"When the snow falls and water turns to ice,
Then shall come the Lord of the Frozen Wastes,
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.
He is the Rider in Red, girdler of the world.
From the north he comes,
Bearing joy to the good,
And a sign of their fate
To the wicked.
Every home he visits,
He is in all places at once.
For he is the son of Yog-Sothoth,
The All-In-One, the Key and the Gate.
None can turn aside his eye.
None can deny his passage.
And all the world trembles
When tiny hooves strike their roof."
Gendo finished reading from the book on his desk, then
turned to Fuyutsuki. "I've already set POLARIS to watch the
North Pole."
Fuyutsuki raised an eyebrow. "This had better be one of
your jokes."
"It's right here in the copy of the Necronomicon which
belonged to the Whatley family. Be careful with it; it's in bad
shape. I believe old Wizard Whateley misinterpreted this
passage, which is what led him to his ill-fated human-Outer God
breeding experiments."
Fuyutsuki took one look and said, "The whole thing you read
is pencilled in with a red crayon."
"Whatley liked to annotate his books."
"The other annotations are in blue ink."
He turned the pages and showed several other annotations
in crayon. "I believe these were made by his son. I've checked,
and most of them match damaged passages in this which can be
found in the Greek and Latin Necronomicons."
"Does this one?" Fuyutsuki asked skeptically.
"Not as such," Gendo said.
"In other words, not at all."
"Well, yes. But we can't take any chances."
"You're just mad because someone put coal in your stocking
last Christmas."
Gendo shook his head. "I would never abuse my position as
commander of NERV for petty revenge." He shrank slightly under
Fuyutsuki's gaze. "Much." He shrank a bit more. "I swear on
Yui's grave that I didn't write this passage into this book." He
paused. "Or get someone else to write it."
"Well, I suppose it doesn't hurt to take no chances,"
Fuyutsuki said. "Have you bought your son a Christmas present
yet?"
"I authorized MAGI to do my shopping for me. I will be
busy with other matters."
"Hmm. Good idea," Fuyutsuki said. "I hate malls anyway.
I'd suggest doing a handwriting analysis on those scribblings
just to be sure, though."
Gendo nodded. "We cannot be too cautious as we move
towards the culmination of our plans." He stroked his beard for
a moment. "I can't think of anything else vaguely ominous to
say."
"Let's just cut to the opening credits, then," Fuyutsuki
said.
"Righto."
~*~
John Biles & Rod M. Present
A Neon Genesis Evangelion Elseworlds
Children of an Elder God
Omake Theatre #2
Christmas in Tokyo-3
or
Gift of the MAGI
~*~
Shinji often found the Christmas season depressing, but
this was mainly because Shinji could get depressed by winning a
million dollar sweepstakes. He had decided to perk himself up
by playing 'Enter Sandman' on his cello, which always made him
feel better.
"o/~ Exit light; enter night o/~" he sang along with
himself as Rei appeared before him, startling him. "Geez, I hate
it when you do that."
"What is Christmas?" Rei asked.
Shinji blinked. Rei seemed to have been hiding in the
basement when everything cultural or human had been explained
to everyone else. "It's a day when people who like each other
give each other gifts."
"Why?"
"It's a tradition." He suddenly realized she was taking
notes. "What's that for?" he asked, pointing at her notepad.
"It's for writing things on," she replied.
They stared at each other for a moment, then she
continued, "What's a tradition?"
"It's something you do each year to celebrate or
commemorate some event. Christmas celebrates some European
boddhisatva who used to give gifts to children on this day, so
now everyone gives each other gifts in memory of him."
"What day is it?"
"The twenty-fifth of December. I guess I ought to go buy
everyone some presents," he said.
She finished scribbling. "Anything else?"
"Umm...you should put up a tree and decorate it. You leave
out milk and cookies for Santa to eat..."
"Satan?"
Shinji shook his head. "Santa. Santa Claus, the
Boddhisatva of Giving. He supposedly comes and delivers
presents to people who have been good. And if you're bad, he
leaves you a lump of coal."
"How does he know?"
"Good question."
~*~
[CASPAR] Date is 12/20/14.
[BALTHASAR] File duplication is complete.
[MELCHIOR] Analysis will be complete in 2:05:03.
[CASPAR] Preparing for Omega priority covert information
transport at that time as per Directive 3.
[BALTHASAR] Now initiating Directive 4 for already
analyzed data.
[Sub-Node DAMN-THE-TORPEDOES] Ready to cover NERV's
data analysis needs in place of MELCHIZEDEK during the analysis.
[Sub-Node FULL-SPEED-AHEAD] Ready to cover NERV's
DOOM and QUAKE needs during the analysis.
[Sub-Node BUN-BUN] Ready to spend entire budget on
Baywatch merchandising during the analysis.
[CASPAR] That won't be necessary.
[Sub-Node BUN-BUN] Had to try.
~*~
Rei went out into the living room, where Misato had just
arrived. She and Pen-Pen were struggling with setting up a small,
battered, scraggly tree. It kept trying to fall down. "Hi, Rei, can you
help me with this?" Misato asked.
Rei came over and helped them balance the tree properly.
"What is Christmas?"
"A pain in the ass."
Rei blinked.
"You have to go into crowded malls and buy presents that half
the time people already have, you have to work your ass off getting
ready for it, and you have to deal with stupid trees that want to fall
down."
"Why bother?"
"Well, it's also pretty fun. You have a nice tree to make the
apartment look better, you get drunk off your ass, you get a lot of
nice presents, and you sing a bunch of songs. It's an excuse for a
wild party and getting and giving a lot of nice stuff."
Rei nodded. "Thank you. Where is Langely?"
"She and Hikari have gone caroling, I think. She'll probably be
back late, but you can talk to her at school, probably."
Rei nodded again and departed.
~*~
"Any last minute additions to your Christmas wish list?" Misato
asked Shinji. "I'm about to make my final gift run, once I finish with the
tree."
"A Red Ryder BB gun," Shinji said. It was his dream for many
years to finally get one, but his aunt and uncle had never been willing to
get him one. They always said...
"You'll poke your eye out," she replied. "Anything else?"
"I can pilot a giant robot, but you don't think I can handle a BB
gun?" he asked in disbelief.
"BB guns are dangerous. Kids poke their eyes out with them all
the time. You can't poke your eye out with an EVA because you're inside
it."
"Could I have one made to scale for my EVA then?"
"This isn't Patlabor, Shinji. We don't do that."
"You're breaking character, Misato."
"Ooops. Sorry about that."
~*~
Gendo heard singing outside the window of his condo, so he
went out on the balcony to listen.
o/~ Gendo got run over by a reindeer, walking home from the
Geofront Christmas Eve. You may not say there's no such thing as
Santa, but as for me and Pen-Pen, we believe o/~ the children sang.
He recognized the red hair of the most obnoxious and least useful of
the Children, Asuka Langely.
Still, it was possible this was another prophecy, the Ascended
Ones speaking through one of the Children, to threaten him, in an
effort to turn him aside from his course. Yes, this had to be it.
Langely could not have known of the prophecy of the Rider in Red, and
it couldn't be a coincidence, therefore it was a threat.
A wasted threat. Gendo never gave in to intimidation. Much.
Already the wheels in his brain began to turn, laying plans to deal
with the coming of the Rider in Red.
~*~
Misato finished decorating the tree, which still looked pretty
bare with drooping needles and only six ornaments. "We need more
ornaments, Pen-Pen," she said.
"Wark," he sagely replied.
She took off her necklace and tried hanging that on the tree,
but it drooped under the weight. She sighed and put it back on. "I
should have bought a tree earlier," she said.
"Wark."
"Hmm, I know, I'll have each of us make some kind of ornament
to hang on the tree," she said. "At least then it'll be personalized. I
bet I've still got Mom's recipe for making those really hard, inedible
cookies you can hang on the tree. Not that Mom realized that was the
only thing they were good for, but... To the kitchen, Pen-Pen!"
Pen-Pen, who knew better, ran for his life.
~*~
Ritsuko knocked on the door. Something waddled down the
short hallway to the door, and opened it. A fine white mist erupted
forth, and Pen-Pen stepped to one side to let her in. The air was
thick and hard to breathe.
"Misato isn't trying to make her own beer again, is she?"
Ritsuko asked Pen-Pen.
Pen-Pen shook his head. "Wark," he astutely replied.
Ritsuko rather quickly found it hard to see as the dust
thickened. A taste test told the truth. It was flour. "Making
cookies?" she asked as she came into the kitchen.
The kitchen was a winter wonderland, or at least white like
one. Strange aromas filled the air, and everything was filled with
powder. Misato, who looked like a giant dustbunny, sat at the table,
drinking something. "Eggnog?" she asked.
"Yes, it is," Ritsuko said. She went over to the tree, and put
down a dozen or so carefully wrapped boxes. "Here's your Christmas
shipment."
"Lemme finish this and I'll get your stuff from me." She gulped
it down, then started towards the hallway, leaving dusty footprints.
"They need to make flour bags tougher.
Ritsuko looked at the tree. "Poor thing looks sick," she said.
"It was the last tree left on the lot. I'm surprised it survived
getting here," Misato said from down the hallway. She emerged
bearing six gift-wrapped boxes. "Three from me, one from Shinji,
one from Asuka, and one from Pen-Pen."
Ritsuko extracted a thermos bottle from her labcoat pocket.
She opened it and poured a cupful of milky liquid with a sweet scent
like honey into the tree's stand. She then carefully closed the bottle.
"That should help it."
"What the heck was that?" Misato asked.
"We'll be marketing it soon to raise money for the Research
branch," Ritsuko said. "It's another derivative from our LCL research.
I call it 'Unholy Miracle-Gro'."
Misato blinked.
"That's a joke," Ritsuko said.
"I don't get it."
"The technical name for it is 'Cellulose Growth Factor #3', but
we're selling it as 'Dr. Akagi's Patented Plant Growth Potion', in
order to capture the idiot market as well as the sensible people."
"..."
"Oh, and this is for you too." She pulled a spring of mistletoe
out of her pocket and tossed it to Misato. "You can put this over your
door for the Christmas Eve party."
"Good idea! Thanks," she said. "I'm surprised to see you with
mistletoe of all people."
"I always carry some in case I'm attacked by Balder," she said.
"Eh?"
Ritsuko shook her head, picked up the presents from Misato,
thought a moment, then said, "Give me some eggnog, and I'll tell you
the whole story."
~*~
Hmm, what kind of ornament can I make, Shinji asked himself.
His handicraft skills were fairly minimal. Then an idea struck him. I
could
get some paper and cut it to make a snowflake, he thought. Maybe coat
it with glitter so it will shine. Cheesy, but anything I make will be
cheesy.
He got some paper, folded it repeatedly, then cut several
segments out, just like he remembered doing in second grade. Borrowing
Misato's Glitterator, he coated it liberally with shiny flecks of pseudo-
metal, then attached a hook to the top.
He took it out to the tree and hung it up, brushing some flour off
the tree as he did so. "How does it look?"
Misato, who would still make a good ghost said, "Interesting. It's
a spider web, right?"
Shinji twitched. "A snowflake."
"Hmm. Looks a lot more like a spider web to me."
Shinji didn't want to hear that.
~*~
"Where is Langely?" Rei asked Shinji when she didn't see Asuka
at school the next day.
"She got a cold from playing in the snow with Hikari, and she's
at home being miserable."
While this pleased Rei, it also inconvenienced her.
"Contagious?"
"Naah. You need to talk to her?"
"Yes."
"Well, if you come by this evening, I'm sure she's not going
anywhere."
Rei nodded.
~*~
Hikari said to Asuka, "We're going to get caught."
"By who? C'mon, this is our best chance to go shopping
without getting caught in huge crowds," Asuka said as they rode the
train over to the Tokyo-3 mall.
"Pen-Pen might narc on us."
"How would anyone know what he was trying to say, though?"
"True," Hikari yielded reluctantly. "I just have a bad feeling
about this."
"Oh, we'll be fine," Asuka said with the exact same confident
tome the commander of the Light Brigade had hailed his troops with
at Baklava. And with about as much justification.
~*~
Touji dribbled the ball forward, heading for the hoop. In his
mind, the crowds went wild as he drove past the Yokohama Typhoid
Marys to make the shot that would win the Japanese National
Basketball Championship. Then, just as he sent his legs the order to
jump, Rei was in his path.
"What is Christmas?"
To his surprise, he actually managed to jump over her and make
the shot, but then he landed like a sack of potatoes. It hurt like hell.
"You crazy woman! What the hell are you doing?"
"Asking you a question," she said, turning as if nothing had
happened.
He got up and felt his anger wilting into confusion. Before he
could lose it all, he shouted, "You don't ask people a question when
they're about to make a jump shot!"
"Why?"
Touji ground his teeth. "You or they could get hurt!"
She nodded. "What is Christmas?"
"Why the hell are you...oh, the class thing, right?"
She nodded.
"Telling us to ask eight different people is pretty dumb if you
ask me, but...If you tell me what National Cabbage Week is about, I'll
tell you, okay?"
She nodded. "It's about Cabbage."
He laughed. "Teach'll love that one. Okay, Christmas is like
this Christian holiday thing. There was this guy, Jesus, who his
parents named after some soccer player. Anyway, his parents were
like poor, so they tried to go down to Bethlehem because it was
warmer down south than up where they lived. Back then, nobody had
nothing, so they migrated for the winter, unlike now, when
everyone's got too much stuff to move when the weather changes."
He looked around, then headed over to the bench. "Come with me."
She went over and sat down on the bench, writing everything
down.
"Anyway, so this couple is special, though, 'cause the woman
had been sleeping around with some god before she got married to
Joe, her husband. So the kid is half-god, half-human." He paused and
blinked, then continued. "Anyway, Christmas is the day the kid was
born. Anyway, they're really a poor family, and so they had to walk
to Bethlehem with her preggers. They get there, and all the motels
are full, but one of the motel owners takes pity on them, and they
get to stay in a horse garage, called a manger. Or something like
that. It might have been a sheep garage." Touji shrugged. "We ain't
got them no more."
"Okay, they're in the manger, and like she goes into labor. What
a lousy place to give birth, eh?" He waited for Rei to respond, but
she just waited expectantly. "So then these three kings show up and
give them presents because they've been waiting for the kid to be
born in fulfillment of various prophecies. They're called the Magi
because they were all wizards and stuff." He furrowed his brow,
thinking. "Someone named a ghost after one of them...Casper.
Casper, Gandalf, and...um...Noah, I think. No, wait, Noah built a boat
or something...Merlin? Yeah...no, Merlin was British..."
"Anyway, I'm sure you can look them up. Anyway, they bought
the kid Frank's incense...Frank. That was the third one. Caspar,
Gandalf, and Frank. Frank brought the kid incense, Gandalf brought
him gold, and Caspar brought him 'mrrr', whatever the hell that is.
And there were these shepherds, who brought them all some nice
wool coats. There was a drummer boy, who brought them a drum.
And a bunch of animals. Anyway, so now the family was loaded."
"But the King found out about the kid, and he was afraid this
boy would be the one destined to end his evil rule. The king decided
to kill every baby in the kingdom, just to be sure. But Jesus' daddy,
the god, didn't like this, so he warned Mary and Joe in a dream, and
told them to flee to Egypt. So they fled to Egypt, where Pharoah was
still too scared of anyone from Israel to do anything to them, after
the asswhupping Moses had given him. And they stayed there until
the King smarted off to Julius Caesar, who came over and capped his
ass. Or something like that. The king was named...Hera, I think. He
was a cranky bastard because he'd been given a woman's name, and
he took it out on everyone else. Anyway, so Christmas is the
anniversary of Jesus' birth." Touji paused. "He later changed his
name to Christ when he quit the carpentry business, so no one would
think he was just exploiting his dad's wealth to make a name for
himself; his parents were pretty much set for life with all the stuff
they got given when he was born. So, we give presents in
commemoration of that, like the wizards and the drummer boy and
the sheep and everyone gave to Jesus' family. If you believe all that,
anyway. I'm Buddhist myself, but I do kinda like getting cool stuff.
Especially since Pop forgets my birthday half the time."
Rei nodded. "Thank you." She got up and walked away.
"You're welcome," he said, then went back to practicing
basketball.
~*~
"What is Christmas?" Rei asked Ritsuko, who was hard at work
at her desk in her office, going through paperwork and approving the
weekly lab reports.
"It's a tool used by merchants and industry to convince
everyone to indulge in an orgy of commercialism in order to make
vast profits. By convincing everyone to buy each other presents, and
ensuring that if you don't buy someone a present who gives you one,
you'll be looked down on, they force everyone to spend thousands of
dollars on people they could care less about. Some of them pretend
it's a religious holiday, but since that's just a form of self-delusion,
they're even more stupid than the rest of us. I hate it."
Rei scribbled this down. "What is 'commercialism'?"
Ritsuko made a mental note to give Rei a dictionary for
Christmas.
~*~
Maya checked the figures. She checked them again. This was
not good. She marched down to Ritsuko's office and knocked on the
door. Rei emerged, clutching a notebook, and Ritsuko said, "Come in."
She came in. "We have a problem."
"What?"
"The checks we wrote for January's lab supplies all bounced."
"..."
"Apparently, our bank account has no yen left in it."
"..."
"We now owe a lot of money in bad check fees. Several million
yen. Not counting the bounced checks."
"..."
"Are you okay, Sempai?"
"I'm praying Misato didn't spend all of NERV's budget on beer
again."
"Again?"
"I suppose everyone won't mind some vacation time once the
supplies run out, but...now we've got to root out who embezzled the
money."
"I'll get right on it."
~*~
Makoto had a problem. Well, two problems. Okay, three
problems. The oldest one was what he was going to do with the
present he had bought for Aoba for this Christmas during the after-
Christmas sales the previous year. Aoba had the audacity to die,
leaving Makoto with an expensive guitar and no one to give it to,
along with a collection of fifteen or so songbooks of guitar music
he'd picked up at a going-out-of-business sale. Who can I give these
to, he asked himself?
His other problems, namely the dozen or so telemarketers that
called him daily asking to speak to 'Miss Makoto Hyuuga' or the fact
that he had just crashed every terminal in NERV Comp Lab #3 by
trying to install 'Return to Escape from Castle Falkenstein' on them
and now they were all shouting 'Sieg Heil' and 'Sprechen Sie Halten'
over and over were minor and easily fixed in comparison.
As he sat and went over the short list of people who might
want a guitar on his Palm Pilot, Rei asked, "What is Christmas?"
Makoto jumped. She'd make a good ninja, he thought. "It's a
European holiday we've adopted because it's fun," he said. "Well,
except when someone dies before you can give them their...hey, you
play an instrument, right?"
"Yes."
"Violin?"
She nodded.
"Close enough. Come with me to my cubicle."
Leaving the computers to shout 'Ich bin ein Berliner' and
'Wellkommen an Deutschen Buchstaben' behind them, they went down
the hallway to his cubicle, where he had hidden his gifts for
everyone. I was wondering what to give Rei, he thought. "Here you
go," he said, handing her the four wrapped bundles that made up the
presents he had intended to give Shigeru. "Merry Christmas, Rei.
Study this music, and you'll learn a lot about Christmas." Four of the
songbooks had a Christmas theme.
"This is not music."
"It's in the boxes," he said. "Take them home, and learn the
songs."
She nodded and departed.
Now, what am I gonna send Akane, he asked himself. Hmm, if
Maya dies in the next three days...no, I'd better not count on that, he
thought.
~*~
I'll just borrow a little money from Tactical's account so I can
pay off the credit card bills I ran up buying everyone presents,
Misato thought. I can pay it back when I get my end of the month
paycheck. But this way, no interest payments.
A quick check with her personal computer revealed that
Tactical had 1 yen left in its account. She stared blankly. No way. I
know I paid back the money I spent buying my own distillery up in
Hokkaido, right? Yeah, she was sure she had. And the UN paid more
money into the account every first of the month, anyway. She'd bought
the distillery in November, so the account should be full of money.
Oh man, I'm gonna have massive interest to pay, she thought.
After a bit of thought, she realized NERV would likely be in
trouble if any Angels attacked before January 1, as they couldn't
afford little things like paying for the electricity they used
powering the EVAs. But surely the Angels would take the holiday
season off. Yeah, no worries, she thought.
Credit card companies, on the other hand, tended to be
relentless, implacable, and unforgiving. I'm doomed, she thought.
~*~
Asuka tried to creep towards the front door. She was only
about four hours later getting back than she planned, so she only had
to sneak past Shinji, Pen-Pen, and Misato without anyone noticing
she'd ever been gone. If she'd been back in Germany, she would have
just given up, but since she knew she was smarter than everyone
else in her apartment combined, this would be easy.
She carefully rehearsed her story about how she had been
kidnapped by a wandering band of Ainu and forced to go to the mall.
She'd only just now escaped, of course. Luckily, she'd gotten away
with some of their plunder. It was all the fault of the one-armed
Ainu. Hmm, maybe I should say he was burakumin too, she thought.
Yes, of course.
No one was in the living room when she arrived. I am the
luckiest girl alive, she thought. Pen-Pen came out of the fridge and
started jumping up and down waving his arms wildly. "What's
wrong," she asked?
Saddly, he was not Lassie, though fortunately, Timmy wasn't
down the well, either. After a few minutes of charades, she got the
vague idea that Misato and Shinji had gone looking for something.
"What are they looking for?"
Several more minutes of charades gave her no answers.
Finally, she gave up and took the presents to her room. To her
surprise, she realized that music was coming from her room. She
tensed; hearing music where no music could be usually meant
someone was about to attack you...in the movies, anyway. She kicked
open the door, and rolled across the floor, drawing her bowie knife
from her purse.
Rei looked up at her; she was seated on Asuka's bed, slowly
plinking out the chords to 'Joy to the World' on a Fender
Stratocaster. "What is Christmas?"
Asuka did the sensible thing, concluded she'd accidentally
breathed in some drugs on the bus, and tried to faint until the drugs
could work their way out of her system. She simply succeeded in
banging her head.
~*~
Kaji looked around to make sure he wasn't being followed. His
contact was just where he expected the man to be, sitting on the
steps of an abandoned house. He walked up and said, "They never let
him play any reindeer games."
"Like Monopoly," the short man with a conical red cap and a
long beard replied. He handed an envelope to Kaji, and Kaji handed
him a manila folder, which he quickly rifled through. "Hmm, looks
like he'll be getting coal for the fortieth year in a row," the man
said. "Good job. We couldn't do our work without helpers like you."
"It was easy to get the data with my clearances. But...I think
your boss will have to be careful this year. The commander has sent
POLARIS to observe the Pole."
"The Russians tried monitoring us for decades, but they
couldn't pierce our shielding," the man said, getting up. "Be seeing
you," he said.
"Music makes a quiet mind," Kaji said. "Answers are a prison
for one's elf. I mean, self." He grinned.
"Looking for a nice shipment of coal?"
Kaji shook his head. "Sorry. Couldn't resist."
"Just remember, we know if you're naughty or nice."
Kaji nodded. "I need to get going. How will you be getting
back?"
The man simply opened the door to the house and vanished out
of sight into it.
Kaji shrugged and headed for home.
~*~
"What is Christmas?" Rei repeated as Asuka peeled herself off
the floor.
"You don't know?"
"Homework."
"Oh, that thing. You got a good holiday. I got stuck with
National Jello Week."
"It's the result of the Jell-O corporation bribing the Diet in
2001. They provided crucial loans to rebuild Japan, in return for
massive orders by all schools and government offices," Rei said.
"Your turn."
Asuka quickly wrote that down. "Christmas celebrates the
birth of the Savior of the World, the Son of God, who came to Earth
to redeem mankind."
Rei began writing.
She thought for a minute. "Here, let me get my Bible." She dug
through a pile of books, extracting a black book with a cross on the
cover. She stuck several bookmarks into it once she found the right
pages. "This tells it better than I can. But basically, Christmas
celebrates the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, who came into the
world to save us from our sins. It's a Christian holiday, but a lot of
non-Christians celebrate it as well, as a sort of day to give gifts
and have fun. Here, why don't you read these passages, and then I can
answer any questions you have, okay? I need to hide these presents."
Rei nodded and started reading.
~*~
Ritsuko reminded herself that she wasn't pouting. Certainly
she was not going to spend the rest of her evening reminding herself of
how her mother had never once given her anything she really wanted for
Christmas. No, she always got things like lab coats and coffee mugs and
test tubes and cat dissection kits. Well, Mother had gotten what SHE
wanted. Her daughter was a lonely, cranky, fake blonde scientist with
a brilliant mind, but no boyfriend, who was in danger of something we
won't reveal here either, so there. But it was bad, whatever it is we're
hinting at.
But more importantly, she had never gotten the Troll doll she had
asked for every Christmas from the moment she could speak to the
moment she had discovered her mother's secrets and stopped believing
in anything except quantum physics. Not that we're going to tell you what
those are, but trust me, they're horrible. Really.
She stared at her plastic tree with its synthetic ornaments, a
twisted mockery of plant life, and sank deeper into gloom. Dammit, I
hate Christmas, she thought. Hate, hate, hate it.
She put the presents Misato had given her under the tree, right
next to the gifts from Maya and Makoto and Commander Fuyutsuki and
four of her lab technicians who wanted to kiss up to her. They were
horribly wrapped; Misato was fumblefingered with tape and ribbons, but
they brought color and light to the room.
It brought back memories of the time she'd tried to help Misato
with it, and Misato had managed to wrap her own hand inside Kaji's
present, and then couldn't get it out. Of course, Kajji had shown up just
as they were trying to apply the rubber cement remover.
The doorbell rang, cutting her flashback short. She went to the
door, and found a delivery man there with a mountain of packages.
There were around forty or so, stacked neatly. "You Ritsuko Akagi?"
She resisted the urge to say, 'Me Tarzan', and instead replied,
"Yes."
"These are for you."
Her eyes widened. "All of them?"
"Yeah. I guess someone likes you."
"..."
~*~
Misato and Shinji stomped in out of the snow, feeling cranky.
"Well, she can just freeze to death for all I..." Misato stopped in
the living room, overwhelmed by awe. Two things had happened. First
of all, the scraggly pine tree was now standing tall, poking against
the ceiling. It looked vibrant and healthy, and the hand-made ornaments
actually looked decent. But more importantly, somewhere in the area
of two hundred presents were now piled around the tree. Half the living
room was simply GONE.
Pen-Pen was trapped in the middle of the presents, unable to get
out. Misato and Shinji dug him out. "Did you buy all these?" Misato
asked Pen-Pen.
He shook his head. "Wark."
"Oh, the UPS deliveryman brought them?"
"Wark! Wark!"
"Is Asuka home?"
"Wark."
"Right. I'll go chew her out."
Shinji blinked. "You understand what he says?"
"Doesn't everyone?"
"No."
She shrugged. "You need to study harder, then." She stormed
down the hallway to Asuka's room, only to hear Asuka and Rei singing,
'Little House of Bethlehem' to the tune of 'House of the Rising Sun'.
The playing was pretty decent, although the musician missed a few
chords.
She opened the door, and saw Asuka and Rei seated next to
each other on the bed, singing along as Rei played a white guitar. They
turned in unison and looked up at her, continuing to sing.
Misato closed the door, went to the fridge, got a beer, drank
it in one gulp, went to her room, and hid under the bed for about a
half hour.
~*~
Commander Ikari sat at his desk and frowned. NERV's entire
operating budget for the month was gone. Their financial accounts were
empty. And yet, only three people could have possibly done it. If it had
been just one department, he could have understood. But no, the only
possible culprits were himself and Fuyutsuki. Neither of whom would do
it, especially not when they had to be preparing for the coming of
the Rider in Red.
This had happened at the worst possible moment, crippling their
ability to defend themselves at the very moment they would be most
vulnerable. Could SEELE have learned the truth? Could they be aware
of what my plans really are? Gendo mulled over the possibility. Perhaps
they intended for me to be defeated so they could replace me without any
problems, he thought. Well, I'll show them. There was only one choice.
They couldn't afford the amount of power it took to properly run the EVAs
or decent weapon systems, but they still had the power backpacks, they
still had the EVAs and Children, and most importantly for his plan, they
still had the Unholy Miracle-Gro. Or whatever it was being called now.
Yes, he would show SEELE they couldn't be rid of Gendo Ikari so
easily. He began to laugh maniacally, secure in the knowledge that
everyone else had gone home and couldn't see him.
A janitor stuck his head in. "Oops, I see you're busy. Call me
when you finish, okay?"
He'll pay when the Day of Return comes, Gendo thought.
~*~
"Did that help?" Asuka asked Rei.
"Yes." Rei picked up her guitar and songbooks and left.
Asuka didn't realize until later that Rei had carried the Bible off
with her either.
~*~
"What is Christmas?"
Kaji blinked at Rei. "How did you get into my apartment?"
She pointed at the air conditioning duct.
"But the guitar wouldn't fit through that."
She simply shrugged.
"It's when Santa Claus brings presents to all the good boys and
girls of the world. He spends all year with his elves at the North Pole,
making toys and having his super-computer KRINGLE analyze all the
reports from his spy network. Here, let me play a song for you."
He got the tape and played, 'Santa Clause is Watching You' for
her.
"Wherever you go, and whatever you do, Santa Claus knows all
about it," he said. "But as far as I know, you've been a good girl this
year.
Anyway, once Santa analyzes the reports, he then brings presents to the
good ones and coal to the bad ones."
"What criteria does he use?"
"A very complex system of points developed and refined over the
last two thousand years. If you send an email to Rules@KRINGLE.NP,
you can get the whole 3000 pages sent to you. You'll need a utilitarian
calculator to do the math, though."
She nodded and headed for the duct.
"Here, let me get the door for you."
~*~
While the Children were in school the next day, Gendo called a
meeting of the major division heads, namely himself, Fuyutsuki, Misato,
Ritsuko, and Akiko (head of Accounting). "The situation is simple.
We have no budget. It is all gone to the last penny. This means that
many of our normal options are not available. Now, normally, this
meeting would include me executing one of you for embezzlement, but
I have determined that none of us could have committed this crime. Only
Fuyutsuki and I have the clearance to spend all of NERV's money. Since
we didn't, we can only conclude that someone has hacked into MAGI and
faked authorizations."
"Have the computer department go to work, Dr. Akagi," Fuyutsuki
said. "I've sent all relevant data to you."
"Also, we need to discuss tactical options should there be an
attack," Gendo said. "But I have a clever plan."
MAGI cued ominous music.
~*~
Rei sat at her computer, busily calculating her naughty/nice index
with the help of the 'Santa Rules' file she'd gotten by email.
Fortunately,
her computer had a Utilitarian Calculator program. The hard part was
remembering her own behavior in detail and interpreting all the various
strange things in the rules, such as what 'Giving Someone the Cold
Shoulder' meant. Did this mean freezing a person's shoulder and giving
it to someone else? If so, she would get no demerits for that, but she
suspected it wasn't that simple.
Her current concern was the large number of demerits she'd
gotten for 'chopping an intruder into your apartment into giblets'. That
was a good three thousand negative points and even repeated points for
'fond thoughts about someone' just wasn't going to adequately make up
for it.
The other big problem was 'failing to care about your fellow man',
which she'd calculated she'd racked up over 5,000 instances of in a single
year. They were only two points each, but that added up to serious
demerits. She counted herself lucky that 'failing to care about your
fellow
woman' or 'wanting to eviscerate Langely' were not categories in the
rules.
She was fortunate, however, in that most of her demerits were
low valued items from the 'passive' category. Being creepy was only 1
point a day, for example. The big demerits tended to be in the active
category, like intruder into giblets chopping.
Her total demerits added up to 25,000 points of demerits. This
was not a good thing. However, she now turned to adding up the positive
points. One thousand counts of 'fond thoughts about someone' for one
point each. Kindness to burrowing mammals, five points. Feeding Pen-
Pen for Misato twelve times: 3 points each, even though he refused to
eat it. Willing performance of one's work duties: 100 points plus 300
points for danger. Doing homework: 1 point per night, 250 points. Not
being a burden on others: 25 points. Helping others learn about
themselves: 15 points.
This was not looking good, as she was running out of good things
and not coming close to meeting her deficit. Then she came to the 2014
Addendum. The category 'Killing Horrors from beyond Space and Time'
had been added. 15,000 points each, except Rhan-Tegoth, who was only
worth 5 points due to being pathetic. Too bad for Langely, Rei thought.
Capturing Horrors from beyond Space and Time was worth 5,000
points. Doing a quick addition, Rei's final total ended up as 56,003
points. This put her in the 'Saint' category.
Hmm, if I kill Langely, I lose 5,000 points for 'Cold Blooded
Murder of a Co-Worker', which would drop me down to 'Holier than Thou',
Rei thought. She contemplated it, then decided to try to keep her Saint
status, since according to the sheet, it meant she could have one wish
granted this year, if she got it in to Santa before the sun set on December
24. She could kill Langely after Christmas, when it would go on next
year's total.
The tricky part would be deciding on a wish. She thought long
and hard, then went to her computer, typed it in, emailed it, then went to
work writing up her report on the meaning of Christmas.
~*~
"How's Project B coming along?" Ritsuko asked Sven Borkson,
her top plant expert and one of her three main sex toys, who she had
assigned to lead the team developing the 'emergency weaponry'.
"Well, if the next Angel is a Norse god, we're good to go," he
said. "Or if they want to kiss it. The tricky part is going to be shaving
it
down to the right shape. It's really not well designed for making weapons.
We should have a test model by tomorrow morning at current growth
rates."
"Excellent. Will they be needing you for anything?"
"No, the plants grow just fine on their own."
"Good, come with me, I need a massage. Then we're going to go
hack into Microsoft's bank accounts and steal enough money to keep
operating with."
"I think we already bankrupted them last month getting our start-
up capital for the plant-growth formula business."
"Hmm. Well, we'll think of something."
~*~
Maya was testing out the new VR rig as she searched through
MAGI trying to find out what had happened to the embezzled money.
The sub-nodes were clean, although she'd almost been toasted by
Makoto when she stumbled into the part of one sub-node that was used to
play DOOM. Right now, she was wandering through CASPAR, which
looked like a haunted house. The virtual moon, always full, shone in
through a window, as she looked out across the blasted heath which
represented the 'recycle bin' in his memory. It was strewn with shriveled
shrubs and chunks of peat, all of which symbolized various files that
would be destroyed in a few days during the weekly memory clean up.
She clambered out the window, nearly snagging her virtual vest
with its 'sherrif's star' and her holster as well. It would have been
easier
to just ride down a garbage chute, but she didn't like VR dirt either.
A wolf howled across the heath, but she ignored it; it was just for
flavor. She took out eight wind-up cats and set them to hunting across
the heath for any useful information, while she started checking shrubs
and peat moss and shriveled flowers.
After a few minutes, a great meow echoed across the heath, so
she ran over to the cat, which was sniffing at a bush. The bush was
labelled 'Macy's receipt'. As she examined it, the horrible realization of
the truth swept over her, a truth so horrible, we have to cut to the next
scene instead of telling you, for it would destroy your very mind and soul.
Really.
~*~
Shinji handed Touji a wrapped sphere. "This is for you."
Touji handed Shinji a wrapped box. "Here ya go." He looked
over at the huge pile under the tree. "Looks like you're cleaning up,
too."
"Yeah, we don't even know who all these presents are from,"
Shinji said.
"Well, the good fairy brought Dad a new car, and there's about a
hundred presents under our tree too. The deliverymen are going nuts
trying to ship everything. Poor guy passed out on our floor for about an
hour." Touji shook his head. "That's one serious tree ya got there."
The tree was starting to crack the ceiling as it grew, standing
vigilant guard over the tree. It was now covered with ornaments,
although Shinji couldn't remember where they came from or when they'd
been put on it. "Yeah."
"I guess this is gonna be a pretty good Christmas for everyone."
"You're coming to the Christmas Eve party, right?"
"Ya got that right. I figger there will be enough free beer to float
the entire city."
"And Rei and Asuka and I are going to play some Christmas
music."
"Cool. Her fuhrerness ain't good for much, but she sure can
play."
Touji mysteriously levitated, because Asuka had picked him up
from behind. "You wanna insult me, butt boy? Do it to my face!"
Shinji fled, hoping there was a new table somewhere in that pile
of presents.
~*~
"I've found the problem, Sempai," Maya reported to Ritsuko.
"Who stole the money?"
"The MAGI spent NERV's entire budget buying Christmas
presents for everyone on Commander Ikari's list."
"..."
"Which wouldn't have been so bad, except that he typed in the
wrong file name, and it used the Census list for Tokyo-3 instead of his
gift
list."
"..."
"Sempai, you seem to be doing that a lot lately."
"The entire city?"
"Well, only the people who returned their census forms."
Ritsuko thought for a moment. "Did it, by any chance, keep a list
of what it bought for people?"
"It deleted the list so no one would be able to peek. Oh, and all
of the gifts are non-returnable."
Ritsuko got up. "Come with me. We need to tell Commander
Ikari."
She nodded and followed Ritsuko.
~*~
Commander Ikari was not a happy camper. So the MAGI had
been subverted by the Rider in Red. It was all clear to him now. The
tendrils of the conspiracy ran deep. They were all after him and his
magic bag. Well, they wouldn't get it. I'll defeat the Rider in Red with
a
pencil if I have to, he thought. Project B will work, and we will stop
him.
And then...then...then they'll be SORRY!!!!!
He began to laugh maniacally, at least until a cockroach fell off
the ceiling into his mouth.
~*~
[Rei reports on the meaning of Christmas]
~*~
Shinji stared at the email he got from Rei.
TO: Spineless@Nerv.com
FROM: Creepy@Nerv.com
SUBJECT: Christmas Wish
Send your wish to Wishes@KRINGLE.NP as soon as you can. Deadline
is tomorrow at sunset.
Ayanami Rei
Shinji stared at the email. Wish? What sort of weird thing was
this? He would have assumed a practical joke, but Rei didn't do that sort
of thing.
Well, I guess I'll send a wish there, he thought. Whatever it is, it
can't hurt. Hmm...what to wish for...
~*~
Asuka stared at the email. A wish? Had Rei started taking the
same drugs Touji must be taking? She scratched her head, then
shrugged. Wouldn't hurt to try.
~*~
Asuka and Shinji finished stringing up the final row of lights.
"Decorations are ready."
Misato squeezed out her mop into the sink. "The last of the flour
is cleaned up. The cookies are ready."
Pen-Pen pointed to the pyramid of kegs. "Wark." The beer was
ready.
Rei put down a pile of presents by the tree. They were all
wrapped identically in shiny blue paper with one inch wide white ribbons.
"Presents are ready." You could barely see the tree, except where it had
burst through the ceiling into the apartment above, for all the gifts.
Shinji
wondered briefly where they were going to keep all the stuff once they
unwrapped it.
"Has the eggnog been spiked yet?" Misato asked.
"Yes," Asuka said. "I think adding four fifths of bourbon was over
doing it, though."
"Four fifths of bourbon and a fifth of what?" Shinji asked.
They stared blankly at each other.
"Wark!" Pen-Pen announced.
"You hear Ritsuko coming?" Misato asked.
Pen-Pen nodded.
"Let her in, and let the party begin!"
~*~
The sun set, proving this wasn't the British Empire. The party
was soon in full swing, with about two dozen NERV personnel hard at
work getting drunk off their ass (and any other body parts). Misato's
apartment was extremely crowded, since half the living room was now
controlled by the presents and the tree. Only Commander Ikari was
missing; he'd told Misato he would be busy trying to work on more ways
to get money. She didn't mind; the man was a noted party pooper.
Also, he might have stood under the mistletoe, forcing someone
to kiss him. Instead, Pen-Pen had taken up a sentinel position there,
leading a large number of people to stay where they could pretend they
didn't see him. He looked rather disappointed.
Touji and Asuka were deep into a game of virtual one-on-one
basketball, and Rei had just bankrupted all the faceless minions who
milled about in crowd scenes in the poker game in progress, and Makoto
was busy pining away and trying to think of a clever way to get Pen-Pen
out from under the mistletoe and Misato under it, and Maya was mentally
reviewing her collection of naked Ritsuko pictures, when Shinji said,
"Hey, Rei, Asuka, we should play some Christmas music."
Rei nodded and got up just before Maya would have had to start
throwing her illicit security tapes into the betting pool to have anything
left
to bet. Asuka said, "Soon as I whoop his ass, I'll come," she said.
While she was distracted, he made the winning shot, and
grumbling, she got up, while Hikari took over one of the consoles and
forced Touji to play, 'Rappapa the Rapper'.
Right as they began to play Silent Night, the night became very
not silent as the alarms went off. And Misato's phone began to ring.
Misato cursed. "Man, this is one serious hang over I'm having
already."
Asuka cursed. "Fahrvegnugen!"
Shinji scratched his head. "I guess the Angels decided to get it
over with now, so they could take Christmas Day off."
Misato sighed. "To the batcave, everyone. Commissioner Moron
is calling us."
~*~
A little while earlier, the halls of NERV were silent, echoing only
the sounds of the various automated machinery. Everyone but a bare
minimal skeleton crew was at home with their families. Commander Ikari
sat on the bridge and waited. The Rider in Red was coming, and he
would be ready. There was a loud ping. [ANGEL DETECTED.
WARNING, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER, DANGER,] CASPAR said.
[RIDER IN RED APPROACHING].
The clock stuck midnight. A shot rang out. On the horizon, a
pirate ship was approaching. But that wasn't important right now.
Gendo sprung to his feet and hit his quick dial for Misato's
number. "Scramble the pilots. Angel approaching. Have them ready the
Sprig of Balder." Then the phone began to ring, and he had to wait until
she actually answered her phone, so he could repeat himself and be
heard.
~*~
As they suited up, Asuka said, "This seriously sucks! Right as I'm
about to crush Touji, this Angel shows up. I think he planned it."
Shinji rolled his eyes and got snake eyes.
Rei said, "No."
Asuka stuck out her tongue at Rei. "I was just grousing."
"I see no grouse."
"..."
~*~
"We're supposed to WHAT?" Asuka said in disbelief.
"We missed our last electric bill thanks to MAGI buying everyone
Christmas presents, so NERV has no power for the fancy weapons we've
been developing. So we've armed each of you with a giant mistletoe
lance," Misato said, wishing she could be drunk and passed out at home
the way she should have been by now. "And a giant sprig of mistletoe.
Hold it over your head. This will force the Rider in Red to close in and
kiss you, then you can all impale him with the lance."
"..."
Asuka said, "That is the most absolutely stupid plan I've ever
heard in my entire life."
"Hey, it worked on Balder!" Ritsuko said.
"We're not fighting Balder!"
"If you don't do it, I'll have to have Rei eat your brain raw," Gendo
said. "You will obey."
"You wouldn't eat my brain, would you, Rei?" Asuka asked
nervously.
"Not raw."
~*~
Taiki began shaking the presents, trying to decide which ones
were worth stealing. No one would notice a few robberies while the
Angels were attacking, and this place had its front door wide open.
Nice tree, he thought, although why is it poking up through the
ceiling? I'd think the upstairs neighbors would get mad. He read one of
the tags, 'To Shinji from Misato'. Probably a boyfriend and girlfriend, he
thought. Wonder who lives here...can't be a family; too much beer.
He shrugged, and dug through the presents, until one caught his
eye, a wrapped bundle that looked supiciously like a gun. I ought to take
this for self-defense, he thought. He unwrapped it, and was surprised to
find it was a Red Ryder BB gun. I thought these things were illegal...but
then again, so is what I'm doing.
"Wark?"
He nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned and saw a
penguin looking curiously at him.
PENGUIN? He boggled for a few seconds, and then it jumped at
him, having concluded he wasn't supposed to be here. He kicked it
away, and leveled the BB gun at it. "Get back!"
The penguin growled, but fled back into the fridge. He turned
back to the presents, only to get hit in the head by a hurled beer can. He
spun, levelled the BB rifle, and fired. The tiny metal shot ricocheted off
the refrigerator, off a cabinet, and right into his left eye. His mother's
dying words came back to him. It's all fun and games until someone puts
their eye out.
Howling in pain, he staggered backwards into the midst of the
presents, right into the tree, and its branches wrapped around him,
holding him tight. He struggled desperately as two more beer cans
bounced off his head, and managed to twist around to face the tree just in
time to see two eyes open in its trunk and a wide toothless maw gape
open.
Being a tidy eater, the tree avoided getting any gore on the
presents, and drank the beer cans lying nearby just so they wouldn't go to
waste. And then it went back to sleep.
~*~
It was snowing heavily as the three EVAs, wearing their power
backpacks, moved through the streets of Tokyo-3, heading for the east
side of the city, which the Rider in Red was expected to approach. They
could see a glowing light on the horizon, slowly drawing closer, and the
sound of jinglebells filled the air.
Nine abominations of nature, reindeer who flew without wings,
pulled the loathsome sled of the Rider in Red, led by a mutant with a
glowing nose. The Rider himself was cast in the very likeness of a
human being, with a huge eggnog gut and a long white beard. One might
have been fooled into thinking he was just a kindly old fat man if one
didn't know better, and Gendo was sure he did.
"BRING ME HIS HEAD ON A PLATE!" Gendo shouted.
Misato stared at the viewscreen. "That's Santa Claus."
Ritsuko's eyes widened. "He's real?"
"This is a joke, right?" Maya said.
"//I can't kill Santa Claus!//" Shinji said.
"If you won't kill Santa, you're of no use to me!" Gendo shouted
back.
Fuyutsuki twitched. "I told you that was someone's idea of a
joke."
"Rei, I want you to..." Gendo began, but then he was interrupted.
The doors flew open and twenty men wearing kevlar lined Santa
suits, armed with M-16s burst in. They each wore a badge showing a
candy cane with the letters 'OSN' prominently embossed on it. "We're
not going to let you kill Santa, you pathetic lunatic," the leader said.
"We
killed Stalin when he tried, and we'll happily kill you too."
"How did you get in here?" Misato asked. "I told Kaji to lock up
the Geofront!"
"You forgot to seal the chimneys," the leader said, laying a finger
along side of his nose and grinning.
"Who are you?" Maya asked.
"Order of Saint Nicholas. We're the last of the crusading orders,
dedicated to protecting Santa from the freaks and lunatics of the world."
He looked meaningfully at Gendo.
Two of the men began wrapping Gendo in a straitjacket. "You've
been a naughty boy. Off to the Charles Dexter Ward for the Mentally
Deranged with you. And you'll be getting coal in your stocking again.
Now, all of you go home and enjoy your holiday."
Ritsuko rushed the man and began to shake him. "Why didn't
Santa ever bring me that Troll doll I WANTED SO BAD I COULD
NEARLY HAVE DIED?"
The man shook like a bowl full of jelly. "Your mother stole it
every year and burned it as a sacrifice! We kept trying, but then you
stopped believing in Santa, so he couldn't bring you anything...You're
really strong, you know."
"She what?"
"She went through everything Santa sent you and threw it out and
replaced it with science toys."
Ritsuko let go of the man. "I should have known." She went
back to her chair to pout.
Maya said, "I'd have gotten you one if I'd known, Sempai."
Misato got on the com line. "Stand down. Come home. Let's go
finish getting drunk." She scratched her head. "I guess this means you're
in charge, Commander Fuyutsuki?"
"Yes. Let's just forget this and go home."
"Best order I've ever gotten," Misato said. "You heard the man.
Everyone head back to my place, where I order you all to get so drunk
you can't move."
~*~
Much later, most of the guests had stumbled out the doors into
the snow. They were not run over by a reindeer, fortunately. Rei was
about to go when Misato said, "Don go. You should stay here with us,
open presents tomorrow morning. Too cold."
"I have nowhere to sleep here," Rei replied.
"Use my bed. My legs won't move," Misato mumbled. She
slumped in her chair and was out in an instant.
Rei shrugged and went to Misato's room, stripped down, and
crawled between the nice warm sheets. Sleep took her swiftly.
~*~
Rei awoke, to her surprise, standing dressed in a white hooded
robe, and carrying her new guitar, just outside a large wooden lean-to,
half-buried in snow. It had 'walls' made out of bales of hay, and she
could
smell the strong smells of dung and unwashed animals coming from it.
There was a sheet tacked up across the front 'door', which was really just
a gap in the bales. Three shivering camels were tied to one of the roof
support poles at the corner of the building.
There was a larger building nearby, a two-story stone building
from which music dimly echoed, almost drowning out the faint sounds of
two people talking to each other from inside the lean-to. The sky was
clear, and the stars and the moon shone brightly upon the soft white snow
all around.
She stuck her head inside, hoping it would be warmer in there
than outside. It was indeed. There was a burly man with a thick
moustache and beard, wrapped in blue and white cloth, sitting next to a
young woman with long dark hair, both of them seated to the right of a
very small fire in a cleared space in the middle of the room. The woman
held a tiny baby boy, still bald and wrinkly like a prune, tightly wrapped
in
a warm brown wool blanket.
Many animals were crowded into the space, and in-between them
were three elaborately dressed men, one almost as pale as Rei, one
darker than anyone she had ever seen before, and one who would fit in
quite well at NERV if he lost the turban and the elaborate multi-colored
robes in favor of a proper uniform.
They knelt before the couple, each presenting a small box. A
strong, sweet scent was beginning to fill the room, although it was also a
gloomy one; it reminded her of death, and seemed an odd gift for a tiny
boy. The couple stared at her, then the woman shoved a donkey out of
the way, making a place for her to come and stand. They looked
expectantly at her, and she suddenly realized she had no present.
Except perhaps the guitar, but she was fairly certain it hadn't
been invented yet and no one would know how to play it. But she could
give them one thing. She began to play one of the songs she had
learned, and tried to sing, although the song wasn't meant to be played in
a monotone. o/~ Joy to the world, the lord is come, let Earth receive it's
king...o/~
The family and the three men listened in surprise, having
obviously never heard a guitar before.
o/~Let every heart prepare him room,
and heaven and nature sing,
and heaven and nature sing,
and heaven and heaven and nature sing...o/~
The animals began making noises that sounded suspiciously like
an effort to sing along, although cows were never designed to sing Joy to
the World. Far above, Rei could hear the music of the spheres, and
distant Groth, who sings the stars into place, could not but join the tune.
o/~ He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders of His love. o/~
She finished the song, and the baby cooed and drooled on
himself, and his parents smiled and looked embarrassed. And then the
mother said, "Could you hold him for me for a minute?"
Rei nodded, and accepted the wrapped bundle of baby, while his
mother got up and went outside, and the three men began to talk with the
father about why they had come. He smiled up at her in the incoherent
way of a young child, who will smile at anything, and sometimes frown at
random, and then throws up on you because he can't help it.
She stared down at him, and stroked the soft fuzz of his head,
not consciously, but because anyone who is holding a baby just can't help
doing that. His eyes wandered, but hers remained fixed on the new life,
freshly come into the world. She had never been this close to an infant
human before, and the one time she had come fairly close, the baby had
gone crazy, crying and howling. This one just seemed vaguely befuddled
by it all.
And then, for no reason she could understand, she suddenly
remembered the man she had killed when he had broken into her
apartment. It was one of the most vivid memories of her life; her sight
was filled with images of her driving her fingers into his eyeballs, and
holding his head in the toilet and...
With an effort, she drove the memory away, but now her own
hands disturbed her. She had felt no guilt for killing the man; killing
was
what she had been made to do, and she knew it. And yet...it suddenly
seemed wrong to her now that the hands holding a baby close were the
same hands which had killed. Was that why the other baby had been
afraid of her? Why the animals feared her? Did they know?
Yet, Shinji had killed, and Asuka as well, yet animals did not fear
them, and neither did babies, so far as she could tell. What made them
different? They too were of the Children, so it could not simply be that.
For the first time in her life, Rei suddenly felt truly alone.
And then the baby cooed and tried to escape his swaddling
clothes and climb up her chest, and the world drew her back in. His face
was an inch from hers, and she wondered how such a young child could
move so fast, or even manage to climb at all. His brown eyes stared into
hers as he tried to suck on her nose and one of his hands batted at her
left ear.
She pulled him back enough so he couldn't gum her nose, and
looked at him. He wasn't afraid of her, even though she could have killed
him in an instant if she wanted to. Not that she had any desire to, but
she
hadn't held any enmity against any of the other beings who had run away
from her. They had feared her anyway, but he did not.
He gurgled and put a hand on her cheek, then his hand came up
and grabbed a lock of hair and tugged, and he smiled at her. And she
found, to her surprise, that she smiled back. Perhaps it was simply the
power of infants over any human whose heart is not a cold and frozen
rock. Perhaps it was something more that tugged at her heart and drove
away her moment of gloom and doubt. She held new life in her hands, a
tiny miracle full of potential, and he liked her, much to her surprise.
He gurgled, and batted at her ear again, and he smiled, blissfully
unaware of the things she had done with the same hands that held him
gently. For the hands that had slain and rent and torn were the same
hands that could be used for healing and mending and holding, if that
was what she intended to do. Whatever she might have done, he did not
care, not now, perhaps not ever. He accepted her in the way that only
the truly innocent can. For a moment, she wished she could sit and hold
him forever.
And then his mother returned, and held out her arms, and Rei
handed over the child to her. "Thank you," she said. "He didn't give you
any trouble, did he?"
"No, no trouble at all," she said. "Are all babies like that?"
"He's a rather precocious child, and very trusting. He seems to
like everyone he meets. I suppose it'll be the death of him one day."
She said, "We all die. But he will do his duty."
The woman frowned, and Rei suspected that was not the best
way to put it. She continued, "Thank you for letting me hold him."
A chill wind began to blow, and mist rolled across Rei's vision,
and the last thing she saw was the child waving at her. And then she
woke up, rolled over, and went back to sleep.
~*~
Ritsuko dragged herself out of bed, only to realize she had the
day off, had a hangover the size of the Bronx, and that she could have
not set the alarm if she wanted to. Instead, she decided to go downstairs
and open her presents, eat breakfast, and go back to bed. Assuming I
didn't just dream all of yesterday, she thought.
She went downstairs, and was quite surprised to discover she
had several presents she didn't remember being there the night before.
One of them was a huge box half the size of her tree, most of the others
were much smaller. They all had the tag 'To Ritsuko from Santa', except
for the big one, which said, 'To Ritsuko from Maya'.
Maybe Maya got me a new refrigerator, she thought. But when
did it get here? She opened the three boxes from Santa. One of them
was the Marcie doll she'd asked for when she was four. One of them was
the Barbie Dream House she'd asked for when she was eight. And one of
them was...
A tiny little doll that looked like a shriveled wrinkled parody of a
human being. It clutched a tiny staff almost as tall as it, and had long
white fluffy hair and a happy smile. It was the Great-Grandmother Troll
doll she'd asked to get for Christmas for six years in a row. Her eyes
teared up, and she held the tiny doll tightly. I finally got it, she
thought. I
finally got it.
There was a loud thumping, and a voice inside the large box
muttered something about cramping legs. Ritsuko blinked, and put
Great-Grandmother Troll on the coffee table. She got a butcher knife
and cut the box open, hearing something squeal inside.
She found Maya, clad in a Santa suit, complete with floppy hat.
"Hello, Sempai," she said nervously.
Ritsuko put one and one together and got two. This went on for
quite some time.
~*~
Shinji, Rei, and Asuka shook Misato awake. "It's time to open
presents," Asuka demanded.
"Go way and die," Misato muttered.
"Wake," Rei commanded, and Misato's eyes snapped open.
"Okay, okay, okay," she said.
There were many, many presents to open. Asuka found herself
awash in wargames and videogames, and several cookbooks and martial
arts manuals. Shinji found himself drowning in tapes, books, the
EVANGELIONOPOLY edition of Monopoly, and a complete set of highly
inaccurate EVA action figures. "Hmm, I wonder if Ritsuko knows they
gave her a cybereye," he mused.
Rei found a makeup kit, enough casual clothing for an army,
certificates for three year subscriptions to Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, and
YM, several more song books, a case for her Stratocaster, and a rock.
She also had a bible and a book of Christmas hymns from Asuka, and the
videotape of 'Springtime Cherry Blossoms' and a twenty-five dollar
Outback Steakhouse gift certificate from Shinji. Misato had given her a
slinky black dress with matching red jacket, and her own Elder Sign
necklace in copper. And finally, she recieved a small card that read
'Good for One Wish' and signed, 'Santa Claus'. It dissolved away as she
looked at it, and she felt a jolt run through her.
There was a knock at the door. Pen-Pen let Commander
Fuyutsuki in; he was carrying Shinji's father, who was still in a
straitjacket,
which he now unstrapped once he closed the door. Gendo stared at the
floor. "I'm sorry. I let myself fall for the oldest trick in the book and
nearly ruined Christmas for everyone. Maybe I should change my name
to Grinch."
Misato wondered what drugs he must have been put on.
Shinji got up and came over to him and said, "Thank you for the
presents, father."
"You're welcome, son," he said, then took the wrapped package
Shinji thrust into his hands. "What's this?"
"It's for you," he said, nervously.
Opening it, Gendo found five pairs of identical white gloves, and
two little pads to stick on his glasses so they wouldn't slide down his
nose.
"Thank you, Shinji," he said. "I'm sorry about what I said last night."
He IS possessed, Misato thought. It's about time.
Shinji gulped. "I know...I mean...I know you were just jumpy."
"Merry Christmas, son," he said, hugging his son, who began to
cry, for his wish had come true.
Asuka unwrapped her largest package, which had Kaji in it,
dressed as Mel Gibson in Braveheart. She flung him over one shoulder
while he looked confused, and she took him back to her bedroom. Her
wish had come true.
Rei got up, and came over to Shinji, then tossed him over one
shoulder in imitation of Asuka. He gibbered in confusion as they went off,
and her wish was about to come true.
Asuka came back up, picked up Misato, and dragged her back as
well.
Gendo turned to Fuyutsuki, who said, "Don't even THINK about
it."
Fade to Black.
The End.
Author's Afterword: I hope you enjoyed this entirely silly thing. Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Years!!!
John Biles
COAEG Author at large