Chapter 15: Unforgiveable
Chapter 15:
Unforgiveable
PICTURE YOURSELF grabbing an object. Then grab it for real.
With this simple exercise, Shinji trained himself to recognize where his body ended and his Eva’s body began. Through repetition, Rei Trois taught Shinji how to coexist among multiple selves. After two weeks of drilling, day in and day out, he had finally begun to catch on.
Temporary living quarters had been set up for him on the side of Cage Two’s control room.
Today, he was moving out.
Once his perception of his selves had been fixed in place, Shinji was able to travel away from Super Eva without the giant destabilizing—so long as he stayed within the caldera that contained Tokyo-3 and Lake Ashi.
This would be the last day he and Rei Trois sat across from each other for one-on-one training, which, even after so many sessions, he still attended with some reluctance.
Every now and then, Asuka and Toji came by to joke around, but most of the time, he was alone with Rei. The training resembled a mother teaching her child proper behavior.
Which was exactly how Shinji least wanted to think of Rei.
Ayanami is Ayanami, Shinji told himself, doing his best to remain rational. On the whole, it had worked, and the training had gone more smoothly than he’d expected.
“Let’s do one last review,” Rei Trois said. “People can read books and drink tea at the same time because we hold infinite layers in our consciousness.”
But theory was one thing. Being conscious of several discrete actions at once was a lot more complicated.
“It’s incredible that you’ve been able to do this with so many selves,” Shinji said.
“It’s not as different as you might think, Ikari-kun. After all, between you and Super Eva, you have four arms, so—”
Seated in a metal folding chair across from Shinji, Rei Trois stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Her eyes became unfocused, as if she were looking somewhere far beyond him.
“Ayanami?”
“You who have failed your parts…depart from the stage at once.”
Shinji gaped at her. “Um…what?”
Her eyes remained unfocused as she reached for Shinji with both arms.
Reflexively, Shinji retreated as far back as the chair would allow, its metal feet scraping against the floor.
Ayanami’s hands felt Shinji’s chest, as if they were searching for something.
“Ah! Hey,” Shinji sputtered. “What are you doing?”
Is this part of the training? Oh… Oh, no!
Shinji had grown agitated, and he sensed Super Eva beginning to stir.
Quickly, he tried to refocus his thoughts.
Be aware of every movement. Be aware. My body isn’t moving, but my heart is beating fast.
Behind him, on the other side of a blast-resistant wall, Super Eva’s heart beat.
My heart! Is Ayanami searching for my heart?
Shinji shuddered. He lifted Ayanami’s pale, crawling fingers off his chest.
“That heartbeat,” she intoned, “must not be.”
“Ayanami?”
Wham! There was a tremendous rumble, and Shinji’s water cup danced across the nearby table.
Was it an earthquake? If it was, we wouldn’t feel it. This building is on a floating foundation.
Wham! Another rumble, and the cup toppled over.
“What are those shocks?” Shinji asked. “Maybe we should get out of here, Trois.”
“The world,” Ayanami said, “will be reborn.”
The tremor sounded as if though it were coming from far away. The crew outside the HQ—and the citizens, freshly returned to Tokyo-3—looked up instinctively to the crescent moon.
The alarm sounded, and the primary staff were summoned to the command center—but not because of the rumbles.
It happened during the shift change from day to night. Misato had been headed to her personal quarters, but now she returned to her station where a technician filled her in.
“There’s an abnormality with the orbital Series-0.0 Units. Cinq and Six are—”
“Put their voices on speaker!” Misato ordered. “What happened? I thought we put them to sleep.”
“Yes, we had slowed their metabolisms, and they were in a state of hibernation, until suddenly…”
The pilots of the two remaining orbiting Evas appeared on the screen. Six, unlike the other clones, had the appearance of a young child—maybe five or six years old. Their lips were faintly moving. When the volume was turned up, they intoned in unison.
<<Transgression… You who have failed your parts… Depart from the stage at once.>>
The building quaked.
The command center shook, and the computer stations rattled and creaked.
Irritated, Misato asked, “Has anyone figured out where these tremors are coming from?”
“We…haven’t,” Aoba said, bewildered on the middle deck. The meteorologists on the lower deck looked just as confused. “It’s happening everywhere in the world.”
“What do you mean everywhere?”
The main screen filled with seismographic data from sensor nodes in Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Australia, and every ocean, timestamped in UTC. The data was layered on top of itself and then filtered for noise, leaving one steady pulse.
Aoba pointed at the screen. “We’re getting measurements from all over the globe. And there’s no time lag. When we control for secondary reflections and propagating vibrations, all that’s left is a longitudinal wave of equal magnitude.”
“That’s impossible!”
“You’re not wrong,” Aoba said. “The vibration doesn’t adhere to planetary physics.”
Hyuga followed up with a report on the troubles in orbit.
“Commander Katsuragi, Cinq and Six’s brain waves are in synchronization. This pattern is something we’ve never seen before, but both appear to be in the subservient role.”
Are they both responding to the same stimulus? Misato wondered. Has the Ayanamis’ mental mirroring been restored? If so, then who is controlling them?
“Where’s Ayanami Trois?” Misato asked.
Maya’s voice came through the display. <<Trois isn’t behind this.>>
By this time, Shinji had informed the chief scientist of Rei Trois’ abnormal behavior, and Maya had quickly hooked her into a brain activity monitor.
<<Her alpha waves have increased. Trois isn’t making them do this—she’s also being controlled.>>
“And in the chief scientist’s opinion, what the hell is going on?”
<<Something is taking over these girls.>>
“Like a kind of…mental contamination? Ayanami Quatre is still missing. Could she be the instigator?”
<<I’ve never seen these brain patterns before. They’re very far from normal for a human. If this was Quatre’s doing, I’d know.>>
Misato sighed. “In other words, I’m wrong.”
<<Maybe not entirely. It’s possible that Quatre was corrupted by some other entity, and the corruption is spreading to Trois, Cinq, and Six.>>
Wham! Another tremor.
“We’re receiving an urgent report from the air surveillance station!” Hyuga interjected.
“What is with this day?” Misato grumbled.
The window on the main display was replaced by an image dotted with stars.
“It’s an aberration in the primary surveillance sector on the moon,” Hyuga explained, “designated Relic One.”
“What?!”
Of everything that had happened so far, nothing could have been more unthinkable.
Every time the moon climbed the sky over Nerv HQ, the main tower’s telescope tracked the same target on its surface—an object that remained under strict, constant surveillance by eyes all over the globe.
The Lance of Longinus.
The lance recently stolen from Eva-02 was a copy of the mass-production Evas had carried into the Battle at Nerv HQ.
Rei’s Eva-00 had thrown the original lance at the Angel Arael. After destroying the Angel, the lance had escaped Earth’s gravity and planted itself in the Sea of Crises, where it had been stuck ever since.
The lance’s lunar impact had created the Longinus Crater.
For three years, the lance had been sticking out of the ground at the center of a circular scar.
But not anymore.
“What is that thing?!” Misato asked.
A massive arm held the double helix lance aloft.
The arm was attached to a giant wearing black armor.
The giant swung its arm and struck the moon’s surface with the butt of the lance.
Wham!
They’d found the source of the tremors.
“Now hold on,” Misato said. “This can’t be right! Vibrations from the moon can’t travel all the way here.”
Every time this massive, humanoid figure struck the surface of the moon, the vibrations traveled through space, where no sound should have been able to carry.
Wham!
The Ayanamis spoke.
<<You who have failed your parts…depart from the stage at once.>>
“Did that thing do this to Ayanami?” Misato said as Shinji entered the command center, pushing Rei Trois in a wheelchair. Maya, the chief scientist, followed them.
Rei Trois’ eyes were vacant, and her arms had been strapped to the chair’s armrests.
Her mouth moved in unison with the two remote Ayanamis on the main screen.
<<From the great flood…the stage will be reborn…as many times as needed until the project is complete.>>
“The project?” Misato repeated.
“The UN Security Council has authorized the use of Aten’s Hammer,” Hyuga announced.
Misato looked surprised. “That was fast.”
Aten’s Hammer was the watchdog over the Lance of Longinus. The anti-Angel weapon—essentially a large rock with a rocket strapped to it—had been placed at the L2 Lagrangian point on the far side of the moon, where centripetal force and gravity reached an equilibrium. Add to that its nuclear pulse engines, and Aten’s Hammer could build up tremendous kinetic energy.
As Nerv Japan asserted its independence, the United Nations, as the only organization with authority over Nerv, had constructed Aten’s Hammer so that they could have an Angel extermination system under their direct control without having to rely on Nerv.
Whatever the UN’s public justification, the weapon’s true purpose was generally assumed to be preventing Nerv from reclaiming the lance. But events had now directed the weapon against an enemy of humanity.
Fast? Misato thought ruefully. There’s nothing fast about this. We’ve been preparing for three years. And now we’re being beaten to the punch by the UN!
No… That’s now how I should be thinking. I don’t care who takes responsibility so long as the enemy is defeated.
Whether or not this new entity’s intentions were hostile, once it had put its hand on the lance, the matter was moot.
Impatient, Misato asked a question to which she already knew the answer. “Can’t we send out the Series-0.0 Evas?”
“Not in their current state,” Maya said. “If we increase their sedatives and force them back into a deep sleep, then we could try waking them back up, and maybe…”
But there was no guarantee they would reawaken in any kind of normal state. And even if they did, there wasn’t enough time.
The image on the main screen was replaced by a sharper one with less atmospheric distortion.
“This is the feed from Mauna Kea in Hawaii,” a technician announced.
The black figure still stood on the moon’s surface.
Judging by the lance’s length, the giant appeared to be a third again as tall as an Evangelion.
Behind it, two plates rose from the moon’s surface, taller even than the giant. A thin, glowing ring hung in the air behind its head. The giant’s heavy black armor covered every inch of its body, and here and there across the armor’s surface, red patterns glowed.
Unprompted, the Magi system said, “Warning. The library indicates several matching shapes associated with previously identified hostile entities.”
<<The scales!>> Asuka interjected from Eva-02. <<Those things were on the Angel Carriers, too! Shinji, you saw them, didn’t you? Is this the bastard that sent the Carrier to steal my lance?>>
Shrinking from Asuka’s indignant yelling, Shinji looked up at the main display with trepidation. “How do we know that’s…an enemy?”
A fair distance away, his heart beat, and Shinji’s body shivered.
As if responding to the sound, the Ayanamis spoke in unison, two on the screen and one behind him, surrounding Shinji with their words.
<<That pulse…must not be written…on the parchment of time.>>
Wham!
The black giant struck the far-off moon with the Lance of Longinus.
Shinji gulped. Beads of sweat had appeared on his throat. All eyes in the command center were on him.
<<Wow.>> Asuka frowned. <<I think it’s calling you out.>>
“So…an enemy then.” Shinji sounded disconcerted.
Asuka groaned. <<You’re so pathetic. You could at least try and come up with a comeback.>>
“Huh?”
<<What I mean is, we need to find out if this…telephone our blue-haired ladies are connected to works both ways!>>
If the Ayanamis were acting as a proxy for the black giant, could Nerv talk to it through them?
“Chief Ibuki?” Misato asked.
Maya nodded to indicate the idea was possible.
The chief scientist took a seat at an auxiliary station and switched the terminal on. But then she realized she’d forgotten something she needed and clicked her tongue.
“Suzuhara, of the above-ground support staff, entering the command center.”
Toji appeared from the elevator with Maya’s cell phone in his outstretched hand.
“Special delivery,” he said. “Whoa! What the heck is that thing?”
Shinji turned to Rei Trois in her wheelchair and asked, “What do you want from me?”
<<I seek…for the actor who invited failure…to exit the stage.>>
A flurry of glowing letters raced across the display.
The Magi system was absorbing everything the Ayanamis said, and with each new word, the AI performed tens of thousands of comparative analyses.
<<So that the ark…can carry the remaining actors…to the new stage.>>
The Magi system narrowed its focus to religious mythologies.
The end of days. Eschaton. Words from religious literature regarding the end of the world remained on the screen rather than disappearing.
In hushed tones, a technician said, “Domine, quo vadis?”
Lord, where are you going?
“What god would look like that?” Misato asked.
Far away on the moon, a never-before-seen spectacle had begun, leaving everyone in the command center with their mouths hanging open.
The Lance of Longinus’s double helix was unwinding.
The crew in the command center had about a second to stare at the screen in stunned silence before the air shook.
“Gravitational waves,” Maya announced. “The lance’s helix has been theorized to contain folded threads of enormous energy. Is that what we’re seeing now?”
The unwound helix became a single, radiant line. The black giant held it aloft and then threw the shining object toward the Earth.
As if synchronized with the giant’s movement, Rei Trois suddenly tore her right arm free from its restraints.
The guard nearest to her was slow to react, and Trois spilled out of her chair, tipping it over. She fell toward Shinji, who caught her by the shoulders. Still in the restraint, her left arm bent—the bones creaking, threatening to break—but she paid no attention and put her free hand on Shinji’s chest.
<<The Earth will be within the ring…>> the Ayanamis intoned. <<Disconnected from the outside…until the original sin is undone.>>
“The original sin?” Shinji asked.
<<The Human…Instrumentality…Project.>>
In the next instant, Shinji’s back was brightly illuminated.
On the main screen, a great flash of light appeared on the surface of the moon.
The video feeds from multiple telescopes all blanked out, and the ones from the moon’s orbital satellites became garbled with digital noise. The cameras switched to high-density filters, revealing a giant, upside-down, cone-shaped plume of smoke rising from the moon and swallowing the giant figure.
Aten’s Hammer had landed.
The 6,100-ton rock had been chosen from the Aten asteroid group.
Tritium-pellet nuclear pulse engines had propelled the asteroid from its station at the L2 Lagrangian point 60,000 kilometers beyond the far side of the moon. The rock struck at a speed of over 100 kilometers per second, resulting in a staggering 1.25-gigaton explosion.
The crescent moon, partially lit by the sun, suddenly became as bright as a full moon.
Had the black giant been defeated? The rising cloud obscured it from view. But the Ayanamis continued to speak.
<<Withdraw, you who didn’t do what must be done… Leave the stage with haste… The Earth proceeds to a new stage… Events will repeat…from the original sin… Next time, the world will be set free.>>
The giant vanished into the particulate cloud the explosion had sent into the silent darkness.
But the crisis wasn’t over. The Lance of Longinus continued its flight through the void.
“Calculate the lance’s trajectory,” Misato commanded
“I’m trying, but… Damn it!” Aoba cursed. “The hammer’s generating too much background noise.”
Despite the interference, the computers were soon able to lock on to the weapon.
Aoba straightened in his chair. “The lance is on course to strike Earth in approximately… Wait, how is it still accelerating? I need to see a different wavelength. Send over the data from Nobeyama.”
With moondust cascading across the main screen at his back, Toji held the wheelchair steady as Shinji helped Trois back into it.
An enemy in humanoid form, Misato thought.
“It’s just like an Eva,” a technician said softly.
But Misato heard. And I don’t think it’s just one or two of us thinking the exact same thing.
She adjusted her microphone and spoke to all decks of the command center.
“I’m naming that black-armored thing Armaros. Revise all documents going back to its first sighting.”
Toji and Shinji looked puzzled, as if to say, Why? It’s already gone.
They didn’t understand information’s insidious ability to spread.
“The intelligence department will begin steering and managing external information,” Misato said. “By naming it after a fallen angel, we will blot out any association of our enemy with the Evangelions.”
“Ikari-kun, I…” Rei Trois’ bizarre, trance-like state had lifted. She was trembling, and her familiar expression had returned.
Shinji was beginning to wonder if Armaros’ mental interference had gone away. But just then, the two orbiting Ayanamis spoke.
<<I am not you.>>
<<You are different from me.>>
Their words tumbled out, like a dam had burst.
<<I refuse to yield my decisions to the bigger me.>>
<<I won’t decide for the me whose image is mixed with my own.>>
Trois looked frightened.
<<I am me.>>
<<I, too, am me.>>
Have the two Ayanamis in the orbital Series-0.0 Evas awakened? Misato asked herself. If the giant’s influence has left them, then…
She gave an order. “Reactivate Units Cinq and Six, and do it fast!”
“I…can’t reach them. Chief Ibuki?”
“The three girls aren’t able to get their thoughts in sync,” Maya said, “but this…” She began opening windows showing Cinq’s and Six’s vital signs and brain activity. “This doesn’t match the expected deviation from an interrupted mental link.”
“Maya,” Misato responded, “keep the explanations brief. We need to ready a counterattack against the Lance of Longinus as quickly as possible.”
<<I am not any other person.>>
<<Other people aren’t me.>>
The pair weren’t speaking just for the sake of it—they seemed to be speaking to one person, the primary Rei, Number Trois.
<<I am different from my indistinct you. My name is Number Cinq.>>
<<I am watching my unseeable you from outside myself. I am Number Six.>>
Cinq and Six were referring to Trois in the second person, even though the three of them were one self. Trois felt their eyes upon her, and her body stiffened.
“Why are you calling me a ‘you’?” Trois covered her ears with her hands. “You are me. So why can’t I find you…me…in myself?”
Maya sensed danger.
“Shinji, wheel Trois back into her room at once. I’ll join you soon.”
Maya approached Misato and whispered into her ear. “This isn’t the kind of de-sync that comes from an interrupted connection. They are actively pushing her out and trying to construct their own individuality.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s possible that a sense of self has awakened within Number Cinq and Number Six—like Number Quatre.”
Misato pounded her fist against her terminal. Now of all times!
Toji started to leave with Shinji and Trois, but Maya stopped him.
“Suzuhara-kun, I need you on that auxiliary station to relay Cinq and Six’s status to me in the control room.”
“What?! I-I can’t do that.”
Toji shook his head emphatically, but Maya’s request hadn’t been arbitrary. Having been trained as a pilot, Toji was accustomed to the nature of communications in the command center. He’d even practiced guiding pilots. But that had been three years ago.
“Please,” Maya said. “Right now, we have one person who is turning into three. I can’t handle this by myself.”
She disappeared into the elevator.
A young technician at a communications station on the lower deck noticed a change in the incoming requests.
“I’m getting repeated inquiries from national observatories and defense organizations about the lance’s length,” she reported to Aoba, her commanding officer.
But it was Hyuga, in the seat next to Aoba, who responded. “So, it really is getting longer!”
“What?!”
Hyuga switched his comms channel to the top deck. “Commander, the lance has lengthened. We didn’t know for sure until now. We’ve had difficulty getting reliable measurements while the weapon is heading toward us. I thought we’d been getting erroneous readings, but…the data indicates the lance is 1,200 meters long.”
All sense has fled, Misato thought. This latest development left her no closer to guessing their enemy’s intention, and it only strengthened her dread.
“The Lance of Longinus has been growing longer,” she muttered to herself.
Is it lengthening still?
Upon reaching eighty kilometers per second, the lance’s acceleration began to slow. At ninety, its velocity remained constant. At that speed, it would arrive at Earth within an hour.
“The lance’s current length is 1,400 meters,” Hyuga reported.
The weapon’s acceleration might have stopped, but it continued to lengthen.
“Has there been any change in the lance’s trajectory?” Misato asked.
“None.” Hyuga sounded apologetic. “It’s still on course for a direct hit.”
Whatever calculations Armaros had made before the throw, any mid-flight changes to the lance’s speed or mass should have altered its trajectory. And yet, the Lance of Longinus continued toward the Earth, just as it had the moment it had been thrown.
“It’s like the lance wants to hit the Earth,” Misato said. “It’s absurd.”
“Attention!” Hyuga called. “Russian attack satellites have begun firing lasers at the lance.”
The lance was now visible in the sky as a bar of light approaching the Earth. Small flashes added to the weapon’s radiance.
Hyuga continued, “And the UN Secretariat is saying they’re sending us a strategic advisor.”
Misato shook her head. “There’s no chance a UNTRP military attaché will get here before the lance does!”
The UN was deeply skeptical that Nerv’s anti-Angel search-and-destroy network was indeed inoperative.
“The lance is undamaged, and its trajectory remains steady,” Hyuga reported. “I repeat, no change has been detected in the lance’s trajectory.”
Rei Trois slept on the adjustable bed in the laboratory control room.
The sedative had taken effect. Until moments ago, she had been trembling and clutching at the bedsheets.
Shinji received the order to activate Super Eva. Given how forcefully Armaros had denounced the Eva’s heart, Misato was concerned that the giant might have targeted it with the lance.
On his way out the door, Shinji turned. “Maya-san, will Trois be…”
“Her mental link wasn’t merely severed this time. Cinq and Six cast her out. What would it feel like if your hands one day said, ‘We’re not you,’ and left?”
On the desk, the intercom chimed.
<<Maya-san, Six is…>>
It was Toji, and his voice was desperate. The command center sounded like it was in disarray.
“What happened?” Maya asked.
<<She’s not listening to a word I say. She’s confused. She started crying.>>
Faintly in the background, a child’s voice wailed.
“What about Cinq?”
<<She increased the dosage of her own sedative and put herself into an even deeper sleep. Hyuga-san thinks that Cinq is having trouble processing her transformation, that she knocked herself out before she had a breakdown.>>
Well now, Maya thought, Cinq ran away. But Six hasn’t.
“The crying might be a good sign. Sometimes that can work like an emergency pressure-release valve. Do what you can to help her through it.”
Now was the time for empathy.
After hanging up, Toji said, with exasperation, “Help her through it?”
Seriously?
<<Waaaah!>>
Six’s wailing filled the command center, where technicians were attempting to calculate the Lance of Longinus’s impact point.
One of them started a report. “The lance’s angle of incidence is—”
<<Waaaaaah!>>
“Can’t somebody switch off the sound from orbital control?!” An operative complained from another station.
“Divert communications from Unit Six to the top deck auxiliary station,” Hyuga said.
Toji was starting to feel more and more like an air traffic controller.
“If the Russian laser satellites are still operational, have them send us their data.” Misato said into a receiver. “What do you mean ‘they refuse?’ It’s top secret?!”
She was probably talking to the UN. A whole lot of angry shouting came from the other end of the line.
<<Waaaaaaaa—>>
Click.
Toji rerouted Six’s sound so that it only came through his headset.
“Hey, would you stop crying? Please?”
It was strange. Toji had been told that all the Ayanamis shared the same memories.
When he’d seen them in person, back before they were launched into orbit, they moved and spoke identically to Trois even though their physical bodies were different. Given this previous experience, speaking with Six like this felt…unreal.
Toji sighed. “So…you’re an Ayanami, right? Could you maybe try being quiet and not saying anything, like Trois?”
Six sobbed. “I’m Six, not Trois!”
Oh? Toji thought. Treating her like Trois touched a nerve.
“Oh, yeah? So you’ve developed a…sense of self, or something like that? Well, in that case…”
Toji put on the biggest smile he could.
“Congratulations.”
The line went silent. After a long pause, she responded.
<<Congratulations?>> Another short sob. But at least it didn’t lead to more wails. <<For what, Suzuhara Toji?>>
Is this really Ayanami?
She sounds like my sister, only even younger.
The distraction seemed to have worked, like he’d moved a toy from one hand to the other and the first hand was immediately forgotten.
But if the copies start with the same knowledge and thoughts, shouldn’t they end with identical results?
Toji was about to learn that Six wasn’t just any child. He sent the Lance of Longinus’s data to her Series-0.0 Eva, and this time, the command went through. The Eva’s primary FSB ignited.
Six shrieked.
She wasn’t completely terrified anymore, but her mental state was still unstable.
Toji didn’t understand it at the time, but Six had begun accepting HQ’s commands not out of a sense of duty but rather out of her desire—and inability—to find mental stability. With no way to process what she was experiencing, she chose external action over internal reflection.
The FSB’s flares formed an inverted cross nearly five times the height of the Eva. In Brazil, on the opposite side of the world, an astronomical observatory captured images of the flames burning in the sky.
In the command center, a technician announced, “Six’s Eva has broken orbit and is switching to a new trajectory. I repeat, Six’s Eva has…”
The telemetry data confirmed that the Series-0.0 Eva had begun moving to intercept the Lance of Longinus.
Hyuga let out a small gasp of surprise.
How did you do it, Toji?
On the Eva’s status monitor, the readings were still all over the map, but they were all rising.
In fact, they were rising too quickly. Guided by its pilot’s mental disarray, the S² Engine’s power output spiked from normal combat levels to levels the Eva could only handle for a short time.
Six screamed.
With nowhere else for the energy to go, the engine’s release valve vented a blast of firefly-like particles into outer space.
Six’s scream seemed to offer the same release. Her breathing and heartbeat were racing.
“Unit Six,” Misato said, “is she going to make it?”
She was relieved that Six was moving to intercept the lance, but she still felt uneasy. Why would Armaros throw it at the Earth? Is this some kind of attack? She couldn’t read her enemy’s intent.
Even with so many unknowns, the UN Security Council—currently in an emergency session—was urging Nerv Japan to alter the lance’s trajectory. The weapon held enormous gravitational energy, and its impact would almost certainly cause devastation.
Misato turned to Toji in the support station.
“You’re a lifesaver. Thank you, Suzuhara-kun.”
Toji lifted his hands from his terminal as if to say, My work here is done.
But he still wasn’t seeing signs of stability in Six, and the lance certainly wouldn’t wait for them to appear.
“We’ve recalculated the predicted impact location,” a technician announced. “USA. West Coast. San José.”
“Hyuga-kun, send the gamma-ray laser cannon authorization code to Six’s Eva,” Misato commanded. “Six! I need you to make a concentrated attack on the Lance of Longinus. The goal is to alter its course.”
Six grunted. Her eyelids fluttered as if she were having trouble focusing her vision. “Gamma-ray laser cannon, activation sequence initiating.”
Toji monitored her brain waves. The pattern showed heightened levels of noise—much higher and she’d risk losing consciousness. The mental strain was clearly taking a toll on her recently awakened ego. It was painful for Toji to watch.
Hyuga continued to update her on the situation.
“Six, you’re on the far side of the Earth from the lance. It will crest the horizon in 740 seconds.”
<<This is Six. Acknowledged.>> Another weak sob.
By the time Six acquired line of sight with the lance, the weapon would be within 30,000 kilometers of Earth.
Misato watched the seconds tick down. “There won’t be time for her to make another orbit. This is our only chance.”
The external S² Engine’s roar rumbled through the Eva’s body and into Six’s ears.
<<This… This isn’t fun. What’s there to congratulate?>>
The blue mass of the Earth passed under her feet with tremendous speed.
<<Shinji in Super Eva to Hakone command. I’m nearing the former Mount Kami.>>
“This is Hakone command,” Hyuga replied. “Acknowledged. We anticipate the lance might change trajectory, like a guided missile. Stay on your guard.”
<<This is Asuka in Unit Two. I’ve arrived at the Mount Komagatake sniping post. I’m equipped with a positron rifle. I can hit the lance if it drops into low orbit.>>
“If it comes to that,” Misato said, “we’ll be counting on you.”
“I’m transferring the meteorologists’ latest data on gamma ray refraction in the ionosphere,” Hyuga said.
“The lance will crest the horizon in 405 seconds!”
As tensions rose in the command center, Six called out for Toji.
<<Suzuhara Toji, are you there? Is everyone…>> She sobbed. <<Is everyone this lonely?>>
“You can do this,” Toji said. “If you’re feeling lonely, then we’ll just have to cheer you up. Okay?”
“The lance is entering your line of fire,” Misato said. “Six! Skim your laser across the upper atmosphere and hit the tip of it!”
The distances involved were no longer astronomical. The Eva and the lance were about to meet.
The lance’s trajectory had already been calculated by the Eva’s targeting system. All that was left was for Six to squeeze the trigger.
A blip had appeared on her screen, just at the edge of the round horizon, when suddenly, blindingly bright flashes appeared, one after another, in front of her Eva.
Six screamed.
“N2 outer-space depth charges!” Hyuga shouted.
Misato stood. “Which country did that?! Six, are you there?”
Six’s Eva had immediately applied filtering to the sudden brightness—though the entry plug’s virtual display would never project enough light to burn her retinas—but the shock of this unexpected visual stimulus still momentarily disoriented her.
Because of that, she was late to notice.
Whether or not the N2 depth charges were to blame, when the Lance of Longinus emerged from the explosions, it was hurtling straight toward Six’s Eva.
Six yelped, and her small hand squeezed the trigger.
All at once, her Eva’s capacitors released a massive amount of electricity.
The 1,900-gigawatt gamma-ray laser surged out from the long cannon.
As the laser grazed the top of the ionosphere, a hazy aurora appeared.
A direct hit!
An intense, rainbow-colored flash diffused outward.
But the lance’s course remained steady.
Six brought up the targeting reticule, focused, and fired again.
Another direct hit!
But the lance kept flying toward her.
Six screamed.
Traveling at 90 kilometers per second, the lance closed the gap in moments.
All Six could think to do was shoot again.
<<Six!>> Toji shouted. <<Get out of the way!>>
Her limbs reacted immediately. Cameras on the ground saw the lance’s beam of light pierce the Eva’s cross-shaped FSB flares.
<<Six!>> Toji cried out.
She had just barely dodged.
The Lance of Longinus slipped past her Eva like an oncoming train on adjacent tracks.
Still screaming, Six lowered her orbit and continued firing her laser as long as she could.
Her aim held true, and each time the laser struck the lance, a cascade of rainbow-colored particles fell to the Earth.
The sight was truly beautiful.
No matter how hard Six pushed her S² Engine, the capacitors eventually drained to the point where they couldn’t power the gamma-ray laser cannon’s nuclear excitement unit.
“Six, cease fire!” Hyuga said. “We need to assess the effect of your attacks.”
But Six kept targeting the lance.
“Six!” Toji couldn’t help but interject. “It’s gone. Stop!”
Electromagnetic interference from the laser canon distorted the image of her entry plug. Six released her trembling hand from the trigger, and her small shoulders rose and fell.
<<Tell me, Toji,>> she said, out of breath, <<Congratulations… for what?>>
Toji took a moment to think. She was asking in earnest, and he couldn’t respond with anything flippant.
After the second Rei perished in the battle with Armisael three years ago, Trois had become Ayanami Rei.
Ayanami didn’t want any other children to be turned into Eva pilots. Sharing her soul among four of her selves was a compromise she’d made with Nerv’s military.
While Ayanami had split herself to create Quatre, Cinq, and Six, in a practical sense, the three were mere tools—weapons of war. If someone like that achieved self-awareness, could Toji unequivocally say, “Hey, good for you”?
<<The others aren’t with me now. I can’t hear their voices. But I don’t want to go back. Nothing makes sense!>>
“This is about becoming your own person, right? That’s something to applaud, but it won’t be easy.”
<<What’s that supposed to mean?>>
Toji scratched his head. <<It’s a milestone. Like a birthday. Maybe we should celebrate later.”
<<A birthday…>>
If this was to be the first day of her new life, then maybe he was right.
During Armaros’ attack, the people of the world had looked to the skies with worry. But more than an hour of calm had now followed the tremors. Hardly anyone noticed the lance’s quiet flight across 38,000 kilometers of space. Unable to maintain a state of panic, the people had returned to their normal routines.
As the lance approached, the various governments of the world had been frozen with indecision. A few amateur astronomers had noticed the phenomenon and gotten worked up online, but the vast majority of people hadn’t been concerned.
When Six fired at the Lance of Longinus, the impact had created violent but resplendent bursts of light.
From Northern Africa to Europe to Russia, the soft, rainbow-colored particles fell. Those outdoors who were touched by the light—some 1.9 million people—instantly turned to pillars of salt and crumbled.
Horaki Hikari was out shopping with her sisters in a small town in Germany.
She’d been on vacation in Australia when Nerv Germany asked her to come work for them.
She’d been surprised by the offer, but Nerv Japan had given their consent for a short-term contract. The rest had depended on her family. For her own part, Hikari was curious to see where Asuka had been raised.
If Asuka knew what I was doing here, I bet she’d be surprised.
Everyone at Nerv Germany was so nice.
Wherever she wanted to go, work-related or not, they furnished her with a guide and a luxury car.
Tonight, as with many other nights, she’d gone out into town. The sunset was romantic.
“Wow! Look at the sky,” her older sister said, having just stepped out of the car to enter the restaurant where they had a dinner reservation. “It’s like an aurora.”
With those as her last words, she stood beneath the beautiful, majestic light and turned into a pillar of salt.
Screams started coming from all directions.
Hikari sprang out of the car toward her sister. In an instant, her bodyguards realized what was happening and piled on top of her like a heap of heavy winter coats. Every single one of them turned to salt as well.
Within Eva-02, at the Mount Komagatake sniping post inside the Hakone caldera, Asuka whispered, “Hikari? Hikari is somewhere crying…”
She wore a bewildered expression, like a cat who’d woken herself up by meowing in her sleep.
Where did that thought come from?
She felt a low tremor and made a small, startled noise.
<<Is that an earthquake?>> Shinji asked from inside Super Eva. He’d felt it, too.
The tremor was weak, but it continued for a long time.
At their respective stations, both Evas crouched down.
Evangelions were hard to knock over while in operation, but on standby, more caution was required. By maintaining four points of contact with the ground—the tips of both feet and the two knee shields—they could keep their center of gravity low.
Posed as if in prayer, the two giants waited for the tremor to subside.
<<Command center to all personnel. The Lance of Longinus may have entered a polar orbit at 20,000 kilometers.>>
<<What’s a polar orbit?>> Shinji asked.
“A north-south orbit,” Asuka explained. “Passes over the poles,”
<<This is the command center.>> It was Hyuga. <<Be on your guard. The lance is passing you to the southwest.>>
A thread of light passed over the southwestern ridge of the caldera’s outer ring, heading toward the Gotemba area in the northwest.
The Lance of Longinus didn’t stick to the polar orbit. Maintaining its altitude at 20,000 kilometers, the lance gradually changed the inclination of its orbit and continued circling the Earth, as if winding a ball of yarn.
At roughly the same time, the Earth’s crust suddenly became active, and earthquakes sprang up all over the world.
It only took a few days for humanity to discover that the Earth was beginning to shrink. The decreased gravity caused GPS systems to lose accuracy, and communications satellites deviated from their orbits and dropped their connections.
The Lance of Longinus was compressing the planet.
Soon, the Earth could no longer contain the pressure, and its mass began finding ways to escape.