Chapter 29: The Gap Between

Chapter 29:
The Gap Between

 

IN HER BIO-TUNING ROOM within the UN giant-transport airplane, little Mari suddenly looked up. “Who’s there?”

The only sound within the plane was the rumble of its engines and the roar of the wind.

News had already arrived that the Euro’s planned ambush in Novaya Zemlya had turned into a surprise engagement with the enemy, and the transport plane had accelerated to high speed. The majority of the crew needed new orders, and the personnel had crammed into the cafeteria—now an impromptu war room—for an all-stations emergency briefing. Everywhere else, the plane was deserted.

Mari’s plugsuit gloves were oversized—a preventative measure to keep the girl from impulsively scratching herself with her claws—but they also made it hard for her to hold on to anything. Still, she skillfully managed to set her milk cup down on the table without a spill.

The U.S. Eva pilot hopped down from her chair and left the white room.

Several IV tubes and data cables trailed behind her and connected into a four-legged robot taller than she was—about an average adult’s chest height. The robot activated and followed her from the room. As the machine moved, several IV bags dangled from its underside.

The robot’s walking motors whirred, and the roar of the outside wind made the plane’s interior sound like a school gymnasium during a downpour. Atop Mari’s head, the ears that weren’t her ears twitched.

Those animal ears were a sign that the spliced-in animal DNA was gradually taking over her body. The claws were another. Each time she piloted the U.S. Eva, the transformations progressed a little bit more. The Nerv U.S. medical team was concerned that a tail might appear next.

Like other Nerv branches, Nerv U.S. had struggled to find compatible pilots.

But they’d taken a different path. They’d researched methods to remove any say the Evangelions had in deciding if a pilot was compatible or not. The answer they found was de-evolution—to return the Evangelions to an earlier form, before they had an element of human consciousness. Consequently, the U.S. Eva, which could scarcely remember how to walk upright, accepted a pilot who’d undergone the same treatment. As a side benefit, the giant had acquired an extremely powerful, explosive aggressiveness.

Each time the girl entered her Eva, she risked becoming something that could no longer be called human. The tubes and cables served as a literal lifeline connecting information from her brain to the medical staff. But she didn’t particularly care what she became.

Over the course of several years, she’d formed a bond with the many animal species that had been introduced to her. They were a part of her, and she now thought of herself as a “pack.”

That word, in particular, made the people around her uneasy. She’d already begun to forget human sensibilities and language. Would she one day become a beast who only obeyed her instincts?

In her home country, religious fundamentalists who denied the very existence of evolution were no mere minority. The Nerv U.S. staff was more secular, but even they felt that if she continued regressing, it would be exorcists she needed, not scientists.

Mari’s ears led her directly to the source that had aroused her curiosity. “Who’s there?”

In the twenty-degrees-below-freezing cargo hold, Momo, the golden retriever, was shivering and whimpering in a gap between the cargo nets.

Had this dog gotten separated from her sister, Azuchi, in Hakone’s Daikon airport and boarded the plane by accident?

Pulling her cables behind her, Mari slipped into the gap and put her face up to Momo’s nose. She sniffed.

At first, Momo was frightened by the girl’s sudden approach—and by the robot that loomed over her shoulder. But even before then, the dog had been confused. Was this little girl really a human? If not, what was she?

Before the dog could shrink back, Mari licked Momo on the nose.

“You’ve got a curious streak, don’t you?” she asked.

The girl’s assertive smile was undeniable. Momo couldn’t help but wag its tail. The dog hadn’t been afraid of this one little girl… It had been afraid of the many sets of eyes it felt watching.