C&C would be very nice. I've got more chapters in
different stages of completetion, and it'd be nice to know
what needs to be changed now. Hope you enjoy.
Kichigai.
-- Attached file included as plaintext by Listar --
-- File: xgp1.txt
If Dr. Citan Uzuki had one weakness, it was that he loved to
tinker. Friends gave him gifts of complex electronic and
mechanical puzzles, which Citan delighted in spending much of his
free time solving. Not that he had much free time anymore. So
he'd combined his hobby into a way of spending time with his
family, another thing he'd had far too little time to devote to
recently.
Citan sat hunched over his coffee table with his young
daughter Midori sitting quietly beside him, carefully winding a
large coil spring around a shaft. Several other parts and an
array of screws and screwdrivers were scattered on the table,
awaiting attention. Pining the spring in place with his thumb, he
stuck the shaft through the top of an decorative box and screwed
in the retaining screw, connecting the end of the spring to the
side of the box.
Beside him, Midori ran her fingers over a carved ballerina
figure as she studied how the music box worked.
Citan screwed the base containing the music drum and picks
onto the bottom of the box, making sure the shaft was snug inside
the drum before inserting the screws and tightening them.
"Citan?" Yui called from the doorway to the living room.
"Yes, dear?" he answered his wife, not pausing.
"It's Subcommander Black. He needs to speak with you," she
replied, bringing a cordless phone over to him.
Citan set the music box down and adjusted his glasses.
"Hmm," he mused, accepting the phone. "Yes, Jessaih?" He nodded
thanks to his wife as she left the room.
"Hyuga, listen. I know it's late, but you need to know
this. Are you sitting down?" Jessaih's gravely voice sounded more
serious than normal, his western American drawl was very
pronounced, making his Japanese nearly incomprehensible.
Citan paused, as if to look around himself. "Yes, I think
so. What happened?"
"Fei manifested ether abilities about two hours ago. He
peaked at thirty-five, but is holding at about fifteen now."
Citan paused to let the implications sink in. "Was anyone
hurt?"
Jessie nodded slightly, forgetting that Citan couldn't see
him. "Yes, just one. He was Fei's sparring partner in martial
arts class. He is expected to recover."
"Good. Now, how many people know this?"
"Too many, I'm afraid. Solaris spies were already known to
have had him under surveillance, and there were over thirty people
in the same room when it happened."
Citan sighed. "I'm on my way to my office now, I want full
reports sitting on my desk by the time I get there. Oh, and do
make sure Fei isn't threatened. We want him cooperative."
"Already on it, Boss. Jessie out."
Citan hung up the phone and picked up the incomplete music
box, considering it carefully.
Midori, who had been playing idly with the ballerina, perked
up with interest again as Citan continued his work.
Pieces thus far ignored were carefully added to the box,
intricately molded side plates and trim made it shine in Midori's
eyes. Finally, Citan accepted the ballerina figure from his
daughter and placed it firmly on the shaft where it could rotate
freely. As music boxes go, it wasn't complicated, even for a
mechanical toy. But sometimes it was best to stay simple.
Citan wound it up and set it on the table, kissing his
daughter goodbye and setting off to say goodbye to his wife. It
would be a while before he was able to see them again.
****************
Xenogenesis
Fei Wong knew Tokyo-three quite well. He had lived there
for all of his life, at least, all of it that he could remember.
He didn't feel special because of his amnesia, rather, in many
ways he was grateful to it. The war had left many more orphans
than he, and most of them had suffered in ways they would like to
forget.
Fei ran long and hard, his long ponytail flapping behind
him. He had declined all offers of rides, insisting that it
wasn't too far and he could easily make it on time. Right now he
needed the distraction running provided.
He was a tall, muscular sixteen year old in peak physical
condition. His hair was black, common enough, but his features
were slightly different from his friends, betraying his Chinese
ancestry. He moved with an easy grace, having taken up martial
arts as a form of physical therapy. His earliest memories had
been of recovering from a strange disease he had gotten when he
was nine, a disease that had possibly taken the lives of his
parents.
Things were different now, though. Fei had made an
incredible recovery, surprising all the doctors and even going on
to be the best martial artist in his age group. He had many
friends and had been adopted by a friend of his parents, saving
him from the government orphanages.
Now, Fei wished he'd never taken martial arts. If he
hadn't, he wouldn't have nearly killed his best friend, and
wouldn't now be on his way to the most secret military institution
he knew of, right in the heart of his own hometown.
Nerv. Built nineteen years ago to combat the wiel menace,
it was the biggest resource hog in all of Japan. And when its
administrators proposed another tax increase to expand its budget,
every person in Japan had paid gladly. Nerv alone among all the
defense organizations had developed ways to contain and eliminate
wiels and the diseases they had brought.
Fei's thoughts wandered from his own new power to the secret
of Nerv. (Maybe they want to run tests on me? I don't know if I
can do that again...) he thought, becoming worried. (What if I
can't do it again? Will they just throw me away or are they going
to keep trying to get me to do something I can't?)
He fervently hoped he'd never be able to 'blast' anyone
again. Once was enough. And what really scared him was that he
had liked it.
His distance eating run brought him to the gates of Nerv,
barely winded. The guards at the gate inspected his
identification briefly, then gave him directions to a large
personnel lift and waved him through.
Fei waved back and followed the directions, traveling deep
into the heart of Nerv, alone aboard the huge lift.
So intent was he in his mission, he nearly ran over an older
man in a military uniform standing right outside.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me, Sir, I almost didn't notice you
there," Fei apologized hastily, backing up.
The man was tall and craggy, looking much like a weather-
beaten stone. His features were American but his uniform was
essentially the same as the guards outside, excepting only the
commander's insignia. He appeared old, with white hair framing a
face covered in wrinkles and a network of scars on one cheek. Fei
also noticed that he wore a sidearm.
Jessie waved his hand negligently. "Don't mention it. You
must be Fei. I'm Subcommander Jessaih Black, here to welcome you
to Nerv." He held his hand out to Fei.
Fei blinked several times and shook hands, puzzled as to why
they would send a commander to welcome just him. "May I ask why I
was sent here, Subcommander Black?"
Jessie motioned for Fei to follow him as he turned toward a
door to the side of the train station. "Please, please, call me
Jessie. We're going to be working together quite closely for some
time now, and I don't stand for formalities."
Fei missed a step before recovering. "Umm, sir, yes,
Subcommander Jessie. Why was I ordered to come here?"
Jessie grinned back at him as they passed through the door
onto a large moving walkway. "You, my boy, are going to be a
pilot. You show some gift for it, as evidenced by last night."
The new corridor they were on was wide enough for about
eight people abreast, and had two sliding strips with a divider
set flush with the surface of them. Only one was currently
moving, and they stood on it and let themselves be carried down
the hall.
Fei felt as though the comfortable, familiar world he knew
was being ripped from beneath him. "A pilot? Of what? Because
of last night?"
"Yep, your accident was a byproduct of an ability we search
the world for. It's not a common one, as you might have guessed."
Jessie held up a hand for silence, then pulled out a small
communicator and spoke briefly into it. Cocking his head
slightly, he listened to the response.
When he finished, he motioned to Fei. "Come on, we've
already wasted enough time. If we're late we'll miss it, and I
hate missing it." He grinned wide in anticipation. "Think you
can catch up with an old man like me?"
Fei nodded cautiously, then stared in amazement as Jessie
took off like a rocket, running down the walkway. Fei had to
sprint to keep from being left behind.
The two of them ran through corridor after corridor, barely
pausing to let armored blast doors open to let them through.
Fei had thought he was in pretty good condition, but he
hoped he was in half as good a shape as his new commander was when
he was that old. Jessie seemed tireless, doggedly running down
the moving corridor until he reached another large armored door.
There he slowed to a halt as Fei finally caught up to him.
Fei shook his head as he also stopped. "Wow, sir, you can
really run."
Jessie chuckled. "Yeah, I'm in good shape for my age, but
then again I've got good motivation. In a few weeks you'll be
able to run twice as fast, and keep going all day and night. Ah,
here she is."
Fei watched curiously as they approached the door.
Suddenly, the door whooshed up into its recess with a blast
of air, a blast which, incidentally, also blew up the skirt of a
pretty woman in a dress as she skidded to a halt upon seeing them.
"Major Katsuragi!" Jessie barked, sending her into stiff
attention. "You're over fifteen minutes late," he grinned as her
skirt settled back down.
Fei goggled.
Giving Jessie a dirty look and Fei a wink, she snapped off a
salute and smoothed her skirt back down, skipping over to their
side of the walkway. "Sorry, sir, I was delayed by a faulty
lift."
Jessie returned her salute and quirked an eyebrow at her.
"A _faulty_ lift?"
She smiled sheepishly at him. "Umm, yes, sir. I wanted to
go to the station to meet the new pilot, but the lift wasn't
working correctly. I ended up in R&D."
Jessie shook his head and closed his eyes briefly. "Well,
since you were so late, I decided to come down and meet our new
recruit myself. This is Fei Wong, the new pilot." Leaning over
to her, he stage whispered, "Don't get your hopes up, he's far too
young for you."
Fei started to get confused. (New pilot? Me? What are
they talking about?)
Misato stage whispered back, "Better too young than too old
like you." Turning to Fei, she said, "I'm Major Misato Katsuragi.
But everyone just calls me Misato," she said, gently shaking his
hand.
"Yes, Ma'am," he replied. "Does everyone here go by first
names?"
Misato laughed, Jessie adding his own gravel baritone
chuckle in as well. "_Mr._ Wong," she said, stressing her words.
"we're all under enough stress as it is. There's no point in
adding more by being stiff and formal with everyone. Relax,
you'll get used to it."
"That you will," Jessie nodded. "Nerv will be your home
away from home now."
The three of them passed through several more doors and
wound up on a lift carrying them up at a steep angle. Fei was
awed by the huge underground cavern he suddenly found himself
passing through.
"Wow, it's _huge_..." Fei trailed off.
The cavern looked to be made of solid armor, as all of its
surfaces gleamed in the dim light of vast overhead lamps. The
ceiling was studded by huge buildings hanging vertically from it,
looking almost like stalactites. As impressive as that was, a
network of platforms and walkways housed countless buildings and
hangars on the floor below.
What really caught Fei's eye were the huge robot mecha of
every conceivable type that dominated the landscape. Most of them
were workers, using their humanoid shape to perform tasks like
those humans would, but on a much grander scale. Here and there
he could see the larger, armed versions that were combat gears.
Never had he seen so many gears in one place.
"So I'm to be a gear pilot, then?" he asked, glancing
sideways at his two commanding officers.
Jessie paused his whispering to Misato to reply. "In a
manner of speaking, yes. They're not really gears, and you may
not be able to be a pilot."
"Not really a gear?"
"Yeah, it's a, well," Jessie searched for words, holding his
hands far apart and then up above his head. "Big. Yeah, that's
the word I'm looking for. You'll see."
Fei mulled over this new info. Not a gear? What sort of
'not-gear' did Nerv have?
After switching platforms several times, they finally
arrived in a smaller cavern-like room deep under the ground. Lab
coated technicians ran to and fro, while other workers in scuba
gear dove in great tanks that filled the floor. Walkways
suspended just over the tops of the tanks were the only way to
travel through the cavern. Five of the tanks only contained a
strange orange liquid, but two had huge gears suspended in them,
braced upright by huge supports from each side. Another tank held
an equally large gear, different in design, but did not have
liquid.
Fei gawked openly at the huge machines, one hand reflexively
clutching a small silver cross suspended around his neck. "I'm
supposed to pilot one of those gears? They're, they're huge!"
The one they had paused before was roughly twice the size of
even the large combat gears he had passed earlier. Overall it
looked much like a slender person, if you ignored the oversized
jaw and horn jutting from its forehead. A pair of stubby wing
like plates set perpendicular to the shoulder blades provided a
place for the supports to hold it upright.
Fei watched as two scuba divers labored intensively on the
palm of one hand underneath the translucent orange liquid. Try as
he might, he couldn't be certain of the nature of their work.
Jessie nodded. "Told you so. But they're not gears, not as
you think of them."
"How?" Fei asked.
"Organic," Misato replied. "Each of those is really an
organic construct, called an Evangelion. That's why they have to
have special pilots. The one you're looking at is Eva Unit 1-3."
She waved her hand at the other two. "That one is Unit 6-2, and
the one with the funny looking arms is Unit zero."
Fei stared at the grey metallic form. "You mean that thing
is alive? It looks like metal to me."
Jessie shook his head. "Armor, that's all you see. As for
alive, that's debatable. You can forget trying to understand
them, that's for the techies and them alone. We just need to see
if you can pilot one."
Misato chuckled. "Well, now that we've given him enough to
think about for a few years, lets hustle off to orientation."
Jessie nodded. "You two go on, I believe I see a blonde who
needs a little help with her scuba gear." With an amiable wink,
he walked off toward the aforementioned scientist.
"Come on, Fei, let's go."
Lost in thought and giving the Eva one last look, he didn't
notice that she'd referred to him by his first name.
****************
Later that night, Fei lay awake in his bed at home, staring
at the ceiling. Although he was tired, he couldn't sleep with all
the questions running through his head.
Debriefing had proven less informative than he'd originally
hoped. Rather than explaining why he suddenly felt eight feet
tall and made of steel, they had simply outlined his new martial
arts training regimen at Nerv. When he'd asked about the Eva,
they're responded with assurances that he would have other uses
should he fail as a gear pilot. And when he'd finally dared
question about who they were really fighting, they'd showed more
stock footage of Wiels eating people.
It was enough to make one lose sleep.
(Wiels,) he thought. (What are they? Where do they come
from? Are they aliens as the military insists? Or lost souls
searching for salvation like they preach in church?) Fei briefly
pictured a wiel large enough to require something as big as an Eva
to fight, then shuddered as he realized what such a thing could do
to everyone in the Tokyo complex.
Wiel was the military designation for the strange humanoid
creatures that had suddenly boiled out of the deserts of the
Middle East and Africa nearly twenty years ago, in 2005. They
were quite dangerous in their own right, a two to four meter
shambling brown monster that either burrowed through the sand or
ran on top of it to grab and rend anything it encountered.
Although tough, quick military action was enough to stop them when
encountered. Their thick hide was no match for armor piercing
bullets and military lasers.
Then the plagues had started, wiping out nearly all
resistance around the Mediterranean sea and allowing the wiels
free reign. For a while the wiels were the lesser of two evils,
as the resulting spread of disease eventually killed nearly half
of the world's population, and weakening the rest to further wiel
incursions.
They had started appearing in Central America around eleven
years later. Now that entire region was empty of human life and
both the US and Brazil occasionally had to fight large groups
migrating from the area.
Fei could remember when wiels started attacking everywhere
at once. That had been six years ago, one year after he had
awoken in a hospital in Tokyo-3, surrounded by people he didn't
recognize.
The best anyone could offer him was that his parents had
been researchers with the United Nations force stationed in Japan,
although they had lived in Japan since they had come to study at
the Tokyo university.
No one knew what had happened to them, but Fei had been
found alone in his family's apartment, suffering from amnesia and
some new disease yet to be identified, while his parents had never
been found at all.
Fei sighed and turned over. (At least Mom and Dad didn't
keep me up all night with questions about Nerv,) he thought
gladly. (I don't know if I _could_ say everything there is to
say.)
His thoughts turned to his wounded friend. (At least I got
to drop by the hospital on the way home and explain everything to
them.)
Dimoshi had been awake when he got there, surrounded by some
of his other classmates. Most of them didn't seem to hold it
against him, but Dimoshi's girlfriend Aruru had given him several
piercing stares. Those had hurt more than public ridicule, as
Aruru was his other closest friend. Typically enough, her little
brother Dan had been full of awe and congratulations, and had even
encouraged him to 'hit 'em again!', much to everyone's amusement.
****************
Citan looked up from a video screen as Jessie walked in,
whistling easily. On screen a replay of a bright yellow beam
lancing out from Fei to another boy repeated itself several times
a minute, lighting the otherwise dark office. Pictures of family
and friends covered the walls, many of them done in oil on canvas.
"I take it it went well?" Citan asked.
Jessie grinned. "Couldn't have went smoother if I'd planned
it myself."
Citan adjusted his glasses and sniffed in mock disdain.
"Have a little faith, why don't you?"
"Heh, interesting choice of words," Jessie said, smirking.
"He was a little put off at first, but not many young boys can
keep up the mature act around Misato. He's starting to relax, and
maybe thinking this ain't so bad."
Citan smiled. "Good, I'd hate to have him suspicious and
willful when the real trouble starts. And it will soon. We will
need the pilots brought here."
Jessie nodded. "I've already requested that the American
branch send Billy over, and progress is being made in Russia and
Argentina." He paused, considering his tight schedule. "Sigurd?"
Citan nodded. "He and Bartholomew are already preparing.
Unfortunately, they may be too late."
"Angels?"
Citan nodded. "The first angels will arrive in eight days
according to Magi predictions."
Jessie sighed. "I'll start Fei's pilot training
immediately. I had hoped that we could train him in �ther
abilities first."
Citan nodded. "I, also, but we do not always get what we
want."
They were quiet for a few moments. Finally, Citan spoke up.
"Does he remember anything?" he asked, almost hopefully.
Jessie shook his head.
Citan sighed. "Perhaps, it was for the best. He's much
happier having a normal life."
"Will you see him?"
Citan nodded. "Yes, I did keep in touch somewhat, you
know."
"When?"
"Tomorrow."
****************
"Good morning, Misato," Fei greeted, obscenely cheerful
considering how early it was in the morning.
At least, that was Misato's opinion. Yawning, she waved a
vague greeting with her coffee mug. "Morning, Fei."
"What am I to do today?"
Misato drained her coffee mug in three gulps, then refilled
it. "Today's the big day. Physicals first, then we stick you in
the Eva and see what happens."
"It's considerably more complicated than that," interrupted
a new voice. Fei looked up to see the pretty blonde scientist
from the day before, this time sans scuba gear.
"Ah, Fei, this is Ritsuko Akagi, the woman in charge of all
the sciency-type stuff around here. Ritsuko, this is Fei."
Ritsuko smiled slightly at him. "Nice to meet you, Fei.
Now, if Misato will get her act together, we can begin."
Grumbling, Misato set her coffee mug aside and followed them
into Medical.
There, Fei was ran through a variety of tests, from the
standard physical to more grueling tests of strength and
endurance.
"He's pretty amazing, isn't he?" Misato commented on the
other side of a thick sheet of glass separating the two of them in
the control room from Fei in the test lab.
Ritsuko nodded, not looking up from her readouts. "Yes,
according to what we extrapolated from his initial manifestation,
he demonstrated �ther abilities at around thirty-five or forty on
the PK scale before dropping back to fifteen. Now he's almost at
twenty."
Misato shook her head in amazement and crossed her arms.
"Soon he'll even pass the members of the special ops team."
Ritsuko nodded again. "He's easily got the ability to be a
pilot." Then she looked up at Fei running on a large treadmill,
already at speeds that would astonish an olympic runner. "The
question is, will Eva accept him?" She paused and looked up,
watching Fei run.
"I thought you were already able to predict that kind of
thing?"
Ritsuko shook her head. "We can, sometimes, but Unit 6-2 is
a second generation Eva. We've never tried a new pilot in this
series."
"What about Unit 1-3?"
Ritsuko shook her head. "A third generation Eva? A trained
monkey with a little �ther ability could pilot it. And even with
a skilled pilot, it'd still be about as effective against an
angel. No, we really need 6-2 to not give us any trouble."
Ritsuko sighed. "Not likely, though. The Magi only give us a
three percent chance of pulling this off."
"Don't be so pessimistic," Misato said, lightly punching
Ritsuko on the shoulder. "I thought you had confidence in your
creations?"
"_My_ creations, yes," she replied, turning to face Misato.
"But that is not _my_ creation. I just built it. Besides, it's
really up to Fei's ability to interact with it."
"Hmph, well, I think Fei'll do fine." Misato turned away,
back to the testing room. Out of the corner of her eye she
watched her friend give Fei a long, careful scrutiny, then smirk
and return to her readouts.
****************
"Relax, don't be so uptight. It's not good for your blood
pressure," Misato chided.
"One-forty eight over seventy," Ritsuko's assistant, Maya,
helpfully supplied.
Giving Ritsuko a wry look, Misato continued to direct Fei.
"There, you see? Just calm down a bit and we'll insert the plug
into the Eva."
Fei looked around the inside of the plug nervously. First
they had poked and prodded him all morning, then they had ran him
half to death, and now, the final insult, they had dressed him up
in a skintight body suit and stuck him in a tin can.
"Whoa!" he yelled, holding on tightly as the metal tube he
was in was jostled around, presumably being inserted into the Eva,
but then again you never knew. He could have been being dumped in
the ocean for all he was able to tell.
"Filling with LCL now," Maya's announced smoothly.
Fei gulped, tensing as a clear fluid began filling the tube.
As it rose to cover his face he reflexively held his breath.
"Remember, Fei, it's just like we talked about. Just
breathe normally and you'll be fine." Misato watched through the
observation window worriedly. For this test the Eva had been
moved to a separate area adjoining an obstacle course, in hopes
that he would be using it.
"Glarg," he gulped, exhaling a cloud of bubbles as the LCL
filled his lungs. "I'm fine, but this is going to take some
getting used to," he subvocalised into the patch on his throat
that allowed him to talk in liquid.
Misato winced at the distortion the liquid caused. (Yeah,
from both sides of this thing.) "Okay, are we ready, Ritsuko?"
She nodded.
"Begin synchronization!" she commanded.
"Synchronization occurred!" Maya reported. "Climbing at
three percent, four, five, six, seven... Synchronization
slowing. Halted at nine percent synchronization."
"That's not great but it's better than nothing," Misato
replied. "Ritsuko?"
"All vital signs are normal, Eva responding within
acceptable parameters. Ready for phase two."
Misato nodded. "Right. Fei? How are you feeling?"
Fei blinked, trying to get used to feeling very large.
"Umm, strange. But okay, I guess."
"Okay, now, I want you to push with your mind. It's been
described as almost like waking up in the morning, you have to
gain control over your body, or in this case, the Eva."
"I'll try," he replied. (Okay now Mr. Eva, lets get too
it,) he thought, flexing his muscles.
Fei concentrated on the physical sensations, moving his arms
slightly in an effort to move the Eva's, trying to expand the
feeling of being very large that he had gotten from his partial
link.
In the control room, a cluster of people watched the gauges
anxiously as the synchronization rate slowly started climbing.
"Yes! Fei, you're doing it!" Misato exulted. Smacking
Ritsuko on the back, she crowed triumphantly. "Told you so!"
Suddenly, the gauge dropped slightly, raising the collective
tension. The huge Eva twitched, sending shockwaves through the
supports that could be felt in the control room.
"No, Fei! Just keep doing whatever it was you were doing!"
"Unnngh!" he replied, clutching at his head in pain. "It
hurts!"
"Fei? Fei!" she yelled as the meters started going wild.
"Ritsuko! Cut the connections!"
"Already on it!" Ritsuko yelled back, fingers dancing madly
over her keyboard.
In the Eva, Fei slowly stopped twitching in sympathy with
the Eva to collapse nerveless in his seat, unconscious.
****************
Fei snapped awake with a jerk, clutching at the sides of the
bed. Two nurses, alerted by the machines, rushed to his side.
"Easy, easy, it's okay, you're in a hospital now," one
soothed gently holding him to the bed as the other prepared a
pressure injector.
He responded by coughing repeatedly, each time causing
wheezing sound deep in his chest. "What happened?" he asked
hoarsely.
Waving her hand negatively at the other nurse, his attendant
turned him on his side and held a flat pan underneath his mouth.
"Just cough it out, you've still got residual LCL in your lungs.
How are you feeling?"
Fei coughed as ordered, finally managing to expel most of
the remaining LCL that had been interfering with his breathing.
Laying back, he considered her question. "My head hurts."
The nurse nodded to her partner, who immediately turned to a
prepared tray with a glass of water and several pills. "Here,
take these," she said, allowing him to take the pills and drink in
his own hands. A quick adjustment of his bed allowed him to sit
up and swallow easily.
"Why am I here?" he finally asked after draining the entire
glass of water. Looking around he saw that he was in a typical
hospital room, if a little bare. The walls and ceilings were
painted a particularly uninteresting shade of pale, while the
doctor's desk against the wall showed none of the clutter that Fei
had come to associate with medical treatment.
"How much do you remember?" asked the first as the second
quickly exited the room.
"Umm, I remember feeling really big when I was in the Eva.
Then my head started hurting. After that, nothing."
Seeming to sigh in relief, she suddenly smiled. "Good, we
didn't think there was any permanent damage. You'll be fine, and
the pills should take care of that headache."
Fei narrowed his eyes in frustration. "I'm asking what went
wrong with the Eva, not what happened because of it. I was there,
I already know what happened to me."
All of the emotion went out of the young woman's face as she
reverted to her earlier professional air. "I'm afraid I can't
tell you. You'll have to ask one of the higher ups. If you need
anything, please use the buzzer beside the bed. You will have
visitors shortly."
Fei watched her go with a mixture of annoyance and
contriteness. (Ah, well. I wonder who is here to see me?) he
wondered.
As it turned out, he didn't have too long to wait. The
sound of footsteps outside his door alerted him an instant before
his foster parents entered the room, his mother's face tinged with
worry and his father's its usual friendly look.
"How are you feeling, son?" his father asked, wrapping a
restraining arm around his mom just in case she tried to smother
him in a hug.
"Are they treating you okay?" she asked, not waiting for him
to reply.
"I'm okay, they said I'd be fine," Fei replied quickly in a
reassuring tone. "Yeah, it's okay. Don't worry about it, Mom."
"I'd thought they might," she replied, relief in finally
seeing her son in good health obvious in her tone and actions.
"You'll never guess who we found out is in charge here."
"Oh? Who?"
"My old friend, Dr. Uzuki," his father replied.
"Doc Uzuki? In charge here?" Fei said, straightening up.
"Yes, he sure is. Called us personally to tell us of your
accident," his mother replied. "Wasn't that nice of him?"
Fei nodded. "Where is he? Is he here?"
His father nodded. "In fact, he's out in the waiting area.
We were just talking with him earlier. I'll get him." Leaving
briefly, he returned with Citan.
"Doc Uzuki, how have you been? And how is Mrs. Uzuki and
little Midori?" Fei said, glad to see the old man again. Citan
looked much like Fei remembered him, although possibly a little
thinner and less muscular. His glasses and long black hair hadn't
changed at all.
"We're all doing well, thank you for asking," Citan replied,
warmth in his eyes. "Although it's usually Commander Uzuki now."
"Yeah, Dad said you were in charge here. When did that
happen?"
Citan chuckled. "It has actually been quite a while, but
with security matters being what they are I don't spread the news
around. I had planned on talking to you today, but I must admit,
I hadn't planned on it being like this."
Fei's parents nodded understandingly.
"What happened, anyway?" Fei asked, glad that someone was
finally here to answer his questions.
Citan glanced at Fei's parents, a movement so imperceptible
that Fei barely caught it. "You'll need to ask Ritsuko about
that, she can explain it far better than I. Just tell her that
you've been given security clearance to know."
Fei nodded, relieved. (Oops, I guess I'd better not talk
shop in front of my parents. This secret military organization
stuff is tricky,) he thought, embarrassed.
"I, for one, hope that it won't happen again," his mom put
in. "I hate the idea of him being in danger enough as it is."
"Now Hiroe, we've already been over this several times," his
father, Sanpei, replied, giving the other two a wry look. "She's
as protective as a mother hen sometimes."
Citan smiled. "That's nothing to be ashamed of at all.
Why, I dare believe I'd be even worse if Midori was the one
involved instead of Fei."
Fei's father clapped his hand on Citan's shoulder. "Ah, but
little Midori is a bit young to be in the military. I don't think
you'll have to worry about that for some time yet."
"Ah, but you should see how she has grown. Why, soon I'll
be saluting her!" Citan joked. "In fact, I recently talked to Yui
and she said she'd be delighted if you all came over for dinner
one night."
"Oh, how wonderful," Hiroe replied. "I'd love to see Yui
again."
"We'd be delighted," Sanpei answered.
"It's settled then. Give me a week to clear up my schedule
and we'll all have dinner at my house. Until then, I'm afraid
I'll be very busy with matters here at Nerv. Fei, you may go home
with your parents and take the rest of the day off. Tomorrow we
must try again."
"Goodbye, Dr. Uzuki. Thanks for all your concern."
"Bye, Doc! I'll be looking forward to Yui's cooking!"
End part one.