Before you start, this message contains major spoilers the whole way through. I'm not gonna alert you to each one, 'coz I'd be pointing them out every five seconds. Suffice it to say, if you haven't seen the EVA movies, and don't want the events spoiled, don't read this.

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This fic is what I'd like to call an 'alternate future' story (Hey, maybe it fits in that 'prospective' genre :P). Basically, at some point during the EoE movie, things start to go differently, with the end result being that Third Impact doesn't happen, or at least not the way SEELE and NERV thought it would. I've sorta extrapolated from there, as the opening shows, and its now 40 years later. Social attitudes towards NERV are something like present-day attitudes towards the Nazis, and I've deliberately made it a little unclear (at least in this first episode) whether that public opinion of NERV is justified.

Because this is a first episode, not much action really happens, but don't worry. It'll definitely pick up from the next episode, believe me. This episode just sets the scene and the principal characters.

I posted this a few weeks ago, and I got a few good comments on it, enough that I've since altered it enough (IMNSHO) to merit a re-post. For those who read it before, hopefully it'll be less quote/unquote "dull", and most of the grammar mistakes (mainly involving placement of commas or quotation marks) are gone too.

As far as C&C goes, I'd love anything you care to offer. This is not a finished product, far from it. I'm still planning to get technical on the descriptions of the architecture, so go a little easy on me there.

Disclaimer: What I own, I own. What I don't own, I don't own. 'Nuff said.

End waste of space now.
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EVA 2055, Episode 1.0, Exodus 0:1 "The Architecture of Fear and Loss"

"This is the start that I know I'll believe in;
So I'm leaving everything behind.;
Keeping the parts that I know I'll be needing;
As I breed to be a better kind;
And I'm leaving everyone behind;"
-Starter,
The Cardigans

"Forty years ago the organisation known as NERV was decommissioned, it's Commander, Gendo Ikari was arrested, along with his second-in-command Fuyutski and others in the organisation's ranks. This followed a raid on NERV's Tokyo-3 headquarters and the failure of a sequence of events known collectively as 'Third Impact' to occur. Following the arrests, Shinji Ikari and Toji Suzuhara, two of the children involved with the organisation were granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for their evidence in the upcoming trials. However, soon afterwards, Ikari was committed to a state facility, and deemed mentally unfit to give evidence. Fortunately for the prosecutors, Fuyutski also agreed to give evidence, in exchange for immunity and placement in a witness protection program, including self-imposed exile from Japan for the duration of the trials.

"On the basis of statements made by Fuyutski, several members of an organisation known as SEELE were arrested, including the group's alleged leader, a man named Keel Lorenz. The other members of the group were later found to have committed suicide in a ritual manner, soon after the initiation of the so-called 'Third Impact'.

"Lengthy trials followed, and all those arrested and charged were convicted. Keel Lorenz was sentenced to death and five consecutive life terms, for numerous crimes, treason and conspiracy charges among them. Gendo Ikari received three life terms without possibility of parole, also charged with treason and conspiracy, as well as the murder of Dr. Akagi. He died in 2037 in a prison hospital, voluntarily euthanased after a seven-year battle with cancer.

"The body of Major Misato Katsuragi was found on one of the lower levels of the NERV complex, just outside one of the auxiliary elevators. Post mortem examination concluded that she died from bullet wounds to the lower chest.

"Dr. Ritsuko Akagi's body was recovered from the main storage facility in the Central Dogma section of the headquarters building. Records show that this storage facility was the one used to house the alien entity Lilith/Adam. Cause of death was believed to be a gunshot wound to the upper chest. The bullet recovered from the body matched those taken from the gun confiscated from Gendo Ikari during his arrest.

"The individual known as Rei Ayanami disappeared during the JSSDF's raid on NERV's headquarters. Speculation as to this individual's true nature and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance has always been rife. The last reliable surveillance records show her entering the main storage facility in Central Dogma, accompanied by Commander Ikari. No later traces of her existence have been discovered.

"Asuka Langley Sohryu was killed while piloting EVA-02 against the EVA Units 05-13. Her remains were returned to her native Germany in accordance with her will.

"Shinji Ikari survives to this day, aged 54, in a state facility outside Tokyo. He has recovered from his illness sufficiently to be interviewed, and a recent broadcast of TVTokyo's interview with him topped the ratings under the title 'The Boy They Made EVA'.

"Toji Suzuhara was killed in a car crash in 2038, along with his wife and young daughter.

"After the JSSDF raid, no traces were found of the supposed alien entity known as Lilith/Adam, however enough evidence exists to confirm this being's existence. On the evidence since revealed, it, and the beings known as the 'Angels', were deemed to have been Extra-terrestrial Biological Entities (EBEs). Recent events seem to have confirmed this view.

"Of those involved in this affair, only Fuyutski and Ikari remain alive today. Fuyutski has returned to Japan and is currently in a rest home in the north of Hokkaido. He has been diagnosed with terminal cancer of the liver, and is extremely ill. He is therefore unable to be interviewed, and is not likely to live much longer.

"Consequently, it appears we must rely on Shinji Ikari to fill the gaps in the documentation of NERV and its affairs. Our enquiries have revealed that he has spent his time gathering information on these matters, and has amassed a large collection of information that could well be useful to us. It is vital to the success of our present task that we gather all the data we possibly can from him."
-From the preliminary report of Kia Hamato,
Adviser to the UN Global Emergency Committee,
2054.

A man sits in a chair in a sparsely furnished room. His hair, once black, is now shades of grey, though still cut in the style of his boyhood, a style harshly juxtaposed by his aged features. He contemplates the contents of the room, an exceedingly neat stack of file boxes its most distinguishing feature. Rising from his chair, he takes another box from the top of a standing wardrobe. Opening it as he returns to his chair, he sets the lid on the armrest. Out of the box, he lifts a thick, tightly bound folder, labelled in kanji, Cyrillic and Roman characters. He opens the folder, turning the pages slowly from the outer edges, running his fingers over the occasional photographs, recalling those forgotten faces. Personnel files, technical reports and legal documents all run under his hands. One particular photograph captures his attention, paperclipped to a personnel report and stamped on the corner with a familiar emblem featuring a leaf. A single drop of moisture beads in his eye. He closes the folder slowly, and more drops join the first as the pages fan swiftly past his face. As the folder's cover slaps it closed, he reads the label on the front in all three scripts, as if willing them to differ. Yet all speak the same words: 'Kaji, Ryoji'.

Kia Hamato locks his office door and strides along the windowless corridor of the Tokyo office of the UN. Reaching the coffee room, he steps inside, greeting his friend Takai Miyato with a grin.
"Interviewing the boy today Kia?" Miyato asks, returning his grin.
"Yeah, out to Kada for me." Kia replies, rinsing his coffee cup, which proudly bears the image of the 2040s manga character Kyuga the Dragonrider.
"Have fun." Miyato quips.

Kia's electric Tanada purrs up the gravel drive of the Kada Hospital, a low, 90s style building in lush gardens. He parks in the same place as his last visit. Inside, the foyer is decorated in an early 21st century style, slightly ahead of the exterior. Kia stands in front of a print of an impressionist's portrait of J.D. Shapely as the receptionist greets him.
"Kia Hamato, to see Ikari-san" he says.
"Just a moment Hamato-san, would you like to take a seat?"
Kia sits below Shapely's head while the receptionist taps at a keypad.
"Ikari-san will see you now Hamato-san." She says after a few minutes. "Room 2.18, you know the way."

Standing, Kia makes his way to room 2.18, on the second floor, sharing the lift with a pair of young women in short skirts and low heels. Reaching the door of 2.18, he glances past the name 'S. Ikari' on the door, above which a plastic heart proclaims that this is 'Shinji-chan's lovely room', in hand-scrawled kanji. Kia knocks.
"Yes." A voice answers from within.
He enters.
"Hello Kia." The old man says.
"Hello Shinji" He replies.
"What did you want to ask me today?"
"Time enough for that later. How are they treating you?"
"Fine, and enough small talk. What do you want?"
"I was just being friendly."
Ikari snorts derisively.
"You know the importance of the questions I ask." says Kia.
"I know it better than you possibly could!" Ikari replies, voice cold as ice.
"Then why are you so reluctant to help us?"
"Because I know the deepest import of your questions!" Ikari sits back in his chair, arctic eyes surveying Kia, then drilling into a spot just below his chin. After a short while he snaps out of his reverie of derision. "But we've covered this." He says.
"Yes. And you agreed to answer the questions."
"Then ask, and stop wasting my time."

Kia pauses, considering the comparison between the late 20th century character of Hannibal Lecter, and the man now before him, Shinji Ikari, still recognised by the public as the black-haired teenager of NERV's 2014 publicity shots. An image comes to him of Ikari uttering the infamous 'chianti' line from 'Silence of the Lambs', and he laughs inwardly.
"I had thought of the comparison myself." speaks Ikari.
"What?" says Kia, wrenched from his thoughts.
"Hannibal Lecter." Ikari smiles, obviously in a better humour. "Never mind. Get on with it."
Kia hesitates. "Okay, then let's get to the questions."
"Yes. What do you want today?"
"We need to know about the EVAs' power systems. We know all we need to about the umbilical systems, but the internal power systems are confusing us. The reports on the EVAs' battery systems indicate maximum operating times exceeded in several operating reports."
Ikari interrupts. "You want to know about the S2 organs in the initial EVA models." His grin shows teeth, as if amused by his own abruptness.
"To put it bluntly, yes."
"And so far rumour is all you've got. That doesn't surprise me." He pauses. Standing, he goes to the stack of boxes, taking a particular box from the stack. "That's Dr. Akagi's area." He takes the lid from the box and draws out a particular file, handing it to Kia. "This will tell you all you need to know. Its quite complicated, and it may not be what you expected, but its all there. And I trust I can count on your discretion with regard to what the children are told about it. A brief glance at the contents of that folder and you'll soon see why." He pauses again. "When do I meet them anyway?"
"Soon. Yes, I remember our deal."
"Good. I want to meet them as soon as possible."
"You will." Kia hesitates. "I think that's all for today."
"Good." Ikari grins dryly. "I've never understood why you interview me. Surely it would be far simpler to take my collection from me?" He pauses, the light of understanding dawning in his eyes. "But no, you *need* to ask me, don't you. I might know something important to you, something that's not in my collection."
"That's the idea." Kia mumbles, half ashamed.
Ikari grins again, a sardonic twist in his mouth. "You keep me around a little longer, okay Hamato?" More grin, slightly more ironic. Slightly morbid even.
Kia leaves.

After Kia is gone, Ikari summons an attendant.
"I'd like to speak with her now." He says.
"Just a moment, I'll make the arrangements." The attendant leaves again. She returns a few minutes later.
"We can go now."
Ikari stands, exiting the room in front of the attendant. He walks down the corridor, the attendant dogging his every step. He reaches the door of room 2.36. Knocking, he is answered by a woman's voice.
"Come in Shinji."
The attendant unlocks the door with her key, ushering him in and then leaving. He closes the door.
"Hello Asuka. May I sit?"

Sitting in his car, Kia flips through the folder Ikari has given him. Technical specifications; operating reports; he unfolds a large schematic diagram on A2 paper, examining it briefly before re-folding it and continuing. Eventually he closes the folder and slides it into his briefcase. Half of what he has seen is gibberish to him. The rest...best not mentioned.
"I'll have to leave it to the engineering people." He thinks.

Episode 1.0.1

"The city of Tokyo's predilection for re-inventing itself is just one fact which demonstrates the deep social impacts of the many world-shaping events which this city has experienced. Some would say been subjected to."
'Tokyo-1 to 7'
Rosemary Keneth, 2083

Aki made her way to the front of the lecture hall, in a sort of 'milling' fashion, waiting for those in front of her, and trying not to obstruct those behind her. As she reached the front of the room, the lecturer motioned her over.
"Have you decided who you're going to study for this year's assessment?" Asked Mrs. Honoda.
"Yeeeah." Replied Aki, slightly timid. "But you may not like my choice."
"Well, come on, who?"
"Does the name Akagi Ritsuko mean anything to you?" Aki ventured, dreading the response her teacher might give.
Mrs. Honoda surprised her. "Interesting choice. You realise of course, you'll have a lot of opposition to your research."
"Um..Yeah." Aki was a bit thrown. "I suppose so."
"I'm not sure how you'll handle this topic, you know." Honoda sounded concerned.
"I've already done some preliminary investigation."
"That's good. I think you'll need it."
"Um..I thought you'd be more, you know, opposed to it."
"I suppose I should be." Honoda grinned. "When I was at school, we were taught that NERV were the Nazis of the 21st century."
"Yeah...We, er, I was told that too."
Aki's lecturer smiled. "Anyway, I hope you'll do well with this. It is an unusual angle on Dr. Akagi."
"Thanks."
"Good luck then. I'll await the finished product eagerly."
"Sure."
Aki pottered away, a little stunned by her normally conservative teacher's expression of views thought radical by much of the population.

Hiroshi Samura was a wandering child. Ever since he had been let out of his parents' sight, he had loved to walk around the parks and old buildings of his suburb. Some of the buildings in the suburb pre-dated Second Impact by almost forty years, amply demonstrating the cyclical nature of architectural styles. The blocky shapes of 70s utilitarianism; 80s optimism; 90s neo-Art-Deco (the people of the time had liked to call it Silicon Art Deco); the nano-tech, Gigeresque style of the post-Second Impact twenty-hundreds and the light greys and hazard lines of the sinking buildings of the 2010s. All were familiar to him, friends he greeted on his walks. He had never seen the people of these ages in these buildings, never seen the 80s executives in their slacks, with their ideal of the 'paperless office'; never seen the 90s' growing attachment to the Net filigree the neo-Art-Deco buildings with cables, or the frightened post-Second Impact residents huddling in their bizarrely grown nano-tech apartments, participants in tableaux straight of Giger, Escher or Dali. And he had never seen the equally surreal machinations of the engineering masterpiece of Tokyo-3, as the towers sank into the ground, a physical manifestation of humanity's defence mechanisms, like a snail to it's shell. All that was well before his time.

Yet now he was to be a participant in something that would no doubt shape his own era. He had met the UNGEC's military liaison, Commander Satoshi Yokugawa, who would be in charge of the Japanese branch of the UNAERG (UN Armed Emergency Response Group), and therefore effective Commander of the EVA section. Commander Yokugawa was an imposing figure, a broad-shouldered man with greying hair crowning his grim face. Hiroshi had also met Major Ruri Matsushira, the woman in direct control of the EVAs in combat. Soon, he had been told, he would meet Shinji Ikari, former EVA pilot, the last surviving pilot from the days of NERV in the 2010s. He had also met the other pilots, the two other teenagers upon whose skills his life might depend once battle was joined. He had met Dr. Hoshino, the head of the cybernetics department. Worse still, he had met the EVA.

The leaves drifted restlessly in the districts of Tokyo-4 known collectively as Lowside, swirled in incomprehensible patterns that no doubt both proved and disproved the validity of Chaos Theory in one and the same motion. Hitomi Miyamura felt like those leaves, corny as she knew it sounded, blown around by the whim of some force beyond her control. Before, she had been content to let the wind carry her, through her mother's death and her father's struggling to make ends meet. Her father had tried to go on without his wife, and had managed to do so, at least at home. But at the office, his despair had sunk the quality of his work to a level unacceptable to his employers. Hitomi and her older brother had been dragged out of their expensive school to a cheaper one, then moved from the family's Tokyo-5 apartment to a succession of less fashionable places, and finally to the Old Town, Tokyo-4, as her father repeatedly lost a series of lower-paid jobs.

However, recent events had taken a turn that frightened her a little with their suddenness, and now she didn't like the direction her drifting was taking her. She often came to Lowside now, seeking some sort of refuge in the proudly independent suburb, as if such a rebellion might hopefully be contagious. She did sometimes feel she desperately needed to break free.

Tokyo-4 had been built on the ruins of the 2010s monstrosity of Tokyo-3, after the destruction of Tokyo-2 in an earthquake that, while everyone had always said it was inevitable, still came as a major shock to the people. Tokyo-4's buildings were box-shaped and ugly, as if returning to the building style of the 70s, shrinking in horror from the folding, almost over-expressive style of Tokyo-3, like the city had shown them something about human nature that they didn't want to know. That city had been seen as a physical manifestation of the horrific days of NERV, a city dominated and ruled by three computers.

Hitomi supposed that Lowside was probably the closest thing the 2050s had to the almost legendary Kowloon Walled City of pre-Chinese Hong Kong, or the anthill-like Bridge community of San Francisco. Tokyo-4 had been the Old Town for as long as Hitomi could remember, and she had never considered that she might one day have to live here, leaving the beauty of Tokyo-5, were Gernsback met Giger in the gleaming black shapes of the modern offices and apartments. Everything in Tokyo-5 was nano-tech, but a stylish nano-tech, not the blatantly biological-looking style of the twenty-hundreds. The ruins of Tokyo-2 were the foundations of Tokyo-5, hence remnants of that style remained, complementing the curving black outlines of the newer buildings. Tokyo-5, like Tokyo-3, was designed to fold into the ground, but in a more natural sliding and spiralling fashion.

This last fact she had been told by Ruri. Ruri Matsushira, a Major in the JSSDF, now combat commander of the EVAs. Of which Hitomi was a pilot. And therefore directly under the command of Ruri. It was still strange to think of Ruri as her commander, her superior officer. When she had first met Ruri she had had no idea who she was. They had talked a little, about what being a pilot would mean, how they all had to live up to what was expected of them. Ruri had expressed the thought that Hitomi had tried to ignore, about how the whole organisation would have to do all it could to escape the shadow of NERV. Then Hitomi and the other pilots had been sworn into the UNAERG, given the honorary yet still intimidating rank of Lieutenants in the JSSDF, and Ruri had been revealed as Major Matsushira, their superior.

Now she watched the leaves, attempting to ignore the niggling fact that she was probably being watched herself. She hadn't seen anyone, but Lowside wasn't considered 100% safe by the people of the infinitely more modern city of Tokyo-5, so it was reasonable to assume that some form of minder might be waiting in the wings, in case she happened to run into trouble. The UN liked to keep track of it's EVA pilots, but Hitomi knew her way around here. This was her second home, more characterful and comfortable than the bare concrete apartment block that the family lived in. No doubt if she really wanted to, she could lose the hypothetical minder in the maze of back-alleys and catwalks that comprised the fabric of Lowside. But she couldn't be bothered.

Pull out from Lowside. Let the spider's web of Lowside join the more blocky, grid-like areas of Tokyo-4. Pull out further, let the nano-tech blackness of Tokyo-5 edge into the frame. Now switch focus to a random building in that gleaming and glossy dark city. This tower has the appearance of some kind of spined insect stretching at its egg-sac, trying to break out, sweeping canopies of black plasteel bound to pylons that protrude at eccentric angles, forming the walls of the building, under which the. Yet this building somehow complements the black plastic Ray-gun Gothic buildings it sits with, defusing their attempts to make Tokyo-5 look like Gotham City. This is the logic of Tokyo-5, gleaming black chrome and plasteel, the outskirts a frosting of Giger's vistas of New York, a skin to the fleshy organs of the city. Watch out for the bones...



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