Chapter 13: Heartbeat

Chapter 13:
Heartbeat

 

SHINJI PUT ON the jumpsuit someone had kindly tossed into the plug. When he emerged, he was startled by the crowd packed onto Cage Two’s deck and scaffolds.

“Why are there so many people here?” he asked.

The crew had brought Eva-01’s S² Engine back from the brink of slipping into the other side. They’d returned to the cage, which now had a massive hole in the roof from Super Eva’s awakening, to see Shinji.

 

More had gathered than just the cage’s crew. No one had believed that a living human being could be reconstituted inside an Eva, and the news had spread quickly. Naturally, people were curious to see.

Wondering what kind of miracle had taken place, personnel from all over the HQ had pressed their way into the cage. They drummed along with the Eva’s heartbeat, some slapping hands on railings, others stomping their feet on the deck. The excitement and noise were that of a festival.

But when Shinji set foot on the deck, the first accident happened immediately.

 

Purely out of habit, Shinji raised his arm to remove his interface headset, which he wasn’t even wearing.

The crowd cheered in delight and surprise. Shinji turned to look over his shoulder and gasped.

 

Behind him, the familiar-but-alien Eva-01 had raised its arm, mimicking Shinji’s motion, and crumpled one of the cage’s side restraint units.

“Super Eva!” Shinji said with astonishment.

Metal shrieked as the steel frame of the restraint unit splintered.

A large shard hit the deck next to Shinji and bounced away.

Shinji was still synchronized with the Eva even though he had left the entry plug.

The cheers turned to panicked screams.

Shinji shrunk into himself, clutching his hand to his chest, and then he noticed another abnormality.

 

“He’s got no heart,” Toji said to Rei Trois.

After he had taken his sister home, he went straight back to Nerv HQ. Sure, he had already helped bring Shinji back to life, but not everything had wrapped up smoothly, and he wanted to stay involved.

Because Maya had her hands full recalibrating Super Eva, Toji went in her stead to check on Ayanami Trois.

 

Rei Trois was still under suspicion of causing Quatre to go berserk.

The interrogations by both the intelligence and security teams had produced few answers, and she was currently being held under twenty-four-hour surveillance inside a laboratory control room under the purview of the science
department.

Trois had said that she didn’t know Quatre’s location and that, except for the one brief connection, her mental mirror link with the other Ayanamis remained broken, at least as far as she could tell. She was seated on a metal folding chair, and her expression remained as inscrutable as ever. Toji couldn’t tell if she was in pain or if she was fine.

 

As he regarded her stoic expression, Toji thought, She might at least try blinking.

As if on cue, her long lashes moved, her eyelids briefly covering her ruby red eyes.

“He doesn’t have a heart,” she said, “but he’s still alive?”

“Yep. And his blood is still pumping.” Toji mimicked the thump of a beating heart.

“Thump,” Ayanami Trois’ lips barely moved as she repeated the word, almost as if she was chewing on it.

“And get this, Super Eva has a heart now, or something like one. The S² Engine went through a transformation.”

“Super Eva?”

“Yeah. Super Eva.”

 

In the cafeteria, Asuka blocked Maya’s path. “What do you mean when you say that Shinji and his Eva are one?”

“I mean exactly that. Physically speaking, that’s what’s happening.” Maya put the sandwich on her tray into a paper bag. Apparently finished with this conversation, she turned to leave.

“Hey!” Asuka protested. “Wait just a minute!”

Asuka shoved her tray, lunch and all, into the hands of a nearby worker.

 

Asuka strode briskly after Maya, her eyes level with the whorl in the woman’s hair. She wondered when she had grown taller than Maya.

Still, the woman was walking faster than Asuka had expected. She was having difficulty keeping up.

Her mind tried to make sense of what Maya had said. The Eva is the Eva, and Shinji is Shinji. They aren’t one. Maybe she means…

“Was Shinji birthed from the Eva?”

“That might be part of it,” Maya answered without stopping.

“Do Shinji and the Eva share a heart?”

“Maybe.”

Oh, come on!

 

Asuka decided to say something, even if she wasn’t quite ready to hear it herself. She steeled herself.

“All right, so that mama’s boy had a dream where his…mother…disappeared.”

What did this mean for the origin and future of her own Eva?

Sometimes when she was in Unit Two, she sensed a presence distinct from her own, with its own will.

Could that presence be my—

An alarm suddenly went off, and the siren lights began spinning. Everyone took off running.

 

The Magi’s artificial voice came through the speakers. <<All sectors are entering lockdown. This is not a drill.>>

But the Magi didn’t state the reason for the lockdown or the category of the alarm.

<<This message will repeat. All sectors are—>>

With a deep, mechanical rumble, barrier walls of high-tensile steel began closing off sections of the HQ.

“It can’t be!” Maya rushed to the elevator lobby, pushing her way through the crowd.

Asuka followed.

“Sorry,” Maya said, “but the next one out is going directly to Cage Two!”

Her phone rang in the pocket of her lab coat.

<<Chief Ibuki! Super Eva has suddenly gone unstable on the quantum level! Measurements show that its structure is becoming more and more distorted, and—>>

So that had been the cause of the alarm. Maya interrupted, “Where’s Shinji?”

<<He’s… Well, when we weren’t looking, he…>>

“Find him! He can’t leave the Eva’s side.”

Together, they’re one, Asuka repeated to herself. The answer to her question was happening right now.

“You need to enter Unit Two,” Maya said.

“Shouldn’t I help look for Shinji?”

“Part of your duty is to make sure we still have an Eva after this. Besides, if Super Eva self-destructs and splits the main island of Japan in half, you might survive inside Unit Two.”

“It’s that serious?”

“Before all this, there might have been someone—a presence—within Unit One. And if Shinji has assumed that role while still remaining a human being separate from the Eva, then he’s living a double existence.”

 

The elevator arrived, and the display above the doors indicated, Direct to Cage Two.

When the doors opened, Maya stepped in, immediately followed by a crowd wearing the same color security passes as she was, and Asuka lost sight of her.

 

The command center received the report from Cage Two, and the technicians began considering the worst-case scenario—if Super Eva’s heart/extradimensional window completely broke down.

“What do they mean that Super Eva and Shinji’s existence is attenuating?” Aoba asked.

“We can get the explanation later!” Misato shouted. “Inform the Japanese government that we’re postponing the return of the evacuees. We need to figure out how well we can mitigate the worst-case outcome. I want to hear everyone’s opinions.”

<<Cage Two to command. Chief Ibuki has just arrived.>>

“Where’s Asuka?”

<<This is Asuka. I’m at my cage.>> She spoke over the sound of rustling clothes and her plugsuit decompressing.

 

Eva-02’s status monitor switched to standby.

“Unit Two,” Misato said, “I’m deploying you to Tokyo-3. Protect the city with your A.T. Field.”

<<That’s crazy… Misato, where’s Shinji?>>

“We’ll find him.”

<<At least send Rei up with Unit Zero.>>

Asuka thought she might use this crisis to get Rei Trois out of confinement, but Misato had already decided to do just that.

“Is Rei…Trois still in the lab control room?” Misato asked.

“About that,” replied one of Aoba’s men, a technician on the lower deck. “Someone showed up at the lab with a visitor pass and made a request…”

 

A massive ring formed the outer edge of Nerv HQ. On the building’s roof—called the Grand Deck—were several armored structures mounted on rails, which could be repositioned at will. One such structure, currently located on the southwest side, held a hive of antenna towers. A small white figure was climbing the service staircase on one of the outermost towers. It was Shinji in a hospital gown.

“Well, they’re all worked up.”

Through a gentle breeze, alarms echoed back and forth between the buildings and the mountains along the caldera’s inner rim.

In a strange way, the more hopeless the situation, the more a person could find beauty in the mundane. Just now, Shinji thought the wind felt nice.

How did everything end up like this? he wondered.

 

Within his chest, where his heart should have been, there was nothing.

His arteries still originated there, and his veins terminated there. His blood vessels, nerves, and other tissues all faded away at the border of the void.

A theoretical physicist Shinji had never met before—apparently an associate professor at the college Aoba had attended, though Shinji thought the man sounded shady all the same—explained it like this: The empty space, which no scanner could resolve, connected directly to Shinji’s Eva, and through it, the pair shared a single heart.

It didn’t make any sense.

The scientists had discovered a new mystery of the universe inside Shinji’s body, but he had never asked for or wanted it.

 

To Shinji, it was as if Eva-01 had stolen his heart.

Then again, after being reconstructed by the Eva, am I really myself anymore?

Once he started thinking like that, he began to question if he had even been himself after the battle with Zeruel three years ago when his synchronization rate went so high he lost form and merged with the LCL.

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. “They tell me that I’m not just connected with the Eva—we’ve completely merged on a quantum level.”

He wasn’t talking to himself. He had noticed Toji and Rei Trois climbing the metal stairs after him.

“If they’re in this much of a panic,” he added, “I guess it must be true.”

 

Cage Two was located at the eleven o’clock position of the HQ’s outer ring. The cage’s partially destroyed roof began moving clockwise, and an adjacent anti-air structure slid after it to fill the gap.

Someone must have decided that this particular module would provide a better barrier should Super Eva self-destruct.

As the structure moved into place, it began dumping cage carts containing airtight and shockproof packages of guided missiles onto the Grand Deck. Meanwhile, its cannons thundered, firing ammunition into the empty sky to rid itself of everything explosive.

 

Toji reflexively covered his ears. “What happens if you move away from Super Eva?” he shouted.

“It gets unstable—no, wait, the word Maya used was ‘uncertain.’”

“Huh? I can’t hear you!”

“The Eva’s existence becomes uncertain!” Shinji yelled. “It’ll disappear!”

But Toji knew that the Eva wouldn’t simply disappear. The S² Engine—or the heart, or whatever it was that he had helped pull the ropes to construct—would be unleashed. Toji didn’t know exactly what would happen, but several terrible outcomes sprang to mind.

“But that’s…” Toji said. “You know…”

He needed a moment to choose his words carefully. An unnatural silence fell over the Grand Deck as the anti-air module halted on the track and, for a moment, stopped firing.

The roof of Cage Two hadn’t fully sealed, yet the structure was still.

Something had stopped it.

A hand thrust out from the cage.

 

Sparks flew from the wheels on the track, and the multi-ton anti-air module jolted and groaned as it was pushed aside.

Having brushed away the interloper, the hand grasped the rail. Arm muscles swelled, sending rumbles through the building as the Eva pulled up the rest of its body.

 

Super Eva leaped into the air, performing a somersault before landing. The ground shook, and the Eva began battering the anti-air structure with its fists.

The module had resumed firing its remaining ammunition, but Super Eva had inadvertently placed itself directly in its line of fire. The shells burst as they struck the Eva’s body, scattering countless shards onto the Grand Deck that ricocheted as far as Tokyo-3.

“Cease fire!” Misato shouted. “Stop dumping the ammo! Stop it now!”

The technicians hurriedly shut down the module’s cannons.

“Chief Ibuki, what’s going on?”

The drumbeat of Super Eva pummeling the armored structure could be heard all the way down in the command center.

<<Just as Asuka reported, the Eva has formed an A.T. Field in the exact same shape as its body. According to our best theories, an A.T. Field is the vessel of a conscious existence. If that’s true, then what we’re seeing is an idealized version of—>>

“That’s not what I’m asking!”

The anti-air module continued to sustain damage, but so far, the structure had held.

Super Eva was attacking haphazardly, and the impacts weren’t focused on a single spot.

Anyone observing could easily tell… that the Eva was confused.

 

“I don’t understand anything!” Shinji yelled, as Super Eva rampaged in the background. “I just want to go away—whoever I am!”

“Is that really how you feel?” Trois asked. The distant pounding underscored her question. “Unit One,” she started to say and then corrected herself. “Super Eva is confused.”

“It’s supposed to do what I tell it, right? I willed it to come!”

“You’re wrong,” Trois said firmly. “The Eva doesn’t belong to you—it’s another you. It’s a you that doesn’t want to die and doesn’t want to disappear.”

With another loud rumble, a large shadow passed over the tower and blocked the sun.

What Ayanami said had angered Shinji, and Super Eva had responded, springing off the Grand Deck and leaping toward the tower. The trailing wind threatened to sweep Ayanami away, and she, Shinji, and Toji clung to the handrails as the ground shook, momentarily lifting their feet from the steps.

Standing behind Toji, Ayanami said, “Don’t run from this. Accept that the Eva is also you. You can’t give up,” she pressed. “You’re the one who made this world three years ago.”

Before Shinji knew it, Super Eva was reaching for Ayanami from the tower’s other side. The action was an impulse, a subconscious manifestation of Shinji’s indignation at having the truth forced upon him.

Everyone felt that impulse now and then, anger followed by aggression. Most were capable of controlling or redirecting the urge to be violent. But for them, the impulse didn’t manifest as an armored giant.

Toji placed himself directly in front of Ayanami.

The Eva’s fingers froze in the air around the two of them as if stopped by a large, invisible sphere.

If Super Eva was the manifestation of Shinji’s rage, then this sphere was his past trauma—and his inability to ever crush Toji again.

 

For the past three years, Toji had been aware of Shinji’s guilt over Eva-01 having once crushed him in its grasp. And though he had expected this outcome, stepping into harm’s way had been a gamble.

Toji slumped as the terror drained from his body.

“I thought I was gonna piss myself,” he said.

Ayanami tried to support Toji from behind, but he was too heavy for her, and the two collapsed in a heap.

Shinji’s anger immediately cooled. He cowered, burying his face in his hands as he realized what he had nearly done. He felt disgusted and horrified. It didn’t matter that they were safe now. He had almost murdered Ayanami and Toji.

 

“You wanted to take Super Eva somewhere that there was no one else around, is that it?” Ayanami asked.

Shinji’s head was still down.

“Ikari-kun,” she said, “Try doing what I do.”

Her suggestion was so unexpected that Shinji couldn’t comprehend what she meant.

“Imitate me,” she said. “What I do.”

Shinji still didn’t understand.

Scratching his head, Toji offered, “Ayanami thinks she can help you coexist with Super Eva. She’s offering to teach you. What have you got to lose, Shinji? Give it a try.”

Uncertain, Shinji looked to Ayanami. She nodded.

Ayanami didn’t think of her offer as “teaching.” The phrase simply hadn’t entered her mind. It was a sequence she’d never followed before—taking actions, gaining experience, then passing her knowledge on to others.

“What you do is…recognize that there’s another you outside of yourself,” Ayanami explained.

“Huh?” Shinji’s eyes were puffy.

Ayanami thought for a moment. How would someone approach this? “Asuka would say something like, ‘I’m a pro at having more than one of me.’”

“Ah…” She was talking about the mental mirror that connected the four Ayanamis. Though at the moment—

“But your connection is broken,” he blurted. “You’re not a pro.”

Then Shinji fell silent because Ayanami smiled faintly, reminding him of the presence he’d once felt inside his Eva. She had that effect on him more and more as the years went by, and he wasn’t sure how to react.

It felt wrong to equate the two women.

“Toji, I’m sorry,” Shinji said, unable to meet his friend’s eyes.

But Toji was evidently also feeling self-conscious, and he refused to use Shinji’s guilt against him. “It’s fine,” Toji said. “Ayanami-sensei, would you continue your lesson?”

“Repeat after me,” she said. “Ikari the human can see Ikari the Eva.”

She paused, and he repeated the words, sounding like a student in a foreign language class.

“Me the human can see…me the Eva.”

“Ikari-kun the Eva’s eyes are watching Ikari-kun the human.”

“Me the Eva’s eyes are…watching me the human.”

That was all they said, but those few words were like a spell awakening Shinji to his ability.

Toji watched as the anger drained from Super Eva’s shoulders, and the giant’s pent-up energy evaporated. Its muscles relaxed, and the shrill noise of straining metal faded. The giant was still.

 

Ayanami Rei Trois spoke.

“I was one person as four. Now I’m as three, and I can’t maintain a connection with two of them. Part of myself is missing…and it feels terrible. Ikari-kun, don’t lose any part of who you are.”

“Okay,” Shinji said.

Super Eva towered above them.

Its eyes had remained open since the fight against the Angel Carrier, but now the visor slowly lowered over them.

“Command center, this is Ibuki.”

Maya and a crowd of white-coated scientists had surrounded them at a distance. They were accompanied by security officers, whose rifles were pointed at Shinji’s head.

“Silence the alarm,” Maya said. “The Eva has stabilized…for now.”

At once, the gun barrels lowered.

“It’s falling!” someone shouted. “Brace for impact!”

The noise and vibrations returned as Super Eva swayed and then sank to its knees.

In the aftermath, the only sound was the beating of the giant’s heart.

 

Rei Trois turned her head. “Someone…is watching.”

She looked up. The midday moon shone bright in the sky.