Chapter 51: Home at Last

Chapter 51:
Home at Last

 

THE SKY WAS CLEAR, yet the moon was shrouded.

Its atmosphere had thickened enough to be observed by the naked eye. Now that the rocky satellite’s orbit was drawing near, its pockmarked face should’ve appeared even more sharply detailed, but instead, the mountains and craters were blurred.

As the moon had expanded and cloaked itself in atmosphere, its surface area had begun to reflect more light. At night, the Earth remained as bright as just before sunset. The giant moon’s radiance blotted out all the stars in the sky and left only black, while the horizon in all directions glowed faintly red from the moonlight reflecting off the ground.

Down below, the shrinking Earth’s gravity had weakened, and the seas billowed into soaring, white-crested hills and plunging troughs.

The Hakone Caldera—now an island—stood atop the raging waters.

“The lights are on,” Shinji remarked.

On his way home, Super Eva had flown over many large cities that had gone dark. But not Tokyo-3.

<<Eva-01, this is the Nerv Japan command center. We’ll handle your flight clearance, but be advised, a new airport has been constructed near the south rim—Mount Daikan Airport, letter code RJJN.>>

“Hyuga!” Shinji said, thrilled to hear a familiar voice.

But Hyuga’s response was strictly professional, and he spoke with clipped efficiency. <<Welcome back, Shinji-kun, Trois. Dock Super Eva in Cage Two. The restraint walls are still under repair, but we’ve set up two armament trees. You’ll use their arms to hold the Eva in place. The cage crew will have further instructions. Command center out.>>

So much for a tearful reunion.

Under the bright moonlight, Shinji easily found his way across the Nerv Japan facility.

The two armament trees towered from the Evangelion cage’s open roof, casting long shadows over the surrounding concrete. An orange warning light topped each tree. But Shinji saw other lights, too. Two hundred meters below ground, visible through the hole in the center of the complex, work lights and heavy machinery had converged on the sarcophagus’s dome.

It looks like they’re lowering something down there.

He received the instruction to land, and he descended between the armament trees, which quickly and firmly locked down Super Eva…and its glowing Q.R. Signum. The trees’ weapon holsters had been swapped out for mechanical arms—sixteen in total—that held the giant in place. The trees and the Eva submerged into the cage’s LCL.

This was Shinji and Super Eva’s home, but something felt off.

Trois seemed to pick up on his unease. “Ikari-kun?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just embarrassed at having been away so long.” Into the comms channel, he said, “Controls neutral. Ready for plug ejection.”

 

As they had approached Hakone, Shinji and Trois had reported on their adventures in digest, and the Eva pilot standby room had been converted into a medical inspection room in anticipation of their arrival. On opposite sides of a single curtain, the medical team stripped Shinji and Trois of their clothes and gave them each a standard examination. The process wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it was hardly surprising, either.

If anything, Shinji wasn’t sure if the precautions went far enough.

They didn’t take us to separate rooms, which means they don’t feel a need to interrogate us separately. Does that mean they believe our surreal story? Heck, I’m not sure I believe it myself.

Here they were, home after visiting an alien planet, and yet only a small team of scientists had come to meet them, their tests mostly perfunctory.

“So, the prodigal son and daughter finally return.”

“Fuyutsuki-sensei,” Shinji said.

The old soldier parted the antimicrobial curtain at the doorway and entered the room.

Smoothing down her white patient gown, Trois stepped through the cloth curtain behind Shinji and sat beside him on the examination table. Together, they looked up at Fuyutsuki.

“Sorry for all the fuss,” he said. “I’m sure you have questions. We couldn’t tell you what’s happened over the radio, so I’ll fill you in.”

Shinji and Trois learned that Lilith and the Chronostatic Sphere had disappeared from the old Geofront and that Rei Six had gone missing.

Spearheaded by Chief Scientist Ibuki, the majority of the Nerv personnel had gone deep underground into the dome of the sarcophagus, which stood partially submerged in the flooding lake water. The staff were desperately searching for anything left behind after the Chronostatic Sphere had vanished.

The completely black, light-absorbing sphere—though, technically, it had been egg-shaped—had left behind an empty space neatly carved out from the Geofront. Gone was Lilith at its center, along with the old Nerv HQ and the more than 150 people who’d gotten caught within the timeless egg. There was no telling where they were now.

“Father…?” Shinji said.

As for Rei Six, the girl had gone missing in orbit. From the ground to the ionosphere, the Earth’s electric field was an absolute mess, and any attempts to reach her were met with a waterfall-like roar of static. With nothing else to be done from Hakone, Nerv Japan had handed over the search to external space agencies.

But now that Rei Trois had returned, Shinji expected the last intact Eva-0.0 would soon be called back from orbit.

Quatre’s Eva-0.0 had gone rogue and incorporated its powerful gamma-ray laser cannon into its body. The weapon’s existence made it difficult to remember that the 0.0 series had been designed, unique among all Evangelions, with reconnaissance as their primary focus.

Even though Earth’s diminishing gravity had scattered the satellite network into the depths of space, the last Eva-0.0 had still managed to stay in orbit. The Eva simply had a greater reserve of propellant to perform the necessary orbital corrections to maintain its altitude. But its fuel wasn’t limitless. Regardless of Nerv Japan’s immediate needs, Trois would eventually have to retrieve the Eva for refueling and maintenance.

As Trois reached the same conclusion, she softly pinched the bottom hem of Shinji’s patient gown.

 

Engineering officers pushing equipment-filled carts bottlenecked at the security checkpoint into the command module’s elevator lobby, while other staff added to the stressful mood as they tried to hurry past in both directions.

Assistant Acting Deputy Commander Fuyutsuki walked slowly toward the bank of elevators. Shinji and Trois followed. They pressed themselves against the wall, yielding to those in a greater hurry, and eventually made their way up to the command center.

“Send another inquiry to the Euro Rapid Response Headquarters in Brussels and to Nerv Germany about the situation on Novaya Zemlya,” Misato was saying, “to see if they know where Asuka—Crimson A1, I mean—went. And try the UN Security Council.”

“I don’t think I’ll get any response from the UN or the Europeans,” Aoba replied. “The Tower of Babel effect hasn’t completely worn off, and things are still a little chaotic over there.”

“That’s exactly why I asked. Establish a record that we kept trying to contact them. Make it look like we’re still confused over here, too.”

Misato noticed Shinji and Trois. She shook her head and snorted a laugh, as if to say, See what I have to deal with?

“It’ll come in handy later, once we’re all civilized again,” she explained. “Welcome home, you two.”

Between Misato’s face and the row of empty energy drink bottles, the commander’s exhaustion was evident. The two teenagers standing in front of her were at least half the reason she was exhausted. Because of them, Misato hadn’t been able to take charge of the situation. Instead, she’d been forced to chase them and Asuka around, cleaning up the giants’ messes.

The crisis had called her ability to command into question, at a time when her authority had already atrophied due to her thoughtless absence.

“Ikari Shinji,” Misato said, switching to a more severe tone, “pilot of Eva Unit One.”

Shinji stiffened his back.

“Did you lose control of the situation?” She was setting her own failures aside, but as the person in charge, she had to maintain discipline.

“Even if Unit One is physically your body, the Eva still belongs to Nerv Japan. As such, it must submit to the science and engineering departments for ongoing research and maintenance, and it must obey its commanders.”

Her statement carried no real weight. Super Eva could operate indefinitely. As long as he didn’t sustain any critical wounds or expend all his ammo, he had no need for support.

The same traits that made Super Eva a versatile, capable asset also posed a troublesome problem to the organization he represented, which had no means of reining him in should he fail to return home. With an Evangelion, a single pilot’s actions could potentially designate Nerv Japan an enemy of the entire world. That kind of power needed limits. Even without going fugitive or defecting, the bonds of trust and duty could weaken.

For that very reason, Misato felt like she needed to keep Shinji from learning about Six’s disappearance until after he’d landed in Hakone. Had he found out any earlier, he might have turned around and gone looking for her.

“Regardless of whether you were right or wrong, you made a unilateral decision to take the giant away. Do you realize the tremendous power—the evil power—you exercised?” Misato’s voice carried across the command center.

Shinji lowered his head and raised his voice so that everyone could hear him, too. “I apologize for taking Trois and leaving you without Super Eva. I’m sorry!” He understood that she intended to handle the entire matter with a warning.

Nerv Japan had many pressing duties, foremost among them the search for Lilith’s Chronostatic Sphere, Asuka/Eva, and Six’s Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica. Misato didn’t have the luxury of sentencing the only operational Eva and its pilot to long-term punishment. By reprimanding him in public, she hoped to make him feel guilty. But also, she was concerned that not doing so might isolate him from humanity.

Beneath her question lay another, unasked question—the ultimate question.

You are a human who has become an Eva. Are you prepared to continue living in human society?

As he looked at Misato’s tired face, Shinji reminded himself that she was only angry with him because it was her duty.

He raised his head again and looked around the command center.

“We have the NATO designation!” an officer shouted. “Torwächter A1!”

A secondary display showed the new confirmation code for the Asuka/Eva synthesis. To Shinji’s astonishment, she’d been designated a hostile threat. As the command center staff ran about with nervous energy, only Shinji—and Trois—seemed to be moving at a different pace.