/*  Genesis  "Land of Confusion"  (Extended CD-Single version)  */

                     EYRIE PRODUCTIONS, UNLIMITED
                               presents

                        NEON EXODUS EVANGELION

			      EXODUS 3:7
			   THE THIRD CHILD


 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

	      THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN' by Bob Dylan

	       LIED DER DEUTSCHEN by Franz Joseph Haydn
		and Heinrich Hoffman van Fallersleben

             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

   Anne Cross, asker of the questions whose answering improves the
			       material

   With special thanks to the incomparably paranoid Richard Belzer

                (c) 1999 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


	Gendou Ikari had given up his Director's office gladly.  It
was inappropriate for his new role at NERV, it was ostentatious, it
was the site of many unpleasant memories, and anyway, it was cold and
rather dark.  Now he worked out of a cramped little room off the main
admin corridor.  It had been deemed too small for an office when the
rooms on this level had been originally assigned, and so had been used
for storage, but it had one window, and that window had a pleasing
view of Pyramid Pond.  Though tiny, the room was big enough to hold a
desk, a terminal, a bookshelf and two chairs, if only barely.  Ikari,
while scouting for a new place to work, had found the place full of
toilet tissue and cleaning supplies.
	Without hesitation, he'd pitched the lot out into the hallway
and was in the process of stealing a desk from the communal
junior-TechDiv offices when a young man with thick black hair and
glasses had stopped him.  This young man, in a curious combination of
politeness and indignation, informed Gendou Ikari of two important
facts:
	1) His (the young man's) name was Makoto Hyuuga; and
	2) Gendou Ikari was stealing his (Makoto Hyuuga's) desk.
	Faced with this revelation, Ikari had immediately apologized,
and then enlisted the young man's help in scouring the immediate area
for a desk no one else was using.  It took them an hour to find one,
and another to wrestle it into an elevator and bring it up six levels,
then wrangle it into the former storage room and get it situated just
so.  It was a big gray steel affair with seven drawers and a scarred
linoleum top, almost as wide as the office; getting it through the
door had been a test of Ikari and Hyuuga's engineering skills as well
as their backs.  To get behind it and sit down, Ikari had to climb
over one end of it, which he had to clear of papers each time he
wanted to leave his office.
	The bookcase and the non-swiveling visitor chair had been
easier; those, Ikari had pilfered from John Trussell's old office.
Truss wouldn't be needing them; he'd moved into Maya Ibuki's office
when Maya had, in turn, taken over Ritsuko Akagi's.  All that
shuffling around was, perhaps, not very productive, since they would
all be leaving the facility entirely within three months if things
went according to plan, but certainly both parties involved deserved
the change of setting along with their increased responsibilities.
	There had barely been room in the tiny storeroom-cum-office
for Ikari's chair, but he jammed it into the space behind the desk
anyway.  It was the only thing he'd allowed himself to keep from his
old office, except for the framed picture of his son that stood at the
corner of his desk on the side nearer the wall.  It loomed there, big,
brown and leathery, far too big for its setting but offset a little
bit by the fact that the desk was also too big for the room.
	He was there, shuffling through some files trying to find the
last set of preliminary specs for Archangelion that the Halifax team
had sent down.  They were in here somewhere, he knew, buried under a
ream or two of manpower reports and moving plans that someone in the
bureaucracy had forwarded to him even though he wasn't the Director
any more and had nothing to do with them.  From time to time, he
glanced at the telephone as if hoping it would ring.
	There was a knock on the frame of the office's open door.  The
office door was always open; closing it would require putting the
visitor's chair up on the desk or out in the hall.  Ikari glanced up
and was surprised to see DJ Croft standing in the doorway.
	Ikari cocked an eyebrow.  "Mr. Croft!" he said.  "I hadn't
expected you, of all people, to come visit me.  I take it this isn't a
social call?"
	DJ looked a trifle sheepish.  "Actually, it is, Professor.
Can I come in for a moment?"
	"I suppose," Ikari said dryly, "that depends on whether you
intend to kill me."
	DJ's sheepish look took on an overtone of outright
embarrassment.  "That's what I want to talk to you about."
	"Well, by all means then, come in."  Gendou waved toward the
visitor's chair.  "Enjoy the sumptuous accommodations."
	DJ sat.  "Look, Professor - I can't deny that I've said a lot
of nasty things to you over the last year, and most of them, I meant.
But as it turns out, it wasn't really you I was saying them to, was
it?  Since the scene went down in your old office a bit back, I've had
to do a lot of thinking about that, and I don't think I have any
reason to hate you."
	"You have no way of knowing how much of what I did before then
was my decision," Ikari pointed out.  "Perhaps I'm a ruthless, evil
man, and the creature was just there to try to moderate my behavior."
	DJ shook his head.  "I might believe that if I hadn't seen you
fighting it," he replied.  "One of you wanted to kill me - one of you
was willing to kill Rei to do it - and it wasn't Gendou Ikari."
	Gendou considered this for a moment, then gave a satisfied
nod.  "A rational conclusion," he decided.  "Assuming, of course, that
you, or anyone else, know who Gendou Ikari is any more.  I'm not
certain -I- do."
	"How long had the Enemy been controlling you?"
	"Almost twelve years, since just after my wife died," Ikari
replied.  "I suppose I was most vulnerable then.  Yui was everything
in the world to me; I didn't count my work as competition, because we
worked together, and my work was her work.  When she was gone, I tried
to find out what had happened.  I didn't believe the official report
that it had been an accident.  I went in search of the truth."  He
smiled, a bitter, ironic smile.  "Well, I found it, and it took over
my mind.
	"I can't blame it for everything that went wrong in my life
after that, though.  I had already started down a self-destructive
path.  My obsession with learning the truth about Yui's death, my
obsession with continuing her work to honor her memory - between those
two obsessions I had no time for the things that had been my life.  I
ignored my son, with the result that he now hates me.  I abandoned all
my hobbies, everything that gave me pleasure in life.  It may come as
a surprise to you, DJ, but I had interests, once, outside my work.  I
played chess.  In college, I was the captain of the Nekomi Institute
of Technology's Kendo Club."
	"No kidding," said DJ, impressed.  "Always wanted to learn
that, but I move around so much I never have the time."
	Ikari smiled nostalgically.  "I loved baseball, too.  Was a
passable pitcher in college, had a hell of a fastball, if I do say so
myself.  'Rocket' Rokobungi, that was me."
	"Uh, 'Rocket' what?" DJ asked.
	Gendou gave him a puzzled look, then nodded.  "Oh, of course.
You wouldn't know that I took my wife's name when we married."
	"Ah!" said DJ, and then, in an undertone, "(I can see why.)"
	Gendou chuckled.  "Indeed.  Anyway, if I thought about it for
a few minutes, I could probably still give you all the relevant stats
for any member of the 2001 Red Sox."  Ikari's eyes lit up with
happiness at the memory.  "Ah, That was a magical season!  The world
lay in ruins, some parts of it still wracked by calamity.  A year
before, Boston had drowned and the Sox had fled to Pawtucket.  San
Francisco was under a dome, struggling to survive.  And still there
was baseball.  Those two teams managed to overcome the worst
conditions in the country and make it all the way to the World
Series."  Ikari grinned wryly.  "Unfortunately, the Sox broke with
their tradition of winning the Series everytime they move to a new
ballpark.  Perhaps McCoy Stadium was inelegible because it wasn't
technically new."
	DJ smiled.  "D'you think they'll ever win the whole thing?"
	"I suppose that depends on whether there's a next year," said
Ikari lightly, as if he the contingency involved were good weather,
not the continued survival of humanity.  "Oh, by the way," said Ikari,
picking an item up from his desk blotter and tossing it across to DJ,
"I think this might be yours."
	DJ looked at the item, and then his face took on a look of
surprise with a tinge of wonder.  It was a copy of "A Night To
Remember", in a condition that might charitably be called
'well-thumbed'.  If it was DJ's missing copy, it looked as if it had
spent ten years in a lending library in the months it had been gone.
He looked inside the front cover.  Yep, there were his initials; it
was his, all right.
	"Where'd you get it?" he wondered as he tucked it into a
pocket of his jacket.
	"I'm not sure," he said.  "I think Colonel Keller left it on
my desk a couple of weeks before... "  Gendou made an expressive
shrug, indicating that he hadn't yet thought of a convenient, short
way to refer to the events of the previous few weeks.
	"Hm.  Last I knew, Rei had misplaced it in the infirmary.  I
wonder how many hands it's passed through since then."
	Ikari looked thoughtful.  "I think Otto gave it to me as a
message, trying to remind me of happier days.  There was a movie that
my wife and I were fond of during our courtship... "  He paused,
sighed, cleaned his glasses, and went on, "If you don't mind, I don't
think I'd like to go there just yet."
	"Sorry," said DJ, getting up.  "I've taken up enough of your
time.  I just wanted to tell you... I'm willing to blank the slate and
start over, if you want."
	Gendou Ikari smiled.  "I think, Mr. Croft, that I'd like
that.  Come by again tomorrow if you like.  I don't get much company
down here."
	DJ grinned.  "I'll do that."

	John Trussell sat at the master console in one of the
secondary EVA control rooms.  Never used in battle, these rooms had
been prepared as contingencies should the Master Operations Control
Room be put out of action.  They were much smaller than the MOCR, and
not as lavishly outfitted with recording, data-analysis and telemetry
gear.  Makoto Hyuuga, seeing one on his operations-center tour shortly
after his promotion from Equipment Section to Operations, had called
them the "emergency battle closets".  Gradually, over the course of
the project, all but one of them had been reassigned to other tasks
and re-outfitted accordingly.  This one was the designated home base
of the Jet Alone Adaptation Initiative, and its heavy armor-glass
window overlooked the disused surface-to-air missile silo which had
been reassigned to house JA.
	On the two largest monitors of the multi-function console,
Truss was surveying two diagrams.  One was a schematic of Jet Alone,
reflecting the Mark II standard Truss and the Equipment Section had
arrived at after subjecting the original AG Systems design to two
weeks of intensive, critical scrutiny.  Most of the original structure
had been left in place, but JA's multisectional, tentacle-like arms
had been replaced with magnetic-ram-driven solid-segment limbs like
the legs.  This modification had strengthened the unit's upper body
considerably, giving it greater hand-to-hand combat capabilities; it
had also given the team some extra space in which to site JA MkII's
planned complement of integral weaponry.
	On the other was a comparison chart of two energy-corona
diagrams.  One, in red, was of an EVA's AT Field, generated based on
data gathered from EVA-01 during the full-power event it experienced
holding back the Eleventh Angel.  The other, in blue, was of the more
complex energy interactions resulting from EVA-01's spontaneous
creation of a half-dozen Elerium colliders during its battle with the
Thirteenth Angel.  A few days ago, while glancing through old reports
looking for operational information recorded by EVA-02 during its
encounter with JA, Truss had noticed these two diagrams, and they had
set something scratching at the back of his mind.  Whatever it had
been, it hadn't fully formed into an idea, so he'd stuck the diagrams
on the other monitor, hoping that the notion would gestate while he
worked on the next revision of JA's operating software.
	The unspoken truth about all of the effort and expense going
into the modifications of Jet Alone was, of course, that it was
probably all for nothing.  Although the modifications John and his
team had devised for the unit would make it a very powerful weapon,
possibly the world's most effective land-based conventional combat
system, it remained just that, conventional.  It had no Absolute
Terror Field capabilities, and as such, it couldn't hope to be
effective in battle against an Angel - or an Evangelion.  Truss had
been given access to all the accumulated data on the AT Field, the
initial research group's speculations on the source of the field
within Angels and EVAs, and all the rest, but none of it had been of
avail.  A frustrating problem, and apparently insoluble.
	The door hissed behind him; he glanced over his shoulder and
smiled as he saw Maya Ibuki entering the room.  She came over and put
a hand on his shoulder.
	"How's it coming?" she asked.
	"Oh, fine, I guess," said Truss.  "Scrapping the AGSys code
and starting over was definitely the right call.  I'd be going out of
my mind trying to adapt the old stuff to the new arm configuration,
let alone patching in weapons controls."
	Maya chuckled.  "I can imagine."  The rotating energy-corona
comparison diagram caught her eye.  "Huh, what's this?" she wondered,
leaning forward over Truss's right shoulder to get a better look at
it.
	"Something that caught my eye the other day," Truss said.  "I
thought it gave me an idea, but it passed before I could get a lock on
it.  I've been hoping that if I left it there it'd come back to me."
	Maya looked at the diagram again; then something snapped
behind her eyes, and her face slackened momentarily as the works
behind it went into high gear.
	"Oh my God," she whispered.  Then, leaning a bit further
forward, she reached and brushed Truss's hands away from the console.
She shifted the focus to the monitor with the energy diagrams on it,
then started manipulating the blue diagram.  She fiddled with the
configuration a little, moving the colliders around, deleting four of
them, adding another back, and changing their relative positioning.
As she did, the interaction fields around them warped, shifting, as
the computer recalculated them on the fly based on the repositioning
of the cores that generated them.
	When Maya had arranged the three colliders into a horizontal
row, Truss realized what she was doing.  His eyes widened.  He moved
his chair over to one of the other consoles, patched it through, and
the two of them started working on the problem together.

	Asuka Soryu-Langley left the Evangelion test bay at noontime
with a definite spring in her step.  She was scheduled for her first
full-activation Evangelion test the next day, with a surface
deployment and even, if they all felt particularly ambitious, a combat
simulation on the bill of fare.  The Medical Section had certified her
"combat-worthy".  That was not the same as "fully sound"; she still
had the occasional strange pain, her strength had not fully returned,
and she still walked with a slight limp.  Her endurance was just about
back, though, and she could see the top of the recovery hill from
where she stood.  She'd probably -always- have the slight limp,
anyway, unless she bothered to have further corrective surgery done;
all the reconstruction work on her right leg had left it a half-inch
or so shorter than the left.  She doubted she'd care enough to get it
fixed; she barely noticed unless she actually stopped to think about
it, and it disappeared entirely if she ran.
	As she passed through the empty Wedge, it occurred to her that
she hadn't been out on the plaza in front of Central Dogma's
GeoFront-surface (it couldn't really be called "above-ground") pyramid
in a long time, not since she and Jon had spoken next to Pyramid Pond
after the Skyfall Incident.  She wasn't sure, now that she thought
about it, how many more opportunities she would get to do that, so
now, while she had the time, she went through the Wedge's outer doors
and out on to the wide expanse of white concrete.  It was a pretty
spot, situated below one of the Geo-Front's larger skylights so that
it was bathed in natural sunlight, assuming any was to be had on the
surface, for most of the day.  Now the light was faintly orange from
refraction through the skylight crystal, and it glittered on the
surface of the pond and washed the concrete into a golden
yellow-orange tint.  She stood in the center of the plaza, facing the
pond, and looked up at the gleaming orange trapezoid of the skylight.
	Movement caught the corner of her eye, and she glanced up to
see the Stars and Stripes fluttering at the top of its pole in the
slight breeze that was kept blowing across the plaza for just that
purpose.  It was one of two dozen flags kept flying, a dozen on each
side of the plaza, representing the member nations that had originally
sanctioned NERV.  No one had taken them down after NERV's defection
from its parent organization, even though some of the flags were now
inaccurate, representing countries not approving of X-COM.
	Asuka turned to the right, walked across the plaza, and stood
looking up at the black, red and gold flag of the Federal Republic of
Germany.  A tangle of emotions she hadn't known she had passed through
her.  She'd never considered herself all that patriotic; in fact,
she'd hated the tiny, bucolic town her parents had insisted on
settling in, forty miles from the FEISAR complex outside Hamburg, and
wanted nothing more than to escape from it.  She'd been ecstatic when
the Kriegsmarine fleet escorting EVA-02 had sailed away from what
she'd thought of as her dreary, boring, and rather stupid country of
origin.
	Now, looking up at the flag, she felt sorrow and rage at the
thought of that country and its people under the thumb of SEELE,
ranked against its old enemy Britain in the setting-up phase of
another world conflict.  The world political situation was sliding
toward outright war, with Germany, the United States, and other
SEELE-controlled nations speaking out loudly against Britain for its
X-COM/NERV-friendly policy.  The United Nations was on the brink of
collapse.  Even the most optimistic pundits thought it was only a
matter of months before the SEELE-controlled Bundeswehr and United
States Armed Forces launched attacks against X-COM facilities in the
UK, Canada, and possibly elsewhere in the Empire.  Another global war
with Germany the villain; Asuka's heart cried out at the thought.
	Gazing up at the flag, she stood to attention, raised a hand
in salute, tipped her chin up defiantly and raised her voice in song:

"Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Für das Deutsche Vaterland.
Danach laßt uns alle streben,
Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand.
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Sind des Glückes Unterpfand.
Blüh' im Glanze dieses Glückes,
Blühe, deutsches Vaterland.
Blüh' im Glanze dieses Glückes,
Blühe, deutsches Vaterland!"

	Asuka lowered her hand, stood respectfully for a moment, and
then lowered her eyes and walked back inside with a new resolve.
She'd never really thought she'd loved her country until it had been
lost to her.  She hoped that someday she'd see Hamburg again.

	Hours passed as Truss and Maya experimented with different
configurations, but with each minute, the frustation grew.  It just
wasn't working.  The elements looked promising, but something was
missing, some moderating factor, a key or catalyst to turn raw aligned
energies into a very special effect.  It was the elusive magic of the
AT Field, and though Maya's idea had been a good one, they couldn't
make the energy fields produced by the Elerium cores' interactions
match the AT pattern, no matter how they fiddled with the
configuration.
	Finally Truss pushed himself away from his console with a
disgruntled sigh.
	"It's no good, Maya," he said.  "There's some magic to it we
just don't understand."
	"There's no such thing as magic," Maya replied, stubbornly
continuing to poke at the diagram.  "Only a science more advanced than
we yet understand."
	"Either way it's beyond us," Truss replied pessimistically.
He was hungry, and he never did his best thinking on an empty stomach.
	Maya refused to be defeated.  "Ask the systems at X-COM now
that we have access," she said.  "Maybe they've got something on it."
	"Why would they?" Truss wondered.  "They've never done any EVA
research."
	"Just look.  Try their records on Elerium field interactions."
	Truss shrugged.  "OK, fine, I'll check."  He opened a session
with the interactive database system at X-COM Halifax, a system
overseen by one of Halifax's triumvirate of HAL 9000 computers.
	After he passed authentication, a voice not unlike that of
SHODAN came from the speaker on his console.
	"Good afternoon, Dr. Trussell," said the voice.  "I am Leela,
a SAL 9000 computer.  I administer the database systems here.  How may
I help you?"
	"I'm looking for any information X-COM's research division may
have gathered regarding energy field interactions with Elerium-115."
	"There's quite a bit of that," Leela replied.  "Plasma
weaponry and anti-gravity systems are both based on Elerium
energy-field effects, as are a number of other experimental
technologies, all derived from alien technology captured during the
Hidden War."
	"I specifically need anything you might have on the field
interactions of multiple Elerium-collider power generators in close
proximity."
	"Again, there's quite a bit of it.  Most of it pertains to UFO
power sources, motive drive power and defensive applications."
	Truss glanced excitedly at Maya.  "We're interested in the
last part."
	Leela paused, then said, clearly reading from a report, "In
1999, a complete and intact battleship-class UFO was captured when
X-COM forces under the command of Lieutenant Otto Keller destroyed an
alien base in the Congo.  This craft's capture provided X-COM's
Research Division with an unparallelled opportunity to study the inner
workings and operating principles of alien spacecraft.  It was found
that their powers of flight and maneuver, as well as their uncanny
resistance to damage from conventional weapons, were the result of
energy field interactions from the multiple Elerium collider
generators which provided them with all internal power."
	"That's the one!" said Truss.  "Can you send that document to
my station here?"
	"Certainly, Dr. Trussell."
	"Were there any attempts made to duplicate this effect?"
	"No," Leela replied.  "The Second Impact forestalled all
developments based on these alien technologies.  This report was
catalogued, but, for all practical purposes, lost."
	"Lost?  But you've just quoted it to us."
	"X-COM's Research Division catalogued 75.72 million gigabytes
of information regarding alien technologies before the Second Impact,
Doctor," said Leela.  "After the Impact, that information remained
intact, but most of the people who knew what to ask for were either
dead or assigned to other projects.  No one has ever asked for
information pertaining to the subject since February 11, 2000."
	Truss reflected on this for a moment, then said, "All right -
thank you, Leela."
	"You're welcome, Dr. Trussell," said Leela, and signed off.
	Truss looked over at Maya, who was barely suppressing a yell
of triumph.  Together they plunged into the X-COM report.  It was
dense, tough going in spots, but everything was there in black and
white.  The missing key was a special focusing element, present in the
energy-handling systems of UFOs.  The substance that focusing element
was made of, a curious red material resembling a gemstone but
impervious to laser spectrography, had defied all the X-COM
researchers' attempts to identify or duplicate it - but Truss and Maya
were intimately familiar with it.  The biggest challenge in the
development of the general-production Evangelion had been synthesizing
enough of the material to make EVA construction possible.
	It was the sort of material to be found in the core of an
Angel, or an Evangelion.
	A small spherical module made of that material, placed at the
point of an equilateral triangle whose other two vertices were at the
centers of two Elerium colliders, matched the blue diagram to the red
one, creating an artificial AT Field.  The technology had existed all
along, but the key to linking it together had been lost in the sea of
information spewed out by two separate, uncommunicative research
efforts.
	It was well past midnight when they finished the revisions to
JA's design, marked them Emergency Rush, and fed them into the TechDiv
pipeline so that, when the dismantling and reconstruction work on JA
began tomorrow, the workers would not only remove JA's arms and parts
of his internal structure, but also his reactor housing.  A great many
changes had to be made to the computer systems as well, given the
massive new demands on the power system imposed by the colliders and
the field-management systems.  It remained to be seen if the system as
they had devised it would actually work in the field, but before that
could be tested, it would have to be built.
	It was a gamble, and both Maya and Truss knew it.  If they
tore down JA and reconstructed him with Elerium colliders and a
miniaturized EVA core, and their conclusions regarding the field
effects were incorrect, they would have expended a tremendous amount
of time, money and energy on a change that brought no gain.  The
colliders would make JA more powerful, physically, and would be more
stable and manageable than the reactor, but if the field didn't work
the way they thought it would, he would still be easy prey for an
Angel or enemy EVA.
	But if it worked... 
	When Maya and Truss finally made their way home, it was with
the tired satisfaction of a job well done.  Now, if only the suspense
of waiting for the reconstruction to be complete didn't kill them... 

	Several hours earlier, DJ Croft stood with his hands clasped
behind his back, looking out at what he could see of the lights of
Worcester-3 through his bedroom window.  He was frowning at his
reflection in the glass.  He'd been feeling out of sorts for the past
few days - not sick, but psychically unbalanced, as though nothing
about his world was quite in the right place.  The core of what had
been the counter-conspiracy against SEELE, which had come together so
magnificently at the point of crisis, now felt like it was eroding.
Its members hadn't had a real conversation since the day Gendou
Ikari's controller was exposed; they were all too busy with
preparations for the move, seeing to the defense measures in the
interim, and their own personal difficulties brought on by the many
revelations that accompanied the crisis.  On top of that, he thought
he was having a growth spurt.  None of his trousers seemed to be quite
long enough, and he'd noticed lately that his shoes were too tight.
	He sighed, long and deep.  Behind him, the door to his room
vibrated to someone's gentle knocking, then opened slowly.  Asuka
Soryu-Langley, just released from a day of pre-operations EVA testing,
slipped into the room.  She saw and immediately recognized the mood he
was in.  She'd become quite adept at reading his moods of late.  She
walked up behind him and put her arms around him, her chin on his
shoulder.
	"What's the matter with you?" she asked softly.
	"Everything," he replied irritably.
	"No, I mean it.  What's wrong?"
	DJ sighed.  "Ah, I don't really know, love.  Maybe I'm just
getting old."  He disengaged from her, walked around her and flopped
down on his back across his bed, feet hanging down the side.
	Asuka climbed up next to him, sat with her feet to one side
and played idly with his loosely-knotted necktie as she said, "DJ,
you're fifteen years old."
	"Oh, don't remind me," he said with a pained expression.  "Why
the hell can't people be fully-grown at ten?  Why do we have to endure
-twenty years- of our favorite clothes suddenly not fitting us?"
	Asuka couldn't help it; she started laughing at this plaintive
lament.  He glared up at her, mock-offended, and said, "Oh, y'think
that's funny, do you?"
	She got hold of herself and said, "I'm sorry.  It's just...
that's not really what's bothering you, is it?  Did you -want- to be
five-foot-one your whole life?  Stop complaining about secondary
matters and tell me what's really wrong."
	DJ sighed, turning on his side to take her hands in his.  "I
can't hide anything from you, can I?"
	Asuka smiled.  "I hope not."
	DJ gave her a grin, then sobered and said, "It's Jon.  I'm
bloody worried about him.  Ever since it all blew up he's been going
round like he's in a trance.  He hasn't said ten words to me in the
last three weeks.  Just goes about his business, comes home, goes into
his room and won't come out."
	"Have you tried to talk to him?"
	"He won't let me in.  Have you?"
	"He won't let me in either."
	"Christ."  DJ shook his head.  "How long can he go on that
way?  How long can -Rei- go on that way?  She sits outside the door to
his room waiting for him to call, to say he's ready to talk to her,
hour by hour... "
	"Rei's holding up all right," Asuka told him.  "She seems to
understand what's happening to him.  The last time I tried to see him,
she told me not to worry too much - that it's all just a matter of
time."
	"I wish I had her confidence."  DJ sat up and looked her in
the eyes.  "What's happened to us, Asuka?  We used to be able to be
happy, even in the middle of all this madness.  It's like it's finally
wearing us down.  Now, when we need to pull together more than ever."
	"We're just tired," she said, patting his arm.  "-You're-
tired."
	"Tired," he snorted.  "I don't bloody -do- anything anymore.
I barely pull my weight."
	"Nonsense," she said, giving him a playful scowl.  "You must
be tired, or you wouldn't be saying stupid things like that."
	He smiled.
	"I say - Miss Langley... " he said with a tone of overt
formality.
	She grinned and replied, "Yes, Lord Crofthenge?"
	"I wonder, would you accord me the very great honor of your
companionship this night?"
	"That would be my distinct pleasure, my lord," she said.

	"Asuka?" he asked later, in the dark.
	"Yes?" she replied sleepily.
	"Do you think we're too young for this sort of thing?"
	"I imagine our parents would think so," she said.
	"No," he said, "not the act - the feelings that go with it."
His hand squeezed hers in the dark, where their fingers had lain
interlaced since the whole adventure began.  "Are we old enough to
know what love is?"
	"Are you second-guessing me or yourself?" she wondered.
	"Both, I suppose," he answered honestly.
	"What are you wondering?" she asked.  "Whether we'll still be
together in five years, or ten, or twenty?"
	"More or less," he replied.
	"Who can say?" she said.  "Perhaps we'll be killed next week.
Perhaps we'll drift slowly apart over the course of years and finally
go our separate ways with nothing more than sweet memories and a
longing wistfulness that the magic wouldn't last.  Perhaps one day it
will all turn to hate and we'll tear at each other until one or the
other of us is pushed too far and kills."
	"Asuka!" he said, shocked.
	"Or maybe," she said, moving her face closer to his so that
her breath whispered over his cheek as she spoke, "what's between us
will grow stronger with every passing day, and we'll spend our whole
lives together, in peace and warmth and mutual respect, complete unto
ourselves and yet two halves of a whole, until time first separates us
and then reunites us forever."
	DJ lay speechless for a moment, and then said with admiration,
"That was beautifully said."
	"I must have read it somewhere," she replied with a chuckle.
"Go to sleep, DJ.  Tomorrow will attend to itself."
	As he drifted off, DJ decided that that was excellent advice.

	The next morning was bright and clear, good operations
weather.  At his new station in the MOCR, Truss stifled a yawn and
watched with detached interest as steady, stable, boring readings from
Asuka Soryu-Langley's first above-ground test in EVA-03.  The test was
going extremely well.  She had passed the basic agility tests the
first run through and proceeded to live-fire exercises with no
emotional issues, control problems, neural crises, or equipment
failures.  Everything was going extremely well.  If the test proved
fully successful, Truss knew Maya would certify the unit and its pilot
combat-operations ready, which would be a big step toward NERV's
operational readiness recovery.
	The changes in NERV's structure showed themselves to the staff
in unexpected places sometimes.  For example, the people in the
control room for this test weren't the same group as those who had
been present for all the other EVA operations.  Ritsuko Akagi and Otto
Keller were gone to Canada. Gendou Ikari was down in his office
professing disinterest in the operational EVAs with so much data to be
collated for the Archangelion project.  Maya now stood up on the main
deck with Misato Katsuragi, ultimately responsible for Technical
Division activities during the operation.  Truss was in Maya's old
place in the back of the "orchestra pit" as Supervisor of Technical
Services, watching over the two young men from Weapons Division who
had taken over his old place as primary console operators - though why
there were two of them when Truss had been expected to do the job all
on his own in the old days, Truss didn't care to speculate.
	He liked his new subordinates, much as the notion of being in
charge of something had alarmed him.  They were well-trained,
competent and eager to please, and they handled their consoles with
assurance.  Makoto Hyuuga, the senior of the two by around a month and
so automatically named Deputy STS, to take over if Truss were called
away or incapacitated, was a cheerfully earnest type who would've been
a signals ensign in a World War II naval drama.  Truss didn't know his
mate, Shigeru Aoba, very well by comparison - he was quieter and kept
more to himself, though he wasn't rude or standoffish.  Truss had
heard that Aoba played guitar in a fairly popular local band before
joining up with NERV to fight the good fight.
	Truss stifled another yawn; Hyuuga saw him doing it and
grinned.  The boss was working too hard, between these tests and the
work on Jet Alone.  Why, just this morning he'd seen the TechDiv memo
about huge revisions to the JA design based on a breakthrough he and
Captain Ibuki had had the night before.  Hyuuga didn't understand most
of the calculations in the memo, but he had no doubt that they
represented a real leap forward in human understanding of EVA
technology.  Truly brilliant scientists always did their best work
after 2 AM, and the time stamp on the memo had been 5:42.  Besides,
Gendou Ikari himself had replied to the emailed memo saying that he
found the concepts in it "remarkable," and from Ikari, that was
skyrocketing praise.
	Hyuuga turned back to his console with renewed energy despite
the boring nature of this particular test.  At least Soryu-Langley was
blowing things up.  Besides, if Lieutenant Trussell had achieved his
officer's commission, his increased responsibilities, and his
opportunity to create technological breakthroughs in the dead of night
with a colleague as congenial as Captain Ibuki through diligence at
this very console, then Hyuuga thought that was a pretty damn good
testimonial for diligence.

	"...No, DJ, look.  Three years after the assassination, the
Air Force dumps Kennedy's casket in the middle of the Atlantic
-because it 'isn't evidence'-?!  Doesn't that strike you as just a
-little- bit suspicious?"
	"I told you, Gendou, I don't find the Kennedy assassination
interesting.  Human history has had some -much- more arresting
conspiracies.  You want to talk about political assassinations?  The
ancient Egyptians bumped off a pharaoh and then tried to -erase him
from the historical record-.  Let's see the Mafia try to do that to
JFK."
	"Oh so?  This sounds interesting.  Tell me more."
	"Fellow name of Akhenaten, became pharaoh in 1358 BC... "

	As the SEELE Antonov AN-411 streaked across the sky toward
Worcester-3, Shinji Ikari mentally reviewed the information he'd been
given during the mission briefing. It was to be a precision strike,
the first in a series which, when complete, would drop the city's
defensive capability to virtually nil.  The primary targets for Phase
One were above-ground installations - weapons blocks, communications
towers, and the most strategically-placed of lift bays and
thoroughfares.  Paralysis, not infiltration or theft, was the order of
the day. SEELE had provided the Third Child with a map of the most
vulnerable locations, which he brought up on EVA-04's viewscreen for a
final review.
        If all went according to expectations, the opposing pilots
would be Rei Ayanami and Jon Ellison.  Ellison, Shinji was told, was
an experienced pilot and fully devoted to the NERV cause.  As for Rei...
        ["The neural pulses are feeding back!"
        ["Cut power!  NOW!"
        ["Commander, the entry plug is ejecting!"
        ["REI!!"
        ["Commander, wait!  It's too dangerous - Unit 00 still has 25
seconds of power left..."]
        Stop it, Shinji chided himself.  Distracting yourself with
thoughts of the past will only serve to get you killed.
        According to the briefing, there was also a small but nonzero
chance that DJ Croft could be pressed into service.  SEELE had
received reliable reports that Croft had never synchronized with any
EVA but his own, but Natla had felt it was best to advise their new
pilot on how to deal with him... just in case.  If DJ appeared in
another unit, Shinji was to exercise extreme caution, but continue
with the mission.  If EVA-01 put in a surprise apperance, however, the
operation would be cancelled -immediately-.  Shinji was still too
inexperienced to risk a battle on such level technological ground.
        "Third Child, we're approaching the drop zone.  Your synchrotron
readings are holding at 45%, and all systems appear to be go.  Are you
ready?"
        Shinji closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm ready."

        "Brigadier Katsuragi!  I'm picking up an unexpected radar
contact on the edge of Worcester-3 airspace."
        "Another Angel?"
        "No, it's an aircraft.  Trying to ID the radar signature, hold
on."  Hyuuga's eyes went wide as the results of the check appeared on
his screen.  "What the hell?  It's an AN-411!"
        Misato marched over to the terminal for a look.  "How is that
possible?  All Antonov aircraft are in their bays!  John, can you get a
visual from any of the perimeter viewing stations?"
        "One step ahead of you.  It's coming up on the main viewer
now."
        A chorus of gasps filled Central Dogma as the plane and its
cargo, a gleaming chrome Evangelion, came into view. 
        Misato was momentarily dumbstruck. "Unit... 04?"
	On the master viewer, the image of the chromed EVA zoomed in,
resolving in enough detail for the unit's production markings to be
visible.  Immediately, SHODAN bracketed the EVA, and below the
reticule surrounding it appeared the words:

	      TARGET: PRODUCTION TYPE EVANGELION UNIT 04
			  CODENAME: MALPHAS

        Truss nodded.  "SHODAN confirms - target is Evangelion Unit
04.  I think we can all guess its purpose - it's being carried in the
drop position.  Estimated touchdown in Worcester-3 within two minutes.
And from the markings, I'd say that's a SEELE aircraft."
        Misato's confused expression morphed into one of shock, and
then into anger.  "Those BASTARDS!" she snarled.  She lashed out at a
nearby desk, toppling it and sending a ream of papers flying across
the room.  "We fell for it - hook, line and sinker.  SEELE told us
Unit 04 was destroyed, and we never even questioned it.  They stole it
right out from under our noses!"
        "There's more bad news," Aoba added.  "It seems to have been
outfitted with some kind of on-board power source.  04's going to have
an advantage over anything we can throw at it."
	"Who in the hell is piloting it?!" Misato demanded.
	"There are a couple of theoretical possibilities," said Maya,
"but if you're going by the Marduk Report, it has to be Shinji Ikari."
        "Oh, damn.  This is going to get extremely ugly."  Misato
paused for a moment to regain her composure, then turned to Maya.
"Get Professor Ikari up here, and prep Unit 00 for launch."
        "I'm on it."
        "Asuka, bring Unit 03 back to Lift Bay 16 - we should have
someone ready to take over by the time you arrive."
	Jenna Steen, promoted to Chief Medical Officer in Ritsuko
Akagi's absence, glanced at the gathered EVA pilots, slipped over to
Misato, and whispered, "Ellison isn't ready to go operational yet,
Brigadier.  He - "
	"I -am- ready," said Jon flatly.  Jenna felt a blush on her
cheeks; she had no idea the young man's hearing was so acute.  Jon
stepped forward, determination but no offense on his face, and said
again, more firmly, "I am."
	"No," said Rei, "I'll go."
	Jon turned, puzzled.  "Asuka can't bring Unit 03 back soon
enough for it to be reconfigured - "
	"No matter," said Rei.  "I'll take Unit 00."
	"Unit 00?" Misato objected.  "Rei, you were having problems
with that unit -before- we recalibrated all its neurosystems for Jon.
I can understand that you want to protect him - "
	"I don't need protecting - " Jon interrupted, a bit indignant.
	"This isn't about Jon," said Rei, her voice cutting both of
them off despite its softness.  "It's about Shinji.  I'm the only one
of us he's met.  I think he'll talk to me.  Maybe we can stop this
without letting anyone get hurt."
	For Rei, that was practically a speech.  Misato looked at her
for a long moment, then turned to Jon.  He glanced at the Brigadier,
nodded his understanding, and stepped back.
	"Go," said Misato.

        Not bad, Shinji thought.  Not the most graceful of landings,
but given less than a week of training and only those ersatz air-drop
landings to work with, no one could have expected better.
	He unslung his EVA's autorifle and set about causing some
damage.

	"... Moved the -capital-?!"
	"Into the middle of bloody nowhere.  You can imagine how well
that went over - "
	Alarms blared, and both men came to their feet out of reflex.
	"Ah, Christ, I thought we might be done with this," DJ
growled.  "Suppose we ought to head for the control room."
	Ikari shrugged dismissively.  "Why?  I'd just be dead weight,
and you're - "
	"Equally useless with Unit 01 out of commission," DJ finished,
"I know... I just thought it would be nice to keep my hand in."
	"I was going to say you're not on call," said Gendou with a
wry grin, "but if you insist on putting so fine a point on it... "
	The intercom crackled, and Maya Ibuki's voice called,
"Worcester-3 is under Evangelion attack by SEELE.  Professor Ikari, to
the control room, please."
	DJ and Gendou looked at each other in confusion.
	"Evangelion attack?!" said DJ.
	Ikari looked confused for a moment; then his face melted into
a look of utter horror.
	"Oh my God, no," he murmured; then he seemed to shock himself
into motion.  "Come on!" he shouted, jumping over the end of his desk
and leaving papers scattered everywhere in his wake as he crashed into
the hall at a dead run.  DJ looked around in puzzlement for a moment,
then ran after him.

	"OK, Rei, we're ready to power up if you are," said Maya Ibuki
to Rei's image on the EVA-cage comm screen.  "I hope you know what
you're doing."
	"Activate," said Rei flatly.
	Maya nodded.  "Power up Unit 00's neurosystems," she said, and
Truss moved the appropriate controls.
	The green boxes marched across the status board, but stopped,
hovering, the last box before the break-even line flickering fitfully.
	Go away, said EVA-00.  You are my enemy.
	Rei closed her eyes and told it in return, You are mistaken,
but there is no time for me to waste on convincing you.  You're
needed.  You -will- act.
	No.
	You will!
	The Synchrotron spooled up to 45% - good enough.
	"Evangelion Unit 00 - Moloch, moving out," said Rei.

	DJ and Gendou Ikari arrived in the control room to find it in
chaos; Unit 00 was in the field - apparently with Rei behind the
controls, since Jon was standing in the corner of the room, arms
folded, watching the battle with a darkened countenance - and everyone
seemed to be talking at once.
	"Shinji, please," Misato was saying over the background
chatter of defense operations, "I don't know what they told you, but
I'd be willing to bet it's not true.  Why don't you stop this and we
can talk about it."
	"You would say that," Shinji Ikari's voice replied from the
commset speakers.  Gendou Ikari flinched as if slapped.  "They warned
me that you'd try to sweet-talk me, but I won't listen!"
	"Shinji!" Misato tried again.  "Please, stop!  I can protect
you from them - do you understand?"
	"I'm not the one who needs protection!" Shinji replied, a
touch of hysteria creeping into his voice.  "Besides, you can't
protect anyone - I know you're just a figurehead there, so my father
can deny responsibility for NERV's crimes in public."
	Misato slammed a hand down on the console.  "I'm WHAT?  Now
you listen here, you little punk!  When I get my hands on you - "
	"Misato, love, I don't think that's helping," said DJ quietly,
elbowing her away from the pickup.  "Shinji?  This is DJ Croft.
Listen to me.  Your father isn't even in charge down here any more,
all right?  Now, nobody wants to hurt you.  Why don't - "
	"No!  I won't listen to you," Shinji's voice replied.  "You're
just my father's puppet, like all the rest!"
	DJ and Gendou Ikari shared a bemused look.
	Covering the microphone pickup with his palm, DJ observed
wryly, "Gendou, my friend, I believe your boy's been misinformed."
	Ikari allowed himself a dark chuckle before sobering and
pushing his glasses back up his nose.  "He won't listen to any of us,"
he sighed.  "Natla's people have been too thorough for us."  Driving a
fist into the opposite palm, he said darkly, "By God, they'll pay for
this."
        "It's no good, Unit 00," Truss observed glumly.  "Unit 04's
rate of fire is too heavy for you to get close."
        "We need a plan, quickly," Jon pointed out.  "She's on the
outermost set of umbilicals."
        Rei's voice came over the radio, quiet and calm.  "No.  I have
one." She jettisoned her EVA's umbilical and proceeded on battery
power - directly toward the silver EVA.  "Shinji, I'm coming to talk."
	EVA-04 froze for an instant, not unlike its pilot's heart.
That was Rei Ayanami's voice!  What was she doing out here?  What was
she doing aboard Unit 00?  SEELE's intelligence told them that the EVA
prototype had rejected her, that she couldn't pilot it any more!
        "Rei!" Jon called after her, but was stopped short by a single
word from Rei:
        "Wait."
        Jon studied her image on the big screen, and understood.
        Shinji wrenched himself out of his horrified hesitation and
opened fire again.  "Stay back! I don't have anything to say."
	Moloch's vambraces opened, and Rei withdrew the twin
Progressive Knives.  Immediately, she let them drop to the ground
beside her.  "Shinji, I'm unarmed.  Stop firing."
        As he sensed that Rei had no intention of slowing her
approach, Shinji's voice took on an edge of panic.  "No! You have to
stop!  I don't want to hurt you - don't let them make you do this!"
        "No one is making me do anything."
        Unit 04's rate of fire slowed as its pilot became more and
more flustered.  This can't be happening, he thought.  I'm so close to
accomplishing the mission goal, but now I have to fire at an unarmed
unit - I might even have to kill Rei.
        ["Unit 00 has broken free of the restraints!"
        ["Pilot's vital signs are unconfirmed!"]
        My father almost killed her as I watched.  How can I bring
myself to do the same - to finish what he started?
	"Unit 04," crackled the voice of Jacqueline Natla in Shinji's
ears, "you're falling behind schedule.  Destroy Unit 00 and proceed."
        ["Ayanami is not above sacrificing herself in battle in order
to escape her no-win situation."]
        How can I take her life, even if it's to save everyone else?
	"I saw what my father did to you! He doesn't care whether you
live or die, he just cares about himself and his project!"
        "I'm not defending him."
        The distance between them had been cut to only a few hundred
yards, and Shinji had completely forgotten to keep running.
	Damn it, Rei, don't you understand?  I'm trying to save your
life!
	"Don't... I can't kill you... please, stop!  Stop!!"
        "I can't do that."
        Unit 04 raised its rifle, ready to fire.  Shinji's mind went
into a tailspin.  "Stop!  This is -wrong-!" he shrieked.  Nothing made
sense anymore.
	"Unit 04, what the hell are you playing at?" demanded Natla.
"Kill her and get on with your mission!"
	"NO!" Shinji shouted, slamming a hand down on the
communications panel and cutting off the command frequency.  "I didn't
come here to kill anyone," he added, though now he was only
transmitting on the tactical band used by NERV.  His head swam, and he
could feel the panic crawling up into his throat.  His purpose was no
longer clear, he had failed to leave the city fast enough, Rei Ayanami
was in the wrong EVA, Jon Ellison was nowhere to be seen, and the
other unit -
	Oh shit!
	Shinji's realization came a moment too late.  While Rei
approached and diverted his attention, Asuka had maneuvered Unit 03
around to Shinji's blind side.  Now, As Rei brought Moloch's hand up
to grasp the barrel of Unit 04's autorfile, Orcus passed by Unit 04 at
a dead run.  The black EVA reached out and tore at the Elerium
collider which powered 04 with all its might, hoping beyond hope that
it would break loose.
        It did - leaving a trail of sparks, armor, and mechanical
parts behind.  Orcus never slowed down, and Malphas was unable to
react in time.
        Shinji screamed as Malphas lurched violently from the force of
the impact.  04's rifle was also jarred loose, but not before it was
accidentally fired into Moloch's arm and chest.  Rei's EVA was thrown
backward, but she did not cry out nor lose her footing.
        "Bastard!" Shinji snarled, whirling to face the black-and-red
interloper.  "Look what you made me do!"
        Jon wasn't any too pleased about the side effects of Asuka's
unauthorized attack either - it had given him a nasty jolt to the gut
to see Rei's EVA shot - but the instinctive anger that seeing her
threatened always gave rise to was directed at Shinji, not Asuka.
        Asuka stopped Orcus within the city perimeter, knelt, and
retrieved an umbilical from a service block, then stood and brandished
EVA-04's power core.
        "You want your power unit back, Third Child?" Asuka taunted,
the grin audible in her voice.  "Come get it."
        Shinji's snarl escalated to a roar as he drove his EVA into a
run, charging toward the black enemy unit.  Asuka stood her ground,
holding the device enticingly out (though she knew there was no way
Shinji could reattach it even if he took it back - the power induction
socket on the back of EVA-04 was mangled far beyond serviceability,
and much of it was still hanging from the Elerium collider itself).
        Rei got Moloch to its feet and looked the situation over.  For
just a moment, she considered calling to Asuka to get out of the way
of her charging adversary.  Then she noticed something about EVA-04
that made her realize all in a flash just what Asuka had been planning
all along, and she remained silent - and silently impressed.
        A moment later, Shinji Ikari's howl of anger faltered, then
sputtered out in a welter of vocalized question marks as his EVA's run
slowed, slowed, and finally stopped, and the machine toppled
face-first to the street, skidding to a halt a couple of inches from
EVA-03's toes.  Behind it, a thick greenish trail of battery gel led
back to the spot where Orcus had torn away EVA-04's Elerium collider,
and with it half of the EVA's back armor and various internals -
including the outer walls of the primary battery cells.
        Battle over.
        Almost. 
        Maya saw it first.  "The SEELE aircraft has just launched an
air-to-surface missile!"
        Rei keyed her radio and shouted, "Asuka, incoming fire!"
        A half-second later, the N2 missile landed. 

        As soon as Rei could pull herself to her feet, she was charging
towards ground zero.  "Asuka, are you all right?  Unit 03, come in!"
        Silence for a few beats, then, "Yes... we're alive."
        A few seconds later, Rei arrived on the scene.  Orcus was
charred, its armor melted in spots, but relatively intact.  It was
huddled over Unit 04's damaged back - Asuka had shielded it from the
explosion. 

	As Shinji's unconscious form was being toted into the
infirmary by a stretcher crew, Gendou Ikari stood at the end of the
corridor, his hands behind his back, only the extra lines on his face
betraying great anxiety.
	"I was afraid something like this might happen," he said to
the man next to him, without taking his eyes off the infirmary door.
"Fool that I am, I never gave my brother a way to contact me here -
'security reasons', I told myself, but really I think I was just in
denial.  Even so, I never dreamed that they would use him against me
this way."  He scratched at his chin fretfully.  "When he wakes up,
he's going to be horrified at his situation.  It would be helpful if
he had his familiar things with him.  All he left home with were the
clothes on his back."
	Ryoji Kaji gave the scientist a thoughtful look.  "Has the
Aircraft Section still got that JBS2 you used to use for your reporting
trips to Geneva?"
	"Yes, I think so," said Ikari.  "I'm not cleared to draw
flights from the Section without talking to Command first, any more,
so I don't know for sure."
	Kaji grinned and clapped Ikari on the shoulder.  "Don't worry
about it, then.  I'll, uh, borrow it and go get his stuff if you give
me your brother's address."
	"Would you, Ryoji?  It would be a great comfort to him."
	"Sure, no sweat."

        Shinji Ikari returned to consciousness slowly, painfully, in a
welter of confusion.  His memories of the last several days flooded
back before he got around to opening his eyes or getting up.  The
speeches, the footage, the battle, the bomb... the lies.
        All of it.
        Lies.
        He opened his eyes.
        "This ceiling," he remarked to himself softly, "is unfamiliar."
        "You get used to it," said a voice to his right.  Sitting
gingerly up, Shinji turned to look, and saw a redheaded girl sitting on
the edge of the next bunk over in what appeared to be a small hospital
ward.  The girl wore the greenish-white tunic and trousers of a
patient, and, with concentration etching lines around her blue eyes,
she was performing arm curls with a small barbell.  Shinji recognized
her from the photos he was shown during his orientation - but he had
expected Asuka Soryu-Langley to be in much poorer condition.
        "I guess you would know," Shinji allowed.
        "Smart -and- tactful," said Asuka, rolling her eyes.  "I love
that in a man."  She narrowed her eyes in concentration and lifted the
barbell from knee to shoulder again, sucking in air between gritted
teeth as she did so.
	"They... they told me you'd been crippled, nearly killed,"
Shinji murmured.
	"They exaggerated the first part," replied Asuka quietly.
	Shinji decided it was best if he didn't try too hard to keep
this faltering conversation going, and instead lapsed back into
silence.  Before too long, a couple of white-coated medics came in,
examined Asuka, and told her she was free to go.  She went into a side
room and came out in skirt and blouse, a small bag over one shoulder.
	She waved a parting to Shinji; he half-heartedly returned it
and tried to think of something to say, and then she had gone.  The
medics looked him over, pronounced him healthy, and left the room.  He
noticed no one had told him -he- was free to go.

	Misato Katsuragi sat at the head of the table in Conference B,
wondering if anyone would hold it against her if she gave herself up
to a fit of humorless, hysterical laughter.  The whole thing was
ridiculous.  While NERV had been coping with the trauma of separation
from SEELE - reeling with the discovery that its parent organization
was an alien conspiracy and facing the incredible task of moving the
largest militarized research and development organization ever created
- SEELE had grabbed the production facilities for the Evangelions,
most of Project Ascension, and the one remaining child with the EVA
talent right out from under their noses.
	Misato took a deep breath and got hold of herself.
	"OK," she said aloud.  "The situation's bad, but not as bad as
it could be.  We can even reasonably claim that we came out ahead this
round.  We got a damaged but reparable EVA and the Third Child, and
all they got was some more collateral damage to a city we're
abandoning anyway."
	Maya Ibuki frowned, fiddling idly with the button atop a
ballpoint pen, and said, "The first isn't as much of a win as you
might think.  With EVA-01 out of commission and DJ unable to interface
with any of the others, we've got pilots for all the operational EVAs
we have.  Another one is just deadweight.  Besides, SEELE controls the
production facilities.  They can have as many of them as they want."
	John Trussell added gloomily, "Our situation's not as good as
that, either.  They've left us in a bad state defensively.
Conventional ground defenses reduced to 45% effectiveness, air
defenses knocked down to 70%, and worst of all, we have no operational
Evangelion units for the next five days."
	Misato looked startled.  "What?  Explain."
	"Unit 01 is still unresponsive to all test stimuli," said
Truss.  "Unit 03 will be in repairs for five days.  We could probably
have Unit 04 operational in six or seven, but given the circumstances,
I wouldn't rate it operation until we've had a chance to -really-
swamp out its software, and that'll take another two or three days on
top of the repairs.  Rei's interaction with Unit 00 without a proper
reconfiguration beforehand doesn't seem to have affected her at all,
but it's thrown the unit's neurosystems into chaos.  It'll take us at
least a couple of days to straighten everything out.  We're seeing the
weirdest resonance pattern ever, even for that unit, just sitting 
there idle.  I can't imagine what it might do if we powered it up."
	Misato groaned wearily.  "It never rains," she muttered.  "At
least we got Shinji away from them.  If the Marduk Report was right
and there aren't any more children with the talent out there, then all
the EVAs in the world won't help SEELE mount another attack, within
our vulnerable timeframe or out of it."
	"Somehow," Maya observed, "I doubt they'd go to all the
trouble of seizing both EVA production facilities if they didn't have
that angle covered."  She sighed.  "As for Shinji... well... what are
we going to -do- with him?"
	"He'll have to be extensively debriefed," Misato said.  "He's
been deeper into SEELE than anyone else we have access to.  He's seen
their EVA facilities, no doubt talked with their tech staff.  We need
to know what he knows."
	"Who's to say he'll be willing to tell us?" asked John
Trussell glumly.  "They must have played on his hostility toward his
father to get him to cooperate with them.  You heard what he said
during the attack.  He thinks we're all his father's puppets."  He
gave Misato a pointed look.  "Or were you planning on using force?"
	Misato scowled.  "No," she said.  "That's the kind of thing
SEELE would do.  We won't sink to their level."  She looked to the
other side of the table.  "What do you think, Professor?"
	Gendou Ikari looked tired and drawn.  He'd counted on his son
being safe with his brother, the boy's uncle, in Japan.  Word hadn't
reached him of Shinji's disappearance - Gendou's brother had no idea
how to reach him in the US.  To have the boy suddenly thrown into his
face this way had stunned and infuriated him, and now he had no idea
what to do.  Looking up at Misato, he told her as much.
	"I'm torn," he said slowly.  "On the one hand, I want to see
him, to try and prove to him that I'm not the man he remembers
hating.  On the other hand, I don't think he would believe me.  He's
not ready to believe me.  Look at his situation.  He's been lied to
about us; that much was clear from his attack.  They lied to him about
us and they lied to him about being on his side, or they wouldn't have
tried to kill him when he failed his mission.  He's lost.  He won't
know whether he can trust anyone... but he certainly won't trust me."
Ikari sighed deeply.  "No.  It's better if he doesn't see me just
yet."
	"What about Rei?" Maya wondered.  "They've met before, and
there's obviously a connection there somewhere - look at the way he
reacted to her in the field."
	Misato shook her head.  "He's refused to see her already," she
said.  "Rei wanted to see him in the infirmary, and he asked the
medical staff not to let her in."
	Maya frowned.  "That's strange.  I would have thought... "
She shrugged.  "What about one of the others?"
	"Jon isn't in any condition to make new friends," Misato
said.  "Asuka is our only fully operational EVA pilot right now.  We
can't spare her.  And DJ - well, you heard Shinji's opinion of him."
	"That he's Professor Ikari's yes-man?  That's ridiculous,"
Maya said.  "No one who knows DJ could believe that."
	"Shinji doesn't."
	"Not yet," said Maya.
	Misato looked thoughtful, then nodded.  "Well, it can't hurt
anything, I suppose."

	Confusion had given way to nervousness, and that was working
its way slowly toward outright fear, for Shinji Ikari.  In the hour
since he'd awakened, he'd been removed from the infirmary by an escort
of two sinister-looking men in identical black suits.  They hadn't
said much, just led him down several confusing corridors and deposited
him in an empty conference room with instructions to "Wait here,
please."  So he'd waited, wondering what NERV was planning to do to
him, and each speculative notion that came into his head was worse
than the last.
	He'd just about convinced himself that they were going to have
him killed as a security risk when the door opened and someone
entered.  To Shinji's horror, it was DJ Croft.  The former EVA pilot
was wearing a black jumpsuit with his last name stitched over the
breast pocket and a patch on the left shoulder bearing the NERV and
X-COM logos.  He had a handgun of some kind in a holster on his belt
and a black ballcap on his head that seemed to have a radiation symbol
embroidered on the front.
	"Hullo!" said Croft cheerfully.  "I hope we haven't bored you
too awfully.  I only just got done with a test or I'd have come down
straight away."
	Shinji didn't reply for a moment, as Croft pulled a chair
around and sat down at the conference table opposite him.  Then he
said softly, "They told me your unit wasn't working."
	DJ looked rueful.  "They were right," he said, "bloody thing's
on the blink.  They've got me testing on their other giant robot."
	Shinji wondered about that for a moment, then noticed the
lettering around the radioactivity symbol on DJ's cap: JET ALONE
JA-01.  He'd been told of Jet Alone during his training at SEELE.
They knew that NERV had it, but judged its likelihood of appearing in
combat to be almost nil.
	DJ looked upward, following Shinji's gaze, and took off the
cap, turning it to look at the logo himself.  Shinji saw that Croft's
initials were embroidered on the back of the sweatband.  DJ grinned.
"Not bad, eh?  Part of our separation from SEELE.  Command thought it
would be good for us to have a bit of a boost in our esprit de corps.
New uniforms, project caps, better base privileges.  Makes us feel
like it's worth bothering with the fight, or that's the idea, anyway."
He put his cap back on.
	"Why are you here?" Shinji wanted to know.
	"Well," said DJ, "basically, it's like this.  The Powers that
Be in Charge here, they know that you must be feeling pretty well out
of it right now.  God only knows what they told you about us at SEELE,
but we're guessing it wasn't anything too complimentary.  My CO,
Brigadier Katsuragi, decided that somebody needed to sit down with
you, find out what they told you about us, and then see how we might
go about proving that it wasn't true."  He spread his hands.  "We
decided you'd be more comfortable talking to somebody your own age,
and since I'm the least busy of the four, I'm elected."
	DJ thumped the table with both palms and stood up.  "Now
then.  We're the worst hosts in the world, aren't we?  Locking you in
a conference room without anything to eat and forgetting about you for
hours... it's disgraceful.  Right, follow me."
	Shinji got hesitantly up as the jumpsuited figure strode out
into the hall, following at a trot when it became clear that DJ hadn't
noticed he hadn't followed immediately.  They paused so that DJ could
leave his jumpsuit in the pilots' locker room and recover his jacket,
shoulder holster and shoes.  Shinji got a puzzled look on his face as
DJ walked right past the door marked "Commissary".  It got a little
more puzzled when they went into an elevator.  The elevator let them
out in what appeared to be a parking garage.
	His confusion hitting a peak, Shinji finally protested.
"H-hey!  Where are you going?"
	DJ stopped, turned and let him catch up.  "You're not hungry?"
	"Well, yes," Shinji said, thoughtful.  Then he remembered that
he was confused and a bit irritated, and blustered again: "But this is
a parking garage!"
	"Uh-huh," said DJ.  "What about it?  Where do you keep -your-
car?"
	"I don't have a car!"
	DJ looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "Mm... no, I
suppose you don't."  He shrugged it off.  "Anyway, in you get," he
said, gesturing to a large black Chrysler sedan with no markings and
anonymous license plates.
	By this time, Shinji had no idea whatsoever what DJ was up to,
but he decided anything beat sitting around in a conference room
waiting for them to kill him.  He got into the passenger seat.
	DJ started up the car, put it in gear, and headed for the ramp
up to the top-floor access to the S490.  As they rounded the top
corner, DJ said offhandedly, "As it happens, I'm not authorized to
remove you from the compound, so when we get to the guard station,
it's probably best for you to be out of sight."
	"What?" Shinji asked, confused.
	"Get on the floor," said DJ, slowly and patiently.
	Shinji looked at him as though he had several heads, then did
as he said.
	"Afternoon, Barney," said DJ cheerfully as the Dodge pulled up
to the guard post at the garage exit.
	"Hey, DJ," said the security guard, a lanky Southerner DJ only
knew by his first name.  "Gettin' outta here for lunch for once?
Can't say I blame ya.  Busy day today."  Barney thumbed a switch, and
the candy-striped metal arm across the roadway swung up.  "Take care."
	"You too, Barn.  See you later," said DJ.  "Stay down until
we're on the highway," he muttered to Shinji as they drove away.
	Shinji did as he was told, then popped up and got into his
proper seat.  "What's going on?" he demanded.  "Are you kidnapping me
or something?"
	DJ shrugged.  "Well, technically, I think what I'm doing is
unlawfully removing you from detention.  Do you like Chinese food?"
	"What?!"	
	DJ sighed, realizing that he was going to spend a lot of his
time repeating things slowly and patiently until Shinji got his
bearings.  "Do - you - like - Chinese - food?" he repeated.
	"Yes, but what - "
	"Right, then.  Nobody from Central Dogma will be lunching at
this hour - I hope.  We'll go to Ping's Garden and get something to
eat, all right?  You must be hungry by now."
	Shinji would have protested, until it occurred to him that the
gnawing, empty sensation in the middle of his being was probably an
indication of just that.
	They ate in relative silence, making small talk, but nothing
more.  DJ didn't seem to care whether Shinji told him anything or
not.
	"Aren't you going to interrogate me?" Shinji asked after their
appetizers were delivered.
	"Not while I'm trying to eat," DJ replied, with a tone of
voice that left the subject unequivocally dropped.
	Shinji was unimpressed by the hot and sour soup, but the crab
rangoons were passable and the orange flavor chicken quite good.  It
wasn't until they were back in the car and heading crosstown again
that DJ spoke up.
	"Your father told me what happened the last time you came to
Worcester-3."
	Shinji didn't really know how to respond to that, so he just
nodded and made an affirmative noise.  It wasn't a conversational
gambit he would have expected from an interrogator - after all, it had
all happened at NERV.  They couldn't help but have full information on
it.  Why wasn't he asking about SEELE?
	"They say you turned round, walked out and never looked back,"
DJ went on.
	Shinji nodded.  "Yes, that's right."
	DJ smiled.  "By doing so, you've convinced me that you're the
only one of us with any sense at all."
	Shinji had no idea what to say to that, and in this he was
beginning to sense the development of a trend.  Then a question
occurred to him, and he asked it, even though he wasn't sure he could
believe the answer:
	"Why did -you- do it?"
	DJ considered this for a moment, the gently mocking humor
slowly fading from his face.  "I could be a smart-arse," he said, "and
say it was my curiosity, or my contrariness, or my estimation of my
chances with Misato, but I won't.  The truth of it is, there was a
girl going to die if I didn't come through, and I looked at her and
couldn't bear the thought of letting it happen."
	Shinji looked thoughtful for a moment, then asked, "Why does
-she- do it?"
	DJ seemed surprised by the question; then he smiled, a rather
sad and private smile, and said softly, "It's her vocation."
	Shinji waited, but DJ didn't seem willing to elaborate.  After
a few moments, he asked slowly, "You're not going to ask me -anything-
about SEELE, are you?"
	"No," DJ replied.  "I'm not."
	"Why not?  Isn't that your job here?  Isn't that why you're
being friendly to me?"
	"Sod my job," said DJ shortly.  "I'm being friendly to you
because you're the only one of us smart enough to stay the hell out of
this mess and you've got dragged into it anyway.  You've been screwed
by Fate at every turn.  You deserve people being decent to you for a
change."
	Shinji blinked at the other boy, taken completely aback.
"Uh... th-thank you," he said at length, but DJ did not respond; he
seemed lost in contemplation of the anger that had shown around the
edges of his last answer.
	The car emerged onto a roundabout with a statue of a general
on a horse in the middle of it.  DJ followed it most of the way
around, then pulled up onto a small, concrete-paved plaza in front of
a building with a very ornate white marble facade.  Shinji suspected
that the area was not meant for parking, but who was he to argue with
the driver?
	DJ got out.  Not wanting to sit around alone in the car
waiting for whatever was next to happen, Shinji got out too.  He
looked up at the building, and, as DJ came around the car to join him,
he said in puzzlement,
	"This is a train station."
	"Yes, it is," said DJ, his face still intent.  "Look, for the
moment, Worcester-3 is still a free city, but nobody knows how long
that's going to last."  He reached into his pocket, removed a wad of
bills and shoved them into Shinji's shirt pocket.  "Get away from
here, Shinji, as far away as you can.  This isn't a place for an
innocent like you.  If you know anywhere to go that they won't find
you, then for God's sake go there, quick as you can."
	Shinji realized that he'd only -thought- he'd been confused
before now.  "What?"
	"Go!" DJ roared, gesturing at the station.  "Get out of this
place!  Get away from this fucking war before it consumes your life,
like it's consumed the lives of everyone else who's got too near."
	Shinji stared.  DJ's face was cast in fury, not at Shinji, but
palpable nonetheless.  Tears had cut tracks down the British pilot's
cheeks and his blue eyes burned with something that Shinji thought
must look something like madness.
	"C-Croft," he gasped, taking a half-step back.
	The rage drained away from DJ's face, and he sagged a little
as the emotion left him; then he dashed at the tears on his face and
said with an embarrassed chuckle,
	"Sorry... I guess the last few weeks have weighed on me more
than I thought.  Now go on, get out of here while you still have the
chance."
	"Y... you're letting me go?" Shinji asked.
	"Yes," said DJ, wiping his face with his handkerchief and
straightening the knot in his tie.  His composure restored, he folded
the handkerchief, put it back in the top pocket of his jacket, and
said, "I am letting you go."
	"I, uh... I... "  Shinji's mind whirled.  Between the bizarre
conversation, the strange and suddenly reversed transformation that
had come over DJ, and the utterly unexpected notion of his release, he
forgot everything, including the English language.  Finally, falling
back on manners ingrained in his childhood, he straightened, bowed
stiffly, and said, "Domo arigato gozaimasu, Curofto-san!"
	"Ist nicht," said DJ, his easy, lightly but goodheartedly
mocking composure back in place.  "Have you got anywhere to go?"
	Shinji's own composure was leaking slowly back as he started
to allow himself to believe that he was really being set free.  He
recovered his ability to speak English and said, "Uh... I'll figure
something out.  I have a cousin in the Midwest somewhere... Kansas, I
think, or Nebraska... one of those flat states."
	DJ regarded Shinji for a long moment, his eyes intense and
rather sad; then he grinned and stuck out his hand.  "Good luck,
Mr. Ikari."
	"Th... thank you," said Shinji, hesitatingly taking the
proffered hand.  "You too."
	"Thanks," said DJ wryly, "I'll need it."
	Without another word, he went back around the sedan, got in,
and drove away.
	Shinji stood and watched the black sedan until it disappeared
down one of the other streets off the roundabout.  Then he turned and
walked slowly into Union Station.

	DJ drove aimlessly around Worcester for the rest of the
afternoon.  He felt tired... no, more than that.  He felt -old-.  Much
older than he had any right to feel.  He drove mechanically, his mind
elsewhere, as he unconsciously counted the minutes until Shinji would
be safely away from the city, gone in any one of a dozen directions,
impossible for NERV Security to trace.
	There'd be hell to pay for letting him go, DJ knew that.
Misato would be furious, and Stanfield, too.  But having made the
decision, he felt at peace with it.  To hell with them!  To hell with
their opinions.  None of them deserved to be involved in this damned
war either.  Why the hell couldn't they all go home and live in peace?
Why had the fate of humanity come to rest on the shoulders of this one
small group?  If they failed, Shinji would die anyway, along with
everyone else in the world.  Everything anyone had ever done would be
wasted effort.
	He sighed and wondered how he had become so cynical all of a
sudden.  Didn't he believe in himself?  In his friends?  They had
right on their side, didn't they?  Wasn't that enough?  Couldn't pure
hearts and strong hands win the day against any odds?
	Well?  Couldn't they?
	He looked at the clock on the car's radio and saw that it was
4 PM.  By now, Shinji would be in Springfield, or Hartford, or
Providence, or Manchester, or Portland.  It would have to be enough.
	DJ turned the car toward the S490 and got ready to face the
music.

	"That'll be $18.54, please."
	Shinji handed the cashier a 20-dollar bill, waited for his
change, and wandered outside.  Sitting down on a nearby bench, he
hastily set about unwrapping his purchase.  It wasn't particularly
cold for February in New England, but his jacket was a bit too thin
for the season, and he wasn't wearing any gloves.  Once he got moving
again, he'd be better prepared to deal with the climate.
	The shrink wrap now removed, Ikari pulled a small electronic
device and a pair of earbud headphones out of the cardboard container,
then tossed the packaging into a black steel trash bin which stood
next to the bench.  He put on the headphones, flipped the power
switch, and pressed play.
	No less than six portable music formats had acquired popular
acceptance since the Second Impact.  The venerable Compact Disc still
clung to life in 2016, though its market share had dropped to
something akin to vinyl LPs in the late 1980's.  DVD-Audio had only
received moderate success, despite optimistic predictions by so-called
experts in the earliest years of the 21st century.  S-DAT's low price
point allowed it to carve out a niche market for itself, in spite of
critical reviews as harsh as DVD-Audio's had been glowing.  C/RAM
(Compact Recordable Audio Media, a format based on advanced floppy
diskette technology) had completely failed to catch on, despite an ad
campaign that seemed to feature every well-known television
personality between 18 and 25 years of age.
	The two real survivors in the format wars had been MiniDisc
and NoteFlash.  Sony introduced, mismarketed, and all but gave up on
MD twice before finally getting it right in 2004 - two years later, it
had taken over the role of market leader.  NoteFlash had successfully
coexisted with MD by presenting itself as a budget alternative.  It
was the descendant of MP3 flash media which had debuted in the late
1990s, extremely portable and featuring the latest in audio
compression technology.  What had won over consumers most, though, was
that NoteFlash didn't require a player of any kind.  The listener
could simply plug a set of headphones into the built-in jack, then
kick back to some tunes for as long as the tiny, replaceable
carbon-chain realignment battery lasted.
	Shinji closed his eyes, and reveled in the opening strains of
the first track of Vivaldi's Popular Works.  "Spring" wasn't a
terribly appropriate track for a day when patches of snow still dotted
the landscape, but listening to it helped Shinji focus on the matter
at hand: what to do next.
	He had spent the train ride to Nashua in a state of mild
paranoia, laying low and worrying that DJ's actions were really just a
setup of some kind.  The phrase "killed while trying to escape" had
sprung to mind five minutes out of the station, and he chided himself
for being so naive as to think he could just walk away.  But no one
had come for him when the train stopped in Lowell (he had planned to
get off at the first stop, but the look of the city had struck him as
singularly uninviting), and when he stepped off the platform in
Nashua, New Hampshire, there was no sniper waiting to end his life in
the shadows.  As far as he could tell, DJ -had- disobeyed orders and
let him escape.
	Even so, DJ's secret wouldn't be safe forever, so Shinji had
quickly left the station behind.  He quickly got lost, since he had no
familiarity with the city - but he hadn't really been looking for
anything, anyway, so it wasn't a serious concern.  What he wanted most
was a chance to think, to sort out all that had happened to him over
the past few weeks.  He didn't dare venture away from the crowds,
though.  As long as he was in view of the general populace, NERV
probably wouldn't try to -kill- him - he hoped.
	But the bustle of the crowds had played hell with Shinji's
ability to think clearly.  His neighborhood in Japan was much more
heavily populated than Nashua, but back home his focus would have been
aided by the old S-DAT Walkman that his uncle had handed down to him,
and which he carried with him everywhere he went.  Everywhere but the
SEELE briefing, that is - he had dressed up that day, expecting an
inteview, and left everything extraneous at home.
	Oh, well, he mused silently.  If I'd brought it, it'd be
somewhere in the Arctic right now - and where would that get me?  As
it was he'd had to leave behind the MD-Walkman one of the friendlier
tech types at the SEELE training facility had scared up for him.  It
was just as well; the selection of music, dubbed from the tech's own
collection, leaned heavily toward progressive rock, which, while not
objectionable, didn't move Shinji the way the great composers did.
	Luckily, Ikari had happened across an electronics store, and
was able to find something that could serve the same purpose.  It was
fairly cheap, too - an important factor, since he was traveling the
countryside on the $237 that DJ had handed to him as he exited the
car.  (He'd definitely planned to fund the escape from the start,
Shinji realized, since $200 of that sum was comprised of crispy,
never-used twenty dollar bills... fresh from an ATM in NERV HQ,
undoubtedly.)  Shinji had never realized how soothing the soft
click-whirr-click of the S-DAT's mechanisms had been, but faced with
the MD-Walkman's almost inaudible whirr and the NoteFlash's completely
silent controls, he found the lack of such sounds slightly jarring.
	Still, Vivaldi had carved out a small mental space in which
Shinji could feel isolated, for a time.  His situation, he decided,
was unfortunate but not dire.  If NERV hadn't found him yet, they'd
have a difficult time pinning down his location now.  Even if they'd
forced DJ to confess knowledge of his extended family's home states,
any searches along those routes would come up empty.  It had been
careless of DJ to ask, and Shinji had maintained just enough sense to
lie.  He hoped Croft would understand, if it ever got back to him,
that Shinji had meant no personal offense in doing so.
	Anyway, he'd used the lie to obscure his trail while he struck
off in a completely different direction.  Going north did limit his
destinations, to be sure, but perhaps he would go to Canada.  Shinji
seemed to remember someone telling him that the exchange rate was
favorable there.  He thought he remembered his uncle mentioning a
cousin who lived in Vancouver, which Shinji believed was somewhere in
Canada, and he could catch an intercontinental flight home from
Montreal if need be, in any event.
	The plan (such as it was) made sense, but something in Ikari's
heart was nagging at him.  He'd never liked the thought of running
away, even though he'd proven more than adept at it over the years -
depressingly so.  He'd run away from Worcester-3, and that was the
start of this whole mess...
	Wait, he rationalized.  Didn't DJ himself tell you that
leaving NERV behind was the -smart- thing to do?  And wasn't refusing
to run away from SEELE what -really- got you into trouble?  If you had
left Natla and her slideshow behind, you wouldn't be watching over
your shoulder for undercover agents.  You wouldn't have risked your
life (or Rei's) in that failed assault on the city.  You'd never even
have met DJ Croft, or Asuka Langley, or...
	...or Ichi.
	Shinji's heart raced at the thought of the dark-haired girl
who had given comfort to him during the long days at the training
facility.  What -of- Ichi?  Surely she was still there, sitting in her
room, waiting for the day when he'd return safely... and waiting for
the day when NERV's alleged reign of terror ended.
	Alleged.  It was a lie, he knew that now.  NERV was not the
evil organization that Natla had made it out to be - he was sure of
that much.  (They probably still wanted him dead, after what he tried
to do in Unit 04, but he'd brought that on himself.)  The children
were not held against their will, as he'd been told.  Natla had known
all along that it was a lie, but it was a -plausible- lie, one that
Shinji had been all too ready to believe.
	Shinji had escaped SEELE's grasp by a stroke of luck, and
NERV's by an act of charity.  But Ichi remained imprisoned -
physically by SEELE, and emotionally by the web of falsehoods that
Natla had carefully engineered for her.  How could he leave her behind
now?
	For that matter, how could he abandon DJ, Asuka, Rei, and Jon?
It had been for the children that he had gone along with the lie to
start with... and although they weren't prisoners, they were certainly
still in danger.  Natla wouldn't cease her plans just because Shinji
had lost - his failure would only be a temporary setback to someone
with her resources.  And as of now, he was the only person outside of
Natla's circle who had any concrete knowledge of what she was up to,
or what she had at her disposal.
	His own safety aside, how -could- he run away now, and risk
having that valuable information vanish with him?
	The third movement of "Winter" was just ending, and Shinji
switched off the unit as the final notes faded out.  The bargain-bin
device had served its purpose - his only reasonable course of action
was clear to him, now.
	Shinji thrust the NoteFlash and the headphones into his
pocket, and went into a convenience store to ask for directions to a
bus terminal.

	Asuka Soryu-Langley sat on the couch at Apartment 3-D, alone
but for Pen-Pen, who was sprawled in a nap-state at the end of the
love seat.  It appeared that she was reading a book, but the
page-turning was just a mechanical reflex.  If asked, she couldn't
have told anyone what book she was reading, let alone what the last
page had been about.  She was using the familiar movements as a cover
for fretting.
	She was frightened for DJ.  By the time he'd returned to
Central Dogma, the Security force had noticed that Shinji Ikari was
missing, and DJ too.  A search had been underway for half an hour when
DJ suddenly walked into the command center and announced flatly that
he had let Ikari go.
	Misato had hit the ceiling.  DJ had taken it upon himself to
-release- a -captured enemy pilot-?!  The richest potential source of
inside information about the enemy yet available, and DJ had given him
money and let him walk away?  What the hell did DJ think he was doing,
if he didn't mind the impertinence of her asking?
	DJ replied stiffly that he thought the expediencies of war had
crushed enough lives, thank you very much, and Shinji Ikari deserved
a chance to escape it while he still could.
	Misato, so furious as to be almost inarticulate, had set NERV
Security to the daunting task of boarding all passenger trains
originating from Worcester at their first major stops and searching
them, had dismissed all operational staff, and had confined DJ to the
base until the searches were concluded.  Asuka had wanted to stay -
something in DJ's eyes frightened her - but Misato had ordered her to
leave, and, not wanting to heighten the tension any further, Asuka had
gone.
	Now she was at home, fretting.  Would they catch Ikari?  If
they did, what would they do to him?  What would Misato do to DJ?  It
struck her as disturbing that the core of their group, the group that
had successfully stood up to the alien infiltration of NERV and was
starting to chart the organization's new course toward safeguarding
the future, was starting to fracture over something like this.
	What disturbed her even more, though, was the look she'd seen
in DJ's eyes as he'd made his announcement.  He looked beaten.
Tired.  Burned out.  She realized, now that she thought about it, the
relentless pounding he'd been enduring almost since day one.  His
personality was such that he took everything possible onto himself; he
tried to do everything for everyone.  He'd never really had a chance
to rest since the war began, and for the last few weeks the punishment
had been steadily accelerating.
	He hadn't had time to deal with his feelings for her before
her grievous injury.
	He hadn't had time to deal with that before his subsumation
into his EVA against the Thirteenth Angel.
	He hadn't had time to deal with that experience before
discovering that his father was dead.
	He hadn't had time to deal with that loss before, if you'll
pardon the expression, all hell broke loose with Jon, and Rei, and
Professor Ikari.
	He hadn't had time to deal with that before Ritsuko Akagi had
tried to take her own life.
	He kept running from crisis to crisis, trying to shoulder
every burden he could see, and now he was starting to crack.  He'd had
to be strong for everyone in their turn, and since the one night when
he and Rei had vanished, a night neither of them had ever talked
about, no one had been able to be strong for him.
	Asuka wanted desperately to go to him, hold him, and be strong
for him; but Central Dogma was locked down tight, and there was
nothing for him there tonight but the cold censure of Misato, who,
Asuka knew, must have felt as though DJ had betrayed her.  She might
be able to understand his motivation if she stopped to think about it,
but she had her own pressures to deal with, and she wasn't in a
position to stop and think.  She had the responsibility of command,
and she had to act within it.
	"Damn it!" Asuka cried, throwing down the book.
	"Waugh?" asked Pen-Pen, jarred awake.
	Asuka got up and paced the room like a caged tiger.  "Damn
it," she repeated, gesturing angrily.  "There must be a way to break
through this, this fog of misunderstanding.  There must!"
	Pen-Pen cocked his head in apparent confusion.
	"I've all but recovered from my injuries," she went on.  "Even
my leg doesn't hurt me any more, and the limp is almost gone.  I can
afford to be the strong one for a while."
	That sounded definitive, so Pen-Pen chipped in an
affirmative-sounding, "Waugh."  The penguin had no idea what the
redhead was on about, but he could see that she was working herself
into a froth over it, and he had learned by now that there was no
percentage in getting involved in that sort of thing.  He got up and
discreetly retired to his refrigerator, leaving her to it.
	Not noticing that she'd lost her audience, Asuka paced and
muttered, "Jon and Rei are reeling from all they've learned about
themselves.  Misato is crushed under the weight of command.  DJ is
burning out.  I'll have to take my turn!"  She nodded firmly.
	Just as she went to the kitchen to get her coat, go out, and
do -something-, the doorbell rang.
	She stopped.  Who in the hell could that be, and where did
they get off interrupting her moment?  Everyone who she could think of
who would visit the apartment had a keycode.  Puzzled, she went and
opened the door.
	Standing on the threshold was Shinji Ikari.
	"Ikari!" she cried; then she poked her head out into the
corridor and looked around to see if he was alone.  He was.  She
grabbed his arm.  "Get inside before someone sees you!" she commanded,
and yanked him bodily across the threshold.
	"Ulp - !" said Shinji as she hauled him into the kitchen and
shut the door behind him.  "Uh, hello, Miss Langley... "
	"What are you doing here?" she asked him.  "I thought DJ let
you go!  He's down there catching hell for it right now.  They're
scouring all the train lines for you."
	"I, uh... I decided to come back," said Shinji as she herded
him to the living room.
	"Why?" asked Asuka.  Then, before Shinji could answer, she
said, "No, save it - you'll have to tell Misato anyway.  How did you
find us?"
	"You're in the telephone directory," Shinji said.  "Once I
remembered Brigadier Katsuragi's full name it was easy.  I didn't want
to go back to NERV Headquarters - I thought they might shoot me or
something... "

	DJ keyed the door to 3-D open wearily, hung his overcoat on a
peg, and slumped in the doorway of the living room, leaning against
the wall.
	"Honey," he said in a dull, exhausted voice, "I'm home."
	"We have company, dear," Asuka replied with a grin.
	DJ pried his eyes open to look at her quizzically, then
realized there was somebody in the armchair by the TV.
	He goggled.
	"Shinji!" he shouted.  "Bloody hell!  What are you doing here?!"
	Shinji smiled sheepishly.  "I... I didn't think it was right
leaving you all to face this by yourselves."  His face became sober,
even rather stern, and suddenly the younger Ikari reminded DJ of the
elder as he said, "I can help.  I -should- help.  So... I came back."
	DJ sniffed with mock disgust, turned his back and went to the
kitchen.  "Bloody ingrate, you are," he said, and Asuka smiled to see
him regaining his humor a bit.
	Shinji got up and went after him into the kitchen.  "No,
that's not true," he said.  "I'm very grateful to you, for leaving the
choice to me.  But don't you see - once you gave me the choice, it was
mine to make."
	DJ turned, stared intently at Shinji, and then grinned.
	"You know," he said, "you're absolutely right."  He opened the
fridge, stuck his head in, then reached an arm back without looking at
Shinji and offered him a black metal can.  "Beer?"
	Shinji recoiled.  "No!" he said indignantly.
	DJ looked back over his shoulder.  "Suit yourself, no need to
get upset."  He delved back into the fridge.  "Would you care for
anything else?" he asked from inside it.  "Let's see, spring water,
Pepsi, ginger ale, dubious-looking 'energy drink' - whose is -that-?!"
	"It's mine," Asuka called from the living room.  "It was
supposed to help me with my rehab exercises.  I can't stand the
stuff.  Shinji can have it if he wants."
	"Uh, ginger ale," said Shinji.

	Misato Katsuragi couldn't remember the last time she'd been so
angry.  At DJ, of all people!  From Kaji, she would have expected an
act of such wanton irresponsibility, but DJ?  She'd come to rely on
him, his discretion, his bolstering moral confidence.  And then he
turns around and pulls a stunt like this, and what's worse, he refuses
to explain why except in cryptic, bullshit, philosophical riddles!
Security teams had boarded and searched every passenger train in every
major station within fifty miles of Worcester and turned up nothing.
Shinji Ikari, their one solid source of information about the inner
workings of SEELE, had vanished like a puff of smoke.
	Misato slammed the door of her apartment behind her, slung her
jacket toward a peg and missed, ignored it, got a beer from the
fridge, downed it, got another, and stormed into the living room, a
fifty-watt glower in place just for good measure if anyone happened to
be in there.  The whole damn world deserved to be glowered at tonight.
	The first victim of the glower was Shinji Ikari.
	"GYAAAAAAAAA - !" Misato cried, stopping dead in her tracks
and pointing.  "Wh-wh-what's he doing here?!" she demanded.
	Shinji reddened a little and said, "People keep wondering
that."
	Misato looked at DJ.  "Did - no.  Of course you didn't.  Why
would you set up a situation where you caught that much hell, just to
give me a shock?"
	DJ shook his head.  "I was as surprised as you."  He reflected
on her reaction, then said, "Well, perhaps a -bit- less."
	Shinji broke into the byplay diffidently: "Uh... Brigadier,
I'm... I'm ready to answer any questions you have."
	Misato stared at him for a moment, then forced herself to
become businesslike and sat down in an armchair.  "I want to know
anything you can tell me about them."
	DJ held up a hand.  "I'd like the rest to be in on it, if you 
don't mind, Misato."
	Misato waved a hand.  "Sure, fine.  Their living room's
bigger... let's go there."
	DJ nodded.  "I'll see to it," he said, and went next door.  A
moment later, he put his head in and said, "All right, come on."
Shinji, Asuka and Misato relocated to the larger living room of
Apartment 3-F, newly tidied up, its furniture and windows repaired,
after the clash that had taken place there not too long before.  On
the love seat along the far wall sat Rei Ayanami and Jon Ellison, the
one curious, the other looking rather sullen.  Shinji couldn't yet
have known that Jon always looked sullen when he was really just
upset, so he avoided the tall pilot's baleful green eyes.  He only
glanced briefly at Rei, too - her resemblance to Ichi was too painful
to look at for long.
	"OK," said Misato briskly after they were all settled.  "Now
that we're all here, what do you have for us?"
	Shinji shrugged.  "I can tell you about what I saw, and how I
was trained, and what they told me about you.  But to be honest, a lot
of it still doesn't make much sense to me.  Especially now that I know
that most of what I was told were lies."
	"Perhaps -we- should start, then," DJ interjected.  "You've
been lied to by both sides, and it's time you heard the real story -
all of it."  He turned to Misato, who nodded her approval.  DJ seemed
about to speak, then paused, scratching his chin.  "Damned if I know
where to start, though," he admitted after a moment.
	"At the beginning?" Shinji offered.
	DJ sat pondering for a moment, tapping his fingers against the
side of his chair, then stood up.  "Right.  Just a moment," he said,
then strode out of the room.
	This did little to lessen Shinji's sense of confusion, but at
least this time he knew he wasn't alone.  Asuka, Misato and Rei were
swapping curious glances, neither quite sure what their compatriot had
in mind.  Jon gazed moodily out the window he had jumped through not
too many days before.
	DJ returned to the room with an armload of books -- a few
hardcovers and five or six paperbacks of various sizes.  He carefully
placed the stack on his chair, then lifted one of the hardbacks in the
air for all to see.
	"'Almost Armaggeddon: A Scientific Analysis of the Second
Impact'," he said, his voice clinical.  "'This 510-page volume
elaborates upon the universally accepted theory that an asteroid
struck Antarctica on April 1, 2000, and features quotes and findings
from highly respected researchers from facilities all over the
globe,'" he read from the flyleaf.  "It spent twelve weeks on the New
York Times bestseller list, earned its author a fistful of literary
awards, is required reading in any university course on the subject
and is generally considered -the- authoritative work.  It's
well-written and quite scholarly.  Unfortunately, it's complete bunk."
	After placing the book in front of Shinji, DJ produced a trio
of paperbacks, their covers much more lurid than that of the rather
clinical-looking hardcover.  "These three books offer alternative
theories of the events of that fateful day.  The first provides
allegedly irrefutable evidence that the disaster was the result of a
top-secret U.S. weapons test gone horribly awry.  (The weapon,
incidentally, is supposed to have been based on the device used by
Nikola Tesla to cause the Tunguska Event in 1908.  Interesting notion,
but wrong.)  The second insists that the events were a warning strike
by hostile aliens bent on conquering the planet.  The third is a
poorly-written religious diatribe warning readers that the Second
Impact was a punishment from God for the manifold sins of Man.  The
first two were used as the basis for major motion pictures, the third
had to settle for TV movie status in the US and UK."
	DJ deposited the paperbacks on top of the first book, then
began shuttling all of his remaining literature onto the table, one
volume after another.  "Diary entries from Second Impact survivors -
well, survivors of the aftermath, really... tales of structures built
to hold back the rising waters... accounts of the political turmoil
that erupted in the wake of the catastrophe.  Hundreds of books were
printed in the years that followed, covering all aspects of the event
and its aftermath."
	DJ dismissed the pile of books with a negligent wave of his
hand and said to Shinji, "You could read every one of them, and you
still wouldn't know the truth - because SEELE has spent fifteen years
making sure that no one learned it."
	Shinji gazed thoughtfully at him, but made no comment.
	After retaking his seat, DJ continued, "Shinji, do you
believe in angels?"
	"Do you mean the kind that attacked Worcester-3, or the kind
that come from Heaven and have wings?" replied Shinji.  It was clear
that the question struck him as odd.
	"Either.  Both.  You see, they're the same."
	"WHAT?!" cried out Misato, who had been letting her attention
drift, aided by the alcohol in her system and her now-shattered belief
that she knew the details of the story DJ was preparing to tell.
Shinji had remained silent, but it was clear from his expression that
he would have said the same thing if Misato hadn't beaten him to it.
	"We didn't tell you before because we weren't sure that you'd
believe us," offered Rei.  "But we're running out of time, and you
need to know."
	Brigadier Katsuragi slumped further in her chair, putting her
fingertips to her forehead.  "Nothing that's happened today has made
any kind of sense.  Why should I expect it to start now?"

	It took an hour and a half for the children to tell the whole
story.  First came the discussion of Rei's true nature, then the tale
of Lucifer's failed ascension and Natlateth's betrayal.  This segued
into a short history lesson on X-COM, the Hidden War, and NERV's early
days (including Yui's death and Gendou's ensnarement).  Next, each of
the children explained how they came to be part of Project Evangelion
(except for Jon, who left his story to be told by Rei).  Finally,
Shinji was brought up to date on all that had happened since the first
Angel attack, culminating in the events which had prompted the split
from SEELE.
	When it was over, Shinji looked almost overwhelmed.  Misato
appeared skeptical, but didn't speak.
	Ikari broke the silence with a quiet, "Wow."
	"It's a lot to take all at once," agreed DJ, "but at least
you've heard it.  Now you know everything that we do. What can you
tell us that we -don't- know?"
	"They contacted me at my uncle's house.  They told me it had
something to do with a special program for musically talented
students - I play the cello," he said, and then wondered why he had
told them that.  Surely it was of no interest.
	Jon Ellison looked up with the first look of real interest his
face had held all night.  "I play guitar," he said, his voice hoarse
as if with disuse.
	Shinji looked taken aback, and finally met Ellison's eyes.  He
was startled by what he saw there.  He'd taken Ellison's aloofness for
coldness, and decided that the young man was just an unfriendly sort,
but now he could see that Jon's eyes were deeply troubled.  Something
very big was bothering him, eating at him, and having heard what he'd
just heard, Shinji could guess what it was.  His heart went out to
Jon, and he smiled as best he could in the circumstances.
	"What style?" he asked.
	"Anything that comes to hand," Jon replied.  "Blues, jazz,
classical, some early rock.  I don't have an electric, so it's mostly
old-fashioned stuff."  There was a note of desperation in Jon's voice,
an almost inaudible strain, and hearing it made Shinji do his best to
widen his smile a little.
	"That's nice," he said, and not dismissively as so many people
use the phrase.  "I've adapted some of Bach's pieces into duets.  We
should try playing them sometime."
	The corners of Jon's mouth twitched up a little, and some
light came into his eyes.
	"I'd like that," he said, and retired back into silence.  Rei
squeezed his hand, and for the first time that day, he squeezed it
back.
	Shinji looked at them together for a moment, felt a twinge of
pain, and dragged his eyes back to Misato and his mind back to the
topic at hand.  "Sorry, uh... oh, yes.  I went to meet with them.
When I got there, they told me that they had lied.  They introduced me
to a woman named Jacqueline Natla, who said she wanted to talk to me
about my father, and all of the horrible things he was doing."  Shinji
frowned.  "It was my visit to Worcester-3, all over again.  I almost
walked out right there, but she assured me that she only wanted me to
watch some film footage.  I'd be free to leave after that, if that was
what I wanted to do."
	"That must have been quite a highlight film," Asuka added,
bitterness clear in her voice.
	"Uh... yeah.  Just about everything that's gone wrong in
Worcester-3 got at least a few seconds.  I think I knew that they must
have been exaggerating things a little bit, but... it didn't matter.
If things out here were even half as bad as what they showed me..."
Shinji trailed off, shaking his head as if trying to jar loose the
memory of the footage from his mind.  No one made any impatient
noises, so he stopped to compose himself before continuing.
	"They briefed me on all of you.  Misato was a figurehead.  Jon
was the devoted follower.  DJ was a psychotic, brainwashed puppet.
Asuka was crippled to set an example.  And Rei..." Shinji turned to
face Rei, an almost apologetic look on his face, "they knew what I'd
seen here, and they took advantage of it.  They told me exactly what
I'd been afraid of - that Rei was held here against her will."
	"Where did they take you after that?" Misato inquired.
	"I don't know, exactly.  They kept me blindfolded most of the
time until I got there.  It was a training facility -- I don't know if
it was their only one - and it was huge.  It was in the Arctic
somewhere."
	Misato looked doubtful.  "X-COM has access to spy satellites
that can cover that entire area.  If SEELE had a large facility in the
Arctic, we'd know about it."
	"No," said Shinji unequivocally.  "It was definitely above the
Arctic Circle.  They didn't tell me, I figured that out from the
readings I got from EVA-04's instruments.  But only the testing
grounds were on the surface - they had to transport me there every
time I had a live EVA test."
	"Are you saying SEELE's training facility is an undersea
base?  Under the ice pack?"
	"Maybe.  That's the weird thing.  During some of the
simulation tests, I'd swear that we were moving.  The navigational
instruments didn't stay constant, so unless there was something
interfering with them, we must have been."
	"A submarine?" Asuka pondered aloud.  "Could SEELE have built
a submarine large enough to transport an EVA?"
	"It's possible," Misato replied.  "We talked with Harland &
Wolff about it, messed around with the idea a bit, back when we were
working with Antonov on the AN-411, but it would've been too
expensive.  SEELE certainly doesn't have to worry about the costs
involved, and it would explain why we've never managed to detect their
base.  We'll definitely have to look into it."
	"What about the personnel?" prompted DJ.  "Who manned the
base?"
	Shinji wrinkled his brow in concentration.  "Natla was there,
but you knew that already.  The mission commander - the one who talked
to me during my tests and during the attack - was a woman named Kaori
Yamashita."
	"That name is familiar," grumbled Misato.  "Where do I know
that name from?"
	"I don't know... she mentioned that she used to work at
someplace called Western House," offered Shinji.
	"Right!" exclaimed Misato.  "Westinghouse.  They're one of the
EVA manufacturers.  Yamashita was the project lead.  I've never met
her, but Ritsuko used to deal with her a lot, and I've seen some of
her memos.  I gathered she went to school with Ritsuko's mother."
	"I don't think she knows everything that's going on," Shinji
added hastily.  "Natla always felt like she was hiding something, but
Kaori always seemed honest.  I don't think she ever hid -anything-."
	"Some people are very good at lying, Shinji."
	Shinji shook his head violently.  "Not Kaori."
	Misato sighed in resignation, realizing that this was an
argument she couldn't win.  "It doesn't matter.  We don't have any
contacts within SEELE, so there's no way to contact her.  She's on her
own."
	That definitely wasn't what Ikari wanted to hear, but there
was nothing to be done about it now.  "I don't remember any of the
other officers," he confessed.  "I didn't talk to them very much.  I'm
sorry."
	"What about other pilots?" Rei asked.  "Was there anyone else
our age?"
	Shinji cringed instinctively -- partly because of the
question, and partly because of who asked it.  "I... no.  No pilots.
There was only one other person there my age, and she wasn't in the
training program."
	"Then what was she doing there?" Misato asked.
	"She... "  Shinji fought back memories and tears as he spoke.
"She said that she was there for her protection."
	Misato could tell that the boy was holding something back, and
was in no mood for it.  "Protection from -what-?  And do you know her
name?"
	Shinji briefly looked towards Rei, but couldn't bring himself
to maintain eye contact.  "Protection from NERV.  Her name... "
Shinji paused, seemed to gather himself, and said all in a rush, "Her
name is Ichi, Ichi Ayanami."
	Five pairs of eyes grew very wide at that revelation.  DJ was
the first to speak, his expression one of pained realization.
	"Oh, Christ," he muttered.
	"She said..." continued Shinji, slightly stunned by the
magnitude of the reaction he had caused, "she said she was Rei's
sister.  Was that a lie?"
	"Not entirely," came the reply from Rei herself.  Shinji
looked puzzled.
	"I found her in a storage vault deep within NERV's
headquarters complex," DJ told him.  "In a cryo-stasis tube, along
with ten more.  That was right before we broke away from SEELE.  We
weren't able to go back down there until the purge started... when we
got back there, they were gone.  Someone had taken them away.
They're... well, we think they're copies of Rei, of one variety or
another.  You're the only one of us that has actually seen one."
	"She was my friend!" Shinji pleaded, as if begging not to be
contradicted.  "She couldn't have known what was going on, I'm sure of
it.  She must have been brainwashed - given the same kind of story I
was."
	"Actually, that's possible," admitted Misato.  "SEELE needs
them to be cooperative.  No matter what Ichi told you, Shinji, I'll
guarantee you that SEELE intends to use her as a pilot.  She just may
not realize it, yet."
	Shinji had no answer for that.  He was too busy fighting away
memories of what he had thought were better times.
	Misato yawned, looked at her watch, and winced.  "One last
thing," she said.  "Did they tell you what their future plans were?"
	"No, except for what I was supposed to do.  The attack I made
was supposed to be one of many - I was supposed to weaken your
defenses a little bit each time.  But I don't know any of the
specifics.  I think they were waiting to see how the first one went."
	"Hopefully, it went badly enough that they won't try again
real soon.  And they're short an EVA, for now."  Misato stood up,
wiped her eyes, and yawned again.  "That's about all I'm good for
tonight - I've got to get some sleep.  Shinji, you can sleep in 3-F's
spare room.  There will probably be more questions tomorrow, by
someone who is actually trained in debriefing... and awake."  As she
reached the door dividing her apartment from Jon and Rei's, she turned
back to Shinji.  "Thank you for coming back, Shinji.  You did a brave
thing.  This will help."
	Shinji sighed, his mind still a jumble of unidentified
emotions.  "I hope so."

	As Shinji climbed into bed, he heard a soft knock at his door.
	"Come in?"
	DJ Croft, clad in pajamas and a robe, stepped into the room.
"Sorry to keep you up, Shinji, but there's something I have to
know... and I didn't want to ask in front of everyone else."
	"OK... " Shinji answered, hesitantly.
	"What -didn't- you tell us about Ichi?"
	Shinji froze.  He'd -almost- gotten away with circumventing
this topic.  He'd -almost- gotten away with suppressing his thoughts
of the night he and Ichi had spent together.  But now... now it all
came thundering back.  And so did the tears.  His eyes met DJ's, and
he was surprised to find a hint of... sadness?... in the Britisher's
eyes.
	"She... we... we were..."
	DJ closed his eyes.  "Lovers?" he said softly.
	The word struck Shinji like a fist, but there was also a
sense of relief that he hadn't had to say it himself.
	"Yes," he said, the word coming out in a choked sob.  "Once."
	DJ let out a long, slow breath, and placed a hand on Shinji's
shoulder without looking at him.  "I was afraid that might be it."
	Shinji's tears flowed like a waterfall, now, and he began to
cry audibly.
	"She... she said... that is - we... "
	DJ shook his head, eyes still closed.  "No.  You don't have to
explain."  He opened his eyes and chuckled wryly.  "Lord knows I'm in
no position to judge you."  He took a deep breath.  "I'm sorry,
Shinji.  I won't tell anyone else, if you don't want me to.  Will you
be all right tonight?  If you need company... "
	"I'll make it," Shinji managed to get out between sobs.
	DJ looked at him for a few moments, decided that Shinji knew
himself well enough to make that call, and said, "All right, then.  If
you need anything, just tell Hal."
	DJ stood up to leave, muttering a curse in Natla's general
direction -- wherever she was.  At the doorway, he turned back for a
moment.
	"Shinji... if we can get her out of there, we will.  I
promise."
	No reply was forthcoming, and DJ showed himself out.
	He went through 3-F's living room, passed through the sliding
door into 3-D, and stood in the middle of the other living room for a
few seconds with his hands clenched into fists at his sides.
	"Fuck," he said in a calm and distinct voice.
	"That bad?" said a soft, ever so slightly amused voice from
the doorway behind him.  He turned to see Rei Ayanami regarding him
with the slightest of smiles.
	"Very possibly worse," he said, keeping his voice down out of
deference to the people trying to sleep.  He walked back to the
doorway.  "Is Jon any better?"
	Rei's smile remained, wistful, breaking his heart.  "Jon has
hope," she said.  "He forces himself to keep distant - he's afraid
he'll try to hurt me again - and he has no trust in himself, but he
dares to hope again.  In time, it may be enough."
	DJ sighed.  "I wish there was something I could do for him."
	"For now, the knowledge that you have that wish is enough -
maybe all he can stand.  It's hard for him, DJ.  Perhaps Kevin -
Tabris - could have helped him find his balance again, but... I fear
for Tabris as well."  She closed her eyes and looked down, and a
single tear trickled down one cheek.
	DJ wiped it away with his thumb and held that side of her face
in his hand, tipping it up slightly and smiling sadly at her as she
opened her eyes again.
	"I'm around if you need me," he said.
	She reached up, closed her hand around his wrist, and returned
the smile.
	"And I, you," she said softly; then she turned slowly and went
back to her own apartment to resume her vigil.
	DJ looked after her for moment, then turned and went to his
bedroom.  After a few restless minutes, he decided he couldn't face
solitude tonight, and went quietly to Asuka's room.
	She was asleep, but that was all right; all he wanted was to
be near her.  He slipped carefully under the covers on the far side of
the bed, moving slowly and quietly so as not to disturb her, and
wandered off to sleep after only a few minutes.
	Rei, the only one still awake, sat next to Jon's bed looking
down at his lean face, the lines of trouble etched into it by recent
weeks smoothed away again in sleep.  As she did every night, she sang
softly, almost under her breath, the melody that she and Tabris had
used to calm him that awful night in the Wedge.  It seemed to bring
him peace and help him sleep, even in plain voice.

	Alone in Apartment 3-F the following afternoon, Shinji Ikari
sat on the couch, feeling glum.  This was a novel experience in some
ways: he'd absorbed so much information over the past few days, all of
it of staggering importance and incredible weirdness, that he couldn't
make sense of any of it, let alone all of it; but he wasn't reacting
to it with his usual panicked intensity.  Instead, it all sort of
vaguely depressed him.  He felt filled with a kind of morbid ennui, as
though nothing really mattered any more - the world had stopped making
sense entirely, and there was nothing to be gained by panic, or
industry, or anything else.  He'd tried to strive for right once
already, and look where that had gotten him.
	He shook his head, angry with himself.  Are you going to sit
on someone else's sofa and mope for the rest of your life? he
demanded.  You have a chance to start over.  Why don't you take it?
	Because, he told himself in reply, I don't know how much of
what anyone has told me is true any more.
	His father, for all the years he'd been hateful and distant,
had been acting against his will?  Gendou Ikari, a puppet of a cruel
and spiteful intelligence from beyond?  It was almost too absurd to
believe, but then, so was the idea of a race of giants controllable
only by teenage children with special psionic gifts.
	Rei Ayanami, an angel?  Shinji didn't even believe in angels.
And if Rei wasn't a... well, wasn't a person like regular people, how
could she have a sister?
	And if she couldn't, then who had Ichi been?
	Everything Ichi had told him about her life and family was a
lie if anything the people here told him about Rei was true.
	He couldn't believe that Rei would lie to him; but he couldn't
believe that Ichi had, either.  Ichi had cared for him.  Ichi had
trusted him.  Ichi had... 
	Shinji wrenched his thoughts away from that path and looked
around the room for something, anything, to keep himself from thinking
of her.
	Standing in the corner of the room, miraculously unharmed by
the melee that had wrecked this room a few weeks before, was Jon
Ellison's guitar, a gleaming acoustic National.  Shinji got up and
went to it, then paused.  Would Ellison mind?  He wasn't around to
ask...
	... but if Shinji didn't do -something- else with his mind he
was going to go insane.
	He picked up the guitar and took it back to the couch with
him.  It hadn't been played in a while; he fiddled around for a while,
tuning it and reacquainting himself with the instrument.  He hadn't
played anything but a cello for months.
	Then, satisfied that he'd got it about where he wanted it, he
started playing.  First he strummed aimlessly; then he started to
settle into a pattern, remembering a chord progression he'd learned
when he'd first started with music.  As he grew more and more
absorbed, remembering more and more of the tune as he remembered it,
he began to smile and lose track of his surroundings.  Eventually, he
got to a point where he had taken the instrumental line as far as it
could go, so he stopped, reoriented himself, and started over, this
time quietly singing,

"Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam,
And admit that the waters around you have grown
And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone -
If your time to you is worth savin'
Then you'd better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'."

	He picked up a little speed and started adding embellishments
to the basic progression, his voice gathering a bit of intensity.

"Come writers and critics who prophesy with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again,
And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

"Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call -
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block the hall,
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled,
There's a battle outside and it's ragin' -
It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'."

	Completely absorbed now, Shinji closed his eyes and played
through a short improvised bridge, his fingers rapidly regaining
confidence as they plied the instrument.  When he took up the verses
again, it was with full voice, all the more because the next verse was
the one that had always hit him the hardest.

"Come mothers and fathers throughout the land,
And don't criticize what you can't understand -
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,
Your old road is rapidly agin',
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'."

	He pulled the tempo and the intensity back with an effort,
making himself use the last verse to wind the song down instead of
building it further, and his voice faded almost to a whisper as he
concluded,

"The line it is drawn and the curse it is cast,
And the slow one now will later be fast,
As the present now will later be past - 
The order is rapidly fadin',
And the first one now will later be last
For the times... 
They are a-changin'."

	He finished the last progression and let the guitar fall
silent in his hands.  He put it aside on the couch and sat quiet for a
few moments.  He had to admit, as he sat with his eyes closed and his
breathing returning to normal, that he felt considerably better.
	That, and he wanted his cello back.
	The sound of one person's applause broke the silence, and
Shinji jumped, coming to his feet in a rush and looking toward the
doorway.
	Gendou Ikari stood there, dressed more casually than Shinji
could ever remember having seen him in jeans and a Nekomi Tech
sweatshirt, a tentative smile on his face.
	"What do -you- want?" Shinji asked.  The words came out with
more hostility than Shinji had intended.  He couldn't help it - years
of thinking of his father with anger and contempt had ingrained
patterns in him that would take some effort to break.  He wished he
could take the words back and say them the way he'd wanted to say
them, when he saw the pained look cross Gendou's face.
	"I... I just... "  Gendou trailed off, at a loss.  Then, all
at once, he strode into the room and seized Shinji in a powerful hug,
a sob escaping from his throat.  Shinji stiffened instinctively, stood
like a wooden post for a few minutes, and then tentatively relaxed and
accepted the embrace.  He couldn't yet bring himself to return it; he
was too shocked, and too accustomed to hating the man.
	"I love you, son," Gendou Ikari whispered.  "I'm sorry for all
the times I made you think I didn't."
	"F-Father," said Shinji, almost dumbstruck.
	Gendou stepped back, Shinji's shoulders in his hands, letting
the tears roll unchecked down his cheeks, and smiled.  "You've grown
so fast," he said.  "I've missed your childhood.  My God, I've missed
everything."
	"They... they told me you were being controlled.  Your mind -
controlled by, by aliens, or demons, or something."
	Gendou nodded.  "Yes, Shinji, that's true.  But I can't put
all the blame on them.  That happened when you were three years old.
I missed your first word, your first step, the first time you read
anything by yourself, because I was too busy with my work.  My damned
work!"  He drew the boy into his embrace again, running his right hand
through the hair on the back of Shinji's head as he pressed the boy's
face into his shoulder.  "I was a bad father before they came.  I
can't change that, but I can try to make up for it, if you'll let me."
	"Um... "  Shinji had -no idea- what to say.  He reflected with
some annoyance that this phenomenon was becoming very familiar to him.
	"I hate to interrupt," said another voice from the kitchen
doorway, "but I've got a few things here that young Mr. Ikari might
like to have."
	Gendou turned, stepping aside, so Shinji could see who was in
the doorway.  It was a tallish Eurasian fellow with an unshaven,
ruggedly handsome face set in a cheerful grin - Ryoji Kaji, whose
picture had been shown to Shinji as that of one of NERV's chief
enforcers, a humorless, murderous hatchet man.  He and the two
frightening men in black, the old white one and the young black one
named Stanfield and Edwards, were supposed to be the principle agents
of fear keeping the children in line.  He certainly didn't look like
an agent of fear right now.  Over his shoulder he had a heavy-looking
bag slung.  His left hand held a suitcase, and his right a ponderous
black case that Shinji immediately recognized.
	"My cello!" he burst out.  "Where did you get it?"
	"At your uncle's place with the rest of your stuff," said
Kaji, "where else?  It was a long day, flying down there and back, but
your dad let me borrow his JBS2, and I've always wanted to fly one of
those."
	"JBS2?"
	"Jet, Business, Super-Sonic," said Gendou.  "A high-speed
executive transport.  I used it to report to SEELE Headquarters in
Switzerland.  It's not really mine."  He smiled at the other man.
"Thank you, Kaji."
	"No sweat.  Which room should I put the stuff in?"
	"At the end of the hall," said Shinji, pointing.
	Kaji nodded and headed down the hall, whistling a happy tune.
	"You sent him to get my things?" asked Shinji.	
	Gendou nodded.  "I thought they might give you some comfort in
this strange place."
	Shinji's words stuck in his throat; he coughed, cleared his
throat, and finally managed to say softly, "Thank you, Father."
	"Shinji... will you come with me for a few minutes?  There's
something here in Worcester I think you ought to see."
	"Uh... s-sure."

	They drove in silence across the half-ruined, almost-deserted
city, Gendou distractedly guiding the car, which Shinji suspected was
the same Chrysler DJ had used to take him to the train station the day
before.
	Shinji's puzzlement only deepened when they stopped in front
of a small white church on the outskirts of town.  He hadn't even
known his father was religious, though he supposed that concept was
kind of up for grabs after what he'd been told the night before.  He
wondered what his father was up to as Gendou led him into the cool
wood-paneled expanse of the church's interior.
	To his surprise, Gendou walked right through the church and
out a side door, not giving the stained glass or the disturbingly
realistic sculpture of Christ on his cross that hung over the altar a
look.
	Shinji followed him out, and they were standing in an
old-fashioned churchside graveyard.  Gendou walked between the stones,
old and weathered leaning in between the occasional new or replacement
marker, stopping not very far from a large, gnarled oak tree.  Shinji
thought the place was fairly creepy even in daylight, the very model
of the Halloween thriller churchyard.  He looked around nervously, and
almost ran into his father's back as Gendou stopped before a marker.
It was a newish-looking stone, horizontal rather than vertical and of
only modest size, in pinkish polished granite.

			      YUI IKARI
		   AUGUST 9, 1977 - AUGUST 9, 2004
		  SCIENTIST - HUMANITARIAN - MOTHER

	Shinji Ikari stared uncomprehendingly at his mother's
tombstone for a moment, then fell to his knees and laid his hands
against the cool stone, his eyes hot and stinging.
	He could only dimly remember his mother, of course.  She had
died when he was three, and he'd been sent almost immediately back to
Japan, where he'd been born, to live with his father's brother,
Soichiro Rokobungi.  His only memories were the faint and disjointed
impressions of very early childhood - of warmth, and kindness, and an
overwhelming sense of peace.  He'd always felt her loss in an abstract
kind of way, but now it slammed into him like a knee in the stomach,
and dropped him from his feet just as effectively.
	Gendou Ikari put his hand on his son's shoulder and said
softly, "Your mother was the kindest woman who ever lived.  She would
be proud of the courage you showed in coming back to help us - as
proud as I am."
	Shinji looked up over his shoulder, dashing at his tears.
	"You're... proud of me?" he asked.
	Gendou nodded.  "Very proud.  You could have walked away and
left us all to our fates, but you came back and offered what you could
give.  That was very brave."
	Shinji's heart swelled.  Could this man really be his father,
the man who had alternately rejected him, ignored him, and reviled him
all his life?
	"How did Mother die?" he asked.
	Gendou closed his eyes, thought for a moment, then opened them
again.
	"Jacqueline Natla murdered her," he said quietly.
	Shinji's face hardened.  "She murdered my mother, and then she
tried to use me to murder my father."  He stood up, anger making his
movements convulsive.  "God damn her!"
	"I fear He already has," said Gendou sadly.
	A terrible thought struck Shinji.  "But - if Worcester-3 is
destroyed, then - then - this place will go too!"
	Gendou nodded.  "That's why I thought you should see it now.
While it's still here."
	"But - but Mother - "
	"Your mother isn't here, Shinji.  This," he said, nudging the
stone with the toe of one shoe, "is a symbol, nothing more.  We came
to this church sometimes, we were married here, so I thought it proper
to put a marker here, but she's not here.  The way she died... "
Gendou stopped himself, shook his head, and said simply, "There was no
body to bury."
	"Oh."  A new wave of fury struck him at that.  Natla hadn't
even left his father the clay to pay his final courtesy to!  The
heartless cruelty of it all... 
	He turned suddenly to his father, intensity shining in his
face.  At that moment, Gendou realized for the millionth time how much
his son looked like his lost wife, and for the first time ever, that
thought did not drive a dagger into his back.
	"Father, when EVA-04 is repaired, I want to pilot it for you."
	Gendou Ikari was appalled.
	"No!" he said.  "Absolutely not!"
	"But - "
	"Shinji, please.  Natla and SEELE are working hard to destroy
everything I care about.  You're almost all I have left.  Please don't
ask me to put you directly into the line of fire!  All I want is for
you to be as safe as we can make you."
	Shinji would have protested - the notion had just struck him,
but he felt terribly strongly about it - but the