[FFML] [NGE] Before and After - Chapter 6

[Michael Clark]

I expanded this chapter considerably over my original outlines, in so
doing deemphasized Shinji to an extent while giving Rei an encounter
with Misato that, while I hadn't planned for it before now, fit rather
well with the buildup I'd intended to come to a head next chapter.  For
now, however, I present the last of Rei II.


"After Arael"
Chapter Six

It used to be the lights from outside shined through my window and
painted the room in a faint orange glow.  Thanks to the streetlamps, the
bulldozer outside and the stairwell railings cast thick, dark shadows
against the interior wall.  I dislike the light.  I close the curtains
every night, and now, but for the residual reflections at the floor,
I sleep in the black.  Even with my eyes open, it feels like becoming
nothing, the nothingness I've sought for so long, but that night, my
room wasn't altogether dark.  The curtains hadn't failed me--they
rippled and wavered in the faint white light, blocking the window.

The source was a person who stood in my apartment.  She glowed, but her
body was translucent and ephemeral.  She held a notebook, my notebook,
between her hands, and calmly turned the pages one by one.

"What are you doing?" I asked her.  "Why are you here?"

"Because I don't remember," she said.

"Remember what?"

She closed the notebook and straightened the red bow at the neck of her
uniform.

"Being you," she said.

I rose from my bed and flipped on the light, but as the darkness was
erased, her form and notebook vanished, too.  She was me; she looked
like me.  Not like the _me_ inside the Eva, which is small and young and
twisted.  I looked through my schoolbag and found my notebook there,
open to the page I left it at.  All this I can't explain, and when I
woke again the next morning, to sunlight creeping under my curtains, I
wondered if it had ever been real at all.

"Rei," said the Commander.  "Are you listening?"

That's right; the Commander's office is always bathed in light, like an
eternal dawn.

I do not know how the Commander and vice commander can work there.

It was ten o'clock in the Commander's office.  The Commander sat back,
relaxed, thoughtful.  The vice commander thumbed through a stack of
files.  There were four of us present that day--the two commanders,
myself, and Doctor Akagi--to discuss and assess the Angel attack.

"The pilot of Unit-02 took an aggressive position instead of her
assignment," said the Commander.  "She came under attack, did she not,
doctor?"

"A psychic attack," said the doctor, standing to my left, "of profound
psychological impact and trauma.  We still don't know the full extent
of the damage done to Asuka's mind or how it will affect her ability to
pilot."

"And Rei, in defense of Unit-02, fired on the Fifteenth Angel," said the
Commander.  "But the shots were ineffective."

"That is so," I said.

"We exercised all due force, did we not, Fuyutsuki?"

"I dare say there was nothing else to try," said the vice commander.
"Had the Chinese or Russians been on board with the undersea umbilical,
perhaps we could've borrowed some power from them."  He shook his head.
"A pity to be so mired in nineteenth- and twentieth-century grudges, or
else we would still have a Spear to use."

So it was.  When the Angel attacked Unit-02 and penetrated the pilot's
mind, the Commander had been left with no other choice.  He sent me into
Terminal Dogma to retrieve the last great weapon: the Spear of Longinus,
an artifact whose power rivals that of Eva or Angels.  The Spear was
brought from Antarctica, and long had we kept it safe, impaling the
white giant Adam in the lowest levels of the compound, but that day, the
Commander had given the order to extract it, and I was sent down to do
the deed.  I waded in the ocean of LCL that bled from her.  I pulled out
the red, two-pronged spear and rode back to the surface.  I hurled it
skyward to meet the Angel, and when it struck the enemy's AT field, it
pushed through.

The Spear is gone now.  I'm told there are people unhappy about that.

"It is imperative that we all understand what happened and be
coordinated with this version of events," said the Commander.  "The old
men in the Committee may call on any of us--or even all of us--looking
for a scapegoat or someone to blame."

"What's the issue?" asked Doctor Akagi.  "All we've done is recall what
transpired.  These are facts."

"Facts aren't what interest them," said the Commander.  "Reasons and
motivations are.  We were tasked with destroying Angels, and it is only
after that can the Committee move its plan forward.  If they should ask
any of you before them, I want to ensure we all say the same thing--that
we moved to protect a pilot and had no other acceptable recourse,
nothing more."

"Commander Ikari," I said.

"What is it?"

"If the Committee takes me, what do I tell them about Unit-01?"

"What of it?" asked the vice commander.  "The Committee are the ones who
wished it frozen."

"But Commander Ikari has the authority to abrogate the freeze," I said.
"Does he not?"

"Without a doubt," said the Commander, leaning forward.

"Then the Committee would ask why we didn't consider using Unit-01.  I
only wish to know what to tell them."

"It would've made no difference," said the Commander.  "Put Unit-01 at
the gunner's position, the results would've been the same.  Is that not
so, Doctor Akagi?"

"One can't change the physics of it," she said.  "Broadening of the
beam, atmospheric losses--"

"But Unit-01 can use its AT field offensively and at considerable
range," I said.  "It did so with the Fourteenth."

"Those were unusual circumstances," said the vice commander.

"Nevertheless--"

"It is not relevant," said the Commander, standing.  "Unit-01 would not
have been used.  Unleashing an Evangelion with unlimited power would
not be prudent while other avenues existed, regardless of its supposed
capabilities.  You will tell the Committee, should they ask it, that
Unit-01 was not considered for use."

"I will tell the Committee that Commander Ikari forbade Unit-01's use."

The Commander scowled.  Doctor Akagi and Vice Commander Fuyutsuki
exchanged a glance.

"That was not my instruction," said the Commander.

"It wasn't?"

The Commander stared, his gaze chilling and frigid.  His jaw clenched.

"Rei," said the vice commander, "perhaps you can be excused for the
time-being.  If the need arises, we will continue later."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes!" barked the Commander.  "You will do as you are told.  Go now."

I did not understand.  Was that not what I'd been doing?  The Commander
had sought my assessment of the facts, and I'd provided it.  The
Commander wished to hear my version of events, and I gave it.  I didn't
contradict him.  I didn't disobey him.

Did I?

As I walked to the elevator, the Commander's meeting resumed.
"Fuyutsuki," he said, "get me the Angel dossier."

"For what purpose?"

"Tell us again about the next Angel," said the Commander.  "The
Sixteenth."

The elevator doors opened.  I stepped inside, and the vice commander
opened a manila folder and read from the opening lines.

" 'The Angel Armisael, the Sixteenth Angel, is foretold in the Dead Sea
Scrolls as the last of Adam's children and the penultimate messenger
of the Covenant.  If Arael could be called the Invader of the Mind,
Armisael would be Invader of the Body and Soul.  It will integrate and
consume, so the Scrolls say, though how and in what way, even we cannot
know...' "

The doors closed.

Two Angels left.  There were only two Angels left, two Angels between me
and the fulfillment of my life, my reason for being.  Soon, I wouldn't
be needed anymore.  I wouldn't have to live anymore.  I closed my eyes
in that elevator and listened to the levels of Nerv pass by.  I used
to think I knew how it would feel--that like when I sleep, the world
would just vanish, and I wouldn't even know that everything had gone,
but now, my nights are filled with images and sound, like the ghost of
myself who came that morning or... something else.  I've seen Unit-00
in my dreams.  It grasped the red Spear and pulled it from my torso as
I hung, crucified, with nails driven through my hands.  It shouldn't be
possible--for me to look upon myself in Unit-00 that way--but that is
what crowds my mind and makes it difficult to sleep.

What would it be like, then, to neither feel nor be?  As much as I've
wished for it, I realize there must be some paradox.  When people
achieve their desires, they feel happiness and joy.  They're pleased.
For what I want, I cannot reap the reward of satisfaction.  I will only
escape.

I thought that would suffice, so long as, between time and the time the
last Angel falls, I'd had the chance to finish the other things I wanted
to do.

The battle had been stressful on us, the three pilots.  With only one
Spear to use, I knew I had to be perfect with my throw, that even a
slight change in angle or extra speed would hurl the Spear into space
uselessly.  That I did not want to happen, not with Soryu screaming
and crying from her Eva--this time, not without reason.  I do not know
what the Angel did to her; perhaps I don't really wish to know, but it
paralyzed her.  It panicked Ikari-kun, who begged his father to let him
go to her aid.  The Commander refused, of course, and only after the
Spear destroyed the Angel could Soryu be saved--or rather, extracted
from the entry plug with the help of tons of machinery and dozens of
men.

I'd scarcely seen her since.  Not something I would ordinarily concern
myself with, but Ikari-kun had hardly seen her, either.  She'd left
the major's apartment, striking out on her own, and though Ikari-kun
knew not where she'd gone, I realized it as we left school.  The class
representative is too meticulous with her duties to keep a stack of
printouts to herself and fail to give them to the assigned student.
That's why, after the meeting with the Commander, I left the Geofront
and rode the train north to the class representative's home.

It was a white house of two stories, with a small set of windows in
the attic.  Trees, tall and green, shaded both sides of the street
approaching it, and the streetlights had unusual, tetrahedral shapes at
their tops, as if to shine most of their white light to the sky.

The outer doors were glass with brown, stained trim.  I knocked at one.

"Yes?" said a voice through a speaker, an intercom rusty and frayed at
the right of the doorknob.  "Who's there?"

The voice was unfamiliar to me.  I said nothing.

A woman, older than I but still short of adulthood, peered around the
corner, removing a pair of gardening gloves from her hands.  She pulled
her long, dark hair into a ponytail, bound it with an elastic band, and
slid open the door.  "I know that uniform anywhere," she said.  "You
must be one of Hikari's friends."

In a loose manner of speaking that was so.  I nodded.

"Hikari!" said the girl, calling over her shoulder.

"What is it, Sister?" the class representative called back.

"Someone else to see you."

" 'Someone else'?"

"From your school?"

I heard a door within the home slid open.  Footsteps approached.

"I don't mean to be rude," said the girl, "but we do already have a
guest with us.  Will you be staying long?"

I shook my head.

"Then please, take some slippers," she said.

Slippers?

"You don't want to scuff the floor, do you?"

Something I would have to consider for my apartment, I supposed--if I
had the money to afford slippers for guests, anyway.

Or if I had guests at all.

"Ayanami-san?"  The class representative peered around the hallway
corner.  "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, she isn't part of your slumber party?" said the sister.

The class representative laughed sheepishly.  It was unusual, seeing
her in that place.  Her attire was casual--pink pajamas with strips of
yellow fabric at the ends of her sleeves, her pant legs.

"Is there something I can do for you?" she asked me.  "I'm afraid we do
have company, so--"

"I'm aware," I said.

She flinched.  "You are?  Is it... about her?"

I nodded.

The class representative's sister touched her younger sibling on the
shoulder, passing by.  "I'll tell our guest you'll be a minute?" she
said.

"Yes," said the middle sister.  "Ayanami-san and I will be in the
kitchen."

It was a bright place, with pale yellow walls and white tiling.  A steel
pot and four plates soaked in the sink, the water still and polluted
with grains of rice.  "Oh, I'm sorry!" said the class representative,
running the faucet.  "I'll get this cleaned up right away."

"I do not mind," I said.

But she squirted blue soap onto a rag and scrubbed at the dishes
anyway.  There was a small, Western-style table in the corner, wooden
and circular.  I sat in one of the chairs.  A group of drawing crayons
rolled across the table.  Their tips were dull; they'd been rubbed away.
Their oils and pigments stuck to the surface of a sheet of paper, a
rudimentary drawing.  It was a house--this house, I took it--with three
stick figures standing outside.  The artist distorted their proportions,
for had they been real and stood on the kitchen floor, their heads
would've broken through the ceiling, but I suspect attention to detail
was last on this young artist's mind.  After all, she depicted the three
stick people holding hands--but gave them neither fingers nor wrists to
actually hold.

"Oh!" said the class representative, leaning over me.  "My little sister
Nozomi drew that.  Do you like it?"

I studied the picture.  "Who are these people?" I asked.

"It's us," she said.  "Our family."

"How can you be sure?"

She scoffed.  "Well, who else would they be?  Look--the tall one is my
big sister, Kodoma.  You just met her, see?  The middle one is me; the
little one is Nozomi."

I did not know how that could be so apparent to the class
representative.  The three figures in the picture could've been anyone.
There was insufficient detail.

But then, around the kitchen were photos of all shapes and sizes.
On the windowsill, the three Horaki sisters posed before a mountain
lake--the elder on the left, the middle sister on the right, and the
youngest between them, pulling down her eyelid in displeasure.  The sky
was blue, and a sailboat drifted past in the background.  There were
many photos like that one, sometimes featuring all of the sisters, other
times only two.  They were never solitary, however.

They were never alone.

"Sorry about shuffling you in here like this," said the class
representative, wiping away the last drop of dishwater.  "How did you
know she was here?  The printouts?"

I nodded.

"It seems like very little escapes your attention," she said, "even if
you do stare out the window quite a bit.  Well then?  I think Asuka
would be surprised, seeing you here."

" 'Surprised' is not the word I'd use."

The class representative stifled a laugh.  "That's true; it's for that
I thought it better take you out of sight.  I take it you're not really
here to see her, either.  I know she's been a bit less than kind."

"You're polite."

"She's my friend.  She's Ikari-kun's friend, too, as much as she
may deny it.  She's very angry right now, but Ikari-kun, you, the
world--they're all just convenient targets.  I think the person Asuka's
angriest with, the person she hates the most, is herself."

I'd often found that person's anger and expressiveness confusing, and
what the class representative said about her puzzled me all the more.
"Why should she hate herself?" I asked.

The class representative sighed.  "I wish I could say.  My little sister
went through a phase, a year or two ago, where all she wanted to do was
do things herself.  She shunned me and my sister, shut herself in her
room, and insisted she could be a grown-up and didn't need our help.  It
lasted for a week, maybe two, until she realized that being an adult
means you have to help with dinner, do your own laundry--things she
didn't want to do before.  That's the thing, though:  Nozomi was seven
at the time.  Asuka..."  She shook her head.  "Do you know anything
about her?  What her childhood was like?"

I scarcely knew what childhood should be like.

"Well, either way," she said, sitting across from me, "you're not here
to reach out to Asuka, are you?"

I tilted my head.

"This is ultimately about Ikari-kun," she said, smiling.  "Am I right?"

"I don't understand."

"Come now, I saw it when you visited him in the hospital that time.  Did
he tell you she'd gone?"

"No."  I sat upright.  "Not at first."

"What happened, then?"

"He entered the classroom alone at fifteen minutes past eight."

"Before I arrived," said the class representative.

"Yes.  Ikari-kun did not say anything."

"So you asked him."

"I did.  He was hesitant at first, but then he said that she'd left
Major Katsuragi's apartment.  She'd written a note, but didn't say when
she'd return."

"How did Ikari-kun feel about that?"

"He did not speak his feelings on the matter."

"But they were plain to you?" she said.  "His feelings?"

"I could see the disquiet on his face."

"Ayanami-san," said the class representative, "why are you here?"

"To assess the state of things."  I looked to the hallway.  "Do you
think she will stay long?"

"I don't really know.  You think she should go?"

"She is a burden, whether here or there, but Major Katsuragi is
responsible for her, and Ikari-kun..."

"What about Ikari-kun?"

I blinked.  "He will continue to cook her lunches without complaint."

"May I be candid with you?" asked the class representative.

"Yes."

"I think you're talking about the best thing for Ikari-kun," she said.
"Not for Asuka.  Going back home won't do anything for her.  There are
no expectations for her here, but once she thinks about being a pilot
again, she'll put a tremendous weight on herself."

"She can't choose to stop as she pleases," I said.

"I know that.  And I can't say I know what will help her, but I'm not
doing this just out of classroom duty.  Asuka's my friend.  In the state
of mind she's in now, I have to look out for her interests."

I nodded, though I didn't agree with her.  If the class representative
wouldn't send Soryu home--at least, not then--what else could be done?
I didn't think I could persuade the class representative otherwise.
It's difficult to argue, I've found, when the opponent knows your
position better than you do.  I _had_ come to that house thinking only
of Ikari-kun and how Soryu's absence had affected him.  I didn't
try to understand it--I don't think I can--but were I in the class
representative's position, I should imagine I'd do the same.

"Hikari?"

The voice was faint and soft.  It came from down the hall, but the class
representative and I recognized it.

"There!" whispered the class representative, pointing beyond the
table.  "Go through the curtain into the hall.  You can come around in a
second."

I pushed through the blue cloth and took a step to my left.  I put my
back to the wall and stood still.

"Who was it who came?" asked Soryu, her footsteps heavy, her bare feet
smacking on the tile.

"Just someone from student council," said the class representative.
"With so many people leaving, they were thinking about merging some of
the classes together."

"They came all the way here on a weekend to say that?"

"It seemed like they wanted to start with it Monday if they could.  I
told her it was a bad idea, though.  The integrity of the class is
important."

"If you say so."

There was a pause.  "Asuka," said the class representative, "how long do
you think you'll stay?"

"You want me to go?"

"Not at all!  I think you should stay as long as you want."

"Within reason, you mean."

"As long as you want.  But still, I do have a question.  You don't have
to answer it if you don't want to."

"Go on."

"Why is it you don't want to be around Katsuragi-san and Ikari-kun?"

" 'Why?' " She huffed.  "Why should I have to be around them?  They're
not my family.  Those two--they think they know so much."

"About what?"

"How to fight, how the world works, how to live and be a person."  She
drummed her fingers on a hard surface.  "They think I'm nothing."

"That's not true!"

"Sure it is.  And why shouldn't they think that?  I can't win in an Eva.
I can't do as well as a wide-eyed, scared little boy, and because of
that..."

"Asuka?"

"Yeah?"

"You want me to make you some lunch?"

"That might be nice."

A chair scratched against the tile.  "All right, let me see what Sister
wanted.  Honestly, sometimes she's pickier than Nozomi.  It'll be just a
moment, okay?"

Soryu said nothing, and the class representative came through the blue
curtain, a finger to her lips.  She led me by the hand to the glass
outer doors.  I removed the slippers, leaving them side-by-side, and
wore my own shoes again.

"For my part, Ayanami-san, I don't know how much you can really do for
Asuka, but for Ikari-kun, I think you should go to him."

I blinked.

"Don't be like me," she said.  "I moved too slowly with Suzuhara."

"Suzuhara-kun is still alive."

She smiled.  "And I'm thankful for that, every day, but I almost waited
too long.  Don't make that mistake.  I can say that, from my experience,
regardless of Asuka's feelings.  You should go to Ikari-kun and say what
you feel."

"What is that?" I said.

She giggled.  An unsettling sound when one doesn't understand the
reason.  "You'll know," she said.  "I think we all know what that's
like, even if we can't put it to words."

I did not take the class representative's sentiments to heart--at least,
not then.  What struck me more was that, as I left, Soryu called to
her gently, quietly.  I think, truly, it had been the first time I heard
her speak without haughtiness or disgust in her voice, but if the class
representative had been right, there was still hatred inside her.  There
was still a loathing--not just for others but for herself, too.

The pilot of Unit-02 had been broken.

I left the class representative's home.  I walked.  I rode the trains,
but I went nowhere.  It was early to return to my apartment, yet I was
at a loss for anywhere specific to go.  Above ground, there were people.
A woman chatted incessantly on her mobile phone, ignoring the stares
of the passengers around her.  A man sat at an outdoor table of black
wrought iron, checking his watch, looking down both ends of the street,
yet no one came.  A boy and girl strolled down the sidewalk, and when
a pair of patrol cars zipped past, sirens blaring, the girl pulled her
friend from the distracted crowd of fellow pedestrians.  They turned the
corner of an alley, and she pressed her lips to his for but a moment.
Such an act wasn't alien to me.  I'd seen it before.  Some chose to hide
it, as those two did, sheltering themselves between brick and cedar.
Others flaunted it, and their tongues contorted in ways I did not know
possible.  I couldn't think it a sanitary thing, but people ignore
their butter judgment often.  They were driven to do it.  Compelled by
instinct and feeling.  I wasn't sure I understood the greater purpose;
it was but a prelude to an act of real consequence.

Wasn't it?

The streets and shops of the city were full of them, full of people.
I was among them but not one of them.  I was different.  That's why I
left.

It's difficult to get out of the city, even more difficult to go without
permission.  The peaks that surround Tokyo-3 I've only ever seen from
afar.  As paradoxical as it may sound, for the times I wish to visit
nature, I go to the Geofront.  I think it's an issue of ventilation, of
airflow.  No matter how man has drilled and bored into the structure,
they could never hope to industrialize it, to use smoke-churning
industry in this place for long.  For what little need of petroleum and
methane they did have, humans populated the Geofront with grass and
trees.  They reflect sunlight into it.  They grow beans, herbs, peppers.

Melons.

I walked around the melon patch, the field of dark, crumbly dirt.
Sprinklers emerged from the soil, showering the melons in overlapping
arcs of fine mist.  Such a simple mechanism to the eye, yet I recalled
it'd taken weeks to restore.  The damage the Fourteenth had inflicted
could not be brushed away with the wave of a hand, and we, in fulfilling
our purpose, our duty, had caused some damage of our own.  There was a
crater--one the N2 mine had left behind.  The crater had flooded.  It
became part of the lake.  That which wasn't repaired had grown into the
new way of things.

A metal bucket fell, sinking slightly into the soil.  Major Katsuragi,
in her usual skirted uniform, paced about the edge of the patch.  "You
might want to move," she said.

I lifted my chin.

"That sprinkler," she said, pointing to a rotating metal head near my
feet.  "It's not calibrated well.  I'd move back before it gets you."

I stepped aside, and sure enough, the field of water turned.  It
enveloped my former position, coming to a halt just centimeters from my
shoe.

"See what I mean?" said the major.  "Shoddy work all around this is."
She sighed, picking up her pail.  In it, various objects and tools
rattled about--thick, leathery gloves with steel buttons on each side; a
two-pronged weeding tool; a spray bottle of a clear, unlabeled liquid.
"What is it?" she asked.  "Have you come to tend to Kaji-kun's melons,
too?"

"Inspector Kaji asked you to do so?"

"Hah!  One would hope so.  Oh no, I mean, I came here to dig through
the dirt and spray herbicide for fun.  To answer your question, yes, he
asked me, and someone has to do it."

"He's gone?"

She flinched.  She stood upright, rigid.  "Well, you could say that.
Why?  Were you looking for him?"

" 'Looking'?"

"He can be very charming," she said.  "It wouldn't be unusual if you'd
taken to him, that's all."

"I'm a second-year middle-school student."

The major smiled to herself.  "I didn't say he would take to you in
return.  That would be illegal, unnatural.  A fantasy to some men who
keep pictures of girls in sailor uniforms on multiple hard drives for
redundancy."  She looked me up and down.  "You'd be a godsend to them,
you know.  You wear your uniform even on a Sunday."

"As do you, Major Katsuragi."

She pulled on the lapel of her red jacket, laughing to herself.  "So I
do.  Even so, you didn't answer my question."

Question?

"Were you looking for him--for Kaji-kun?"

I studied the melon patch for a moment.  "Yes," I said.  "He gave me a
piece of advice I found... useful."

"He's good with that, isn't he," she said.  "When I knew him in
university, he fancied himself a street-wise philosopher, with all
these sayings of thinkers and scientists.  "There was a time he and I
spent altogether too much time with each other.  A whole week we didn't
see anyone else, and only when we came out did I realize what people
were saying, how they looked on that.  I told him about it, and he
said, 'What do you care what other people think?'  In English, no less.
Mangled, terrible English.  You know where the saying comes from?"

"A scientist," I said.

"A scientist's wife, if I recall, but the point stands.  The man is full
of quotes like those.  I think he uses them to impress women, to make
himself sound smarter than he really is."

"That does not make him intelligent in and of itself?" I asked.

"How could he be--using someone else's words?"

"He still has to choose the right ones to say."

The major gaped, wavering on her feet.  She glanced at the sprinklers.
"I guess you're right about that.  Even if he came up with none of it
himself, he always seemed to know the right line for the occasion."  Her
brow creased.  She watched me from the corner of her eye.  "Well now,
Kaji-kun isn't here, and who knows how long these sprinklers will be
going, or if I'll get anything done before the melons dry.  Maybe we
should wait for a while?"

"Here?" I said.

"Hm, that would be a bit boring, wouldn't it.  Back at my place,
perhaps?"

"Your 'place'?"

"What, you don't have a synch test today, do you?  Asuka's gone, so you
won't have to deal with her.  It'll just be you, me, and Shinji-kun.
How's that for camaraderie, hm?"

The melon patch was wet.  The Inspector, whom I thought might have more
sound words of guidance, was gone.  At the time, I followed the major.
I didn't think doing so would result in any harm.

"Sorry for the mess!"

It was a twenty-minute journey up the escalators and over land to the
major's complex.  When we entered the apartment, she slid a cardboard
box from the doorway with the instep of her shoe.  "Though I've heard
that doesn't bother you so much, yes?"

What mess?

Well, perhaps I shouldn't say that.  I noticed the major was somewhat...
disorganized.  Empty tins of canned coffee and better adorned the tables
and the top of the refrigerator.  Shirts and underwear covered the
floor.  I did not mind, as the major said, but if I should leave my
shoes at the door, it would've been nice to have a place or two to put
my feet.

"Shinji-kun, you have a guest!" said the major, tossing her beret aside.
"Shinji-kun?"  She blinked.  "Hm, maybe he went out?"  She opened the
refrigerator, tilting her head.  "Must be a grocery run."

I began to think going there was a poor idea, even though I agreed with
the major's plan.  "Regardless of when he comes back, it'll be good for
Shinji-kun, I think," she said, taking a seat.  "To take his mind off
Asuka leaving.  Besides..."  Her gaze turned sly and wicked.  "I've
heard you two went out on a date?"

"It was not a date," I said.

"No?  Too bad for Shinji-kun, then.  I started thinking, after you came
over here to show up Asuka on that coordination exercise, that you and
Shinji-kun were always a bit more together on things."

"It was you, Major Katsuragi, who asked me to come here for that."

"Minor details."  She made a face, looking down, and laughed nervously.
"I hope you can excuse me for being a bad host, but..."

" 'But'?"

"I just need to run to the toilet," she said.  "Please, make yourself
at home.  Maybe you can scout out Asuka's room--if she doesn't want to
stay, it'd be good for Shinji-kun to have a roommate his own age.  Don't
you think?"

I said nothing.

"Careful, Rei--if you hold all that heat inside your head, it might just
blow," she said, laughing.  "I'll be right back!"

The major stepped back, closing a sliding door between me and the
facilities she would use.  I was grateful, at the time.  Without a
doubt, the major could be irritating for her directness.  I wasn't
sure if she believed all that she'd said or merely meant to elicit a
response.

Now I'm sure it was the latter.

I explored the major's apartment for a time.  As she'd said, it was not
my first visit.  I passed by Soryu's room, and contrary to the major's
suggestion, I did not go inside.  In rough, jagged, poor handwriting,
the pilot of Unit-02 had written a note on a whiteboard stuck to her
door, warning that no one should enter on penalty of death.  I obeyed
that request, if only to ensure that she wouldn't visit me at night to
bring about my demise.  I can think of many more pleasant ways to end my
life.

Opposite this room was Ikari-kun's.  The floor there was devoid of
strewn clothing or spots of spilled beer.  The bed was neat, the sheets
folded.  It was orderly, one could say.  Clean, even.  I thought
cleanliness must be important to Ikari-kun, but I wasn't sure why.

RING-RING-RING!  The major's telephone came to life.  I shut the door to
Ikari-kun's room and returned to the kitchen.  The phone was on an end
table, underneath a calendar.

RING-RING-RING!

Strictly speaking, I shouldn't have been there, but the major, it
appeared, was not yet done relieving herself.  I let the phone ring and
ring until the answering machine picked up.

BEEP.

"Ah, hello?" said a voice.  "Misato-san?  It's me."

Ikari-kun.  I thought he must've been on his way home.

"I just wanted to call and see when I should come back.  I can stay at
Kensuke's place if you want me to, if it'll take all night."

The major told Ikari-kun to leave?

"Anyway, I'll call back at seven, if it's okay to come back by then.  If
not--"

I picked up the handset.

"Ah, Misato-san?  Is that you?"

"No."

"Eh?  Who is that?  Ayanami?  What are you doing at Misato-san's
apartment?"

"I was invited."

"But that can't be--there are supposed to be people there!"

"People?"

A pause.  "Who else is around?"

"Major Katsuragi and I.  No one else."

"Strange.  I don't understand--Misato-san said there would be security
people sweeping the apartment for listening devices.  She didn't want me
to be there."

"For how long?" I asked.

"All day."

Security agents who should've been there but weren't.  I, who shouldn't
have been there, but was.

"Honestly, I don't understand.  First Misato-san shut herself in her
room and now this?  I don't get it at all."

"Ikari-kun."

"Huh?  What?"

"Call back in five minutes."

"Eh?  Ayanami, wait--"

I hung up.

I'd thought before that the major, at times, acted like two different
people--one of them lazy, messy, and childish, the other driven and
efficient.  Which one, I wondered, was I dealing with then?

I left the kitchen.  There was one other room in that apartment I hadn't
considered.  "Working," read the sign on that door.  "Sorry, but do not
disturb."

I went inside.

The major's room was dark.  A picture of a car, in black and white, hung
over her desk.  Plastic containers and boxes with disposable chopsticks
overflowed the trash.  There were books and magazines.  There were cans
of coffee and a box of tissues at the legs of the desk.

Crink.  I stepped on a piece of paper, and wrinkling it from the center.
I smoothed the sheet against the wall and studied it, but black bands
concealed most of the characters.  All that remained--all that was
relevant--was the title in large, block-like type:

"Adam," it read.  She was reading about the Angels, the giant
beneath the pyramid.  Many other folders she'd scattered about her
bedroom--about the three Eva, about Ikari-kun and Soryu.  She
investigated the Commander.  Even her friend, Doctor Akagi, was not
beyond her gaze.

I flipped on the desk light.  I found another folder there, closed,
with only a title on the edge.  "Human Instrumentality Project."  The
documents inside were blacked out, again, but the letterhead bore a
symbol: a snake curled around an apple in the middle of a triangular
mask--a mask with seven eyes, three on a left, four on the right, in two
distinct columns.  From the mask of the giant, they took their emblem.

I closed the folder, sliding the corner under the base of the major's
phone.  A red light blinked beside the handset.  The major had a
message.  I pressed _play_.

"Katsuragi," said the voice on the machine, "it's me."

Inspector Kaji.

"I've probably put you through a lot of trouble by the time you hear
this.  I'm sorry.  Tell Ritchan I'm sorry, too.  And, since I've
bothered you so much anyway, there's this flower I've been growing--I'd
be grateful if you watered it for me.  Shinji knows where it is.
Katsuragi, the truth is with you.  Go forth with no doubts.  If I ever
see you again, I'll say the words I should've said eight years ago.
Bye."

The major's quest, and she'd involved the inspector in it, too.  So it
was.  I would play no part.  Ikari-kun would call soon, and I judged
it better to leave the major's room before answering it.  Better that
she not know I'd been there.  Hopefully, she'd still be washing up.
The major could become unpredictable if she learned I'd been there.  I
fingered the desk light's switch and faced the door, ready to leave.

I realized, then, that I was wrong.  The major had already become
unpredictable.

On both panels of her thin, wooden door, she'd scribbled in wide, black
inkstrokes the thoughts that polluted her mind.  There were words
and phrases, images, caricatures of people, and various arrows and
lines to connect them.  From Doctor Katsuragi's expedition to Adam to
the Sixth Angel, she inferred some connection, accentuating it with
repeated, overdrawn circles.  At the top, across both panels, she'd
drawn a timeline, noting the Second Impact, Ikari Yui and Akagi Naoko's
deaths, the Commander's installment and the creation of Nerv.  _Contact
experiment_--that phrase she put in large characters.  Ikari-kun's
mother had died in one.  Soryu's mother had lost her mind after one,
and the major--she inferred that for a pilot to be effective, they
should have a connection to someone who'd touched an Eva.  It stood to
reason, in her mind, that I should have such a connection to, but she
couldn't find it.

She couldn't find anything about me.  That's why _contact experiments_
led to me.  That's why Naoko Akagi's death and dummy plugs led to me.
That's why the Committee, the Human Instrumentality Project--they both
led to me.

In the center, straddling the line between the two halves of the door,
she scribbled my name, underlined it three times.  "Who is she?" the
major asked herself.  "Where did she come from?  Why does she look that
way?"

RING-RING-RING!

I jerked; I banged into the desk, and a folder scattered its files on
the floor.  A photograph fluttered out, landing atop the pile.  It was a
face.

My face.

RING-RING-RING!

I picked up.

"Ayanami?  Are you there?  What's going on?  Tell me something."

"Ikari-kun, I--" I looked to the door, with my name in black, at
the center of every arrow pointing from outside.  I glanced at the
photograph.  It was the major's apartment.  She had control there, and
I--I was this foreign thing, an animal, bottled up with nowhere to go.

"Ayanami?"

"I need help," I said.  "If you do not hear from me again soon, come to
the major's apartment."

"What are you saying?"

"Major Katsuragi has deceived us.  She is obsessed with knowing things
she should not know.  She's brought me here and sent you away to advance
that goal."

"I don't believe it; Misato-san wouldn't--"

"Ikari-kun, please."  I looked to the door, the lines and scribbles that
merged together in the dark as a jumble, an incoherent web.

"Ayanami?"

"Please come quickly," I said, whispering.  "I'm afraid."

Click.

I pressed the receiver closer to my ear.  "Ikari-kun?"

"This line has been reported for illegal use," said a calm woman's
voice.  "Please contact the security ministry if you wish to contest
the claim.  Agents will investigate the claim and issue a ruling within
forty-eight hours.  Thank you for your cooperation."

The sliding door inched open, and light from the hallway eradicated the
dark, but for the shadow of the major on the floor.  She held a mobile
phone to her ear, but her stare was fixed on me.

"So the line is cut?" she said.  "Good.  Leave it that way until I call
back.  No, I don't need backup.  This is something I can handle myself.
Thanks."  She pressed a button, ending the call, and left the phone on a
shelf beside the door.  "I really did have to use the toilet," she said,
"if that's what you're wondering."

I put the desk phone back on its base.  It wouldn't help me anymore.

"What, nothing to say?"  The major huffed.  "I should think you'd be a
bit surprised, at least."

"Allow me to leave, Major Katsuragi, and Commander Ikari need not hear
of this."

"Hah!  Don't joke with me.  That promise is thin, and I don't care what
Commander Ikari or anyone else hears.  You see the puzzle here, don't
you?"  She pointed to the drawings on the door, half-obscured by her
presence.  "Fill in the blanks for me, Rei.  That's all I'm asking you
to do."  The major reached into her pocket, the one next to her sidearm.

I shivered.

"Here," she said, offering a black, felt-tip pen.  "Show me the
connection."

I took the pen, undid the cap.  I inhaled, and its harsh, chemical odor
filled my nose.  I wouldn't have to say anything; all I'd have to do
was draw.  Draw Major Katsuragi's connection and imbue that room, which
was awash with facts but lacking in coherence, with some measure of
unification, a harmony to guide the separate instruments of truth to a
singular song.

"Tell me about Commander Ikari," said the major, pointing out a line
connecting my name to his.  "He must've found you somewhere.  Maybe he
rescued you from an orphanage?  Maybe your mother or father worked at
the old base before, at Gehirn?  Did they touch Unit-00?  Is that why
you're all alone here, why you have no family, why Commander Ikari keeps
you on such a short leash?"

Commander Ikari.  She wanted to know about what--the bond between him
and me?  The connection that can't be refused or denied?  The Commander
was always watching.  His agents could've been out there, spying on us,
listening as in the major's ruse to see if I'd betray him.  I wouldn't.
I couldn't.  The Commander made me.  Without him, I wouldn't be.  How
could the major ask me to cross him?  Had she no inkling of what he
would do?

No, of course she didn't.  She was ignorant.  She wanted to know, but
in doing so, she would make me seek hardship.  I'm like Ikari-kun in
that respect.  I have no wish to feel pain.  I suspect no one does.  How
much pain people tolerate depends on how much they yearn for something,
on the desire that justifies their pain, but the only thing I thought I
wanted then was to feel nothing.  The major--she was in the way.

She was in _my_ way.

I touched a hand to her waist.  I felt the heat of her body through her
clothes.  I pushed.

I shoved her aside, into the doorframe, and ran.

"Wait, Rei!"

I dashed for the kitchen.  There was a way into this apartment; there
was a way out.  It stood to reason, after all--that door couldn't
possibly lock from the inside, too.

"Come now, you think I spent that long at the toilet?  Give me some
credit, will you?  You won't be getting out that way."

I turned the corner, and the edge of the kitchen table collided with my
gut.  It blocked the main door and buckled downward in the middle, laden
down with chairs, cans of beer, a potted plant--whatever the major could
heap atop it.

"Well?" said the major, folding her arms.  "Are you ready to talk
civilly?"

I dashed toward her, through her.  We collided and rolled into the empty
kitchen.  She pulled at my skirt, and the fabric ripped.  The triangle
of green cloth she clutched and threw aside.  "Come back here!" she
said, struggling to her feet.  "There's nowhere to go, Rei!"

Through the kitchen doors I barged into the living room.  The major's
room on the left, Ikari-kun and Soryu's rooms on the right--all paths
with no exit, no possibility for escape.

Except for what lay ahead: daylight through glass doors; a white,
painted balcony.

"No, don't!" said the major.  "What are you doing?"

I slid the glass panel aside, stepped through, and slammed it back where
it came from.  The major, charging, leveled her shoulder on the pane and
cracked it on impact, leaving a radial pattern of fissures behind.

"Goodbye, Major Katsuragi," I said.  I went to the railing, put my right
foot atop it--

"No!"  The major yanked the door open.  She grabbed my arm; she pulled
me back.  I slipped, and my head bounced on the floor.  It was supposed
to be a sunny day, yet I only saw only a thick gray haze.

THWACK!

And the black butt of the major's pistol as it whipped across my temple.

"You can't do that, Rei," said the major.  "I'm not done with you yet."

It hurt.  My pulse echoed through my skull like a great, tribal drum.
Why couldn't it be quiet?

By my ankles, the major dragged me over the threshold, into the living
room.  I grasped at strands of carpet, trying to slow her, but she felt
the tug of tension between us.  She responded.

SLAP!

"Stop that!" she said.  "Be a good girl; follow my orders."

My nails scratched the kitchen floor.  With one hand, the major kept
her hold on me; with the other, she searched the cabinets and cupboards
until she found a roll of wide gray tape.  I thought she'd tie me up.

I wish she had.

"Your file tells me your communication skills are challenged."  She
opened the refrigerator.  She ripped out the metal shelves, tossing them
and their contents about with no regard or concern for where they went.
Beer cans rolled along the floor.  One buckled under pressure, and a
brown foam sprayed into the near corner.  "I think we both know that to
be true."

"You can stop this now, major.

"Shut up!"  She let my ankle go.  "Stand!"

I stood beside the refrigerator door, the major before me, cold air
behind.

"You have no idea what I can or can't stop," she said.  "I want to
know--yes, even if it kills me.  I want to know what it is we're
fighting for, what it is people are dying for.  Are you willing to stay
silent for that?  Are you so afraid of Commander Ikari?  Are you so
unafraid of death?"

"Yes."

The major glowered, a beastly expression of anger.  I thought she might
strike me.  I stiffened to take a blow to the face, the head.

Her foot caught me in the stomach instead.  It knocked be backward; I
stumbled into the empty refrigerator.

The major closed the door.

"When you're ready to talk," she said, "just bang on something.  I might
just hear you, but do it quickly, Rei, for no one is coming to save you.
Not Commander Ikari.  Not Shinji-kun.  It's just you and me here, but if
you're truly unafraid of death, that won't matter, will it?"

She took strips off the roll of gray tape.  She sealed me inside, in the
cold, with nowhere to go, and at first, I didn't care.  The major had
made her own fate.  She'd doom herself in killing me, in delving into
matters she shouldn't involve herself in.  I welcomed the opportunity
to sleep.  I ignored my body's tremors, the shivers and contractions
meant to keep me warm.  It was dark in that place.  There was a hum, the
hum of the compressor keeping me cold, but for that it was quieter than
silence, for eventually, I came to ignore that sound, too, even as it
drowned out all else.  It was everything I could ask for--a void of cold
and darkness, the perfect oblivion, where there is no motion to disturb
the peace of it, the emptiness of it.  I would become nothing.

_And they'll remember you for nothing, too._

It was a voice--my voice?  No, similar but not the same.  The me inside
the Eva--It spoke to me.  It clung to my back, whispering in my ear.

_There's no solace for us, you know.  When you disappear, they'll forget
you.  They'll forget you like they forgot me.  That's the price of
becoming nothing.  If there are people you care for, they won't care
about you in return.  _He_ surely won't, and that boy--he'll keep on
living, too.  He'll have experiences you can't share in because you'll
be replaced by another.  You'll be forgotten because they won't even
know you've gone.  You know what'll happen then?_

It crept over my shoulder, grinning.

_You'll be just like me._

I jerked; I batted It away, and It disappeared in the black.  I wasn't
in the Eva!  Could it touch me like that, creeping into my mind whenever
It pleased?  No, no, impossible.  It couldn't do that.  I wouldn't
become like It.  The Commander would bring me back because he needed
me.  Ikari-kun--he would know, wouldn't he?  He wouldn't be fooled by
something that looked like me but wasn't.

By something that looked like his mother but wasn't.  No, It was too
right.  There were two things that had been called _Ayanami_, and I was
the second.  In the mind of the major, in the mind of Ikari-kun, I was
the only one.  If I died in that refrigerator, if I succumbed to the
cold, perhaps the major would question it, wonder how I could've come
back, but Ikari-kun, my classmates, everyone else would see the third
and never know the difference, never know it was something else.  Or
perhaps they _would_ notice and dismiss the discrepancies.  In doing so,
they would forget who _I_ was.  They would forget.

Forget.

Forget.

And I... I don't know if it was the cold that affected me, if
hypothermia induced a vision that was irrational and deluded, that word
I couldn't shake from my ears, and every time I heard it, I jerked.  I
spasmed.  I kicked.  I kicked at the door, and there was light!  A
blurry sliver of light!  I kicked again and again, and the strips of
tape sheared off!  In the light, I fell.  I fell to the tile.  It was
warm there, but I was cold.  I shivered.

"So you do want to live."  The major stood over me and pulled the slide
of her sidearm, loading the chamber.  "Then let this be your incentive;
your life is in your own hands, and what you say can save you."

"I can tell you nothing."

I was cold, but it was the major who trembled.  "Then I'll put a bullet
in you, Rei.  I'm not afraid to.  If all I'm able to do is end it,
end the madness and secrecy and death, then you're just a necessary
casualty.  It's not personal; it's just what has to be done.  That's why
I'll do it if you won't tell me, if you can't tell me what I want.  I
know you're the key to something, to Commander Ikari's plan, whatever
that may be.  What is it he's trying to do?"