gryphon@sasami.jurai.net (Benjamin D. Hutchins)



    /*  Genesis  "Land of Confusion (Live)"  _The Way We Walk_  */

                     EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED
                               presents

                        NEON EXODUS EVANGELION

                         EXODUS 2:5 - SKYFALL


 Inspired by NEON GENESIS EVANGELION created by Hideaki Anno, Gainax,
                                et al.

    Most characters created by Hideaki Anno and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto
                                except

               DJ Croft created by Benjamin D. Hutchins
                                 and
                  Jon Ellison created by Larry Mann

 Additional material and inspiration cadged from TOMB RAIDER by Core
 Design, Ltd., X-COM: UFO DEFENSE and sequels from MPS Labs (whoever
    owns them nowadays), THE X-FILES created by Chris Carter, and
              2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY by Arthur C. Clarke

             Written by Benjamin D. Hutchins, Larry Mann,
                      MegaZone and John Trussell

      Aided and abetted by the Eyrie Productions, Unlimited crew
                and special-guest-for-life Phil Moyer

                (c) 1997 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


        The booster standing on Pad #44-C at the Baikonur Cosmodrome
in the Ukraine was one of the largest artificial structures on Earth,
a tower of metal and high-strength composite materials almost a
quarter again taller than the World Trade Center in New York.  It
followed the basic design standard evolved by the Soviet rocket
technicians more than sixty years before, with a central tower
surrounded by sloping disposable boosters, attached with explosive
bolts - but on such a gargantuan scale that even the mighty Energia
paled next to its grandeur.
        The Kronos, as it was known, was the most powerful transport
engine ever created by Man.  Developed by the Central Eurasian
Commonwealth Space Administration in cooperation with the United
States National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the early
2000s, it was originally developed to serve as a super-heavy
disposable launch vehicle for prefabricated sections of International
Space Station Babylon 2 (the original Space Station Babylon having
been destroyed during the Second Impact), which would then rendezvous
with assembly crews launched via National AeroSpace Plane from NASA's
Johnson Space Flight Center in Texas.  In 2012, some enterprising
engineer with NERV's Technology Division had calculated Kronos's
ability to loft something else into Earth orbit:
        A pair of Evangelions.
        At the time, the plan was derided by the engineer's superiors,
but as standing procedure required, it was written up and submitted
anyway.  For weeks, most TechDiv personnel snickered behind their
hands and waited for the wrath of higher-ups to descend on the author
of such an absurd proposal.  In due time, Professor Gendou Ikari,
Supreme Commander of NERV, reviewed the project proposal, along with
Colonel Otto Keller (Deputy Commander and Chief of NERV Operations)
and Doctor Ritsuko Akagi (Director of Technical Services).
        Project Atlas was immediately approved, budget was allocated,
a team was selected and sent to Baikonur, and the proposal's author,
John Trussell, was promoted to Deputy Supervisor of Technical
Operations.  You could hear the jaws drop all the way around TechDiv,
and no one ever failed to take Truss seriously again.
        Still, Atlas was never considered a dream assignment.
Baikonur was and is a relentlessly dreary place, nobody from NERV US
spoke Russian, and the possibility of Atlas ever actually being put to
use was considered remote in the extreme.  It was confidently expected
that, once the engineering was worked out, the project would be filed
away and forgotten by everyone, as it already had been forgotten by
most of the NERV US Operations staff.
        It was, then, to the renewed surprise of everyone on the
Project Atlas team that two of NERV's precious Evangelions and their
pilots were immediately assigned to assist the Baikonur team in
operational testing when they reported their readiness for same.

        Kronos-E prototype #001-1 stood fueled and ready on the pad.
In the control room, Ritsuko Akagi gazed thoughtfully at the image of
the colossal rocket on the master monitor screen - towering and gray,
its sides decorated by the occasional streamer of outgassed excess
propellant.  Two-thirds of the way up, the grey thermocoat abruptly
ended at a wide black band; above, the rocket's massive nose cone was
white, and tapered gradually before canting in to a blunt, rounded
point.  Another monitor showed steadily cycling views from several
status cameras mounted within that white blow-away shell, showing the
platform on which the shape of an S-armored red Evangelion waited,
locked to a platform gantry not unlike the launch gantries used in
Worcester-3.  A counterweight took the place of the second EVA for
this test.
        Asuka Soryu-Langley fidgeted in her entry plug, uncomfortable
and unwilling to admit her nervousness.  She hated the idea of her
beloved EVA-02 sealed into that hideous hostile-environment armor, and
even though the revised Type S was much sleeker and less restrictive
of movement than the Type D she had suffered within once before, she
was still bothered by the concept.
        She was also uneasy about the lack of the Type S plug suits.
She'd seen their design sheets: they looked comfortable, and not
horrific like the Type D had been.  Rather than making her look like
an enormous cherry, the Type S would be an exoplated vacsuit with a
wide-view helmet, similar in appearance to the armored spacesuits worn
by the Babylon 2 construction crews, with built-in maneuver thrusters
and a three-hour atmosphere supply in case she should find herself
inadvertently "going E.V.A." as astronauts put it.  (She had to
mentally add the periods to the initials; otherwise she always found
herself wanting to pronounce it straight, like the identically-spelled
abbreviation for the Evangelions.)  Its presence would have been
comforting, but they were not ready for operational use yet and had to
be foregone, and the lack made her profoundly uneasy.
        The whole concept was crazy, anyway.  Strap an EVA or two onto
a rocket and launch them into orbit?  Why, for God's sake?  What was
up there of any interest to an Evangelion combat unit?
        She sighed and fiddled with the monitor controls.  Not too
long ago she would have voiced her reservations about the idea at
length, in no uncertain terms, but she had come to realize of late
that doing so didn't accomplish anything, and more to the point, that
it didn't make her feel any better to do it.  Instead she roamed the
comm channels until she found the band that opened a connection to the
cockpit of EVA-03, which remained on standby.
        "I hope to Christ this works," she said to her battle partner,
Jon Ellison, as his image rezzed ghostlike into holographic being,
suspended in her entry plug's LCL a few feet from her head.
        Jon looked glum.  "The simulation tests didn't go real well,
did they?" he said with a commiserative tone.
        "No, I wouldn't say one survival out of four launch attempts
is 'real well'," Asuka replied.  Jon noted her tone: where once it
would have been acidic, cutting at his stupidity for saying such an
obvious thing, now it sounded merely resigned.  Could it be, he
wondered, that Asuka has finally grasped some rudimentary conception
of tact?
        "Well, look at it this way," said Jon.  "Each of those failed
tests gave the mission controllers a lot of data to work with... "
        "... So each successive test has a higher chance of success,"
Asuka finished for him.  "I know, it's the same principle as the
endless harmonics tests they put us through.  That doesn't mean I have
to feel comfortable with it.  Would you?"
        "No," Jon admitted.  "In fact... I'd expected you to have a
lot bigger problem with it than you seem to be."
        Asuka smiled.  "No sense in being unprofessional about it,"
she said.  Then, yawning and stretching, she added, "I would like to
get out of this entry plug sometime today, though."
        Ritsuko's face appeared in another holographic 'window';
businesslike, she said, "You'll get your chance after this.  We're at
T minus 300; you'll have to clear the comm channels now."
        "Good luck, Asuka," said Jon.
        "Thanks, partner," said Asuka.  "Grendel out."  As Jon's face
vanished, Asuka noted with satisfaction that he looked faintly
surprised.  Well, good.  She enjoyed knowing that she'd be taking Jon
consistently off-guard with her newly-resolved attempt at civility.
        "Ready when you are, Dr. Akagi," said Asuka, straightening
slightly in her seat as a countdown clock popped into being on her
virtual instrument cluster.
        The EVA pilot had little to do in the course of a Kronos-E
launch - less, even, than the original Mercury astronauts had to do in
the course of their Redstone and Atlas launches.  All telemetry and
vehicle control was handled from without.  The only thing Asuka had to
do was keep her eyes on the status displays; if anything went
seriously wrong, she could elect to twist the Abort handle that had
been installed on her right armrest, which would fire the EVA eject
charge early, and take her chances - in a freefalling Evangelion with
only a Type S armored suit and an experimental portable heat shield
for protection, but away from the huge fulminating mass of the
potentially malfunctioning rocket and its multi-megaton-equivalency
fuel supply.
        Not a very comforting choice, Asuka reflected as the count
marched into the last minute, but the only one she had.
        She tried to relax and listened to the reassuringly familiar
voice of John Trussell reading off the count.
        "Thirty.
        "Twenty.
        "T minus fifteen seconds, guidance is internal."
        The rocket body shivered a little.  Perfectly normal.  Just
like all the sims.
        "Ten.
        "Nine.
        "Eight.  Ignition sequence start."
        The enormous Kronos-E reverberated with the whine and judder
of its seventy-six wide-throated fuel pumps.
        "Five.
        "Four.  All engines running."
        The mighty booster strained against the clamps chaining it to
Earth as its huge engines roared.
        "Three.  Launch commit.
        "Two.
        "One."
        Explosive bolts burst, freeing the rocket, and it immediately
leapt for the sky, its great mass no match at all for the vast gulf of
power pouring from its exhausts.  Even then anyone watching the launch
would have been struck by the apparent ponderous progress the rocket
made.  Nothing that massive was going to accelerate like a Porsche.
        Asuka watched the gauges, all apprehension and fear banished
by the task at hand now that showtime had come.  Sure, she might die
at any moment, but nobody would ever say she went out like a coward or
a baby.
        "LCL circulation pressure is nominal," she reported, keeping
her voice tight and even.  "Cabin temperature is steady at 294."
        "Commencing throttle back for inclination roll," said Truss.
He wasn't really doing it himself - the entire process was automated
through Baikonur's AG-4540 computer - but he had manual overrides for
everything and had been drilled intensively on how to use them.
        "Roll complete... looks good," Asuka reported, noting the
attitude indicators.
        "Roger, Grendel - proceeding with throttle up."
        Asuka had been thoroughly briefed on all the sounds and
motions that the rocket might possibly exhibit during a normal launch.
Nowhere in any of that briefing had a mighty BANG and a sudden,
sickening lurch been advertised.  For a moment she nearly lost her
composure and cursed, but she squashed the feeling quickly and began
running status checks.
        "Control, are you tracking that?" she inquired calmly.
        "Roger, Grendel," came Truss's voice in reply.  "We lost a
fuel pump in Number Two engine.  Failovers are taking care of it - "
        A second bang, this one much louder, and a second
stomach-turning lurch.
        " - damn!  There goes Number Four.  Flight, we've got a
cascade failure in the booster's fuel system - "
        Another bang, another lurch, this one even worse.
        A look at the extensive status indicators she had available on
her holodisplay made Asuka quite certain that her launch vehicle was
dying, and if she didn't do something quick, it would take her and her
EVA with it.
        "Control from Grendel - abort!  Abort!  Abort!" she declared,
seizing and twisting the abort handle.
        Nothing happened.
        "Control, abort system failure!  Going to manual escape."  A
thumb-press and a thought brought Grendel's sleeping systems online,
and the cockpit lit completely up around Asuka, complete with the
all-important battery-life indicator, boosted to a nigh-eternal
fifteen minutes by the Type-S armor's integral battery cells.  Asuka
frowned with concentration as she began to energize her EVA's Absolute
Terror Field, the only thing that had a hope of saving it and its
mistress now.
        Before she could do anything, the master fuel pump for
Quadrant Four of the mighty, out-of-control rocket failed, spewing
liquid oxygen across an area of the booster's outer skin which was
beginning to fracture and leak.
        Kronos-E 001-1 became a flaming comet in the Ukrainian night,
and all telemetry flatlined.
        John Trussell stared at the video snow dancing across what had
been his view of EVA-02's cockpit for a moment before saying in a flat
voice,
        "Evangelion Unit 02 destroyed."

        "GodDAMMIT!" Asuka Soryu-Langley shouted, slamming her fists
against her entry plug's dark instrument panel.  As the LCL drained
away, she coughed the residue out with an ease born of long practice,
hurled the plug's canopy hatch up, and clambered out.  Techs flanked
her as she stalked across the catwalk separating the motion-control
platform with the entry plug mounted on it to the test chamber exit;
she ignored them, turned left and entered the control room - not the
raging thunderstorm she might once have been, but clearly very angry.
        "What the hell happened, John?" she asked as she entered.
Ritsuko might have been in charge of the test, but Truss had been
CAPCOM and console jockey; he had the best chance of knowing what had
just doomed the first test launch.
        Truss shrugged.  "The rocket blew up."
        Asuka glared at him for a few seconds, causing him to spread
his hands and add, "OK, we lost a fuel pump.  The extra strain on the
fuel system blew another.  And another.  It went off-course,
aerodynamic stress cracked the shell.  THEN the rocket blew up."
        "Goddamned cheap Russian micropumps," Asuka grumbled.  "Why
didn't they go with the Bosch units?  They're throwing away billions
of dollars on this stupid project -anyway-."
        "I thought you were trying to be civil," Truss observed with a
smile.
        "I find it hard to be civil when my EVA and I have just been
scattered across half of the Russian steppes by your verdammt rocket!"
Asuka replied.  "It's a bloody good job we decided to tele-run the
first live launch with a dummy EVA aboard or I'd be dead in Russia
instead of alive in Worcester-3."
        "'A bloody good job'?" Truss mused.  "You're starting to sound
like DJ."
        Asuka's dark mood disintegrated as she laughed aloud at
Truss's statement.
        "Did I say something funny?" he wondered.
        She ruffled his dark hair.  "When you're older, Truss," she
replied.  Then, straightening, she turned to Ritsuko.  "Sorry about
that," she said.  "I always did react poorly to being killed.  Where
do we go from here?"
        Ritsuko regarded the young pilot for a moment, then shrugged.
"We turn the telemetry data on the failure over to the engineering
team and they do what they have to do to make sure it doesn't happen
again.  The next flight test will also be a dummy launch, of course."
        "Of course," said Asuka.
        "For now, you're dismissed," Ritsuko told the girl.  "We'll
have a project meeting tomorrow morning at 0900 - make sure Jon
attends as well."
        "Right," Asuka replied.  "Don't look so glum, Dr. Akagi, I'm
sure they'll figure it out.  I -do- think they should be using German
microcomponents, though.  After all, we invented rocketry."
        Ritsuko tried not to smile too broadly as she replied, "I'll
consider it as a TechDiv proposal."

        Asuka arrived in the Lower Wedge to find DJ playing Toshinden
and no one else around.  Not feeling like playing a game just now, she
instead sat in the empty T5K observers' gallery, pulled a magazine out
of her duffel bag, and started reading.
        From time to time, over the sounds of the game, she could hear
DJ laughing to himself, for no reason she could readily determine.
His usual repertoire of sounds when playing Toshinden consisted of
grunts, hisses, and the occasional muffled curse; he rarely found the
game funny -while playing-.  Some of the sounds effects struck her as
different, too.  Presently her curiosity overcame her, and she went to
look.
        At first she didn't notice anything different.  It was still a
rather-cheesy-looking, extremely dated pseudo-3D fighting game, with
characters made of texture-mapped polygons duking it out in
motion-captured style with various weapons (mostly swords).  As she
watched, though, it began to dawn on her that it looked better than it
had - the characters looked smoother and moved in a more lifelike way,
and the backgrounds parallaxed properly.  Then, and only then, did she
notice that the character designs themselves had changed.
        The young man on the left side of the screen, dressed in jeans
and a black leather jacket and wielding a European sword with a
distinctively Japanese style, was a fair rendering of DJ...
        ... and the blonde woman in the lab coat with the bullwhip...
        Thinking back on it later, Asuka couldn't remember the last
time she'd laughed that hard - hard enough to distract DJ from his
gameplay (not that he was concentrating all that hard on it anyway),
hard enough to draw Jon and Rei in as they passed through the Upper
Wedge.  They watched with perplexity that became amusement as DJ,
wracked with sympathetic laughter, tried in vain to finish his match
respectably and Asuka leaned against a nearby wall, helpless with
mirth.
        "Now see what you've done," DJ managed between aftershock
chuckles as he and Asuka recovered.  "I've lost."
        "Where... where did - ?" Asuka tried to ask, gesturing vaguely
at the machine and giggling.
        "Hal did it," DJ replied, entering his initials.  "He claims
YaK's visit 'inspired' him to try his luck at enhancing the old game
image."
        "How did he cut new ROMs?" Asuka wondered.
        "No need," DJ replied.  "This isn't an original-hardware
machine, I checked for him at the start of the project.  It's really
just an old M2 in a fancy cabinet."  Going behind the machine, DJ
fiddled for a moment; the screen went blank, and then he emerged,
holding up a gleaming golden disc.  "The miracle of Hal's DVD-R burner
did the rest," he added with a grin.
        "When Dr. Akagi finds out about this, she's going to skin
you," Askua warned.
        "Why me?" DJ protested with a look of great mock innocence.
"I didn't write the code."
        "Somebody had to put that disk in there," Jon pointed out.
        "You think I get a choice in these things?" DJ asked, going
behind the machine to replace the disk.  As the eyecatch animation
started back up on the screen, he locked the cabinet and emerged,
continuing, "I'm merely Hal's hapless servant."
        "I doubt she'll see it that way," said Jon dryly.
        Asuka stepped up to the machine, hit the one-player start
button, and scrolled through the selections in the character menu.
"Hey, we're all in here!"
        "Most of the animations for the characters are the same as
they were," DJ explained.  "Hal just cleaned up the engine a bit,
boosted the frame rate and poly count for the characters, fiddled with
the control and changed the textures around... the characters look
different but the gameplay's pretty much the same."
        "Why does Truss have a huge club?"
        "Hal seemed to think he would fit best with Rungo's
animations."
        "Er," said Rei.
        Surveying the bullwhip-wielding version of Ritsuko, Asuka
shook her head.  "She's definitely going to kill you for this."
        "Oh yes?  Select her with one of the kick buttons."
        Asuka did so, and blinked as the 'alternate costume' for that
character came up.
        "If she ever finds out about THIS, she'll have you stripped,
flayed, and staked to an African anthill at high noon."
        "She could try," DJ replied with a shrug and a grin, "but
she'd only get as far as 'stripped'."
        "Oh, get OVER yourself," said Asuka, rolling her eyes,
resetting the game and continuing through the character selection.
"Hmm, mine's not a bad likeness... what's with the big spear?"
        "Oh, that's Mondo's," said DJ.  "I guess Hal figured, you're
pretty good with the EVA version... "
        Asuka shrugged.  "I guess.  I could have gotten
worse... anyone up for a game?"
        "Not me, I've had enough for right now," said DJ.  "Think I'll
try my hand at Super Rush again," he added, heading for the row of
linked car and motorcycle race stations along the back wall.
        "Sounds like a good idea," said Jon, following.
        "I'll play," said Rei.
        Asuka blinked.  "No kidding?"
        "No kidding."  Rei stepped up and hit her start button,
selecting herself; "she" rezzed up in school uniform, a nasty-looking
dagger in each hand.
        "I should've guessed," said Asuka, selecting her
spear-wielding "self".
        DJ made a mental note to ask Hal to change Asuka's 'alternate'
costume.  The situation had changed somewhat of late and it'd be a
shame to cause a set back.

        The anomaly was first spotted, ironically enough, by a US spy
satellite - if "spotted" is really the right word for the way it
brought the anomaly to the attention of the world below.  As it
orbited, watching the ground below, the satellite suddenly noted that
it was drifting out of its assigned orbit.  This was not quite
correct; it was not drifting so much as being pushed, but its internal
monitoring systems had no way of drawing that distinction.  With some
alarm, its internal systems next registered that the stresses on its
outer casing were rapidly increasing.  As it began to tumble out of
control, its camera lens turned upward, out from Earth, and a few
seconds before the mysterious force crushed it into random debris, it
chanced to send back a few photos of its destroyer.
        These pictures were duly received and processed by the CIA
groundstation in Virginia, where, due to their anomalous nature, they
were immediately flagged for manual analysis.  The analyst assigned to
the case quickly realized, after spending a few minutes enhancing the
images, that what he was dealing with was entirely outside the CIA's
purview.  He promptly passed the case file to his supervisor with his
recommendation.
        The supervisor, no fool, proceeded to act on that
recommendation, and the images were encoded with the analyst's report
as FLASH traffic to NERV Supreme Headquarters Worcester-3.
        Within ten minutes of their arrival, Gendou Ikari and his
senior operations staff had completed an emergency planning meeting.
The full observational resources of NERV were bent toward the goal of
obtaining better images of the satellite-destroying anomaly.  Once
conclusive proof of Ikari and his officers' suspicions could be
established, operational action could be undertaken against it; not
before.

        In the meantime, DJ Croft sat in an uncomfortable chair in a
small, unfriendly conference room and endured the third in a series of
annoying psychological evaluations.
        In the first session, he and Gendou Ikari had covered such
luminary subjects as his childhood ("... was that -before- or -after-
we recovered the Cross of Coronado?  I can't remember now") and his
relationship with his mother ("That's a bit bloody personal, don't you
think?").  In the second, they had moved on to his attitude toward his
first Evangelion combat ("I made it pretty clear how I felt at the
time, I thought") and his homelife ("We get along well enough").
        If he had allowed himself to, Gendou Ikari would have been
dreading today's session, because the tick sheet he had demanded that
he get into the really hard topics, things he knew full well DJ would
never discuss willingly with him, of all people.  The enmity between
Ikari and Croft was almost a thing of legend among the staff of NERV,
albeit one discussed only in whispers.
        "How are you today, DJ?" Ikari asked, perhaps trying to start
the interview on a vaguely comfortable note.  DJ noted that the
professor was being as informal as he ever got; he wasn't wearing his
usual, rather martial white gloves.
        "Well enough," DJ replied.  "Let's just get on with, shall we?
I don't imagine either of us really wants to be here."
        "Fine, then," he replied, referring to the clipboard with his
required-questions tick list on it.  Hmm... how appropriate.  "Let's
start with your attitude toward your co-workers."
        "You'll find it's pretty good when they aren't wasting my
time," he replied.  "Unfortunately, certain of them seem bent on doing
more and more of that, of late."
        Gendou regarded the boy levelly through his tinted glasses and
remarked dryly, "Insubordination becomes you."
        "So I've been told," replied DJ.  "Look, don't let's avoid the
main issue here.  You don't like me and I don't like you.  We know it,
we can work with it."
        "Why is that, do you suppose?" Ikari asked in that same dry
tone.
        "I've wondered that myself," DJ replied.  "Near as I can
figure, you don't like me because I'm a pain in the arse, and I can't
say that I blame you.  I know I'm difficult to deal with.  Comes from
my irksome tendency to stand up against things I think are wrong."
        Ikari nodded.  "Gracious of you to admit it."
        "As for you, well... I don't like you because I can't trust
you.  You're a high-handed, ruthless, unscrupulous megalomaniac, and
there's no way of knowing if you can really be counted on to do what's
right when the chips are down."
        Gendou Ikari smiled, just a little bit, and pushed his glasses
up his nose, replying, "Come now, Mr. Croft, don't pull your
punches... how do you -really- feel?  You know there are those in the
program who would say much the same thing about you."
        DJ chuckled.  "I imagine there are.  Anyway, we're not here to
talk about our personality conflict, are we?"
        "No," admitted Ikari almost reluctantly.  "That's a matter for
another time.  Today we're going to discuss your fellow pilots."
        "Alphabetically, chronologically, or by height?"
        "Let's start with Ellison."
        "Height, then.  What about him?  He's solid.  Reliable.  Maybe
a bit boring, though."
        "Do you trust him?"
        "What's that supposed to mean?  I've trusted him with my life
in combat, him and the others too."
        "Do you think they trust you?"
        "Of course."
        "What makes you so sure?"
        DJ smiled.  "I'm a good judge of character."
        "You're also overconfident."
        DJ shrugged.  "In this line of work, the only other option is
'permanently terrified'."

        Commissaries, Asuka reflected, were the same the world over.
Or maybe NERV just used the same architect for all their facilities.
Either way, the one in the middle levels of Central Dogma was just as
cheerless and institutional as the one at the Munich Proving Grounds:
gray and green, with tables and chairs in the 1939 Soviet Provincial
style and vending machines containing a wide array of unappealingly
stale "food".  The cork bulletin board contained only a variety of
first-aid procedures illustrated with International Olympic-Event Icon
People and various bulletins from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
proclaiming the equal rights of all employees.  The only bright spot
in the whole place was the grill, which served a half-decent burger
and fries and which Asuka had managed to miss by six minutes, putting
the perfect cap on the tenor of her day.
        So it was that Truss found her sitting at a corner table,
staring glumly at something grey and pinkish which claimed to be a
B-B-Q Pork RibWich(tm), and might actually have been one, during the
Perot administration.  He gave a cursory glance to the contents of the
carousel vendors, but his heart wasn't really in it, and then sat down
at her table without bothering to buy anything.
        "They let you out for lunch?" Asuka chuckled.  "After that
last test, I figured they'd lock you and Ritsuko in the control room
until the sun came up tomorrow.  The look on Ikari's face after you
detonated that rocket was -not- a pretty sight."
        Truss dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand.  "It went
into an unrecoverable oscillation -- we still don't quite know what
caused the fuel pump problem, and we've got other things to worry
about now.  An Angel's been detected.  In orbit."
        Asuka's eyes darted up from her ersatz meal.  "In -orbit-?"
        Truss nodded.
        "I see.  Now, this is the part where you reassure me by
explaining that Ikari realizes it's stupid to base an operation on
technology which has never passed the thirty-seven second mark in a
live test.  Right?"
        Grimacing slightly, Truss replied, "I haven't been consulted.
There's a briefing at 1500 hours - that's all I know."
        "Terrific," Asuka grumbled.
        "But before that, I need to talk to you."  After glancing
around the crowded lunchroom, Truss quietly added, "Somewhere else."
        Asuka looked down at her half-finished B-B-Q Pork RibWich(tm)
and shrugged.  "I think I just lost my appetite, anyway." She dumped
her leftovers in the trash, and the pair wandered the hallways in
search of a less-traveled area.
        "Have you read Hal's report on the Jet Alone incident?" Truss
asked, once he was convinced that no one was within earshot.
        "Of course."
        "Not very encouraging, is it?"
        The expression on Asuka's face as she turned to Truss screamed
"Are you stupid?" so emphatically that she didn't have to say a word.
        "Yeah...  that's what I thought," Truss replied.
        They walked a hundred feet without saying another word before
Asuka finally broke the silence.  "Truss, you dragged me out here to
talk, but you've spent the last five minutes just sighing and looking
worried.  Stop staring at your shoes and say something, already!"
        Jolted out of his trance, Truss pulled up his stride and
leaned back against the nearest wall.  "I know," he agreed.  "Sorry."
        "And stop apologizing."
        Truss took a deep breath, and finally spoke the sentence he'd
tried in vain to rephrase.  "I think Ryoji Kaji may be involved in all
of this."
        "I thought that might be it."
        "You did?  Why didn't you just say so?"
        Asuka sat down across from Truss.  "I didn't want to admit
it."
        Truss nodded.  "Look, Asuka, I know he's your friend and all,
but..."
        "Was."
        "What?"
        "Ryoji -was- my friend.  Back in Germany, after my parents
died, he was the only friend I had."  She sighed.  "That was a long
time ago, though, and today I'm not sure -what- he is.  While I was in
Bremen at university, something changed.  He's not like I remember him
anymore."
        "Er?" wondered Truss.  "I don't know him all that well.  He
doesn't have much contact with TechDiv... in fact, I'm not sure what
it is he does here."
        "Well... "  Asuka looked thoughtful.  "He's always been a pain
in the ass, but in a harmless kind of way.  Sort of like... "  She
paused, looked faintly troubled, and then added in a quieter tone,
"... Sort of like DJ.  But he was... he was -kind- like DJ, too.  He
never meant anybody any harm."  Her expression darkened as she added,
"Now I can't be sure of that."
        "Why?  What happened?" Truss inquired, not entirely certain he
actually wanted to know.
        Asuka looked around for a moment, saw no one in the vicinity,
and said softly, "Remember a few weeks ago, when that old friend of
Major Katsuragi's got married and they all went to the reception?"
        Truss nodded.  "It's not often Dr. Akagi goes away and lets
Maya and I work in peace."
        "After the party, a few of them went out for drinks and
such... and Ryoji, he... "  Asuka paused, gathering her thoughts, and
then blurted, "He got Misato drunk and tried to take advantage of
her."
        Truss winced.  "I'd think the Major would slap the hell out of
anybody who tried that."
        "She probably would have," said Asuka, "but she was -really-
drunk.  I've seen a vid.  She didn't know what planet she was on."
        "You said 'tried to'.  What happened?"
        "DJ happened, thank God.  You should see the vid.  I don't
think Ryoji's been stared down like that in his life.  But... "
        "Had he been drinking too?  People do stupid things when
they're drunk."
        "He knew what he was doing," Asuka replied flatly.  "On the
vid Hal made, when DJ's staring him down, you can see the hate in his
eyes.  It... it scared me.  I've never known Ryoji Kaji to have that
look in his eyes."
        "Hmm... do you think he might be our intruder, given that?"
        She considered it, then shrugged.  "I'm not sure.  It's not
really his style... he's changed, but if anything I'd expect he'd be
-less- subtle now.  No... I mean, he might have, but I'd still bet it
was Ikari."
        "What have you told DJ about this?" Truss wondered.
        "He knows that JA was sabotaged.  I don't think he's been told
about the attacks on Hal's own security.  I've been trying to figure
out the best way to tell him about that part."
        "I'm not sure it's a good idea to tell him about it at all, at
this point," said Truss reluctantly.
        Asuka considered that for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully.
"I guess you're right.  I mean, can you imagine the scene once he
decided Commander Ikari was responsible?"

        It was at about that moment that DJ burst out of the
conference room at the T-intersection a dozen or so yards down the
corridor, his face a mask of fury, an angry Ikari hot on his heels.
        "I'm appalled at your conduct, Croft!" Ikari declared as he
pursued the furious pilot into the corridor.  "Appalled and outraged!"
        DJ stopped in mid-stride, very deliberately about-faced, and
marched back to Ikari, getting into the scientist's face as best he
could given the disparity in their height.
        "Outraged?  You have no RIGHT to be outraged!" DJ shouted.
"We aren't children any longer, Gendou - YOU MADE CERTAIN OF THAT.
How hypocritical, how supremely fucking hypocritical of you!  You put
the weight of the world on our shoulders and then you have the gall to
be dismayed when we seek refuge?  You force upon us responsibility for
the safety of humanity, and you have the arrogance to be shocked when
we take responsibility for ourselves?  Grow up, my dear Gendou.  Grow
up and face the consequences of your actions, just like we have."
        "You have taken advantage - " Ikari began, but DJ was not to
be interrupted now.
        "Yes, well, you'd know a thing or two about the fine art of
taking advantage, wouldn't you, Gendou?" he replied.  "You've given
the four of us more responsibilities than anyone deserves and we've
kept up our end - now I DEMAND you give us the respect that goes along
with it."
        Ikari stood his ground.  "I will not be spoken to in such a
fashion in front of subordinates by -anyone-, Mr. Croft, -especially-
you."
        "It's Lord Derek to you, mate," DJ replied.  "I'm under no
legal obligation to stay here and work for you, Gendou.  I do it
because it suits me.  Let me remind you of something very important
that you seem to have forgotten!  YOU need US.  We do NOT need YOU.  I
suggest you keep that in mind the next time you get to feeling as
though you had some weight to throw around!"
        With that, DJ pivoted on his heel and stormed down the
corridor, leaving Gendou Ikari standing, the questionnaire papers
crumpled in one hand, totally at a loss.
        Then, without a word, he turned and walked away in the other
direction.
        "I think it would look something like that," said Truss.
        "Something like that," Asuka agreed.  "But louder."  Then she
turned and ran after DJ.  Truss waffled for a moment, realized that
there was nothing at all to be gained by hanging around with a
pissed-off Gendou Ikari, and headed after her.
        "What do you suppose -that- was all about?" Truss asked Asuka
as he caught up with her.
        "Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea," she replied; then, as
they caught up with DJ, she reached out and put a hand on his
shoulder.  "DJ, wait... slow down."
        DJ stopped, turning to them, and seemed on the verge of saying
something heated before he caught himself and took a moment to steady
out a bit.
        "Sorry you had to see that," he said.  "It's just... God, that
man gets under my skin!  His high-handed attitude, it just infuriates
me."
        "I know, I know," said Asuka.  "I think I can guess what that
was about."
        "Mm."  DJ nodded.
        "You told him?"
        "He asked, point-blank," replied DJ.
        "You -told- him?!" Asuka repeated, her tone more incredulous.
        "Well, damn it all," DJ replied, his tone frustrated.  "I
won't be reduced to -lying- to Gendou bloody Ikari.  I'm not ashamed.
Why - are you?"
        Asuka blinked, then slowly replied, "... No, of course not.  I
was...  just a little surprised, that's all... "
        Truss looked mystified.  "Um... "
        DJ and Asuka looked at Truss, then at each other; each trying
to decide what to say."
        "Hey, you three!" Maya's voice called from the corridor
intersection.  "Get a move on, the briefing's started."
        "Saved by the yell," DJ muttered, then louder, "Let's go."

        Dr. Akagi surveyed the room from the corner.  The four pilots,
four children, along with Maya and Truss, quietly talking amongst
themselves.  There was an air of professional tension in the room.
She doubted that any other group of four fourteen year old children
would be as subdued as this one, with as much quiet confidence.  Not
for the first time she wondered if they would ever really be able to
repay the children for the loss of their youth, for the responsibility
thrust on them.  She suspected that the world would never really
appreciate what was done by these four; doubted even they would ever
truly understand.  She cast her eyes sidelong towards Dr. Ikari, as
stolid as ever.  She wondered if he ever had doubts - about anything.
        With a small sigh Ritsuko gathered herself, squared her
shoulders, and strode to the dais at the front of the room.
Immediately the pilots quieted and turned their attention to her.
        "As you all know by now another Angel has been spotted.  This
one is in low earth orbit.  We have been monitoring the Angel since it
was first spotted.  It has yet to make an aggressive move."  She
paused for a moment.  "However, we feel that is just a matter of time.
Dr. Ikari will continue this briefing."
        Turning her attention to the back corner of the room, she
gestured.  "Dr. Ikari?"
        DJ had to hand it to Gendou; he'd gotten his composure back in
a hurry.  Maybe it was the gloves - he'd put them back on at some
point and had slipped back into his Icy Commander persona.
        Without preamble, he introduced the Angel; new photos from
satellites in better vantage points showed it in relative clarity, a
strange orange shape resembling nothing so much as a vast protozoan,
complete with groups of finger-like cilia at either end of its oblong
shape.  Dominating the center of its "upper" surface was a structure
that resembled nothing so much as a single, giant, glaring red eye.
        "Tactical analysis has provided no purpose for this Angel's
remaining in orbit," Ikari announced.  "Only one thing is certain at
this point: its orbital track is irregular."  A diagram of the orbit,
wrapping around and around the planet in an ever-widening band of
coverage like tape around a tennis ball, appeared on the monitor
behind him.  "If it maintains this path - and there is no reason to
believe it won't - it will overfly Worcester-3 in seventeen hours.
        "We've been asked by the International Spaceflight
Coordination Agency to intervene before that time, however.  It
appears that, shortly before its orbital track brings it into
overflight of Worcester-3, it intersects something else: Space Station
Babylon 2.  ISCA has requested that we attempt an interception, since
they have neither the time nor the resources to evacuate Babylon 2's
crew of 500.  Operations planners concur with this request."
        "You mean - " Maya began, but Ikari continued, cutting her off
as though she had not spoken, his expression stony and his voice flat:
        "Evangelion Combat Team #2 will be dispatched to Baikonur
Cosmodrome as soon as this briefing is concluded.  Upon their arrival,
Units 02 and 03 will be fitted to a Kronos-E booster and readied for
an immediate interception launch."
        Truss glanced at Asuka, who shook her head with an expression
somewhere between amusement and exasperation.
        In the back of the room Ritsuko bit her lip, her right hand
working nervousing in the cup of her left.
        "Combat Team #1 will remain here in Worcester-3.  Tomorrow at
0600, during the orbital interception, they will be on standby alert,
ready to intervene should action on the ground become necessary."
        Ikari fell silent for a moment, his gaze raking over the
assembled pilots, operations staff and engineers.  Then he pushed his
glasses up his nose and said,
        "I know this operation is unprecedented.  I know it will
involve the use of technologies still in the early experimental stage,
and considerable risk will result from this.  I hope you all can
understand Command's reasons; the lives of the crew of Babylon 2
exactly represent the values for whose preservation NERV stands."  He
paused, then continued, "I know I can count on all of you to do your
duty."
        Ikari let that statement sink in for a few silent moments;
then he resumed his usual peremptory tone as he said, "Ellison and
Soryu-Langley, report with Tech Team 3 for debarkation immediately.
The rest of you are at liberty until 0500.  That is all."
        So saying, Gendou Ikari turned and left the conference room.
        The moment he was out of the room, Ritsuko spoke up, silencing
the murmurs that had just begun.
        "OK.  You all heard Dr. Ikari.  I just wanted to say a few
things.
        "This is going to be a very dangerous mission, as I'm sure you
know.  We've never successfully launched, and we're all painfully
aware of that.  We've done everything we can to ensure this launch
goes as planned, and we're doing it all again to be doubly sure.
        "I want to personally wish you all good luck."
        Such a personal statement from Dr. Akagi was rare indeed, and
the assembled group was silent.  Ritsuko nodded slightly and turned to
leave, pausing at the door only to add, "Oh, Asuka, we've switched to
the Bosch micropumps."  With that she was out the door, and the group
dispersed with few words between them.

        DJ's compatriots at NERV, if asked, could have come up with
many ways of describing him; but none of them would opine that he was
particularly religious.  They had, from time to time, seen him wear a
small, jeweled silver cross pendant, but put it down as a relic of one
of his exploits into the forgotten corners of the world.  It would
have surprised most of them (though not all) to find him using part of
his evening of liberty visiting the All Saints' Episcopal Church on
Pleasant Street.
        It wasn't his church of choice, quite, but an Episcopal church
was as close as he was going to get to an Anglican one in the United
States.  Within its dark, cool stone confines, with the gleaming
stained glass windows arching to the shadowed ceiling above, he felt
almost at home, almost at peace.
        Almost.
        He knelt momentarily in one of the pews, paid his respects,
and then slipped into one of the small, dark booths off to the side.
Presently the small sliding portal opened, and a friendly voice said,
        "How may I help you, my son?"
        "Hullo, Father," said DJ softly.  "I'm afraid I've not come to
confess my sins, in so many words."
        "As you like," replied Father Thomas Sprague mildly.  "Lord
knows I've never been one to stand on ceremony.  What troubles you,
then?"
        "Conflicting emotions," replied DJ.  "I know the work I do is
important, but the man in charge is someone I ordinarily wouldn't
waste the time of day on.  Soon people I love will be placed in grave
danger by him, but for a good cause.  I... "  He chuckled ruefully.
"I suppose I'm just looking for some reassurance that it'll all be
worth it in the end."
        Father Sprague was quiet for a moment, thinking; then he said,
"Some say your enemies are the judgment of God upon a world grown
intolerably self-indulgent and wicked, finishing the job that the
Second Impact began.  Even among the hierarchies of the churches of
London and Rome some are saying that the second deluge is at hand, and
this time there will be no Noah - and that you and your friends are
committing the ultimate heresy in trying to forestall the Final
Judgment."
        DJ nodded.  "You know who I am, then."
        "Oh yes," replied Father Sprague.  "I know your voice too well
by now to mistake you for another."
        "What do -you- think, Father?  Are they right?  Are we trying
to defy the will of the Almighty?"
        "I don't pretend to understand the mind of God," said Father
Sprague, "but I cannot help but think that, if He wished to destroy us
with the Second Impact, He would have done it right the first time.
Clearly it -is- a battle for our survival, but I cannot believe that
our extinction is part of God's plan."
        DJ frowned thoughtfully, then replied, "I wish I could be so
sure."
        "We can never be sure of anything," replied Father Sprague
philosophically.  "That's what faith is all about."

        Months of interminable low-activity testing had honed in all
the Evangelion pilots one common skill: the ability to rest
comfortably, even sleep, in the command seats of EVA entry plugs for
hours on end.  Even faced with the knowledge that they were about to
do the unprecedented, with little or no testing, incomplete training
and equipment that could charitably be described as "dodgy", Asuka and
Jon, strapped into their EVAs, hanging from the bottoms of their
Antonov AN-411 transports, slept most of the way to Russia.  They were
still yawning away the cobwebs as they moved their units into
position.  In typical Russian style, the pad crews had completed an
ingenious jury-rig in the time it took the EVAs to arrive.  Using
gigantic cranes normally used for gantry maintenance to hoist the EVAs
into place atop their Kronos-E booster already on the pad, then
assembling the nose enclosure around them.
        From there, it was just a matter of waiting - waiting and
knowing that, halfway around the world, their teammates waited too.

        "Nervous, Jon?" asked Asuka as the count reached 30 seconds.
        "Why should I be nervous?" Jon replied calmly.  "After all,
statistically speaking, I have a 17% chance of surviving the launch...
and nobody's ever even tested the re-entry equipment."
        "That's the spirit."
        "You're awfully cheerful."
        "I enjoy being counted on."
        Jon would have replied, but the count hit seven, and the roar
of the rockets filled the EVAs, making conversation impossible.

             /*  Boston  "The Launch"  _Third Stage_  */

        The rocket shuddered and screamed on the pad, flames shrieking
from its exhausts, still chained to Earth by the straining bolts on
the pad flanges.
        "Four," said Truss.  "All engines running."
        Jon heard a low murmuring sound in his earphones.  Puzzled, he
adjusted his audio gain, and then realized what it was: Asuka was,
under her breath, reciting what sounded like the Lord's Prayer in
German.
        Then the pad unleashed the rocket, and the acceleration
crashed down.  The roar and vibration drowned out everything but
itself and the sound of Jon's blood pounding in his ears.  He
struggled to maintain his eyes' focus on the instruments.  Dimly, he
was aware of Asuka shouting the status reports into the commline at
the top of her lungs, with that peculiar crushed-sounding tone one
adopts when one is trying to shout under an acceleration load of
nearly 4 G.  The vibration reached a fever pitch, Jon's internal
equilibrium had long since fallen away, and he knew from the mission
clock that they had just about reached the point where the last Kronos
launch had become a fireball.
        And then, as if by magic, they were through the peak of
aerodynamic stress, through the barrier of Max-Q and sailing smooth
and quiet into the unknown.
        "Max-Q passed," came the somewhat relieved voice of Asuka.
"My status board is still green."
        "Roger, K-1, stand by for staging," Truss's voice intoned.
"Booster modules jettisoned."
        The force pressing against them reduced its violence and the
vibrations subsided a bit.  "Main stage engines running smooth," Truss
reported.
        Asuka began to breath a sigh of relief, only to have it catch
in her throat when the ship shuddered, a low -bang- transmitted
through the structure.  Clamping down on her instant terror, she
managed to steady her voice to ask, "Truss, what was that?"
        "Uh, stand by...  We have micropump failure in engine eight of
main stage.  Failovers have increased power on remaining nine engines.
 eight shutdown successful.  We're still GO."
        GO or not, Asuka's hand moved closer to the abort handle.
This time she wouldn't have a chance to be angry if things went bad.
She glanced up to see Jon's face unnaturally white and drawn.  "Aw,
relax, Jon," she said with forced cheer.  "Sure, we're riding a rocket
that has never been successfully launched, and which has just lost an
engine, but we've still got our health."
        Jon gave a nervous little laugh.  "Right... what good would it
do to panic?"
        Down in the control room, Truss turned to Dr. Akagi.
"Well... looks like we just had our glitch for this mission."

        "Coming up on main stage jettison."  John's voice was back,
controlled as ever.  "On my mark.  Three...  Two... One... Main jet!"
The insistent pressure at Jon's back eased slightly.  Then, WHUMP, it
was back, like a fist, then easing off into a steady pressure.  "Stage
two ignition.  Looking good."
        They went on like this for some time; then the second stage
burned out and was discarded, and only the small sustainer motor and
the snub-conical aeroshield surrounding the two EVAs remained.  The
sustainer nudged the cone into its proper orbital path, then died, and
with a curious settling sensation, Evangelion Combat Team Two came to
a "halt".
        "How's our insertion look, Control?" asked Asuka.
        "Right on target, K-1," Truss replied.  "When you debark
you'll find Babylon 2 about five kilometers ahead... debark when
ready."
        "Ready, Jon?"
        "... Ready," Jon replied, shaking his head.  He felt strange,
but couldn't put his finger on what was wrong.  Maybe his ears were
still ringing from the roar of the launch.
        "Let's see what's out there, then," said Asuka, punching the
debark key.
        The aeroshield separated at the top and peeled apart into four
petal-like sections; an explosive charge at the base released the two
EVAs and propelled the shell into a decaying orbit that would burn it
away before it could fall to Earth.  Another small charge broke the
shackle that held the two EVAs locked together back-to-back, and they
drifted apart, EVA-03 automatically pivoting on its maneuver jets to
match EVA-02's orientation.
        "Oh... my... God," Asuka whispered as Grendel's monitors came
alive and surrounded her with a wraparound projection of the vista
outside.
        Before her, rotating serenely, was the great gray-and-green,
semi-spherical bulk of International Space Station Bablyon Two, its
marker lights blinking in the eternal night.  Beyond was the endless
velvet black of space, so much darker and deeper than the mundane
night sky, and filled with so very many more stars.  And beneath her
feet, as though she were standing on a glass floor, the gleaming
blue-white Earth.
        She hadn't known what to expect from this experience.  Though
her seat straps and the LCL environment kept her from noticing any
personal sensation of weightlessness, she was neurally linked to an
Evangelion which was itself in freefall - no one had been able to
predict precisely what that would feel like.  She had been warned she
might be nauseated, afflicted with vertigo, completely disoriented.
        Instead, she felt marvelous.  Ethereal.  Free... as though she
were immersed not in hard vacuum but in the warm waters of the
Caribbean, and what lay below her was Creation's most fertile coral
reef.
        "EVA-02, this is Control," said Truss.  "How's it feel?"
        "Incredible," said Asuka.  "Like diving, except without the
water resistance."  Taking hold of the joysticks, she gave an
experimental tap on a couple of the maneuvering thrusters, then tried
a more complicated tumble-and-correct.  The fly-by-wire system in the
Type S exosuit worked as advertised, translating her control inputs
into the complex series of fire and counterfire for the maneuver jets
without making her worry about it.
        "Flight control systems are working perfectly," she reported.
Next she unslung the vac-sealed assault rifle (given a somewhat
comical resemblance to a giant Super Soaker by the canister of
compressed air attached to its receiver assembly), checked the
integrity of its seals and patched it into Grendel's targeting system.
"Weapons check out OK."
        "EVA-03, how're you doing?" Truss asked next.
        Jon failed to answer.
        "EVA-03, can you hear me?"
        "Jon, wake up!" said Asuka, patching a monitor channel
through.  She paused, though, at the sight of the thoughtful frown on
Jon's face.  "What is it, what's wrong?"
        Just as she asked, the answer came to Jon in a sickening flash
of realization.

        Below, in the dark and cold of the last hour before sunrise, a
channel opened between EVA-00 and EVA-01 as well, across the width of
Worcester that separated the two units.
        "DJ," said Rei as she appeared in a window on DJ's tactical
display.
        "Yes?" he replied.
        "I've lost Jon."

        "I've lost Rei," Jon murmured.
        "What?!" Asuka replied, mystified.
        "I can't feel her," Jon continued, his voice small.  His face
was pale and slack on the monitor - the face of a man who is fighting
off panic.
        Cutting off the groundside comm signal with a terse, "Stand
by, Control," Asuka jetted her EVA toward Jon's.  "What do you mean
you can't feel her?"
        "You know our synchrony," Jon said.  Asuka nodded.  "I've
noticed...  since the recent round of tests, since the Tempest 5000
experiment, that I can always feel the touch of her mind in the back
of mine.  But now... now I can't feel her.  It's like... like I was
listening to music, and suddenly I've gone deaf in one ear."

        "... And now I can't feel him there," said Rei.  "I...  I'm
afraid something might have happened to him."
        DJ reached for the key that would hail Control, but before he
could reach it, Asuka broke into that band: "Control, can we have a
reverse-numeric group comm check please?"
        Bless you, Asuka, thought DJ to himself.
        "Roger, stand by," replied Maya.  "All units, cross-band comm
check.  Report reverse numeric."
        "Unit 03, copy," said Jon.
        On DJ's monitor, Rei visibly relaxed.
        "Unit 02, copy," Asuka added.
        For the spaceborne pilots, a beat, the tiny transmission lag,
passed.
        "Unit 01, copy," came DJ's voice.
        "Unit 00, copy," said Rei calmly.

        "Thank you, Control.  Stand by; we've got a little more
coordination to do up here."  Releasing her push-to-talk, Asuka said,
"See?  She's fine."
        "Why can't I feel her, then, I wonder," said Jon, his demeanor
rapidly changing, Asuka was pleased to see, from panicked to
perplexed.
        "Who knows?  Do you understand why you -can- most of the
time?"  To this Jon had to shake his head.  "Maybe it's the distance.
You've never been this far apart before, after all.  Or maybe it's the
radiation this high up.  Don't worry about it. We've got a job to do,
remember?"
        Jon nodded.  "I'm all right now.  Asuka... thank you."
        "Don't worry about it," replied Asuka.  "Can't have my
marksman flaking out on me, after all."  She punched the ground line
back over to voice-activated.  "OK, Control, we're set.  Sorry about
the delay."
        "Roger, EVA-02," said Maya.  "EVA-03, are your Type S systems
functioning normally?"
        "Pressure is good," reported Jon.  He performed an
experimental maneuver similar to Asuka's, then added, "Maneuver
systems OK."  Then he flipped the safety lockout cover away from the
trigger of his EVA's primary weapon, feeling the faint vibration as
its cryo cells came online.  The reticule appeared immediately; with
his finger well away from the trigger, he acquired locks within a
second or so on EVA-02 and Babylon 2.  "Type 20 is online; fire
control system is OK."
        "OK, team 2, check bearing nine zero," came Misato's voice.
"You should be able to identify the target at maximum magnification;
he's about thirty kilometers out and approaching at a relative speed
of about a hundred kph."
        Asuka did as instructed, and as she faced away from Babylon 2
and her displays settled into maximum mag, there it was, in all its
bizarre orange glory.
        "Target acquired," said Asuka.  "Hang on... it's doing
something."
        From one of the Angel's outer 'fingers' a piece of its orange
flesh budded off and dropped planetward, quickly catching fire in the
atmosphere and becoming a glowing meteor which plowed into the
Atlantic Ocean, creating a sizeable impact wave.
        "Control, it appears to be using its own mass to bomb the
planet," Jon observed from the orbital vantage, relaying information
the destroyed spy satellites would have relayed before.  The Angel sat
for a moment, as if observing where its bomb had fallen, and then it
began to change course and speed.  A few moments later another pellet
budded off and fell planetward.  This one also impacted in the
Atlantic, but several hundred miles closer to the North American
continent.
        The pilots observing from a distance in orbit reached their
conclusion at the same time the Central Dogma staff reached theirs.
The Angel was learning how to attack the planet, and if the bombs
followed their present trajectory, one of the next attacks would
successfully strike Worcester-3.
        "What do we do?"
        "That's easy," Asuka declared.  "We give it something else to
waste its ammunition on!"
        So saying, she dropped the crosshairs onto the glowering red
'eye' on the Angel's dorsal surface, and fired a burst from her
assault rifle.  For a moment, the red-armored EVA drifted backward
with the reaction, until the little jets arrayed along its Type-S
backpack fired to correct; Jon watched, almost more fascinated with
this than the task at hand.
        The burst silently carved a glowing furrow across the Angel's
upper surface. For a moment, the two EVA pilots wondered if that was
the only effect they were going to have; then the eye shifted,
refocusing its red glare on them.  Bits of the Angel began breaking
off and flying toward -them- now.
        "There, that's got his attention!" Asuka declared.  "What are
you waiting for, Ellison?  Let 'im have it!"
        "Right," Jon replied, grimly shaking himself out of his
reverie.  He locked the Type 20 onto the enemy, got his finger back
onto the trigger, and fired.  Unlike the assault rifle, the
particle-beam rifle required no corrective thrust, since it produced
no appreciable recoil.  Its blue-white beam speared silently into
space, burning another furrow across the Angel's mass.

        Below, the staff in the control room and Team One in their
EVAs watched the tactical-plot display and listened to the voice
traffic, mentally assigning identities to the blips labeled 'E-02',
'E-03', 'B-2' and 'A-11'.
        Asuka: "Nailed him!"
        Misato: "Good shot, Jon."
        Jon: "Not good enough... Asuka, watch out; I think the next
one's for you."
        Asuka: "Christ!  It's learning to fire more than one at a
time!  Switching to point defense.  I'll keep its fire off us, Jon,
you keep burning it."
        Jon: "Roger, 02."
        Back and forth for ten tense minutes, as the Angel grew ever
nearer its two spaceborne attackers and they whittled away at its
defenses, the attacks and counterattacks flew, while, on the ground,
Rei and DJ listened, watched each other's faces, and supported each
other silently with their eyes.
        Jon: "Enemy's attacks are becoming more frequent.  It's almost
like... "
        Asuka: "Like it's getting desperate!  Pour it on, Jon, I think
we're starting to make a difference."
        Misato: "How's your ammo situation?"
        Asuka: "No trouble there, Control."
        Jon: "74% charge, Control. My compliments to TechDiv on the
Type 20."
        Asuka: "Scheisse!  That one was -way- too close."
        Jon: "It's closing in on us just like it was on Worcester- "
        CRASH!
        EVA-03's marker disappeared from the tactical display.  In the
control center, Jon Ellison's lifesign readings flatlined.
        "Flight, I've lost Ellison!" Maya cried.
        Rei Ayanami's gasp went almost unnoticed on the commnet at
large.

        Jon almost didn't see the attack coming, the pellet had been
so small and so fast-moving.  Almost the instant he noticed the orange
blur, his displays had all snow-crashed and he'd felt a heavy impact
in the EVA's upper right torso.  Alarms of all stripe were going off
in his cockpit, but he was paying attention only to his attitude
indicators.  The outside view came back, but his EVA was tumbling and
the spiraling view made him nauseous, so he shut them back off again.
The glimpse he'd seen of Bablyon 2 during one of those tumbles didn't
strike him as particularly promising, though; it had been much, much
too large.

        "EVA-03's been hit!" Asuka cried.  "He's tumbling out of
control toward Babylon 2!"  Enemy disregarded, Asuka pivoted EVA-02 on
its maneuver jets and kicked open the back-mounted main thrusters.

        Asuka won't be able to reach me in time, thought Jon, even if
she's allowed to.  It's just like Sgt. Kay always used to say.
        ["Out there, there's nobody but you and the bugs.  You can
only count on yourself if you want to survive."]
        Punching an emergency control, Jon overrode the malfunctioning
fly-by-wire system and took direct control of the unit's thruster
network.  With one eye on the thruster diagram and one on the attitude
indicators, he started a by-guess-and-by-God attempt at stabilizing
his wildly tumbling EVA...
        ... and succeeded.  EVA-03 skidded to a gentle halt two
hundred meters from Babylon 2, its maneuver-system fuel nearly
exhausted.
        Reactivating his external displays, Jon saw Asuka's red EVA
jetting to a stop a short distance away, and something most
distressing behind her.  He tried to open a channel to her, to no
avail, and settled for simply gesturing.

        Seeing EVA-03 drift to a stop and then start wildly
gesticulating in a manner that she could only interpret as "LOOK OUT
BEHIND YOU!!!", Asuka took a moment to report that Jon was alive, then
quickly shifted her attention back to check on their quarry.  She was
greeted with a large corona of red fire descending toward the planet.
        "Oh, hell.  Control, Angel has entered the atmosphere!"

        "Why would it do that?" Truss wondered.
        "Check its trajectory," said Misato.  "Where will it land?"
        Maya checked.
        "... Right here," she said.
        "-Right here-?!"
        "Well, OK, technically 'over there'," said Maya, gesturing to
a monitor with a view of Dead Horse Hill, "but trust me, we won't know
the difference."
        "There's your answer, then.  They depleted its 'ammunition',"
Misato observed.  "So now it's a kamikaze strike."
        "And there's enough left of it to flatten most of Worcester
County when it hits," Truss added.
        "Guess it's time for Plan B, then," said Misato.  "DJ, Rei, up
and at 'em, let's see if they whittled enough of this thing away that
you two can stop it."
        "Roger.  Meet you in the middle, Rei," said DJ, and threw his
EVA into a run, its power cable trailing merrily behind it.
        "Get moving!" Misato's voice cried in his ears.  "It's coming
down a little off-center, if you only get to Point Alpha you'll be
about six hundred meters short.
        "Copy," replied DJ, his brow furrowing in concentration as he
urged the EVA into a dead sprint, one eye on the cable-length
indicator as it rapidly spooled down.  "Cable's out," he declared as
it passed 100 meters.  "Let 'er go!"
        "Umbilicus detached!" Maya replied, slapping the emergency
release.  DJ felt only the faintest of tugs as Lucifer left the cable
behind and switched into battery power, pounding up the side of Dead
Horse Hill, houses abandoned since the Second Impact splintering under
its footfalls.  He paid no attention to the reddening of the sky as
the Angel streaked toward their fiery rendezvous; it would get there
soon enough.
        Moloch waited, halberd at the ready, at the peak of the hill,
and DJ skidded Lucifer to a halt in the wash of red light, looking up
at the glaring, flame-wreathed eye of his enemy.
        "OK, Lucy," he muttered.  "Let's do magic."  Raising his
voice, he declared, "EVA-01 Absolute Terror Field - MAXIMUM POWER!"
        The EVA reared its head back, tore its jaw open and roared,
its eyes glowing through the slits in its helmet, and the AT Field
rippled out from it in a visible wave, flattening houses halfway down
the hill and almost knocking EVA-00 back a step before its own field
could slip through the resistance.  The hex-ring effect caused by the
Angel's impact on the field was nearly twenty miles wide; the
shockwave rippled across at that altitude and blasted a neat row of
trees off the side of Mount Wachusett.
        DJ screamed as the impact against his EVA's AT Field
bludgeoned his mind like a cannon shot, and kept screaming as he
marshaled all his strength of will to hold the enemy at bay.  EVA-01,
howling like its master, staggered, shuddered, fell to one knee as the
Angel pressed inexorably down.  In the cockpit of EVA-00, Rei Ayanami
sat and stared, captivated by the spectacle, her face entirely blank.
        Then, on her monitors, EVA-01 and DJ, screaming in unison,
light leaking out from their tight-closed eyes, both cried in a
polyphonic voice,
        "GOD'S SAKE, REI - KILL IT!"
        Galvanized by the look and the plea, Rei recoiled a half-step,
whirled the halberd in Moloch's hands so the pointed spear end was up,
and then, with a snarl, drove it into the Angel's eye.
        The explosion happened on the plane of the AT Field; Mount
Wachusett's beleaguered trees were the only casualties of a blast that
could, a hundred meters lower, have decimated downtown Worcester-3.
        DJ's image vanished from Rei's monitor as EVA-01, its eyes
going dark, collapsed face-down to the ground.  Before the recovery
teams arrived, Rei had already dismounted from EVA-00 and extricated
her stunned partner.
        "Are you all right?" she asked him softly as his eyes
flickered open and focused on her face.
        "Check, please," he replied, weakly, with a wan smile.

        "EVA-02, EVA-03, party's over," Misato called.  "Time to come
home.  Can you give us a damage estimate on Unit 03, Asuka?  We still
can't make direct contact."
        "Well, no wonder," said Asuka, surveying the mangled ruin of
the upper right quadrant of EVA-03's Type S armor.  "Looks like he
took a direct hit to the right shoulder.  The stabilizer coupling for
the Type 20 is wrecked and he's lost his high-gain antenna, so that's
why you can't talk to him.  The armor plating's cracked almost to
mid-chest.  Mediating telecom now... Jon, can you hear me?"
        "Roger, Asuka, I hear you.  Are you relaying?"
        "That's affirmative, EVA-02," Maya's voice replied.  "Your
re-entry window is coming up, Team 2.  Deploy re-entry equipment."
        "Roger, Control.  EVA-02 deploying re-entry equipment," Asuka
announced, thumbing a switch on her console.  Hatches popped off the
shoulders and back of Grendel's Type S armor, and compressed gas
charges deployed the heavy composite-foil shell which comprised the
heat shield.  The balloon-like structure rapidly unfurled, its memory
structure stretching and sealing, and in a matter of seconds it had
formed a thick metallic hemisphere.  The idea was that an EVA would
curl up into a fetal position with its knees locked into pawls on the
shield's inner curvature and its hands locked onto handles.  Curled
tightly enough, its entire surface would be behind the shield, which
would then be presented to the brunt of the re-entry friction.  Only
the EVA's back, covered in the thickest layer of the Type S armor,
would be exposed, and that would be on 'top', in the cool zone.  With
a little help from the EVA's AT Field, theoretically, this arrangement
would suffice.  (Theoretically, the EVA's AT Field could handle it on
its own; but no one wanted to bank on a pilot's ability to maintain
that concentration level while re-entering.)
        "Heat shield deployed," Asuka reported, unslinging the shield
from her unit's back and swinging it into position preparatory to
locking it down.  "No problems."
        "EVA-03 deploying re-entry gear," Jon seconded, and tabbed the
switch on his control console.
        Nothing happened save for a dull clunk from somewhere within
the unit.  Jon flipped the switch down and up again.  Still nothing.
"Stand by, Control," he said, fighting back the cold feeling in the
pit of his gut.  He keyed the external cameras and aimed his vision
toward the compartments where the reentry equipment was stored.
        There was a sizable crack in the armor there, and temperature
sensors indicated that the contents of the compartments had been
frozen solid for some time.  Useless.
        "Control..." he said gravely.  "...Negative deployment on heat
shield.  Negative re-entry gear."

        Rei, supporting a somewhat wobbly DJ, arrived in the control
room to see the operations personnel deep in a discussion of their
options.
        "Can we dock the damaged unit with Babylon 2?" Ritsuko Akagi
asked.
        "No," Truss replied.  "We don't have any docking equipment
aboard - why would we?  It was never considered as a contingency.
EVAs weren't designed to be spacecraft."
        "The station's got to have airlocks, though."
        "Well, yes, but neither the EVA nor the entry plug has a
docking collar that can mate with B2's docking systems."
        "Ellison's wearing a Type S plug suit.  We can just have him
go E.V.A. and -walk- to an airlock."
        Truss shook his head.  "The Type S suits weren't finished.
They're wearing regular plug suits.  Didn't you read the tech
briefing?"
        "It's not -my- project," replied Ritsuko curtly.
        Truss shrugged.  "Either way, E.V.A. isn't an option.  He's
got to stay in that entry plug or he's dead."
        "Well, look, we can't get two EVAs down with one heat shield.
Even if there were some way of fitting both of them behind it, the
extra mass and its distribution would make accurate control almost
impossible.  If they didn't tumble out of control on the downslope
they'd still end up landing God knows where."
        Truss nodded.  "Unfortunately, that's true.  I - "

        In orbit, Asuka finished weighing her options, and made a
decision.  "Control, I have an idea.  Jon, get over here."
        Jon wasn't certain what she was up to, but at this point he
was willing to try anything.  He fired his EVA's maneuvering jets and
drifted closer to EVA-02.
        "Turn around."
        Jon blinked.  "Say again?"
        "Turn around!" Asuka replied.  "Hurry up or we'll miss our
re-entry window."
        With what little fuel remained, EVA-03 moved right up to
EVA-02, then pivoted on its maneuver thrusters.  Asuka stabilized the
two with one of her EVA's hands, worked the other into the gap left
behind by the damage to Unit 03's right shoulder armor, and bent the
back plate of the wrecked Type S armor, then tore it away, exposing
EVA-03's own dorsal armor.
        "Uh, Asuka," said Jon.  "What are you doing?"
        "Improvising," Asuka replied.  Drawing EVA-02's Progressive
Knife, she cut a large swath of the heavy thermofiber insulation out
from inside the armor plate, then discarded the armor.  "Hopefully,
this will keep your LCL from freezing long enough for us to get into
some atmosphere."
        "Uh... and if it doesn't?"
        "Hold your breath," Asuka replied, thumbing the emergency
override and opening the entry-plug cover on EVA-03's back.
        "I hope you know what you're doing," said Jon as he powered
down his systems and prepared for plug ejection.
        "Not a clue," Asuka muttered, her thumb well clear of her
press-to-talk key.  Then she extracted Unit 03's entry plug, wrapped
it in the insulation, and pressed it close to EVA-02's chest with her
unit's right hand.  With her left she maneuvered the shield into
position, locked the knee pawls in, and grabbed hold of one handle.
        "Asuka, what the hell are you doing?!" came the signal from
Ritsuko Akagi.  "You weren't instructed to - "
        "Nobody had any better ideas, Doctor, and our window is
running out.  If you want to file an official reprimand, fine, but I'd
prefer we're both there to get it," replied Asuka calmly.
        Ritsuko seemed about to reply, but Gendou Ikari stopped her -
stopped her with a hand on her arm and an uncharacteristically quiet,
"Let her."
        "What?"
        "Let her.  It may be Ellison's only chance for survival."
        "But - if she's holding the entry plug in her EVA's hand
during splashdown, the impact shock might - "
        "It might, yes, but...  There's no time to come up with a
better plan."
        Ritsuko gave Ikari a long, searching look; then she turned
back to the console, pressed her com key and said, "Very well, EVA-02.
Proceed."
        "With only one hand locked down, you won't be as stable," Jon
cautioned.  "We may both fry."
        "Yeah," Asuka answered.  "Well, I'd rather fry than explain to
Ayanami why I left you up here to die."
        Jon had no immediate reply to that.  More and more, he found
himself possessed of greater respect for Asuka.  "...thank you,
Asuka," he finally said quietly.
        Asuka grinned a rakish grin reminiscent of DJ's.  There was no
need for further words on the subject.  "Ready for re-entry, Control."
        Grendel's retrothrusters fired, nudging the EVA out of its
stable orbit, and presently it began to fall back toward Earth.  As it
fell through the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the heat shield
began to glow, growing brighter until it became a roaring corona of
flame which engulfed the EVA, giving the appearance of a fiery meteor
plunging toward the planet.
        Jon had been right; they were slightly unstable, but not
enough to cause Asuka any real alarm.  Maintaining the shield's proper
positioning with one hand was taxing, and her real arm was developing
a sympathetic cramp, but she dealt with it with gritted teeth and said
nothing, knowing that Jon's ordeal was likely to be far worse.
        Jon would, if asked, have to admit that yes, he had been more
comfortable.
        The initial chill-down, even with the layer of insulation
helping the entry plug's relatively thin shell ward off the cooling
effect of vacuum, had caused his LCL to thicken noticeably, which made
it both uncomfortable and alarming to breathe.  Worse, now that they
were under re-entry the temperature of the LCL was -increasing- at an
alarming rate.  Were it to go much higher, the already-stressed liquid
would stop carrying oxygen.
        On the other hand, were the insulation to fail, the entry plug
to crack, or Asuka to lose her grip...
        Jon tried not to think about it.

        His anxiety was well-mirrored in the control room, where,
thanks to the ionization blackout, no one had the faintest clue what
was happening to the two stricken pilots.  The medical telemetry on
both of them was flatlined; Truss tried not to look at it as he waited
for something, anything, to tell him that Asuka and Jon had survived
what was, in effect, his grand experiment.  Behind him, he could hear
Otto Keller murmuring to Professor Ikari.
        "I don't know, Gendou.  We've got the parachute situation, the
heat shield, the angle of trajectory and the splashdown
question... there are just so many variables, I'm at a bit of a
loss... "
        "I know what the problems are, Otto," Gendou replied flatly.
"This could be the worst disaster NERV has ever experienced."
        "With all due respect, sir," said Misato stiffly, "I believe
this is going to be our finest hour."
        Ikari regarded her silently for a moment, then nodded almost
imperceptibly and resumed his pensive stare at the master monitor.
        DJ and Rei watched in silence, and no one - least of all DJ -
noticed that she had taken his hand in a white-knuckled grip.

        As the LCL became noticeably hot and the buffetting effect of
re-entry became ever stronger, Jon felt himself verging closer to
panic.  If he was to die, then so be it; he had few problems with
that.
        But to die alone, without even the sound of Rei's voice, the
cool touch of her mind...
        In the short time Jon had been aware of their link, living
without it had become difficult.  Dying without it was unthinkable.
        <Rei.  Please help me.>
        And then... something happened.  It was a feeling he would be
hard-pressed to properly describe; the best adjective he could find
for it would be 'musical', a kind of song that resonated with a series
of words not so much spoken as implied...
        <I will protect you.>
        And then all the torment was gone, replaced by peace.

        Evangelion Unit 02 performed a perfect parachute deceleration
and splashdown fifty miles off the coast of Rhode Island; the
flotation devices deployed perfectly, and when the aircraft carrier
USS Ronald Reagan arrived to make pickup, they found the unit reposing
on its face like a bather doing a dead-man's float, with two pilots,
alive and well, splashing each other copiously with the cold Atlantic
water.

        The victory celebration was well under way, with cake, video
games, and loud music in the Wedge for all, but, as was her wont,
Ritsuko Akagi was still in the control room, poring over the data from
the day's activities.  She turned at a sound to see Gendou Ikari,
looking as old and tired as she could remember having seen him in
recent days.
        "A close call," she observed.
        "Too close," replied Ikari.  "Did we get any useful data from
it, at least?"
        "Enough that SHODAN will be a few days collating it," Ritsuko
replied.  "Recovery teams are disassembling EVA-03's entry plug data
recorders now, but the groundside telemetry is complete, and some of
it is very impressive."  She looked up at Ikari and said, "Do you
realize that, for a few seconds, DJ's synchronization ratio with Unit
01 hit 1.0 to 1?"
        Ikari nodded.  "I suspected it might."
        "What are you going to do about EVA-03?" Ritsuko asked.
        Ikari sighed, looking out the control room windows at the EVA
cage beyond.  "Cargo mules from B2 have already reached 03 and are in
the process of towing it back to the station.  It will be lashed to
the docking module to keep it in orbit.  The station is already
adjusting its orbital path to compensate for the increased mass.
        "A TechDiv team will go up with the next supply run to Babylon
2, next Thursday.  They'll bring back what's necessary in a Venture
Star.  In the meantime, NERV Japan reported this morning that EVA-04
is ready for preliminary testing.  If Unit 03 proves unsalvageable, we
can always have that one transferred here.  One production model is
much like another."
        Ritsuko nodded.  "Makes sense."  She closed out her log
session, stood up, and yawned.  "Well, I don't know about you, but I
think I'll actually stop by the Wedge and have some cake."
        Ikari favored this comment with a raised eyebrow and the hint
of a smile; then he said, "I'd join you, but I have reports to file.
The SEELE Council is going to want to know why we've lost an EVA, even
temporarily."
        "I don't envy you that job," Ritsuko admitted.
        "The Council and I have grown accustomed to each other,"
replied Ikari.  "It's not as onerous a duty as I might have thought it
once."
        "As you say," said Ritsuko.  "Good night, then."
        "Good night, Dr. Akagi," said Gendou.
        Alone in the control room, he gazed out at the three remaining
ranked EVAs in the cage for a few long moments.
        "Why does -he- have to be the best of them?" he wondered
quietly.

        Jon pulled himself out of one of the Super Rush console
stations, still laughing at the crazed outcome of the last eight-way
race (Jon, Rei, DJ, Maya, Misato, Truss, Otto Keller and Security MIB
Ken Stanfield on the classic San Francisco course), and made his way
to the table with the snacks layout, hunting for another cheese ball.
As he did, it struck him that Asuka was nowhere in the Wedge to be
seen.  Curious, he looked around more closely, and saw through the
windows that she was standing out by the edge of the reflecting pool.
        She turned to look as he joined her, alerted by the scrape of
his shoes on the concrete.
        "Am I disturbing you?" he asked softly.
        "No," she replied.  "I was just looking at the lights and
thinking," she added, gesturing to the ceiling of the Geo-Front far
above, where the twinkling lights of the suspended city gave the
illusion of a night sky full of unfamiliar constellations.
        They stood in companionable silence for a few minutes, and Jon
thought about the day's events.  Both of the young relationships
forming between EVA pilots had been tested by the fearful separation
of space, and, if Jon was any judge, both had been strengthened.  He
and Rei had needed no words, just a look, to acknowledge what had
passed between them during the harrowing re-entry; and Asuka and DJ
had expressed their relief with the directness Jon valued in them
both, as he hoped they always would.
        But there was more to what had transpired, he thought, than
those tests.  Jon had to admit there were times when he envied DJ's
rapport with Rei, the confidence with which they worked together.  He
knew enough about both of them not to feel jealousy, exactly, for
theirs was a different dynamic, but he had always regretted that he
and Asuka never seemed to share anything other than a job.
        After today, he felt - he hoped - that was no longer true.
        "Asuka," he said softly.
        "Mm?" she replied, not taking her eyes from the patterns of
light.
        "You saved my life today," said Jon.  "I wanted... to thank
you for that."
        Asuka smiled, a kind of smile Jon couldn't remember having
seen on her face before.  It was uncomplicated, bearing no ulterior
motives or mixed messages - a simple smile that told of her pleasure,
her pride in the compliment.
        "You're welcome," she replied.  "I couldn't just let you die.
That's one thing I learned early on - no matter what happens, a person
should never just give up.  If you try and fail, well, at least you
can say you tried.  A friend of mine once told me: Nothing is
inevitable."
        Lost in the consideration of that statement, Jon stood with
her and silently watched the lights of Worcester-3.

        Long after everyone else had dispersed, Ritsuko Akagi sat
alone in the Lower Wedge.  She'd shared in the festivities, but felt
like she wasn't quite accepted - like some outside interloper, a party
crasher.  She knew that it was nothing intentional on their parts.
They'd invited her, after all, and they did treat her well.  But she
was the next step from Gendou Ikari - and Gendou would never be one of
the group.  That association felt like a pall that hung over her
relationship with the other team members.
        She'd turned out the lights and sat now only in the soft glow
of the CRTs and the T5K holofield.  Her eyes played across the screens
as the eyecatch sequences ran.  Something familiar caught her eye on
the Toshinden machine.  She crossed the room and waited for the loop
to repeat.  It was some minutes before it finally did, but she saw
what she thought she had seen the first time.
        Dr. Ritsuko Akagi stood on the battle field, a sneer on her
face and a bullwhip in her hand.
        Ritsuko wasn't angry, as Asuka and DJ had speculated earlier;
rather, she was sad in some indescribable way.
        "Is this how they see me?" she asked the dumb screen.  She
knew that she could be hard on the others.  But that was because
things had to get done, pleasant or not.  She had the mission to think
of.  Someone had to keep things running.  She didn't like being rough,
but there wasn't another way.  Was there?
        She was only cold out of necessity.  Ritsuko didn't believe
that she would be able to do her job if she became overly attached to
the others.  She took her cues in large part from Dr. Ikari.  Fighting
against her nature; always calm, assured, and distant.  It wasn't
really her, and she remembered from her college-age memories of him
that it wasn't really Professor Ikari, either.  He'd been an exuberant
young man not too long ago... before...
        No, she admonished herself.  Don't think about that now.
        Ritsuko never thought about the past if she could help it.
She put all of her energy into her work, but she put little of
herself, her real self, into it.
        "Maybe that's the problem," she breathed quietly.  She stood
in silence as the eyecatch sequence looped again and again.  Finally
she reached out, and started a game.  She held down the kick button as
she selected herself from the character menu.  He eyes widened and her
breath came out in a gasp when she saw her other costume.
        "Say, -that's- a new look for you."
        Ristuko spun around to find Ryoji Kaji grinning over her
shoulder at the screen.  She interposed herself, trying to block the
image on the screen.  Kaji turned his grin towards the real Ritsuko.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you.  I was on my way by and I figured
I'd see if there was anyone left from the party.  Looks like you're
it."
        "Um, yeah, everyone else went home a while ago."  From behind
Ritsuko came the sound of her alter ego being pummeled by the
computer, since she wasn't doing anything to fight back.  The game
screamed in pain in a passable imitation of Ritsuko's voice, causing
her to blush and Kaji to chuckle.
        "That's an interesting twist to the game."
        "Yes, well, I think DJ is probably behind it."
        A cloud passed over Kaji's face, so quickly that Ritsuko
wasn't sure she had really seen it.  "Yeah, it does seem to be his
style, doesn't it," he said coldly.  With a quick change in his tone
he added, "You know, the bars are still open, and there's no reason
for you to sit here all alone in the dark."
        Ritsuko considered for a moment, the dark thoughts of the
preceeding moments already blending into a grey haze.  She cast a
glance around the dark room, not finding any answers.  Finally, she
decided that it couldn't hurt to go out.  "Sure, why not?"
        "Great.  Then it's a date."  Kaji led her out into the night.
        It wouldn't be long before Ritsuko Akagi discovered she was
wrong: wrong about many things.

        Behind them in the darkened Wedge, the game intoned,
        "Knockout!"  "Ritsuko,"  "Loses!"
        For a moment, while it calculated scores, the machine showed
the first CPU character's win animation; a grinning Ryoji Kaji,
spinning his battle scythe in one hand and declaring, "Ha-hah!
Another conquest."
        Unconcerned, the machine showed its GAME OVER screen, then
returned to the mindless looping.

           /*  The Mavericks  "Blue Moon"  _Apollo 13_  */

NEXT EPISODE:

A cunning trap.
An error of judgment.
A calculated risk.
And the beginnings of a revelation.

                      NEON EXODUS EVANGELION 2:6
                       THE GEOMETRY OF SHADOWS
                               12/05/97

         "I have been Roland, Beowulf, Achilles, Gilgamesh."

-- 
Benjamin D. Hutchins, cofounder, Continuity Line Editor, webmaster
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited - An AnimeTech Limited Company      -><-
Visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.eyrie.net/