Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ In the Dark Room ❯ Flash ( Chapter 8 )

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

 

 

In the Dark Room: Flash

 

By Midnight_Cereal

 

 

“Shinji, pay attention,” Maya instructed over the com-link. “I briefed you on the new core data we've installed for you in GINO. We're going to record some basic information -synch rate, psychograph, heart rate, toxicity, VA links- and then we'll run you through some basic exercises.” She stood amongst the seated technicians in the control room and folded her arms. “Roger?”

 

“Roger,” came the response somewhere inside of the patchwork behemoth standing in the sterile white of the test cage.

 

“Sachiko, get him up on the screen.”

 

“Yes ma'am.”

 

To Maya's left the pilot's image appeared on a vid-hud with a faint ping. The new input shook him from a reverie and caused him to look questioningly at Dr. Ibuki through the video link. “Is something wrong, Maya?” he suddenly asked.

 

“Nothing's wrong. I just want to be able to see you since this isn't just another synch test. You can begin the startup sequence. We're ready in here.”

 

Within a minute, Unit-14's optics, a set of narrow binocular slits, glowed with a dull life.

 

“Startup sequence completed,” Sachiko smoothly announced. “VA links nominal. Fusion nominal. Psychograph nominal. Synch rate hold at…seventy-nine percent.”

 

That's already four points higher than with Unit-14's old core data, Maya thought, her mood touched by a small triumph…

 

“Heart rate at seventy-two BPM.”

 

…which was quickly crushed by her kohai's last words.

 

“Shinji, what's wrong?” Maya asked, consciously curbing the sudden anxiety.

 

“I don't know,” he answered, visibly forcing the liquid into his lungs.

 

“Well, what are you feeling right now?”

 

“It's…hard to explain. I can feel the Eva's arms…they're like my own now, like it was with Unit-01. But it's not easy.” He then bashfully cast his eyes downward. “I also have to go to the bathroom.”

 

“Oh…” said Maya. “Um…number one or number two?”

 

He glanced up, looking decidedly ill. “What?”

 

Maya looked apologetic, alarmed by his newly labored breathing.

 

“We have to know, Shinji. This might be a systematic problem inherent with the new core data.”

 

“Oh. Its aaaAAUUGGHHH…” He trailed off with an agonized gasp.

 

“Sever the connection and eject the plug,” Maya immediately ordered.

 

Stay calm.

 

“Severing connection.” Sachiko's fingers flew over the console. Why? The synch-disconnect command was now one switch for instances exactly like this...

 

“Lieutenant!”

 

Sachiko jumped at Maya's unusually sharp tone. “I-I'm sorry!” She zeroed in on the switch, right under her damned nose.

 

She flicked it.

 

Shinji responded with a gurgling shriek and convulsions that quickly grew in violence and frequency. Sachiko's eyes became large.

 

“The signal's not being received!” The green tech warned.

 

“Heart rate at ninety-three BPM,” an operator behind Maya informed.

 

Stay calm, please.

 

Maya's panic grew into a lump in her rolling stomach as she risked a look at the vid-hud. His back was arched now from some nameless torture. His fingers curled like talons and when his face was visible, the whites of his eyes stared back…

 

The doctor tore her own eyes away from the horrible sight and shot to his status screen. Everything was within tolerable limits.

 

Please don't break here, not in front of Sachiko…

 

“Try again, Sachiko. Manually this time, from module 303.” It wouldn't work, but she needed to keep them calm, busy while she thought of a way to save the young man. The equipment, all of it, was performing optimally.

 

He's trying to scream.

 

“Heart rate is a hundred-thirteen!”

 

They had run a systems check on GINO before the test began. They had run simulations with a virtual pilot, weeks before Shinji had stepped into the plug and had been screwed into the back of the giant machine.

 

No. Don't look at the machinery; look at what it's doing to him. What are his symptoms? He was having trouble moving the limbs. He looked ill. He was ill. Increased heart rate. He was having trouble breathing…oh!

 

“Sachiko! Forget about severing the connection! Drain the plug!”

 

“Right! Ejecting plug-”

 

“NO!” Maya finally screamed, the woman's poor listening skills vaporizing the last vestiges of patience. “Just drain the plug! An emergency drain out of the back of the neck!”

 

Her protégé's fingers rapidly punched the plastic keyboard. Maya dared to look at the feed into Shinji's entry plug, and she began to feel relief as the orange cloudy liquid sank below view, sloshing against the virtual lens. His wet hair clung to his slick forehead in thick brown clumps. Mercifully, he had stopped convulsing.

 

He had stopped moving all together, in fact.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

“It wasn't me, Asuka. I wouldn't…not to Shinji.”

 

“Not unless you had to.”

 

If there was a suitable retort to Asuka's simple, obvious answer, Mariko did not utter it. Even if she did, Asuka would not hear of it. So for yet another set of minutes, they sat on opposite sides of Shinji's prone and unconscious form, the only sound in his Nerv infirmary suite being the young man's respirator. As it fed him enriched oxygen, they sat.

 

Halfway to Mimi's Café, Asuka's phone rang, and if the looks Yukie and Aki had on their faces mirrored her own when Maya had told her the news, she must've appeared horrified. And she was. Since Asuka had arrived at Nerv an hour ago, a soaking panicked wreck, Shinji had not moved.

 

“I believe you, if you say you wouldn't do those things to him, that you like him,” Asuka finally said, her blue eyes never leaving the peaceful face of her long-time partner. “I think that you like him the way you liked everyone in that photo album; that girl with the glasses-”

 

“No, Asuka.”

 

Asuka looked at Mariko. “Or that man with the blue dress shirt and black tie, the one that was missing an ear-”

 

“No. No.”

 

“The woman with the broken neck-”

 

“Maya said it was something with the LCL purity! How would I even know how to-”

 

“You…you have the nerve to sound offended?” Asuka interrupted with a halting unsteady breath and increasing decibel level. “Mariko…you are easily the SICKEST little bitch I've ever met.”

 

“You'll see,” Mariko informed the other girl with a voice simultaneously hushed and determined. “Maya's going to tell you what happened, that I didn't do it. I didn't do anything wrong, okay? I promised myself I wasn't going to hurt anyone else. It's happening this time.”

 

“I'm just wondering, how many times have you told yourself that? Just like that? How many times?” Asuka shut her mouth, jaw muscles bulging an instant later. She glared at the sullen child across Shinji's prone form. Her jaw unclenched as she said, “I'm not going to let you do to us what you did to everyone else.”

 

In an instant, the guilt creasing Mariko's brow dissolved. “And I'm not letting you turn me in,” she promised in return, a hint of steel now creeping into her tone. “What did I say before? I plan to live as I see fit.” She paused as if thinking of something. “Nothing's going to change what I've done, not how nice I am or how many people I'll make happy. But I can live better than that. That's all I can do.”

 

“What…asshole did you pull that out of? God, you sound like you've been talking to Shinji!” said Asuka, composure all but dissolved and now making now attempt to control her noise level. “That is not all you can do! You can do a fuck load of things, you psycho, and you can start by getting the hell out of my life!”

 

“How long have you been standing there?”

 

Mariko was addressing someone at the door, and Asuka also snapped to an appalled Maya frozen at the entrance.

 

“I-I just got here.” Dr. Ibuki shut her mouth and approached the girls, one brooding in a simmering anger, the other newly imbued with a jarring calm. “What were you two fighting about?”

 

“It's not important. Not right now.”

 

“I'll be the judge of that, Asuka. I know that you're upset about Shinji, but he'll be fine. Biting each other's heads off won't help him.”

 

“Maya, what happened? How did this happen?” Mariko inquired while eyeing the Second Child. Dr. Ibuki inhaled deeply.

 

“After the startup sequence completed, the LCL purification subsystem began to malfunction. Usually, LCL has a particle contamination ratio of about three parts per million. The subsystem couldn't monitor the upper toxicity limit-”

 

“So the LCL began to turn into poison,” Asuka rightly concluded. She inwardly bristled at the righteous vindication painted on Mariko's face. “Why didn't you just shut it off like we always do when things go to hell? Sever the connection?”

 

“Asuka, we tried, that was the first thing we did. The Eva wasn't accepting the signal.”

 

“Why the hell not?”

 

Maya gave a tired sigh. “We don't know yet. Sachiko-”

 

“You're supposed to know, dammit!” the German yelled as she began rising from her stool. “How could you mess this up? Why did you even let him get in that shit heap unless you knew this core rewrite wasn't going to turn his brain into jelly?”

 

By now the doctor was shaking her head, visibly distressed. “We did simulations, Asuka. We did everything, everything by the book. You've been doing this for three years now. You know better than anyone else that these things happen here-”

 

“And that would be good enough for you, wouldn't it?” Asuka questioned.

 

Maya was incredulous. “What did you just say?”

 

“Oh, now you're deaf? Unbelievable. And we're supposed to trust you? You've been here longer than almost anyone I know, and you're so brain-fucked that you can't even do your job-”

 

“I KNOW HOW TO DO MY JOB!”

 

Asuka sat back down.

 

Shinji's respirator performed its duty with a steady drawn-out hiss, once, three times, even times.

 

“Wow. He's really unconscious.”

 

Maya looked at Mariko. Asuka looked at Mariko. Maya and Asuka looked at each other. And then suddenly their nervous laughter bounced off the white walls.

 

So easily. Mariko knew exactly what to say, had broken the tension that had pulled everyone one of their nerves taught so easily. It was a small thing, certainly. But now, for some reason, the germ of doubt had been spawned, and the red head couldn't help but wonder if the other teenager was telling the truth. About changing… about getting better….

 

“Asuka…” Maya managed after the spontaneous sound had ground to a halt, “I'm…sorry. I'm not so out of it that I don't realize you care about him.”

 

Weighing suitable responses, the Second Child settled on ever-reliable feigned outrage. “Just tell everyone, Maya. I'm sure there are a few nurses that don't know I'm fond of this idiot.”

 

“Oh, they know,” Maya teased. “I'll tell you exactly what happened during the accident as soon as I know…in fact, why don't I tell you when we talk later this week? We'll probably know by then.”

 

Mariko was smiling. “What're you two gonna talk about?”

 

“Well, we don't know yet.” Maya answered. Asuka looked everywhere except at her new apartment mate. Her new apartment mate looked nowhere except at her.

 

“Can I come?” Mariko innocently asked.

 

Dr. Ibuki apologetically shook her head. “Sorry. We decided it's going to be a private talk. But, we can talk later if you want. Did you want that?”

 

“Yeah. I want that.” Mariko was still looking, still smiling at Asuka. “You're my guardian, after all. Maybe there're some things I should share with you, you know?”

 

“I know what you mean,” Maya agreed as she happily nodded. She looked away from her two charges, around the room in a quick arc, and then at her wrist watch. “It's time to find out what went wrong.” The young doctor once again eyed the teenagers. “It's about time for you two to go home also, don't you think? You have school tomorrow.”

 

“What about-”

 

“Shinji?” Maya finished for Asuka. “I talked to Dr. Marshall. He said Shinji'll be up by tomorrow afternoon. If he's feeling well enough, they might even let him go home after they run some tests.” She began walking to the door. “Goodnight, you two. Who knows, if we get enough rest, maybe we won't yell at each other so much tomorrow.”

 

“I'm staying.” Please say yes, Maya, was the mantra running through Asuka's mind. She couldn't go home tonight, because Mariko was still looking at her.

 

Asuka's declaration turned her guardian around. “Asuka, he'll be okay, really. They're only using the respirator until the sedative wears off. He'll wake up on his own.”

 

“I don't care. I'm not putting anyone out. I even have an extra set of clothes here, already. I want to be here when he wakes up.” The Second Child silently mused how the true meaning of her words would be completely lost on the Project E. Chairperson.

 

Has Mariko blinked yet?

 

“Asuka,” Maya intoned, becoming annoyed once again. “Weren't you just listening? He won't be up until tomorrow aftern-oh forget it.” Dr. Ibuki slapped one hand on her thigh. “I'll ask the nurse to get a cover.”

 

“And a pillow.”

 

“Fine. A cover…and a pillow.” Maya turned slightly to eye Mariko. “Should I get a cover and a pillow for you, too?”

 

At long last Mariko took her eyes off Asuka before saying, “I don't think I'm wanted here. This'll be the first time in a while she gets to be with him without me around, you know?” And in one fluid motion she rose from her chair and lifted her satchel to her shoulder.

 

Maya now stood at the threshold, looking in. “Bye, you two. I'll be pretty busy for the next week, so if I don't see you do me a favor and not kill each other. Okay?”

 

“We won't kill each other,” Mariko assured her. “Goodnight, Maya.”

 

Maya waved, spared Asuka a last glance, and then disappeared.

 

In the space of a second Mariko had replaced their guardian at the threshold. She adjusted her bag strap, looked down at her black shorts and tennis shoes, and rolled up the short sleeve of her navy blue button top. Apparently satisfied with her appearance, she looked into the room and said:

 

“See you at school, Asuka.”

 

Mariko waved, spared Asuka a last glance, and then disappeared.

 

The suite's final conscious visitor looked down at the main occupant.

 

“Thanks for the day off.”

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

Two pots of Kronung Coffee and seventy-one profanities after she had left the three pilots, Maya Ibuki sullenly trudged the familiar corridor to Commander Fuyutski's cavernous office.

 

Maya had poured over the results from the failed trial earlier in the day. No…that was Sunday. It was Monday now, and it had been for I forgot my watch hours. The new core data had worked well enough so that its outputs fed a steady stream of data to Balthazar, and she had waded through the vast, chaotic mosaic of near-indecipherable numbers to determine how and why the LCL toxicity safeguards were ignored.

 

Sachiko was still refining test simulations with a virtual core (and pilot) to see if she could recreate the actual debacle. This was despite her sempai's request to stop the futile research. Maya did not press, knowing had she been in Fujiyama's position, with Dr. Akagi issuing snappish commands, she also would've been compelled to redeem herself.

 

That had always been a great fear of Maya's, of failing the woman that had taken her under her wing. Oddly, the prospect of Ritsuko chewing her ass off was nearly as disparaging as any Angel attack. It wasn't fair to Sachiko, to expect the new woman to be as proficient or swift as she herself had been. To Maya, perilous trial-by-fire scenarios had seemed a daily occurrence when she was the one sitting in Sachiko's chair.

 

The younger woman didn't have the experience. Neither did she have nearly as fine a teacher.

 

Knowing that self-deprecation or lamenting her protégé's shortcomings would do nothing to improve the current predicament, she turned her thoughts to the report she had prepared as she arrived at the office's front entrance. Not that she had much to say; when it came to the subject of discovering the cause of the inexplicable block-out of all synchronization sever commands, the endless lines of printout, the core schematics and the modified simulations all yielded one unanimous result.

 

“Nothing.”

 

“You said the same thing five hours ago,” Fuyutski objectively noted. The preliminary draft of the investigation rested in wrinkled fingers, the digits of his other hand rapping the dark cherry wood of his immense desk with a staccato report. Why did she imagine cracked shins when she looked at it? To Maya, the new commander always seemed small behind that desk in a way Gendo Ikari had not, though the latter man had been shorter of stature.

 

But that's how everyone seems in this place, she reflected when she glimpsed the tree of life, glowing red and hazy high above her. She needed glasses. Every time she stood at the threshold of this room, the figure sitting at the opposite end blurred as if someone had wrongly adjusted a lens before her. Even now she squinted at the commander and wondered how the black walls here managed to devour all light that penetrated the massive windows.

 

“I also told you that maybe seven, nine hours ago,” Maya reluctantly added. “I know. I can say it will only be a matter of time before we find the cause. Next I'll probably see if the inability to sever the synchronization is coupled to the loss of filtration monitoring. The Magi can analyze all possible scenarios in seconds, but to write the code will take-”

 

“I understand, doctor,” the old man gently interrupted. “It sounds…intensive, something that requires rest to perform adequately.”

 

“Sir?” She looked at him, truly puzzled.

 

“Maya, go home,” he immediately elaborated, “like I will, in about ten minutes. I-” He waved off the protest that Maya had readied at her lips. “No, I don't want to hear it. Perhaps if you're fully rested there won't be any more mistakes. Shinji is fine, and all of your data will be sitting exactly where you left it whenever you get in…I'm sorry?”

 

“I'm saying,” she began, inhaling burning plastic fumes before swallowing, “you think that I…made a mistake, and that lead to the incident today? Isn't that what you meant, sir?”

 

“I'm not condoning it, as they're always costly, but it is understandable. Even under Dr. Akagi they happened-”

 

“I did not. Make a mistake. Sir,” she tersely stated, fighting a losing battle to retain her eroded composure.

 

“Ibuki, relax,” he said softly as he put a hand up again as a peace gesture. But she had momentum now.

 

“I know I cannot be, ever, what Ritsuko was to this place, but I took her lessons to heart-”

 

“I know that.”

 

“I DON'T MAKE MISTAKES.”

 

“Doctor-”

 

“I DON'T MAKE MISTAKES, I DON'T! IS THERE ONE PERSON HERE THAT TRUSTS ME?”

 

“Doctor Ibuki, control yourself!” he finally yelled as he rose from his chair.

 

“Don't tell me to control myself!” she fired back, now pointing a finger at her new superior.

 

What am I doing?

 

“I control myself every time I hear about one of the new people here, whispering about me, snickering about how I am now. They treat me like I'm some…absent-minded professor. I didn't want to be like this, but what should that even matter to anyone else? I do my job. I control myself and I treat them with respect. I control myself when I'm being patient with Sachiko. Really, really patient.”

 

She lowered the finger as she finally took a breath, knowing how foolish she must have looked to the accomplished and dignified man. But she wasn't finished. “I don't make mistakes, okay? I…I ignore what I don't think is real. I never let what happened stop me from doing my job. I always get it done, don't I?”

 

Now she was finished, and despite her outburst, couldn't gather the courage to pull her gaze from a far dark corner.

 

“Doctor…” Fuyutski's brown, brilliant eyes, the wise eyes of a scientist, a teacher, changed as he rounded the desk. When he had reached her, putting a hand on her shoulder, they were the eyes of a father, “Maya, did you hear what you just said?”

 

“I'm not crazy…alright? I-I just…you have to understand, this helps me control it. The smell is the worst part, always. I need to do my job right. I don't make mistakes here. It's all I have.”

 

“How old are you?”

 

She finally looked at him. “Uh…twenty-seven.” Why did she even have to think about it? Why did he ask?

 

“Maya…I don't know, and it's not any of my concern, what you do on your own time,” he said quietly. “But I don't think, at twenty-seven, that this should be `all you have'. You need to find something else, because no matter how much control you culture, it's not going to be enough. Do you understand?”

 

“I agree…yes.” She nearly broke into a smile, for some reason. Maybe she needed this. Someone just…reassuring her. When Nerv had continued operations after Third Impact, it was naturally assumed -and rightfully so- that she would become the new head of Project Eva. She had dove head first into the post, eager to make her instructor proud and suffocate the disturbing memories that had infected her senses.

 

The first goal was impossible because, to her knowledge, Ritsuko Akagi was incredibly dead.

 

Achieving the second goal was akin to finding the answer to a question no one had asked; only now had the unmistakable stench of burning plastic begun to fade, and she had no idea why she had smelled it in the first place. It was always like this…

 

“I suggest,” he continued, “that you try finding that other thing after this investigation is over.”

 

Her tired face predictably fell at his advice. “Are you relieving me, sir?” she asked, not even having the energy to look as distressed as she felt.

 

With a final squeeze he removed his hand from her shoulder. “It's not an order, doctor,” he informed her, professionalism returning to his wizened voice, he to his chair behind the massive desk.

 

“It will be an order if you don't take action, and soon. You need to address these issues. These new employees, the ones that whisper behind your back, they only do so because you're worth whispering about. Nerv needs you as much as you need it. That's been the case since I first met you.” He began to gather the papers on his desk.

 

“I…understand.”

 

“Good. Start by going home. Now. That is an order.”

 

“Yes sir.” She was tired. So tired she was cold. But she felt energized in another, different way. She turned to look back to the man at the desk.

 

“Commander, do you have children?”

 

He raised his grey brows in surprise and blinked at the unsuspected inquiry. “Children? No. No kids.” And he shook his head as such.

 

“Why?”

 

“Perhaps there were things that I should've been doing at twenty-seven years old that I did not.”

 

“Oh…” She closed her mouth and mulled over his last words. “Do you mean-”

 

“Don't think about it too hard. That's an order.”

 

“Yes sir.”

 

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“You're up earlier than we expected, Mr. Ikari. Have to be somewhere?” said a smiling Dr. Andre Marshall. The forty-one year-old Canadian national leaned over the bedridden pilot and gripped the young man's wrist to take his pulse. “I almost didn't believe nurse Sakai when she said you were already coming out of it. If you were just a bit quicker, you could've caught Ms. Sohryu, too. You be sure to thank her, young man. As far as I know, she didn't leave the room all last night.”

 

“Nu…t….u” the Third Child slurred groggily, eyes fluttering open for the first time. It did not escape the good doctor's notice.

 

“Yes, Shinji? Go ahead, I'm listening.”

 

“Number two.”

 

End of Flash

 

 

A/N: God, I love me some plot twists.

 

And don't look so shocked. It's reasonable -to me at least- that Maya, a woman who survived a premeditated government-sanctioned massacre, and had the finger of the mother of humanity pass through her and touch her soul, would suffer some post-traumatic stress. I don't care how sweet she is. After all that, and dealing with a SNAFU, inexperienced protégés and bitchy foul-mouthed subordinates, and finally an unfounded back-handed accusation of incompetence from her only superior, she's ready to pop. So I let her pop.

 

Random A/N: Those of you reading on Media Miner: The following is in response to feedback I received on fanfiction (dot) net.

 

Did Somebody Say Death Match?

 

Y'know…I really wasn't trying to make Shinji a badass. I was really going for disgustingly bitter disaffected youth, a natural progression after a lifetime of being effed with. But, yeah, he turned out pretty broodified.

 

But then I thought about it, which is usually a bad thing.

 

I still am, so barring some horrible case of writer's block (i.e. getting crushed by an eighteen wheeler on Baltimore-Washington Parkway on Memorial Day weekend):

 

In the near future:

 

Heaven or Hell: The ITDR AU Battle Royale Crossover

 

See now? See what ya'll done started? I won't make it a point to do requests in the future, but I like Eva, I like Battle Royale, and I think Mariko is now developed enough as a character to make people care about whether or not she survives falling victim to an impartial BR Act lottery. I'm gonna think this one-shot out. It'll be out when I think it's good. Thank you for reading and your criticism (and this time, your ideas). Ja.

 

Next Chapter: Development