Chapter 18: Transcontinental Flight

Chapter 18:
Transcontinental Flight

 

THE FLIGHT TO THE OPPOSITE CONTINENT ended up taking several hours of intense concentration.

Along the way, just as Super Eva passed over the core, a gap between the clouds offered a glimpse of the shadowy surface.

“It’s an ocean,” Quatre said. “A spherical ocean.”

Assuming that Super Eva wouldn’t have continuous access to the Q.R. Signum’s power so far from the ground, Shinji and Quatre had elected a ballistic trajectory, including something of a flyby around the planet’s core to aid in their descent.

“That can’t be—” Shinji said. “Wait, something moved! What could stir up waves large enough for us to see up here?”

“Normally, extreme gravity influences organisms to be smaller, but who knows what’s normal on this planet. Accelerate on my mark, Ikari-kun. We’re about to hit the lowest point of our trajectory. Mark!”

As hard as he could, Shinji pushed against the upper atmosphere of the apple’s core with the Vertex wings’ A.T. Field.

He gritted his teeth. “The Eva…is so…heavy!” But he provided the boost they needed.

Once they’d passed the core, they saw why the opposite landmass appeared red.

It was the same reason Earth’s moon appeared red during a lunar eclipse. The ground and the atmosphere on the planet’s sunside, along with the clouds around the core, scattered the bluer wavelengths, letting only red light—like that of a sunset—pass through to the nightside.

As they sailed around the edge of the continent, Shinji said, “Look, Quatre.”

A vast forest ringed the nightside, with tree limbs stretching out over the shelf to catch the gloaming light.

Super Eva reoriented himself on the other side. They’d made it across. Relief flooded Shinji, and he suddenly felt like he couldn’t maintain flight a single moment longer.

The Eva crashed through the trees, toppling them and scattering branches and leaves. When Super Eva came to a stop at last, and Shinji no longer had to concentrate on the flight, he gasped for air as if he’d been holding his breath for a full day. He slumped forward, then drained the LCL from the entry plug and opened the hatch.

The plug slid out from Super Eva’s back, and thick, humid air rushed into the chamber.

Without waiting to perform the customary atmospheric analysis, Shinji took in a deep lungful of air. How all the air here didn’t fall down into the apple core was yet another mystery. As he took in the relaxing smell of the forest, he felt his exhaustion melt away.

“Quatre, let’s put our feet on the ground.”

The view outside was peculiar. The land and sky of the sunside was now upside down beneath them, and diffuse sunlight came up from the cliffside, bathing the nightside in red and silhouetting the trees.

There’s something familiar about this evening light… Shinji thought.

 

Hopping down from Super Eva’s palm, Shinji noticed a geometric pattern of bumps on the ground—too regular to be natural. He followed the pattern with his eyes. In the shade of a tree, the undergrowth thinned, revealing a long, narrow piece of rusted metal.

“Metal,” Shinji said. “Train tracks?”

He seemed to have found an abandoned railway line. He could think of only one explanation.

“The remains of civilization.” Though upon saying it, he grew less certain.

If he accepted Kaji’s story as the truth, then whatever used to be on this planet would be ancient on an astrological timeline. No way could a piece of exposed steel remain in anything approaching identifiable form.

He walked up to the rusty red rail and touched his hand to the metal.

Shinji gasped as the ground began rhythmically jolting beneath his feet with a ka-clack, ka-clack. Reflexively, he reached for a hanging strap to steady himself.

He looked around in confusion.

He was standing on a moving train.

Ka-clack, ka-clack.

 

A man was seated on the bench seat in front of Shinji. The man kept his head down, but his shoulders seemed familiar.

“Shinji,” the man said, “will you keep on going?”

Shinji’s answer came naturally. “I will. It’s not over yet.”

“Sometimes, moving in a new direction means you aren’t able to stop.”

“That’s fine. The only thing troubling me is that I don’t feel like I’m advancing.”

“I see.”

Warm, early evening light flowed in through the train windows as Shinji shared an unusually tranquil conversation with his father.

He was starting to forget where he’d been before this train. He let go of the hanging strap to move to the seat beside his father, when—

A hand gripped his arm from behind, and Ayanami’s voice said, “Ikari-kun!”

He turned with a start.

“Quatre?” His eyes went wide, and his mouth gaped. “Wha?!”

He hadn’t expected to see Ayanami wearing a high school uniform. Even more surprising, she wasn’t the Ayanami he’d been with only moments before. She was Cinq, and Cinq was dead.

He recognized her immediately. She was a little taller than the others, and her mannerisms came off as just slightly more mature. When she looked at someone, her expression carried a feeling of urgency. Of the four Ayanamis, she was the only one capable of that expression.

“Cinq?” Shinji said.

But she’d tragically died in the lonely space between the Earth and the moon. Wait, is this Trois under Kaji-san’s control?

When Cinq was killed, her memories had crossed the vast distance and flooded into the primary Ayanami—Trois.

But when Trois was with Kaji, she’d been wearing a black dress, not a school uniform. Moreover, she hadn’t acted on her own like this. She seemed like she’d gotten tired and given up.

So, is this really Cinq?

She didn’t give him time to work through his confusion. Before he could ask another question, she squeezed his arm tight.

“You can’t stay here! Maybe if your body were still in the other world, it would be different, but you’re here. If you let these thoughts take hold of you, you won’t be able to leave!”

The train carriage was filled with the warm glow of the setting sun, and the wheels made a rhythmic sound as they passed over the crossties. The scene felt comforting and familiar, without even a hint of danger. Shinji’s mind brimmed with memories of better days…

Cinq put more force into her grip, and the pain brought Shinji out of his reverie.

“See!” she said. “That’s exactly what I mean. Try to remember where you were before here. It was a different place, wasn’t it?”

He lowered his head in thought. “That’s right,” he said. “I was with Quatre, on the edge of a continent on a strange planet. I found a rusted train track…”

When he looked up again, Cinq was giving him a kind, motherly smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling.

“Let’s meet again, Ikari-kun.”

“Cinq,” he said, “You’re…”

Doubt briefly clouded her expression. But then she let go of his arm.

She turned her head away. “I don’t know what form that will take, but…let’s meet again.”

She looked up at him, seeming to have decided something.

Directing her voice somewhere beyond Shinji, she said, “Quatre! The me at the mercy of fear! You’re near, aren’t you? Quickly, pull him back to you!”

 

Then the train was gone. With one foot forward, Shinji was poised to run down the rusted tracks, while Ayanami Quatre, in orange coveralls, pulled on his hand from behind, holding him in place. They were in the forest of eternal dusk.