Otaku Reflected 

Episode Three, Eva Revolution 

Part Five 

A Superspy in Repose 

by Jared Ornstead 
  
=====

    Thunder Knight wobbled on its feet for a moment while Jared arrived 
at a decision. It then stabilized and regrew its head, one matching the 
white armor of its legs and arms. The Thunder Knight suddenly flexed 
and the bands of purple armor around its chest scattered as if 
exploding, revealing the Knight in a subtly different style of snow 
white armor that was briefly accented along the joints by every color 
in the rainbow. 
    The dark angel tried the mouth beam again, only to have Thunder 
Knight dodge it and come down with a kick that sent the much larger 
creature sprawling. Jared leapt to the side as the whips went shooting 
past him. Something about this Dark Angel reminded him a bit of 
Kodachi. Hmm. Oh well, time to get fancy. 
    "Dark Angel, you have committed a grievous mistake in facing me! 
Know that I am the Thunder Knight! And I call upon Heaven's Wrath to 
smite you!" 
    Inside NERV, Misato was trying frantically to raise him on the 
radio. Maya merely raised an eyebrow and noted that Jared seemed well 
on the road to a complete recovery. Aoba noted that he didn't seem to 
have minded getting beheaded at all, which brought Ritsuko's attention 
away from her own suffering somewhat in curiosity. 
    The Thunder Knight's hands were held out in front of it, and 
lightning flared from one of the large gems on his chest to form a 
cat's cradle between his fingers. Jared moved his hands, picturing the 
proper shape, and the Eva/Thunder Knight moved itself accordingly. A 
spear, as tall as the Thunder Knight itself, formed with an appropriate 
peal of thunder. 
    Ritsuko's jaw dropped as she came off the floor and watched the 
scene on the monitor. "He *can't* do that! It's impossible!" 
    Misato blinked, her face stuck in wonderment. "He just did. I need 
a drink." 
    "Careful, Captain, there are a lot of sidekicks with drinking 
problems to the main hero." Maya noted, happily seeing that Ritsuko was 
coming at least partway out of her funk. 
    Misato flinched. 
    "Hmmmm," hmmed most of the bridge crew, including Gendo through his 
secret monitors as he made his escape, eying Misato briefly. 
    In the meantime, the Thunder Knight had whipped the spear through a 
few martial arts spear katas and done the required poses. Now he 
decided it was time for a Special Attack. Why? Because an anime hero 
has to do what an anime hero has to do! "Pssst. Misato!" 
    "What?!" Misato was a little stressed out. How would "comic relief 
sidekick" look on her resume? How embarrassing. Would this be 
considered a demotion? 
    "This is the part where you're supposed to say something 
encouraging," Thunder Knight blocked, parried, dodged, and ducked 
various attacks while Jared talked, "and get me to use my Special Never 
Before Seen But Stock Footage Super Special Attack." 
    "JUST GET ON WITH IT AND BEAT THE DARK ANGEL!" 
    Ritsuko smirked at how frazzled Misato looked, regaining some 
measure of her own composure in her friend's discomfort. "Thunder 
Knight, I think it's time to use your Special Attack. So go ahead and 
spear the 'Dark Angel'." 
    Jared spun the spear around overhead at faster and faster speeds. 
Clouds grew overhead and began to darken and swirl. 
    "HEAVEN'S..." 
    Maya stared. "He's using the AT field as a condenser. Reading a 
buildup of an electrical charge from the S2 Unit." 
    Misato stared. "Static electricity? But...." 
    "...JUSTICE..." 
    Gendo smirked behind steepled hands as his transport raced to a 
secret sanctuary. No, this wasn't in the Dead Sea scrolls, or in 
Revelations, but it WAS giving his scientists all sorts of odd data 
from their sensor readings which he would later acquire through the 
MAGI. Besides, certain members of SEELE were probably going into a 
panic right about now. Keele might want to die, but he wasn't anxious 
to have it hurt a lot. Anything with Divine or Heavenly with Justice in 
the title would tweak the old man's shorts. 
    "...STORM!" 
    Jared slammed the spear down into the Dark Angel's AT field as 
lightning flared out from across Tokyo 3, all of which seemed to 
converge on the point of impact in the moment of the strike. The Angel 
twitched and fell over as the spear penetrated and went directly 
through the gemlike protuberance. 
    "Okay, Jared. Good job..." Misato tried to ignore the comments 
about as she was Jared's mascot shouldn't she have a proper costume of 
some sort? The staff were just blowing off steam, weren't they? 
    "Just a second, I still have to do my Victory Pose..." 
    The Dark Angel came up off the ground and wrapped both of its 
frosty ribbon arms around Thunder Knight's neck, causing frost and 
chill to spread along the armor there. A quick glance realized that the 
angel's core was deeply scarred, but had somehow slipped to the side 
and the lightning spear had penetrate only the thing's body. 
    "Stupid villain, you're supposed to stay dead!" Jared shouted out 
the only attack phrase which came immediately to mind. 
    "DIVINE RETRIBUTION!!!" 

    Jared rubbed his eyes and sat up, knowing as he did so that that 
was the last stop. He'd pulled the very last trick he'd had available 
in that fight, it had been sufficient, but next time the dark angels 
would be prepared for it. 
    He might as well start calling them demons, that was what a fallen 
angel was. 
    It suddenly occurred to him that he had a greater resource than 
ever existed before in an Eva universe. He had the Knight Sabers, and 
the Laser Angels, people he could, did and *had* trusted with his life 
and more. Trust and loyalty were almost non-existent things in a 
standard Eva timeline, and if they were there they were undeserved - 
like trust given to Gendo, for instance, was always withdrawn just a 
little too late to do the poor, lamented soul who gave it any good. 
    Except in this case. 
    Except in this case... 
    Trust was a resource unequaled, and for the first time in this 
unholy series it *wasn't* being given to the wrong cause. He could use 
that. There were things which could be done. 
    Jared looked over at the other hospital bed, containing Yui. 
    In order to pilot his Eva and regenerate its head, he'd had to go 
through the whole 400% synchronization, turn-myself-to-goo, mode. It 
really had been that desperate, and while he was doing it he felt he 
might as well do what was necessary to have Yui's trapped soul released 
with him. Though there had only been one body's worth of briny fluid 
the Eva itself was almost totally human in its makeup, and it hadn't 
been a very big deal to have it produce the necessary surplus to 
generate the extra human form. 
    Now a further kink in Gendo's plans. Would he dare destroy the 
world with Yui alive in it? Never mind if he did, or if others were 
willing, any departure from the regular plot was a score in his book. 
    All they'd have to do now was keep a guard on her and wait for 
Gendo to show up. 

    Ritsuko stared at the fluid filled cryo chamber where the pieces 
torn from Unit One were held, feeling a strange sort of peace. It was 
like she was defusing a bomb that'd been set by her mother, instead of 
adding to the timing mechanism like she'd spent most of her adult life 
doing. 
    Gendo had been wrong, SEELE was wrong. But it looked as if they 
might actually live through this, and Ritsuko was discovering that she 
liked the idea. 
    Misato stood by her side apprehensively as the crews worked. "Are 
we sure about this?" She asked, having to deal with alot in the past 
three days and not feeling any better from some of the things she'd 
learned - many of which Ritsuko had shown her. Discovering Fuyutsuki 
bleeding on the floor from a gunshot wound from when he'd been chasing 
the commander hadn't helped anyone's peace of mind. Gendo was still out 
there somewhere. 
    Ritsuko nodded, aware of the nature of her friend's private 
thoughts. "There's no way the men who control the UN would grant us the 
additional funding to build another Knight, especially not with their 
man no longer in control here, and from Jared's last fight it is 
obvious we need the extra firepower." 
    Misato was still nervous about what her friend had said about 
secret organizations. It didn't help her peace of mind any to know how 
much her father had been involved in them, either. "Still, won't they 
give us the funding when we get a new controller?" 
    Ritsuko shook her head, amazed by her friend's innocence. "Anyone 
they send to us would be just as bad as Gendo. They'll have their own 
private agendas and all sorts of secret plots. We've got to get as much 
accomplished as we can before that happens, so we can have the 
resources to do our jobs right." 
    Misato put her behind on the railing and sat on it, looking at her 
friend. "Still, after that last fight, Thunder Knight's got a new 
crystal, and the rest of the Dark Angel was fed to our remaining Muscle 
Knight. Surely that ought to help." 
    "Some, surely," Ritsuko agreed. "But Rei hasn't the same pilot 
ability as Jared has demonstrated, nor has the newly dubbed Frost 
Knight absorbed the S2 organs fully. It will be a close match between 
the two of them and the next Dark Angel if it comes as prepared as 
Jared warns us it might be. We've got Rei practicing, but I doubt it 
will be enough. She simply doesn't believe to the same extent he does." 
    Misato looked out over the chamber, recalling pale blue, snowflake 
marked crystals that now adorned both of their Knights' chest armor. 
"So now this." She sighed. 
    Ritsuko hadn't taken her eyes off of the assembly this whole time. 
The severed bits of Unit One had been suspended in their proper order, 
leaving a complete Eva unit without a chest. She'd gone down personally 
into the bowels of the Geofront, selecting from their failed Eva 
prototypes enough parts to make this work. It was surprising how few of 
them they'd needed, the basic framework of an Eva was its flesh grown 
over a chassis of artificial skull, spine, shoulders and arms. Half of 
that framework had been available to them here in these severed parts, 
the rest being assembled now, hooked in as it was being constructed 
down below them. It was only a matter of hours before the technical 
crew had completed their work and they could begin growing the Eva's 
flesh across the newly installed spine and shoulders. Then they would 
add armor spares from stock supplies they kept that Unit One could no 
longer use. 
    By the end of the week they'd have another Muscle Knight. 
    "How are the new weapons coming?" Ritsuko broke their thought 
filled silence. 
    Misato shrugged. "Getting swords that big isn't easy. We're having 
some progress with the shields, melting and reforming spare armor 
plates that Unit One can't use anymore. We were thinking of facing them 
with a layer of refractive ceramics, but we're not sure..." 
    "I'd go ahead and do it." Doctor Akagi spared a speculative and 
more open glance to her friend. "The ceramics wouldn't stop physical 
blows. But they're great insulation against fire, cold, or similar 
energy attacks, which we seem to be facing in these battles." 
    Misato nodded. "And we'd have the armor base behind them to deal 
with crushing attacks. I'll go ahead and give the order. I'd scrap the 
D type equipment in order to get a supply of temperature resistant 
metal, but..." 
    "But who knows when we might need it." Her old friend finished for 
her. 
    Misato grew silent for a while, then asked. "Who are we going to 
get to pilot it?" 
    Ritsuko saw her friend examining the new Eva, and pursed her lips 
in a slight smile. "Well, Yui developed them. I was thinking of asking 
her opinion." Her eyes twinkled. "In part because it's something my 
mother would never do." 
    Misato just nodded. 
    Ritsuko was like a fallen woman who had seen redemption possible 
for the first time: Scarred and bruised, but determined not to miss 
this chance. 

    The floating monoliths continued to look down over the table as the 
defacto rulers of the world met once again in their secret, holographic 
conference. The fact that they WERE the rulers of the world would have 
surprised anyone who hadn't traced back all of the strings and puppets 
they used to hide their real power. But of course, anyone who got that 
curious had an interesting tendency to wind up dead, or discredited, or 
both. 
    "We'll have to replace Ikari," said Keele in his customary growl. 
    "We could put Fuyutsuki in charge," Number Four suggested. 
    "Unlikely to go along with the fullness of our plan." Keele 
grumbled. "We need someone with fewer morals, and who has an agenda we 
can work with." 
    "I believe that I have just the candidate," said Number Six. A 
holographic statuette appeared over the surface of the table. "He is 
sufficiently amoral, but also a posturing clown prone to elaborate 
schemes that fail to pan out. Old, but not dead yet. And sufficiently 
greedy and hungry for a vision that he can be... persuaded." 
    "He... might do." Keele allowed. "Bring certain facts about his 
'special' concerns to his attention and he would do most anything to 
obtain proximity to the pilot of Unit One. Bring in Mr. Kaji to help 
monitor him, and keep him in the dark about the full result of our 
plans. This man would sell out nearly anyone. What of the monitor and 
control on the Pilot of Unit 01?" 
    The monolith marked '08' replied with a sycophantish murmur. "We 
had Mr. Kaji do our research into this genre for us, and had his 
opinion borne out by experts. They concur that the anime superhero 
Rokubungi's son fancies himself to be could be manipulated quite easily 
if we were to employ a love triangle - two or more women fighting over 
him, though we would obviously want to control the women involved." 
    Number Seven assimilated this and spoke a conclusion. "The absolute 
minimum is one brash and overbearing, the other gentle and sweet." 
    Keele would not even permit himself to grin at number seven's slip, 
admitting that he watched anime. Staring coldly straight ahead, Keele 
ordered. "Asuka Langley Soryu will be suitable for the first role. See 
that she is placed in a way that will be compromising, then let their 
relationship deteriorate." 
    Number Two replied. "That would bat him quite effectively into the 
embrace of our second love interest, whoever we choose for that to be." 
    Number Three spoke this time, his voice garbled slightly. "The 
Control is being built. We have found robotics and cybernetics experts 
sufficient to do the deed. The parameters have been downloaded." 
    Number Five smiled, though that couldn't be seen, only heard 
through the monolith. "We have the knowledge, we have the 
technology..." 
    "Enough, Number Five. We have no need to join this pilot in his 
delusional fantasies, and you've got the quote wrong anyway." Keele 
remembered the series. He hadn't been impressed with it then, either. 
    "The plan to exchange Rei and Unit Zero to Germany with Asuka and 
HER unit will tie in nicely. We should be able to introduce the Control 
to Asuka and further confuse things with the new Commander coming on 
board." 

    In Switzerland, Number Four stepped back from his terminal. He 
didn't notice the monofilament slip around his neck briefly. Then go 
taut. 
    "Ick." Meg stepped back and flicked blood off her fingers, letting 
the wire garrote slip soundlessly back into its container, a brief 
spurt of red blood as the tool cleaned itself on the way in. She took 
out a lacy handkerchief and began to clean her hands as the banker's 
head lolled sickening to the side in a way that wasn't possible had the 
organ been fully connected to its base. "We have *got* to find a way to 
do things less messily." 
    Lou nodded from her place in the doorjamb. "True, but try as I 
might I couldn't find a way to get the heavy weapons past his security 
scanners. Too high an energy signature. It would have warned him." 
    "You got the cameras and sound bugs okay." 
    "They weren't a big deal. He didn't want his own comings and goings 
known, so the security web wasn't as solid. But he didn't skimp on the 
weapon detectors." 
    "Nene could have done it." Meg slipped the hankie into a plastic 
baggie before returning it to her pocket. No need to get her clothes 
messy. 
    Lou frowned at the reminder, then shrugged. "Maybe... no, make that 
probably. She's a whiz, I won't deny it. But our team does alright, Nam 
especially." She loaded the contents of a computer disk into the master 
control circuitry that lay exposed in this nerve center, then retrieved 
her disk and pocketed it. 
    Meg fished a small charge out of her clothes and dropped it after 
flicking its switch. The small capsule landed on the body and began to 
emit acrid smoke, which both ladies stayed well clear from on their way 
out of the room. As the door sealed behind them the body, the chair, 
and organics all the way from the wood of the furnishings to the blood 
and the carpet all began to dissolve. In less than five hours the gas 
would mature and transform into a cloud bomb, destroying all the rest 
of the equipment and computer nodes. 
    It was crude, but with luck only the men they were hunting would 
have an idea that this place deep below the world's largest banking 
center even existed. It would limit their ability to employ resources 
to look into this when the matter got this close to their own plots. 
Their own intense secrecy would limit their ability to look into it 
properly for fear of their plans being made known, even to trusted 
servants. 
    They only trusted their servants so much, and this went beyond 
that. There was still a risk. If the Laser Angels panicked their 
targets early there'd be no telling *what* they'd do. Probably the old 
men would react with everything they had in an attempt to hunt the 
girls into extinction before they could finish them off. 
    But Jared needed them to kill the members of SEELE, and that was 
what they'd do. The girls guarded each other's backs as they left, 
slipping past bank guards using their eyes hypnotic effects to cause 
the guards to forget they'd even passed. Ten minutes after they were 
out a virus program designed by Nam released control of the security 
computers, having ensured they recorded nothing, then promptly erased 
all traces of itself, concluding a series of measures that only an 
expert would be even able to tell as a security gap. The larger program 
they'd downloaded into the central command computers directly now began 
to go slowly and deliberately about its work. 
    Lou shook out her hair. "Hmm, now that's done, what's say we get us 
some Swiss Chocolate before we hook up with Sylvie and Nam, then we can 
see if Anri managed to trace the next set of connections." 
    "Ick." Meg made a face. "I don't feel like eating. And, if we can't 
find a cleaner way then *you're* doing the next one. We'll take turns." 
    "Me??" Lou held a hand innocently to her chest. Seeing Meg nod 
seriously, all Lou could reply was to make a face and groan. 
    "Ick." 

    "Sylia!" Nene cam bounding in, wearing her trademark pink pajamas 
with little ruffles at each sleeve and hem. 
    Linna looked up just long enough to put another cup on the table 
and continued to pour hot cocoa for everyone. Across the table from 
her, Priss yawned loudly, while Sylia turned from the eggs she was 
preparing. Sylia still wore her nightgown while Linna was still in 
sweats and Priss in the halter and shorts she normally slept in. 
Somehow they never had gotten down the skill of bathing and changing to 
regular clothes before breakfast. 
    "Yes, what is it, Nene?" 
    The redhaired computer hacker bounced into her seat and bit into a 
piece of toast. "It is about our new mainframe. I spent almost all of 
last week getting it installed and I was just about to start 
downloading files into it this morning." The toast went down and was 
followed by orange juice. Sylia brought a plate of eggs to the table 
and Priss dug in, listening while Linna brought more plates and Nene 
went on talking. The redhead cleared her mouth and swallowed. "Only I 
just logged on to see someone had hacked through our security system 
and left a ton of files." 
    "They *left* files?" Linna emphasized, sitting down with the rest 
to their breakfast. "I thought hackers normally broke through and stole 
them, not left things behind." 
    "Well, viruses maybe." Nene admitted. "But I already checked and 
this wasn't that. It was all left there for us to find, like somebody 
sending messages to us or something." 
    "How did they get in, Nene?" Sylia asked, while watching Priss put 
away the food as fast as their beloved computer hacker. 
    Nene devoured an egg before responding with flecks of food at the 
side of her lips. "Hardwired access codes, built into the machinery. I 
guess I'll have to burn it out. Oh darn. That'll take all afternoon!" 
    "If they had hardwired codes they had access to the company that 
makes the CPU. If we want security, we'll have to build our own 
mainframes from scratch. That means time. We might as well leave them 
this mainframe with dummy files for our mysterious intruders to amuse 
themselves on. What did they leave?" 
    "Cybernetics info, it looked like." Nene concluded, grabbing 
another piece of toast. "It was addressed to a certain someone in the 
Marduke Institute, but I checked our logs and that person doesn't 
exist!" 
    Linna motioned for her friend to wipe her mouth, adding to their 
leader. "This is bad. It looks like we've gotten involved in something 
we don't know anything about." 
    "I wouldn't say that." Priss sat up straight and shrugged, 
examining their ceiling. Then she shot a playful glance to the rest and 
stuck her tongue out, dropping the cool routine. "Its all pretty clear 
what happened. Stuff like this used to happen in the underworld all the 
time, and you hear about it through the gangs. It's simple. We picked 
up someone else's turf doing this takeover, and someone who doesn't 
know that it's changed hands is still trying to conduct business." 
    Sylia gave a grave nod. 
    Nene blinked, pausing in mid-devour of a helpless piece of fruit. 
"But this whole thing is just a takeover of an institute that doesn't 
exist, right?" 
    Linna had her mouth too full of soup to answer. 
    Sylia smiled. "Yes and no. It existed as for reputation, not in 
facilities. Now it exists in both, and someone's obviously decided we 
can do a favor for them, not knowing about our loyalties. Which I 
suspect are quite different from what Gendo presented this agency as." 
    Now that her mouth was clear, Linna responded. "Jay-chan's told us 
about the guy we took this from, right? Didn't he say that he was all 
mixed up in dark and crazy schemes? I bet this is one of them." 
    Priss popped a donut and nodded her agreement. 
    "We'll know more when we examine the data." Sylia lifted a cup of 
hot chocolate to her lips and took a drink. 

    "Listen to this..." read a woman on the train Ritsuko sat next to 
after she'd boarded at the last stop. The woman was reading some 
popular trash to her friend and Ritsuko would ordinarily have ignored 
her, but the quote came through loud and clear. "...Of course I have to 
list myself among the people I hate most. I've destroyed everything I 
ever longed to have and before I'm through I'll have destroyed the 
rest, too. Who knows what I'll miss out of this world? Probably 
nothing, but then I never expected to miss Yui like I do. I certainly 
never missed any of the others I killed, and I laugh at the prospect of 
missing Ritsuko after she's dead. Who knows that someday I might 
discover something I actually cared for? But probably not." 
    Ritsuko sat there like stone as she listened in. 
    The two women giggled. "Is this insane or what?" The reader asked. 
    Her friend made some comment. "It goes in with what I was hearing 
Dr. Stingray of the Marduke Institute say on television, something 
along the lines of the psychopath going all nuts and publishing this in 
the secret hope that someone would stop him." 
    "I hope it works!" 
    "I think it did. Hadn't you heard he's been removed from his 
position as head of NERV?" The friend replied, speaking of items on the 
news a few days ago. 
    The innocent woman on the train flipped back a few pages, eager to 
share with her friend. "Here's another good quote; In order to betray 
the maximum number of people at once, you have to have the greatest 
power. This can be done by infiltrating any number of secret 
organizations that exist to grant power and control, but the strongest 
of these is called SEELE. The members of which are..." 
    Ritsuko's hair practically turned white as she listened to the 
names being listed. She resolved to get her own copy of that book. 

    Jared held a sample drawing book open before him, Rei kneeling 
close by his side as they discussed this on their floor. "You see?" He 
said, pointing to the array of faces the drawing book enclosed, each 
bearing different looks upon their simple features. "These are a sample 
list of facial expressions, used here to provide examples teaching how 
to draw them, but a useful list for our purposes as well. You'll note 
that each one has a name that is an emotion attached to it. Here we 
have Happy, Worried, Nauseated... Let me show you a connection. They're 
so named because to those observing them they convey clear meaning. 
That is the purpose of facial expressions, they are non spoken 
communication. A person may look upon another and see with a glance a 
general statement of that other's well being by the positioning of the 
muscles of their face." He flipped a page, then pointed. "Now you don't 
use this one as much as you used to, but *this* is what your former 
expression said." 
    "Disapproval? I don't understand." Rei regarded him. 
    Jared ticked points off on his fingers. "Turning your back to those 
who are addressing you, refusing to acknowledge others... The list 
could go on but your gestures, mannerisms and expression all built a 
barrier against approach by others. You must continue to change that if 
you are to completely best the loneliness that fills you. Sending out 
signals that tell others to avoid you is not how you want to encourage 
friends. Friends are below family in terms of potential emotive reward. 
Siblings and birth family are slightly less than the family you 
eventually create yourself, ie, spouse and offspring. But a spouse is 
drawn from your general pool of friends. The greater your circle of 
friends, the wider your choice of spouse prospects will be. None of 
this matters in the short term because you're too young to get married 
yet, but in the long term it will be vital. Right now you and I are in 
a development stage, where we build up our resource of friends, and 
practice and refine our social skills for the eventual task of 
marrying, with all of its accompanying rewards. For now let's focus on 
a set of goals to get our skills and resources developed, because when 
we switch to a stage where we are to harvest our results it will be 
much too late to do our any of that. That's what the stage we are in 
now is for, and if we skip it it will be to our grief and pain later." 
    Rei sat back on her haunches. "What are the rewards of marrying?" 
    "Couldn't tell ya." He shook his head. "However, by all reports 
they can be pretty magnificent, or they can be hell depending on how 
badly those involved screw up. I think it to be a fair guess that 
reward is proportional to the sustained effort of both parties 
involved. If carefully cultivated, I'm sure that like love or with 
plants the return harvest will be great. On the other hand, if 
neglected, I'm sure it paints an ugly picture." 
    Rei essayed a small grin. "You switched metaphors, from farming to 
painting." 
    "It made my point clear, didn't it?" 
    She considered this and had to admit that it was true. 
    "If it makes you feel better, a neglected farm means a failed 
harvest. A failed harvest leads to want of many types, from hunger to 
poverty to disease and so on. Such scenes of want and deprivation were 
once a favorite subject of certain painters, but they made ugly 
pictures." 
    The half angel nodded more eagerly. "I see. You were summarizing." 
    "Uh huh." He bent back to the drawing book, folding it up and 
handing it to Rei. "Now I want you to practice those expressions in a 
mirror until you have them right. They shouldn't be exactly copied as 
personalization and variation are not only inevitable but desired, but 
you really ought to capture the spirit of making them." 
    Rei sucked in her lower lip and bowed, accepting the book. 
"Understood." 
    Misato chose that moment to waltz into the living area, dumping a 
load of groceries unceremoniously on a couch. "Hey, you two, wait up a 
second. I've got some news to tell ya." 
    Both kids watched as their guardian and roommate crossed over to 
the one wall and checked a date on the swimsuit calender. Pivoting to 
face them, she said. "I've got some bad news: Word has come down from 
the UN that we've got to trade one of our Elemental Knights for one of 
the Muscle Knights elsewhere in the world. We'll be giving up Rei and 
her Frost Knight in exchange for the Muscle Knight and pilot from 
Germany. We'll also be getting a new commander at the same time." 
    "Who will it be?" 
    Misato looked away, out the window. "He's the former commander's 
brother." She sighed. "He changed his name to Ikari after his wife 
divorced him when their only child was stillborn. He lost control, 
drinking and gambling their livelihood away, so she left him." 
    "He does not sound like an improvement over the former commander 
Ikari." Rei said softly. "Will he be?" 
    "I don't know." Misato said honestly. "But there's not much we can 
do to resist the appointment. After the scandal with Gendo, NERV's 
reputation as an organization dropped into the toilet. Why they elected 
someone so close to the old commander I don't know, but we don't have 
any favors we can call in to put a stop to it." The captain stood 
taller and let her arms uncross, dropping them to her sides as she 
addressed the children. "He arrives from Old Tokyo in ten days. That's 
more than sufficient time to get our own preparations for the change 
underway." 
    "This sounds like a plot to change figureheads." Jared objected. "I 
don't like it." 
    "Yeah, but we don't have much choice." Misato sighed and shook her 
head, casting a longing glance toward the kitchen. It was a hopeless 
gesture, there hadn't been a beer in the place since they moved in. 
Something about all the stress recently had caused Misato to start 
vomiting every time that she tasted one. 
    Jared had a airhypo injector and wasn't saying a *word* about it. 
Though in the spirit of good faith and sportsmanship he'd done more 
than his share of cleaning up the messes that resulted when the special 
drug in her system caused her to vomit at the taste of alcohol. 

    "It's a program not unlike the Sexaroid modifications, though more 
blunt and primitive about it. Not only that, this is meant to be 
employed on a teenager instead of an unborn child." Sylia took a sip 
from a cool glass of juice. "I find it disturbing that anyone would 
even think things like this up, much less try and implement them." 
    Priss was shaking her head. "Jared was right." She took a bite of 
squid as they all shared their findings over lunch. "Some people on 
this world are *sick!*" 
    Nene giggled. "Jay-chan would say that just watching you eat 
squid." 
    Priss gave her a puzzled look as she sucked a mouthful of tentacles 
into her mouth. 
    Linna began laughing. "You know Nene, I think we all might do to 
try more American style food, like he eats. What do you think?" 
    The perky redhead licked her chops eagerly. "Mmm! You mean like 
sno-cones and milkshakes? I can't WAIT!" She sculpted her hands down 
across her smooth and slender sides, posing seductively, eyes a 
twinkle. Then she broke it up with a giggle and grabbed a handful of 
pocky sticks. 
    "Those are for snacks, Nene." Linna corrected her. 
    The redhaired one shook her head negatively around a mouthful of 
chocolate. Once she swallowed, she said. "As far as *I'm* concerned, 
chocolate is for *always!* Mmm! Hey, do you think we can order out for 
a chocolate cake?" 
    "We should probably order pizza this evening." Sylia rejoined this 
conversation. "I agree with the idea. We'd all best start getting used 
to American style cooking. It wouldn't harm our prospects any to learn 
to prepare it, either. But save that for this evening. Nene, have you 
finished decoding their read me files?" 
    "Mm Hmm!" Said files were produced and handed around the table. 
Priss got a hot squid and burned her fingers, dropping it on them, but 
promptly reclaimed the morsel and held it between her teeth as she 
started to read the grease-stained sheets. 
    "This is heavy stuff!" Linna declared, reading the first page. 
Lunch was ignored as they absorbed enough of the information so they 
knew what was going on, then papers were lowered and Sylia removed the 
headset that she'd been wearing this whole time. 
    Linna shook her head sadly. "No wonder Jared called for help on 
this assignment. If people are willing to give this kind of order, 
they've got some seriously messed up freaks in charge around here." 
    Priss was staring at her squid-stained sheets. "Let me get this 
straight. They want us to kidnap a young girl, brainwash her with drugs 
and computers, insert this cyberware control crap into her body and 
send her off to seduce Jay-chan?" 
    Linna frowned. 
    "That appears to be the size of it." Sylia admitted. 
    "I won't do it!" Linna and Priss declared in unison. 
    Nene yawned, dipped one of her papers in sauce, and began dribbling 
patterns on her rice with it. "That's obvious. I didn't think we were 
going along with whatever it was they asked." 
    The outraged Knight Sabers quieted at the obviousness of Nene's 
remark. Sylia smiled at the help. "We've only intercepted their plans. 
Now we get to decide what we're going to do about them." 
    "How we're going to foil them, you mean." Linna said. 
    The redheaded girl giggled, then shot a wicked grin to the rest. "I 
dunno. Since these are the prime bad guys, with access to enough 
technology to hack our security and give us this order, not to mention 
*having* the power to do the project. Maybe we should let them think we 
are going along just so they don't send the same order elsewhere." She 
fluffed out her hair and batted her eyes. "I volunteer. We'll just skip 
all of the drugs and cyberware. I'll have to act it out." 
    There was silence at the table for long moments. 
    Linna pursed her lips. "Shouldn't we get to draw straws or 
something?" 

    Ritsuko entered the room, throwing her jacket on the floor and 
pulling off her socks to toss about randomly. Jared hid a wince, the 
two 'mature women' had somehow abdicated all of the responsibility for 
cleaning up this place to him, and he doubted either was aware they'd 
even done it. 
    Dropping her purse in a chair, Ritsuko opened a bag and took out a 
pair of folded uniforms. Tossing one each to Rei and Jared, she said. 
"These are our new third generation plugsuits, designed and provided 
for us by the Marduke Institute. They provide excellent protection at a 
low mass penalty, are multi-environment capable, and a ton of other 
things you'll learn about in training. They're a marvel, even their 
interface assistance capabilities are a hefty 15% above the original 
plugsuit design." Ritsuko pulled out of her bag another set of 
cellophane suit packages, tossing one to each child. "You'll wear them 
with these. They're a new uniform suit jacket, utility belt, and boots, 
all color coordinated with your Knights." The doctor gave forth a real 
smile, focusing her attention toward Jared. "I hope these meet with 
your approval. I doubt there's a military on Earth that's quite so well 
dressed." 
    Jared tossed her back a sly and cocky grin. "That makes us the 
best." 
    The redhaired pilot opened both his packages and removed a blue 
jumpsuit that was sleeker and more fashionably tasteful than either of 
the previous designs. Immediately he recognized Linna's handiwork 
adding a softer edge to Sylia's technical genius. The belt, half-cloak 
style jacket and boots were all done in colors like the Thunder Knight, 
white spiced up with every color of the rainbow as tasteful decoration. 
In all it bore a good resemblance to the officer's dress uniform aboard 
the starship Nadesico. 
    "They're beautiful." He said simply. 
    Rei had already stripped and was activating the vacuum seal of her 
plugsuit. The icy white fabric sucked close to her skin, yet managed to 
be more modest than earlier designs, being somewhat thicker in 
important areas. She removed her pale blue uniform cloak from its 
package and fastened it on, going for her belt next. 
    "Well, Jared? Aren't you going to try yours on?" It was Rei who'd 
asked him. 
    He blushed. "Could you do me a favor? Next time you want to change 
can you do it in privacy? I'm not all that keen on being exposed to 
sights that are tempting, especially if they're my own sister." 
    She blinked at him in total incomprehension. 
    He snagged his uniform and left the room, saying. "Ritsuko, could 
you *please* tell Rei why it isn't nice for boys to see girls 
unclothed? It's about time someone explained all about modesty to her." 
    Ritsuko studied the puzzled Rei who was staring after him 
incomprehendingly. She shook her head and sighed. "Well Rei, it *is* 
about the time you got the birds and the bees lecture. Too bad Misato 
isn't here, she'd enjoy relaying this." 
    The Captain of NERV's security popped her head into the room. "Did 
somebody call my name?" 

    The labyrinth of NERV was understood by practically no one. There 
were parts which had not seen a living soul since their creation, and 
others that were so secret even the men who'd worked on them had 
mysteriously vanished. 
    The maze of air ducts and tunnels was mystifying enough, but that 
was nothing when compared to those parts that had been deliberately 
concealed. There had been so many lies and layers of deception 
interwoven in various parts that even they who thought they knew them 
best only knew a little. 
    The man who knew them all was Gendo. 
    It was one of those things an obsessive meglomaniac devoted every 
attention on detail to. Knowing one's hiding holes could not be 
delegated, and as the weaver of most of those lies that kept them 
hidden, he knew the truth better than anyone. It also allowed him 
unrestricted access to practically every part of the Geofront, secure 
or not, in spite of the joke that NERV called their internal security. 
    Probably the best joke of all, Gendo pondered, was that his private 
command quarters had just vanished from the internal layout, sealed off 
and no longer even locatable where it had been. There were enough 
system and subsystems and things no one truly understood, that the 
machinery to move rooms about had gone unnoticed, and would evade even 
a concerted search looking for such a mechanism. 
    Gendo was not many things, but as a plotter he excelled above all. 
    And now he heard that his brother was being drafted in to take his 
place. "Interesting. I sense Keele's doing here." Gendo said over 
steepled hands - a habit so ingrained by now he didn't even consider 
abandoning it, in spite of the fact that no one would likely ever see 
it again and live. 
    A direct tie-in to the MAGI super intelligent computers gave him 
access to all of the information in NERV's considerable files. It 
wasn't enough, though. Only days ago he'd had access to some of the 
most brilliant minds on the planet, people who were able and willing to 
answer his questions, solve his problems, even run his errands for him. 
It was intolerable to be so cut off from the true reins of power. 
    Releasing his pose, the genocidal madman drummed all his fingers 
upon his desk, once, very deliberately. 
    On the viewscreen before him was a feed in from the NERV infirmery, 
showing Yui dressed up in a hospital gown being monitored by equipment. 
Equipment showed that someday soon she would wake up from her coma. 
    "Soon, Yui. Very soon now. My brother is an easy man to manipulate. 
Keele thinks he can do a better job than I. We shall see." The 
revoltingly evil man whispered to himself.