[Ranma][NGE][HPL][AMG][Fusion][Fanfic] Sic Semper Morituri Chapter 32 -
Cthulhu Fhtagn Isn't the Only One
Disclaimer:
I do not own any of the characters from Ranma 1 / 2, Neon Genesis
Evangelion, Ah My Goddess, or the Lovecraft Cycle involved in these
stories.
C&C , MSTs are welcome
E-mail: dan_s.comments@worldnet.att.net
Stories are available in Rich Text Format and HTML at:
http://home.att.net/~danjess.gibson
(these are the most updated versions)
Stories are available in Plain ASCII at:
http://archives.eyrie.org/anime/Ranma/Sic-Semper-Morituri/
ftp://ftp.cs.ubc.ca/pub/archive/anime-fan-works/Ranma/Sic-Semper-Morituri/
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp/archive/anime-fan-works/Ranma/type/Sic-Sem
per-Morituri
(these are the original versions)
What has gone before:
About Book 11 of the Tankoubon Manga, Akane and Soun Tendo throw Ranma
out of the house. Nabiki, in the guise of a wish, follows him. They meet
EVA pilots Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, Asuka Soryu Langley and Jeffrey
Davis.
All of the pilots react to the disaster surrounding the destruction of
Cthugha and his cult in there own ways. Nabiki retreats, Asuka
investigates, Jeff attacks the SEELE. supporters, Ranma seeks a decisive
battle and is frustrated in this end, Rei and Shinji try to support Nabiki.
One of the SEELE members is killed in Osaka, and Natsumi Matsuda
witnesses the entire event, Jeff and Misato are sent to investigate.
Asuka takes Ranma to Tokyo University, meeting Belldandy and Keiichi.
Then they return to enjoy the carnival set up on the school grounds. The
arrival of an assassin of Nyarlathotep's cult spoils everyone's evening as
attacks the pilots and senior staff, he is destroyed by Asuka in Unit 02.
In the aftermath, Ranma, Rei and Asuka, make efforts to draw Nabiki out of
her shell.
Kaji investigates the facts of recent events, but doesn't realize his
contact is a Mi-Go.
Ritsuko, Rei and Jeff discuss their origins and other facts.
Shinji and Ranma watch Mirei qualify for softball, then hunt for the
`Ghost of Tokyo`.
Ranko gets dream training from the Scholarly Dragon.
The S2 engines are tested, and NERV Tokyo vanishes. Nabiki and Rei
escape and land outside Roswell, NM., they must deal with the aftermath and
loss at NERV Las Vegas.
A safe night, I'm living in the forest of my dream
I know the night is not as it would seem
I must believe in something, so I'll make myself
believe it
That this night will never go
Self Control - Laura Branigan
The Dreamers of the Day are Dangerous Men
Deep in the cavern below NERV Las Vegas, the man walked along the cat
walk. Bottom and sides of simple open mesh work, because it had to be
light enough to span the distance. While he could feel the tap of his feet
on the metal, he could hear nothing, that was not unusual for him. He'd
been born deaf, he hadn't the faintest idea what was the sound of a voice,
of a breeze, of a song, of a cry of agony. Sometimes he wondered what he
was missing. Not now, right now he wouldn't have traded his lifetime of
deafness for all the riches of the world.
In the distance was a tree, or what appeared to be a tree, growing
like a sea anemone on the head of an immense worm. But it wasn't a tree,
and it wasn't a worm. High in the spreading branches, some 300 feet off
the ground, was a face, the face of a human infant in pain, some 100 feet
across. It screamed continuously. No one could survive that sound for
more than a few instants and remain sane, no one who knew what sound was.
The lucky ones died of it. No, he wouldn't have traded his `disability`
for anything.
He looked at the worm, it was easy to think of the tree as tiny,
considering how massive the worm was. It coiled six times around itself,
in a vast spiral, he could remember when that number had been twenty, some
of the old-timers said it was once 35. The worm was too stupid to
understand what was happening to it, even so, sometimes it moaned loud
enough that even he felt it. He wondered if they'd have to get another one
soon, the one the EVA had killed in Tokyo was gone, he had no idea how
they'd gotten this one. Well, he thought, That's not my department.
Besides, we've been feeding the tree something else lately.
The catwalk above his carried another classification of worker, they
had to have been born deaf and blind. That cat walk ended over the mouth
of the infant. The gray powder they poured into it had been giving them
much better results than just the worm's contribution. Each new shipment
from Tokyo gave new and different results. Tulzscha had made the new armor
possible, before that, Nyogtha had allowed them to overcome the problem of
the multiple arm coordination. He was looking forward to what Cthugha's
remains would bring forth.
He didn't speculate what they harvested: sputum, tears, vomit, mucus;
again, that wasn't his department. The new armor, engines and weapons for
the project were not his problem, he was the complaint department. Not
just receiving them from others, but taking them to the source. This
catwalk approached a cavity in the side of the tree. He checked the
plastic suit he wore. If the hairlike rootlets he would pass through found
even the smallest gap or imperfection, his fate would be the same as the
worm's far below. But quicker, and he would know every instant of what was
happening.
The brown mass of branches, roots and rootlets came to boiling life as
he approached. Only two things were brought here, the high priest, and
special sacrifices. Depending on the tree's mood, the two could be
interchangeable. It touched, stroked and bored at the plastic sheeting, he
passed through as quickly as he could. Once inside, he marveled at the
similarity between this thing and a real tree. He could almost imagine he
was a small insect in a knot hole or other gap.
Here he began the ritual, a simple thing he could do in his sleep. He
didn't know whether he `heard` the creature's words in his head, but he
would transcribe what passed here, for the others, for the experts to
analyze.
Mighty One, we are troubled. It was a good formula, this creature
rarely accepted blame for anything. The mighty engines your counsel and
beneficence have allowed us to labor on for your greater glory have gone
awry.
In what way?
He was certain the voice actually sounded confused.
The base in Tokyo, where you are held in much honor, although your
name is never spoken -
Such is as it should be. The condescension was palpable.
Mighty One, the base has vanished.
VILE BLASPHEMY!
The force of the `voice` nearly exploded his mind from his skull. I
meant no disrespect!
Not YOU foolish worm! Then came the laughter that chilled him to the
bone. Another schemes and plots. The laughter began again.
He cowered for a moment, then continued, Mighty One we seek your
counsel, how may this be set right?
Your brave heroes already move to correct the situation. Do you have
no faith in the faithful? Amusing.
We beseech your aid -
My aid is unnecessary, go, tell the faithful my blessings continue.
The rootlet curtain abruptly pulled away.
The grievance administrator had never seen that happen before, he
decided that discretion was the better part of valor.
As he walked along the catwalk, back to the more human reaches of NERV
Las Vegas, he wondered at the strange statements. It _never_ had faith in
mere humans, and if the humans hadn't blasphemed, who, or rather what had?
He was glad such answers were well above his pay-grade. He liked
being sane and rational. The overly curious were better off dead. One of
the reason spies hadn't been a problem here: you simply showed them the
truth, the whole truth, and let them go. The desert took care of what was
left.
----------------------------------------
Shinji wondered whether it was possible to disappear into the walls.
Sometimes he envied Ranma. Not now, definitely not now.
"I'll paddle him within an inch of his life! I'll ground him until
he's thirty!" Sammi stopped pacing, stopped shouting, looked at Shinji, "I
can't kill him. But I can make him _loong_ for death!"
Shinji nodded his agreement, silently praying Sammi would walk away,
he'd never seen her in any mood except smiling and happy, with occasional
teasing. This elemental fury was something Shinji hoped to never see
again. No, definitely happy to be Shinji, Shinji thought as the woman
marched away. Shinji kept from sighing with relief until she was well out
of earshot. It would be me trapped in her with her, Shinji silently
lamented. He'd been glad it had been Asuka chosen to go to the EVA bays,
then Ranma had disappeared and all the guards acted like they had
toothaches, being separated from their charges and sent to a `safe` place.
Sammi was the worst.
The walls of the power core were the only barriers that could keep the
various creatures out. So all the noncombatants had been taken here. That
included all the pilots, except Asuka. Ranma had slipped out the door
before it sealed. No one was willing to reopen the doors and let the
creatures outside in here. There was something weird about this place.
All the other engines and machines he'd ever been around made noise,
smelled of machine oil. All he could smell here was a faint odor of
L.C.L., all he could hear was a faint sound like someone a long way off
calling his name. He couldn't make out the words, but to had that sound of
familiarity. No one else heard anything. Weird.
He hoped Asuka and Ritsuko would be successful in getting to the EVAs,
now he thought he should have gone with, and not just to get away from
Sammi and her anger at Ranma. He was the best in Unit 01 after all. That
would have given them two EVAs, instead of one.
But they didn't want to risk more than one of the surviving pilots, he
thought, the memories of Rei-chan and Nabiki disappearing through the bay's
roof intruded. He clung desperately to the idea they had somehow escaped
the disaster that had befallen the base, and the rest of them. Instead of
simply being destroyed. That belief was appearing more and more desperate,
and irrelevant. Even if they endured, they might never escape this odd
place. "Be well, Rei-chan," he prayed quietly.
The others around him, technicians in lab coats, office workers in
suits, all the support personnel that made the base operate, were in the
same mess. Many of the others had been separated from friends and family,
as he had. He wished he could have faith that his father would get them
out of this.
Rei-chan would tell me to have faith . . . if she was here, if she'd
escaped, maybe I could, Shinji thought as he looked at the shell-shocked
expressions around him. The tears, terrified glances, occasional snivel,
all tore at him. Then they'd glance at him, as if he could do anything.
He remembered what he'd done when the Lloigor had attacked the school, what
Nabiki and Rei-chan did, he stared back without expression. He had no idea
why that made them feel better, but it did, so he kept giving them that
expression, when he wanted to run around screaming, in rage, in terror, at
the unfairness of it all.
There were plenty of clues that he was as lost as everyone else. He
had tried to sleep, to reach out to Rei-chan or Raccoon in dreams, but he
couldn't sleep long enough to make the connection. He tried to disappear
into the wall again, as Sammi reversed her circuit and headed back in his
direction. Nobody blamed him for being afraid of her.
----------------------------------------
Toji nearly jumped out of his skin when Raccoon sneezed loudly.
"Neva'esjstse msnitotsxemaehihe." One of the old men in the circle
said to Raccoon, who replied in the same language. All of them were
clustered around a fire. The old men wore the same weird clothes Raccoon
had when they went to rescue Hikari.
Spooky, Toji thought. "Somebody must be talking about you," Toji
joked.
"That's what he said," Raccoon told him, gesturing to the old men.
"What exactly are we doing?" Toji looked at the circle of army troops
out a hundred yards away, and the two oddly clad old men laying out all
kinds of weird paraphernalia, Raccoon's peculiar jacket wasn't the most
bizarre. Toji was worried this was a joke, but with their earnest
expressions, and NERV Tokyo simply gone, he was more afraid it wasn't.
"Remember how we went after the class rep?" Raccoon was preparing his
own equipment.
"Yeah, really freaky," Toji sat down across the fire from them,
avoiding their preparation areas.
"Same process."
"You mean we'll materialize where they are? How do we get back?"
"Ah, Suzuhara-san - "
"Uh, oh!" Toji covered his face, when Raccoon got like this, it was
bad news.
"Funny, well, we won't be able to `materialize` at the other end. But
there is a way to interact with the others."
"How's that?" Toji asked, dreading the answer.
Why didn't he ask for Kensuke? Toji wondered silently, wishing one
really weird experience would quiet his fervid friend.
"We sync with the EVAs."
Toji watched the forests turn to blue cloudy skies, he could hear
Raccoon a huge distance away, calling his name. The wind and the birds
were so pretty, and far louder.
----------------------------------------
"He doesn't seem the stable type," one of the spiritwalkers told Jeff
in Cheyenne.
"I think he'll do all right, convincing him he'll do all right . . . "
Jeff shrugged, "Naa, Ma'heo'o, nehne'evavoomemenoo'o mbhnaootsetse." [And,
God, watch over us when we're sleeping.]
The old men chuckled at the child's prayer.
----------------------------------------
Asuka wasn't happy about walking through the NERV corridors in her
plugsuit, with all the soldiers around. It wasn't that she was in a
skin-tight uniform around a whole bunch of men, what she really wanted to
be wearing was a flak jacket. Or that those same men would get out of her
way and give her a clear field of fire. The gunfire from the ordinary
troopers had little effect on the creatures that drifted out of the walls.
The shotguns with special ammunition and flamethrowers had a greater
effect, her pistol was instantly lethal to any of the creatures it hit.
The elevators were not safe, it was theorized the creatures might cut
the cables. So ladders, and their claustrophobic confines, were the only
way between levels. Asuka would be happier when they reached the EVA bay,
with the wide-open spaces, and the distance to line up her shots.
"I don't see why we couldn't have just gone outside, and come in
through the main doors." Asuka fired at another one of the things. She
then had to punch the spent cartridges out, one at a time, the only thing
she disliked about her pistol.
"We don't know if the atmosphere is breathable," Ritsuko explained as
she scanned the area, "So the doors and windows stay sealed. I don't think
we've had time to look outside."
"Terrific." Asuka began carefully reloading her pistol, also one
shell at a time. She wanted to tell Ritsuko how ridiculous she looked with
the tiny popgun she carried, another flamethrower would be more welcome.
Ritsuko was strong enough to carry one, and small enough to wear it while
climbing through the tunnels.
The team kept moving. Asuka suspected Wondergirl would have found a
better way through the bowels of NERV. Then they'd already be where they
were going.
I won't cry! Asuka thought fiercely, Not for _her_!_ She still
couldn't believe that they were gone, Ice Princess and Wondergirl. Asuka
wasn't sure what to make of that, she knew Spineless was probably crying
his eyes out, she couldn't stand Ikari's little doll. Yet Asuka couldn't
deny it, she'd feel a lot better with the robot guarding her back. She'd
miss Ice Princess, if only for her ability to speak German, one of the few
bits of home Asuka had in this alien world called Japan. Asuka realized
that was probably why she hadn't freaked out. She was _always_ in an alien
world full of weird creatures who did incomprehensible things. And that's
only my fellow pilots, she smirked.
She wouldn't think about Raccoon. If El Nureenen's curse meant
anything, he'd be back. She'd thought he was dead once before. She'd
watched him die in the Dreamlands, been sure of it, and it didn't take.
She cocked the pistol and took aim at one of the most dangerous and
least vulnerable critters, it looked like a floating mineral formation, a
rocky center with crystal growing from it. They weren't aggressive, but
they could fire the crystals. Asuka had seen the effect, and she'd rather
not see anyone die with spikes of crystals growing out of them that way.
The creature died a moment later from Asuka's bullet, not shattering
like a crystal, but splattering like a liquid.
Weird, now she considered whether they'd run out of ammunition before
they reached the EVA bays, and worked their way around the other Units.
The Units still spewing radiation from their malfunctioning S2 engines.
----------------------------------------
Resignation is Confirmed Desperation
"We have to keep them away from the Magi," Gendo's shout cut across
all levels of the command center as another wave of the creatures charged.
Yeah, yeah, yeah! Ranma thought as he cut and thrust, smashed with the
scabbard. There seemed to be no end to the creatures. He'd never heard
Gendo so panicked, there might be more to the computer than Ole' Stoneface
let on.
Ranma was glad he'd spied on Raccoon and Asuka while they practiced
whatever art they were practicing together. He didn't remember much about
using the Art with weapons, but those two had concentrated on using
weapons. Adapting their techniques had been simple.
He spun suddenly, facing one that had materialized behind him, he
thrust in a snap, slaying it. Watching the pair had been very instructive.
This is nothing more than engaging as many targets as possible, he
thought, And killing them.
It sickened him what he was doing, but he didn't stop doing it. Cut
or thrust or slash . . . pause, search for the next target.
No one is as good as Ranma Saotome, he thought, as he leapt to engage
one coming in from above, Nothing can defeat Ranma Saotome! He crossed his
eyes as he landed, as various parts of him made their presence patently
known. His art was the finest there was, but he was beginning to
understand why the techniques Asuka and Raccoon used had been so austere.
After ten minutes, he was warmed up and feeling invincible. After 60
minutes things were beginning to twinge.
After three hours, his arms were beginning to feel like lead, he
_really_ had to go to the bathroom. He also knew he was the only one who
could do the job. He also prayed that all the effort concentrated here
meant fewer were going after Asuka and Rit-chan. He'd be glad when an EVA
got here to give him a break. A few moments of 'quiet, too quiet', then
back into the fight. In the battle, he could lose himself, he could forget
that Nab-chan, Rei and Raccoon were never coming back.
Thrust left, smash right, both sword and scabbard felling enemies.
One like a sea urchin halved, another that was a floating blob of slime
vanished. Ranma vaulted over to the other side of the Magi cabinets,
thrust through one of the crystal ones.
----------------------------------------
"What are these things?" Kaji thrust a road flare into one of them,
it died messily. Kaji hated that slimy feeling, all over his hand.
"I don't know," Gendo admitted.
Kaji wondered if there was some trick Gendo was using to keep the
things away from him and Fuyutsuki. This reticence limited the arc that
allowed them to go after Saotome, who was clearly tiring. Kaji was trying
to do his best, keeping the number of attackers down. His cigarette
lighter had more effect than his pistol had, it was long empty, and he was
running out of substitutes. He'd have to find out why Maya kept a package
of road flares in her desk drawer.
"Get clear," one of the third shift crew shouted from down below near
the map table.
Kaji ran for it as Saotome caught Gendo and Fuyutsuki and leapt to the
Commanders deck of the stacked levels.
Nothing apparently changed, but the creatures had cleared the area
around the Magi.
"Congratulations Mr. Aoba, Mr. Hyuga," Gendo shouted from his
position, "Stay on that radar unit."
The two kept sweeping the air defense radar over the area.
Kaji kept crawling, until he was out of the command center and had
some steel-reinforced concrete between him and that radar unit.
"Innovative," Gendo commented, as Saotome sprinted for the bathroom.
"I hadn't considered using the radar controlled anti-aircraft guns that
way. We'll deploy the other units to protect key areas. Maybe then we can
begin working on the answers."
You escape by the skin of your teeth, Kaji thought, And you're already
congratulating yourself.
"Very good," he said instead, "How are you going to get us out of
here?"
Fuyutsuki was stoic, Gendo merely stared at Kaji, until he walked
away.
He doesn't have any ideas at all, Kaji realized.
----------------------------------------
Toji heard the chanting as it went in and out of phase, the smoke
already made him sleepy, he was nodding. He could barely focus on the line
of Marines, Were they really a million miles away? he found he couldn't
concentrate on anything.
He remembered that when they went after the class rep- Hikari-san, he
hadn't managed to do anything, until he passed out. He quit trying to
fight the anesthetizing chant. He simply closed his eyes, let the scent
and the sound take him away.
I'm going to be inside an EVA, Toji thought, 'There are two ways to
sync with an EVA, one is by force, like wrestling; the other is gentle,
non-coercive, like seduction and making love.' Boy was Captain Misato
shocked by _that_ little revelation from Raccoon! And 'Remember, you're
there to rescue Shinji, keep that firmly in mind. Tease, advise, cajole,
negotiate.' Despite the advice, he was still scared to death.
"Open your eyes."
Raccoon was floating alongside him, as they raced along. He couldn't
see any references, no colors, no other objects except him and Raccoon. It
wasn't black, the color just wasn't there. So he didn't know why he was
certain he was moving, and at nearly incalculable speed.
"OH! terrific," Raccoon cursed, "Well, I should take you back, come
on."
Toji looked around, in all the non-color surrounding him, he saw only
one spot of color. A small blotch of red-brown, conspicuous by being the
only smear of color. "What's got you so spooked? You were certain that
you needed my help. My dad and gramps were at the base when it winked
out."
"Suzuhara-san, that thing," he pointed at the little spot, "Is an
Outer God, the Harbinger of the Great Old Ones, its job is to awaken them,
all at once."
"Yeah, so?"
"It's the size of a planet, Toji. A supernova couldn't scratch it.
An EVA, forget it. If that's what we're fighting, we don't have a prayer."
"Oh," Toji said, the peculiar thing about Raccoon was he was always so
sure of himself, if he was scared . . . Toji also remembered the thing from
the battle between the monsters. The distorted human looking ones had been
slaughtered, the big dragon had better luck, but it had run away too. "I'm
still going. Maybe we can evacuate people - before the - well, you know."
"Yes, I know. You have to do something. I know how it is," Raccoon
smiled, "Maybe we'll get lucky, maybe it's asleep."
----------------------------------------
Asuka picked up the fallen guard's submachine gun. She wondered if
Maya still thought those things were 'cute', the idea to get to the EVAs
wasn't particularly inspired, but nobody had expected these things to turn
vicious. Nobody had expected it to become a last stand. Asuka stripped
the clip out and began reloading her pistol.
"This isn't working," Ritsuko told her. Asuka knew Ritsuko's gun was
empty.
"Well, we can't back up." Asuka replied as she backed up against
Ritsuko, more of the creatures had closed in behind them.
Some of the creatures looked like worms, others stars, still others
shapes that made your eyes water just by looking at them. All of them were
clearly massing to attack.
"What are we going to do?" Ritsuko asked.
Why are you asking _me_?_ Asuka wondered as she took aim at the
nearest ones, You're the adult.
Arm-thick bolts of white-fire fried dozens of the creatures that
surrounded the two women, then a field of haze swept through the rest,
reducing them to dust or smaller particles. Asuka and Ritsuko stood
untouched amid the sudden carnage. Asuka and Ritsuko were completely
alone, for a moment.
"I only know one person stupid enough to parade into Hell to rescue a
pack of carcasses."
Unit 02 walked into sight, followed closely by Unit 01, "Guilty as
charged," Unit 02 said in Raccoon's voice.
"Well, get out of there, I'll take over."
"I'm afraid I can't, the rest of me is back in the real world,"
Raccoon/Unit 02 told her sheepishly. Asuka thought it was nuts, the two
huge EVAs actually looked and acted embarrassed.
"What do you mean?" Asuka was shocked.
"Uh, shouldn't we get out of here?" Unit 01 asked as it glanced around
nervously, clearly fidgety by the state of affairs.
Asuka was jolted, "That's Toji? You brought the three Stooges as
help?"
"Well, that's the best help I could find," Raccoon told them, Unit 02
took on a defiant, offended posture, "But he is right, I assume you were
going after the EVAs for some reason. Right?"
"Yes," Ritsuko cut off Asuka's outrage.
"All right, Toji, I'll go with Dr. Akagi. Langley, you lead Toji,
he'll need a steady hand."
"Why don't I go with you?" Asuka asked.
"Because Dr. Akagi is not a combat-specialist, neither is Toji. It's
you and me, kid."
Asuka nearly went into hysterics at the sight of her Unit 02 trying to
do a Bogart impersonation. Fury at the taint of dishonor warred with the
patently farcical scene. Asuka's common sense managed to win the day, she
kept silent. She could beat up Raccoon and laugh at him, _LATER_._
"Why isn't Shinji with you?" Toji/Unit 01 asked.
Asuka knew it would take time to get used to this.
"He's trapped in the power core with many others," Ritsuko said,
"Asuka take Toji there. We have another destination."
"Oh all right," Asuka grumped, "Lean down here, idiot, then we'll have
to start crawling down the corridors."
Unit 01 leaned over, then held steady, so Asuka could clamber up the
arm and into the empty entry plug.
"I told you our bodies aren't here, like when we went after Hikari,"
Toji's voice and image in the plug told her.
Asuka wasn't happy about being in Unit 01. She was unhappier that yet
_another_ boy could interface with the monster. Maybe it really _is_
Spineless's mother, Asuka silently grumped as she told Toji the best route
for the EVA to crawl through to the depths of NERV. As they crawled, she
gave him a rundown of the weapons, the capabilities of their enemy, and
what else he needed to know if they were attacked. She silently prayed the
stooge could manifest an AT field, in case something serious attacked.
----------------------------------------
Puts Man's Best Dreams to Shame
Ritsuko watched Unit 01 climb down the corridor while she reluctantly
dropped into the entry plug of Unit 02, and affixed the A10 nerve clip to
her head. The system displays and multiple external views were a surprise,
she could get data and external views from the Magi, but she'd never been
able to sync with the EVAs. Nor was she sure why she wasn't dissolving,
being crushed, or going insane.
"With a pilot in place," Jeff explained, "The EVAs are harmless, a
pilot's autonomic nervous system maintains the EVA. Temperature, pressure,
everything. I'm feeding my inputs directly to you. Don't use the hand
controls for anything except balance, they won't work."
"Finally got me alone in the dark," Ritsuko tried to joke, she could
feel something moving out there in the L.C.L.. She wasn't sure what it
was, but she was sure it was out there. She also knew there were things
about L.C.L. they hadn't told the pilots. If the pilots knew enough to do
this, link with the EVAs using a disembodied technique, What _else_ can
they do? Ritsuko worried.
"Relax, doc," Jeff's voice and image appeared before her, "The EVA
won't do anything untoward, nor will I. We have bigger problems right
now."
Ritsuko tried to calm herself, I have my assistant and a pilot as
potential romantic interests, and I do nothing, she thought, I can't even
lie that I'm not interested. I'm such a coward!
"Why do you think you're a coward?" Jeff asked, "Remember you don't
have to speak, just think as if you were speaking."
"Nothing really," she replied, reminding herself to guard her thoughts
more carefully.
"Doctor Akagi . . . Ritsuko, I'm tied into the telemetry and life
support, the EVA's sensors can look inside the plug as well as outside.
Your physiological changes are quite apparent and have been increasing,
rather than decreasing."
"We'll discuss it later, when we're aboard the Bennington, and not so
pressed for time."
"Maya loves you. I don't understand why you're afraid of that."
"That _wasn't_ what I was talking about," Ritsuko said defensively,
"Not entirely anyhow," she justified.
"When you lie, your words turn dark red, did you know that?"
Ritsuko wasn't sure how to take that, was he pulling her leg, or was
there some basis to his statement. "First I want to check the other EVAs,
Units 00 and 04, if we can shut them down, maybe we can get back to the
`real world`."
"Has anybody bothered to look outside?"
"No, we've been otherwise occupied, why?" Ritsuko asked.
"Doctor."
She hated when he said that, it always meant trouble.
"We have a bigger problem than whatever the EVAs are doing," Jeff told
her as they headed towards the doors of the EVA bays.
"We can't go out there, we don't know what the atmosphere is."
"So where did you test the other two?"
"I'll direct you," Ritsuko told him, "Head out of the main bay, to the
test stand." Ritsuko knew that this was potentially disastrous, more than
just bringing an S type engine close to the malfunctioning S2's. The
pilots were her major concern. She'd watched Units 01 and 02 moving. It
had bothered her, those two EVAs didn't move as they should if they were
piloted by people with such a low, or nonexistent sync rates. They were
more fluid, nearly matching the grace and smoothness of Asuka and Ranma,
Rei and Shinji lacked that pair's natural elegance of movement. But
neither EVA had moved in a completely human manner either, using arms and
legs to move along. Kneeling with one arm on the ground, it reminded her
more of the gait of the great apes, like animals, rather than men. Not at
all like the regular gait of the pilots, who should have been controlling
the EVAs every move. She'd had few opportunities to watch Jeff pilot the
EVAs, and he had always been in Unit 04, which would disguise any such odd
movements and tendencies.
I'll have to schedule a motion test with him in Unit 01 or 02, Ritsuko
thought, Probably Unit 02, to break Asuka of the habit of thinking of it as
`her` EVA. Just to salve my curiosity of course. She also wondered that
the EVAs didn't seem to be under the positive control that the other pilots
had to keep theirs under. Both had twitched, glanced around, again in a
nonhuman way, as if the EVA itself was moving, looking around, preparing
for battle or danger, independent of the pilot, or acting on the pilots'
orders rather under the pilots' utter control. However, there seemed to be
absolutely no sign of the berserking that would accompany an out-of-control
EVA. Ritsuko couldn't reconcile the two sets of facts, EVAs had to be
under the rigid control of the pilots to operate and not go berserk. That
was a fact. A fact that a few moments ago had been proven utterly false.
She wondered what other of her `facts` might be wrong.
Did Gendo and Naoko . . . and Yui too - did they lie to me? she
wondered, If they lied about that, what else did they lie about? She idly
wondered if she really wasn't what she remembered she was. She chuckled at
that thought, that Gendo and the others had constructed her, in the same
way she had constructed Sammi, and for much the same purpose, to guard the
project. She discarded that line of reasoning, as tedious as 98% of her
memories actually were, there were subtle differences that told her the
same thing had happened over and over, with slight variations, over an
extremely long time.
I'm good at running away, she thought bitterly, I spent nearly 250
million years doing it.
That one of the pilot's classmates could actually pilot an EVA the
first time out was also frightening. She knew all the students at the
school were potential EVA pilots, but Rei and Asuka had taken months to
master their EVAs. Shinji had trouble the first time, he could barely
walk, only Ranma's experience with unstable footing and his superior,
native balance allowed him to avoid that difficulty. Despite his inhuman
grace and speed, the EVA had initially been very clumsy with him at the
controls.
She remembered Jeff's first sortie against the Angels, he'd discovered
how to swim an EVA, using completely nonhuman movements.
She smiled, And I thought I was going to be bored on the journey to
the Azores, just make-work projects. He'll also be less nervous and
guarded surrounded by U.S. Navy rather than NERV personnel who `know`
better. She thought about the best ways to ferret the secrets from him,
some trick she could teach the others, since he'd obviously taught Toji
whatever it was.
She also felt very uncomfortable in the plug. They'd theorized that a
non-pilot would be at considerable risk riding in an actuated EVA like
this. Experience proved them right, however, she felt nothing
unmanageable, although the warmed, oxygenated L.C.L. felt different from
she was used to. Instead of the slimy stuff she had to swim though when
she did maintenance checks, it was actually rather pleasant, once you got
over the _AWFUL_ taste and smell.
"How do you get used to the darkness and the smell?" she asked.
"I remember there are lemon peels in the showers, and I remember the
first and only time I got skunked. That smells worse, only a little worse,
believe me," Jeff replied.
----------------------------------------
"So what is the problem, Doctor?" Gendo stared at her from his place
on the command deck. He'd been trying to get some kind of idea what
systems were working, what wasn't, and what the enemy's intentions were.
So far neither he, nor she, could detect any pattern at all.
"Patching over, maximum magnification," Davis told them. The dark
brown smudge resolved itself partially. "I think you two know what that
is. It's also probably the source of all your little friends."
Ritsuko watched Gendo pale, both of them knew they had no armament
that would seriously harm the creature. She suspected Davis knew it too,
"I think we'd better consider shutting down the EVAs might not be the only
factor," she told them.
"Agreed, Doctor," Gendo said, he turned to Fuyutsuki, the two
discussed. She wished she knew what they were saying, but she'd never
learned to read lips.
"Are the base's defenses functioning, Doctor?" Jeff asked.
"Not many are installed, we depend on the U.S. military and armed
guards," Ritsuko didn't need to tell him that the U.S. Military wasn't
likely to install the weapons that had been intended when NERV Tokyo was
initially designed.
"Terrific, I'll remind you to get that fixed when we get back," Jeff
told her, "The U.S. probably has a few old battleship guns we could use,
primary and secondary armament. I also understand they aren't too happy
with the Cleveland-class cruisers, stability problems, maybe we could just
bury a few up to the deck on the NERV campus."
If we get back, Ritsuko was glad the pilots never seemed to share the
`adult`s' uncertainties.
----------------------------------------
"Two more coming up on your right," Asuka told Toji as Unit 01 picked
its way forward.
Toji expected Asuka to be a high-strung screamer, like she was at
school. Instead, she was cool and competent, she kept an eye on the entire
situation, put the threats in priority order, and kept him 'on mission'.
She was still arrogant, but she was no longer insulting, and she really
knew her stuff. Which made her incredible arrogance tolerable, even
understandable. She was teaching him the ins and outs of her idea of an
EVA pilot.
Toji was _still_ scared to death, of where he was, and what he was
doing.
"The door on the left," Asuka's voice snapped him back from
contemplating his anxiety, to the present, real anxiety, "Keep an eye on
it. I saw some movement. What's the power status?"
"Uh, 4:56.28, whatever that means. It looks like hours and minutes,
but it's too slow," Toji told her.
"It's minutes and seconds on the internal batteries," Asuka told him.
"Five minutes?!" he couldn't believe it, "What could you possibly do
in five minutes?"
"Enough," Asuka replied in the same calm tone, "That's why the tethers
and external batteries."
Toji wished he could shake his head to clear it. He wished Raccoon
had collected Kensuke for this job, instead of him.
He was near the power core. Now he could see the things were
plastered all over the doors and walls, like some kind of mold or lichen.
They moved enough to give a crawling effect, as if the door and walls were
actually alive and moving.
"Scrape'em off," she ordered.
"You mean kill them," Toji said.
"I mean kill them to save the people behind that door, yourself, your
sister, all of humanity."
He hated her calm and rational tone. She makes it sound so easy,
killing things, he thought as he advanced. It would have been easier if
they attacked him, but they didn't. He was just squashing bugs. He could
understand the necessity, and accept it. He hated it, but he did it.
Smashing the creatures before his massive hands was too easy. They
didn't flee, instead they simply stayed there to be killed.
Soon, he had cleared them all away, and at Asuka's insistence,
searched the immediate area to make sure none were lurking anywhere nearby.
"The wheel on the side, just crank it open," Asuka told him.
Toji did as he was told, looked in at the frightened people.
"Put out your hand, and tell them to get onboard," Asuka told him,
"Then look around, it's too quiet, that usually means an ambush is on the
way."
Again Toji did as he was told. "You're paranoid," Toji told her as he
carefully carried the technicians, office workers, security troops and
others out of the power core, but he kept looking around as ordered,
expecting an immediate attack. "What am I supposed to do with all these
civilians?" he muttered.
"Leave that to me," Asuka told him, "Concentrate on seeing what's
there, not what you _think_ is there. A few extra seconds of readiness
makes a huge difference. Considering your best course of action is to run
away."
Toji never expected to hear that from her, "Run away?!"
"Unprotected civilians in an EVA battle - are corpses. Running may
shake them up, but they'll probably live," Asuka said stoically.
Toji was confused, this wasn't the Asuka he was used to.
"Slow down, on the left," Asuka cautioned.
Toji wasn't sure what she'd seen, nothing was there. At the same
time, he was sure she wasn't playing a game. He saw a few of the creatures
he'd squashed before, they were just circling something. Toji thought he
was being ridiculous, sneaking a 40 meter tall, 700 ton machine past
something so small. They paid no attention to the EVA as it crept past.
"Keep an eye on what's behind us. They could be ignoring us until
we're past, or until they have the forces necessary to overwhelm us."
Toji was worried more than he ever had been before, "Why couldn't this
be Kensuke?" Toji murmured.
"You're doing fine, for a rank beginner. Keep your eyes open, this
isn't as bad as going after Hikari. There's always a chance they aren't
hostile and all our vigilance is for nothing. But don't bet your life and
mine on it."
"Have you looked outside?" Toji asked.
"No. What did you see out there?" Asuka asked, she continued checking
everything.
"When we drop these people off, I'll show you. Where are we going
anyway?" Toji asked, "You don't think ole' Shinji wants his EVA back do
you?"
"I think he's willing to let it go," Asuka said, "Only Kensuke is that
eager. Another reason better you than him."
Toji was beginning to wonder if he was dreaming, loud-mouth Sour Kraut
_never_ acted like this, he'd always thought Asuka was ready for a fight
against anyone or anything at any time, more even than Ranma. He looked
within, watching her carefully checking systems, glancing around, quiet,
virtuoso even. It was scary, too different.
"You know what worries me?" Asuka asked him as she had him 'check six'
again.
"I didn't think _anything_ scared you."
"There's a big difference between being worried, when you are more
cautious, and scared, where you freeze or do something stupid," Asuka
retorted, "How different you're acting. You aren't acting like a dumb
jock. It's a pleasant, if unforeseen, surprise. I'll have to apologize to
Hikari, if we get back."
"When we get back," Toji said.
"_IF_," Asuka corrected, "It's part of our job to be ready to die.
Wondergirl understands, so does Raccoon, but not Horseface, or Ice
Princess, or Spineless. If your life would save all the people of Earth,
you should be ready to give it up. Not throw it away, but spend it for a
good return."
Toji squirmed at that, it was an uncomfortable look into the life of
an EVA pilot. Then he realized _he_ was now an EVA pilot, although his
body was elsewhere, he was directing this EVA. Kensuke would go nuts, and
would never understand why Toji wasn't doing hurrahs and handstands about
the experience. No kid should have the entire weight of the world land on
his shoulders, it explained instantly why the pilots had such extreme
personalities. "Thanks," Toji said, What does that make me? he didn't add
out loud.
----------------------------------------
Hope is a Waking Dream
"So, what's the matter Ranko?" Asuka asked the martial artist who sat
in Unit 01's hand, "Afraid Toji will take advantage of you?"
"That's not it," Ranko replied, full of fight.
Toji was amazed at the reaction from Ranko that Raccoon was still
alive, and that there was some word about Rei and Nabiki. She'd hugged the
unit's thumb, which made Toji very embarrassed. He'd also learned the
trick that let him talk to only the person in the plug. "Is she normally
this way? I mean so . . . " Toji didn't have a description that wouldn't
get him slapped.
"Vivacious, exciting?" Asuka replied tiredly.
She almost sounds jealous, Toji discarded the impossible thought.
"Well, she acts different from how she does at school."
"That scene at school where they kissed," Asuka explained.
Toji squirmed, he would have killed Raccoon for that, if Ranma hadn't
arrived, intent on doing exactly that himself. "Yeah."
"It was a fake, all a sham to keep you and the others from making
complete idiots of yourselves around her."
Toji felt sick, he'd been tricked. She was still -
"However, as the first guy to actually treat her nicely, to treat her
as a lady instead of a pretty piece of meat, she fell for him. She's a
girl, girls are weak little things no good at martial arts, that's what her
father always told her."
"She could wipe the floor with all of us, all at the same time!" Toji
couldn't believe what he was hearing, "Say, how do _you_ know that? I
thought she didn't remember."
"You remember that dream you had, where you saw Ghroth before?" Asuka
asked.
"How'd you know about that?" Toji asked, he was getting worried.
"I am a pilot," she said ominously, "Do you really want to know _all_
the details? All the unclean, soul-searing secrets?"
"No." Toji concentrated on the things around him. They were keeping
their distance from the EVA, which was fine with him. Their appearance had
been nagging at him.
They look like those things Yumiwashi always claimed were under her
bed at night.
"Say that again!" Asuka commanded. When he hesitated, "Say it again,
word-for-word! _NOW_!_"
Toji was frightened by the sudden change in Asuka, suddenly she was so
intense, he thought she'd throttle him to get an answer. He didn't protest
he hadn't spoken, he just did as he was ordered. Asuka was silent,
pensive. Toji got every impression that the artillery was just awaiting
orders to fire.
Far too calmly, she activated the comm system. Images of Akagi-sensei
and Raccoon appeared.
"Unit 02, problems Langley?" Raccoon asked.
"Curly here just commented that these little ones remind him of
monsters his little sister would see. Coincidence?"
Something about Asuka's tone gave Toji the shivers, he also got the
impression that she and Raccoon were communicating on levels neither he nor
anyone else would ever understand.
"Makes sense, how many people down from Angel's Malaise, a few
hundred," Raccoon said, as if discussing the weather, "That's quite a power
source."
"What are you two talking about?" Akagi-sensei demanded.
"That the base wasn't brought here by just the accident with the EVAs,
there were other forces involved," Raccoon replied, in the same spooky,
clinical tone that Asuka was using.
Toji felt apart from the pair of them, as if they were in there own
world. "What do you think, Akagi-sensei?"
"I think you should call me Rit - tsuko, and you'd better be prepared
for a battery of tests. I want to know how you managed to do this."
"It's his fault," Toji made his image point at Raccoon's.
"Well, that's obvious," Asuka said.
"I don't see any other possibility either," Raccoon agreed.
"What _are_ you two talking about?" Akagi-sensei asked. She wasn't
happy about being left out of their deliberations any more than Toji was.
"An expedition to Ghroth," Raccoon said as if it was the simplest
thing in the world, "That's where we'll get our answers."
"How did you two get that out of what I said?!" Toji demanded.
"It's obvious!" Asuka said defensively.
The obvious took the rest of the walk to the EVA bays to explain to
Akagi-sensei, Toji was still utterly mystified by the time they arrived.
----------------------------------------
The fountains of light from the two stricken Units worried Ritsuko far
worse than the ludicrous idea the pilots had come up with, or the way they
had come up with it. One idea built on another, ideas were tested, failed
hypotheses discarded, new ones supplanted them. Jeff and Asuka had been
going so fast Ritsuko hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise. After a
few attempts, she simply sat back and quit trying. The Magi could operate
this way, taking a problem to bits, each of the three units working to
solve one part of it, with occasional input from the other two so the
solution of the entire problem was a smooth and unified whole, but two
humans shouldn't have been able to do that, not the way those two did it.
If the pair were telepathic, that could explain their behavior. Neither
had any such skill, yet they finished each other's sentences, spoke in an
almost-indecipherable shorthand, took and gave criticism of their ideas
without any animosity, all completely without the braggadocio or arrogant
condescension they both so often displayed. When they were done, Ritsuko
could see that the effort was not without drawbacks, the two were
exhausted, but they quickly bounced back as they explained the idea.
Ritsuko was further boggled by the way their explanations linked,
Asuka dealt with most of the scientific/theoretical aspects, while Jeff
handled the technical/engineering aspects. The odd experience of hearing
the details coming from two voices, both of them switching effortlessly and
seamlessly, was terribly unnerving.
They had as much as said that someone or something had assembled the
spirits of those who fallen victim to Angel's Malaise, and were using them
to move the Outer God Ghroth to Earth, to prematurely awaken the remaining
Great Old Ones. Ritsuko had thought the Commander would instantly put a
stop to their foolish idea, to actually travel to the creature and poke
around. The monster was the size of an entire planet. The EVAs would be
needed at the base to defend the personnel, the equipment . . . and other
things, at the base.
'It seems reasonable,' was Gendo's only reaction. Ritsuko had nearly
fainted in shock.
"Approaching Unit 04," Jeff's voice sounded through the plug, "Are you
sure we shouldn't just let Langley and Ranko try to get control of the
EVAs?"
"We disconnect the S2 engines," Ritsuko told him firmly, "That may get
us out of here and home."
"Little bet?" came the subdued reply that meant he was thinking rather
than saying it.
"Okay approaching the Unit, I get no activity on any of the feeds,"
Jeff told her in a louder `spoken` voice.
She was amazed at the way he was presenting the information, touch
screens, visual readout, various colors and chart types. This was closer
to how the original systems of the Elder Things had functioned. It made
her wonder how much he really knew about the Elder Things and their
technology. She hadn't had time to investigate what the Americans had
brought back from their 1930-1931 expedition to Antarctica. She idly
wondered if she ever would.
The back of EVA Unit 04 came off smoothly, exposing a very ordinary
looking brown box, some 4.3 meters along its longest side. She'd also
noticed Jeff wasn't talking while he worked. According to Asuka, he often
complained while he worked, she said he always did. 'It is the surest way
to determine if things are going well' Asuka had told her.
Ritsuko rarely, if ever, heard him complain. So what does that mean?
she wondered.
Asuka's image appeared, "There are a lot of those things massing at
the door. I think they'll rush us as soon as the radiation density drops."
"You think the radiation is holding them off?" Ritsuko asked,
"According to these readouts, most of it is in the far Ultraviolet, all of
it is between 350 and 500 angstroms."
"That's very interesting, no x-ray, no gamma," Asuka replied, "I find
that incredibly thoughtful of them. Almost as if someone arranged it."
"I think you're being paranoid, the energy barrier increases as it
shifts to shorter wavelengths, you know that."
"Actually . . . ," Asuka said worriedly as she leaned close to the
pick up, "I have been worried about something for a few hours now," she
glanced around.
"What, some enemy?" Ritsuko asked, catching the girl's fear.
"No, more important than that," Asuka whispered, "Why hasn't he put
the moves on you?"
"_ASUKA_!_!_" Ritsuko yelled at the giggling girl.
"I've seen the way he looks at you," Asuka continued, "Now he's got
you all alone and intimate, and he's neglecting you. It hurts, I can
tell."
"Asuka!" Ritsuko threatened, "Be quiet."
"Well, I know he's too much of a gentleman, but watching him pine
away, like Spineless and Wondergirl," Asuka sighed, "I just have to move
young love along."
"Asuka, you do remember that you've got a physical coming up?" Ritsuko
glowered at her.
Asuka laughed at her, "If you think you're cheating on Maya, you could
invite them both over. Tell him Maya won't be jealous, or maybe a foursome
with Maya and Ranko."
Ritsuko wished she could reach through the picture and strangle the
laughing girl. "Jeff, aren't you going to say something?"
"When you neglected to remember Toji and Asuka are in the same
positions as you and me? No, I wasn't," came the distracted voice.
Ritsuko turned to Asuka with a malevolent smile. Asuka cut the
connection and kept blocking it at her end.
"Accept you lost the opportunity and take your lumps, Doctor," Jeff's
voice counseled.
"You tolerate what she was saying?"
"Why not? It's true."
Ritsuko suddenly felt very alone in the EVA's plug. Four simple words
in a hopeless tone, and the silence that followed, did that. "I know you
told me . . . but I thought you'd - that it was temporary. Blunted Affect
means you . . . well your feelings are . . . you couldn't love someone."
"I was Ranma in the dream. All the feeds are disconnected, I can
remove the engine now."
"Check the breakers, make sure the system is shut off. You evaded my
question."
"No, I just did not give you an answer you wish to accept," Jeff
replied.
She watched the screen with the breaker status go from all red to all
green then back to all red.
"All checks out, removing engine," Jeff told her, in the same slightly
detached voice he'd been using.
The piece of equipment that had caused so much trouble, slid out
easily, Unit 02 set it on the floor of the test stand bay, then the
replacement S type engine went in, and Unit 02 began installing that one in
Unit 04. One unadorned brown box for another.
"So are you saying you had normal emotions in the dream?" Ritsuko
felt like she was walking on a frozen pond, with no idea how thick the ice
was, and no idea what else was beneath the ice.
"No, I had _Saotome's_ usual level of emotions, both of them. The
remnant of that still carries over. It was supposed to disturb my mind,
remember?" Jeff voice told her. He hadn't activated a screen to appear
before her. All the screens showed what the EVA was doing, or the
radiation count, or some technical thing. There was no center for her to
focus on, no way to direct her sentiment to Jeff.
"I don't - I can't feel the same," she said.
Liar, you can, you just won't, Ritsuko thought of Maya, and all the
clues she'd steadfastly ignored. Even little Rei's attempts to be friends,
all of it ignored for the 'work'. Even Gendo wasn't as cold as she tried
to be, she'd seen him react to the death of his wife. No, only the Akagis
didn't cry, Ritsuko thought, I know why Naoko Akagi didn't. Why didn't
Ritsuko Akagi? she asked herself. Cowardice was the only answer she could
come up with. She could claim an age difference, it was several orders of
magnitude after all. She'd probably lived more years than he'd lived
seconds, even if most of it was simply scrounging for food and avoiding
patrols, letting the years pass without learning or doing anything new.
She frowned at that, it was ridiculous to consider, both of them.
They would never understand her. Maya didn't even know what she really
was, Jeff should have run screaming once he found out. It didn't make an
ounce of sense that he hadn't, that Maya seemed not to get the hint.
"S engine installed," Jeff's voice appeared, still no picture, "Should
Unit 01 bring Ranko here, or should I switch with Langley and take Unit 04
myself?"
"No, let Ranko pilot it," Ritsuko said, cursed herself as spineless
for not confronting him about this, while they had some privacy. She was
supposed to be an adult, the adult. Yet she was afraid of the feelings for
her of a college girl and a school boy. It was absurd, and she was
laughable. She was jealous of the way Shinji and Rei, Nabiki and Ranma,
Ranko and Jeff all carried on. She had the opportunity to have her own
part of it, to assuage the loneliness that gnawed at her, and she ran away.
She watched Unit 01 carry Ranma to Unit 04. She wasn't sure if Asuka
or Toji was 'driving'. Whoever it was, kept the bulk of Unit 01 between
Ranma and the radiation Unit 00 was still emitting, and its hands enclosed
the girl, to keep any reflected light off her. Once in the entry plug
they'd already previously positioned, Ranma brought Unit 04 to operational
status. That left Unit 00, Unit 02 was working on that one.
"Do you think we'll ever be able to use the S2 engines?" she asked.
"Isn't that what I should be asking?" Jeff replied, "If there was
sabotage, I can't detect it."
"We'll probably have to completely disassemble both units and go over
them and the blueprints." Ritsuko didn't relish examining every wire, pipe
and junction in the 27+ cubic meter engine.
"Assuming it didn't do exactly what it was supposed to do," he replied
as the engine slid out. The installation of the normal power plant in Unit
00 was almost anticlimactic.
"If you had that other one sitting around, why wasn't it tested
earlier?" Jeff asked.
"I think you can guess the reason. Besides, the one you installed in
Unit 04 was the prototype, the others were based on it."
Ranma's face appeared, "Well, I'm ready to go!" she proclaimed, "Who
do we hit first?"
An image of Ghroth, and a picture of Earth to indicate the scale
appeared. "That," Jeff voice told her, "That's why we scout first, and
shoot later."
"If at all," Asuka appeared and added.
Ranma gulped and nodded, her enthusiasm dimmed slightly at the sheer
size of their opponent.
"We have another problem!" Toji's voice and image intruded, followed
by the image of thousands of the creatures charging the three occupied
EVAs.
Fire from Unit 02, and a compressed AT field ball from Unit 04
finished off most of them. Something unseen shredded the rest.
"That's not a problem," Asuka said smugly, "That's just a warm up."
Toji's cry of surprise made Ritsuko smile. "Pilots don't give up . .
. ever," she warned him.
"Just remember that, Rit-_chan_," Asuka teased.
"Toji, can you access the ejection system?" Ritsuko asked.
"Girls!" Jeff shouted over Asuka's retort.
"Yeah, you can't expect them to be serious," Ranma pronounced,
igniting another argument with Asuka.
Ritsuko noted that Toji and Jeff kept silent, as they drove Units 01
and 02 to their cradles in the EVA bay.
----------------------------------------
"How do you plan to get there?" Gendo sat in his chair in the
Commander's level of the command center, he was alone, no one else wanted
to brave doing their job amid the radar beams. His level was safely out of
range. The images of Dr. Akagi and the pilots appeared in his mind eye
through the nerve clip.
"Gravity can't be anything except a convention here," Pilot Langley
explained, "This base doesn't have the mass to generate it, and the mass of
Ghroth should be pulling us towards it."
"That isn't happening," Gendo agreed, "So, since there is no gravity,
are you just going to jump and flap your arms?" He'd meant it as sardonic.
"That's the plan in a nutshell," Pilot Davis said, not taking Gendo's
words as an insult, "Once on our way, the problem becomes tracking our
target. That's where Suzuhara-san and Saotome-san come in. If Saotome can
trace the unique life energy signature of Suzuhara Yumiwashi, I'm betting
we find the force that is holding us here."
"Doctor Akagi, your comments?" Gendo faced the scientist. He was
worried that the pilots had developed this plan among themselves, he was
even more worried that it might be the best course of action.
"It is a lot of 'ifs' strung together," Ritsuko admitted, "The chief
among them is the atmosphere outside, with the EVA bays in our hands, we
can use the exit tunnel as an airlock. Also Unit 00 will remain behind to
guard the base, since we have no fourth long-range engine."
"How soon before all the S type engines are fully recharged?" Gendo
asked.
"Two hours," Ritsuko told him, "Shinji, aboard Unit 00 is already
patrolling critical areas."
Gendo nodded, he wondered about: why that combination? "Very well, we
have that long to develop an alternative plan. If we have not, we will go
with the plan, substantially as proposed."
The pilots simply nodded, then vanished. Gendo was getting worried by
this turn of events, If the pilots are capable of this level of planning, I
may have to alter circumstances in the planning. He smiled at the headache
the old men were going to get if they started dealing with more capable and
flexible pilots.
He still had a few tools to get them to do what he want - what he
needed them to do. In a way, it had become easier, if they interconnected,
he need pull only one string to get the entire web to move as he willed.
Their plan was not the worry, he knew he could smooth over the rough
edges. He did want to know who had sent them here, and for what purpose.
That was the mystery he needed solved. No revelation had presented itself,
although Fuyutsuki was still researching.
----------------------------------------
"I told you, professional," Jeff smugly reminded Asuka.
"Fine you were right! I just hope I'm around when you're finally
wrong," Asuka shot back.
"Like Kelbim Harbor?" Jeff asked innocently.
Asuka paled, "No, I do not want to got through _that_ again." Then
she rallied, "And what's with the flames? How do you get flames out of
_MY_ EVA?"
"I asked, since it did absorb Cthugha, it stands to reason - "
Ritsuko tuned out their argument/discussion at that point, the two of
them were giving her a headache. "Let me out, I have to go meet with the
Commanders."
"Not until Shinji completes his patrol, then he'll escort you to the
showers," Jeff's voice and image, both this time, appeared. He was holding
his nose, "You'll have a certain . . . piquancy. I think the Commanders
will accept the delay."
She could defy their `request`, and climb out on her own. She could
easily get to the hatch, but she was still concerned about what was lurking
out there in the L.C.L.. She doubted the pilots would try to hurt her, but
. . . they could insist. She had heard the various Reis comment on ghosts,
usually as they died trying to sync with Unit 01. She had dismissed them
as dying hallucinations, or seeing the other side of death. Now she was
feeling the reality. There _was_ something out there, something she
couldn't see, or touch, but she was sure it was there.
"Relax Rit-chan," Ranma told her, "Our job as pilots is to protect the
weak and helpless." The girl had her typical fist in the air, 'I am
invincible' pose.
"Oh deary deary me, an old lady can't just be alone in the cold, cruel
world," Ritsuko teased back. Ranko got completely flustered, denying that
was what she meant.
Ritsuko glanced at Toji's image, even as a projection, he looked at
the other pilots and was completely mystified. She had sympathy for him,
she hadn't figured them out either. The warning about 14-year-olds kept
coming back, about them being adults one second and irrational children the
next. She simply sat back and let the three-way argument run. She could
wait until Shinji arrived.
----------------------------------------
"Good of you to join us, Doctor," Gendo said with his usual sarcasm.
Once again secure within his own office, his superiority returned full
force.
Kaji wondered why the things couldn't pass the walls of this office.
Did the weird designs on the floor have some real effect, other than
disturbing the unwary and the easily frightened? He smiled at Rit-chan as
she entered, All the usual suspects present and accounted for, he thought.
He knew this was going to be an interesting meeting, full of half-truths
and code-speak, most of which he'd already deciphered. They don't need to
know that, he thought as he smiled.
"All washed up after your adventure. How was piloting an EVA?" Kaji
joked.
"You should try it sometime. As long as the pilot trusts you and vice
versa, you're perfectly safe." She smiled back.
Wonder why she's being so catty about it? Kaji thought, Maybe
something _else_ happened in there. He decided he'd have to investigate
further, there were rumors about her and Maya, and about her and Davis. Of
course there were also rumors about him and Misato, but those _were_ only
rumors, rumors he'd spread.
"How did Davis and Suzuhara access the EVAs?" Fuyutsuki demanded.
"Evidently, only the spirit of a pilot is necessary to sync with an
EVA," Ritsuko told them, "That may be the requirement that has been
escaping us."
Our pilots have to be `spirited`, Kaji thought, looking at the serious
faces around him, And there's something else, something deeper, regarding
spirits?
"That doesn't explain how we get out of here," Kaji added.
"We will be getting to that," Gendo reminded him, "It is also
important to understand how we got here. Even after an explanation I still
haven't managed to fathom that."
"If one spirit drives the EVA, then 500 could bring us here," Ritsuko
told them.
Kaji nearly fell out of his chair, "This wasn't an accident."
"Obviously," Gendo said. The looks from the others meant they had
come to the same `obvious` conclusion.
Gendo wasn't in the mood to explain, "They are actually expecting to
locate their target so easily?"
"The folly of youth," Fuyutsuki said.
"Not such folly. If what Ranma said was true," Ritsuko explained, "He
should be able to use Suzuhara as a detection device. Even I don't
understand it all, evidently they do, and their demonstration was
convincing."
"So they arrive on Ghroth, and do what?" Kaji asked.
"Find Suzuhara's sister, Yumiwashi, and hopefully the others," Ritsuko
was lecturing now, "If they can `unplug` them from the mystical circuit, we
might spontaneously return home. Or at the very least, we won't have to
worry about Ghroth continuing to approach Earth."
"Again, a great many 'ifs' strung together," Gendo said. Kaji thought
there was something else bothering him.
"What assembled this trap?" Fuyutsuki asked, "I can't imagine anything
strong enough to divert an Outer God this way, even using 500 humans as a
power source."
"That I don't know," Ritsuko said.
She's lying, Kaji thought.
"That isn't a major concern," Gendo said, "If it was that powerful, it
wouldn't have to resort to this kind of subterfuge. It may also be
something we haven't heard of before, something that has been hidden from
us, in our corner of the universe. Even the oldest source material doesn't
cover _everything_," Gendo said.
Kaji kept himself from smiling, Now we're getting somewhere, 'oldest
source material' is it? Where is it? And how do I get my hands on it?
"If they are not successful?" Kaji asked, "They are just children
after all. Suppose they guessed wrong? What happens if they have to fight
Ghroth?"
"If they are wrong," Ritsuko breathed, "What kind of back up plan do
we have? Even a supernova won't scratch that thing."
No one answered her.
----------------------------------------
Dreams Mortals Never Dared Before
The three EVAs, Units 01, 02 and 04, marched into the exit shaft.
Within Unit 01, Toji kept silent as they waited while the huge doors closed
behind them. He could sense that the pilots were uneasy, waiting for the
outer doors to open. He guessed that normally they'd rush out to battle,
if they only had five minutes, standing there waiting must have seemed
wrong and unnatural somehow.
"Are you sure Nab-chan is all right?" Ranko asked nervously.
"That's what they told me," Raccoon, still within Unit 02, answered.
"And you trust them?" Asuka, back in Unit 02's seat, asked him.
"I'd expect they'd come up with a more inventive lie, if they were
lying, I mean, flying saucers _and_ weather balloons crashing outside of
the base in Roswell. Who'd believe that?" Raccoon said.
From his spot in Unit 01 with Shinji. Toji kept silent, he felt he
was caught in a discussion with college professors. Even Shinji was more
expert than he was, he still hadn't figured out why they needed him there.
The outer doors opened, there was no in- or out-rushing of air.
"Whatever the atmosphere is, it's at standard pressure," Raccoon told the
technical crew.
The EVAs carefully walked out, Ranko, then Asuka and Raccoon, lastly
Shinji and him.
"The grass is still green, the trees are still alive. I assume it's
breathable by plants," Asuka told them.
"The EVAs are operating properly," Dr. Akagi told them, "I'd say it
was safe to proceed."
They marched in a ragged line out into the campus surrounding the
base, the idea was ridiculous on the face of it, but in this place it might
actually work.
"Are we going to walk to the edge and fall off?" Toji asked.
"That's what I think would work," Raccoon supplied, "It may work, it
may not."
"What do we do if it doesn't?" Ranko asked.
"You stand on Langley's AT field and she lifts us there, while
Shinji-san carries Unit 02 on his AT field or in his arms," Raccoon
replied.
That sounded as wild as the idea that they could jump or fall there.
He was primarily a passenger now, the EVA felt very different with Shinji
in it, rather than Asuka. He wondered how far the relationship between the
pilots and the EVAs actually went, what it actually meant.
Kensuke doesn't know the half of it, Toji thought as they marched to
the 'edge of the world' in silence. The immense Outer God dominated their
view and their thoughts.
----------------------------------------
The staff watched the advance as they sat in the auxiliary control
room, the strange small creatures had clustered around the radar 'field'
keeping the Magi free of them. They circled and swarmed, seeking a way in.
This left other areas unoccupied. Ritsuko watched the radar units, the
creatures were avoiding them. She wondered why they would have been
interested in the Magi and the power core, yet seemed afraid of radar. She
shrugged and moved back to watch the crew. Baker, Maya, Hyuga and Aoba
kept checking things, they didn't need her to tell them their jobs.
She glanced up to where Gendo was sitting high atop the regular
command deck, although she suspected he was sitting on the floor rather
than a chair, so the walls protected _him_ from the radar beams.
A smile from Maya, she wondered if the girl was putting on a brave
face, if she was really that confident, or if she was flirting with her
skittish sempai. Ritsuko watched the EVAs walk to the edge of the
`territory.` She wondered if this would work, or if it was merely bravado.
She looked around at the others who were watching, all of them seemed
immune to the nagging fear that plagued her. She didn't show it, it wasn't
a good idea to voice your fears in front of 'the troops'. She knew fear
was contagious.
All I have to do is have a little faith, Ritsuko thought, Is that too
much to ask . . . ? when she realized it was, Why is it too much to ask?
----------------------------------------
Asuka looked at Ghroth. She was completely confident in her part of
this. After all, only she could do it. She didn't even faintly understand
how Raccoon expected to find their target. He'd explained it all in terms
Horseface understood instantly, but the explanation for the intelligent had
been a little shaky, especially: what if Curly's sister wasn't with the
others. Still, he'd said it was 'a guess', that usually meant he was
pretty sure, but not certain. In her experience, such plans worked.
Unfortunately, when they didn't, they didn't in a spectacular fashion. In
the Dreamlands, the two of them had walked into an ambush or two, and
walked out, because they could outgun and outfight their ambushers.
Kelbim Harbor for one, she thought. Here that wouldn't be the case.
She leapt, and found that gravity released her the instant her EVA's
feet left the ground. She glanced back, Horseface and Spineless leapt
after her. All three units proceeded across the void. She looked at the
image of Horseface, trying to `read` the impressions of the others. She
didn't understand how it worked. Resonance made sense, but spiritual
resonance and the magical jargon of how it worked weren't things she could
understand.
Maybe Gendo is spookier than I thought, Asuka remembered how the
Commander of NERV had nodded sagely while offering suggestions and
corrections, Only he and Raccoon really understood what Raccoon was talking
about. Although Horseface understood her part, maybe it's just me.
She could accept that her friend had a few `tricks` she didn't, like
her skill with a spear, or her saber-halberd. Raccoon would never have a
pray against Horseface in a fight, spears, polearms or otherwise, the
Meliorist might give Horseface a good work out, armed that way. She just
had to trust he could handle the mystical end, she'd guard them on their
venture. So, she kept her temper, and kept silent.
Magic in the Waking World bothered her, worried her. She knew a few
spells in the Dreamlands, every real adventurer did. But magic in the
Waking World didn't only have a benign effect, nor did it work as well. It
had costs she wasn't willing to pay, and you needed a lot more experience
and power to make it work. She suspected her friend only knew the
principles, but he couldn't really do that much. She hoped that was the
truth. The other possibilities were too disturbing to think about.
She half-expected to hear all the boys yammering about something, but
that didn't happen either. She kept the images on, to see what they were
doing. Spineless kept looking behind to see if they were being pursued.
Horseface, Curly and Raccoon were working on guiding them, only whispers
passed between them.
What Asuka really wanted was to go over the blueprints of the S and S2
engines. The best batteries available could only provide power for five
minutes at most, with externals increasing that to 30, and AT field usage
consumed power at five times the standard rate. Operating even one EVA
with an AT field took about 50,000 shaft horsepower from a warship, or
several locomotives. Yet the S2 engines could operate an EVA indefinitely,
and the S types could give six hours before needing recharging, no matter
what the EVA did, including simply standing still not being recharged.
That was just one of the maddening things they hadn't told her about these
new engines, nor had they told her what the fuel was, as if it was some
deep, dark secret.
Virgin's blood or something, Asuka thought, With Spineless and
Horseface around, they'll always have a supply!
"Up and more left," Horseface whispered, deep in concentration.
She adjusted their trajectory automatically, then Spineless adjusted
the path of Unit 02.
"Aren't we going to crash?" Curly asked.
"Gravity is a surface phenomenon here, like glue," she replied, "Even
if that thing does have a real gravitational pull, we can handle it."
We'd have to let the EVAs drop for miles before they could build up
enough force to penetrate our AT fields, Asuka thought.
"At this rate, it's going to take hours to get there," she told them,
"So Horseface, why don't you enjoy the zero gravity. You always wanted to
be a frog or a bird bouncing around the way you do. Now you've got your
chance."
Unit 04 tried one simple maneuver, and wound up spinning helplessly
through all three dimensions. Asuka shook her head, she wondered about
Horseface sometimes. "How can someone be deft and completely clumsy at the
same time?" she murmured.
"Try extending your arms and legs," she told him.
"Hey! I'm slowing down!" Horseface exclaimed, then pulled them in as
if he'd accomplished something. "WHAT'S haaaaappppeeennninngggg!"
Horseface demanded as he spun faster and faster.
Conservation of Angular momentum, Asuka thought, then decided against
telling him.
"Put your arms back out, and make an impulse counter to your
rotation!" she told him.
"Which rotation?" Horseface demanded, "What's an impulse?"
"Pick one," Asuka told him, she cut the transmitter for a moment. "A
martial artist should be able to control himself better."
"Not if the martial artist doesn't know how to dance or ice skate,"
Raccoon told her, "At least Unit 04's center of mass is still headed in the
right direction. I just hope Saotome doesn't get motion sickness. You
ought to practice too, give our competitive friend something to shoot for."
"And have you barfing ectoplasm all over wherever you're hiding in my
EVA?" Asuka countered, "No thanks."
"I was right, you are a jelly doughnut," he told her in German. [ein
Berliner].
Asuka nearly ground her teeth in frustration. Instead, she
reactivated the transmitter, "Like this, Horseface." Asuka duplicated Unit
04's spinning with Unit 02, then went through controlling it, step-by-step.
"Good thing he learns quick. I wouldn't want to do that again," Asuka
admitted.
"I'm very proud of you," Raccoon told her.
Asuka wished he was really here, so she could hit him, "You do know I
hate you, don't you?" She was a little surprised she didn't get a gibe or
taunt in reply.
Oh, crap! It's _that_ time of year. I wish he'd just get over it,
Asuka thought, then frowned, Like I got over the destruction of my mother?
She kept that feeling buried deep inside, sometimes she wished she
could look at those memories, without breaking down completely. She
couldn't afford that now, not even for a few days, not even for a few
hours. Sometimes when she was alone, late at night in her room, she'd give
in. She could cry and scream into the pillows, where no one could see or
hear, so she could keep the illusion she was still in control, still on top
of everything . . . still The Great ASUKA SORYU LANGLEY. Instead of a
scared, little, 6-year-old, girl wearing maturity and confidence like a
shroud.
My, aren't we melancholy, Asuka thought, she wondered why Spineless
was so quiet, he should have been doing cartwheels after finding out that
Wondergirl was still alive. Instead, he'd gotten much quieter.
Asuka was worried about that, and the others. Curly, normally
proof-positive that humans were related to apes, seemed to be shocked into
contemplative silence by the EVAs and the realities of being a pilot, so
_he_ was behaving as a human being, rather than his usual idiot self.
They're all worried, Asuka thought, We don't know what we're getting
ourselves into. So we worry.
She watched Unit 04 spin, stop, spin in another direction, stop.
Well, Asuka thought, frowning, Some of us.
----------------------------------------
"This place looks almost normal," Ranko told the others, mainly
because it scared her so much, and getting their reactions would help. She
didn't know what she was expecting, but hills and trees weren't it. The
colors were weird. But giant mushrooms and living skeletons, something
more - alien, was what she had expected, and that wasn't what was here.
The trees, weirdly colored but ordinary, weren't reaching out to grab them
as they passed. The hills weren't raising up and turning into immense
ravening monsters. The ground wasn't sending out tentacles to engulf them,
or spontaneously becoming quicksand. It could either be hugely
anticlimactic, or it was all waiting for them to relax. Then they would be
attacked from all sides, by everything. Ranko shivered at that. It would
have been better if it was extremely weird. This slight variation to
normalcy set her teeth on edge. The perversion of dullness and banality
was worse than plainly hideous things leaping out at her.
Maybe this place is spookier than I thought, she didn't say out loud.
She was scared enough for everybody.
"Those aren't trees, they're growths directly from the creature,"
Raccoon told her, "Everything here is part of the creature. It knows we're
here. It knows we've come. It knows what we are, even if only dimly."
Oddly, that made her feel better, having Raccoon get all scary like
that. It made her fears more justified and generally held, and they didn't
seem as bad that way. She'd heard stories about a planet all being one
living thing, she wondered if the source of those beliefs, were cleaned-up
legends about this thing.
"That way." She didn't understand how she was leading them onward.
She knew it had something to do with Ki, and something to do with Toji and
Yumiwashi being brother and sister. All she really knew was the `note`, if
you could call it that, was in a very specific direction. Raccoon had
explained it very carefully three times, and each explanation made her head
hurt. The simplest one was a glass made a sound, a glass like it would
make a similar sound. It might as well have been a foreign language as far
as Ranko was concerned.
The explanation why it had to be Ranko made more sense, if they ran
into any cold water, there'd be no need to explain to Toji, the way they
had explained to Hiroko. Ranko expected to run into a geyser, or vat of
boiling water however. That was the way her luck ran. Although, they
might run into anything here.
The steady, almost boring marching made her anxiety worse. If it knew
they were there, what they were, what they were here for, why wasn't it
reacting? She could feel a presence out there, not what she was tracking,
but something else. She didn't know if it was hostile, but guessing it was
and being ready seemed a good plan. Why something that wasn't hostile to
humans was creeping around unseen on the surface of an Outer God . . . was
something Ranko didn't want to think about. Time was the other concern,
from base to landing was one hour twelve minutes, assuming the flight back
took the same time, they had roughly three and a half hours to find Toji's
sister and do what had to be done, or they weren't getting home alive.
"Doesn't this thing have some kind of defenses?" Shinji asked,
mirroring her own worries.
"A supernova wouldn't scratch it. Detonating an entire galaxy
wouldn't kill it. What does it need defenses for?" Raccoon explained.
"From us?" Ranko asked, trying to sound 'Ranma-overconfident'.
"There's nothing we can do to harm it," Raccoon replied, "We don't
matter."
Normally Ranko _hated_ being ignored, it was one way to really get
under her skin. Right now she was glad she was insignificant. That makes
me feel a lot better, so what _is_ that thing out there? Ranko asked
herself.
The cave was unexpected. It looked and seemed completely normal,
except the signal was coming from inside it.
"We can't go any farther, it's too small," Ranko told them, peering at
the hole that would have been huge for a human. No EVA could squirm into
it however.
"Walk around it," Asuka told him, "We'll triangulate the actual
positions. That means mark the direction somehow. From the directions we
can determine the actual location."
Ranko pointed one of Unit 04's arms at the source of the 'signal',
while Asuka watched him intently.
"About 200 meters in," Asuka said, "Do we tear into the cave to get at
the signal?"
"Won't that . . . wake it up?" Shinji asked.
"That is a worry," Raccoon agreed, "Now you know why Suzuhara-san and
I had to come with."
"Is it safe?" Shinji asked.
"No," Raccoon replied, "Suzuhara-san, you don't have to come."
"We've been tracking my sister, right?" Toji asked.
"Yes."
"Then I do have to go with. How do we talk with them?" Toji asked.
"The EVAs? We go, we look, we come back," Raccoon replied.
Ranko thought that sounded too risky, it also didn't address the other
question Toji might have been asking, 'How do we contact the victims,' like
his sister. She turned Unit 04 to watch for whatever she'd felt out there.
"I . . . I can see them!" Shinji said breathlessly.
Ranko glanced back, she couldn't see anything. And what 'them' does
he mean? she thought angrily.
"Where? Who?" Asuka demanded.
"Toji and Raccoon." Unit 01 pointed. "Going into the cave."
There was nothing there. Ranko glanced at Asuka's image, the other
redhead made a winding motion next to her head.
"I'm not crazy," Shinji complained.
Asuka smiled widely, Ranko kept silent.
----------------------------------------
Vexed To Nightmare
Toji floated along, into the cavern. It looked different through the
eyes of an EVA, not rock, almost alive. Now he could smell things too,
something he hadn't noticed when he was part of the EVA.
"Hey Raccoon, why are you still wearing your suit, and I'm in a
plugsuit?" he asked, he didn't mind, it looked kind of neat. Although he
wasn't happy about how tight it was.
"You are what you think you are," Raccoon said, his attention fixed
ahead.
Toji followed Raccoon's gaze, and immediately regretted it. He'd seen
some terrible things during the bombings of Tokyo, especially the
firestorming. But the boiled and burnt corpses, the torn bodies, even
those who were still alive but shouldn't be . . . none of it prepared him
for what was the centerpiece of the cavern.
It was a huge, glistening spider web lying on the cavern floor,
hundreds of meters across, anchored in the stone. All made of people.
Where one body ended and another began was almost impossible to tell. Arms
and legs blended together in a hideous way. There were heads half buried
in stomachs, or two bodies that had interpenetrated each other. The
nauseating, crawling look as the entire mass moved and writhed forced him
to realize the people were all alive. Mixed and jumbled like this.
"Oh gods!" Toji whispered and ran back down through the cavern, and
tried to be sick. There was nothing in his stomach to empty onto the
cavern floor. Toji glanced back, watched the nearest figures as they
quivered and spasmed to the limits of their attachments to the others in
the web.
Gods! My sister's in that!? Toji thought furiously, anger was quickly
replaced by revulsion and fear.
"What are we going to do?" he demanded of Raccoon.
The other boy turned towards him, Raccoon was white as a sheet. No
trick of the light, he was as appalled by the scene as Toji had been. "I -
am - working - on it," he managed.
Toji realized Raccoon was about one step from losing it himself.
Noise outside drew both their attentions away from the grisly web.
"OH _SHIT_!_" Toji cursed, "They're fighting out there!"
"Let's hope there isn't fighting in here."
Toji gulped and looked around for a weapon.
----------------------------------------
Ranko was glad she hadn't been lulled into slacking or overconfidence.
The thing looked like a giant human, except humans didn't normally have
three legs each ending in a broad clawed foot, and no human had a huge
scaled tentacle instead of a face.
Ranko pulled all Unit 04's many legs in and rolled at the tripod
monster like a steamroller. She figured Asuka and Raccoon were crazy, but
they'd survived all those long years in dreams. Maybe being crazy in a
specific way was an advantage. Unpredictability might be the only real
weapon humans had.
The creature lifted its leading leg, as if it could just allow Ranko
to roll under. But Ranko had a plan, as soon as she was underneath, she
had Unit 04's head reach up and grab the creature's raised leg in its
teeth. Ranko didn't pause to let it consider, but immediately used the
anchor to swing the Unit's tail towards the creature's face.
If she'd been fighting a person, she might have smashed them with the
tail, but against an Angel, she drove the point of the tail through the
creature's face/tentacle. The creature struggled to dislodge the grip on
its leg and the impalement of its head, as the flesh around the tail began
to revert to the gray powder of a dying Angel.
Suddenly the creature vanished.
Ranko caught herself as Unit 04 fell, and the creature reformed as an
immense double headed bat, hovering high above. The bolt of fire from Unit
02 that caught the creature dead center, blew the thing into fragments, a
yellow gas descended on the EVAs. Ranko felt the grip around her throat,
around her chest, keeping her from breathing. It felt like something was
trying to press her eyes back into her head. But it was close. She
detonated one, two, three, four of the AT field balls directly into the
cloud, dissipating it completely.
Ranko didn't think that they'd defeated whatever it was. How many
times do we have to _kill_ this thing?
----------------------------------------
Toji looked at the web pulsing and writhing, he couldn't be sick any
more, he was too horrified by what he was looking at. He could only stare
in mute horror, like Raccoon, just stand there and stare at the victims as
they moved and soundlessly screamed.
Somewhere in there was his sister, he was glad he couldn't pick her
out, that would be the worst thing to happen, he wouldn't have been able to
do anything then.
"We could cut them . . . no we couldn't, could we?" He couldn't
imagine the damage that kind of butchery would do to the victims.
Raccoon pulled a large knife from his coat. "We can start cutting
them loose from the substrate. Taking a little of it with them shouldn't
hurt them too much, we can scrape it off later."
Toji reluctantly took the knife and bent down to start digging the
hands/feet of two people out of the cavern floor, while Raccoon walked to
some other anchor point and pulled them loose.
Toji thought about digging people out of the crumbly stone of the
cavern floor, like digging up some obscene vegetable in a garden. The
entire cavern shook.
"Oh no!" Raccoon shouted, "We have to hurry! It's waking up, and
we're on its eyelid!"
Toji stared at him for a moment, until another tremor shook the cavern
and inspired Toji to dig faster. He remembered the creature when the other
things attacked, the eye was the size of a continent, if the eyelid was
moving, it was taking something seriously.
As soon as the first anchor was free, Toji ran to the next. He
glanced up from the grisly work to see Raccoon moving around the circle,
trying to free up the web as fast as he could.
Toji forced himself to ignore the squirming components, the poor
people who were mixed with each other, the loose dirt and the rocks
liquefying and returning to the Outer God. He just had to get _them_
loose.
----------------------------------------
Ranko watched Shinji in Unit 01 fall gracelessly on his butt, then the
entire Unit changed colors a dozen times with Shinji screaming in pain the
entire time. He fell silent and the Unit lay still. The form of the
creature was the size of a squirrel, but Ranko couldn't focus on the shape,
it was too eye-watering, changing as you looked at it. Shinji had tried to
stomp on the thing. It seemed reasonable, except the thing was stronger
than the EVAs.
Ranko didn't even try to go hand to hand. She merely cupped her hands
around the creature. She summoned that feeling, the duty to protect the
others, those who couldn't defend themselves. She released that golden
energy into the creature, then summoned another. Three, five, ten, twenty,
fifty. The strain was enormous, but she couldn't give the thing a moment's
breathing room, this form was small enough to get into the cave with Toji
and Raccoon.
If an EVA can't stop it, Ranko thought as she hammered it again and
again, Those two would be killed instantly.
Rather than succumb to her barrage, the thing returned it as a wave of
black oily clouds. Ranko screamed in agony as the clouds touched the EVA's
skin, Ranko couldn't separate the burning of the EVA's skin from the
burning of her own. She tried to hold onto consciousness through main
force, but it was too much. As darkness enfolded her, she saw a red foot
intersect the creature. The pain instantly faded, but it had done its
work. Ranko felt the softness of darkness welcoming her.
----------------------------------------
Asuka lowered Unit 02's foot. She was still a great football player,
that shot would have gotten past any goalie in the world. She still didn't
know what to do about the Outer God they were standing on.
An image of Raccoon appeared in the cockpit.
He must be done in that cave, Asuka thought.
"We've got them, but we'll need some help."
Spineless managed to crawl over to the cavern in Unit 01. A moment
later, Unit 01 withdrew its hand. From the expressions on the faces of the
three boys, Asuka guessed whatever it was, had been fairly gruesome.
"Okay Spineless, hold it together. Now we run for our lives!"
"What about Ranko?" Spineless asked desperately.
"You get _out_ of here!" she shouted at his image, which retreated,
"I'll take care of it!" She watched Unit 01 jump off. She was aware of
the continuing tremor and had already guessed what it meant. She had Unit
02 sling Unit 04 over its shoulder, then she jumped after Spineless and the
others.
----------------------------------------
In the Nightmare of the Dark
"We have to go faster!" Toji's image told Shinji.
Shinji was shaken by the hideous mass of people they'd tried to put in
Unit 01's hand, only to have it sink in and vanish. Then the other two had
vanished within Unit 01.
Shinji could barely concentrate, the people of that mass had awakened.
Now their pleas, their screams, their prayers and curses filled his head.
Toji screaming at him didn't help. He was drowning in voices, he couldn't
shut them out, no matter how hard he tried. Shinji wanted to tell Toji he
was going as fast as he could, tell the voices to shut up and let him get
them to safety. All he could manage was to move Unit 02 and 04 along, and
hope Asuka was doing the same with his Unit 01, speaking was beyond him.
The voices beat on his consciousness, his sense of self and
separateness, he was trying to shut out all the voices, to ignore their
calls for mercy, calls for explanations, calling on the gods for
intervention. So many voices should have been a gibberish he could ignore,
but he could hear each and every one distinctly. They threatened to
overwhelm the voice in his head that was Shinji Ikari. Only the knowledge
that if that happened, they were all doomed, let him hang onto who he was,
and what he had to do.
One voice called again and again for Toji. He couldn't answer it. To
give in, even for an instant to that one, would overwhelm him, destroy him
completely. He'd never be able to tell where the voices ended and he
began.
All he could do was drag Units 02 and 04 ahead, and let Asuka drag him
and Unit 01 back to NERV. He told himself that again and again, by
repetition driving the other voices out. If he wavered, the voice shouting
at him to do his duty was him and no one else. He understood that part of
why they were moving was because they wanted to, they hadn't jumped off the
NERV base, except to get started. Right now, he wanted nothing more than
to move as fast as he could.
To race home, to escape, to survive.
But the instruments aboard Unit 01 clearly told him that while he was
rapidly closing the distance on the island of stone that was NERV Tokyo,
Ghroth was closing the distance on them, even more rapidly. The best speed
he and Asuka could manage, wouldn't be enough.
They'd rescued all those people. And it wasn't enough.
The creature would destroy NERV, then awaken every Great Old One on
Earth. Without NERV and the EVAs, they'd rampage over the helpless
population. All because a bunch of kids thought they could play hero.
Then Ghroth spoke a word.
----------------------------------------
"I'm not Nyarlat!" Asuka screamed as the voice of Ghroth cut through
her mind, stripping it raw and leaving her naked before the Outer God's
fury.
Her fervent denials didn't help her at all. She couldn't get that
continent-sized eye and the creature's anger, out of her mind.
She cried, she begged, she apologized for whatever crime, whatever
offense she had given.
Still the word echoed through her mind, accusing her endlessly of some
unmentionable crime against the Outer God. That naught she could ever do
would make things right, no action would ever end the indictment, nothing
would assuage the eternal fury of the god against her and all she held
dear.
She plead that it would have mercy and kill her, there was no response
except the echo ravening through her mind.
She barely noticed that her landing at the NERV campus was really a
crash. She kept screaming her denials, regrets, prayers, and pleas for
mercy or for death, until darkness took her.
----------------------------------------
Simson waited, along with an immense crowd. Security, Army and Marine
troops kept them away. But the Admiral realized what an explosive
situation he had here. One misstep, and he'd have a riot the likes of
which had probably hadn't faced American arms since the New York draft
riots.
NERV HQ hadn't vanished with a flash of light, or a great column of
smoke. One instant it was there, the next it wasn't. It was easy to make
the blackout of the information complete. Only the rushing of large
numbers of troops to the site gave any indication. The place's bad
reputation kept the curious away for a while, but word had leaked somehow.
The religious had arrived first. Some were military chaplains, which
embarrassed Tomlinson, but not Simson. The Admiral knew men fought their
battles with whatever weapons were available. Faith not the least of
these. More had arrived soon after. Simson was amazed there was no
jostling, no arguments over this or that element of faith.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised, Simson thought, It doesn't take a
genius to realize what the loss of the base, and especially the EVAs and
the pilots, really means.
So Catholic and Buddhist rosaries stood next to censers of incense of
the Greek Orthodox and the shawls, tassels and skullcaps of Orthodox
Judaism. Shinto priests and exorcists swung their gohei as they said their
prayers to whoever or whatever was listening. The contingents from the
pilots' cults were there in force as well. Strangely, they were taking all
that had happened as a good sign.
The curious had arrived soon after. Security around the perimeter had
to be increased in both strength and numbers. Because, while the clergy
understood the danger, too many of the curious were either `invulnerable`
or stupid, often both. So where a lone NERV Security trooper with a rifle
had sufficed, now a Marine or Army rifle platoon and a tank held the same
spot. Orders were that no one pass the perimeter without proper
authorization. Trespassers would be shot on sight, that was the public
story, privately the company commanders and platoon sergeants were ordered
to avoid bloodshed, if practical.
Simson was aware of the fine line he was walking. The mob could get
ugly very quickly, and he had little space or time to calm them down or
discourage them. Using entire armored divisions to put down a religious
riot was something he'd rather avoid.
His personal feelings weren't something he could ignore either.
Captain Ramsey had been on the base, and while General Tomlinson was an
excellent officer with both feet firmly on the ground, Simson needed the
brilliant flashes of insight and paths of thought beyond the well-worn
trails that Ramsey provided. He needed that ability now, because
conventional thought, wisdom, and even common sense crumbled at the
enormity of what had happened.
While he had at his beck and call a military force, which before WW 2,
would have been reckoned beyond the power of anyone except the gods
themselves. He'd seen what the `gods` they faced did to conventional
defenses, no matter how formidably armed or numerous.
To eliminate the chance of panic, he'd announced that Pilots Ayanami
and Tendo were safe at another NERV base, with several EVAs. Everyone
assumed he meant Matsuhiro, and his refusal to comment on that was seen as
both proof and an indication of the security concerns.
Simson felt no overwhelming urge to correct the misconceptions.
Rumors about the pilots at Las Vegas were just that, rumors. Like the
stories out of New Mexico, about a crashed flying saucer that was a weather
balloon, or the `Ghost of Tokyo` being some monster or angel that no one
had actually seen.
He'd had a wild idea that Davis's plan would actually work and the
base would rematerialize. But as time went by, and nothing happened, he
was beginning to have doubts. He had to plan for the new contingencies,
the first step was get a pilot and an EVA here. He briefly considered Unit
03, it had never `faced` a trained pilot, only contact experiments. The
orders he had given were to prepare one of the girls at the Las Vegas base
for transport, as soon as one of the EVAs could be made ready. Bennington,
which would have transported Unit 04 to the Azores, had been turned around
and was steaming at high speed for San Diego, to collect whichever unit
could be made ready.
Simson sighed, looked around. He saw no panic on the faces arranged
around him. There was no panic in the crowd, anyone who attempted to start
it was harangued into silence, or had to be rescued by security troops.
There were no signs of an imminent Angel attack.
Unless this was one, Simson thought, Then what was the purpose? What
would happen if the base _doesn't_ return soon, or if an Angel does attack?
Without an EVA to repel it.
He'd have to report to MacArthur and Truman soon. That was something
he'd like to put off as long as possible. Justifying going along with
Davis's plan was going to be hard enough, justifying losing the pilot in
the process was going to be nearly impossible. Neither Davis nor Suzuhara
had awakened, and comments from the spiritwalkers that 'these things take
their own time' hadn't helped his state of mind. He knew that was the
truth, but he had to explain that to his commanders. And take their
questions and responsibility for his decision.
----------------------------------------
Gendo stood at the windows of the abandoned offices, and watched the
monster approach. All three EVAs had beaten it back to the base, then
they'd all crashed. Gendo knew from their transmissions, that the pilots
were out of the fight. They would be of no help. The conventional and
mystical defenses of the base would have no effect on a creature of that
size and power. He'd always hoped the pilots would face the Outer God only
after the EVAs had grown strong on the Great Old Ones and some of the
lesser Outer Gods. That hope was ended as the immense bulk of red-brown
approached.
He touched the glass window and thought idly that without the effect
of gravity, he would get to see the real effect of a planet colliding with
the steel and concrete of this base. The most impenetrable structure
mankind could devise.
As he stood alone in the aboveground office building, staring at the
mustard-yellow sky, he knew it was useless. The tools of men were fit
defenses against men, but were a mere conceit against the gods. He had no
regrets. He also had no answers, but he wouldn't cower underground like
the others. He would spit in this god's massive eye, even as it destroyed
him and all his hopes.
He knew the fury the creature felt was all for Nyarlat. The Crawling
Chaos had overstepped itself, now it would pay a dear price. The
destruction of NERV was not even a consideration. The base and its cargo
were not an object of hate, or pity, or even of interest. A bit of debris
in the way of more important work.
Gendo watched the implacable force that was his doom, he looked back
with his own imperturbable calm. He did not accept this, but he did
understand his acceptance was not necessary.
----------------------------------------
Attachment, the Great Fabricator
The girl watched the baby crawl across the padded, white floor.
Sharon clapped her hands and laughed delightedly. Then her laughter turned
to horror as the baby crawled towards the sunbeam slowly advancing across
the room. She didn't move, she didn't react. It had happened so often, it
didn't affect her anymore. She trained them, but at this critical time,
they always ignored her.
The kiss of sunlight scorched the infant's flesh. Blistered and
blackened, the stupid thing screamed its anguish. Sharon didn't react. If
the others didn't react, neither would she. The silly thing writhed in the
sizzling sunbeam, wailing in agony, but making no effort to escape. The
piteous screaming and horrible reek elicited no reaction from those outside
the room. It never had before, there was no reason for Sharon to believe
this time would be any different.
When she had wept and screamed, they had called her mad. She had
reason to cry as the straitjacket had chafed her flesh raw and twisted her
arms painfully. Now she knew she dare not react as the screaming infant
dissolved with the mere kiss of the fierce attack of sunlight. She'd left
the darkest corner of her room for the child, tried to instruct it to stay
there.
Night after night, they crawled screaming from her womb, then morning
after morning, they crawled screaming into the sunlight and their death.
She laughed hopelessly at the uselessness of it all, that was the
first sound that drew attention. She smiled at the man who looked in on
her through the small window in the door. The man had a reputation, she
hoped it was true. She was still pretty, despite her ordeal. He might use
a straitjacket to restrain, she knew that wouldn't stop her. All she
needed was him in here, and an unguarded moment. She could arrange that
easily enough.
The little door in the middle of the locked door snapped shut. She
looked around at the padding on the walls, 'To keep her from hurting
herself.' As if she'd ever do that. That, and the odd white pajamas.
She had to wait, she was good at waiting. She slipped her hand under
the shirt of the pajamas. She felt the faint stirrings of new life that
would distend her belly, until she went through the agonies of birth at
midnight. Then she'd have a few hours to be with this new infant, only to
have it die at the first touch of sunlight.
She wept openly and silently. She would have revenge for her cursed
existence, she would revenge herself on the man, no boy, who had done this
to her. He had been out of reach so long, soon he would be within her
grasp: close enough to speak with, close enough to make love to again,
close enough to kill.
"Soon, Jeffrey. Soon you'll die for your crimes, soon you will end my
suffering. Once you're dead, I can escape."
Now she laughed at the thoughts of the pretty boy with the smiling
face, when she would crush it to pulp between her hands.
----------------------------------------
Bleak would not describe the world of Sharnoth. Beyond the normal
universe, so the words and ideas of the universe did not fit well to such a
place. The noise of the place, would be the first refutation of the word.
For here, the Million Favored Ones bowed their heads and raised their
voices, or their equivalents, to their GOD and KING, the Crawling Chaos.
At the great court, the strategies were formulated to bring about
their god's greater glory. Sometimes they were even used. The armories
produced weapons for the glorious day when all Creation would be made into
a graveyard. The Great One would stand alone, as master of all, as was his
right.
No, the place was crawling, sometimes literally, with light and noise
and activity. All aimed at ending all that is, and was, and will be.
The deepest throne room, the holiest of holies, lay deep in the
planet. A huge cathedral for the true form and center of their Lord and
Master. A pool of yellowish slime that could take any form it wished:
beautiful and sublime or hideous beyond the bounds of madness. Although
which was which truly was in the eye of the beholder.
The room itself was equally unsettling. Whether it was part of a
refinery, or the bowels of a great beast, could not be easily answered.
The huge numbers of crisscrossing pipes of all sizes formed the walls, the
floor, and the ceiling of the chamber, which were unliving metal or stone,
and which were something else, something arguably alive, was a question
that could only be answered foot by foot, and sometimes not even by that.
The priests were ancient, they had served since the days of the War.
They had learned to avoid their master's more violent outbursts. Those
which hadn't, were interred elsewhere, if anything of them remained
Today they saw and heard something none of them had ever beheld
before. Hovering over the pit it normally resided in, Nyarlat floated in a
perfect sphere, pulsing with color, but holding that peculiar, utterly
uniform shape. Then the cacophony began. The tearing of metal, the
screams of the damned, a thousand steam whistles all crammed together until
it could no longer be heard, but experienced instead as endless pain.
As the clamor when on and on, the bright hues of the sphere darkened,
blackened, until scorched blacker than jet, it crashed back down to the
floor.
The priests withdrew, 'To leave the god in contemplation'. All knew
that their master would take its vengeance out on whatever fell into its
path. They also wanted to consider what of all things could defeat their
master so handily, in its own stronghold. What propitiations would be
necessary to insure their own survival if it attacked again?
----------------------------------------
It was a kitchen, Toji could figure that out instantly. The old woman
puttering around the stove reminded him of his grandmother, who he'd never
met. But the iron gray hair in a bun, the precise, yet arthritic
movements, all screamed 'grandmother' to him. He looked at the linoleum
floor and wondered if his father and grandfather had survived his screw up,
if his sister had. Or had they all died, him too?
"This will all take a while, have a seat," the woman told him, "Take a
moment to orient yourself before you start asking silly questions." She
used a ladle to put something in a bowl and set it in front of him at the
small table in the kitchen. It smelled and looked like miso soup.
"I don't cook much for guests, so you'll have to indulge me, I want to
get this right." The old woman returned to the stove and whatever she was
working on.
The room was larger than his kitchen at home. Stove, sink, lots of
cabinets, like at home; but no refrigerator and above the cabinets were
bookshelves filled with books. The table and two chairs were also an odd
set, none of the three of them matched, but they all had the same well-worn
look to them. He sat down in one so he could watch her.
I prefer this to getting chased by Ghroth, but where am I? Toji
wondered. The sudden explosion of sizzling at the stove brought Toji back
to the here and now. The woman seemed to be deep frying something. Toji
relaxed slightly, his cooking made the same noise . . . and smell, doing
the same thing at home.
Home, he sighed as he wondered if he'd ever see it or his family
again.
"I'm afraid you'll have to be my test subject." That didn't settle
Toji's mind as the old woman broke a large, brown disk in half and set the
two pieces on a plate that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Take whichever
one, I'll eat the other."
Toji picked it up, and realized it was a rice ball filled with bean
jam and covered with caramelized sugar and coconut. He took a bite and
savored the sweetness, the mix of flavors. "Very good."
"Glad you like it, I want to be a good host." The woman sat down in
the chair opposite him, she stared at him while she nibbled her half. Her
eyes were old, but they still had tremendous force and intelligence behind
them. "I'll get the preliminaries out of the way. No, your mind and
spirit are here, your body is wherever you left it. That doesn't make any
of this less real, it's that things aren't exactly what they seem."
Toji blinked, shook his head. This went far beyond ordinary
confusion.
"Sorry, an example." She pointed at the shelves over the cabinets.
"Those are reading material, and reference works. Yes, I'm an old, female
librarian. And you don't really look as cute as my grandson."
Toji blushed, shifted his feet. "So, you aren't - human?"
"No, I hate to tell you, but to us, your species is pretty hideous.
Most of my people would go mad, or flee if they caught sight of you," she
chuckled, "Of course the reverse is also true."
Toji felt more embarrassed. "Then, why am I here?"
The old woman frowned. "Beyond the physical differences, there are
psychological and philosophical similarities. You and your people are on
the front line of what's shaping up to be a major war. I mean really _the_
front line, have you ever heard of Archduke Ferdinand?"
Toji considered, then shook his head.
"His assassination started the First World War, some of us think the
Second was only the denouement of the First. You and your friends are
armed soldiers who just spotted the assassin. You have the chance to stop
the whole thing before it really begins." She paused, waved Toji to be
quiet. "I know it doesn't seem that way to you. But the last time this
war restarted, was 800 million years ago, your moon was physically part of
your planet back then. It was ripped loose during one of the opening
battles. Collateral damage. The death toll," the woman said sadly, "Well,
your number system doesn't go that high. Our nation had major populations
in 15 galaxies, lots of prosperous happy people going about their business.
Loving their families, making things for others to buy, artists decrying
that we were losing our soul to commercialism, the prosaic rubbish of all
fat, happy societies. It wasn't perfect, but compared to today, it was
paradise. Six of those galaxies aren't there anymore, the mass is still
there, clouds of dust and gas. Nothing can live there for billions of
years. Nothing even remotely sane wants that to happen again."
Toji sweated and shuddered at that thought. The death of six
galaxies, he couldn't conceive of it, the idea was just too big. But the
moon! he thought, Maybe Sour Kraut knows what kind of force it would take
to rip it loose, but I'm just a Junior High student. He was wondering why
all this was happening to him. What he'd done right or wrong to be
`awarded` this kind of information, and the responsibility of knowing it.
"Now, you've probably got a thousand questions."
Starting with 'Why me?' Toji thought.
"Am I some kind of chosen one?" Toji stammered.
The woman chuckled. "Hardly, there are dozens if not hundreds all over
Earth, there are six like you in NERV Tokyo alone. We figured a little
encouragement wouldn't be amiss. We'd rather not have to fight this war.
We weren't ready the last time, we _really_ aren't ready for it again."
Toji figured he'd hit his head and was hallucinating, but he figured
he could go along with it. Give Raccoon and Sour Kraut something to
chuckle about later. "So what am I supposed to do?" he asked.
"Be yourself," the woman said, shrugged, "And know you aren't alone."
"Why aren't you having someone else do this? Like Rei or Raccoon?"
Toji asked, he didn't like the way this was heading, even if he was only
one of many. He'd piloted, and he never wanted to do that again, now he
was getting a look at the breadth and scope of what the human race was
really doing. He didn't like what he was seeing.
"Those two already have enough calls on their attention and loyalty,"
the woman said as she stood and got another of her confections for her and
Toji. "You'd be surprised how many others have their hooks in those two.
I'm a little surprised they aren't crazier than they already are."
That worried Toji. "So you're doing this out of the goodness of your
heart?" Toji said flippantly.
The old woman stared at him sternly. "Look kid, understand this: if
it came down to a choice between your whole race and one of the towns my
grandkids live in - " she softened her tone, "Well, I like your people, but
not that much. Simple truth, like your Churchill said, better together in
your backyard than alone in our front yard. We want you to win, but not at
a severe cost to us. If you can live with that, we can do business."
"So . . . exactly what does 'do business' mean, something like Tendo
Nabiki and her loan sharking and tutoring programs?"
"More like an exchange of information. We give you information - "
"I won't spy on people!" Toji replied fiercely.
The woman laughed so hard she shook the table. That wasn't what Toji
expected. "We can do our own spying, thank you. What you do, is take what
we tell you and act on it, give it first to the people we tell you to, and
if you know our straight story and best analysis is a load of crap, you
tell us that. Your planet has dozens of cultures on it, different ways of
looking at things. We haven't quite mastered thinking like you think."
The woman sobered. "It's not perfect, it may even be wrong, but it
should help you see things clearly. For example, Asuka loves you."
"_WHAT_!_ I don't - she can't - I would never - and another thing -
!"
"Calm down! You're going to hurt yourself. What does she call your
friend Shinji?"
"Spineless."
"And Rei?"
"Wondergirl."
"Nabiki?"
"Ice Princess."
"And when did you become 'Curly'?" the woman asked innocently.
Toji stopped. He hadn't considered that, it was just 'Sour Kraut'
being herself. "But that would mean - " That thought scared him worse
than Ghroth.
"Nothing of the kind. Tell me, if you found Ranko naked in your bed
saying 'Lie with me', how would you react?"
Toji blushed right down to his toes.
"If you found Yumiwashi in the same situation?"
Toji turned white.
"Different kinds of love. The Ancient Greeks broke them down into
Eros: Carnal love, Philia: Brotherly love, Agape: absolute love. Affection
can be expressed in many ways."
Toji was having a harder time accepting this than the more
Angel-related stuff. It all didn't work. Either the woman was lying to
him, or . . . all his assumptions were wrong. It was a _lot_ easier
believing she was lying, but Toji was too honest to ignore the possibility
that _he_ was wrong. The best defense was to change the subject.
"Raccoon's plan didn't work, or did it, is the base back?" Toji asked.
"No. That's a good example of how brains, good training and a lot of
drive are no substitute for natural talent. The boy got his sums wrong.
Good idea about letting Unit 01 sort those people out. I do wonder who
told him about that."
"So is my sister okay?" Toji asked excitedly.
"No, she'll take a while to recover, but she's got a good start."
Toji relaxed, she was the real reason he'd agreed to this insanity.
"What you said about 'doing business', I keep thinking to Tendo Nabiki."
"Good point. Simply this, we aren't some bunch of benevolent
do-gooders out to save you out of the goodness of our hearts. Likewise we
aren't softening you up for an invasion. Frankly our invaders would die of
fright just looking at you people. It's the perfect defense."
"At least you're honest about it."
"Kid, I'm a librarian, not a politician. I want to see my great
grandchildren, not some award. Helping you is the best way to do that.
Making sure you understand the limitations of my help ensures you don't
take things wrong. Like, if I suggest killing your sister would bring an
early end to the war, I'm not advocating action, I'm laying out options,
and before you explode, that was an example. Your sister, if she's lucky,
is done with all of this mania."
She let Toji sigh with relief before continuing.
"If you were a real, tough-as-nails fighting man, I'd tell you to send
her someplace safe, but you need her right now."
"What is that all about?" Toji demanded, "What's this war all about?
Why are they attacking us? What did we do to them? Isn't there anybody
else on our side?"
"I'm glad you finally took a breath, you do realize you asked a
_librarian_ those questions?" She smirked as he looked at the books on the
cabinets. "No, I'm not that cruel. I'll just give you the highlights.
About two trillion years ago, the war started, that's older than the age of
your universe. I say _your_ universe rather than _the_ universe because
its only part of a much greater collection of realities. No one knows what
started the war. Some claim something was stolen, others claim it was a
disagreement about treatment of other, lesser races. It could have been
over which end of a soft-boiled egg to open. It hardly matters anymore.
The fact is, for all but the longest lived races, there has _always_ been a
war." She got up slowly, paced the room nervously.
"Then, something happened. Something we do know the details of. Two
of the most driven and powerful factions in the war stole something from
each other, the ultimate weapon, the means to twist reality as they saw
fit, even to create entire other realities. The two sides were led by
Kthanid, the Elder God, and by Azathoth of the Outer Gods. The Tablets of
Destiny some called them. What they are is knowledge, the exact
translation is 'The Elder Key'. With them, the Outer Gods created the
little pocket universe you live in, they went to hide there, and
reconstruct what the Elder Gods had stolen from them. Once they had both,
they would be all-powerful."
"What!" Toji cried, "Those monsters created the universe?!"
"_Your_ universe," the woman corrected, "The Elder Key contains the
spells and rituals to do it. The technical term is a hyperinflation
bubble, like a soap bubble attached to a much larger one. Now you
understand why the war is so intensively fought. But the laws of nature
were very different within your universe. The tactic should have worked,
Ubbo-Sathla used the Key, then hid on your planet. for a while it worked,
both sides were stalemated. They were even caught up fighting the powerful
creatures your universe spawned, the so-called Great Old Ones, until 300
million years ago. The Elder Gods were more organized, that allowed them
to use greater numbers and strategy against the Outer Gods. Azathoth was
caught and lobotomized, and its body was imprisoned within the center of
your universe. Then they arrived on Earth to retake `their` property.
They found several powerful civilizations and a number of godlike
creatures. Unlike the Outer Gods, these creatures, the Great Old Ones
could negotiate, make alliances among themselves and with other races. The
Elder Gods weren't able to get the Elder Key, so they laid a curse on these
`lesser` beings, and imprisoned them in their homes. Cthulhu in R'lyeh,
Tsathoggua in N'kai, Bateris in center of your home galaxy, dozens,
hundreds of others all over your world, your universe. The Elder Gods
figured they'd let these secondary creatures stew for an age, to
reconsider. Except the Great Old Ones had gained their power by glimpsing
bits and pieces of the same knowledge that went into the Elder Key, the
same knowledge that created your universe, and there were a lot of them.
They fought back the only way they could, the Elder Gods were trapped in
your universe as surely and as strongly as they'd trapped the Great Old
Ones."
"You make them sound like heroes," Toji said bitterly.
"Almost everything wants to survive," the woman told him, "They
weren't necessarily allied with the Outer Gods, but the Elder Gods couldn't
be trusted either. From what I understand, the assumption was that once
they had the Elder Key, the Elder Gods would eliminate that universe and
come back here and win the war. If that really is the case, and the Great
Old Ones stopped them, then I'd shake their hand. But I don't want them to
win the war any more than I'd want anyone else to. If your people win
their war, it goes back to a complete stalemate, none of them can do
anything. All the rest of us live out our lives not having to worry about
them."
"So we can't trust them?" Toji asked.
"Depends on what exactly you want to trust them to do. They don't
understand humans any more than you can really understand them. Dangerous
combination. The Elder Gods are still prowling around, so there are cycles
of defeat and victory, all going on for millions of years."
"So are the Great Old Ones really gods, like the gods of Shinto?" Toji
asked. Being told the enemy might have done good, was hard for him to
accept, even if they hadn't intended to do it.
"No, the Outer Gods and Elder Gods personify some cosmic element or
truth: Chaos, Fertility, Time, etc. The great Old Ones are scientific
alchemists or philosopher-kings who stumbled across the real nature of your
universe, and were able to embrace it. That makes them vastly more
powerful than any god limited to just one nation or one planet. That also
makes them unkillable, even by the Elder Gods. As long as that - your -
universe survives, they cannot be permanently destroyed by any means."
"What? The pilots killed . . . a half dozen or so, I guess!"
"They didn't kill them, they absorbed them, the pilots and their EVAs.
The power and knowledge continue, in the pilots and their EVAs. Your
friends are becoming Great Old Ones. As soon as they can comprehend and
accept that reality, the reality, they will _be_ Great Old Ones
themselves."
Toji stood up, stepped away from the table in shock. He was
completely thunderstruck.
The others are going to be like those monsters? Do they know? he
silently screamed his question at an uncaring universe, If they know why do
they go on? If they don't know, why hasn't anyone told them? Do the
bosses at NERV know? Do my dad and gramps know? If they do . . . why
didn't they tell me?
"Can I . . . do anything?" Toji stammered miserably, he knew he could
tell them, and have them never pilot again, that would guarantee the death
of the entire human race. Or he could withhold the information, and watch
in horror as his friends, the people who trusted him, devolve into
monsters.
He looked around the normal-appearing kitchen. His horror at the two
terrible paths that lay before him exceeded that generated by the
planet-thing or the web of bodies. "I have to do . . . something."
He faced the older woman. "But I don't know what to do."
"You have to decide that on your own. The Great Old Ones vary
dramatically. Some, like Cthulhu are builders, others like Bokrug are
guardians, some are slavers, some like Rhan-Tegoth are mere appetites, some
are simply insane, even by their own standards. But the pilot's own
personality is the best assessment. That's something I can't do. Also,
there's never been a group who made the breakthrough before. There have
been `arms races` before, but whoever won made sure they didn't have any
competition. But never a situation where a group or team all walked that
path together, depended on each other. That may or may not change
everything, or anything. There are a thousand different opinions, and they
are all based on so much wind."
Toji felt tired and lost, it wasn't what he'd expected. The pilots
didn't seem all that pleased about piloting, not like Kensuke and a few
others. Did they suspect the truth, or was it something else? He'd
operated the EVA under Sour Kraut's direction, and he'd killed. He wasn't
happy about that, he had to think that wasn't all of it. "Why didn't
Kensuke get this job, instead of me?"
"Because he'd want to do it . . . ," the woman told him, "He wouldn't
think about what he was doing, he'd be enjoying himself too much doing it.
'Wee powers, responsibility, babes.' We don't need that, we need someone
who will keep their eyes open. We aren't omniscient, just more
experienced, but not with humans, sometimes you're too confusing." The old
woman shrugged, sat down and urged Toji to do the same.
"But Sour Kraut and Ayanami-san are - well, not happy, but pleased to
be pilots!" Toji protested as he sat down.
"Are they happy _they_ are pilots, or are they happy others don't have
to be?"
Toji paused to consider, he hadn't looked at that possibility, he also
had never considered that Sour Kraut would turn into a real person inside
an EVA. A scary one, to be sure, no kid should be that calm and competent,
a real soldier.
I guess that's what I'll have to be, he thought as he squirmed in his
chair at the table. He found himself flexing his hands nervously.
"It's almost too much to think about," Toji admitted.
"I'm not asking for a decision, or some grand display and proclamation
of loyalty. I wouldn't believe you if you gave one, but you'll need to
start seeing things you haven't looked at before."
Toji nodded, "How do I contact you?" He had a feeling the interview
was over.
"Dreams, you'll find your way here. Although I would appreciate, if
you'd check in periodically, even if you don't have anything to talk
about."
"And you'll be here?"
"Or you can leave a note." She indicated a pad of paper. Toji nodded
as the room faded around him.
----------------------------------------
The Most Dangerous Calculations
"The dampers are fading," the doctor checked his chart, "She has
dreams of birth at midnight and death at dawn of her baby."
The other doctor nodded, "It will eventually fail, that was always a
possibility, and she'll have to be put down." He was casual about it.
"What about the last subject?" the first doctor asked.
"Contact with the EVAs may reinforce the limiters, or it may have
erased them already. But, I think we would have heard . . . something."
"Unless he's smarter than that," the first doctor corrected, "We need
to test him."
"Oh, I can see that!" the second doctor laughed, "'Has one of your
pilots suddenly turned into a ravening monster?' 'Has he suddenly garnered
insights into our enemies?' 'Can he generate an AT field without an EVA?'
They'll laugh in our faces. It will also expose that we were tampering
with those children, that's the last thing we want revealed."
"Well, there is good news on that front," the first doctor said,
"We'll have unlimited access aboard the carrier. We can drop an operative
and determine the extent of the damage. Perhaps we can even make repairs."
"And if he exceeds the safety parameters?"
"We destroy him, of course," the doctor told his colleague, as if the
other man were a stupid child, "We don't take chances with this. The
carrier will provide us with the privacy to do it quietly."
"We never should have tried to interface them with the EVAs."
"We had no choice, and the alternative would have offended the
delicate sensibilities of those paying the bills. It also would have been
horribly dangerous. The EVAs provide a measure of safety. Separate the
pilot from the EVA and they can be destroyed much more easily, and the
restrained element can be mated with another part. It isn't as if we
really need our subjects anymore. And a heroic death would keep the
politicians happy."
"What are the chances of him accidentally receiving the final
treatments?"
"Virtually none. Even he isn't aware the process is incomplete, and
no one is stupid enough to correct that oversight."
----------------------------------------
Admiral Simson watched the two pilots awaken, and NERV HQ did not
reappear. Both pilots were nearly incoherent after their experiences.
Simson didn't want to push, but he had little time.
Far from the shores of Japan, a line of picket destroyers had picked
up something. Something large and approaching Japan. Whatever it was, was
too deep for depth charges or torpedoes. Hydrophones picked up the steady
tread of its advance. When whatever it was entered shallower waters, the
full might of the Pacific Fleet in Japanese waters could be brought to
bear.
Simson had even asked for, and received, nuclear authorization. From
his understanding of physics, an atomic bomb would make a marvelous depth
charge.
He would have preferred an EVA or two, and pilots. He had pilots, but
the EVAs in Las Vegas were days or weeks from readiness. He'd hoped NERV
Tokyo could be returned before this new enemy arrived.
Even if he'd trusted it, Unit 03 was too far away. In his office,
awaiting the results of the debriefing of the failed mission, he silently
considered sending one of the pilots to England to match up with Unit 03,
and that he'd hoped Ikari and company could find their way back. Neither
solution seemed likely to succeed in the time available. He also wondered
about the nature of their incoming opponent. If it was one creature, miles
across, or hundreds, or millions marching in formation. He was hoping for
the last. Millions he could deal with. Among the Mythos, the larger it
was, the more likely it was to be immune to any force brought against it.
Or that it would regenerate so fast, that the effect was the same.
So he waited. General Tomlinson's authority would supersede his when
it made landfall. In the meantime, all the guns and rockets and bombs at
his disposal were awaiting a target. The B-29's with their atomic loads
were already in the air.
"Admiral, subs report the enemy is coming up to a depth where the
atomics can be employed. Captain Reynolds' best estimate is that there are
many large and small targets." The lieutenant who reported this looked
very young, and very frightened.
"Thank you, Lieutenant," Simson nodded as he followed the young man
into the map room, "Is the area clear?"
"Yes, sir," the officer coordinating the subs reported.
"Drop the bombs, pattern delta," Simson ordered the Army Air Force
officer. The President had already released tactical use of the weapons to
the area commander, Admiral Simson, who devoutly wished someone _else_ was
going to have to make these decisions. MacArthur and Nimitz both outranked
him, but these weren't _here_._
May God have mercy on us, Simson thought, Oppenheimer was completely
wrong, we aren't Death, we're just chaff in the furnace. All we can do is
burn a little hotter.
----------------------------------------
Far out to sea, an object dropped from a B-29, it deployed a drag
chute that slowed it as it dropped into the water.
The pilot orbited farther out, he'd seen the Bikini tests, he knew
what to expect.
The column of water erupted out of the ocean, thousands of feet in the
air. As the column dropped back into the sea, two more B-29s some miles
apart made simultaneous drops, mere moments apart. Moments later, twin
columns erupted into the air. Strange objects were hurled into the clear
sky where the shockwaves of two or three bombs met. The pilot got photos
of these things, then turned for home. It was clear the ultimate human
weapon had not had a decisive effect.
----------------------------------------
Admiral Simson listened quietly as the report came in. He had a
fleet, a powerful air force, artillery, he was wondering if it would be
enough. General Tomlinson's HQ was miles away, so the enemy's
counterstroke couldn't get both commanders at once. The artillery, both
ashore and afloat, would be the heaviest arm. Aircraft were better suited
for the close in attacks. The heavy bombers had their shot, they would be
little use unless he executed the nuclear option again, something he was
loathe to do over land. Especially with no guarantee of success. He'd
already used more atomic firepower than any human before.
"And it may not be enough," Simson murmured in the privacy of his
office. His subordinate commanders knew their jobs. They had deployed to
their best effect, others were assisting with the evacuation. Since no one
knew where the target was headed, the evacuation was general, the entire
city.
The time he spent here was in thought. He wondered if he was like the
Emperor Honorious, presiding over the end of the world. He left his office
and those thoughts, and reentered the command center. The troops waited,
they would track the advance of both the enemy and the forces arrayed
against it.
"No contact, Admiral," the officer in charge reported.
After clearing the area for the atomic depth bombs, they had lost
contact with the enemy. The estimated next point of contact, a line of
picket destroyers, waited alert for any sign of the enemy.
"Contact," one of the sailors announced as he plotted the position on
the charts, which was copied to the sand table. "Multiple contacts, most
large, some smaller," the man continued the litany, repeating what was
being reported to him through his headphones.
The position firmed up as other destroyers vectored in. Depth charges
were dropped in vast numbers, a veritable rain of exploding steel. Other
antisubmarine weapons were deployed as well. The artillery was sighted in
on the path of approach, both ship and land-based. Battleships, cruisers,
rocket battalions, artillery battalions, some of whose guns exceeded the
weapons of the cruisers, all adjusted, tracking a target they could not yet
engage. The silence was greater, because the promise of the cacophony was
greater.
Everyone waited as the destroyers tracked the advance. All the other
ships kept their speed up, to prevent any attack on them. Warships had no
guns beneath to protect them, and no armor over the steering and propulsion
gear. Soon the guns they did have would thunder to life.
----------------------------------------
"General Tomlinson reports he is standing by for handoff," an officer
reported to Admiral Simson.
"As soon as they're ashore, they're all his," Simson said.
He waited until the first target appeared.
----------------------------------------
The South Dakota got off another salvo, sailing close to fire directly
at the huge, winged humanoid-octopoid, smaller versions of their master.
Cthulhu walked ahead, absorbing all the fire their pitiful enemies could
throw at him. Nothing stopped his advance, straight through the harbor,
then straight through the city.
Admiral Simson had left General Tomlinson in charge of the more
standard defense, he had special troops and equipment. A dozen sorcerers
were preparing to Dismiss the mighty one, and begin the rituals to sink
R'lyeh back into the ocean depths. They would cast their first spell when
their target came into range. There seemed little doubt he was headed
directly for where NERV HQ had once stood. They hoped that the spells
would take the fight out of the rest of the force, or they'd retreat
entirely.
The last was probably wildly optimistic. As Cthulhu and his personal
bodyguard came in range, the spell was cast.
The mighty Great Old One actually stopped, hesitated - for a few
seconds, a minute, several minutes.
Simson actually had a few moments of wild hope that he might live to
see another day. Then that hope was dashed as the octopoid horror marched
forward again. Followed by the smaller ones moments later. Simson felt
all aspirations and belief in a future drain away, nor could he understand
the actions of Cthulhu and his spawn, as they piled wrecked vehicles,
pieces of buildings and other large scale debris in the pit where NERV
Tokyo had been. Not much, and each piece inspected and placed at the
direction of Cthulhu himself.
Simson knew he should be running away screaming, in the finest
tradition of those who'd encountered the Great Old Ones `face-to-face`.
Instead he couldn't ignore the creature's dread majesty, and that of his
mightiest spawn. Simson also felt the curiosity about the creatures'
actions had overwhelmed any fear he could have felt. He realized he'd gone
insane, no rational person would remain as he was, but he didn't care about
that either. He'd done the best he could, to the end: of his duty, of his
life, of his world.
Others tugged at him, urged him to flee, as they did, he ignored them.
He fully realized he was watching the end, the rout of civilization into a
dark age it would never recover from, whether it survived it or not. The
end of Humanity, not just as dominant species of the planet, but as one of
the thinking creatures who lived on Earth.
He felt someone had to watch, had to remember, had to know and
understand the how, where and what of the transformation. He was empty of
everything else, fear, duty to his doomed nation, confusion. He might as
well fill himself with memories. So one human mutely watched the Great Old
One summon NERV Tokyo back from wherever it had been. For a shining
moment, hope was reborn. Admiral Simson remembered fully who and what he
was, why he was there and what his oath really meant.
Then the purpose of the debris became clear.
Two material objects cannot exist in the same place at the same time.
Nature tends to banish the transgressors to the realm of energy. The
blasts that erupted from the lowest levels of NERV Tokyo destroyed any
hope, as it destroyed every human for 10 miles in all directions, as it
scoured Tokyo clean of anything light or remotely inflammable. The sea of
fire lasted just long enough to broil the human defenders alive. Then it
blinked out, taking with it the light of the world.
----------------------------------------
The first atomic bombs went in a few minutes later as the survivors
reestablished the chain of command. The last commander of the defense of
mankind was an Army Air Force brigadier general commanding one of the
conventional air wings. He had no problem ordering his nuclear-armed
brethren into a saturation bombing attack that their combat loads were
supposed to make unnecessary. Some of the bombers actually tried to engage
individual targets with their loads.
He watched in horror as bomb after bomb hit, and failed to detonate.
Someone commented they should be throwing rocks. The Navy bombers and
fighter-bombers were getting closer. One bomber collided with one of the
largest spawn, the plane disintegrated, but its bomb failed to detonate,
and the spawn recovered from the impact and fire within minutes.
Another bomber pilot reported the spawn had pulled most of a red EVA
out of the rubble.
The Air Force crews listened to the Navy officer's calm description of
the monsters pawing through the rubble of NERV base, pulling the
dismembered EVA from the twisted wreckage. Most of them were crawling in
their seats as he described the spawn cracking the EVAs armor, and
consuming the material within.
The brigadier could hear his flight engineer retching at the graphic,
and probably wholly accurate description. He expected that the Navy pilot
had gone insane, and was focused entirely on reporting the actions of the
enemy. There was no stopping or helping him.
Then his tone changed, "It's got an entry plug, it looks intact! I'm
going in for a closer look, stay with me!"
The brigadier offered a silent prayer for the madman on the other end
of the radio, that he'd hold together long enough to complete his mission.
"One of them shook the pilot out, a flash of red. I don't know which
pilot, Saotome or Langley. They're carrying the pilot to Cthulhu, I can
see it now, all red, Langley. The little one's handing her over, I don't
know if she's alive - wait, she's moving, I see her moving. Cthulhu's got
- he swallowed her whole! Just popped her in his mouth - " the pause went
on a long time.
The brigadier thought they'd lost the man.
"They've got two more plugs, both heavily damaged. The others are
still digging, most in the southern sector. I guess they're looking for
the other pilots to feed to their master."
----------------------------------------
In Nevada, Nabiki-kun and Rei stood outside, and stared at the desert
night sky, the stars seemed to be mocking them. In the complex below them,
crews were frantically trying to complete at least one EVA, but they were
hoping to cram weeks of work and testing into a few hours. Even with
adjustments and further work on the train and carrier, the task was clearly
hopeless.
"Even if they do finish it, how fast can we get to Tokyo?" Nabiki-kun
asked, "Can either of us defeat the hundreds of creatures massed there?"
"No. Nor would two. Nor would all six," Rei said. She, among all
the others, felt no despair. She'd been yanked back and forth between hope
and despair too much, so now she simply accepted waiting and hopelessness.
"So we're all doomed? Is that it?"
Rei watched Nabiki-kun sink to her knees and begin sobbing. "I do not
know what the Great Old Ones hope to accomplish. In any case, despair will
accomplish nothing." Rei paused, weighed her next words carefully, "I have
lost many. I will not despair. I will avenge."
Nabiki-kun looked up at her. "I . . . I can't, I'm not you."
"Then mourn, but be ready." Rei patted Nabiki-kun's shoulder. It was
a strange thing to draw comfort from, but Nabiki-kun did. There was really
not anything to do, until the EVAs were ready. Rei knew she'd take the
first, she doubted a second could be made ready in time. Rei accepted that
she would die as she had lived, a pilot, the first to die.
----------------------------------------
"He just ate a handful of dirt." The Navy pilot was up and reporting
again, he'd landed just long enough to refuel his plane, get something to
eat and use the head. Obsessed was a word easily applied. "If all the
reports are true, that may have been Simson's command post."
The brigadier had landed as well, trying to concentrate on what the
enemy was doing, while the higher-ups, who'd finally arrived, worked out a
counterstrike.
"You suppose it - it ate the remains of the pilot?" he asked his
copilot, and the other flight officers of his bomb wing, those who were
still sane and hadn't fallen into the pit of depression and hysteria.
"What for? They're all dead, the radiation would have killed them
even if the blast didn't."
The brigadier agreed, a few eggheads had speculated that the radiation
was all gamma, and mostly contained within the base. The explosion was due
to the violent vaporization of materials around the points of
interpenetration between the debris planted and the base as it returned.
So the base was probably still recoverable. Those things were digging,
looking for something that might have survived. The huge creatures had
been casting aside huge sections of steel reinforced concrete and other
debris.
"They're pulling back," the Navy pilot reported, "All except the big
one."
That got everyone's attention.
"He's spitting something into a tank they just broke open . . . now
he's flying away!?"
"What did that thing spit into the tank?" the brigadier shouted,
"Report!"
"It looked like - "
The brigadier looked at the brilliant glow on the horizon.
----------------------------------------
Rei held Nabiki-kun close and tightly, while she held her AT field as
close around them and at its greatest strength. The heat blast had set
everything around them on fire. People, vehicles, plants and buildings
went from looking at the glowing cloud wall fast approaching, to being
torches and infernos.
Despite her AT field, she could heat the heat seeping up through her
shoes, into her skin. Much of the sand had been fused together. Rei knew
they had to get back underground, to see if anyone had survived. But the
heat was too great to allow movement yet.
"What was that?" Nabiki-kun asked, on the edge of hysteria.
"The beginning of the end," Rei replied as she waited for either the
ground to cool, or the next step to come. She remembered a story Ritsuko
had told her, the `older woman` trying to reach out to another living
thing, after days of `training` at the hands of Naoko Akagi. The day the
era of the dinosaurs ended. The heat blast was only the first part. Las
Vegas would be inundated by the tsunami, if the explosion was even a
percentage of the blast 65 million years ago.
Rei wondered if the bunkers deep inside the base would survive. She
also wondered what the other effects would be. Had the creatures completed
what they were doing in Tokyo? Would they wait for the heat blast and
darkness and cold to finish off humanity, and most of the other species?
Without them having to raise a hand?
Rei could appreciate the ruthlessness, the intricacy and good
planning, although she did wish it was going to achieve a different goal.
----------------------------------------
Dreams Themselves Are Only Dreams
Toji leapt up from where he had fallen over, grabbed a bucket of water
that was nearby and dumped it over his head. The old men around him
stopped their chanting and stared at him. He felt kind of strange, the
dream of the old woman oppressed him. He needed something unexpected to
make him accept he was back in the real world. He was about to explain
this when Raccoon started screaming.
It was an inhuman, almost sawing sound, as the other boy leapt up and
started slapping at himself, turning and twisting violently. It almost
looked like a wild dance of some kind. And the scream went on and on.
Toji didn't know how anyone alive could make that kind of noise. It raised
the hair on his neck, and paralyzed all the others, except Captain
Katsuragi.
She moved in to intercept him, grabbing him. Toji thought that was a
bad idea. Then she slapped him, which Toji thought was a terrible idea.
Raccoon's reaction told the Captain three things. First, she'd been
promoted to Major, Admiral Simson's shouted warning told her that. Second,
her nose was a lot softer than Raccoon's forehead. Toji wasn't sure if
that was an accident as Raccoon tried to twist free of her grip. He hadn't
stopped screaming, it set Toji's teeth on edge. The third, and Toji was
sure this _was_ intentional, a knee to the groin hurt girls as well as
guys.
Toji watched Raccoon move off in a screaming spiral, as Cap - Major
Katsuragi crumpled to the ground in her own world of pain. "I think he
thinks he's on fire."
"How do you know that?" Simson asked.
"I was here when you firestormed Tokyo," Toji admitted, he felt sick
as he remembered, people boiled in the river, people burned in their homes,
people aflame running through the streets, running and screaming.
"Extinguish him when you throw a net over him."
"What would make him think that?" one of the old men asked.
Toji was confused, he thought he recognized the language they'd used
with Raccoon when they left. But this time he understood it. What is
happening to me?! he thought.
"I'd like to see my sister," Toji said.
"A quick look, then we have to debrief you," Simson said as he
signaled for two jeeps. One took off after Raccoon. The other would take
Toji to the hospital.
As the jeep threaded its way through the crowd, Toji wondered if there
would be any lasting effects, would his sister remember it, be traumatized
by it. Or would it all be a dream, he wondered, Even I can't be sure what
was real and what wasn't. How long were we gone, did we do any good? He
quit asking questions he'd never be able to answer and settled into the
rear seat, as the jeep headed to the hospital.
----------------------------------------
Sammi crouched low in the back of the halftrack. Erin, Tomiyo and Jun
were crowded in there with the crane and some of the heavy lifting gear,
and the block and tackle that would be needed if the auto-eject didn't
work.
She was glad of the canvas cover, it blocked out the sight of the
rapidly approaching Outer God, as it coursed through the violet sky.
She didn't think a few dozen meters of steel and concrete would make a
difference when that thing hit. At the same time, she didn't know that it
wouldn't. She was just glad she didn't have to look at it.
So she and the other guards joined the SAR teams as they raced out to
collect the fallen pilots. Orders from Ikari were unnecessary, recovering
the pilots was SAR's primary mission, standing orders made that very clear.
As they piled out of the halftracks, Captain Kuroda was already
shouting orders, mainly to keep everyone focused on their tasks. Even so,
the eye tended to stray towards the sky and the doom that was rapidly
approaching them. A shouted order kept everyone focused on the task, they
only had a few minutes.
On the plug of Unit 04, the autoeject worked, Sammi practically tore
the side hatch off, and raced through the torrent of L.C.L. to get Ranma.
The girl seemed so tiny and fragile to her, as she ran back to the medical
halftrack with Ranma cradled in her arms.
Tomiyo had arrived with Shinji, another terribly small and
fragile-looking package. Erin, Jun and Captain Madison had Asuka, who was
screaming, thrashing and struggling. Sammi knew all the languages Asuka
did, and all the languages Jeff did, logical considering the part they
played in her creation. She still didn't recognize what Asuka was
screaming.
A syrette of morphine had no effect on the girl. Sammi had to help
hold her down as they strapped her in. The halftrack was turning around
slowly. Once Asuka was secure, it raced back to the SAR bay, with the
other vehicles in close pursuit. All raced for the greater, if relative,
safety of the bay.
Once they were inside, the doors started slamming shut. Sammi had her
hands full helping carry Asuka to a gurney to get her to the medical
center. Regular SAR troops carried the other two pilots.
"How long?" Tomiyo asked as the pilots were carried through the
corridors.
"It should have happened by now. Maybe we're home."
"Maybe Gendo scared it off," Tomiyo joked, "He sure scares me."
"Or it's playing with us," Sammi said, she wasn't happy with that
possibility. "There aren't any of those things, what happened?"
"Beats me," Captain Kuroda said, "Whew! Get cleaned up, or stay down
wind. We should probably decontaminate."
"What about the kids?" Erin asked.
"Standard medical procedure. It's harder for us, because they have to
be conscious."
The group headed back for the partitions and containers to complete a
decontamination procedure on the rescuers.
.---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
| Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
| Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
| Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject |
`---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'