Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ Second Coming ❯ Inner Space ( Chapter 13 )

Chapter Thirteen: Inner Space

 

Autumn was settling in - or would be, if the seasons hadn't been so screwed up by Second Impact - and with it came a round of exams at school. As usual, Asuka and I had it a little easier than the others; we helped each other out, in terms of studying, and took it easy otherwise.

"Howdy, neighbor," I said, one day, as I was coming back to the apartment after picking up some things from the store. The recipient of my greeting was Shinji, who I met at the elevator - me coming in, and he going out. "Where're you headed?"

"Oh.. good afternoon, Thomson-san," he said, still using the honorific with me despite my requests otherwise. "I'm.. going studying with.." He blushed slightly.

"With?" I said, smirking. "Now you're going to have to tell me."

"A-ayanami," he stammered. This caught me off guard; I had half-expected him to say he was meeting Asuka at school or something.

"Oh," I said, a little stunned. Shinji nodded and used the pause to slip past me, bowing a little as the elevator doors closed between us.

"You look confused about something, Fourth," Asuka called out as I walked back to the apartment. She was on the balcony, with all the doors of the Katsuragi household open, letting the warm breeze flow right through.

"I didn't know Shinji was studying with Rei," I said, inviting myself in and putting my food on the table for the moment. "When did that start?"

"Oh, who knows?" Asuka said with a derisive tone. "I have no idea what he sees in her, anyway."

His mother's chromosomes, I didn't blurt out. "Probably not for us to ponder in any case. What are you up to?"

"Airing the place out," the German girl replied. "These Japanese places are so stuffy sometimes."

"I know what you mean," I nodded, even if I didn't really share the sentiment. "Where's the boss?"

"At work," she shrugged. "Something about preparing for another test for us or something."

"You'd think they'd have enough test data to keep them preoccupied for years, wouldn't you?" I smirked. "At least it gets us out of school, right?"

"Ja," she said emphatically. "Though, with exams this month, we still have to make them up another day."

"All the more time to prepare.. or put it off," I winked.

Asuka grinned and nodded, coming inside and rummaging through the groceries I'd set down. I said nothing as she helped herself to one of my Cokes. "Hey, I got a question for you," she said once she'd taken a good pull from the bottle. "You've changed since you were in the hospital."

"That's not a question," I shot back right away, interrupting her. My brain hadn't yet processed the 'meat' of what she'd said.

"Baka! Shut up and let me finish," she snapped. "You were out for pretty much ten days straight. Now you're acting.. different."

"How am I acting 'differently'?" I said.

"You're.." Asuka began, trying to put it into words. Apparently, not only was it something I hadn't noticed myself, it defied verbal description as well. "Different!" she retorted.

"Let's sit down," I said, deciding to come clean about a couple of things. "May I?"

Asuka nodded, and took a chair on the opposite side of the table as me. I pulled one of the other Cokes out of the grocery bag and twisted off its top, taking a drink.

"I did dream while I was out," I admitted. "I guess you could call it a dream. I relived a bunch of things that happened to me in the past."

"Okay," Asuka said, willing to accept the way the conversation was starting.

"Asuka, up until now, I never remembered the accident," I explained. "The crash that killed my parents. The one I almost died in."

"And it came back to you now?" she hazarded after a moment's pause, growing unusually soft-spoken (for her, at least).

I nodded, looking down at my hands gripping the plastic container. "I guess my brain kind of shut it out since it was such a traumatic event, emotionally," I said. "That and maybe there's something in us that makes it hard to remember things when you're hurt really badly. But now, I have every last moment, up here--" I took one hand off the bottle momentarily, to tap a temple "--and in vivid living color."

"I'm.. sorry," Asuka said, seemingly searching for words.

I looked up at her and smiled faintly. "For what?"

"Bringing up painful memories," she answered.

"It's not painful," I said, shaking my head. "Not all, in any case. I remember my mom and my dad now, which I was finding hard to do before. It was like I was blocking all my childhood memories, and now they're back open again. If I have to deal with a little pain to remember all the stuff that's gone on, so be it."

Asuka fell silent at that point, and I suddenly figured out what she must have been thinking of. I pondered my next move for a few moments before making it. "I didn't mean it that way."

"What way?" Asuka said, responding quickly as if startled.

"I can tell we've been down the same road," I said. "I can see it in you."

"I don't want to talk about it," she frowned.

"That's fine," I said, taking another pull from the Coke. "But if you ever do, I'll listen. At least grant me that, as your friend. As someone who knows what it's like."

Asuka looked up at me; she'd sunken to the table, resting her chin in between folded arms. She didn't say a word.

I sat there in silence as well, taking another sip from the drink, and pulling out a chocolate bar for something to chew on. As an afterthought, I pulled out another from the bag, and tossed it across the table.

"Thanks," Asuka muttered, peeling back the foil wrapper and biting off a chunk of chocolate-covered wafer.

"No problem, Second," I replied.

 

A few days later, we were in for testing, and my friend was back to her fiery, explosive self.

"What?" Asuka roared. "I will not do anything of the sort!"

"The cameras have been shut off," Ritsuko Akagi's voice wafted over the intercom system. "There'll be nobody watching. We respect your privacy."

"It's the principle of the thing!" Asuka shot back. We were, of course, in the 'ultra-clean room', each of us nude, in a half-assed, barely-partitioned shower-type stall at one end of a room, with the exit towards the simulation room all the way across the empty expanse, about fifteen meters away.

"It's required, in order to prevent bio-contamination," Akagi replied. "As you pass through the room, you will undergo final decontamination before entering the entry plugs."

"Asuka, I can make it an order," Misato's voice warned.

"This is humiliating," the German girl whined.

"Asuka, they're gonna make us do it no matter what," I pointed out. "Let's just get it out of the way."

"Some friend you are!" she snapped back.

"Who goes first?" I asked, trying to press the issue, to just get it over with.

"Not me, that's for sure! Idiot Shinji will have his eyes all over--"

"S-shut up!" the Third Child cut her off.

"I will begin," Rei spoke up, putting her hand on the stall door.

"Like hell you will!" Asuka retorted. "We'll all go together, and all of you keep your eyes forward! That goes double for you, Shinji!"

Ikari's only response was a sigh.

"On three," Asuka declared. "One, two.. three!"

All four stall doors opened and all four of us took a step forward. I presumed this from the sound, of course; my peripheral vision didn't allow me the visage of Rei beside me nor Asuka or Shinji beyond her, and to my other side was the right-hand wall.

Slowly, as if in a funeral march, we all made our way across the room. I was half expecting a mist or laser light or something to pass over me, for the 'final decontamination' Akagi had hinted at, but it never came.

"Um, Asuka?" Shinji said as we approached three-quarters of the way across the room.

"Ack! What is it?!" she snapped.

"The door.. it's only wide enough for one of us at a time," he observed.

I couldn't help it; I snickered at that revelation. Okay, it was more of a snort.

"Just for that, Fourth, you're first!" Asuka raged.

"Fine," I shot back, trying not to laugh. "You're sure we shouldn't go in Children order?"

Asuka growled; I knew full well she was pissed at the thought of Shinji staring at her backside. "Shut up!"

While I did think she was overreacting, I also thought the Doctor's methods were suspect too. What purpose did this serve? Why send us through all at once, instead of one at a time? Was there something else at work here, or was I looking for connections that weren't there?

Regardless, I made my way to the sim plug marked 03, and climbed in. It was, to me, little different than being in a plugsuit. The stupid things were so snug that it was almost like not wearing anything, anyway.

At long last, all four plugs were occupied, and the test began. I sat and tried to focus; I didn't know if the fact that I was having trouble was because of my recent personal revelations, the incessant chatter from the control room, irritation at Asuka's tantrum, worry over trying to remember what was supposed to happen during this test, or some genuine fault in the synchronization process. Or a combination of any or all of those factors.

"How do you feel?" Akagi asked.

"Odd," Rei said, answering minimally as usual.

"It's different than the other times," Shinji spoke up.

"My right arm is clear, but the rest is all fuzzy," Asuka said, her venom having drained back to whereever it goes when it's dormant.

"I can't describe it, but I feel weird all over," I called out. "Like I'm on the verge of syncing but not quite there yet."

Akagi took all this in and continued with the test. I did as instructed when my turn came, and things improved slightly, but not by much. The sensations continued to be fuzzy, even when we were linked to the sim bodies.

At one point, Rei made a grunting noise and I felt a tremor go through my sim body, as if someone had jumped into the pool it was in, cannonball-style. As the science staff were telling one another that Rei's sim body was moving, I felt like I'd been punched in the gut. Distantly, I heard Ibuki say that mine was in motion as well.

"That's impossible!" Akagi shouted.

For all the horsepower you got up in your brain, I remember thinking, while struggling with the sensations coming back from the sim body, you sure do spend a lot of time saying something can't be happening when it already is.

There was a whump sound/sensation from the sim bodies' tank, and I felt like my legs were on fire. Shortly after that, the crushing feeling of riding the launch rails pressed me into my seat, but I couldn't figure out how that was happening. The sim bodies were tethered to the tank by thousands of thick cables attached to their necks. And the sim plugs were..

Oh, crap. The sim plugs had been ejected. In the amount of time it took me to realize that, the fact that I was no longer feeling the sim body was registering on my consciousness. I was now just a pilot - and a naked one, at that - rocketing away to God knows where inside a metal tube.

All but the emergency life-support power was off, but the motion could be felt through the LCL and the walls of the plug. The acceleration sensation ended suddenly, and it transitioned roughly into a bobbing, rocking motion.

It took another moment to realize what had happened. We're on the lake. The underground body of water that dominated the 'floor' of the Geofront was our most likely destination.

I had no confirmation that there was any 'we' to it, though. I reached down and tried to establish a comms link with someone.

"Asuka? Can you hear me? It's Jill."

There was no response.

"Sim plug 03 to Dr. Akagi."

I was met with silence.

Great. Not only was I trapped in an escape capsule, for all intents and purposes, but I was inert and cut off from the rest of the world too. For all I knew, an Angel could be attacking..

Oh shit! I cursed to myself as I remembered what was supposed to be happening outside. There is an Angel attacking.. right now!

Not much I could do about it at that point, I realized. I couldn't even decide if I should open the hatch. If I was upright, fine; if it had rolled inverted, or was still tumbling, the thing could capsize and sink, possibly with me in it. Didn't an astronaut catch major shit in the early days for letting his capsule go down once he returned to Earth?

It took another few moments to realize that the LCL had been purged and I was breathing air again. Makes sense; if I'm all by my lonesome, there's nothing to keep the pumps circulating the fluid.

My mind wanted to go back to the part where I knew there was an Angel and didn't do anything to warn anyone of it. How can you justify that? I found myself being asked. What if saying something could have averted all this?

My first thoughts were of trying to get people to believe that I knew what I did, and having to explain how and why I knew it. However, my analytical side and my rational side weren't on speaking terms at that moment.

Do you think it's right to just sit back and watch it all unfold? I asked myself. Do you want to see Rei die? Or Asuka turn into a comatose shell of herself?

I didn't want to confront these thoughts. I had been down this road before in my mind, and in my dreams, and I had no way of coming up with a viable solution. So I didn't want to think of it at all.

That's pathetic, I found myself being chastised. You are so much more than the sum of your parts. Of all the people in this place, you are the only one who can do something about it.

"I can't!" I railed at myself, voice echoing off the insides of the plug. What could I do? March into Gendo's office and tell him I knew what was up? Tell Shinji to stop being such a wuss and learn to like himself?

Tell Asuka I knew where her mom was?

That last thought distracted me, finally, from that line of thinking. Who is inside 03? I once again wondered. It couldn't be my mother; she died in Toronto, long before I even got to Nevada and saw 03 for the first time. If I believed the way things had unfolded in the show, it should be someone close to me.

Or is it maybe Toji's mom? I found myself thinking, before I shut down that idea; I'd already decided that, in this version of events, Suzuhara had nothing to do with 03. Perhaps 04, maybe.

My mind jumped onto yet another set of tracks with the thoughts of 04. Will it still be lost in Nevada? I wondered. The absence of the Massachusetts branch in this realm made me wonder if that too would change.

"Stop it!" I yelled out loud. I was regressing back into the doubtful, over-analytical sort I'd been in the past, and I had no desire to go back there. I'd long since decided to not worry about the way things might go, and instead, deal with things as they happened.

Asuka, with her arm split in half and blood gushing from a ruptured eyeball, flashed into my mind.

Fuck off! I thought, shaking my head violently as if it would exorcise the image.

I tried to argue with myself that my mere presence was altering how things would happen, and that there'd be plenty of time to address things like Asuka's downfall or Rei's demise as they presented themselves. Despite that, I felt a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if I didn't really believe I was capable of doing it.

Or maybe it was because I hadn't yet been able to retch the last bits of LCL out of me. What the fuck is taking so long??

As if someone was waiting to hear me think that, power abruptly came back on inside the plug. "--d alert has been canceled. Red alert has been canceled," I heard a computerized voice say.

"Hello? Can anyone hear me? What's going on?" Shinji asked.

Asuka, of course, was much more concerned about how she was going to save her dignity upon departure.

"Sim plug 03 reporting in," I called out. "We need rescue, we're on the lake."

"Is anyone hurt?" Fuyutsuki responded, worriedly.

"No!" Asuka cut in. "But we're--"

"Sit tight," the vice-commander responded. "We'll be picking you up shortly."

As the line went silent, I asked Asuka, "Were you going to tell them we're naaaaaaked!!?"

"Shut up, Fourth!" she said in response to my teasing. "You should be more modest, you know!"

"Don't you find it odd that neither Rei nor Shinji are complaining?" I pointed out. "Do you not see the way you're making Mount Fuji out of an ant hill?"

"H-hey! Leave me out of this!" Shinji protested.

"Pilot Ikari and I have already been in close proximity without clothes on," Rei contributed.

One could almost hear the screeching and rumbling of the train of thought of the group derailing and wiping out a small mountain town somewhere. Asuka bellowed, "What?!"

Shinji was sputtering, and I was guessing I knew what Rei meant - the time Shinji had come to her apartment and inadvertently walked in on her in the shower. At least, I hoped that's what it was about.

Shinji tried to plead his case, and I tried not to blurt out laughing, while Rei offered no further explanation.

The sim plug bumped up against something, which I realized was a boat when I heard the motor spooling down. Asuka railed, "Shinji, you pervert!!"