From: gryphon@rei.nerv.gweep.net (Benjamin D. Hutchins)
Subject: [Eva][MetaFic] NXE: An Encounter at Shamrock House
X-Moderation-Queue-Date: 17 Jul 2000 23:23:28 -0400

		     EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED
			       presents

		   AN ENCOUNTER AT SHAMROCK HOUSE,
		or, A Quiet, Rather Dull Friday Night

		       by Benjamin D. Hutchins

	     with apologies to Albert Cornelius Baantjer
				 and
				Queen

		(c) 2000 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


	On a quiet side street off one of the two chief downtown
streets of Waltham, Massachusetts, not far from the Charles River,
there stands a three-story Victorian house, symmetrical as it faces
the street, with twin bay windows on the first and second floors and
porches with entrance doors on the sides.  It is flanked by a
nondescript brown house to its left, as viewed from the street, and a
boring four-story brick apartment building to its right, standing out
quite distinctly from its neighbors thanks to its color.  It is sided
with aluminum in a peculiar shade of pale green, a shade which has
prompted one of its groups of inhabitants to nickname it "Shamrock
House" in the old British tradition, after the seasonal McDonald's
beverage whose color it shares.
	It happens that Shamrock House's every structure is mirrored,
so that if one drew a vertical line along the midpoint of its face,
one would divide it into two identical-but-reversed dwellings.  As one
faces it from the street, the left side of the house is number 37, the
right, number 35.
	It was Friday night, July 7, a refreshingly cool and dry end
to a miserably hot and sticky week.  A block to the west, Moody
Street's five-block strip of restaurants and bars was bustling.
Occasionally a subsonic percussive thump would prowl menacingly up the
drag as Captain Throb and his Incredible Bassmobile searched the Watch
City sidewalks for some action.  On Gordon Street, insulated by the
bulk of the brick apartment house at number 29, Shamrock House was
quiet.
	Behind that first-story bay window, in the living room of
number 35, a young man sat in an overstuffed brown leather armchair
and glowered at an empty window on the display of the portable
computer set up on a tray table facing him.  On one of the arms of the
chair, a black nylon case full of compact discs balanced precariously;
on the other sat a MiniDisc player.  A stack of MDs stood on the
narrow strip of table not occupied by the computer.
	The man in the chair - brown-bristle-haired, bespectacled,
goateed and rotund - was frowning at his computer.  He did this not in
a way that implied he was angry at the computer itself; rather that he
was expecting or hoping to see something on that screen, and was
instead seeing something else.  He was still at it when the doorbell
rang.  Sighing, he pushed the table away and got to his feet, moving
around the high-piled coffee table.
	The room was too small for the amount of furniture it
contained.  The bay window was almost totally obscured by a a giant
entertainment center holding TV and stereo, which spanned entirely the
mouth of the recess.  To the left was the other outside wall, bearing
the only other window, which was open to admit the cool night air, the
faint sounds of Moody Street, and the occasional burst of conversation
as groups of pedestrians walked past on the sidewalk outside.  That
wall was encumbered by a love seat that matched the chair.  The
opposite wall backed the chair, centered on the bulge of a chimney
passing through from the basement.  The back wall was taken up almost
entirely by a sofa which matched the other two seats, leaving just
enough room for the doorway leading to the front stairs, where the
main entrance to the apartment was.
	All the rest of the living-room wall space that didn't have a
seat of some kind in front of it was covered with eight-foot by
three-foot bookcases, crammed with videotapes, laserdiscs and DVDs,
except for the one shelf in the case to the right of the chair which
was home to an assortment of robot toys, and the ones flanking the
entertainment center, which mostly had video game equipment of various
vintages.  The wall space that -did- have seats in front of it sported
wall scrolls printed with animation characters, most of them women.
	As though all that weren't clutter enough in such a small
room, someone had taken it upon himself to block up the center of the
room by installing an almost-square coffee table which left almost
precisely not enough room for a person to sit comfortably on both the
chair and the love seat at the same time, making navigating to the
chair from the entrance in the opposite corner something of a
challenge.
	Having lived here two years now, Ben Hutchins, known to his
friends, acquaintances, and detractors as Gryphon,  was used to it,
and didn't pay much attention to the stacks of compact discs and books
that threatened to be swept off the coffee table at the slightest
miscue.  He had reached the point of resignation to that table's
presence, the point where, even if he knocked something off it on the
way to his favorite chair, he usually didn't consciously register it
as he picked it up and put it back.
	This time he managed it without any trouble, thumbed off the
deadbolt, and opened the door to look out through the window in the
storm door.  He wondered, as he did every time he looked out, why he
or one of his housemates didn't install the screen instead of the
window; and as he did every time he shrugged and did nothing to change
the situation.
	The visitor on the doorstep was a teenaged boy, shortish but
broad-shouldered, with a tousled ruff of coal-black hair, blue eyes,
and a wryly friendly face.  He had on a black leather motorcycle
jacket, jeans and outback boots, and a helmet was tucked under one of
his arms.  He grinned at Gryphon as the latter opened the screen door.
	"Hullo, G," said DJ Croft cheerily.  "How's things?"
	Gryphon stared for a moment, then grinned in return and
stepped back to admit his visitor.  "Oh, the usual," he said,
shrugging.  "Nothing much."
	"The lads not around then?" wondered Croft.
	"John's gone to Maine and Zoner's not back from Expo yet.
C'mon in, have a seat.  Something to drink?"
	"I wouldn't turn down a beer," said DJ.  He hung his jacket
over the end of the stairway bannister, left his boots standing next
to the stairs and his helmet on top of them, and plopped into the end
of the sofa as his host went to the refrigerator for beverages.
	"I suppose," said Gryphon as he re-entered the living room,
"this was inevitable."
	DJ reached up from the end of the couch to accept the black
metal can Gryphon offered as he passed.  "Ah, thank you," he said with
a smile as Gryphon made his way around the coffee table, knocked a
couple of magazines off it, replaced them, and returned to his chair,
pushing the computer aside.  He had a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale
and a glass, and seemed sublimely unconcerned at having just provided
an alcoholic beverage to a minor.
	"Inevitable?" DJ wondered.  He cracked the top of the can and
waited for the draft charge to settle.  "I suppose it was at that," he
said, nodding.  "There are a few things I've been wanting to take up
with you for some time."
	"Uh-huh," said Gryphon sardonically.  "And you think that by
popping in like this you can set the record straight."
	"Well, no, but it's convenient.  Actually I just happened to
be in the neighborhood."
	"Bull."
	"No, it's true, I swear."
	"You do realize that, since I've already established in 'Bonus
Theater!!' metacontinuity segments that you're an actor named Dennis
MacCrofton and the Eyrie studio is in Worcester, that by showing up in
character and in Waltham you've pushed us into METAmetacontinuity?"
	"Can't be helped," DJ replied blithely.  "We've got -issues-
to work out, you and I.  The other day somebody came up to me on the
street and accused me of being -you-, can you believe that?"  DJ
folded his arms indignantly.  "The cheek!"
	Gryphon glowered at him, settled into his chair, knitted his
fingers at the peak of his middle and rumbled, "Indeed."
	DJ rolled his eyes.  "Oh Christ, not your Nero bloody Wolfe
impression."
	"Confound it, don't badger me," Gryphon replied, then
straightened up.  "I think if I -were- a fictional character... well,
aside from the ones that I am... I'd like to be Wolfe.  Certainly not
you.  You run around too damn much.  You could be my Archie if you
like, though."
	"Can't say I like that notion too much," DJ observed wryly,
swigging from his can of beer.  "Seventy-five books and poor Archie
never gets the girl!"
	"What do you call Lily Rowan, then?"
	"He never makes an honest woman of her, the blighter.  Anyway,
you like women too much to be Wolfe, yourself."
	"True.  I'd at least allow them in the house without wincing.
I'm not a big fan of orchids, either, but I guess I could raise
cacti or something."
	"That'd be a sight.  A New York brownstone with ten thousand
-cacti- on the roof."
	"Anyway, what do you want me to -do- about it?"  Gryphon
asked, suddenly exasperated, swerving back to the original topic.
"People are going to assume that you're me, and there's nothing either
of us can do about it.  Believe me, I've tried.  The problem is that
the people who think so are about half right, and that makes it almost
impossible to explain to them."
	DJ cocked an eyebrow.  "I beg your pardon?"
	"Well, look.  Any writer who creates a major character and
spends a lot of time and energy pushing him along the path of a story
is going to project -something-, either of himself or of what he'd
-like- to be, into that character.  It's inevitable."
	"Right, right, I understand that, but it's not the same as
just using yourself as a character.  I mean, my God, just -look- at
us."
	"-I- know that.  -You- know that.  But the distinction is hard
to put into words - especially when the people you're talking to don't
particularly want to be convinced."  Gryphon threw up his hands.
"I've given up on it."
	DJ mulled it over, then shrugged.  "Fair enough.  It's not
really what I wanted to ask you about anyway."
	Gryphon took a sip of his ale, regarded DJ over the top of the
glass, and said, "Well, go ahead, then."
	DJ sat back and took a deep pull from the can, then let it
dangle from the fingertips of his left hand and said, "All right,
first item.  Why did you have to make me such a bloody flirt?  You had
to know it make me certain to be misunderstood.  Why, there's a chap
in California who thinks my, er, 'score', if you will, currently
stands at -six-.  SIX, for Christ's sake!  I didn't think there were
six eligible women on the -show- until I stopped and thought about
it.  For a moment I had this terrible fear he'd included Mum.  Brr!"
	"The others are going to love hearing -that-.  And I know what
you mean about your mother, but you might have phrased it better."
	"You and your damned Scrabble scene," Croft blustered on,
ignoring Gryphon's dry comment.  "It's all well and good you like to
lead people down the garden path, but when they stay in the damn
garden it's -my- reputation that suffers."
	"Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke," Gryphon replied bluntly.
"Look, what are you whining about?  So the low-reading-comprehension
set takes you for an unstoppable juggernaut, a primal force of
studliness.  'Who's the limey private dick that's a sex machine to all
the chicks?  Croft!  You -damn- right.'  Yeah, it's bullshit, but so
what?  Enjoy it.  Get a laugh out of it.  I'd have expected you to
complain about all the missed opportunities I threw across your path,
not the fact that some people don't seem to have realized that they
were missed."
	"Tests of character?" DJ wondered wryly, then added, "No pun
intended."
	"Yeah, basically.  After you and Asuka took it upon yourselves
to junk my original plans on me, thank you very much, I gave you no
fewer than three opportunities to go off the rails, just to see how
serious you really were.  And you know what?  You surprised me
-again-.  You stuck it out.  You really mean it."
	"You talk as if you didn't have control.  Didn't know the
outcome in advance."
	"That's just the point, I -didn't-.  I had other plans, but
you and the others took off on your own after a while.  And that's
-good-!  It means you're a successful cast, a thriving one.  You're
driving the bus and I'm making suggestions and describing what I see
out the windows.  I can invent situations and sometimes guide you into
them - I did it when I tested you, though even that I couldn't have
done without the help of the other characters involved - but you
usually decide what happens all by your ownself, and that's wonderful.  
That's real joy for me, even when it makes me tear my hair in
frustration because you've wrecked one of my schemes.  That feeling,
that phenomenon, was the first hint I had that UF was going to turn
into something bigger than just a tongue-in-cheek college anime
prank, and when it happened again in NXE I knew it'd be worth
finishing, whatever the cost."
	DJ frowned thoughtfully at Gryphon.  "You're serious, aren't
you."
	"Completely."
	"You had other plans, different ones, for Asuka and me?"
	Gryphon nodded.
	"What were they?"
	Gryphon shook his head.  "Nope.  That's out of order.  You'll
have to speculate about what might have been on your own time, just
like all the rest of us.  Next question."
	DJ made a grumbling noise and took another pull at his
Guinness.  "Can't you at least give me a hint?"
	"Nuh-uh.  Too dangerous.  You might suddenly decide you like
my old way better and start swimming upstream, and it's too late in
the game to make me deal with that now."
	"Not bloody likely," DJ replied.  "You're the one that's
levered us apart this time.  What the hell, is it some kind of rule
that I have to be missing at the end of each season?"
	"Coincidence," Gryphon said.
	"Sure," DJ grumbled.
	"Relax.  You're not LCL Bouillabaisse this time, are you?"
	"No, but the way you set it up, that makes it even more
mysterious."
	Gryphon shrugged and finished off his Newcastle.  "You ought
to have some idea how I operate by now.  Do you really think I'd build
up to this big an ending, with everything I've said on Usenet and in
email about my fondness for heroes and heroic deeds, and then leave
you out of it?"
	"No, I suppose you wouldn't," said DJ, grudgingly subsiding.
After a moment, his face change from irritation to a look
uncharacteristic for it: a sense of anticipation, tinged with an
unexpected edge of fear.  "But tell me this at least.  Will we... be
happy?"
	"Why, Lord Crofthenge," said Gryphon in a gently mocking
tone.  "One would almost think you were getting sentimental."
	"Damn it, I am!" DJ replied, thumping the arm of the sofa with
a fist (fortunately not the one holding the beer).  "I bloody well
happen to... "  His voice trailed off, then resumed in a much softer
tone, a tone touched with wonder, as if he'd just learned, to his
surprise, that which he was saying: "... to be in love."
	"You've only yourself to blame for that," Gryphon said
piously.  "We've covered -my- involvement in the whole debacle."
	"You're not near as funny as you think you are," said DJ
sourly.
	"So some people keep telling me," Gryphon replied.  Then,
taking pity on the hurt and rather fearful look in the EVA pilot's
eyes, he smiled.  "I can't tell you much.  I really can't.  But I can
promise you this: When all is said and done, you'll have what you
really, truly want.  Both of you."
	DJ's face was washed with relief; then he cast a suspicious
glance at his creator and said, "I thought you said you weren't in
total charge."
	Gryphon grinned.  "We won't be working at cross purposes this
time," he assured DJ.  "Trust me.  I've gotten you this far, haven't
I?"
	"Yes... yes, I suppose you have."
	"Now have you got any questions I -can- answer?" asked Gryphon
dryly.
	"You never answered my -first- one!" Croft protested.
	"Hm?  Oh, why you're such a flirt?  I thought it would be fun.
When I initially designed you I wanted you to be a lot of things that
Shinji Ikari isn't... that included 'comfortable with women'.  You're
outgoing, charismatic.  In the case of your dealings with women,
especially attractive ones, that manifests itself in flirtation -
particularly with the ones who don't seem to know how to react."
	DJ smiled nostalgically.  "Like Rei," he said.  "Poor
girl... she didn't know -what- to make of me at first."
	Gryphon nodded.  "As a first friend," he agreed with a grin,
"you were a rude awakening.  Which turned out to be perfect."
	"All right, good enough," said Croft.  "A while back you said
that an author often puts something of himself or what he'd -like-
himself to be into a character."
	"Uh-huh."
	"So what bits of me -are- from you?"
	"Well, let's see.  Our tastes in music overlap a lot.  We're
both Titanic enthusiasts and camera fans.  Neither of us is much
interested in the JFK assassination.  We're left-handed, we have the
same eyes - that's a throwback to a really early version of you, by
the way.  You were originally planned as -my- son."
	"Your... "  DJ burst out laughing.  "I'm sorry, I really am,"
he gasped between roars of laughter, "but - YOU...and MUM... "  He
laughed on, looking in danger of sliding out of the sofa altogether.
	"Laugh it up, Brit-boy," Gryphon said darkly.  "Anyway, she
wasn't your original mother either.  NXE was originally going to be
the future of the 'Warrior's Legacy' universe, and... well, what does
it matter?  That was a stupid idea that got thrown out within the
first week, before it was even an official project.  It's immaterial
except for vestiges like your eyes, and you're not even listening to
me anyway."
	DJ was beginning to get himself back under control.  He wiped
at his eyes, still giggling, and gasped, "No... I'm sorry... I am
listening.  Go on... "
	Gryphon glowered, but his heart wasn't in it.  "Anyway," he
went on after a moment, "what else?  I like motorcycles, though not as
much as my father does.  I'm more of a car fancier myself.  We both
hate flying commercial, we like Bach, we like dogs better than cats,
we're both good with a pistol, sometimes we wear ties just for fun.
Fasten, then zip?"
	"Fasten, then zip," DJ replied with a nod.
	"Rack that one up too, then.  Your attitude toward women is a
close cousin of mine, too, but you're a lot bolder than I am about
-telling- them that you approve of their presence on this Earth so
heartily.  As for the part about what I'd -like- to be, well... "
Gryphon frowned thoughtfully, then said, "I wish I had your hair."
	"My -hair-?"
	"Yeah.  It's cool.  It does that Hikaru Ichijo thing.  Mine is
just sort of here.  If I don't either trim it to bristle length or let
it grow to a ponytail, it just goes all Prince Valiant on me."
	DJ ran his fingers through his raven thatch and said, "I
imagine Mum would've been happy to trade anytime she had to try and
comb this lot down for a picture or museum dinner."
	"I suppose.  I actually don't idolize your Action Guy
tendencies much.  Oh, I wouldn't mind being more athletic, I suppose,
but all I really envy you in that regard is your decisiveness.  I'm
not worth much in a crisis; I tend to freeze up and forget how to do
things.  I wish I were better able to take charge of a situation when
the need arises, so I put a lot of that into you."
	DJ shrugged.  "It depends on the sort of crisis.  I couldn't
do your job any more than you could do mine."  He grinned, then turned
in the couch to look up at the "Taiho Shichauzo" wall scroll hanging
above and behind him.  "As for women... Miyuki or Natsumi?"
	"Oh, Natsumi, all the way," replied Gryphon, apparently
unfazed by his companion's sudden change of subject.  "Zoe or Gwynn?"
	"Hmm... Zoe.  Millie or Meryl?"
	"Hrm.  Tough one.  Gonna have to go with Meryl, though."
	"Ah, but Millie's such a sweetheart."
	"I never said she wasn't, but Meryl's more my type."
	"What, loud?  Pushy?  Maybe we -do- have some tastes in
common," said DJ with a sparkle-eyed grin.
	"I told you, I'm innocent," Gryphon said.
	"Heh, I know."  DJ finished off his Guinness, shook the can
gently side to side to make sure it was empty, and put it on the
coffee table.  "While I let the old liver process that lot, have you
got the second DVD of that yet?"
	"If it's out, odds are Zoner's got it," said Gryphon, hunting
up the requested disc.
	DJ nodded, satisfied.  "Time it's done, I'll be fit for the
road again."
	"Sure you don't want to stick around a bit longer?" Gryphon
asked as he loaded the player.  "Zoner ought to be home before -too-
much longer than that."
	"Nah, I'd like to, but I can't.  Got to get back and feed the
penguin, you know."
	"Hell of a way to spend a Friday night."
	"It beats going down with the Titanic.  What the hell was
-that-, anyway?"
	"You didn't like that?  That was my allegory about facing up
to inevitability, couched in images drawn from your subconscious."
	"And here I thought it was just a cheesy excuse to get
'Southampton' into the soundtrack and dress Rei up like a White Star
stewardess."
	"Now you sound like one of those self-appointed review-squad
guys.  Besides, look me in the eye and tell me she wasn't cute."
	"Shh.  Enough, I'll let it go.  I love this opening bit."
	Suddenly DJ burst into song:
	"Vash!  A-ah!  Saviour of the Universe!"
	Gryphon grinned and rejoined:
	"Vash!  A-ah!  He'll save every one of us!"
	"Vash!  A-ah!  He's a miracle!"
	"Vash!  A-ah!  King of the Impossible!"
	"He's for every one of us!"
	"Stand for every one of us!"
	"He saves with a mighty hand, every man, every woman, every
child, he's a mighty... "
	"... Vash?"
	"Hm, I s'pose that doesn't make much sense, does it."
	"He's just a man," said Gryphon sagely, "with a man's
courage."
	"Nothing but a man," DJ agreed with a satisfied nod, "but he
can never fail."
	"Good thing -your- name doesn't end in '-ash', or I'd have
filked this for -you- by now."
	"Oh, God, don't even joke."
	Passing by out on Gordon Street, a group of pedestrians paused
for a moment to wonder at the source of the uproarious laughter they
heard rolling out of the open side window of number 35; then they
shrugged to each other, walked past the motorcycle parked at the curb
in front of the house, and headed down to Bison County for some
buffalo tips.
	Another quiet, rather dull Friday night in Watch City.

				 END
-- 
 _O_  Benjamin D. Hutchins, cofounder, Continuity Line Editor, webmaster
[. .] Eyrie Productions, Unlimited - An AnimeTech Limited Company   -><-
  -   Cyberleader Darul says: "0 dB SPL is the lowest level of 1KHz tone
the average person can detect."   WWW: http://www.eyrie-productions.com/