliminated the abortive ambush, and that they were moving again. She could feel the Staff Sergeant... okay, she wasn't actually a Staff Sergeant if they were going to be technical, but internally, the Ashcroft units used the standard NEGA ranks, and she was going to be damned if she called her a “Coordinator” or whatever management-speak the higher-ups (ignoring the fact that she was a higher-up herself, but she didn't feel like one, so there)... what was she thinking? Oh yes. She was going to be damned if she didn't call her by what she really was. No, wait. It was that the Staff Sergeant was looking at her.

“Yes?” she asked her.

The woman, a hard-faced Nazzadi with rigidly angular tattoos that wrapped around her mouth and eyes, paused, just for a moment. “Major,” she said, addressing Misato, who did genuinely also hold rank in the NEGA, quite apart from her Ashcroft status, “you shouldn't be here. You should stay at the perimeter.”

Misato shrugged. “I'm aware of the danger.”

“But you shouldn't endanger yourself like this.” There was a hint of complaint in the NCO's voice.

“I said I'd meet him here, didn't I?” she said, with a smile. She could feel the other woman's glare, even through the opaque helmet. “Okay, the Representative will have my skull if this goes wrong.” she admitted, somewhat reluctantly. “I have to be here, on the scene.”

“Now, that makes a lot more sense,” said the Nazzadi, in a slightly worried tone. “Move out!” she barked over the general frequencies.

~’/|\’~

A silvery rain filled the air, swirling and shifting, making the ferocious currents of air visible to anyone who cared to look. Here, the silver bulged and flowed in ferocious vortices, as low-flying supersonic aircraft tore at the Harbinger, like ants against an elephant, there, they spiralled upwards, born by the fires that sprinkled the city that wrapped around the arcologies, started by the ordinance that missed the monster. The spheres of compression and distortions painted symbols across the sky, but there were none who could, or indeed cared to read them.

“We have a positive ID!” shouted the agent from the GIA, leaping up from his seat down in the command centre. “It's positively in the Harbinger sub-category. IDed as Harbinger-3, I repeat, Harbinger-3, assigned the codename ‘Asherah’.”

“Right!” snapped Field Marshal Jameson. “Now, what can you tell us about it?”

“I've sent the data, but... not much.”

'Not Much' was in fact an eminently accurate statement, if a little generous; 'Hardly Anything' would be more accurate. There may have been plenty of abridged meta-analyses of primitive mythology, trying to tie the identity down, but hard facts, and a convenient list of weakness, were entirely absent.

Jameson sighed, sweeping his fingers back through his greying dirty-blond hair. “Useless. But it's a Herald-level threat, and a Harbinger above that.” He paused. “Are the scrubbers in place?” he asked, staring at the map projected against the inside of his eyeball.

“Yes,” replied Lehy, looking at the same image on her arglasses. “But look. It's compromised Victor-Alpha's integrity. It won't be able to take a ground zero without major damage; maybe even a collapse. And the whole place will be contaminated.”

“Better to sacrifice Victor-Alpha than let it get any further in,” retorted Jameson. “If they haven't evacuated, it's their fault.” His blue eyes locked with Lehy's red ones. “They've had warning.”

Admiral Tatuta interrupted the growing tension. “There might be another way.” He bought up another display, the map already marked with probabilities and vectors. “Look. Its path is going to take it across one of the One-Five-Kilo-Tangos.”

Jameson shook his head. “We can't be sure that it’ll move close enough... and using one of them will do far more damage to L2 than sacrificing a single overground arcology.” He shook his head again. “I'm opposed.”

Lehy winced. “Yes. I agree with Jameson,” she added. They all stared at the vector which mapped the path Harbinger-3 had taken, which had led it across an arcology, and the greyed out icons of destroyed units that mapped its path with a one-to-one correlation. She raised one hand, subdermal lights already glowing. “I am prepared to give authorisation.”

She threw another glance back. That man was still there. She could swear that he hadn't moved a muscle since last time she had looked.

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

~’/|\’~

Panting, Shinji grasped at the nearest vertical object (which turned out to be an advertising panel), and clutched onto it, trying to stop the world spinning. His lungs were on fire, and his knees felt like jelly. Perhaps the heat is melting them, he thought, absently, as he pulled in one painful breath after another, his mouth filled with the taste of his own blood. The jumper still clamped to his nose wasn't exactly making it easy to breath, and it had already soaked through making the fabric warm and sticky. Pulling it away, he swallowed, the taste making him feel even sicker, and stared down at the blood. That was a lot of blood. Well, it looked like a lot of blood. Just... not in very absolute terms. He was feeling a little faint, but how much of that could be attributed to the blood-loss, how much of it to the sight of his own blood, and how much of it to a desperate sprint was uncertain. Oh, and looking at the extra-normal entity, of course; everyone knew that such things could cause AWS.

In most cases, an activity which increased heart rate would not have been the best idea when you were already suffering from a nasal haemorrhage. This was not 'most cases', given that a damn giant thing had almost crushed him.

At least the room was wobbling less. He ran his tongue over his top lip, and dabbed at it with the already blood-soaked jumper. Pinching the bridge of his nose, and tilting his head back slightly, he headed off again, at a walk, following the signs evacuation signs still shown along the walls.

It wasn't long until he managed to make his way to one of the evacuation points. There was a squad of ArcSec troopers down in the concourse, in the diamond-faceplated helmets that were almost their insignia, along with... some kind of power armour, he wasn't some kind of military obsessive to be able to recognise such things on sight.

“Hey!” he shouted out, voice muffled by the stained jumper. “Help!”

They spun towards him, weapons raised upwards.

And then the world bled to... strangeness. There was a reddish haze over everything, and he was feeling even worse; the light-headedness made him feel like he was underwater, like moving through treacle or something. Well, what I think moving through treacle would feel like. I haven't exactly done it before, Shinji thought to himself. It suddenly seemed vitally important that he correct his chain of thought.

In slow motion, the wall on the other side of the open area blew out. And that was the best term that Shinji could think of; as lithium-red flames licked around each individual particle. He could see them all, each one cutting its own path through the air.

There was a figure. A figure walking out of that blast, keeping pace with the explosives. White hair and white skin (and really white skin, not just human-pale) and grey eyes stared impassively out of the inferno that painted her in crimson light.

The ArcSec troopers began to... come apart, like rag-dolls torn apart by invisible hands, slow-moving roses blooming forth from the rich soil. The slowed pulse of their weapons barely had time to start, bullets tracing cylinders through their passage, before they stopped, the muted thuds seemingly far, far away.

All the time, the girl was staring, not at the dying men, but at the dark-haired boy; her eyes locked on him. And a blink, and she was gone.

Shinji Ikari collapsed.

A muffled sound, though the blackness. A sharp pain, a pinch or prick, in his arm.

“Genetics match. He's human, and untainted,” he heard, from somewhere above him; the voice mechanical and androgynous in its artificiality. “Uh... no major injuries that I can see,” after a pause. “The blood is from a nosebleed, he hasn't been shot. We should get him checked out, though. I recommend a full neural scan, too, to ensure that he hasn't been compromised.”

“No,” was the reply, in an identical voice. “We don't have the time.” He felt a gloved hand put on his chin, moving his head around. “Is he awake?”

Shinji opened his eyes at that. A skull-like mask, dark grey, blotched with brown and blue and other neutral colours stared down at him. A ring of pale flesh and a pair of large brown eyes stared down at him through the transparent eyesockets.

“Shinji Ikari,” said the mechanical voice. “Wait, no, damn it.” The figure reached down and did something on its forearm. “Is it back to... yes,” it said again, in a woman's voice. “Um... I'm Misato Katsuragi. Sorry I'm late,” she managed.

It was to Shinji's credit that he only yelped a bit.

Everything after that moved so quickly. He was hustled out of the immediate area of the airport, deeper into the arcology.

“What... what on earth happened back there... um, ma'am?” he asked Major Katsuragi, as they strode through down a long hallway. She had been revealed, once the helmet was removed, to be a rather pretty woman, looking to be... he estimated somewhere in her early thirties, but he wasn't sure on that, a mass of black hair pinned up to be worn under the cowl and helmet of the armour. She glanced sideways at him.

“Please, call me Misato,” she said, with a grin. “Well, how to put it?” She paused. “Ah... a cultist group attacked the airport.”

“They'd managed to get members into ArcSec; you almost stumbled right into one of their squads,” added one of her subordinates, in the mechanical voice of the helmets. “It's just as well that you ended up in one of the sectors we’d got infosupremacy back.”

“Heh. Turns out that ArcSec don't stand a chance against one of these babies,” said a male voice, which came from one of the monstrous arachnoid tank-walkers that was following them. “Pyam! Pyam! Pyam!” he added, making gun sounds with his mouth. “Kabloom!”

The Nephilim, an arcanocyberxenobiological monstrosity, was the power-armoured equivalent to an Engel. The somewhat hastily assembled teams were using Tsuchigumo, a spider-like model that stood two-and-a-half metres tall, the cybernetically-connected pilot in an armoured capsule mounted on the back. Earlier Nephilim had used remote parapsychic controllers, but the inferior armour and the fact that the creatures went berserk and tried to kill the handler if the link was disrupted, had led to the modern designs, which used the same control system as the larger Engels. Their mantis-like forearms, where the primary weapons systems were mounted, swivelled, covering all arcs, while the mandibles were locked away, only to be released in a combat situation, for the glutinous acid they dribbled was hell on the floor, and the monster in the armour really did not need a floor with weakened structural integrity.

“You're just happy because you got to go in through the wall,” retorted one of the mechanical voices of the infantry.

“Why, yes. Yes I am.” The man paused. “And it worked. I mean, we got every last one of them haranga amobuvula. It wasn’t like they didn’t all deserve to die, isn’t it?”

“Um...” Shinji paused. “I was talking about... um, the giant thing that stepped through the wall.” There was a silence. “That was the right thing? I mean, it did happen? Or were you talking about the White who killed those ArcSec guys?”

“A giant thing. As in... the Harbinger? You saw it?” managed Misato, after a prolonged pause.

The boy swallowed hard. “It almost stepped on me,” he said, closing his eyes. The scene still hung heavy before his eyes, every detail both clear and nightmarish.

There was the sound of armoured glove against skin, as Misato's hand collided with her forehead. “This is... typical,” she muttered, almost to herself, as she rubbed her forehead, wincing. “First the Harbinger shows up, and then the cultists attack, and then the Harbinger almost steps on you. I don't know how today can get...” she shook her head, and changed the direction of the conversation. “Wait, what was that about a Wh...”

Any answer was obscured by the simultaneous crackle of all the radios, as the emergency override flared to life. “November Blue!” the male voice announced. “November Blue! All forces, evacuate Victor-Alpha! Proximity Close One Kilo-Tango nuclear strike against Harbinger-3. Echo-Victor-Charlie-Foxtrot. I repeat, this will be a Echo-Victor-Charlie-Foxtrot warhead.”

A hurricane of English, Japanese, and poorly conjugated Nazzadi (with occasional divergences into mispronounced Cantonese) profanity erupted forth from Misato’s mouth, before cutting off, almost as if a switch were flipped.

“Run!” she yelled. “We need to get deeper!”

~’/|\’~

The night-black figure of Asherah, Harbinger-3, strode through the city, the burning-red sun on its chest illuminating the mist of scrubbers such that their coalesced mass appeared as blood-like snow, descending from the heavens. With a sweep of its hand, it scythed through a platoon of tanks, the separation clean and precise, and took another step forwards, even as it was battered by the tumultuous hail of missiles that struck it.

And then, all at once, the rain stopped, and the stars of the plasma weaponry died. Tanks bunkered down, aircraft turned and fled, and mecha hid. In the midst of what had been the catastrophe of war, suddenly, there was silence, broken only by the discordant rattle of the collapse of buildings.

The Harbinger actually paused. Despite the lack of motion, there was a terrible sense that some dread gaze, some third eye was sweeping across the landscape. One kilometre up, a flight of stealthed bombers momentarily decloaked, as missiles poured forth from open bay doors, racks fired vertically downwards. Most of this mass were decoys, of course, the standard submunition warheads and seekers protecting the precious heavier weapons that even now arced down towards Asherah.

With an elegance which belied its speed, the Harbinger raised one hand, lamprey-like fingers squirming and writhing. Lines of force, like puppeteers’ strings, were only just visible by what they did to the air around them, but the effects were evident for all to see, as the vECF-warheads were picked out, while the dummies were left to patter against the dark mass of the creature.

If one were to assign human emotions to that thing, it would most certainly have been smug.

And if one were to continue the same anthromorphisation, it was almost certainly exceptionally surprised when a capital-grade railgun, fuelled by the arcology power grid and mounted into the superstructure of the Elizabeth Arcology belched, slamming a hypersonic nuclear warhead into its body.

Its night-black form evaporated in the searing whiteness of that terrible radiance.

“Absul zy termakrony!” roared Field Marshal Lehy, pumping her fist at the sight. The rest of the command centre was similarly elated. The pulse washed over the sensory feeds, slowly rebooting one by one, to reveal a blasted wasteland, the colour drained from ruined, already crumbling buildings, as a great fungal cloud, the grey interspersed with arcanochromatic aberrations, expanded upwards.

“Target status?” asked Jameson, a smirk on his face.

“Sensors can’t penetrate ground-zero. Switching to visual feed from PWL-560.”

The camera, lens smeared with dust, was staring upwards, at the bloom above. It was hard to see in the dark cloud, but nothing of the Harbinger was visible.

“We’re getting reports; we have major structural failures in Victor-Alpha. Fault lines all along axis A2, multiple reports of breached domes, massive damage all along the west facing. Casualty figures are going to be...” the woman was silenced with a wave of a hand.

“We were aware of that. Casualties were predicted,” said Jameson, a cold, distant note in his voice. He turned to glance back at the circle of calm at the back of the room, where the orange-glassed man sat. “Thank you for your assistance, Advisor,” he said, the sarcasm heavy, “but I believe we have things entirely sorted out. Don’t hesitate to...”

“Sensors on-line, full spectroscopic analysis and r-state divergence coming in,” reported an officer. “There’s.... there’s nothing in the middle of the crater. Target has been completely destroyed! I repeat, target has been eliminated.”

Lehy sat back, her arms crossed, and relaxed. The cost had been high, it was true, but the Harbinger, Asherah, had been destroyed. At least this time she had been protecting the city when she did... what she had just authorised. Staring up at the screen, she shook her head at the sight of the tainted mushroom cloud. Variant-electron-catalysed fusion weapons were horrible things to use this close to a city in friendly territory. She could only hope that the scrubbers could mop up the arcanochromatic by-products before they entered the water table.

Her PCPU clattered onto the table, as her jaw dropped open.

In the heart of the cloud, there was a deeper darkness, a gaseous stygian void that boiled and seethed, dancing strange patterns in the swirling midst of the afterblast. It was a raven choking in smoke, the silhouette of the hand of god against the wall of Plato’s cave, an amorous sonnet to a reality that cared nothing for those who dwelled in it. The light-devouring, acrid cloud-within-a-cloud twisted and turned, but its mean velocity was always inwards, where the scattered plasticity of the voidborn abomination was nebulously coalescing into material form once more.

“Massive r-state flux! Oh god! Nothing on norms, but... ah, the Shaws are burning out!”

“Opuserabi,” Lehy muttered. “It cannot be.”

“Damn it!” Tatuta slammed his fist into the table, making the discarded PCPU dance. “We killed you, you bastard!”

Jameson flashed a glance at the Admiral, and then shook his head slightly. “Why wasn’t that expected?” he asked in an ice-cold tone, glaring at the GIA analyst.

The younger man flinched slightly. “No recorded data points,” he responded, words clipped. “Reason? Uncertain. Possible to extrapolate, true, but... only guesses. Very little known, after all.” He took a few deep breaths. “Erm. Yes. We do know that it damaged its body; the way that it’s regenerating? Reincorporating? I’m not sure what the right word is, but whatever it’s doing, it’s a sign of a higher dimension lifeform. Look at how the new form isn’t identical.” He paused, and licked his lips. “The A-chrom in the weapon should propagated in higher dimensions, but... only so much that the sources we have access to can do.”

And, indeed, the form was changed. If it once had been some immaculate monster, a messenger that bought news that was anathema, then it was no-longer that. Its symmetry was broken, the unity of its plague-mask broken into multiplicity, its bones broken and splayed into a new carapace. And the red sun burned ever brighter.

The white-haired man bent slightly, as he spoke softly to his glassed companion. “It is regenerating. Precisely as we expected.”

The younger man stared impassively up at the screen. “Yes. It would not have survived as long as it has if it were not capable of surviving such things.”

“Probability that they will get to fire again?”

“Negligible, even if they authorise a second shot rapidly.”

From behind steepled fingers, the dark-haired man watched as the reformed figure of Asherah raised a hand. This was not a beam, not a projected line of force. No, a thirty-metre radius sphere of the Elizabeth Arcology merely ceased to exist, the crystalline flare of diamond-like brilliance flaring in the perfect hemisphere cut into the surface. And another one, a bite out of the flesh of reality. And another one, each one placed over a capital grade defence.

There was shouting and profanity from the military leaders, as Harbinger-3 systematically crippled all capital-grade defences in its sight, and, if-anything, more intense yells from the scientists in the area, as their sensory equipment told them just how impossible what was happening.

“Impressive,” said the white-haired man, his tone quiet and understated.

“It is intelligent,” replied his companion. “Only a fool would mistake it for a mindless beast.”

The barbed comment was barely veiled. And the point did pierce the flesh of the great beast that was the New Earth Government. It only took a minute for the Triumvirate to approach him, metaphorical cap in armoured hand.

“The Ashcroft Foundation now has full authorisation to deploy experimental or specialised assets to counter this threat,” said Admiral Tatuta, voice stiff. “The NEGA and NEGN will provide all necessary assistance to aid in the elimination of Harbinger-3.”

“Are you sure?” asked the older man, following the formal procedure for such a request. “Do you believe that the conventional military forces have proven incapable of dealing with a known or unknown extra-normal threat?”

The Nazzadi glared at the older man, slowly letting out a breath. “Yes,” he finally managed. “Considering the demonstrated resilience of the entity, the damage that it has inflicted so far, and the fact that to use anything more powerful would destroy the city we are trying to protect... yes, we have no effective way. We are formally requesting the assistance of the Ashcroft Foundation to destroy this threat.”

The white-haired man leant forwards, his dace studiously neutral. “By any means necessary?” he asked.

It was Field Marshal Lehy who shook her head. “No, Advisor Fuyutsuki,” she said. “Anything used must have been given a RTE clearance rating, but we’re letting you use anything that fits that, rather lax,” she added, “criterion.”

The white-haired man nodded. It was what had been expected. It was sufficient. He nodded. “Understood,” he said, turning to leave. Without a word, the glassed man joined him, together stepping out of the command centre.

Once outside, the dark-haired man nodded. “Yes,” he said, simply. There was no celebration, no dances of joy.

Fuyutsuki glanced sideways. “What will you do?” he asked. In a sense, this was pointless question. The answer was already known.

“Neither the Engels nor anything from Herkunft would be sufficient against a Herald, let alone a Harbinger sub-type. I am authorising the deployment of the Evangelions.” He paused, an emotion, far too fast to read, flicking across his face. “Specifically, Unit 01.”

“Activate Unit 01?” The tone was still somewhat surprised. “We don’t have a pilot.”

Gendo Ikari, Representative of Ashcroft Europe, stared back at the older man, his former teacher. “It is time,” he said, simply, as he strode out the door. “And we have none left.”

~’/|\’~

Silence in an arcology was an unnerving experience. Normally, there was always the slight hum of air processors, the vibrations, below conscious perception, from the maglevs that ran throughout the superstructure, and the bustle and commotion of human beings living life in such close proximity to each other.

All that was gone, muffled under layers of choking dust in this twilight, the emergency lighting dimmed and broken.

Shinji coughed a few times, the taste of blood in his mouth. There was a heavy bulk pressing down on top of him, something solid. He squirmed, but it seemed to be no use. He was trapped under the unmoving bulk, forever stuck until someone heard his pitiful cries for help, if indeed there was such a person; it was possible that the blast had killed...

“Are you okay?” asked Misato, as she straightened up, pulling herself off the boy, from where she had been shielding his unarmoured and hence squishy form.

Shinji merely groaned; as might have been guessed from the name, heavy combat armour was, perhaps unsurprisingly, rather heavy, and although it may have had artificial musculature built into it to take some of the weight off the user, that helped not one bit when the wearer was lying on top of you. And, despite the picture that she had sent, the actuality of Misato throwing herself at him had been both unsatisfying and painful.

“Report!” she ordered, switching to internal communications.

A babble of reports came rushing in, the armours feeding their own status reports to the LAI in her own systems. They were largely intact; there were three broken wrists, two of them from the same person, which was always a hazard when falling over in heavy combat armour, and one of the Tsuchigumo was crippled from where the floor beneath it had given way, trapping its legs. Even as she watched, the hatch at the back unsealed, and the pilot levered herself out, her status reports blended with cursing in Nazzadi, as torches danced through the dust, picking out the damaged surroundings.

It had gone better than the last time she had been nuked, all in all.

Sighing at the thought that she could actually think such a thing, she glanced down at the boy, who had at least sat up, and was massaging his ribs, coughing as he did so. He certainly didn’t look like much. She had read his file and... well, there certainly wasn’t much that stood out. Quiet, polite, fairly intelligent, a good chef, and good on the cello, if a little sarcastic and prone to passivity at times. He would make a nice, somewhat submissive husband for someone someday. That comment had actually been written in his file by the school's councillor. Oh, certainly, his background wasn’t so normal, but... well, circumstances were much altered from what they had been even when she had been born. The population of the Earth was 4.3 billion individuals. Only 2.5 billion of them were Homo sapiens sapiens, down from a peak of eight billion only a few decades ago. The definition of "mental stability" had undergone quite noticeable redefinition. Almost no-one over the age of twenty had not lost a close family member, to the First Arcanotech War, to the genocidal Migou, to the depredations of the Rapine Storm or the rape camps of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, and many of the younger ones were similarly bereaved. What was one more child with a dead mother and a father who would not care for him?

“Can I get an extra breather over here?” she ordered. “Or at least a mask.”

Thankfully, Shinji sucked clean air in. Of course, that merely prompted another fit of coughing, but at least nothing more would be coming in, right? Actually, from his experiences so far today, it was highly probable that the universe would find another way to make him suffer. Well, at least as long as nothing else ended up standing on me, I should at least avoid some bruises, right?

“Thank you... uh, Major Katsuragi,” he managed, once his lungs no longer felt like they were trying to strangle him.

The woman shook her re-helmeted head, eyes locked at him through the transparent eyes. “It’s fine. And... really, please, call me Misato.”

Shinji paused, and then shrugged. “Um... okay, Misato.”

“Okay, we’ve actually got some luck, Major,” said a mechanical voice from over her shoulder. “Power’s still on for one of the cargo lifts. That’ll get us down to VATS-011, and from there, we’re running safe.”

The Major turned. “Have you checked the lift?” she asked, calmly.

The figure nodded, gender concealed beneath the armour. “Yep. Local MaiLAI gives all clear, and we levered open the doors; maglev rail is intact as far as we can see. And it’s not like something could turn off an A-Pod, is it? Without causing a failmode? Of course it’s working.”

Misato nodded. “Right. Leave the damaged Tsuchigumo in lockdown mode, and prep the...”

“Uh... Major,” interrupted the mechanical voice, “there’s no need to micro us. Already done, as per standard procedures. Injured are prepped for transport, Nephilim’s locked down, we have a perimeter set up, and we’ve got subverts in the local security network... and, yes, they have CATSEYE here, so we’d be finding wards.”

Shinji could hear the woman’s grin in her lilting voice. “Uh... sorry. Force of habit; I have NCOs for a reason, after all.” She turned back to Shinji. “Come on, then,” she said, pulling him to his feet.

It was more than a little cramped in the lift, with the surviving Tsuchigumo to blame for any lack of space. Most of the infantry were perched uncomfortably on the armoured monsters and their sprawling legs; quite apart from the fact that they really weren’t shaped for comfort, there was also the way that they made... noises; deep, almost too deep to hear, but the pulses of sound reverberated through their hulls, putting everyone on edge.

The fact that everything was still lit in emergency red lighting didn’t help, either. Or the knowledge that there was a horrific arcane monstrosity up on the surface, which was, quite unfortunately, occupied with destroying the city.

Shinji, who was keeping as far away as possible from the armoured spider-like monsters, spoke up. “Um... Misato?” he asked. “Where are we going?”

The woman glanced back at him. “Down. We’re heading to the Geocity; it’s an Ashcroft-run facility, under the main arcologies and skirts.”

Shinji did in fact already know that, but chose to say nothing.

The woman continued. “What do you know about the Ashcroft Foundation?” she asked. It was probably a good idea to keep him talking, she felt, prevent him from thinking too much about what had just happened. Lucky, really; the fact that he had actually seen the Harbinger, without an autocensor or any kind of protection was probably buried under the whole “Just Almost Nuked” bit. She really didn’t want him going AWS-symptomatic right now.

Of course, thought Misato. It’s not like I don’t have my own losses to mourn.

That was my car up there. My actual car. I’d just fitted the new seats and everything. Now what’s it? Some kind of colour-drained crumbly thing, that’s what. Argh! I’d just paid for that. And all those upgrades, and the custom paint job I actually went and got done-user unique... oh no, and the one-use licence components, and the fact that it’s a police model...

I am totally claiming that off the Foundation. I lost it on their business, so they can damn well pay for a new one.

Content that issue had been resolved, at least until it actually came to filling out the claim form and dealing with the bureaucrats, she turned her attention back to the boy.

Shinji shrugged, which turned into a cough. “The normal,” he said, once he had recovered. “Pioneers in the arcane sciences, hold the IP on most arcanotech... but still a non-profit organisation. Sort of actually a wing of the government, but not really, but actually; not like the megacorps or the IPcorps... enough that Ashcroft Advisors have permanent positions in the government... which is a bit odd.”

Misato grinned at him, face concealed. “I’m a NEGA officer on permanent secondment to the Foundation, with Advisor status; the rest of them,” she pointed a thumb back at the other soldiers, “...are other either NEGA seconded, or Ashcroft employees,” she said, sweetly.

Shinji groaned. Serves me right for not looking at their badges, he thought. Although... come on. I totally have an excuse for being more than a little distracted. What with the... the everything.

“My teacher said they do an important task to protect the human race,” he said at loud. And I’m sure the fact that the school was an Ashcroft Academy has nothing to do with that.

Misato gazed deep into his eyes, for a moment too long. “I notice you haven’t said anything about your father,” she said.

The boy winced. That was true. “I haven’t seen him in two years, and that was just in passing, because he was on some business trip.” And I’m sure the only reason he dropped in was that it would have looked off for him not to, he added, mentally.

“And yet you came when he asked you to,” Misato said. Shinji didn’t like this. He couldn’t read her expression, under that mask, and she was... well, the way she was acting, the way she was paying attention to this specific point was making him uncomfortable.

“I came because my foster mothers told me to go,” he managed. “And he only talks with me if he wants something.”

Somewhat surprisingly, the woman shrugged. “True. He’s not a people-person. A little too much of a sorcerer; he’s my boss, but always creeps me out a bit. Still,” she continued, in a more thoughtful tone of voice, “I don’t think you really get to the position of European Representative by being a people-person... at least, I’d prefer a technocrat. A people-person is good with people. What you want is a person who’s good at their job.”

Shinji balled his fists, not saying anything. He really wasn’t feeling charitable, given that his father’s most recent request had led to the events of today.

And somewhere, a small child bawled his eyes out, left with two strange women by a man whose silhouetted figure, a dark shape that touched the sky, even now receded from the desolate boy.

~’/|\’~

Things were still going about as well as they had been, up on the surface, and looked like they were progressing as might be expected, to their ultimate conclusion.

“The Athens is KIA. Oh god. The entire front of the ship, just gone!”

“Asato maa sadgamaya.”

“Hull breach. Ejecting! No! It’s not firing!”

“Tamaso maa jyotirgamaya.”

“Bravo Squadron has lost its Shinnan. Bloodmare is down.”

“Mtryor maa amrtan gamaya.”

“We have a lock on the sun-thing, Staff. Firing a Vecef. Hit. No effect.”

“Aum shaanti shaanti shaanti.”

That is to say, ‘Everybody Dies’.

~’/|\’~

The cavernous room was lit in actinic brightness, a brightness only accentuated by the white walls which reached up high into the air. Monitoring drones, their car-sized bulk hanging motionless in the air, formed a stationary flock, their blue searchlights focussed at the middle of the room, the light sparkling off the viscous dark fluid that filled the vast reservoir.

“Okay... okay... okay... yes, there it is.”

The only breach of this perfect, motionless tranquillity was the barge that sat just above the water, a large number of cables hanging down, forming lazy ripples where they broke the surface of the fluid.

“Visual confirmation?”

“Yes, check the feed. There... 7732 has a tear in it. There’s corrosion, too; looks like fluid stains... yes, we have an i-seep.” The man sighed, relaxing a bit. “Look at it on the 25x zoom. It’s not quite healed around the flesh-implant join.”

The woman’s voice remained terse. “Seal it, then replace 7732, and all adjoining strands. I want a full examination of the contaminated section.”

“It’s a good thing we caught this,” said another female voice. “We’d have had noticeable performance degradation if the right TR-44 cluster had failed. None of this was showing on the last maintenance check; I’ve cross referenced it already. I hate to think what would have happened if you hadn’t ordered this instant check, doctor.”

“But I did,” said the first woman. “Get it fixed... and be ready for any more finds; I ordered the Operators to run a twitch-check on the rest of it, as soon as you’re done.”

“Understood, Dr Akagi” replied the man. Anything else he was about to say was interrupted by the call over the radio system for his superior, who merely sighed.

“Get it done.”

A humanoid figure emerged from the fluid, the thick, clingy liquid slowly oozing from the bright orange suit to form stringy trails down to the surface of the pool. With a click, the power cable was detached from the umbilical port on the bright orange hazard exosuit, leaving it to run off batteries, as the A-Pod manoeuvred it into a decontamination chamber that led out of this chamber.

The blond-haired woman who emerged from the other side was not looking pleased, worry lines wrinkling over her forehead, and around the corners of her eyes. The roots of her dyed blond hair were showing, and there was more than a fair amount of white mixed in, despite the general youthfulness of her face. She drummed her fingers against the wall, as she waited for the airlock seal to open.

“Dr Ritsuko Akagi to...”

“I heard you,” she snapped at the muse. “Acknowledge receipt of message.” She sighed. “Again. Typical. How does she manage it?” The woman shook her head, and paused, taking a sniff of the undersuit she had been wearing for the inspection, wrinkling her nose slightly. “No time to change, either,” she muttered to herself, as the door hissed open. “Oh well.” She shrugged on a lab coat over the sweaty undersuit, and connected her harcontacts back to the main network.

“How are we doing, Maya?” she asked, raising one finger to an ear, as she strode off down the corridor, feet squeaking on the floor.

~’/|\’~

“Well, I’m a little annoyed you weren’t a little more impressed by the Geocity,” retorted Misato.

Shinji sighed. “It is identical to the Toyko-3 one. School trips,” he explained. “It’s not like I haven’t seen one in person before... and isn’t there one under Colombo...” he started ticking them off on his fingers, “...and Antananarivo-2, and on one of those Caribbean islands in Nazda-Duhni, anyway?”

“... there was also one under Berlin-2,” muttered Misato.

“So, yeah. It’s not like a truedome geocity is rare.” Shinji paused, and coughed, wiping his forehead with a sleeve. He was feeling more than a little bit nauseous, no doubt from the lack of sleep and the... everything. “Really deep, yes, but not rare. Now, um, where are we going?”

“We’re down in BB21,” said one of the soldiers, her close-cropped hair sweat-covered, visible now that there had been a general removing of the skull-like masks.

“Yeah, great job, Valy,” retorted another one. “Obviously you’re some kind of positionomancer, given that it’s written on the wall. Now, where’s that?”

The woman shrugged. “I don’t know. This whole place is a morass.”

“God, why did they turn off the Grid support?” a thin-faced man asked. “It’s not like they could emwar the Geocity; would it be far too much to ask for at least leaving map-tools operational.”

“I don’t understand,” the Major said, getting back on topic. “It should be recognising us. Something is wrong.” She paused. “Honestly. I’m not just lost; this is actively sorcerous countermeasures. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

“I’m pretty sure we’ve been here before,” interject Shinji. “Look... that’s the greenhouse bit under the blue sign.”

“That just proves it. There’s no way that we could get that...” Misato frowned, her face suddenly clearing. “Oh... heya Rits!” She waved at the blond woman who was, even now, bearing down on the group with her eyes locked on the Major. She looked... annoyed. “The wards seem to be snagging us; can you get them to turn the mazing off?”

Ritsuko frowned. “What on earth are you talking about? Why would we turn the mazing on? It’s not like something like that would work against a Harbinger, anyway.”

Misato flushed bright red. “Are you sure...” she managed.

“Yes, I think I’d know if I’d gone and activated those procedures,” said Ritsuko, stepping rather too close to Misato. She tapped the other woman’s head with two fingers. “Huh. Not hollow.”

“Yeah, well, um... well, you turned off the automap functions,” retorted the black haired woman. “And it wasn’t like it was just me who got lost,” with a glance back at the other soldiers. “Who designed this place?”

The blond shook her head. “This isn’t the time to look for excuses. We’re short of hands and time.” Ritsuko sighed, shaking her head, before Shinji found himself the centre of the focussed attention from the white-coated woman. “You’ve had him genescanned. I presume that even you can manage that,” she said to the Operations Director, without looking away.

“I’m not so stupid as to bring a potentially Tainted individual into the Geocity”, retorted Misato, embarrassment transmuting into annoyance. “It checks out. He’s Three-November, for sure.”

Shinji took a breath. “Um... that’s not my birthday.”

“Oh, no,” said Misato, with a laugh which, to Shinji’s ears, sounded somewhat forced. “That’s just an ID code we’re using for you.”

“Don’t worry,” added Ritsuko. She looked at the boy. Yes, in the flesh, the family resemblance was there... from both sides. Really, he should be panicking... maybe even gibbering. But, well, I only told him not to worry, not that he shouldn’t worry, she thought with a hint of spite. Technically, I wasn’t lying. People should pay more attention to the way that things are phrased.

Out loud, she said, “You’ll want to read this,” as she passed a folded thread-type PCPU to the boy. “Now, come on.”

Shinji unfolded the paper-thin device, and the screen flickered to opacity, words flowing across the surface.

Shinji coughed. “Um... it has some kind of briefing thing... and there’s a security eula,” he said, to the women, flicking down. “A... a really, really long one.”

Misato shrugged. “Just press okay. It’s fine.” The blond beside her shuddered slightly at those words, but said nothing.

“... when taking into account the ego number (an analogous feature to the principle quantum number in the limited condition that the r-state equals 1, but translated into a higher-dimensional animaic arcane waveform), the procedures for full animaneural synthesis are necessarily restrictive and chaotic and thus prevent the use of the homogenous medium approximation. As a result, the model used for the behaviour and the desired attunement of the waveform is the ANZU model (Ikari et al, 2070); we report that all later attempts to improve on the accuracy of this model have failed, and so the inherent error (see Appendix 22.a.iv for details) is still greater than one Cambion-modified standard deviation, under the discrete circumstances of...”

Shinji’s eyes glazed over. I’m pretty sure they’re just making up these words. I mean, this makes no sense. It makes positively negative amounts of sense.

The blond woman, Dr Akagi glanced at him, one eyebrow raised. There were gear-like lights superposed on her irises, the blue speaking of active harcontacts. “You know,” she said, as they got into a lift. “It might be best to start at the beginning, rather than skip to the literature reports. Unless you have some kind of advanced degree in the arcane sciences.”

~’/|\’~

The lights were bright, harsh, actinic. Shinji raised an arm, trying to block out the glare, as he blinked furiously, though tear-blurred eyes. The chamber itself was colossal, abuzz with the sussurating echoes of refracted sound. From what he could see there was something darker underneath them, on what must be the floor far below, and some vertical spire in the centre.

“So bright,” he muttered.

“Beside him, Ritsuko shook her head, and passed him a pair of darkened argoggles from a pile. “Apologies,” she said, somewhat tersely. “I forgot that you wouldn’t have... never mind. We have to ensure near-uniform wide-spectrum illumination in the visible spectrum to maintain security against extra-normal incursion.”

“Some things can get in through shadows,” clarified Misato.

Blinking heavily, he looked around. With a rustle, the thread fell out of his hand, with a rustle, slithering down to the floor, where it lay unnoticed.

A face could now be seen to be staring back at him. A vast, inhuman, monstrous face, mounted on titanic shoulders that protruded from a sea of dark, glutinous liquid, ripples lazily propagating across the surface. A darkened shape in this bright ocean of light; grey and blue and purple and green mottled in tree-like patterns in the midst of all this white. This room may have been vast, the dark fluid that surrounded the head reaching out for hundreds of metres, leaving it isolated and alone, but, undeniably, it dominated this space.

And it was looking at him.

It was looking at him.

It was looking at him.

He let out a yelp, and jumped backwards, back into the reassuringly solid figure of Major Katsuargi. He clung to her, unthinking, as he gasped for breath a vast foot, the smallest hint of the limb of a colossus, smashed through the wall, shivering and trembling.

“Try not to fall off,” the dark-haired woman said, with a hint of a grin. “We went to a lot of trouble to get you safely here.” She paused. “It takes a lot of people like that. And it would really go to waste if you went and splattered yourself on the floor.”

Ritsuko glared at Misato, eyes narrowed, and then cleared her throat. “Behold,” she said, with more than a little hint of pride. “The zenith of modern arcane engineering; a Capital-Grade Titan-Class Bipedal Arcanocyberxenobiological War Machine.” She took a breath. “Evangelion Unit 01.”

The boy could only stare up at the thing.

“This is the Test Model. And we believe this is the best hope we have for killing Harbinger-3.” There was a pause. “That’s the monster that’s attacking the city,” added Ritsuko, when the statement failed to draw suitable awe.

Shinji stepped away from Misato, who merely look a bit amused, and coughed. “So... uh, this is some kind of super-Engel, then?”

“It’s not an Engel!” snapped the doctor, voice suddenly harsh. “Engels are inferior copies of the Evangelions! Made to be produced in bulk, as a vehicle-scale combat-system! They miss the entire point of an Evangelion.”

Shinji’s mind highlighted the ‘inferior copies’ comment, and then drew a thick red line to the ‘zenith of modern arcane engineering’ remark, and another to the ‘Test Model’ one. Several large, and purely hypothetical question marks accompanied these connections. Hadn’t the Engels been around for five years or so? How old was this thing, then, really?

“I’m sorry,” he said, cautiously. “I just thought... no, I’m sorry.” He paused. “Is... is this something to do with my father,” he said softly. “I... I know he’s Representative for Europe, but... well, I suppose I had no idea what he did, really.”

“Something to do with me?” The voice echoed across the room, oozing confidence that bordered on hubris, and not an inconsiderable amount of amusement. “You could say that.”

The wall behind the Evangelion’s head was no longer white. Looking up, past the inhuman horned skull of the armoured monster, Shinji met his father’s eyes. Orange-tinted arglasses, each one the size of a tank, stared back. Gendo Ikari may have been elsewhere, but his image was present, gazing down at the tiny figures on the platform. And despite his illusive nature (actually painted against the back of the arglasses), he managed to dominate the room in a way which complimented the Evangelion perfectly.

Father mouthed Shinji, lips moving silently. He may not have seen the man in years, but it was certainly him, staring down at him, his parent’s head the size of the other monster before him.

“Been a while, hasn’t it.”

“Father,” he said out loud, nervously running his tongue over his lips. “I...” he trailed off. What did he want to say? Yell at the man for never being there? For not even making the effort to stay in touch? “I...” For dragging him to another continent, from a life which was going fine without him, where he had, at last count, almost been trodden on by a monster, shot by cultists, and nuked?

He looked away, and swallowed hard, setting his jaw.

“I...” he let out a breath. “Yuki and Gany send their regards,” he managed weakly, letting the words remain unsaid.

Gendo Ikari smiled, a hint of teeth flashing on that titanic face, before it became still again. From where he was, he could see the feeds from all angles; see the inner war going on. And, although his progeny had lacked the courage to stand up against him, that had been a rather good attempt at a delaying action, to shift the conversation into safer, from the boy’s point of view, territory.

“Prepare him”, the man said, eyes cold.

Ritsuko nodded. “I will need,” she cocked her head, “yes, that’s the authorisation. Understood.”

Misato spun to face the other woman. “You’re decanting 01?” she asked, eyes flashing. “You’re actually going to do it?”

“You knew about it,” said Ritsuko coldly, her hands already flying through AR diagrams that only she could see. “And drew up some of the plans.”

Misato swallowed. “Yes. It’s just...” she paused. “No, it’s nothing.”

“We have no choice.

“What’s going on?” asked Shinji, frowning. He really didn’t like the sound of how things were going. Mind you... well, what was the worst that they could do? Make him pilot that thing?

A horrible sinking feeling crept over Shinji. It wasn’t a sense of nameless dread, but instead one of quite specifically named dread, which was, in the boy’s personal opinion much, much worse.

“I’ve checked her reports... you were right,” responded Misato, raising her eyes from the keypad at her wrist. “She’s in no fit state to pilot. I had hoped, given that it took her seven months, and what happened to... but, no. Not like that.”

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” blurted out Shinji.

The two women glanced at each other, holding the gaze for a second. Ritsuko looked away first, her gaze flicking to the boy.

“Shinji Ikari, we want you to pilot the Evangelion.”

He had already been expecting it, but his knees still trembled, the hair on his neck standing on end. “Against that... against that thing?” he said, voice hollow.

Ritsuko nodded. “Yes.”

He said nothing, his gaze lowered, his hands clenching and unclenching. She could hear the sound of his breath; he was hyperventilating.

“You wouldn’t have to do anything major,” she said, her voice slightly hesitant. “The onboard systems could...”

“No!” he said, head suddenly raised, a wild look in his eyes. “Not a chance. No way.” There was a sudden strength in his voice.

“But...”

“I’m not a soldier. I’m not can’t fight. And there is no way that... that...” his voice began to break, “... that you’re making me go near that thing again.” He turned to stare at the image of his father. “I saw it,” he said, his voice suddenly falling in volume. “It... almost stood on me,” he managed. “No! No! You can’t make me! I won’t!”

Gendo Ikari stared at the images of his son, stared into the pleading eyes. Unseen, his hands, the fresh skin on the surface still aching, flexed. “Coward,” he said, simply. There was no rancour, no aggression, no vast parochial disappointment. It was a sole word, two neutral syllables. He flicked to another communications channel. “Fuyutsuki, wake Rei. The candidate may be useless, and time is short.”

“You are sure?” the older man replied.

“Yes. Stopping Harbinger-3 is our main priority.”

None of this conversation was evident to Shinji. “Coward?” he shouted back. “If it’s cowardice to... be sane, yes!” He was visibly shaking. “I saw it! I saw it! And you... you don’t even want me! You abandoned me! You don’t care!” A litany of grievances broke forth, the words flooding forth from behind a dam, only to spill themselves into the hollowness of the chamber.

Gendo frowned. “And the unplanned premature exposure to Harbinger-3 is... problematic.”

“At least he survived it,” responded Fuyutsuki.

“Thank you for the observation,” responded Gendo, drily. He switched back to the other conversation, staring at the boy, face rigid. When his son fell silence, he spoke. “I did not call you here for petty reasons. I called you here because I need you now.”

“Of course,” Shinji snapped back. “Why else would you see me? Why me?”

“Because no-one else was suitable.”

“No-one was suitable? Is a sixteen-year old normally a suitable,” the word was spat, “child-soldier?”

“This is no time for histrionics,” was the emotionless response, calm and level. “This Evangelion is unique. These circumstances are unique. A pilot was needed.” He paused. Shinji was sure that he could see the faintest hint of a smirk. “You were a suitable candidate.”

The entire room shook, the image on the far wall and warping, as the arglasses tried to account for the sudden movement of their calibrators. Far above, the NEG had tried another, smaller nuclear weapon; not an arcanochromatically-enhanced one this time, out of shear desperation.

“Do you really think you’ll be safe, if you don’t pilot?” The man’s voice was flat. Again, contempt was absent; just a terrible emptiness, a dispassionate clarity which made the words more piercing. “Do you think that, just because you’re not in the armoured war machine, that you will survive if the Harbinger breaks the defences?”

The boy just shook his head, mutely. They didn’t need him. There was the Army, and the Navy; the latter had ships many times the size of the figure before him. It wasn’t as if this Evangelion could carry enough firepower to turn this kind of battle. There was something wrong with the world if they needed a sixteen-year old to fight.

“Shinji, there’s no time left,” said Ritsuko, leaning forwards. The room shook again, to emphasise her point. “It’s started its decent.”

Misato gasped. “It’s found us.” She tapped Shinji on the shoulder. “Please,” she said, holding his gaze, eyes fixed on the darkened arglasses that he alone was wearing. “Get in.”

Shaking his head uselessly, Shinji looked away. “No. No. No, no, no.”

Gendo watched his son, the cameras that filled the place allowing him to see the boy from any angle. He could track his pulse rate, his respiration, see the sweat that gleamed on Shinji’s forehead, even make approximations of neural activity. And that was even before his natural skills came into play; he could read the terror, the panic, the shame and the desire to survive in the boy’s posture and expressions. And despite that, despite all that information, he could not compel obedience.

Well, technically he could, but they had found that mental compulsion caused adverse reactions in the synchronisation process. At best, it caused the procedure to fail. The best outcomes were rare.

He opened the channel back to his former teacher once again, turning off the video feed to the chamber. “Fuyutsuki.”

“Yes. Rei is almost there.” The man paused. “She had already prepared herself for transport,” he added, voice uneasy.

“It was necessary,” a soft voice interjected. “

“Rei,”said Gendo. Even if the link back to the Evangelion’s hangar had been open, none of them could have read his expression. “Are you... functional.”

“Yes. Do not be concerned. I am capable of performing the task.”

Gendo nodded. “Good.”

Back in the bright room, Ritsuko shook her head, and turned away from the boy. “Switch the active profiles. Maintain the EFCS at its current settings, but reconfigure the higher-level functionality for Rei, then restart!”

“Yes, ma’am.” She could hear the enthusiasm in Maya Ibuki’s voice over her earpiece. Satisfied, she turned back to the scene before her. She was eminently sure that her senior Magi Operator (and wasn’t that something?) would be able to handle the task; in fact, it was probable that she would get it done faster than if Ritsuko had been there to perform the task herself. The blond ran a hand down her spine, feeling the bumps, suddenly feeling old.

Mind you, she was. What was the saying? Smart, Sane, Old. Any arcane scientist got to pick two. Far too true for her liking. And she didn’t consider herself stupid. Pulling up a control window, she got to work, hands dancing through the air.

It was amazing what a few words could do. Suddenly, Shinji was no longer the centre of attention, the emptiness of the hall replaced by the commotion of work, exosuited workers scrambling around the walls and between free-floating platforms like bees. Only Major Katsuragi seemed to be paying any attention to him at all, and even then she looked... conflicted, in his opinion.

I’m... it’s good. I don’t have to do this... I never had to do it. But no-one now expects me to suddenly get in a mecha and fight. I’m glad. Yes, I’m glad.

But there was something nagging at him.

But still... this makes no sense, he thought. Why would they go to all the effort of getting me from Japan if they could obtain a pilot here, in London-2. Thus, I am preferable to whoever the replacement is. Which means that the effort required to transport someone to the other side of the globe is considered less than the effort required to find a replacement. Who on earth would keep a potential pilot so far away from the vehicle, anyway? Or not give them any training?

Frankly, none of this situation made sense. Of course, in the Aeon War, there were things that it was better not to understand, not to be involved in. And Shinji suspected... no, he was pretty sure, come to think of it, that this affair, with the ‘Evangelion’ thing, and his father, was one of them.

Better not to know.

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

~’/|\’~

There was an irregular cacophony of noises from the machine, a chorus of bleeps and chimes. Sibilant hisses formed the bass, while a drum-beat of the footsteps of the nurses picked out the time. With effort, they slowed to a halt, straining against the inertia of the thing, as they prepared for decent.

Rei Ayanami lay in the tank of orange fluid, her entire body immersed, eyes staring up at the ceiling. No, that was incorrect. Eye staring up at the ceiling. The other socket was empty blackness; hollowed out, in preparation for the transplant of the replacement for the punctured eye. Despite the body-temperature liquid, she shivered and twitched constantly, as the implants and drugs and sorceries that were keeping her alive, keeping her here, interfered with her nervous system, sparking random firing neurons to burn like little sparks within her skull. Random images and susurrations filled her ears. As best she could, she tried to block them out, to ignore the had-beens and yet-to-be sights that danced across her vision. She was needed now, not then or then or then or... she focussed on the bleep of the sarcophagus-like machinery, the sounds attenuated by the fluid that filled her ears.

Shinji watched as another platform emerged from the roof of this place, silently lowering itself, before landing near to where he stood. It was packed with men and women in medical uniforms, faces staring out through transparent faceplates.

Actually, looking around, the only people in this place who weren’t wearing that kind of biohazard gear were himself, the Major, and the blond scientist. That was really reassuring, wasn’t it?

The answer was, of course, no, he pointed out to himself. The fact that you’re one of the only people not wearing some kind of a biohazard suit is not the time when you want misunderstandings based off rhetorical questions.

He shook his head, and took a deep breath, refocusing on the... was that a tank, a fish-tank, not a tank-tank, that they were unloading? No, he realised. There was a white shape in the midst of that orange liquid, obscured, but still visible.

A white shape.

White hair.

White skin, not human white, but the colour of fresh milk.

One grey eye stared back at him.

Shinji jerked backwards, recoiling as if he had been electrocuted, falling back. There was a jolt of pain as his bruised posterior protested that yet another indignity had been heaped upon it, but it was nothing to the sudden, uncertain terror that filled his head and left him gasping.

Why? Why is this so creepy? It’s just a sidoci in a tank... admittedly, that’s a bit weird... a tank of orange stuff, and she looks very injured. Very, very injured, actually, ran his babbling thoughts. It was true. The medicinal blue of synthetic skin covered so much of her exposed flesh, fluid drips and tubes snaking into the flesh, and then... and then there was that hollow eyesocket, exposed and bare, obviously prepared for surgery and arcanotherapy given the preparatory markings around it.

Okay, maybe, so, it was very disturbing indeed.

His line of sight was blocked by Misato, who bent down to pull him up. “I seem to be doing this a lot,” she said to him. She glanced back, back at the girl in the orange liquid. “Are you feeling all right?” she asked. With a frown, something which almost looked like disappointment, she added, “Is is Rei... the girl? You... you don’t have a problem with sidoci, do you?”

The sidoci. White xenomixes. The anomalous vortex in the mixing of the human and Nazzadi genepools, in the blend of Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens nazzadi. Almost all children of such unisons (and, as subspecies of Homo sapiens, they were fully compatible) were just as predicted by the genetics of the parents. These normal xenomixes, the amlati, to use the Nazzadi word, exhibited a blend of the features of their parents; their skins used both brown-black eumelanin and the darker, blacker voumelanin, giving them a greyish-brown skin colour, and, likewise, their eye tones ranged between the oranges, purples and browns expected from hybridising human colours with the Nazzadi red. They were predictable, understandable.

The sidoci were not. They used neither eumelanin nor voumelanin, but they were not albinos, despite a tendency among the misinformed to call them that. Instead, they used paramelanin, a white-grey pigment which had no apparent history in the mammalian lineage, and generated it in vast amounts, enough that the red of haemoglobin didn’t affect their appearance, apart from where the flesh was thin, like around the eyes. They were, without exception, parapsychic, and parapychic from birth, unlike most; able to manipulate higher dimensional energies from the cradle not through the studied rituals of sorcery, but instead through intuition. And mentally, they were strange, detached, and naturally resilient to Aeon War Syndrome.

It really wasn’t a surprise that they were monitored by the New Earth Government, too often taken into care because the parents couldn’t cope with a child that could start fires when having a tantrum. People were wary of them, yes, it was true.

Still breathing heavily, he gulped. “No, it’s not that.” He managed a weak grin, which faded almost immediately. “I think I’m just sort of... tired. Even before all this... um, remember, I just got off a long plane trip. And then... stuff happened”

There it was. There was the thought. She, the girl was related to fear... to the panic, and to the things that had happened.

grey eyes

red fire

drowning in fluid

He shook his head, and shuddered. Nothing.

“What are you doing with her?” he asked quietly.

There was no answer. The reason for this lack of response was that the entire room shook, as a terrible noise rang out. It was not some bestial roaring, some tentacle slobbering, some profane slobbering. It was a single, pure, perfect note, than sang out, and died away, leaving its aftertones to reverberate. The entire Geocity was ringing like a bell, the dome structure humming from the impact which had punched through ten kilometres of dirt and concrete and armour to hit it.

Another.

And another.

The forth was enough to crack the Geocity, as a fragment of darkness broke from the roof, to crash down with a tremendous impact into the ground, crushing buildings and trees as it cut into the weak earth.

Far, far above, Asherah paused. It had breached the shielding, prevented any escape. It was free to do what it wished, at its leisure.

A chorus of alarms was screaming, children wailing in futility into an unforgiving night. The entire room was slanted at an angle, and the motion could be seen, because the hovering platforms had stayed in the same place. Slowly, with the agonising paucity of motion of vast inertia, one of the feed cables from the ceiling gave way, and gravity did the rest. It slammed into one platform, sending exosuited figures flying like dolls across the room and continued on its inexorable path.

Straight towards Shinji. He barely had time to even see it, to turn his head towards the crash of the other platform, before, suddenly, the light was obscured by a vast, titanic mass that oozed and dripped. The boy stared, in shocked horror, splattered in dark fluid which was chill (too chill) against his skin, lit in a sudden harsh white light.

The hand of the Evangelion was in the way, having taken the blow on its forearm. The containment fluid still bound it to the pool, thick strands of glutinous fluid chaining it to where this drowned idol rested, but it had overcome both it, and the broken bonds that dangled limply from the arm of the leviathan.

Shinji whimpered, as another ice-cold mass splattered down on his head. Slowly, slowly, the arm receded, squelching back into the containment pool.

“What happened? Report.”

“The Evangelion moved!”

“It broke the bonding attached to its right arm, and got out of the RCL!”

Ritsuko wiped her face against her lab coat, and coughed heavily, spitting out the goo. “Impossible,” she yelled, when her mouth wasn’t filled with chilled mucus. “The entry plug hasn’t even been inserted yet! And neither have the D-Engines! It has no power! It can’t do this!” she added, in direct contravention of the evidence of her own eyes.

There was a gurgling noise from the right of Shinji, a coughing gasp that was pathetic in how quiet it was. He looked to his right.

The tank of orange fluid was broken, shattered by the shrapnel from the impact against the hand of the Evangelion. The girl within was propped against the wall, sitting limp in the small amount which had not spilled forth across the floor. Fresh lacerations marked her pale skin, the red of haemoglobin completely unexpected in its intensity compared to her seeming-anaemic skin. She was drooling a thin trickle of the fluid, chest straining (an impressive one, thought Shinji, and he hated himself for thinking that) but not breathing. Her one eye was impassive, neutral, shocked.

Picking himself up, he ran... no, he carefully made his way, in a sort of crouch-run across the stained floor, where the orange liquid from the tank and the dark containment fluid intermingled, to the tank. The material had broken cleanly, fortunately, so he was able to get in to... do what? He had been operating on reflex. He lifted her out, the orange liquid seeping into his trouser legs (at least it was warmer than the containment fluid), and lay the slick body down, outside. She pawed at his chest, gurgling slightly, eye filled (he felt) with pain. The recovery position made sense, but...

“We need to get the LCL out of her lungs,” gasped Misato, as she tried to get up. She had the advantage that she only had her face exposed, the heavy combat armour sealed around the neck. She had the disadvantage that she had been hit in the face by a large globule of the fluid, and so was almost unrecognisable, a pair of eyes only revealed through effort. “Broken ribs... won’t be able to expel it on her own.”

The medical team rushed in, and took her from him, threading some kind of tube down her throat. He was sure that he could hear a gurgling whimper, as he stared down at his hand. The reddish-orange fluid, the LCL, was a darker shade of red, stained with blood. His hand began to shake, before clenching into a fist.

“What is this!” he shouted, at the wall where his father’s face had been. “You really expected someone in that state to pilot?”

Gendo’s face appeared. The impact had obviously heavily damaged the calibration sensors... or maybe his arglasses; either way, it was off-centre, the gap in the image no longer aligned with where the Evangelion was. He flickered slightly, too, a metallic buzz in the voice a sign that the communications were not functioning perfectly.

“No.” The tone remained neutral, but there was, finally, an undercurrent of disapproval, of contempt. “I expected you to pilot. The fact that I have to do this to her, to put her through this...” was that anger in his eyes? “...is entirely your fault.”

“I’ll do it, then,” snapped back Shinji. “I’ll do it!”

The neutral tone was back. “That was all I wanted,” Gendo Ikari said, as his glitched image vanished again.

“All right,” called out Ritsuko. “Abort Profile RA, resume previous profile.” She glanced at Shinji, eyes narrowed. “We need to get you ready... Major Katsuragi can escort you, and also explain what we want you to do.” She glanced at her friend, still covered in the containment fluid. “You’ll want to get that cleaned off,” she added, with a hint of a smile.

Silently, Gendo watched, as his son was escorted out, along with everyone not fully exosuited left the room, in preparation for the ultraviolet wash that would free the Evangelion from the glutinous containment fluid. He waited.

“Commander Ikari.”

The man lent forwards.

“Rei.”

There was a pause. Then;

“Yes.” The word was pained, croaked out.

“Your opinion?”

“No deviation.”

“Good.” Gendo paused. “Why did you not...”

“It was necessary. The Harbinger must be eliminated. You have made this clear.”

“Yes. Yes.” The man folded his gloved hands. “Rei, I would like you in Unit 00. I do not intend to launch, but we cannot risk the failure of this option. We will not have time. It is superior to the alternative.”

“Understood.”

Gendo sat back, fingers steepled. Those who knew him would have been exceptionally surprised to see the expression of puzzlement on his face. Puzzlement, tinged with perhaps even a hint of worry.

He should not have responded like that to her. I know that he is not that sensitive, and he has never seen her before... and the chromatic aberration is such that no other such connections should be made.

Perplexing.

~’/|\’~

Shinji looked down, and flexed his hands, running them over each other. This ‘plug suit’ really wasn’t much more than a glorified drysuit, it seemed. Apparently there wasn’t time to get him a proper one. Biting his lip, he thought acerbic thoughts about people who could drag him across the world with very little warning, bypassing all the normal permits to travel, but couldn’t even remember to get a proper... was costume the right word? Probably not, but he was going to use it until he felt better about the whole thing.

He had a sudden feeling that he might be using it for a long time.

“Okay,” he said out loud. “Let’s go over it again.”

An image of Misato appeared on the wall of the entry plug, the capsule-like thing where the pilot sat.

“Certainly,” said the Major, voice calm. “We’re going to begin by activating the Evangelion. The cylinder begins by flooding with LCL. Remember, you can breathe it, despite what your body tells you. Just empty your lungs of air and try to stay calm... and try not to throw up or anything.”

Shinji’s breaths became more rapid.

“Don’t do that,” snapped Ritsuko on a second window. “Don’t hyperventilate. We don’t want you to...”

“Well, I’m sorry,” the boy responded, running a hand through his hair, “but I’m just about to drown...”

“You won’t drown.”

“... but it’s going to feel like it, okay. And so I think I’m allowed to be a bit...”

“He’s getting worked up,” muttered Misato. “Flood the plug before he talks himself into a panic.”

Ritsuko, standing next to her, nodded, and gave the orders to the technicians.

“... and I’ve never done it before, and I don’t even know... argh!”

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Misato said a while later.

She received a glare in return.

“I did tell you to let all the air out at once.”

The glare continued. “This stuff is vile! Like metal and oil and... bleargh!” He continued in a softer voice, “I feel sick.”

“Well, man up,” snapped Misato. “If you’re sick, you’re the one who’s going to have to put up with it.” She was silenced by a flap of a hand.

“Okay, Shinji,” said Ritsuko, forced patience in her voice, “but we have more important matters at hand. Just stay calm.” She bought up an AR window. “Begin the first connection.”

Shinji felt a sudden wash of static run across his skin, a crackling, buzzing feeling that made his neck tingle. The tingly feeling was spreading, itching, running along under his skin, even as the babble in his ears from the command staff began to... jump, skipping words, like a glitched music file. Red, blue, green, yellow; all the colours of the spectrum danced before his eyes, swirling and interweaving.

It was actually horribly disorientating. Shinji closed his eyes, and focussed on his breathing, the thick swirls of LCL more work than air. Maybe there was a trick to it; if there was, he didn’t know it.

At least the itching seemed to be dying down.

"How is it?"

"The pilot's body remains intact. Vitals are elevated, likely from stress. No abnormal brain patterns." Maya Ibuki looked up at her mentor, the cable snaking from the back of her exposed skull into the chair bobbing. "He's still alive. And physically intact, too. Your predictions on the necessary qualities for a candidate were correct. Shall I connect the D-Engines?"

Ritsuko nodded once. "Do it." She paused. "Monitor the synchronisation ratio if the Evangelion achieves stage 3. If it goes above 90% or dS/dt exceeds 3 percent per second, abort immediately. We don't want another repeat."

"Yes. Acknowledged and logged" Maya moved her hands through the three-dimensional matrix before her.

A complex spiral appeared in the air before her. Consisting of two sin functions around a central axis, the projection resembled a double helix more than anything. As they watched, the two lines rotated around the axis, moving closer.

"Synchronisation is 32... 26, no, 39%. Stabilising... 31.3%.” She made a complex gesture, leaning forwards, and smiling. "Yes, we’re holding at 31.3%. dS/dt is zero, plus or minus 0.8%."

Ritsuko stared at the graph, almost hoping for it to be wrong.

"That’s... that’s not going to be enough." She shook her head. “Is Rei in Unit 00 yet?” she asked a Nazzadi Operator. The man shook his head.

Maya suddenly squeaked.

“What?” snapped Ritsuko.

“Spike!” was the answer, the younger woman grabbing onto the arms of her chair, back arching, words spoken through clenched teeth. “We’ve... DMIN stable,” she let out a shuddering sigh. “Sorry, doctor.”

“What! What just happened?” hissed the blond, biting into a knuckle. “Did we get him out in time?”

Blinking rapidly, Maya let out a giggle. She swallowed. “Sorry, doctor,” she said, blinking heavily. “Feedback. No, no, not that at all,” she added, with a wincing grin, even as one hand went to her forehead. “Sudden spike, but it’s stable.” She shook her head. “46.2 +/- 1.1%. And it’s holding.” There was a pause, as she, and the other Operators, ran checks. “Harmonics are steady and strong. Vital signs are still strong. No mental contamination, as of yet." The other woman grinned up at Ritsuko. “I’d celebrate more, but we were always going to manage it, weren’t we?”

Ritsuko gazed down, suddenly feeling ancient. “Yes, of course,” she said, her steady voice concealing a hollowed out interior. She supposed it was nice to have someone who trusted her that much. It was a change, certainly. “We’re ready,” she said to her Director of Operations, maintaining the same, professional tone. “We should do this quickly,” she added, in a softer voice, so that no-one, apart from Maya, heard her.

The Major nodded, once. “Prepare for launch!” she ordered, as she opened a window to the Representative. “Sir? Authorisation?”

Gendo Ikari nodded, once. “Yes. A Harbinger-class entity could doom us all.”

~’/|\’~

The itching was getting worse, as he felt the pressure from the seat, as the Evangelion was moved into position. The dark, goo-like liquid that had been containing (or, more accurately, considering what it had done, had meant to be containing) the Evangelion had suddenly turned into a proper liquid under the UV light, draining out through the locks at the bottom. Now the forty metre biped inched, slowly, agonisingly to the launch chute. A truedome geocity was over ten kilometres below ground, and was widely agreed to be a marvel of modern engineering. What that did, however, make it, was rather inconvenient to get in and out of.

So they were going to use a system designed to launch missiles on a ballistic trajectory, before the motors kicked in, to get him out of here.

That really wasn’t reassuring to Shinji. But, frankly, so many things were worrying him right now, that he had regrouped at fatalism. His father had been right, sadly. He was probably going to die either way, if they were desperate enough to throw a teenager in some kind of war machine, so at least this way he could do something about it. If only to speed it up. Sure, it was fatalistic, but it was also slightly reassuring.

Not very, though.

And in all honesty, he wasn’t fatalistic about the fact that he could feel the prickling pins-and-needles running under his skin, like ants. But, considering he was about to be launched up a giant railgun-assisted launch chute, to try to kill an alien monstrosity, it wasn’t like it was too much of an issue.

He ran over the instructions that they had given him for control. He just had to concentrate on the actions he wanted the mecha to perform. Think about it, and the systems would interpret his own muscle memory into motion.

Well, that seemed easy enough. Just think about it, and it would do it. How hard could it be...

Shinji Ikari suddenly found that the kind of accelerations that the launch system imposed not only made thinking about one thing hard, but also made breathing a challenge. His head spun, forced backwards into the rest, suddenly appreciative of the high, stiff collar-thing on the entry plug, as the blood rushed into his legs, making his vision dim, everything turning grey The feeling of the LCL, which suddenly felt like it was tar, made him feel unclean, within and without; the way that it forced its way into both his lungs and his stomach, bloating them and packing them to capacity, made him want to throw up, to cough up his lungs.

Such a relief was impossible. Muscular contractions were nothing compared to the forces behind this machinery.

And then there was light; sudden, blinding light.

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 2

Lusus Naturae / What bliss even in hope is there for thee?

EVANGELION

~'/|\'~

“Perhaps one of the greatest scientific ironies of the twenty-first century parallels its equivalent in the twentieth. Just as special relativity was founded around the fact that the speed of light was the same in all inertial frames of reference, so has arcane theory removed the magic from the arcane. The pseudo-reactionless drive of the A-Pod, the infinite-energy-finite-power from the D-Engine, the discovery of variant r-state materials and their properties, and, of course, the systematic categorisation of sorcerous procedures; though they all have reaped their toll in the lives and sanity of researchers, we have, nonetheless, progressed. And the reason for this is our extelligence, our culture, our capacity to transfer data and preserve it past the one who devised it. Society is what defines humanity; the laws against the Tainted are concrete proof of this. And if the Aeon War has taught us anything, it is that the survival of all of us outweighs the survival of any one of us.”

Sheng-ji Yang,
“Life in a Maltheistic Universe”, 2089

[/i]

~'/|\'~

August 20th, 2091 CE

“Damn it, he’s starting to fade. Increase the mLCL-st-01 percentage feed on the drip to 60%.”

The voices echoed out of a dark, empty space. This was not just the void, no mere absence of light. This was an impossibility of light. It was not that there was no light here, it was that light, as a concept, was undefined.

“Mental contamination! We’ve got... yep, AN contamination in the three primary components of the waveform.”

“But will he survive?” The woman’s voice paused. “No, that’s not the right question. Will he survive, while still qualifying as human? It would be annoying to have to get another RTE exemption, and would slow down progress notably.”

There was a studied pause. “Yes,” the first voice responded, eventually. “The damage... isn’t enough to flip the Pennington-Fuyutsuki determinant. It’ll heal. Uh... that’s the animaneural damage.”

“I’m concerned about the physical damage,” added a male voice, a faint Nazzadi accent evident in the clipped tones and the slight lilt. “We’ve got major internal bleeding; we’re trying to stem it as best we can, but until we can get the sorcery up and running... well, the problem is, we’re having to S-hack the H-L procedure, and that means we’ve invalidated a bunch of axioms. The LCL is mucking with the operation of the medichines, too, so we really do need the arcanotherapeutic assistance. We’ve waiting for the Magi to compile the rederived version, but...” The statement was deliberately left hanging.

“Be prepared for the use of Option Zero, if necessary,” instructed a fourth voice. “We need him alive, and the increased recovery time and psychological strain is better than the alternative.”

“Yes, sir. The sorcerers are in place.”

~'/|\'~

August 21st, 2091 CE

Shinji Ikari opened his eyes slowly. A blank white ceiling, curving slightly in a ribbed arch, hung above him. He felt... exhausted. Bone-tired. There were probably more synonyms that were applicable for the situation, but, frankly, even thinking was more effort than it really was worth. Certainly, though, as he tried to move, his arms and legs felt like overcooked noodles; barely responsive and floppy.

“Hello?” he managed, his voice soft, and slightly husky. “Uh...” he trailed off, merely continuing to stare upwards at the same, unfamiliar ceiling. He knew that something must have happened, because this wasn’t where he normally woke up, and this wasn’t how he normally felt, but, again, to seriously do anything was too much effort.

“Good afternoon, Shinji,” said a Nazzadi accented voice, a moderated, gentle voice practically deigned to make one feel comforted. She was speaking to him in Japanese, and it was at that point that Shinji realised that was what he had used.

Oh. That made a lot more sense. Yes, he was ill. That was a much more plausible situation, and would also explain how weak he felt. He just had some kind of fever, and would be over it in a few days. Even if, judging from how he felt right now, it would seem a lot longer.

“You know, Gany,” he managed, a faint smile on his lips, “I had a really funny dream. There was this giant robot, and my father, and some kind of monster. It was really weird...”

Shinji Ikari drifted back to sleep.

~'/|\'~

August 22nd, 2091 CE

Gendo Ikari stared over the top of his bridged fingers at the nine other individuals seated around the ring-like table. They weren’t actually there, of course; it was impractical (and foolish) that the Ashcroft Representatives gather in one place, but the q-linked Augmented Reality images fed to his arglasses were a fair simulation. These ten middle-aged men and women, human and Nazzadi alike were private citizens. They held their posts at the whim of the Senate and the President, they were not democratically elected, and they were technically speaking, nothing more than advisors.

And if you believed that, then you might be interested in purchasing some prime real estate in Tibet.

The eleven Representatives of the Ashcroft Foundation were, by most reckonings, some of the most powerful individuals in the New Earth Government. Each one, tasked with managing a broad portfolio, either classified as Geographic, or Conceptual, had massive, wide-ranging authority and influence over the NEG, and, though they might not be able to tell a Minister or the President what to do, their “suggestions” were disproportionately influential.

Europe. Asia. Africa. North America. South America. Oceania. Finance. Research. Ethics. Society. Oversight.

Was there any wonder that it was seriously argued among political theorists that the NEG was not purely democratic, but instead possessed a technocratic state-within-a-state that influenced (though did not control) the primary government?

One might wonder how such a group, a private, not-for-profit organisation, no less, had garnered such power. This was not some unrealistic, corporatist dystopian future, and the megacorps and the IPcorps were quite firmly under the control of the NEG; it was not about to let them enjoy things like “extraterritoriality”... and yet Ashcroft did. The roots of this lay back at the early years of the century, and the revolutions in the sciences which had produced arcanotech and bought sorcery into the public eye, but, fundamentally, it came down to one thing.

He who controls the arcane, controls the planet.

“Gendo Ikari,” said South America, leaning back in her chair, “so nice of you to actually make time to see us.” Her chisel-like teeth were exposed, as she smiled in a not completely friendly way.

Madesky Yugundi oy Jenufabrikati oy Brazilia-Twi oy Herena vy Representy vy Terra, thought Gendo, keeping his expression neutral as he stared at the Nazzadi with the electric blue hair. This was going to be fun.

“I have been dealing with the aftermath of an assault on London-2 by a Harbinger-level threat,” he said back, calmly. “As has Deputy Representative Fuyutsuki. It was necessary to deal with the civil authorities before I could spare the time to report to the Council in person.” He paused. “You have all, of course, received relevant data.”

“Of course,” said Oversight, leaning forwards. “But, Ikari, I think you can see why we might want to consult with you in person. You did, I might point out, authorise the deployment of a capital grade arcanocyberxenobiological organism... no, I might add, make that two authorisations, even if one did not go ahead... and, as you of all people are aware, the Evangelion Units are not exactly the most stable of weapons platforms.”

Gendo bowed his head slightly. This is all part of the mummery. Oversight is compromised; they will pose no threat. “Yes. The deployment followed the full necessary procedures; as per the code of conduct, such a deployment was only made at the express request of a NEG Triumvirate-level authority. We were explicitly permitted to use anything which had already been cleared by the Restricted Technology Evaluation teams from the armed forces; the Evangelion Units have been granted such status.”

“That is true,” said Asia, the elderly woman frowning. Gendo could read her like a book; she had been his superior twelve years ago, and he had served as her Deputy Representative before his transfer. She was an ally on the Council; an almost unconditional one. She was too linked to the original Evangelion Project (though at a step removed) for it to be any other way. “The correct procedures were followed in all aspects. “Indeed, I would say that Ikari’s conduct was immaculate. And... well, an Evangelion Unit has now eliminated... well, it has killed a Harbinger. Asherah is dead. Honestly, I wouldn’t say that, even with everything, that such a thing was ever going to be possible.”

A woman sitting opposite from him leant forwards, chin propped on her hands in a way which, to an outside observer, would look almost infatuated, but Gendo knew to be anything but. Green-brown eyes behind blue-tinted arglasses were focussed on him. “Yes, it has,” said Research. “And yet you continue to obstruct access to the MP Model. What this has demonstrated is that the Units have an undeniable specialised use; why, then, do you refuse to let the Engel Group... or, indeed, the Achtzig Group, for that matter, cooperate fully with the Evangelions?”

The man kept his face level, even though, internally, he sighed. It would not be done to be seen to be patronising; this was a careful power play. “It is not my choice,” he said. Technically true. “The Director of Science personally feels that the Group, and its component Projects, will function better without the influence of its spin-off Groups; they have gone down different paths of development.” Also technically true. “As for why the MP Model is still restricted; that would be because it is still undergoing field-testing. The regime is slowed, because of the status of the pilot and the limits that imposes. Nevertheless, it is proving successful on the Eastern European Front.”

“And by that, you mean the age of the pilot,” retorted Research. “Oh, wait, no,” she added, “the age of the pilots. Plural. All of the candidates are underage.”

“Among other things, yes,” he replied.

“We have obtained a specific RTE exemption, as you well know, Christina,” interjected Ethics. “Please, we have more important matters to deal with.”

Gendo nodded to the Nazzadi. “Yes. This has been the first encounter of a Harbinger-level threat since...”

“... since Harbinger-1 and Harbinger-2,” said Oceania. “Yes. This is indeed alarming. Do you believe that it was summoned, Ikari?”

The Representative for Europe chose his words carefully; as the most capable sorcerer at the table, that was one thing that they would defer to him on. “I do not believe we have enough evidence to state it clearly, one way or another. If it is a summoning... then this is very alarming, as it implies that there exists a group with the resources capable of doing such a complex ritual, that can stay under everyone’s radars... or a non-negligible element of the government has been compromised.”

By controlling the options one presented, one could always lead people down certain chains of thought. He paused, as the other Representatives shifted. Good. That should have made them uncomfortable. Because what he was about to say was something that he was sure that they had been briefed on, but did not want to admit in public. It would be best to get it out in the open, before he began the main thrust of his arguments, and was forced to justify every little minutiae of the events.

“But I would not say that it is impossible that it woke up naturally. And I am sure,” he said, leaning forwards, “that you all know what that means.”

They all knew what that meant.

~'/|\'~

August 23rd, 2091 CE

Shinji Ikari was somewhat disappointed. In the same way that water was somewhat wet.

It had turned out that it had not been a dream after all. Which meant that everything that had happened... had happened. He, since the first time he had woken up, had been poked and prodded and checked far more times than was really comfortable. All while feeling exhausted, it might be added. And the man sitting beside his bed, clad in a doctor’s uniform was here for the purpose of finding out exactly how much he remembered of those events, and, to be frank, whether he was properly sane. The fact that he was not curled up in a foetal ball, babbling blasphemous glossolalia in honour of profane entities which predate mankind and its assumed dominion over the planet, was viewed as a hopeful sign.

“... so, yes, after such an event, you will be expected, for your own mental health, to be honest, to be attending regular meeting with a Health Service-registered psychiatrist,” said the man, in response to Shinji’s question. “Uh... as for how long, well, that’s until I... or anyone else, but I’ve been assigned to your case while you’re resident here. Yes, so, basically, until I feel that you’re clear of any trauma, and even then, I would recommend that you keep regular psycheval appointments.” He paused. “I’m sorry, I’m babbling. But is that okay?”

Shinji nodded. “Yes, that’s okay, Doctor...” but the man interrupted.

“Please, call me Simon. I’m your psychiatrist, and that means you need to feel at ease.”

Shinji paused. He would actually prefer a bit of formality, but, on the other hand, that was oh, forget it. Too much effort to raise it, and it’s not like I won’t end up calling him that anyway. “Yes, okay, Simon,” he said out loud.

The psychiatrist made a motion on a pad with a blue-covered hand, and looked back up. “Are you feeling okay? Do you want to continue? Your notes specify that you should still be feeling... well, tired, limp, slight clumsiness... I can go on.”

The boy felt that, on balance, it would be best if he did not. “No, I’m fine,” he lied. “So...”

“Yes, yes. Uh... yes, we had got up to the point where you were in the launch tube. Please, continue... but at your own pace. Remember... we can stop any time.”

Shinji swallowed, and continued.

(‘_’)

Staring out through the eyes of the Evangelion, Shinji blinked in the twilight sun. Compared to the interior of the launch tube, this light was bright. And it was twilight sunlight, he realised; the clouds had been... shredded, the moisture in the air boiled by the conflict.

“Listen to me, Shinji,” said Ritsuko, unconsciously leaning forwards, eyes locked on the image fed into her harcontacts, “the Evangelion is designed to be very simple to control. It uses a direct animaneural interface; the A-10 Clips, that is, the things on your head, the superconducting QUI devices, serve to interpret the signals from your brain. The Eva is humanoid arcanotechnology, so the Operator Extension Side-Effect is in full effect. The AN waveform can be read and translated into movement by the systems onboard.”

“But there are...”

“The controls are there for things which don’t have a physical analogue in the human body,” Ritsuko explained quickly. “The weapons are tried to it, as are sensor controls, and it also serves as a conceptual guide to allow you to retain separate modes of thought between when you want to move your body and when you want to move the Evangelion.”

“But then why do they...”

“It’s not an accident it uses similar controls to a video game. These aren’t the full set; they’re stripped down. You aren’t trained to deal with the proper set.” She paused, for a breath. “And there are pre-existing reflexes we can take advantage of. We checked.”

I... suppose that makes sense, thought Shinji, marginally annoyed by the refusal of the scientist to let him get a word in edgewise, or, indeed, get to the point.

“You’ll thank us the first time the Eva doesn’t punch itself in the face when you scratch your nose,” added Misato, her face entirely serious. “That... that’s happened a few times in tests.” She received a glare from Ritsuko for that remark.

Great. Now my nose is itching, thought Shinji. At least the rest of his skin had stopped feeling like there were insects under it, or something. “What... what do you want me to do,” he asked.

“You are to engage the Harbinger, and destroy it,” stated the Major. “The Evangelion is capable of generating an AT-Field which can be used against the target’s own defences.”

“A what? How do I do that, then?” Shinji was rapidly becoming convinced that they hadn’t thought this out at all, and, really, why hadn’t they explained all the things before he got in the Eva?

“It’s not something that I can explain to you,” Ritsuko said, shaking her head. “Think of the Greek principle of gnosis, of the knowledge that can only be acquired through experience. Or, to bring in another example, ‘The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao’. This isn’t a sorcerous procedure; it’s more like something parapsychic. You can’t explain it, but you can know how to do it; you were selected for the latent talent.”

Shinji swallowed, and nodded, biting onto his lower lip.

Misato glanced sideways and the scientist. “That was... well said,” she said. “Rather... mystical for you.”

Ritsuko shrugged, and checked that the communications link was off. “I lied,” she said. “It’s what he wanted to hear. We’re not expecting him to actually manifest one first go, after all; he’s there to distract the Harbinger, which will have to focus its own AT-Field to prevent the Evangelion from shredding it. Then we can just shoot it in the back, when it’s weaker.” She turned the communications back on. “Think only of walking,” continued Ritsuko. “This is important, Shinji; stay focussed, and only think about walking.”

Slowly, ponderously, teetering, the Evangelion lifted a foot. With a crash that broke the road underneath it, jets of water squirting forth from pipes broken directly under the impact, the rather pointy heel smashed back down to earth. Biting his lip, eyes screwed up as he focussed on walking, Shinji nevertheless grinned. “Walk!” he muttered to himself. “Walk! Walk!”

“It’s working!” said Ritsuko, eyes wide. This is really good, she thought, as the boy ventured another step, muttering the refrain over and over again. That was, of course, when the alarms sounded.

“Spike! Another spike!” came a panicked call from the Operators. Lieutenant Epouvantable, eyes watering, glanced sideways at Maya and sneezed, then flicked her eyes to Dr Akagi. “Uh...my DMIN is stable,” she automatically said, after a glance to see that it was so; the check-in procedure was standard among Operators who survived their first few dives, “and the new pattern is holding... uh oh.”

Shinji flinched at the noise coming through the communications link, and the already-precarious, teetering step completely failed. As, within the cockpit, Shinji pinwheeled, trying to keep himself... No, the Evangelion, and, yes, therefore by default, myself, upright, all that managed to achieve was to damage the as-yet-intact buildings to either side.

There were winces all over the control centre; even up on the observation platform, as Deputy Representative Fuyutsuki’s palm collided with his forehead with a noticeable smack. Only the father of the pilot who was currently providing a wonderful opportunity for spontaneous urban renewal, remained impassive, eyes locked on the projections on his arglasses.

“Ignore the impact,” barked Ritsuko. “What do you mean, ‘spike’?”

“I mean ‘spike’!”

“Another one. Increase in synch, and corresponding increase in variance,” clarified one of the civilian Operators, voice slightly muffled from where she had bitten her lip. “We’re up to 59... um, plus-or-minus 2.5% and... well, it looks stable. It’s holding.”

“But it looked stable the first time,” completed Ritsuko, softly. “I want us to be able to force an ejection at any point,” she ordered, more loudly. “I do not want it to jam up, or misfire. We will not have a repeat! Abort if he breaks 75%.”

Maya nodded. “I’ve set the Ouranos control system with those priorities,” she said, blinking heavily. “It should be prioritising runtime towards this.”

Ritsuko sighed, and turned back to the main screen, where, despite the patient guidance from Misato, the pilot lacked the fine control to be able to get up. Well, it’s not surprising, she thought. How long does it take children to learn this? She paused, mentally. That’s children with a small ‘C’... I really mean ‘babies’. Of course, babies don’t have an extensive LAI suite... never mind. She winced as a titanic arm smashed through an apartment complex with a shriek of tortured steel.

“I can’t do it!” Shinji shouted. “It’s... it doesn’t move properly! And my knees hurt!” he added, face screwed up, staring down at his legs... wait, if he was actually face down in the Eva, that meant that the plug was Argh! Disorientation!

“Don’t think about your body, Shinji!” ordered Dr Akagi, grasping one balled fist in her other palm. “Just think about the Eva!”

It was painful to watch, as, flailing, the Evangelion managed to get one hand under it, sparks and debris flying up from the road as one knee ponderously scraped its way under the main body.

(‘_’)

“But at least you were able to achieve that on your own,” Simon (as he had insisted, multiple times, on being called) said. “Consider that, with no practice, you were able to manage that.” He looked down at the PCPU held in his blue-gloved hands. “According to this, you were much faster at achieving this than any of the other candidates. That’s your accomplishment.”

Shinji winced. “No. Um... this is where it gets...” he paused. “Painful,” he said with a shudder. “And fuzzier.”

(‘_’)

“They’ve lost contact with the Harbinger!” shouted one of the NEGA officers, whirling towards his superior. “Location of Harbinger-3 is unknown! It... melted away again, into that black wave thing, again.”

“Oh no...” breathed Misato. “It can’t have...”

The signal from the Evangelion was cut, the main screen blacking out. The panicked reports only served to add to the confusion.

“Massive r-state flux. Identical to what happened on the approach.” The Lieutenant was streaked with sweat, dripping down his face. “Something big just happened. The Shaws have shut down. We’re... we’re blind. Faster than the LAI systems could clamp down on the gain.” The man looked over at the central control desk. “It’s here.”

The Major whirled, gazing up at the Representative. “Sir,” she began, “Permission to launch Unit 00?”

“Grabbing exterior feed. Let’s see if the ArcSec cams have anything,” added another one of the Operators, hands twitching in Augmented Reality projections that only she could see. She turned unseeing red eyes to Dr Akagi. “We have something. Feed requiring authorisation for mainscreen. Autocensor active.”

Gendo nodded once. “Permission granted, Major. Load the Evangelion for deployment.” Behind the now opaque glasses, his eyes closed. I am sorry.

The blond scientist frowned, and then shook her head. “Yes, yes,” she said, bringing the link from the security cameras, designed for nothing more than petty surveillance, up on the main display.

It may have been a heavily autocensored feed, the image altered to reduce how real it looked and remove flagrant reality violations, and so minimise the instinctual rejection that human minds felt towards things that should-not-be, but it was still clear what was happening. Lieutenant Ibuki gagged at the sight, and she was not alone; faces paled throughout the control centre, at the sight.

The void-black form of the Harbinger, its symmetry broken by the arcanochromatically-enhanced warhead, stood in the middle of a terribly smooth plane, more akin to some kind of amphitheatre, with the outside walls the buildings which were outside the area where the monster had so violated reality again. It loomed over the now-motionless form of Unit 01. The air was crackling with discharges, earthing on anything metallic, giving Asherah a skirt of blue-white brightness.

“Abort launch order for Unit 00,” ordered Gendo Ikari clearly, in the silence. “Unit 01 remains intact. Only launch if Unit 01 appears critically damaged.”

“We’re getting signals back from Zero-One. Just... atmospheric... interference...” the Operator trailed off.

The Harbinger reached one simian arm down, and grabbed Unit 01, yanking it up by its own arm, as it dangled limply. Night-black flesh-substance met the mottled camouflage of the Evangelion, as sparks coruscated across the surface.

(‘_’)

Shinji stared up at the blank roof. It was good, he thought. It might be an unfamiliar ceiling, but at least it isn’t that thing. He swallowed. “I was screaming,” he said, flatly. “It... it sounded really odd, and it hurt. I mean the screaming hurt because that orange-stuff isn’t like air... it’s too thick. And the arm hurt too; I could feel it.” His eyes locked on the psychiatrist’s. “It was like someone was trying to pull my arm out of my socket. And that’s not right. I mean, I was just piloting the thing. Why did it hurt?” His voice dropped in pitch. “Why?”

Seriously, why? I’d like to find the bastard who decided that was a good idea for the pilot to feel the pain of the machine, and... and make them pilot the damn thing themselves! It would serve them right! See how they like it, to have to feel whatever the thing underneath feels!

“What were your reactions to the Harbinger... to the entity?” said the doctor, after a pause. “It says here... yes, you said earlier that that when you saw it before... nausea, uncontrolled panic, faintness.” The man paused. “Did you feel the same this time? If it was different, was it better or worse, in your opinion?”

Shinji glared at him, before his brow wrinkled, as he thought back. The two monstrous faces stared deep into his eyes... no, into the eyes of the Evangelion, and then there was that burning red sun on the front, filling his eyes. It was like staring at the sun through closed eyelids, only my eyes were open. Just... everything I could see, full of redness. His eyes snapped open again, and he saw a look of concern on the older man’s eyes. “It was... better,” he managed. “It was scary... yes, really, really scary, but it was... it was,” the words came out in a rush, “it was scary like a man with a knife is. Um... well, like the idea of a man with a knife is, I haven’t actually been attacked by a man with a knife. Like it was a person that was trying hurt me, rather than something which could stand on me without even caring. Like it almost did before.”

He fell silent, gazing through the psychiatrist’s head and beyond, as if he could see through the mass of stone and steel and concrete to gaze into infinity.

“It wasn’t wrong. It was just a thing. And... isn’t that wrong?”

(‘_’)

Shinji Ikari screamed and screamed. He could feel the chill, almost slick touch of the Harbinger; a clinging, freezing touch, like a frozen, flayed hand and on earth did that image come to mind of all things?, and that didn’t make much sense. There was armour in the way and everything.

Asherah filled his eyes... his viewscreen. The red light was still bright, but above the false sun, he could see the mask-like shapes, their broken symmetry far too evident up close. They weren’t the solid objects they looked like from far away; they were more like some two-dimensional layer of paint over the surface. And yet they had depth. That was the thing. At once, they were a discoloured projection onto the night-black skin-hull of the monster, and full, real objects, floating in the void, rotating yet eternally the same.

And then, again, they were just pained protrusions on a black skin; merely an optical illusion.

“Activate the weapons systems,” he heard the Major order, over the communications link. “Listen to me, Shinji,” she said, clearly. “I want you to look at the c... at the glowing red thing on its chest. Move the Eva’s head to look at it. Don’t ask questions. Just think about it, as hard as you can. Do it.”

The Harbinger made a noise. It was a noise which lacked a frame of reference to describe. If forced, Shinji would use words like “a kind of crackle, but also a tearing noise, and it was both wetly organic and resonant, like if you were running your finger over the rim of a wine glass made of meat,” but, from the vagueness and general incoherence of the description, it was evident that such a thing did not really describe the cohesive whole of the noise.

Moving... yes, he was moving his head to look at the radiant crimson sun mounted in the chest of the thing. Slowly, painfully, the Evangelion’s head slipped around.

The Harbinger was staring at him. He could feel it. His skin was itching all over, painfully, and there was some kind of commotion going on in the control room, but compared to everything else, that was meaningless. All he had to do was look.

“Listen, Shinji,” said the Major, over the shouting from Dr Akagi and the Operators, “what we’re going to do is fire the head-mounted lasers into the core. When we do that, I want you to... well, to try to attack the Harbinger with your other arm. Try to hit it in the red bit. The scientists are claiming that it might be a weak spot. You can do that, right?”

The boy nodded. He could look around, yes, and... well, the attempts to get up had at least proven that he could destructively flail around. There was probably time to feel guilty about the buildings he had demolished later.

Why is it just holding me? What is it doing?

“Is the strike force ready?” the Major asked, making sure that the communications link was closed.

“Yes, ma’am,” was the answer. “Three wings are zeroed on the coordinates, and an armoured company is locked on the thing’s back. They’re ready.” There was a pause. “And extra NEGA forces have followed Harbinger-3 here, including some M059-X MBTs.”

The black-haired woman nodded. “Good. And that’s an added bonus.” She turned to face her companion. “Are you ready, Rits?”

Ritsuko tucked an errant strand of hair back, and stared back, the blue light of her harcontacts filling her pupils. “Yes,” she said, the stress in her voice evident. “Another spike, but... still within safe margins. Just. We’re ready, weapons control has been passed over to the Ouranos systems. Get it over with quickly, Misato.”

“Right.” The woman slammed her hand down on the table. “Fire everything!”

From within the Evangelion, the screen briefly darkened as the four head-mounted lasers fired, the pulsed beams aimed at the dying star on the chest of the monster. These were joined as the missile packs on the shoulders emptied themselves into the Harbinger at point blank range, the guidance chips specifically overridden to arm themselves at less than their normal minimum distance. Asherah recoiled, still holding Unit 01’s arm, yanking it further upright, and Shinji winced in pain clutching his hand to the trapped arm.

That had the bonus effect of bringing the Evangelion’s arm in a neat arc, the open palm bashing into the red light and passing through, warping it from a sphere into a broken ellipsoid.

“Good job, Shinji!” shouted Misato, to general cheering from the control room; a celebration which was only accentuated as the impacts from the incoming missiles from the aircraft, and the arcanomagnetically confined high-energy plasma beams and raligun projectiles from the tank formation, which before had been doing nothing, tore off shards of the Harbinger’s flesh. The unnatural body sloughed off like molten wax to the impacts of the vECF charges, burning sun-substance and the explosive warheads, splashing to the ground.

A celebration which was halted as, like a ragdoll, Asherah tossed up Unit 01 off the ground, bringing one hand into the chest of the arcanocyberxenobiological organism with an impact which audibly shattered the thickened armoured plates, and, in an egregious violation of the conservation of momentum, sent the massive behemoth flying backwards through buildings in an arc which was wrong; too flat for something moving freely, and far too fast for how lazily the Harbinger had moved.

An arc which was halted as it slammed into the grey, crumbling facade of the Victoria Arcology, smashing through the armoured superstructure before, finally, coming to a stop deep inside the building, the impact denting the endoskeleton of the pyramid.

Blinking, thick breaths of LCL surging in and out of his lungs, Shinji blinked in the darkness. There was... there was actually a vaguely Evangelion-shaped hole that lead out to the brightness of the outside, the greyed, arcanochromatically-tainted walls no match for the momentum of a forty-metre tall titan. They had broken like dust to such an impact, the brittleness shattering like icing.

That was when the pain hit. All up and down his right arm. Turning his head... the Evangelion’s head slowly (ever so slowly), he could see the dark ichor oozing out, jammed machinery visible under broken pale flesh under shattered armour.

That’s not my arm. That’s not my arm. That’s not my arm, he thought to himself, over and over again. Or perhaps he screamed it out loud. How was it possible to tell the difference?

And there was light; the fell radiance of the Harbinger illuminating the wrecked interior of the arcology. It was walking towards him, slowly, placing one tank-sized foot after another, smashing its own way through the entry hole. Screaming, whether in rage, in terror or in pain (it was not clear, though the odds were on the latter two), he tried to focus on standing up, but he couldn’t. His mind jumped around, like there was a swarm of insects living in his brain and under his skin, buzzing and humming from thought to thought without settling on a single one. The Evangelion twitched and convulsed, but no definite motion could happen.

He could hear distant shouting and see the image of the control staff yelling at him, but his mind was filled with the pounding, regular footsteps of Asherah, the harbinger of his fate. The steps beat as one with his panicked heartbeats.

It stood over him, the sun on its chest the fires in which all thoughts are consumed.

In one smooth motion, a hand descended, and plucked out the eye of the Evangelion, crushing the stolen orb like a ripe fruit in its hands.

A fountain erupted from the empty socket.

And then.

Nothing.

(‘_’)

“... and that’s it,” Shinji said, his voice slightly croaky. “I mean, I don’t know, maybe I knocked my head on something, but I think I may have just fainted. Of course,” he added, a slightly vitriolic note entering his voice, “I suspect the experience of feeling like losing an eye is enough to knock someone out. Maybe. Just maybe?”

The doctor was silent.

“Um...” began Shinji.

“Are you sure you can’t remember anything else?” the man said, a slight hint of something Shinji couldn’t recognise in his voice.

The boy shook his head.

“Oh, well,” the man said, with a shrug. “Well, I expect you’ll want to rest again. Either way, I’ll be seeing you again, at some point... uh, we’ll deal with scheduling later. Remember, if you’re feeling uncertain, or having nightmares, or otherwise feeling odd, note it down. Uh... yes,” he said, checking something, “you should have my Grid contact details, please, send me a message detailing anything unusual you’re feeling.”

The boy frowned. “My... my PCPU got broken,” he said, dredging out a memory which seemed so long ago, but must really not have been.

“There’s a new one by your bedside table,” Simon said, his voice calm. “Given that it has a label saying ‘For Shinji’ on it, I would guess that it’s some kind of replacement. By which I mean, yes, it’s a replacement. After all, wouldn’t it be kind of difficult to do anything without one?” he asked rhetorically. He stood, pushing his chair back against the wall.

“Remember,” he said as a parting comment, “tell anyone if you feel at all peculiar, or have any unusual urges or thoughts.” The man blushed slightly. “That is, apart from the ones inherent to being a sixteen-year old,” he added hastily. “By the reckoning of my profession, they don’t really count as unusual.”

Shinji collapsed back onto the bed, staring up at the blank ceiling. One hand reached up to massage his closed right eye.

~'/|\'~

In a small blessing, the clouds had cleared, and now the whole of the greater urbanised area was lit in late August sun.

Of course, from the point of view of Misato Katsuragi, the “blessing” component was more appropriately viewed as an “annoyance”. Yes, certainly, from an ecological point of view, the fact that it hadn’t rained meant that the scrubbers had been able to bond to the arcanochromatic residue from the massive number of variant-electron catalysed fusion weapons, not to mention the tactical-scale warhead that had seen use, but from a personal point of view, it meant that it was getting annoyingly hot inside the hazard suit at the site of the cleanup.

“Misato, you were a frontline soldier,” Ritsuko had said, the smile obvious under her transparent faceplate. “Are you sure you just haven’t gone soft in your nice Ashcroft placing?”

It may have been true, but as she watched as they manoeuvred the scattered fragments of the armour from Unit 01’s arm and torso into the containment vessels, Misato couldn’t help but wish that she was in an exosuit, with a nice climate controlled interior, as opposed to just a thick layer of protective material and an air supply that she had to carry around with her.

Anyway, she thought to herself, I was a mecha jockey. Not a ground-pounder or a sardine.

Slumping down to one of the chairs, she flicked through the channels, the image filling her left eye. If they wanted her, they could come get her, she felt. At the moment, nothing required direct military involvement or use of her Advisor status; it was just scientists fussing over the area, and getting in the way of the engineers and the technicians who were actually clearing the place. The colonel the New Earth Government Army had sent to supervise their part of the clean-up looked just as bored as she did. She spared the man a wave, and got an equally lethargic one back.

“... and the main story remains the consequences from the unexpected assault by an unknown extra-normal entity against the London-2 region,” reported an almost-foppish-looking sidoci, his long white hair artfully styled in a way which was a blatant example of manufactured dishabille. “Despite the element of surprise, the primary component of the hostile strike force was quickly isolated, eventually self-destructing to prevent capture by NEG forces. Although the area remains sealed off, the Army and Navy have released footage...”

flick

“Casualty results still remain unknown, but they are estimated to be in the...”

flick

The woman stood, cape billowing, against a thunder-cloud backdrop. “You fool!” she proclaimed to the square-jawed hero, who stood at the bottom of the tower, red eyes reflecting the lightning in a manner identical to that of an owl. “I have bought him back again, and no one... none at all, shall question my genius. They called me mad! Mad!” Peals of laughter broke out, echoing the thunder.

“You’re the fool, Baroness!” the man called back, pointing his gun (a rather nice looking double-barrelled shotgun with a revolver feed and weird sparking machinery on it) at the deranged aristocrat. “That isn’t your husband... and it hasn’t been your husband for ten years! He’s dead; the thing walking around wearing his skin isn’t him! It just thinks it is! It’s a shade corpus, and, one day, it’ll remember!”

The gun roared, as both barrels fired, but, too fast for the eye to track, the Baroness leapt up, the camera panning in to show precisely how the shrapnel tore at her clothing, while leaving her flesh untouched.

“Release the Claw Fiends, Igor!” she shrieked, crouching, nearly naked, on the roof.

“Yeth, Mithrethth, I will do ath you requetht.”

Oh yeah, thought Misato. Meant to look like I’m at least keeping up to date on the reporting of the situation. Plus Doom of the Revenge of the Baroness of the Darkness of the West is old. Seen it before.

flick

“... the true heroes of this story have to be a squadron of Engel pilots, from the 3rd European Mechanised, who managed to engage the sole hostile survivor of the blast, and critically damage it.” There were four portraits displayed; men and women in their late twenties to early thirties, in full military dress uniform. “First Lieutenant Jenny Intry, Second Lieutenant James Hawass, Second Lieutenant Sarah Athena, and Second Lieutenant Wera Kawimani vy Devora were all killed, as the entity self-destructed, rather than risk capture, but in their actions, they saved uncounted lives.” The platinum blond woman bowed her head briefly, then continued. “Genevieve Aristide, the War Minister, has promised a ceremonial state funereal for the four, saying that they exhibited the best of the combined traits of humanity.”

Oh my, thought Misato. They actually used Scenario B-22. Oh. Rits is going to be really, really pissed to be letting Engel get the credit. She wouldn’t mind so much if it was just the tanks, or even conventional mecha, but the credit had to publicly go to an Engel squadron. Oh dear.

Turning off her optical bypass, she got up, and went to look for the Director of Science. An outburst was not what they needed right now.

~'/|\'~

Shinji sat back down, breathing heavily. More checks, and they’d finally let him walk around on his own, only being followed by a cat-sized drone, which clung to the ceiling and buzzed if he walked too quickly.

Everything in the hospital was just so colourless and faded. No, not faded. Deliberately stripped of all colour and life; cold and sterile and clinical. The lights were bright and uniform, and the white walls were stark. Even the attempts at decoration somehow only managed to accentuate the fact that this was not an environment which people were meant to be living in, that this place was designed for function over form. And the angles; there was not a single right angle anywhere. Everything was slightly curved, which spoke of the level of security that this place must have, if that kind of structural precaution was necessary. Cold and lifeless; such a wonderful feel for a medical facility. The environment seemed to match his personal feelings. What was it called? The ‘pathetic fallacy’, or something like that?

Well, Shinji was certainly feeling fairly pathetic. Less so than on previous days; he was, at least, able to move around on his own, thanks to an approval from the psychologist. But he was still bone-tired... what kind of phrase was bone-tired anyway? Are bones particularly famous for their lethargy? Are they the most slothful component of the human body? You would think that, since they’re the ones giving rigid structure to the human form, they don’t get tired, and never have to rest. It was probably a gross failure of natural selection if the skeleton got exhausted. Seriously, where did languages come up with these things...

They also had said that he might be easily distractible for the next few days.

Either way, he just sat back, and gazed out the window; out at the untouched, rural landscape before him.

Now, actually, he could properly appreciate the marvels of the Geocity. It was unlikely that you could find such an environment on Earth, properly, outside of such managed zones. A miniature sun, and a true one at that, the arcanomagnetically-confined aneutronic fusion reaction burning on the ceiling, rolled across daily, providing a sense of time which was so often lacking in normal arcology sections, where only those who lived on the outer walls got regular access to sunlight. Visible out the window, above the few low-rise buildings was an expanse of green. The dome had to be kilometres across to fit everything inside. There were trees down here; entire forests! There was a lake with... Shinji squinted, an island with a vaguely Greek-looking marble building in the centre. And everything was actual green-green, not tainted by the slightly-off prismatic hues that polluted too much of the surface, despite the attempts at ecological preservation. It was a deliberate attempt, he read, checking exocerebrum on his new PCPU, to try to recreate what a pre-human ecology would have looked like, as a source and a store of living genetic diversity quite different from the vast genebanks which had, from the start of the century onwards, begun the grim task of cataloguing an ecosystem blighted first by mankind’s hungry depredations, and later the horrors of the Arcanotech Wars and the Aeon War.

A flock of birds, bright cyan plumage shining in the man-made sunlight, poured past the window, flowing like an unending torrent. Hah. There’s actually some white ones in the mix, that could be foam, Shinji thought. He wondered if they really knew what they were doing, what they were like. And also if they ever flew too close to the sun, and got burned up, or got their brains scrambled by the fields. Maybe there was some kind of system that stopped them from doing it. Maybe they were just left to learn for themselves.

His thoughts were cut short by the sound of cushioned feet squeaking on the floor, and the ponderous rumbling of something heavy. He glanced down the corridor, to the source of the noise, to see a team of orderlies pushing a cylindrical tube, the top transparent and glimmering with projections.

Wordlessly, Shinji watched as they passed. There was a princess in the crystal coffin. That is to say, there was a girl in the life-support pod. That girl, the sidoci from before.

Her gaze never left his as she was wheeled past, the grey iris wrapped around a pin-prick pupil. Shinji shuddered, icy-cold fingers running up and down his spine. She was almost invisible in the sterile confines of the life-support pod, swathed under layers of fluid-filled tubes and the red of blood stains on despoiled blankets. At least there wasn’t the empty socket anymore; it had now been covered by a post-operation protective casing.

But still she stared at him.

grey eyes
red fire
drowning in fluid
pain

nothingness

Slowly, Shinji’s hand crept up to cover his own right eye, massaging it, feeling the spherical shape under the skin of his eyelid. He now knew exactly how that felt.

And then the snow-white girl was gone, and his heartbeat began to slow again. He slumped back down in the seat, suddenly feeling drained again.

Of course, in the original fairy-tale, didn’t the prince... do things to her while she was in a coma? the boy thought, with an internal wince. Yeah... I think he did. Yuck. Yeah, I distinctly remember Gany reading me the story, and then warning me about overly romanticising history. Or something like that. Pretty disgusting, really. He grinned, a little foolishly. I think I’d be a much better prince than that.

What the hell was my father thinking, trying to make her pilot like that? He paused. On the other hand... what the hell was he doing, putting a completely untrained person in that thing? Let’s be honest here. I really can’t follow the kind of thought processes we’re dealing with here. It’s possible that he had good reasons for doing it. Apart from the giant monster-thing, of course. The giant-monster thing that wasn’t him.

He did not know, and in unknowing, found no relief.

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

~'/|\'~

The Director of Operations for Project Evangelion found the Director of Science for the Evangelion Group in one of the sterile tents they’d set up, and, after going through the decontamination process, unsealed her helmet with relief, running a hand through her sweaty hair.

“Heya, Rits,” she said. Misato paused, not quite wanting to say anything which might raise the touchy subject, but not sure how to proceed. “Ah, the air conditioning unit,” she said, to no one in particular, in the cool air of the tent. “It’s really the greatest treasure of mankind. A real scientific success. The power of control over the climate.” A quick check revealed that the coffee in the pot was cold; a moment’s deliberation decided that putting it in the microwave was faster than making a new pot, and so it was done.

“You finally got the message, did you?” said the blond, with a hint of sarcasm, as she poured over a diagram. “Come over here; I need you to see something. Tune your implants to DEMO, by the way,” she added.

Flushing slightly as a check of her unit revealed that, yes, she had a missed message, the black-haired woman nevertheless complied.

The diagram was revealed to be a full three-dimensional map of the area filling most of the room, the ground-level hovering about eye-level, tracing the honey-comb of smaller arcology domes underground. The Geocity wasn’t shown. That was far too deep for this scale. And marked in flashing red was an almost worm-like trail, which dug in through the grey area of a chromatically-drained region, into the earth, before emerging again. And then there were the craters that pockmarked the area, culminating in one great one.

“Is that?”

Ritsuko nodded. “We’ve finally been able to piece the full passage of the berserk Unit together,” she said, with a sigh. “It’s taken almost two days, too. We had major black-box corruption, which made the onboard records unreliable.”

“It really did all that?”

“Yes. And Victoria wasn’t properly evacuated too, due to the attack on the airport. That would have produced additional casualties, had it not been for the use of the vECF warhead...”

“... you mean, extra casualties caused by us,” said Misato, flatly. There was a ping from behind her, as the microwave declared that it was done, but she ignored it.

“Well, yes. We’re not responsible for those deaths. That’s something that the NEGA has to answer for, not us. Makes everything easier.” Misato frowned at that remark. “It does mean less paperwork for you,” pointed out Ritsuko, which only deepened the frown. She waved a hand. “Never mind. What I was saying is... well, look at the passage. The fall through the weakened superstructure was unavoidable, but it makes everything more difficult. The fight between the Eva and Asherah collapsed several bunkers, and the damage to the endoskeletal structure of the pyramid is worrying.”

“Yep. I’ve seen what they’re having to do to save it. And,” Misato added, “having to dodge falling debris. I hate working in colour-drained regions.”

The scientist nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s the way that everything goes crumbly.” Ritsuko sighed, looking up from the diagram on the table, and Misato could see, with surprise, the redness around her friend’s eyes and nose. “What kind of victory is this, anyway?” she added, in a worryingly emotionless tone of voice.

Misato paused, before replying. “Ah,” she said, in a soft tone. “I was wondering why there wasn’t anyone else in here.” Ritsuko felt a hot mug pushed gently into her hands. Without taking a look, she took a swig.

It almost instantly was deposited back in the cup. “Bleargh!” the blond declared. “Yuck.”

“It’s just coffee,” said Misato, holding her half-empty mug, with a frown.

“Yes. It’s coffee. It’s so much coffee that you seemed to forget to put any water in. I should know never to let you...” The scientist let out a bubbling giggle, a slightly sick sounding noise. “You just heated up that pot, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“So did I. Several times.”

“Oh. How long has it been brewing?”

“Since yesterday, some time.”

“Oh.” Misato paused, as the other woman’s words caught up with her. “Oh. Ooooh.” She sighed. “Rits? How long have you been here?”

“Mmmmph,” was the response she got; a somewhat predictable one, based on the fact that the blond’s mouth was full of the overly strong coffee.

“When was the last time you slept?” A slightly weary entered Misato’s voice.

“Ah.” Ritsuko thought. “Um. The night before Harbinger-3 arrived,” she said, in a small voice.

Misato sighed. “That explains it, then. You’ve been hopped up on EOE for... four nights now.” The black-haired woman paused. “Okay... that’s it. You know it doesn’t replace sleep properly. You’ve known it since university.”

“Don’t bring that up. Completely different circumstances.”

“No, I’m going to do that, because after that time you spent a week up, and we had to drag you to hospital before you killed yourself from a stroke, you promised me that you’d never do it again!”

“Wait a moment!” retorted Ritsuko. “You made the same promise after I had to take you to have your stomach pumped, and how long did that take to be broken?”

“Six w... not the point! That was for fun, not for w...” Misato took a deep breath. “No. I’ve had sleep. I’m not going to shout at you.” She let out that breath. “Why are you doing this, Rits? You’re not so vital you couldn’t have had one night of sleep in the last 4. Even four hours, or something. And I know you do know how to delegate, even if you don’t like to.” She paused. “Come on, drink your according-to-you vile coffee.”

Ristuko slumped down, into a seat. “I had to make a report to the Council of Representatives yesterday,” she explained , in a small voice. “Oh, that went fine, don’t worry,” she reassured her friend. “Research... Representative Egger, was unpleasant, but she always is. No, it’s not that.” She winced, as she took another mouthful, blinking heavily as she swallowed. “But I passed the Twin Obelisks on the way in to Headquarters. They’d put new names up.”

Misato cursed under her breath. Of course, she thought. That’s it. She gets like this when she goes there. Add that to the lack of sleep... yeah, makes sense.

The Twin Obelisks were a fixture of any major Ashcroft Foundation; a way of commemorating researchers killed, incapacitated, or sectioned by their work. It was a tradition not without precedent. The eponymous Teresa Ashcroft, who had laid the founding grounds for arcane theory (although, in truth, her role was somewhat exaggerated; she was a manifestation of a wider school of thought, as the flaws in the Standard Model and Quantum Mechanics became evident, at the start of the 21st century), was the first name on the White Obelisk, which marked those driven to insanity by knowledge of that-which-man-should-not-know. Her supervisor, Simon Yi, was the second. And then was the Black Obelisk, which marked those lost, to death or irrevocable and absolute inhumanity; both fates were far too common for those who tested new sorcerous procedures or arcanotechnology.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that the former was for theoreticians and the latter for experimentalists. But it wouldn’t be utterly inaccurate, either. And it was arguable which one was worse. For at least one granted a drink from the river Lethe; the unknowing that comes from the unbeing of death or loss of self, while all the other could offer was the fractured existence of a broken mind.

Ritsuko glanced up at Misato, with reddened eyes. “I wonder which one I’m going to end up on,” she said, in the same flat voice. “It’s not going to be long. Just a matter of probabilities. Over half my class are there, by now. I’m already beating the odds.”

“Now, come on,” Misato said, worry entering her voice. “It’s not like everybody dies, or goes insane. Look at,” she paused, “well, I know you don’t like him, but Dr Miyakame from Engel was on the original Project, and he’s still okay.”

There was a short, bitter laugh. “Is he?” She shook her head. “And even assuming that’s true, and I don’t think it is, well... look at it. Him, Sylveste from Achtzig, and the Representative. Those three. The only three able to pass for sane, and still alive, out of an original Project of nine specialists.” She glared at Misato through narrowed eyes. “Dr Hathenep... torn apart by an uncontrolled prototype. Dr Vandebough... committed after a mental break that left him claiming that he could master n-dimensional terrain. And the murders, of course. And... and, well, the boy we just put in Unit 01; you’re aware of what happened to Yui Ikari. And, for that matter, Kyoko Zepplin Soryu.”

“I am,” said Misato. Her voice softened. “It killed your mother, too, I know.”

“Ha!” Ritsuko paused. “Yes, you’d almost think there was a reason I wasn’t mentioning her among the survivors!” she snapped, looking away.

Her friend’s face remained calm, not rising to the bait. “Ah,” the Major said. “Yes, it seems that you’re not in a fit state to keep on working. You’ve been awake for too long, and you’re going to start making mistakes if you don’t get some proper sleep. Formally, in my capacity as Director of Operations for Project Evangelion, I’m instructing you to call it a ni... call it an early afternoon. I want you to go for a psychological check-up, too; staying up this long, even on EOE, isn’t healthy.”

Ritsuko deflated. “Yes,” she said, in a small voice. “Yes, that makes sense.” She paused. “Thank you,” she said, softly. “Yes. You can drive me to the Clinic in the Geocity; you’re picking up the Third Child.”

“I am? Well,” Misato clarified, “I know I am, but I am now?”

“I did send you a message telling you that he’d passed the physicals and now the psychologicals.”

“Yes. Well...” and the way that she tailed off said it all. “How is he?”

“Physically, no external wounds. Mentally?” Ritsuko gave a somewhat laconic shrug, which turned into a slump. “Well... his memory is somewhat confused.” She raised a hand, to forestall the outburst. “His memory of the events is somewhat confused.”

She failed. “Mental contamination?” asked the Major, eyes flashing.

“Some. Negligible. I’ve heard it’s nothing to worry about.”

The other woman relaxed. “Oh, right. It’s... well, I’ve looked at Unit 01’s history, and, well...”

“Yes, I know. But, no, it seems to be fine.”

Misato relaxed. “Okay. Come on, then. The Foundation was... nice about getting me a replacement car,” she added, with a smirk. “It’s a Ventek SF-47-X.” At Ritsuko’s empty and somewhat weary look, she grinned wider. “Oh, it’s good. And it’s fast. And I have it. Well, at least until the insurance comes in, and I suspect that won’t be too long. Might even be fast-tracked.”

“It’s really not charming to gloat about how the systems fast-track you,” sighed Ritsuko. “Even if... yes, even if it is true. And I don’t need another explanation for how you managed to get both the company discount and the military discount. I understood it the ninth time. And don’t drive too fast. And don’t crash. In fact,” she added, as a thought struck her, “let the autopilot drive. I... uh, I need to talk to you about... um... things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Important things.”

~'/|\'~

There was a separate investigation going on; one on a much, much smaller scale. In a grey, cracked and crumbling hallway, smothered in a thick layer of dust and ash, figures in bright yellow hazmat suits were standing around, while a cluster of remote-controlled drones mapped the area.

Every citizen should have been able to recognise who they were, from the small, geometrical logo on their arms. They were from the Office of Internal Security. The OIS. They had marched in, and taken over this investigation from the Federal Security Bureau almost immediately, the suspect circumstances of the attack overriding the FSB’s authority over terrorism and actions on interarcology territory.

And, scattered around this lifeless, colourless environment, so rapidly succumbing to entropy, there were the... manikins. It wasn’t right to call them people. They weren’t that. For starters, they were dead, but it wasn’t that. Even if they were dead, such a dehumanising term would not have been used to describe their mortal remains. But these things, these brittle grey figurines were best not acknowledged as something which was once human. Because if that was done, then the mind fixed on those hollow, fragmented recesses which were once eye sockets, those glimmers of white enamel in the disintegrating lips, and the streaks of bone visible under colour-drained clothing and powdery flesh. Normally, there was something about a dead body which could only be described as ‘honest’; as in life, they were in death, cooling meat revealing the marvels of natural selection that had led to their life. And from death, nature returned, the body breaking down into the ecosystem.

There was nothing natural about this.

There was the hiss of an aerosol can, as another manikin was coated in a substance which bore most resemblance to varnish. This was a crime scene, even if it had been thoroughly ruined, and they were still going to follow procedure, because there still was a chance that they would be able to find out exactly what had gone on here. A very slim chance. The Office of Internal Security, as an organisation, was somewhat displeased by the fact that the crime scene had been contaminated by the close proximity detonation of a one-kilotonne variant-electron-catalysed fusion warhead. The only reason that it was only somewhat displeased was that the OIS did not get angry, as a statement of official policy.

That did not, however, prevent individual agents getting bloody furious, as long as they did not do so in an official capacity.

“Fucking army fuckwits and ArcSec morons and their fucking clumsy counter-intrusion attempts,” swore Agent Kain, pacing up and down, waving her hands in the air.

The only other woman in the back of the van sighed, and deactivated her harcontacts, her orange irises returning to normal. “Another problem, Samea?” she asked.

“You better believe that there is!” was the snapped back response. “I haven’t been able to get a full list of all the counter-intrusion procedures that the police and army teams set up in the databases... after four days! And there are active ghosts... hidden, I might mention. I was just trying to bounce some requests from a standard civilian PCPU... in emulation, of course... then dissect the countermeasures. My ghosts got fucking targeted! My goddamn ghosts! They have high-grade Limited Artificial Intelligences specialised in electronic warfare running on the local arcology Grid that are attacking any attempt to probe them. And tailoring their responses to how smart the intrusion method is. They’ve been giving me a dummy-network for almost two days!” She slammed her hand into the side of the wall, making the van rock slightly. “That is taking the piss, Mary!”

Mary Anderson winced, shaking her head. “Ouch. Well, assuming it didn’t spread any further...”

“I’m not an idiot. Of course they were boxed.”

“... just checking. Then... you should probably get a high-end specialist team in.” The amlati paused. “This is serious, if they can trick your ghost LAIs. Put the request into the Yard.”

Samea sighed, an angry noise through clenched teeth. “You know what the worst thing is. I didn’t even notice them. And I’ve warned the other analysts. We’ve been falling for this dummy dataset. Two days down the drain.” She stomped back to her seat, collapsing back into it. “This entire incident is a nightmare. Ruined scene. Complete systems lock-out. This is going to be taught to cadets as a nightmare scenario. I mean, fuck it, this is the plot for some stupid film, not real life.”

“I hope I’m the quirky intelligence analyst who guides the actual hero to his eventual success,” Mary said, brightly. “Ooh! I might even get a promotion to love interest. I hope the hero is the quiet sensitive sort. In glasses. Hmm. Maybe not glasses. What genre do you think we are?”

“What?” Samea squinted at her. “What are you talking about?”

“In the film.”

She received a glare back.

“Well... I’m just saying, I mean, if he’s an action hero, then glasses aren’t appropriate, while if he’s more of an intellectual, then... arglasses for the win.” She paused. “Okay, okay,” she continued, in a darker tone. “Look. I’ve been getting no more success than you have. It took long enough to secure the site, that none of the brains are any use. I’ve been trawling them... nothing of use. Too much decay to be able to get anything more than base response functions, even in the ones which weren’t greyed by the colour, or boiled by the blast. The people were anfrazzadi, nazzadi, or amlati... no sidoci as of yet, but the sample size is small enough that it could just be probabilities that they didn’t show up, and, anyway, they’re watched heavily enough that, unless you want a PP, you don’t want them, because they draw attention. That’s basically all I could grab so far. And you could tell that by looking at the bodies. So... nothing,” she concluded.

“New sample submitted,” stated the pleasant voice of her LAI.

“Oh!” Mary said, spinning her chair back around, and reactivating her harcontacts. “Let’s see what you have for me, baby... hmm. Male... Nazzadi for certain.” She checked the attached form. “Yes, knew so. I’ve always wondered why the Migou flipped the symmetry of the Nazzadi body,” she said, out loud. “Me, I take after Mum, but my older brother takes after Dad.”

“I really needed to know that,” muttered Samea.

Mary made a disgusted noise. “Too much decay. Won’t be grabbing anything of use from the cerebrum intact. And this one was frozen as soon as they found it, too. Useless and annoying. I much prefer working on live brains. It’s much easier than trawling dead ones. Hmm... actually, no, the just-dead are the easiest; neuron activity tends to induce errors, unless you get permission for a destructive map, and they tend to bitch about doing it to live subjects.” She made a few gestures. “Zombie, start the destructive trawl,” she instructed the LAI. “No... abort that,” she corrected herself.

“What is it?” asked her colleague.

Mary spun back around. “It’s just... well. Too much of this investigation is going wrong. The body samples are all ruined, the brains are rotten, there’s no live witnesses, and that’s even before the arcanochromatic contamination.”

“We’re all thinking that, I’m sure. I’m certainly finding it goddamn suspicious. It...” Samea clacked her teeth together, while looking for the right words, “... it doesn’t match, frankly. On one hand, we have this elegant, precise attack, which subverts ArcSec, the local security networks, seals them off...”

“... and on the other hand, we have a disparate group with no shared backgrounds, using unregistered, untraceable, brand-new, but light sharders and machine pistols... which isn’t enough to reliably do stuff to people in ArcSec type armour, let alone proper armour. But does, very well, kill civilians.” Mary sighed. “The former seems to have had a goal. The latter seems to have just killed people.”

“But even that doesn’t make sense. Why waste the kind of assets you’d need to get all those unregistered, unchipped weapons into a secure airport? You’d need to have subverted security to get them in, and we haven’t background-linked any of the civilian ones to have the kind of distribution network you’d need to pull that off. Seriously, I’d swear that none of them knew each other before this. I’ve seen the checks on their social networks.”

“You mean the summaries.”

“Well... yeah. But the civilian group must have been a decoy for the ArcSec group,” Samea said, slowly. “It’s the only thing that I’ve heard that makes sense. But... it doesn’t feel right.”

“I know. According to the reports we have, the civilian group attacked first, and then the ArcSec group opened fire. But if they’re there for an objective...”

“Then what the fuck were they doing? And what did they want?”

“I have no idea.” Mary paused, flicking her attention back to the LAI. “Go on, Zombie. Start the trawl.”

The same questions, and chains of thought (except from divergences into film preferences, which were much more varied on an agent-to-agent-basis) were being repeated all throughout the local OIS. And none of them had any answers.

~'/|\'~

Shinji sat in the atrium of the clinic, swinging his legs. The new clothing they’d given him (apparently, the containment fluid had ruined his old set) was still rather stiff and had that slight rigidity that wouldn’t come out until it was washed at least once.

He hated it when they were like this. He would have changed, but... well, he didn’t actually have any other clothing on this continent. He’d lost his hand luggage at the incident at the airport, and hadn’t even had the chance to pick the other baggage up before the attack. There had actually been some important stuff in there.

At the moment, he was engaged in an epic quest to try to recover his muse. The Limited Artificial Intelligence had been linked to his now-sadly-deceased personal CPU, and thus had been lost. Naturally, there were back-ups; it wasn’t like the vast repositories of data that any human being generated or obtained in day-to-day life were actually stored on a device that could be held in a hand, or, in some cases, folded up like paper. The limits of information storage capacity imposed by quantum mechanical effects were such that a standard PCPU couldn’t have held a fraction of what anyone generated (or stored, or retained). Each device was little more than an terminal for a vast, hidden network of measurably more complex machinery; the quantum computers and data archives (which disposed of their vast quantities of waste heat in D-Dumps, D-Engines run in reverse) unseen by those that used them.

And, unfortunately, those data stores were, for him, in Japan.

The problem existed on two levels. Firstly, there was the simple issue of data transfer; the Grid was not the open, free environment of the pre-AW1 Net. That had been murdered by the invading Nazzadi fleet; its open, amorphous nature too susceptible to assault by a foe who knew what they were doing. And the Migou had passed only a fraction of their systems knowledge to the Nazzadi; even now, units engaging the forces of the Yuggothian fungoids had to physically isolate the communications systems from the rest of their onboard computers, and work under the assumption that any code which was not encrypted by a one-time pad, or by quantum cryptography, was vulnerable. Hence, the Grid was isolated, segmented, with sections only synchronising with each other at fixed intervals, any desired data transfers analysed by high-end ghost LAIs for possible contamination.

There was also the problem of proof of identity. In a sense, one’s data cache was one’s self for all non-face-to-face interactions. There was almost certainly enough information there to build a convincing digital simulacra of its owner; several convincing celebrity sex scandals, back near the birth of this technology, were enough proof of this. Hence, Shinji Ikari was dredging his memory for ill-remembered passwords, and suspected that he might have to go for a gene-verification. It would be easier, after all.

Muttering under his breath, he gave up, and slumped back in the seat. It wasn’t like he couldn’t do that later, and, frankly, he just could not be bothered to go through this whole mess right now.

The PCPU chimed, the LAI (a stupid, generic one, by Shinji’s reckoning; completely devoid of the heuristic training that made a muse a muse) informing him of a call from Major Katsuragi. He answered.

“Yes.”

“Shinji, it’s me,” Misato said, unnecessarily. “I’m waiting outside. I’ve sent you a map beacon. Come on.”

Several thoughts ran through the boy’s head. Among those were Couldn’t you just have come inside?, What’s happening?, I don’t want to speak to you, you put me in a giant robot and used me as a child soldier!, I’m tired, and don’t want to do anything, and, of course, I wonder what she looks like naked. It remains eminently possible, of course, that the last thought was not sourced from his brain. But what he actually said was, with a groan, “Okay,” as he pulled his aching body to a vertical position, and slouched towards the exit, following the map on the device.

Misato greeted him with a wave, standing next to a greyish-green car which looked vaguely like it was breaking the speed limit, even while remaining still. Inside, though, she was slightly nervous. She hadn’t ever intended for the Foundation to pay attention to the fact that she’d claimed the “Assets” subsidy when getting her current apartment. Well, that wasn’t quite true. She had actually vaguely contemplated the possibility of getting a nice, pre-house-trained flat mate, or, at least, failing that, a cute man who she might be able to ‘accidentally’ walk in on.

A sixteen-year old boy had not been who she had planned. Come to think of it, she probably should have cleaned up the flat in the time since she had been told, but... eh, what was the worst that could happen?

Actually, this kind of slightly perverse humour meant that the finger of blame was quite possibly directed at the Deputy Representative. She wouldn’t put it past that old man, especially since she’d also been, discreetly, told that when they moved Unit 02 over from the Eastern Front, there would be another guest. She always had the feeling that he was somehow laughing at a lot of things, watching silently from over Gendo Ikari’s shoulder. It was probably better than crying, which she suspected that she would do if she was forced to spend too much time around her penultimate superior. One of her penultimate superiors. She had once tried to work out who she actually reported to, and had given up in confusion. And had needed to be been drunk to even attempt it.

The boy that stood in front of her, she thought, the chain linking seamlessly into another, as she looked him up and down... well, there was something physically that suggested that he was related, a certain sense of familiarity about his appearance. But from the rest, well, he hadn’t shown any sign of being a suave political operator or a cold technocrat... unless he was really, really good at it. No, that wasn’t plausible. The very idea was ridiculous.

His gaze was also, notably, lowered a certain amount. Well, it was really her fault; she had known that she was going to be spending the day in various hazard suits, so was wearing a strappy top. At least she was wearing a bra; that would have been rather embarrassing. She still coughed, and suppressed a smile at the way his gaze guiltily leapt back up to her face. She kept her eyes on his face as she explained the situation, that she was now his legal guardian, and that he would be staying with her. There was a surprising lack of protest; not only a lack of vocal objection, but very little chance in body language, either. He’d either been told already, just didn’t care, or... well, those were the only two possibilities she could think of. He certainly didn’t seem to be a skilled enough dissembler to cover such things. Although there was always his heritage to take into consideration...

No. She had to stop being paranoid about this, just because he was Gendo Ikari’s son.

“Are... are you okay with that?” she finished.

There was a shrug. “I didn’t think it was likely I’d be allowed to go home,” he said, no real emotions in his voice. “And one place is pretty much the same as another.”

Misato sighed, an emotion split between annoyance and relief. “So you’re fine that you’re not living with your father, then?”

Something flashed in his eyes. “Yes, I’m fine with that. It’s probably for the best, all in all. I haven’t lived with him since I was four.” He paused. “I’ll still be able to keep in contact with Y... with my foster mothers?” he asked, with a warmth in his tone which notably hadn’t been there when talking about his father.

The black-haired woman nodded. “Yes, of course.”

“Then it’s okay, then.” A hint of sadness in his eyes belied the statement.

“Don’t worry,” said Misato, with a grin at his discomfort. “I’ll be on my best behaviour. Come on, it’ll be fun!”

~'/|\'~

“Nah... na na na!” Misato sang, along with the radio, as she pulled down, skipping just over a section of flooded ruins, leaving a wake behind her. “Na na na na, there are three floooooooo-wers in a vaaaaaa~aaaaase...” She pulled the control yokes sharply, and the car pulled upwards, pushing Shinji back against the seat, as the stereo blared.

Why! Why! Why did she drive like this? He had a slight tendency to motion sickness normally, but this... this was far beyond anything he had experienced that didn’t involve sitting in a giant robot and being fired up a chute. And at least that had been linear. He was feeling sick. He was feeling so sick that the contents of his stomach were feeling sick, and they weren’t about to move, or they themselves might throw up.

On the plus side, it did mean that he hadn’t actually been sick yet. And it wasn’t that she was a bad driver, in a technical sense. In fact, in a technical sense, she was very good. It was just that she seemed to treat the car as a low-flying fighter craft, taking hostile fire, rather than as a... well a car. Certainly, he hadn’t met anyone before who would disengage the autopilot just so that she could fly at just above building level, and ... argh! That had been a spire from a ruined church or something!

“Na na na, the third of theeeee-em is... huh,” Misato turned her head sideways to the boy, who had a fist crammed into his mouth, and was trying to whimper and hyperventilate at the same time, with only limited success.

“Keep your eyes on the road!” Shiniji tried to say. It came out as an incoherent, unintelligible squeak, but at least he had tried, right?

“Don’t worry,” she said, cheerfully, “we’re almost there. I’ve got something to show you. It’s a good place.” The car levelled out once again, at a nice, safe, not-less-than-one-metres-above-the-ground-while-in-free-flight-mode flight. “You know,” she added, drumming her fingers on the control yokes, “I really don’t use my out-of-Arcology permit enough. Haven’t had time recently, I guess. Oh, and make sure you’re wearing your mask when we get out of the car. The scrubbers should have caught most of the a-chrom contaminants by now, but... better safe than sorry, right?”

Shinji declined to comment, and, when they landed, limply sort of flowed out of the car and out onto the grass.

“Oh, come on,” he heard Misato say. “Get up. It wasn’t that bad, was it?” He wanted to make some kind of incredibly witty comeback, which would leave her grovelling in knowledge just how unpleasant her driving was, but, looking up at her, figure over him looming in the twilight, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. She looked so enthusiastic, eyes gleaming, and a wide grin on her face, visible under the filter mask, like she had really enjoyed the drive, and couldn’t understand why anyone else would not.

Also, he couldn’t think of anything good enough to produce the desired result.

“I... I... uh, I think I’m just feeling a bit weak from all the... everything,” he lied. Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie, he was still feeling a bit floppy and uncoordinated, but it was by no means the main cause. She helped him stand, and guided him over to a seat by a railing, looking north towards London-2.

Above him, he heard the cry of a bird, and looked up. There was some kind of... he squinted into the setting sun... some kind of predatory bird, he guessed, circling up above, free and unconstrained.

Misato followed his gaze. “Huh,” she said. “Isn’t that a... a falcon?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither, really. I think it’s a cybird, though.”

Ah, yes, thought Shinji. That sort of took the pleasantness off the naturalism; the knowledge that even a bird was nothing more than an autonomous surveillance system from the point of view of mankind, and something it would make use of as it saw fit. It was monitoring them even now, the cameras implanted into its body tracking their thermal signatures, and sending its signals back to its handling systems.

But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t still beautiful. Well, maybe not beautiful, but at least awe-inspiring in some way.

“But look,” said Misato, gazing back towards the north. “Look at it.”

Lit by the setting sun, London-2 was visible. The flattened, tiered pyramids of the above-ground arcologies were gleaning in the light, painted red by the sunset. In between their kilometre-wide bases, was a forest of interconnected skyscrapers and apartment buildings, sealed off from the world outside in their own way. Looking around, the boy could see the matt shapes of defence systems, breaking up the city and shaping it to resist assault; London-2, like all modern arcology complexes, was a fortress city. And that was not to mention the honey-comb of arcology domes under the city, protected by the surface and the armour plating or, even deeper, the Geocity, ten kilometres down. That they could build something like that, so deep... well, Shinji felt, in retrospect that was far more impressive than the mere fact that there was an artificial ecology down there.

“Wow,” he said, softly. “It is impressive, isn’t it.”

The Major shook her head, sadly. “No,” she said. “Look... look to the east. Wait a moment.” She went back to the car, retrieving a pair of binoculars. “These’ll help. And don’t look at the sun directly,” she added.

Shinji signed. He was looking to the east, and it wasn’t like he was an idiot. But, yes, looking in the direction Misato had directed, up above the shining river of iron oxide and silver that was the Thames, he could see it. One of the arcologies was not shining in the light. No, it was matt grey, and through the lenses, Shinji could see the crumbling, broken outline. There were tiny brightly coloured dots flocking all over it; he thought for a moment that they might be birds, before he got a sense of the scale, and realised that they were maintenance vehicles, trying to hold the structure together, and remove the damaged sections, before they collapsed and damaged the largely intact skeleton of the structure. And looking around, he could see the trail of damage around the area, the later, smaller blast mark, and then the area where he had... done the thing.

“Is that...” he asked, already knowing the answer.

Misato nodded. “Yes. That’s the place they used the warhead on.” She sighed. “I know why we use arcanochromatically enhanced warheads. The variant-state electrons mean that you need less energy to set it off, and the colour does something funny to Migou and Storm monsters, even if they survive. I’ve seen it happen. But... “ she sighed again, “I’m not always sure it’s worth it. Look at the grey. Look what it does to stuff. They’re going to have to ship it off to a dump-site, because it’s useless. And... I just hope too much colour didn’t enter the water system. It’s just good it didn’t rain.”

“We were too close to that,” said Shinji, in a small voice.

“Yes... oh, no, if you’re worried about that, people only really get affected at the kind of ranges that mean you’ll be dying from the blast.” She turned to face him then, eyes gazing down from on top of the filter mask. “Listen to me, Shinji. Look at that. Look at how much damage that did. And it didn’t kill it. But you... but you,” said the Major, her eyes aflame, “you did. You saved the city, which meant that they didn’t have to use any more of those things. And... 24 million people... that’s like half a percent of the world population. They’re all alive, thanks to you.” She paused. “You did well,” Misato added, the corners of her eyes crinkling up.

They stood together in silence, gazing out over the city, as the sun set.

“Come on,” said Misato. “Let’s go home.”

~'/|\'~

Misato, as it turned out, lived in one of the deeper domes, which stacked like honeycomb under the surface (though still far above the Geocity). A cluster of apartment buildings made a series of concentric circles around a central garden-square, the architecture all too typical of 2070’s neo-post-classicism; the structures vaguely Mesopotamian in their stepped pyramid design, but cast in the whites of marble and in steel and glass. The dome and apartment security was rather impressive, too.

“Oh, this is a fairly common place for higher ranking people in the Foundation or some of the IPcorps to live,” explained Misato to his question, once they had cleared the inevitable blood scans. “It’s a bit of pain, but I... and you, too, were always going to have to put up with it, here.” She paused. “I haven’t been able to get the rest of your stuff shipped over,” she explained, with a slight awkwardness, “but that should be coming soon, right? And, uh, I have been kinda busy the last few days, so, the apartment might be a bit of a mess.”

The door slid open. Shinji paused, before stepping in. “May I come in?” he said, almost reflexively, in his native Japanese.

Misato smiled at him, widely. “This is your house from now on,” she replied, in the same language.

He stepped across the threshold. “Well, I’m back,” he said, softly.

“Yes, you are. Now, come on,” Misato said, hefting the bag of shopping she’d picked up in between the... ‘flight’ was still, unfortunately, the best word he had come up with to describe it, and actually getting here, “You’ll want to put this in the fridge.”

The boy paused. Shouldn’t that be your job? I don’t even know where the fridge is?

“It’s on the right. Go on through... it’s a fridge. It’s kinda obvious.”

That was a lie. That is, insomuch as it was obvious. It was, in fact, obscured by masses of plastic crates, the kind that any civilian nanofactory could make cheaply, and in large numbers, and the sheer number of bottles of various alcoholic drinks which littered almost every available surface.

Shinji could feel his skin crawl at the sight of all that mess.

It’s not like it’s even hard, he thought. Just dump the rubbish in the nanofactory, and it’ll be broken down, and you get the raw materials back. He could even see the bulk of the machine, tucked away in a smaller room off the kitchen. Can she really not be bothered?

Of course, he didn’t say any of this out loud. But if he was living here, then there would have to be some changes. Gingerly, he poked at the pile of stuff on the table, clearing some space for the bags, so he could unpack properly, and swung open the door of the nearest of the two fridges.

There was beer. There was ice. There were bottles of various sauces and spicy things. The grinning man on the Planetary Hot had a large thumbprint stain over his torso.

Oh... yuck. She really must have no sense of taste. The actual food in the fridge was the cheapest, blandest open-source stuff you could find, the kind of thing that only poor students, or people who were morally opposed to IP locks and were bad at finding alternatives on the Grid ate. Slaps of greyish-pink-white protein in plastic containers, the kind that you’d take whole out of a nanofab, and slice off when you wanted to use it. Sacks of noodles, and, worse, they were the ones made pre-cooked, that you just heated up, the insides of their bags coated with starch that crackled when he swatted them aside. Greenish fibre-mash, that somehow managed to have the texture of something organic while lacking anything specific. And nothing that they’d bought, looking through the bags, was a valid meal; it was all side dishes and more beer and/or sauces.

Shinji shuddered, and patted for his PCPU. Well, at least he’d bought some proper saved templates, and some good-quality raw material designs, saved in the... internal... memory... of... his...

Damn. Hello, bad quality food. Must remedy this. Fast. Or will lose will to live.

“I’ve finished changing! You can go make yourself at home, your room’s first on the left... or is it second. Oh, I’m sure it doesn’t matter.” Misato stepped into the kitchen, dressed in... well, she was decent. Decentish. “I think it’s time to start cooking!” she declared.

The lack of a thunderclap or howling of wolves in the background just showed, in Shinji’s opinion, that reality did not have a proper sense of dramatic necessity.

The food was not actually as bad as he expected, as he stared at the bowl of green and greyish-yellow and pink before him. It was worse, because it was mixed in with a bright orange and a dull red that had blended in a way, he shivered, looked a lot too much like LCL for his stomach to really handle. Just looking at it bought to mind the metal-and-oil-and-something-else taste, and that thick texture filling his lungs and stomach and...

At least he had managed to grab some of the prawn crackers before Misato had smeared blue all over them. He was currently contemplating making a play for the vegetable-rice which, despite the red poured on the top, didn’t look too inedible, compared to the pink stuff on the meat she’d bought, which even the smell of had left him clutching for a glass of water.

“Well, eat up!” she demanded of him, already cracking open another can of beer.

Now, if I were some kind of Machiavellian genius, he thought, I would have some kind of ploy to deal with this. The grey protein floated in the noodle soup. Okay, well, let’s take a look at my priorities here. I know that the protein is going to be bland and functional, as are the noodles. I don’t want to eat the fibre-mash, because that stuff... well, it’ll keep you alive, but on the other hand, it’s sort of disintegrated in the soup, so it might not be so bad, as it’s declumped. The sauce is right out, because nothing that’s called ‘Planetary Hot’ is ever a good idea to eat, and that colour... bleargh.

Well, here goes. Like a falling eagle in pursuit of a job as a prophetic symbol, his chopsticks snatched up a snake-like mass of noodles. The metaphor broke down at that point, because his mouth did not resemble a cactus, not even topologically, but, nevertheless, he ate them.

The mix of tastes was interesting. To a forensics expert, certainly. And if he closed his eyes, they didn’t look LCL-coloured, which made them almost palatable. Emphasis on the ‘almost’.

“Oh, come on, don’t be a wimp,” he heard. “The sauce is the best bit! And you need to eat properly. After all, you’re just out of hospital!”

And I’d really rather not go back there, he thought, with a hint of vitriol.

He opened his eyes to find that he was staring down her top, as she leant towards him. He quickly lowered his eyes to the bowl, and fished out a chuck of protein, swallowing it with a weak grin in her direction, which he tried very hard not to turn into a wince.

“Good. I don’t want you to wither away, after all,” Misato said. She flushed slightly. “And I’m not just saying that as the Operations Manager for Project Evangelion,” she added hastily.

A thought that had been nagging at the boy raised itself again. “Why are there so many Japanese people involved in the Project?” he asked. “I mean, there...”

Misato flapped a hand, narrowly avoiding slopping beer from the can it held. “No, I get it. Was originally going to be in Toyko-3, that Geocity. But, you know, they decided... some time ago, ten years ago, maybe, that the way that the threat from the Storm, the way that Leng just ate Tibet, and kept spreading... well, it was too dangerous.” She shook her head, a darker expression on her face. “And that was before the Fall of China, back in ‘86,” the Major added, in a morose tone quite out of keeping with her normal voice. “It was very worrying then.”

“I... I suppose that makes sense that they moved it, then. But... didn’t you object at all to having to move everything. I mean, wouldn’t it make everything more difficult.” He smiled. “I mean, it must have been a pain to move the Evangelion all the way here.”

Misato glared at him, though narrowed eyes. That... that had probably been the wrong thing to say. Then, quite deliberately, she slopped some beer onto the boy. “I’m not that old,” she said, her tone outraged. “I... I was still at uni then, I’ll have you know! Not much older than you are now!”

“Uh... sorry.” Wait! Why am I apologising! You just splashed beer in my face! If anything, you should be saying sorry to me!

“Eh, it’s all right. I can see that you were using the group ‘you’, and so not at all suggesting that I’m that old. Were you?”

“Of... of course not.” Hag. Wait, no, should I be thinking that? Probably not. That’s a bit extreme. Mentally, I’m sorry, Misato, but I’m not saying that out loud, because then I’d have to admit that I thought it, and I don’t want to be splashed in the face with beer again.

“Then you should probably go clean yourself up, then. There should be some fresh clothes in one of the rooms... I can’t remember which I dumped them in, and there should be a bath ready. It should be free, now.”

Shinji nodded, and got up. Actually... that hadn’t gone as badly as he might have thought. Sure, he may have got some beer sloshed onto him, but at least he hadn’t needed to eat the food. So, with a bit of luck, Misato would be selfish, and eat the rest, and then he could go prepare himself something bland and functional from the ingredients in the fridge; something that hadn’t been ruined by the addition of too much flavouring.

Wait, what had she meant by ‘should be free, now’?

Sitting back, her third beer in hand, Misato heard the scream from the bathroom. Oh yeah. No, wait, he should have seen him by now. Or had he?

She shrugged. Well, they’d probably met now.

“Misato!” she heard the desperate call. “There’s... there’s a giant albino p-p-penguin in the bathroom.”

“Oh, that’s just Pen-Pen,” she called back. “He’s a lodger.”

“H-he’s not letting me out of the corner!” was the desperate-sounding response. “He’s... he’s staring at me!”

“Oh, that’s just because he doesn’t have very good eyesight,” she called. Should she get up? No, not really, she thought, as she leant across, to take the remaining prawn crackers. “He’s just getting to recognise you. Just flap at him with your hands if he’s being a pain.”

“I... I really, really don’t want to move my hands. He might go for me. They’re guarding...” Shinji paused, “...something very important. Do birds eat... uh, sausages?”

“Well, they certainly eat worms,” Misato called back, with a grin.

“You’re not helping!” There was a note of panic in the boy’s voice.

Misato sighed. She’d probably extracted the most comedy that she could out of the situation. Reaching for the toothpicks, she extracted a chunk of protein which had got stuck, as she leant forwards, scooping some food onto Shinji’s plate, before putting it on the floor. “Pen-Pen,” she called out, “Food! Also, beer!”

There was a noise which sounded remarkably like “Wark!”, and the monochrome bulk of an Antarctican Urbanised Albino Emperor Penguin came barrelling through, red eyes filled with hunger, and decended upon the plate. There were, indeed more “Wark” noises, as its atavistic tooth-like ridges that ran along its beak got to work on the food. There was a pause in the noise, as he stopped, to squint up at his mistress.

“Wark.”

Misato nodded. “Oh, right. Sorry.” There was the sound of her breaking the seal on the can of beer, before she passed it down. A clawed wing-hand took the can, and put it down next to the plate. “Pen-Pen, that was Shinji. Don’t hassle him, please.”

“Wark?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Wark? Wark-wark.”

“Yes, he’ll be here for a while.”

“Wark?!”

“Of course not!” Misato shook her head. “I... I don’t... it doesn’t...”

“Wark.”

“Oh, right.”

Shinji lay back in the bath, and listened to the insanity outside the locked bathroom door. This... wasn’t what he expected. Not the fact that there was an Antarctican Urbanised Albino Emperor Penguin living with him. That wasn’t anything that anyone could expect reasonably. If he had expected anything, it was that he might be placed with someone like his foster mothers. Not like... this woman. Whoever had thought that she was a good carer for a teenage boy should probably lay off the hallucinogens, and stop listening to the green elephants.

Still... Misato might be okay. I don’t think she’s a bad person. He paused. Well, she has no sense of what’s good food, and is a slob, and, when we get down to it, is sort of responsible for using me as a child soldier. So, she’s sort of a bad person. But that’s sort of her job... wait, the cooking and laziness has nothing to do with that. So... well, she’s no worse a person than most people. Except most people don’t use child soldiers.

Well, she’s not my father.

~'/|\'~

The two figures stood on the hovering platform, high above the Evangelion bays. Below them Unit 01 was covered in moving figures, the remote controlled drones under the control of the Ouranos systems, as it prioritised sections for manual repair, and ran containment protocols. Beside it, on the other side of the massively reinforced wall, Unit 00, obscured by the bright-orange and raw metal of the emergency restraint Type-Null armour stood. Its back was exploded outwards, deconstructed as a team pulled apart its power systems, trying to fix the flaw that had prevented proper deactivation.

“How was Rei?” asked Ritsuko, softly, lowering the exo that she had been working on. Gendo merely stared down, through obscured eyes. The scientist couldn’t tell which of the Evangelions he was looking at, though.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“You went to the hospital today, didn’t you?” she asked.

Gendo did not look at her. “She’ll be able to move independently in 23 days. The new eye will be functional in 15. I have taken actions to ensure that she will remain useful during that time period.” He paused. “Less recuperation would have been needed, had she not been moved.” The last words were not ‘admitted’, nor were they ‘muttered’. They were merely ‘said’, in the same, clinical tone.

“It’s for the best that we didn’t have to use Unit 00 in the Type-Null,” Ritsuko remarked, glancing back down at her thread. For once, her harcontacts were off, her pupils and irises no different from any unmodified person’s.

“The Council of Representatives backed me fully in this,” Gendo said, ignoring her. “Even Research, though it pained her. Our allies on the Council have agreed that we should try to keep all the Units operational; we have all the valid RTE exemptions.”

“If only one hadn’t been in Vegas...”

“Yes. That was an... annoying loss. Though it was expendable, assets should not be wasted like that.”

Ritsuko paused. “Have... have you talked with Herkunft yet?” she asked. “After what happened...”

“Yes. I have a meeting with the Director on the 27th. She is... concerned, too.”

“She is afraid what happened eight years ago will happen again.” It was not a question.

“Undoubtedly.” Gendo paused, a deliberate silence. “Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich,” he said, softly, as he stared down at the arcanocyberxenobiological monstrosities below.

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

~'/|\'~

Staff Sergeant Grigol Marikiev lay up at the ceiling, and stared blankly up at the darkness.

His hand crept to the side, and slid the dimmer switch up, until the darkness was banished, leaving a grey. Besides him, Ponaya rolled over in his sleep, and muttered to himself. Grigol ignored him. He was pretty sure that he wasn’t going to be sleeping tonight. He hadn’t slept properly yesterday, either.

Or the night before that.

He was certainly going to have to talk about it at his next PsychEval. He sat up, and rubbed one tired eye with the back of his hand. Did they have any sleeping tablets left? A check in the bathroom cupboard, up high, revealed that, no, the packet was empty.

He could run out and get some. There was a diagnostic booth nearby, as there was near all military housing. The Limited Artificial Intelligence would certainly give out weak sleeping tablets, and it would automatically flag it for his next PsychEval.

The man let out a grunt. Like he was going to forget to mention that.

He crept downstairs, feet light upon the pale carpeting, and, scrabbling at the wall, flicked the lights on. Ponaya wouldn’t be able to hear the tap from down here, would he? Probably not.

The water was cold against his skin. He felt flushed, overheating. Staring at his reflection in the darkened window revealed puffy, bloodshot eyes, obvious even at a glance.

There was some paracetamol in the medical bag in the kitchen, wasn’t there? Or there might be some sleeping pills.
“Holding position,” Zaly had reported in, from her Type-M059-X main battle tank. This had been followed by reports from the rest of his squadron.

“Hold fire,” he had reminded them. “Don’t fire until authorisation comes from Command, even if we’re fired on.”

“Yeah,” his own gunner had muttered, from her pod above him. “Don’t want to draw the ilumihamobi’s attention.

He had reprimanded her with a brief word, but she had been right. It was horrible, parked here, A-Pods slowly inching their way along, tracking the beast. It was a dark silhouette in the twilight, a patch of nothingness that blocked the own fell radiance of that sun on its chest. It had not been moving much; it had been almost as if it was looking for something.
Oh God, let there be sleeping pills.

There were none.

The urgent orders had come through, and they had been forced to move, as, suddenly, the blackness of the Harbinger had welled and swelled into a tumultuous wave of unreality. The Type-M059-X and Type-M055 MBTs had disengaged from their low, ground-hugging combat tactics, and given chase, more akin to pre-arcanotechnology helicopter gunships than a tracked tank.

The useless medicine bag slipped out of his suddenly slack hands, and clattered to the ground, the contents spilling all over the place with a rattle and a clatter, the pills inside their containers bounding around with a noise like dice.

Following in that terrible smooth region that the dark-wave gave, the electrical discharges of the reneutralising air arcing harmlessly off the hardened shell of the hovertanks, had been unpleasant. Buffeted by the air-currents, chasing something that he could barely perceive, so heavy had been the autocensors’ marks; he never wanted to go through it again. He never wanted to remember it again.

With a muffled curse, he grabbed a beer from the fridge. And paused, and put it back, and went in search of something harder.

There had been other units, waiting where the thing had reformed, and, on the battlefield map displayed on his optical jack, there had been air units holding place above the battlefield.

And there had been the other thing. It was not like the Harbinger; it was manufactured, in the splotched, split colours of human camouflage. But... if it had been smaller, he would have said that it was an Engel. He had served with Engels before, even if they were a bunch of over-promoted, arrogant creepy wierdos with thousand-yard stares, and those blatant cybernetics on their spine that, he was sure, was part of the reason they were... off.

That had been a difficult break-up, in retrospect.

But that thing... it had been too large, for one. Even the biggest Engels, the Seraphim and Chashmalliam (and they were the superheavies) would only have reached up to its thighs. At most. God. It had to have been forty metres tall, at least.

And the Harbinger had grasped it, and it wasn’t fighting back.

Grigol sat down heavily in front of the television, and took a mouth of the... he’d picked up a bottle of konbutwihyohi, and it burned like the blazes when going down. That... that had probably been a mistake, he thought, as he blinked. This was the stuff which could be used to make a Molotov cocktail or sterilise a wound. The stuff that you didn’t need to put in a clean glass.

He winced, as he took another swig. No, he hadn’t made a mistake. This was exactly what he needed.

Slipping on a pair of arglasses (he couldn’t be bothered to connect his optical jacks up), he bought up the control panel. After all, the so-called television was just another terminal for his Grid profile. Turning down the volume, he flicked to the main news, and took a smaller mouthful as soon as he saw what they were still showing.

Liars. That’s what they were, liars. There hadn’t been any Engels involved. He’d have seen them. Which meant, by (drunken) deduction, that that thing hadn’t been an Engel.

as it went flying, backwards, following a trajectory that was wrong to the eye. Grigol had mourned, as his heart fell, because they’d actually been doing damage to the Harbinger, and the armoured not-Engel had managed to weaken it, with that close-up attack on that red... red, scarlet, crimson...

Gagging, Grigol Marikiev dribbled what remained of the burning alcoholic drink, as he bent over, gasping with sudden remembered nausea. A wave at the control panel turned the screen off, and he sat in the darkness, breath ragged, the bottle held at his side. He had to get out of the house. It was cramped in here. Get to somewhere else. Maybe one of the other domes, one of the ones that didn’t follow the terrestrial day-night cycle. Get out of the dark house, without waking Ponaya.

from in the crumbling arcology, something roared. No, ‘roared’ wasn’t the right word. It was the gargling scream of a man with his tongue removed as his lungs filled with his own blood, of something young and yet old in pain. So much pain that there was no more intellect to spare; something bestial and horrible and terrible.

He shrugged on a jumper. It was the nearest to hand. No need for a shirt, and it wasn’t like it ever got cold down in the underground arcology domes. Quite the opposite; they had to keep D-Dumps running to get rid of all the waste heat that so many power-hungry citizens produced. Shoes were slipped onto bare feet; his pyjama bottoms wouldn’t draw any attention.

The bottle of konbutwihyohi was resealed, and slipped into a pocket. It was still useful. And with that done, Grigol lurched out the door, wiping his drenched forehead with a sleeve.

Then, there had been nothing, but a crashing, as the greyed out, arcanochromatically contaminated overground arcology slipped. Even the red light of the monster was gone, and the babble of Command’s contradictory orders had filled his ears. Confusion had reigned.

It was better outside. Better in the hallway for the military apartment complex, brightly lit and cooler. Clutching at the railing, to overcome the feeling of vertigo, and the suddenly too-close drop, the man staggered along. It took him three jabs with a thumb to hit the lift button

the ground cracked, one of those smooth areas where the thing had done what it did which melted everything. The ground... everything shook, lethally grey buildings falling into shards of brittle colourlessness, the thick dust choking the air. The ground shook again, and again. There was something happening underground.

The man could barely stay upright by the time that he got to the ground floor. Everything was spinning. Pausing, he took a mouthful of the burning liquid. It seemed to help, in a not very helpful way. That is to say, although things stabilised, the nausea only worsened, as the fluid stung his mouth. He only managed to swallow about half of it, the rest dribbling out through lips it hurt to close, numbed by the alcohol.

Wincing, he felt his lips. The red of blood could be seen on his hands, even through tear-filled eyes, and the taste of iron was now a necrotic undertone to the ethanol taste of the konbutwihyohi. He’d bit his own lips or tongue or something. Didn’t matter.

and then the pair emerged from the ground, locked in an embrace, rolling, rolling, a pair of brawling gods cut from their father’s stomach. Poisedon’s hands beat down upon the black skin of Hades, before Pollux got one lamprey-tipped finger into the guts of Castor, and sent it arcing once again through the air, tumbling helplessly as it smashed through buildings and crushed armoured units. The fire from the tanks and the aircraft was almost meaningless in the fight between the two behemoths; the sun-bright beams from the Type-M059-X experimental main battle tanks only chipping at the flesh of the thing, only for the void-flesh to regrow, twisted and broken.

The figure of the Harbinger was barely humanoid anymore, as the humanoid symmetry was broken. It was a monstrosity of warped, cancerous unflesh, those bone-like protrusions shattered and smeared across its surface, tenebral blood-fluid oozing from its flesh. Right on the top, by its right arm, was an entire section torn out, with what looked like teeth marks scoring it.

The bottle fell to the ground, the slow glug of emptying fluid an echo to the gloing of the resin as it rolled across the floor.

Oh God. Grigol patted his pockets for his PCPU. He needed help. And he succeeded in turning up nothing. Of course. It was in his trousers. Back in the room.

Slumping down on the floor, the man stared up at the light. It was good, right? It was light. It wasn’t dark. Not dark like the monsters. And not red light, either... proper white light.

white light.

Shimmering, glimmering crystalline light. Silver and silksteel and silent sussurations that sang in his skull and spoke of the silence that stood just out of sight.

No. Oh no.

oh yes.

The not-Engel pulled itself to its feet. It was slick with some kind of dark ichor, flowing freely from its punctured eye and the cracks all along its arms, and the gut wound from which fragments of flesh hung freely. It opened its maw again, though, diamond-teeth contaminated with the shadow-flesh of the Harbinger, and roared its dying, gurgling scream, the hydraulics in its jaw gnashing and twitching. Lowering its head, leading with the vicious horn, it charged at its foe again, claws on too-long arms slick with the mixed blood of the two monsters. If its arm was damaged, it was ignoring it.

No. Please. No. I don’t want to remember this. Let me forget. Please.

it happened. Why deny it?

Because...

...one of the Harbinger’s arms was entirely useless by now, swollen and bloated; more akin to some leg afflicted with elephantiasis than any kind of manipulator. It managed to raise the other arm, though, and the line of force it had used to slice apart the battleship suddenly was, again.

It hit the not-Engel in the chest, and... stopped. The oncoming monster screamed, but it was a scream of rage, of hunger, not one of pain, and leapt upwards, shifting in mid-air so that its clawed hands and open maw were pointed towards its prey.

And there was light

Not the light. Wrong! Wrong! Unclean!

He had seen the diorama, even through the autocensor. On the left, stuck in mid-air, the human monster, unmoving. On the right, the alien thing, that one remaining useful hand held upright, palm forwards. In between them... the light. A wall of broken diamond, making its own light and letting light shine through it, to make a lattice of should-not-be-yet-is.

The not-Engel reached out, with a gesture that was too subtle for a beast, yet was not something a man would do. Almost gently, it penetrated the brightness with the long, thin claws on its damaged right hand; pale, ichor-soaked flesh prominent in the bright light. That apparent gentleness was nothing but a lie; with a sudden burst of violent speed that left the air screaming in chorus with the triumphant agony of the armoured beast, it tore open the light. Sudden dark, almost vein-like channels ran through the adamantine brilliance, before it ceased to be, in a ripple of force that propagated out, knocking the hovertanks around like toys.

The not-Engel slammed into the Harbinger, bowling it over and over and over, the metal fiend obviously in control of the grapple this time.

Grigol clutched at his skull, palms clutched to his eyes, as he writhed around on the floor. He... he didn’t remember this! He hadn’t seen it! Not like this! The autocensor had been in the way! He couldn’t have seen it.

evangelion was hungry. Kneeling on the chest of the Harbinger, it began its butchery. The claws, blades shimmering with the light of broken diamonds as the D-Fields were forcefully activated to supplement its arsenal, found their way into the void-body of Asherah, levering out the bony growths, tossing the fragments of corpus away, as the rigid definition of the Harbinger softened, resembling the wave-form in the areas where the Evangelion had begun to work. But that was not its main goal. The arcanocyberxenobiological warmachine slammed its horned forehead into the radiance on the centre of the chest, over and over and over again, prominences erupting from each impact, squirting disturbingly vital jets out with each impact, which burst over the landscape, painting the greyed, crumbling landscape in Picassan tones.

Something, a single something, hung from the Evangelion’s mouth; something disturbingly organic, almost akin to a tongue. But if it was a tongue, then it hung down far too far, and writhed and spasmed with an intent which seemed conscious.

I don’t know this! Writhing, twisting, spasming! Horrible!

One desperate last blow from the Harbinger missed its intended target, as the Evangelion ducked, the blow catching one of the shoulder-fin things, snapping it off, and sending it spinning, like a deranged coin, off. The Evangelion caught the arm above its head, and, with a twist at the waist, first broke it in one place, then at a second. With a malevolent slowness, Unit 01 worked the breaks against each other, twisting and turning in the gouts of tenebral fluid that escaped from the thing.

It grew bored.

One blow to the already-damaged shoulder severed the limb, tossed away idly, before the beast got back to its fun.

Grigori was in a ball, sobbing freely. His body felt wrong in every way. Crawling blindly along the ground, he mewed for anyone to find him, on hands bloodied and scraped.

fun indeed. Perhaps that was too much for Harbinger-3, too much for that which mankind had dubbed Asherah. Twisting, it wrapped its bloated remaining limbs around the Evangelion, expanding and swelling, losing coherence as it assumed and consumed Unit 01 under unshaped darkness. The alien organism lost all cohesion, and detonated, propagating outwards, twisting and deforming anything it touched. A vast crater was its gift to the Earth, a perfectly spherical pit of destroyed matter, one last abuse.

Nothing could survive that.

Surely.

Surely?

The Evangelion raised back its head, both intact eyes aflame with a terrible actinic light in the darkness, and screamed its triumph to the universe at large.

Its armour was damaged.

Its flesh was mutilated.

But it was alive.

Gloriously so.

They found Staff Sergeant Grigol Marikiev at 05:08, on the 24th of August, 2091, curled in a corner, out of sight of the cameras.

He had chewed out his own tongue.

He was not the only one so affected. The manifestations of the rapid-onset Aeon War Syndrome were by no means identical, of course. But in the patterns of self-mutilation, in the mutterings of those who could still speak, there were certain patterns. Certain themes.

It was to be expected, after all. The exposure to a Harbinger-grade entity was a terrible thing.

~'/|\'~

In the middle of the night, Shinji Ikari woke up on an unfamiliar bed, shivering uncontrollably, forehead slick with the sweat of nightmares.

Rapid, hollow pants filled the silent night air.

Hugging his legs close to his body, he stared at the light of the alarm clock, watching it tick away the seconds, shaving time from infinity.

What happened out there! What did it do? What did I do?

That was not the source of the terror.

I think I’m starting to remember.

~'/|\'~

The room, if indeed such a term could be used to describe an apparently infinite plane surface, was cold. Gendo Ikari did not let such things show though, even as he felt his blood freeze. It was only an illusion, anyway, he thought, as he stared at them, over the top of his steepled fingers, concealing his mouth. He wasn't actually physically here. And neither were they.

They. AHNUNG. They may once have had names, but now, it was best to think of them with mere identifying tags. Gendo actually had some fairly accurate guesses for their true identities, but that was all that they were; guesses. He didn't know for sure. But they were all, bar one, ancient. And that one, he was sure, was no longer even close to human.

White. Blue. Red. Green. Yellow. There were others, but only those five had deigned (as they would no doubt view it) to meet with him now.

White spoke.

“Your success against Harbinger-3 has been noted.”

Green spoke.

“As has the collateral damage inflicted on the surrounding city, and which the Evangelion itself has suffered.”

Blue spoke.

“Was it wise to give such a vital component to your son as a plaything?”

The contempt in the old man's voice was painted on his face, fringed beneath wisps of hair.

Gendo gazed back. “Such losses were inevitable. Now the NEGA is aware of the least of the dangers posed by the Harbinger-type entities, the Evangelions will be given free rein to deal with the threats.”

Red spoke, her voice halting, not stuttering, but somehow distorted.

“Y-y-you are sssaying that it was inherently n-n-necessary.” She paused. “Per-per-perhaps. But-but-but I do not believe that you... went about it in the m-m-most efficient manner. I think you-ou-ou were grandssstanding. That isss... highly inelegant.”

Green spoke.

“Nevertheless, it has been deemed to be adequate.”

White spoke.

“Satisfactory.”

Blue spoke.

“Tolerable.”

Yellow spoke.

“What must be done is necessary.”

Red spoke.

“Y-y-you know what wasss so un...expectedly di-di-discovered by the... fools of preceding generationssss.”

Green spoke.

“On Callisto.”

Yellow spoke.

“On Pandora.”

Blue spoke.

“On Europa.”

White spoke.

“In Lemuria and Antartica.”

Gendo stared impassively at them; no emotions showing. To an outside observer, it was as if he could have waited a thousand years for their answer. Certainly, he was not about to let his inner feelings seep out in from of them.

Blue spoke.

“The goal has been deemed one worthy of any sacrifice which does not compromise the end-objective.”

There was a pause, as if some kind of internal discussion was going on, in a circuit he did not have access to. In fact, that was almost certainly what was happening.

White spoke.

“Your progress has been deemed satisfactory. This meeting is over.”

One by one, the other figures, lit in their colour, vanished into the blackness of this infinite plane.

White remained, and spoke again.

“Gendo Ikari. You are instructed to ensure the success of the Human Iteracy Project. It is not possible for you to back out now. The only valid route is success.” The final figure vanished.

Gendo smiled; smirk hidden behind white gloves.

Are these old fools so blinkered that they believe that their way is the only way.

Or are they just too scared to step from their path?

Well.

They will be shown another way.

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 3

Becoming a Child / There was a listening fear in her regard

AEON

~'/|\'~

“...and no matter what others may claim, it has been, and always will be the position of the Church that the so-called ‘soul’ is nothing of the kind, that it is not the perfect, inalterable gift blessed upon us by God, and that, in fact, to call it a ‘soul’ is a gross inaccuracy. The True Soul is a blessing by the Lord; it is the self in a very real sense, and so is far beyond the understanding of Man’s reason. It grows and swells with Virtue, and suffers and withers with Vice. By contrast, the arcane construct which, sadly, has been given the title of ‘soul’ by a secular scientific establishment, which, by that very deed, seeks to denigrate faith, is not, and cannot be the True Soul. One can live without an animaic waveform, and many do; to lack it is a mere medical condition, which removes the possibility that one can study sorcery or possess parapsychic powers. But no person is born without a True Soul, and one cannot lose one’s True Soul, though the weak and foolish may give it away to the servants of the Adversary. The True Soul is the concern of faith; the animaic waveform is nothing but secular physics. And the two are fundamentally different.”

Carlos Fernadez, Bishop of Brazilia-A
Excerpt from his speech, February 19th, 2091.

~'/|\'~

25th of August, 2091

The two figures faced each other over the expansive desk. One leant forwards, face utterly impassive, his eyes obscured. That one was impossible to read. The other was slumped back in his seat, eyes skipping from the man’s face, to glance around the room, never settling on one place for too long. Nervousness, fear, tiredness, an underlying current of simmering anger; all these could be read with ease in the bright white light that filled the room.

Around them, in this vast hollow space, occult symbols floated, the light from the drone-screens occasionally painting Shinji and Gendo Ikari in colour when they moved close, only for the hint to be overwhelmed as soon as they moved away.

They didn’t actually mean anything, to anyone who could actually read Enochian, Tsath-yo, Salaamian Standardised Code, or any of the various formats in which sorcerous rituals were commonly. That did not really matter. Gendo knew that his son could not comprehend them, and they looked really impressive. Even if the modern sorcerer was more of akin to a doctor or a scientist than some tower-dwelling demon-summoning occultist, some things never changed.

Of course, Gendo Ikari did actually have a tower. And he was scrupulous in denying that he summoned unsanctioned extra-normal entities.

Shinji, for his part, was feeling suitably intimidated. And tired. And a bit nauseous, because Major Katsuragi had decided that he shouldn’t take public transport yet, and so had driven him here, even if it involved going up to the surface, and back down. The thing was, Shinji liked nice, predictable, smooth maglevs. They didn’t induce motion sickness. Or require the use of fighter pilot-grade restraints.

The inconsistently locked gazes were broken by Fuyutsuki’s cough.

Gendo nodded, once. “Shinji,” he began. “You are aware of why you are here.”

“I can guess, father,” the boy replied, trying to keep his voice neutral, level, and failing.

Good, the man thought. He is in the right emotional state. Some might have queried whether one really wanted to negotiate with someone who was angry at you. Those people missed the point. Gendo had no intention of negotiating. As far as he was concerned, there was only one way that this could end, and in the pursuit of that goal, it was his task to ensure that the conditions were optimal.

“Then we can skip the unnecessary preamble.” One finger pushed a slipping pair of arglasses back up to the bridge of his noise, as he stared down at his son. “You have a natural talent for piloting the Evangelion. That talent is needed; in all the time that we have been searching, we have found only two other people, and you have seen Test Pilot Ayanami already. She is in no state to do so at the moment. Therefore, we want you to join the ‘Children’ Test Pilot programme.”

Shinji glared up at his father. “Really? In that case... no. No, I will not.”

There was an almost unnoticeable shake of the older man’s head. “You failed to enquire about what it would involve, or what the alternatives are,” he said, a faint noise of disapproval entering his voice. “Fuyutsuki, explain what the Test Pilot programme entails.”

The white-haired man cleared his throat. “The Test Pilot programme is designed to ensure that candidates can be involved in the activities demanded by the Evangelion Group and the necessities of training and testing, while ensuring that the ethical concerns are minimised. It enables a normal life to be maintained by the candidates, including full-time, mainstream education, rather than tutoring, to prevent them from ending up detached from society. The candidates, the so-called Children, are paid as a full-time test pilots, despite a greatly reduced work schedule, and count as employees of the Ashcroft Foundation when it comes to access to IPLibraries. The programme has been vetted by both the Foundation committee on Ethics, and the New Earth Government, as being legally compatible with child-labour and risk laws.”

Shinji cocked his head, a faint sneer creeping onto his lips. “Very nice presentation,” he said, only glancing to Fuyutsuki for a moment, before his stare returned to his father. “On the other hand... I could just not be a child soldier, especially not in a giant Engel, and especially, especially not after how I ended up hospitalised after the first time. So, really, no.”

“Fine.” Gendo’s words were flat and level.

“Fine?” Shinji echoed.

“Fine,” the man repeated, the corners of his mouth turning up in a disconcerting manner. “I cannot legally force you to do it. Of course,” he added, as if the thought were just striking him, “I also cannot prevent your intuitionalisation on global security grounds.”

The boy groaned. “And here comes the stick,” he subvocalised, as his father’s head remained unmoving, presumably staring at him . “Explain?” he said out loud, trying to keep the shake out of his voice.

“The genetic factors that contribute to a talent for synchronisation with an Evangelion are not understood, and that makes them dangerous,” the man said, in a level tone. “It may be a form of Outsider Taint which somehow has evaded detection . It may be a previously unknown form of parapsychic ability; he is about the right age for manifestation, is he not?” Gendo asked Fuyutsuki, rhetorically.

“Indeed, he is,” was the response.

“It may be even be something more sinister, like...”

“I get it!” snapped Shinji, visibly paled and shaking. “You first give me the nice option, then you threaten to have me declared non-human

“Of course not,” his father said, flatly. “You would have to choose to join the Test Pilot programme of your own free will, so we cannot therefore be threatening you, if we want you to join... which we do. And,” he added, “do you really think I would do that, that I would be able to do it, if there wasn’t a real risk? You think that I would not be affected by the fact that I too would be under suspicion for carrying the same factors?” There was a sudden forceful tone under Gendo’s voice. He paused, the motion of his eyebrows showing the fact he was blinking. “You have a choice,” he said.

Shinji glared at the opaque glasses that covered his father’s eyes. What was that man looking at under there? he wondered. Did he not even want to give Shinji his full attention? Well, he thought, okay. I’m going to end up doing this, because he has given me no other choice. But... it can’t be too bad, right? Well, yes, it can, because that thing, that Harbinger-thing, was horrible. But they called it Harbinger-3, which, logically, means that it must have been the third one they identified. Or maybe the fourth. Do the numbers start with zero, or one? He shrugged, mentally. But if this is only, at most, the fourth, then they must be rare. I mean, this was a massive story, and I’d have heard about it if they were more common. So they shouldn’t be that frequent. And it’s not like I’d have to do it alone; there are other Evangelions, so it’s not like I’d be sent out on my own to face the next one. This was just a special case because the sidocy was injured. It’s going to be all right.

No, it’s not going to be all right. But I’m going to have do it anyway.

“No,” he said out loud. “No, I don’t have a choice. If I didn’t take the offer, then I’d be crazy enough that I’d probably deserve to be declared mad and mentally unfit.”

Gendo leant further forwards. “Good,” he said. “Kozo, you will take him to the briefing room, and give him the full details and explain in full. After that, come back so we can sign them.”

The older man nodded. “Yes. Come with me,” he said, turning down to glance at Shinji, who, with one resentful glare at his father, stood and followed.

Gendo Ikari was left sitting, alone, in the cavernous office, staring blankly at the door. Shaking his head, he took off his arglasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose, running gloved index finger and thumb over his closed eyelids. That had been harder than he’d thought it would have been. The boy had Yui’s jawline, and the sight of it set like that had been a far, far too familiar experience. Well, that and the tone of voice.

No, there was neither time for sleep nor remorse yet. He had far too much he had to do before he could spare the time for either.

The glasses went back on, and the mask returned, as if it had never been removed.

~'/|\'~

26th of August, 2091

“Okay, Shinji. This time we’re going to take it slowly. We’re starting with,” Ritsuko checked the data stream on her harcontacts, “simple limb movements. We’re not even going to ask you to try walking again, until we’re sure that you have control over your limbs... we estimate that we might be able to try some time today.”

She stared into the fluid-filled testing chamber, at the vast shape which hung, too-long limbs restrained, impersonating the Vitruvian man. Of course, this exercise had an equally important purpose; calibrating the user profile and synchronisation tests. She would have loved to have used the simulation bodies for this, but that wasn’t an option, sadly, as experience with previous Test Pilot candidates had shown.

A small window opened up in her left eyeball, from one of the Operators. “Dr Akagi,” reported Second Lieutenant Cheung, her body down in the full immersion chamber, “we are ready. I am pleased to report that my Direct Magi Interface Node is stable. We can begin building a personalised profile as soon as we start getting the data.”

Ritsuko unconsciously nodded at the amlaty, a human reflex quite separate from the fact that the other woman was only an image on the permanent hard contact lenses fused with the front of her eyeballs. “Yes, thank you, July.” She closed the window with a gesture, and leant down to one of the conventional technicians. “You can begin now, Aoba; start running him through the checks.”

~'/|\'~

27th of August, 2091

“You know, Rits, it probably would make sense to get him to learn how to stand up on his own,” Misato said, as they waited, once again, for the superheavy lifters to pull the Unit back up to an upright position, the cables tied to it straining under the tension of a forty metre high arcanocyberxenobiological monstrosity. At least it was a nice day down in the Geocity. Of course, when one controls the entire moisture cycle of a self-contained self-sufficient sphere with a false sun, there is very little excuse for not knowing what the weather will be like. Even in the British Isles.

“Yes,” the scientist snapped back. “And when he’s capable of the complex series of motions required to get him to stand up on his own, he won’t be falling over so much.”

“At least he’s doing it less.”

“Yes, that is something.”

Misato threw the other woman a sideways glance. “You’re just annoyed that he’s damaging the paintwork, aren’t you?”

“You’re one to talk, getting irritable about people damaging your paintwork. And, no, for your information,” the blond added, “we’re specifically using the test paint, not the standard deployment camouflage. It’s easier to check for cracks.”

“It is very... purple. Except when it is very green,” said Misato, solemnly. “Looks almost like an A-War 1 Vadoni.”

“Same type of paint, actually,” Ritsuko admitted.

“Makes sense.”

There was a pause.

“So, how long do you think he’s going to last this time? He’s been improving... I’d say he’s going to last,” Misato wobbled her hand from side to side, “...hmm... half an hour, as long as he doesn’t have to run.”

“Misato! We are not starting a betting pool, especially when sensitive and, yes, potentially breakable military equipment is involved!” snapped Ritsuko.

You might not be, but I’m already ahead against the Operators, is what Misato Katsuragi very much did not say.

~'/|\'~

1st of September, 2091

The weather outside had apparently stayed clear for over a week; something that the hazard teams in charge of the clean-up after the battle against Harbinger-3 had been thanking whatever deities they believed in. Already, the debris was largely cleared, the contaminated, chromatically-drained areas demolished and the remains reprocessed into blocks. Some were fated to be used; there was certainly a use for such a material, but inevitably with such vast quantities produced, most would simply be deposited in underground storage facilities, ironically used as shielding and containment for Colour production facilities. It was important to distinguish chromatically-drained regions from arcanochromatiaclly contaminated substances; the former were merely dead, anathema to 1-state life, while the latter contained traces of the Colour, which could contaminate other things, and breed. The slightly... off nature of vegetation in many parts of the world spoke of improperly contained Colour.

The concerns of clean-up were not exclusively concerned with such arcane matters. There were also more conventional worries; munitions did not have a 100% successful detonation rate, and vast quantities had been hurled at the monster, let alone the ones which missed, their smart systems safely disarming the dangerous weapons, leaving them littered across the ruins of Old London.

For that reason, more than a few illicit organisations had been expressing interest in the area of the conflict. One of the major restrictions what could be produced by the kinds of nanofactories available to civilians, and even most private groups, was the limits on arcanotechnology in all its myriad forms. And a major component of almost all arcanotechnology was variant r-state elements, the so-called elem-n-ents. Compared to the amount that could be obtained by breaking open D-Cells, to extract the miniscule amount of elem-n-ents in the superconducting battery, the existence of a vECF warhead was a motherlode.

The New Earth Government was quite aware of the fact that there were people interested in such things, of course. A restricted state of martial law was still in effect, under the Environmental Safety Act of 2084, and a truly comprehensive network of security cameras and CATSEYE scanners (the latter to detect the presence of warding sorceries designed to obstruct electronic or human-visual detection) had already been set up as a perimeter. LAI-controlled drones, the car-sized bulk nevertheless hard to see, as their colour shifted to match the background sky, hovered, armed and permitted to fire upon invalid persons within the excluded zone, guiding patrols of armoured vehicles and powered armour.

Sadly, this was Old London. A city which had been the site of population for millennia, a dead metropolis lying on the corpses of its ancestor-selves. It was not exactly short in underground routes, and, although the extranormal-entity-infested remnants of the old Underground network were sealed off, it was not as if anyone capable of surviving a trip through the expansive catacombs down there was not capable of making their own way out.

In the filthy, vile-smelling darkness, a middle-aged woman knelt, fingers pressed into the dark mud. She was of Indian sub-continent origin, that much was certain, but beyond that... there was an uncertainty about her features; something slightly blurred, as if there was a thick layer of glass that moved to cover her, no matter which angle one looked at her from. “Death...” she muttered softly, to her companions. “Rot... carcass, multiple days dead.” She nodded. “Our contact is here.”

The teenage amlaty beside her, waif-like in her proportions, but similarly blurred, gripped the almost-comically-oversized submachine gun in her hands tighter. “Sure?” she asked, a hint of a Nazzadi accent in her voice.

“Yes.”

“Good, ‘cause, well, we’ve been looking for him for too long. I don’t like it down here. It... tastes bad, smells bad, you know what I’m saying? I just want to get outside, out into the proper air.”

“I’m less sure about the taste... but, yes. I just hope we get to him. There are too many butterflies flapping around up there. They’ve got their own sources, but they know we’ll be after it.”

“You know we can go when we find our contact, Many, and not any sooner.”

The girl slumped. “Yeah, I know.”

The woman stood up, adjusting the strap on the rocket launcher slung on her back (a cumbersome weapon, especially in such tight quarters), and pointed down one of the paths splitting from the intersection. “This way. Not too far.”

‘Not too far’ in this case involved half a kilometre of slow, ponderous climbing down old maintenance hatches, as the scent of rotting mud and sewage grew stronger. This wasn’t a place for convenient bioluminescent bacteria or faintly glowing magic crystals; this was a made place, the only light coming from the all-too-irregular emergency lights, which remained embedded in the flesh of this dead city, kept alive by... someone.

And then they found their contact. Sprawled on the ground lay a body several days dead, the bloated rigidity speaking of clotted blood in veins. There was not even the mercy of an intact funeral for this man (not that bodies were buried nowadays; they were broken down into their raw materials, as a precaution against the myriad uses there were for an intact corpse); things had obviously feasted on his body, the flesh gnawed off and the guts picked out. That was not the thing that the two women were paying attention to, though; there were moving shapes packed around the edge of the room, pale, leathery-skinned things, with a canine set to their features. They were clad in clothes so covered in the filth of the down-below, that their original garments were almost invisible, under the layers of caked-in muck. In the light, their teeth, thin, dagger-like things, the teeth of a carnivore on a too-wide jaw, gleamed.

But their eyes; their eyes, in blues and greens and browns, were all too human.

The older woman broke into a grin. “Ah, Christopher!” she said, to the largest of the needle-toothed ghouls, as she looked at the stacked piles of military-grade munitions, high-explosive and microfusion warheads stacked on top of each, while utterly ignoring the commonplace sight of the body. “You have done well. I think that’s enough to have earned your bonus... if they’re all intact. If they’re not, of course, and you’re trying to cheat us, I’ll have to set Mantodea on you, but... it looks hopeful. We will be able to use this to good ends.”

The monster echoed the smile, pieces of flesh caught in his stinking mouth. “I am not dumb. I will not lie to you,” it gravelled, the words made in the back of its throat. “I do not want to die.”

~'/|\'~

Shinji looked around Misato’s apartment, and stretched, aching muscles still sore from the extended periods spent in the entry plug. The control chair wasn’t actually uncomfortable, it was not as if the New Earth Government or the Ashcroft Foundation were unfamiliar with the fact that being stuck in a fluid-filled capsule for hours at a time was not the most pleasant thing that one could be doing. The problem was that he had been stuck in it, for the majority of each day, for a week. And all that sitting down and thinking was really hard work.

Shinji was aware of how that would sound to a purely hypothetical observer capable of hearing his thoughts. Or a mind-reading parapsychic, who could actually be doing it. Either way, if they objected, he was going to hold their heads in a tank of LCL until they dro... damn it!. Hmm, he should think up some other ironic punishment.

Or he could just sit down, and do nothing for once. That was probably easier. At least he had got the apartment cleaned up, and therefore could actually touch the surfaces without his skin creeping. There really was no excuse for that. Seriously, had Misato never been taught to clean up after herself, or was she just a slob?

No, he corrected himself. Had she never been taught to clean up for herself, as well as being a slob?

Either way... Shinji groaned. He had been able to properly walk... uh, that is, he while piloting the Evangelion had been able to properly walk since Sunday, which had been the first day he hadn’t fallen down at all (which had, he was pleased to say, resulted in some compliments even from Dr Akagi and the technical staff, though, he frowned, Misato had seemed a little disgruntled, which was confusing), and now they had started weapons training.

They don’t seem to get how hard it is, he thought. The control sticks interfere with fine manipulation with the hands, and it’s hard to keep the chains of thought separate. Aim with the Evangelion, fire with the controls. It couldn’t be worse if they made the thing have to pull some oversized trigger; at least then, I wouldn’t have to think-pull my body-fingers, not the Eva-fingers. So what if I make a few mistakes?

At least they had been feeding false sensory data to the Unit, as a form of a simulation. It would have been mortifying to have actually levelled a non-negligible area of the pseudo-arcology around the pyramid-structures. And in his defence, he had thought that the Ouranos Limited Information Tactical Analysis Network that was apparently the interface between the superconducting QUI devices on his head and the actual Evangelion, was meant to stop that kind of thing. And then he had been scolded by both Dr Akagi and Major Katsuragi for relying on an LAI for target discrimination, instead of thinking for himself, and things had gone downhill from there.

This entire thing was stupid. If they wanted proper, professional pilots, then they should have got them. And if they didn’t want to do that, for whatever stupid reason, then they should expect him to act like a person forced into something that he didn’t want to do because of his father metaphorically offering him a carrot or a stick to pilot, and then threatening to stab him with the carrot.

Pulling out his PCPU, a scowl on his face, he flicked through the most recent squirt from the Japanese networks. At least he’d got his archives transferred over, and his muse operational, but it was still annoying, the fact that there was now a good ten minute ping for even pure text transfers over approved free channels, and up to six hours for more complex items, as the files were quarantined and checked by vast arrays of ghost LAIs. For someone used to near instantaneous links to everyone he knew, this was just another burden in the heavy weight that was a move to an unfamiliar place. Of course, it was possible to get faster transfer, and even live interaction; the condition was that you were willing to pay for it.

That was specifically relevant because there was a message from his foster mothers, demanding that he contact them, and telling him that he should pay for it, because they hadn’t heard from him in two weeks.

Ah.

...

Ooops.

As the boy searched down his contacts list, and waited for the system to guarantee approval the request for a valid link, his thoughts were in turmoil. Very guilty turmoil. He really should have thought of that. He should have even told them that he was alive; they wouldn’t even have known that he hadn’t been caught up in everything that had happened... well, actually he had been caught up, but he hadn’t been caught up terminally, and that was what was important, right? No... no, they had to know that he was alive, because he’d be getting a lot more worried messages, so someone, maybe his father, more likely someone else, had to have told them that he was okay. And when he thought about it, it was perfectly understandable that he had forgotten to contact them. First there had been the whole hospitalisation and the tiredness and the check-ups, and the almost immediately as soon as he had been let out, he had been in the training. He groaned. Fourteen hours down in the Geocity, and then another hour eaten up by travel. It was inhumane. He just wanted to collapse after the end of it. Well, he would certainly have a thing or two to say...

Oh.

Oh. Yes. He was going to have to reassure them, without actually telling them anything. The lengthy secrecy contracts he had been forced to read and sign (and he had read them all, despite the growing irritation of the Deputy Representative as he poured over the fine print) had been quite clear about this; that, quite specifically, he was not permitted to tell anyone outside the Group anything about what he was doing without express consent from a very small list of people. This was going to be complicated.

Shinji Ikari seriously considered just hanging up, and working out what to do tomorrow, but by now the transfer had already been approved, and the hum of the pre-connection line activating had already started. It was probably better to apologise as soon as possible.

“Connection approved,” said his muse, the emotionless voice clinical and precise. “Waiting for response from other end.”

Shinji waited.

“Hello?” asked a young girl, in Japanese.

Shinji took a breath. “Hello, Hikary,” he said. “It’s Shinji. Can I talk to Yuki or Gany, please.”

There was a pause on his end, as he waited for his six-year old foster sister to calm down.

“I’ve missed you too, Hikary,” he said, patiently, once it had got a little quieter on her end of the phone. “But where are Yuki or Gany? I want to talk to one of them, please.”

“Mummy’s already left for work,” the girl explained. “Memany is getting Haruhy ready up stairs because she managed to spill food all down her front, and make a mess everywhere!” The line crackled, the noise of what was almost-certainly-the-phone-being-swung . “She’s clumsy and silly.”

“Left for work?” Shinji paused. “Oh. Time zones.” He sucked in a breath. Ah. Well... that was broadly keeping in with how well he had organised this. He was tired, for goodness sake. He was just lucky that the nine hour difference had bumped them forwards to... he checked his watch, okay, it was 08:26 there, if he added nine hours.

“Time zones?” the little amlaty echoed. “Oh, I know all about them! We did them in nosesukasi! When it is mid-day in Toyko-kei, it is 9 at night the previous day in Chicago-twi and twelve hours ago in Brasila-twi and...”

“Hikary...”

“And it is three in the morning, but on the same day, in Londoni-twi, and...”

Shinji sighed. This was hard work. And actually quite impressive, if she’d memorised... wait a moment. “Hikary?” he asked. “Are you just reading them off the map in the hallway?”

“... which hallway?” asked a guilty voice.

“The downstairs one.”

There was a patter of bare feet. “Nuh-uh! I’m not even in the hallway, so I can’t do it. Unless I can see through walls. Oh. Oh! That would be so awesome. I could see everything on the other side, and then they couldn’t see me!”

Shinji smiled to himself. “Okay, now, Hikary. I want you to go fetch Memany. She wants to talk to me.”

“’Kay!” The patter of feet resumed. “Why aren’t you here any more, Shinji?” she asked. “When are you coming back?”

He winced. “I did... um, well.” He gave up. “That’s one of the things I need to talk to Memany about,” he lied.

“’Kay!”

He could hear the fuss in the apartment, as Hikary’s sister (it was complicated) protested. Shinji took a deep breath, which turned into a yawn despite his best efforts to suppress it.

“Hello?” he heard a voice say in Nazzadi-accented Japanese.

“Um... it’s me,” he managed, his jaw aching.

“Oh, someone remembered to check his PCPU,” Gany said, her voice acidic. “You have had us worried sick... two weeks, and not a word, not even a message from you... it’s Shinji, darling... and... no, he’s fine, and isn’t in trouble... asisi,” she added, in a warning tone.

The boy winced. “Da seraba resoreni,” he said, in a peace offering, switching to Nazzadi to prevent the younger two from being able to follow it properly. “Da ginozakrona, pla dedifatabi ni soli salenitukasi.” He braced for the inevitable outburst that was to come. It really, really would have been easier to explain this to Yuki; she was less... volatile.

It did not erupt. “Hikary, Haruhy,” he heard over the phone. “Go downstairs... I’ll be down in a moment. And... Hikary, don’t throw any more food at your sister, understand? I will find out, and if I do, you certainly won’t be getting that Zinabi doll you wanted... no, no protests from either of you two. Okay? Good. I need to talk to Shinji, don’t worry.” She paused. “No, we’re still going to make it to school on time. Good. Now... downstairs, please.”

Shinji waited. The voice, once the noise of his foster-siblings had gone, was unnaturally controlled and calm; the kind of calm that speaks of a great deal of internal pressure. “What exactly do you mean that you were hurt, and that you had to spend time in the hospital?” Gany asked quietly, her accent thickening.

“It wasn’t anything too major, “ he hastened to reassure her. “Bruising... nothing broken. But... well, you know that a thing happened on the day I arrived in L2?”

“Yes. It was all over the news. A maj... well, it certainly wasn’t a small extranormal incursion. It got worryingly close to the arcologies, before they managed to stop it.” The woman made a tutting noise. “You think it’s a wonder we’ve been worried about you?”

“Uhm...” Shinji massaged that back of his neck, feeling an acute mixture of guilty and embarrassment. “Well, uh, I really didn’t mean to worry you!” The words came out in a rush. “It’s just a lot of things had happened... and my PCPU got broken, as in actually physically snapped, and I’m really sorry and I should have listened to you two when you told me that I should have got a soft one, not a hard one, and then it took several days to actually get a new one and get it to grab my archives and move it to the London severs and before that I had to prove that I was actually me, and that ended up taking a blood check to actually get a proof of ID before I could move my full archives here and... and I’m babbling, because I’m nervous, and I’m in a strange city and I’m not going to be able to move back and I’ve been worrying you and...” he choked.

“Shinji!” his foster-mother snapped. “Breathe! Stop talking!”

He gulped down a few breaths of air.

“I’ve only ever seen... well, heard you like this a few times before,” she said, more calmly. “You don’t normally go wobbly like this. Just... calm down.”

Shinji breathed out, slowly. “O-okay.”

“Listen, let’s get the important things out of the way. You’re physically fine, yes?”

“Yes. Yes. It’s all healed.”

“Good. And you’re feeling all right? That is, you’re not feeling any more wrong than you should be feeling, when you’ve suddenly been moved to a new city?”

No, he thought, but I can’t explain any of it to you. “Yes,” he lied. “I... I think it might just have been hearing your voice.”

“Sure, Shinji.” There was doubt in her voice, but it was a generalised, unfocussed suspicion. “And you’re getting on all right with Gendo? Uh,” she corrected herself, “with your father?”

Well... where do I start? Oh, let’s start a week ago, last Wednesday, Shinji thought, angrily. The day after I got out of the hospital. He didn’t come visit me once while I was actually in there. Not once! Oh, I’m sure he checked my records. He didn’t want one of his preciousprospective Test Pilots to suffer too many complications. But once I’m out, then he demands to see me... in fact, he orders Misato to drive me there! That’s monstrous! If he wanted me off balance when he saw me, then that’s possibly the best way to do it. He knows I get motion sick!

Shinji paused in his mental rant, and took a metaphorical breath.

And then, and then, he sits me down in his obviously-designed-to-be-intimidating office, along with his second-in-command, and tells me that ‘it is necessary’ that I become a permanent pilot, and so I’m being moved to here for the indefinite future. I get told that there are two ways I can do this; I can be a ‘test pilot’, and get paid and a more normal life, or I get basically held as a research subject, or whatever was going to happen. Well, of course I took the first one, and then I had to sign lots of things explaining everything. And then got dragged immediately off to get a proper plug-suit fitted. That’s all I’ve seen of him, apart from the occasional glimpses in the building. I’ve been forced into being a child soldier by my father, who doesn’t even seem to care that I exist apart from this. Oh, we’re getting on just fine, thank you very much.

He longed to say all this, to let it out in one vast outpouring to Gany, but, of course, he couldn’t.

“Yes,” he said.

“And can you say anything apart from yes?” The tone was joking.

“Yes...” The boy made an annoyed noise at the classic linguistic trap. “Um... I mean, certainly.” He smiled, before the smile turned into a yawn.

“Oh, yes, it must be pretty late over there, mustn’t it?” said Gany, rhetorically. “Well... it was nice to know that you’re alive and well, but I have to...” there was a pause as she checked the time, “Okay, I really have to get the girls to school, before I have to go to work. So... well, I’ll talk to Yuki, and we can get a proper talk when it’s better for both of us, and keep in touch. The feed time isn’t bad for pure text, anyway, so you have no excuse for not doing so. I want to hear from you at least twice a week, okay?”

Shinji nodded. “Okay.”

“And you will remember this, right?”

“Yes. Yes, I will.”

“I will be sending messages to check that you do, if you don’t.”

“I know,” he said, a slightly harassed tone entering his voice. “I promise.”

“Good. Well, then, it was nice to hear from you, Shinji. And the girls have been missing you,” she added, a note of sadness present. “Okay, then. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” The connection ended.

Shinji let his hand fall, and stared at the PCPU, tired eyes vacant.

~'/|\'~

4th of September, 2091

The purple and green of the Evangelion, still in the testing colour scheme, was bright in the false sunlight of the Geocity. The Unit was operating freely, this time permitted to roam as it wished, lacking even the superlifters and binding cables to right it should it fall.

Shinji removed his hands from the joysticks, and carefully willed his hands, specifically, to move. The fact that the Evangelion did not mimic the gesture was proof that he was managing to keep the trains of thought separate; that was a good thing. There had very nearly been an accident, the day before yesterday. But at least he’d managed to stop in time, and from the remarks that Dr Akagi had made, some other Test Pilot hadn’t.

He could feel the viscosity of the LCL through the thinner material over his hands as he massaged his face, feel the difference between the soft flesh of his face, and the hardened cowl that wrapped around the rest of his head. They said that it was there to stop him breaking his neck if the Evangelion was thrown about excessively, and provide a more secure mounting for the A-10 superconducting QUI devices. Which was, in Shinji’s opinion, not at all reassuring, given that he’d already been thrown around to a degree which was certainly excessive; it had been bad enough to fight a horrible giant monster-thing, but to know that he’d been at risk of breaking his neck throughout was almost embarrassing.

Admittedly, it was not as embarrassing as having to wear the breathing apparatus each time he climbed out of the Evangelion, being fed a supply of LCL until he could get it removed properly. The orangey-red fluid was not only vile (almost unutterably so), but too viscous for the lungs to cough up without possible damage to the fine structure, so every time he went back to breathing air, it meant that he had to connected up to that machine, which temporarily shut down his breathing (which was... strange) while it exchanged LCL for air. He had been told that it was possible to clear it naturally, but it was very unpleasant and potentially dangerous; after how, on that first day, he had seen the White (Rei, he thought her name was) choke on it, he was inclined to agree.

In fact, generally, Shinji had decided that a lot of things to do with the Evangelions were so stupid that they must have required geniuses to implement properly.

He lowered his hands back to the controls, and signalled that he was ready.

“Good morning Shinji,” said Dr Akagi, her face appearing in his left eye. She paused. “Oh... wait, is it still morning? Yes, yes it is. Just. Prompt with the ready signal as always, I see.” Her figure jumped sideways slightly, as if she had just been elbowed in the ribs. “Well!” she could be heard to mutter, before she looked back at him. “Today we’ll be doing your first formal evaluation; complete with independent operations and a full firing drill. If you’re deemed to have passed this, you will enter the Test Pilot programme properly, and be formally referred to as the Third Child.”

Shinji nodded, reluctantly.

Ritsuko flicked onto the next page, wincing slightly, as she saw all the things that she had to read to him, for this to be a valid evaluation. “Okay. In this evaluation, you will be piloting Evangelion Unit 01, the Test Model of the “Evangelion” series of arcanocyberxenobiological Titan-grade capital-class humanoid combat war machines.” The scientist took a deep breath. “The Evangelion Units utilise a standardised configuration of six DEV12/DDV13 Dimensional Engine / Dimensional Refrigerator pairs in the torso, with a further one in each limb. This has the function of balancing the constant power of the D-Engine with waste heat produced. This means that... you will not be mandated to observe heat levels in this test.” Inwardly she groaned. There were pages of this stuff, old warnings and instructions dating back to the first tests with arcanotechnology, which had accumulated like sedimentary rock over sixty or so years. Like these heat warnings. They may once had made sense before the D-Refridgerator (or D-Dump, as it was more commonly, if inaccurately, called) was invented; a thermodynamically violating perfect refrigerator which fed heat back into the same source where the D-Engine drew it from (it was, after all, a D-Engine run in reverse), but now, it was just detritus. And, worse, as the Director of Science for the Evangelion Group, the regulations insisted that she, as head of the science team, personally read them to any new candidate, as opposed to simply have a text-to-speech programme do it. How annoying.

She was going to petition that a committee was set up to deal with this, that was for sure. There was no way she was going to have to do this again.

Further back, the Director of Operations was congratulating herself on having dodged this task, by the medium of job descriptions. Normally her job description forced her to do things that she didn’t want to do; it was a too-rare event that it saved her from something like this.

“Are you worried, Major Katsuragi?” asked an elderly voice from behind her.

The black-haired woman glanced back. “In all honesty... no, Deputy Representative,” she said to the white-haired man, shaking her head. “This is pretty much a triviality... we’ve seen that he can pilot, and whether he passes this time or the next one, he’s going to be the Third Child.” She paused. “From what I’ve heard,” she added, picking her words carefully, “the previous failures have all been early; they’ve washed out after at most two or three sessions.” She shrugged. “Haven’t even got as far as walking.”

Fuyutsuki was silent for a moment. “Yes,” he said, eventually. “ That’s broadly true... a few have got a little further, and dropped out for other reasons, but... yes.”

“And, anyway...” Misato added, “... we’ve seen that he’s fully capable of piloting when pushed to it. Really, if things were going to have gone wrong, they’d have gone wrong when Harbinger-3 showed up.” She licked her lips. “I mean, sir, that was basically the worst possible time for a first test... from what Ritsuko has told me, at least. He’ll be fine under these calmer conditions.”

The pair listened to Ritsuko’s mechanistic reading of the safety precautions, and the more lively technical babble among the technical staff.

“Is Representative Ikari still in Chicago-2?” Misato asked.

The old man nodded. “Yes. He has to liaise with another Group, and he has more reports to make in person to other Representatives, and to the Cabinet in person. There’s still a lot of fallout from the Asherah Incident; the NEG is,” he smiled, faintly, “somewhat disturbed by the appearance of a Harbinger.”

“It’s just...” Misato paused, “I would have thought that he would have been here for... this.”

Fuyutsuki shook his head. “The Representative and his son don’t get on,” he said, a guarded expression on his face. “Before that day, they hadn’t seen each other in years, hadn’t lived together since Yui... his wife, Shinji’s mother died. And,” the man winced, “the events of the last month haven’t done anything to endear Gendo to the boy.”

“Oh.”

“I know.” Fuyutsuki winced. “It’s a shame, but... when you look at everything, what is one more minor tragedy?” He gazed up at the screen with eyes which had seen the events of the last seventy-two years, seen the wars that had reduced the human population from a peak of over eight billion to just over two billion, and the appearance of monsters which none would have believed possible. “Nothing on the cosmic scale.”

~'/|\'~

The technical and scientific staff were pouring over the data from the test.

“The tweaks to the pilot profile seem to have fixed the stability issue, once and for all,” declared Cela, one of the civilian Operators, with a proud glint in his purple eyes.

That, naturally, drew an immediate counter from Lieutenant Cheung. “You mean, of course, that, from the available data, it appears that the anomalous synchronisation spikes have been fixed, of course,” she said, her voice cold. “Or, at the very least, have not reoccurred in the time period that we are dealing with.”

“That’s what I said! You’re just inserting in semantics which were implied by the use of the word ‘seems’!”

“Yes, because implications are so very useful for precise arcane engineering!”

Maya sighed to herself. This happened every single time those two spent any time in the same room. No matter what the topic, it degenerated into petty bickering and semantics. And they seemed remarkably resilient to the logical (or at least narrative) conclusion of this kind of tension, preferring just to maintain a just-below-the-borderline-of-unacceptable level of mutual disdain. “What do you think, Dr Akagi?” she asked out loud. That was the most sensible option, if they wanted to cut this pointless argument off; the Director of Science would know. She always did.

Ritsuko was staring up at the waveform, her fingers flying through augmented-reality projections only she could see. “Yes,” she said, tilting her head to one side. “It is holding a lot smoother. After the initial start-up, we have a nice stable 56.1 +/- 4.2 % synchronisation... which, incidentally,” she added, “... is still amazing me, even after a few weeks. He’s talented, certainly. No...” she corrected herself, “talented implies learning. Test Pilot Soryu is talented. He’s gifted.”

“The replacements after the damage taken against Asherah have been integrated perfectly,” added Lieutenant Hyugi, continuing the previous line of discussion. “The slight dislocation fracture suffered in training the day before yesterday was found to be due to improperly-bonded rods in the endoskeleton; they have been resunk, and the problem did not recur today.”

“And the Ouranos reports that the Evangelion has adjusted to the enhanced regime of immunosuppressants and regrowth inhibitors, after the incident against the Harbinger,” said Lieutenant Aoba. “It does, however, suggest that this should be something we should keep an eye on. It seems that, at times of stress, the Unit is capable of exceeding its natural restrictions, beyond the abilities of the systems to keep it under control. This is... alarming.”

“True. It will be necessary to look into this further... which will be hard, as Unit 02 has not exhibited the same behaviour. This is an anomaly.” Ritsuko paused. “What do you think, Misato? Not specifically on that, but in general,” she added.

“Well, speaking as Director of Operations,” the Major said, leaning against the wall, “I don’t feel happy clearing him as having passed the initial training phase. He needs another week of full-time practice, at minimum.”

“Really?” Ritsuko raised her eyebrows, echoed by surprised noises from the other staff.

“Yes. His synchronisation scores may be excellent, but tactically? Tactically, he’s a child in a massive mecha with too much firepower for me to feel comfortable about it.” The Major’s words were clinical. “He doesn’t have any kind of combat instincts, and that’s not surprising. Just watch the actual performance, as opposed to the technical aspects. He freezes, he hesitates too much, he takes too long to aim; all classic signs of an untrained mecha pilot. Speaking now as an officer in the NEGA, I wouldn’t want him supporting my troops with his current capacities. The Ouranos LITAN can’t compensate for an untrained pilot.”

Ritsuko sucked in a breath. “ Well, I suppose...”

“I have already consulted with Captain Martello,” the Major continued. “Compare the Third Child’s performance to the data he forwarded on the most recent test for Unit 02; an actual live-fire test on the Eastern Front. The difference is immediately obvious. And any NEGA officer familiar with mecha will be able to see it.”

“That is true,” Dr Akagi said, with a nod. “I’ll forwards the recommendation to Deputy Representative Fuyutsuki. Looks like we have another week of intensive training,” she added, to the Operators and the technical staff in the room. “At least.” A generalised, non-local groan could be heard. “Now... I have a few things I want to look at from the black-box, and discrepancies with the feed...”

“Just one more thing though, Rits,” Misato said to her friend after the end of the meeting, as they were leaving. “Can you...” she sucked in a breath through her teeth, an embarrassed look on her face, “can you sort of put it to Shinji that this is for technical reasons? Please?”

The scientist paused, frowning. “Why?” she asked.

“Ah. Well. Um.” Misato stared blankly at the blond. “It’s kind of... uh.”

Ritsuko fixed her with a level gaze, one flat-shoed foot tapping against the ground.

“Well, you don’t have to live with him!” Misato finally managed. “He’s basically taken over the house! He leaves politely written notes on any bottles or cans I leave lying around, and makes me feel guilty. He emptied out the main sections of the fridge of my noodles and stuff, as he said that, if he was going to have to do the cooking...

The foot had stopped tapping, frozen in mid-air. “Did you make him do all the cooking, Misato?” interrupted Ritsuko, in a slightly shell-shocked tone of voice.

“He volunteered, if I would keep the nanofac loaded. He seemed,” she frowned, “oddly happy about persuading me to do that, even when it’s a lot more work.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he likes cooking.” She frowned as Ritsuko laughed, for some reason. “What?”

“Oh, nothing,” said the blond, with a smirk. “No, really, it’s nothing. It’s... it’s scientist humour.”

“The kind that’s not actually funny, you mean,” said Misato, with a hint of a pout.

“The kind that needs a sound foundation in the sciences before the more refined elements can be appreciated,” corrected Ritsuko near-automatically.

“So... what I said.”

“No... but, what were we talking about?”

There was a pause. “He’s taken over the house!” said Misato, again, the mock-outrage and real-embarrassment fresh again. “I don’t want to have to take the blame for making him go through another week of training, so can you just say something about needing more synchronisation testing...it’s... it’s not funny, Rits. Really, it’s not!”

“Sure... sure it is-is-isn’t,” managed Ritsuko, before she gave way completely. “I-I-I just think it’s h-h-hilar...”

Misato crossed her arms, and held her face perfectly level, the image of the sainted martyr.

It didn’t help.

~'/|\'~

The girl was almost invisible in the hospital bed, surrounded by whiteness. Only the haemoglobin-red which had seeped into the bandages over her ruined eye, and a slight hint on the thinner skin around her mouth and visible eye, gave her any semblance of human life, that she was flesh and blood, rather than a marble statue. Even her breathing was barely visible, a slight slow flow of the blankets. And she was alone. There were no nurses in here. After the issues with the unexpected rejection of the first transplanted eye, they had decided that she just needed rest, to build up her strength, before they would try again.

“Yes, Representative Ikari,” she said softly, voice almost inaudible, in response to the question from the face on the screen before her.

“And your opinion?” asked the glassed man.

“He has a talent for synchronisation. His mean synchronisation ratio is 29.3% better than mine, with a standard deviation 4.6 % better. However, his training is inferior. Major Katsuragi will not pass him.”

Gendo nodded. “Correct. It is satisfactory.”

Rei sat up slightly, a slight wheeze of breath the sign of the exertion. “It is?” she asked.

“It is.”

“Then it is satisfactory, Representative,” she said instantaneously, her words almost overlapping with his.

The man looked at her in silence. She gazed back, unmoving. “How are you feeling, Rei?” he asked.

“My right eye remains absent. They are preparing another transplant, and the operation will occur on the 7th of September. They have attributed the failure of the first to correctly connect to the optical nerve to a flaw in the growth.” The girl paused. “I did not correct them. It was not necessary,” she said, with a slight tilt of her head.

“Good, Rei.” Gendo Ikari could be seen to relax slightly. “But I did ask how you were feeling.”

“The combination of arcanetherapeutic-aided cellular regrowth, and the limited amounts of pain-inhibiting compounds which I am permitted have ensured that I am currently in limited discomfort. I can tolerate it with ease. I have suffered worse. Yesterday is an example of a day when I have suffered worse,” she added, with a straight face.

“So you are feeling better, then?” Gendo asked.

Rei paused for a long while. “It still hurts to breathe,” she said, eventually. “The alveolar damage has not healed. But, yes, I am better.”

The man looked at her, noting the stained bandage over her eye. Yes, she does look better than before, he thought. Even if...

The pale girl coughed, gasping with the sudden pain. “I am aware of that,” she said, attentively.

Gendo frowned, blinking in confusion. “What was that a response to?” he asked. “I have not asked any more questions.” Perhaps Rei was not as well as she had looked, if she was still doing that. He might have to tell them to reduce the dosage of painkillers, if she was getting detached from the present.

She simply stared at him, head tilted slightly. It was not pleasant to see that familiar face with the repressed pain evident in the way that her jaw was set.

“How are you keeping up with your school work?” Gendo asked, almost as a triviality.

“I have completed all the tasks set of me by the teachers. The cover story that I was involved in a car accident is holding. There has been one bouquet of flowers, and twenty-five “Get Well Soon” messages. Of those messages, twenty-three were sent under coercion. One was from an individual from whom I have had to repeatedly turn down mating requests.”

Gendo paused for a moment, squinting slightly. “You mean he was asking you on a date, Rei?” he asked with a hint of trepidation.

“Yes.” She paused, for just a beat too long to be quite comfortable. “He is genetically unsuitable,” she added, coldly.

“Rei,” Gendo said, in a warning tone.

“I understand. I will avoid such things. As instructed.”

“Yes.” The man frowned at her. “Try to get some more rest,” he commanded the girl.

“I will try.” Rei paused, her one eye locked on the Representative’s face. “You should not talk to me. You are late for your meeting with Director Wade. She is not late yet, but she will be.”

Gendo managed to keep his expression calm, as he cut the connection.

Rei Ayanami lay back on the bed with a slight gasp, as stiff muscles screamed their warnings. Slowly, a hand went up to her empty eye-socket, palm flat against the bandage. Her lips moved, as she mouthed something, but no words came out.

~'/|\'~

The man with the newly trimmed short brown hair fumbled in his pocket for his PCPU, a muttered curse emanating from his mouth when he realised that he had left it inside the house. Sighing, he turned around, belatedly patting his other pockets, in the hope that he might find it. No such luck.

What he did find, however, was a slip of paper.

I remember you, Mr Habegger, it said.

The man’s heart ran cold, and he dropped the scrap of white, which fluttered to the ground like a chicken coming back to roost.

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 4

Interconnections / As if calamity had but begun

AEON

~'/|\'~

“The Army has requested that I speak to you about the role of the mecha in the combined arms of the NEGA. But, frankly, I know that you already know it. So I’m going to talk to you about something else, and something that I’m really rather good at. Psychological warfare. Yes, some might think that against the foes we face, that’s foolish. But even inhuman monsters have their breaking points, and... well, more human ones are even more flawed. Look at the symbol on my beret. Do you wonder we took that as an emblem? It’s a translation of what the Nazzadi Loyalists call us. Soli Vodili Dexti. And now? Now they fear us. The same tactics apply to the Dagonites, and more so; Deep Ones are far more mentally vulnerable than the Migou, and we’ve managed to pick up a lot more about what they believe. Even the monsters of the Rapine Storm have their own primitive taboos, though they are often nonsensical. Break their minds, break their will to fight, break everything they hold precious and leave them in the midst of a ruined landscape, only with the knowledge that we took everything but their lives, because we could.

And then kill them. Because that’s the other thing about psychological warfare. It is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end is the preservation of mankind. Never forget that. I personally will have any officer of mine who crosses over into petty sadism court-martialed, and I would want them to do the same for me.”

Colonel Oxanna Kristos, New Earth Government Army
“Lectures to [REDACTED]”

~'/|\'~

13th of September, 2091

“Shinji, we need for you to catch that aircraft! We can’t let it roam free like that!” shouted Dr Akagi. “Aim at the centre of the target, switch on, and then fly after it! Bring it back, and we’ll give you your own car!”

“But I don’t know how to fly!” Shinji protested. “And I don’t want a car!” He checked the rifle in his bluish-grey and purple hands, and aimed it at the target.

“No, don’t shoot it, Shinji,” ordered Misato. “Do a barrel roll! It’ll disrupt the flight feathers of the plane, making it easier to catch. If you fall too far behind, I’ll have to drive you so that we can catch up!”

“I can’t fly! Please don’t drive!”

“Shinji, catch the aircraft!”

“Shinji, walk! Put one foot after the other. Don’t fall down, or your father will have to pick you up.”

An Evangelion-sized Gendo Ikari (the same height as him, it might be noted), winked at him, and threw set another aircraft free, flapping its wings in a cloud of blossom-like feathers.

“Shinji, jump. If you jump, you can fly to the moon. That will give you a tactical advantage. Remember the rules of camouflage; Shape, Shine, Shape, and Shadow!”

“This makes no sense! I can’t fly! Why are you making me pilot, anyway?”

Suddenly, alarms went off and all the lights went off (the two phrases somehow meaning exactly the opposite), the emergency signs painting everything in shades of red.

“Filling the chamber with LCL!” shrieked Dr Akagi. “Shinji, you need to drown!”

The LCL was dark and viscous, and tasted of blood and metal and oil. He was stuck in here, floating, as the sirens grew louder and louder, the red light swirling madly over the inside of the entry plug. “Let me out,” he tried to yell, but only bubbles came out, and he swallowed more LCL. Even the red emergency lights died, trapping him floating in darkness, even as the warning grew louder and louder.

The clarion call of the alarm sirens blended into the bleeping of his alarm clock, and Shinji groaned under the covers. He didn’t want to get up. They’d let him have yesterday off, after he’d managed to pass the evaluation (apparently he’d improved enough for Dr Akagi to pass him this time), and it was nice. He wanted to sleep. And do nothing.

Then his muse started berating him, and telling him that he needed to get up. And turned on the lights.

I will hunt down the person who devised this kind of LAI, and something something something... were his incoherent thoughts, as he rolled out of the bed with a thud, failing to get his legs in the right position to not crash onto the floor. It’s wrong for a thing to be able to do things like this thing is doing.

Technically speaking, he could turn that feature off, if he wanted to miss school. That was the flaw in doing so.

“Well done. Perhaps you would like to have a shower before you get dressed?” the muse said, choosing an appropriate response from its vast heuristic library. Muses weren’t self-aware, but when they were connected up to the Grid, given sufficient processing power, and had been attuned to a user’s preferences (especially a high end model like this one; a fourth birthday present which had been continually upgraded since then), it was hard to tell the difference. It paused, a mechanistic beat. “Would you like me to connect to local news?”

“Do it,” he said, rubbing his eyes, as he stumbled off to the toilet.

“...the leader of the Federalist Alliance, Alan Alva Casto, argued that the proposed changes fundamentally altered the balance of power between the New Earth Government as a whole, and the Regions, and was another example of the centralising instincts of Unionist politicians.”

The voice switched to that of a man, with a notable Spanish accent. “This is yet another slow, creeping attempt to crush the autonomy of the regions, to break the freedoms that can be traced all the way back to the reformation of the League of Nations in 1946, and implement... no, to enforce the unstoppable desire for homogeneity of the Unionists!”

The newsreader continued. “President Nyanda, however, rejected the allegations, and cited the fact that opinion polls have shown that over two thirds of the population are in favour of the move to standardise election procedures between Regions, especially following the recent scandal in Madagascar, which commentators are already calling ‘Vice for Votes’.”

Shinji was by now feeling vaguely human, in more than a genetic sense. Splashing water over his face, he stared, bleary-eyed at himself in the bathroom mirror. He felt drained, still exhausted despite the inactivity of yesterday, and his appearance, washed out in the overly-bright lights reflected that. He pinched himself in the cheek. No, sadly, he was awake, and this wasn’t just a dream. Because, if this was a dream, it would mean that he was still asleep, and thus would be less tired when he actually woke up. The fact that he briefly contemplated whether one would feel more rested if they were capable of sleeping in their dreams was probably just a sign that he wasn’t fully awake yet.

He couldn’t hear the sound of Misato moving around, which meant that she was probably still asleep, or possibly just hadn’t come home last night. He suspected the former. Either way... it really wasn’t that nice of her to not be there to say goodbye, given that he was starting a new school today. It didn’t matter that there was a security detail waiting to guide him to the place for the first time. It was the principle of the thing.

Let’s see. If he put on breakfast on a slow prep, he would have time to have a shower, and get dressed, before it would be ready. He’d feel better after a shower.

By the time he sat down at the now-cleaned (and it would stay this way, if he had anything to say about it) table, he almost seemed like a different boy, still-wet hair flattened down. He was, by now, barely phased by the fact that a giant albino emperor penguin, holding a towel in its hand... wing... manipulator had confronted him as he left the bathroom, and quite possibly complained at him, if he had understood the sequence of ‘Wark!’s correctly. He would take his fights where he could win them. He would accept that understanding would indeed come with a price he did not wish to pay; that there were things in this universe, terrible, blasphemous things, which it was better not to know.

But... seriously, what was up with the penguin?

That his thoughts were running like this was a sign that Shinji was nervous and the weight of the ballistic vest which they were making him wear under his shirt was just a reminder of things that he didn’t want to think about. He adjusted the high collar of the black overjacket, still stiff, and checked yet again that the things which needed to be in his pockets were there. Civic Ident card. Ashcroft Ident card. PCPU. Emergency contact PCPU. Keys. Wallet (it would make much more sense to put the cards in the wallet, he realised, and so he did). Unlimited use travel card (even if he wasn’t planning to be using it today). He’d had all the forms filled out for him, digital and physical alike. He’d put the print-outs of the digital transfer forms in his bag yesterday, and a check revealed that Pen-Pen hadn’t eaten them, even if the penguin had been so inclined.

Silently, he thanked whoever had designed the uniform to have so many pockets, and loosened the too-stiff neckline to allow him to actually eat properly, and began to eat. Buying mainstay food from elsewhere was the province of the very poor, and the very rich; the former because they could not afford their own nanofactory, and the latter because they could afford to purchase things which were grown naturally. For the majority of the population, the basis of their diet came from a home nanofactory. Protein and carbohydrate chains were woven together into various structures, but the final quality of the product depended heavily upon the resolution and complexity supported by the nanofactory, and the detail of the template. And the time it took to prepare something grew rapidly with the complexity of the object. As a result, Shinji had been taught by his foster mothers to cook properly, taking simple raw ingredients (many of which could be found in opensource format, if you knew where to look on the Grid), and making something more easily and cheaply than having a long preparation complex cooked meal. Some people, and Shinji was not pointing fingers at Misato here, had obviously not; a trait only amplified by the fact that she seemed to use the cheapest, freeware meals, rather than actually buy a half-decent template.

None of this was really relevant, of course, when his breakfast was a heated nutrient brew that was only not described as porridge because it wasn’t made out of oats, and was frankly really easy to make.

A shambling figure lurched in through the front door, clutching its arm, collapsing in the chair opposite to him, head lolling to the side. And then it stole his tea, emptying the mug in a single gulp.

“There’s more tea in the pot, you know,” he said, in a slightly disapproving tone. “And... um, I thought you were still asleep.”

“I wish I was,” grumbled Misato. “I was meant to have today off, but the one who was meant to be observing the live feed from test for a new possible anti-orbital weapon, over in Test 9... that’s in Australia... is tied up on the Eastern Front with a Migou counter-attack, and, of course,” she said, her voice bitter, “I couldn’t just watch it later, I had to be actively watching the weapons demonstration, so that I could comment on it.” She tried to take another drink, before realising that she had already emptied the cup. “I mean, it didn’t even work. The stupid primary ignition worked, but the testers told me that the blast shape was wrong. So I wasted an entire night, and then I had to listen as the testers through ideas, and watch the Operators feed data, and blah blah blah, let’s stop Misato getting any sleep, ha ha ha.”

“Ah,” said Shinji, with his mouth full.

“I hate Australia,” continued Misato, waving the thankfully-empty cup around wildly. “Who builds a continent so far away from normal time? Day is night, summer is winter... it’s wrong. I wish I didn’t have to deal with it ever again.” Dragging herself upright, she stumbled over to the fridge, and grabbed herself a beer. “So, thanks to that, I’ve been up all night, it dragged on longer than expected, and because of that, it never seemed worth starting on the Extended Operations Enhancement, so this is pure tiredness. It sucks.”

Okaaa~aaaay thought Shinji. We are not dealing with a rational thinker here. Out loud, he said, “Well, there’s tea in the pot, and there should be enough breakfast... or whatever meal it is for you...”

“Fourth dinner, I think. I hate third dinner. It’s worse than second dinner. And fourth dinner is worse than that.”

“... yes. Well, I made you some, because I thought you were asleep.”

Misato grunted at him, nursing her beer. “Uh...” she said, yawning, “you should forget I mentioned this to you. It’s still classified. And stuff.” She yawned again. “Well... obviously, it’s not classified that I’m tired... well, it is when I’m on active duty, but not otherwise, but the rest...” There was a third yawn, and Shinji felt his jaw ache sympathetically.

You could have at least said ‘Thank You’, Shinji thought in a peeved tone, as he finished up his breakfast, and went to clean the plates. And I bet you won’t even clean up your plates or cans, and I’ll come home to find the place a mess.

Picking up his bag, he glanced back into the dining room. The older woman, still in her uniform, was sprawled forwards onto the table, luckily-emptied beer can on its side. Sighing, and shaking his head, Shinji stepped out of the house, to where his security escort had told him to meet them.

~'/|\'~

Agent Mary Anderson smoothed down her long skirt, and recrossed her legs. “Yes, ma’am,” she said, in response to the Deputy Director’s query to her early morning report. “I’ve run the results through all the statistical tests I can think of. Within the limiting parameters I detailed in my report... that is, taking into account the post-mortem decomposition of the brains, and the like, I can give an R-squared of 0.61 that the two groups, the renegade ArcSec officers and the civilian insurgents, were in fact from separate organisations, and were furthermore, an R-squared of 0.53 that they were after separate objectives.” She paused. “That is, separate illicit, cultist groups; I have already accounted for the different backgrounds of the individuals, with the models which I have detailed, again, in my report.”

The Deputy Director ran a hand over her shaven head, and the hints of dirty-blond stubble growing through. There was something clinical in those fine-boned features, the freshly grafted skin still not sitting on them quite right, as she examined her subordinate. “Would you stake your career on those results?” she asked.

“No, of course not... with all due respects, ma’am,” Agent Anderson said, shaking her head. “There’s a limit to what a trawl can do, especially...” a faint sneer of professional contempt appeared on her face, “...especially when the degeneration of the neural structure and the presence of the arcanochromatic contaminants, which do terrible things to cellular integrity, are taken into account. If I’d got the same results from a live trawl, or better yet, a destructive map,” she wobbled her hand, “well, I’d have been doing something wrong, frankly, to botch it that badly and get such a poor success rate. But, taking only the successful results, I’d be more certain if they were fresher. But these brains...” she shrugged, “... it’s naturally limited in utility.”

The other woman grinned. “Good,” she said. “Too many people over-estimate the reliability of trawls, especially post-mortem ones.”

“Again, with respect, ma’am, I suspect those people don’t actually have to deal with the business of interpreting the structure of a rotting, Colour-contaminated brain.”

There was a chuckle. “Oh, I’m sure.” The woman passed an actual, physical folder of documents over to Agent Anderson; a rarity, but sometimes it was necessary to limit the propagation of information. “Look through this,” she said. “I want your immediate impressions, your gut reactions.”

The amlaty’s eyes automatically flicked to the contents page. “Is this related to the same case?” she asked.

“Just read.”

There was a rustling of paper, and silence in the office for a few minutes. “Ikari,” Mary Anderson said, slowly, choosing her words. “So... there is evidence which suggests that a possible target for the attack... for possibly one of the two attacks, was the son of the European Representative.” She was gestured to continue. “Hmm...” she flicked through a few pages, “... the timeline fits; the flight he was on certainly arrived just before the attack. On the other hand... we have the contaminating factor of the simultaneous attack from the Harbinger entity.” She looked at her superior. “I do not feel that the evidence from the trawls give me sufficient evidence to support either way. As a hypothesis, it might be possible that one group was after him, but there isn’t enough evidence either way.” She made an annoyed noise. “If only the Army hadn’t had to use such a large arcanochromatic weapon and ruined the samples!” Mary coughed. “Of course, I’m being self-centred here,” the amlaty admitted.

The Deputy-Director smiled, the skin folding in ways which weren’t quite right. “Yes, you are,” she said. “We haven’t been able to interview the witness yet... yes, we know he survived, and have been tracking him, but the Ashcroft Foundation,” the words were said with a hint of contempt, “is being obstructive with our attempts to interview him. He’s been on the Grid, has transferred to the local Academy, and yet footage from the networks indicates that he spends almost all his time down in the Geocity, where we can’t see him.” She sighed. “We don’t have uniform surveillance permissions down there; there are entire sections sealed off under NEGA or NEGN blocks. There are medical records attached to his profile, but they’re only slight; mild bruising, nothing more, yet the Foundation is still blocking access to him. There has been... pressure to delay the questioning for as long as possible, and we’re doing it, because there are other people we still need to track down, but,” the woman blinked, black film-like layers sliding across her eyeball, her eyelids still not reconstructed from the damage, “... there is something off about it.”

Agent Anderson cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but... why are you telling me this?” she said, uneasily, folding her pale greyish-brown hands on her lap to stop them moving. “It isn’t directly relevant to my current position; I’m a Cerebral Reconstruction and Information Structures Analyst, and unless you want to capture him and trawl him, I don’t see how I can help.”

The other woman snorted. “Of course not,” the Deputy Director said, rolling her eyes. “We’re not the OSS; we don’t do that kind of thing. We are the Office of Internal Security. But... Agent Anderson, I notice that you haven’t cross-trained into the occult; in fact, your file notes that you didn’t even take a course in Occult Studies while at university. Why is that?”

Agent Anderson stiffened up. “I’m a neuroscientist by training,” she said, calmly. “It is, quite literally, brain surgery. I didn’t have time to take humanities options, and they found I had no talent for sorcery and no PP potential whatsoever when I was tested, so it seemed meaningless.”

“Hmm,” said the older woman, and it was precisely the word, not a noise in the back of her throat. “Mary,” she said, relaxing slightly, “you have been with us for...”

“... just over four years.”

“Yes. We recruited you straight from university. And I would strongly recommend that you book onto an Occultism training course.”

Mary blinked. “But... but why?” she managed.

“There’s a task force which is looking for a trained CRISAn and TSEAPer; you fit the criteria, but they demand that a candidate has passed the Oc103 module before they’d consider the candidate. And your work on this case, the fact that you’ve been getting some of our best results, has persuaded me, along with other contributing factors, that...”

The conversation was interrupted by the Deputy Director’s muse. “Deputy Director Echo,” it said, in a clipped, Nazzadi-accented voice, “a situation demands your attention. Systems drones have detected a series of events in Dome 046A which flag as an out-of-control parapsychic. Dome has already been locked down. Linking you to conference.”

The woman swore, and waved a hand through the air, as AR projections popped up all around her. “Where’s the nearest Containment team?” she asked to the floating heads. “Looking at the data I’m getting from ArcSec and my subordinate, we’ve got a ZZ09-Charismatic type... at least; look at the flash mob. We’re going to want a soulless sniper with a full optical jack and loaded with both lethal and less-than-lethal for this, in case this goes south and we can’t talk him into surrendering... and, looking at this, the negotiating team is going to have to be soulless, too. Damn it, a new eruption shouldn’t be this powerful!” She ground her teeth together. “I hate mindworms. Could he be a Zoner?”

“We have an ID,” reported the representative from ArcSec. “Hyun Young Ko, aged 56. Fired two months ago by Barletine Services... it’s a minor IPcorp... and, look, headquarters in 046A. Not registered as a PP, no serious criminal record, on Level 1 Watchlist for purchases of occult tomes... nothing major, basic books on theory.” The man paused. “Looking at his travel record... business trip to Paris-2 on 12/02/2091, and again on 01/04/2091. Nowhere near the Zone.”

“When was the last time he was tested?” the Deputy Director asked, hands flying through the air. “Any latency?”

“Oh seven oh six ninety one,” came back the result from Archives. “Minor possible latent abilities... but less than one SD above baseline... ah, but consistently so. He’s on benefits, so has mandatory Orgone donation... oh, and look, he missed the last donation, and fizzled on the one before that.”

“Damn. That should have tripped the scribe LAI flags... how did he pass under the net? A fizzle should have bought him in for further testing, let alone a fizzle followed by a miss. I want a full audit on the centre responsible. Now, what’s the response time for Containment...”

Inclining her head to her distracted superior, Agent Anderson let herself out. This meeting had raised some issues that she really needed to think about properly.

~'/|\'~

This Ashcroft Academy (one of several in the city) was located below ground, in one of the deeper of the honeycomb-like arcology domes which formed a mesh below the above-ground parts of the city. It was not, obviously, as deep as the Geocity; that was ten kilometres down, and the normal arcology did not even reach two. Nevertheless, the tonnes upon tonnes of earth and rock and concrete waiting to crush the inhabitants, if things went sufficiently wrong, was a disconcerting thought to those not familiar with such places.

Shinji Ikari, as a child of the 2070s, one who had lived his entire life in one arcology or another, didn’t even think about it. It was, after all, how people lived. The majority of the population lived in these dense structures, built after the devastation which the First Arcanotech War, the Nazzadi Civil War, and the conflicts which had solidified the New Earth Government’s control of the planet. Those people like Misato who owned a form of personal transport, whether one given motive force by an A-Pod, the pseudo-reactionless thrusters which pushed against the fabric of spacetime itself, or the far more common electric cars with their D-Cell superconducting batteries, were rare figures among those who actually lived in the newer pyramidal or underground arcologies. The inhabitants of the older sealed-building arcologies, or the open buildings that clustered around the cities and made up the Enclaves were more dependent on personal transport , but there just wasn’t the space, let alone the need, when the public transport system was taken into account.

The maglev finished its long, looping spiral down, pulling into the station. Already, the automated voices playing the standard security messages could be heard from inside the complex. The other passengers, all clad in somewhat excessively bulky garments, in his compartment stood up, gesturing at him to stay seated. Shinji sighed. The way that the security detail had commandeered an entire carriage to the extent that they had moved other children, all in the same, high-necked black overjackets, out, had been really embarrassing. He could only hope that the somewhat sullen teenagers (and a few preteens) hadn’t got a good look at his face, and had stepped behind the one of the bodyguards who had to be two metres tall, and built like a... well, he would have said, “built like an Evangelion”, but when you looked at them, they were actually surprisingly slender, to try to ensure it. He was aware enough to know that a reputation as “the one who got you kicked out of your train carriage” was not a useful thing to have.

But he had mentally apologised to them, and that made it better, right?

Everything degenerated into the mundanity of security checks, of blood-testing and checks that he was a valid student here. This might have posed a problem, but the bodyguards had been remarkably persuasive... by which, he corrected, had actually known what to do. He could remember what the start of term was like at his previous Academy, and almost every year it was a nightmare, as all the new students choked up the scanners and the help desk, inconveniencing everyone. The only year it was different was the year in which you joined, when you were too busy panicking and running off to ask how to get the machine to accept your card, and not knowing where to go even with an automap, and... well, Shinji was just glad that school had been going since mid-August (the self-contained environments of the arcologies have broken the old seasonal terms), and that he had guides.

And, best of all, guides who weren’t Major Katsuragi. So, guides actually worthy of the title. She had been taking him to the training in the last weeks. She was better than on that first time only because the automap features had not been shut off. At least he had now learned the way. And no more would he be doomed to see the same staircase section five times in one trip.

Stepping out of the white-lit maglev station (built on the outside of the dome, as not to waste space, as well as enhancing the security of the dome itself), Shinji blinked in the naturalistic light. And sneezed, as the floral scent suddenly became evident, as other students, a crowd of ravens swarming around him, chatted. It was quite obvious that whoever had planned the layout of the Academy had also been responsible of the Geocity; the technology was hidden in the same way, leaving grassy fields and even trees to grow inside the man-made structure, deep underground. Of course, here the nature had been tamed by playing fields , and, notably, the area used a proper light dome, rather than an arcanomagnetically confined burning fusion reaction (which would probably have cooked the school had they done so), but similar fingers on the worked clay shone through. The crowd of students, with only a few puzzled glances and a modicum of whispering at the figures that formed a cordon around him, were dispersing, off to wherever they had to go, while the bodyguards directed him to the main building, to the entrance area.

The man at the reception desk flashed a brief, almost flickering grin at him, and checked the Ident Card that Shinji offered. “Yes,” he said. “All your paperwork has been filled out, forwarded, and been approved.” He reached under the desk. “Let me just get you your introductory pack.”

The boy blinked. “So... um, you don’t need to see any of the transferral documents, or the residency permits, or the transferral forms, or the fee papers, or... or anything?” he asked, wrinkling his forehead.

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?” he said, in a slightly perplexed voice. “I mean, I have them all here, in my bag... both the paper ones, and print-outs of the digital forms.”

“No. They’ve been done.”

“But... I spent quite a while filling them all out,” said Shinji, in a plaintive tone. “Did... did I just waste a lot of the weekend doing that?”

The man nodded, with far more cheerfulness than the boy really thought was appropriate, as he handed over a translucent blue folder. “These are things like how to access the Academy Internal Grid, rules on the use of muses, setting passwords, rules and regulations... if you lose this, once you’re on the AIG, it should be all in your profile. Remember to recycle it!” he added.

The boy slumped, and ran a hand through his hair. “Okay,” he said. “So... where... what... um.”

“It’s in the folder. You’ve been assigned a class.” The man looked more uncomfortable. “Your teachers will assign you remedial work if you’re behind where you should be... though you’re transferring from,” he flicked his eyes down to the screen in front of him, “...yes, you’re coming from one of the Tokyo-3 Academies, so the difference should be negligible.”

Shinji coughed. “Well, first there was the move, and then I was ill,” he said, using the ‘agreed’ cover story, “so I only really caught the first week or so.”

“Oh.” The receptionist managed, if it was possible, to look even more uncomfortable. “In that case, yes, you’re going to have to catch up. It is the first year of your International Standardised Comprehensive Higher Aptitude Tests, after all, and... well, talk to your teachers. And good luck!”

Stepping outside, the boy shuddered. People should not be that enthusiastic, energetic and efficient this early in the morning. Looking around, the security detail had faded away, although, he felt that the cleaner pushing a mop around was rather bulkier, and in better shape than might be expected. He shrugged. He’d got used to the ever-present watchers back in Toyko-3, where they’d been there only because of who his father was; he would eventually get used to the fact that the guard had suddenly been radically increased, after he had protested, and fought to remain some normalcy. Shinji did not mention to himself that so far pretty much every such battle had ended up with him giving up, with only a nominal concession.

Coming up to the classroom door, having followed the signs to the right general area, Shinji swallowed hard, smoothing down his overjacket, feeling the plated ridges of the ballistic vest under it. A few deep breaths into cupped hands, and he was moving, swinging the door open.

Anticlimatically, none of the teenagers paid more a cursory glance to him, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, that meant that there was no opportunity to explain, and ask what he should be doing. He could go and ask one of them, go introduce himself, insofar as he was physically capable of such a deed, but instead, he chose to lurk by the door. After all, it was okay to be nervous on his first day here, and this way, when the teacher arrived, he could talk to... Shinji checked the folder... him immediately. To pass the time, he diverted his attention to the class, looking at his new classmates.

The first thing that struck him was the heterogeneity of the group, the variety of races in both the colloquial and biological sense; or, to put it another way, the mix of both ethnicities and subspecies. Just looking around, there were almost as many greyish-brown, the skin colour of the amlati, faces as there were ones which were purely pigmented by eumelanin or voumelanin. From that, Shinji could tell that the previous generation had been rather enthusiastic in the post-A-War 1 reconciliation efforts between the Nazzadi and Homo sapiens sapiens. More seriously, it spoke volumes about the socioeconomic makeup of his new school; intersubspecies breeding was many times more common in the higher wealth brackets than it was among the unskilled poor of both branches of mankind. The skilled, trained members of the Nazzadi invasion fleet had been integrated into the society of the newly formed New Earth Government relatively painlessly (and so had shown to their counterparts that the Nazzadi were just human); it was those whose skills were nothing but that talent for soldiering that the Migou had built into them who had suffered.

That wasn’t surprising, of course. For all that the Ashcroft Academies prided themselves on their bursary and scholarship schemes, the simple fact was that the ones who they skimmed from mainstream education were always going to be in the minority, not least because the children who had been through the challenging educational regime since the age of five were always going to have had more opportunity, more accumulated educational advantage, than those not pushed to such heights. And the way that a disturbing number of students were themselves children of Ashcroft employees, or had parents who had been prenatally modified (as opposed to merely selected for) in that brief belle époque of genetic engineering, a transhuman flower cut off at the stem by the First Arcanotech War, bought mutterings of a new aristocracy. The Ashcroft Foundation’s denials, that as a highly selective employer, of course more of the children of their workers would meet their criteria, and that the children of people selected and tweaked for enhanced intellect would themselves be brighter, were unconvincing to too many.

As the son of Gendo Ikari, Shinji was largely deaf to those kind of accusations, and was rather more occupied with looking around somewhat desperately, hoping that someone would notice him and ask him what he was doing so that he could explain, as opposed to being worried about the socioeconomic privileges he took as a base assumption of his worldview.

“Excuse me?” asked a girl from behind him. Shinji turned and smiled somewhat desperately. “You’re blocking the way,” said a nazzady, red streaks dyed in the jet-black hair universal among the sub-species.

“Sorry,” said Shinji, as he stepped aside. He tried not to stare at somewhat-lower-than-regulation neck of her uniform, nor at the sharply angular whitework tattoos which snaked downwards past her collarbone. “I’m sorry but...” he trailed off, as she swept past him without a second glance. “I don’t...” He gave up.

At least the entrance of the other girl attracted some attention, as she sat down with a small cluster of both Nazzadi and xenomixes, of both genders, in the centre of the classroom, and a few more looked towards him. Finally (and Shinji breathed a sigh of relief), a pigtailed amlaty, her entire appearance (she, for one, was still wearing her overjacket, the collar fully done up) almost painfully precise, got up from where she had been talking with friends, and made her way over to him.

“Hello,” he said immediately. “Uh... I’m Shinji, and I’ve... um, well, I’ve just transferred to the school, and the people at the reception... when I say ‘people’, I mean ‘man’, said I should go here. Um.”

Inwardly, he cringed. Okay. As an introduction, that could have been a lot better. And more precisely, less rambly... generally better.

Fortunately, the girl smiled at him. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It was mentioned towards the end of last week that we might be getting a transfer student. I’m the Class Representative; my name is Hikary Horaki.”

Shinji paused, mental cogs automatically processing. Okay, so that means that her parents’ names were Hory and Aka... wait, not, she’s xenomixed, so the scheme breaks down. It might be a surname, as opposed to the whole Nazzadi name-chain thing. Best not to make any assumptions. Wait, why am I getting distracted by this... oh yes, nervous. Focus, Shinji, focus. And not on the way that the overcoat suits her remarkably well. Out loud, he said, “Well, okay.” He paused. “Do you need to see this folder or anything?” he said, lifting it.

The xenomix shook her head. “No... let me just... aha,” she said, checking her PCPU. “Yes, you’ve been added to the class list, and you have your options registered, Shinji... Ikari...” her voice trailed away.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Hikary said tersely. “I expect you’ll have to introduce yourself to the rest of the class during the tutor group time. After that, you’ll need to pick a Social Work Task,” she looked at him with a hint of pity, “and considering we’re already into the term, your options will be more limited than they would have been at the start of the year.”

Shinji coughed. This was one of the cover stories. “Actually, I already have one; I have a work placement down in the Geocity. Environmental preservation work.” He was sure that someone had found that far, far too funny when picking that official title for the Test Pilot programme.

And, in truth, though Shinji did not know it, Deputy Representative Fuyutsuki had in fact been highly amused.

Hikary nodded. “Oh, that’s good. Arcology biosphere management is a vital role that people too often overlook. Although I expect you’re not looking forwards to the commute.”

“I would rather not have to do it,” he admitted.

The girl shrugged. “It is mandatory, and I feel it’s good that it encourages a sense of social responsibility. But, yes, you already have a placement, and so you don’t need to worry about this.” She sucked in a breath. “And that means that you might need to put up with a bit of pestering from Dathan.”

“Who? Why?”

She glanced over at a brown-haired boy, sitting at the back of the classroom, idly nodding his head to some unknown music. “He’s heavily involved in the OIS Cadets, and they always have more room for Social Work Tasks. He’s... enthusiastic.”

“Enthusiastic,” said Shinji, flatly. If the Class Representative warned him about that, then how bad must it be?

Hikary nodded. “Enthusiastic,” she said tactfully. “Of course, if you’re still interested, you could join the Cadets anyway, but there will be other clubs trying to get you to join, so,” she flashed a brief smile at him, and Shinji couldn’t help but notice that it was a pretty smile, the teeth human-like, rather than the chisel-like Nazzadi dentures, “I would advise you not commit to anything too soon, until you’ve seen all the options. Unless there’s something you really want, like if you play any sports or an instrument?” she asked, the pitch of her voice rising at the end.

“Uh, yes, cello, actually, but mine hasn’t been transported over yet,” he said, smiling back. “And I’ll keep that in mind, thanks. Um... is there any class seating order here?”

The orange-eyed amlaty shook her head, pigtails flicking behind her. “No. Some teachers have their own plans, but this is the tutor group, so you are free to sit where you like.”

“Thank you,” said Shinji, even as he paled slightly. “I think I probably need to start reading this,” he patted the folder, “and... well, nerves. That is, it might be a good idea to sit down.”

“I understand,” she said, nodding, as she returned to her seat, returning to the conversation he had interrupted. “Remember to speak to the tutor as soon as he arrives.” Sitting down, Shinji could hear the babble of vaguely interested chat of teenagers spread out from that focal point, including several repetitions of his name. One of which was heavily mispronounced, and another which was just plain wrong.

Sigh.

“Stand up when a teacher enters the classroom,” he heard the surprisingly commanding voice of Hikary say, and there was a general scraping of chairs as the class stood for the elderly male teacher.

“Sit down, sit down,” the elderly man said, flapping a hand at the class, as he pulled out his chair and sat down himself, with a slight sigh. There was the snap of a pair of arglasses unfolding, as the man put his on, and turned on his desk. “I hope everyone had a nice weekend.”

There was an apathetic muttering chorus to the effect of ‘yeah’ and ‘why did it have to end’ from the teenagers.

“Now... let me see,” he continued, scanning his way down the desk, the touchscreen that was the surface yielding to his gestures. “Ah... yes.” He looked up, tired-looking eyes scanning the classroom. Shinji winced slightly, as they settled on him. “You’re the new one, aren’t you?” the teacher asked. At Shinji’s nod, he said, “Please come here, then. You have the folder... yes, you do. I need to see that.”

With a slightly fixed smile, Shinji got up. He could feel the eyes down his spine, he was sure of it; the hair on the back of his neck was standing up.

Come on, Shinji, he told himself. You routinely drown, as part of piloting an arcanoxeno... biocyber... uh, magic cyborg alien robot. You musn’t run away from having to do the whole ‘introducing yourself to a class’ thing. That would just be silly.

He still wanted to.

~'/|\'~

“Hey, you!” demanded a voice from behind him in the corridor, on the way to the history classroom.

Great way to start a conversation, Shinji thought. Turning around, he could see the brown haired boy that the class representative... Hikary... had noted to him, already holding a form in hand. Yes, as I thought. A wonderful way to persuade someone that they want to spend more time with you. ‘Hey, you!’ Perhaps you would like to be a little more abusive. Maybe some profanity. Perhaps you should try punching me, and then I’d really want to hang around with you. He paused. I hope he doesn’t punch me, Shinji added hastily to himself.

And from the way that the Nazzadi girl standing slightly behind the other boy had one hand clutched to her forehead, and seemed to be groaning slightly, it seemed that someone else, at least, seemed to agree that that was probably not the best way to go about persuading people.

“Yes?” Shinji said.

“You’re the transfer student, aren’t you?” The boy loomed over Shinji; he looked like another one of those tall Europeans, perhaps descended from evacuees from Migou-occupied Scandinavia. “Why did you move, anyway; it’s unusual to move so close to the start of term.”

“Dathan...” hissed the girl beside him. “You’re being...”

“I’m Shinji, by the way,” he said, a slightly caustic note entering his voice. “And,” he shrugged, pulling out the cover story, “the move was to do with my father and his work.” Inwardly, he frowned. Whoever had put these cover stories together seemed to take pride in setting them up so he had to lie as little as possible, while mislead as much as possible. “Now, what do you want?”

The hint of confrontation failed to dissuade the other boy. “Since you’re new, you’re going to have to get something to do on Wednesday afternoons. I want you to join the OIS Cadets.”

There was another groan from the girl.

“Uh,” Shinji put on a smile, “well, I would like to, but I’m afraid I already have something booked.” Jerk.

“Hikary got you into old people visiting that quickly, huh?” the boy said, a petulant look on his face. “It’s like she’s trying to undermine the Cadets, with the way she pushes people away from us...”

“Dathan, don’t get started on...”

Shinji said nothing, and tried to indicate that he was otherwise occupied with trying to get to the next class.

“... but, you know, you can still change. It’s a lot more fun with the Cadets. I mean, there are puzzles all over the world, and this way, you can hunt them down, and solve them,” Dathan said, balling one fist and slamming it into the other palm. Shinji recoiled slightly. “Permanently,” he added, unnecessarily.

“I’m fine, really,” said Shinji. “I might consider it,” and I have, and I’ve rejected it he added mentally, “but now isn’t the time.”

The other boy shrugged. “Suit yourself, Transferee.” He looked rather sullen as he walked off.

“Sorry about that,” said the girl, softly. “He’s like that. All the time.” She had a hint of an accent he couldn’t recognise; it wasn’t a pure Nazzadi accent, but was instead blended with something else. “I’m surprised Hikary didn’t warn you about him.”

Shinji sighed. “She did. And I’ve met people like him before,” he admitted. “They seem to think that ‘tact’ is... um... a percentage of your income you have to pay to the government.”

“I’ve heard worse descriptions of him,” the girl said, with a flick of her ponytail, “in the far-too-many years I’ve had him in my class. I’m Jony, by the way.”

“Shinji,” he said, looking down at her. “Um... nice to meet you. So... why do you hang around with him, then?”

She shrugged. “I’m used to it. He’s not my boyfriend, by the way,” she added hastily. “I just want to get this clear up front.”

Shinji raised an eyebrow. I... I didn’t ask. There was the characteristic slight darkening that was the closest that the black-skinned (and voumelanin was actually black, unlike human eumelanin) Nazzadi came to blushing.

She winced slightly the expression on his face. “Uh... and I wasn’t asking you out, either.” Jony coughed. “Can we pretend this part of the conversation never happened?” she asked uncomfortably.

Shinji nodded, blushing too. “I think... yeah.” He coughed. “So. Um.”

“Um. Yes, the OIS Cadets aren’t actually that bad,” she continued weakly, “and as an official, state-sponsored club, we do have a clubroom and stuff. I know you said that you were doing something else, but,” she smiled weakly at him, “you might want to consider just taking a look.”

“I’ll think about it,” Shinji said. He felt his PCPU vibrate; checking it, it was his muse (newly updated with his timetable), nagging him that he was going to be late, even though he had her on ‘silent mode’. A similar gesture on behalf of the girl, at exactly the same moment, revealed that it seemed to be a standard part of the software update from the school’s Internal Grid.

“Where is H107?” asked Shinji.

“This way. It’s Mr Rokpol droning on about Modern History,” Jony said, as they hurried through the thinning crowd of students. “1931, discovery of Elder Thing city. 1937, discovery of Yithian city. 1939, start of World War 2. 1946, end of World War Two, Berlin and Hiroshima blown up, Axis powers surrender, reformation of League of Nations into United Nations.”

“Wait, you’ve already covered all that?” groaned Shinji. “Why did I miss all that school?”

They both got glared at by Hikary as they arrived at H107, despite the fact that the teacher wasn’t there yet.

~'/|\'~

Shinji was heavily laden with books and work given to him by various teachers by the time he got home.

Well, metaphorically, he was. In actual fact, they were all in electronic format, loaded up to his personal filespace, and so did not, in fact, weigh anything. But the metaphysical weight of yet more work, on top of his training, was crushing.

As he arrived back at the apartment, he could hear loud noises coming from the longue. Putting his bag down with a sigh, he poked his head through.

Misato was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, clad in a strappy yellow top and very short shorts, a bowl and a spoon in hand. Her meal, however, was rather interrupted by the frequent bursts of laughter and unfeminine snorting emanating forth from her. She was watching something on the large screen, which, from what he could see, seemed to be some kind of cartoon.

“What are you doing?” Shinji asked her, his brow wrinkling in a frown.

“Oh, heya Shinji,” she said, turning and cheerfully waving with the hand with a spoon in it. “Have fun?”

He narrowed his eyes. “Yes. I’m a big fan of work,” he replied, in a studiously neutral tone. “I’m really looking forwards to catching up on a month of schoolwork at the start of my ISCHATs.”

Misato appeared to be impregnable to sarcasm, or at least chose to ignore it. “That’s good,” she said, hitting the pause button for the programme. “Tests and school are important, Shinji,” she lectured him, “and that kind of attitude will serve you well.”

Right. I’m just going to assume that was deliberate, because I don’t want to believe that she took that seriously.

“Meet anyone?” she added.

“Yes.” Misato looked at him expectantly. “Are you feeling better?” he asked, changing the subject. “This morning, you seemed...” he paused, “... very, very tired,” he finished. If she missed the sarcasm, she probably wasn’t going to be observant enough to get similes or metaphor.

“Yeah. You’d be amazed what getting to sleep does for being tired. And,” she said, through a mouthful of... whatever it was, it smelt, Shinji sniffed, like beer, but he could see noodles swimming in it, “getting to do nothing apart from a nagging call from Rits checking that you’d left was nice.” She shook her head. “I have no idea why she did that, actually. I mean, she was there when I finally got to leave. She knew that I would only just be getting... I guess, it was meant to remind me to wake you up, if you’d somehow slept in, as if you could... and that reminds me, can you tell your muse to keep it down. I meant to mention it earlier, but it’s loud when it turns on the radio and stuff.”

Shinji frowned. “I’ll lower her volume, yes,” he said. “I guess it must have been annoying for you, to have been there when the morning people came in,” he added with a shrug.

Misato shook her head. “Nope. Rits was there all night. I swear, I think she probably gets less than 20 hours of sleep a week. That’s the problem with being a genius, Shinji. It’s much more fun being a normal, and getting to have a life outside of science. Don’t put too much of your life into school and tests. It’s better for your health.”

Wait a moment. You just said that schools and tests are important! Shinji thought, his inner voice a blend of irritation and exasperation. Less than a minute ago! Consistency isn’t your strong point, is it?

“So, what are you watching?” he called through, as he dodged a giant albino emperor penguin, which had apparently got its own drink, to get to the fridge.

“’Instructional Lessons For the Youth of Today and Stuff’,” Misato called back, as the noise resumed. “Haven’t you seen it before?”

“Wark!”

“Oh, yeah, can you bring the bottle opener through, Shinji?” Misato added, apparently at Pen-Pen’s request.

Bottle opener, bottle opener the boy’s thoughts ran, in the ancient mantra used and developed independently by almost every culture in human history. “Misato! It’s meant to be in the drawer with the red handle,” he said, after checking the place. “And it’s not.”

“Oh.” She paused. “Check the other drawers,” she commanded.

“This is Hemiechinus auritus, the Long-Eared Hedgehog,” came the voice of the resumed programme. “It is a species of hedgehog native to Central Asia and the Caucasus Mountains, although the eastern end of its habitat has been negatively affected by the expansion of Leng. It is primarily an insectivore, and is smaller and faster than its European cousin.”

“I’m checking the drawers,” Shinji responded, “and it’s not there!”

“It might be in the fridge.”

“Why would it be in the fridge?”

“Look at him. What a happy little fellow. He may be covered in spines, but look at that twitchy little nose, and those floppy ears, and you can see that he’s cheerful to be alive.”

“... because maybe I might want to open a bottle as soon as I get it,” said Misato, eventually.

Shinji stopped, and his palm collided with his forehead. “So you leave the bottle opener in the fridge?”

“Yes. And?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll find it, and bring it through. Don’t worry. And then I can put it back in its proper place, too.”

“He is also, sadly, a randy little bugger. A lonely, randy little bugger who’ll fuck pretty much anything with spines on it, whether male, female, dead or alive.”

Shinji’s jaw dropped open, and he gazed, unseeing, into the fridge, as Misato snorted. What is she watching? What... what... huh. He blinked as his brain rebooted, only to hit another fatal error, and shut down again.

“In this, he shows a profound lack of intellect. Look. He’s found another hedgehog. And it’s even alive and female. He might be in for some luck. Watch as he tries to sneak up on her. She’s a cheap slut, too. The characteristic high heels and fishnets of an illegal and unlicensed prostitute.”

Shinji’s face was getting cold, as he stared, empty eyed into the fridge. What. The. Hell.

“Oh, wait, no. I was sitting on it. It’s okay.”

“Wark. Wark!”

“Sure thing.” There was the snap of a breaking seal.

Why is the world not making sense anymore?

The sound of tearing flesh and a rhythmic squirting noise boomed through the apartment, accompanied by Misato’s hysterical laughter.

“Oh dear. The hedgehog just skewered himself. Even now, he is bleeding to death. He was not able to get too close to the other hedgehog without hurting himself. If he had stayed at the right distance, he would have been fine, but he got too close, and when two hedgehogs get too close, one of them always gets hurt.”

Standing in the doorway, the boy gazed at the screen, where the blood-covered, anthropomorphic hedgehog in high-heels was running around screaming, the other, dead male hedgehog in a trenchcoat impaled on its back, then over to the laughing woman, and penguin with a bottle of beer in its hand... wing... manipulator, then back at the screen.”

“The moral of this story, children, is this. “The Hedgehog cannot be buggered at all.”

Shinji worked his jaw, a few times, but no works came out. Finally, he managed a “What?”

Misato turned, a grin spread over her face. “It’s ’Instructional Lessons For the Youth of Today and Stuff’,” she said, as if it explained everything.

“... what?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “It’s not serious. It makes fun of stuff like teaching programmes.”

“...what?” The female hedgehog was now on fire.

“Oh, lighten up.” She gazed at his shocked face. “Are you seriously telling me you’ve never seen it before?” she asked. “You’re a teenage boy, aren’t you? Aren’t you meant to be all about the pointless rebellion against good taste, and the damaging of previous generation’s moral values and stuff?”

“How is that funny?”

Misato sighed, pouting at him. “You’re boring.”

And you’re sitting in shorts, and a skimpy top with blatantly no bra... yes, I can tell, it isn’t hard... eating cheap noodles which you seem to have cooked in beer. I think it’s rather clear that you’re immature.

Anyway, I thought I threw out all those cheap noodles. Seriously, they’re starchy junk. They taste horrible. Did you seriously go and make more while I was at school, and not use the good quality ones I made? Do you actually like them? Why? What possible reason could you have for willingly eating them?

“Maybe,” he said, blushing. “I’m going to start my school work. Try to keep the noise down.”

Misato watched him go. Ooops, she thought.

Seriously, what was up with him? This was her day off, and she was still tired, but was keeping herself awake after the nap in the morning, to try to get her sleep cycle back to normal, and then, as soon as he came in, he was already complaining about something petty like where the bottle opener was. It wasn’t even as if he was the one who used it ever; the only bottles in the house were the ones she bought, and so if she was the only user, she could leave the opener wherever she felt like. And then he acted all stiff and formal about something that was funny, and blatantly not meant seriously. To be honest, he needed a surgically implanted sense of humour. Although, thinking about it, that might not be enough. That particular trait might be genetic.

She yawned, and stretched, glancing down at Pen-Pen, who was sprawled, belly-first, on the carpet. What should she watch next? She had the entire series, so she wouldn’t have to pay-select... hmm, yeah. With a few words to her muse, Misato selected ‘Episode 29: Sexually Adventurous Bees’, and settled back, taking another mouthful of the beer-boiled noodles.

If only people would be a bit more understanding.

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

~'/|\'~

16th September, 2091

Shinji had his arms sprawled forwards on the desk, head rested on them. The music playing through his headphones was the only thing keeping him awake. He had been up late, trying to catch up on his work, and hadn’t had time for breakfast; the only reason he hadn’t been late was that Misato had started flicking water at him to get him out of bed. He’d even managed to sleep through his muse’s alarms.

Of course, the only reason he had been up so late was because he had been in the Geocity from two until eight. Other people got a nice easy four hours of reading to primary school children, or visiting old people with no living relatives. Shinji longed for that kind of easy life. He had to train in a giant robot covered in guns, with the ability to crush buildings underfoot and drop-kick any hostile Migou unit smaller than a capital ship.

It was nowhere as cool as it sounded.

Ah, I can doze off, right? I know technically I should be socialising, but I can’t do that when I’m like this, and more sleep is better.

“Are you all right?” someone asked from behind him. The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t link it to a name, and didn’t want to move to look who it was.

“Just tired,” he muttered. “Not ill. Trying to catch up on work. Failing. Want more sleep.”

Whoever they were patted him on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

Good, they weren’t talking to him anymore. He just wanted to rest his eyes.

Somewhere towards the rear of a classroom, a brown-haired boy, active arglasses opaque, was doing... something. It was impossible to see what he was actually manipulating unless one was actually tuned into the same viewing frequency. Whatever was being done, though, was inducing certain vocalisations. Like “rat-tat-tat-tat”, and “whoosh... boom!”.

He felt a solid hand grip one wrist, and froze, tilting his head down to peek over the top of his spectacles. With his free hand, he scrabbled down on the desk, until he managed to deactivate the link, and let the glasses turn transparent once more.

“What is it, Class Rep?” he asked, blinking as he was forced to deal with the real world, rather than the models floating in the air before his eyes.

Hikary was looking at him with more than a little disapproval, the hand not restraining his wrist resting on her hip. “Firstly,” she began, “stop making those noises. They are annoying people, and you really should be using the tutor group time to socialise with your friends, not playing around with AR models.” The boy shrugged, which prompted a sigh from the amlaty. “Secondly, Kensuke, have you heard anything from Toja?” she asked, letting go of his wrist.

Kensuke massaged his newly freed arm (She has a grip like steel!, he thought), and shook his head. “He buzzed me over the weekend, said he was going into hospital for his sister’s operation. Haven’t heard anything else yet. Even his muse is bouncing all messages,” he boy fished around in his pocket, “... uh, wait a moment.”

Hikary shook her head. “No, I know about that. You’re on good terms with him, aren’t you?” She crossed her arms in front of her. “Are you telling me that you haven’ heard from him at all?” the girl asked, a note of disbelief entering her voice. “I mean, I know his sister was hurt in the incursion, but... nothing since the weekend?”

“Nope. Not at all. It’s been almost a month, too; she must have been really bad if she’s still in a critical state.” He paused. “You don’t think something has happened to him, do you?”

“I hope not.” There was worry in her orange eyes. “I mean, I haven’t been forwarded anything about...”

Behind her, there was a laconic, “Yo,” as a tall, athletic Nazzadi boy entered the room, one hand raised in a desultory greeting. Compared to the stark black overcoats which were part of the regulation uniform, his coat was scrunched up underneath one arm, with a sports jacket taking its place.

“Hey, Toja,” called out Kensuke, as Hikary’s mouth twisted into a silent “Oh”.

He glanced around the mostly full room, before dumping his bag and overcoat down on a free table with a solid clunk. “Nice to see everyone seems to love turning up early as usual,” he said, the noticeable accent in his voice only accentuating the slight hint of contempt.

“Yeah, well,” Kensuke said back, with a shrug. “What do you expect here?”

Hikary stared at the brown-haired boy for a moment, before switching her attention to the new arrival. “Where have you been?” she asked, her tone formal, even annoyed. “Your muse was even bouncing all messages back, so you have quite a bit of work to catch up on... and you still aren’t wearing the proper uniform!”

Toja groaned, “Give me a break, Class Rep. I’ve been in the hospital since Sunday. There were complications in my sister’s operation.”

The girl’s face immediately flushed, embarrassment covering her face. “I’m so sorry,” she said, hastily. “Is... is... she’s going to get better, right?”

With a grunt, Toja slumped down onto a desk. “Yeah, she’s... she’s stable,” he said. “She woke up yesterday, and seems to be,” he tapped his head, “fine up here. Now she just has to learn to walk again, and stuff.”

“What happened? I mean, I know you live up in Victoria, but...”

“Nah,” the boy shook his head, “We’re deeper inside.” He gave a disgusted snort. “We’d have been fine had we just stayed at home, rather than evacuated.”

“Huh?” Kensuke looked confused. “But the legal minimum for construction materials for an evacuation bunker is twice that of an arcology superstructure...”

“Yeah, and it doesn’t help one bit when some harangi thing goes underground and manages to crush everything, does it!” snapped Toja, eyes flashing. “I’m really pissed off!”

“Calm down,” the girl said, leaning back from the sudden anger. “Please.”

The Nazzadi boy took in a breath, and let it out, slowly, teeth gritted. “When the bunker... it just crumpled, you know... when it gave way, I saw the roof bend. And I grabbed her and tried to pull her out the way.” He swallowed. “Just managed to pull her into the way. She’d have been fine if I’d just left her there. But, no, I interfered, and because of me, she got her spine crushed!”

The other two, and the class around them, were silent. “It... it’s not really your fault,” Kensuke said softly, hand hovering ineffectually. “I mean, if you’d been wrong, you’d be blaming yourself for not doing it.”

Toja groaned, “People have been saying that. It doesn’t make it better.” With a sigh, he shook his head. “It’ll be better when she’s up and about again.”

Kensuke nodded intently. “Yes. And at least they killed the ENE. Believe me, the forums are going crazy about it. It was awesome, the way that a squadron of Engels managed to get in close, and take it down. Those pilots,” there was awe in his voice, “they were real heroes.”

There was a short, bitter laugh from his friend. He glowered when the other two, and several other classmates stared at him. “I’m still annoyed,” he said, tone abrupt. “Don’t listen.” Toja forced a breath of air out in a huff. “So~ooo,” he said, elongating the syllable, and obviously trying to change the subject, “what did I miss?”

Hikary tilted her head. “You have all the notes sent to you,” she said immediately, “and if you’d stop telling your muse to bounce all mail, then they would get through.”

The Nazzadi boy groaned. “I don’t guess you’d get them to let me off, thanks to family stress and stuff?” he asked, a note of hope in his voice.

“Of course they won’t. This is an Ashcroft Academy, and you’re expected to live up to the school’s reputation,” she replied.

Kensuke smirked, and gestured to the front of the classroom. “You think you have it bad, just think about what the new transfer student has to put up with,” he said. “Apparently, he’s missed everything from the start of term, thanks to a move, and then an illness. He’s got a month of stuff to do... you’ve got, what, four days?”

“Oh, we have a new person in the class?” Toja only sounded vaguely interested.

“Yes, but have you heard the rumours?” interjected a girl, her hair in tight braids, leaning in to the conversation. She was almost dark-skinned enough to pass for a Nazzadi, although her surprisingly-green eyes put lie to that. “We think he’s...”

Hikary glanced at her with narrowed eyes. “If you don’t mind, Enu...” she began, but was ignored.

“As I was saying, I’ve heard that he’s the son of the European Representative. After all, his surname is ‘Ikari’. And I did some browsing... it could be him. Pictures could match, although I couldn’t find any good quality ones.”

The amlaty sighed. “It’s not like ‘Ikari’ is an especially rare surname in Japan, Enu” she said, a weary note in her voice. “You shouldn’t jump to that kind of conclusion.”

“So you don’t think he’s related?” added a Nazzadi girl, the one with the dyed red streaks in her hair, to the rapidly growing conversation.

With narrowed eyes, Hikary said, “No, Taly. I just think that we shouldn’t make a fuss about it if he doesn’t choose to. It isn’t as if it matters.”

The Nazzadi girl flashed a sudden grin, chisel-like teeth evident. “Sure thing. Hokari,” she said, with a mocking tone in her voice.

“We could settle this, of course,” said Enu, with a glance to the front of the classroom, where the figure of Shinji Ikari was sprawled out, head resting on arms, obviously asleep. “We could just go poke him, and ask him while he’s still confused.

“No.”

“Oh, come on, it’s a real thing. That’s why important people have bodyguards who stop them being questioned when coming out of operations, while they’re confused.” The girl grinned. “I read it on exocerebrum.”

Taly sneered. “It’s important. For one, the Ashcroft Council of Representatives still has a disgraceful lack of Nazzadi members. Four Nazzadi, to seven anfrazzadi, and we’re pushed into Regional posts, too, rather than Conceptual ones.”

“If that is the case,” Hikary said, eyes narrowed at the other girl, “then men have more reason for complaint than the Nazzadi do. They make up more of the population, and have fewer seats. But, no, it does not matter. And it’s not nice to discuss classmates behind their back. So everyone should go sit back down; it’s almost the end of tutor group, and I’ll have to take the register, if the teacher isn’t going to show up.”

~'/|\'~

It began with the scream of sirens, and the babble of Limited Artificial Intelligences, as the lights brightened and Emergency Mode activated.

“Alert,” stated a clear, androgynous voice over the top. “Pattern Blue detected. First perimeter breach...” before it cut itself off.
“Second perimeter br...
“Third perimet...”
“Fourth perim...
“Fifth...”
“Si...”
“S...”

“Oh,” muttered Lieutenant Aoba, as the warnings blanketed out his screen, taking over from the report he was writing up. The above-ground security cordons, a massively multilayered defence system which covered, at the widest, most of the south of what had been the United Kingdom, were simply being ignored. He blinked, twice, as he absorbed the information. “Oh.”

“Get me Major Katsuragi right now!” screamed the duty officer, her heart-shaped face pale. “Get a line to EuroHighCom ready!” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Audhu billahi minashaitanir rajeem,” she muttered to herself, the words calming her slightly, before continuing. “Do we have a location for the...”

The voice of Major Katsuragi came from behind her, “Status report, now! What’s happening, Captain Bakr?” and the duty officer relaxed slightly.

“Massive anomalous Pattern Blue, Major,” she responded promptly. “It’s... it’s...” she turned to face the on-duty Operator, “... what’s the current status?”

“The Pattern Blue has passed all the above-ground defensive perimeters,” Second Lieutenant Estat said, eyes gazing unseeing into nothing, as the optical jacks in his Eyes streamed data from the cable connected to the back of his head. “And then it continued straight through, and turned... it’s coming back, but slower. It’s still moving at Mach 12. We don’t have any reports of contact, Captain... and Major.”

The Major turned chalk white. “Is it genuine?” she whispered. “No, don’t answer that. She slammed her fist into her palm. “Right, contact EuroHighCom, and request permission to deploy Evangelions. Ready Unit 01 for an emergency deployment.” She took a breath. “And tell security to execute Protocol Echo. We don’t have time for any other way.”

Major Misato Katsuragi was not a happy woman. Just tracking the pattern of burned out sensors (she made a note that they needed less sensitive ones installed, just so they could keep actively tracking such beings), this thing was moving far too fast. It had just punched right through the defensive perimeters, overshot, and was coming back. Even Asherah hadn’t been this fast. And it was moving too quickly for the NEG to get a workable firing solution for any tactical nuclear weapons. Hells, it was moving too quickly for most air defences to get a proper lock. Only specialist Migou craft ever reached these velocities in atmosphere, and those things were basically engine. Even laser defences would have problems mechanically tracking it fast enough... not that they knew what it looked like. It wasn’t leaving a shockwave, it hadn’t been seen, in its turns it showed no sign of observing conservation of momentum. Harbinger-3 had acted at least partially like a real thing, but this... she would have suspected that it was a false signal, but false signals didn’t burn out sensors, did they? And, anyway, they had to treat all signals as if they were real, because this was one area where failure was not an option.

What the hell was this thing?

And that wasn’t her only problem. Unit 00 was still not operational; Test Pilot Ayanami may have been able to move again, but she was still in no state to pilot. That left one, undertrained, underprepared Child... no, child as the sole military forces at her disposal. She was going to have to work with what she had, she thought, as she heard Ritsuko pant, apparently having run all the way from her office. She was really going to have to see if NEGA Command would let her move Unit 02 off the Eastern Front, but... no, there wasn’t time to ponder such could-have-beens now.

~'/|\'~

The light streaming in through the windows, from the illumination panels on the roof of the arcology dome cast long shadows in the classroom. This was rather unhelphful, as Shinji was trying to simultaneously listen to the teacher, and, on a larger, borrowed A4-sized PCPU, cram-study the things the course had covered before now.

As it was, the aforementioned things were making insufficient sense without context. And he should probably think about getting one like this; the pocket-sized softscreen he had didn’t have a large enough screen, if one wasn’t wearing arglasses.

“Now, as can be clearly seen, numbers like this come in two parts; the real part, that is, the normal part, which you have been used to up until now, and the imaginary part. If the component is multiplied by a factor of i, it is imaginary; otherwise, it is real.” The teacher smiled, tucking back a lock of his dark brown hair behind his green-tinted arglasses. He had to be one of the eldest amlati, Shinji thought; although there were conceptions before the end of the First Arcanotech War, they were rare, and almost never consensual. “And, well, they may be called ‘complex’, but they’re not actually that hard.”

There was a dutiful chuckle, and a rebellious groan, from the class.

“The first thing you have to do is separate the terms with an i from the ones which don’t have one. And, at this point, I should probably point out that all the numbers you’re likely to ever meet, unless you chose to specialise in high-end mathematics, or become a sorcerer, can be broken up in that way. Tsuka, how do you identify whether you are taking the real or imaginary part of (3 + 5i)?”

The black-skinned boy glanced from side to side nervously. “Um...” he said, biting on his bottom lip.

The teacher sighed. “Okay... hmm, Taly?”

The Nazzadi girl with dyed red streaks in her hair stood up. “The imaginary component is denoted with Im[3+5i], the real component with Re[3+5i],” she said, before sitting back down.

“Correct.” The teacher ran his fingers along his desk, glancing down at the touchscreen which was its surface. “Now, take... well, take i, the square root of minus one. Despite the fact that it is purely an imaginary number, it can still be written in complex form, as (0 + i). Now, how would you separate out the components... Ullr?”

The chosen boy blinked, orange eyes flickering. “You specify whether you want the real or imaginary component, followed by square brackets,” he said softly. “The real component of i is zero; the imaginary component of i is one.”

The teacher nodded. “Note how Mikael didn’t slip up the classic mistake, as normal,” he added, sotto voce. “Im is 1, not i. We’re looking for the coefficient of the i term. That means that the imaginary component does not actually have a...”

He was interrupted by a squad in full combat gear, Ashcroft Foundation insignia clearly evident, bursting through the door to the classroom. In deference to the fact that they were in a school, their weapons were lowered. Nevertheless, they were carrying them in a position which suggested that they could be unlowered should it prove necessary.

“Go! Secure the Third Child!” ordered the mechanical voice of the lead figure. Two more soldiers, combat masks fully opaque scanned the classroom, and advanced on Shinji, who, much like the rest of the class would have been in shock, had he actually had time to respond.

“Protocol Echo, sir,” said one of the two figures.

“Why, what...”

“This way,” said the figure tersely, as they pulled him upright.

Shinji groaned. “I’m needed in the Eva?” he asked, as they escorted him through the ranks of chairs, crushing bags underfoot.

“Come this way, sir. Don’t talk.” The boy was hustled out of the room, all but being carried by the armoured figures.

There was an uncomfortable pause, as the squad leader stared at the maths teacher, who had dropped the tablet in his hand, and was staring back, jaw handing open. Forty-eight teenaged eyes were locked on the grey-and-blue figure.

With a creek, the door fell off its hinges, echoing in the silence.

“Carry on,” said the lead figure, in the mechanical voice which, despite the fact it was designed not to convey emotion, still managed to sound embarrassed.

The teacher’s jaw flapped a few times, a noise almost exactly not like escaping steam coming out. The soldier saluted, turned around, and left.

The silence was broken by a brown-haired, bespectacled boy punching one arm in the air. “That was totally sweet!” Kensuke yelled. “That was Eschaton XI-F semi-powered heavy combat armour. It’s meant to be able to shrug off 10mm rifle fire!”

“Everyone, silence!” snapped Hikary, turning to glare at the boy. It didn’t have the proper effect.

“And those rifles. They... no, they couldn’t have been...”

“Silence!”

“... specialist squad support 16mm anti-material integrated coilguns with underslung...”

“Be. Quiet.” The girl turned to face the teacher. “Sir, have we received warning? Do we need to evacuate?”

The teacher’s brain had, by now, rebooted. Well, mostly. He still looked rather shell-shocked. “What the hell is going on?” he managed. “Was that... was that real?” He glanced at Hikary. “What?”

“Have we had an evacuation notice, sir?” she repeated.

“I think it was real,” a boy behind her said. “After all, i wasn’t involved.” He was promptly elbowed in the ribs by the Nazzadi boy next to him. “Ow. That hurt, Kaga.”

“You deserved it. Idiot.” They were both silenced by a glare from Hikary.

“Sir?”

“Uh... uh... uh. Uh, no. No evacuation notice.” The teacher swallowed. “I... I think we can probably call it a day here,” he said, glancing at the crushed bags, and the door lying flat on the floor. “It... well, for one, the classroom is rather damaged.” There was a nervous titter. “I... I think I probably have to go to talk to some people. Quite urgently.” And with that said, he almost-ran out of the classroom, PCPU already in hand.

And as the class dispersed, the babble was already turning to the question of the new boy, and what had just happened, which had only deepened the questions that already existed about him. It seemed that mathematics was nothing compared to how complex the real world had just become.

~'/|\'~

The oddly heat-neutral feeling of LCL flooded Shinji’s lungs, and he gagged. Unfortunately, it tasted no better. He shook his head, and tried not to vomit.

“Shinji, our analysts are building up a pattern for the sweeps,” said Ritsuko, eyes wrinkled with concern. The boy stared at her. Those blue, cog-like lights from the active harcontacts were almost hypnotic. Human eyes should not look like that, there was something inside him screaming, and yet they did frequently. “We’re going to launch you into the path of it.”

Wait, what?

“Remember your training,” the Major said. “We’re sending the Babylon up with you; be aware, the primary magazine is loaded with vECF shells. Keep it loaded from the secondary, until we have a positive contact.”

Shinji reflexively swallowed, wished that he hadn’t, and then nodded. “Yes, I understand.”

“We are unlocking full combat mode for the LITAN; don’t worry, it will aid with target acquisition, and handle firing for the lasers, missiles and charge beam.” Ritsuko ran her hands through her hair. “Brace for launch. Initialise final stage preparations,” she paused, “Maya, I’m passing launch authorisation to the Magi. Fire when optimal.”

An image of the brown-haired Operator appeared in her left eye. “Understood, Dr Akagi,” Lieutenant Ibuki said, from her position down in the full-immersion chamber, floating in a tank of transparent fluid. “Sosily has a valid solution... t-minus eleven, ten, nine...” As she counted down, numbers on the main screen gave it to all. From the way she could see the boy stiffen, gloved fists tightening around the control sticks, he knew it was coming too.

And then the Evangelion went shooting up, with an acceleration which would have been crushing, had it not been for the design of the plug, and the LCL that filled it.

“We have a launch, sir,” she heard Misato say from behind her. “Acedia is deployed in Zero-One,” referring to the ‘official’ reference to the Third Child; the internal Ashcroft name was somewhat problematic due to the (accurate) links to the idea of child soldiers. “Is there any more data on the target?” She was almost begging.

Field Marshal Jameson’s voice was harsh with stress. “None whatsoever. You’re getting everything we have, and all of that’s coming from the Shaws. Radar... nothing. IR... nothing. Visual... nothing. All we can tell is that it’s less than 0.4 klicks up.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Asherah was ‘just’,” and the sarcasm was palpable, “an unstoppable killing machine that could take an arcology-fired nuclear weapon to the face. But we can’t even see this thing.”

Those were the unspoken words between the two of them. Against Harbinger-3, the entity had diverted its attack to target Unit 01. Perhaps a launch would force the thing, whatever it was, to appear and attack the Evangelion.

Shinji’s head spun, as the deceleration kicked in, and the force required to counter the momentum of a forty metre arcanocyberxenobiological warmachine made the magnetic rails glow red hot, illuminating the vented coolant. Objectively, it looked pretty awesome, as the titan emerged from the hole in the ground, wrapped in clouds of freezing gas, in a pleasingly Mephistophelesian manner.

Of course, any performance of Faust where Unit 01 had appeared from the stage trapdoor would have probably led to the entire replacement of the theatre, unless it had been built to a scale quite above the normal.

Falling immediately to one knee, newly trained instincts already kicking in, Shinji snatched up the grossly oversized rifle, and broke into a run, feet punching holes in the streets which connected the buildings between the pyramidal arcology structures. In the early autumn , late afternoon shadows casting a thick contrast with the bands of striped sunlight, he scanned the area, Babylon raised and ready.

The Babylon rifle was, by any reasonable standard, a grossly overpowered weapon. Fundamentally, it was built around the main weapon of the Type-S025 artillery piece, a 155mm coilgun. It bore about the same resemblance to that weapon as a tiger did to a small rodent-like mammal of the type that a dinosaur would stand on. It was, to be frank, an overengineered solution to one of the major problems which the Evangelions had. Specifically, despite the fact that they were a capital-grade unit, they were far too small to use even a frigate-grade D-Engine. As a result, they were powered by ten Engine/Refrigerator combinations, of a type which a Behemoth-class Engel (the next largest ACXB mecha) would use one of. Such a system took up non-negligible amounts of space in the Unit, pushed the localised Yi-Ricci spacetime tensor around the Engines to dangerous levels, and still was vastly inferior to the economies of scale which a true, frigate-scaled D-Engine would grant.

The fact that, as height doubled, volume (and thus mass) increased eightfold, was a bitch.

As a result, for their size, the default integrated armaments of an Evagelion were underpowered. The bipedal form was not conducive to the most powerful weapons anyway (as recoil was a tragic fact of life), and there was a limit to what missiles, in an era of laser point-defence systems, could do.

And, sometimes, one just had to hit a target very, very hard. Preferably with something which blew up.

The Babylon was thus an over-engineered, hypervelocity coilgun artillery piece converted into an assault gun, given an extended barrel, and enough coolant systems to allow it to achieve a reasonable rate of fire without melting into a pretty pool of glowing metal, and loaded with the same vECF shells used by NEG ships to target landed Migou Drone Ships from over the horizon. It had its own D-Engine, larger than the ones used by all but the largest mecha in the New Earth Government arsenal. Each round took a trained sorcerer four hours to ward after they were manufactured, just to enable it to survive the acceleration without damaging the delicate internal mechanisms needed to make it detonate with the force of 12.52 metric tonnes of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene. It could fire one shells every 0.8 seconds, and carried an internal magazine preloaded with 24 of these monstrosities, as well as an identical, secondary magazine loaded with conventional anti-armour rounds.

It was still suboptimal, compared to the armaments of a true capital ship.

“What am I looking for?” he asked nervously, as he span, trying to keep moving.

“Target not acquired,” stated the LITAN.

“I wasn’t talking to... Misato!”

The Major appeared on his viewscreen. “Shinji! It turned. It’s coming right for you!”

“What is? I can’t see anything!” he snapped, spinning, and almost losing his balanced. Ducking behind the deep shadow cast by a building, he relaxed for a moment. “What. Am. I. Looking. For,” he asked, flicking his attention away from the world outside to the connection down to the Geocity.

“You’re...” Misato began, before trailing off. “You’re...” She was pale, her mouth shaped into an ‘oh’ of shock. “It’s... it’s gone.”

“What do you mean, it’s gone?” he snapped, adrenaline running through his veins, and making the hands on the control yoke shake.

“There’s... there’s no Pattern Blue anymore,” Ritsuko said, slowly, each word unconnected to the previous one. This was not a patronising tone of voice; it was muffled by the fact that she had a knuckle in her mouth. “It’s gone. Sensors are reading all clear.”

The boy said nothing, breath shuddery as the mental exertion hit him. “Seriously?” he asked, hyperventilating, not even really noticing the thickness or the vile taste of the LCL.

“Apparently.”

“S-so, all of this, all of this was for nothing.” He groaned. “There’s going to be hell to explain at school,” he added, with a sudden giggle, which turned into another groan. “They kicked down the door, you know,” he added, leaning forwards, resting his head on his armoured forearms.

“No, don’t relax yet,” snapped the Major. “Ritsuko, you are going to get a full decontamination team up there as soon as possible. I want Unit 01 taken to Quarantine Dome Beta. I want a full check, including internal systems. Understand. As Director of Operations and as an officer of the New Earth Government Army, I am refusing to let Unit 01 back down into the Geocity until I have been personally convinced that Zero-One has not picked up... whatever that was... as some kind of diminutive hitchhiker. Do I make myself clear?”

Ritsuko took her reddened knuckle out of her mouth, and nodded. “Perfectly. As Director of Science, I support you fully in this.”

“Good.” Misato sighed. “And now I’m going to have to try to explain this to the Representative and the European Triumverate... and probably the Minsister of War, if she gets herself involved, and she will. What am I supposed to tell them? ‘It magically vanished as soon as we deployed Unit 01?’ Or maybe, ‘Well, we don’t have any evidence it actually existed as more than a sensory anomaly’ Really... could it have been a false alarm caused by astronomical phenomena?” She sighed. “I don’t know. What I do know, is this is going to produce stupid amounts of paperwork for me.”

~'/|\'~

Gendo Ikari stared over the top of steepled gloves at the other members of the Ashcroft Council of Representatives. He could see the stress humming in his peers’ veins, the concern and worry evident.

“Ladies, gentlemen,” he said. “This was not a false alarm.” He paused. “However, the source of the phenomenon is not known. It did not correspond with the signature emitted by Harbinger-3, Asherah. That entity is dead.”

“Then, what was it?” asked the snowy-haired Representative for Africa, the eldest of the individuals around the table.

Christina Egger, the Representative for Research, leant forwards, a smile on her lips. “I do hope you have eliminated the obvious candidates, Ikari,” she said calmly.

Gendo stared back. “Naturally.”

“Are you sure?” That smirk was still hovering there.

That was a matter of concern. The Representative for Research had her own sources of information, he was aware of that. That meant that she had assets he was not aware of, just as he had ones that he knew she did not know of.

“Yes,” he said, flatly. “The Magi have determined that it was from an unknown entity which would be classified as a Herald, at minimum.”

“But was it a Harbinger?” asked Society, urgently. “That is what is relevant.”

Gendo leaned back, slightly. “It is impossible to say, Jeltje,” he said, a slight condescending note entering his voice. “Entities of this level have an animiaic waveform of such magnitude that the nuances are entirely lost. We can track where it was, by where it burnt out the relevant sensors.”

“Yes, Ikari,” said Oversight, adjusting her own arglasses. “And if we track the path, it flicks across the London Administrative Area.”

“Can we be sure that it was looking there, though?” added North America. “How do we know that it was not looking elsewhere on Earth, in places which we lack detection equipment?”

Gendo nodded. “Correct. We cannot be truly certain.”

The Representative for Oceania, the youngest on the Council by over ten years, and the only Nazzadi not a product of the Migou gene-vats, crossed her hands in front of her. “In that case, Ikari, I believe we cannot speculate any further, and to do so is counterproductive. At least, not until the specialist teams have extracted more information from what limited data we have.”

Asia leant forwards. “Rimy is correct. All we can do is maintain our readiness, and be wary for any more such events.”

There was a broad consensus that such a course was for the best.

“In that case, would there be any protests to ending this emergency meeting here?” the Representative for Asia continued. She smiled, wrinkles bunching at the corner of her eyes. “It’s getting early here, and we seem to have covered everything we need to.”

The meeting was adjourned, and one by one, the virtual images of the Representatives blinked out of existence.

Gendo Ikari, Representative for Europe, deactivated the link, and removed his arglasses, blinking heavily as the light came back up. The man pinched his brow, running his fingers over closed eyelids. It would be a lot less painful, he knew, if he could use harcontacts, or even simply have his eyes removed, and replaced with improved Eyes, complete with optical jacks and a rebuilt optical nerve which connected the eye together the right way around. Arglasses were an obsolete solution, in a purely technical aspect.

And yet he continued to use them. Why was that?

Putting them back on, he looked up, and blinked; the only overt sign of his shock.

“Rei,” he said calmly.

The girl, skin the colour of fresh snow, protective lens still over her replaced eye, stood in front of his desk. She was not moving, not making a sound. How long had she been waiting there, for him to notice her? Impossible to say, without consulting the security footage. At least she was mobile again, and possessed binocular vision, even if one arm was still bound in a cast.

“Yes, Representative Ikari,” she said. Her voice was cold, a flat, dead monotone. Some would have viewed it as a tone of contempt, even of hatred. Gendo knew better.

“Rei, why are you here?” he asked.

She raised her mobile hand, a datapad clutched within. “It was hard to type with one hand,” she said, by way of explanation for the delay.

Gendo nodded, a faint smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. He had not expected her to be done so soon; a mistake, he realised in retrospect. “Thank you, Rei,” he said, reaching out with one gloved hand to take the thin device. “I checked your medical report; I note that there is only bruising and a minor fracture to heal now.”

“Yes.” The girl paused. “I do not wish to experience that again, unless it is necessary.”

“I do not believe it will be, Rei,” the man said.

She said nothing.

“That is all, Rei.”

She tilted her head slightly, resting her free arm on the broken one. “You do not know what that was, Representative Ikari,” she said, voice level. “You have merely deduced what it was.”

Gendo looked at her for a second, before standing up, a wave of his hand setting part of the wall of the dome which was his office to transparency. The light from the false sun above streamed in, the light in the office adapting to remove the shadows. With a few measured paces, he was over by the window, staring out from his cold, dead, clinical office onto the greenery.

“Correct,” he said simply.

“Logic can be replicated,” she said. Was that a hint of chiding in her voice? “Logic has been replicated.”

“Yes,” he said, still staring out.

“And there are others who know, Representative Ikari.”

Closing his eyes, letting the light paint his world red through the eyelids, he took a deep breath, as he leant forwards. Under his palm, he could feel the fractional, almost negligible curve of the hemisphere. It was, despite its transparency, perfectly solid and unyielding.

But that was always a problem, wasn’t it? Things that might seem plane would turn out to be subtly distorted.

“Thank you, Rei,” he said, turning back to face the girl. “You can...”

Rei Ayanami had already gone.

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 5

Absent Communication / As if the vanward clouds of evil days had spent their malice

EVANGELION

~’/|\’~

“Not coping well after NH’s death. I miss her. So does everyone else. Funereal was today; closed coffin, obviously. Saw her parents crying, couldn’t say anything to them. None of us could. Everything to do with M is classified. Muttered some condolences. They were just crying. DN is still in hospital... she said she’ll be getting new legs by the end of the month. She managed to make the funereal; probably forced them to let her go at gunpoint, knowing her. SM resigned; he feels guilty, saw what happened in full. Not surprising. Really hope that he doesn’t do something stupid; told them, off the record, to keep an eye on him. Think they were going to anyway; for the best. Him and NH were close. Foundation will be assigning new team supervisor. Don’t know who it will be. CS thinks that KI isn’t going to get it, that they’re going to send in someone else. AV, JK and NA agree, KS and OR don’t. Don’t know what I feel. God. NH was just alive when we got into the test chamber. I don’t get how she was still breathing. M managed to tear the restraints clean off, and just went berserk. Wasn’t like the blastscreen was going to keep anyone safe from that.

Don’t understand how it managed to get free. Doesn’t make sense. Not much to do with M does.”

Personal Diary of Anton Miyakame,
23rd of July, 2072

~’/|\’~

Monday, 20th of September, 2091

Shinji Ikari’s eyes snapped open as soon as the alarm went off, but he did not move. He simply lay there, eyes staring up at the featureless ceiling. No... that wasn’t quite true. There was a lump just to the right of the middle, where the plaster was slightly cracked. A small spider, only visible as a speck of discolourment in the mists of the dusty threads of its web, seemed to have taken up residence around the break.

He blinked heavily, and shifted in bed, rubbing the side of his face against the pillow, and slowly levered himself upright, to a sitting position.

“Would you like to hear the morning news, Shinji?” asked his muse, much as she did every morning. “It is currently 7:12 am. Remember, you need to leave the house by 8:10 am, if you are to arrive on time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, sitting on the edge of his bed.

“... reports of widespread successes against Migou landers, striking north against Australia from both Antartica and New Zealand. Military sources are now reporting that this appears to have been nothing more than a testing attack, both from the Loyalist-heavy composition of the forces, and the immediate withdrawal when they hit Navy resistance. The Armed Forces will be giving a formal statement in three quarters of an hour.” The newsreader cleared her throat. “In economic news, the GFTS,” she pronounced the abbreviation for the Global Financial Trading System as one would ‘gifts’, “is up ten points, currently standing at 13,342, following a strong boost to the games sector after the unveiling of the new Apotheon Infinity, the latest dedicated gaming system from Processerion, which led to a forty point climb in Chrysalis shares. Meanwhile, the Chair of the Nazzadi Business League...”

Shinji picked up his folded clothes from his chair, placing them on his bed, and frowned. Things... were not going well at school. He personally blamed whoever had used the highest level of “grab the pilot and run” for that thing which had turned out to be a false alarm. They could have just done one of the lower ones, even merely sent him a message to leave the classroom before the armed escort arrived, but noo~ooo. Apparently that would have been too much effort; that, or they had just been panicking too much. There had been far too many strange looks for the rest of the week, and things had been worse yesterday. Apparently, there had been ‘discussions’ between overenthusiastic classmates. The kind of discussions that involved Grid searches, and there had been occasional problems with privacy-breaking journalists back when he was only special because of who his father was.

If he were feeling more sympathetic, he might have been able to understand the mindset which they were coming from. It wasn’t every day, after all, that a classmate get snatched during lessons by heavily armoured and armed Ashcroft security troops. Even at an Academy. It was understandable that they might start asking questions of him, and... well, in honesty, he wasn’t a good enough liar to be able to conceal the fact that something was going on. Not that he was stupid enough to actually let anything slip, because he quite liked his personal freedom, thank you very much, but there were strictly defined limits to what he could conceal without looking like he was concealing something.

And, so, as it was, he was feeling rather unsympathetic, poorly inclined towards the Evangelion Group for putting him through this, and just wanted to get through school for a few weeks so that the rumours could die down again. Gods, the meeting with the OIS at the weekend had been bad enough. He didn’t need his classmates digging into his background and interrogating him too.

~’/|\’~

“Right... so, what have we gathered?”

The only good thing about Monday mornings was that... wait, there wasn’t any good thing about Monday mornings, if one were to take the mode opinion among the students currently trickling into the classroom. It felt like a chilly, cold, depressing morning. Of course, since this was in an arcology dome, the weathers systems were controlled, and so were the normal, designed-to-be-pleasant temperature (with a moisture cycle not planned until this evening), so the mimicry of climate was completely inappropriate for how most people were feeling. Jony leant back, and sighed. But internally, so Dathan wouldn’t hear. Nothing, because I wasn’t going to waste my weekend... well, what weekend I got, because we still have to attend school on Saturday mornings, and my father made me do something with my little brother on Sunday. So I did precisely nothing, and enjoyed doing it. And then remembered this morning, and searched it on the Grid.

She noticed the boy was staring at her, and coughed. “It’s the right name,” she said, trying to make it sound like she cared. “I cross-checked.”

The brown-haired boy’s face settled into a scowl. “Is that all?” he asked.

“I checked too,” interjected Enu, leaning in, and getting (in the nazzady’s opinion) a little too close. “There are pictures... low res ones, but, I got a squirt from the Region 11 networks, and... yeah, the face is right

“Now, that’s a lot better!” Dathan said, in a rather more enthusiastic voice. “That’s living up to the goal of the OIS Cadets!

Dathan, just listen to yourself. We’re not real OIS Agents. I do it because you drag me around, and have since we were... seven, or something, and because it’s an easier Social Work Task than having to trek all the way to a primary school to read to small children or anything. Children of all sorts are annoying, and more trouble than they’re worth.

The door to the classroom slid open again, the temperature dropping slightly, as air circulated. “Oh, hello,” Hikary could be heard to say. “How are you feeling?” she added, with a hint of caution in her voice.

There was a pause. “The pain is reduced,” a clinical, cold voice replied. “There is mild discomfort as the bones finish healing.”

“Well... that’s good,” the amlaty said to Rei, trying not to stare at the anti-septic seal still covering one eye, or the pale blue cast over one arm. “Uh... have you managed to keep up to date with the work? I mean,” she gave a slightly forced laugh, “you’re not expected to have done it all, but...”

“I have.”

“Excuse me?”

“I have completed all the work which was set.”

“Oh.” Hikary, as most people were forced to do at least one per conversation with Rei Ayanami, blinked, and reset her inner expectations. Nevertheless, however, she pushed on. “Do you need someone to help you write or type?” the Class Representative asked, eyes dropping to the still-bound arm.

“No.” There was a pause. “Thank you for the cards and the flowers,” Rei said, almost mechanistically.

Hikary smiled; a somewhat self-satisfied little grin. “Oh, really, it was nothing,” she said, with a flick of her pigtails. “It was the least that we could do.”

“No.” The other girl blinked heavily at that word from Rei. “The least you could have done would have been to do nothing. You did more than that.”

Internally, Hikary squinted. That... that seems to be thanks, didn’t it? On the other hand, it might just have been a technical correction. She blinked, slowly. Nozomy certainly wasn’t this hard to read. The Class Representative stepped aside, to let the other girl manoeuvre past her to her customary seat next to the window, in front of the Cadets clique, and, with a shrug returned to her seat.

“It must have been pretty bad, if Rei’s still in a cast after a month,” Ala said to her, red eyes looking up from his PCPU. Hikary liked Ala; he was from an Integrationist family, and their fathers got on, but she also know that he liked her. Which was a little uncomfortable, because she didn’t feel the same way. “What was it, a car crash?”

“Yes. And... yes, that must have been bad, for such a long absence.” Transplanted limb bad, was what neither of them said, even if there were slight winces. The simple fact was that these kind of injuries were rare, that the mass proliferation of public transport had radically decreased certain types of injuries which, even fifty years earlier, would have been commonplace, in a society with ubiquitous personal transport. There were the conflicts of the Aeon War, of course, but they were kept far away from society, and medical treatment was such that the physical scars, at least were repairable. For a person to end up in hospital for a month, from brute trauma, was rare enough to be something shocking. At least in the privileged socioeconomic bracket of the Academy students.

Hikary glanced back at the pale figure, book (and it was actually a hardcopy book, rather than a booklike PCPU, which was the norm) already in the free hand. Her eyebrows rose in surprise, as she noticed that Taly Talerni oy Chicago-twi oy Londoni-twi vy Nosesudevorazy vy Salenity (there was a sardonic twist in her thoughts, over the fact that the girl insisted on using a full Nazzadi-style name) and Kensuke Aida were sitting over in a corner, talking with a certain intensity which was far more than a casual chat. That was surprising. The girl was the unofficial head of the... well, ‘Traditionalist’ wasn’t the right word, considering that the original Nazzadi culture had been designed by the Migou sometime this century, and the attempts to create a cohesive identity post-dated the Nazzadi Civil War, but “non-Integrationist” summed up all the disjointed cultural groupings, and (the amlaty thought, disapprovingly) tended to self-segregate. And she was less than kind to people from Integrationist families. To see her talking like that to a human was... unusual.

The Class Representative shrugged. She severely doubted that anyone could be interested in that way in Kensuke Aida, let alone a Nazzadi culture-fanatic. Unless... yes, that would be it. Hikary felt stupid for not thinking of it earlier. If there was one thing which the two had in common, it would have to be an obsessive love of military technology. Shaking her head at the silliness, the girl returned to the conversation of her friends.

“I think it was just a good thing you had a recorder on,” Kensuke said in a low voice.

The Nazzadi girl flicked her hair, dyed red streaks standing out from the black, and grinned. “I always do,” she explained. “It’s much easier to just record all classes. Helps with revision.”

The boy nodded. “Makes sense.” He glanced down at his PCPU. This was not his main device; that was sitting on his desk. This was a smaller, specialist one; one with a surplus of internal memory and processing capabilities, which could function perfectly well when not connected up to the Grid. Which it was not, right now. Everybody knew that the Academy monitored your activities when you were using the AIG, and what they were doing right now was... well, they didn’t know for sure that it was illegal, largely because they didn’t know exactly what they were looking into, but both students knew that what they were doing could probably end up legally problematic, if they found out too much.

“Did you manage to clean up the sound on your end?” Taly asked. “I did, but... yeah, nice to have a second opinion. What were you using?”

“AudioRedact 5.”

“Ah. I used Solilaki-Laki-Soli.”

“I tried that... didn’t like the user-interface, and... well,” Kensuke paused, “... it read like they’d just stuck the text into a freeware translator from the Nazzadi.”

Taly looked around, checking that no-one else was trying to listen in. “It’s actually a better piece of software in every way. Naturally. Some of us have a slightly better sense of hearing than baseline humans.” She’d told her friends it was something niche, that he owed her a favour, and neither of them wanted to be caught. “My end...” She held out the screen. On it were the words, ‘Go! Secure the Third Child!’, ‘Protocol Echo, sir,’ ‘Why, what...’, ‘This way,’ ‘I'm needed in the (Eva/EVA)?’ and ‘Come this way, sir. Don't talk.’

Kensuke compared them to the words he’d got, and didn’t make a remark on the fact that humanity had notably better colour vision than the Nazzadi, who had sacrificed (which was to say, the Migou had sacrificed it for them) it for superlative night vision. “Yes, matches perfectly. Same uncertainty over Eva/EVA, too. Might be a name, might be Extravehicular Activities.”

There was a sniff from the girl. “I would think that the use of ‘the’ is enough to indicate that it’s a proper noun, don’t you?” she said, with a hint of acrimony.

“Yeah, but the way people talk is like that.” Kensuke leant closer, huddling over his screen. This was going to be more delicate... after all, all that they’d admitted to having done so far was listen to speech in a public location. The boy rummaged around in a pocket, pulling out a cable. “Connect them up, and... you know...” he said.

She did know. Even if typing would be slower, it would also prevent eavesdropping. Of course, wireless communication was, and had been ever since its inception, an open invitation to listening in, and, especially in an era when there were quantum computers, most forms of non-quantum encryption were trivially breakable. It was rumoured that the school used a full suite of ghost LAIs to monitor every electromagnetic signal (which, incidentally, meant that the science labs were supposed to be more secure, if you wanted to do something that the Academy wouldn’t approve of, thanks to all the random electromagnetic fluctuations which ISCIAT and ISCHAT lab work produced) which was sent from within the arcology dome.

Of course, that was the same sort of rumour which claimed that there were hidden cameras in all the toilets and showers which had been installed by one of the slightly creepy biology teachers, and was widely viewed to be a little bit on the paranoid side. If only because of the fact that there was no real need to use proper ghost LAIs to deal with the sort of things that an average student could get up to on a safe network, when a multipurpose drone would do the job perfectly well.

There was a flick, as the devices recognised the connection, and started the messaging client.

ArmoureDRusH: So, I focussed on the mention of Eva/EVA. Nothing specific on Protocol Echo... just a general name.

Zidony: Probably go from Alpha to Zulu. Agreed.

Zidony: Standard code name.

Zidony: But is it counting down, or up?

ArmoureDRusH: Is Alpha bad or good, you mean?

Zidony: Yeah.

ArmoureDRusH: Dunno.

ArmoureDRusH: On the Eva thing. Just searching for the word on the Grid churns up tonnes of stuff. It’s a short word. Plenty of stuff.

Zidony: I started to narrow it down. I checked the SWP timetable. He spends his time down in the Geocity. It’s an AF place.

ArmoureDRusH: ... and we know that he’s the Rep’s son. Just slacking? Family connections to get him away from

“No,” Taly said out loud, shaking her head. Obviously, she was reading over his shoulder, even as he typed. Kensuke deleted that sentence.

Zidony: Doubt it. You don’t drag someone out like that with no warning, and he’s not the only one here with senior AF people for parents. Did you see that armour? That wasn’t VIP stuff. That was high grade SPHCA. Military grade.

ArmoureDRusH: That was awesome.

Zidony: Oh, yes. I’d love to get my hands on one. And you were right at the time. That was the Eschaton XI-F. It was at ArmachamExpo this year. Can’t you just see the Nazzadi influences in the design?

Kensuke looked up. No, he really couldn’t. It was the kind of heavy, overengineered design beloved of Homo sapiens sapiens which could take a 20mm shell to the chest, and maybe not die (although the wearer wouldn’t be in a very good shape, and it had a fair chance of being a mission kill, just from momentum transfer). Although... he opened another window... now that she mentioned it, there was something about the legs, under the exterior plating...

ArmoureDRusH: We can talk about MilSpec any time.

Zidony: Yeah. Even if H bitches at us about it.

ArmoureDRusH: So... let’s sum it up.

Zidony: ...

Zidony: ...

Zidony: Yeah. Pointless. Nothing concrete.

ArmoureDRusH: At least we know where to start looking.

Taly smirked at Kensuke, looking up, as she popped out the cable, passing it back to him. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said out loud. “One of the things that’s quite easy is knowing where to ask.” She paused. “Uh, I mean, sort of like how... I would say perukweranaby, because Reformed English doesn’t really have the right word... possible-asking. Asking in a way that makes people give away things you didn’t know.”

Kensuke tapped his fingers on the desk. “Really?”

The girl leaned forwards with a slightly predatory grin. “Oh, yes. Especially on boys.”

The aforementioned boy shifted uncomfortably, feeling suddenly a little hot under the collar. “Uh... talk to you tomorrow?” he asked, voice raising in questioning.

Taly nodded. “You were right. ‘Least we know where to look, now.”

At the front of the classroom, the door opened, and Shinji Ikari slunk on. He wasn’t late, technically speaking, but the classroom was full... fuller than he’d expected. Which was to say, someone he really hadn’t expected to see here was here. His eyes locked upon milk-white skin and snow-like hair, and he flinched back slightly.

grey eyes.

orange fluid.

utter darkness.

He swallowed, and shook his head. Calm down, Shinji, he told himself. It makes sense that she’d be here. They’d mentioned that she went to the same school. She’s the ‘First Child’, you’re the ‘Third’. He paused, and briefly wondered who the ‘Second’ was, then. Could it be someone else in this room? No... no, he’d have seen them down in the Geocity, and now that he’d thought of it, he was sure that Misato had mentioned that the Second was somewhere else. Yes. It made sense. And it would make sense to get to know Rei, as a... co-worker was the right phrase, considering that he was actually getting paid for this. He’d just have to get around to talking to her...

Shinji suddenly blushed. The fact that he was disturbed to see her... oh no, people were going to interpret it as if he had some kind of problem with sidoci. More than a few people had noticed his twitch, upon sight of Rei. And he couldn’t deny it, because he couldn’t explain about the Evangelions, and if he tried to deny it, he’d look like he was just trying to cover up.

He did not need this right now!

At the back of the classroom, Kensuke snapped his fingers. “Fishing for information! That was the English phrase!” He sunk back down, as the others stared at him.

~’/|\’~

It was 10 am, and four suited men and women were sitting on one side of a table. The wall opposite to them was a multifaceted viewscreen, tens of static portraits facing them, waiting for the start of the meeting. There was a common feel about all the faces, too; a certain cut of the hair and set of the face, despite the heterogeneous mix of subspecies and ethnicities.

The white-haired, grey-eyed man sitting on the far right cleared his throat, and glanced down at his watch. “We’re only waiting for Pretoria-B, aren’t we?” the sidoca asked, with a hint of boredom in his voice blended with the nervousness.

The nazzada to his right ran a hand through his prematurely greying hair, and shook his head. “No,” the older man, Agent Para (to use the Nazzadi tendency to use the first name with titles, rather than the pseudo-surname of the matropatronym, or the deed-name) said. “Pretoria-B isn’t on this. Orders from the top, from Director Gohda. He’s assigned them to the SSTF on Non-Governmental Organisations C, and so they’re not allowed to sit in on A meetings.” He shrugged, wearily. “Standard policy for preventing cross-contamination. Makes everything more difficult, of course.” Shaking his head, he added, “We’re waiting for Captain Joyeuse.”

They waited in silence. Although the State Security Task Force on Non-Governmental Organisations (A), more colloquially (or, at least, more pronounceably) known as Grigori-A, was an OIS-dominated organisation, there were others, like Captain Joyeuse who were from the Global Intelligence Agency (although, to complicate matters further, she was technically from the New Earth Government Army, on permanent secondment to the GIA, as both the GIA and the OIS were civilian agencies and thus their military forces were technically from the Army or Navy), or the Federal Security Bureau. There were even a few individuals from the Office of Special Services, the feared, legally-non-existent penultimate agency, which dealt with threats of a cosmic nature; the bland, entirely (almost suspiciously) nondescript face of the sole representative was isolated in the bottom left corner of the viewscreen.

A human leaned around his co-worker, to look at the young sidoci with a hint of compassion. “You’re worried, aren’t you?” he asked, in a tone of voice which wasn’t really a question.

Junira Julusanari nodded, a jerking movement of his head. “A little,” he admitted, his voice stiff and formal. “I... I have to say, I didn’t expect to end up interviewing such a high-value target. Let alone to be giving such a report to a State Security Task Force on Non-Governmental Organisations.”

“You’ll be fine. We have full recordings of the interviews, after all. What we’re looking for is gut feelings, personal perceptions, rather than raw biometric data.”

“With respect, sir,” the younger man straightened up his chin, “I am familiar with the procedure. I do know that I need to justify my decisions and questioning choices to the SSTF. You don’t need to ease me into it easily.” The corners of his mouth twitched up slightly. “That is not to say that I do not appreciate the attempts to ease me in,” he added. “And I did grasp that you wanted a rookie to be talking to him, in front of those Ashcroft lawyers, even if you were feeding me the questions. I noticed the parapsychic badge on one of them.” The look in his grey eyes was knowing.

“Actually, no.” The voice from behind them had a hint of harshness underlying the melodic tones; almost akin to how a singer with smoke-damaged lungs might sound. “She’s merely an AC03-Observational, not any kind of mind-reader.” The heavy sounding footsteps as Captain Ori Joyeuse scraped a chair into position were quite out of type with how she quietly she had entered. The woman herself was short and stocky, and, from what could be seen under her tan uniform, very heavily muscled; the sort of physique which only came about from experience in the sort of cleansing teams which operated in terrain too dense or broken up for power armour. The sort of physique, in fact, which, to those in the know, came as much from artificial musculature and subdermal implants as it did from human biology. “Now, that does mean that she’s terrifyingly good at reading body language and those kind of subtle social cues, but that’s not even something she has to legally wear ID for. She does so as a courtesy, under Ashcroft Foundation internal policy.”

“Makes a sulusanginojy good lawyer, I know that,” grunted Agent Gjorgji Mile, the eldest of the men at the table, and until the arrival of Captain Joyeuse, the only human. Not that fact meant that he didn’t swear in Nazzadi. “I’ve dealt with her before. She’s far too good at it for it to be...” he gave a self-depreciating chuckle, “... well, for it to be fair.”

“Which is why we sent in someone who knew nothing about it,” added the younger of the two Nazzadi, his hair prematurely iron-grey despite his youth. “What did you think of him, of it, Junira?” he asked the sidoca.

“In all honesty, well, you’ve seen the tapes,” the White answered. “The ‘what happened in the attack’ bit went normally. I was... well, in truth I was somewhat surprised to find that the Harbinger almost stood on him.” He shook his head. “Of all the bad luck. Although,” he added, in a more thoughtful tone, “it raises other questions. Like, where, exactly, were his bodyguards? I find it impossible to believe that a potential target like that would be permitted to travel without minders.”

“That’s my general problem with it,” interjected Captain Joyeuse, running a hand through her close-cropped hair. “There are just too many... coincidences,” the word was said with disgust, “for it to be so. He happens to arrive on the same day as Harbinger-3 shows up, it happens to head for the AG arcology he was in, getting close enough to almost stand on him, and then there’s the thing about how he’s saved at the last moment by an Ashcroft Armacham squad from traitor ArcSec officers. A squad led by an Ashcroft-seconded NEGA Major, and accompanied by two Nephilim... high end combat models, too. Not that there are any other kind for those things, of course.” She shook her head. “It sounds like the start to a bad film, really. And yet we’ve seen the video footage, from both the stuff in the airport, as well as the helmetcams, guncams, and unitcams from the Armacham squad. Now, the latter especially could have been forged,” it wasn’t as if it was that hard in a world with easy access to computing power and video-editing software, “but what would they have to gain by telling such a contrived and unrealistic story?”

“It’s so stupidly false that it might actually be real. Sucks to be him, though. Although I wouldn’t mind betting against him at poker, if he’s that unfortunate.”

“He must have been really glad to get down to the safety of the Geocity,” added Agent Mile, with a barked laugh.

“And that was when everything started getting vaguer, and the lawyer kept on interrupting and advising the boy... Shinji... to keep silent.” The man with skin the colour of snow sighed. “Perfectly legally, of course. He was just in for questioning as a witness, he wasn’t a suspect or anything. He had all his human rights. And what happened afterward he was safe wasn’t relevant to the questioning. But it’s annoying when you can’t get a sentence out without someone else interrupting.”

“They’re concealing something,” said Captain Joyeuse. “The Foundation are, and given the way that he disappears frequently into one of the null-surveillance zones in the Geocity, one of the ones sealed under NEGA orders,” she paused, “I suspect that they might be abusing the NSZ exemptions. They’re meant to only be used for sensitive research,” she added, with disapproval.

“So, what do you think, Junira?” asked Agent Hikara, the taciturn man finally speaking.

“Honestly,” Junira answered, “I believe that, yes, he probably was the target for the rogue ArcSec officers. It just seems to match up with everything; the way they were herding things, and, of course, the way that, as ArcSec, it’s their job to check people one by one. If things had gone as planned,” he shook his head, “well, I suspect that Shinji Ikari would have vanished at some checkpoint, when he ‘failed’ a blood scan, and was escorted away for higher level tests. It was... worryingly well planned out.”

“That does seem to be the consensus,” the older man agreed. “And the way that ArcSec was compromised like that...” The man winced. “I refuse to believe that they would send someone with no bodyguards on a plane just like that,” he said slowly. “It makes no sense. And I was with the FSB’s VIP unit before I came to the OIS. I know what I’m talking about. There’s something else going on.”

“Doppelganger-replacement of bodyguards?” The question from Agent Para was clipped.

“Possible. But... well, they should have been caught by the checks on plane travel.”

“Which means that, either we’ve just found there’s a new threat, who can replace people perfectly, and escape past full airport-type security; bloodchecks, brainscans, psych-profiling...”

“... or they don’t exist, and we’re just clutching at straws,” said Captain Joyeuse, sardonically. “Just like everything else when trying to get this incident to make sense.”

For example, who then who were the others? Who were the civilian group? was the question all of them were thinking, as the larger meeting with the rest of Grigori-A began, to report on the interview.

~’/|\’~

It was now evening, and the mournful sounds of a cello filled the apartment, as Misato settled down on the sofa, sinking deep into the cushions with a squeak of springs. Wincing slightly as an off note indicated the slip of a finger, she broke the seal on a can with a snap, and took a slow, thoughtful mouthful.

A white penguin with little beady red eyes waddled past her, a towel slung over one shoulder. She paid him no... wait a minute!

“Hey! Pen-Pen! That’s one of my towels!”

“Wark?”

“You’ve got your own. Use them. Don’t make mine smell of bird!”

“Waaa~aaark...” The bird sounded slightly affronted, but turned on its heel... if one could indeed describe the bit there the back of a bird’s foot met the bottom of its leg as a heel, as Misato had a feeling that the heel was something to do with bones that humans had and birds didn’t...

Urgh. She needed another drink, if she was still thinking like this. She was trying to unwind after a hard day, and she did not need to have the military part of her brain start obsessing over what to call a penguin’s heel. Stupid overtrained connection-making not-realising-that-I’m-off-duty head.

She silenced that particular part of her thoughts with the rest of the can of beer, and, crushing the emptied can in her fist, tossed the ball into the new bin. A small cheer and a fist thrust into the air accompanied the successful in-off-the-wall throw. It was certainly the new bin, because Shinji had written on it, in marker pen, “BEER CAN BIN: FOR RECYCLING” in English, Japanese, and, quite possibly to show off, Nazzadi as well. It was a little pathetic in her opinion, but she was willing to make this kind of small compromise, if it was going to make life easier.

Perhaps in some kind of response to her thoughts, there was a loud twang from the other room, a yelp of pain, and she was sure that, immediately after that, she heard a long, frustrated sigh in the silence which followed.

“What was that?” she asked, when Shinji, a few minutes later, entered the room, rubbing the palm of his right hand.

“One of the strings broke,” the boy answered, a tone of sullen annoyance in his voice. He raised his hand, to show the livid welt across the flesh. “The tip just caught me.”

“Ouch.”

“Yes. Yes, it does hurt.” He sighed. “And I don’t have any replacements, either. I’m going to have to find somewhere that sells them.” Shinji paused. “Come to think of it, I should probably just get a pack. The higher pitched strings always end up breaking a lot more than the lower ones.”

Misato frowned. “Why not just make a new one?” she asked.

There was a faint look of horror on the boy’s face. “As in, use a home nanofac one?” he asked, in seeming disbelief. “No, really, no.” He shuddered slightly.

“I wouldn’t have put you down as some kind of musical purist.” Misato paused. Actually, come to think of it, she would. That kind of passive-aggressive obsessively-cleaning personality was likely to make a fuss over two different types of string which sounded identical to her.

“I’m not. It’s just...” Shinji paused. “Well, firstly, for the type of string I use, it’s a mix of P-O and T-M modes, and quite a lot of home ones don’t really combine them that well...”

“... mine does,” Misato said, with a smirk.

“Well, okay. But the point is, a proper one... you know.” Shinji realised that she probably didn’t know, and didn’t feel like explaining right now. “Um... well, a proper string is metal-coated, but on the inside, it’s catgut... not actual catgut,” he reassured her, even though she didn’t seem that distressed, “that’s just what it gets called. And, well, if it isn’t done properly, you end up with this really tinny note. You can really hear the difference when you’re actually playing... not that I’m brilliant, by any means, but it’s still obvious to a musician, or just someone who’s still learning, like me...”

Leaning back, and rubbing the strap of her top idly, the black-haired woman sighed. This wasn’t interesting at all. Time to change topic. “It did sound very nice,” she said. “Have you joined the school orchestra, yet?” she asked.

Shinji shook his head, a slight pout on his lips. “No. Because, as I mentioned the last time you asked, the string section has its practice after school on Wednesdays. Which I can’t make. For some reason. You wouldn’t happen to know why, would you?”

Ouch. He was getting sarcastic. And a little worked up. “It was very pretty,” Misato said hastily. “What was it?”

She was fixed with a level stare. “I was practicing scales when it broke,” said Shinji, his voice flat and controlled.

“... they were very pretty scales.”

~’/|\’~

Tuesday, 21st of September, 2091

The smell of food wafted through the lunch hall. That was one real, concrete advantage of the Academy over other schools; the food was really, really good. In quite shocking disregard for the stereotypes which fiction would propagate about the quality of school food, the Ashcroft Foundation had decided that the benefits of actually having a proper on-site kitchen more than outweighed the (to them) trivial costs of doing so. As Shinji carried his tray back from the counter, he thanked this one little comfort to his day. It was nice not having to cook. Yes, technically, he didn’t have to, as Misato was willing to cook once in a while. Technically, he also didn’t have to keep on breathing. Technicalities were not useful in such circumstances.

And, looking around, his classmates and co-scholars did seem to be taking advantage of it. The place was crammed. Just from the lack of any seats at all, anywhere, he wouldn’t be surprised if the take-up was universal.

No, not quite universal. He couldn’t see any glimpse of Rei Ayanami. And it wasn’t as if she could be hiding in here; white xenomixes, the sidoci, were not exactly hard to see. White was not a natural hair colour for teenagers, and those among the Nazzadi who did dye it were easy to distinguish. There were some Whites here, true; more than in the ambient population, because the increased number of amlati naturally resulted in more of their variant siblings. Roughly one in every hundred xenomixed couplings produced a sidoci, and although the termination rate was notably higher (and not frivolously; a pre-natal parapsychic could be dangerous to bring to term, quite apart from the problems such children had) than baseline, they were a not unique. In fact, there was a whole table of them over there, a bleak white group. Many of them were wearing the identifying badges mandatory for someone with parapsychic abilities of a nature that it was felt that should not be kept secret. A vivid blue for those able to affect the mind, an orange-red for those with abilities that could hurt; the categories were broad. There were, in fact, noted human rights issues with such identifiers, and they were acknowledged. They were a messy solution to a messy problem. But when people compared them to the yellow stars of Nazi Germany, or the forehead tattoos of Byukan-era Malaysia, it was pointed out that, despite the ravings of conspiracy theory-obsessed lunatics, at no points in verifiable history had Judaism enabled one to set others on fire with one’s mind, or sever heads with invisible lines of telekinetic force.

Shinji paused, as he realised that Rei actually didn’t wear any identifying badges. That normally just meant that her abilities were internally focussed; more limited scope. But, no, he thought, as he finally found a seat, and began to eat, she wasn’t here.

He vaguely wondered where she did eat, before putting the thought from his mind, and loosened his collar slightly, before picking up his knife.

On the other side of the room, however, there was a conversation with him firmly in mind. “I did a search... blank, pay-as-you-go PCPU, and not my muse, I should add,” said Kensuke. “Tried a few spelling variations.” He looked thoughtful. “Apart from the technical stuff, and the exocerebrum page, even with the muse’s filters... well, heh,” the thoughtful look turned into a slightly lecherous grin, “...turns out that a lot of porn stars are called Eva. Both male and female.”

Taly snorted. “Of course there are. ‘Ev-’ is the stem of...” she waved her hand in the air, “... uh, well, it sort of translates as ‘organic’, ‘plant-like’... but tall plants, like trees. And so when you add the male ending to it... no, ‘male ending’ isn’t funny...”

“... I didn’t say anything,” Kensuke said, biting his lip as his face turned more than a little bit red.

“No, but you were going to. Anyway, when you shift it to the male variant ‘eva’, rather than the neuter, ‘evi’, which you would be using if you were talking about a normal tree or something, um, well...”

“I see. That actually makes sense.” Kensuke exhaled. “It’s like someone being called ‘Woody’, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be it. Almost exactly. So... anyway, there’s a lot of Eva porn out there.”

“I found out.” The boy sighed. “It wasn’t helpful at all.”

“You have to admit, if you were trying to hide it in plain sight, that kind of name would throw up massive amounts of data-spam to conceal the real project,” Taly said.

“Yes, but then no-one would take it seriously. It’d be like an LAI system being called the...” Kensuke flapped a hand, “... Tactical... Information... Total... System, or something.”

“That is kinda true.” The girl narrowed her eyes. “But we’ve wasted enough time. See,” she glanced from side to side, “I think I managed to find something. On a pilot’s board.” At Kensuke’s glance, she shrugged. “I borrowed my older brother’s log-in.”

“Borrowed, or ‘borrowed’.”

“I konfikatakrony it, if we’re going to be correct,” she said, with a smirk. At Kensuke’s blank look, she sighed. “That’s ‘borrowed’, yes.”

“Was that borrowed or ‘borrowed’?”

There was a disgusted noise. “Oh, forget about it. But... yes, you know the Engels?”

“How could I not?” And, indeed, Kensuke certainly knew about them. From their first field deployment, back in 2084, up to the modern day, the Engel-type arcanocyberxenobiological humanoid combat war machines had been a poster-child of the propaganda departments of the New Earth Government. Unlike conventional mecha, they were, one-on-one, superior to Migou units in the same weight category (which put them as considerably better than the Nazzadi Loyalist units, which, with the exception of the Elite, were starting to fall behind the tech-curve), and there was something about the image of a Malach, or, even better, a Seraph or Chashmal (the super-heavies, standing nearly twenty metres high), punching a super-heavy Migou unit in the face which just seemed to miraculously raise morale.

Of course, those familiar with actual military tactics knew that something had gone horribly wrong for both parties if one was that close to a Migou unit, because large units were vulnerable if they fell, and such an engagement was likely to end with both participants on the floor. And at the very least, even if they survived, the mecha pilot would have to put up with a week of hell from the tinheads in the tanks, who would be sure to rub it in. And make sarcastic comments about stable firing platforms, and optimised weight distributions, and low target profiles.

But, despite all this publicity, there was very little actually known about the Engels. They had come from almost nowhere, already in mass-production by the time that the first battlefield tests had begun, and the distribution of the publicity materials was very asymmetrical, favouring certain models (or, technically, groups of models, because the broad category of each Species, like the Hamshall or Aral, was actually composed of multiple Types) above others. It was certainly acknowledged universally that Dr Anton Miyakame was a genius, for the way that he been the driving force behind such an innovation. The fact that he fitted perfectly into the modern stereotype of the shy, driven, slightly obsessed and reclusive sorcerer-scientist only, perhaps ironically, made him more famous, if only for how well he fit the image.

“... and, you’ve heard of the proto-Engel?” Taly continued. “Of the idea of the proto-Engel?”

Kensuke nodded. It was a continual rumour among military obsessives; the idea that there had been some kind of Engel-before-there-was-an-Engel, which had seen active field use. It was... not implausible. Of course there would have been test models and prototypes before the mass production models. There were plenty of theories on what it might have been, though. The majority position was that it was akin to the Malach (which, had, after all, been the first Species), but had been an inferior, unrefined subject; lightly armoured, and quasi-autonomous, piloted from a remote command vehicle. That was obviously a bad idea, but earlier in the War, the full horror of Migou emwar capabilities hadn’t really been obvious. There were other, crazier ideas; dog-like close-combat units designed to be fired into orbit to board the Migou ships and tear them apart from the inside, skyscraper-sized insect-like centauroids with high-yield directed plasma weapons, even the idea that they had been testing the prototype in Las Vegas, before it had been destroyed by the Zone, that seeping hole in the fabric of reality which drove men mad, awakened latent parapsychics, and vomited forth things alien to even the Second Arcanotech War.

“Well, look at this.”

It was a simple plaintext file, obviously merely copied from some kind of forum post. It purported to be written by a mecha pilot stationed around London-2, who had been there for the attack by the extra-normal entity. That wasn’t what the revelation was about, though. There had been another NEG unit there; something akin to an Engel, but much, much larger. They had known that it was an arcanocyberxenobiological organism, because it had bled, and roared, and all the other things that Engels did, but conventional units did not.

And there was the name which it had been called, as forces were pulled away from the capital-grade titan.

Evangelion.

Kensuke slowly closed his mouth. “Wow.”

“I know.” The girl’s red eyes were alight.

“Wow.”

“Yep.” Taly smirked. “I think we can say that I win this one. And you owe me a favour for showing you this. Like, a big one.”

Kensuke worked his jaw. “Yeah,” he said, a little hoarsely. “Yeah, I think I really do.”

Picking up her tray, she flashed chisel-like teeth at him. “And I’ll be sure to remember it,” she said, as she walked off.

~’/|\’~

“... now, for this kind of problem, we are assuming that the local gravity is constant, so we can use the standard value of 9.81 metres a second downwards, or a force of 9.81 Newtons, and, yes,” the black-haired woman, her hair tied back in a tight bun, shot a piercing glance at the class, “we are operating in a one-state environment, so inertial mass is the same as gravitational mass, and all those little things which those of you who read far ahead have heard about, are not applicable. We’re trying to keep things simple. This is a simple question of harmonic motion, understand.” She steepled her fingers on the desk, leaning forwards. “So, who among you wants to tell me how to start?”

Ms Sweet-Corazon was, it was generally agreed, impressively acerbic, and less politely, a complete bitch. On the other hand, her classes tended to get very good grade averages, even if they did have a wider standard deviation than others.

Either way, there was silence from the class in front of her.

“Oh, come on,” she said, a slightly predatory smirk creeping over her lips. The hand of a brown haired amlata crept up. “Ah, Mr Ullr. A volunteer.”

The orange-eyed boy wetted his lips. “We have the limits, and we know the equation of motion, including the effects of the spring. We can set up the integral, and solve for time from there on in.”

The teacher nodded. “Yes, that would be the sensible way to do it. Unfortunately, my esteemed colleagues in the Mathematics department, on behalf of the Board of Education, have decided that you don’t formally learn more advanced calculus... beyond the basics from your ISCIATs, that is... until just before Christmas, so cunningly spiting our attempts to make proficient scientists out of you lot. I do not personally believe that integration tools can compensate for a lack of actual knowledge.” She paused. “And, in fact, there is no way to easily solve this, without the use of calculus. This leaves us with a conundrum.”

Some of the brighter members of the class were already groaning.

“Quite. I believe this is called ‘super-happy fun time’ for you, yes?” Ms Sweet-Corazon was enjoying this a little bit more than was healthy. “You’ll find you’ve been sent a full explanation of the techniques. I expect you to have read this by the next time we meet, as I will be setting you problems for your homework which require the use of trigonometric integrals. There is no excuse for not having done so.”

I’m a pilot of a forty-metre tall arcanxeno... biocyber... something something... robot, and have got training far too often. Obviously the fact that I’m responsible, in part, for your safety, is nothing to do with it, and is not a valid excuse at all, was what Shinji didn’t say, even if he was thinking it very hard. And considering what a mess he made of the designation for the Evangelion, that was probably for the best. That, and the necessity for operational security.

“But, until you have read the documents, I want you to do Section 3a...” she paused, “... the odd numbered questions. Just go down the left hand side. Looking at the time, you should be able to get at least up to 9 done by the end of the lesson. If, that is,” her tone clipped, “you do not spend all the time staring out of the window.”

There was a pause.

“That comment was directed at you, Miss Ayanami,” the teacher added, when the subtle hint did not seem to sink home. Rei turned to face her, one eye still covered in protective bandages, her head tilted slightly. “Answer the questions.”

“I already know the answers,” Rei said, her tone with a hint of confusion .

The teacher blinked twice. “What?”

“The answers to questions 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, from exercise 3a.” There was a slight downwards twitch of her mouth. “That was what you wanted answered.”

The facial expressions pulled while resetting one’s brain during a conversation with Rei could sometimes be rather amusing. All in all, Ms Sweet-Corazon did quite well, and managed to snap back to narrowed eyes almost instantly. “Then write them down, please. And pay attention to me when I am talking, even if you do know the answers.”

Rei locked her eyes on the teacher, and nodded once, a precise movement of her neck.

“Well, what are the rest of you doing?” snapped the teacher, glaring at the rest of the class. “Obviously, if you can spare time to sit around, you must find all of this easy. I think you probably should have done 11, by the end of the lesson, if you have that much time...”

As the class filed out of the room, the babble of conversation began afresh, as soon as people had determined that the teacher was nowhere near.

“She is made of pure, unrelenting evil.”

“I hear she springs this on every year. Believes the curriculum is, like, a suggestion, at best.”

“I heard she can melt you into a pool of blood with a glare, and crawl on ceilings, because she was bitten by an arcanochromatically-tainted spider.” There was the sound of someone being slapped around the back of the head. “What was that for, Kaga?”

“She’s not a supervillan, Enitan. Idiot. It’s not even as if you came up with a novel origin story.” The Nazzadi boy glared. “Of course, if you actually did your homework, instead of copying off me, cramming at the last moment, and spending too much time playing games...”

“But that’s against my religion!”

“Do you want to be hit again? In fact, do you want to have more stupid slapped out of you?”

“...no.”

“So it’s fair.”

“Still religious discrimination.” There was another slap to the back of the head.

“You know, repeated impacts to the skull can cause brain damage,” interjected an orange-eyed amlata. “Although the human skull is designed to protect its contents, the principle of conservation of momentum still applies. In that case, the rigidity of the skull causes its own problems, as it is forced back, while the brain moves less, causing an impact with the inner wall.” The boy paused. “Of course, that’s probably still better than what would happen if the skull was cartilaginous,” he added.

“That’s our Mr Exocerebrum, that’s for sure.” The boy turned to his compatriot. “See, Kaga! You’re the reason! I guess you just need to lend me your homew... ow!”

Standing behind the improvised pantomime, Shinji unconsciously pursed his lips a little. Not out of irritation (although, it should be noted, they were blocking the corridor, and slowing down traffic), but out of... well, he wasn’t quite sure how to describe it. ‘Bewilderment’ would probably be an accurate approximation, though, with elements of ‘amusement’. Of course, it still wasn’t enough to compensate for the fact that the teacher had just dumped another set of extra-homework on them, and he was still behind compared to the rest of the class. And tomorrow was Wednesday, so he couldn’t get anything done tomorrow.

Oh, boy. Tonight was not going to be fun. Why couldn’t they have just had him personal-tutored or something? Anything that would have allowed them to schedule his education around the intermediate bouts of giant robot piloting? And, yes, it may have been illegal to home-school children, but Shinji was fairly sure that it was also very much against the spirit of the law to put teenagers in capital-grade war machines and make them fight extranormal entities, and that hadn’t stopped them. The sudden outbreak of law-abidingness of the Ashcroft Foundation and the Army when it came to little things like education regulations was a source of great disappointment, in fact. Disappointment, and annoyance.

He was broken out of his reverie by a tap on his shoulder.

“Mmmph?”

It was that Nazzadi girl, the one with the red streaks in her hair, and the brown-haired boy who always wore arglasses; the big, full-eye ones, not the more modern style that his father wore. Oh. Ah. What were their names? Um... ah... um. Okay, I don’t remember. Stay calm, Shinji, and just act like it’s a perfectly normal conversation. Oh, why didn’t I pay more attention when people were introducing themselves back when I joined? Now it’ll be really embarrassing to just ask.

No... no, it’s okay. I’ll just see if I can find a list of pictures of the class on the AIG, and then I can go memorise them, and then no-one has to do that embarrassing bit where everyone goes ‘So, what was your name again?’, and then they look at you with that slightly pitying look where they’re obviously thinking ‘I’ve already told you, why are you asking? Are you really that stupid?’, and then it’s all a bit of a mess.

He realised that the other two were talking to him. ‘At him’ was probably a more correct way of putting things.

“... and I’m really not liking the way that she did that,” the girl said. “I mean, it might be all right for some people, but, come on, the Physics modules aren’t the easiest. I mean, one of my friends had her last year, and she’s always been a twihyohojy drekony.”

“Yeah, it’s sort of...” Shinji blinked twice. “Wait, a ‘wet tyrant’? Did you mean to say...”

The girl flashed a grin at him. “Heh. Didn’t expect you to actually catch that. You didn’t look like you were paying attention.”

I wasn’t he thought. Out loud, he added, “I’m trying still to actually catch up with all the stuff I missed. More work isn’t a good thing, but I think it’s worse for me than you.”

“Ouch.” The look on the glassed boy’s face was sympathetic. “It must have been a really bad time for you to move, right at the start of term,” he added.

You have no idea. “Yes, kinda.”

“Still,” the boy continued, “you get to say that you were nearish when that they killed that ENE.”

And at that comment, Shinji’s blood froze, the whole world shifting under his feet. His pupils dilated, and he could feel his heart begin to pound.

“It was really awesome, the way those four Engels took down the thing.”

Okay. He doesn’t know. He’s just mad. Why on earth would you want to be anywhere near a major attack? There was nothing awesome about that, at all. I mean, even if I hadn’t been involved, I know a lot of people died. And the whole chromatic bomb, too. Those things are nasty. It’s not a game or a film. He took a slight step back, as marginally, almost imperceptibly, the girl leaned in.

“Of course, have you heard any of the rumours going around?”

Biting his lip, Shinji shook his head. “No. About what?”

The other two looked at each other. “Oh, nothing really,” said the boy. He adjusted his glasses. “Just that there was some kind of proto-Engel involved in the battle.”

“I... I hadn’t heard that,” said Shinji. “What does that mean, um, anyway? Wouldn’t a proto-Engel just be an Engel?” He could feel the sweat on his forehead, and hoped that they wouldn’t notice it.

“Maybe, maybe.” The boy shrugged.

“I guess, it is only a rumour,” added the girl. “I don’t know. My friend... he’s normally pretty good at these sort of things.”

“Is he?” said Shinji, who was currently trying to look for a way out of the conversation without looking like he was trying to look for a way out, and failing at both objectives.

“Oh, yes, he is.” There was an undeniable smirk on the girl’s face, as she added, “Yes, Eva’s pretty good.”

“Really?” It was almost a squeak.

“I don’t suppose you know Eva, do you?”

Calm down, calm down, calm down, Shinji thought to himself, with acute mental urgency. They haven’t said anything which couldn’t be just me being paranoid. And I’m just giving myself away if I do anything silly like this. So I’ll just deny everything. He mentally paused. I’ll just deny anything which isn’t directed towards me in a negative form to make me use a double negative, and thus confirm it, he corrected himself, both of his foster sisters being a little too fond of that piece of linguistic trickery. He took a breath.

“I don’t, sorry,” he said, managing to hold his voice a lot more level, as he motioned to leave, “Now, if you’ll be excusing me?”

“Is it true that you’re the pilot of that mecha?” blurted out the boy, as Shinji began to walk away. Besides him, the girl frowned.

Shinji breathed out slowly. This, he could handle. “What mecha?” he asked, confusion layered into his voice.

“The one I mentioned.”

Shinji sighed (perhaps a little too heavily). “Don’t be silly. What kind of idiot would put a sixteen-year old in a mecha?”

“Arcanotech War One China,” the brown-haired boy promptly answered.

“For one,” Shinji continued, ignoring the comment “wouldn’t it be illegal? I’m not some super secret spy officer person.” He let a mass of restrained vitriol seep into his voice. “I get enough trouble because of who my father is, without that kind of stupidness.” And with that said, he stomped off. Inwardly, he was shaking. Tomorrow... he’d really need to talk to that person who’d talked to him about cover stories and the like during the training session. At least he hadn’t done anything stupid like admit it, right?

Kensuke and Taly watched him go. “Why the hell would you ask something like that?” Taly asked the boy, frustration in her voice. “It’s obvious that they wouldn’t have him as the pilot. As he said, he’s sixteen.” She paused. “Mind you, it did help. We know, now, that he’s the son of Representative Ikari.”

“So it was a good idea then,” Kensuke said, in a slightly hurt tone of voice.

“No, it wasn’t. But... yeah, that makes sense. He obviously knows something about it, and, so, obviously, his dad must have told him about it, maybe even shown him it.” There was a pause, and then Taly let out a muffled squeal. “That that means that the Proto-Engel is reeee~eeeaaaal!”

“I know!” Kensuke was fighting to keep a straight face, and loosing, despite the odd looks that they were getting.

“So awesome!”

“Yes!”

Kensuke managed to last almost ten seconds, before he started to giggle out of sheer elation, hands clutched together against his chest. He even permitted himself a little twirl, before coming to a stop, and noticing a pair of rather confused-looking red (and male) eyes locked on him.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Breath coming quickly, maniac grin split over his face, Kensuke glanced at his friend. “Oh... oh wow.”

“Do you have a date or something? You’re acting like my sister on a sugar rush.” The other boy paused. “More than usual, I mean.”

“Oh... better than that. Better, better.... no, awesome! Much more awesome.” Kensuke shook his head. “You won’t believe what I just found out, Toja...”

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

~’/|\’~

The hospital room was bright and as cheerful as a place which people only went to because there was something seriously wrong with them could be. Compared to the deathly cold, clinical feel of the high security hospital down in the Geocity, this was a much more human place, built to a human scale, and lacking the subtle shift in architecture which came from a deliberate decision to ensure that there were no sharp angles or areas of deep shadow anywhere. In fact, there were even fresh flowers scattered around the place; the genetically engineered, hot-house-grown blooms blue and white and green, as well as more conventional colours. Some of them looked very fresh, in fact.

“I don’t recognise those ones,” Toja said, pointing at the plants on the bedside table.

“Hrmm?” Kany twisted her head. “Oh, a bunch of my friends gave me them yesterday. They all came in after school.” She frowned. “Uh... the red ones are from Hikara, the white-and-blue spotted ones are from Imi, the orange ones are from Mary... uh, and I can’t remember the others.” She smiled, a little dreamily. “They’re pretty. I like them.”

They may have been pretty, but this did little to reassure Toja, as he sat beside his sister’s bed, feeling his nails dig into his balled fists. The rhythmic bleeping of the machinery around her, monitoring her post-operation condition, and the mass of cables and fibres which cocooned her within the transparent, sterile cylinder, were a sign that she still in a poor condition; stable, yes, but not well. He wanted to reach out, stroke her hair (cut short, and sealed in a bluish gelcast) and her sweat-covered brow, reassure her and tell her that it is, was, and always will be okay, but he couldn’t.

He was trapped here almost as much as she was, feeling useless, unable to do anything... anything at all, to make her feel better. There may have been plenty of doctors and nurses who were responsible for her care, but he was her brother, and he should have been looking over her, keeping her safe, like his father had told him to.

He certainly shouldn’t have been the one who was responsible for her getting hurt. An idiot who’d pulled her from safety into the path of a falling piece of ceiling, because he thought that she wasn’t safe where she was.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He dragged his attention back to the conversation. It wasn’t exactly progressing quickly, because Kany was still exhausted, and on painkillers to negate the discomfort as the medichines flooding her bloodstream knitted the cloned, transplanted flesh and nerves into her body. He wasn’t exactly the most attentive brother, either, for obvious reasons.

“What?” he asked. “I’m sorry, I just... sorry, I wasn’t... I was distracted.”

“I said,” a hint of her normal fire returning, “you did get my MP,” an abbreviation for manuprokedi, the Nazzadi word for a Personal CPU, “from home, right?”

Toja blinked, and patted his pockets. “Yeah,” eventually finding it in the top one. “It wasn’t in your room, it was on the side downstairs,” he said, as he pulled out the paper-thin, bright pink when in opaque mode. He paused. “Um... how am I meant to give it to you?” he asked, which was, all in all, a pretty sensible question, given that she was still encased in the bubble.

“Put it in the in thing,” she said, fingers tapping the side of the tube, where a black box connected onto the transparent side. “They’ve got all kind of stuff which means stuff can come in and out of this thing inside that thing.”

Toja squinted at the sterilisation input, as the thing was marked, taking note of the “Warning! Strong Source of Ultraviolet Radiation!” on the side, and the attendant list of things you weren’t meant to put in. “Uh, Kany?”

“Muh huh?” she mumbled, eyes already starting to droop again.

“I can’t put a thinscreen MP in. It says so.”

“Oh.” A moment’s thought. “Give me your one, then.”

“What?”

“Come oo~oon, Toja” she moaned. “I’m bored in here, and I don’t want to use the hospital ones, ‘cause they don’t let you load your own LAI up. And, anyway, Dedaka told them I wasn’t allowed to use one without Aly to supervise me, and she’s loaded up onto my MP. Which totally isn’t fair at all.”

Her brother said nothing about the little bit of biological curiosity on... well, not where babies came from, but how they got in there in the first place, which had led to their father imposing that rule on his nine-year old sister.

“So... come on, and give me your casescreen!”

Toja hesitated. “But I need it for school, and yours is pink,” he said, weakly, already pulling out his own, to transfer the memory-unit between the two.

“Pink is the best colour there is!”

“Yeah, and you’re a girl. Of course you like...” he trailed off, as he saw the mischievous grin on her face. “Oh.” His shoulders slumped. “How come I’m the one being outsmarted, when you’re the one who’s ill?” he asked, in a mock aggrieved tone of voice.

“’Cause you’re not too bright, remember,” Kany said, with a weak grin. “And because I’m the one in the tube, and you’re my brother, yoo~oou have to be nice to me, until I’m better,” she pointed out, triumphantly; a triumph somewhat interrupted by a yawn. “And then afterwards, and forever,” she added. “’Cause it’s your job.”

The boy winced. She said she had forgiven him for what had happened, but he couldn’t believe that he really was off free, like that. It wouldn’t be right. It was his fault, and so he was going to do everything he could to make it up to her. And if it took having to use a pink MP for the next few days... he would do it. With pride. Even if it wasn’t enough.

“... cheer up, Toja,” Kany said, breaking him from his thoughts.

He shook his head slowly. “You shouldn’t be telling me to cheer up. I should be the one who’s making things better for you, you know.”

Her shoulders bunched, in a sort of pseudo-shrug. “They’ll be letting me out of this thing soon, right?”

Her brother swallowed. “Umph... yeah. Probably at the weekend, the nurse said.”

“I know that. What I was trying to say is that it’ll be better then, right?”

No. It wouldn’t be better. That was the thing that Toja knew, and which his sister wasn’t really, properly, intellectually aware of. People who hadn’t looked into it, hadn’t been forced to be aware of the limited nature of such repairs, tended to assume that it was some kind of magic, which allowed you to get instantly over any injury. And, yes, technically, arcanotheraputic procedures may have been used to ease the healing process, and from a historical perspective, they may have been technically magic, but that didn’t mean that some doctor could just snap their fingers, and make it all better. Toja knew that his sister was looking forwards, to use the phrase in a bitterly ironic sense, to several months of physiotherapy, before she could walk properly again. Several long, painful, months of trying to regain something that she had once taken trivially.

All his fault.

Except... no, it really wasn’t. It wasn’t his fault. Because that was the thing that he hadn’t mentioned to Kensuke, or that nazzadi kivilitexcedivity his friend spent too much time around. The official story, that it had been Engels which had taken down the thing that they were calling Harbinger-3, was a lie. Or, at the very least, it wasn’t the absolute truth. Because there had been something else involved. Something big.

He had seen it when they were getting people out of the ruined bunker. Normally, they wouldn’t have done this, and the occupants could have just gone back to the Victoria Arcology, which was where they had been before the incident, but... well, after the arcanochromatic warhead, his home arcology hadn’t been in a state where they were going to let people back in, until they had checked for structural integrity. But, as the mass of people, filter masks on, flowed like ants from a crushed nest into the transports, he had seen the bulk of something humanoid, the construction vehicles and mecha swarming around it merely giving a scale to the thing. And it had terrified him; it had radiated, even fallen, an air of the Other. He couldn’t describe anything which gave the impression. In fact, Toja suspected that, had he merely been looking at a picture, he would have been able to dismiss it.

But he hadn’t been looking at a picture. And he couldn’t dismiss it. No matter how much he wanted to. No matter how much the psychologist, in those mandatory post-traumatic stress evaluations, talked to him. No matter how much the people from the NEG, who had gone around to all the people who had been in the bunker, to offer their condolences, and mention how such a thing merely showed the danger of a Harbinger-level entity, would have preferred it.

That wasn’t where the feeling came from, though, this certainty that the thing had been what had crushed the bunker, as it fought with Harbinger-3. The feeling came from the nightmares. That vast, vaguely-demonic face, looming from the shadows; a thing of terror, fear and pain, locked in embrace with a dark shape. It was near. It was close. It was hunting him, and the only way to escape was to wake soaked in sweat.

Toja knew, he just knew that this proto-Engel, this “Eva”, was the massive thing.

And he now knew that the new transfer student knew something about it.

~’/|\’~

Wednesday, 22nd of September, 2091

Print-out in hand, Ritsuko strode into the control room. Her harcontacts were alight, and her eyes was filled with phantom images and glowing wireframes, a world of augmented technological illusions which she spent more time in than not.

“Who’s down in the Immersion chamber right now?” she asked the duty officer. Technically, she could have pulled up the information, but it was, actually just faster to ask the person whose job it was to know when they were right there.

“Uh... that would be Sary,” the Arabic woman said, with only a moment’s hesitation.

“Good enough,” Ritsuko said, after a moment’s thought, as she sat down at one of the control consoles, bringing up her log-in. “Sary, I’m sending over a burst which Herkunft sent us over the high priority q-encrypted line. UNITY has got several hits for a potential Pattern Blue. Nothing precise, but it looks enough that I’m moving us up an alert level. I want you to flip to Melichor, and get me a Del-Sigma on it.”

“Understood, Dr Akagi,” the civilian Operator said, her voice slightly distorted.

“Should I send out a recall for Major Katsuragi?” asked Lieutenant Aoba. “It’s not high enough to be automatic, but she’s in a meeting up at EuroHighCom, and then she has to liaise with Project Moneta, and, well, if it is genuine...”

Captain Bakr frowned. “What do you think, Ritsuko?” she asked.

Internally, the blond sighed. The Captain was technically speaking proficient, but was really rather uncomfortable around anything which seemed to hint towards a Herald or Harbinger-level threat. She did score rather high for latent parapsychic sensitivity, after all, and Ritsuko suspected that it might be necessary to get her transferred to another position. She would almost certainly be happier there; certainly happier than she would be if she found out more than she should.

Ritsuko was fully aware of the subtle menace in that kind of statement. It was fully intentional.

“I don’t feel it’s necessary yet, Zakiyya,” she said, sticking her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. “UNITY isn’t the most precise detection grid, after all; it’s too sensitive. Too many false positives for me to slavishly follow it. And should it turn out to be genuine... well, Misato can certainly do her job from the European High Command headquarters. It isn’t as if we don’t have a hotline to them, anyway.”

Captain Bakr nodded. “Understood.”

“Good. Now, about the...” Ritsuko paused, as a high urgency icon appeared in the upper right corner of her harcontacts. It was from Representative Ikari, currently... well, he’d probably be somewhere near Geneva right now, if she could remember his itinerary. “Excuse me,” she said, raising two fingers to her right temple. “Start conversation,” she told her muse, which opened the connection. There was a slight chiming noise, as the protocols synchronised, before the glassed, bearded face of Gendo Ikari appeared before her eyes, the static, voice-only identifying picture much more efficient than the bandwidth which a live video feed would consume.

“Dr Akagi.” The man’s voice was perfunctory, brief.

As usual, she thought. “Yes, Representative?”

“You have received the message from UNITY.” It was not a question.

“Yes.”

“It is genuine. Have the Third Child recalled to the Geocity, and prepared for launch in Unit 01; Rei should be on back-up, if it should prove necessary.”

“Even without the successful synchronisation start?” she subvocalised, eyes flicking over the others. Oh, it would be so much easier to just be able to be able to think such things and transmit them as electronic signals, rather than relying upon a throat mike, but such things were much harder than the science fiction she had read in her youth would have one believe. As she had found out, when she had learned more about biology and computers alike. That wasn’t to say that it wasn’t possible, but she wasn’t wired up like a full Magi Operator would be. The complexity required to be able to think, and have a machine respond to your thoughts with true precision was insane; just look at the problems with the Evangelions.

“Yes,” the man said. “Be ready to launch at the request of the NEG, but do not volunteer before that. It will be necessary to see if they have learned the lesson that Asherah extracted from them in blood.”

“Understood.” She paused. “Is it from...” she didn’t even dare to say the name.

“Among other sources, yes.” The words were level. “Ikari out.”

The icon disappeared, and Ritsuko blinked a few times, the blue lights of her harcontacts shining out through her eyelids. “Change of plans,” she said, to the obvious curiosity of the duty officer. “Tell Misato she’s needed, and get both of the Children down to the Eva bays. That was the Representative; he believes that this has a good chance of being genuine, after the incident last week. He wants us prepared and completely ready.”

“Both the First and Third Child are currently at school... it’s Wednesday today, so they’ll be coming down at 14:00 for training anyway. We could...” began Makota, before Ritsuko interrupted, a slightly weary note in her voice.

“No. I said to recall them now. But,” she paused, “only on Protocol B. No need to go on an E, like last time.” Ritsuko was still more than a little irritated that such an emergency had turned out to be... not a false alarm, because it had been something, but there had been no contact with whatever it had been.

Oh well. At least the incident hadn’t had any lasting consequences.

~’/|\’~

The fist collided with Shinji’s face with a solid, meaty ‘thwack’, and the boy fell back onto the ground, one hand already instinctively clutching for his nose. From the too warm feeling within it, he already suspected he had a nose-bleed. Shaking his head, to shake away the slight sway in the world around him, his eyes skipped over the bluish-grey floor, the streaks of shoe scuff-marks marring it, the white walls and their attendant image boards, the sparse scattering of other students on the way to lunch, and the heterogeneous mix of faces all looking at the scene. The light streaming in through the windows, from the glow strips that marked the top of the arcology dome, seemed really bright, oversaturated, drawing his attention to every little detail.

Oh, and the tall, black-skinned, red-eyed boy looming over him, Wow, he really was even taller from down here, chisel-like teeth slightly bared. That was a rather important detail in the tableau.

“Let me put it to you again. You know that giant robot, that Engel-thing,” growled the boy, leaning forwards as he massaged his fist. “My sister’s in hospital, going to have to learn to walk again because of that thing, so you...”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Shinji blurted out, to a sudden susurration from the surrounding students

The other boy blinked. “What?”

“Do you think I wanted to be in that thing?” Shinji snapped, his voice nasal and muffled by the hand clamped to his nose. His PCPU chimed, but he ignored it.

The gears could be seen to be turning in the other boy’s mind, slotting this new information into place, as Shinji suddenly realised, with a sinking feeling, that he had just done something very, very wrong. Both in the short term, in that he was going to be beaten up by a bigger, stronger, taller, and generally ‘er’er (stupider, he thought with a hint of malevolence, because he realised that he could put context to the face, as one of his classmates), but well, how should he put it?

Some people were going to be a little irate that he had let that slip.

... oh dear.

“Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait,” said a shorter boy, arglasses lit up. “Are you seriously telling me that you’re the pilot of the proto-Engel!”

“Not now, Kensuke,” growled the nazzada, grinding his teeth together. “I swear...”

Shinji didn’t like the look on either of their faces. One might have been contorted with rage, but the other was a little too intent, and too interested for it to be really healthy. “N-n-no,” he managed. “I’m n-not saying that.”

Bending down, the taller boy thrust his face down. “What did you say?” The growl in his voice was gone; now there was just suddenly an ice-cold anger. “Because I don’t think you’re telling the truth. I think you just admitted that you’re the reason my sister’s in hospital!”

The chattering around them was louder; in fact, the people around them seemed to be forming a circle. Shinji had just about enough time to bemoan the fact that apparently, there was not one decent person among his schoolmates who would stop a poor, innocent person like him from being beaten up like this, before he saw the first which had already had one impact with his face draw back again.

Everything seemed to slow down. Newly born instincts, from all those training drills they had put him through, emerged. It was very simple. He just had to move his arms like this and this, and then aim the targeting reticule at the sensory organs and activate the lasers and... and realise that all that had been in the Evangelion-Thinking-Mode, not the Actual-Body-Thinking-Mode, and then get punched in the face because he barely even moved his arms at all, because, as it turned out, the other boy was quite a lot faster than he was.

And now his right cheekbone was hurting quite a lot. At least the other boy was massaging his hand such that it suggested that he really didn’t know how to throw a punch properly, which, even through the pain, gave a spike of satisfaction to Shinji. Even if it was taking the idea of taking his victories where he could get them a little far, he thought, as he closed his eyes, and tried not to start screaming or crying or anything.

“Owww. Ngh. Nhgh,” Shinji just about managed, as he worked his jaw, before he realised that suddenly everything had gone quiet. And the reason it had gone quiet is that one of the cleaning staff was pinning the tall Nazzadi boy to the wall, in a decidedly professional hold. And another one had a gun pointed at the trapped boy. And more seemed to be forming a cordon.

And stood, just behind the men and woman in blue, was Rei Ayanami, her white hair and grey eyes and snow-like skin a stark contrast to the regulation black overcoat. That look in her eyes, one of them still covered by a protective lens; it wasn’t clinical, it wasn’t even cold, as that would imply a detached observation of the scene. It was something, somehow, somewhat dead. No emotional investment at all.

Shinji shivered, as he was helped up, the adrenaline flooding his system leaving him shaking. Looking around, there were shocked faces of students, staring at him, and a faint buzz of conversation. But only a faint one. The people in blue overalls separating them, stun batons out, were enough to cower even the most privileged schoolchild here. One did not argue with people like that, especially when they seemed to be setting up a cordon. There was, in fact, an instinctual assumption among those children born in the Strange Aeon that the government, fundamentally, did know best, because while overparanoid vigilance was annoying, laxity was lethal.

The scars of the last forty years lay deep in the social psyche.

“Here. You’ll want this,” said a blue-clad woman, handing him a cloth. Licking his upper lip, Shinji could taste the blood, and, somewhat wearily, folded it up to staunch the flow, a sudden sense of déjà vu sweeping him.

“DNA checks human, no Outsider taint or trace of Hybridisation beyond tolerated gene-pool levels,” reported another member of the ‘cleaning staff’, stepping away from where Toja was still pinned to the wall.

“Good. Have we sealed off this corridor?”

“Affirmative. All witnesses have been isolated.”

“Acknowledged.” The woman sighed. “Right, we’re going to have to do the whole ‘John’ scenario. Take,” she nodded her head towards Toja, “that one off for more detailed examination. The rest are going to have to debriefed.” She paused. “Is Theatre 1 free?”

A man shook his head, after checking his PCPU. “No. One of the drama clubs is in there.”

“Well, that counts as free by my standards. I think this is a little bit more important than a play, don’t you?” the woman said, a caustic note in her voice, as she glanced sideways towards Shinji. “God, no security incidents for over three years, and two in less than a week,” he heard her mutter, as her co-workers began to herd the other children away.

Well... there goes any hope of normalcy, went his distracted thoughts. Now that all this... argh, my nose hurts. And my cheek. How on earth did they find this out? Bah.

“We are needed down in the Geocity,” said a soft voice. Blinking, Shinji turned to stare at the Rei Ayanami, the only student left in the corridor. “There has been a recall, at the B-level of urgency.”

“I thought we weren’t meant to go for... the thing... until two?” he said, still muffled by the blood-soaked cloth.

“No.” No anger, no frustration in her voice; just a mechanical recitation of the facts. “There has been a recall. There was a message sent to you three minutes and thirteen seconds ago. It was high priority.”

“... what?” Shinji fumbled around in his pocket with his free hand, now acutely aware of how his cheek ached. He was sure that he had a bruise; he could just feel that hot bruise-feeling, only made worse when he talked. And that was the problem with soft-screen PCPUs, the ones which kept the entire thing flexible, compared to the technically-old-fashioned ones with a hard casing. It was much harder to remember which pocket it was in.

“That was the time at which I received it,” she added.

Checking it, he could see that she was right about the recall. Pulling the cloth clamped to his nose away gingerly, he immediately returned it to place, as he felt a trickle resume. With a sigh, he shook his head. “Okay.” He paused. “So... uh, um, we’re going to the station then?”

“No. You will go with the security personnel, to receive treatment for your nasal haemorrhage and the minor hematoma of the tissue of your facial epidermis. They will then escort you to the Geocity, as per their orders. I will go on ahead.” And with that said, she turned on her heel, and strode down the corridor, heading towards the exit.

“I...” Shinji trailed off. I don’t understand what you’re saying. Please, use shorter words, was what he wanted to say, but that would make him look a bit stupid, and anyway she was already far enough away that... Never mind. I... I think she was talking about a nosebleed and a bruise, from context, but... um “Is a hematoma a serious thing?” he asked the ‘cleaner’ beside him, who seemed to be in charge.

“I... actually don’t know,” she admitted.

“It’s a bruise,” interjected another one of the escorts, and Shinji relaxed somewhat. And felt slightly smug that he had, in fact, been correct.

“But we will be taking you to Medical, before we go down to the Geocity.” She paused. “How are you feeling?” she asked, as they began to move. “You don’t appear to have any major injuries, but...

“A-a little shaken up,” Shinji admitted, adding, “Oh, and my nose is still bleeding.”

One of the men trailing them sighed. “We have to clean these floors. Please don’t bleed over them.”

He was silenced with a glare from his superior.

~’/|\’~

How much of what a human being sees is true? How closely does the perception of the world within our heads correlate with what exists externally? Is there, in fact, an external reality; is life nought but a dream and all the other entities we believe we perceive are but dancing puppets? And if one were to continue the metaphor, that line of speculation, who would be the puppetmasters? Some part of the self who the conscious being is not aware of; a part who a sceptic might point out resembles an empirical, external reality? Some demiurge; a god that lies to all senses in the name of power? Who knew?

Well, quite a lot of beings knew more than humanity, for one. And, indeed, many of the arguments were rooted in the human mode of thought. What would the idea that all other minds could be an illusion be to a species which could connect to any of its kin with a thought, for example? Indeed, such a species would probably view all others as non-sapient, a strong xenophobia linked to their internal unity. But such an argument was an irrelevancy to the subject at hand.

This place was dark. This place was not dark. Such a term was not truly defined here, because the human perception of the qualia of light (and the corresponding absence which men had called ‘dark’) was based on electromagnetic radiation, and if one were to take the density of photons over this higher dimensional space, it would be negligible, restrained to an infinitesimal hyperplane in a low r-state environment. Almost a rounding error. The greater beings here ‘saw’ by gravitation, Sol a source of illumination just as it was for those who relied on electromagnetism.

If one were to render this space in three dimensions, and in human sensory impressions, merely to get a glimpse of its immensity, then all the spatial dimensions familiar to Homo sapiens could be rendered as a mere line, and the unseen higher dimensions into merely two. And, then, protruding out from this line would be gleaming, twisted spires of metal and flesh, twisting and turning, bloated and cancerous; a jagged mess. A few, higher r-state photons, drawing a curved world-line which gave them a non-zero curvature in this space, illuminated these spires in green and purple and yellow; sometimes they tore through these structures, twisting them further as the bloated cancer warped to account for the damage. With closer examination, smaller, matt-black blots moved between the twisted spires; these things showed conscious control and awareness, compared to the mute towers, but they were so small, so tiny by comparison to the vast biomechanical fronds which shadowed over them.

But these were just background, to the main constructs. If the smaller protrusions from the three-dimensions-which-are-one were spires, then these things were mountains. Heaving, amorphous, things which go beyond the ability of this weak metaphor to explain; fungi-like mountains which sprouted forth from the world to spread themselves far away above the line, where the limits of the low r-state did not constrain them so. They waited. Unmoving. Sleeping. Dead? No, not really, but quiescent, certainly.

One could zoom out further, from this viewpoint from under the canopies of the mountains, until the spires became figures, and then became blades of grass, finally receding to silvery fuzz, and one would not have yet broken the immensity of the canopy of mountains. To the beings here, gravitation cast a dim light now, attenuated by distance, and those few higher r-state photons were long forgotten. They relied on other, stranger particles, which mankind merely clumps together under the broad auspices of Arcane Theory, to “see”. Things basked and swam and flew and crawled in this terrible space, completely detached from, and uncaring of, the affairs of man. ‘Plants’, the autotrophs which existed in any ecosystem, sat (Flew? Floated?) passively, absorbing energy, while things preyed upon them, and upon each other. Creatures akin to fish swam through denser areas of spacetime fluid; while ‘birds’ flew and squirmed and wriggled where space was thinner. Cultures bloomed and blossomed and died, knowing this as their world; just as native to them as what mankind knows. The songs of unknown beings, expressed through resonance and frequency of spacetime itself, reverberated through the spaces.

They sang of their terror and fear. They could feel what was happening, and the shifts which were occurring in their ecosystem. To them, this was not altogether unlike the distress that a saurid might have felt upon the sight of a very bright light in the west, at dawn. They could not escape outwards, because they had adapted to dwell around the shallows of this ink-dark void, relatively close to a world-line, and deep in the depths of this cosmic universe, they would be shredded by forces which they could not control. Though they did not call it that, they could feel Leng, and its existence close to them, and they could feel that which sleeps around Sol. There was a vast migration beyond anything which has ever been seen on Earth occurring, flocking away from the gravitational “light” of Sol, trying to go somewhere, anywhere, to get away from what it coming.

And then one broke the boundary-ceiling of the mountains, and suddenly, terribly, the perspective shifted. The mountains that sprouted forth from the line did not do so. They were not growing from the line, which was the entire world which mankind intuitively knows. It was a ridiculous idea, anyway. That such a being could grow from such a limited set of dimensions, so tiny and meaningless in the immensity of this void; preposterous.

They were not growing from the world. They were reaching out, to touch it.

One new one reached out with an appendage, to that distant line, and its vast, coalesced bulk followed it, compressing into the harsh environment of this low r-state environment.

It was being called.

It was time.

~’/|\’~

There was always something slightly stuffy about this dome and others like it, Hikary had always felt. It didn’t matter that the internal biosphere and environment was controlled, and entirely artificial. There was a dryness in the air, a certain smell that spoke of the ages contained within. It might have been the lack of children, she considered. Around her home, there was always a slight buzz; the sound of the inevitable sounds of life in a communal living area. But here, in a place like this, which really, if one was to be honest, existed as a place where the elderly waited to die, the noises of life were quietened. They were filled with examples of the indignities of age, reduced though they may have been over historical levels, and with the odd dialects of pre-Reformation English common, it was no wonder that they were frequent settings for horror films. Too frequently, the citizens merely retreated to the comfort of the Grid, spending their time where they didn’t have to deal with the realities of the Aeon War (as, after all, the elder generations had more problems with such things; to them, sorcery was still something unnatural, rather than an everyday part of society).

Places such as this existed to fulfil a demographic problem. The simple fact was, the First Arcanotech War, when the Nazzadi (including her father, created as a child in a vat somewhere in the Oort Cloud) had launched their misinformed attempt at conquest, had killed almost half the human global population. It had not been decimated. Decimation would have been a blessing; to only lose one in ten would have been a mercy. Over eight billion humans had been alive in 2059; less than five billion had seen the end of the war, in 2065. With those kinds of casualties, there was a demographic cliff-face, where the Gaussian which the population would normally have been was skewed heavily towards the youthful end of things. And those who were already elderly had the second lowest survival rate; second to men and women in the 21 to 30 age bracket. Almost without exception, a person here would have lost family members, loved ones, children to the black-skinned, red-eyed cousins of Homo sapiens.

There was a very good reason that pure-Nazzadi children were rarely accepted onto this specific Social Work Programme. It had simply been found to be too distressing for them. Amlati were somewhat less common, too (and most of them were from Integrationist families, like her, or raised by their human parent), and so would have been sidoci had it not been that the white-skinned xenomixes were already not the best choice for this type of task.

Hikary personally doubted if there was a single resident here under the age of 80, which meant that they had been in their fifties at the time of the First War. The man she was visiting today was one of the eldest here; he was, as he frequently pointed out, almost 102. And almost none of them had living blood relatives. That was the reason for these visits, after all. It did the inhabitants good to meet people, to socialise with others outside their interactions on the Grid.

Checking the address on her PCPU again, she nodded to herself, and pressed the button for that particular flat. The intercom hummed, and she could hear the faint whine of a mobility exoskeleton, as the occupant answered.

“Yes? Hello? Who’s there?”

Hikary cleared her throat. “It’s me, Hikary, Mr Britton.” She paused. “It’s Wednesday afternoon, remember? I’m your assigned Visitor.”

“Oh yes. Yes, yes. Come on in.” The door light flicked green, and the girl let herself in, shaking her head fractionally. She honestly didn’t understand why some of her classmates complained so much about this. Not only was it a vital, marked part of the ISCHAT (part of the Social Responsibility module), but it wasn’t actually much hard work. It wasn’t as if talking to a lonely old man for a few hours once a week was much of an effort (and usually taking him in his exoskeleton on a walk). But, then again, Hikary had decided long ago that, secretly, most of the children at the Academy were irredeemably privileged, and didn’t understand the responsibility they owed to society from being born into such a position of wealth. That wasn’t true for her. Her father had made sure that she and her sisters understood that well.

In another dome elsewhere barely under the upper reaches of the city, the shallowness speaking of the relative poverty, a cluster of students waited for the transfer to the final maglev to their destination. They were already in the boiler-suit garb which SWP ‘volunteers’ wore for messier assignments, and they stood out.

“Gatestown: 5 minutes,” read Beatriu, softly. “Now... is that the one we want?”

“No,” Reyokhy said, squinting slightly, as she also stared at the display board. “It’s Sameki we want, remember. So we want the First Circle line.” She paused, waving her finger in the air. “Yes, we want Anti-Clockwise.”

“Are you sure?” asked Ferdina, leaning in.

He received a glare from a pair of violet eyes for that question. “Yes.”

The boy shrugged. “Just checking.” He (an amlati from an Culturalist family; technically he was Ferdinand, but didn’t like being called that) turned his head. “Heya, Taly, you’re being quiet today. I mean, we do have Sasaky with us, so we need to keep the,” he gave a self-indulgent chuckle, “levels of banter up.”

“Huh?” Sasaky looked up from her manuprokedi. Well, not that much up; she was still the tallest of the group, but at least her attention was now focussed on her classmates.

Reyokhy shook her head. “Nothing, Sasaky. Go back to looking at your kayawojy stefy.”

“Anyway,” Ferda continued, “yeah, what’s up?”

Taly shook her head, but even the manner in which she flicked a red-dyed lock of hair back was distracted. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

There was a silence, although, to an outside observer, the noise of the platform, as people filed on to and off from a train, made such a thing unnoticeable.

“More... problems with your step-mum?” Beatriu asked, hesitantly.

“No. Not that. She’s still a sanginoy harangy,” the girl hastened to add,”... but, no, I’ll be fine.”

There were glances between the others. She certainly wasn’t acting fine.

There was a snort from Sasaky.

“Hmm?”

“Oh,” the girl said, her voice slightly husky, “a message from Jony.”

A pause. “And it was?”

“Mostly complaining. The Cadets have them studying murder scenes. She’s getting annoyed by Dathan. As usual.”

“I don’t like him,” Ferdina said, with narrowed eyes. “He’s... more than a little crazy. I was actually sort of interested in the OIS Cadets, but, spending more time around him? When he managed to get to be Cadet Leader. Bleargh.”

“Well, he’s fairly cute,” Reyokhy said, raising one eyebrow.

Ferdina shook his head, a faint sneer on his face. “Not my sort.” The sneer turned into a smirk. “Plus, I think Jony has first claim on him, anyway.”

“Yeah.” Reyokhy sighed. “I’ll never get a chance. They should just admit that they’re going out to themselves, so then they can then break up properly, and the rest of us can have a go.”

“And you have poor taste, if you like him.”

“Says you, Mr Floppy Eyes Over...”

“Ua, uy, mandatmutati, dy aprecy,” Taly eventually intervened, flapping a hand in their direction. “I think the train’s coming.”

Indeed it was. And as they filed onto it, to get to the maintenance area, for their Social Work Programme placement with Arcology Maintenance, Taly felt that, personally, she could be excused a little bit of distractedness. Not because she happened to be not looking forwards to this (and she wasn’t; she didn’t exactly have the sort of influential parent who could ensure that she got onto the easiest SWP, and she wasn’t thinking any names, especially not a certain daughter of the Ashcroft Advisor on the L2 Board of Education), but because, well, she had been distracted ever since the revelation that one of her classmates was involved in a really, really, really awesome NEG weapons project. The Proto-Engel was real. Really real. The talk from the security people had made it very clear that they couldn’t mention it to anyone at all, and faced criminal charges if they did, which meant that it really was real. And, sure, it was a shame what had happened to Toja, but, well, he was an idiot. In fact, if there hadn’t been the security personnel, she might have stepped in, because, well, the new boy was basically a hero, and so she was duty-bound to help him.

And the fact that she might get to see that “Eva”, if she helped him, was only an added bonus. A very, very large one.

Feet pounding against the floor, Toja sprinted down the undersized corridors of the primary school, past water fountains which only reached up to knee height and lockers which seemed far too low. He was still shaken. Very, very shaken. Although his underwear remained clean, it had been a close one at several points, in that ‘little chat’ which the security at the Academy had with him. If one defined a ‘little chat’ as involving bloodwork, a full NAS examination, and then, once they had checked properly on his mortal and non-Blanked status, the actual talk about not ever doing it again, and a full list of all the nasty things which could happen to him if he talked about it.

He was now quite aware, now that his brain was working again outside the heat of the moment, that he had punched the pilot of a capital-grade war machine. One which had been deployed against the Harbinger, and had seen active use. That... that was scary. That was like punching a naval captain, or something. He didn’t ever, ever want to have to go through a talk like that again. Ever. They had even been dropping dark hints of getting the OIS involved, on possible extranormal influence grounds. He had been taken there just after midday. It was almost three now; there had been hours of questioning. He was very, very late; he was meant to be here, at the school, at two. He’d been so scared, that he hadn’t even asked for some kind of form to explain why he was late. And... well, to be honest and to move away from the terror of what had just happened here, he needed the easy marks here, picked up from helping out here at Wade Primary as part of his Social Work Programme. It gave him a safety margin for other, harder exams. It was why he didn’t mind it when the Class Rep, Hikary went on her little “social-conscience” talks. The SWP was easy, and you probably had to try to fail to actually fail. As long as you showed up and, in his case, spent the afternoon helping out with primary-school aged children, you basically got full marks for the module.

Although, he would quite like to find out just who had decided that he was going to be assigned his little sister’s class, for the duration when she was still in hospital. The last few weeks, he’d spent a lot of time answering questions about her, which hadn’t been too enjoyable, especially when she was stuck in the waiting list, just due to how many people had been hurt, and needed transplants, after the Harbinger-3 incident. He hadn’t been able to say anything good, and her friends had got distressed when he said nothing at all.

Pausing for a moment to get his breath back, he adjusted the too-tight neck of his uniform overcoat (one of the things they insisted was that the student be in proper uniform, which Toja found aggravating), and took a deep breath. It was hotter up here on the surface. Sure, the buildings were still sealed, but this school, unlike the Academy deep underground, had actual, real sunlight coming in through the windows (a legacy of 2080s design choices, from politicians concerned that some young children were growing up without ever seeing the sun), and so it got hotter, especially in the early autumn sunshine outside. Slowly, he opened the door, hoping in futility to look like he had been there all along, waiting for someone to notice his presence.

All in all, it would probably have worked better if he hadn’t been an hour late, almost to the minute. And, in fact, he had not missed the first afternoon class, and arrived during registration for the second.

“Christine Mnemina.”

A little girl with platinum blond, almost white, hair raised her hand. “Here.”

“Napa Nabusakoraki.”

“Hee~eere,” droned a boy, slumped forwards on his desk.

“Imi...” the teacher noticed the interruption, and turned to stare at Toja; the older man making a tutting noise. “Ah, Mr Suzuhari. So nice of you to show up.” There was a titter from the mass of nine-and-ten-year olds, who were, on the whole, at the age when sarcasm reigns from its rightful pedestal as the highest form of wit. The teenager spared a glance at them; to him, the ethnically and racially heterogeneous mass merely blended into grey-blazered homogeneity. Man, he’d really hated that uniform, back when he had to wear it. It’d been even worse than the one from the Academy, because at least with this one, they accepted that you could just take off the overcoat if it was too hot. They’d made you wear the blazer all the time.

Toja winced. “Sorry. I got, um, caught up at something at school.” The hesitancy was noted.

“... caught. Up. At. Something. At. School,” the man said slowly, overtly making a note on his desk, to more laughter from the children. He flashed an insincere smile at Toja. “Well, don’t worry. I’ll be sure to explain this to the evaluators, and I’m sure they’ll be really sympathetic.”

“Sorry.”

“Did you at least pick up the lesson plan?” the teacher asked, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

Toja nodded. “Yeah.” He patted his pocket, where his-sister’s-but-temporarily-his MP resided.

“Well, at least that’s something. With that said, you’ll be with the Bluebirds work group, rather than the Treefrogs, despite what it said.” The man paused. “Now, where was I?”

“I am here,” said a brown-haired girl, raising one thin hand.

“Oh, yes. Thank you, Imi,” the man tapped his desk. “So... Joseph Ouramba.”

“Here!”

And that was when the sirens started.
"Today, at 15:02, a special state of authority has been declared by the New Earth Government. All students in the school are to head immediately to the designated secure bunker. Access to surface levels in London-2 is forbidden. Protective gear should be worn, as a precaution. Temporary martial law is in full effect."

"Asisi radisi, ni plancki solilaki-kei pla laki-twi, soli Newi Earthi Governmenti canalabi absul homisapi. Absul nosesudevorazi ni nosesukasi serakausi mandatuchanposakausi velecuscipubuyuteri. Absul ui opuvami ot piwuteri oi arkologusufiki Londoni-twi. Mandatudohunakausi soli scipugaremeti delo absul scipunosesudevoraz. Vuli-oi-gurilutermi, delo estru radisi, serabi canalabi."

The response was immediate. Even as the message was still playing, the hatches on the floor, under each desk, popped open, to reveal child-sized filter masks. These were not full ANaMNBC (arcane, nanological, micrological, nuclear, biological, and chemical) protection, but what they did do was filter the air, as well as providing a self-darkening facepiece which prevented blindness from the large number of high intensity lasers used in any modern combat. Even when only observing reflected light, it was still dangerous enough that the blink reflex was not enough to preserve retinal integrity; a situation made worse by the fact that both the NEG and the Migou designed their units so that, under the first layer of camouflage, was high reflectivity material (called ‘mirrorgloss’ by tank crews). At least with one of these worn, one would have to be in the approximate area of the laser’s target to actually be hurt by it, which was widely agreed to be an improvement.

There was a buzz of commotion, as the class began to chatter, already reaching under their desks to the compartments.

The teacher passed one from behind the desk to Toja, who wordlessly accepted it. “Okay, everyone, be quiet, and listen to me,” the man called out. “You should know how to put these on, but if you don’t, ask! Me and...” he glanced sideways.

“Toja.”
“...Toja are going to check everyone, before we head off to the bunker. The straps need to be tight, and the memoform needs to have unfolded around the head properly. If you have any red lights on the internal surface, you are to show me, because that means it’s not working properly, and you need a new one. That is not a good thing. You are to tell one of us. You aren’t to just think that it will be okay. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, Mr Rarinujeri,” the class echoed.

~’/|\’~

Over blue sea and under blue sky, it came.

A vast, somewhat-ophidian, somewhat-cephalopodian, and utterly inhuman bulk swam through the air faster than the noise of its passage could propagate. Its carapace was the colour of a libation to gods unknown. Twitching tentacles trailed behind it, writhing and thrashing in disordered chaos, the faint crystalline glisten of the AT-Field sparkling on their surface, and finger-like, insectoid limbs pulsed and clutched on its underside. There were eyelike bulges on its broadened front; the harsh of their black and white quite unlike the wine-like colour of the rest of its body, but, like its bloated abdomen, these were far more akin to some cancerous bulge than an eye as a human (or, indeed, a serpent or a squid) might recognise it, for they were continuous with the flesh, and not a necessity for sight.

To think that it might need such a thing to detect electromagnetic radiation? Pathetic.

And, despite its supersonic velocity, there was all-pervasive hum in the air; a roaring crescendo of noise which made the jaw ache and eyes blur. Some might have compared it to the hum of power cables, or a horde of locusts, but if that was true, then this was an energy which could illuminate the heavens, a creature which could consume a planet. Below its bulk, the water danced along to this terrible sound, a thin mist effervescing forth from the water, twirling and swirling in the early autumn sun, only to be torn asunder as the shockwave it carried with it hit. Around it, lightning arced as the air molecules shredded by contact with its AT-Field discharged. The booms of thunder from the superheated air was far too similar to that of modern warfare.

“We have a hard lock on the target!” called out the Nazzadi officer on the sensor desk. “Data from the CATSEYEs matches the optical and radar image; no active ECM or ECCM detected.”

“Approach vector calculated. First contact will be with Hotel Papa Tango Zero One Five One.”

“Readings from the Shaws have been passed to Analysis. It’s certainly a Herald at the very least; we’re waiting to hear back from the MAGI on whether it’s a Harbinger.”

“Report: RALCL serum has been administered to 96.2% of front-line capital-weapon operational crew. Risk of Aeon War Syndrome should be correspondingly reduced for vital operational staff.”

“Air units standing by, maintaining safe distance from Unidentified Hostile Target. ECM/ECCM birds are in the air.”

“Satellites are no-go... I repeat, satellites are no-go. Migou orbital units are too close to risk detection of stealth observers. Communications are routed through ASIT birds.”

“MCUs have been deployed across line of assault. Deployment of tactical arcanochromatic weapons can now proceed.”

Slowly, all along the concentric lines of defence, the vast emplacements of capital-grade weapons emplacements ground around to face the target, megatonnes of armour designed to take a direct hit from a Migou Swarm Ship, and continue fighting moving with inertial bulk. On the vast map in EuroHighCom, icons indicating readiness to fire

“Phalanx 034 has target. Requesting fire authorisation.” All around, the mechanical recitations of hussar-type LAIs, and the more concerned words of the humans in the control room, filled the area.

A blue ring of concentric circles appeared, the AR projection floating in mid air, facing the Command Triumverate. “Six Phalanxes have acquired the target. Their commanders are requesting fire authority.”

Field Marshal Lehy narrowed her eyes. “No, THEMIS,” she said, to the Total Information Tactical Analysis Network. Even if, technically, there wasn’t a single entity to speak to; the TITAN LAIs were, as the name suggested, a network; a composite of tens of thousands thousands of lesser, focussed LAIs, each one dedicated to a specific task. What she was talking to was merely the end-user component, not dissimilar to that which a muse or a civilian drone. “Hold fire.”

The inner three rings began to spin. “That is against standing orders. We are not to permit an entity...” the TITAN paused, the outer rings flashing yellow, “... positive confirmation has been received from the MAGI of the Ashcroft Foundation that this being can be classified as a Harbinger-class Herald. Assigning new designation: Harbinger-4. Assigning new codename: ‘Eshmun’. All future references to this being are to utilise this designation.”

Another voice from the LAI began to speak. “Requesting fire authorisation, as per Directive 07,” stated the TITAN, this voice slightly deeper. “Standing orders are to prevent a Harbinger-grade threat from approaching an urban area. Due to the recognition of a Harbinger-grade threat, requesting a Triumverate confirmation on refusal to authorisation fire.”

“Fire authorisation is not given. Authorise fire only on our orders,” said Field Marshal Jameson; a decision supported by Admiral Tatuta.

“There is unanimity,” said the TITAN, blandly. “Awaiting fire command.” The voice shifted back to the higher pitched one. “The Ashcroft Foundation is requesting permission to deploy Evangelion Unit 01 at will, to support ground operations.”

“Denied,” said Jameson, his blue eyes cold. “They are aware of the plan, and they will stick to it.”

“Response transmitted,” said THEMIS, with the same passivity.

On the ground, the actual men and women in the stationary defence positions were not so calm. For one, their close ground support had not been deployed, after the horrific casualties inflicted by Asherah, so they were feeling more than a little nervous, if this thing was accompanied by anything smaller. There was also the issue of this thing’s size.

Put quite simply, it was unfairly small and low emissions, by capital-ship standards. Not enough to mean that they couldn’t target it, of course; that would be ridiculous. But this thing, barely frigate size, would, by precedent, be able to take a battleship-killing relativistic particle beam, and survive. And could kill a defence station with a single shot.

This was... distressing to the defence crews.

And still no authorisation came.

Down in the Geocity, ten kilometres below the surface of London-2, Major Misato Katsuragi was gripping onto the railing in front of her with whitened knuckles, the muscles in the back of her hand straining. All her instincts were telling her that they needed to get the Evangelion deployed as soon as possible, because the deployment chutes were a point of weakness in their strategy. What if the Harbinger could detect the characteristic magnetic fields of the rails as they propelled the Unit upwards? If it were in line of sight, the Eva would be exceptionally vulnerable. They’d seen the damage that Asherah had inflicted on the Unit, and there was no desire for the same to happen again.

She opened a window to the Evangelion. “How are you feeling?” she asked the boy. His face, wrapped in the armoured cowel of the plug suit, looked even more worried than she felt.

Shinji swallowed a gulp of LCL, and forced a fake smile onto his face. “Scared,” he said. “It’s... it’s actually a real Harbinger, isn’t it, Misato? Not like whatever it was last time? It’s actually really real.”

“All evidence suggests so,” interjected Dr Akagi, the worry lines around her eyes creased up. Misato spared a glance at her friend. ’Yes’ would probably have done, she thought.

“I’d... I’d say that the waiting was the worst part, but I’d be lying,” Shinji continued. “The piloting and the fighting and the... and the,” he winced, “the way it hurts are the worst.”

“Don’t worry. If things do go well, you won’t be needed for more than the clean-up.”

Misato thought that she could see that there was a little bit of a smile, at the corners of his mouth. “I think I’ll just be a little bit worried, though,” he said, a hint of self-mockery in his voice which sounded a lot more genuine than the forced smile before. Somehow, that cheered her up a bit. Yes, if things did go properly, this would be considerably less unpleasant than Harbinger-3. That one had been a complete surprise. This time, they had had warning, and knew better about how to deal with such things. Silently, she blessed Representative Ikari, and the slight edge of paranoia which had turned out not to be paranoia, which had led to them having everything in place for a Harbinger, properly this time.

Mind you, it would be very hard for things to go as poorly as they did against Asherah she thought, a bitter smile directed inside. At least this time we actually have a trained... well, semi-trained pilot available, and, as a bonus, Rei is unlikely to die if we are forced to put her in Unit 00 without a proper restart test.

She sincerely hoped that they didn’t need to do that, though. That would be a sign that things had gone very, very wrong again.

Either way, it was time.

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

~’/|\’~

If one could look into the mind of a being such as the one which the New Earth Government had chosen to call Eshmun, Harbinger-4, what would one find?

Raving, unintelligible, inchoate chaos, obviously. When the utter dissimilarity in evolutionary history, biology, soul-structure, r-state and indeed local physical laws which comprised the ‘body’ were taken into account, it was not exactly surprising that such a mind would be incomprehensible. The minds of the pathetic parapsychics of mankind would erode like a pile of sand in a hurricane, should they attempt to interface with such a soul-form, to access its mind.

But if one could, what would be there?

The regimented beauty of the ordained
Futile obstruction
Necessities of the utter madnesses
Things exist that I desire
Of Those-Who-Are-Above All defy the
Time for consumption
Comprehension of all these tiresome toys.


The great leviathan could feel how this place was unclean, feel the disgusting brush of the scintililating soul-forms of this entire ecosystems. Unnatural, impure, loathsome. A human may have compared it to wading through sterile sewage; it was not likely to be harmful, but still not pleasant.

Do the dark waters of forgetting drown all?
The void consumes all.
Not I! Not I! Above the waves I raise
Always, nothingness is being
My banner high and sing greatly my triumph
Inevitably true
For I come to bring that which this world needs.

It was heavy, bloated, gravid, laden with its eggs. It could feel what was nearby (though its sense of ‘nearby’ was rather different from a man’s), and it knew that this was the optimal route to ensure its own survival, and that of its children. It was not a strong being, there were things which could prey on it, and in the time which was to come, it would need all the advantages it could get.

A falling dying star! A broken shattered throne!
Once respected ones
All things fade and die, for the Beast wills it.
Foes and rivals, but worthy
You do not understand, and you never shall,
What filth remains now?
For the world you thought you knew was never real.

This place was sick. The shells of base metals it could feel around it, the ones which each had a tiny , warped radiance within them, which bent higher dimensions, were clean, pure, compared to the filthy, saponaceous and oleaginous things that brushed against it with every move it made. It would wipe this planet clean of the sickness.

Such a place was not right to raise one’s children.

Pencilled pale figures dancing around
Sterilise the land
Faint grey shadows cast by crippled maimed hands.
You shall not deny me this
Puppets without strings, peasants without kings,
I shall boil the sea.
My children will make it so you never were.

“Sir!” The woman’s words were harsh. “THEMIS reports that all designated units now have direct line of sight to target Eshmun.”

“Requesting permission to authorise fire,” the TITAN said, the discs of its ARvatar motionless, as if its entire composite-self waited upon this decision. That was a lie, of course; that would be inefficient of it, a waste of its massive computing powers, quite apart from the fact that the majority of its sub-components were completely unsuited for human interaction.

Field Marshal Lehy glanced sideways at the other two members of the Triumverate, two silent nods enough. She grinned then, chisel-like teeth bared somewhat maliciously. “THEMIS, you are granted fire authorisation, as per Operation Xerxes.”

“Understood, Field Marshal.” The ARvatar vanished, as the map of the target zone expanded, to fill the entire floor, such that the officers stood on it like titans of old.

All along the front, the serried ranks of Type-S025 tubular artillery and Type-S033-A and S033-B missile launch vehicles received a pulsed signal, the hussar LAI systems aligning their trajectories along a very specific launch vector. Previously hidden files of orders and combat doctrines were unlocked, as the TITAN set up the attack. This would not have worked against the Migou, of course; they were a technological, sapient species, and thus carried out their operations with such high levels of infowar and ECM that such networking abilities were actively dangerous to use against them. But with a foe like this, who appeared to not even note the presence of the armoured vehicles and stationary positions around it, it could be used to the full of its capabilities. And they were mighty indeed.

The Harbinger was continuing along its path, now over the ruins of Old London. Below, the ground sparkled, a thin layer of gleaming dust covering every surface, the area covered in scrubbing micromachines. This proximity was not as alarming as it might have sounded; that dead metropolis did cover most of the South of England. And, indeed, the NEG had been loath to let such a thing get this near, but it had been decided that the naval forces stationed in the North Sea would not be sufficient to guarantee a kill, judging by the durability of Asherah, and should they fall, they would leave an invasion route open for the Migou, from occupied Scandinavia. Hence, it was up to the stationary positions to take down the foe.

The tactics had been derived from observations of Harbinger-3, as well as co-operation between the best and brightest of the military minds of the New Earth Government Army and Navy. Not only that, but the full abilities of the Achtzig Group’s Total Information Tactical Analysis Networks had been utilised, the Limited Artificial Intelligences tasked with the analysis of all the contradictory information about them which could be extracted from mythology, and the results finally checked with the use of the MAGI supercomputers, in a full-immersion dive.

The tactics could be summarised as “Use A Gun. And If That Doesn’t Work, Use More Gun”.

The attack began with a thudding cascade. Carefully timed, the legions of artillery pieces and missile launchers opened up, the barrage working in from the furthest to the nearest, the attack calibrated such that there would be three discrete impacts of the mass of projectiles. Unknowing, uncaring, the Harbinger continued onwards, possible not even aware of the oncoming horde of projectiles, counting down the few seconds before they impacted.

And then, a quarter of a second before the first wave of arcanochromatic-warhead tipped missiles and shells (each one only a few tonnes of TNT each; the Colour-contamination was the main function of this attack, and keeping the yield-per-blast down prevented too-wide dispersal) impacted, the capital grade weaponry fired. Some had been aimed at a separate part of the Harbinger’s anatomy by THEMIS, attempting to cripple it, while others were all aimed at a single point. The precision of the targeting was such that it had been necessary to account for signal transit time. The accuracy was, in fact, inhuman; the people operating the capital grade weaponry, buried behind layers of radiation shielding and thermal insulation were handlers for the LAIs which did the actual fire control. There remained manual, hard-wired restrictions on what the LAIs could do; they required the physical authorisation to fire, but even then, some were concerned by just how little individuals were involved in the firing of these colossal weapons.

But the effects were glorious.

The Harbinger, Eshmun, was enveloped in a Colour-tainted storm of plasma, the relativistic impacts of the stationary charge-beams collapsing the phase-space of its AT-Field, while the directed arcanomagnetically confined beams sheared straight through its unnatural flesh.

As the fireball expanded upwards and dimmed, a dark-shape in the blinding brightness slowly fell to pieces, the crystalline brightness of its AT-Field weak and broken, torn asunder by the tainted light and incredible energies thrown at it. Through magnification, they could see, even through the radiance, the colossal flesh splinter and fragment as it fell. The abdomen of the thing, if that was the correct term, was wrecked and scattered, globules of ichor-coated viscera pattering down to earth, bursting like rain in the heat. The larger, frontal section was more intact, though riddled with worm-like holes from the impacts, greying-craters torn out of the wine-coloured carapace. Wriggling and spasming, it slammed into the ground, tearing through rotting buildings with its bulk.

“Multiple direct impact have breached the AT-Field,” stated THEMIS, back in the command bunker. “Xerses was conducted at 88% of HME. Continuing fire on location, until destruction of target can be verified.”

Field Marshal Jameson leaned forwards unconsciously, linked to the Geocity and the command team for the Evangelion Group. “Deploy Evangelion Unit 01,” he ordered. “We know Asherah survived the shot from the EVR, but it was injured. If it survived, we want to kill it now, while it’s weak.”

Major Katsuragi nodded, once. “Understood, sir.” Turning away from the link to command, she permitted herself a small smile, despite her nerves. “Launch the Evangelion!”

~’/|\’~

There was a slight pulse in the ground, an irregular beat which could be felt in the bones. Leaning back against a wall, Toja took a deep breath, and unconsciously reached for his MP, patting his pockets with increasing desperation when he couldn’t feel its solid bulk. Oh. Yeah. Feeling stupid, he pulled out his sister’s thinscreen, self-consciously trying to cover its bright pink back. He had nothing to do, while they checked the register, just before they let everyone through the airlock.

The Grid is currently operating in Restricted Access Mode, he read. Full User Rights are suspended under Code 11 of the Digital Communications Bill, 2087. Temporary Martial Law in Effect. Under that, was a selection of links, to official information sites, and emergency information. Nothing which could be used to break the tight seals between compartmentalised areas of the Grid in Restricted Access Mode. He was sure, wherever Kensuke was (Naval Cadets, come to think of it), he was probably setting up node-to-node stuff to try to bypass it, or something. Toja wasn’t quite sure exactly what you’d do to do that kind of thing. But at least it would be nice to have someone to talk to.

The Nazzadi boy shook his head slightly, and shivered. This was far too similar to what had happened when the thing they had called Harbinger-3 had shown up. The same explosive thudding pattern, the same emergency evacuation. And he was stuck in a shallow bunker again, not deep enough to be properly safe. He used to think a hundred metres down was okay. It wasn’t. He’d learned that last time. And yet, again, he was here, surrounded by young children. He had a bad feeling about this.

At least Kany was down deeper this time, safe down in the hospital. That was a mercy.

And... and he’d punched the person who’d been piloting the thing which had killed Harbinger-3. He’d actually done it. It didn’t make him feel better. In the cold light of insignificance he now saw himself in, cowering down here in this bunker, he suddenly realised how small he was compared to the bulking figure of that thing, that “Eva”. Not least because he could have just blamed the Harbinger for the damage done. But that wasn’t the same. That was a faceless horror, and incidentally dead. He’d wanted someone to blame, not something. Although, saying that...

He was broken from his reverie by a tug on his sleeve. He looked down to see a little boy, his purple eyes crinkled up in worry. He looked somewhat familiar, too.

“Come on, Kany’s brother,” the boy said. Yes, that was it. He was one of his sister’s friends. Hikara, was it? Or was it Bernard, or Tomek? No, Tomek was human. Toja was sure that his friends hadn’t looked so similar when he had been that age. “Mr Rarinujeri needs to see you, ‘cause we can’t find Imi. Have you seen?”

“Imi?” Toja asked, following the small boy.

“You know, Imi.” At Toja’s blank face, the boy gave a sigh which was too old for him. “Oh, come on. I know you’ve seen her, ‘cause we were all there for Kany’s birthday.” Toja continued to look blank. “Human? She’s pale, brown hair,” he raised one hand to the left side of his head, “has her hair lop-sided?”

That rang a bell. “Oh, Pigtail Girl.”

The teacher, Mr Rarinujeri was arguing with someone over his MP. “I don’t know!” he snapped. A pause. “I followed all the normal procedures for evacuation. No, no-one else is missing. Yes, I have checked.” A longer pause. “Yes. I’ll keep you posted.” He lowered the device with a frustrated sigh. “You!” he snapped at the boy. “Toja! Have you seen her. Is she anywhere around here?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Damn. Damn...” the teacher glanced at his students, “...and drat.” He took a deep, shuddery breath, audible through the filters. “Does anyone at all know where she could be? We had her in the classroom, because I took a register. How could she have gone missing between here and there?”

A little girl raised one hand. “Um... sir, remember, she has that medical thing, where she sometimes can’t breathe or talk properly.”

“And then sometimes faints,” added the boy who had taken him here.

“I know, Bernard,” groaned the teacher. “But... well, there isn’t a proper team in the gear you’d need to risk going out. They’re using arcanochrom...” he glanced at the children, “... nasty big bombs to kill the enemies, and it isn’t safe.”

“I’ll do it,” Toja said, in a low voice. They hadn’t been let through the airlock yet, because it took time to cycle between groups, and they did have to evacuate the entire school. There wasn’t much of a rush, as they were already underground (they didn’t know what he knew about that). He could do it. He’d be able to get her.

It wasn’t conscious thinking on his part. It wasn’t something he chose to do. There was no inner monologue, no debate. He just knew that he had to find her. It was necessary. She was one of his sister’s friends. He had to protect her, and she’d be upset if one of her friends died, especially if her brother could have done something, and didn’t.

It would be a way of making up for what he did to Kany.

“What the hell are you doing?” the teacher yelled at his back, as he barged his way through the mass of nine and ten year olds.

“I’ll find her!” he yelled.

He sprinted for the exit, safe in the knowledge that the lights on the inside of his filter mask were still green. It’d be safe, right, if he was fast?

~’/|\’~

Expansion.

Contraction.

Expansion.

Contraction.

The shattered bulk of Eshmun lay on the ground, the broken iridescence of its AT-Field weak and shattering, covered with the blossoming of missile impacts and artillery shells. And always, the Colour, burning it, draining it, the light arcing through higher dimensions and consuming it.

Ichor pooled around it, in the middle of the glassed region where it lay. Further out, fires burned rampant through this dead city, ignited by the incredible heat of the weapons used by the decedents of those who had built it, but around it, bar the fresh explosions, all was grey, and crumbling, and flat, and dead. The all-consuming, reverberating buzz the creature emitted was weakened, and dying, drowned out by the shattering noise of the bombardment.

No.

It was not dead. And it would bring the life it planned to this broken, despoiled world.

Of all the damned sins in all the worlds,
Gnawing at my skin
This affront is not one I wish to do.
The pain. I feel so much pain.
I would not wish it be this, but it is.
Survive. I must live.
Come, my children. Come into this vile place.

Behind it, the globules of anathematic flesh which had fallen from its broken and survived the fireball lay quiescent, unmoving. With a thought, it cracked them open, the momentary weakening of its AT-Field enough to permit another blast to slam into it, before it could retain itself.

The hatching began.

The coruscating vile light may burn me,
Burning! Stop it all!
But the puppets cower in their metal boxes
What are they? What do they do?
Weak and pathetic! They shall all be taken,
Pain, sorrow and pain.
No more metal boxes and no more puppets!

Pulling itself up onto the legs that ran along its underside (the joints not exactly like a crab’s, and not exactly like a spider’s), Eshmun raised its broad ‘head’ up, and screamed, the noise tearing the air and making electrons dance away from their bound partners, tearing apart the Colour-drained, greying ground around it, and making the dust burn. A thick, cloying, bruise-coloured gas began to pour from the open wounds that ran through its corpus, the greyness that marked the edge of the arcanochromatically-drained wounds shifting, though still not returning to the wine-colour of the main carapace.

And scuttling, crawling, creeping, it began to move, its legs expanding and extending as its form flowed like wax towards its new goal. Smashing through an ruined apartment block, the rotting concrete flying out in vast clouds of filth, it began to half-squirm, half-bound along, followed by the smaller figures of its offspring, floating around it like a flock of carrion birds around a corpse. And although the weapons might burst like rain against its AT-Field and its thickening, strengthening carapace (already adapting to the new constraints), and might slay its children, it would not be stopped. Not by these faded shadows in their limited, barely real boxes of metal.

~’/|\’~

Down empty corridors, the boy ran, his breath heavy, and his heart pounding. He could hear the noises of war, far away, and, in fact, he was unconsciously in a sort of crouch-run. Left at the corridor, and up a flight of stairs. Just at the top, he stopped, panting heavily, resting his palms on his thighs, as he tried to catch his breath.

What the hell did he think he was doing?

Now, he was really thinking, and what he had just realised was that he hadn’t been thinking. At all. He could barely remember what she looked like, for one (although, actually, she’d be wearing a filter mask, so he wouldn’t be able to tell), and had no idea where she was, for two. Oh, and there was some kind of major incursion going on outside, to the extent that they could feel the blast detonations even deep underground, and just to finish it off, he’d already been in trouble once today, and running out of a bunker like that was exactly the sort of thing which would go on your permanent record.

He knew that he’d always been a bit impulsive, but this was just taking it too far.

Shaking his head, he caught a glimpse of the post hung on the wall to his side. It was a hand-drawn picture of a Giant Panda, with both the name and ‘Favourite Food: Bamboo” written on it in childish handwriting. That... that didn’t help solve his dilemma at all. Neither did the similarly crude picture of the tiger, nor did the one next to it, although that did inform him that ‘Reading Is A Good Thing!’.

Straightening up, he took a deep breath through the filters, and sighed. No. He may have failed his sister; he wasn’t going to fail one of her friends. If he was stupid and impulsive, then he was going to make the best of the situation that his stupidity and impulsiveness had got him into. Still jogging, he made his way to the classroom.

Toja really began to regret the decision about the time something slammed into the diamond windows, spider-web fractures dancing across the surface.

~’/|\’~

“Lima-Two! Lima-Two! Going live!”

The paths of the two red-wavelength laser beams were barely visible in the air, sketched out in the dust and micromechanical emfog that filled the air. Far more obvious was their point of contact with the vaguely cephalodian thing that buzzed just above ground level, already into a fairly dense urban area. The main defences had been trying to kill Eshmun, the Harbinger, and as a result the horde had broken through in several places. It was a disparate mass, of varying sizes (and where had the mass come from for all of these things, which had matured so quickly?), and yet it was not stupid. There was some kind of greater strategy going on, some give and take which attracted the monsters best suited to a task towards it.

And the combat was a mess. There, one of the Harbinger-spawn was sliced in half, the continuous arcanomagnetically confined plasma beam of the Type-H047 Tank Destroyer cutting through a bloated mass ten metres long; there, a swarm of meter-long fiends crawled and clambered over the outer skin of a ZNB-13, the micromissile launchers and plasmathrowers utterly useless against the things which, with glowing tendrils, systematically dismembered the mecha, before flowing apart before the rest of the squadron could avenge their comrade. The spawn of the Harbinger were weaker than their progenitor, true; much smaller and weaker , and entirely lacking in the AT-Field which caused so much trouble. But they were tough, too tough, and oddly spongy. Weapons like charge beams, optimised for blowing the fuck out of anything which reacted adversely to relativistic particle beams, just punched straight through the epidermis of those things. They were killable, yes. But they weren’t killable easily.

And overpenetration incidents were causing non-negligible amounts of damage to the local areas of the city, too.

“Be aware, friendly units, Sickle-Prime is on station, and providing close-air support.”

Above, a flight of Toxotes missile gunships snapped by, their twin A-Pods utterly silent, before they let loose a hail of rockets into one of the larger Harbinger-Spawn, nearly tearing it in half, before a flock of smaller ones gave chase. The anti-missile lasers, hastily reprogrammed to track these things, tried to do their best, but these creatures were simply bulkier, and tougher, than anything that they would normally deal with. As other flights had been forced to, the Toxotes pulled up, the turn sharp enough that it would have sheared the engines off something more conventionally propelled, and headed straight up, up into the region of safety where the anti-air defences could track the smaller targets, and swat them like files.

But all this was too clinical, too cold to truly represent the havoc on the ground. In truth, the dogs of war had long since slipped their chain, and even now they ran amuck. Long-limbed greyish-blue walkers, their aesthetics an odd mix of pseudo-organic curves and the harsh brutalism of human engineering loped from cover to cover, taking position in armoured redoubts, which protruded from the ground, and ruined buildings equally. Hovering tanks, which looked like armoured gunships, and gunships with tank-like turrets on their underside belched forth cracks of explosive death and sun-bright plasma without prejudice, bracketing the targets in LAI-synchronised fire. And, all around, the terrible noise of the capital grade defences and the shriek of artillery continued unabashed, the bulk of the Harbinger.

Circling, circling, a cluster of the Harbinger-Spawn darted forth, radiant white tendrils shining like a star, smashing through a building and into a squadron of tanks destroyers. Up close, especially when surprised, the charge beams and a-mag weapons were all but useless, as the glowing tentacles that each of the spawn had melted through the layers of heat-resistant armour like butter. The vehicles were ripped apart, their crew an irrelevancy to the creatures. A sudden burst of painfully bright yellowish-purple (or was it green?) light from one vehicle signified the catastrophic failure of its D-Engine before the shutdown could function, a Horizon Event tearing through the fabric of reality. The resulting blast tore the front off the surrounding buildings, and shredded the spawn which had been responsible.

Its kin ignored that, and set off. They could feel the presence of the D-Engines of one of the capital defences, sense the ‘glow’ of the dimensional violation, and instinctively knew that it was bad. As were the things that were trying to kill them, it should be noted, and to remedy that, they would take preventative actions. One reached down, scooping up the remnants of a tank-destroyer (the wreckage about the same size as its own body), and hurled it, with a sudden straightening of its tentacles.

The pilot of the VDN-24 main battle mecha which happened to be in the path of the projectile would have been surprised, had the impact not crushed the missile tubes, the damage meaning that the failsafe unsafely failed, and the resultant blast turned the contents of the pilot’s cockpit into mince.

On the human side of things, the alarmed chatter of pilots and the warning messages of hussar LAIs were quickly silenced by the terminal sanction of the spawn, though their numbers were whittled down by the railgun and plasma fire which tore through their ranks, and further by an overflight of Chalybion gunships, who retreated back before the things could target them too.

One, though, managed to break through the hasty cordon, its broad ‘head’ slamming into the torso of a Malach, and knocking the Engel down, as its tentacles severed both arms (and the pilot inside screamed from neural feedback, before the Engel Synthesis Interface embedded in her brain cut out). With a sudden burst of speed, it barrelled through a building, unintentionally ricocheting off an interior support, and, swelling, bulging, it made its way towards...

*splooosh*

The child of Eshmun burst like overripe fruit, as a hypervelocity 155mm shell detonated just before impact, and shredded the spongy flesh, leaving the remnants of the carcass to slam down into the front of a school. Wrapped in clouds of freezing mist illuminated by the autonomous fire of the laser defence grid, the Babylon rifle venting coolant, Unit 01 stepped over Wade Primary School, following the orders to find the Harbinger.

“Target eliminated,” stated the Ouranos LITAN. Shinji nodded, unconsciously (and the Eva’s viewpoint shifted slightly, too), and, eyes flicking over the world around him and the AR displays in front of his eyes alike, kept on searching for any movement. He was trying to make his way over to the Harbinger, but the city was not designed for ease of transit for forty-metre tall mecha, and he was trying to avoid (an idea supported by the support staff, down in the Geocity, at least for the moment) destroying anything more of London-2.

He somehow had a feeling that “But that skyscraper was in the way” wouldn’t receive much credence, if he were asked to explain why he had demolished it. I guess I could pretend I fell over... No! No! I’m walking, I’m walking, I’m not thinking about falling over, walk! Walk!

That was a bad habit he really needed to learn not to do. On pain of pain, and Dr Akagi being offensive about it. Even if, to be honest, Unit 01 had been deployed in the wrong place, although they had not known it at the time. The Harbinger had taken a different path than had been expected, and so he was out of place.

“The Eva’s AT-Field is fully developed,” reported Lieutenant Ibuki, fingers dancing across her keyboard, as the Evangelion worked its way through the districts.

“Processing fresh data feed from NEGA field units,” said the Operator, down in the full-immersion chamber. “Opaque to radar, lidar, microwave... Harbinger-4 doesn’t seem to have a core-equivalent, unlike 3.”

“It may be internal,” said Ritsuko, concern in her voice. “At least we have a hard limit on its regeneration, given that it hasn’t regrown its abdomen. Misato?”

The Major was simply relieved that there had been time for that extra training, and, in fact, that she had not passed him into the Child programme before Shinji had shown some basic combat skills. Emphasis on the ‘basic’, of course. She wouldn’t have ever wanted someone like that piloting alongside her, and the LITAN couldn’t compensate for everything. “I think...” she began, before the bleep of the proximity alarm alerted them all to the sudden shift in the vector of Eshmun.

It was coming straight towards the Evangelion.

“Shinji, remember your training,” the Major ordered. “I’m authorising the use of vECF muntions.” She winced slightly. “Remember what you’ll be firing.”

With a cycle of machinery, and the brief appearance of a progress bar on the Evangelion’s HUD, the Babylon switched internal magazines from the perfectly conventional 155mm hypervelocity shaped charges, to the somewhat less mundane variant-electron catalysed fusion warheads. Shinji swallowed a mouthful of LCL (it barely tasted of anything anymore; all he could taste was the bitterness of adrenaline), and squatted down, keeping one eye on his map, the Harbinger an electric-blue dot. Yes, he knew quite well what vECF shells did. It had been half-a-day of instructional videos explaining just how dangerous the things they were giving him were.

The blue dot was getting nearer. There was a slight shift, as the LITAN assembled a wireframe projection of it, through the solid cover of the building. Hah! Like a building counted as cover, or, indeed, solid, he thought bitterly, as he worked his fingers, tightening them in position around the control yokes.

Let LITAN get lock. Aim with Evangelion. Fire with fingers. Babylon vents. Let LITAN get lock. Aim with Evangelion. Fire with fingers. Babylon vents. Let LITAN get lock. Aim with Evangelion. Fire with fingers. Babylon vents, he thought, running over the procedure again, and again. Okay.

And in one smooth motion, Unit 01 stood up, hand-held weapon raised at the flea-like bulk of Eshmun, even as the autonomous weapons began to fire.

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

~’/|\’~

Quite simply, Toja knew that he should flee, knew that he should look away, knew that he should do anything but stand there, and stare vacantly at the scene through the ichor-covered windows. But he couldn’t. Frozen on the spot, barely blinking from behind the darkened visor of the filter mask, his eyes flicked between the vast humanoid figure of the Evangelion, and the wine-coloured, scarred mass that was the Harbinger, crawling on its insectoid legs, still leaking ichor from the mess where it was nearly torn in half. And... oddly, he didn’t want to run. There was something sickly fascinating about the sight, which even overrode his survival instincts.

He watched, as the Evangelion rose from behind its building. A sudden crack of thunder, and there was light; blinding light that was merely bright, as both the window and the filtermask suddenly went opaque. In the rising fireball that enveloped the monster’s head, the Nazzadi boy, even with the reduced colour vision of his subspecies, could see hints of the Colour, rising upwards in a fungoid bloom. The freezing gas vented from the rifle as coolant was lit in prismatic colours, before being blown asunder as the shockwave hit, thundering across the land. There was barely time to raise a hand, before the Babylon fired again, and again, and again, the windows and his filtermask as black as pitch, the cracks along the window alone transparent and casting their own broken, crystalline and prismatic light into the room.

Toja fell over backwards, not from how the ground shook, but from how his leg muscles suddenly turned into jelly from the sudden terror.

Through the darkness of his visor, something burning bright, through the dust and the freezing mist, could be seen to lash out, whipping forwards towards the humanoid figure, into the Evangelion’s arm. A spurt of dark-coloured blood splattered its way across a nearby building, before the wound sealed. As a result, the next shot went wide, the vECF warhead blowing out the core of a building and sending a skyscraper plummeting to the ground, only throwing up more dust.

Dust which was blown aside as, from the fireballs, came scuttling the bulk of the Harbinger, its broad head held low, two twitching, sun-bright tentacles reaching before it. Unit 01 barely managed to throw itself out of the way from the charge, falling to one knee, but managing to turn just in time to take another lash against its right arm. With just a hint of slowness which had not been there before, it turned, and another crack spoke of another shot from the Babylon, at very close range. There was no detonation this time, only the shimmering light of Eshmun’s AT-Field and the vented coolant illuminated by the lasers mounted over the Evangelion.

With a sudden burst of speed, which was not quite a jump, and which was not quite flight, the wine-coloured monster surged forwards, the 155mm shell it took to the middle of the forehead at point blank range, and the resultant gush of bruise-coloured vapour, not enough to dissuade its passage. Over and over it rolled, locked in a tight embrace with Unit 01, its whip-tendrils leaving wherever they touched slagged, even as its crab-like legs dug at the Eva’s back. The passage of the two titans demolished buildings, free-standing and sealed arcology alike. The sun-bright tentacles melted whatever they touched as they rolled, even as the Evangelion frantically clawed at the Harbinger with the hyperedged blades attached to its fingers.

The deathly embrace was only broken by human intervention, as a rain of missiles, zeroed in from the Geocity on Unit 01’s own signature, punched a line of fleshy craters along the back of the creature, the impacts small stars in the thick dust. The resultant fireballs tore through the buildings which the two leviathans had wrecked, only adding to the chaos, but the alien monstrosity largely protected Evangelion Unit 01 from the blast, and the warning which it had received had been enough for, in the confusion (as the hellish buzz of Eshmun grew higher in pitch), for it to get one foot under the chest of the Harbinger, and send it flying back into another building, shattering the insectoid legs which had been wrapped around the Unit.

Those blasts had been much, much closer, and larger too. The shockwave battened the building, knocking over chairs, part of the ceiling collapsing. Half-crawling, Toja managed to make his way under one of the desks, and curled up into a ball, survival instincts all that remained to him.

Slowly pulling itself partially upright, the Evangelion straightened up. It had lost one of the wing-like pylons which protruded from its back, in the brawl, and dark blood dripped forth from where it had shattered, running in rivulets down the small of the Unit’s back. Nevertheless, it was ready. Its left, uninjured hand groped for the fallen Babylon, while the right arm supported its weight.

Which was, naturally, when the tentacles whipped out again, both attacking in perfect synchronisation. One punched through the right arm arm, severing tissue and muscle and machine, and somehow expanded within the wound, tearing it up from the inside, sending the Evangelion crashing to the ground. The other sought out the torso, and found it, burrowing within like a flesh-eating luminescent worm, before digging down into the ground. Slowly, too slowly, the Harbinger crawled (on now-broken legs) towards the pinned Evangelion.

~’/|\’~

“Warning! DEV12/DDV13 RA Offline. Reconfiguring power and heat distribution grids. Restricted power flow to right arm. Class 4 weapons disabled.”

Icons all down the left side of the Evangelion’s body were flashing red. The armour there was seared, cooked; the sophisticated heat-resistant ceramics and high-reflectivity layered armour no match for the brute force of the Harbinger. The right arm hung entirely limp and useless, unpowered and heavily damaged, the servos in the armour, and the muscles, both synthetic and arcane, of the underlying organism, melted. The LITAN was reporting on the most urgent of the errors, even as unfamiliar messages scrolled down in front of the pilot’s eyes.

“Warning! DEV12/DDV13 T-1 and DEV12/DDV13 T-3 Offline. Warning! Insufficient power for peak operations. Switching to back-up supply. Warning! Insufficient heat disposal capacity. Class 3 weapons disabled.”

“How did it do that?” Ritsuko muttered, eyes hollow. “It knew exactly where to target the engines. Harbinger-class entities possibly sensitive to D-distortions?” she spoke into her PCPU.

“Shinji, you’ve lost three your D-engines!” the Major snapped, leaning into the microphone. “Pull back! I’ll get you cover-fire. Shut off all the weapons down his right side,” she added, turning to the technical staff. “I don’t want him cooking himself without the D-Fridges working, either.”

“The Ouranos has already done that, Major Katsuragi.”

Whimpering, Shinji gripped onto the control yokes as tight as he could. His arm... the Evangelion’s arm felt funny, even through the pain. Weak and floppy. And all of his right side felt like... well, it felt like that one holiday they had had to Shikoku, back before that major Dagonite attack had led to the restriction of arcology exist passes. He’d managed to get horribly sunburnt then. It felt exactly like that.

“Shinji, get up!”

Pinned to the group, it hurt even more to move.

Overhead, a flight of Chalybion gunships could be seen, emerging from the dust that filled the skyline from the conflict. The roar of charge beams from the tail-like turret of the fliers, and the extrapolated-from-scatter paths of the ultraviolet lasers, was nothing compared to the infernal buzzing of Eshumn. The silvery-white light of an AT-Field above the Harbinger showed where the blasts were hitting, but even the ones which broke the shattered light didn’t seem to stop it.

Kill! Kill! You are not a shadow! Kill! Kill!
Kill kill kill kill kill.
My own children are dead, piled into mounds,
Kill kill kill kill kill kill kill.
And your barren colour has entered me.
Kill kill kill kill kill.
Too real! You bring the final death! Too real!

“He’s trapped. Synch ratio is falling.”

“Mental pattern is destabilising. Loss of concentration, probably.”

“Scramble whatever forces you get! I don’t care! I have Advisor status for exactly this situation, and so I’m advising you that the Evangelion is your best current hope for killing that thing! And it can’t do that if it’s pinned to the ground.”

“Rei is suited up, correct?”

The vile, convolving, broken form of the Harbinger, was dragging itself across the ground. It was sheared in half even before he saw it, behind it, even as he writhes in pain on the burning tentacles, he can see the trail of bruise-coloured liquid drooling out, and it has only been injured further. The loss of its rear half seemed to have removed its capacity for true flight. Its carapace is pockmarked with craters, some grey and crumbling from the use of tactical arcanochromatic weapons. And its legs are now shattered and broken. It seems to be regenerating slowly, but the legs are malformed and twisted, no longer able to truly support its weight.

“Shinji! You need to get up!”

“Bravo Company is on rou... damn it, more of those things.”

“Thunderbird-6 inbound. Please retreat to minimum safe distance.”

“It’s no good.”

No. Something snapped inside, as he watched that broken, purplish shape pull nearer. It was pathetic. He had crushed its children, popped them like water balloons. And look at it! It was more damaged than he was!

With the one functional hand, the Evangelion reached out, and grabbed the tentacle that was stuck into his right hand side. Wincing in pain, but with a slight mad look in his eyes, Shinji tightened his grip around the sun-bright plasma, and, AT-Field suddenly flaring into iridescent, crystalline light around his hand, snuffed it out, crushing it in the inexorable claw.

Shinji began to pant, lips wide open in a rictus grin, deep gulps of LCL flowing in and out of his lungs. With his left hand, he groped for the Babylon, getting his hand on the firing mechanism, and, as the weapon synched up with the Unit’s internal controls (no, of course he didn’t fire it by squeezing a trigger. That would be inefficient, and problematic, considering the fact that trigger design was not a science well advanced for 40 metre robots), he grinned, lips pulled tight over his bared teeth.

Then, leaning forwards into a sprinters position, he charged. The other one energy tentacle was torn right out of the arm, jets of dark ichor accompanying it, but the sudden rush of adrenaline blanked out the immediacy of the pain, replacing it with a dull ache which seemed irrelevant to the fact that he was going to kill this thing.

The Harbinger might have had just enough time to experience the sensation of shock, before the colossal boot of the Eva collided with its ‘face’, sending it flying backwards. Luckily, locally all the buildings had been knocked down by their preceding brawl, so at least there wasn’t any more buildings to damage along this path, but on the negative side, the Evangelion had kicked it really, really hard, so judging by this trajectory, that was only a temporary state of affairs.

Misato was yelling something at him down the radio. He really couldn’t hear her, a mix of pain, adrenaline, and suddenly unleashed anger making her words only so much noise.

“Shoot it! With everything!” he roared at the LAI, as his momentum carried him onwards, a second kick, the AT-Field sparkling around the foot nearly disembowelling (if it had bowels) the Harbinger before it, or he, had hit the ground. Tumbling backwards, Eshmun continued to roll, tearing up the ruins with its reigniting tendrils. Waving his arm, Shinji just managed to regain balance, thinking very hard about not falling over, before he took a step back, levelling the Babylon one-handed at the twitching Harbinger.

The recoil was immense. It was, in fact, so great that he accidentally slapped himself in the face, his arm moving with the Evangelion’s. Ignoring the stinging pain (heh. He had already been punched today. That was ages ago, wasn’t it?) he struggled, stepping back on the uneven ground, to both stay upright and lower the weapon. The Babylon was an Evangelion-scale rifle, and that meant it wasn’t meant to be fired in one hand. Much as a conventionally-sized one wasn’t. Shinji could feel the bruises blossom up his forearm, as the yellow lights reported multiple fractures along the left arm’s armour, even as clouds of freezing coolant obscured his visible light vision. Nevertheless he watched with open eyes and feral grin as the blasted-open underside of Eshmun appeared from under the fireball, greyed and poisoned and spasming.

“How do I kill it?” he screamed at his support staff. Oh. Oww. That really hurt. Oh. Had he broken something?

Ritsuko looked momentarily shocked. “Sufficient damage. It doesn’t have an external core-equivalent, so it’s probably inside its body.”

Pushing forwards on the control yokes with both hands, teeth gritted, Shinji... no, Unit 01 made its way to the twitching Harbinger, right arm limp at its side, dark blood leaking from the multiple cracks in the arm, the puncture holes in the torso, and from the torn-off pylon. Its feet shook the ruins, crushing demolished building underfoot. Ahead, the Harbinger lay, that noxious, bruise-coloured light-gas leaking from all of its many wounds.

What if it does the explody thing like the last one? Shinji suddenly realised, with a sinking feeling. Too late to think about that. He tried to will the other arm to move, jerking on the right control yoke as hard as he could. Nothing.

“Switch ammo on the Babylon,” he told the LITAN. The loading bar flashed, and was gone. That was sensible. He didn’t want to forget, and accidentally blow himself up. Of course, he also didn’t want to have his arm hurt like that again... generally, the Babylon wasn’t a good weapon for that. That reminded him; Shinji checked that all the other weapons, the lasers and the shoulder mounted missile pods (oh, they were empty, he noted) and the 20mm cannons (also empty) were still hitting the target. Certainly, it seemed that the LITAN was not sparing with the ammunition based weapons, though, of course, there was a strict limit to how much the Evangelion could carry, because, where a normal mecha had storage space, an arcanocyberxenobiological organism had organs and stuff.

It seemed so far to walk. He really was feeling light-headed now, from the pain. But now he was here, and, yes, in the centre of the blasted open body, spewing forth that bruised-light, was some kind of cracked crystalline structure. Dropping the Babylon (it landed with a very expensive sounding clatter), he pulled back one clawed fist, and slammed it with a sudden brutal finality into the core, an impossibly pure note sounding out, as the pre-existing cracks widened and spread.

Beneath him, the Harbinger twitched.

What are you? What are you? What are you? What
are you? What are you?
Can’t I see? Somehow familiar? Hard to
think. What are you? Do not know.
Killing me. Sorrow and pain. So much pain.
My children are dead.
Pain. Pain. Somehow familiar. What are you?

Another blow. And another. And another, the left fist descending over and over again.

Finally, a rupture.

And oblivion.

Slowly, the remains of Harbinger-4, so damaged, so abused, sank into a foul, effervescent fluid, the same tainted bruised colours as its core.

Slowly, Shinji Ikari clutched at his arms and let out a scream of pain through clenched teeth, from the pain all down his right flank, and shooting up his left arm.

Slowly, Unit 01 sagged and fell to the ground, collapsing on top of a formerly relatively intact building and demolishing it.

~’/|\’~

All too slowly, Toja pulled himself out from under the table. He... he was alive. He was actually still alive. And with all limbs attached, too. Looking around through the dust filled air, at the classroom of fallen chairs and broken ceiling tiles, he reflexively coughed.

The windows were caked black with... something. No, he realised, it wasn’t something. They’d denatured? Was that the right word? They’d done that think where photosensitive stuff got stuck on the opaque mode, normally after being exposed to really bright light.

Stepping back, he realised that there was a pattern. A patch of less-dark glass, in the middle of all the darkness. It was... it was human shaped.

Wrapping his arms around himself, Toja began to shiver. That... that was its shape, wasn’t it. A patch of less-darkness, where it had been obstructing the radiance from those blasts. Just looking at it was making the colour drain from the world. Just like outside, in the greyness. And there it was, its legs sticking out of a wrecked building. Sprawled on the ground. In the middle of something dark. And fluidy.

Someone was calling out something. With an effort, he realised it was his name. Turning slowly, he could see a little human girl, head poking around the doorway.

“Toja.”

He blinked, heavily. “Yes,” he managed.

There was a moment of silence, as the girl stared at him. “You are Kany’s brother, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Why was he here? What was he looking for. Why had he come out of the safety? Oh yes. “Are you... are you Imi?”

The little girl nodded. “Yes.”

“I... yes. I went to find you. We need to get down to the bunker. Now.”

Crossing the classroom to his side, standing on tiptoes, the girl peered out of the lighter patch of the window, too. “But the sirens have stopped, and the thing is dead,” she pointed out, staring at the sight before them.

“Doesn’t matter. Need to get to bunker.” He paused, and blinked, the mist that seemed to fill his mind lifting for a moment. “Where have you been?”

“I had to get another injector from my bag, because I had lost mine,” the little girl said. “And then everyone was gone, and the sirens were still going, and I did not know the way to the bunker. So I hid in the art cupboard instead.”

“Did you?” That did, even in the boy’s current mental state, seem a lot more sensible. Certainly more sensible than hiding under a child’s desk, and watching a lot of the fight.

She tugged at his sleeve. “Can you take me to the bunker then, please.”

The world around him seemed grey and filled with fog, all sound muffled. Even his sense of touch was muted, so that surfaces seemed padded. Silently, mutely Toja stumbled onwards, down the stairs, leading the girl by instinct.

The relief on the teacher’s face could not erase the terror which had been there before. “My God,” he said, and while Toja knew, intellectually, that the voice was packed with emotion, in the obfuscated world in which he dwelt there was only a cold, feelingless drone. “You found her. And you’re both alive. Our wireless Grid coverage was down, so we couldn’t even track either of you.”

“I found him,” the little girl, Imi said, her voice similarly unreadable to the boy’s addled mind.

The teacher turned to face her. “What were you doing.” It was impossible to tell if that was a question, or an outraged exclamation. “Why did you run off like that.”

“I dropped my medicine when we were trying to leave,” she said, as childish fingers tried to undo her mask, now that they were down in safety. “And it broke. It was necessary. I needed to go get some more from my bag.”

“You know you’re not meant to do that. You’re meant to tell a teacher, and never, ever, ever run off on your own, especially if we’re trying to evacuate.”

“But I need to have my medicine with me. Else I won’t breathe properly.”

“That means you tell a teacher, and they’ll go get it with you.” The man sighed. “You did get it, though.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re feeling alright.”

“I am now. I had to take some, though, because I was scared,” she said. The girl turned, and pointed at Toja, a thin, pale face framed by brown hair blending into the greyness (it wasn’t really grey, though, now that he thought about it; it just felt grey and tired and misty) around him. “He’s not well, though. He was looking out the window when I found him.” The teacher turned to look at him, worry on his face. This was interrupted, though, as a swarm of small children managed to break the teacher-cordon near the exit, and flocked in.

“Imi!”

“What happened!”

“Kany’s brother saved you, didn’t he? He said he would, and then he ran out of the bunker!”

“So coo~ooool!”

“Awesome.”

“What a hero!”

That was the thing though. He wasn’t a hero. He was just an idiot. God, the nine-year old girl had been brighter than him; at least she’d hidden somewhere safe, rather than under a table. A stupid, impulsive idiot who’d rushed in without thinking, and hadn’t accomplished anything at all. He never did. Better this way, than get her hurt, like he had his sister. But that didn’t mean he was brave, or a hero, or anything but a stupid little boy.

What an idiot.

He had punched the real hero.

~’/|\’~

Leaning back on the bed, Shinji stretched, squirming against the mattress. Above him, the bright white lights of the observation chamber shone down on the stark room. That was not to say that it was bare, just... ruthlessly utilitarian. Although there was furniture in here, there was a certain roundedness, paddedness and weight to it which clearly spoke of the design considerations which had determined its structure. Namely, the designers had not wanted for it to be something the occupant of the room could use to hurt themselves, or, indeed, others.

It was quite astonishing that, primarily, he was feeling bored.

“We’re going to keep you down here for a while, for observation,” Misato had said, as they’d got him out of the recovered entry plug, but before they’d run the battery of medical checks, or, indeed, extracted the LCL from his lungs. It was a strange, sloshy sensation to walk around in the sealed plug-suit variant, the world tainted orange by the fluid which filled the area behind the transparent faceplate. But he was used to it, too. She... she hadn’t been too happy about what he’d done. He should have pulled back once he had freed himself, and they would have dropped a nuke on it. Not damage the Evangelion further.

To be fair, neither had he. That had hurt. And Dr Akagi had noted that ‘Don’t fire rifles with one hand’ was now going to be added to the basic training guide. And, no, apparently, it wasn’t that easy to make it otherwise. He had been in some pain, and largely saying it to annoy her, in fairness.

That didn’t matter. He had heard the unspoken words from both of them, because, outside of the anger, he had thought them too. Why didn’t you try to take it alive?

Well, they hadn’t told him to. It was their fault, if that was what they had wanted.

Pulling up his t-shirt, he checked his stomach again. Nothing. He’d felt the pain as it stabbed into him... not quite true pain, but more like some kind of reflection; a dull ache. But his body looked fine. He still wasn’t feeling well inclined towards whoever came up with the idea of a war machine which hurt the pilot when it got damaged. Not well inclined at all.

At least he wasn’t feeling the same utter exhaustion after the incident with Harbinger-3. He was tired, yes, but this was just the kind of tiredness which came from a temper outburst, that kind of weariness after exertion. Actually remarkably like an exam, come to think of it. Still, with luck, whatever had happened, what the Evangelion had done, what he had done to that first Harbinger would never happen again. He still wasn’t sure; there were flashes of memory, nothing more.

Sitting up, he pulled his t-shirt back down and flattened down his tousled hair (now, mercifully clean of LCL; they were very careful about that in the decontamination procedure, and that was something he fully understood. It tasted vile, after all), and moved over to the seating area, booting up the desk with a button press.

Let’s see... yes. Oh, good, they transferred my muse over here. That was nice enough, he felt. At least this way, he could keep himself entertained. But, first things first.

“Go to the PBO site,” he told the LAI, “... and connect to the news channel.” Shinji had to admit that he was more than a little curious to see how they would be reporting... or not reporting, as the case may be, what had just happened. I’m certainly not an egotist. I don’t want to see whatever they’re saying, and feel all hot and smug inside that it was me. Even if it hurt. And they’re probably not giving me the credit. Not that I want it, of course; I never wanted to have to get into the Evangelion in the first place. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t feel irritated that they’re not worshipping me as their saviour.

Actually... that would really be kind of embarrassing, to be worshipped as a god-king. Some thanks would be nice, but I’ll settle for not being punched this time. Inwardly, he groaned. Oh. I really hope I didn’t hurt anyone else this time. I know it’s not my fault, really, but it’s still sort of my fault.

“Access denied,” the muse said, in its clear voice.

Shinji frowned. “Why?”

“You are currently in psychological observation. Access to outside sources of information has been restricted.”

Shinji let his head slump forwards, and banged it against the desk. “Et tu, you brute?” he muttered, as he rubbed his forehead.

“I am sorry.” The LAI paused. “You currently have three pieces of homework which you have not yet completed,” it added. “If you are bored, access to these activities is unrestricted. By previous behaviour, you will not complete it on time if you do not do it now. And it will free up more time later, when you have access to outside data feeds.”

The boy groaned. “What are you, my mother?”

“No.”

“That wasn’t a question.” Shinji paused. “Well, it was. But it was a rhetorical question.” Something which muses tended to have problems with, as it had been found that false negatives annoyed people more than false positives, when trying to interact with a LAI. The thing was to remember that the LAI wasn’t a person; something which was hard, when you had one so attuned, as he did. Shinji shook his head. It actually did make sense. But the LAI had always seemed to co-operate with Yuki and Gany to make sure that he got homework done, and, generally, nagging him. That was, from the point of view of the designers, a feature, not a bug; Shinji was fairly sure that whoever came up with these things was of the opinion that people needed to be prodded into doing things, and this held doubly true for children. And, yes, in truth, he probably would have a lot more problems handling his life, without his muse to do the menial organisational stuff. But... wait a moment.

“I thought I hadn’t set a priority for the homework yet,” he said slowly.

“The priority of the homework was set to Urgent by a direct override by Major Misato Katsuragi of the New Earth Government Army.”

Stupid emergent heuristic behavioural programming. And stupid Misato.

~’/|\’~

Sitting back in his chair, Gendo Ikari began to reread the formal report he was preparing for the Minister of War. Sections had already been tagged in yellow by his muse for checking, the phrasing adjusted from the rough description of contents into a fully fledged and verbose essay. He had had this Limited Artificial Intelligence for over a decade, after all, and so it was fully conversant with his style. In fact, it amused him that, unless he put in more effort than he could spare at the moment, the muse in fact wrote more idiosyncratically like him than he did. With a few keystrokes, he deleted half a sentence, pausing as he considered how to rephrase it.

It had been necessary to be rushed back to the Geocity in order to deal with the local civic authorities in the aftereffects of Harbinger-4; something rather inconvenient, as he had been involved in some rather important meetings with local Ashcroft personnel and the Navy, in Geneva, about the topic of Annulus, which he would now have to reschedule. The way that the Harbinger had shown up was annoying, a disruption to his schedule, especially for a man famed for his tendency to micromanage. Everyone knew that he would have preferred to be in the Geocity when the threat was detected.

That had, after all, been the point.

“Deputy Representative Fuyutsuki is outside,” the muse informed him.

“Send in him,” the man said, not looking up from his desk.

The echoing, statacco beat of the older man’s footsteps pulsed through the empty space. Gendo sighed, and waved a hand at the desk, turning off the screen. He was going to have to deal with this later.

“I’ve gone over the preliminary budget for the operation,” Fuyutsuki said. “Both mass-energy and financial. And,” he winced, “we really have to get your... the Third Child more familiar with the concept of ‘not damaging the Evangelion’. Ritsuko is... not pleased with the damage. Massive damage to the right arm, several fractures in endoskeleton of the left, quite a bit of torso damage. She’s especially displeased about the left arm, because that was avoidable.”

His protégé tilted his head slightly. “She is also fully aware that such things are necessary. She merely complains at you because you are someone she can complain at.”

“Oh, I know that.” The old man sighed. “But she does go on.”

“Quite,” and Gendo left it at that. He paused. “I have a meeting with her tomorrow evening. I am sure I’ll be hearing the same, if she hasn’t calmed down by then.”

“Anton will be pleased that they managed to capture a few of those things it hatched alive, quite apart from the corpses.”

“No doubt.” The younger man tapped his fingers on his desk idly. “And I can hardly wait to see how many people he’ll lose, trying to weaponise them. I’ve already granted the Engel Group more resources, to deal with the study of these things.”

“That might also explain some of Ritsuko’s irritation,” said Fuyutsuki, sighing. The white-haired man sunk down into the chair in front of the desk with a small groan. “I’ve been standing up for too long today,” he said. “My spine is playing up again.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Gendo said, curtly.

“I should be enjoying my retirement.”

“You have the option of doing so. I cannot legally stop you taking a well-earned rest.”

Fuyutsuki sighed. “You know I can’t retire, not now. You’d have to find a replacement, and the disruption could be dangerous. But that does mean I can complain about my age occasionally!”

“I believe we had agreed upon that, yes.”

“Do you have to be...” the older man shook his head. “Talking to you is like talking to...” The Representative raised an eyebrow at him. “Never mind. The reason I am here, really,” he continued, “is that... I presume you’ve seen the reports from the Academy.”

“Yes.” Gendo turned the screen of his desk back on, telling the muse to find the relevant documents. “It appears that a pioneering group of students managed, from only a very little evidence, to deduce the existence of the Evangelion Group and of the Test Pilot programme.” The words were said completely without emotion. “Internal Security has been informed of the holes which they stumbled across, and will act to fix them, as best they can. The named students have been briefed on the need for secrecy, and the consequences of failing to maintain it.”

Fuyutusuki squinted at him. “Most people would be a little more concerned about the kind of flaws in security which would let out information about a top secret Project.”

“I am terrified.” The tone was deadpan.

“I see,” the older man sighed, leaning back in his chair. It was slightly annoying that the chair for visitors was just slightly lower than the one which the Representative sat in; it put all guests in a position of supplication. Quite deliberately, of course; it was merely another way that this room served to intimidate.

“The Evangelion Units are not a subtle weapon. A non-negligible number of military personnel not cleared for such knowledge are already aware, through mere observation, that the New Earth Government possesses some kind of secret, capital grade mecha. The Project was always going to be discovered at some point, after it was deployed in defence of the city.”

“And the fact that students were capable of doing so merely backs those who argue that the secrecy, once it has been shown that there are multiple viable Test Pilots, is unnecessary?”

Orange-tinted glasses reflected the light of the desk back. “It would be possible to read things that way, yes.”

“And the fact that knowledge that you have, among your assets, access to capital-grade ACXB units, only plays to your own advantage, strengthening your hand against the Research Representative, as well as NEG military and civilian authorities?”

“Is purely coincidental.”

“And the fact that it appears that part of the data which,” he checked his palmtop device, “Taly Talerni oy Chicago-twi oy...” he sighed, with the weariness of a man who had already been in his forties when the First Arcanotech War started, “... and I think we can skip the rest of the overly long name... part of the data one of the students used has already been lost in a server crash, and so the only evidence we have that it exists is the back-ups that she and another student made of it? Given that it was a server crash which seems to have corrupted that site’s own, off-site back-ups? And all the Grid archival sites we have tagged?”

“That is a problem. It would have made it easier to have traced the leak if we had access to such a thing.”

Fuyutsuki sighed. “Neither the Council of Representatives nor AHNUNG will be pleased.”

“And that is a terrible shame, but they must be made aware of the necessities on the ground. I am sure that the Council will agree with me, that it is better that we go public in a method we control, and can play to our own advantage.” Gendo paused. “Well, apart from Christina, but she objects to pretty much anything I suggest on general principles,” he added with a frown.

“And you are completely innocent of any antagonism towards her, Ikari.”

Ignoring the older man, Gendo continued, “And as for AHNUNG,” the man’s lips were concealed behind his white, sterile gloves, “... well, they have influence, but for all their pretensions and obsessions, they lack control. They know it; they know that I know that. They will accede, once the advantages are explained to them.”

Stretching his neck, Kozo Fuyutsuki slowly levered himself upright. “How goes research into ‘The Heart of Rogziel’, by the way?” he asked, knees clicking.

“Poorly,” Gendo admitted. “I have not made any more progress into finding the solution for the c-language, although it does bear some resemblance to Salaamian sorcerous markings... not in the vocabulary, nor in the grammar, but in the structure.” He paused. “What I presume to be the structure,” he admitted. “And you know of my beliefs that there is some kind of sapience within, which acts to circumvent such attempts. All that stands are the brute-force attempts, and the construct that results from such things is unstable and incomplete. And I do not have the time to spare at the moment, and cannot risk another accident.” For a moment, he looked lost. “I wish Yui were here,” he added softly. “She was always better at esoterics. Not the actual practice of sorcery, she couldn’t do that at all, but this kind of study of the root cause, this study of the obscure, the non-intuitive leaps... I miss her.”

There was a hollow silence in the office. Gendo blinked, and just as suddenly, the mask was back on.

The older man shifted uncomfortably. “When are you going to propose that Project Evangelion be revealed to the public?” asked Fuyutsuki, the words coming out a little too quickly, as if he were trying to get the conversation away from the previous topic.

“Not until we have shown that Unit 00 can start up, and maintain a stable synchronisation link,” the man answered, his eyes hidden by the opacity of his arglasses. “Such an event was a black mark in our book, and we cannot hope for the Evangelions to be viewed as a stable combat platform while the risk that such an event could happen again still hangs over our heads. Schedule the reactivation test for as soon as Rei is physically capable of doing so.”

“I understand.” Fuyutsuki’s footsteps receded, off into the distance, as he left. Gendo did not watch him go, but instead returned, head lowered, to his report.

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 6

Die Grabesmutter / And the sullen rear was with its stored thunder labouring up.

ENTELECHY

~'/|\'~

Die Natur des Menschen bleibt immer dieselbe; im zehntausendsten Jahr der Welt wird er mit Leidenschaften geboren, wie er im zweiten derselben mit Leidenschaften geboren ward, und durchläuft den Gang seiner Thorheiten zu einer späten, unvollkommenen, nutzlosen Weisheit. Wir gehen in einem Labyrinth umher, in welchem unser Leben nur eine Spanne abschneidet; daher es uns fast gleichgültig sein kann, ob der Irrweg Entwurf und Ausgang habe.

The nature of man remains ever the same: in the ten thousandth year of the World he will be born with passions, as he was born with passions in the two thousandth, and ran through his course of follies to a late, imperfect, useless wisdom. We wander in a labyrinth, in which our lives occupy but a span; so that it is to us nearly a matter of indifference, whether there be any entrance or outlet to the intricate path.

Johann Gottfried Herder
“Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit”, Vol. 2, p. 186; translation vol. 2, pp. 266-7

~'/|\'~

21st of February, 2079

“But Mama, I’m hungry!”

The little girl’s mother glanced down at her, the corners of her eyes creasing up in a smile. “Now, come on, Asuka,” the woman said. “We don’t want to ruin your appetite, do we?”

“I do!”

“No, we don’t. We’re having a big dinner with Uncle Cal, this evening, and that means that you’ll want to be on your best behaviour.”

The little girl pouted. “But I’m hungry now!”

Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu sighed, a slight smile in her voice, and searched through her handbag. “Would a drink be okay, Asuka?” she asked. “I have orange juice...”

The little girl slumped to the ground, arms folded, a frown on her face. “But I want food now. I don’t want a fancy meal or stuff with Uncle Cal.” She stuck her hands into the pockets of her pale dress, made of undyed cotton. “Why can’t I have food now?”

“Don’t do that, Asuka, you’ll ruin the lining of the dress,” Kyoko snapped. She consciously tried to calm her expression. “Because,” she explained again, “we have a big important dinner planned.” She sighed. “Do you want the juice or not?”

“I want it.”

“Okay, now take your hands out of your pockets, and stand up, and you can have it.”

The child slowly, hesitantly pulled herself upright, both hands held out. The suction-capped bottle was handed over.

“I’m sorry it’s taking so long, Asuka,” Kyoko said, shaking her head, as her daughter began to emit slurping noises as she lifted the sports bottle in both hands. “And Cal’s going to be in a bit of trouble when he shows up, because he’s late.”

“So it’s all his fault that I’m hungry, then?” the girl asked, lowering the bottle.

“... I wouldn’t put it exactly like...”

“So, right,” said her daughter, a calculating look in her blue eyes, “that means he should be bringing me a nice present, right?”

“That is possible?” Kyoko said, blandly.

“But is he doing it?”

“Maybe.”

“Is he?”

“It is possible.”

“But is he?”

Kyoko sighed. “It’s a secret. Drink your orange juice.”

There was silence. Then, “Mama?”

“Yes?”

“Are you going to marry Uncle Cal?”

Kyoko coughed loudly, spluttering, while her daughter, clutching the bottle of orange juice close to her, looked up in worry. “Where... what... where did that come from?” she managed, weakly, gesturing to pass the orange juice.

“I asked you.”

The red-haired woman, almost as red in the face, took a long drink, and wiped her mouth. “No...” she paused, rephrasing the question. “I meant, why did you ask that?”

“Oh, well, I was thinking, you like him, and he gets me presents, so you could get married, and he could be my daddy.”

Kyoko shook her head sadly, at the combination of innocence and childish greed in the suggestion. “It doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid. He’s already married. And you can’t marry someone who’s already married,” she explained, trying to simplify matters.

“Oh.” The little girl looked upset, as she raised her hands to have the bottle passed back to her. “But Mamas always marry the nice Uncle on TV.”

Kyoko paused. How to explain this? She suddenly had a wave of sympathy for her own mother; Asuka was just as curious as she had been at the same age. “Things don’t happen like they do on TV in real life,” was the answer she settled for.

“Why not?”

Of course. The inevitable response. “Because sometimes, things on TV happen because people want them to happen, rather than because they’re realistic.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes people happy to watch something that isn’t realistic. I mean, bad things happen in the world sometimes, but people don’t like it when it happens, so they tell stories where only nice things happen.”

“But that’s lying!”

“Not really,” Kyoko winced. “It’s just telling stories to make people happy.”

The little girl tilted her head, and narrowed her blue eyes. “Sooo~oooo,” she said, elongating the word, “it’s okay to lie to people if it makes them happy, then?”

“No. No, it’s not. Drink your orange juice, Asuka.”

“I’m sorry I’m late,” a precise, elegant male voice called out, from behind them.

The little girl dropped the bottle of juice to the floor, where it began to leak, and ran over, colliding with the man’s legs with a slight squeak, and hugging onto them. “Uncle Cal!” she squealed.

“Hello, Asuka,” the man, who was not her biological Uncle, said to her, scooping her up and clutching her to his shoulder.

Kyoko smiled, as she bend down, and picked up the bottle, wiping the top clean and resealing the lid before tucking it back in her bag. The man, tall and thin (even taller than she was, and she wasn’t short), had a neatly trimmed beard matching his precisely cut, rust-coloured hair. He was a bit of a narcissist, actually, she noted; most male scientists tended to either let the beard grow to a manageable length, and just trim it, or keep clean shaven. It took more effort than most were willing to take to keep such a fine state of grooming. More than most of the women actually put in either, probably. There was something around his eyes which didn’t match his features, the hint a product of Vietnamese blood in his broadly Gallo-Russian heritage.

“Can we go have food, now, plee~ease?”

“Soon, soon,” he answered, bouncing her up and down slightly, as he turned his head to the girl’s mother. “Kyoko,” he said. “Sorry I’m late; the Magi were being uncooperative.”

Kyoko snorted. “As always. Hello, Calvin.”

“Yes. Magi-80 finally managed to get a valid build.” He shook his head. “I’d swear, -83 and -88 hate me. Never seem to work. But Eighty... Eighty is lucky for me. Naoko was very unhelpful,” he added.

“Yes, because that’s totally a change in behaviour for her.” Kyoko paused, and rolled her eyes. “Well, actually, yes it is. Normally, I’d call her ‘exceptionally unhelpful’. I swear sometimes...”

“But you shouldn’t swear,” interjected the little girl.

“Shush, Asuka. I think sometimes,” she said, changing her words, “that she’d marry them if she could. Like the names? Calling Magi-80 Casper, and -83 Melchior, and... so on. Just a little pretentious. How is it...”

Calvin waved her quiet. “Guess what, Asuka?”

“What?”

“I got you a present.”

“Yay!” She began to squirm in his arms. “What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it?”

Carefully, he put her down, and took off the backpack he was wearing. “Be careful with it,” he said, “because it is fairly delicate.”

“Not too delicate, I hope,” Kyoko interjected, a worried look on her face. “Remember, Calvin, she is four. And you did check that the pieces are child-safe, didn’t you?”

“I might be four, but I’m still a big girl. What is it? What is it?”

A small, metallic quadruped was lifted out of the bag, and put down. It was maybe 30 centimetres all, coloured a metallic bluish-grey, and vaguely canine in shape. It was, however, very smoothed down, as appropriate for a child’s toy, the only protrusions from the body of plastic coating and the clear bits which showed the black artificial musculature being the flaps on the head, which could close to protect its torch-like single eye.

“Well it’s a... technically, it’s not a LITAN. More like a LIPFA.”

“A what?”

“A Limited Information Pet For Asuka. It’s a small LAI network in the body of a robotic pet dog.”

“But dogs’ heads don’t look like that. I know, because we looked at the books last time we went to Chicago-3.”

“Chicago-2,” Kyoko corrected her.

“Oh. Chicago-2, then.” She frowned. “I thought we went to Chicago-3. Or something -3, anyway.”

“That was Toyko-3,darling.”

“Okay.” A childish finger prodded the toy, making it wobble from side to side. “So, how do I make it work?”

Calvin nodded. “Can you pass me your PCPU, please, Asuka?”

“’Kay!”

The man took the small, child-safe computer (a piece of technology devoid of sharp edges, and with a nice, solid build which wouldn’t break when someone in the intended 2-5 age range dropped it), and plugged a cable in from the side of his own, considerably more sleek model. “Just wait while it does the... okay. That’s it. Okay, Asuka, look at the screen here,” he said, detaching it.

“Uh huh.”

“Look. You can see the icon here. You can see that it looks like its head, yes?”

“Yes! It does! It has the light, and the flappy bits.”

“Well, look. Underneath, it says ‘Jeff’. That’s its name.”

“I can read, you know. I am four, after all.

“Only just,” said Kyoko, with a smile, looking at the pair of them crouched down on the floor together, next to the small quadruped.

“That doesn’t matter, Mama. The point is, I’m four, and only stupid people can’t read properly. Look. J. E. F. F. Jeff. And next to it is G. R. I. D. Grid. And next to that...”

“Okay, Asuka,” said Calvin. “I believe you. You’re a really smart little girl, aren’t you? Just like your Mama.”

The girl blushed as red as her hair. “I’m not that smart,” she said. “Mama’s like the smartest person in the world.”

Kyoko coughed. “Well, I’m certainly in the top hundred,” she said, with a smirk. “As are you, Cal. So it’s not really a...” she shook her head. “Never mind.”

“Anyway,” continued Cal, “You just press that, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“And then it activates. And you can press the buttons and make it do things, and you can teach it tricks. It’s like a real dog, but it’s smarter.”

“Cool!”

“It is really nice, isn’t it,” Calvin said, with a self-satisfied grin. “It would take some kind of genius to design it, wouldn’t it?”

He suddenly found a pair of arms fastened around his neck. “Thank you Uncle Cal! Thank you thank you thank you!”

He slowly detached her arms, and, standing up, tousled her hair. “I’m glad you like it, Asuka,” he said, still smiling. “Now, can you just see if you can work out how to get it to talk to you, because I hid that feature in it. I’ll be over here, talking to your Mama.”

The two adults sat down at the side of the room, and watched the little girl, tongue sticking out, as she starting pressing buttons. There was a moment of silence. Then;

“How are you feeling, Kyoko?”

The red-haired woman shook her head. “Like I’ve got that kind of squirming feeling where you know that you’re doing something that you shouldn’t do, but also that you can’t not do it.”

“I really don’t quite get your objections,” Calvin said. “You had no problems with doing it before.”

“Yes, but as we get closer to the 24th, I suddenly realise what I’m staring in the face. Do I have the right to do it?”

“Yes.”

Kyoko shook her head. “Oh, it’s hopeless getting into ethical debates with you. You’ve just got this damnable certainty. It’s one of your better traits.”

The man smiled. “Why, thank you.”

“I meant it seriously. From both my arcanobiological, and sorcerous training, I’m fully aware of how much of my reactions are determined by old evolutionary programming. It doesn’t help at all. I mean, look at the last 13.4 seconds of data from Y... from the incident with Unit 01. She panicked.” Kyoko sighed. “I hated her towards the end, but she didn’t deserve that. No one does. Fear won’t help me. And yet I’m scared.” She cocked her head. “And I can’t even drug those feelings into oblivion, because we found that the experimental test subjects in the test bodies responded... badly to that. How reassuring.”

“Well... at least, I hope tonight can help calm you down a bit,” said Calvin seriously, resting one hand on her shoulder. “This should be reassuring, make you feel more confident. That is, after all, why I persuaded Gendo to take you off the development team for the last week.” He paused. “That man doesn’t seemed to be concerned about another test.”

“I know why you did that, because I needed time to prepare stuff. But, mein Gott, I wish I was working. I just get to sit here and worry, and try to hide things from Asuka. Obviously, I’ve had her at nursery in the day, because I don’t want to break her routine, but the nights haven’t been fun. There’s only so long I can stare at my will without... hah... breaking my will. And you’ve been working all the time, too, so there hasn’t even been...”

“We’re sure we’ve found the problem with Unit 01, remember. We’ve got the enhanced LITAN handling animaneural integration, and we got Amunet to devise a new LCL-mix. And let’s not even get into the ways that you’re different from Yui.”

“I... I suppose.”

“Remember, we’ve made sure you’ve got an escape route from the Test which Yui didn’t have. You’ll be able to survive, if it all goes wrong.”

“I know. I... I know.”

“It will be fine.”

There was silence, only broken by the slight mechanical whine of “Jeff”, and the occasional squeals of “Look! Backflip!” and “Coo~oool!

“You’ll look after her?” Kyoko said, her voice almost a whisper. “Won’t you? If things go really wrong, and it doesn’t work at all?”

“Of course,” Calvin said, taking her hand, and staring into her eyes.

“It’s almost time, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

~'/|\'~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 7

Die Brandrosenfürstin / One hand she press'd upon that aching spot where beats the human heart,

ENTELECHY

~’/|\’~

“Our century is probably more religious than any other. How could it fail to be, with such problems to be solved? The only trouble is that it has not yet found a God it can adore.”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
“Le Phénomène Humain”

~’/|\’~

The Migou.

What were the Migou? What did they want? Why were they here? What, in fact, was their ultimate goal?

And, of course, how could one kill every last one of those fungoid, insectoid, Yuggothian fuckers?

These were all questions that the New Earth Government would really rather prefer that it knew the answers to. But, as knowledge was thin on the ground, too often it had to resort to guesswork and estimation, piecing together information from the pieces they could gather from mythology and misunderstood histories, from the extracted memories of the Nazzadi Firstborn, the generals of the Migou-built fleet, and from what had been gathered since the start of the Second Arcanotech War. Even the name ‘Migou’ was a misnomer, derived from misunderstandings of the tales of Tibetan peasants of a creature which bore resemblance to the yeti. That was quite eminently false; the white-furred, vaguely anthropic creatures native to Tibet were actually a result of the Leng Intrusion Zone there, leaking through and permitting the ingress of one of the denizens of that place, and not at all related to the Migou, although, in fairness, there were traces of what could have been their activity in those regions.

Where to begin, then?

Why, with what was known, of course.

The Migou, or Mi-go, were not an Earthly lifeform. It was likely that they did not even originate in the Sol system; evidence obtained from the ruins of the Elder Thing city in Antarctica, and what could be translated of the writings found there, showed what appeared to the arrival of beings which bore some resemblance to the kind of Migou most commonly encountered piloting crashed craft. That would put them as, by human standards, an incredibly ancient species; estimations from the strange, dateless rock used in the city put the images at somewhere between one and two billion years old. The resemblance was not exact, though, and it was debated whether they were truly the same species; even if they were, it was implausible that they would remain identical across these vast gulfs of time. Certainly, the modern Migou exhibited massive morphological variation, although the evidence was such that this appeared to be a deliberate, self-inflicted change. This hypothesis was backed up by their self-evident mastery of the biological sciences, and their pronounced proclivity for enhancing their servant-races. There were cybernetics which appeared to be grown from the body itself, rather than grafted in like human-made ones, massive neural rewiring, complete rebuilds of organ systems; the list of the accomplishments of their clinical genius was endless, and an object of subtle and not-so-subtle envy by New Earth Government scientists.

But, regardless of their origin, it was known that the Migou did possess holding outside of Sol, and they occupied most of the Oort Cloud. The vast cities of darkened Yuggoth, that place which mankind called “Pluto” riddled the fabric of the dwarf planet such that it was one vast habitat, and it was not alone. The flares of fusion drives, false stars in the night’s sky, which had accompanied the start of Migou operations against Earth as they discarded long-held stealth, were proof of this. The industry required to build the billions of Nazzadi, quite apart from the invasion fleet itself, which had attacked in the First Arcanotech War, was proof of this. The way they valued their own much more than they did their drones or constructs, preferring to risk a division of manufactured Loyalist Nazzadi rather than a company-formation of Migou, was proof of this, for they held an unimaginable amount of territory in the Outer System, and corresponding amounts of resources. On the other hand, it was known that they had not historically ventured in even as far as Uranus, at least in any major numbers, for the human colonisation of the Solar System, in that brief belle epoché of the 2040s and 2050s, had never found any trace of them; of other things, yes, strange and wondrous and terrifying things, but not of the Migou.

And perhaps because of this, the actual amount of Migou involvement in human affairs seemed to have been minimal. A few scattered contacts, a few peculiar corpses, never found for autopsy; they seemed to dissolve in less than a day, in what was suspected to be self-destruct mechanism. A few mad tales screamed by madmen in asylums after unpleasant encounters in remote areas. Nothing concrete. There had possibly been an upsurge in activity at the start of the twentieth century, but it had died down again by the time of the Second World War. The infamous Roswell Saucer was an urban legend, nothing more; rumours and tales blown into a mythology by the gales of human ingenuity and boredom.

And then one came to the Nazzadi. And they were a perplexing change in Migou behaviour. Built using archaic Homo sapiens as the clay upon which the Migou sculpted their designs, they were sufficiently diverse that it suggested that there had been considerable genetic sampling. Despite the archaic, pre-agriculture base, there were extensive gene segments which had almost certainly been imported straight from modern humanity, to the extent that some of the original Nazzadi had been, according to the genetic tests, sufficiently Jewish to satisfy Reformist, if not Orthodox, believers. The evidence suggested that the Migou had effectively rebooted human evolution, taking elements that they liked from Homo sapiens sapiens, but systematically cleansing the gene lines of Outsider Taint. None of the original Nazzadi had any signs of Deep One heritage, necrophagic proclivities, or Tcho-Tcho taint, to name but three of the morphological incongruities which existed among modern mankind, and which the eugenics programmes of the New Earth Government were trying their best to cleanse.

The First Aracnotech War had been a war of control, not extermination. The black-skinned, red-eyed cousins of mankind had come en masse, but to colonise and subjugate, not necessarily extinguish. Even the tales that the Migou had programmed into the Nazzadi, memories implanted without events, had backed this up; mankind was nothing more than a renegade branch of a failed colonisation attempt by the slow, cyclic mass of the slower-than-light Nazzadi peoples, records and contact lost by the terrors of civil war. The Reclamation had been an attempt to retake a failed, renegade colony founded by a long-dead cruel empire. Habitable planets were rare, after all, and it was all for the greater good that the world be used by real people, literally, nazzadi, not the degenerate, wrong-skinned descendents of illegal miscegenation and genetic manipulation. Of course, those humans who had been interned in the Nazzadi “re-education” camps would not agree, but they would thank them, later.

Yes, the Migou had studied human history and human psychology well, for the internal justifications and self-belief were all too familiar.

The First Arcanotech War was widely agreed to have begun on the 16th of December, 2059, when the American Cressida research station, in orbit around Uranus, the furthest that mankind had reached into the system, was destroyed by pin-point accurate laser fire. History credits the deed to a light interdiction ship from the first of the three fleets, the Nostalgy fer Solitudiny and five hundred million Nazzadi had cheered its name, as the lasered message had passed from ship to ship that the first blow of the Reclamation had been struck, even as the four billion inactive bodies of to-be colonists and soldiers slept in an undying sleep, packed densely into holds. And on Earth, still far enough away that the light from the destruction was still crawling its way there, over eight billion humans had more metaphorically slept on in peace, unknowing what was coming.

There had been no cheering, and no sleeping, in 2065, when two billion Nazzadi and four and a half billion humans had signed the peace treaty that had bought the war to an end. And had promptly splintered, as the nation-states which had allied under the New United Nations tried to go their separate ways, some rejecting the idea of peace with the Nazzadi while others made power plays for intact territory on the wrecked earth. There were also Nazzadi Loyalists still present on Earth; the combination of stealth technology, and the infinite-energy-finite-power of the D-Engine, meant that they could go worryingly long without resupply. The diamond fist of the nascent New Earth Government, growing out of the NUN, had enforced a new order for this changed world, in part using the assets of the now-surrendered Nazzadi fleet. Orbital insertions and strikes had decapitated any splinter faction which tried to oppose them. In an almost convulsive spasm of activity, rebuilding had begun, engineering projects beyond anything historically seen. Some might have been impressed by the wonders of ancient civilisation. The pyramids, the Parthenon, the Flavian Amphitheatre; they were nothing, as specks of dust to the arcologies which had desperately blossomed to repair a shattered civilisation.

And then, ten years later, the Migou had come again, against both the forces of mankind and their own renegade assets, and had swept orbit clean, bringing the so-called “Hive Ship” with them, a 1200 kilometre behemoth which dominated an entire hemisphere at once.

They showed that they had only given the Nazzadi trivialities, toys carefully designed to be marginally above human technological levels, such that should they fail, mankind would receive no extra boost. In an ironic inversion of popular culture, it was the bugs who were the elite, technologically superior, intelligent foes, against whom the swarms of humanity dashed themselves. The simple fact was that the fungoid creatures were smarter, tougher, more technologically and mystically advanced, and, by most objective measurements one care to name, just better than humanity. But the New Earth Government had found that it was willing to go where the Migou would not. To dabble in things that the Migou chose not to know. Because they were desperate. Because they were ignorant.

Such was the Second Arcanotech War. Man versus Migou... and both of them against the Others.

~’/|\’~

25th September, 2091

Flat on her back, head aching, Lance Corporal Xuan Do dropped her rifle, and fumbled for the fallen seeker-launcher, staring up at the overexposed sky. It was tainted with silver, everything slightly misted by the emfog of micromachines and smaller nanological weapons which both sides pumped out. The thin, gritty layer which was starting to accumulate on every surface drained the colour from the world; a grey dust which removed red and green and blue and yellow alike, leaving only a greyed out world which was disturbingly similar to an arcanochromatically drained region. Accompanying it, unseen, waves of ECM flooded the electromagnetic spectrum, both sides trying to flood the areas which their foes used. Images and messages flashed and skipped along the inside of both her helmet and her Eyes, jolting and twisting. For a moment, the legionary LAI in her armour’s systems flashed bright red, picking out a glowing red hit-box around a perfectly innocent piece of wall, before dancing away again. Crackles of static filled her ears. The launcher wasn’t even giving her a response code, and she swore. The uplink ports on the fingers of her armour obviously weren’t working, and she scrabbled at the wrist of right hand, trying to pull out the hard-link cable to physically hook it up to the smart micromissile system.

Her breath was shuddering, harsh under her helmet. Her new orders... she wasn’t going to survive them. But she would still carry them out, because she believed.

What looked like a crack of lightning whipped overhead, the white-blue brightness forcing her filters opaque. The impact blew apart one of the trees which grew inside this ruined church, vaporising leaves and branches that strove to reach up and out, towards the light. Creeping vegetation growing up the walls of rotted, stinking, plaster-covered stone ignited, basking the rubble in a flickering light whose black smoke only added to the dust in the air. The patter of dust and shrapnel against her semi-powered armour was like rain, wet sounding patters against the hard plates. Rolling, beating, the woman tried to scrape the superheated material off, before the heat got too much even through her armour.

Besides her, the remnants of her fireteam lay. Though that was not quite accurate. Baguna and Rereny had been shot, yes, heads torn apart by neat clusters of rifle fire, but Nahuel had been hit in the chest by a seeker-scale explosive, and as a result was smeared around the inside of this ruined church. The splatter was largely red, though right around the blast, it had been burned to a brownish-blackish colour which, Xuan had been told, smelt like a mix of ozone, burnt hair, and overcooked pork.

Slowly, agonisingly slowly, the woman pulled herself along her back, trying to find a lower point in the cratered floor. There were both Migou, and Loyalist Elite out there, and she wasn’t even in a true powered armour. She wouldn’t be able to carry out her mission if she died in the same way that Nahuel had.

[Reboot complete. WARNING! Corrupted files detected. Attempting auto-repair.] Text began to scroll down in her left Eye, the red warning of several failures in the LAI.

“Cancel! Cancel! Cancel it!” she hissed at the AICS system in her armour. “Hide text overlay in Eyes, as well.” The text, phantom images inserted by the circuitry which lived in-between the vat-grown, cybernetically enhanced tissue of her standard-issue Eyes, and the optical nerve she had been born with, vanished, and Xuan sighed. It was important that she know what was not working, true; it was also important that she be able to see, and have the LAI operating as best it could, rather than trying to autorepair. “LAI, check connection of Hornet HMLS.”

[Hardwired connection detected. Weapons system is slaved to smartlink. WARNING! Error: 550A-2. Without repair, functionality cannot be guaranteed. WARNING! Standard Interface Ports are offline. WARNING! Contact with Charlie Team lost. WARNING! Contact with Command lost. Trying to re-establish contact...”]

“Shut the fuck up, Aches! Will it work?”

A pause, while a progress bar zipped across her Eyes. [Smartlink is operational. Weapon is operational] it ‘answered’ in the form of text, the weapon icon turning green.

The woman sighed in relief. “Good. Aches, exit diagnostic mode, go to combat mode.”

The Limited Artificial Intelligence was silent, which was at least a small mercy, though it kept the red flashing icon up. Grinding, scraping, she managed to get as low as possible, and snaked her camera up, the smart fibre optic cable a much smaller target. What she saw made her swear.

She had been wrong. There weren’t Loyalists or Migou out there. Well, if there were, she couldn’t see them, which was alarming. But not as alarming on the gut-deep, visceral level, as what she saw was. The Migou were alien, cold, and inhuman. The Nazzadi Loyalists were their willing slaves, built by the Yuggothian fungoids as weapons to use against mankind. The majority may have defected at the end of the First Arcanotech War, as the subspecies discovered their origins, and had promptly slaughtered most of those who did not turn in the Nazzadi Civil War, but Loyalists still remained. They were bolstered further by fresh reinforcements, and the NEG believed that the Migou had set up forward growth vats in the Asteroid Belt. The Nazzadi Loyalist Elite, meanwhile, were a more recent appearance; while the normal Loyalists tended to use modernised variants of AW1 gear, the Elite aesthetic screamed of the design influences of the Migou, and the corresponding increase in lethality was a worry to anyone who saw them. They were still expendable, but they were a more valued asset, laden down with implants and enhancements.

But out there, were Combat Blanks.

Blanks. Men and women ‘utilised’ by the Migou, as infiltrators and soldiers alike.

Blanks. Any human or amlati could be one, until you’d put them through the tests. And even then, you couldn’t be sure, because the Migou and the NEG were engaged in a constantly escalating war of counter-intelligence and counter-counter-intelligence, so a near-infinite variety of Blanks existed.

Blanks. There was empty horror in the word, a horror that the Migou had deliberately chosen, for it had been given by the first captured examples. And it just made things worse.

These ones were Combat Blanks, too, not just Infiltrators. Infiltrators were basically base human, just... changed... in the head. Combat Blanks were more heavily modified. Fitted with many of the same enhancements the Loyalist Elite had, they were faster and stronger than a normal human being, their entire nervous system rebuilt for disassociated autonomous control. Shoot them in the head, and they did not die. Sever their limbs, and they would wirelessly control the integrated weapons. They were, naked, not dissimilar to an ultralight suit of powered armour, and then they were fitted with stolen NEG or Migou-built gear. The energy for all their combat systems came from the tiny amount of antimatter contained within a magnetic bottle inside their chest, replacing useless organs, which meant that not one had been taken alive or intact for full scans. They blew up, if there was a risk of being compromised, so the NEG did not even know how the Migou did what they did to make them.

The three, slightly misshapen shapes in combat armour, bulked out by synthetic musculature and integrated weapons, and their helmets covered in bubo-like bulges of sensory equipment, were making their way towards the ruined church. With smooth, precise efficiency and perfect coordination, they were bounding between cover, covering all angles. Clutching her seeker closer, Xuan checked that all three targets were highlighted in red on her smartlink. The rifle wasn’t going to do much against these kinds of things, but she could switch to the underslung seeker launcher on it when she ran out of ammunition for the dedicated launcher. Stay in cover, fire the seekers upwards, and let them home in. Sadly, these weren’t proper anti-mecha seekers, just the lighter version issued to infantry for use on powered armour, Combat Blanks and Loyalists, and weren’t a certain kill, especially if her smartlink wasn’t working properly. Which it might not be.

No. She’d done everything she could here. She should pull out of these fortified church ruins, let the Migou have it, and re-establish contact with the NEGA forces. It would be clear to even the most blinkered officer that one person could not hold against three Combat Blanks. She’d be useless if she was dead.

“Contact with Command re-established,” reported the AICS. “Codes are valid. Override patching you through.”

Xuan’s thoughts were turning to homicide. They’d know, now that Command had forced contact. As if the Migou couldn’t track a radio signal.

“Report in!” The voice of the Lieutenant in charge of her platoon was audible, even through the heavy encryption.

“Lance Corporal Xuan Do.” She rattled off her code.

“Verified. Report.”

“Rest of my team is KIA; I can confirm that. Hostiles advancing on my position; three Charlie Bravo Tangos, plus possible Loyalist or Bug units. Contact lost with Charlie Fireteam and Sergeant Bana; munitions detonation, I think.” She paused. “No contact, but I think they’re dead. They can’t have survived that. Migou artillery got a precise hit on one of our ammo dumps.”

“Understood.” There was a pause. “We have the squirt from your armour... what there is. There’s a major data loss, and a lot of error reports, can you confirm?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. The Migou were using some kind of AEW... maybe EMP, but that doesn’t match the crash. Systems went down, and my AICS is running in safe mode, due to damage.”

“Received.” There was a pause. “Yes, that matches the feed. You’re the forwards-most observer we have. Hold position, and observe. We’re sending reinforcements. Keep in contact. Over and out.”

“Understood, sir.” Underneath her breath, she muttered curses, scuttling over on her stomach to a fresh position. She’d need to get higher, to see what was happening properly.

~’/|\’~

This command centre was nearly identical to EuroHighCom, back in London-2. That was not surprising; these armoured bunkers were built to identical standards, after all.

“The Eidelon Combat Units are in position, Colonel Rury,” reported the interface unit of COEUS, the Total Information Tactical Analysis Network component stationed here on the Eastern Front. Quite simply, its various interface components cut past a lot of the chain of command, to ensure that orders were transmitted accurately, and to connect the humans who were making and implementing the decisions. “Ready to move at your order.”

The black-skinned, red-eyed woman nodded once. “Thank you, COEUS.” She stared across the room, catching the eyes of a blue-eyed, blond woman in the identical uniform of a Colonel of the New Earth Government Army, who gave her a slight twitch of the corner of her mouth, almost unnoticeable, and a similarly small nod.

That was reassuring. As a member of the Special Weapons Division, it was necessary to maintain a good working relationship with the main chain of command, and the other woman was attached directly to Vice-Marshal Slavik’s office. The Serbian Wolf was a good ally of the SWD, especially in the interdictine politicking which somehow managed to arise, even in a fight for species survival.

Shaking her head slightly, the nazzady glanced back at the strategic map, which only existed for her as an image fed directly into her optic nerve by her Eyes. The New Earth Government forces were being pushed back, it was true. That damned Migou commando strike had taken out one of the anti-capital lasers, and the bugs were pushing this to their best advantage. With a few gestures, she zoomed in on the landing zones on the east of Nova Kakhovka. One... two... three Drone Ships were already on the ground, kilometre-long vessels positively loaded with Nazzadi, Blanked and Migou forces, and worryingly invisible to radar, and Orbital were tracking several more, with Swarm Ship escorts.

But it was imperative that they hold Nova Kakhovka. The city had been built by the long-dead Soviet Union for the construction of a nearby dam, the source of hydroelectricity inherited by Ukraine, a nation which had sprung up from the carcass of that superstate, and left to rot by the European Union, one of the superstates that had formed the core of the NEG. The D-Engine had crippled this city, as its invention removed the raison d’etre for this place. Now it was an overgrown cemetery to progress, the trees and grasses having largely reclaimed rotting buildings and pot-holed streets. However, it was also useful as an airbase (the launch chutes dug deep under the city, into the sandy ground), and as a defensive hold-out. There were bases like this systematically placed all throughout Eastern Europe; some in the remains of old cities and towns, some built for this purpose, all designed as a weirdly trench-like counterpart to the so-called “Great War” of 175 years ago.

The calculus of warfare was quite simple. A capital-grade stationary defence could kill a capital ship, as they would always be better armoured and armed; they did, after all, not have to waste space, and limit their mass, due to the need to be mobile. Migou forces which came from orbit left their approaches obvious, and thus made themselves easy targets (and a high-atmosphere airburst nuclear weapon was an excellent way of ruining such a target’s day), hence enemy reinforcements had to be landed in “safe” areas, and moved in. Space them out, give them sufficient defensive forces and anti-air/missile capabilities, and suddenly, mobile warfare bogged down.

And the Migou did the same, too; their own stationary weapons upon Earth’s surface, their own smart-missile batteries, their own air-bases and underground facilities. The Contested Zone on the Eastern Front had barely changed in over four years. It had been static longer than the Western Front in the misnamed ‘Great War’, the “War to End All Wars”.

The question was, of course, whether, if the equilibrium was disturbed, would it prove to have been stable, or unstable. Would a small change be negated, or reinforced by subsequent events?

“Falling back! We can’t hold; multiple Mantises inbound, accompanied by... ” there was an explosion, “... Silverfish. Get those cloaked bastards!” the voice yelled.

“Roger that. Regroup at Charlie-Zero-Nine. We have a squadron of Type-Hotel-Zero-Four-Fives dug in there, but they need more Papa Alpha support.”

“Understood.”

The blinking, dark-red icons of the Migou units were shifting forwards, the organic flows of the lines of control intensely disturbing. Marshall Hassan was sweating heavily, his olive-coloured skin grey with stress. Of course, it was probably a lot more stressful on the ground. Here, constant waves of the horrifically smart Migou missiles swept across a fortification, the ones which escaped the laser defences blasting deep holes into the massively reinforced walls, while dart-like submunitions targeted individual men. There, Loyalist forces clashed with NEG-forces, a bitter fight between the extant varieties of Homo sapiens, until the Migou-enhanced Loyalist Elite hammer could fall upon the hardest pockets of resistance. And there, the Migou units, perfectly coordinated despite the fact that no electromagnetic transmissions detected between individual units, systematically took apart the front line, blue-white flares and the burning sun-radiance of directed plasma weapons illuminating the day in horrible light.

Suddenly, a change. The dark-green of New Earth Government forces suddenly multiplied, as icons indicating power armour and mechanised units swarmed out from underground bunkers, some to reinforce areas under threat, some into areas already cleansed by Migou forces.

“Eidelon Brigade-Zero-Zero-Seven,” Colonel Rury said, with a hint of pride in her voice. “Four and a half thousand soldiers; a proper mechanised formation. They have a company of G-Three Lilim serving in a command-and-control role.” She leant forwards, her teeth in a predatory grin. “Didn’t see that coming, did you, you fucking minions, and your bug masters?” she said, her comment directed at the hostile forces on the map. “Perhaps you should look underground better, before rushing forwards like that at a tiny weakness in the line?” she added, rhetorically.

Marshall Hassan stared at the screen, running one hand over his shaven head. “That won’t be enough,” he muttered, before blinking heavily. “Where is the Navy?” he asked. “We won’t be able to do anything, until they get capital support up, and we can stop the landing craft. We need to prepare for evacuation, should they take down the second cap-laser.”

The blond woman stepped forwards and saluted, black-gloved hands a contrast to her pale skin. “Sir,” she said with confidence.

“Yes, Colonel Kristos?”

“We have one capital unit on station, which is currently engaged in training exercises at Facility 2501. I had it moved up, when the anti-capital defences went down, and it is waiting for authorisation to deploy.” She permitted herself a slight raise of her eyebrows, at the improbability of her own statement.

The man paled. “What... where? What do you mean?”

There might have been a look of disdain in Colonel Oxanna Kristos’ eyes, as she kept her gaze locked on her nominal superior. “I’m afraid you don’t have the clearance for that, sir,” she said, her tone remaining professionally neutral. “Nor do you have the clearance to authorise deployment.” She blinked. “I am merely informing you of this such that you are aware of the presence of friendly units.” The woman bought up a menu, the gestures perfunctory. “The details and codes for the Unit have been added to your IFF database. I request that you confirm my authorisation to distribute them.”

Marshal Hassan ran his gaze over the file. It was very, very short. “Bipedal acksebee organism, authorised to deploy tactical nuclear and arcanochromatic weapons, innate functions capable of replicating third-tier sorceries,” he read in disbelief. “What? What is this?”

“It’s a capital-grade ACXB organism. It’s best to think of it as a corvette-scale Engel. And, I’m sorry, sir, but you aren’t cleared for anything more. I have been authorised, if you see the notes in my file from Vice Marshal Slavik, to handle this operation with his authority,” Colonel Kristos said, to head off the next objection, a faint smile creeping onto her lips. With a press, she transmitted the relevant files to COEUS, which the TITAN verified. She then disconnected from Marshal Hassan, before he could waste any more of her time, and opened up a separate channel.

“Captain Martello,” she said, her voice dripping with pride, and a hint of anticipation, despite the dire situation. “Unleash Superbia.”

~’/|\’~

The apartment block disintegrated as the titanic greenish-grey shape smashed through it, hunched low. It was surrounded by the snap of superheated air, as laser fire emanated forth from every one of its surfaces. Its sudden appearance made it the target for everything that now had line of sight, and a hail of fire was promptly directed towards the bulk.

As it turned out, that was an unwise decision.

The behemoth paused for a moment, one colossal foot digging into the ground, as it turned on its heel and slammed the leg through a building in a sweeping kick which tore down the entire structure. Then it was off again, the noise of the damage which its path inflicted upon the grass-covered streets muted by the cataclysm which followed it and it mutely encouraged. If it cared at all about the Loyalist platoon which had been trying to set up in the now-ruined structure, there was no sign. Certainly, the artillery barrage which almost immediately streaked down from the heavens, upon the surviving hostile troops in their smashed-egg of a building, did not care.

West. The figure, its outer carapace mottled with five-branched tree-like markings, interlocking and interweaving, was heading west through shattered streets and ruined roads. For those who could see outside the human-visible spectrum, the titan was sprouting a hedgehog-like array of ultraviolet light, protruding out to touch anything which tried to harm it, fist-sized chunks devoured by whatever its invisible limbs touched. And then there were the blasts which rippled across those who survived that lethal caress; shrieking demons descending from the heavens at the orders of their master to detonate in explosive martyrdom. To target it, to inform the beast that you were aiming at it, was a death sentence.

In the skies above, human and Migou craft fought. It was not the brave, ‘honourable’ fights of the fighter ace; no, this was a conflict of technological supremacy. The men and women in the NEG air supremacy craft were massively rebuilt; new eyes and spines and hearts and lungs and tendons all there to allow them to sustain marginally higher accelerations, their senses jacked into the feeds of their craft, LAI systems performing the actual tasks while the human intellect merely guided this technological mess. And such a thing was necessary; even with these enhancements, the Migou craft were darting insects compared to the birds of humanity, albeit insects capable of slaughtering their foes. They could operate at the maximum thrust from their A-Pods, unheeded by the constraints of mammalian biology. They thought and fought in, at a minimum, three dimensions natively, and, of course, they were the technical superiors of mankind anyway. In this airspace, however, the NEG made up for it with numbers. The skies above the grey-green monstrosity were being kept clear, through both ground based systems, and the swallow-like fliers which emptied their racks of missiles before resorting to standoff laser fire. To those who had eyes to see, the thick clouds of emfog were lit in red, blue and ultraviolet by the violence of the conflict, swirling in chaotic vortices as the passage of craft and projectile alike tore through the clouds. Lower down, gunships and ground attack craft plucked victims from the mortal coil through missile and direct fire, even as they themselves were swatted by ground-fire.

Down below, the behemoth raised one hand, still charging inexorably along its path, and a sun-bright lance of plasma evaporated a hostile mecha squadron, the slicing cone boring into the ground without regard for the foes in the way. One colossal foot stepped over the radiant inferno it had created, the red-hot ground sagging and giving way into a new crater, before that obstacle was past. More stellar flares from its outreached arm, the air around it warped by the intense heat and something else, marked its passage.

Somewhere along the monster’s line of approach, a squadron of Loyalist Elite pilots waited, their mecha powered down and almost inactive. The Elder Sign-derived basilisk camouflage on the thing did nothing to stop a physical aim; they had ascertained valid firing solutions with ease. They were Nazzadi, after all, basically human; merely... enhanced, as befitted their function, and so that perplexing symbol had no effect on them. The implants in their brains and in their nervous systems made their movements impossibly smooth and precise, the minimum of effort utilised as they tracked the double-mounted charge beams into the ever-moving left knee of the grey-green shape. The targeting systems did the rest to maintain the hit. With a few thoughts, baseline Loyalists were dispatched to begin the diversionary strike. It had been calculated that they would fail, and unless they evacuated the launch sites as fast as possible, they would be caught in the efficient counterbattery fire. But what they would do is divert attention away from the less... expendable assets.

The Loyalist Elite, and through them, the Migou, found this aesthetically pleasing. They were, however, not foolish enough to let an appreciation for aesthetics induce tactically unsound methods, nor force them to show mercy.

But it noticed them.

Twirling, the titan raised the implement of destruction it cradled in both hands, and, all four viridian eyes seemingly staring straight at the attempted ambush, eradicated them and a good proportion of the district they were stationed in. As the brief flash of the fireball faded, a cloud, discoloured by the arcanochromatic material within it, blossomed upwards. It was not quite a true mushroom cloud; the stem was insufficient for it to really be called that, and, indeed, it resembled nothing quite unlike a malformed, twisted rose, particulate petals shaped by the buildings at the edge of the blast which still stood.

Through the superheated air and burning, tainted dust the greenish-grey figure ran, now smeared in black and grey tar-like dust. The clouds of its passage billowed behind it, drawn with it as a veil of shadows which swirled and hissed with the freezing gas it had secreted. A patter of tainted ice-dust fell like rain, as the two mixed, to splatter, freeze and burn nearby combatants, as the thing passed. With a slight change in gait, it punted a heavy Loyalist mecha which had originally been part of the diversionary attack, sending the red jam-filled crushed tin can tumbling off far into the distance, and left its foe’s compatriots behind, assured that they could not harm it.

Yes. A building was crushed underfoot. Yes. The behemoth was nearing its target. It was nearing its prey.

And then the four, utterly inhuman, viridian eyes fell upon the foe. It had been tracking it earlier, of course, through other senses it had, but they were unreliable. The prey was illusive, after all, made of substances which made the ‘sight’ of its other eyes hazy, and furthermore it knew how to hide, how to camouflage itself in the electromagnetic mists of battle. It had set up cordons of defences, lesser beings to guard its concealed bulk from anything which might hunt it. They were heavily armed and armoured, machines that were to as gods to a naked ape.

They all died. They died in light and in heat and in colour, but they all died. Their feeble death throws scorched the surface of the behemoth, chipped into its unnaturally tough carapace, and were sometimes even simply negated by the shimmering crystalline iridescence of the air around the monster.

Futile. Utterly futile.

And, no emotion on its mask-like face, it aimed the tool of destruction it bore in its hands at the five hundred metre long landing ship, and fired. The rose-like blossom grew forth from the matt-black hull, spire-like weapons systems and extra armour melting like ice in a blast furnace as the thorns tore a vast swath of the ship away, boiling and broiling and swirling in unearthly radiance.

And, coddled in white freezing gas, the leviathan fired. Again. And again, until the broken spine of the kilometre long fallen craft was fully separated, its mechanical innards exposed to the air. Sheathing its weapon on its back, darting in, sun-bright plasma emanated from its hands to utterly slag those parts of the inside that had survived.

Pausing for a moment, for its task was done; the titan crouched in the red-hot remains of its slain prey. It was safe in the knowledge that such a bulk would allow it a moment’s respite and concealment.

“Target destroyed,” reported the pilot of the black-smeared green-grey monstrosity, her voice dripping with self-confidence. And more than a little hint of smugness. “Requesting new orders.”

“New coordinates transmitted. Be aware, we have heavy hostile resistance in the area. We believe they may be trying to set up a beachhead cap-defence; it is necessary that you eliminate it or casualties will be severe when the Navy gets here. If it is operational, it will also be an active threat to you.”

“Understood. It’s doomed.” The pilot flexed her fingers around her control yokes, the dark-red fabric which covered them moving perfectly in line with her skin, as she stared up at the change in force disposition on the map. “Gehirn, display status.” The Ouranos LITAN obeyed, and she nodded, once. “No need for resupply, no real damage,” she muttered. “Running a bit low on vECF, but, otherwise, plenty for all of them.” Out loud, she added, “Command still has priority artillery authorisation slaved to you?”

“Yes, Test Pilot.”

“Good.” Evangelion Unit 02 rose again, Babylon already raised, and a barrage of cracks from the launchers on its back accompanied the resumption of its terrible advance. The booster trails of rockets kicked in once they were at a safe height, filled the sky, only for unseen cluster bombs to rain down again, seeking their prey. All it had taken was a thought, and an authorisation from the control yokes. And along her new path, a cascade of dusty orange-red explosions marked the way.

“Good,” she said, hands barely twitching as she willed the Evangelion into motion once again.

~’/|\’~

Her semipowered armour was down to 36% battery, and caked in carbonised mud, as well as the somewhat less pleasant remains of the deceased Private Nahuel. She was bruised and battered. Even her Eyes ached. But nevertheless Lance Corporal Xuan Do was awake and alert; possibly more so than she had ever been.

What... what the hell was that? I didn’t know the New Earth Government had anything like that!

Shaking her head, she focussed again, and stuck the fibre-optic cable out of the cover again, under a propped-up section of fallen roof, staring down at the casescreen on her lap. The parts of the camera network stationed around the building still alive weren’t sufficient, and so she had to use her armour fibre-optic for this particular angle. She had a full launcher positioned in the remains of the aisle, elevated on its stand, staring up into the skies. In the launcher closer to her, there were two shots left, before she would have to go to reload it. That one was set up down the hallway, the command cable linked into the network which she and her squad had been setting up here before... before they had all died. The seeker, as a sort of hybrid micro-battery/missile launcher, the electrochemical propellant kicking the missile out of the launcher before the guidance system engaged, was exceptionally useful for this kind of indirect fire. She certainly liked the way that the firer didn’t have to be too near the weapon. Something large and Migou, some disc-shaped lander, had crashed nearby, and she’d lost two launchers which she’d salvaged, when counterbattery fire had zeroed in on them.

Of course, if the first, targeted blast, which had taken out the other fireteam, hadn’t hit the cache, this entire building would have been wired up with seeker sites. And not just the light, grenade-scale ones she had remaining; true anti-armour ones. And proper anti-air launchers, too. A dug-in squad, even if they were only in SP-armour, could slow down an advance no end.

But she was the only one left. The others were dead.

There. A standard three-man Loyalist powered armour squad, taking cover in one of the other ruined buildings, some kind of gutted apartment blackened by fire damage and covered in creeping ivy. The smooth, pseudo-organic lines of Nazzadi design were unmistakable, especially since the mecha used by the NEG had been hybridised with human aesthetics, and so had a certain utilitarian brutalism about them. Her smartlink flagged them with red outlines, extrapolating their positions from the glimpses she could get.

Her fingers danced on the casescreen on her lap. Two shots on each of them, from Hornet-2. One HE, one Shaped. Don’t want to risk them surviving... armour may be weaker in the head, but can’t be sure it’s a kill and they’ll kill me if they find me. Synch the arrival times so one hits each one at the same time for the first wave.

Yes. Sorry about this. And execute. The woman let out a slight, almost crazed, giggle; alone as she was in a ruin, her squad dead around her. In both senses of the word.

A sequence of six thuds hurled the seekers into the air, just another noise of conflict, lost in the immensity of this conflict. They were projectiles at this point, fired by the electrochemical launch packets, only guided by the small adjustments made by their unfolding fins. Crossing her fingers, Xuan watched their progress and arc on the feed in her left Eye, silently counting down in her head along with the decreasing number on the screen.

The thrusters of five of the six seekers fired at the same time, and the arc suddenly became guided, the dumb LAI systems in each missile acquiring the target fed from the smartlink and the launcher, before cutting all communications and running on their own visual systems. The sixth failed to ignite, and the dumb warhead continued on its parabolic arc, sure to overshoot by far.

From an outside observer’s viewpoint, what could be seen was the streak of small comets, tracked by their flame-lit tails, which dropped down into the ruined apartment. The blast, a whoompth of dust and rubble barely lit by the actual flames, rushed in a swirling cloud out of the ruins. There was a clatter of dislodged bricks, followed by a rumbling, as one of the walls gave way, sagging and falling inwards, the impact only knocking more dust into the air. If any of them had survived the hits, or, indeed, hadn’t been hit at all, they were at least going to be seriously inconvenienced by the load-bearing wall that had just hit them,.

Hah, she thought. One of the advantages of being on foot. SP-armour can hide properly in ruins; true power armour can’t. If I’d known the wall was that weak, I wouldn’t have wasted those seekers. She swallowed. Need to reload first, before firing again. Popping her case closed, and sticking it back in her pack, she scrambled on her hands and knees out from under the collapsed arch, over to the seeker, pulling off the magazine and making her slow way over to one of the armoured cases. There were still two shots left; it made more sense to reload the revolver-like cylinder from loose seekers, rather than slot a fresh one in.

Somewhere far overhead, there was a cluster of thunderous sonic booms, and a few seconds later, a ripple of blasts she could feel through the ground. Where those craft NEG, or Migou? She didn’t know.

A crash of rubble behind her. With a sudden jerk of motion, spilling the seekers all over the floor with a clatter which left her wincing, Xuan swung around. Nothing. Rifle braced, gun-cam filling her left Eye, she slowly edged to the left, trying to get behind cover without lowering the weapon. Rifle, or underslung seeker launcher? Not sure. Don’t think it’s a Papa Alpha, too quiet. Use the rifle.

Another series of blasts, outside. Very close this time. Too close; the pulse of air was a palpable force, and her left Eye wobbled as the weapon shook, even with the attempts of the AICS to keep the weapon steady.

Something moved, something over two metres tall, four blue eyes around a central orb staring from its blank mask-like head. A massively overengineered rifle was clutched in its arms, as it fluidly moved through the cover, far too quiet for something with that bulk. The woman just knew without knowing that something of that size should be making more noise. She flicked her rifle to the seeker launcher, and aimed for the head.

A second one, also highlighted in green in her Eyes, could be seen moving behind it. Slowly, she lowered the rifle. They were New Earth Government units... not a model of powered armour she was familiar with, but her AICS was getting a match for the armour and the codes were valid. She had to hold fire. That didn’t mean that they weren’t compromised, of course; one of the terrors of the war against the Migou was the way that Blanked Infiltrators, if not detected, could turn on their comrades without a moment’s hesitation, gunning them down with neither mercy nor pity. But the institutional paranoid this provoked could be just as harmful. It was a problem. Fortunately, it was unlikely that any entire squad would be Blanked and be able to slip under the detection processes; not impossible, but in the constant technological war between creation and detection for these saboteurs, the NEG’s techniques had improved enough that the old-style total rewiring were demoted to Combat Blanks. They were just too overt, now. Of course, that didn’t mean that there weren’t Loyalists in captured, or Migou-made, human gear, and they did come in squads.

Paranoia was a way of life.

There were more troops moving up behind them, engineering exosuits carrying anti-armour railgun turrets and seeker launchers, and the silent bulk of an IFV.

Actual NEG reinforcements...

Lance Corporal Xuan Do slumped down, shaking.

She... she wasn’t actually dead yet.

~’/|\’~

The roughly disc-shaped craft was a wreck. It had ploughed into a young forest, in the middle of what had been an industrial park, leaving a trail of splintered wood behind it. It had eventually come to a rest in the middle of a twisted, rusted pile of metal, which might have once been some kind of storage silo; grain, perhaps, or maybe sand. Once, it had hung lazily in the air (or, in actuality, moved quickly to avoid hostile anti-air, only hovering when it was picking up or deploying assets); now, it was a mere sixty metre wide tombstone. The D-Engine was offline, the termination switch kicking in to prevent the crash from tearing open a dimensional rift, as the impact knocked vital components out of place. The A-Pods had been specifically targeted by the NEG; two of the three had been punctured by the same relativistic particle beam, and half the craft was a melted, slagged wreck because of that. The D-Fridges had been working fine, but the Migou on board who had survived the crash had shut them down, because without the heat produced by the D-Engines, it was not necessary to maintain their functionality.

The snap of superheated air from a laser could be heard inside, to be joined by another, and another. There was a louder, more explosive noise from inside, and a brief gout of blue flame flared out, flaring through the outer hull.

“Bravo Command, this is Bravo Zero-Zero-Two-Three.”

“Bravo Zero-Zero-Two-Three, this is Bravo Command Actual. You have boarded a Migou lander.”

“Correct, Command Actual. This looks like a Bravo-Victor-0067-Sigma Field Conversion Ship. Zero-Zero-Two-One and Two-Two are KIA. Necessary security measures have been taken. Synchronising data.”

“Roger, Zero-Zero-Two-Three.” There was a pause. “The data is synchronised.” Another pause. “Do not, repeat, do not attempt an intact capture. We cannot salvage the craft at the present date. Cleanse and occupy, then hold position until we can get armoured units forwards. I’m sending Echo and Foxtrot squads to back you up.”

“Roger, Command Actual.” A pause. “There are Migou test subjects on board, in the standard fluid tanks. They appear to be recent captives, although they have had their IFF tags removed, and have been prepped for preliminary surgery. We have survivors, as well as corpses. Confirm ‘Cleanse and Occupy’ order. “

“Zero-Zero-Two-Three, do any appear to be Category Two Blank candidates?”

“Negative, Command Actual. We have a database match with standard Infilitrator prep.”

“Roger. Order is confirmed, Zero-Zero-Two-Three. Cleanse and Occupy. The chance that any can be salvaged has been deemed negligible, compared to the security risk, and there is nothing new to learn.”

“Roger, Cleanse and Occupy, Command Actual. Bravo Zero-Zero-Two-Three out.”

It was trivial for a suit of self-powered armour to crush a human skull.

~’/|\’~

“Well. That went fairly well.” Colonel Rury of the SWD took a swig of coffee from the can, and winced slightly at the taste. Evidently, it wasn’t displeasing enough to prevent a second sip, however. Well, she did have to start the paperwork for the Eidelon deployment, as there were things that LAIs couldn’t do, and she didn’t want to start on the Extended Operations Enhancement yet, so caffeine was going to have to do.

Colonel Kristos nodded, as she rummaged through her pockets. “Mhmrmph. Yes, I’d say so. At least relatively. It could have been a lot, lot worse, if they’d been able to push through, or even if they’d got those forwards defences up and running.” She paused. “Chocolate or blueberry?” she asked herself. “Chocolate or blueberry?”

“Hmm?”

“Muffins.” She leant forwards against the vending machine, staring at the confectionary through narrowed eyes.

“Can’t stand chocolate, myself,” the red-eyed woman said; a comment which produced rolled eyes, because it was not aiding with the muffin conundrum at all. “Mind you, don’t really like blueberry much, either.” She leant over to glance at the machine. “Oooh. Banana. I like banana.”

“That’s not helping, Rury.” The staring match between the confectionary and the Colonel continued.

A pause.

“Congratulations on Eidelon, by the way,” Oxanna said, her forehead now resting against the transparent front to the machine.

“Zy aprecy,” Rury grinned. “And you, as well. That thing has real promise as a stiletto-force component. And... well, it’s so nice to have organic capital support, instead of waiting for the Navy to get dressed and ready before they show up.”

“Oh, yes. That is after all why Anton’s so interested in them.”

Rury looked at her flatly. “Oxanna, I do know about the links between... between the ACXBs.”

The blond woman turned away from the muffins, and frowned for a moment, before smiling. “Oh, no, I meant Vice Marshall Slavik.”

“Oh.” The nazzady tapped the side of her head with a finger. “Buh. Brain jam.”

“I could have been clearer,” the other woman shrugged.

“Just that, well, at the SWD we have to... interact with Miyakame a lot,” she continued, in a tone which implied that such a thing was more frequent than she would have preferred.

“I do know, yes. I’ve had to deal with the man, too.”

“Sorry.”

Another pause.

Colonel Kristos growled. “Damn it, I’m getting both of them, and some proper chocolate as well. I can eat them on the way there, after all, and I’m hungry.” She glanced at her colleague. “Don’t raise your eyebrows at me like that.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know you didn’t. And I know you have less... never mind.” She shook her head, as she tapped in the numbers of the products, and then scanned the chip in the back of her hand.

“Say thanks to As... to Superbia for me,” added Rury, as Oxanna knelt down, trying to fish the muffins out of the catch bay.

“’Kay. She’ll certainly appreciate it,” the blond said, with a slight glance upwards. “Well,” she paused, “yes, we have a meeting with Hassan tomorrow. Together. Not going to be fun, is it?”

“Nope. He’s such a haranga. And a haranguer.” Rury shook her head. “See you there.”

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

~’/|\’~

The warning sirens sounded, as Unit 02, sealed within a camouflaged transport container, was slowly moved into the decontamination bay. The 2501 training facility, designed for testing of units which could feasibly be deployed on the frontlines, was still considerably further back than any of the more forward bases, where the mainstay. The bay was cramped, designed for Engels, not their progenitor-project, and so the Evangelion only just fit. In the observation room, a man, his dark-red lab coat sealed all the way up to the high collar, pushed his old-fashioned, bulky argoggles up onto his forehead and pulled off a thick black control glove, to wipe his forehead. With a sigh, he removed the other glove, discarding them carelessly on the surface.

“What’s up, Dr Schauderhaft?” a lieutenant, his face damp with sweat, asked the head scientist for the Unit 02 team.

The man shook his head. “She’s so hard on it, Feucht,” he said, running a hand through his sandy-blond hair. “I’ve been looking over the internal status feeds... we’re going to have to replace the top few levels of mirrorgloss due to the fact that she chose to run through an arcanochromatic blast cloud, and we’re going to have to go through all the breaches to check for contamination. That’s even before we get to actual battle damage.”

“Ah,” the younger man, Feucht, said, choosing not to say any more. He mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief.

Wilhelm Schauderhaft tapped his fingers against the diamond window. “Actually... it’s not really even that,” he admitted. “Captain Martello is pushing for increased deployment, and we can’t sustain it. He can’t get it into his head that the Evangelions are not ready for extended field deployment. They’re a sensitive arcanocyberxenobiological organism, which require constant check-ups, and simply don’t have the endurance of... of a frigate, say. Which is just armour plus D-Tech plus armaments plus a little bit of space for crew. You just can’t do that and he doesn’t get it.”

“Ah.”

“I wonder if I could beat it into his head with a mallet,” the chief scientist continued, his voice turning speculative. There was a pause. “That was a joke, by the way,” he reassured the other man. “I don’t intent to commit violence against the Deputy Director of Operations.”

“I understand, sir.”

Wilhelm sighed, a weary note entering his voice as he glanced at the uniformed man. “I’m not a ‘sir’,” he said.

“Would you prefer ‘ma’am’?” the younger man said, in a deadpan.

There was a snort from the scientist. “Fair enough,” he said, sliding his argoggles back over his eyes. “Gehirn, accept the hibernation plug as soon as the docking port is in place,” he ordered the Evangelion’s LITAN.

“Understood,” the mechanical voice responded, the four green lights of its ARvatar bobbing slightly in acknowledgement.

Dr Schauderhaft had never understood why the Second Child had insisted on using such a crude, obviously non-human voice for her LITAN. There were plenty of other options she could have used. But, no, she insisted on using this slightly grating, synthetic one. He shrugged. Never mind.

“Dr Schauderhaft!” someone called from behind him. He knew exactly who it was. “I need to talk to you!”

Come to think of it, she could be rather grating too. Maybe it was some kind of kinship.

Rather than turn to face her, he sat back down, and pulled his control gloves back on. “I’m listening,” he said, in a tone which he hoped might imply that he was busy right now, and she might be better advised to talk to the local Deputy Director of Operations, Captain Martello.

Not to be dissuaded, the girl stepped around him, standing in front of his desk, left hand on hip. She would always be a little girl to him; after all, he had first met her when she had only just turned nine, when he had been transferred from the Unit 00 team to replace the near-total losses from Berlin-2. She had certainly changed since then, though. Clad in a mid-red version of one of the jump-suits that any mecha pilot wore when not in one of the dedicated interface suits (in her case, a plug suit), she loomed over him when he sat. Her reddish-blond hair was darkened by the fact it was still wet from the decontamination, hanging limply from where it was bound by her A-10 clips. Two blue eyes, their shape one of the few obvious signs of her mixed heritage, stared down at him over a face paled, like so many others, from lack of sun. The gaze was steady, level, and more than a little impatient.

She was tapping her foot. Peeling off the gloves again, the doctor kept his face calm, even attentive, even as he sighed internally. She would not give up, and it would just be easier to deal with her now, even though it was probable that the issues she was about to raise would be covered when he had looked over the data that, even now, she was delaying his work on.

Still, at least she wasn’t the First Child.

Test Pilot Asuka Langley Soryu folded her arms in front of her, and nodded once. “The systems failed to adjust correctly to the loss of Torso-5’s D-Fridge,” she said in an accusatory tone. “Why, exactly, did it shut down T5’s D-Engine, when there were no heat issues? I still had all the other T-series functional and intact at that point; you don’t need to have it do that. It was only one DEV12 operating without a DDV13!”

“Asuka,” Wilhelm began, “it’s the precautionary principle. It’s good to have precautions set up so that if things do go wrong, there’s a margin for...”

“Precautions?” Asuka’s nose wrinkled slightly in a sneer, as she leant forwards. “That’s funny, I was under the impression that my laser defence grids were an important precaution when operating against the Migou! Given that they give me my anti-infantry, anti-light-power-armour, and anti-missile defences!”

Running a hand through his hair, Dr noted that Lieutenant Feucht had already retreated. He was a lucky man. “Asuka,” he began, “yes, I understand that a loss of an engine is going to be an inconvenience...”

“An inconvenience!” the girl snapped. She took a breath, composing herself, her tone turning icily polite. “Are you aware, Deputy Director of Science,” she continued, “of what the loss of ten percent of my continuous operating power... and that would be gross power, not net power, because the limb sets are basically committed... are you aware of what that does to combat performance in a hot zone where there are enemy capital grade units!” Her icy politeness thawed. “I need my primary and secondary integrated weapons for the heavier hostile combat units, I have finite ammo for the Babylon which is needed for my objectives, and so, in a dense urban environment, and against the Migou, I need my LDGs!” She took a deep breath. “Now, I can understand the loss of an Engine to enemy action. But the Engine was fine!”

Wilhelm did not sigh, because that would not help the situation. And not only because the sixteen-year old before him would certainly be able to beat him up. “Yes. The Engine may have been fine. It would not have been had it melted.”

“Then I suggest that you find a way to make use of the extra capacity of the DDV13 over the DDV12, then?” Asuka replied, a sudden smirk on her face, as she tucked a wet lock of hair back. The red jumpsuit was darker, where it had been in contact with the hair. “Given that you chose not to upgrade the DEV12s when you did the DDVs.”

The man with the dirty blond hair leant back in his chair, tapping the outside of one of his control gloves, idly. “We didn’t switch to the DEV13s,” he said, in a distracted tone, “because of the fact that we couldn’t fit the extra bulk into the Eva. Organs in the way.”

“Irrelevant,” Asuka said, putting her hands on his desk. “That’s wasted capacity in my Evangelion, Dr Schauderhaft. Wasted capacity that led to me getting,” she pointed at the diagram of Unit 02, and the doctor lowed his argoggles to look at it too, “there... look at that cluster of hits, section 44ZZ, just under the right shoulderblade.” The section was lit up red, craters dug into the armour, laser defence grid melted, the pale flesh of the Evangelion scabbed over by repair systems. “I took pretty much a Wasp squadron’s worth of missiles there, and because the LDG wasn’t working at 100%, some anti-corvette missiles got through.” Her eyes were narrow. “And one hit before I could shift my AT-Field enough. I can show you the sympathetic burns,” she added, turning slightly to show him the padding of bandages under her jumpsuit. “So deal with it.”

The doctor nodded. “Yes, Asuka,” he said, wincing slightly in empathic pain. No wonder she was in a bad mood. “I’m sorry, I was waiting for the black box and the data from Gehirn to get in. I didn’t know.”

“Okay,” the girl replied, obviously slightly mollified. “In that case, I have more issues to raise, especially to do with the sluggishness in the right arm... did you shift the armour distribution there, closer to the hand? It’s bad, and there’s a sympathetic twinge in my wrist when I rotate it too fast... I think you’re stressing my Eva too much. Not the same with the left, though, and you did the same there. So either there’s asymmetry, or...”

Wilhelm raised a hand. “Asuka,” he said, in a gentle, non-confrontational voice. “You should go eat. It’s going to take us a while to read the data properly, even with Gehirn and a feed to the MAGI... they’re busy with other things, too, so we’re lower priority than normal, and we’ll be able to understand your issues once we can sort out the battle damage from any other problems.” He paused. “You did very well,” he added. “But, right now,” he could see on the AR images floating around her, from her implants, “...right now, you’ve got low blood sugar. You need to get something in your stomach, too.”

Asuka smiled weakly, relaxing slightly. “I understand, Wilhelm,” she said, face softening. “Yes. I’ve been in LCL for over fourteen continuous hours today. Because of that, decontamination was Grade Three, which isn’t fun. I took an anti-corvette missile bleedthrough to the back. Yes. I think I deserve some food, and,” she pulled a lock of hair, and squeezed it, water running down her fingers “yes, a shower which doesn’t involve UV washes.”

“We’ll probably be done with an initial report in about,” the man looked at the clock on his desk, “... two hours. Check with me, and I’ll tell you if you can come in. But... yes, food, relax,” he ordered.

“Technically, that comes under Operations, not Science,” the redhead pointed out. “I chose to comply because it is advantageous to me, not because you have the authority,” she added, with a twitch of the corner of her mouth.

“You do that,” Dr Schauderhaft said, his voice and face studiously neutral, before he smiled slightly, too. He pulled his control gloves back on, and, with a few gestures, checked how the auto-summary was doing.

With a shrug, lopsided from the presence of the bandages under her jumpsuit and the numbness in her rights side, Asuka strode out, on her way to the mess hall.

She wondered where Kaji was, what he was doing, and hoped that he had seen how good she had been today, and that, for his sake, he would have had a less painful day than she had.

Because, of course, she thought, smirking, this couldn’t really be a bad day. No day that she got to add another strategic vessel icon to Unit 02’s kill-count really could be. Sure, Drone Ships were less impressive than Swarm Ships, for all that they were larger, because they were merely heavily armoured transports, not capital ships, but still...

She threw a glance back at the grey-green, wounded shape of her precious Evangelion. Yes, another white marker for the black-painted hands of the Unit, those only bits of 02 that she was allowed to customise.

Her accomplishment.

~’/|\’~

Mass-produced N-Pop blared through the smoky bar. The computer-generated vocals were bland and uninspired, although, it should be noted, the harmonic synthesis of classical violins and the thin whistling of gladisuharmoki did merge rather well with the lead singer’s voice, especially if one’s goal was to have problems hearing anyone saying anything at all, and possibly end up with a migraine. The dark-skinned man sat back in his seat, breathing out a long, draconic coil of smoke, before sucking in another breath through his cigarette. The man sitting on the other side of the table did not react, although the slight unconscious twitch in his nostrils possibly suggested that he did not appreciate this particular brand of cigarette. If that was true, it couldn’t be seen in his carefree smile.

“... and, so, I know he knows you. I was wondering if you’d seen him recently.”

The man with the cigarette snorted, coughing. “Yeah. ‘Cause, you know, I really look like a tourist guide. Just search for him on the Grid, you know.”

The blue-shirted man shook his head. “No Grid activity apart from some one-time pad encrypted pulses. No profile checks. No movement on transit networks.” He smiled slightly. “Enough that he might be dead, and yet there’s evidence that suggests he isn’t.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes.” The man shrugged. “Of course, if you’re not going to be cooperative...”

The black man ran a hand over the top of his close-cropped head, and reached for the drink in front of him. Faster than he could do that, though, the man in the blue shirt leaned forwards, and covered the top of the drink with his palm.

“I know you saw him on the last day he appeared on any main Grid records, Alesandro,” the man said calmly, with even a faint hint of a grin. “I know he met with you in this bar. I know he was very, very worried. I know he was more than a little drunk, and had opiates in his system as well. I know he tried to get emergency transport away from here, and I know you turned him down.”

The man leaned back, and blew another cloud of smoke at the standing figure. “I know you know all these things, Mr Kaji. So, please, tell me why the GIA is interested in this man. After all, surely a vanishing like this is the affair of the FSB, or maybe the OIS, if there’s something suspect about it, not the GIA.”

“Oh, I’m merely a concerned citizen,” Ryoji Kaji said, with a slight flick of his ponytail.

“Suuu~uuure, you are,” the cigarette-smoking man replied, with a role of his eyes. “Well, you know, I can’t help you. I’ve already... hells, you already know everything I know about Charles Habegger. Yes, he was sort of floating around the base. Yes, he came to me in a panic. But, beyond that...” the man shrugged.

The GIA agent, Kaji slumped down into his seat. “I understand,” he said, in a somewhat melancholy voice. “Damn.” He shook his head. “I’ll see myself out.”

The cigarette smoking man snorted. “Yeah. You do that.” He reached into his jacket, and Kaji froze, for just a moment, hand twitching. “Want one?” he asked, proffering the packet.

“You know my virtues, Alesandro,” Kaji said with a grin, hand swooping in to take one.

“It’s pronounced ‘vices’, Kaji,” the man said, coughing. “And... now, shoo!”

Sitting back, Alesandro watched as the blue-shirted man left the building, strolling out with almost insulting casualness. With a sigh, he shook his head, and stretched his arms forwards, lit cigarette dancing a trail of bluish smoke in the air. There was a burst of swearing, as he accidentally knocked over his glass of beer, the smash as it rolled off the table loud even against the music. Pulling himself to his feet, he went in search for a cloth to clean up the mess.

An outside observer might have noticed the beer-soaked credit chit, loaded with the equivalent of two month’s salary for a senior officer, tucked in the folded skin of his hand.

Alesandro hoped that Kaji would enjoy his cigarette very much.

~’/|\’~

“She’s a prodigy; that cannot be doubted.” The man’s voice was clipped, precise, conveying information with no revelation of his personal feelings. Only the very faintest hint of his native Spanish accent crept through. “It isn’t exactly surprising; she has been in the Ashcroft ‘Children’ programme since its foundation, and was involved in its predecessor group, too, before that had to be bought to an end. That’s twelve years of active training. Even with her youth taken into account, she’s the most experienced ACXB combat pilot in NEG service currently... although heavy on the theory and simulator training, compared to an Engel pilot, who are, after all, actually front-line soldiers, and taken from the military before that. The fact remains, however, she’s been training since before there were Engels.”

The room was dark, hollow; the presence of still air could be felt above and around, even though the edges of the room could not be seen. The glowing figures of men and women, sat or standing, were not Augmented Reality projections, but were instead holographic. The speaker did not know why they chose to do that, but it was not his place to argue. The arglasses perched on his olive-coloured nose were lit in green, relevant data for his presentation which nevertheless gave him a slightly sickly cast to his features.

“... which would be why she has lasted this long,” interjected a nazzady, in a neat, pale blue suit, a hint of cynicism entering her voice. “Active field combat cannot be compared to long term training. The difference in conditions alone...”

“That is true,” the bland-looking man admitted. “I should note, however, that she has been systematically and frequently exposed to extra-normal entities under controlled circumstances throughout her life, as a part of her desensitisation training. The stress induced by such exposures was suitably mitigated, after the events.”

“And?” asked a blond man, leaning forwards, hands resting on the back of his neck. “What were the results of desensitisation?”

The first speaker nodded, instinctively tucking back a lock of black hair. “As covered, she has been an exceptional success in those regards. As it currently stands, her Instinctual Fear Responses to all the common ENEs are in the bottom two percentiles, and her Conscious Fear Responses are, although higher... as is common for the methods used on her... are eminently satisfactory. Moreover, she is nearly completely desensitised to actions against Loyalists or Blanks; her Bladdiov Empathy Value against targets identified as hostile is 0.11, plus or minus 0.03 points.”

The blond man leant back. “That is... exceptional,” he said softly. “Although... the impact on her long term psychological health?”

“Acceptable, by the standards which Ethics has set. The combination of neural plasticity, due to the youth at which the training started, along with the detachment which comes from the EFCS-2 ANW-interface, means that... well, may I speak freely, sir?”

“Yes. All the people here are cleared for whatever you know.”

“Well, in that case, Project Ngoubou has been around since the old New United Nations. And that’s before you get to our predecessor groups, because a lot of people have always been interested in how the human mind works, and why it responds to extra-normal things as it does. Herkunft, Moneta, the Army Psychological Counselling Department... they’ve all adopted some of our practices. Quite simply, the exposure to the ENEs, combined with the other practices, are repeatable, reproducible, and provide that all-important reduction in IFR scores across the board. With clearance, I can provide the proper papers, rather than have to explain it here. We know what we’re doing, and with so long to work on someone, any errors can be corrected in a way that the standard Army six month Desensitisation Programmes simply cannot.”

“Thank you,” said the nazzady. “We will take that offer up. Although,” she added, as if the idea was only just striking her, “is it not true that Project Ngoubou started as a NUN Project, from A-War 1, specifically set up to extract information from captured hostiles? Should such a group really be...”

“No, ma’am,” the bland man said, shaking his head. “The Project was merely repurposed in wartime. Specialists in extranormal, and thus, inevitably, xenobiological psychology were needed, after all, and one of the major pre-A-War tasks of the Project was building a psychological parallel to Professor Fuyutsuki’s work on ghoul physiology. When there is an ‘alien’,” the click of the inverted commas around the word was palpably audible, “species, it is inevitable that anyone of any use is called upon.”

The red-eyed woman nodded. “I see. That makes sense. I was merely curious about what I had heard about your group.”

The man shifted slightly, smart grey jacket tight against his body. “No, ma’am; we are a Project, not a Group,” he said.

She sighed. “Small ‘G’.”

“Oh, I apologise. Is there anything else, or is that all?”

“For the moment, yes,” the blond man said, his hologram vanishing, along with the others, leaving only those who were really there. The bland man who had been speaking, and a woman in her mid-twenties, shaven-headed and pale skinned, a barcode obvious against her scalp.

And as she took a few steps towards the man, there was something obviously wrong about how she moved. Maybe a stroke, maybe something else, but she stuttered and jolted, the flow of human movement inconstant and broken. A sudden burst of speed moved a leg, and then it coasted; her entire gait held by pulses of muscular motion. Her face was sweaty, and now that she got closer, the paleness did not seem to come solely from her natural appearance, but instead from some kind of nausea or sickness.

“Ma’am. I... I did not expect you to be watching. Was that deemed satisfactory?” the man asked, suddenly looking worried. “Was I not my best?”

Red spoke.

“Y-y-yessss. It... was s-s-satisfactory. I was on-ly here in a... m-m-monitoring capacity, after all. J-j-just to check that our... trust in you wasssss well pla-ced.”

~’/|\’~

“Please roll up your sleeve,” the white-clad medical orderly said. Xuan complied, wincing slightly as she looked away from the needle descending towards her arm.

The orderly smiled, his teeth sparkling white. “Don’t like the sight of your own blood, eh?” he asked, the blue light of harcontacts overlaid on his eyes as the small camera on his headgear fed him the location of her veins.

Xuan winced. “Not really,” she admitted. “I don’t like needles much. Why can’t you just use the standard scrapers for the check?”

“Because this isn’t a DNA check, Corporal. We’ve already checked that you are who you claim to be, and you haven’t picked up any gene-carried taint. This is a medical procedure, to check for other forms of contamination... also,” he added, checking the files superimposed on his eyes, “you did have a suit puncture. Can’t be too careful. After that, we’ve just got the ANI map, the nervous system tests, and the CAT scan for the neurological Blank structures, before we can send you off to Mental, for a psychological analysis.” He shook his head. “Okay, just relax and look away... it’s just a small amount of blood...”

The woman groaned, turning away. She still winced, as the needle went into her arm.

“There,” the man said, a few moments later, as he stepped over to the machinery . “That wasn’t so bad.”

Xuan merely grunted at him.

“It’s funny how people react differently,” the man said, as he drummed his fingers on the side, watching as the test sample was lowered into the bulk of the machine.

The woman swallowed. “I think it hasn’t really sunk in yet,” she said, her voice slightly muffled. “I mean... I keep on expecting to see them again.”

The man paused. “I was actually talking about people and blood tests,” he said, hastily. “I mean, there are some people who don’t mind having needles stuck into them, but go green at the thought of seeing someone else, and the opposite, and then the other mixes.”

“Oh.” Xuan forced a smile onto her face. “So... heh... what are you?”

“Me? I don’t really care. Go through med school, and any dislike of needles will be gone, you know,” the man said. “I was... well, not terrified of them, but I didn’t like them before...”

That was when the alarm sounded, the raucous squawking accompanied by red lights illuminating the white of the lab in scarlet. At the exact same moment, something rocked the seat Xuan was sitting on, an all-too-familiar thump which pulsed through her backside.

Immediately, she was down onto the ground, rolling under the bed with muscle memory which overrode consciousness. She could recognise an explosion, after all.

“What the hell!” the orderly yelled, flinching back.

Code Amber Alert! All personnel report to their stations. Evacuate Hangars 012, 013, 014, 015, 016, immediately. All personnel in proximity to those locations should ensure that they are wearing full ANaMiNBC protective gear.

And interspersed with the announcement was the emergence of a crackle of distant gunfire.

“What the fuck!” the man added, hysteria entering his tone. Pulling himself back up to a fully standing position, he rushed over to one of the green-painted cabinets in the room, and stuck his hand against the memomorph lock, fingers twitching as the skin samples were taken. The machine was evidently satisfied, as the front of the cabinet flowed away, to reveal a standard emergency cache. The man grabbed one LAR-18 carbine for himself, and, after a moment’s hesitation, tossed one of the light weapons to Xuan, who caught it smoothly.

Technically, he shouldn’t have been doing that at all. She hadn’t passed the checks run on any solider who had experienced a combat incident with Migou forces, so she wasn’t allowed to carry a weapon on base. But... hells, she wasn’t going to raise it, if he was going to throw her a gun. It would make things a lot easier if she were armed.

“I need ammo to actually use this,” she pointed out; two magazines were passed, to make it an actually-useable weapon. She could see that he was looking at her with slightly dubious eyes, weapon clutched close to him in a position such that it could be raised if it was needed, as she checked the weapon, before sliding in one of the two magazines, and prepping it.

“You know what you’re doing, yes?”

She nodded, and he could be seen to relax slightly. That didn’t comfort her much.

Xuan swallowed. “Alright... erm. Oh God, I can’t even remember your name.”

The man flashed his sparkling white teeth at her in the dimmed lighting. “Corporal Janckowski. Marek Janckowsk, Medical Corps.”

That was more information than I really needed, Xuan thought, a hint of irritation in her voice, which was quickly removed by the scream which sounded just outside the room. She clutched the rifle tighter, and internally let off a cluster of curses at the fact that this was both lacking a smartlink, and chronically underpowered, by the standards she was used to. Infantry in semi-powered armour carried weapons which would probably leave a person firing them normally with hideously bruised shoulders, if they were lucky. This... this one, a 5mm carbine, was the kind of thing that the Dagonite fish-fuckers used, and got rightfully slaughtered by a modern military force for doing so; something combat and small and which probably wouldn’t even stagger a Loyalist Papa-Alpha, even with a direct joint hit.

She could only hope that this was only an Infiltrator Blank, rather than one built for combat, or anything worse. Because if it was anywhere above baseline, or had any integral Migou weapons, then things were going to go badly for her.

Raising one hand, she gestured for Marek to wait. Reaching out with one hand, muscles aching with deliberate slowness, she rested her bare palm against the door handle. Then, taking a breath, she eased it down, pushing slightly, just enough to have it swinging freely. She gestured at Marek to cut the lights in the infirmary; it wouldn’t be a good idea to be silhouetted here, and every little advantage would count.

I wish I had my FO-cable with me, she thought, anger in her mental voice. I hate going in blind.

And with that thought, she gave the door a hard shove with her foot, keeping her back against the doorframe. Trying to expose herself as little as possible, she flowed into the room, clearing the danger of the open doorway door as fast as she could. Carbine raised, her gaze flipped between the persons decorating the interior of the antechamber, the corpses sprawled around, unarmoured figures mutilated by the ferocity of the assault, and the flickering from the cracked light above, the ceiling indented, as if something had been thrown into it. No one, no thing was standing upright in the room.

Slowly, leading her way forwards, step-by-step, Jancowski behind her, Xuan kept her gun trained on the door opposite to her. To be more precise, she kept her aim trained on where it had been, because the attack had left it splintered and shattered on the floor.

“Check them!” she ordered the man, gaze not shifting. “See for survivors.”

“Too recent for thermals,” Jancowski muttered, “don’t have heartbeat sensor with me. Triage, triage, triage.” He swallowed, the air coppery in the mess. “You... you have the doorway covered?”

“Do it!” she barked, gaze still not moving. “We might be able to save some of them.”

There was the sound of metal hitting wet meat behind her, and something thudded on the ground.

We didn’t check the bodies, Xuan thought, as she swirled, gun raised, pointed at the Blank who had its hands around the medical orderly’s throat. It was a female body, and Heavy Combat Infantry, too, but that didn’t matter now. It was a Blank. Except in the fact that the underskin armour and enhanced musculature of a HCI soldier would make things harder, and would also explain how a Blank got so far in. The rifle chattered, and she fought to keep it level, bullets punching through the unarmoured man it held as a shield and into the Blank. The desensitisation training, among other things, tried to teach you to ignore the “human hostage” reflex.

Who remained intact enough to throw Jancowski at her, the slam of his bulk bowling her to the ground and the rest of the shots spraying wide. Up above, the light shattered, casting the anteroom into the dimly-lit red of emergency lighting.

Not that it affected either of the combatants overly; both had NEG-construction Eyes, and whatever the Blank had on top of that.

Xuan groaned, and, gritting her teeth, tried to stop the world from spinning. Fuck, fuck, fuck! she thought, as she rolled out from under the bleeding corpse, and scrabbled for her empty carbine. It’s an HCI, I’m just a combat engineer. It’s faster, stronger, and more armoured than me. Any plan than involves me having to fight something like that unarmed is a bad plan. What to... urk.

Her chain of thought was suddenly interrupted, as the Blank, bleeding from multiple impacts, her skin a strangely smooth texture from the subdermal plating of a HCI, reached down, and grabbed her neck. The thing hoisted Xuan up to thrash and kick, her attempts to get. The woman could feel her spine creak and grate, agonising spikes shooting up and down her neck. Little black dots started to dance in front of her Eyes, and Xuan was suddenly aware of how little time she had.

A left heel, swung back into where she guessed the kneecap of the Blank was, managed to connect, and the reprogrammed woman staggered backwards. HCI implants didn’t have the solid plating around the joints, and so a military boot could still harm. And the combination of the mass of all the Blank’s plating, and the fact that she was trying to snap Xuan’s neck meant that they went down together. Furniture splintered as the Blank crashed down, its head impacting with a solid noise not entirely unlike a dropped bowling ball, and the Lance Corporal screamed in pain, as her ankle was crushed by the mass.

Still, she still had the empty carbine close to hand. No bullets, but any leverage was good, she thought, as she pulled herself out from under the heavy body, stress-given strength enough to push it off. Forcing the pain from her ankle away, teeth forced together in a screaming grin, she slammed the butt of the weapon into the right Eye of the Blank, rupturing the hard surface and tearing a chunk of flesh off the woman’s face, as it ricocheted off the hardened plates. The thing thrashed and writhed, so the second blow went into windpipe; armoured, yes, but still vulnerable to sufficient force. It wasn’t striking back now, just lying there, taking each blow.

Screaming, swearing, sweating, Xuan Do smashed the light carbine into the throat again and again, the lightweight plastics splintering, smeared in crimson, which suddenly went bright red when a major artery was ruptured, gushing forth from one of the flexible joints.

Xuan didn’t stop. If asked later, she would have claimed that she couldn’t be sure that this was just an Infiltrator, that it might have been a Combat Blank of some form, and thus not merely a mentally-rewired human, and so she needed to do as much damage as possible. But, to be frank, that was not what was passing through her mind.

There was a noise behind her, followed by the sharp pain of a stun baton thrust into her back. People were shouting, and the pain in her ankle was even worse. It was standard protocol; they couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t compromised, that this wasn’t some kind of Migou false-flag operation, to get them to trust one Blank for taking down another, to allow them to accomplish their objective. She was going straight for a neural scan, to see if she was a Blank. It made sense.

But as she convulsed on the floor, muscles spasming, her only rational, as opposed to pain-induced, thought was that she needed to damn well get a medal for this to be all worth it.

~’/|\’~

“Asuka?”

The reddish-blond girl, her now-dry hair swept back with the two A10 superconducting QUI Devices holding it in place, stiffened, standing to attention. “Colonel,” she said in response, turning to face the older woman. Actually, technically, she was looking down at her, but only in a physical sense; quite the opposite was true in a social sense.

Colonel Kristos followed where the girl had been looking, before her interruption. Already, the hordes of red-exosuited workers and car-sized drones which swarmed around Unit 02 had stripped away the contaminated upper layers of armour. Now, the titan stood in the chamber, almost perfectly reflective, as the layers of mirrorgloss, designed to minimise damage from the ubiquitous laser weapons of the strange aeon, were exposed to the air. In the white of the chamber, the workers were strange, distorted red shapes reflected in the war machine, the only distinction on the smooth surface being the bubbled and warped sections where the upper layers had been damaged by the action.

It was a mundane sight to anyone experienced with the necessities of maintenance.

Oxanna permitted herself a short, mono-shouldered shrug, and turned her attention back to the girl. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“A little annoyed,” Asuka admitted, after a calculating glance at the black-uniformed woman. “I made some stupid mistakes out there.”

The blond woman raised her eyebrows at that. “I was actually talking about your back... but I don’t believe you did.”

“The fact that I have,” she reached over her shoulder, to point at the region around her right shoulder blade, “this is a sign that I made a mistake. I should have done better.” She shook her head, hair flicking in a tight controlled arc. “That was too close to the entry plug. And the pilot is the primary point of failure in an Evangelion.”

“Asuka,” Oxanna said, with a small smile in her voice, “you personally took down two Drone Ships, and a capital-grade charge beam and its attached lander today. Errors are inevitable on actual battlefields, and you made few enough that they can be fixed.” She watched as the girl relaxed slightly. “Less than your opponents made, certainly,” she added.

“That doesn’t mean what I said wasn’t true,” Asuka said, blinking once, those blue Eyes staring at the Colonel. “I know I’m the best pilot there is, but the fact is, compared to the Evangelion organism or the cybernetics in the machine, anyone is weak... prone to failure.”

Colonel Kistos restrained a sigh, running a hand down the sleeve of her black uniform. “Asuka... is this about the adrenal system or neurachem modifications again?”

The girl just stared at her, a look in her eyes which seemed far too old for her sixteen-year old body.

“Those are alterations which neither the NEGA Biomorality Board, nor the Ashcroft Representative for Ethics, will sanction. You know this. You’re still maturing, and we can’t risk the endocrinal or neurological damage that might result.” She held Asuka’s gaze. “You are too valuable as a pilot now to risk that.”

“I wasn’t fast enough today,” Asuka said, flatly. “I didn’t notice the second squadron of Wasps flanking me, so I got hit. I did notice the launch, but if I’d been faster, I’d have been able to switch LDG priority back. And because of that, the Eva got damaged, I got hurt, and I lost several secondary weapons systems. My body just can’t live up to what my mind wants to do, so I need it to be better.” She put her hands on her hips. “You don’t understand. I am the best Evangelion pilot that you can get. And it still isn’t enough.”

The older woman did sigh then, adjusting her black beret. “Listen to me, Asuka,” she said. “I think you are forgetting just how exceptional your achievements are, and just how much more time you have. We... that’s the Army speaking here... don’t intend to deploy you as a proper field unit until you have a proper commission, and that won’t be until you can legally get one. Today was an emergency; I had you pulled forwards, because it was that, or risk a breakthrough at Nova Kakhovka. And,” her face softened slightly, “I know there have been emergencies in the past as well, and live fire combat tests, but you are not a field-active pilot at the moment. You are a Test Pilot for the first Mass Production model of a series of experimental arcanocyberxenobiological combat units. And you are amazing at it.”

She could see the girl’s jawline tighten slightly, before loosening again, breaking into a confident smile. “I can be sure you mean that, Oxanna,” Asuka said. “I know you’d tell me if I wasn’t good enough.”

“... and have, in the past,” the older woman said.

“Which is why I can trust you with these things,” Asuka agreed. “Not like that idiot Malvolio,” she added, in a darker voice. “Always telling me that I’m ‘good enough’. No one can ever be ‘good enough’; you always, always can do better. I can’t tell if he’s someone’s sycophant, or just an idiot.”

There was a pause, as they watched the teams strip away one of the empty seeker launchers, its rails utterly warped and melted by an impact from a Migou plasma weapon.

“Could be both,” Oxanna suggested.

“Good point,” Asuka said, with a smirk.

“She’s right, you know,” a voice said from behind the pair, making them both jump slightly. “Not about Captain Martello, because as a neutral observer I cannot...” and that was about as far he got, before he had to save his breath for dodging a ballistic sixteen-year old, and her guided hug. Deploying countermeasures such as a worried look proved to be eminently ineffectual, and he was finally forced to mitigate the damage by keeping the embrace chaste, and brief. It would be rude to try to dodge it with his full capacities, after all; the girl would be offended, and that would just be unnecessarily mean.

“Didn’t you see what I did today!” Asuka asked the newcomer, her voice suddenly a lot more girlish. “Wasn’t I amazing?”

Ryoji Kaji smiled, and stepped back, disentangling one of her limbs as he did. “I’ve only looked over the reports, but, yes, Asuka, you did very well.” The man from the Global Intelligence Agency turned, and smiled at the Colonel. “Debriefing her, are you, Oxanna?”

“That’s largely been done already, Ryoji,” Colonel Kristos said back, matching his smile.

The man frowned. “I have to say, I just thought it was going to be a training exercise today,” he admitted, raising his eyebrows at the military woman.

“So did I,” admitted Oxanna. “And that was what it was meant to be. I had to move Unit 02 up from 2501 to Nova Kakhovka because otherwise we’d have had a line collapse. The bugs managed to take out one of the anti-cap lasers there, and... well, you know the rest.”

He knew the rest.

“So, did you do anything exciting, today?” Asuka asked him, still holding onto one of his hands. “Hunt down and kill a horde of Dagonite cultists, or maybe thwart the evil goals of a traitor to humanity? Did you use any good one-liners as you shot anyone?” Her eyes were sparkling.

Kaji sighed. “Honestly, no. I’m not a field agent anymore, as I have told you. Most of my job involves paperwork. Although...” he stroked his unshaven chin, “perhaps you would be interested in my valiant bravery against a most dreadful foe.”

“Sure!”

Oxanna rolled her eyes. “Why not? Although, if this turns out to be the story of the black-and-white-armoured pilot in the black-and-white Blizzard... well, I do have a loaded gun.”

The man’s face fell, in a comic overreaction. “Well, looks like the nice lady from the Army has just de facto classified my work,” he said.

“Oh, well,” said Asuka, a sly smile creeping onto her face. “Well, that’s a shame. I suppose we should go home now, because I’ve done pretty much everything I need to, haven’t I, Oxanna?”

The Colonel nodded. “I think that’s fine,” she said, Eyes flicking for a moment, as she checked her PCPU. “Yes. Be careful with her,” she told Kaji, in a warning tone, “she took sympathetic burns from ordinance to the back of Unit 02. The medichines managed to stabilise them in-plug, and they’ve been treated, but...”

Kaji nodded, face momentarily serious, before he smiled again. “I’ve got the car outside, Asuka,” he said. “We can leave now, if you want?”

The girl considered it. “Can we get something to eat on the way home?” she asked. “I needed a Level 3 Decontamination, and so... well, I’ve eaten since then, but there’s a lot of eating to make up for.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll never end up fat, if that keeps on happening.”

“Yeah.” The man paused. “Actually,” he admitted, “I’m kinda hungry too. I had to skip lunch. Where do you want to go...”

~’/|\’~

The table in the apartment was heaped with plastic containers. Within these mounds could be seen rice, noodles, and all sorts of protein and woven vegetable substitute floating in various sauces. The iridescent colours of this alchemical mess would have driven ancient peoples into awe, at such wonder and light in the world. Also, there were prawn crackers.

They were having Chinese.

“Don’t take all the egg-fried rice,” Kaji warned Asuka, who was shovelling it from the container to her plate in vast amounts.

Her eyes momentarily narrowed, before returning wide and innocent. “But, Kaa~aaji,” she said, flicking her head slightly, “I was piloting today, and had to go through decontamination. You know that always makes me feel like I haven’t eaten in ages. I’m actually really, really hungry... and, yes, I know I’ve already eaten, but one meal isn’t enough.”

“I know,” the man said, “but, just try not to take it all. I like it, too. I mean, no one’s touched the chicken chow mein yet.”

She screwed up her face. “Not in the mood for that.”

“You normally like it.” That was said in a joking tone.

A shrug, followed by a wince, as a jolt of pain came from the sympathetic burn on her back.

“That reminds me,” Kaji said. “I got you a present.” He watched as her eyes lit up at that remark.

“What is it?” Asuka asked, with a hint of hunger in her voice. “Although, of course, you really shouldn’t have,” she added, hastily. “But what is it? What is it?”

“I managed to get you the action-reports from the Harbinger-4 incident,” the man said in a deliberately casual tone, before biting into a prawn cracker. For all her talents, Asuka really wasn’t that good at feigning disinterest.

“Thank you, Kaji,” she said, in what he was pretty sure could accurately be described as a squeal. She leant forwards, and he resolutely kept his eyes upwards. “What can I do to repay you?” Asuka said, in what he thought was meant to be a seductive tone. From his perspective, it was a failure.

“You can pass me the soy sauce,” he suggested, watching the faint flicker of disappointment warring against the ecstasy, before being resolutely crushed.

“Well,” the reddish-blond girl said, as she passed the aforementioned condiment, “thank you. A lot. Really.” Her hand hovered over her own plate for a moment.

Kaji smiled. “Yes, Asuka, you can go watch them right now.” He dug a hand into his pocket, and withdrew a storage chip. “It’s locked, so you can’t copy it, and... well, you know how classified everything Eva-related is.”

“Understood,” Asuka nodded, picking up her plate, and adding a few more things to it for good measure. “If you’ll excuse me...”

“You are excused,” Kaji said, gravely, his face twisted into a grotesque mask of ‘reasonable authority figure’. It looked rather comic on him. He shook his head, as Asuka disappeared into the next room.

It took less than an hour, as he cleaned up the table (there had been several distracting calls from his superiors, so the last parts of the meal had been cold), for the laughter to start. And it wasn’t nice laughter; he could hear the contempt dripping from it. Depositing the plates in the sink, he poked his head into the living room.

Augmented Reality interface before her, Asuka was working her way through the autocensored footage from Unit 01 and surrounding units. At the moment, she had the same image of Unit 01, from multiple angles paused. With a finger poke, she set it to play again.

On the screen before him, from multiple angles, the grey-blue figure of Unit 01 fired its Babylon in one hand. The structural diagram to her right, complete with flashing red, showed the consequence of that decision, as fractures propagated up the

“Useless,” Asuka proclaimed, mirth fighting with superiority. “What an idiot.”

“Really?” Kaji asked. From his point of view, it had looked fairly impressive.

There was almost a faint hint of pity in the stare she directed at him, quite unlike her normal interactions with him, before her normal exterior returned. “Yes. Complete and utter idiot.” She shook her head, hair whipping behind her. “Seriously, what kind of an imbecile tries to fire a Babylon with one hand, and hasn’t even grasped the concept of bracing yourself with your AT-Field?” She paused. “Well, this Third Child, obviously. Mein Gott, I can’t believe he passed the handling tests to even qualify. I mean... arggh! It’d be like trying to fire a man-sized rifle without bracing it.” The disgust on her face was evident. “If someone like him is piloting... they must be desperate. Or stupid. Facility 0343 needs to get Unit 03 ready, so someone competent can pilot, even if they have to ship them all the way from Australia.”

“And yet he’s managed to eliminate two Harbinger-level threats,” Kaji pointed out, mildly.

“Hardly,” Asuka snapped. “Asherah; he lost control, and the Eva did it. And Eshmun... that doesn’t count as a kill! The Army and Navy had already blown it in half. That’s... that’s like half a kill, at most.” She crossed her arms. “And he should lose points for getting so damaged both times.”

“So there’s a point system now?”

“There should be!”

The man stroked his chin. “Aren’t you a little harsh on him, Asuka?” he asked.

“Hardly! I’d say, the problem with him is that whoever’s been responsible for his training hasn’t been harsh enough. I mean, he’s my age, so he’s had...” she paused, “well, this Third Child obviously started after Berlin-2, so he’s had maybe eight years training. Now, that’s still less than me, but... it’s inexcusable to be this bad!”

“Asuka...” the man began, trying to prevent the rant.

She ignored him. “I-I-I’m glad I’m here on the Front,” she continued. “I never want to pilot with someone that useless. Look at him! An utter lack of control! I bet he’s still utterly reliant on the control yokes for memophysical association! What a crude, bumbling idiot.” She was almost spluttering. “I’m actually offended that someone like that is allowed in a masterpiece like an Evangelion, even one as crude as the Test Model!”

Internally, Kaji sighed. He actually couldn’t tell her the truth. The identity of the Third Child was still classified; all Asuka was allowed to know was his age, and sex. And... actually, the GIA agent didn’t understand why the age wasn’t classified for the other Children, too. Probably some mistake when sealing his file, was his opinion. The whole misunderstanding over how long the Third Child had been training was something he was going to raise with the Evangelion people. It wasn’t healthy to promote misunderstandings, the spy thought with deliberate irony.

“He does have a very good Synch Ratio,” he pointed out.

“And I’m sure that if Evangelion piloting was all about that one number, he’d be the biggest, bestest pilot ever,” the girl snapped. “Oh, wait, no. Mine is still better. So, just to clarify, I’m the best pilot in a technical, synchronisational, tactical, and strategic sense, and am also in the best Evangelion.” She snorted. “Well, at least they have their priorities right there. It’d be worse if that idiot was in my Unit 02.”

Kaji frowned. She did seem to be actively offended by this stuff about the Third Child and Unit 01; probably the idea of a competitor at all, he thought.

Out loud, he said, “Well... um, Asuka, I’ve just has a call. I’m needed in the office, some new data’s come in over the Migou response to what you did today, and I need to check it out. Will you be okay?”

“If I don’t die of laughter first,” she said, rolling her eyes. “No, I’ll be fine. But be back soon, and maybe we can watch the rest of this together.”

“Maybe,” the man replied, his face deliberately blank.

The schadenfreude-rich laughter resumed as he left.

~’/|\’~

Her uniform was already hanging up neatly. The smart fabric didn’t crease, after all, but it was still a good idea to leave it like that. The dark-green shorts and black top, the entopic image of a white hand flowing and shifting over the surface of the material, were, by contrast, worn-in and comfortable, soft fabric not designed for any kind of formality.

In Colonel Oxanna Kristos’ opinion, her current position here at Facility 2501, assigned by Anton as the Army supervisor of this sub-facet of the Evangelion Group, as they couldn’t trust the officers seconded to the Foundation fully, was a rather nice one. It was, in fact, almost a bit of a break, compared to the last time she had been dragged off to handle an operation. What had happened in Balleydehob had been... messy.

By contrast here, the most she had to deal with was deployment issues, logistics, and the work from Slavik which she could do remotely. The Evangelion team ran most of the day-to-day affairs, and so she was very much looking in, rather than involved in the day to day affairs.

Perhaps that was why she had started to interact with Test Pilot Soryu more. It really shocked Oxanna how little attention some of the Evangelion team paid to her. Personally, she had put it down to the length of time they had known her; they still looked at her as a little girl. Despite the fact that this “little girl” was, apart from having far more potential in her little finger than some of the engineering staff had in their entire bodies, also walking around at the age of sixteen with a degree in the Natural Sciences. In fact, the only reason she had not moved onto the Arcane Sciences was the fact that it was not permitted, at her age, to do so, which was a controversial decision with her, to say the least. And the fact that she had that known association with the head of the Achtzig Group... well, Oxanna had spent time around the man, and it showed. Oh God, it showed. So, yes, she had effectively begun to mentor the girl, who had instinctively responded, opening like a flower (albeit one with lots of thorns) in response.

Of course, such an association came with fringe benefits...

That was when the house LAI informed her of a visitor.

Checking that her pistol was still in place, she went to the door. Really, though, she thought, the pistol won’t do much. If something that’s trying to kill me can get past the blood checks, the CATSEYE scans, the wards, the neural scans, they’re probably prepared enough that a 10mm won’t do much.

Something ran the bell. Checking the camera and the CATSEYE, she nodded to herself, and stepped up to the door.

No one.

She looked to her left, and then right, up and down the corridor.

Still no one.

“Who are you looking for?” a confused-sounding man asked. A certain blue-shirted unshaven individual was leaning against the wall, to her left.

“Goddamnit, Ryoji,” she swore, flinching. “Don’t do that.”

“You always look left first,” he explained. “So I just stepped around you. It’s not hard. Especially if you’re very fast.”

“It’s not hard? You’re very fast?” She left a deliberate pause. “Then why are you here?”

The man winced, “I walked into that one,” before shrugging. “Well, anyway, I bought you some flour,” he said, holding a white bag. “Well, I couldn’t find any flowers, and I thought that, given it’s pronounced the same...” He put it down on the table, smirking at her.

“You’re late,” she said, trying to both raise an eyebrow and not laugh, while at the same time taking off her top. It was surprisingly hard to multitask like that, especially when he got up close and did that to her ear.

There wasn’t much talking after that.

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

~’/|\’~

26th September, 2091


She stood on a tarmac road. She could feel the material, heated in the height of summer, suck slightly at her shoes, whenever she stopped, and so kept on moving. She had to keep on moving.

It was hot. Sweltering. She couldn’t understand why anyone would want to be outside here.

And yet she was surrounded by dark-robed figures, veiled and masked, a legion trudging on foot as one vast, collective organism. They were giants as to her, figures that towered above her. One was holding her hand, clutching it tight, and, she realised, half-leading, half-pulling her along with the crowd.

“Was passieren?” she asked, confused. She didn’t know, and it was confusing her. No. That wasn’t quite true. She knew, but she’d forgotten. She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t even remember remembering. But she could remember remembering that she remembered, and that was enough to tell her that something terrible was happening.

The looming figure above her stopped, and glanced down, a hint of green light visible under the hood, casting the dark material in a viridian light, before it looked away, and continued pulling her away.

There was a grittiness in the air. She could feel it, horribly dry, horribly itchy, sucking at her skin like some swarm of infernal insects. Moving her fingers of her free hand as she was pulled along, her palm felt like sandpaper.

There were guardians by the side of the road; tall, taller even than the giants in the crowd, and far more bulky, bearing their weapons in grey hands. She began to count the glimpse of their helmets she could see over the top of the masked and robed throng, eins, zwei, drei... If any of the crowd tried to leave the road, they would push them back onto the path. If any stumbled and tripped in the march along this baking road, pairs of the guardians would step onto the road ... vier, fünf... and take the fallen. She didn’t know where they were taking them, and any questions she asked of the robed figure with her at most gained her a stare, and the same hint of green light from under the deep hood, before the march continued.

... sechs, sieben, acht, neun...

She couldn’t stop the march. It was going to happen, one way or another. All she could do was try to stay upright, and stay with the giant who clutched her hand.

Another fall. ... zehn, elf... Another one taken.

In the distance, far behind her, something began to scream, ancient, horrid, and yet horrifically young; a mechanical rise and fall which rose until her teeth vibrated, the sensation dropping just as the sound did until she could feel it in her gut. She wanted to turn to see what it was, but she now knew that she had been told not to look back. She couldn’t look back. She would be in a Lot of trouble if she did, she thought with a sudden giggle.

The crowd, the pilgrimage, only picked up its pace.

...zwölf, dreizehn, vierzehn, fünfzehn...

And that was when it happened. The first sign was the sudden white light which lit the giants from behind, and cast deep, dark, hungry shadows on the road in front of them. There was a sudden wash of heat, extreme even in the already baking temperatures of the height of summer, and she screamed in terror and pain, as did the robed and masked giants that surrounded her. And then came the noise, a terrible booming thunder to go with the flash of sun-lightning.

She looked back.

The pillars of light erupted from the great city, devouring its pyramids and consuming those pilgrims which had not gotten far enough away. The wrath of the heavens came for all alike.

Screaming in pain, clutching the rods of agony into her skull which she had once called eyes, she fell to the ground.

And strong hands closed around her feet and her arms, and carried her off.

...sechzehn, siebzehn...

Asuka Langley Soryu awoke, streaming with sweat. The acrid scent of terror filled the room, the hint of red light from the nightlight plugged in at the end of the room enough to cast the place in striations of crimson and black, but not enough to banish the shadows which lurked at the edge of vision, even to her eyes.

Arching her back, sticking her chest into the air (and suddenly feeling a hint of welcome cool, for the covers had evidently slid off in the night), she took a deep, shuddering breath, and let it out slowly. The gauze bandages, sealed over the sympathetic burns from the missile, were a patch of warmth, tight against her inflamed skin. Slowly, slowly, her spine lowered itself back into the hollow in the mattress, and she scrambled for the light at her bedside table.

In the soft glow, Asuka stared up at the ceiling. Then, with an effort, she swung her legs out of bed, to sit upright. No longer lit in red, it had the identical feel of so many military-type accommodations. Identical feel, and identical structure; this was a standard room design. In a sense, although she had only been here for a week, for the training at 2501 which had turned into... into what had happened today. No, what had happened yesterday, now, she realised, glancing over at the clock. She shook her head, an exhausted gesture of annoyance at how distracted she was feeling. Yes, despite the fact that she had only been here for a week, the ceiling was so utterly familiar that even the smallest quirks of design were known.

Clumsily, with stiff-feeling fingers, the girl peeled off her soaked top, the slight chill of the night air against her wet flesh a reassuring feel. Taking the drier front, Asuka dried herself off against it, further. She might as well feel more comfortable, as the top was already ruined for sleeping in, at least this night. Scrunching the sodden garment into a ball, she hurled it into the laundry basket, bouncing it in off the wall.

If one were to look at the contents of the plastic basket, one might see identical garments forming geographic strata of disturbed nights.

Asuka shivered slightly, and crossed her arms in front of her, before uncrossing them again. Why did she care about that? Either Kaji was home, and he might get a look at her wonderful body, or he wasn’t, and she didn’t need to care. Either way, there was nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, yes, after all, Nazzadi culture, insofar as one could refer to one culture, rather than a vast and complex noosphere of experimental memeplexes, didn’t have a nudity taboo, and if he did get a look at her, she could just say that she was emulating the cultural practices of Homo sapiens nazzadi.

It would probably be more convincing if she didn’t smell of hot and dampness and fear. And, always, underneath everything, the scent of LCL. It never came out, not really. Not when it was being swallowed and taken in through the lung walls and through the tear ducts and through anything exposed. There was a reason the plug suits were sealed at the neck, after all. It just diffused into the body, and stayed there. The injections and the scrubbers and the medichines and the UV-washes and the denaturing agents and the... and the everything did their best.

Their best wasn’t good enough. She could always, always smell it in her sweat. Just a hint, normally, but in these terror-filled nighttimes, it was notable to people who didn’t spend time around it, a recognisable tang of metal and blood and something to the air. Bed coverings didn’t last long with her.

She licked her forearm.

God, she could even taste it.

Sagging forwards onto her lap, Asuka stared down at the green carpet. She just wanted to sleep. It was true that she only needed about five or so hours, and could cope on less; a gift of what her grandmother had had done to her mother. It still wore her down, to live like this. Physiologically, she would be able to operate fine. Psychologically, the reddish-blond girl always wanted more sleep. That had to wait, though, as she’d feel even worse in the morning if she didn’t shower before putting on a fresh top.

But before that, there was the necessity to write down what she could remember of the dream. Her psychologist insisted on it; a problem made worse by the fact that all the dream suppressants they had tested on her interfered with the synchronisation process. Or, in one case, caused a violent allergic reaction, which had almost put her in a coma.

Which made them not an option.

Clumsily, she reached for the PCPU on her bedside table, without looking, gaze still locked on her pale feet and the green carpet which they rested on. By touch, she turned it on, and only then did she drop it between her feet, as she composed her thoughts, trying to ensure that she could record everything.

~’/|\’~

“Ryoji?”

Two naked bodies, entwined together.

“Hmm?”

“You’re good at this.”

“Hmm.” His tone was rather self-satisfied.

“Just one thing.”

“Hrhmm?”

“Shave, man!” Oxanna propped herself up on her elbows, mussed blond hair hanging loose around her face. “For... mmmrph... for fuck’s sake, shave! Stubble is not good.”

~’/|\’~

In the cold, harsh white light of the bathroom, Asuka stared at her reflection. Few would have recognised the Second Child, the confident, assertive, almost-arrogant prodigy, with her face grey with fatigue, hair soaked in sweat.

The faint scent of LCL was making her slightly hungry.

There was a hiss of water, as she turned on the tap, grabbing a pink mug from beside the basin. She filled the cup, and took a gulp, before spewing it all out, and unleashing a blister of profanity. The water went into the sink, and the tap was switched to “Cold”, before the process was repeated.

“Who the hell leaves the tap on ‘Hot’, anyway?” Asuka angrily muttered to herself. It was a brief outburst which would have been far more recognisable as the face she wore to the outside world to an outside observer, before the cold brightness of the light and the dull grey of her exhaustion snuffed it out.

The gush of water was a momentary distraction. The splash of the cold, as the jet hit the plane surface against her skin was a sudden chill quite unlike that of sweat, and Asuka flinched away, hairs already standing on end. She didn’t really have to clean herself down now, did she? She could just sleep like that, just sleep, and do it in the morning. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that, would there?

Yes. There would be. She forced her cupped palms into the water, and splashed it over her face, massaging the water in. And then, because it really was cold, she turned around and grabbed the nice dark red dressing gown, a birthday present from Uncle Cal a few years ago, and wrapped herself in the fluffy warmth. It was only as she turned back to the mirror that she sighed. This was going to have to go in the wash, for sure. She liked this dressing gown, and didn’t want to see it ruined. And a replacement just wouldn’t be the same, for all that it would have the same structure.

Automatically, unthinkingly, she cleaned her hands, carefully scrubbing at them with soap and the nail brush. Then, with slow deliberateness, she looked down at her hands. Fine, delicate fingers, the nails cut short and, on the left hand, a little bit bitten. Asuka reminded herself that she’d have to go get some new ones, soon. Long nails were completely impractical for a plug suit, and tended just to get broken (sometimes messily) if they got too long, but it was nice sometimes, just for an afternoon, before her next synch test, to get to show them off. Before she had to trim them down, the synthetic keratin discarded, to be recycled. Just like everything else in her life.

With equal slowness, she raised her right index finger, and jabbed herself in the eyeball. She did not even blink.

The smooth, inorganic hardness of an Eye met her questing finger. As always. Just as every time she did it.

Good.

They might be able to make them look real, but they weren’t real to the touch. The surface was hard, solid, quite unlike the squishiness of the jelly-filled eyeball she had been born with. The retina was engineered for efficiency and effectiveness, quite unlike the haphazard ministrations of Darwin. They gave above and beyond peak-human clarity of vision, quite apart from the other tweaks incorporated from nature, from Nazzadi, avian and mantis-shrimp alike.

She had had them for so long, since just before her ninth birthday, periodic upgrades necessary to adjust for her growth. And that made them her eyes. Not the ones she had been born with. Her Eyes. Not anyone else’s.

She ran her finger under the eyelid, around the point where the Eye fused with her rebuilt skull. The eye socket was a weakness, an entry point, and, in more technical matters, they needed somewhere to anchor the heavily rebuilt, only partially organic sensory organ. Asuka could feel the difference between pseudo-flesh and flesh, feel the transition from conventional bone to the vat-grown variant that edged the Eye. Removing her finger, she cleaned it off, under the running water.

Yes. A shower. Good. No, Kaji might be asleep. I don’t want to wake him. If he’s here.

I could always go check...

Slowly, carefully, she placed one naked foot after another, making her way without sight (not that the low light levels were a problem for her) through the familiar corridors of the standardised housing. The carpeting under her feet was warm, even if it was a little hard, and perhaps wearing thin in places from the roughness. She placed one hand on his door, to push it open.

Asuka then paused, and tweaked her dressing gown, such that an almost indecent amount of cleavage was showing.

Through the open door, she could see that the bed was untouched, the neat sheets obviously unslept in. Again.

If she cried as she showered, alone in this empty house, then it was lost in the torrent of warm water.

~’/|\’~

As it turned out, Lance Corpral Xuan Do was actually going to be getting a medal. In fact, she was going to be getting more than one. There would be the standard White Laurel of Bravery, because she had managed to acquire a broken ankle in the fight, as well as the fact that her neck was in a cast. But she was also going to be getting the Kanala Seal, for “Valorous Deeds While Unequipped For Combat.”

The morning light, streaming in through the east-facing windows of the surface hospital, was warm; they’d moved her far enough back that there wouldn’t be any of the emfog clouds, legacies of previous battles, to cast the world into silver-lit greyness. The sight from the window was less pleasing. The Blank, the Infiltrator that she’d killed, had not been working alone. And they had succeeded in their missions, at least partially. They’d managed a lot more than putting her in here, and killing all those people in the anteroom. The wreckage of Hangars 013 and 014 were visible, the fires extinguished, but the wreckage clear to see. The bugs had managed to compromise a repair technician, she’d heard, and the damage that had caused was evident. Only one wall of Hangar 013 was still standing; the rest was just rubble, while Hangar 014 was riddled with worm-like holes around which the building had run like wax. The recovery vehicles, hauling away damaged mecha and tanks, were still trying to extract as many assets as they could, in case the Migou attacked again.

Still, it could have been worse for the NEG. If they’d managed to get access to large amounts of explosives...

Cutlery clinked, as Xuan hungrily devoured the nutrient broth that was her breakfast. Her left hand was lay beside her, bandaged and in a cast; she had managed to fracture two fingers, as well as break her ankle, and it was numb through the targeted painkillers. At least she hadn’t broken anything in her right hand, as well. She’d have been useless if both hands were incapacitated like this.

Finishing up her bowl, she stared up at the ceiling, and told the LAI monitoring her that she’d finished. It took only a short while for a nurse to show up, to collect the waste.

He was kind of cute, too. Nicely built, square-jawed, very green eyes...

“How are you feelingly, Lance Corporal?” he asked her, as he picked up the tray, and added the pile on his trolley. He glanced sideways at the machine. “You seem to be doing well.”

Xuan shrugged. “I’ve had worse.” A smile crept onto her lips. “I’ve had worse in training, actually.”

The young man winced. “Really?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yep. Fell off a wall, managed to break my leg.” The woman paused. “You can check my record. I always throw everything I can into doing things. It’s something you should always do, live for the moment. Don’t you agree?”

Inwardly, Xuan groaned. That had been a really, really bad pseudo-pass at him. God, the painkillers must be affecting her more than she thought they were. With luck, he wouldn’t have...

The man raised one eyebrow at the remark. “I’m sorry, Lance Corporal, I do have a boyfriend.”

Damn. He noticed. And is in a relationship. And prefers men. Why me? She managed to stifle the outwards manifestation of her annoyance, though, and smiled weakly. “I had to try.”

The man shrugged. “Well, I think I’ll interpret it as a compliment. But... hang on a moment,” he said, raising one finger to an ear, his left Eye lighting up to show that it was actively intercepting his vision. “Yes?” He paused. “Yes, sir. I’m actually there at the moment... yes.” Another pause, longer. “Really? Understood, I’ll inform her.”

Xuan made a curious noise.

“Um... well, I don’t know exactly how to put this, Corporal Do, but...” the man paused. “Wait a moment, that’s a lie. I do know how to put this. You’ll be getting a visit from Marshal Hassan in a few minutes.”

Xuan turned chalk white. “R-r-really? M-m-marshal Hassan, while I’m still in hosp...” She paused, and shook her head. “I didn’t expect that,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face.

The nurse smiled. “Well, he’s visiting the victims of last night’s attack on the base, and, well,” the corners of his eyes crinkled up, “well, you did manage to kill the one Blank which made a break into the base, rather than military assets. I heard they think may have been part of an assassination thing... you know, going for commanders, before it got caught in the lockdown. Of course he was going to want to meet with you,” the man said with increasing enthusiasm. “You’re a hero.”

“Oh... yes. That makes sense,” Xuan said, slowly. “Just bad luck me and all those people happened to be in the same section as it.”

The green-eyed man nodded, more seriously, the smile gone. “Yes. Indigo Blanks are very hard to detect, and... well, you did what you had to do,” he said, seriously.

Xuan nodded. “What I had to,” she said slowly. “I just wish I could have got it before it killed all those people.”

A stomp of heavy boots, and the slow, crushing steps of Centurion powered armours in the high and wide corridor spoke of the arrival of the senior officer. Taking up position by the door and by the window, the grey-armoured figures were alert, scanning the exits and windows. Compared to all this elaborate security, the Marshal himself was just another man; shaven-headed, with aristocratic, even pharaonic features and high cheekbones. His dark eyes matched his neat uniform.

“Room is secure, sir,” reported a mechanical voice through the speakers of the armour. “We’ve got all exits covered, and windows were already set to opaque.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” said Marshal Hassan, with a nod of his head. He took several steps into the room, coming to a stop at the end of Xuan’s bed. “Lance Corporal,” he said, his accent, from his childhood in the slums of old Cairo before the First Arcanotech War, still prominent, “congratulations.”

“Th-thank you, sir,” Xuan said, stuttering.

The shaven-headed man looked down at the injured woman. A small, slightly superior smile crept onto his lips. “Really, Corporal Do, you can relax a little. I don’t expect you to stand at attention. That would be a little hard in your current condition, for one.”

Xuan’s laughter was nervous, and overloud. She winced. “Sorry, sir,” she said, her face pale. “It’s just... well, I didn’t expect to get a chance to meet someone like you... um... to have you visiting my hospital bed... um, okay, now I’m babbling.”

The smile was somewhat paternalistic. “Actually, Corporal, I’ve had a look at your file.” He pulled up a chair, and sat down, by the side of her bed, on her left. “Well... what to say? You managed to survive the loss of the rest of your squad, held out against both Migou and Loyalist forces while keeping hidden enough that they didn’t find you, and managed to provide vital observational data. That alone would be impressive. Then, before you’d even cleared checks, you managed to take down, while unarmoured, a Heavy Combat Infantrywoman who’d been Blanked, by... well, by beating her to death with a rifle butt.”

Xuan blushed. Put like that, it did sound rather ridiculous, almost contrived. A look of embarrassment on her face, she massaged her right Eye with her palm. “I was just doing my job, sir,” she said. Then, with one precise, quick motion, she punched Marshal Hassan in the unarmoured thigh.

The man barely had time to look shocked, before the nerve agent in his bloodstream hit his brain. It was quick. The tiny carbon-fibre syringes, which had been hidden in her standard-issue light underskin bioweave, couldn’t carry much, nor could much be hidden without the NEG finding it, but the rigid hair-like fibres now sticking out of her knuckles still had enough to kill one man in less than ten seconds.

“Just doing my job,” Xuan Do said.

~’/|\’~

“Movement!” The tone was alert, concerned. “Camera 12, north. Looks like... yes, it’s a Dragonfly.”

There was a slight shudder among the troops. The Dragonfly classes may have different from example to example, but they were always shockingly fast fliers, with superlative stealth systems. The ideal scouts, in fact.

“Do!” the leader of Charlie Fireteam, the other half of her squad, ordered over the radio, “get those AA-Hornets set up!”

“Alpha-one’s operational,” she replied, checking the status on her casecreen, “and alpha-two is being loaded right now.” She paused. “We’ve got four Spada up, too.”

“Good. Make sure you tag’em into the Foxtrot-Oscar network when you’re done. Over and out.”

That was when the booming announcement resounded, the echoes shaking dust from the walls

“Surrender,” it said, calm and impassive, eminently reasonable. “We offer you a chance to surrender. Just surrender, and accept our entirely reasonable demands. There are much worse things out there than us, and we shall protect you from them. That is what we have done for billions of your years, and that is what we shall continue to do. Be not afraid.”

“Sanginoji progogandi,” muttered Rereny, next to her, in her irritation applying the grammatical rules of Nazzadi to an English word.

Xuan paused. Yes, that was it. She had her provisional instructions.

Eliminate all witnesses if possible, then prepare for additional instructions.

“Baguna, Nahuel, you’re on overwatch. Maintain radio silence until you have positive contact,” she ordered. “Rereny, you’re with me. Cover me while I check the feed.” The rest of her squad moved to obey.

Pulling out her casescreen, already connected up to her AICS, she opened up the control window, with codes that she shouldn’t have known, and turned back on the full-integration networking. Which absolutely, completely, utterly should not have been active when facing the Migou, and their superlative grasp of technology.

A coordinate was quickly put into an insecure datafeed, and then, before the artillery strike had even hit Charlie Fireteam, summoned in precisely on the cache they were preparing, she was up.

“Behind you!” she gasped at Rereny, her own rifle already raising, and as the woman turned, she shot her in the back of the head, a cluster of three bullets at point blank range. Settling back down, rifle aimed at the door, she took a deep breath, and controlled her voice.

“Baguna, Nahuel, get here,” she ordered, the measured tone of a NCO deliberately underlain with a hint of hysteria. “Rereny is down, needs medical assistance!”

The cautious movement through the ruins, to get to her position, was designed to make them harder targets for any snipers. All it did was meant that they were moving slower, and thus they were easier targets. The seeker took Nahuel in the chest, the explosive charge smearing him over the walls. Baguna was knocked out by the blast, bleeding from multiple puncture wounds in his SP-armour. Another cluster of bullets to the head finished him off.

Yes. Good. It was now clear.

“Operative in place,” she said, rattling off her identification code into the unsecured link. “Security is maintained. Requesting briefing.”

The voice was sibilant, thin, whispering.

Good it said. We now have access to your Armour Internal Command System. Necessary data alteration has been performed. Stand by for instructions.

~’/|\’~

“How... how, I would like to ask you, did a fucking Blank manage to get past all those scans to be able to get far enough in to be able to take out a fucking Marshal!” Colonel Oxanna swore, pacing up and down in the observation chamber. “I am going to be bringing in so many fucking internal investigators that people won’t be able to take a step without getting probed!”

Agent Kaji, in his role as the local representative of the Global Intelligence Agency looked up from his PCPU, face grim. “Because I’m beginning to suspect that she wasn’t a Blank. Even before we get back the results from the trawl. Just a common , garden-variety traitor. Mind changed through persuasion... not even trauma, that leaves characteristic mental patterns which a trawl, or if she were ever pulled in for a deep scan, might get.” He shook his head. “So much harder to catch, and...”

“... and we have a tendency to neglect that possibility, because of how we know Blanking works,” continued a female GIA agent with coffee-coloured skin, somewhat more neatly dressed than her co-worker. “That is to say, how we know that it works; Blanks can’t be turned or compromised or feel regrets... unless it serves their objectives, of course... unlike someone who just chose to work for the Migou. So we’re more scared of it. But these damn Migou operatives, they’re trained not to think about what they’re doing. Even a surface sweep from a trawl, or a parapsychic mind-reader won’t catch them.”

“Three-hundred-and-seventeen LITAAI subroutines were dedicated to an analysis of her background, as directed,” reported COEUS, its ARvatar suddenly appearing, and making several people in the room jump. “Attempting to correlate relationships, to build up who subject’s cell is. The report is now complete.”

“Thank you, COEUS,” Colonel Oxanna said, her tone clipped. “Forwards the results to the GIA, EuroHighCom, C2, and to Vice Marshal Slavik.”

“Understood, Colonel.” The virtual ‘presence’ of the TITAN departed.

“You really think we’ll get back anything meaningful?” a man in a white coat asked, one eyebrow raised. “You know how the bugs like their operational security.”

Kaji winced. “It could have been worse. Could have been another Anchorage incident.”

Most of the room shuddered at that. It had been much, much earlier in the war, and the NEG correspondingly less aware of what the Migou could do. As it turned out, what they could do was conceal a tiny amount of antimatter, approximately two milligrams, in a tiny, sorcerously reinforced arcanomagnetic containment field, planted in an adjunct to a senior member of the North American Command. It would not work now; the magnetic field and the sorcery were blatant if you were aware of what you were looking for. But back then, they had not known. The resultant blast had decapitated the Regional command structure, and in the chaos, a massive Migou attack had hit. And Alaska had fallen.

As a result, the people in this room, in the here and now, were more than a little concerned about what might be coming next.

“Do we have a secure link to Vice Marshal Slavik yet, COEUS?” Colonel Oxanna asked.

“Yes. Quantum link prepared. Please report to Communications Room 03, Colonel.”

She glanced around the room, over through the one way glass, to where the traitor was being... well, it had started as a vivisection, but after the tiny charge the bugs had evidently built into the back of her Eyes to detonate at a full level mental trawl had gone off, it had turned into a dissection. It had been just enough to release one of their tailored chemicals which caused rapid neural degradation, making her brain useless for the extraction of data. She shared a glance with Ryoji... no, Agent Kaji, in these circumstances. There was almost certainly a Migou-cult operating here. Except that wasn’t quite the right word. They weren’t cultists, in the same sense that the Dagonites, or other ENE-worshipping fools were. They were more akin to trained cells, of people who actually believed that submission to the Migou was the best thing that humanity could do to ensure its own survival. They were dangerous, because they were comparatively sane. They didn’t sacrifice people to dark entities, or set up child molestation rings, or smuggle captives off to the Dagonite camps. They just stayed in position, the rare few communications following ingenious paths to get to them. Just stayed there, living normal lives, watching, waiting.

Until they did something like this.

As she strode down the corridor, and was subjected to the necessary security checks, Colonel Oxanna Kristos really wished that they didn’t do things like this. Adjusting her beret, she entered the communications room. Only one other person was there, his image displayed in her Eyes, with the possible addition of COEUS, a nebulous blue presence, depending on how one classified the TITAN.

“Sir,” she said, saluting her direct superior. Although she was only a Colonel, an O-6, and he was a Vice Marshal, an O-9, she was nevertheless his direct subordinate, attached directly to his command. She served as his liaison, and as a field command officer; a specialist in psychological warfare and the strategic use of terror best deployed to where she was needed, rather than holding a permanent command.

More unofficially, she was his left hand, his sinister hand, for experimental projects, black operations, and things that the Army as a whole wanted kept at a step away from High Command. Things like the Army Special Weapons Division and the Evangelion Group, in fact.

Slavik paused, his image clear enough that even the beads of sweat on his forehead were visible. “COEUS,” he told the TITAN, “return the optimal strategy, assuming the Migou do attack with a Level 4 attack force.”

“Level 4?” Oxanna echoed, the data in her Eyes bringing her up to date.

“Yes.” The man’s face was grim. “That’s assuming they use all the potential assets. They’ve been planning this, Colonel. The TITANs have noted a slight shift in troop rotations over the last two months; just slightly more coming in than being cycled out, but no increase in frontline troops. And, of course, the establishment of one of their forwards repair bases for capital ships.”

The blond shook her head. That was not good.

“Computation complete,” COEUS reported. “Assuming a typical Level 4 force, there is an approximately 70% chance that they will break through at Nova Kakhovka. Forces stationed there are insufficient. If all available military forces are scrambled, the probability is reduced to approximately 55%. Casualties will be severe even in the case of success.”

Colonel Kristos leaned forwards. “And if field-capable prototypes are deployed as well?” she asked, supported by her superior’s nod.

“Unknown. There is a lack of data.”

“Extrapolate from file EVA_02_25092091, then!”

A pause. “Breakthrough probability is reduced to approximately 45%. Error bars are plus or minus 10%.”

The two humans shared a glance over the link. “Not good enough,” Slavik said.

“By pulling the majority of the forces at Nova Kakhovka back to Position Alpha-Indigo-Xray-Xray One-Zero-Zero-Six, the line can be restablished,” COEUS added. “Moreover, Nova Kakhovka will be an inviting location for their own fortifications. By pre-emptively use of strategic-yield weaponry while they set up, a favourable outcome, within the limits of this scenario, can be achieved.”

Slavik paused, leaning his head on one hand. “Define ‘favourable outcome’, COEUS,” he ordered.

“They all die,” stated the TITAN, impassively.

“That’ll do,” said the Vice Marshal. “Colonel, obtain the data from COEUS. Tell Brigadier Anama to base his plans on its scenarios.” He paused. “And there’s one more thing. About Evangelion Unit 02...”

~’/|\’~

To a human, it would have been night-dark inside the hold. To a baseline-Nazzadi, it would have been dimly lit.

But to the Loyalists, both conventional and Elite, it might as well have been midday, for all the difference it made to their implants.

Rack upon rack upon rack of main battle mecha were stacked there, ready in position for a combat drop from the inside of the Drone Ship. The faint blue lights marking the path up to their cockpits were, in fact, the main source of illumination in this cavernous space. Back in the First War, they would have been all colours; relying on a lack of cohesiveness and distinction to force the foe into suboptimal firing choice. And, more subtly, the Migou had not wished for the Nazzadi to win to easily. It had been part of their plan for both sides to be heavily mauled, such that the Nazzadi would not think of expansion into the outer system. That had been stripped from them by the grim necessities of the Second Arcanotech War, though; the same greys and greens and blues that the New Earth Government used were now also present on the Nazzadi mecha.

And then there were the mecha of the Elite. The lesser Nazzadi used units which were still built with human-level technology. They were cheap, expendable, and could be repaired by the Loyalists. The Elite did not; their machines were sleek, almost techno-organic, but approaching the line from the other side. They were not flesh merged with machine; they were machine so advanced that it had almost become flesh. In some of the more specialised ones, the pilots were fused with the machine, little more than another processing centre for the Migou-designed machinery. For the others, the cockpit was more akin to an iron maiden, an-inwards facing coffin of fine nails designed to make the flesh and the machine twinned in unity.

Red eyes. Glinting red eyes, everywhere, reflecting the hints of light like a cat’s eye.

A signal was sent around, instructions to the computational equipment in the cerebrums of every member of Homo sapiens nazzadi present, alerting them that it was time. In neat, organised ranks, they filed, climbing the ladders to their assigned craft. Slowly, the light levels in the craft increased, bringing it up to the daylight outside, to give them a chance to adjust. There was camaraderie, and bickering going on from the more normal Nazzadi, dialogue and attitudes that would have been scarily familiar to anyone from the New Earth Government.

There was none from the Elite. They knew what they had been instructed to do, and they were ready. There was nothing else that needed to be said. They would survive, or they would not; either way, they would complete their missions.

And if they did not survive, well, their knowledge would live on, ready to go into the melange which new Nazzadi, grown in the facilities in the Asteroid Belt, would be decanted with. It was immortality, of a sort; all that was worthy, useful of you would live on in others.

The hatches were sealed. The motion felt, as the Drone ship folded back up, the armoured landing area folding back as a ribcage would into its hull.

A faint buzzing. A thin whisper. The noises of one of their masters, emulating human speech through the motions of their wings.

the sensory data is such that it has been determined that the forces of the New Earth Government are retreating it whispered, in the Nazzadi language. this was expected and desired; there will be no changes to the plan. The buzzing shifted, the tone sounding almost satisfied. your duty is to strike and harass their fleeing forces, while your kin hold the new conquests until the capital defences are set up; that is all that matters.

A cheer rose through the hollow space; a jeer of victory foretold.

There was a second message for the Elite, uploaded straight to their cerebral cortices. They did not hear it; they merely remembered hearing it.

they will be targeted, it told them. they are a diversion. The facility identified as ‘Testing Facility 2501’ must be destroyed, for it cannot be captured, and cannot be permitted to exist in hostile hands. Let nothing escape.

There was no cheer from them. Only silent acknowledgement.

~’/|\’~

Asuka Langley Soryu donned her plug suit with all the solemnity of a medieval knight preparing for battle. And for much of the same reasons. The black undersuit; soft and padded, came first, covered in interface ports and conduction mechanisms. A press of the button at the neck, and the suit suddenly contracted, the memomaterials hugging up to her like a second skin. Next came the outer layer, the crimson carapace obvious to the rest of the world. “02” was emblazoned just above her breastbone; she had got permission to put the white hand and triangle of the Soli Vodi Dexti on her right shoulder. Thicker, clumsier, it was nevertheless there for a very good reason, as an impact and acceleration suit, as well as functioning as full ANaMiNBC protection should she find herself out of her Evangelion. That was vital. Berlin-2 wouldn’t be permitted to happen again. Last came the cowl, the plated material folding out from a collar on the outer skin, to cover the A10 superconducting QUI Devices. A hiss, and it sealed itself. Her face was a thin mask of pale flesh, a heart-shape rimmed by her brow line and her jaw.

All she had to do input a few commands, and the plug suit attached itself to the A10s, and to the ports for her Eyes, just under both earlobes, and she was ready. Eyes reflexively flicking back and forwards, she read the feed from the local fork of Gehirn, Unit 02’s Ouranos LITAN, and nodded once, in satisfaction. Another perfect plug-suit set up. Naturally.

“COEUS, I am ready,” she informed the TITAN, as she stretched, the bulk weighing her down. It seemed sometimes like the plug suit was accumulating mass as she got older; years ago, it has just been the undersuit, but they kept on refining the technology.

“Good,” was the LAI network’s response. It paused. “Colonel Kristos is coming to see you for a tactical briefing,” it added.

The girl tilted her head slightly. “Hmm. We will be retreating,” she said, with narrowed eyes. “I don’t like it, but it’s the only sensible thing.”

The bluish-light of the ARvatar of the TITAN pulsed in her Eyes. “Why do you believe that?” it said, in the same neutral tone.

“Two reasons, COEUS,” she said, the smirk not quite overcoming the frown of annoyance. “Firstly, after the loss of one capital grade defence, Nova Kharakhov will be very hard to hold. You’ll have been unable to properly decide what I could do in the defence due to lack of data, and the fact that my AT-Field ruins your statistical databases. And the stupidity of the Army means that they won’t be willing to risk it, even though I know that I can pull it off.”

The TITAN was silent.

“You will’ve come to that line of logic,” Asuka said, leaning forwards, blue Eyes shining. “You’re conservative, COEUS. Just something to do with how your LAI programmes interact... your personality, if I were to anthromorphise you. Like RHEA, and not like CRIUS. Uncle Cal always says that it’s funny how your emergent ‘personalities’ are different.”

“What is the second reason?” it asked, its voice even a hint more mechanical than usual.

Asuka shrugged. “‘Cause if we were going into action now, she’d have been briefing me in the entry plug, not externally,” she said with a smirk.

“Then why would I insist that you wear your plug suit?” came a voice from behind her.

“Because you’re afraid that the Migou will be targeting Facility 2501 and want to have me ready to pilot in case they break through before they can get 02 into the transports.” Asuka rolled her eyes as she turned. “It’s not exactly hard to work out. The entire fact that they’re hitting Nova Kharakhov, rather than Gladiator or Sentinel,” two of the purpose-build military facilities along the line, “suggests that they’re after something.” The girl frowned. “And the way that they got Marshal Hassan suggests they have enough infiltrators in place to know about it.”

“Continue that line of logic, then, Asuka,” said Oxanna, tilting her head slightly.

The girl smiled. “Which means that the retreat is just an opportunity for the counterattack,” she said, confidently. “You’re going to let them have 2501; why does it matter, when you’ve got rid of everything important from it, especially me and Unit 02. And considering our position... you’re going to hit them, because they’ll have to overextend to hit 2501. Which means that I’ll be spearheading the counterattack, because that’s exactly what I’ve trained to do. A Evangelion doesn’t take and hold ground; it smashes weak spots and flanks, eliminating specific targets. It’s a lance, perfect for a counterattack backed up by naval support.”

“No.” The words were flat, measured. “That is incorrect.”

“B-b-but,” Asuka stammered, “that’s the optimal use of an Evangelion, tactically and strategically! It’s what I’ve trained for! I can do it!”

The blond woman stared at the girl, dressed up in the thick, almost slightly insectoid, from the smooth lines and the bumps on the head which marked the place of the A10 clips, without overt emotions. “You are being moved back to Ostberlin-2. You are not a front-line soldier, not yet, and so it is not appropriate to use you in that fashion. You are still a Test Pilot.”

“I-I-I...” The girl was almost incoherent, before her shoulders slumped. “I understand,” she said, eyes closed and downcast. “Can’t I even...”

“No. Unit 02 is being attached to a Phoenix for transport. You will be riding in-plug, back to Ostberlin.” Colonel Kristos’ face softened. “If what I’ve heard is true,” she said, reaching out to lift Asuka’s chin, “it’s probably going to be moved over to Chicago-2, for final field tests. You’ll be able to...”

One black-gauntleted hand, the thinner material around the hands a different colour, batted the hand away. “Don’t patronise me; I said I understand,” the girl hissed, turning on her heel, and stalking off. “I’ll be getting this... this toy checked over by professionals,” she said, jabbing herself in the chest, “since obviously the Second Child can’t be trusted that her plug suit is operational on her own.”

The blond gritted her teeth, eyes narrowed, but said nothing, and let Asuka go.

~’/|\’~

Through the line of defence, the oncoming Migou forces swept; like the onrushing tide they washed away the bastions of defence, weakened by the withdrawal. The skies were filled with the booms of their hypersonic craft tearing through the air, as, below the contrails of warped air, the vast, heavy shapes of Migou craft moved their own stationary capital grade defences forwards, deploying the new additions on site. The lines had move forwards, and Containment was proceeding on the third planet in a horribly contaminated system.

This was the Aeon War.

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 8

Rei 01 / As if just there, though an immortal, she felt cruel pain.

EVANGELION

~’/|\’~

Every Angel is terror. And yet,
ah, knowing you, I invoke you, almost deadly
birds of the soul. Where are the days of Tobias,
when one of the most radiant of you stood at the simple threshold,
disguised somewhat for the journey and already no longer awesome
(Like a youth, to the youth looking out curiously).
Let the Archangel now, the dangerous one, from behind the stars,
take a single step down and toward us: our own heart,
beating on high would beat us down. What are you?

The Second Duino Elegy
Rainer Maria Rilke

~’/|\’~

A Day That Has Past
A Time Which Is Now


Representative Gendo Ikari stared at the projected screen. He adjusted his glasses, pushing them back up onto the bridge of his nose.

"Activate."

“What’s the first thing you remember?”

The buzz of the Technical Centre started up again. Status updates came from all the technicians, staring down at the white-painted behemoth that stood, restrained to the wall, before them.

“Connect internal power supply to all circuits,” ordered Dr Akagi. “Initialise connection of exterior power in T-minus twenty seconds.”

Feeling rather useless, Major Misato Katsuragi, Director of Operations for Project Evangelion, and the woman who would be responsible for tactical command of this Unit if this test succeeded, did the best thing she could, and crossed her fingers. One hand unconsciously crept to the bulge under her uniform, where her cross-shaped necklace hung .

“What is the first thing you remember?”

“Main power system connected,” reported Lieutenant Ibuki, heading up the team of nine Operators running in full immersion mode, down in the Magi tanks. “Activation system online. We are ready to begin adjustment of attunement pattern at your signal, doctor.”

“Who are you?

Dr Ritsuko Akagi looked around the observation chamber. The Representative stood closest to the diamond viewing plates, Deputy Representative Fuyutsuki taking up his customary position just behind the younger man. In a very real sense, despite the fact that she was the Director of Science for Project Evangelion, and the Director of the Evangelion Group (as was customary for the eponymous Project of a Group), the Evangelions were not hers. Both men, the former a prodigy sorcerer who had climbed the ranks of the Foundation with almost indecent speed, the latter a legend in the field of arcanobiology, as the man who had done the first systematic study on the variant hominids known as ‘ghouls’, were much more tied to it than she was, had been involved in it longer than she had. It was theirs.

The woman ran her tongue over her lips, and swallowed, watching the digits count down in her harcontacts, time-as-volts ticking down until the critical activation voltage was hit.

This Test Pilot Candidate shouldn’t fail. Not like almost all the other ones before her.

“Who are you?

“It’s reached,” announced Lieutenant Aoba, the man leaning forwards towards his screen, his long hair tyed back, for once, in a ponytail. “Attunement is in process. Synchronisation is non-zero... 0.04... 0.13... rising.”

“We’re getting some fluctuations here,” Maya’s voice, coming in over the speakers in the room, said. “She’s... no... we’re stabilising. Subject is forming an EFCS Type-1 Attunement. Synchronisation is... clarifying second order harmonics... third order... yes, we have a stable animaneural wavefunction.”

“Who are you?”

“Start Phase III,” ordered Dr Akagi.

“Who am I?

“Plug is level 2. Beginning test sequence.”

“LITAN feed is clear... reports from in-Unit correlate with external feeds.”

“Feeding external power to non-vital systems. Right arm... left arm... all limbs are powered.”

“Releasing limited motor controls. D-Brakes are operating at full capacity.”

Slowly, ponderously, like the upswing of some vast pendulum, Unit 00 raised its head, to stare directly at the onlookers. It was just an illusion, though; it couldn’t actually see them. Not through the reflective surface. Could it?

Was it really just staring at its own reflection?

“Absolute borderline in... 0.5...”

“Who are you?”

“... 0.4...”

“Who are you?”

“...0.3...”

“Who are you?”

“...0.2...”

“Get away from her!”

“...0.1...”

“...”

“I know who you are.”

“The pulses are flowing back! Chaotic breakdown in AN-waveform!”

“EFCS-2! Mode has flipped to EFCS-2! No... back to EFCS-1!”

“Synchronisation is constant!”

“What?” Dr Akagi spun, to stare at the unfortunate civilian technician. “That doesn’t even make sense! Abort! Break the connection!”

Straining, the white giant fought against its bonds, the dimensional technology that wrapped over its hull trying to keep it in place. It was fighting a losing battle. A deep-bass roar, that shook the gut and the walls alike, emanated from the beast as it fought its bonds. Its one red eye swept from side to side, with jerking, wrenching motions. The deep crackle of breaking ceramics accompanied each jerk of its head.

“D-Brakes are failing! We have an AT-Field! Systematic breakdown of r-state differenatiation!”

“Abort!” barked Dr Akagi. “Operators, break all connections, raise plug to level 0.”

A cacophony of screams buzzed through the speakers, made mechanical by the limits of the technology. In Ritsuko’s harcontacts, the icons for four of the operators went yellow; two more were a fatal red.

“My...m-my DMIN is stable,” blurted out Maya, the pain evident in her voice, “b-b-but the Unit just attacked the retrieval process. My... my... that wasn’t the LITAN... only just enough time to cut before it broke thr...”

“Mute the Magi link,” ordered Gendo Ikari, coldly, the LAIs complying with his orders and silencing the Operators. “Cut external power, blow the D-Engines.”

The shutdown of the external power was immediately effective. Together, the legs and the arms slumped loose, swinging back down to slam into the wall, tearing chunks out of it as they impacted again and again. The head still wrenched, that same bass roar filling the air, but then the charges placed on the D-Engines mounted in the torso blew, shattering the power sources safely. The design for such tests was quite clear; it should always be possible to cut all power. All that the Evangelion, when set up like this, had access to at this moment were the life-support batteries, and they were on a completely different power circuit to the armour systems.

There was a communal sigh of relief from the observation room, now that the Evangelion was now back under control, and a set of blessings for the people who had been careful to ensure that the Unit failed-to-safe.

An almost animalistic cry of rage and terror and pain, made worse by the fact that the voice that cried out was unmistakably human.

“No!” A shrieked exclamation.

White fog; surrounding, enveloping, obfuscating everything.

“What are you doing with her?”

“You will be a god among men.”

Evidently, someone had forgotten to inform Unit 00 of this.

In a single, terrible motion, it tore itself loose of the wall, the barrage of broken connections and constraints impacting like an artillery bombardment against the other side. Fighting the inertia-thieves of the D-Brakes, the vast body slammed itself back into the wall, crushing the sophisticated technology with sheer bulk. The shift in its inertial mass only aided it, as it pushed off from the wall and crushed its front in the same manner.

In terror, the onlookers stared, and the one vast eye of the Unit stared back.

“Initialise TCP-7!” ordered Representative Ikari, the red eye reflected in his own orange glasses.

Softness, gentleness, calm. All was fogged light, but it did not matter, for two vast hands held her, and rocked her from side to side.

A children’s rhyme, fumbled by someone who only half-remembers the words.

“You will show men that they do not need gods.”

And then she was plunged into warmth and darkness.

Roaring, screaming, Unit 00 began to scrabble at its own back with fingers locked into claws. With another impact which shook the room, it pushed backwards into the other wall, and that was enough, for the superstructure snapped of this armoured shell, designed to take a point-blank nuclear blast. It had been ravaged impossibly by the impact with a cleanness which brute force should not have achieved. The containment protocols that Gendo Ikari had ordered were already kicking in, as jets of hard-setting plastic began to coat the white a dull brown, but it seemed unlikely that they would be enough.

[WARNING! AT-FIELD DETECTED!] reported a dumb LAI, audible even over the tumultuous chaos of the titan’s violence.

Yet it seemed that escape was not the beast’s goal, even as the bass took on a strange, shrill whistling.

Black and white blur to make grey, a finger retracts.

The damage done to its own back was enough to get a finger under the armour plating that protected the plug.

The look of horror on the bearded man was indescribable. “Rei! No!” he yelled, face as pale as death.

“I see you.”

With both hands, the titan tore at its own back, reaching up and around with inhuman flexibility. With both hands, it flensed the white plating, and tore at its own implants. With both hands, the flagellant sought its own plug. Gory ichor, dark and septic, ran down, to swirl and mix with the constraining fluid, but the beast did not care, and indeed the shrill noise began to ululate, in a cacophony that sounded all too much like celebration.

“My baby...”

One vast finger crushed the exposed end of the entry plug.

And the beast went limp. Legs now sealed in hard-setting plastic (though the onlookers now doubted how effective it would really be), it fell backwards, pivoting at the knees, to slam into the floor with one last terminal impact. Wounded, self-maimed, the fallen titan lay upon its back, dark seas of ichor and tainted plastics pooling around it like some perverse cloak around its white hide.

“Rei!” roared Gendo, in a cry of horror, as he sprinted out of the control room, his glasses falling from his face to land with a snap on the ground. Ritsuko watched him go, and glanced down at the fallen Evangelion, before screwing her eyes shut. She did not see, minutes later, Gendo rush across the floor of the test chamber, only wearing a protective suit because the medical team behind him had forced him to put one on as they waited for the airlock to cycle.

No, she knew how badly she had failed.

Standing behind the behemoth, the man could see the damage in a much more personal way. He was already knee deep in the dark blood of the Evangelion, and was having to wade against the slowly decreasing flow. The transparent faceplate of the suit was blacked out in wide areas, the autocensors doing their best. With a few words, he overrode them, to turn down the filter level. The LAI’s protests were ignored; he needed to see what he was doing. Hooking his fingers into the fibrous musculature and broken armour of the Evangelion, he began to climb, up to the partially protruding plug.

The end of the metallic cylinder was a mess, crumpled and crushed by the two impacts. By his estimation, a third one would have wrecked it completely. The second might have been enough, he thought, with a sinking heart, but those thoughts were discarded as he clambered along the plug, a crumpled metal ladder barely enough of a foothold for feet slick with ichor. The damage made it easier to balance on top of the cylinder, but he was still perilously close to slipping as he made his way down it.

With his suited hands, Gendo grabbed the twisted metal around the largest tear in the outer shell of the tube, and pulled. The metal was sharp, and the gloves of the containment suit, although insulated, were not enough. Screaming into the helmet as blood seeped from his palms, he levered open the shattered plug, and clambered inside, screaming again as the edges tore at his back.

The remnants of the LCL that pooled in the nooks and crannies were much redder than normal.

Rei was on her back, still in the pilot’s seat, almost inverted from the angle at which the Eva lay. This was not by choice; the control yokes were crushing her midsection, the structure of the plug warped and bent such that they were rammed into her abdomen. It was, in fact, probably the only reason she had not been thrown free by the impact with the ground. Her plug suit, just the undersuit for the test, was lacerated all over; red blood welling up white fabric and white skin. Her breaths were laboured, wet-sounding; she had evidently managed to hack up enough LCL to have marginally functional lungs, but the red drool which stained her lips pink told Gendo just at sight that her lungs had been severely damaged by the effort. It was a marvel that they hadn’t collapsed.

And then there was her face. Almost unconsciously, he had been skipping over her face, which lay limp against the headrest. Because one eye, her left one, was a ruined mess, perforated by shrapnel, the ruined eye spilling forth from the socket. The other eye was closed.

Gendo Ikari had seen worse. But he had not seen much worse for someone who survived, and not in a long time.

“Rei,” he gasped, through the pain in his hands and his back. “Rei? Are you alive?”

Slowly, wonderfully, the intact eye crept open, a dilated pupil nevertheless focussing on him. She gurgled something through ruined, fluid-filled lungs.

The man smiled, even as the rescue team climbed in behind him, having coated the edges with plastic to make them safer, and widened the hole. “Good,” he said, before turning his attention to the others. “Get her to an LCL tank,” he ordered. “Keep her alive.” And with that said, he collapsed, as the pain overcame him.

The first medical team called for a second one.

~’/|\’~

24th September, 2091

“Well, I’m rather surprised,” Ritsuko said, running down the details in the file on the desk in front of her. “I will, of course, defer to your expertise in your field, Dr Tam, but...” she left the statement hanging.

“No, no,” the younger man said. “I’m really rather surprised, too. I did not expect this at all. But,” he shifted in his seat, in front of Ritsuko’s desk, “well, he’s mostly bored. Well, and a little irritable from the sympathetic burns, but that’s natural.” He snorted. “Most people tend to be.”

“I see,” the blond said, running her eyes over the file. “Well, we’d always suspected that the EFCS-1 would provide better anti-AWS shielding than the Type-2,” she said, almost to herself, “but this... well, we’d need a bigger sample pool before we could say so.”

“I believe the relative lack of trauma... um, especially the psyche-corpus animaneural synthesis issues that arose due to the sudden and traumatic loss of the eye, this time, was also a contributing factor. From conversations with him, he was much better able to come to terms with the fact that he has mild sympathetic burns which match with the injuries, than experiencing the muted pain of the loss of an eye, without actually doing so.”

Ritsuko looked up at him, gazing at the younger man with blue-encircled eyes. All of those were reasonable suggestions; the man had been a prodigy of a medical doctor, before transitioning to psychology after a nasty family-related incident, after all. That was why he had been assigned to Project Evangelion. “Maybe,” she said out loud. She wasn’t willing to commit to anything. “But, you believe that he can be released from observation?”

“Well,” the man licked his lips, “erm, it would be more accurate to say that observation can be reduced to the standard day-to-day level...” he glanced at his superior, “oh, you meant that? Then, yes, he can be released from the Observation bay.”

“Good.” Ritsuko signed the document, and handed it over. “Well, I’m sure Misato will be pleased,” she said.

“And you aren’t?” The tone was questioning.

Ritsuko rolled her eyes. “Please. This isn’t the time for that. But I wouldn’t call myself pleased, no. Satisfied, yes. It’s important to remain detached when considering these things.” She held the gaze of the brown-haired man. “We all know the issues with getting too involved in matters which are important, don’t we, doctor?”

The man took the signed document, gathering it to him, to hold, almost as a protective barrier. “Yes,” he muttered, before blinking. “Thank you, Dr Akagi, for your time,” he said, more formally. “I’ll be off then.”

“Yes,” Ritsuko said, her head already lowered to the progress report for Unit 00.

~’/|\’~

“Potenejactakrona what!” the little black-skinned, red eyed girl screamed at him, remarkably active for someone only just out of intensive care, before continuing to babble at him in an incoherent pidgin of Nazzadi and English. Her friends, clustered around the bed recoiled from the invective. A nurse rushed over at the outburst, obviously worried that she was going into convulsions or that some other medical emergency was occurring. “No, I’m fine,” Kany told the orderly, panting, teeth locked together. “But my brother is an idiot!”

The man stared at the boy through narrowed, suspicious eyes. “She’s still on the mend,” he told him, in a somewhat patronising tone of voice. “Do not agitate her, or I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

Toja winced. How, exactly, had his sister’s friends managed to talk him into coming with them, to explain everything? How was it that he had been persuaded by a bunch of nine-year olds?

“I am fine, by the way,” said the dark-haired one, Imi, the girl who had been the reason for him running out.

“And what did you think you were doing, huh?” continued Kany, turning her head to stare at her friend. “Why’d you run out! You know we’re not meant to!”

“I did not run out...” The little girl blinked under the glare from the red eyes. “Oh. Because I needed my injectors, and they don’t keep spares down in the bunkers, only under the desk. It was necessary.” She seemed almost pleading. “You know I need them. Otherwise I get very ill.”

The little nazzady relented a little. “Well... maybe. But,” she yawned, “but it was silly of both of you. Well, it was silly of you, Imi, and stupid of you, bro.”

There was an awkward pause. It wasn’t helped in Toja’s books by how much Kany managed to sound like their mother had. The voice was younger, higher, but the intonations were near identical.

Toja raised his hand slowly. “Um... can I have back my manuprokedi? Since you’re out of the tube...”

She shook her head.

“Awwww, come on. Why can’t I?”

“Punishment! For making me worry like this when I’m sick and all that.”

“I am sorry,” he said, the guilt hitting him again, dropping his head.

“You should be!” Kany drew a breath, and seemed to calm down a bit. “Now, come on... not my stupid brother... but what have I missed?”

A boy grinned. “There hasn’t been any school at all,” he said, “‘cause the school building got damaged and stuff... I can see it from the observation place, and there’s a big tent thing whole area, and silvery dust everywhere. And really cooooool machines sucking it up. So we get to just do stuff.”

Kany pouted. “Bleargh. I’m still in this bed, haven’t relearned to walk yet, and I’m not even missing school.”

A little girl, her hair platinum blond, poked him in the side, while the conversation continued. “Well, I think it was pretty cool,” she whispered to him, gazing up at the tall boy with eyes that he suddenly realised were adoring. “And tonnes of us agree. You’re totally like some kind of fairytale prince, coming back with...” she giggled, “Princess Imi and stuff. Of course, Imi isn’t a very good princess. She played the witch in the school play,” she informed him, with all apparent seriousness.

“Ah,” was all that Toja could manage.

“So... you know, if you’re looking for a princess...” The ten-year old, her t-shirt covered in childish entopics, smiled shyly at him, then headed over to the rest of the group.

This was... awkward. Of all the consequences of leaving the bunker, he had never expected his little sister’s friends getting a crush on him to be one of them. A talk with the FSB over the breach of Bunker Security, yes, an immediately scheduled meeting with a counsellor from the Health Service to look for any instability induced by the exposure to the being (fortunately fairly small, and Toja could live with bad dreams), yes, immediate scans, for the second time that day, for any contamination, yes.

At least one nine-or-ten-year old getting a crush on him, no. And there was another thing that he’d have to do, too, because of what had happened on that Wednesday.

He was going to have to handle them both like a man would handle them.

For this problem, Toja ran away.

~’/|\’~

25th September, 2091

Of all the unfair things in Shinji Ikari’s life, the fact that the Academy has classes on Saturday morning had to be pretty low down the priority list, all things considered. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t used to it, after all; the Academy back in Toyko-3 had been the same. But this morning, of all mornings, he really didn’t enjoy the sight of children who went to other schools who were getting to hang around in normal clothing, not the high-collared black overcoat of the Academy, and make remarks at him and the other students on the maglev.

I mean, it’s not like they even need to be up this early, he thought to himself. For me to see them on the way to school, they’d have had to get up that early, and not chosen to lie in at the weekend. Are they doing it just to rub it in our faces?

And talking of rubbing in faces, Shinji had been somewhat surprised when the boy who had punched him in the face, and that one with glasses who had been hanging around with the rather attractive Nazzadi girl, came up to him, with a special request. In fact;

“Actually, why are you here?” Shinji asked the human boy, Kensuke. “I mean, you didn’t hit me...”

The brown-haired boy blushed slightly, and glanced sideways at Toja. “He said he’d hit me if I didn’t come to apologise too,” he explained. “It’s... it’s sort of my fault that he found out, because Taly and me were the ones who sort of worked out a link.”

“So why isn’t she here?”

Toja gritted his teeth. “I couldn’t really threaten her in the same way as Ken, here.”

Shinji raised his eyebrows. “Chivalry?”

Kensuke shook his head, with a hint of a grin creeping onto his face. “Nope. She’d kick him in the balls again. She’s... she’s kinda heavily into her martial arts. ‘Specially hun zuti.”

“We’re getting off topic,” Toja said somewhat hastily, with what Shinji suspected was a hint of remembered pain creeping into his expression. The boy straightened up again. “Mr Ikari,” he said, in a formal manner, “I want you to punch me. So that we’ll be even.”

“In that case, shouldn’t I punch you twi... no, I’m not going to get started on that.” Shinji blinked. “Why? I mean, I know why I want to punch you, but why do you want me to want to punch you?”

“See! You want to, so just do it!” The boy’s jaw was stiff, his eyes closed.

“But...” Shinji drew back his fist, but paused, wavering. “I... it... it’s not the same,” he said out loud, trying to work through the mess of feelings and emotions. “I mean, it was sort of my fault.”

“Rubbish!” Toja snapped. “It’s all my fault. I’m a hot-headed idiot who never thinks about anything. You need to do it, I want you to do it, and it’s kinda the only way to be fair!”

The Japanese boy’s hand wobbled, moving back and forth. On (and with) one hand, he actually did want to punch this guy. But... this would be in cold blood. It was completely different to snap, and try to attack someone which angry, to just going and punching someone.

“Do it! As hard as you can! Don’t hold back!”

He... he actually wants to be hurt? Why? That doesn’t make sense. And... and how dare he force me into this kind of situation! This is just a normal school day, and I’m being forced to think about whether it’s okay to hurt someone when they tell you do. Why does this happen to me!

The blow, as it happened, went low, into the taller boy’s stomach, who doubled over with a meaty-sounding oooof. Hands on thighs, the other boy began to wheeze, falling to his knees.

“You’ve got a nasty streak,” Kensuke said, shock creeping into his voice. “Right in the gut? Not cool.” He paused. “Not cool at all.”

Shinji, meanwhile, was staring down at the boy before him, guilt and just a smidgeon of self-satisfaction blended together. The very presence of the self-satisfaction, however, was causing it to get diluted. Because, in the boy’s self-image, he wasn’t the sort of person who’d do that. And yet he just had.

“Why...the...gut...” croaked out Toja. “Meant... to be face.”

“You didn’t say that!” protested Shinji.

“I...” he started coughing, “I... thought... obvious.”

“Not to me!” Shinji said, wincing. He paused for a moment, before adding, “And... um, well, I didn’t want to hurt my hand!”

Toja continued to cough.

“Skulls are hard,” Shinji continued, realising how pathetic he sounded.

The Nazzadi boy began to emit a burbling noise. It took a few seconds, before Shinji could work out that it was, in fact, laughter, which grew stronger as Toja pulled himself upright, face still taut with discomfort.

“Nice one,” the boy croaked. “Teach me to tell someone to do it as hard as they can, and not hold back.”

Kensuke smirked. “That’s what she said,” he said, almost automatically.

“Shut up, Kensuke.”

Shinji stared at the pair. “You’re mad,” he said, slowly. “You’re... you’re mad. Utterly, utterly mad.”

Toja was still clutching his stomach. “Yeah,” he said, looking up, “but at least we’re now even.” There was something in his eyes that Shinji couldn’t recognise. “Listen,” he said, “I... um... I got stuck outside... on Wednesday. Not outside outside. But in a surface building. A school.”

Shinji felt his stomach boil with sudden terror. “... I,” he blinked. “What... happened?” he said softly.

There was a sudden expression of shock on Toja’s face. “Oh, no,” he said hastily. “No one got hurt. But... um, I saw it.”

Shinji relaxed, a sudden rush of adrenaline making him shake. “Don’t say things like that,” he said. “I don’t want to think that I’ve hurt people.”

“No... no, what I mean to say is, right, I saw how that thing you’re in is like.

The brown-haired boy grinned, weakly. “Thank you,” he said, relief in his voice. He paused. “Uh... why were you stuck outside,” he asked, gingerly. “Was it just an evacuation thing, or...”

Toja blushed, a slight darkening of his face. “Um... no,” he admitted. “I ran out to look for someone in the class who’d gone missing.”

Shinji felt his eyebrows raise without prompting. “That’s pretty brave,” he ventured. “I mean, I probably wouldn’t have the guts to do it.”

“No, it was just stupid. It may have looked brave... I just wasn’t thinking.” The Nazzadi boy blinked. “Can we just put everything behind us?” he asked.

Unnoticed, unobserved, a white-haired girl watched the scene through dead grey eyes, no expression on her frozen face.

~’/|\’~

“Rei Ayanami.” The muse’s voice was calm, emotionless; disturbingly similar to the subject of discussion, thought Misato with a shudder.

Ritsuko caught the brief twitch of emotion, and nodded, sympathetically. “Pause briefing,” she instructed the system. “I know, yes?” she said. “Spend time around her, and you start hearing her voice everywhere,” the scientist said, a hint of dark humour in her voice.

“I was trying to make a point, Rits,” the Director of Operations said. “Resume briefing... pause briefing.” She glared at the blond. “And don’t pause my muse without my permission,” she added. “Resume briefing.”

“The subject is sixteen years old; date of birth: 5th of November, 2074. Subspecies: Homo sapiens sidoci. Genetic parents: classified. Subject was recovered in raid on cult organisation aged 4, and, after evaluation, was placed in state custody pending further investigation. Subject was inducted into newly formed Test Pilot programme as the First Child immediately upon programme formation in 2083, following discovery by Project Marduk that she possessed the appropriate characteristic factors. She is the exclusive and designated pilot of Evangelion Unit 00, the Prototype Model. Her current legal guardian is Representative for Europe, Gendo Ikari. The rest of her personal history is classified. Her psychological profiles are classified; a redacted file may be viewed separately. The subject possesses intuitive extranormal waveform manipulation capabilities, as is universal among her subspecies. These capabilities are classified; a redacted file may be viewed separately, and they have all been classified as non-dangerous and non-invasive.”

“I think that’s enough,” said the Major, her tone controlled. “Now, Director of Science, why don’t you explain why your Director of Operations has almost no knowledge of one of the assets she has to command?”

Ritsuko sighed. “Misato...”

“Don’t ‘Misato’ me. You’ve dodged this point before. I saw what happened at the last Unit 00 activation test, and things destabilised in a way that they never have even looked like they might for Shinji or Asuka. The next activation test is scheduled for next Wednesday, and I might be kinda worried that it might happen again.”

“You presume I have any more knowledge about her,” the scientist retorted.

“... well, yes. The Project Marduk is part of the Evangelion Group. That means they report to you.”

Ritsuko gritted her teeth. Misato could have both a rather perceptive mind and a highly functional memory when she put her brain to it. “And certain details are sealed even beyond what I can view. Yes, I do know more about her, but those are technical issues. I mean, I could ask for permission to release the details on... on the details of how her medichines react with her immune system, say, but I’m not exactly sure how useful it will be for you, so...”

The black-haired woman ran her hand through her hair. “Sorry, Rits,” she apologised. “I’m just a little... worried.”

She received a sympathetic nod in return. “I understand. But... please, don’t take it out on me. We don’t think it should happen again; the issue last time... well, we’re not sure what caused it, but we suspect it may have been mental instability in the pilot.”

“Mental instability?” echoed Misato. “In Rei?”

“Yes.”

“But,” the dark-haired woman searched for the right words to use, “from what little I’ve... that I know of her, she’s seemed fairly stable. Not necessarily at the same point of balance as anyone else, of course, but...”

“No. She’s... she’s disturbed at a deeper level; more that you’d think. And she’s sensitive to extranormal phenomena. She might have been affected by the... hah, by the harbingers of Harbinger-3. That kind of thing is not what you want when you’re trying to attune to a highly sophisticated ACXB organism.”

The New Earth Government Army officer shot a glance at her friend. “You do know that there are already suspicions that the failed activation test was what caused Asherah to show up, yes?” she said bluntly.

“That’s ridiculous,” Dr Akagi replied, with the same lack of prevarication. “We have had failed activation tests for all the completed Evangelions. And Harbinger-level threats failed to show up each time. You’re just displaying classic observer bi...” she was interrupted by the muse, and a simultaneous vibration of something in Misato’s pockets.

“Major Katsuragi to Communications Room 13. Major Katsuragi to Communications Room 13. This is a High Urgency call; ID number 05-02-65-32-98. Major Katsuragi to report immediately to Communications Room 13.”

“Oh-five, oh-two, sixty-five, thirty-two...” muttered Misato to herself, as she straightened up. “That’s the Unit 02 code. And 13 is one of the q-lines.” She blinked. “I’m off; this is important. That’s directly from,” she pulled the PCPU out of her pocket, “yes, I thought so. That’s Captain Martello’s code, and it’s got... it’s got an override-seal from Vice Marshall Slavik himself.” Almost reflexively, she tucked her hair back behind her ears, and adjusted her collar slightly. “I’ll see what it is.”

“I hope it’s nothing important,” Ritsuko said. Both women could hear the doubt in her voice.

~’/|\’~

The remains of Harbinger-4, Eshmun, were pooled in two separate vile, incoherent messes at the bottoms of Containment Chambers 09 and 10, in the Vault. It had been blown in half by that first ambush, after all, so they had been recovered separately. The fact that the whole creature would have been too large to fit in either of the chambers was only an added bonus, and had led to several new planned engineering projects which would be large enough. And ‘pooled’ was the operative word; with the death of the creature, it had lost cohesiveness at a dramatic rate, the beast decaying and rotting, as its structure disintegrated. Perhaps worse, its elevated r-state was decaying back down to a 1-state, throwing out high-energy variant r-state particles, in a parallel to more conventional radiation.

There were no people down in the Vault, working on the studies. It just wasn’t safe, even in full ANaMiNBC gear and added sorcerous warding. They were getting through teleoperated drones at a prodigious rate as the circuitry and hulls gave way under the bombardment.

Of course, Dr Akagi wasn’t too unhappy about this. A little bit annoyed at the fact that she wasn’t getting to carry out a proper dissection, but she could live without exposure to high-energy high r-state radiation. And because she had not been so exposed, she would continue to do so. “We’re discovering all new things about high variant r-state physics,” she ‘explained’ to Shinji and Misato, standing by the vast autocensored screen that was giving a sight into the progress in the vacuum-filled rooms. “The CCs are all set up as high end particle detectors for exactly this reason. I mean, the MAGI say they’ve seen a 512-state proton for the first time ever, and its behaviour means that we’ve just shown Imonike was right all along, and Juarez was wrong.”

“But what have you found out about the Harbinger?” Misato asked, hands in pockets. Once again, she was in a more formal version of her normal uniform, because the NEG had other, more senior officers on-site, and she was not enjoying it. She would really rather be dressed normally... well, actually, she’d rather be back in her pilot’s suit which were really comfortable, but that wasn’t an option anymore, and she wasn’t on the frontlines.

Ritsuko smoothed down her lab coat, a garment which, given what they were dealing with, would only really protect her from a coffee-based accident, and glanced over at the screen. “Not as much as we might have liked,” she admitted. “From what we can tell, from the state the remains are in, there was internal differentiation of layers, but only one thing which approximates an organ, as we would know it. Of course, that matches up with the feed from Unit 01, doesn’t it, Shinji?”

The boy, who had been drifting along in the mists of confusion, trying to understand and doing poorly at that goal, blinked, and refocused his attention away from the almost-hypnotic sludge which both parts had degraded into. “Um... excuse me?” he asked.

“There weren’t any internal organs in Harbinger-4, were there? Apart from the core-equivalent?” the scientist asked rhetorically.

“Not that I can remember,” the boy said, slowly. “But... well, I wasn’t thinking that clearly.”

“Yes... well, that is somewhat understandable.” Ritsuko shrugged. “Anyway, the current hypothesis is that the Harbinger we see is akin to a puppet vessel for a greater being which exists in greater-than-three spatial dimensions. Hence, it really doesn’t need anything beyond a core-equivalent, in the same way that your little finger doesn’t need lungs or a heart or... or anything apart from the connective tissue and blood vessels and the like, which in this analogy is the core-equivalent.”

Shinji stared down at the screen. A spider-like robot, all its many limbs dedicated manipulators, slowly descended from the ceiling, trailing its thread of power-cable behind it. Anchoring itself onto the outer carapace, it began to cut at the material. Despite the degradation, it really wasn’t getting anywhere. “I can’t believe I killed that thing,” the boy said to himself. “Is that what we really have to fight. Well,” he paused, “I say ‘we’, but... never mind. Why didn’t the outer shell-thing fall apart in the same way?” he asked, louder.

“That’s a good question, Shinji,” Ritsuko replied. “We’re... not sure. It might be that it’s only decaying due to r-state relaxation, compared to the rest, which is liquefying. We’ve actually got what might be structures in the outer carapace, which... well, it would suggest a biology completely unlike anything we’re familiar with.”

“No, really?” muttered Misato, who was ignored.

“We’re just having problems taking samples,” Ritsuko admitted. “Even when we do manage to extract specimens, the effects of removing them from the still-altered r-state of the region around the body, down to a 1-state environment, just massively speeds up the decay.” She paused. “They might be designed... well, I say ‘designed’, but that doesn’t mean intent... they might be there to enhance AT-Field generation. The properties of the regions that we suspect there might be structures... well, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Oh,” Misato said, a sudden glimmer of understanding in her eyes, “this is the kind of matter is sort of like a wave and sort of like a particle, right?”

Dr Akagi fixed the other woman with a long hard stare. “Yes, Misato. It does, in fact, display properties exhibited by both classical particles and waves, at least at the quantum level. In fact, we have a super-special name for that very special kind of matter. It’s called... matter.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, that isn’t even arcane physics. It’s just quantum physics. That’s barely a step above classical mechanics.”

“Mbneah.” Misato flapped a hand at the scientist. “There’s no need to be condensing.”

“You mean ‘condescending’,” Ritsuko replied automatically, to a slight smirk from the black-haired woman. “Although I can try to explain condensed matter physics to you if you...” her eyes narrowed. “I see what you did there.”

Shinji quite deliberately said nothing. It seemed to be serving him well.

“Hey! Akagi!” someone called from behind them. Ritsuko shuddered, her face falling. Taking a deep breath, she turned around, her face set in a mask of professional neutrality.

“Dr Robinson,” she said, with a nod, to the woman, her skin so dark she could have almost passed for a Nazzadi. That illusion was shatterd by her eyes, a human brown, with the beginnings of crow’s feet marking their edges. “Doctor Malia Robinson, Deputy Director of Science for Project Engel,” she said, her voice lowered, to her two companions.

“Hey! How’s it going, Ritsuko?” the other woman asked, in her native Nigerian accent.

“Fine. Just fine,” the blond said, just slowly enough that it could not be taken as being rude. She paused. “This is Major Misato Katsuragi, Director of Operations for Project Evangelion,” she added, gesturing to the black-haired woman, while subtly trying to move to divert attention away from Shinji.

“Pleased to meet you,” Misato said, stepping forwards to shake the other woman’s hand.

“Katsuragi... Katsuragi, oh yes,” Dr Robinson said, and Misato’s face stiffened slightly at that. “You’re with the Army, yes? Which wing? I’d have to say, I’d have thought that they’d have had a Navy person for Director for Evangelion, given the strategic value of those things?” Her intonation turned something which wasn’t really a question into one.

“I used to be a mech pilot,” Misato explained. “It was decided that the actual command skills required for an operation involving the Units is more like those needed for land-based mecha than a naval ship, or even someone with the Marines.”

“‘Specially since the Marines are cutting down on their mecha component,” Malia said with a nod. “Pleased to meet you too, by the way; I’ll have to get proper communications set up with our DDoO Europe. I suspect you’ll end up having to work with us a lot, given how much we get used as spearhead forces, which, from what I’ve heard from the Eastern Front, worked really well for you today.” She smiled. “It’s nice to see our older brother Project getting some respect.”

“Parent Group,” Ritsuko muttered, just loud enough for Shinji to hear. Out loud, she added, “So, how is your Project’s research into Eshmun going?”

The other woman grinned, in a brilliant half-crescent of perfect teeth. “Amazingly. The other half of the torso; the part the Navy and static defences blew up, not the bit you got? Well, we’ve found several clusters of unhatched eggs. It’s a god-send, even above the live specimens. Anton’s got me heading up the work on the new Species, after my successes with the Hamshall and the Ish. And just looking at the combat data from the parent organism,” she let out a thin whistle, “well, damn. I think the Shamshel... that’s what we’re calling the Species by the way... it’s going to be an excellent super-heavy gunship, and that’s,” the grin turned slightly predatory, “a tactical role that the Migou are going to tearing out their cilia out over.”

“If you can get it working,” Ritsuko pointed out.

“Well, yes, that’s always the caveat emptor, and all that.” Dr Robinson frowned. “I don’t mean caveat emptor. I think I mean ceteris paribus.” She shrugged, an expansive gesture. “How are you doing?”

Dr Akagi smiled too, a slightly sickly expression. “We have several core fragments; damaged, of course, because it was necessary for the Evangelion to kill the target, but we’re already getting data from them.” Well, what the MAGI were actually returning was 601 “Insolubility” errors, even with an Operator diving with them, but that was data. Of a sort. “The r-states that thing was operating in, though... you know we’ve probably just disproved Juarez from its decay patterns.”

“No way.” The other woman blinked. “Let me guess. 512-state proton deflection?”

“Yes.”

“That was always going to be the big test for Juarez. Guess that leaves us with Imonike, then. Which is... kinda annoying. The maths is less elegant,” Dr Robinson said, with a pout. “Well, I really look forwards to you publishing. As in... actually, please do it soon. If we’re going to be dealing with it these things, then our team is really going to need your data on the behaviour of high r-state elem-n-ents.”

“Of course,” Ritsuko said, the corner of her mouth twitching. “

They watched the Deputy Director of Science for Project Engel depart.

“I like her,” Misato remarked. Shinji secretly agreed; the other woman had seemed pleasant enough, and, well, now that he actually had to fight against these things, the term “super-heavy gunship” was being linked to “more stuff shooting at the thing that’s trying to kill me,” and “more targets for the thing that’s trying to kill me,” to his approval.

Ritsuko rolled her eyes. “You would,” she said. “God, I hate that woman. Just... so... damn... bubbly. And she’s from Engel, of course. She’s like fingernails on the blackboard of my mind.”

There was silence. Then;

“So, what’s written on the blackbo...” began the black-haired woman.

“Shut up, Misato. The blackboard is not important. It is a metaphor.”

The black-haired woman glared at her. “I get that,” she said, somewhat snippishly. “I was just trying to inject some levity into the place.”

“Levitate in your own time.” The scientist pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. But if I can dodge Dr Robinson until the analysis is done, I’ll be a lot less stressed.”

But Shinji was no longer paying attention. Over on the other side of the room from the screen, he could see his father on the other side of a window.

He was smiling.

He was talking to Rei Ayanami, her arm still in a cast, but all other signs of her injuries gone.

She was smiling too, a faint curl up of the side of her lips.

Down by his side, Shinji’s hands balled into fists. Through narrowed eyes, he stared at the scene, as the Director of Science and Director of Operations droned at each other about irrelevencies that the boy no longer cared about.

His father never smiled at him. He never even talked to him unless he wanted something.

This was unfair.

~’/|\’~

26th September, 2091

The two boys stood before the door. It was a normal-looking door. No fanged maw, biohazard warning symbol, disturbingly organic sphincter or inscription of "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" adorned the portal.

It was still somewhat intimidating.

“You ring,” muttered Toja.

“No, you,” was Kensuke’s devastatingly scathing and witty retort.

They continued to stand there.

The bespectacled boy rubbed his arm. “Man, security is tight here,” he said, idly. “They actually did a blood check, not just a skin-scraping, just at the dome entrance. And here...”

“Look, are you going to do it?” the Nazzadi growled. “No. Then I guess I’ll just have to use my superior manliness to... argh.”

The door had opened, without anyone touching it. This would have been sinister, had it not been for the fact that a dark-haired, and very attractive, woman with Japanese features stood in the doorway, one hand still raised to the interior controls. “Yes?” she asked.

Both boys immediately stood to attention. And it would be crass to mention that this applied in both senses of the word. “Um...” eventually Kensuke managed to stammer. “Uh, we were wondering if Shinji was here.”

Toja suddenly paled, a change which went entirely unnoticed with his complexion. Was this the right address? He’d got it off Hikary, who had been rather approving of his ‘attempts to be nice to a person at an unfamiliar school’, which just indicated that word of the punching incident hadn’t made its way to her. He could tell that, because he could still hear, and was not shell-shocked from several hours of shouting from an angry class representative.

Luckily, the woman smiled. “I’m afraid he’s out at the moment,” she said.

“Oh,” said Kensuke, his gaze descending, before rising back to her face with a regularity that Galileo could have admired. “Do you know when... um... when he’ll be back?”

She shook her head, ponytail whipping behind her. “No, I’m afraid not,” she said. “Why do you want him?”

“We were going to see a film,” Toja said, self-consciously running a hand through his hair, “and we were wondering if he wanted to call. To come. I meant come. With us.”

She favoured them with another smile. “I see.” The smile shifted into a frown. “Why didn’t you just call him, text him, or... well, do it any way that wouldn’t mean that you end up having to go through the security at this place.”

“We didn’t know about the security,” Kensuke said, grinning. “And he didn’t reply to the email to his Academy account, and we couldn’t find his number in the public lists. So we thought we’d just come over and ask.”

The woman blinked once, and then nodded. “Oh, yes. Yes.” She paused, as if considering things. “I can get you it,” she said, after some deliberation.

Kensuke nodded enthusiastically. “Yes please. Thank you, Mrs Ikari.”

The temperature suddenly dropped by about twenty degrees; the arcology air, kept a little cooler in this residential dome, suddenly freezing against the skin. Misato narrowed her eyes.

“I am not Mrs Ikari,” she said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “I’m Shinji’s guardian.” She paused. Yes, they deserved it. How dare they suggest that! There was no way she could be Shinji’s mother; did she look like the kind of person who’d have a teenage pregnancy like that; the kind of irresponsible mother who wouldn’t even screen their birth? She sincerely hoped not. She didn’t look a day over thirty!

That was completely separate, in her mind, from the fact that she was chronologically thirty one.

“Yes,” she continued, “I’m Misato Katsuragi, Shinji’s guardian. And you would be,” the overlay in her Eyes gave her their names, as well as a considerable batch of personal information, “Kensuke Aida and Toja Suzuhari. Your names have come up in connection to a certain...” she gave a deliberate pause, “... incident I was made aware of.” A series of clicks emanated from her hands held behind her back, which absolutely in no way whatsoever brought to mind, say, the sound of breaking bones. “If I hear of any more such incidents, there will be... consequences. If Shinji’s surveillance team suspects any more incidents might maybe be about to happen, the consequences will be much more immediate, though no more painful in the long run.” Misato leaned forwards, smiling. Unlike her previous smiles, it was not a pleasant smile. It displayed a little too much incisor for even the comfort of a Nazzadi, let alone a human. “I’m pleased we could have this chat.” And then her demeanour returned to normal. “So... shall I just get his gridlink?”

The details were given, and the two boys were left standing, once again, in front of the closed door. On the inside, Misato leant against it with a thump which was not transmitted.

I’m sorry, but what? ‘Mrs Ikari’? It says my name next to the door! Damn teenage boys and their predictable attentions! I mean, seriously, did they think I was old enough to be his mother? Or, in fact, that I was married to the Representative? I mean, it’s possible she hastily added mentally, that he could be a very nice person and a real charmer, and the mere fact that I haven’t ever seen a trace of it in his technocratic bones... oh, and the fact that Shinji and him have real issues... is just a persona, but, seriously? There’s a limit to the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think I know anyone who’s actually spent time around him who’d go throw themselves at him. Damn teenage boys and their... stupidness.

She sighed again. She didn’t look that old, did she? An innocent wastepaper bin received an almighty punt, which did make Misato feel better, although it failed to make up for either the blow to herself image, or the sudden and more immediate pain in her foot.

She would probably have been somewhat reassured to hear the conversation on the other side of the door, and she would have, had the door not been soundproofed and designed to take an RPG without breach.

“Wow,” Kensuke managed.

“Wow,” Toja agreed.

“Wow,” Kensuke expanded, before switching to a more conventional vocabulary. “That was... so hot. Shinji is living with a woman with breasts and legs and... and everythingnessocity like that.”

Toja slapped the other boy on the back, a little bit harder than might have been needed. “Yeah,” he agreed. “There’s no justice in the world.”

“You can say that again! He gets a giant robot and a totally hot chick as his roommate. I mean... that figure, and she’s military too... that attitude.” He flipped out his PCPU. “The figure alone would be enough to get her the coveted AAA rating, but the way she did those warnings... I think she’s going to be the first AAA+... no, AAA ++!” he said, marking it down. “What did she say her name was... oh, it’s right by the door.”

“... okay, I found that talk a bit scary,” Toja admitted.

“You just don’t appreciate the sublime beauty of a woman in uniform,” the bespectacled boy said.

“She wasn’t in uniform.”

“She was. In my mind.”

It should probably be noted at this point that the image in the boy’s head would not have been a very practical combat uniform; quite apart from the lack of ANaMiNBC protection, which would have instantly doomed the wearer, the heels were eminently impractical, and the exposed midriff, low-cut neck and miniskirt would have utterly ruined what little concealment the garment provided.

“Well... she’s probably not going to come out again,” Toja said, with reluctance. “You phone him, and tell him about the film.” He paused. “‘Course, he might actually be doing something... she did say he was out. At least we tried.”

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

~’/|\’~

The maglev ride was smooth and silent, as it always was; the only noise the hiss of air around the train. The only outside forces felt by Shinji Ikari, immersed as he was by the music in his headphones, were the accelerations in and out of stations, and, beyond that, the slight, omnipresent rotation, as the Fifth Circle Line looped around the city. Unlike many of the other train lines, the various Circle lines, all the way from the First, at the top down to the lowest, remained at the same depth; a cyclone and anticyclone which ran all hours of the day.

“This is Ellersmer Court,” the recorded voice played. “This is a Fifth Circle Line train, towards Whitborough Dome. Please allow passengers to leave the train, before you board.”

The movement of people, getting off. The movement of people, getting on. They flowed, and yet, to the eyes of the brown-haired boy, sitting here, eyes on the other people for lack of a better place to stare, he could discern no change.

With one last blast of trumpets, the current song came to an end. Slowly, quietly, the thin, gentle melodies of the violins gave the start to the next one.

“Krehaba estel soli footbali serakroni sanginoji abismi,” a loud-mouthed Nazzadi, slurring his words somewhat, proclaimed, “Chelsi... absul hi abisakroni adisi radski!”

“Zy kokrehakrony,” a woman standing next to him, in the same bright blue shirt, agreed. “Absul footbalazi... serakroni suluperukredoneyakroni , absul serabi suluperukredoneyabi, pla absul serakausi suluperukredoneyakausi.”

I’m sure you had fun, Shinji thought, irritation in his mental voice, as he turned up the volume, to drown them out, even if you thought the game was bad and the players are overpaid. But, seriously, can you please talk more quietly?

He didn’t say anything out loud, of course. Not only were they both bigger than him, but they looked drunk. There was no point in a confrontation; they would be gone soon, and he’d still be here, so what did it matter? In fact, yes, they had open cans of beer with them. A little voice in Shinji’s head gloated at the fines they’d be facing, because the watcher LAIs monitoring the CCTV cameras would have seen that and flagged their faces, but, still, it was irritating.

Shinji sated his annoyance by rolling his eyes at the girl sitting opposite him on the train, accompanied with a sideways glance at the pair. The dark-haired girl, who looked to be about his age, merely stared back without a change in expression, which suddenly made him feel more embarrassed. She was sitting next to an amlata, built like an athlete, and Shinji suddenly had a sinking feeling that he was accidentally flirting with someone’s (very attractive, a treacherous part of his brain noted) girlfriend. Actually, they both looked vaguely familiar; he thought that he might have seen there somewhere around the Academy.

Oh no. Just when I thought the situation couldn’t get any more embarrassing. To escape any further mishaps, he dropped his gaze, staring down at the screen of his PCPU, and just hoping that the world would leave him alone.

“This is Little Delhi,” the recorded voice played. “This is a Fifth Circle Line train, towards Whitborough Dome. Please allow passengers to leave the train, before you board.”

As they pulled out from the station, Shinji hazarded a look up. Phew, he thought, the football people got off. And the girl, too. That social minefield had been evaded, even if her boyfriend had stayed on the train. He flicked the volume back down, and sat back, as the music of Beethoven filled his ears.

*bleep* “Shinji has mail.”

Or at least it did, before his muse decided to inform him of it, subverting his music to do so. He really hoped it was something important to bother disturbing him. Then again, Ari was running high-end anti-spam filters, so she did tend to catch pretty much everything that wasn’t important.

He checked. It was a... well, an almost wary-sounding message from the human boy from yesterday, Kensuke, asking if he wanted to come see a film with Toja. They were meeting in Dome 3, in the Eddington cluster.

A few presses, to get to the map, and... yes, he had thought so. If he got off at Sideware, and then took the inclinator up to Third Tier, he’d be in the right dome. Shinji shrugged. It was going to be easy for him to do it, and he’d have to think up a reason for why he didn’t, which would be harder than just doing it. If he were to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t like he was doing anything vitally important. Just as long as he was back at Misato’s for six, because they were having dinner with Dr Akagi...

Why not?

~’/|\’~

The room was a vast cylinder, rising far above, just as it could, through diamond plates in the floor, be seen to plummet far below. The full height was unseen; the white light from the lit areas ended before this hollow space, deep below the depths of the Earth did. It was not a pure white, though, because for every light, there was a path which took it through the transparent sphere, divided into eighths by the metal bands which ran around its equators, which hung in the centre of the room. The orb refracted the light which shone through it with an uncanny radiance which spoke of its adamant nature, and was filled with a blue fluid which could be seen to move by the patterns of bent light, much like light shone through waves in an aquarium. The chamber was suspended by a cobweb of threads no thicker than a spider’s web, the other, more visible profusion of flowing cables and arcane, in both senses of the word, equipment there for its function, not for its structure.

And speaking of its structure, if one were to look into the onion-like layers of the globe, and at the walls of this place with an electron microscope, one might see the warding circles, inscriptions and other anchors for sorcerous containment procedures which covered every square micrometer.

Rei Ayanami floated naked in the warm tank of fluid, eyes closed, hair drifting around her like seaweed. Curled into a ball, she twitched slightly, mouth moving with unheard words. Around her, the pale blueness swirled, cycled frequently to prevent her from depleting the oxygen. It was LCL, true, but not LCL as used in the entry plugs of the Evangelions; this was, quite apart from being a different colour, thinner, and, in the areas away from her body, almost an aerosol, never quite sure on whether it was a liquid or a gas.

It was, after all, designed for a rather different purpose.

A twitch, and she spasmed, straightening to full rigidity with her spine curving back, an unseen jet of fluid expelled from her lungs to send the blueness swirling and twirling. Slowly, slowly, she curled up again, only for, only a few minutes later, the process to repeat, her mouth open in an unheard, or perhaps, ignored, scream.

With a lack of care in her eyes, Dr Ritsuko Akagi flicked her gaze up, the light painting her harcontact-lit eyes blue-within-blue, before returning back to the feed, to deal with more important matters. Eventually, though, she was satisfied.

“Prepare for chamber evacuation,” she ordered the girl. In response, mutely (or maybe not? How could one tell, when no sound seemed to escape the sphere?), the girl swam into a position which would leave her on her hands and knees when the vessel was cycled, as, indeed it did, the LCL drained away and replaced by air.

Kneeling, a gush of blue-to-clear liquid rushed out of Rei’s mouth, as she coughed it out of her lungs, only for the fluid to effervesce and boil away before it hit the floor, the unhealthy-looking mist pulled out of the chamber too.

“Cycling chamber,” Ritsuko noted.

“That went well,” Ritsuko told her. “As far as I can see, there were no issues with this first test after your synchronicity accident.” She paused. “Did you feel anything different or wrong?”

“I did not, Dr Akagi,” the girl replied, hands still by her side, making no attempts to cover herself. Ristuko handed her a paper robe, which would last her until she got to the decontamination showers, to wash out the remains of the LCL-variant which still tinted her hair blue and coated her skin in a thin layer which made it look even colder than usual.

“Good.” The blond paused. “The Unit 00 restart test is on Wednesday. You are to attend school as normal; it is not scheduled until 16:00.”

“I understand, Dr Akagi.” Rei sneezed, the thin wisp of blue fog dispersing before the older woman could even recoil.

Ritsuko had the feeling that she was forgetting something. “We will schedule the next session for... the third of October,” she said, making note. “That’s next Sunday.”

“Yes, Dr Akagi.” The girl continued to stand there, unmoving since she had donned the paper gown, no hint of movement from her own conscious volitation. The sneeze didn’t count.

“That will be all, Rei,” Ritsuko said.

“I understand, Dr Akagi.” The girl paused, shifting slightly. “Dr Akagi?” she asked, raising one hand slightly.

“Yes, Rei?” the scientist asked, with a hint of interest.

“Why did you deem it necessary to have me stand-by for the Harbinger-4 incident, when I had not successfully synchronised with Unit 00 without a synchronicity incident? It was not necessary to have me do so, and any attempt to have me do so would have had unknown success.” If there was curiosity in the girl’s voice, Ritsuko could not read it. “It was not time then, and it was not necessary.”

“Because we couldn’t be sure that Test Pilot Ikari would be successful,” Ritsuko explained, any interest she could have before drowned by the... the Rei-ness of the question. “If he had been incapacitated, it would have been necessary to eliminate the Harbinger, and, as a secondary objective, salvage the Test Model.”

“But it was not necessary.”

“No, it turned out not to be necessary,” Ritsuko admitted. “To be honest, we did not expect Shinji to perform... well, to perform well. He’s been a bit of a surprise.”

“He has surprised you?” the girl replied flatly.

“Yes. Compared to the Second Child, the Third is woefully under-trained, and yet he’s a prodigy in the field of AT-Field manipulation. It’s a surprise.”

“The Third Child. Acedia. Test Pilot Ikari. Shinji Ikari. He is the son of Representative Gendo Ikari, and Dr Yui Ikari.”

The scientist waited for the girl to continue. She did not do so.

“You can go, Rei,” she said, framing the statement as an order.

“Dr Akagi.”

“Yes, Rei?” she asked, frustration creeping into her voice.

“Why are you surprised?”

The woman blinked, the lit harcontacts painting her eyelids purple as she blinked. She really wanted a smoke right now. “Because he’s defying the predictions made on you, the Second Child, and the other failed test subjects,” she said. “Now, if you’d just...”

Rarely, almost uniquely, Rei interrupted her. “I did not mean that,” she said. “What I meant was, ‘Why are you surprised?’”

Ritsuko frowned. “I just told you.”

There might have been a hint of sadness in Rei’s eyes as she answered, the doctor thought. “You did not understand. I am not surprised.” And with that said, she turned, and headed for the exit that would lead her to the showers.

Then again, that might just have been excessive and wilful anthromorphism, the woman thought with a hint of spite.

~’/|\’~

The sirens were wailing with the high pitched scream of a newborn infant. Most of what could be seen on the mainscreen was the red of destroyed assets; prime among them, the flanks of capital-grade charge beams now entirely silenced.

A woman screamed; a high-pitched shriek of terror. “Contact!” she managed. “C-c-contact!”

“My god,” a young man, his temples still streaked with grey despite his age, muttered, staring at the screen in front of him. “God! No! It’s... it’s still coming! It just came out of nowhere! Why didn’t you detect it?”

Her face streaked with sweat, the Captain in charge of the facility ran in, her red eyes narrowed. “Report!” she barked. “What the hell’s going on? It’s hell on earth outside!”

“C-captain!” the man stammered. “An unknown object... maybe two hundred metres in diameter... just appeared in low earth orbit. And that’s only after it destroyed the defences. We think it must have had some kind of arcane field protecting it from detection!”

“Impossible!” the Captain snapped. “Nothing that large could be warded against detection in that...” and her face fell. “No,” she said softly, expression suddenly wracked with fear. “They’re back, aren’t they?”

“I can’t say. But... but they’re launching smaller objects. We can’t stand against them.” The man looked up, tears in her eyes. “We just can’t. We couldn’t see them. Oh, God, why? What does science exist for!”

“Stow your bellyaching,” the Captain snapped. “I’ll tell you what science is there for! It’s there for truth, for beauty, and for the realisation of the imminent potential in all things! And, most importantly, it’s there for giving us tools, whether to find out more about the world, or killing those who would kill us. Because,” the nazzady said, breaking the glass on the wall to remove a fire axe, “the Migou may have made me, and their Loyalists may have called us monsters when we rebelled. But let me tell you this. I’ve read Frankenstein since then! And it’s in the nature of so-called monsters to destroy their makers!” She pointed up at the screen. “Look at that! Tower 07, by the Elder Thing City, is still operational! It’s just not firing! So we’re going to go there, and start it up again! For Earth! For Human and Nazzadi alike! And for the honour of the Antarctica Defence Forces!” She grabbed an automatic grenade launcher from a rack. “Saddle up, men, because the 27th of December, 2073, is a day which the bugs are going to remember for a very long time!”

There was a cheer from the soldiers huddled in the room, and a mass checking of weapons.

“You’re... mad,” the desk operator shouted. “It’s minus 50 out there! And they’re still bombing!”

The Captain glanced back over her shoulder. “Then the fireballs will keep us warm.”

“I thought I said I didn’t want to go see a film about military stuff,” Shinji muttered along the aisle to the other two, as patriotic music swelled.

Toja looked uncomfortable, as he leant forwards. “Uh... yeah, sorry about this,” he whispered back, his eyes reflecting the light like a cat’s in the darkness. “I... would rather have gone to see something else, too. But he,” he jerked his head towards Kensuke, who was sitting in the middle, “had already paid for the tickets.”

“But it’s not even that good,” Shinji hissed. “I’ve seen this story before. And the script is terrible.”

“Shush, you two,” said Kensuke, who was still avidly staring at the screen. “This is awesome. You do know, right, that this is all Live Action, no CGI at all? It’s amazing! They used real military equipment, even old stuff from the start of the war for everything. I’ve never seen such a realistic use of conventional explosives to fake a nuclear blast.”

The other two boys stared at him. “You mean you didn’t see if the plot was any good?” Shinji managed.

“Why?” Kensuke frowned. “It’s really pretty.”

Toja’s palm collided with his forehead. “Last time I let you buy tickets,” he muttered. “Next time, we’re going to see Snake Fist IV.”

~’/|\’~

Shinji was in a mixed mood as he got home. Some of the parts of the film, the ones which hadn’t been full of laughable dialogue or pretty explosions had been a little too close to home for his preferences. He’d heard that kind of controlled panic in the voices of other people, in the Evangelion Group, in training. He’d looked away at those points, especially when the bombardment had begun.

Of course, the events of December 2073, the so-called “First Strike”, had been a Migou attack against the Antarctican polar defences, the first blow in the Second Arcanotech War, which would properly begin the next year as the Migou Hive Ship arrived complete with escorting fleet. The first landings had been in Antarctica, which had not even been contested thanks to the damage done by the First Strike. But at least it had been a Migou thing, not anything to do with Harbingers or anything like that, so that had numbed it a little, disassociated it a little from what they made him do. Hah, Shinji thought, if I couldn’t do that, I basically couldn’t watch anything.

He checked his watch; good, yes, he was still back before the deadline at six. Only a short search was needed to find his keys, which weren’t actually mechanical keys, and the door slid open.

The... it wasn’t even a scent in the air anymore, more a taste, hit him in the face like a fist. A sensation which he was, regrettably, familiar with. Coughing, choking, he stepped back outside, and sucked in a breath of clean arcology air.

It, whatever it was, was even making his eyes water, just from the smell. Taking a tentative sniff, he could smell burning paper, chilli... yes, there was certainly chilli, maybe some kind of curry powder stuff... and that was when his endurance gave out, and he retreated back to safety.

“Ari,” he instructed his muse, pulling out his PCPU, “phone Misato.” If she didn’t respond, he should probably start getting worried, because peeking his head inside, he could see what looked like hints of smoke. Well, there would have to be. There had to be some point where a smell stopped being a smell, and started being a smoke, or maybe a vapour. Shinji couldn’t quite remember the difference between the two, from Chemistry.

There was a sound of sizzling and bubbling from the other end of the line, as Misato picked up her PCPU, and, using that peculiar tone of voice which people use when they’re holding the handset between their shoulder and the side of their head, said, “Heya, Shinji! I was starting to wonder when you’d call. Where are you?”

“Outside.” Either she was in a full medieval dungeon, complete with boiling oil, or she was probably in the kitchen, Shinji was forced to conclude.

“Oh. Let me just turn that down... wrong way... down! ‘Kay. ‘Kay. Right.” She paused. “Oh, right? Why? Are they not letting you through security? Your card should still be synched with your profile, right?”

Shinji shook his head, briefly wondered who he was shaking his head at, given that he was on the phone, and said, “No. I mean...right outside the entrance to the flat. I’ve got it open... are you alright in there?” he asked, with some anxiety. “I can smell smoke. Is there a fire?”

“Not anymore!” Misato said, cheerfully. “There was a leee~eeetle accident with some chilli I was frying with the beans, but that’s all okay.”

The boy relaxed. “That’s good, because...”

“... and the packaging is totally extinguished!” Misato added. “Although who’d sell real chillies in a paper bag like that, I’d like to know,” she added in a darker voice. “You can’t microwave it at all, even though it looks like you should be able to!”

“Okay.” Shinji blinked, lost for words. “Right.” She’s cooking she’s cooking she’d cooking a little voice in his head wailed, but he managed to keep it away from his vocal cords.

He could hear Misato humming tunelessly, as something sizzled. “So, Shinji, did you have fun today?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Um... well, the film wasn’t that good, but, yes.”

“How were your friends?”

Shinji wasn’t quite sure that he’d chose to describe them as friends quite yet; associates, certainly, with a view to a potential upgrade later, but you really couldn’t say that when less than a week ago, one of them had punched you.

“Fine.”

“They dropped ‘round, you know?” Misato mentioned, an innocuous tone in her voice. “I had a talk with them in my capacity as Director of Operations... which was not what I wanted to do on a Sunday, ‘cause I managed to get a day off... and I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble with them.”

Yes, Shinji did know. Mainly because when the other two had asked what he had been doing, he had ended up explaining why he had got into the habit of just occasionally going out, and riding the Arconnect for hours at a time. It was something he’d done back in Toyko-3, too, because sometimes he just had to get away from people, to relax, and a house with one excitable little girl, and one very excitable little girl, was not a place where you could do such a thing.

And then he had made the mistake of using the line, ‘And sometimes Misato is a bit exhausting to be around’, which had been interpreted as two teenage boys, who believed that a double entendre could only have one meaning, would interpret it. There had been much discussion of the attractiveness of his guardian from the other two parties involved, with no appreciation of the fact that she was a slob, even when he explicitly pointed it out.

Shinji just knew this was going to get annoying.

“But... uh, Shinji, it would probably be easier if you’d come in, you know,” Misato added. “I mean, I could do with some help, and some of us have been working hard in the kitchen.” Shinji could smell it. If she’d been working hard in there, she hadn’t been working at cooking something edible.

No, that wasn’t fair, he corrected himself. She hadn’t been succeeding at working at cooking something edible.

“Um, okay, I’ll be in a moment,” he said, as he disconnected. No, thinking of it, a more appropriate descriptor would be ‘lied’. He was just going to wait out here for a while, let the air cycle a bit, before he’d come in, and try to help salvage dinner.

“Oh, hello Shinji!” called out Dr Akagi from behind him, the click of her heels a solid sound. He turned, noting that he didn’t think he’d actually seen her out of what he was going to call ‘scientist clothing’ before. The loose blouse and trousers looked somehow wrong on her, compared to the more common lab coat, or more specialist equipment. And the fact that her harcontacts were off, that her pupils weren’t rimmed with a blue gear... that was odd. “Why are you out h... oh, God, what is that smell?” Her eyes suddenly widened in recognition. “H-has Misato been cooking?”

Shinji winced. “I think so. And... um, when I called her, she said she’d burned it, too.”

Ritsuko nodded. “It smells familiar. She went through about... about three months at university,” she explained, “after a... difficult break-up trying to teach herself how to cook.” She glanced at Shinji’s expression. “No, I don’t get the chain of logic behind that decision, either. As I recall, I ended up spending most of my time in the library to avoid the way the flat smelt.” Her eyes narrowed. “Well, that and the tissue boyfriends.”

“Tissue?” Shinji frowned. “I don’t recognise the... what, were they all... oh. I see. Something to sob into and then throw away?” There was still a lot of doubt in his voice.

“Something like that,” Ritsuko said diplomatically. The actual line of logic behind the nickname had actually been that they were only good for a few blows, before they were discarded, and more covertly, that they were rather... limp. The blond had not had a high opinion of the other woman’s taste in men. “But,” she added, changing the topic, “did she say what she was making?”

Shinji shook his head. “No. She said something about beans and chilli, though, and it was sort of implied that she went and bought ingredients, rather than nanofac stuff.”

The woman’s eyes went blank for a moment. “Right,” she said. “In that case, Shinji, do you like Nazzadi food?”

The boy frowned, shifting his posture to lean against the wall a little more. “What kind?” he asked.

“What do you mean, ‘what kind’?”

“Well, it’s not all the same. At all,” Shinji said, with authority. “You’ve got the Traditionalist stuff (although, even then, you can split by Colony Ship), you’ve got nazzadanfrazzi nutrenti... that’s the stuff which takes inspiration from pre-existing human styles, but then twists it, and there’s at least one version of that for every culture, and then there’s the mess of ineveti nutrenti styles, which... well, you can’t really...” he trailed off, as he found the blond staring at him. “Gany, my Nazzadi foster mother, was the one who taught me to cook, and did most of the cooking,” he explained. “Um... you kind of pick this stuff up.”

“I’d always thought it was just food,” Ritsuko said, slowly. She had to confess, that was a side to the Third Child she hadn’t seen before. “You know, quite a lot of sauces, tendency to add spices, quite a lot of protein. That kind of food.”

Shinji rolled his eyes. “Yes,” he said carefully, “in the same way that all Japanese people eat is sushi.”

There was a snort from the woman, along with a shrug. “Okay, then. I get your point. But you’ll be fine with it?”

“Yes.” Well, as long as it’s well done, he thought, privately.

“In that case,” Ritsuko pulled out her PCPU, “... favourites... bookings... yes, they’ve got space for a party of three.” She tapped the screen a few times, before raising one finger to her lips, with a gesture for Shinji to be quiet, and selecting a call. “Hello, Misato,” she said, into the device. “Uh, huh.” A pause. “Oh, I got out of work a while ago, I’ve just got to your dome, so I’ll be with you in a few minutes. The bookings are for 18:30, so we should be able to make the reservation.” Another pause. “Wait, what? I thought we were going out. I was making the bookings, and we’d be meeting at your place... you’ve been cooking. Sorry, I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known, but... no, really, I insist. It is a really good place, I assure you... yes, it does have a good bar,” she added, with a glance down at Shinji. “Sorry, we should probably both have been clearer...” she laughed, “... yes, I know exactly what you mean. I’ll see you in a few minutes. Bye... bye.”

The PCPU was returned to a pocket. “And that, Shinji,” she said with a smile, “is how you handle Misato.” She winced. “Do me a favour, though. Next time she suggests one of these things, either make sure we’re going out, or don’t let her in the kitchen. I’m no longer a student, much as I hate to admit it, and I don’t think my stomach can cope with it anymore.”

~’/|\’~

“... so I said, ‘yes, that is what I said’!” Misato leant back her head, and roared with laughter. Shinji and Ritsuko exchanged embarrassed looks with each other; a situation only made worse by the looks that the other patrons were giving them.

“I happen to like this restaurant,” the blond muttered, “and I’d prefer to not be banned.”

“Oh, lighten up, Rits!” The woman paused, as she took a mouthful of food. The particular dish she had, fermoja flakorpa, was a solid Traditionalist meal, meant to be eaten only with a knife and the pastry provided. Misato was wilfully ignoring that, and had obtained herself a fork, just as she was ignoring the fact that, technically, this meal was only meant to be eaten by men over the age of 27. Of course, that latter detail was ignored by all but the most Traditionalist, but the way that she then went to look for where they kept the condiments would have produced wider annoyance.

Ritsuko shook her head, with a hint of sorrow in the motion, as she watched her friend go.

“Thank you for doing this,” Shinji said, as he sliced the leaf-wrapped protein on his plate into thin slices.

The blond flapped a hand at him. “No problem.” She paused. “Of course... are you sure that you want to stay with her, though?” she asked. “I mean,” the woman blinked, “I know you were placed with her, but... after smelling that cooking, there’s no need you need to have your life ruined by a bad flatmate.”

Shinji sighed. “I don’t really get her,” he admitted. “Sometimes, when we’re talking... it’s like we’re not even in the same room. I just don’t get how she can be like she is.” He shrugged. “It’s fine; there’s no need to go to all that trouble. I’ll survive.”

“Well...”

“... if only because I’ve taken over cooking and cleaning duties,” he added, with dark humour.

Ritsuko laughed. “I did the same at university,” she admitted. “She’s always been, for as long as I’ve known her, a slob, and a useless chef, and... well, she can only have got worse.” The last words were said with a seriousness quite unlike the rest of the sentence.

Shinji frowned. “Huh?”

The scientist’s eyes widened, fractionally. “Oh,” she mouthed, silently. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Ritsuko frowned. “This is awkward. I don’t know how much I should really say, as her friend, but...” she licked her lips. “Misato was with the Army... one of the best mecha pilots of her generation,” she explained, picking her words carefully. “She made Captain after keeping the remnants of a brigade together and fighting for 23 days after they’d been cut off in the Fall of China, behind Storm lines, with only enough state-nullifiers to keep away state-sickness for fourteen... and even those weren’t designed for how high the states were getting as the Leng POLLEN expanded. State-sickness does... funny things to your brain... random excitation of the atoms into higher r-states, and there’s only so much that arcanotherapy can do. And then it happens again, when you leave, as they decay back down, and radiate out the energy. She came out lightly. Only the loss of most of her sense of smell and taste.” Yes, that would do for an explanation. It wouldn’t do to mention everything. For one, they were eating. For two, it was... private.

The boy paled, and poked at his food, suddenly much less hungry. “So,” he said, glancing over at Misato, who was leaning over the buffet table, picking up bottles of brightly coloured flavourings, “the reason she puts so much stuff on everything she eats...”

Ritsuko nodded, gravely. “Yes.”

“That’s horrible.” And Shinji now felt terrible for finding it amusing.

“Of course, she still can’t cook,” Ritsuko pointed out. “But now... she can’t even really taste or smell it. She probably couldn’t even smell the apartment, and because she has implanted Eyes, they wouldn’t have been watering as much. So she does this just to taste anything.”

“Oh.” There was an uncomfortable silence, which was only broken when Misato put the bottles of red, blue, clear, and red-with-what-looked-like-chilli-seeds-in-it down on the table, and began to liberally apply them.

“Ah, that’s better,” she said with a grin. “Want to try a bite?” the dark-haired woman said to Shinji, with a grin, proffering her fork forwards.

Shinji shook his head mutely, and poked at the slices on his plate.

“Wimp,” she said, with a grin. “A real man should always be willing to try something once.”

Ritsuko rolled her eyes. “What, you mean like Pola? As I recall, he let you drive for him once. And then left you.”

Misato pouted. “He was terrible in be... being a good passenger,” she said, with a sideways glance at Shinji.

“Misato. He was in training to be a fighter pilot.”

“So?”

“He’d had the Grade One implants. He shouldn’t even have been physically capable of getting motion sick.”

“So? He said the real issue was being that low, which just goes to show that he wasn’t all that good.”

The blond raised her hands. “I’m just saying, there are some things you shouldn’t try.”

Just then, both womens’ PCPUs chimed. “If this is an emergency, I’m going to kill someone,” the black-haired woman growled. “Oh, good,” she added, after checking, in a lighter tone.

“Yes, I was a little worried, but it seems to have gone smoothly. And not a moment too soon.”

“Hmm?” Shinji asked, or at least made a quizzical noise.

“We were having Zero-Two moved from where it was, to another place,” Ritsuko said carefully, choosing her words because they were in a public place. Well, she happened to know that a non-negligible fraction of the clients here were Armacham Internal Security guards, but the point still remained. “And that’s all I’m going to say... and Misato will say, too.” She snapped her fingers, and reached for her handbag, rummaging through it. “Although... that reminds me. She handed him a black sealed tablet, about the size of his hand.

“What is it?”

“Turn it over.” He did; the other side was emblazoned with ‘Secure Biometric Data package’. There was a transparent window on the front. Through it, he could see a picture of Rei Ayanami. “It’s her new Ashcroft Ident Card; her only one expired. Some of her access rights are dependent on this.”

“Why me?”

“Maybe because you’ll see her at school tomorrow, while I’m working,” the woman said, a hint of irritation in her voice.

Shinji could accept that this was a fair point. He glanced back at the picture. It was even taken against a black background; it had been found that sidoci ended up overexposed and bleached when taken against a normal white one. Tilting the sealed package, the familiar face shifted as the angle he was looking at it changed. Idly, he ran one hand along his jaw, squinting at the hologram of the girl.

He looked up to find both women staring at him, smiling faintly. Well, Ritsuko was smiling faintly. Misato had a look on her face which would probably have run afoul of pre-NEG decency laws in some parts of the world.

“What’s the matter?” asked the dark-haired woman, a slight lilt in her voice. “You seem to be looking at Rei’s face very intently.”

“What? Um...”

“Oh, come on, it’s sweet,” she continued. “This way, you have a nice little excuse to talk to her. And then, maybe...”

“It’s not...”

“You might even get to see her house,” Misato added, a salacious grin on her face.

Ritsuko blinked suddenly, her face rigid. “There’s no need to tease him quite so much,” she told her friend, mock-sternness in her voice.

“Yes! Thank you! A sane...”

“... of course, you still need to tease him a little,” Ritsuko continued, the grin creeping back in.

Crossing his arms, Shinji slumped back down, his face taking on the caste of a martyr.

“Make sure you remember, Shinji,” the blond said. She sighed. “She tries, you know.”

“Who?”

“Rei. But... well,” she ran one hand over her face, “much like your father, sometimes I think her problem is that she can’t see the little things in front of her. She can’t see the trees for the forest... and, yes, I mean it that way around. And she’s not very good at it.”

“At what?”

“Ignorance.”

~’/|\’~

Her handbag made a solid thump on the floor, as Ritsuko dropped it, and turned to check that the security systems had turned back on properly. Satisfied that they had, she slipped her shoes off, and, socks squeaking on the hard material, stepped into her kitchen.

Twelve eyes reflected the light from the hallways back at her, an inhuman yellowish-golden glint. The blond sighed.

“What are you doing in here, sitting around in the dark?” she asked, flicking the light on.

There was a mewing, as the cats protested at the sudden change in their conditions. The woman glanced over at their bowls. Ah. Yes, that made sense. She’d forgotten to fill up the dispenser robot; the football-like unit waiting at its charging point. They had drunk all their water, and would be wanting food. Stepping over to the bowls, she reached down to pick up the dishes, only for her fingers to be batted away by one of the cats.

“Major Zero? What are you doing?” she asked the cat, a handsome Havana Blue tom. Quite unlike their ancestor breed, the Persian Blue, the Havana Blue was actually, blatantly blue. The genetics labs of Cuba had been busy with genetically modified pets even before the First Arcanotech War; the specific breed was one of the oldest ones, an experiment into pet colouration which had tweaked the genes which decided coat colouration, carried on the X-chromosomes. Its fur was an almost-synthetic blue, never encountered in nature, and it had been rather pricy as a result. The Havana Blue was always provided with full geneline history, and the numbers were highly restricted, with a long waiting list.

It had been Ritsuko’s little act of rebellion to let the Sergeant breed with Kiko, a perfectly normal mongrel tabby. She didn’t care about the genelines, or the fact that she was diluting the stock. Their kittens would thank her, for one, because the cat breeders, even with the aid of genetic modification, tended to keep the lines too closed-in for her liking. Plus, the tortoiseshell from the litter had been adorable, its spiky fur a mottled grey, orange, black and blue.

The cat mewed at her, staring at her with its red eyes, and batted at her hand again. The human sighed. “Do you want foot or not?” she said, as she straightened up. The cat trotted out of the kitchen, waiting for her at the door. “Okay then,” she said to the cat, “be that way.”

A series of splashes of water was followed by the rattling sound of her filling up the dispenser robot. Shortly afterwards, she emerged from the kitchen, carrying a cat under each arm, because they had insisted at batting at the ball-like robot which was trying to fill their feeding bowls, rather than actually let it give them it. For all that she liked her cats, they could be rather stupid.

Making her way through to her box-like study, she found the large blue cat occupying her chair. She’d left the door open again, obviously, and they always found their way through, to the most comfortable chair in the house. Booting up the machine, her Grid workspace appeared, followed by the sound of its internal processor whirring to life. She picked up the tom from the seat, and sat back down, keeping the cat on her lap. Major Zero didn’t protest; in fact, he flopped over her knees, stretching, a fair purr vibrating her legs.

Reactivating her harcontacts, Dr Ritsuko Akagi resumed work. The Unit 00 start-up test was this Wednesday, after all, and she wasn’t going to get work done by having meals in restaurants.

~’/|\’~

27th September, 2091

Without exception, everyone who passed the entrance examination to get into an Ashcroft Academy was a high achiever. The schools prided themselves on it; there was a reason that the global academic league tables were utterly dominated by these schools. They cherrypicked the brightest from mainstream education with generous scholarships, and were rumoured to conduct pre-admission genetic screening which was then taken into account in the acceptance process. The children there were disproportionately xenomixed and genofixed.

And despite this academic brilliance concentrated in one place, not one person had been able to deduce the logic behind how the Physical Education sessions migrated around the week. This week, they were Monday afternoon. Last week, they had been Tuesday morning. The week before that, Thursday morning. The general consensus was that the timetabling LAI was mad, with a minority report that the PE teachers were all a bunch of bloody-minded sadists who took too much pleasure in detentions issued for lack of the proper kit.

Up and down the pitches in front of the main buildings, a mass of boys thundered. Tight white T-shirts were covered by red or blue bibs, as they fought for primacy, and short shorts were splattered with mud as the studded boots tore up the natural turf. With a flick, a blue-bibbed player passed it to a tall, brown-haired boy who, pale legs flashing in the lightstrips in the dome ceiling, tore off up the field, outpacing or outwitting those reds who might have tried to obstruct him.

“Damn it, Dathan, pass the ball!” a boy, in a perfect position for a cross into the penalty box, yelled.

The taller boy ignored them, and, with a flick, sent it straight at the goal with a quite scary velocity, to barely be brushed aside by the fingers of the goalkeeper; fingers which were now in considerable pain. In the chaos around the goalmouth, the ball went out of play, and, luckily for the red-bibbed players, it was their goal kick.

Of course, the people on the pitch were predominantly the first team players from the six classes with PE scheduled at this time. The rest were sitting around at the sidelines, where they were meant to doing exercises. However, the teacher who had been covering them was currently escorting two boys, who’d managed to run head-first into each other, to the nurse’s office, and so they were currently being simultaneously apathetic, indolent, salacious and libidinous.

Whoever had decided to give the school swimming pool a glass front which was visible from the playing fields was worshiped as a minor god by much of the male population of the school, or at least the ones old enough, and inclined to find girls interesting. For one, they had single-handedly, in their pursuit of architectural aesthetics, managed to negate the work done in dividing the sexes when there was swimming, to avoid any possible problems with body issues imposed by social pressures.

With a synchronised splash, the five girls standing at the end of the pool dived in. At the other end, the previous set climbed out, dripping down onto the clean white tiles. One wrapped her arm around another, mouth moving in unheard laughter, and there were sighs from the male onlookers.

“I like the view,” Kensuke said, in a voice which was approaching sexual harassment merely in intonation, as he nudged Shinji in the ribs.

“I-I don’t know what you mean.”

“You cannot fool me!” declared Kensuke, with deliberate pomposity. “You, too, are looking for an answer to that eternal...”

“... well, since the 2060s...” Toja interjected, sitting on the other side of the boy.

“... eternal since the 2060s problem too, my friend. It has puzzled generations of men, driven them to madness... and stuff. But what is that problem, I hear you ask?”

Shinji squinted. “I feel you’re going to tell me.”

“Nazzadi or human! Which is hotter!”

“It’s a hard one,” a Nazzadi boy, his hair dyed white, said, as he leant back. “And if you say, ‘That’s what she said’, Ken, I will thump you.”

“Come on, Ala. Would I do...”

“Yes. And have.”

Shinji nodded. “It is true.”

“I hate you guys.”

“Don’t worry,” Enitan, the dark-skinned boy on the other side of Toja, said with a smirk. “We hate you too. But, back to the topic at hand,” he stroked his chin. “Difficult indeed. Humans are shorter, which is cuter...”

Toja snorted. “You only say that ‘cause you’re short and don’t want a girlfriend who’s taller than you. You know how much I’d have to bend down to kiss some of those people?” He paused. “Not that I’d mind, if they were hot, because that’s a sacrifice worth making, but still...”

“Ah, but we’re forgetting the big divide,” Ala pointed out. “More fat; yes or no? Nazzadi are thinner, but humans have bigger boobs, and are more curvy... which I just find...” he shook his head. “Well, look at Panary.” Gazes were indeed directed at the girl, her wet black hair tied back into a ponytail, as she stood at the end of the pool, waiting for her signal. “Sure, she might be tall and thin, but look! I mean, if I wanted someone tall, thin, muscled, and with no boobs, I’d go ask Dathan out.”

Enitan snorted. “Get ready to fight both Jony and Ferdina for him, then.”

“That wasn’t serioooous.”

“Even if he asked you out?”

“Yes! God, were you not listening to me? She’s gotta actually,” he made gestures in front of his chest, “be shaped like a girl, you know? That was the whole point of the comparison. Plus, you know, I’m a nazzada. So I know what my teeth are like. Like chisels, that’s what. And... well, that’s a real downside on a girl.”

There was collective male wincing from all but Shinji, who had tuned out the conversation a while ago. He couldn’t help but feel that the whole conversation was more than a little sordid. It was already a little dubious to stare; did they have to make commentary too? It made the whole thing rather uncomfortable. They really didn’t spend enough time around women... no, that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t as if all the other lessons were gender-segregated.

Shinji was of the rather smug opinion (which he would, of course, never mention to anyone) that he just had a healthier, which was to say, less objectifying, attitude to the fairer sex. Because when one is raised by two women, one of whom works for the FSB, one discovers that objectification is not strictly viable, unless one wants to have why it is wrong explained in detail.

Of course, that didn’t stop him staring over at the pool, too. Over at the pale figure, dark blue swimming costume a stark contrast to her chalk-coloured skin, who sat at the end of the pool, legs clutched up against her chest.

Rei Ayanami. Who was she, really? He didn’t know. Oh, they called the First Child, and sometimes, when they were talking to military people they referred to her as Invidia, but he didn’t know anything about her. He didn’t know where she lived, what she did in her free time, how she felt about having to pilot, what she was like as a person... in a purely professional sense, he hastened to reassure himself. Although, of course, she was very attractive, in a sort of special way; there was something about the way that snow-white skin just looked good on a girl, and from this viewpoint, he could see that she had an excellent figure. The thought had occurred that he would get to see her in a plug suit at some point in the very near future. It was a nice thought.

But of course, that wasn’t why he was interested in her. Honestly. This was a more professional (and the word felt strange to him) interest. Sure, it was possible that something more might be achievable, but that was only a distant prospect. This was just getting to know someone who, after all, also piloted a forty-metre giant robot; someone else who would understand the stress and the punishing training schedule they inflicted on him. He was... he was taking the initiative.

There were things, though, that he had picked up from the others in the class; they said she was asocial, cold, that she never chose to interact with people unless it was necessary and that she had been like this ever since she joined the class, back in first year. Some of the girls had apparently tried multiple times to get her more involved; he had heard mention of attempts by Hikary, Taly, that brown-haired bookish one who sat at the back... no success. Although it was admirable of them to try. She did look... isolated, sitting there, her legs raised up like a barrier to the world around her. Lonely, and yet there was something about her that left him ill at ease, a darker voice added. Maybe it was because she seemed to be able to make his father smile, when he couldn’t.

He really hoped it wasn’t some kind of unconscious bias against sidoci. He didn’t want to think of himself as the sort of person who had a problem with them.

Someone said his name. He switched his attention back to the conversation.

“Huh?”

There were mutual smirks all around. “I said,” Toja said, “I think Shinji agrees that xenomixed is best.”

He stared at them in confusion.

“You were staring,” the boy said.

“At Rei Ayanami,” Kensuke added, unnecessarily.

“N-n-no,” Shinji stammered.

Enitan rolled his eyes. “We’re not blind, you know. The world doesn’t shut down when you’re not paying attention.” He paused. “Well, if it does, it creates memories that make it the same as if it didn’t...”

“But what part were you staring at, hmm?” Toja interrupted, as he leant in. “Her breasts, perhaps?”

“I think you can definitely say she takes after her human side, if you know what I mean,” Kensuke said, waggling his eyebrows. “Or maybe her calves?”

“Or her thighs?”

“Like I said,” Shinji stammered, pushed off balance by both the interrogation, and the fact that they were leaning in from both sides, “that’s not it. Really.”

“... in that case,” someone muttered, “we should take away your man card. Because not staring at something like that...”

“Then what were you looking at, huh?” Toja said, drawing even closer.

“After all, we know you’re bad at lying,” the bespectacled boy added

“Your faces are too close,” muttered Shinji, through clenched teeth. “And... I was wondering why she’s always alone. Why she never does anything with anyone.”

“Because she’s... like that.”

“All sidoci are a bit like that. You can’t really get in their heads.”

“Always been like that.”

“Kinda creepy.”

“Don’t know why some of the girls keep on trying to get her to do stuff. She’s made it clear she’s not interested.”

“She’s Rei. That means she... she acts like Rei.”

The chorus of advice and answers was as useless as everything else had been.

“Plus, you know, by the way?” Toja nodded, face serious. “The whole ‘Why are you so lonely’, and wanting to be the one who does stuff with her? Doesn’t work. At all.”

“Which is a shame,” Kensuke added, “‘cause she’s a solid AA+ on my list of girls.”

“Well, yeah, you know there’s a study, right,” Enitan said, “and... I read it, and it turns out, that xenomixes all have that sex factor... don’t look at me like that, that’s what they called it, and the study found that, whether they’re amlati or sidoci, they’re like ten percent hotter than other people.”

“Yeah, because anything which uses the word ‘sex factor’ is totally a reliable study,” Ala said, rolling his eyes. “Mind you,” he said, eyes searching for a certain amlaty, and not finding her, “it’s true. They do just get the balance right, you know.”

Shinji tuned out again, only for the teacher to get back and start shouting that they should be on their feet, that this was ‘physical education’, not ‘sitting around education’, and other such witticisms beloved of the PE teacher. Who was wearing a lab coat, for some reason.

The boy blinked. Oh yeah, he thought, as he pulled himself to his feet. We were sitting around because he had to take people to the nurse’s office. Shinji had sort of forgotten that.

He also had a feeling he was forgetting something else. Oh well. It probably wasn’t that important.

~’/|\’~

“The time is 18:04. Shinji has mail. There is one new voice message from Dr Ritsuko Akagi. Begin voice message. ‘Shinji, did you remember to give Rei her card? It’s important. If you have already, thanks.’ End message. There is an attached file. Do you wish to add this to your reminders?”

Shinji groaned. That was it. Flicking through the attachment, he noted that, yes, Dr Akagi had sent him the girl’s address. He looked up at the wall, looking for a clock which wasn’t there; a pointless endeavour, since he did already know the time. Idly, he highlighted the physical address.

“Ari,” he instructed the muse, “get directions.”

The instructions flowed up onto the screen. Shinji frowned. She lived pretty high up, in one of the shallow domes feeding off from one of the older clusters. Maybe forty-five minutes in rush hour, as the estimate stated. He didn’t really want to do this.

But he probably had to. He had been asked, yesterday, and Rei would probably have problems without a valid card. And... well, he had wondered where she lived. This was an excuse, right? Well, not an excuse, it was a duty. In fact, he was helping her out by sacrificing his time, which made it acceptable.

Confirmed in his self-righteousness, which was still failing to drown out his nerves, Shinji headed off. Then he stepped back in, and left a note for Misato on the table, telling her where he had gone. And then decided that she’d probably knock it off when she dumped stuff on the table, or just not see it, and sent an email as well. Then he left, only to return to grab something to eat on the way; it wasn’t as if there was a paucity of junk food in the apartment. Places where she lived seemed to generate it in the same way that dishes left in the sink generated mould. In fact, there were some dishes in the sink, left to soak from the abortive cooking attempt the night before. Maybe if he just cleaned them first...

No. He wasn’t delaying, but he should just go and do it.

If only he could convince himself that the squirming in his stomach was a completely irrational response to an errand which would take him to a pretty girl’s house.

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 9

Rei 01, Something Black / The other upon Saturn's bended neck she laid

EVANGELION

~'/|\'~

"Trust no friend without faults, and love a maiden, but no angel."

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

~’/|\’~

27th September, 2091

Without exception, everyone who passed the entrance examination to get into an Ashcroft Academy was a high achiever. The schools prided themselves on it; there was a reason that the global academic league tables were utterly dominated by these schools. They cherrypicked the brightest from mainstream education with generous scholarships, and were rumoured to conduct pre-admission genetic screening which was then taken into account in the acceptance process. The children there were disproportionately xenomixed and genofixed.

And despite this academic brilliance concentrated in one place, not one person had been able to deduce the logic behind how the Physical Education sessions migrated around the week. This week, they were Monday afternoon. Last week, they had been Tuesday morning. The week before that, Thursday morning. The general consensus was that the timetabling LAI was mad, with a minority report that the PE teachers were all a bunch of bloody-minded sadists who took too much pleasure in detentions issued for lack of the proper kit.

Up and down the pitches in front of the main buildings, a mass of boys thundered. Tight white T-shirts were covered by red or blue bibs, as they fought for primacy, and short shorts were splattered with mud as the studded boots tore up the natural turf. With a flick, a blue-bibbed player passed it to a tall, brown-haired boy who, pale legs flashing in the lightstrips in the dome ceiling, tore off up the field, outpacing or outwitting those reds who might have tried to obstruct him.

“Damn it, Dathan, pass the ball!” a boy, in a perfect position for a cross into the penalty box, yelled.

The taller boy ignored them, and, with a flick, sent it straight at the goal with a quite scary velocity, to barely be brushed aside by the fingers of the goalkeeper; fingers which were now in considerable pain. In the chaos around the goalmouth, the ball went out of play, and, luckily for the red-bibbed players, it was their goal kick.

Of course, the people on the pitch were predominantly the first team players from the six classes with PE scheduled at this time. The rest were sitting around at the sidelines, where they were meant to doing exercises. However, the teacher who had been covering them was currently escorting two boys, who’d managed to run head-first into each other, to the nurse’s office, and so they were currently being simultaneously apathetic, indolent, salacious and libidinous.

Whoever had decided to give the school swimming pool a glass front which was visible from the playing fields was worshiped as a minor god by much of the male population of the school, or at least the ones old enough, and inclined to find girls interesting. For one, they had single-handedly, in their pursuit of architectural aesthetics, managed to negate the work done in dividing the sexes when there was swimming, to avoid any possible problems with body issues imposed by social pressures.

With a synchronised splash, the five girls standing at the end of the pool dived in. At the other end, the previous set climbed out, dripping down onto the clean white tiles. One wrapped her arm around another, mouth moving in unheard laughter, and there were sighs from the male onlookers.

“I like the view,” Kensuke said, in a voice which was approaching sexual harassment merely in intonation, as he nudged Shinji in the ribs.

“I-I don’t know what you mean.”

“You cannot fool me!” declared Kensuke, with deliberate pomposity. “You, too, are looking for an answer to that eternal...”

“... well, since the 2060s...” Toja interjected, sitting on the other side of the boy.

“... eternal since the 2060s problem too, my friend. It has puzzled generations of men, driven them to madness... and stuff. But what is that problem, I hear you ask?”

Shinji squinted. “I feel you’re going to tell me.”

“Nazzadi or human! Which is hotter!”

“It’s a hard one,” a Nazzadi boy, his hair dyed white, said, as he leant back. “And if you say, ‘That’s what she said’, Ken, I will thump you.”

“Come on, Ala. Would I do...”

“Yes. And have.”

Shinji nodded. “It is true.”

“I hate you guys.”

“Don’t worry,” Enitan, the dark-skinned boy on the other side of Toja, said with a smirk. “We hate you too. But, back to the topic at hand,” he stroked his chin. “Difficult indeed. Humans are shorter, which is cuter...”

Toja snorted. “You only say that ‘cause you’re short and don’t want a girlfriend who’s taller than you. You know how much I’d have to bend down to kiss some of those people?” He paused. “Not that I’d mind, if they were hot, because that’s a sacrifice worth making, but still...”

“Ah, but we’re forgetting the big divide,” Ala pointed out. “More fat; yes or no? Nazzadi are thinner, but humans have bigger boobs, and are more curvy... which I just find...” he shook his head. “Well, look at Panary.” Gazes were indeed directed at the girl, her wet black hair tied back into a ponytail, as she stood at the end of the pool, waiting for her signal. “Sure, she might be tall and thin, but look! I mean, if I wanted someone tall, thin, muscled, and with no boobs, I’d go ask Dathan out.”

Enitan snorted. “Get ready to fight both Jony and Ferdina for him, then.”

“That wasn’t serioooous.”

“Even if he asked you out?”

“Yes! God, were you not listening to me? She’s gotta actually,” he made gestures in front of his chest, “be shaped like a girl, you know? That was the whole point of the comparison. Plus, you know, I’m a nazzada. So I know what my teeth are like. Like chisels, that’s what. And... well, that’s a real downside on a girl.”

There was collective male wincing from all but Shinji, who had tuned out the conversation a while ago. He couldn’t help but feel that the whole conversation was more than a little sordid. It was already a little dubious to stare; did they have to make commentary too? It made the whole thing rather uncomfortable. They really didn’t spend enough time around women... no, that didn’t make sense. It wasn’t as if all the other lessons were gender-segregated.

Shinji was of the rather smug opinion (which he would, of course, never mention to anyone) that he just had a healthier, which was to say, less objectifying, attitude to the fairer sex. Because when one is raised by two women, one of whom works for the FSB, one discovers that objectification is not strictly viable, unless one wants to have why it is wrong explained in detail.

Of course, that didn’t stop him staring over at the pool, too. Over at the pale figure, dark blue swimming costume a stark contrast to her chalk-coloured skin, who sat at the end of the pool, legs clutched up against her chest.

Rei Ayanami. Who was she, really? He didn’t know. Oh, they called the First Child, and sometimes, when they were talking to military people they referred to her as Invidia, but he didn’t know anything about her. He didn’t know where she lived, what she did in her free time, how she felt about having to pilot, what she was like as a person... in a purely professional sense, he hastened to reassure himself. Although, of course, she was very attractive, in a sort of special way; there was something about the way that snow-white skin just looked good on a girl, and from this viewpoint, he could see that she had an excellent figure. The thought had occurred that he would get to see her in a plug suit at some point in the very near future. It was a nice thought.

But of course, that wasn’t why he was interested in her. Honestly. This was a more professional (and the word felt strange to him) interest. Sure, it was possible that something more might be achievable, but that was only a distant prospect. This was just getting to know someone who, after all, also piloted a forty-metre giant robot; someone else who would understand the stress and the punishing training schedule they inflicted on him. He was... he was taking the initiative.

There were things, though, that he had picked up from the others in the class; they said she was asocial, cold, that she never chose to interact with people unless it was necessary and that she had been like this ever since she joined the class, back in first year. Some of the girls had apparently tried multiple times to get her more involved; he had heard mention of attempts by Hikary, Taly, that brown-haired bookish one who sat at the back... no success. Although it was admirable of them to try. She did look... isolated, sitting there, her legs raised up like a barrier to the world around her. Lonely, and yet there was something about her that left him ill at ease, a darker voice added. Maybe it was because she seemed to be able to make his father smile, when he couldn’t.

He really hoped it wasn’t some kind of unconscious bias against sidoci. He didn’t want to think of himself as the sort of person who had a problem with them.

Someone said his name. He switched his attention back to the conversation.

“Huh?”

There were mutual smirks all around. “I said,” Toja said, “I think Shinji agrees that xenomixed is best.”

He stared at them in confusion.

“You were staring,” the boy said.

“At Rei Ayanami,” Kensuke added, unnecessarily.

“N-n-no,” Shinji stammered.

Enitan rolled his eyes. “We’re not blind, you know. The world doesn’t shut down when you’re not paying attention.” He paused. “Well, if it does, it creates memories that make it the same as if it didn’t...”

“But what part were you staring at, hmm?” Toja interrupted, as he leant in. “Her breasts, perhaps?”

“I think you can definitely say she takes after her human side, if you know what I mean,” Kensuke said, waggling his eyebrows. “Or maybe her calves?”

“Or her thighs?”

“Like I said,” Shinji stammered, pushed off balance by both the interrogation, and the fact that they were leaning in from both sides, “that’s not it. Really.”

“... in that case,” someone muttered, “we should take away your man card. Because not staring at something like that...”

“Then what were you looking at, huh?” Toja said, drawing even closer.

“After all, we know you’re bad at lying,” the bespectacled boy added

“Your faces are too close,” muttered Shinji, through clenched teeth. “And... I was wondering why she’s always alone. Why she never does anything with anyone.”

“Because she’s... like that.”

“All sidoci are a bit like that. You can’t really get in their heads.”

“Always been like that.”

“Kinda creepy.”

“Don’t know why some of the girls keep on trying to get her to do stuff. She’s made it clear she’s not interested.”

“She’s Rei. That means she... she acts like Rei.”

The chorus of advice and answers was as useless as everything else had been.

“Plus, you know, by the way?” Toja nodded, face serious. “The whole ‘Why are you so lonely’, and wanting to be the one who does stuff with her? Doesn’t work. At all.”

“Which is a shame,” Kensuke added, “‘cause she’s a solid AA+ on my list of girls.”

“Well, yeah, you know there’s a study, right,” Enitan said, “and... I read it, and it turns out, that xenomixes all have that sex factor... don’t look at me like that, that’s what they called it, and the study found that, whether they’re amlati or sidoci, they’re like ten percent hotter than other people.”

“Yeah, because anything which uses the word ‘sex factor’ is totally a reliable study,” Ala said, rolling his eyes. “Mind you,” he said, eyes searching for a certain amlaty, and not finding her, “it’s true. They do just get the balance right, you know.”

Shinji tuned out again, only for the teacher to get back and start shouting that they should be on their feet, that this was ‘physical education’, not ‘sitting around education’, and other such witticisms beloved of the PE teacher. Who was wearing a lab coat, for some reason.

The boy blinked. Oh yeah, he thought, as he pulled himself to his feet. We were sitting around because he had to take people to the nurse’s office. Shinji had sort of forgotten that.

He also had a feeling he was forgetting something else. Oh well. It probably wasn’t that important.

~’/|\’~

“The time is 18:04. Shinji has mail. There is one new voice message from Dr Ritsuko Akagi. Begin voice message. ‘Shinji, did you remember to give Rei her card? It’s important. If you have already, thanks.’ End message. There is an attached file. Do you wish to add this to your reminders?”

Shinji groaned. That was it. Flicking through the attachment, he noted that, yes, Dr Akagi had sent him the girl’s address. He looked up at the wall, looking for a clock which wasn’t there; a pointless endeavour, since he did already know the time. Idly, he highlighted the physical address.

“Ari,” he instructed the muse, “get directions.”

The instructions flowed up onto the screen. Shinji frowned. She lived pretty high up, in one of the shallow domes feeding off from one of the older clusters. Maybe forty-five minutes in rush hour, as the estimate stated. He didn’t really want to do this.

But he probably had to. He had been asked, yesterday, and Rei would probably have problems without a valid card. And... well, he had wondered where she lived. This was an excuse, right? Well, not an excuse, it was a duty. In fact, he was helping her out by sacrificing his time, which made it acceptable.

Confirmed in his self-righteousness, which was still failing to drown out his nerves, Shinji headed off. Then he stepped back in, and left a note for Misato on the table, telling her where he had gone. And then decided that she’d probably knock it off when she dumped stuff on the table, or just not see it, and sent an email as well. Then he left, only to return to grab something to eat on the way; it wasn’t as if there was a paucity of junk food in the apartment. Places where she lived seemed to generate it in the same way that dishes left in the sink generated mould. In fact, there were some dishes in the sink, left to soak from the abortive cooking attempt the night before. Maybe if he just cleaned them first...

No. He wasn’t delaying, but he should just go and do it.

If only he could convince himself that the squirming in his stomach was a completely irrational response to an errand which would take him to a pretty girl’s house.

~’/|\’~

In retrospect, Shinji felt, as he stared around the dome, he probably should have started to get, if not suspicious, a little wary when the warning signs started to pop up, his muse alerting him that the entire dome was private property and that he would not be admitted unless he had a valid reason. Still, that had been within the bounds of possibility. The Geocity had similar warnings, although he hadn’t suspected them from a place like this, so high up. Likewise, if it was like that, then it would make sense that there wouldn’t be much traffic heading in from the larger domes in the cluster. Even the enhanced security at the dome access point was logical; it made sense that the place would be protected, if it was a private dome, although he hadn’t expected to see quite so many powered armours, or the slight nooks in the wall which, by his reckoning, concealed turrets. Still, he had passed the brain scans, the blood checks, and the phone-call down to the Geocity to check that he had a legitimate reason to be here, and he was into the dome where Rei Ayanami lived.

But it was so quiet in here. The only noise was the faint buzz of power cables, and the near silent movement of air from the life support units. Above, the top of the dome was sky-blue, the light strips imperfectly imitating natural sunlight, despite the fact that, outside, it was probably already notably evening. Shinji didn’t really know; he had never lived outside the regular twelve hour day-night cycle of an underground arcology, had not ever even been a surface resident, or one of the inhabitants of the very shallow domes, lit by transmitted sunlight from the surface. The place seemed hollow, empty, even more so than the Geocity, which was at least alive in its vastness. This dome was not; stark white buildings forming a circular canyon around the edges, looking down onto the smaller buildings in the centre, and the recreational area. If one could call this a recreational area, Shinji thought. It was maybe ten metres by ten metres, a small square of grass, with a single tree planted (or, from the looks of it, transplanted, given its age) in the centre.

Someone had hung a swing on the tree; a crude construct of two lengths of rope, and a plastic pseudowood plank. The brown-haired boy gave the swing a push, and watched as the pendular motion exhausted itself. He shivered, a motion which flowed into a retrieval of his PCPU from his pocket, to check the address on the map he had generated.

Where was everyone? He almost snorted, at the realisation of another horror film cliché. Where were the cats, too? If films taught you anything, it’s that when the cats, colonies of which were kept in every dome for their innate sensitivity to extra-normal entities as well as for more mundane, anti-pest issues, disappeared, something odd was happening. Maybe this whole thing was a trap, maybe it hadn’t been Dr Akagi at the dinner, but instead some sinister, evil shapeshifter, which stole the forms of its victims, and was merely luring him here to consume him too...

Shinji shook his head. He was being silly. Obviously, this was an Ashcroft owned-dome, which they leased out to younger employees, who’d still be at work at this time. He was being silly, and letting his imagination creep him out. He should be rational about this.

The problem was that his imagination was both very productive, and somewhat disobedient. And his rationality would have been pleased if it could have just seen someone else. Just for reassurance. No, he was being silly. This was just nerves from going around to an unfamiliar girl’s apartment. So what if it was quiet? That was a good thing in a residential dome, especially considering how lively the areas he had been through to get here had been. It was the change which was putting him off, not anything rational.

Rei’s apartment was one of the ones on the outer loop, the vertical wall of buildings that encircled the inner space, and which the access tunnel had led through. Naturally, things being as they were, she lived on the opposite side to the one which he had taken. Stepping up to the entrance to her block, the door sliding open as it detected the visitor ID they had given him at the checkpoint, Shinji glanced at the occupancy list, just to check that he was really at the right place.

Yes, there it was. ‘Flat 402: Ayanami, Rei’.

And that was it. All the other name spaces, blank. There were ten or so flats per floor on the list; the last one listed was 609. And of that, the only one occupied was 402.

Fortunately, the inside of the apartment building was clean, well lit, and in good condition. It was just as well. Shinji was beginning to get jumpy, and, to name a completely arbitrary example, if there had been a mysterious leaking stain on the ceiling, just above the entrance, he would probably have decided that enough was enough, and just given Rei the card tomorrow at school. Still, despite that, as he got into the lift, his finger hovered over the ‘400’ button for a few seconds, before he pressed it. And, it had to be said, the slight flicker in the light in the lift really did not help matters. Still, he arrived at his destination entirely safe.

“401... 403... huh?” Shinji was getting a little disturbed by now. There didn’t actually appear to be a room 402. This was... oh, wait. Yes, there it was. All the odd numbers ran along one side, all the even along another. That... that made a lot more sense. A short burst of nervous laughter escaped his lips, and echoed along the white-painted corridor. He really had to get his imagination under control. Stepping forwards, he swallowed, and knocked on the door.

“Hello?” he called out. Maybe there was a hidden microphone or something, because I can’t see a panel next to the door.

The door swung inwards silently. Through the gap, he could see a stark white hallway, a door at the other end, which suddenly seemed a lot longer than it... Shinji put one hand to his forehead, suddenly feeling lightheaded. He shook his head, eyes screwed shut, and looked up again, leaning into the door, which opened fully, a slight ‘clunk’ marking when the handle hit the wall. No, it was just a hallway. His stomach growled; most days, he would have eaten by now. It would probably make sense to grab something on the way back, he thought, before looking closer at the scene before him. There was a pair of shoes sitting just inside the door, next to an empty bin, and a pair of socks. That was somewhat reassuring.

“Hello? Rei? It’s... um, it’s me. Shinji Ikari.” He blinked, heavily. “The Third Child,” he ventured, in case she didn’t remember the name. She might not. It wasn’t as if they’d talked.

No response. Well, in that case he should probably find somewhere to leave it for her, and then leave. Should he shut the door properly behind him? She might be around at someone else’s house, and forgotten her key, but on the other hand, it wasn’t safe to leave the door open. Slipping off his shoes, he stepped inside, walking on tiptoes. He was just going to find a place to leave the card, and... well, maybe he was a little curious.

To his left, he poked his head into what turned out to be the kitchen. It was approaching Misatoan levels of untidiness. What it lacked in empty cans of beer, it made up for in discarded pizza boxes and food wrappings. Shinji frowned, the cook in him subtly disappointed that she appeared to live off fast-food and nanofactory meals, rather than actually cooking. It wasn’t that hard, despite the fact that everybody else seemed to find it too much effort. And this wasn’t a place to leave the card, certainly, not with all the junk around. He stepped back into the hallway, and pushed the door to the main room open.

His first thought was What’s with the colour scheme?

His second thought was Yuck, it’s messy in here. Are those... bloodstained bandages? And blood on the pillow, too?

His third thought was largely incoherent, because he realised that three of the four walls were not painted with a sort of black pattern. They were painted white, just like the fourth wall, to his left, which looked fresh. No, the patterning was writing.

It wasn’t scrawled, scribbled writing. No, it was the precise and methodical writing of someone who had taken a great deal of care over what they did. He couldn’t recognise all of the characters; there were the phonetic and phonemic symbols of Reformed English, though even then the words were not all familiar, there were kanji, hiragana and katakana, and there were sections in what looked like Greek; at the very least, he recognised the symbols from science lessons.

Uneasily, he was pretty sure that some of it was like the sorcery-related stuff in his father’s office. Those bits were typically labelling the diagrams and sketches, interruptions in the flow where turbulence rained, and characters wrapped and swirled around the new shapes, warped from their neat lines.

With a sick fascination, Shinji leant in. It really was very pretty, in an aesthetic sense, each linguistic transition seemingly chosen for some sense of elegance. He traced his finger along one line; the writing felt smooth, and slightly oily on the white paint. Some kind of pen, he suspected; a suspicion which was confirmed as his fingertip smudged the elegance. Hastily he withdrew it, leaving a grey streak on the sharply delineated divide.

Watching the sun rise he read, the Queen of Μάτια and the Blinded Prince wait for us at the end of everything. There was then an section he couldn’t understand, in an alphabet he couldn’t even recognise, before it resumed in kanji. It has always been an inevitability that unity and oblivion will conflict, for they are the same thing, and they are both born of the soul. Our ties and it switched back to RE, connect us all to one another. Our ties make us σκλάβοι and that is how it must be, for who would chose to be wild and free, beyond καλό και το κακό? It is the final decision we all must take. If we chose to be so, we cease to be us.

Shinji shivered, and with an act of will, looked away. Three of the four walls were like that. The last was freshly white. No, no it wasn’t, he realised. There were the first creeping signs of a new diagram snaking around onto the blank canvas, over by the bed.

The bed. Yes. The bed. Stop looking at the walls. Compared to them, the rest of the room was as messy as the kitchen. There were bloodstains on the bed, and the covers were yellowed. And these defects were made worse by how bare, and how bright the rest of the room was. If it had been ill-lit, these sins could have been concealed. Shinji sniffed. And there was a scent to the air, a scent of metal and blood and... something else.

The room stunk of LCL.

Gritting his teeth, that familiar smell rolling off his nostrils and onto his tongue, he stepped further into the room, walking on tiptoes. He swallowed his mouthful of saliva, which tasted as everything did, of LCL, and looked around for somewhere to leave the card. There. There was a chest of drawers over by the bed, which seemed to have a few personal possessions on it. That would be a good place. And then he could get out of here.

He reached into his bag, and took out the card, still sealed in the protective, anti-tamper wrapping that Dr Akagi had given it to him in, and, hand hovering, looked for the most obvious place. There were books, actual, physical books, not readers, stacked neatly. The dust-jackets were dull, pictureless; the font on the spines was that sharp golden writing that Shinji had always thought of as an academic typeface. There was a medicinal box with a scrapelock on it, merely labelled MEDICATION TYPE-4A. Peering through the transparent front, he could see layer after layer of syringe. Some of them had been used; he could tell from the red safety cap covering the tip, compared to the unused whites.

That was a good place, he decided, before frowning. He should probably leave a note, too, to explain it showing up. It would be rather odd for it to suddenly just appear. Leaning on the surface, he took a piece of paper from his bag, and wrote;

Rei,

I was told by Dr Akagi to bring you this. It’s a new Ashcroft Ident card; she said your old one had expired. I did knock, and call, but you didn’t answer, and the door was open. You might want to keep it closed.

I’m sorry if this is rude.

He paused, then continued, rather than signing it off immediately.

Good luck on the upcoming Synchronisation Test. I hope it goes well, and look forwards to training with you

Shinji Ikari

He reread the note. Yes, the ‘I’m sorry if this is rude bit’ was certainly in the wrong place. It looked like he was apologising for wishing her luck. He amended it to read, ‘I’m sorry if this is rude. to let myself in like this,’ and then put his pen back in his bag, which left the final thing on the chest of drawers. A pair of deactivated arglasses rested on their side. One of the sides hung uselessly, the hinge obviously broken; a weakpoint, compared to the composite-diamond display.

“Are these Ayanami’s?” Shinji said to himself, staring at his own brightly lit reflection in the surface. He couldn’t really see her wearing a model like this; something small and oval-shaped, maybe, or one of the circular full-eye ones, but not this older, and expensive model, which looked exactly like a pair of corrective lenses.

Actually, they looked like a very good quality model. They’d certainly still work, despite the broken frame...

Shinji fought with temptation for a moment, and lost.

The arglasses, despite the broken hinge, still fit as well as they would have normally, which was to say that they were perhaps a size or two too large. Reaching up, he felt around the frame until he found the activation button, and they turned opaque, the lens whiting out, the three rotated triangles of the Ashcroft Foundation showing exactly who had made them, and programmed their OS. Blinking, he noted the small black test in the bottom right of both lens.

Property of Gendo Ikari. Invalid Retina.

Frowning, he turned around, noting that the lenses had whited out again. What was Rei Ayanami doing with a pair of his father’s arglasses?

Oh, wait, no. They weren’t opaque anymore; he could see the way they highlighted objects in the room in red and green. No, the white opacity directly in front of him, almost toe to toe, was a dripping wet, naked Rei Ayanami, a white towel draped over her shoulders. She was staring at him

The next few seconds were... confused.

There was certainly a bit when Rei reached out and tried to take the glasses back.

There was certainly a bit when Shinji instinctively recoiled, and screamed in a manner not dissimilar to a little girl, before bouncing off the furniture and straight back into Rei.

There was most certainly a bit where her knee ended up going into his crotch as they fell together. Because that bit hurt.

But no matter what happened, it ended with the drenched Rei on her back on the ground, her hair spread around her like a bridal veil, Shinji leaning on top of her, one hand on something rather warm and one on the cold floor, and one pair of blue eyes locked on one grey pair.

The two stared at each other, unmoving.

Shinji mental processes were largely incoherent with terror at this point, because he’d just been caught in someone’s house and they’re her glasses andohGodshe’s naked and I’montopof her... Oh, and he was in pain, which was not helping with matters,

Motion still failed to occur.

“Why are you not moving?” Rei asked, her tone no different than she might use if someone were blocking her way at school.

With a yelp, Shinji recoiled up, as he realised that the wet warmness beneath his left hand was her breast. His motion carried him back into the wall, both hands raised in an instinctive protective gesture. What had just happened? What did he think he had been doing? Oh, why hadn’t he moved earlier?

Rei lay there, arms still spread, her only movement to tilt her head towards him. With a horribly guilty feeling, the boy could see the pink creep over her right breast, in a rough hand-shape; paler than it would be in a human, because her skin was actually pigmented white, but still there. And still those black pupils stared at him, the only real contrast on a body of whites and greys, with only hints of pink around her eyes, lips, and... down below.

“Do not smudge the wall,” she said. With a second yelp, Shinji sprung away from the wall, the black markings on the back of his white shirt and the smudges on the wall proof that the instruction had come too late, only to knock back into the chest of drawers.

With a series of thuds, the pile of books and the box of syringes cascaded off, onto the bare floor.

“Sorry!” gasped Shinji through clenched teeth, face screwed up into a mask of contrition. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry sorry sorry,” he sucked in a breath, “really really sorry.”

Slowly, her unclad state apparently unimportant to her, Rei pulled herself to her feet. Stepping up to Shinji, still trailing water in a path he could now see led back through another door in the room, she bent over, to pick up the sealed medical box, and place it back on the chest of drawers. Next to it, she placed the arglasses, fingers reaching around the edge to turn them back off.

“Pick up the books,” she instructed him. “My hands are wet.”

Shinji nodded frantically, realised that the act of looking down might be misinterpreted, and tried to find a safe place in the room to look. This was remarkably hard. Eventually, he settled his gaze on the white wall, over by the head of the bed. “Okay, right away,” he babbled. “I’m really sorry, by the way. Sorry. Um. Sorry.”

The girl ignored him, as, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her bend down again, to pick up the towel phew, and wrap it around her hair, which hung down to her shoulders when wet, suddenly a lot longer, and making her look peculiarly un-Rei like to him.

The boy crouched, and started picking up the books; thick, heavy tomes. German Poetry 1910-1925, Volume II, he read. The Pnakotic Manuscripts: Vol. IV. The Pnakotic Manuscripts: Vol. V. Die Verborgenen Geheimnisse: Die Grundlagen der arkanen Technologie. Shinji frowned. He only knew a little bit of German, a necessity when living with a sorceress, because the Lorenzian School made use of it, and so he had been expected to know enough to know what not to touch, but he was pretty sure that this was one of the foundational books of modern arcane physics. Straightening out its dust jacket, he glanced at the pages it had landed open at.

There was a diagram taking up one page, with that certain quality which suggested it had originally been hand-drawn. It was... odd; he squinted, trying to understand exactly what he was looking at. It looked vaguely like a mesh of cogs, but some of the cogs were sharing teeth with other cogs, intermeshing and yet discrete and unconnected, depending on how he looked at it. The mass of text on the other page, printed in a very small font... well, he could maybe understand one word in every ten. He suspected that even if it had been in English, Japanese or Nazzadi, he wouldn’t have got much more than one in three.

And then there were the annotations. In the same hand as the writing on the walls. Some entire sections had been crossed out in red, and replacement text crammed into the margins.

Shinji didn’t dare look any further, because this looked like something extra-normal related, or at the very least sorcerous, and when living with a sorceress, he had had it drummed into his head that you do not read books lying around which look like that. Instead, he put it back on the pile, and glanced over to see a Rei Ayanami, now, mercifully, at least in a bra and wearing underwear, staring at him, hair still wrapped up in the towel. It would probably have helped more if the undergarments hadn’t been white, skin-coloured for her, and she hadn’t still been wet, which was already inducing translucency.

“What is it?” she asked.

Shinji stared over at the safe wall again. “Um... uh.” He swallowed, tasting the scent of the LCL in the air. “I... uh, that is, yesterday Dr Akagi asked me... that is, told me... um, asked me to give you this new Ident Card but I forgot at school. So I came around. And...” he trailed off.

Rei moved in front of his safe line of vision, to sit down on the bed. He shifted his gaze to the floor, noting the trails of wet footprints that crisscrossed the room. That, and the large damp patch where she had fallen. He could feel the dampness... the warm dampness on his clothing.

“I had an examination with Dr Akagi yesterday,” Rei said, from somewhere outside his line of vision. “Why did she not give it to me then?”

“I-I-I guess she forgot,” Shinji hazarded.

“Forgot?” Rei asked, her tone dead.

“Probably.” Shinji swallowed. “And then... um, I knocked, and the door was open, and I called but you didn’t answer so I came in and I thought you might be out or having dinner with neighbours and I left you a note and it was with the card which I put on top of the white box thing,” he sucked in a much-needed breath, “um... and I’m sorry.” He swept his eyes onto the floor around his feet. Where was it? It had been there, and then the box had fallen off... had been knocked off.

“I have no neighbours.” She paused. “I was in the bath,” she said, the words somehow utterly disconnected from the previous sentence.

“Oh... um.” Yes, that made sense. He’d have heard a shower, after all, but... yes, head under water, it made sense. Oh, there it was. He stooped down, and picked up the card, still sealed in its packaging, and the slightly damp note. Then, eyes squinting, biting his lip, he walked over to Rei, staring at the towel wrapped around her hair, which seemed the safest place, and thrust both in front of him. “So here they are!” he said, in a voice which seemed far too loud in this quiet place.

Silently, Rei took them from him, and then stood up, stepping around him, to put them back on the chest of drawers, on top of the pile of books.

“So...I’ll be off then,” he added, rapidly. “Silently... I mean, I’m sorry for everything.”

There was the sound of a lid being removed from a pen. “Why?” Rei asked.

“I didn’t ask before I came in. I should have... just put it through the door or something,” Shinji said, backing away towards the door, arms briefly pinwheeling as he almost slipped on a discarded shirt, leaving a footprint in the middle of it. “And... um, I just... never mind.”

There was no response. The pale girl was hunched up against the wall, black pen in hand, correcting the damage done to the markings on the wall by his clumsiness. Slowly, the towel slithered down off her head, letting her damp hair hang loose over her face. She didn’t seem to care.

“Sorry again,” Shinji said, by means of farewell, as he closed the door slowly. His steps out of the flat were careful, measured.

Then he slumped down against the wall in the corridor, fist in mouth, and started whimpering, as all the suppressed nervous tension unleashed itself.

What the hell just happened?

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

~’/|\’~

The process of rationalisation had already begun by the time that Shinji got home.

Well... she might have the Nazzadi attitude to nudity, he thought. Yeah, that makes sense. I’m just being insensitive by objecting to it. I should try to be more open-minded. And I was distracted and didn’t hear her... no wonder I freaked out, just a little bit well, more than a little bit, he had to admit, when I saw her behind me like that.

Now... how to deal with the writing on the walls and the fact that she’s reading arcane texts?

It was fighting an uphill battle.

Misato was seated at the table, still in her uniform, poring over printed out documents and dataslates alike. Her Eyes were twitching at unseen images, scanning from left to right. An empty plate, the remains of one of the meals that Shinji had prepared and left in the fridge, was on her left, a pair of grease-covered chopsticks resting on top.

With a small noise, the Major made a few small notes in the margin of one dataslate, and then returned to work, her eyes flicking across nothingness. She blinked once, and then her eyes focussed on the boy in front of her. She seemed tired as she rubbed her eyes.

“Heya, Shinji,” Misato said, with a weak smile. “I got the note, by the way, and the email.”

“Good.”

“Did you give her the card?”

Shinji swallowed, and nodded. “Uh huh.”

Misato grinned wider. “You know, it was pretty silly of you to forget to do it at school, huh? Guess you wanted to have an excuse to go around to her house early?”

The boy shook his head mutely. Misato began to respond, but then focussed, properly focussed on his expression.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, more gently.

“Did you know she reads arcane books?” he blurted out.

Misato frowned, looking for one of the documents in front of her. “Yes... here it is... yes. It’s been tagged to her file; she’s been allowed access to the censored versions of... well, there’s a long list here.” She glanced back up at Shinji, her face warm. “It probably was quite disturbing to find it out that way.”

“And that she writes on the walls?” The boy’s tone was almost pleading, although he didn’t know which way he preferred it. That they did not know about it, and Rei was secretly disturbed, or they did, and they had deemed it acceptable.

Misato nodded once, her face stony. “I’ve seen the pictures. That... that must have been a shock. If it helps, the psychiatrists say that it’s harmless, and she’s never shown any other harmful tendencies, violent or otherwise. And, of course... I was a little disturbed when I first saw the pictures, but Ritsuko pointed out that she can’t, physically, do sorcery. She’s a White. They’re parapsychics so they can’t be sorcerers. It’s safe.” Standing up, she put one arm around Shinji’s shoulders, slightly awkwardly. “We probably should have thought it through better, or at least got you to interact before now, huh?”

“I’m... I’m sorry. It’s... I should have given it to her at school,” Shinji explained, not moving closer to the one-armed hug, but not recoiling, either.

“We’re all flawed, Shinji,” Misato said, staring at him. “We all forget stuff.” She paused. “And how did you get all the black stuff on your back?” she asked, as glanced around his shoulder.

He looked back. “Oh... um, I backed into a wall, and it was dirty.”

“You might want to get changed, then... probably should, anyway. I think the bathroom’s free, if you want a shower... I cleaned it up.” At Shinji’s confused expression, she wrinkled her nose. “Pen-Pen was sick. And you smell of sweat... did you have sports today?”

The boy frowned. “Can birds even be sick?” he asked, ignoring the comment at his personal odour.

“Evidently, this one can,” the woman said drily.

And, indeed, the bathroom smelt slightly of sick, and even more of the... concoction that Misato had brewed up yesterday, even when the rest of the apartment had largely been ventilated. Shinji could make some educated reasons for exactly why the albino penguin had been sick, but he was not going to, after the revelations at the meal.

Although it seemed that Pen-Pen was not as smart as some people would have had him believe, if he had willingly consumed that substance; Shinji hesitated to call it food.

Being very careful to lock the door behind him, after ensuring that the room was penguin-less, Shinji stripped off, running the shower to let it warm up as he folded up his trousers, and saw the full state of the shirt. Yes, the white back was completely covered in the smudged black pen markings. If he’d been wearing the coat from the uniform, the markings wouldn’t have been noticeable, but he’d have to have been an idiot to wear his uniform like that, out of school hours, up to such a high elevation. Academy students had a certain reputation which worked against them in poorer areas, as a bunch of rich, stuck-up, genofixed children of Ashcroft technocrats. Shinji would like to try to argue that wasn’t the case, but as he objectively filled three of the four criteria by any standards, he was not the best representative for their case.

He suddenly realised why Toja must be so insistent at not following the school uniform policy. Hadn’t he said that he lived in one of the surface arcologies? It must be unpleasant for him, having to make that commute every day.

Checking the temperature with his hand, he withdrew it instantly, and added more cold to the blend, until it wasn’t actively painful. Stepping under the shower, he let the warm water roll down his head, darkening his hair which hung limp over his face, running in rivulets down his shoulders and over the small of his back, the warm feel of her breast under his hand.

Shinji looked down. “Damn it,” he muttered. He shouldn’t be turned on by that; he should be disturbed. And yet he had most physical evidence that he was.

That went horrifically, horribly, inutterably wrong, was Shinji’s foremost conclusion from that little escapade.

~’/|\’~

29th September, 2091

Rei was not at school on Tuesday. Shinji considered this a blessing; it might be better to get the explanations and more apologies out, before things could fester, but he didn’t want to confront her at all. If he could never see her again, it would have been perfectly acceptable to him in his current mindset. Neither was she there on Wednesday morning, which was a relief for Shinji, and he spent the classes feeling rather more cheerful than he might otherwise have been. This state of affairs was only aided by Toja’s sense of impending doom, and wailed protests of ‘What did I do to deserve a bunch of nine-year girls crushing on me?’ He and Kensuke did do their best to ‘reassure’ him by pointing out that he could apply for a different Social Work Programme for the Spring Term, which only bought further groans.

However, such a thing could never last, for the Unit 00 Synchronisation Test was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, when he had to be down in the Geocity. And when Rei Ayanami stepped into his otherwise-empty lift, both of them on their way down to the areas assigned to the Evangelion Group, his luck ran out.

The trip down was filled with awkward silence, the two figures in the black overcoats of the Academy standing at opposite corners of the box. Perhaps foolishly, the boy tried to break the quiet.

“I’m... I’m really sorry for Monday,” he said. “I-I-I just want you to know, it was all an accident, especially the... the touching.” He blushed bright red, as he realised just how that comment sounded.

She did not turn to look at him. “You have already expressed such sentiments.”

“Yes... well, I want you to know that I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

Shinji screwed up his eyes. “Because it was all my fault... and...” he trailed off.

“Will your sorrow change anything?”

“... no, but...”

“Then why be sorry?”

“Because I’d be a bad person if I didn’t!” he snapped, before instinctively recoiling. “Oh... I’m sorry.”

“You have already expressed that sentiment. Today.”

Shinji fell paused, and tried to change the subject. “I know you’re going to be trying the reactivation experiment today,” he said.

Rei said nothing, still not making eye contact with him.

“I hope it’s successful this time,” he added.

The silence at her end of the conversation continued.

“Aren’t you... scared of getting into Unit 00 again?” he asked. “I would be. Terrified. I’m scared of Unit 01 as it is, and nothing that bad... as bad as what happened to you, has happened to me in it.”

“Why?” The word was soft.

“Excuse me?”

A pause. Then, “Why should I be scared of Unit 00?”

“Because... um... well, I saw how injured you were on that first day. Aren’t you scared that it will happen again?”

“No.” He saw her eyelashes flicker up and down, as she blinked slowly. “Fear would increase the chance of a synchronicity accident. So I am not scared.”

The boy couldn’t help but marvel at the self-control shown there. And be a little scared at the fact that she had just said that fear could cause synchronisation accidents, of course. Because if that was true, and considering his first time... Shinji suddenly got the feeling that there was a universe’s worth of razor blades just a hair’s breadth from his skin, which were just waiting to fall.

With a feeling of deceleration, and a ping, the lift came to a halt, far down in the guts of the Geocity. The area here was one of the vast hallways, the ones which an Evangelion could probably crawl through. Shinji mentally paused. In fact, that was almost certainly their purpose; transporting the things around. Stepping out of the lift, he followed Rei, the sounds of their footsteps utterly lost in the immensity of the space, having to job every few steps to keep up. She walked quickly.

And for once, Rei initiated the conversation.

“You are Representative Ikari’s son,” she said, her tone not a question.

Shinji nodded. “Yes.”

“You must trust your father’s work.”

The boy blinked heavily. “Why?” he retorted. “He never gives me any reason to trust him! He never cares; only uses me! I certainly won’t trust him because he happens to be related to me!”

Rei Ayanami’s footsteps ceased, and she turned, no, flowed around, suddenly facing him. “Do not speak about Representative Ikari that way,” she said, the corners of her eyes narrowing fractionally.

“Why not? He’s my fath...”

The blow was not so much a slap as a full-on punch, her knuckles impacting with the soft tissue of his cheek. Blinking hard, mouth hanging open, Shinji slowly raised his hand to his face. He hadn’t even seen her move. And that really hurt. Fall on her when she was naked; no response. Make negative comments about his own, useless, child-soldier-using father, and...

“Mnghui,” he managed, to the figure that was already striding off. “Oww. Um... I’m sorry?”

There was no response from the pale girl.

~’/|\’~

Compared to the first activation test, the air in the control centre was buzzing with nervous tension. Only Gendo Ikari, alone, seemed proof against the concern, his gloved hands folded behind his back.

“Inform me when the Operators are prepared,” he ordered Dr Akagi, not looking her way.

“Yes,” she nodded. Inwardly, she winced. The Operators... well, they had done their best to reassure the heavily cyberised computer technicians, but, to be honest, they were scared. Two of them had died in the last test; three more were in a vegetative state. Only one of the ones who had not disconnected before the Evangelion had broken through their defence barriers was back on duty, and, for obvious reasons, he was not permitted to assist today. Running one hand down her spine, she shook her head slightly. The Operators all seemed so young to her. Not as young as the girl in the Evangelion, though.

Ritsuko resumed her preparatory work. The conditions for this test were quite unlike the ones which had prevailed last time. While before it may have been merely been secured to the wall, this time it was sunk to its waist in a variant of the dark RCL fluid used in the Evangelion bays. This time, if it tried to break free, it would be treated as Dante’s Satan, its legs immobilised in flash-frozen memomorph. Its arms were spread out wide, to minimise the leverage it could gain, but they were under no illusions that it would stop the beast. Not now. No, they would begin with the restraint fluid, and move up to, should it prove insufficient, detonating the shaped charges placed on the Units limbs, to sever key muscles.

The Representative opened a communications channel to the white Evangelion.

“Rei.”

A quiet response. “Yes, Representative Ikari.”

“We will begin by inserting the LCL. Are you prepared?”

“Yes. There will be no synchronicity accident this time. It is necessary that I successfully synchronise with Unit 00, therefore I will.”

“Good.” He closed the connection. “Flood the plug,” he ordered. “Monitor her mental state at all times, even before the experiment begins. If there are any signs of recurrence, abort immediately.”

“Yes sir.”

Shinji was standing away from the workfloor, on the raised observer’s platform. Beside him, Misato stood, her face pensive, a cup of coffee clutched in her hand. She took a long, slow sip, staring intently at the screen. Although this was being carried out in one of the test chambers, it wasn’t being carried out in the same test chamber as the one which the room overlooked. What if the Evangelion had gone for the exposed window, it had been asked? What if it had turned on its surroundings, rather than itself?

The consequences would have been catastrophic.

“We should never think of the Evangelion as just another war machine,” Misato said to herself, softly, almost unheard of over the babble. “It’s not. I’ve seen Engels out of control. But last time... this was a wholly different thing.” She snorted. “Or maybe an unholy different thing.”

Shinji narrowed his eyes at her. “Thanks a lot for your reassurance,” he said, his tone bitter. “Given that, you know, we’re watching someone who’s already lost control once before...” he paused, “... and come to think of it, so have I!”

“No, that’s what I mean,” Misato said, raising her voice. “The rampant Engels... they acted like Unit 01 did. They attacked things... anything that wasn’t from their Species... that’s a base-organism, by the way, in the same way that all the Evangelions use the same base. But Unit 00... it hurt itself. It was really trying to get the Entry Plug out.”

“Yes, my father really did a wonderful job when he... did whatever he does with them, I’m not quite sure,” said Shinji, his rousing condemnation somewhat ruined by the uncertainty at the end. “Why should I trust his work, when I don’t even know what they are or what he did?” he added to himself, staring down at the man. A thought struck him.

“What?” asked Misato, who had missed the last part.

“When did my father start wearing gloves?” he asked.

Misato leant against the railing, and took another drink. “The Unit 00 start-up test,” she explained. “The Evangelion... it tried to crush its own entry plug. Partially succeeded, too.”

“But... the Entry Plug is covered in armour,” Shinji protested.

“Yes.” The word was said with a dreadful finality.

“You mean...”

“It slammed into the wall until it managed to crack the plating enough to get a finger under it, and then it started ripping its own back apart,” Misato said, a distant look in her eyes. “It just managed to expose the plug, and crush the end, when it finally deactivated. And then it fell over backwards, because its knees didn’t lock up.” She shook her head, staring at the boy. “Your father was the first one down, with the rescue team. He managed to get up onto the Evangelion, crawled out onto the plug and levered it open, around one of the tears. His hands... they got horribly cut up on the edges, and his back too, when he crawled through. And the Evangelion was bleeding too, so the blood got into the wounds, and... well, they managed to save his hands. Or I heard he did, managed to pull out some sorcery to cleanse the wounds.” Misato took a sip. “There’s a lot of tales about him. I’m sure he has people spread some of them, because I can’t believe that they’re all true.”

“He... did all that?” Shinji asked, feeling slightly numb. “But wasn’t that only a few days...”

“Before Asherah showed up, yes. Everything that first day, he was doing it on just enough painkillers to allow him to think clearly.”

Shinji leant his chin on his arms, resting on the balcony, and stared again at his father.

The bearded man spoke. “We’re going to try reactivating Unit 00,” he ordered. “Start the first connection.”

“Connect the external power supply.”

“Voltage has passed the critical point.”

“Understood,” reported Penny Epouvantable, the red-haired civilian Operator who was heading up this dive. “Subject has passed Phase II. We’re getting a stable EFCS Type-1 Attunement. Animaneural waveform is... stable.”

“Start Phase III,” ordered Dr Akagi, her stomach a tight little ball of acid and fear.

“Plug is set to level 2. Beginning test sequence.”

“LITAN feed is clear... reports from in-Unit correlate with external feeds. Maintaining monitoring.”

“The series of pulses and harmonics are normal.”

“Feeding external power to non-vital systems. Right arm... left arm... all limbs are powered.”

“Releasing limited motor controls. D-Brakes are operating at full capacity.”

There was a terrible moment of silence, as everyone’s eyes were locked on the bar. Rising, rising, falling, rising, nearing the point of absolute borderline.

With an almost cheerful bleep, the bar passed the given value.

“Stable connection formed!” the message came from the Operators.

There was a pause, a moment of silence.

And then everyone relaxed, as the bar did not retreat.

“Unit 00 has activated.”

A window opened from in Unit, to display Rei’s face, an even paler heart shape within the cowl. “Activation is successful,” she announced. “I am waiting for your permission to begin the interlocking test.”

“Roger. Go ahead, Test Pilot Ayanami.”

Shaking her head slightly, an adrenaline-smile in her exhausted face, Ritsuko made her way up to the observation balcony.

“Congratulations,” the Major said, with a professional nod, and then Misato smiled. “Well, you did it, Rits.”

“Well... we’ll see, but it looks hopeful. The tests are probably going to go on for...” Ritsuko tapped a button on her PCPU, to bring up the schedule, “... well, let’s put it this way, I’m not getting any sleep tonight, and Shinji, you won’t be seeing Rei at school tomorrow.” The blond sighed. “You can go home... and you too, Misato. It’s just, as you’d put it, ‘boring technical stuff’, and as I’d put it, ‘vital test work to ensure that pilot synchronisation is calibrated correctly’.”

“I thought you just dumped people in the Eva and hoped for the best,” said Shinji, a slightly bitter note in his voice. He couldn’t have stopped himself for free access to every IP database on the pla... okay, he could have stopped himself for that. But he couldn’t have stopped himself for some very large, but not too large, prize.

Ritsuko did not snap back. It would have been easier had she done so. “It’s okay, Shinji,” she said, in a quiet, almost dead voice. “We can just delete all your pilot data we spent weeks building up, and let you go in a default, guessed setting every time, because we got lucky with you on the first time. And then you’ll be lucky if you only get hurt as badly as Pilot Ayanami did on the activation test on the sixteenth of August. We can do that, if you like.”

Shinji winced. “Sorry,” he said, already cringing inside. “I didn’t think...”

“No,” the scientist said. “You didn’t. Off you go. Some of us have work to do.”

“Lay off him, Rits.” Misato’s words were calm, controlled, and quiet. “That’s not needed.”

The scientist blinked. “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m just... I’m just relieved that this didn’t go wrong like last time. And still might go wrong.” She sighed. “I sometimes forget that you’re not like Rei,” she explained. “You’re not used to it. This. Everything. And you have the right to object.”

Shinji nodded silently.

“But... yes, you should both get some rest,” she said in a quieter voice. “Someone might as well, and this place is going to be humming with stressed-out scientists, engineers and technicians for the next... God knows how long. Aeon, probably. So... like usual, but even more stress.”

~’/|\’~

30th September, 2091

Shinji was shaken awake, by a Misato with a jacket thrown on over her nightclothes. “Shinji, wake up!” she shouted at him, her face deadly serious. “Get out of bed now!”

The boy squinted in the light. “Gah.” He shook his head. “What’s happening?” he asked, sitting up, as Misato yanked off his covers, dumping an armful of clothes onto his lap. “What time is it?”

“Get up, get dressed. We’re needed down in the Geocity now. Emergency call. And it’s about half-three in the morning.”

With a groan he swung his legs out of bed. “Why?” He blinked, as something struck him. “Did something go wrong with Rei’s test?”

Misato shook her tousled hair. “No. But they’ve found Harbinger-5. Or rather, it’s shown up. In Eastern Europe.”

Shinji was suddenly wide awake, and fumbling at his top. “Is it... coming this way?” he asked. “And... um, can you look away, please?”

“Yes and yes,” Misato said, turning around to leave the room, to get dressed properly herself. “There’s security in the living room, and they’ve put some coffee on. We can drink it in the IFV, right?” she added, a slight lilt in her voice.

Shinji couldn’t help but smile slightly. It was a weak, trembling and rather tired expression, true, but a smile nonetheless.

~’/|\’~

Above, the night sky was filled with stars. They did not twinkle, and they did not shine; they were cold, distant points of light. If there were children’s tales told of these stars, they were the kind which were censored and bowdlerised, all to keep from infant minds from the terrible truths of the cosmos. The darkness of the void reached from horizon to horizon with no hint of dawn; terrible, unreachable, anathematical to light, which died in its Stygian majesty.

And the land below was the same. Black, glassy crystal covered every surface, was every surface. The stars below reflected the stars above, distorted and warped them until not one familiar constellation could be seen, and an onlooker could not tell what was up, and what was down.

But, slowly, the eyes adjusted to the darkness, to the lack of contrast, to the dead beauty of this place. And that was when the true horror crept in. Because in among the monoliths of black crystal, resplendent in their five-fold symmetry, the other shapes could be seen. Buildings of opaque black crystal. Trees of black crystal which blossomed into leaves of black crystal. The scattered chess-pieces of the army of the gods, all without White to oppose them. The eye adjusted, and then it did not believe, for to believe that this alien landscape was one which had so recently been just another battlefield in the Aeon War was too much to accept.

And in the precise centre of this darkness, something hung. It was only visible through omission, for it did not reflect, and it did not glisten and gleam and shimmer in the cold light of the stars. Slowly it span, as if observing what it had wrought here. There were ten faces to this being; ten vast conguent kites that interlocked to form one pentagonal trapezohedron.

Slowly it span. All too slowly.

It was here.

It was time.

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 10

Rei 02, In Ice And Dust / and to the level of his hollow ear, leaning with parted lips

EVANGELION

~’/|\’~

But if some mind very different from ours were to look upon some property of some curved line as we do on the evenness of a straight line, he would not recognize as such the evenness of a straight line; nor would he arrange the elements of his geometry according to that very different system, and would investigate quite other relationships as I have suggested in my notes.

We fashion our geometry on the properties of a straight line because that seems to us to be the simplest of all. But really all lines that are continuous and of a uniform nature are just as simple as one another. Another kind of mind which might form an equally clear mental perception of some property of any one of these curves, as we do of the congruence of a straight line, might believe these curves to be the simplest of all, and from that property of these curves build up the elements of a very different geometry, referring all other curves to that one, just as we compare them to a straight line. Indeed, these minds, if they noticed and formed an extremely clear perception of some property of, say, the parabola, would not seek, as our geometers do, to rectify the parabola, they would endeavour, if one may coin the expression, to parabolify the straight line.

Ruđer Bošković

~’/|\’~

The hands of the rather old, and exceptionally expensive clock ticked their way close to half-past nine, accompanied by the clink of cutlery. The restaurant was rather emptier than might have been expected, though, even for this time on a Thursday. In fact, only one table was filled, right in the centre, under the chandelier.

And even if this hadn’t been done for security reasons, the party eating now could have afforded to have booked the entire restaurant, which was one of the most expensive in Chicago-2, the capital of the New Earth Government. And had done so.

It was an annoyance to the reddish-blond girl sitting on one side of the table that the meal was somewhat hindered by the fact that one arm was in a cast.

“... and the most annoying thing about it,” Asuka Langely Soryu said, a slight scowl marring her features, “was that I had previously told them that they were over-stressing the right arm.” A wry grin twisted her features. “It’s only thanks to me that I noticed that, and so wasn’t using that arm to the full. Otherwise, it might have actually damaged Unit 02. You know, rather than merely lingering sympathetic pain causing me to slip as I climbed out of the plug.” The scowl returned. “And it shouldn’t have been an issue, if they’d allowed me to use my proper plug suit.”

The man looked puzzled. “I’m sorry... what? Not using a proper plug suit?”

“There’s a lighter, thinner one they use for PR and component testing,” Asuka explained. “It’s an older model. It gives a slightly higher average synch ratio, but it’s slippery, and totally unsuitable for real combat. It doesn’t even act to absorb an impact.” She frowned. “Plus, you feel like you’re almost naked in it.”

The older man nodded sympathetically, his rust-coloured hair now shot through with hints of grey at the temples. “I see,” Dr Calvin Sylveste, head of the Achtzig Group, and formerly of the original Evangelion Project, said. He sighed. “Such sloppiness from your technical team is not easily forgivable.”

Asuka rolled her eyes. “Oh, believe me, I don’t intend to.”

“Good.”

Cutlery clinked again, in the silence.

“Still,” the man said, “at least it gives them an opportunity to run a full maintenance cycle on the Unit.” He smiled, over the top of a still-immaculately trimmed beard. “And you’ll just have to spend time with your old Uncle Cal while the medichines knit everything back together.”

The girl smiled. “It is an ill wind...” she said. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Uncle, I’ve been talking about myself pretty much since I arrived. And...” she glanced at him, “it’s not like you don’t hear what I’ve been doing from COEUS, anyway.” She shifted slightly, resting her injured arm on her lap, and her chin on her other palm. “You know your work at Achtzig is just as interesting as anything I get up to.”

“There’s never a need for false modesty, Asuka,” the man remarked.

“Yes, I know, but people seem to expect it for some reason.”

“Oh, very much.” The man took a sip of wine. “We’ve been doing fascinating work on the animaneural boundary. Specifically what happens if you throw cybernetics, sorcery, and high end AI systems into the mix.”

“But of course.” Asuka smirked. “It’s best if you can get your hobbies into the work.”

“Hah! Yes! There’s nothing sacred about the mind, body or the soul as they stand.”

“‘Everything can always be improved; perfection is asymptotic ’,” the reddish-blond girl replied, quoting something that he had told her many times, both back when he had been looking after her, and later, once she had joined the ‘Children’ Test Pilot programme, on his frequent visits. As a result, she had known what ‘asymptotic’ had meant, when she was five.

But then again, she was a prodigy; something that Calvin Sylveste had only encouraged.

“Exactly. We’ve begun a,” he reflexively glanced around, “... well, we’ve started work on the next generation of TITANs.”

“Ah!” Asuka exclaimed, as she sipped at the soup.

“Hot?”

“Well... yes, but that must have been what you were hinting about last time we talked! You were being rather secretive about what you were doing then.”

“Exactly! It wasn’t sure then, but now I’m certain we’ve got stable black-box seed-cultures for the AIs. Fourteen of them. If we have similar wastage rates as last time, we should have nine or ten finalised products.”

“That’s really awesome!”

Calvin looked smug. “It is, isn’t it?”

Asuka paused, and, putting on her prettiest smile, began to...

“Asuka, you don’t need to do that,” the older man said, running his hand through his rust-coloured hair.

Her lips twisted into a miniscule pout, which, to her annoyance, produced a smile on his face, before she continued. “Do what, Uncle?” she asked, innocently.

He fixed her with a level gaze. “Asuka, I’ve known you all your life. And, not only that, but Kyo... your mother used to do exactly that, too. Present the facts about what you want to me, and then I’ll decide. I’m remarkably proof against beautiful smiles.”

“Ah, but then, by your own words, you are not immune,” the girl said, leaning back slightly, with a much more genuine smile. “Therefore, if I should so happen to want something, surely the rational choice is to do so, as a small benefit is better than none at all.”

“True, true. That’s the sound first-order result. But we’re not dealing with a first order situation, are we?”

“I suppose not.”

“You suppose not?” The tone was questioning, testing.

“I’m sure not, then,” she said, with unblinking Eyes.

His own ocular implants locked with hers. “Then speak.”

“Can you upgrade Gehirn, my LITAN, to full TITAN status, then?

The man raised one hand. “I’d love to,” he said, his voice with a tint of remorse. “But I’m no longer involved with Project Evangelion. Achtzig is a separate Group, after all. I don’t have the authority to do so, and...” he narrowed his Eyes, “... I severely doubt that Gendo would let me... or Miyakame, if we come down to it, anywhere near an Evangelion.”

“Gendo?” Asuka asked. “Oh. Gendo Ikari? The Representative for Europe?”

“Yes. That’s the man.”

“Why does he have anything to do with it?” the red-haired girl asked. “The Evangelion Group is a Group, and thus isn’t directly under the control of any one Representative... and shouldn’t it be Research who has more say, too, rather than one of the Regional ones? Now, I can understand how his opposition might make things difficult, but... come on! The Ouranos LITANs are the inspiration for the TITANs. They’re practically proto-TITANs. Can’t people be less petty about things like that, and just let the best person do things?”

Calvin sighed. “I wish it were that easy. But he was a supervisor, the supervisor... not the first, but the last, for the original Project. He owns Evangelion, whatever the formal delineations of authority are. And he’ll say ‘No’.”

Asuka raised her eyebrows. It was a comparatively rare event that Uncle Cal talked about the original Project. “So he worked with you and my Mama?” she asked.

The man nodded. “Yes. More in an administrative role, but he did some of the important theoretical work on AT-Fields; he’s a pure sorcerer, and a very, very good one at that, as good as your mother was, and she was...” he trailed off.

“She was?”

Calvin shook his head, shaken out of his reverie. “... amazing. Better than me, and I’m no slouch.” A faint smile crept over his lips. “I can still remember some of their arguments on particularly esoteric bits of theory. Not understand them, but remember them. Both primarily practitioners in the Salaamian school, although I heard Ikari trained as a Horakian.”

The girl smiled. She liked hearing these tales from the man, when she could get him to talk about it. It was always fascinating to hear a little bit about what had gone into the technological marvel which she piloted... and hear how amazing her mother had been. Because she just knew that she was going to be able to do all of that someday, live up to the potential her mother had given her. “Did anything... happen between them?” she asked with a wicked smirk on her face.

The older man looked shocked. “Oh, no. God, no. Ikari was married, for one, and you... Asuka, you do know that men and women can be friends... friends slash competitive rivals,” he corrected himself, “without wanting to have sex? Right?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was just... never mind. But... from this, you got on, yes? Shouldn’t he be willing to accept help? I mean, Unit 02 is the best unit, after all, and so if it had a TITAN...”

He shook his head. “It couldn’t last,” he said, his tone final. “We... didn’t part well. But as for how he’s the authority... well, he’s the protégé of Asha Rosaiah... she’s the Representative for Asia, now; he used to be her Deputy Representative. He’s got enough clout to hold it, and,” the man gave a bitter laugh, “certainly the intent. And, more generally, people... the world always gets in the way. Whether it’s internal politics obstructing pure science, or those bioconservatives and neuroconservatives in the Senate,” the words were said with an identical intonation to ‘scum’, “well...”

“I know what you mean,” Asuka said, Eyes narrowed. “They keep on turning my requests for more enhancements, even though I know I can be even better.”

A sudden chuckle broke the silence. “Well, we’re getting bitter over things we can’t help, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime.”

“I’m still sixteen, as people just love to remind me,” the girl pointed out, “and I don’t feel I have. In fact, I think it’s a teenager’s prerogative.”

“Yes, well...” the man said, and paused, a look of distant pain in his Eyes, or, more accurately, written in the muscles around them. “I was going to give this to you later,” he said, “but... well.” He shook his head. “I believe you could do with more cheering up. Consider it a ‘get well soon’ present, if you must,” he added, pulling a small box, made of some dark wood, out from a compartment under the table.

“Really, you don’t need...”

“Remember what I said about false modesty.”

“... to give it right now, it can wait until after dinner, is what I was going to say,” Asuka finished, noting the small smile that the remark produced.

“That’s my girl,” Calvin Sylveste said. “As a wise man once said, ‘‘‘Hubris is a coward’s word,’’’ and I think we could all do to listen to him.”

“Uncle, that was you. At my seventh birthday party, I think... maybe eighth. Of course, it’s true.”

“Exactly. And it was the eighth, because it was the last year that...” the man fell silent.

Asuka nodded, her face solemn. “Yes,” she said. “It was the eighth.”

Just then, her PCPU chimed. “Asuka,” a mechanical voice said, only audible over the implants in her ear.

“What is it, Jeff?” she asked.

“Urgent recall, highest priority. You are to report to Captain Martello immediately, for possible deployment,” her muse stated.

Asuka blinked, and glanced over at her ‘uncle’, who had one eye lit up harcontact-style, reading something.

“I’m really sorry,” they both said simultaneously, “but... oh.”

“Some kind of recall message,” Cal asked, one eyebrow raised.

Asuka nodded. “Something like that,” she said, cautiously, wary of the security protocols.

The man sighed. “Well, that’s this meal ruined,” he said, “and we hadn’t even got past the starters. I’m needed back at... a place.” One eyebrow raised, as he added, “And they’re calling you back, even with a sprained wrist.”

“And a hairline fracture, too,” the girl pointed out. “It’s not just a sprained wrist... at least not in the dismissively sense that people too frequently use.”

“Oh, certainly.” The Director of Science for the Achtzig Group sighed. “I wonder what’s going on,” he said, standing up to help her.

The clock read half-past nine, on the twenty-ninth of September.

~’/|\’~

30th September, 2091


In the eternal chthonic darkness that the Harbinger bought with it, a constellation was born. Its light reflected off the black glass that covered the landscape for a tiny fraction of a second, before the blast wave hit, and the covering shattered, tiny shards of night dancing like macabre fairies at the front of the wave, spreading far and wide. A second wave of impacts happened, and a third, as from beyond the horizon, tiny bird-spires, which approached bio-organic from the far side, emptied their racks of ordinance, and rolled away to return to reload.

The Fifth Harbinger, Mot, cared not. The blasts of the missiles, specialist anti-armour ones designed to send a needle-thin jet of plasma through the armour of a human tank, bent and warped, as if they were afraid to touch the entity. The spectral fire of its AT-Field was a bitter radiance which crystallised spacetime itself, locking projectiles in mid-air. And from this trapped amber, fragments of black crystal rained down upon the earth, transmuted by the unreality of the will of Mot into something befitting of the world-view it desired.

Already, void-black spires, reflecting the lights of the impacts and the AT-Field of their progenitor, were growing up from the earth from where the discarded crystal pooled; fractal geometries with five-fold symmetry. It was beautiful, elegant. The profane implements of that which would try to harm the Harbinger were sculpted into geometrical perfection.

What higher good was there than that?

Well, certainly, both the Migou and the New Earth Government disagreed with such changes. Violently. From the east came vast ships, hundreds of metres long, outmassing the bombers and fighters which swarmed around them in the same way that a gas-giant outmassed its orbiting moons. The ranges here were nothing by stellar standards, but on the surface of a planet, a hundred kilometres suddenly became a long way, when the atmosphere dispersed lasers, claimed the kinetic energy of missiles, and forced the engines to maximum to maintain the arcanomagnetic containment fields of relativistic charged weapons. Despite that, the ventral plasma cannon on the first fired as soon as it had line of sight, stellar-intensity plasma of a kind which could be used to cut through a battleship hull or layers of arcology armour spewing forth coherently.

And bounced off, the containment field lines warped such that its own constraints meant that it was not permitted near the corpus of its superior.

Retaliation was near instantaneous for that affront.

White light illuminated the vertices of the Harbinger, shining along the edges as if from cracks within, only to pool at the points. The brilliance of the beam lanced out, and a sun was born on the eastern horizon, within the darkness which the thing carried with it. The beam from the Migou ship was snuffed out, without a care, as the ship was torn apart. Fragments of once-hull crystal were carried on the front of the blast wave, scything outwards through the night. Then came another glow, another sun, before the fireball from the last had faded. And another. As soon as any of the Migou ships came into line of sight, there was another newborn sun on the horizon, each one massively outshining the constant rain of fire which descended upon Mot.

To some, it might have appeared that the Harbinger was fleeing the Migou that, like wolves, harried the vast trapezohedron. In truth, the wolves were no more than flies, and that was quite apt as a comparison, for they were an annoyance, but one which did distract the god-thing from its chosen task, and which, given sufficient numbers, could injure and maim it. It was not immune to a death of ten-thousand cuts. The larger ships were hanging back now, shielded by the curvature of the Earth, and they were emptying their missile racks, even deploying the antimatter tactical sterilisation weapons. The beams of white light from Mot’s intersections were constant now, the light marring its dark world, but as they cut through the air, the transmuted missiles were rendered harmless.

At these distances, measured in the tens of kilometres, both parties were but tiny specks to each other. The Migou missiles were operating at the edge of their range, their paths forced into predictable lines by lack of the fuel that they would usually use, and the low-flying missile carriers. Simply, the Harbinger outgunned anything the Migou had, and so the fungoid beings were hiding until they could get into a more useful range. Merely by flying at ground height, rather than their normal combat elevation, they could reduce Mot’s line of sight considerably, even before the cover of hills was taken into account. Jumping from safe place to safe place, each move planned in unison by the genius minds of a species which had been in space before the synapsids had split from the other amniotes, they moved assets into position to launch perfectly coordinate attacks, each shot designed to account for transit time, gravity and the Coriolis effect of this spinning planet.

Another glowing, radiant wall. Another series of retaliatory strikes.

And then something large slammed into the Harbinger, and the impact birthed its own sun, centred on the blackness, consuming the shape of the god-thing. The starless dome flickered, white, luminescent cracks painted on its surface, just for a second, before it returned, seemingly unchanged.

A second was enough. For that short while, the strange stars and void-like scar which shone in the altered space around the Harbinger had gone, the power that bought them into this world released. A spire of darkness, an absence against the mundane night’s sky, had licked up, to puncture the orbit-to-surface kinetic platform and swat the rest of the salvo of high-velocity rods which were already tearing a path through Earth’s atmosphere.

And the screaming thunder of an angry god filled the air, tearing trees and knocking lesser missiles out of the way like toys.

Almost unnoticed in the conflict were multiple squadrons of concealed NEG scout drones. The autonomous fliers were almost invisible to anything but a dedicated x-ray frequency scanner, designed to catch back-scatter from metallic objects. They were here on a mission, in pursuit of information on the Migou and the Harbinger alike. But they were only ‘almost’ unnoticed, because as fire rained down through the darkness, and the bitter radiance of the vengeance of Mot lashed out, one lance swept through the drones, unerringly, yet casually seeking them out, and ending them.

~’/|\’~

“... and that is when the last feed cuts out,” the Marshal said, the worry lines heavy around her Eyes obvious even when she was only an ARvatar. “Now, if we take what data we do have, especially from the OTH radar grids, and track its course-vector...”

The evidence was obvious to the collection of Admirals, Marshals and other senior military figures. The line, curved on a two-dimensional map, took the most direct route of London-2. Just like the previous two Harbingers had.

“That’s far from the only problem we have on our hands, however,” Field Marshall Jameson said, his cold blue eyes staring at the map. “Look at this. From what we’ve been able to track of Migou movements...” his words were accompanied by a fine mesh of red arrows, all heading towards the hole in the green line of the NEG defences torn by the dark mass of the Harbinger. “It seems that they’re using the damage it did to the Eastern Front to push on through.”

“Could it be possible that they summoned it?” asked another floating head. “The way it’s breaking the lines, their own movements to follow it...”

“The analysts are looking at it.”

Misato ground her teeth as covertly as she could, as her eyes flicked from one high ranking officer, all with ‘Marshal’ somewhere in their rank, to the next. Of course, not everyone was a much, much more higher-ranking officer than her lowly status as a Major. There was the senior figure from the GIA. And a civilian advisor from one of the NEG-run occult research institutes. And the Minister of War. Yes, technically she was here as an Ashcroft Advisor, specialising in combating Harbinger-level threats, but everyone would look at her, and see the insignia of an O-4. She just knew it. Maybe she needed some kind of special ‘Advisor’ uniform for this kind of event. Or maybe just some kind of promotion, given that she was now responsible for two capital units.

Certainly, it would make what she was about to say go down better.

“With respect, sir,” Major Katsuragi said, “no, it is extremely unlikely. All studies indicate that the Migou are hostile to all other extranormal entities...”

The occult expert leaned forwards. “Explain the Wilmarth papers, then,” he said. “They’re quite clear; the Migou... or Mi-go, as Wilmarth romanised the Tibetan word... have been known to consort with extranormal entities.”

The Major nodded, in a way which made it clear that she disagreed with him. “We have to look at both the unreliability of men like Albert Wilmarth, who,” she sighed, “you have to remember, was a academic in the 1920s and, well... the simple fact that the Migou do not act exactly like the Mi-go described in that man’s records.”

Inwardly, she cursed. She’d got dragged down into this, and this man could probably out-academic her, given that was his profession, while she’d only studied the occult for its use in operational planning. As a result, her knowledge could be described as focussed, lacking broader context.

“... but that wasn’t the main thing,” she hastily added. “We saw Migou attacking it, so, even if they did summon it, they’ve lost control of it, and want it gone.” She forced herself not to swallow. “The main foe here is the Harbinger... Harbinger-5, Mot. We know what the Migou can do. We don’t know exactly what the Harbinger can do, but we do know it can do that.” She pointed at the darkened screen, which had been showing the autocensored feed. “Did you see that... what it did to the crust? Imagine if a city had been in the way!”

There was silence in the room.

“With respect, Major,” the Minister of War, a thin-faced woman with mid-length brown hair, said, “the past evidence doesn’t support you. Both Harbingers Three and Four were eliminated by your Group’s mecha, supported by a single city’s defence forces.” Her eyes were slightly wild, as she added, “We’re looking at a catastrophic breach in the Eastern Front, here! This could be worse than Alaska!”

“Yes, it could,” Misato conceded, “but if we can’t stop the Harbinger here...”

“... then, what?” an olive-skinned Vice Admiral asked, through gritted teeth. “What will happen that can be worse that what the Migou can do? Let’s make this clear. There is a chance that, if we don’t stop them here, Europe could fall! And you know what happened when we lost Russia. Millions will be Blanked and turned into weapons against us, both Infiltrators and Combat Blank armies, the Migou will tighten their chokehold, they’ll have a path down into Africa... and, more simply, we don’t have much more we can lose. North America’s in the same state as Europe... Australia’s barely holding out... only Africa and South America are anywhere near safe. We can’t afford any more widescale losses. Morale will be crushed, too; it’s only holding out because there haven’t been any major losses since ’86. And even if it doesn’t, and we stop them after... what, a few hundred kilometres, we’ll lose territory that we’ll have to spend too scarce resources to reclaim. So what can be worse?”

“... then we’ll miss the best chance we have of stopping it before it gets into more densely populated areas, sir,” the Major said, her face held rigid. “When we consider the force concentrations available to us at the moment, this is the best place. Otherwise, it’ll get away from the immediate frontlines, and into less expendable territory.”

There were nods from the other people at the conference. It was a valid point, certainly.

The man shook his head. “No, Major,” he said. “I disagree. Obviously, we can all see that our priority here is to hold back the Migou, and prevent them from turning this one hole in a front to a widespread rout. And, fortunately, letting the Harbinger pass without trying to attack it until we’re ready is better. Because... TETHYS? Has the analysis of the projected path of Harbinger-5 been completed?”

The ARvatar of the TITAN appeared, a blue-green sphere, floating silently. “Yes, sir,” it reported, its voice female, with a faint Spanish accent. “The entity designated Mot is moving at approximately fifty metres per second, along a constant spheroid vector for fastest intersection with London-2. ETA: Approximately 17:00, BST. However, considering its elevation and the height of the above-ground arcology superstructure, it will be in range approximately 2300 seconds before that theoretical time. Also, note that this assumes constant velocity, and that the beam-like weapon which displayed crust-penetrating capacity is not used.”

Misato swallowed. Less than thirteen hours. The previous two, and whatever the anomaly had been, may have just appeared, but now they had time to at least prepare.

“Thank you, TETHYS,” the naval officer said. “Note that projected path. Note how it takes it through largely uninhabited territory. Ladies, gentlemen, I propose that we concentrate the frontline forces at holding off the Migou incursion, because we know how much of a threat that it, and pull forces away from the path of Harbinger-5. By prior precedent,” he nodded at Misato, a twist on his lips, “we know that firepower can slow down a Harbinger, and... well, remember that Harbinger-4 was crippled by a coordinated assault, even before it was killed. Hence, I propose that we move up the Atlantic Reserve Fleet,” the TITAN showed projections of estimated time of arrival at the man’s words, “and scramble the asset of the Evangelion Group.”

“The assets,” Misato interrupted. “Two now. Unit 00 has had a successful start-up test. We would prefer to have more time, but subject to final approval, it is frontline capable.”

“Even better, even if it’s a little light for the firepower we’ll be using.” The Vice Admiral smiled lazily; a smile which did not reach his narrowed eyes. “Because we’re not just going to wait and shoot at it. Ladies, gentlemen, I propose that we only assault after we... soften up the target.”

“Isn’t that what the Migou are doing?” asked a woman in a naval uniform.

“Well, they didn’t hit it hard enough,” was the cold response. “And let the Migou have their go at it. I’m sure they won’t mind terrible if we can take our own little advantages, from their distraction...”

~’/|\’~

The air in the room was chill, and the hot-metal scent of micrologically enforced cleanliness grated at the nostrils and ran along the tongue. In the centre of the room, lit in a bright white spotlight, was a clear, coffin-like arrangement. And in the coffin was eighty-three kilogrammes of meat and bone, with all sorts of cunning wires and feedtrubes stuck into it, which was being examined for information. At least, that was all what the example of Homo sapiens nazzadi undergoing the trawl was, in the eyes of the law.

Genetics did not determine personhood, in the domain of the New Earth Government. It was easy to be born as a member of an approved human subspecies. To be a person... that was a state which was considerably easier to lose.

Agent Mary Anderson of the Office of Internal Security checked the screen, noted that the LAI had already corrected for the hormonal imbalance, and, after further examination, noted in the record that the change was approved. Sitting back down, she sighed. She hated working late like this. She should be home right now, sleeping (and sadly only that, because she should have work tomorrow) with her boyfriend. But in the Office of Internal Security, as with all the civilian police agencies, you tended to work to the job, not to the clock. Especially when you were a trained neurobiologist, and thus your skills were not exactly in massive surplus. She’d just drawn the short straw by the dehumanisation forms for this subject coming through towards the end of her shift, and she’d been told by her superior that this was high priority. Even if this was almost just make-work which could have been handled by LAIs, you needed a trained individual there, to take legal responsibility for what happened. Dehumanisation forms weren’t just thrown around, after all; you needed a court order to get them, in all but emergency cases.

“Correction performed; although higher brain functions remain paralysed, it proved necessary to increase serotonin levels, due to a fall. Mapping of base limbic core functions is, by given reading, eighty three percent complete,” she said out loud, to the recording equipment. “Noise from activity in the mesencephalon has been accounted for. At current rate,” she glanced over at the screen, “LAI gives an estimated time for start of metencephalon examination as 04:09.”

She shook her head, rubbing one blue-gloved hand against her grey-brown forehead, and picked her occult textbook back up. She was having to study for the extra classes the OIS were getting her to take (and considering that it counted for job training, it meant that she was actually being paid for doing so), but she couldn’t concentrate on that, not right now. God damn all filmmakers and anyone who encouraged people to think that you could just stick some wires in someone’s head and read their mind. A trawl, especially on a living subject like this, was hard work, trying to read a dynamic, emergent system with relatively crude tools, and compare it to known effects. It certainly wasn’t ‘mind-reading’; it was psychosurgery, reading associations and responses to triggers, which it was then necessary to try to pin together as thoughts in the blank, cloned brains wired up to computers down in the basement.

This wouldn’t even be necessary if the basta... subject wasn’t warded against parapsychic intrusion. Of course, that was in most cases basically a mark of guilt for something, because all civilian-legal defences should have had a key which allowed due authority to unravel the sorcerous procedure more easily. They already had enough to put it away for twenty years, after reassignment of human rights, for ‘consorting with illegal sorcerers’ and ‘use of illegal sorcery to hinder a judicial investigation’. But the question was; what was the subject hiding?

The machinery bleeped. Agent Anderson checked it, and squinted slightly, before inputting a series of new commands.

“Slight raise in core cerebral temperature of 0.3 K noted. The rate of flow of blood-substitute was checked; it remains constant, and...” she scrolled down, “... temperature of substitute remains constant. To inhibit neural activity, rather than increase the flow, which might risk damaging capillaries, levels of neural inhibition compound Pharmant-67 were increased by four parts per million. Dosage remains within green zone.”

Quite a lot, was the answer. Because in the raid that had bought it in, the subject had opened fire on the SPAAT team, and the CATSEYE sensors had detected several signatures which matched known extranormal familiar breeds. And that was before the fact that one of the people that they had been meeting with had turned into a monsterous... thing which had torn out the guts of one of the officers in the semi-powered armour through her suit, and then jumped out a window, and through the floor, like some kind of mist.

The amlaty shook her head, as she lowered her head back down to her occult textbook, and the meat and bone and machine twitched. People like that were just sick, she thought, before mentally chiding herself. No. Not people like that. Things like that. Personhood excluded that kind of activity.

An alarm, student, urgent, but not dangerous sounded from the machinery, and she spun on her chair.

“Unregulated movement in limbs,” she barked out loud, training taking over. “Checking status... spinal cord remains severed! I repeat, spinal cord remains severed, no nerve regeneration! Administering Red dose of muscle relaxants directly to active zones,” silently, she blessed the sense of paranoia which meant that those injectors were always there, even when you had installed a bypass in the nerves, “... muscle activity has diminished, but remains present.” She took a breath. “I shall now proceed to halt the main procedure, until the source of these anomalies has been determined. I shall begin by...”

Suddenly, in her harcontacts, an exploded image of the subject’s brain appeared, lines sketched in the air in red, apart from one section of white and bilious green. There was... something in the brain. Something that she was sure hadn’t been there before.

[Warning! Irregular brain growth!] reported the LAI in the machine, as the bilious green shape in the Augmented Reality projection spread and grew, in an almost vein-like profusion.

She worked her mouth silently. “Major anomaly in the subject’s cerebellum... it’s moving. Growing. I’m going to terminate.” Tossing the book away, she jumped to her feet, and slammed her palm into the big, bright red button on the side of the vivisection tube, before she began to back away, pistol already drawn, her eyes wild. Alarms began to sound, suddenly much more panicked, and, in the back of her consciousness, she registered that they were not her alarms.

[Termination One activated. Stand clear. Physical isolation activating in three... two... one... physical isolation complete,] announced the LAI, as diamond blast-shields slammed down from the ceiling, locking the abandoned workstation within an adamant cage. [Warning. Do not cross red line. Wards activating in three... two... one... emergency containment wards activated,] it added.

Within the machine, the blood-replacement flowing through the subject’s veins, arteries and capillaries suddenly solidified, molecular level structures cross-linking and bonding to form a secondary skeleton. In fact, that statement was not true; the hardened synthetic blood was more rigid than the real skeleton, although brittle, and prone to shatter in a way which only caused more damage, should the... the entity continue to move.

“I... I’m back at the safe distance, by the secondary controls,” Agent Anderson announced to the recording devices, panting. “Th-the subject is not displaying any further movement, which suggests that,” her hands began to fly over the solid, overengineered buttons, “that Termination One was successful. The El... the LAI containment protocols activated successfully, and the subject is now physically and sorcerously conta...”

Her monologue was interrupted by the arrival of a security detachment of officers, suited up in containment gear. One had a flamethrower, and the other three wide-bore sharders.

“Is it contained?” the lead figure snapped, weapon pointed at her.

She nodded, quite deliberately trying to force herself to not move or flinch. “Termination One activated... physical and sorcerous. It’s... I don’t think it’s moving anymore. No vital signs but then the... it wasn’t the human tissue that was the issue.”

“Can you set off Termination Two!” the androgynous figure, made sexless by the ANaMiNBC gear, ordered, in a way which wasn’t a question despite the wording.

“That’ll ruin the implants... but, yes... yes I can,” Agent Anderson answered, after accessing the command functions. “I don’t think it’s necessary... it... whatever it was... it isn’t moving, and it’s contained, but...”

“Do it,” the figure ordered her. “Every single active trawl subject... and some dead ones too... are showing signs of extranormal cellular activity. We’re pulling everyone out, ‘till we sweep the place.”

The amlaty swallowed. “Let me just prime... okay... Authorisation, Anderson, Mary,” she swallowed, mouth dry, “Personal TSEAP Termination code Alpha-Gamma...” she began to rattle off a series of numbers and Greek letters before the LAI chimed, and a bright orange-whiteness lit the sealed unit. She sighed a breath of relief, something which was almost knocked out of her by the almost-shove from the containment officer.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked, as they bustled her along the corridor.

“I don’t know,” the figure said, voice tinny through the filters. Standing this close, she could see the panic in the other woman’s (and it was a woman, under the tinted faceplate) eyes. “I don’t harangojy know.”

~’/|\’~

The eastern horizon was just beginning to pick up a hint of light, the blackness taking on hints of dark, almost velvety blue. To the south, the Harbinger may have punched through the lines, to unleash a torrent of Migou forces who dashed themselves against its geometrical shape, but the war did not revolve around such things.

Certainly, for Second Lieutenant Salou Danda, he had more to care about than whatever was going on to the south. Largely because he, and his wing of three other Dawn scout mecha, or Inevaturadski, to give the Nazzadi name, were trying to navigate the local Migou sensor grid without all dying horribly. Or worse.

The term ‘scout mecha’ was actually a singularly inaccurate term. Mecha, quite simply, did not scout. They combined a high profile with a noisy means of locomotion. Even in cities, the bane of ground pressure and hidden traps was enough that they didn’t go in first. It was the drones which used the mecha and their support pointer as a mobile control base who did the scouting. The mecha were the units which acted on the information in areas too covered for air support to come in, the human minds on the ground who reduced the information separation for the drones, and were the ones who called in the tanks.

“Hold,” he sent over the tightbeam laser link with the rest of his squad. Barely breathing, he stared at the images in his Eyes from the drones, the movements of the Loyalist patrol. It was simply the will of Allah that kept him and his men alive, he thought, with a hint of fatalism, but at least they were only Loyalists, not Elite or Migou, and thus they were probably blind to the drones. Not that the Nazzadi Elite or the Migou were used for scouting and reconnaissance duties, for the most part; they were less expendable. “Standard Whiskey-Eyes scout cluster,” he muttered to himself, making sure that he wasn’t accidentally broadcasting the signal.

The squad remained motionless for almost ten long minutes, waiting for the Loyalist group; a solid trio of mecha squadrons, with air support and dedicated surveillance equipment, to pass.

“Okay, move,” he ordered, once the threat had passed. “Dancing Boy, how are the drones?” he asked the specialist in his wing.

“Drones still ghosting, Thirteen,” noted Second Lieutenant Santiago. “Green-Seven is within possible detection range for Whiskey-Eyes One, but Green-One, Green-Three, Green-Four and Green-Five are all safed.”

“Good. Current route clear?” he asked his own legionnaire LAI.

[Affirmative. No targets detected. No mines detected. Active hostile detection methods are within safe levels.]

“’Kay.” The man bit his lip. “Move to Waypoint Echo then, Bounding Overwatch, rotate teams. Me and Jazzman are Charlie, Teacher and Dancing Boy, you’re Delta.”

“Understood,” the sole woman in his wing, and the heavy weapons specialist, replied, her tone laconic. “I’ll hold Dancing Boy’s hands, and make sure he doesn’t get too distracted by the drones.”

In the darkness, the lead two mecha were blurs of barely seen motion, their stealth equipment blending in to the background, A-Pods reducing their ground pressure to less than an infantryman. They did not so much run as bound, in short leaps which reduced the tracks they left. These conditions were nearly optimal for them; they would not be able to get away with this speed, and remain undetected, in daylight.

“Thirteen, I’m running hot,” noted Lieutenant Owenusari, his surname clue enough to his mixed heritage. “Still safe, but it’s building up faster than it should.”

“Understood.” And he did; stealthed units had to try to balance heat unlike any other unit, because it didn’t matter if one was optically invisible, if one stuck out like a flare on IR. Add that to the fact that they were small enough that there was an imbalance between their D-In/D-Out levels, and it could get touchy.

The two mecha landed, the blurs fading into nothingness, as they began to cover the movement of the other two. And, slowly, alternating, they advanced through the hostile territory, moving towards their target, a Migou airbase. Above, the crack of supersonic craft could be heard, and the slight pulse in the earth spoke of explosions and high-recoil weaponry in the distance.

And just for a fraction of a second, one who was watching the south might have seen a shower of meteors, which was interrupted when a black lance, its width negligible compared to its length, pierced the heavens, as Mot swatted another Migou weapons platform which dared fire upon it.

~’/|\’~

Ritsuko cleared her throat, and inwardly cursed herself for the habit. Of course Gendo knew she was there.

“Report.” His words were curt, perfunctory; he did not even turn to face her, instead staring out over the Geocity, lit by false stars.

"Following the successful reactivation of Evangelion Unit 00, Representative, we have uploaded the final calibration data to the MAGI" Ritsuko said, keeping her voice objective. "Given that the First Child is holding her synchronisation ratio at a steady fifty three, plus or minus three, percent, and that there has not been a recurrence of the... of the previous incident..." she paused, “...it is my opinion, as Director of Science for Project Evangelion, that we can use it for DELTA.”

The man partially turned, his arglasses glinting in the lights of his office. “Are you sure, Doctor?” he asked.

You could maybe use my name, Ritsuko thought, with a hint of annoyance that she hoped didn’t show on her face. “Yes,” she said, confidently.

Gendo Ikari gave a single, curt nod. “We shall see,” he said. “And the upcoming operation?”

“Although Unit 00 is still utilising the Type-A armour, while both Units 01 and 02 have been upgraded to variants of the Type B, it is still combat ready. We will have to use a cargo-transport for the Evangelion, though, as the Type-A lacks drop-compatibility.”

He stared at her for what she felt to be a second too long. “Good,” he said, eventually. “That will need to be fixed, of course.” His eyes flicked across the display on his glasses. “You are deploying the Type-9 charge beam and the auxiliary capacitors, I note,” the man remarked.

“Yes, sir.” Ritsuko swallowed. “Major Katsuragi believes... is of the opinion that, with access to the power supply of the troopship that we are using to move Unit 00, we can set up an increased refire rate, by using the ship’s D-Engine to charge the capacitors. The MAGI agree with her.”

The man nodded. “A satisfactory solution. You should task some of your subordinates with ensuring that we can perform this as a standard operation, rather than as a field project.”

Ritsuko nodded. “Yes, Representative. I’ll look into it.” She paused. “Will that be all?”

“No,” Gendo said. In a few steps, he closed the distance between them, and pulled one gloved hand from a pocket. In it, there were two diamond cylinders, about the size of a man’s thumb. “I have secured authorisation from the Council, after consulting the Minister of War, for the use of the Harlequin systems on the Evangelions. These unlock keys permit one firing per Unit, and have a,” he glanced to the left slightly, “twenty-three hours and fifty-four minutes active lifespan. Task your engineering teams to load the weapons.”

They hung from Ritsuko’s fingers, gleaming in the light. There was a certain gleam to them, as if they had been dipped in oil, and then dried off. It was probably deliberate.

“I understand, sir,” she said.

~’/|\’~

“Far Shores Actual, this is Fire Eagle One. Releasing drones... drones are go. Monitoring status.”

It should have been so easy. The drones were LAI platforms, consisting of an A-Pod, a D-Fridge, and a D-Engine, with massive amounts of stealth-technology applied. They had almost no radar signature, were background temperature, thanks to the careful heat balance, and, when still, were almost invisible in the visible and UV spectra, too. Even the Migou had problems finding them, if conditions were clear. Dropped off by a stealthed plane, lurking behind the curve of the Earth, they should have been able to lurk, hanging in the air, to gather data from Mot and its activities.

Harbinger-5 unerringly picked them off, as soon as they entered its line of sight.

And as a massive pentagonal trapezohedron, hundreds of metres high, that was not a short distance. What perhaps made it worse was that it was not engaging the missiles fired at it until they got closer, a few tens of kilometres away. It was like it was aware that the warheads on those things could not scratch it, but it did not wish for them to get information.

“Far Shores Actual, all drones are fubar. Retreating as per orders.”

At least we’re getting to see what its beams do to stuff,” Misato said, morosely, as another wave of drones blinked out of existence, the second line giving quite adequate evidence as to the effects.

“The weapon has been noted to propagate at c. It takes the form of a linear beam, which is unaffected by gravity, electromagnetism, or, to the best of our knowledge, any other forces. Yield is <UNKNOWN>; weapon does not inflict damage by conventional mechanisms. Penetrative capacity is <UNKNOWN>. As it is, the target is capable of manifesting one beam from each intersection-point; these beams can be sustained for, at minimum, 11.2 seconds. Maximum duration is <UNKNOWN>.”

The Major listened to the report from the naval TITAN with a frown. Technically, it was reassuring to know that at least these were known unknowns, compared to the capacities exhibited by previous Harbingers, when they hadn’t even known what they could do. Like the odd, physics-defying condensation wave of Harbinger-3. It was less reassuring to continually receive proof that Harbinger-5 was exceptionally good at targeting and destroying anything which came into range, no matter how hidden it was. Because she was in charge of trying to find a good attack position for two 40 metre tall robots, when even a car-sized, steathed, radar-neutral, D-Fridge-cooled...

Oh, God. It was that simple, wasn’t it? She’d studied this. Well, not exactly this, but it was all too familiar, she realised, as her brain put it together.

“TETHYS,” the Major snapped, “get me all the files on the Harbinger-1 incident!”

“Major Misato Katsuragi, you only have a...”

“All the files that I’m cleared for, stupid!” she corrected herself. “That should be obvious!”

Yes... she would need to check. But if she was correct, then there might just be a way. And, oddly, an Evangelion might be able to do something that the Navy’s capital ships couldn’t, because an Evangelion was flawed.

~’/|\’~

The woman’s face was pressed up against the transparent material, a thin line of drool running down the surface from where her mouth touched it. Her white garments, padded and thick, but permitting her free movement, had the yellow stripes of a dabbler into illegal sorceries. She tried to raise one hand to bang against the diamond, but the smart materials in the clothing suddenly went solid, and she lost balance, tumbling backwards onto the padded floor, rocking slightly.

She was yelling something, but whatever it was, it was inaudible to the guards outside, flicking through channel after channel of footage from the cells, flagged by the sentinel LAI systems for a human’s attention.

“Something has them on edge,” one muttered nervously. “Allah, but I hate it when it’s like this.”

“Too true,” her colleague muttered. “I swear, it’s days like this, when they all start acting up...”

[Subject displays distress. From her vitals, she has a heavily elevated heartrate, and high levels of neurotransmitters associated with fear. Recommend neurosedation.]

The first woman nodded. “Makes sense, I’d say. Agreed?”

The nazzady nodded. “Agreed.” On the monitor, the woman’s struggles diminished, and she slowly sank to her knees, before lying down, resting her head on her arms. “Get her straightjacket to administer a muscle relaxant, and to move her body to the bed when we know she’s asleep.”

“Sure.” The first guard shook her head. “What were you saying?”

“Yep. Let’s see, next one...” The dark-skinned woman shook her head. “Days like this are just so depressing. I just have to remind myself that once I get the degree, I can go get another job.”

“I know what you mean. This supervision duty... it grinds you down.”

“The worst bit’s probably how Sentry could probably do all our jobs. It’s not like...”

[Subject displays distress. From her vitals, she has a heavily elevated heartrate, and high levels of neurotransmitters associated with fear. Subject has attempted to draw on floor in own saliva. Strongly recommend neurosedation.]

Both women glanced at the woman held rigid on the floor by her straightjacket exosuit, pinned down in a cruciform shape. The fingers on the suit had flowed, bonding together to prevent any precision.

“Agreed? We’ll need to manually note this in her file, too, as a secondary. She’s,” she glanced at the screen, “... yeah, she’s in for summoning. I don’t want to release her jacket from lockdown until everyone else calms down, hmm?”

“Agreed. I hate these haranojy summoners.” The nazzady shook her head. “As I was saying, it’s not like we don’t take its recommendations like nine times out of ten.”

“Well, you know, you gotta have humans in the loop. It’s only a dumb LAI, after all. It’s just triggering things if the stuff in their brains or blood changes too much. Or if their motions aren’t permitted. It doesn’t actually know what they’re doing, like we do.”

Her colleague glanced over at her. “Yeah, I know. It’s... I’ll be glad to be out of here.”

“I know what you mean.”

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

~’/|\’~

Shinji Ikari ran his hands down his face, squeezing his eyes shut. He could feel the subtle shift and sway of the superheavy lifter underneath them; luckily, the anti-airsickness medication seemed to be holding out. The boy tried opening his eyes again. The scene before him had not changed.

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “We’re going to be deployed to an open mine, which is just next to the path the Harbinger is taking?”

The Major nodded. “Yes. So should it go wrong, it will be easier to evacuate.”

“And then they’re going to nuke it. With... really big ones.” Shinji shuddered; he still remembered the grey, crumbling facade of the Victoria Arcology. How much worse would it be at the scales they were talking about?

“It’s a conventional weapon,” Misato pointed out, accurately reading his expression and slight look of nausea. “You don’t want to use an a-chrom one that big.”

“Oh, okay.” The boy nodded. “I understand that bit. It makes sense.” A certain twist entered his voice. “But the bit you just mentioned. The bit where you shut down almost all our engines and coolant systems. And then don’t even turn them back on when the attack begins. That makes less sense.”

“We realised that the target is attacking anything with D-Rift technology. Things just running off batteries, or with fuel propellants don’t get hit, until it decides that they’re a threat. But it sees all kinds of D-Rifts as a threat, we think.”

Shinji bit down on his lip. “Um... I hate to be obvious, but don’t we need the D-Engines to, you know, power the weapons and the Eva, and generally do anything?”

The black-haired woman, her hair pinned back, blinked. “Yes. For weapons and movement, we’ll be running power to the Evangelions from elsewhere; cables are already being set up, and the Navy is lending two frigates, because they’re too light against this enemy. Life support will be running off batteries.”

Rei had barely moved since the briefing began, only the slight sway from the motion of the transport. Now, she raised a hand.

“Yes, Rei?”

“Without the effective increase in inertial mass given by the D-Brake, both the Babylon and the Type-13 are non-viable. The stress will shear them apart.”

The Major leant back slightly. “Yes. That’s right. So we have to keep some running. Which means you’re still going to be targets, just... smaller ones. Now... to continue the briefing...”

~’/|\’~

A female Nazzadi sat in a chair, unaugmented eyes flicking over the profusion of hexagonal screens before her, her bland, unlined features profoundly lacking in contrast in this light. Black-gloved hands flicked over the keyboard, and she leant forwards, tilting her head slightly, before leaning back. Unconsciously, she adjusted the set of her black frock coat, before standing up.

Against the lit screens, she was a figure of night, surrounded by a babbling in the background, the susurration of whispering communications systems.

“Widespread civil disturbance all across Europe and Northern Africa,” she said, her words characteristic of the rigidly precise English learned by first-generation Nazzadi. “Lesser anomalous behaviour in sensitives globally, induced by nightmares of endless darkness. Stand-alone spontaneous public disturbances. Reports from the OIS that subjects under trawl or otherwise undergoing extreme physical and mental stress are exhibiting Budapest Syndrome. The presence of Harbinger-5. Widespread conflict all along the Eastern European front.” She shook her head, once.

“Yes, Director,” one of the voices said, as the rest fell quiet, only a buzz at the edge of hearing.

“Should an evacuation be ordered of any major arcology, the Society will use the chance to strike at Chyrsalis facilities. And, at the same time, Chrysalis will use the chance to further its own objectives in the chaos. What a mess.”

“That is what the reports state, Director.”

“Watch,” she said, tone considered. “We will not act, but instead observe. We need to know the pathways both factions use. Neither faction will wish to have their...” she coughed, “...special agents linked to concrete identities. We have to secure those weak spots.” She paused, tilting her head again. “I did not receive any reports of the existence of confirmed organised cult activity in the service of Harbinger-5,” she added, her fingers curling slightly.

“No, Director,” a second voice stated. “Although some disturbances match the known metrics of Harbinger-5, we have not established any pattern of human organisation. As you yourself said, from available evidence, such things are stand-alone, and lack the cohesion that, say, cults associated with the Melqart-entity typically exhibit.”

She wiped one hand against her forehead. “That, at least, is somewhat fortunate,” the nazzady said, a hint of relief creeping into her voice, before it settled again. “We must not weaken, though. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

“We can take no actions against the physical manifestation of the entity identified under the Geneva Protocols as Mot.”

The woman nodded. “Yes. We lack the resources. But we shall try to cauterise the wounds that deluded idiots will try to open in the chaos.” She paused. “It will be necessary to aid the Office of Internal Security in preventing the spread of Budapest Syndrome. It must not be permitted to get out of hand, or we will be forced to deploy the Watch for containment. And that will be... messy.”

“Understood, Director. I will task the deployment of Amici units to support the OIS’s containment efforts in all areas where it has been noted... that is, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Standard cover procedures will be in place, and force will be appropriate.”

“Good. And... Andersdóttir?”

“Yes, Director?”

“... it does not matter. Carry out your duties, Andersdóttir.”

And with that said, Director Khoury Vuilumiri oy Jenufabrikati oy Chicago-Twi vy Teoranazy vy Minugijy sat back down. She was named for parents who had never been real, and she had been created as a biological twenty-five year-old, out in the Oort cloud, as a soldier in a fleet with no history. And, turning back to the screens, she resumed her vigil as the Director of the Office of Special Services, which did not exist.

~’/|\’~

The dark-haired woman sighed, and glanced at her flatma... at the Third Child.

No, she thought, staring at him. I can’t think of him like that. Not now. Rei may have vanished off somewhere, when she wasn’t looking, but Shinji was still sat here in the briefing room, a decidedly green cast to his features. His face was pale, and whitened knuckles gripped the arm of the seat and a sick-bag equally tightly. The boy’s blue eyes were closed.

“How are you feeling, Shinji?” she asked, unsure if that was how to start with him.

“I’m... I’m scared,” Shinji whispered after a pause, his voice thick with stress. “Just... terrified.” He glanced up at Misato. “I d-don’t know if I can do this. I... I...” there was a thin burst of nervous laughter, “I don’t even know if I can stand up, let alone get my Eva to do so.”

“Well, you know, you don’t need to. You get to lie down for the entire operation,” Misato said with a smile, which vanished almost instantly. “No, that’s not helpful,” she said, before he could say anything. “I’m sorry, it sounded better in my head.” Slowly, she lowered herself into the chair next to him. “It might help to talk. I find... I used to find that it helped. Actually... that comment was how I kinda deal with it.” She winced. “I’m nervous too.”

The boy glared at her. “You get to be in the nice safe command vehicle,” he said bluntly. “I don’t. I get to be lying there, h-h-hoping that it doesn’t blow me up.”

Misato nodded solemnly. “I know,” she said, gently, not mentioning that the command vehicle wasn’t exactly safe. Not when there were capital units, let alone a Harbinger, anywhere nearby. “It’s not fair. And if I could, I’d take your place, but I can’t. No-one else can. There’s just you, and Rei, and As... Test Pilot Soryu, and she’s over in Chicago-2 and managed to fracture her wrist yesterday, at the worst possible time.”

There was a sick-sounding bubble of laughter from the boy. “I bet my father would still force me to do it if I broke my wrist, you know.”

“Well...” Yes, he would. If it was needed, Misato thought, but didn’t say.

It was enough. “He would. I mean, look at the state Rei was in when he forced me in the first time, and she was going to do it, too.” He wiped at his arms with his sleeve. “I w-wonder if there’s some other kid out there not knowing that he’s going to be dragged in if both of us get k...” he grabbed for the sick-bag, and retched into it.

“Easy, there,” Misato said, feeling horribly ineffectual. “You’re not going to be killed. We’ll get you out. And, come on, if the Harbinger targets D-Rifts... and it does,” she added, not liking the tone of uncertainty, “then you two will be some of the smallest targets on the battlefield. We’re shutting down your engines and stuff for a reason.”

“I know... I mean, I know intellectually,” the boy managed. “But the idea of being out there, the idea that I could run out of power.” He shook his head. “It’s scary. Everything’s scary.” He shivered, which turned into a gagging noise, and the bag was raised again.

“Don’t try too hard to stop yourself being sick. It feels better once it happens,” Misato advised, speaking from experience. “And,” she raised one finger, as she rummaged around in a pocket, before tossing a packet of slightly warm juice onto his lap, “here. You’ll probably want something to wash the taste out, afterwards.”

Face clammy, he raised his head slightly. “Now, once you say it, it’s not going to happen,” he muttered. “But... thanks.”

The black-haired woman sighed. “Think about it,” she tried. “I mean, this time, you are not alone. You’ve got Rei supporting you, and, come to be clear, the Atlantic Reserve Fleet is going to be attacking at the same time, plus all the local forces we could scramble, plus several brigades we pulled from Paris-2 and Ostberlin-2. It’s not just you.”

“It’s... it’s just so big,” Shinji muttered, feeling pathetic. “You know, at least with Harbinger-4, it was about my size, and... well, I knew that other things could hurt it. And... and it may have had laser whip-things, but this is just...” his eyes were distant, “... just too much.” He shook his head, an sighed, a deep, shuddery breath. “How does she stay so calm?” he said, under his breath.

Unfortunately for him, Misato had very, very good hearing. “Who, me?”

“No,” the boy said, reluctantly. “Rei.”

The woman blinked, heavily. That was something she couldn’t explain herself. Come to think of it, back when she’d been a pilot, she’d have been freaked out if one of her squad hadn’t been showing nerves before something big. She had been freaked out, back in ’86, when one of her squad hadn’t shown any nerves, but hadn’t said anything, and then, the next day... she forced those memories, and dead faces, back down. No wonder Shinji was getting more worried; it was uncanny, and he wasn’t prepared to deal with this kind of thing.

“I don’t know,” she said, hating herself for not having a better answer. “It’s just the way she is, I think.” Slowly, she slipped her hand over his, feeling the cold clamminess of his flesh, and squeezed reassuringly. “But... Shinji,” she said, staring at him, “... it’s all right to be terrified. That’s just the way you are. It’s all right to be sick. I just want to know that you feel all right, and that you think you’ll be able to follow the plan. Because if you don’t think you can, we’ll all be in trouble; you, Rei, us in the command vehicle...” She left it hanging, left all the other people who might die if they didn’t stop the Harbinger unmentioned.

She saw his jaw work, his eyes squeezed shut, and teeth grit together. But his hand squirmed under hers, and turned over, to grip hers tightly. “I can do it,” he managed, weakly. “Don’t worry about me.”

The hand was released, as he grabbed the sick-bag and was nosily ill in it. She reached out, and tucked an errant lock of hair back, to avoid it getting in the way of the contents of his stomach. “Oh Shinji,” she said, softly, “you won’t mind if I worry about you. Just a little bit?”

The hand was retracted

“Misato?”

“Yes?” she asked, as she got up, slowly, to check over the plans again and see how the deployment of the naval forces was going.

“Thank you.”

~’/|\’~

The blue-and-grey of ArcSec, and the darker vehicles of the OIS were clustered around the office building. The hulking figures of men and women in power armour were spaced along the cordon, behind deployed armour shielding, watching the exits. The other buildings, around this place, had already been commandeered by sniper teams, and they were watching, in vain, for any movement within the facility. The sound of police sirens, chatter, and the movement of armoured feet was a flowing river of background noise to all activities.

“Right... what we got?” asked the stocky woman, leaning into the command van. They had already cordoned off the building, and the evacuation process was beginning, made easier by the fact that this was not a residential district. “Sorry for the delay,” she explained. “Checkpoints, and they ran a neural scan on the way in.”

Agent Hikara sighed slightly, and turned to glance at his superior. “Captain,” he said, by way of greeting. “Hostage situation... you know Clarity Arcanopharm?”

Captain Joyeuse nodded, after a moment’s pause. “Grigori-A’s looking into them, aren’t we? IPcorp?”

“Yes. They’re licensed to conduct sorcerous and variant-matter experimentation... mostly medicinal, but there’s oddities in the in/out flow of variant r-state materials.” Red eyes glanced down at the screen before him. “Mostly low-state organic molecules... they’re only allowed up to carb-8-on, and hydro-6-gen.”

“They’ve been audited recently, and they came up clean,” added Agent Gjorgji Mile, “but they’re still on the watchlist.”

There was a shudder from the agents, because this had the potential to get messy.

Agent Junira groaned, his milk-coloured hand colliding with his forehead. “Great. So they’ve snapped and gone crazy in all the funny stuff that’s happening tonight.”

“No... this is the corporate HQ,” Gjorgji said. “There shouldn’t be anything here. Anything dangerous here, that is.”

“And they’re the ones who hit the panic button,” Hikara added, running a hand through his hair. “We’re only here because they’re under investigation.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, display personnel details on screen,” he ordered an LAI.

[Yes, sir.]

The agents of the State Secuity Task Force on Non-Governmental Organisations (A) stared up at the details, the list of registered occupants of the building drawing most of the attention.

“What the hell are so many people doing in at the moment?” asked an agent.

“Says here they work to a 48-hour day,” Gjorgji said, through narrowed eyes. “Check if they’re fully licensed for that, Hikara,” he told the nazzada, and got a nod in response. “Oh, yay.” He shook his head. “I hate corps that do that. You just know that they’ve got those dosage contracts you gotta sign if you want to work there. Exploitative bastards.”

Captain Joyeuse shot a glance in his direction. “Have we got the IPcorp to hand over internal systems-link yet?” she asked, her voice distracted.

“Yes, but... whoever’s done this is good enough to have cut the hardline, and well...”

The woman sighed. “Don’t tell me...”

“Yes. Someone from the inside activated the ArcSec kill-switch on all wireless devices. So... yeah.”

Ori Joyeuse tapped her front teeth with a gloved finger. “How long until we’ve got the area clear, Watcher?” she asked the LAI.

[The adjoining buildings have been cleared. It is estimated that it will take seventeen minutes until the dome has been cleared to the minimum safe distance.]

“And have we got drones in place yet?”

[They are not in position. The control team and their equipment are still en route.]

“Damn.” The woman sighed. “Well, we hold, then. We are not going in blind.”

~’/|\’~

The night air was chill. Beneath the chill light of the almost-full moon, the landscape was barren, rocky and almost dead. Only the water pooled at the bottom of the chasms that pock-marked the landscape, and the lichen and mosses that covered the bare rock like tattered skin, made it different from the moon. But this was not some forgotten battlefield from the Arcanotech Wars or the post-Unification conflicts. This was relatively recent, and this was the work of man, and man alone.

The economic logic was undeniable. Arcologies were hungry, even with the D-Engine permitting a recycling efficiency which defied conventional thermodynamics. The human war machine devoured all the resources which were fed to it. So, it had been decided that open-cast strip mining was a valid form of resource extraction. This had been a region with notable seams of rare earths, and the rare earths had been taken, along with everything else.

Where had the soil gone? To Warsaw-A, the munitorium of the Eastern European front? No, more likely to Lviv-B, the closest arcology, a pure geocity cluster built under the slagged remains of the original city. It was not relevant. All that mattered was that man had killed the land here, devoured it and left only rock and lichen. And that made it a good place for the assault on the Harbinger. It was expendable; there was no real biome to harm, and there was cover, as mine-shafts plummeted down into the crust, refitted into launch silos once their seams had been exhausted.

In the darkness, floodlights were tiny islands of light, patches which revealed sections of the prone Evangelions, covered in technicians which swarmed and crawled over their surfaces. Unit 00 was a pale bulk in the shade, because, when the fact that the Harbinger seemed to ‘see’ through the dimensional distortion of D-Rifts was taken into account, repainting it from its white test paint was not the best use of the limited time they had. Slowly, the Evangelion was moved out from inside the hold of the transport ship, as unlike Unit 01, the Prototype could not be carried on the standard superheavy flier. The place where it was going to be sited was already prepared; one of the hardened platform once used by heavy mining equipment was reinforced enough to bear the weight of the Evangelion, even when its A-Pods were turned off. Unit 01 was already prepared, set up with the Type-9 charge beam, connected up to its superconducting cables snaking back into safety.

Time was running short. Because, although the first hints of dawn should have been tinting the eastern horizon red, they did not do so. Visible in the night was a streak of black-beyond-black. Across the east, sharply delineated against the natural deep blues, was terrible, sudden void, slowly creeping up to consume the world, for Harbinger-5 would not tolerate the sun, nor the stars of man, and bore the world it chose with it, as a veil and cloak in this place.

Shinji Ikari rubbed his gloved hands against his face, trying to bring heat to chilled cheeks. The rest of the suit may have been heated, but that just made the exposed face feel even colder. Even extruding the cowl didn’t help much, although at least it kept his ears warm. Misato had left them here, as they set up the Evangelions, and she went to consult with the people in charge of this operation. Shaking his head, he glanced over at Rei. She was just standing there, cowl down, eyes locked on the blackness painted like tar across the eastern horizon. He was sure that her plug suit looked thinner, and more form-fitting than his, too. Although that may have been something to do with the fact that it was largely skin-coloured for her.

“Hey, move it!” someone yelled at them. Shinji glanced around, and hastily stepped out of the way of the lifter, the four metre biped sprouting multiple fine manipulator arms. It took him several moments to find where Rei was; she had moved outside the pool of flood-lit brightness, a pale shape barely visible to light-blinded eyes.

“You do not approve of the operation,” she said without prompting, as he joined her, outside of the light.

The boy stared at his feet. “It’s a stupid plan,” he muttered. It was only after he said the words that he recalled that their last individual conversation had ended with her hitting him. And the one before that had involved nudity in a really-not-good-way.

Going by my luck, she’ll probably stand on me in her Eva at the end of this one, he thought morosely.

She ignored his comment, and squatted down, perched above cold tarmac. Suddenly, in a blur, one hand shot out, to return, something clutched between thumb and index finger. Shinji squinted; it looked vaguely rock-like. No, it wasn’t a rock, he realised.

“A snail?” he asked.

“Correct.” Two grey eyes stared down at the small gastropod.

“What are you doing with it?”

There was no answer. The muscular, slime-covered flesh of the creature writhed, as it tried to escape from the thing which held it, but the shell which was meant to defend it had been compromised, and it could do nothing to escape.

“Are you interested in snails?” Shinji asked, trying to make conversation.

“No.” All her attention seemed devoted to the singular animal.

There was an uncomfortable silence, only broken when the boy let out an uncomfortable chuckle. “I had some as pets when I was very small,” he said, in an embarrassed tone. “Yuki and... my foster mothers said that they were easy starter pets, and a lot less... um... hard to look after than a hamster or anything. They’d leave these funny slime trails on the inside of their tank, but sometimes they’d stare at me, when I was giving them food, and I used to wonder what they thought of me, although...”

“No.” Her tone was flat. “They did not think of you. They lacked even the limited sapience of mammals. They simply crawled on their stomach-foot, uncaring of the world around them, blind, ruled by instincts. Unthinking, unable to contemplate that they only existed at your sufferance. They understood nothing.”

“... well, I know that, but...” Shinji shook his head, slightly annoyed. He had just been trying to make conversation. “They were just pets, you know? For a ... six year old, I think. For a small child.”

Rei did not turn to face him. “You were five. And you told your foster mothers that you did not want stupid snails, you wanted a guinea pig. That request was rejected, even when you threw a tantrum. And so as a form of retribution, after a while you ignored the stupid snails, and so they starved to death. And it worked; you were bought a guinea pig when you were six.”

Shinji was silent, shocked. “How do.... why... I did not!” he finally managed. Because there was an echo in his head, of words risen from the depths of the river Lethe that runs through the memory to speak of things that had once happened, and the phrasing, though not the intonation, was familiar.

“Such behaviour has been deemed acceptable by society, for children of that age. You were by no means unique in your actions.”

“So... how do you know? Who told you?” he said, the blush fighting with anger for dominance on his already cold-reddened face.

“You are inappropriately defensive,” she told him, still staring at the writhing snail, its motions starting to slow, as it exhausted itself. “It is the concept of a pet which is the oddity, not a human killing another creature.”

“I don’t care about the snail!” Shinji snapped. “It’s just... don’t... people don’t do... argh.” He sucked in a breath, and tried to rebalance his thoughts. “You can’t just talk about things like that like you do!”

Rei was silent. He honestly couldn’t tell if she was paying attention to him or not.

“It’s my past!” he finally managed. “Not yours!”

“It is my present,” she said, simply. “Because you are here.”

The boy worked his jaw a few times, before there was a short, sharp, wet-sounding snap, and Rei wiped her hand on the cold material. Straightening up, she turned to face him, for the first time in the conversation. The moon, so distant and small and cold, was just a few days past full, and though her head blocked it, the light gave her a halo of silvery hair.

“Don’t do it,” he said, face uneasy. “Just... don’t, okay?”

She stared at him, unblinking.

“Please. It’s...” he flapped a hand in the air, trying to find a way of putting it, because neither language nor society had adapted properly to the existence of parapsychics, “...weird. You’re a postcognitive, right?”

Mutely, she nodded.

“Just... don’t say it out loud, please.”

“But it happened.” There might have been the faintest hints of confusion in her voice. “I know.”

“Try to... try to pretend that you don’t know.” He winced, looking for a response. “Please?”

“Test Pilots, please report to the station point for last checks. I repeat, Test Pilots, please report to the station point.”

“We are needed,” she said. And without a word, she turned on her heel, and strode off.

~’/|\’~

Above, the night sky was filled with stars. They did not twinkle, and they did not shine; they were cold, distant points of light. If there were children's tales told of these stars, they were the kind which were censored and bowdlerised, all to keep from infant minds from the terrible truths of the cosmos. The darkness of the void reached from horizon to horizon with no hint of dawn; terrible, unreachable, anathematical to light, which died in its Stygian majesty.

With the debatable safety of the command vehicle, relocated far from the site of the ambush, out of the sight of the Harbinger, Misato shivered. This was not purely a response to the abomination which devoured all light, though that was an influence. A dark dome, running from sky to sky, blocking out all light and leav... that was not something that the woman wished to think about. But if it had been chilly in the night air, it was freezing now. The pentagonal trapezohedron of Mot was a force of palpable cold. The water was freezing out of the air, microscopic hailstones pattering down in a blizzard blown by the thermal imbalance, and underneath, in the areas of the open mine which had flooded, the scream of flash-frozen ice was still audible. Even with the heaters turned up to maximum, there was still a decided nip to the air. She wished she was wearing heated armour.

“It wasn’t doing this before,” she said, worry in her voice. “Do we know when it started?”

Back in London-2, Ritsuko shook her head. “Not exactly,” she replied, “but it seems to have coincided with some of the Migou kinetic strikes on it. We... think it might be something to do with some kind of regeneration-based effect, but...” she shrugged. “For all we know, it might just like the dark and cold.” She licked her lips. “Are the Evangelions secured?”

[Unit 01 is braced for impact. Position is stable.]

[Unit 00 is braced for impact. Position is stable.]

“Yes, they are,” the Major said, her tone distracted. “As they were thirty seconds ago.” She was distracted, because all eyes were watching the timer count down until the start of the operation.

{00:01:01}

The passage of the Harbinger had bought it almost to the target point. It was precisely on schedule; its velocity had not wavered, even when under heavy assault from Migou forces. The vast dark shape, almost invisible in the shade it created, was an overlay in all the target systems locked on it, a wireframe in the autocensors.

{00:00:37}

In the entry plug of Unit 01, Shinji Ikari worked his fingers around the controls, taking deep breaths of LCL. The plug suit felt too tight; he could feel the slight stiffness where the inner suit and the outer suit meshed. Trying to put it out of his mind, he ran over the instructions in his head again and again, and tried to put the strange sense of disorientation from the feeling of the Eva being prone out of his mind. His job was to hit the Harbinger with a relativistic beam of charged particles. The LITAN would do the aiming for him; all he had to do was to follow its instructions, and authorise the fire. Hidden behind a blast shield, a safe distance away from the red projected line that Mot would take, he waited.

{00:00:31}

Rei Ayanami waited, hands locked tightly around the butterfly control yokes. Grey eyes stared, unblinking, at the interior walls of her plug, at the mass of overlays and read-outs. She was stationed along the line, on the same side as Unit 01. It had been worked out that if the number of vertices limited the number of independent beams that Mot could manifest, it was best to make it split its fire. Unit 00 was marginally closer, too, because the damage output of her Babylon, already aimed at the point where the Harbinger would be when she needed to fire, was less than that of the charge beam, and thus the hostile’s fire should be prioritised towards her.

That was an acceptable outcome. She had an inferior synch ratio. It was a tactically sound decision.

{00:00:20}

“Final green light from Evangelion Group, Vice Admiral.”

[NEGS Romulus is green. Alpha Detachment is green.]

[NEGS New Mubai is green. Bravo Detatchment Detachment is green.]

[NEGS Stefugladisi is green. Charlie Detachment is green.]

“We have green from EuroHighCom, too. They reaffirm consent for use of Happy Birthday.”

The man smiled. “Good.”

{00:00:00}

It was time.

Directly underneath Harbinger-5, at the bottom of a now-frozen pool of muddy, residue-contaminated water, lay a little surprise for the incarnate god-thing that would render the world its plaything. Hardened and engineered so that it remained viable at elevated r-state, it waited. Even the sudden, unexpected coldness was nothing; it had been overengineered to such a degree that it could cope.

And when the timer hit zero, it detonated.

A new dawn rose under the dome of eternal night.

~’/|\’~

Hundreds of kilometres to the north-east, the Migou airbase was an unobtrusive area of flattened ground and low, clustered buildings. The Loyalist defence forces were stationed up-top, in buildings and hangars which looked uncannily like standard, New Earth Government facilities. It was not exactly surprising; form followed function for both the NEG and the Migou, and there were only so many ways that an armoured, camouflaged above-ground facility for a human-proportioned individual could look.

Of course, this staging ground was, in itself, only camouflage for the airbase underneath. It was only with the aid of their sensory equipment that the four Dawn-class reconnaissance mecha even knew it was there; the vehicles launched by magnetic accelerator, as the fungoid beings were capable of handling accelerations that would have squished even a highly modified fighter pilot, and the landing areas only revealed themselves when they were needed.

Lieutenant Danda momentarily deactivated his nerve bypasses, and stretched, before returning to the AR-enhanced cockpit. Hypothetically, this was an easy engagement. Dawns were not heavy assault units; they were built around the principle that if they were getting into a fight which wasn’t an ambush, they were doing it wrong. The two backpack vECF missiles on the heavy weapons specialist in the squad were of the same yield as the specialist ammo issued as standard to a main battle tank.

No, they just had to hang back, feed drone data to the two Engel squadrons who had tracked them to this position, and flag hostile units for fire support. The ACXB organisms were the heavy hitters, even a comparatively light Species like the Aral, and they would be the ones who braved the defences, not the diminutive Dawns.

They just had to wait for their cue to act.

When light flared to the south, a fireball rising up into the higher atmosphere right on schedule, they had that signal. All across the base, hidden chutes slammed open, as the Migou scrambled their air forces in response to such an action, hostile emwar and sensor systems flicking to active.

All they managed was to pinpoint their own location, as the Engels’ support drones emptied their racks of missiles at the Dawn-designated targets, while the armoured monsters began their own attack, plasma beams cutting through the armoured structures and seeking out the Loyalist defenders.

And all across the Eastern Front, this kind of scene repeated itself countless times. The forces of the New Earth Government had just happened to be in the right position to take advantage of the fact that the Migou were moving their own reinforcements to deal with the Harbinger threat, to attack the weakened lines, and Reclaim their own planet.

Almost as it had been planned.

~'/|\' ~

The visible blast should have been near-perfectly hemispherical; a three kilometre wide fireball enveloping the monstrosity. That was not the case. The AT-Field of the hostile lasted just enough for a notable asymmetry to shape the effects, before it evaporated like ice in the height of summer. Instead of a dome, it formed an inverted skirt, a toroidal shape with the Harbinger at the centre before the AT-Field broke and the nuclear fire washed over it.

[Anomalous blast formation detected.], reported an LAI.

“Brace for impact!” the Major screamed into the communications link, as the visible distortion of the blast wave propagated outwards, tearing rock and shredding canyons alike. She tugged on her jumpbelt, and hoped that the oddness the LAIs had flagged wouldn’t ruin everything. The sudden shriek of the Gieger counter was her companion, as the technicians and LAI systems babbled their reports.

Shinji jumped backwards in his seat, the urge of his reflexes too much, at the sudden burst of light. A normal radiance, he noted; no trace of the Colour, for which he was thankful. Resettling, he squeezed the controls tight, behind the vast metal blast shield they had placed him. The Evangelion was fastened down, and the shield took the worst of the blast, but he was still buffeted by the gales, the pressure wave making the metal scream from overpressure.

Upwards, the twisted blast bloomed, punching through the dark dome that the Harbinger bore with it, and leaving a fracture of warped angles and colours unseen by mortal man propagating across the night. The strange, unfamiliar stars flared in intensity and shifted, as if they had only appeared as such from a certain angle, and the sudden shift in perspective given by the blast was restoring their true form.

[Do not engage until effects can be observed.]

It was fifteen long seconds from the detonation until the fireball had faded enough for Harbinger-5 to be visible, in the still-lit cloud that now blossomed around it towards the sky.

Once it had been an object of unnaturally precise geometry, its ten, kite-shaped faces perfect and immutable. Once, but no more. The near-contact detonation had slagged it in the same way that a golden idol might be melted when thrown into a blast furnace. Its bottom had run like wax where it had not simply evaporated, fronds and tendrils of liquid crystal forming a funereal veil for the object. The top had fared better, but only comparatively. Even as the light around it dimmed, the nearest face cracked with a thunderous screech; shattering like suddenly-cooled glass. It no longer stood vertically, but now leaned, its axis no longer sidereal in inclination.

[Target remains operational. Begin Phase Two.]

Above the horizon, and up from wide boreshafts, appeared the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, each firing as soon as possible. Even before the light from the nuclear blast had faded, and as a twisted aura borealis rippled in unnatural light in the black dome, the stellar intensity of plasma weaponry, and the green afterglow of charge beams bought further light to the night. Each impact, though they might have been able to core an enemy ship, only gouged a small wound into the crystal or left another section warped, but the cumulative effects were lethal to the Harbinger, which appeared stunned, floating lopsided, without retaliation or its own AT-Field.

The swarms of drones and planes which were launched only added to the damage, wave after wave of missiles impacting in the unnatural light of the Colour.

With a series of muffled explosions, the blast shields in front of Unit 01 and Unit 00 broke apart, the sections protecting their vulnerable weaponry falling forwards. Rei was already firing, methodically placing vECF shells into the precise centre of the foe, the flare of the arcanochromatic weapons nothing compared to the twisted stars above. Shinji took a deep breath of LCL, and, arms no, it it’s the Evangelion’s arms sluggish due to reduced power, shifted the charge beam around to the precise location his LITAN requested. The Harbinger was so small from this distance, and the smallest movement moved the aim point so much, but slowly he guided the reticule into place.

In the core of the weapon, the central core of the ‘shell’ of ultradense hydrogen was suddenly ripped apart. A sudden series of magnetic spasms sent the protons forth at relativistic velocities, denuded of their neutralising electrons and constrained by an arcanomagnetic field, into the world to seek out their destiny. The electrons arced forth into the clouds of coolant that now surrounded the Unit, lighting the white fog in electric blue, but that had been taken account of in the firing solution, along with other things, such as the Earth’s magnetic field, its gravitational effect, the other such weapons in use, and the Coriolis effect.

Until they bent around their target. Along with everything else which was being thrown at it. Around the darkness of the maimed god was a shimmering, iridescent oil-slick of an AT-Field, diverting all attacks around the foe, without letting any near its sacrosanct body.

“Cease fire!” ordered Misato, suddenly afraid.

“Something’s happening!”

“The Shaws are going crazy!”

“Unrecognised energy build-up in target!”

An unnaturally pure note sounded out, a sound not entirely unlike a finger on a wine-glass, shifting and modulating as it jumped through the spectrum at random. And then the Harbinger tore itself apart.

“Is... it dead?” Ritsuko mouthed.

It was not dead. It was merely... changed. With an indescribable din, the dome shattered, suddenly solid crystal, rather than a zone of transition. And each piece, a diminutive version of the intact Harbinger, flowed inwards, to form a shell around their progenitor. Or, maybe, around their self. Were they children, a weapon of their parent, or were they merely an extension of the will of Mot? Was there really a difference?

That was no reason to stop firing, and these lesser construct were so fallible, so weak. The lesser missiles of the bombers were enough to shatter one, sending void-dark crystal shattering to reflect the war above them, and the capital grade weapons punched right through.

A critical point was reached, though, and suddenly the protective shell disintegrated. No, that wasn’t the right word. Was absorbed would be more accurate, except even that wasn’t true. What could be said was that the Harbinger was not restored to its former glory. It was not restored for, now, around it at each face, floated a lesser version of itself. And zooming in further, each orbital had ten orbitals itself. And one could look in further, and further, and further; layer upon layer, shell upon shell upon shell. If there was a final layer, the NEG could not see it in the fractal cloud of trapezohedrons that enveloped, that was the Harbinger.

[Target appears to have regenerated all damage. Target is emitting large numbers of high energy electrons.]

“We nuked it, it’s already regenerated, and now it’s radioactive?” Misato muttered in disbelief. “That’s just not fair.” Then her training took over. “Shinji, Rei! Get out of its...”

Whatever else she was about to say was lost in the noise. The dreadful, terrible noise, which screamed through the world like the cry of a penangal. It was a noise which ceased to be noise, and started to be a shock-wave, which buffeted everything and tore its way through the landscape. And it was not the attack.

It was merely the herald of their destruction.

Aircraft died. Escorts died. Capital ships died. Hills died. Mountains died. The white radiance of the beams which Harbinger-5 loosed upon its foes touched everything that it could see, and it had so many more faces from which to fire.

Moving even before the sound was released, Unit 00 threw itself back, over a cliff face, and fell, the shattering noise of its armour plates and the ice at the bottom of the canyon muted by the cry of the Habringer.

Unit 01 was not so luckily, as tens of beams from the lesser trapezohedrons bracketed it, dancing across its surface.

Shinji screamed, and Unit 01 screamed with him, the armour melting and burning into the unnatural flesh of the Evangelion even as one of the horrific beams tore through his lower gut and out the other side. The Evangelion screamed, the scream of a dying god even as it pawed and clawed at its armour, trying to tear off the sheets of ceramic that went far beyond the white-hot, so hot that they were invisible. The radiance of the AT-Field that shimmered over the wounds was the only thing keeping the Evangelion together, and compared to the terrible brightness of the beams, it was dim.

“Eject!” Misato barked, her face horrified, as the screens ran down the communications cable. “Get him out of there, before it destroys the Eva!”

[OVERRULED was the LITAN’s response, from inside the Unit 01. [Exterior environment will be lethal to the pilot.]

The Major swallowed, still hearing the screams. They were painful to listen to; how bad must they to be to experience? But the LITAN was right, prioritising pilot... Shinji’s safety like that.

“Engage morale filters,” she ordered, gritting her teeth, as LAI systems removed the screens from the audio feed. Biting her lip, she felt the coppery taste of blood, and winced in pain. “I want a barrage at this point!” she ordered, bringing up an AR display in her Eyes, and marking the location at the bottom of the elevated position. “Use vECF warheads, and I want it collapsed. Understood? Override proximity warnings!”

“What... sorry, yes. Requesting authorisation code.” It was given. “Understood.”

The barrage of missiles, arcing up and over from one of the fire positions, was partially intercepted by the Harbinger, but the thud and flash of Colour of the compact warheads that got through were enough to collapse the hillside, in a pile of rubble and dust and ice. For just a few moments, ghostly white beams shone through the clouds, and it rained black crystal and molten rock alike, before they vanished. And soon, the Harbinger was quiet, as it resumed its passage.

For a moment, there was silence in the command vehicle; the silence of the survivor.

“We... we have a signal from Unit 00,” one of the technician managed.

“I am alive,” Rei’s cold voice stated. “Unit 00 has suffered damage to its dermal plates, but will be operational once I am given power again.”

“Unit 01!” Misato yelled. “What happened to Unit 01?”

~’/|\’~

Pain. It hurt. He hurt all over.

There was a buzz of voices in the background. Everything... it looked so red. Redder than normal; hexagons and bars and shapes of crimson flashing across his vision. There was text of some sort, too, but it was blurred and out of focus, unreadable.

“Shinji, Shinji!”

[Test Pilot Ikari has been incapacitated. Autonomous Survival Mode engaged. Weapons and systems remain operational and autotargetting, until motive force is recovered through synchronisation. WARNING! Critical damage incurred. WARNING! Low power! Back-up batteries engaged to supplement power flow.]

“No! Get the LITAN to stand down!”

It was funny, really. They’d mentioned that the LITAN would keep firing even if he fell; it couldn’t use the held-weapons, but it would do what it could to keep the Unit safe, even if it couldn’t move. It was very advanced; a wonder of automation and AI design. They’d gone all that length to get it to do that, but that thing that the Evangelion had done in that first fight, had terrified them all. It had terrified him, because, in a sense, it had him doing it. It still gave him nightmares.

This pain-filled, red-lit world he found himself in, that feeling of another body barely there... it was better than going berserk.

“It’s... yes, it’s accepting the codes!”

Power levels critical.] There was a fractional pause, before the LAI network spoke again. [‘Play Dead’ Mode engaged. Unit 01 will deactivate all systems beyond life support and central control, until stable synchronisation is resumed or the Unit is salvaged.]

There was a small shift in the LCL, which produced a sagging, sinking feeling in the pit of the boy’s stomach.

“Prepare for possible use of Option Zero.”

“Ouranos, medical report! Try to stabilise him, until we can recover the plug!”

It hurt all over. And inside Shinji Ikari’s head, hate and exhaustion fought. It had just... he swallowed a mouthful of LCL, or at least tried; he couldn’t seem to be able to force it down, and gagged. Teeth gritted, he tried to force the Unit to stand.

And failed, because the Evangelion was locked down. Unseen tears running down his face, he whimpered incoherently.

[WARNING! Pilot is has severe sympathetic burns. WARNING! Pilot’s animaneural waveform is breaking down. Contamination detected in the three primary components of the waveform] The voice was getting softer. [WARNING! Vital signs fading. Cardiac rhythm destabilising...

He could no longer hear the mechanical, male voice of the LITAN. It was good. No-one was telling him what to do anymore. He could just rest. He was tired. So very tired. Something punched him in the chest, hard, but he was just too exhausted to do anything. To move, to try to get away from it, to even scream any more.

Shinji Ikari closed his eyes. He had already stopped breathing a while ago.

~’/|\’~

[EarthScorpion]

Chapter 11

Rei 02, In Water And Darkness / some words she spake, in solemn tenor and deep organ tune

EVANGELION

~'/|\'~

Without sensibility no object would be given to us, without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

Immanuel Kant
"Critique of Pure Reason"

~'/|\'~

A heartbeat.

Just one lonely heartbeat.

Then silence again.

~'/|\'~

“At 07:25:00, Synchronised Military Time, Operation Ankou began with the initiation of a Mixcoatal-class 12 MT pure fusion device, buried at a depth of two metres, directly beneath Harbinger-5. Contrary to our best estimates, the AT-Field of the hostile was not, I repeat, was not immediately nullified, and thus destruction was not total. With recourse to the footage from Evangelion Unit 00, the closest friendly unit to transmit such data, we can see that the core-equivalent was not exposed by the blast, although the Harbinger suffered major damage.”

On the screen, the succession of slides tracked the progression of the blast, as the malformed toroidal plasma propagated upwards, until Mot’s AT-Field gave way, and the image was lost. In the corner, an extrapolated diagram showed the damage inflicted to the crystalline structure of the Harbinger.

“Nevertheless, Operation Ankou continued. As soon as valid firing solutions could be ascertained, local forces, with the addition of the North Atlantic Reserve Fleet, the battleships Romulus, New Mubai, and Stefugladisi, and the Titan-Class ACXB combat organisms, Evangelion Units 00 and 01, began the next phase.”

The projection flicked between autocensored images of the combat, and wireframe models covered in data readouts and estimated figures. Misato was reading the pre-prepared speech from the notes she had uploaded to her Eyes although Ritsuko had modified her first draft with additional technical details.

It showed.

“The damage inflicted on the Harbinger was light on a per-shot level. The crystal structure of the entity is estimated to be between twenty-five and a hundred and twenty five times more resilient to kinetic impact than the outer structure of a Migou Synergy-class battlecruiser, the toughest vessel we have managed to kill, and that is before its regenerative capacities, or the solid nature of it, are taken into account. The MAGI have noted that it took increased damage from arcanochromatic weaponry, compared to a conventional device of the same yield, and so recommend that all weapons which can be enhanced in that way are so.”

The woman licked her lips, as the screen changed to the trajectory of Unit 01’s charge beam shot.

“Fifty three seconds after the initiation of the operation, and thirty-eight seconds after the fireball had dissipated enough for visual contact with the entity to be re-established, Harbinger-5 responded. It amplified its AT-Field, to the extent that space-like paths around the target were visibly warped even before they contacted the discrete phase-space. This phenomenon was not displayed by Harbingers-1, -3, or -4, although the MAGI have noted similarities to the “wave” form of Harbinger-3, from the Shaw readings. It then began a process which ended with the reintegration of the dome of darkness into itself, and its regeneration into some kind of fractal thing.”

Casualty figures began to flash up.

“It then destroyed the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. Romulus, New Mubai, and Stefugladisi were lost with all hands. Evangelion Unit 01 took extreme damage, which left it combat-incapable; it en-route to Ostberlin-2 for emergency medical treatment for the pilot and repairs. Unit 00 took minor damage in the process of evading the hostile. It remains combat-ready, and is currently being moved ahead of the hostile’s path for a second intercept attempt.”

Misato swallowed hard, and hated herself for being here.

“Operation Ankou can thus be deemed to have been a failure.”

She hated herself for being in this conference chamber, giving a report which could have been given by a damned LAI, let alone a subordinate, answering questions about things that the questioners already knew the answers. She was here while it was Ritsuko, and the team of sorcerers and doctors that she’d bought with her, who were going to be with Shinji. It just didn’t seem right.

But rightness didn’t matter. She was the Director of Operations, and there were operations she needed to direct. She couldn’t allow herself to feel; she needed to think.

Even if she did feel.

~'/|\'~

He was floating in darkness. No sound, no sight. He could feel the fluid around him, chilling him to the bone.

And, despite the blindness, despite the sense that there is not only no sound, but there is no way that there can be sound, he saw that there are others in here with him in this darkness.

And they called to him. In total silence, and utter darkness, the figures called to him.

~'/|\'~

The endless hours of waiting had ticked by in Chicago-2, and it had long since passed that subtle point where ‘late’ because ‘early’. But the reddish-blond haired girl, who stood in the engineering control centre, staring over at the figure of her Evangelion attached to the transport, was wide awake. Wide awake, and getting very frustrated.

“Have they given us permission to move?” she snapped at the Deputy Director of Operations, the hints of tiredness only amplifying her boredom and annoyance. “One Evangelion is down, and the Prototype isn’t good enough. Can’t they see that they need me?” Some might have said that the catch in her voice was desperation.

“Still no chance,” Captain Martello said with a shrug that she felt was far too light-hearted for the scenario. “Hasn’t changed. The Migou have moved more than enough interdiction squadrons to the Atlantic that we can’t sneak by, and NorAmCom can’t spare the ships to make sure we’d get through... and we’d be too slow, too, if we had a proper battleship and carrier escort.”

Asuka gritted her teeth. She intellectually knew that he was right, that the cold logic of logistics was irrefutable, but this sensation of uselessness; she hated it. She was being kept here, being wasted, because other people hadn’t been competent. Especially when it could have been so different; if they’d kept her in Ostberlin-2, rather than moving her straight on to Chicago-2, if they’d dispatched her as soon as the warnings sounded, if the Migou hadn’t moved those forces to the Atlantic...

Millions could die because she hadn’t been used to her full potential.

Ten thousand could-have-beens filled the girl’s head, as she settled back down on her kitbag, over in the corner, waiting for an order which refused to come.

~'/|\'~

”Mama?”

The voice is far above him, distant. “Oh dear,” it says, sounding somewhat maternal. “He hasn’t...”

“No,” says a deeper voice. “He hasn’t grasped that she’s... well, you know.”

“And his father?” A second woman.

“He... can’t be here.” The deeper voice sounds uncomfortable. “He...” the two shadows far above lean together, and there is distant whispering. He doesn’t pay any attention to it; he’s too busy clinging to the suitcase they handed him, when they took him away from his home.

He hopes this holiday will be short. He doesn’t want to be away from Mummy and Daddy for too long.

“Oh. I see,” the second woman says, her tone leaden. “That’s not good. Oh no. I hope... well, he’ll have to, right?”

The first merely shakes her head, and squats down to give him a too tight hug. He squirms to get free, and fails.

And then the tears come.

No. That wasn’t it.

~'/|\'~

The low-flying cargo planes that tore through the early dawn sky were flying heavy, their vast, delta-shaped hulls crammed with equipment. On board, in the more-cramped-than-usual passenger space, a hastily set-up AR-dataspace was allowing the passengers to work. The cabin was more cramped than it should have been, because almost a third of the space had been commandeered in the name of sorcery, and the preparations for what they were about to do.

Ritsuko, paper robe tied tight over fresh pink skin, shivered in the slight chill that was present even in the sealed preparation hab, and wished that she hadn’t neglected her normal daily routine in the preparations for the Unit 00 start-up test, which was making this more uncomfortable than it should have been. She shook her head. That had been stupid, she thought, as she resumed her revision of the role in the procedure that she would be fulfilling.

“Rits?” the voice came over her implants, along with the attendant face in her harcontacts.

“Yes, Sarany?” she asked the head of the Unit 01 team who, damn her, was getting to sit in the warm. “Have you checked everything? Will it work?”

“Mmmhmm,” the woman replied, her tone somehow managing to sound perpetually gloomy. “Yes. It won’t be perfect, but, yes. Although... I do have to say, it might be better here than it would be back in L2. We depleted most of our stocks of parts after Harbinger-4. ‘Least the 02 team left an entire set of Type-B-2 spares back in Ostbe Two, which is more than I can say for us.”

Ritsuko nodded, biting on her lip, despite the fact that the other woman couldn’t actually see her. “That’s... well, it matched the inventory records, but I wanted a proper analysis. Thank you.”

“I can’t work miracles,” the nazzady remarked. “We may have parts, but they’re B-2s, not B-1s. They won’t fit quite perfectly. And that’s nothing to say of the tissue damage. Spare parts won’t fix the hole in Oh-One’s chest. Or the tissue trauma. And we’re going to have to fish the crystal bits out of the Ackersby, before o-necrosis sets in, and...”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Ritsuko said, trying to keep her voice calm. “It just has to be enough to get it operational.” She cut the line.

The interior door of the sealed unit opened, and a round-faced man left, rubbing his right arm slightly. He stopped, as soon as he noticed Ritsuko’s glance, and frowned at her slight smirk. “Damn injections,” he muttered.

“Look, it’s necessary, Wei” the blond replied wearily. “We’ll need boosters for this... and you’re not telling me that you’d prefer to be out for a week instead?”

“I know that,” he paused, “and I know we’re just choiring; you’re primary in this.” He shifted uneasily, his paper robe falling open to reveal a surprisingly honed body. “It’s just... I guess I’m just too much of an old-school Horakian. Bet the students nowadays don’t have to learn to cast without implants first.”

Ritsuko sniffed. “No, they don’t. And the lack of tissue trauma is a wonderful thing,” she remarked.

“Quite.” The Chinese man rolled his eyes. “So, for this, we’ll be using a trimetric Eidesis-type feeder-channel to handle the ruach flows?” he asked, tone suddenly becoming serious.

The woman nodded, her view of his lean body entirely obscured by the diagrams displayed in front of her eyes. “Yes. The MAGI have sent the verification signal for the double-Czech to be used; the astronomical correspondences are such that we can also throw in a Yun-purity ward, and that should make Stage-6 considerably easier on us all.”

“I love full moons... or close enough that you can account for it in the rite,” Wei smiled. “And the Verstärker-support choir?”

“They’ve got one set up in the Herkunft Group facility in Ostberlin-2; the Representative pulled some strings and we’re going to be allowed to borrow it. I’ve checked... you, Dalton, Esmin and Afrir are all compatible with it.”

He winced. “That will mean more injections when we get there, won’t it?”

“Yes, it will.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why you don’t get an autoinjector, you know. Makes everything a lot less painful.”

“Same reason I don’t upgrade my implants, or get Eyes, or anything like that.” Wei narrowed his eyes. “I’ve made that clear to you before.”

Ritsuko nodded, hand unconsciously going to her back, where long-unused spinal ports rubbed against the thin material of the paper gown. “I know. I’m sorry.” Her thoughts flickered to the thing that they had in the hold, that none of the other sorcerers or the engineers knew about. “And do up your robe, for goodness sake,” she added, pointedly.

~'/|\'~

It was getting cold in the darkness, cold in the water that enveloped and surrounded him. His lungs screamed to breath, but they were useless, motionless.

And yet he did not drown. He sunk ever deeper into the black without ever succumbing to it.

Lungs filled with fluid, he remained conscious, aware, and yet immobile.

~'/|\'~

“What do you mean, you refuse to fully unlock the strategic arsenal!” the Vice-Admiral protested, his face reddening. “It took 12 megatonnes, point-blank! I hardly think we can fight this... this thing with piddly little tactical weapons!”

Misato quite agreed with him. He may have been an annoyance at the previous meeting, but in this case, both she and him were of one mind. Now, if he’d listened to her in the first place and they’d hit the Harbinger before it had passed the frontlines... well, that was past, now. And in retrospect, he had had a point. They were losing territory all across the Eastern front, but the losses were being minimised. Either way, the point was that he was right, now.

Others disagreed.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” said the President of the NEG, her eyes narrowed. “I am not going to let you throw around megatonne arcanochromatic weaponry. Conventional nuclear weapons, yes. But... I’ve been briefed on the risk that the Migou will take the use of such things as an excuse to start strategic orbital bombardment.” Her eyes flicked down for a moment. “And it’s too high to allow it. We’re walking a too-fine line here. Far too fine to allow that to happen.”

“Not to mention the risk of a Colour-stable mass forming,” added an advisor. “We don’t want another Berlin-2 Aftermath.” She shook her head, sadly. “Never again.”

“Yes, that too.” The President pursed her lips. “And Berlin-2 was contained. This... this wouldn’t be.”

The olive-skinned Vice Admiral grimaced, his image in the conference replicating the expression to the last detail. “But we saw that the Mixcoatal-class broke the AT-Field, but failed to kill it! We know we can get through, but it’s upped the defences, with the new fractal structure. And, no, we can’t just use larger conventional nuclear weapons from a distance,” he added, in an aggrieved tone, “because they’re A-Pod propelled!”

“Then bury them,” said the Minister of War, leaning forwards in her own window. “You used the nuke as a mine for the first attack; why not do it again?”

A man cleared his throat. “It’s not that simple, ma’am,” advised a nazzada in a dark grey uniform. “Deployment of strategic weapons is based around the assumption that they will be launched. Their placement is such as to minimise the chance that they’ll be detected at launch, which is the most risky time for a warhead, because that’s when they’re optimised for speed, rather than the stealthed final approach.”

There was silence, as people waited for the man from Strategic Missile Command to explain.

“So the majority of strategic launch sites are in Africa or South America; safe territory, not the frontlines of Europe and North America. There are plenty of tactical sites, but we won’t physically be able to move any launch-capable warhead into place for use as a mine. Even if we could convert them from Lauch-Type to Mine-Type in the time we have, which is unlikely. And the self-destructs for key strategic locations are designed exactly so you, or a hostile, can’t move them easily.” He cleared his throat again. “To put it simply... the time for that has passed. Current tactics are based around the deployment of nought point one-to-fifty kilotonne ordinance at a tactical to low-level strategic level. Against almost everything, use of megatonne weapons is overkill.”

“Well, look. One of the things not covered by ‘almost’,” snapped the Vice Admiral. “Your job was to foresee exactly this kind of problem. That you didn’t do so shows a lack of the proper planning from the Strategic Missile Command. I do hope you’re properly prepared should something happen with, say, Harbinger-2!”

And, again, Misato couldn’t help but agree. The entire point of technical aides was to sit back, only to interject with large amounts of relevant data, but that didn’t make specialists like this any less annoying from the point of view of the people who were actually making the decisions. Mentally, she shrugged. Maybe it was just her. Maybe people who were in these high level military meetings through rank, rather than technically being a kind of aide herself, were trained to deal with smug specialists. But, still, shouldn’t the people behind the deployment of strategic weaponry have been prepared for the possibility that a Harbinger-level threat might require multiple such weapons to kill them? If they’d done it properly, she wouldn’t have to order two teenagers to fight against something that they didn’t have the weapons to kill.

“Ahem!” President Nyanda cleared her throat. “Vice Admiral Lípez! If we can avoid the acrimony...”

“Sorry, ma’am. In that case, we will have to consider what other options we have available to us, if we cannot,” the man gave a bitter chuckle, “rely on high-yield weaponry.”

Misato shuddered, overtly. Of all the people in the conference, she had the one who’d been closest to the actual failed operation; still safely over the horizon, but they’d been getting the feed from Units 00 and 01. That moment when the light of the newborn sun had washed into the AT-Field, and been rebuffed was going to haunt her.

The discussion resumed. But Major Katsuragi was distracted. There was now something squatting in the back of her mind, and on the tip of her tongue; something which she knew she had already subconsciously noticed, but which had not breached the waters of her awareness.

~'/|\'~

Shinji Ikari sat alone on a cold, barren landscape, hugging his knees, the chill wind piercing him to the bone. The air smelt vaguely like snow, with that almost-metallic taste, but the clear blue sky reached from horizon to horizon. It seemed so dead. The world seemed all too hollow, like it was painted on the sky. It was almost as if he could reach down, and pull the skin of bare earth and rock from the corpus of the world.

And above him, the birds sang. The tumultuous, swirling flocks of birds, all species and breeds flowing like water, writing words that he could not read in their flight. The chaotic, meaninglessly meaningful birds, free and wild and unconstrained, exulting in flight. The land may have been dead, but the sky was alive.

“You’re scared of freedom,” a young boy said, from somewhere behind him.

“I’m scared of being dead,” Shinji objected. “And of being hurt. Also, of Harbingers, monsters, the Migou...”

“... your father.”

“Yes!” Shinji swallowed. “No. I don’t know!”

“Are you scared of me?” a cold voice said, from in front of him.

He looked up to meet a pair of cold grey eyes. Yes!, he wanted to say. “Sort of,” was what he actually admitted.

“To you I am an object of fear,” Rei said.

“You are very scared. Of the world. Of everything,” the young boy said.

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Shinji protested, turning to stare at his younger self. “Why not?”

“We are small, in a too-large world.”

“Yes!”

“We are warm, in a too-cold world.”

“Yes!”

“We are sane, in a too-mad world.”

“Yes!”

And that was when the young girl behind him spoke, a piping, yet familiar voice.

“Why do you believe that to be true?”

~'/|\'~

Major Katsuragi sat back in the chair behind the desk she had commandeered. A glance down at the map before her showed the progression of Unit 00, as teams of workers scurried across its surface to fill in the cracks in the outer armour with memomorphic foam. Idly, her finger traced its way across the map, unconsciously doodling on the image of the new form of the Harbinger. Looking up, she stared at the milk-white girl who stood before her, posture rigid, still-wet hair hanging limp down to her shoulders. The utter passivity of that figure was made worse by the dead look in eyes which seemed to state that she could wait forever.

But she had to be the Major now, rather than Misato; she had to be professional.

“Okay, Rei,” the woman said. “I know that your Evangelion was damaged when you did what you had to do to stop the Harbinger from targeting you...”

“I am physically fine,” the girl stated. “I cut synchronisation before I impacted with the ground.”

The Major was fully aware of this, but nodded nonetheless. “Yes. And compared to Unit 01... well, that’s why we’re deploying you again. We need to slow it down; we need more time. I know you might not want to go up against it again, as you saw what Mot did to both Sh... to Unit 01 and the Fleet, but we don’t have a choice if we want to prevent it from getting through.”

“Yes.”

“Once the field-modifications are complete, Unit 00 is basically going to end up being used as a SRBM-launch platform. I’m sorry, but... well, we don’t have much of an option. You know about the reduced profile that the Evas can possess, if we run you off batteries? Well...”

“Yes.”

The Major blinked, as her rhetorical question was answered, and her flow interrupted. “Yes, well, that means you’re the largest unit that can carry the old-style fuel-propelled rockets, as the hostile can ‘see’ conventional missiles, and the ships that they’d normally launch from are too big targets.” She paused. “And we’ve got a bit of luck, too,” she added, jabbing one finger onto her desk as a smile crept across her lips. “After that change it did, from the dome to the smaller-crystals, it seems to be blinder. It’s ignoring our drones and planes at extreme-long range, when it used to target them as soon as it could see them. The change... well,” she shrugged. “Maybe it could only see in the dark. We don’t know, but this works for us.”

“Yes.”

“Your task will be to shadow the target, and move to pre-determined locations for launches.” Leaning forwards, the black-haired woman stared at her subordinate and charge, looking for any reaction at all. “Do you have any questions?”

“You are concerned about Test Pilot Ikari,” the pale-skinned girl said, tilting her head slightly. “You are afraid that it is harming your capacity to make rational decisions.”

A gasp of breath escaped from Misato’s lips, before the Major managed to get a hold of herself. “I am worried, yes,” she admitted, pursing her lips slightly. “However, the tactics are sound.” And that wasn’t actually a question, she added, mentally. She waited, to see if that prompted any response from the sidocy, before a sudden thought struck her. “Are you worried?” she asked, a hint of curiosity in her voice.

“Do not worry,” Rei said, face emotionless. “He is only clinically dead.” There was a pause, just enough for the black-haired woman to take a breath to respond, before Rei added, “He will get better. I will follow your orders without reservation, Major. I have been instructed to do so.”

“Good,” the woman said, gaze flicking down to the desk in front of her to break that unceasing grey stare. And then her eyes widened, and she stared down at what she’d been idly doodling.

“Rei,” she said, not looking up. “What does this look like to you? The drawing,” she added, after a moment’s thought.

“It resembles one of the training mnemonic-images used to aid Children in the shaping and generation of AT-Fields. But it is not accurate; if I or Test Pilot Ikari or Test Pilot Soryu attempted to use it as the basis, it would be weak and malformed.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Misato said, sitting back, the corners of her lips twitching up. “That’s what I thought. That looks a bit like the planar field image, though, doesn’t it?”

“A bit.”

The Major blinked. “Rei, report to your Unit for detailed briefing and plug insertion. I’m going to...no, Rits’ll be busy,” she said to herself. “LAI, get me a direct line to Representative Ikari!” she ordered the desk’s intelligence.

[Yes, ma’am. Please hold.]

~'/|\'~

“Shinji Ikari.”

The wind was colder. The sky was greyer. The plain was emptier, and he sat alone in the barren place.

“Welcome, child.”

The voices were still there.

“Shinji Ikari.”

“Welcome, Child.”

“Shinji Ikari.”

“Who are you?” he asked, shivering slightly.

“Who?

“Or what?”

“Or where?”

“Or when?”

“A-a-any would do,” he suggested.

“And they would all be wrong,” said the piping, too-familiar voice. “The question is always ‘Why?’.”

~'/|\'~

In the near-darkness, the sickly sweet stench of rotting pomegranates was a grating sensation against the nose. There may have been other smells woven into the all-devouring odour; hot metal, cold iron, the chill smell of fresh snow and the reek of faecal matter, but, in truth, all was subservient to the sour sweetness.

“Floor Four is clear, no sign of any tangos, echoes, or hotels. Moving up to Floor Five.”

And the sounds. There was still the faint hum from those computers which remained active, but that was a mere backing choir to the staccato drum of dripping fluid, and the strange harmonics that interlocked and sang, filling the space with unnaturally pure notes. The resonance hushed, a door on the far wall was slid open slightly, to reveal only more darkness beyond. But something passed through, eyes glinting in the light, its paws silent on the carpet of the office building, tail twitching. Its primary, organic eyes on biomechanical stalks scanned the area, as the chip in the cat’s brain guided it to cover, before the stalks poked out.

“Okay... wow. Captain, Felix Alpha has a contact. Something on visual, something on IR, nothing on UV, something on T-ray, and CATSEYE is going berserk. I’m... trying... clearing the image.”

There was something in the room. Something stepped and stacked, like a Mesopotamian pyramid, but on a vastly smaller scale. It was a pale shape in the emergency lighting, and oddly textured, almost scaled, but there was an inorganic rigidity of shape and form which made that not quite applicable.

And around it were bodies. Lots of bodies. Lots of bits of lots of bodies.

The walls and floor and ceiling were not merely red due to the emergency lighting.

“Shit.”

This was the sort of thing which was meant to happen in damp subbasements, in decadent boardrooms, or in doomed laboratories. Nice central points, full of narrative poignancy. This building even had examples of all three. Not in the corner of one of the office rooms, next to the toilets and the staircase. The mundanity which underlay the horror only made it worse. On a desk, partially subsumed by the sleek mass, was an overturned mug. The dark stains of the spilt coffee met and blended with the dark stain that had soaked into the seat and pooled on the floor, until the two were indistinguishable.

The mind paid attention to things like that. Not to the inorganically organic mound, or the dark-shape which seemed to float, like a solid shadow, above the peak, strange labelling and annotations glowing in the far ultraviolet around the tenebrous geometrical object.

It looked like technology. It looked like life. It looked wrong.

“Fall back!” barked Captain Joyeuse, at the head of the armoured figures who had been in position in the stairwell. Her brown eyes were wide under her helmet, staring at the image being streamed to her Eyes. “Fuck it, fall back! X-ray, X-ray, X-ray! We have an X-ray threat in here. Get me a line to Deputy Director Echo, immediately!” she snapped, at her armour’s LAI, her oversized weapon raised towards the door in exoskeletal hands. “Get the fuck out here!”

Running was their only chance. The gun wouldn’t do any good.

Not if that was what she thought it was.

In her Eyes, she watched as the cat-drone collapsed, its CATSEYE signal cutting out, along with its vitals. There was still a feed from the synthetic senses, though from the fibre optic cable. She stared in horror, trying not to fall down the stairs, as the remnants of the cat flowed, in a way which was not quite liquid mercury, and was not quite the decomposition of a long-dead corpse. The creeping mess, white lumps solidifying out of the organic viscosity, swept around the implants and cameras, and rolled up to the pyramid, digging their way into the superstructure, until it could not be seen that they had ever not been there.

It was what she thought it was.

“Mile, you get that?” she muttered, swallowing a mouthful of bile, calling out to the man who had operating the drone, outside in the relative safety of an armoured car. Her feet clattered down the staircase, and the concrete protested at the mass of her combat exoskeleton, but it did not give. “Mile... you hear me?”

There was no response.

The grey-haired drone operator had his knuckle in his mouth, and was biting down, hard. The red blood on his hand and lips was a sharp contrast to his skin, and his breaths were shallow and fast. His pupils were tiny pinpricks in his blue irises.

“Gjorgji?” Junira asked, from beside him, grey eyes widening as he slipped off his headphones. “What’s the matter? What are you doing?”

He only received a flurry of incoherent words, in a foreign language the sidoca didn’t understand or recognise.

“Hikara? Help! Something’s up with...”

“Agent Mile,” snapped Hikara, before he swallowed, and rested a hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Sorry... Gjorgji. Listen to me. Relax.” Slowly, he gestured for the White to be ready, if the older man was about to turn violent. It was never nice to have to use those hand gestures when dealing with a fellow officer, but sometimes too necessary, and Junira readied his stun baton. Then, movements careful and steady, Hikara reached out for the older man’s hand, and eased it out of his mouth.

“Careful... careful... okay.” The nazzada took a breath. “Drone Operator Mile is incapacitated; I need an immediate transfer of his responsibilities, and a replacement to take up the slack. I...”

[Yes, Agent. Duties of Drone Operator Mile have been delegated.]

The man paused, as the LAI responded, then continued. “Junira... get the first aid kit. We’ll want to get the hand done.” He rested the back of his hand against the man’s lined forehead. “No temperature or fever...”

“I’m f-f-fine,” Gjorgji snapped, his stammer putting lie to his statement. At the glances from the other two, he winced. “Okay, I’m n-not harangoja fine, okay. But,” he clenched his fist, rhythmically, “it’s not medical... well, it’s psychological, rather than sickness.” He glared. “And I could do without the crowd,” he added, to the others who were starting to gather around. The newcomers’ weapons were not raised, or even unholstered in many cases, but there was a definite implication in their posture that this could change.

Everyone was on edge after what had been found. But the problem, if one were to ask Gjorgji Mile, was that everyone was not on edge enough.

Shivering, arms clutched around himself, the man looked up at his immediate co-workers, and the other OIS agents who had gathered around in response to the silent alarm, and swallowed hard. “Look,” he managed, his accent thickening. “Something really bad is happening. Not here. Well... here. But not just here. Something big and bad and...” He trailed off, taking a shuddering breath. “It’ll be another Harbinger.” He shivered violently, and jabbed a shaking finger at the monitors, “But... because that... the thing-thing in there? That’s Budapest Syndrome. Trust me on this,” he said, with a brittle certainty.

“Budapest Syndrome?” one of the newer agents asked, before being shushed by their partner. There was a sudden, new, feeling in the air; the static crackle of nervous tension.

“Budapest Syndrome,” said Agent Runiry, with a leaden note in her voice. “Look... I’m not about to call you a liar or anything, but... are you sure?” The pleading note in her voice was obvious.

“I was in Budapest in ‘67,” Gjorgji Mile said, simply.

~'/|\'~

The sky was starting to fade to black, as the light dimmed and the shadows lengthened. The grey and brown of the earth was covered in dark scribbling as the land caught the light and cast it into sharp contrast. In those parts where the cold sun still caught the land, there was the gleam of twilight on rising waters.

“Why, then?” Shinji asked, hugging his knees, as he shifted slightly.

The child giggled. “‘Why?’ isn’t a question! Because there isn’t an answer! There isn’t a reason! None of this matters!”

“B-but you said...”

“‘Why?’ doesn’t matter. Neither does what! Or who, or where, or anything! Nothing matters! The universe won’t cry when you’re gone, or when Earth has gone, or when the sun has gone! We’re meaningless. We are all meaningless! And that is necessary.”

Shinji took a shuddering breath, hands rubbing unconsciously up and down his biceps. It reminded him that he was real, that he could feel himself, that he was alive and aware and awake. And it did help against the cold, too. “I’m not listening,” he muttered. “I matter. People matter.”

Just giggles, in the silence

~'/|\'~

“Major Katsuragi.”

Over the secure link, concealed behind the [VOICE ONLY] image, Gendo Ikari’s voice was calm, emotionless; almost mechanical.

“Sir.” Misato swallowed, and took a breath. “Have you examined the query I posed to the MAGI?”

“Yes.” There was a pause, which seemed to stretch out uncomfortably long. “It was immediately flagged as a curiosity, and the Operators bought it to my attention.” His eyes flicked along the read-outs on his glasses. “It is theoretically possible,” he remarked, with a little more vitality in his voice.

“It is?” Misato asked, a little surprised at herself. A part of her hadn’t been expecting for it to be a possibility; she had hoped so, but she had been running off gut instinct and logical deductions from what she had seen of this that she did not understand. It had probably been better that Ritsuko was still out of contact; that was exactly the sort of thing that the Director of Science would have rubbished, in her long experience of their association.

“We have a basis from the Second Child’s tests on AT-Field manipulation,” the sorcerer said. “The manifestation you enquired about can be produced through the superposition of other valid, simpler shapes.” Gendo leant forwards in his chair, the gesture entirely unconscious. “Now, what is your request?”

The dark-haired woman tightened, her hands at ease behind her gripping each other tightly. “I believe we have a plan to be able to breach the Harbinger’s AT-Field, and kill it. However, we will require authorisation from you, or another Representative to obtain the necessary resources. The key component comes from the Tonbogiri liaison group.”

“Tonbogiri?” echoed Fuyutsuki, his name lighting up on her screen. “Isn’t that the Navy liaison group that’s experimenting with spaceti...”

“... to use a Huitzilopochtli-class weapon for space-combat. Yes, sir, the LANCE system.” She paused. “And I’ve served as an observer for tests at Test 9, in the 0343 Facility... the one in Australia.”

“Yes, we are aware of that,” Fuyutsuki said. “The last test was that unsuccessful one on the 13th of September, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” the Major said, with a nod. “The warding was malformed for the primary charge; there was a successful initiation, but it failed to meet the necessary focal angle.” This was where the complications emerged, and she would have to do some explaining. “And that’s why I made the enquiry.”

“Explain.” The word was short, terse, perfunctory.

“There’s a partially complete test weapon in Ostberlin-2... not ready for field deployment. It’s still under construction; most of the physical parts are in place, but they’re only half done on the needed sorcery. As it is, it won’t work. But with reinforcement from an AT-Field, and the addition of one of the Harlequin devices that the Council of Representatives authorised us to use, it should be possible to jury-rig it for in-atmosphere use.”

“Have you checked this with Dr Akagi?” asked Gendo, raising an eyebrow.

Of course she hadn’t. The scientist was still busy with Shinji and Unit 01, and had sealed herself from contact, Misato thought, clamping down in her irritation. She suspected the man knew, too, and was just using this as a rhetorical device, to make sure that she had thought things through, rather than just running off gut instinct.

“No, sir. I did, however, get the Unit 02 science and engineering team to produce plans for the necessary set-up for both Oh-Two and Oh-Zero.”

And, luckily, she had been careful to make sure that such a thing was actually possible, from an engineering viewpoint before she bought it to the Representative. The only query had been about whether an AT-Field could actually do such a thing, and now she had such a confirmation. She relaxed slightly.

“However, your proposition is flawed,” the younger of the two men stated. “Simply, Rei does not have the necessary synchronisation ratio nor fine AT-Field control to be able to form the required field. And Harbinger-5 will reach London-2 before Unit 02 can be physically moved, even if there was not a Migou interdiction deployment in the Atlantic.”

The woman swallowed, and cringed slightly, inside. “Yes. I know.” This was hard to say. “However, Unit 01 is being repaired using the Unit 02 components which were not moved when that Evangelion was. I have consulted with the repair team; the schematics will be cross-compatible. The Test Model and the Mass Production Model are fairly similar, anyway. Hence, if it proves necessary, and Shinji is physically capable of carrying out the operation. Unit 01 will be the primary actor.”

She paused, to see if the boy’s father would protest about the use of his own son, who was still clinically dead, as a key part of an operation.

“Continue, Major,” the Representative said.

Evidently not.

“If he cannot, the secondary plan is for Rei to conduct an extreme close-range initiation, to compensate for the loss of focus. That will require a nearly point-blank detonation, and the MAGI only give a six plus-or-minus five percent chance that... Unit 00 will remain intact after such an option. The tertiary plan, should Unit 00 be rendered inoperative in current operations, is for an unconstrained mine-like blast; however, the MAGI estimate that such an attack will do approximately the same damage as Operation Ankou, and so will not kill the hostile in one shot.” She blinked once. “The plans for Unit 02 are if we fail, and the hostile survives the detonation of the London-2 Rapture contingency. Assuming High Command cannot eliminate the Harbinger with strategic missiles, due to the hostile’s point defence, Unit 02 will be with the counterattack force. They will seek to eliminate Harbinger-5 before it can target any other locations.”

Gendo stared at her silently, the seconds ticking their endless path from future to past. “Permission granted,” he stated at long last. “Carry on, Major Katsuragi.”

“Yes, sir. I shall give the necessary orders.” The Major saluted, and cut the link.

Back in the Representative’s office, there was awkward silence. Slowly, Gendo removed his glasses, and pinched his brow, letting out a deep and heartfelt sigh.

“Harbinger-5 is both earlier and more powerful than we expected,” Fuyutsuki said, in a voice which dripped of his seventy-two years. “This is... alarming.”

“That’s an understatement,” the younger man muttered, as he snapped open his glasses case, cleaning the screens and the bridge with the cloth. The cleaned arglasses went back on, along with the mask.

“I note that Major Katsuragi did not give us the MAGI estimates for the primary operation,” his former aide remarked.

“No. Because she was afraid that I would not approve if I knew that she was risking this on something the MAGI only gave a,” he paused, “a nineteen, plus-or-minus three percent, chance of success without losses.” He sat back, and cracked his knuckles. “Fuyutsuki, take over here. I am going down to Irkalla.”

“You are?” Fuyutsuki asked, shock in his tone. “At a time like this? You know how...”

“Yes,” Gendo said, calmly. “I know precisely how dangerous it is. But it will be necessary to tilt the odds in our favour.”

~'/|\'~

The sun was gone, and the land was gone, and all that was left was the water and the squalling of the birds. The earth was without form, and darkness covered the rising depths. And, below the surface, eyes staring blankly, floated Shinji, his face a reflection of a pale moon which was not there.

The water was real, in a way that the paper-thin depth of the land had not been, he concluded. It filled his world. It was his world; inchoate fluid hidden yet eternally present. And since it was always here, and it did not chance, he had no way of measuring time. He could not count his breaths, because he was not breathing. He could not listen to his heartbeats, because his heart did not beat. And the sequence of numbers that he tried to track in his head was tenuous and all too easily broken.

Just like he was. Just like he had been.

~'/|\'~

The giant’s foot came down on the road like the wrath of a titan, fracturing aged tarmac under the pressure, before it pushed off again. The white shape of Unit 00, lit by the red light of the early morning, looked wounded, drenched in blood. This illusion was only made worse by the very real scars of repaired ceramic which criss-crossed its torso, but it was fully functional. Nestling in its vast hands was the blocky shape of a cruise-missile launch battery, torn off a damaged corvette, and the fact that such a weapon was but jury-rigged to be carried by an Evangelion was obvious. More examples of the same weapon, although this time from missile vehicles, were bolted into the back of the pale shape. Against a technological foe, such a load-out would have been ridiculous, prone to just one well-aimed shot from a hostile.

They were not up against such a foe.

Inside the entry plug, Rei Ayanami worked the control yokes, and the mnemonic device was enough to clarify her will to the Unit. The overlap integral displaying the synchronisation ratio was holding steady, in the low fifties, ticking and pulsing with near-random neural activity. Her grey eyes flicked repeatedly over the morass of displays that covered the inside of the Prototype’s plug, always keeping her attention on the window that tracked the location of the Harbinger.

The floating leviathan was out of visible range, due to the morning mist, but its location was still marked as a wireframe shape from feeds from closer observers. The tiny black blot on her horizon, no longer as cleanly elegant as it once was thanks to the fractal iterations of lesser versions of itself, could once have swatted her from here. It did not now. The first attack had forced Mot to blind itself further to protect itself; in this strange, fixed cosmos, it could feel the tears in spacetime that dotted this planet, itself only painted to the Harbinger by gravitation, but the rifts seemed not to be the things that were directly attacking it. It was perplexed, and so had retreated its shade into itself, sacrificing comfort in this hostile set of physical laws for safety.

Objectively speaking, it had probably been the wrong choice.

With a slight lean to the side, Unit 00 stepped around a building, in which a pair of exosuited workers could be seen, checking manually that the locks on their missile vehicle were secure. One of them was staring at the Evangelion as it tore past, one hand raised to shield his optical sensors. Rei was aware that the watching woman’s mouth was wide open at the sight of her Unit, shock at the sight of the forty-metre titan. She simply did not care.

And with a thought and a smooth pull on the controls, she came to a stop, carefully placing the cruise missile battery down on the reinforced section of road which had been designated for her. Her colossal hands were still precise enough to slot the system into the pre-prepared slot, control cables snaking back into her Unit’s fingers like strings for a puppet. Which it was, in a real sense.

“LITAN, inform Operations Command that I am in position, and am awaiting further orders,” she instructed the LAI system.

[Yes, Test Pilot Ayanami.]

[Evangelion Unit 00, Invidia, is in position], stated a system in the command centre as it received the message from the LITAN, adding another green marker to the network of nodes that was beginning to envelope the Harbinger’s position on the map. [We have received a valid target confirmation signal.]

“Good,” the Admiral muttered to himself, his red eyes glinting. “This is a limited engagement,” he reminded his subcommanders. “We are not going to throw assets away. We can’t spare them, not after the loss of the Reserve Fleet. We have objectives, and when we fulfil them, or find that we cannot, we will pull back. Understood.”

The assent was near instant. No-one wanted to die, after all.

“Now, we wait,” the nazzada stated. “And may the Lord protect us,” he added, softly, to himself.

Rei Ayanami watched, as the new dawn was soon tainted by the Colour. Braced on all fours, Evangelion concealed behind a hill, she felt the kick of the thrusters, as the first of the cruise missiles hastily mounted on her back launched, scorching the white paint with the fury of their chemical exhausts. All around her, the low-hanging mist was pierced by hundreds of torches, the thin cloud torn asunder by the passage of the bombardment. The crack of artillery pieces could also be heard, the useless, too-weak shells merely a cover for the bombardment cannons.

She waited. She could feel the vengeance of the Harbinger, trying to fight off a foe that was almost invisible to it. There was an explosion a kilometre to her left, as a hillside was devoured by the hungry lance of Mot, the shockwave buffeting Unit 00 and wiping away the last of the mist around her.

Rei did not flinch. She did not move. She merely waited.

And then the first Colour-full blast lit the area in phosphorescent, luminescent flame. And another one. And another one. Some of the kilotonnes of ordinance thrown at Harbinger-5 had escaped the defence put up by its lesser fractal protrusions into reality, and now this creature of dark crystal and eternal night warred against the influence of the Colour From Outer Space.

With a detonation, one of the ten lesser crystals tore itself apart in the heart of an arcanochromatic fireball, the void-dark crystal turning grey and brittle even as it spread itself across the landscape. Tilting, the arcane monstrosity shrieked in a perfect note like breaking glass, and the land began to pulse, as it fired at random, punching glass-bottomed craters a hundred metres wide into the landscape of Northern Europe.

[Evangelion Unit 00, retreat to Point Alpha-Foxtrot-Xray-Niner-Niner. Prepare for second barrage]

Silently, Rei nodded, and the Evangelion strode into life, snatching the Babylon placed for her. She was performing her role in the operation to maximum efficiency, and the limited operational goal, to slow the entity designated as Harbinger-5, was likewise successful. Blinded, the beast was not moving, and each second it did not move was a second that it did not move fifty metres. Moreover, that first wave had taken out one of its fractal subentities. The girl was aware that each loss ruined both its firing arcs, and its numerological significance.

But she held no illusions that this was killing it. This was fundamentally a delaying action, nothing more. It was not yet time for Harbinger-5 to die. Not yet.

~'/|\'~

But after seconds, minutes, hours, days, years of darkness, there was light.

Blinding, painful light, burning light through his closed eyelids.

Something stabbed him in the chest, and he screamed in an impulsive, convulsive spasm, forcing fluid out of his lungs in an action which was not purely his own. His bleary eyes opened, and beheld a world of unfocussed colours which blurred and ran like dilute watercolours. There was a heavy presence on his chest, on his stomach, which bound his legs and restrained his head. Thrashing, he tried to move, and could not.

But it was a different kind of inability to move than the one which had overcome him in the dark waters of his mind. That had been passiveness, and a refusal of his mind to tell his muscles to move. This was active constraint, and he could feel the bands enveloping his arms.

Already exhausted from such little motion, he relaxed, his fingers curling up, only to feel the pads protecting the palm of his hand.

“Shinji Ikari.” The voice over the intercom was distant and muffled, but familiar. And, unless his ears deceived him, more than a little weary itself. “Shinji. Can you hear me?”

[Response detected. Neural activity indicates consciousness.]

“Shinji?” the voice asked again, switching to Japanese, seemingly ignoring the mechanical voice. “Please, we need a response.” Every muscle in his body screaming from fatigue, he forced his eyes to focus upon the washed out world around him.

“...oran...ge...” he groaned, registering for the first time the presence of the thick liquid that filled his lungs and enveloped his body. “So... ti...red.”

On the other side of the transparent wall, Dr Akagi shrugged. “Well, technically that’s a response,” she muttered to herself. Reaching up, she wiped her sweat-slick brow on her sleeve, feeling her own muscles scream at her and the bruising localised around her implants in the soft tissue in her arms and legs. She was going to pay for this ritual in the morning, she could feel, and the medichines were going be an irritation for the next few days.

Shaking her head, she stared in at the boy, restrained in the LCL-filled tank, as the autodoc retracted its limbs. The preparatory black markings still covered his pale skin, and the intravenous cables snaked and wrapped around him like some kind of technological chrysalis. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Shinji Ikari,” she said, softly. “We’re not going to let you take the easy way out of this.”

~'/|\'~