Chapter 16: Under the Lance

Chapter 16:
Under the Lance

 

THE GREATER THE DISASTER, the slower the spread of information.

When people all across northern Africa and Eurasia transformed into pillars of salt, the full story disseminated slowly.

But once it did, all further attacks against the lance were suspended.

The weapon continued sailing the skies as if it owned them, and it kept growing in length.

“In a little more than six months,” Hyuga noted, “the lance will catch up to its own tail and encircle the Earth.”

The impossible kept occurring.

Shinji asked the question on everyone’s minds. <<And what happens when it does?>>

 

Shinji was in Cage Two. It was his turn to be on standby.

Hyuga held his palm at an angle and then turned it nearly vertical.

“One day, the Earth will buckle under the lance’s strangulation.” In other words, total destruction. The world would no longer be able to sustain life.

<<What kind of force is the lance using against us? Gravity?>>

“I think it’s something more than that.”

 

With so many unanswered questions, Misato found herself surrounded by her staff on the command center’s middle deck. She was doing her best to assuage their fears.

“Trois,” Aoba said, “are you up for questions? I don’t want you to overexert yourself.”

“I am.” Ayanami Rei Trois said. Her mental state had recovered enough for her to join the discussion, though she was still growing accustomed to being alone again.

“So, that black giant—” Aoba started to say, but Misato cut him off.

“Armaros.”

“Right, Armaros. So, Armaros’ scales must have been responsible for turning those mass-production Evas into zombified Angel Carriers…and for powering them, too, right?”

Toji tilted his head. “You mean…like batteries?”

“Armaros might have been using the scales to control the Carriers, too,” Misato said, “not just power them. After all, one of them managed to—”

Asuka scowled. “Yeah, yeah, I let the lance’s copy get stolen. But you’re right, there seems to be some kind of organization.”

Hyuga hummed in thought. “The scales might be portals capable of transmitting commands and power via quantum jumps.”

“That’s awfully convenient,” Misato remarked.

“Quantum jumps occur within the Evas’ bodies all the time,” Hyuga said. “At least, that’s our best explanation for how their nerve impulses travel so efficiently.”

“And supposing the large plates we saw behind Armaros can extend that effect over vast distances…”

“The sigil seems to be part of how they function—a Quantum Resonance Signum.”

“Q.R. Signum,” Misato said.

Asuka folded her arms. “I’m more concerned about what that black giant—”

“Armaros!” the commander admonished.

“—what Armaros was saying. What the hell are we supposed to have failed, anyway?”

 

When the three Ayanamis had mentioned the Human Instrumentality Project, everyone present had frozen.

“Trois, was that what Armaros meant?” Asuka asked.

“What I felt in the gia—I mean, Armaros,” Rei Trois said, correcting herself under Misato’s glare. “Well, I don’t really have words to describe it. I sensed a great pressure, like a wall.”

“A wall?”

“A gear that can never stop turning,” Trois explained. “Or like how plants and insects thrive throughout the year, but winter always comes to kill them.”

“That sounds brutal.”

“That pressure searched my mind for the words to say…”

 

The group let out a collective sigh.

“The Human Instrumentality Project,” Toji said. “That was finished three years ago.”

From Cage One, where she was fine-tuning Eva-02, Maya added, <<Finished in failure.>>

“What was the Human Instrumentality Project?” Toji asked. “Did Dr. Akagi tell you anything about it?”

How many times have I been asked that? Maya thought.

<<I don’t know any more than anyone else.>> She sounded irritated. <<After the battle at HQ, Seele disappeared. We chased after them, scooping up every clue we could find. You’ve all seen that creepy CG movie, haven’t you?>>

 

The movie had been one of the few items left behind in Seele’s facility.

Its purpose was unknown, but the consensus was that it had been made to present their plan.

“The one about how all people would abandon the boundaries that separate them, and we’d mix together in a red, soupy sea?” Toji asked.

The movie broke the process down into several steps. It was all nonsense, like a promotional video for some strange cult.

Taken alone, the movie might have been considered fiction, but its contents aligned with the information Kaji had uncovered—which had led Shinji to stop the Human Instrumentality Project.

“Sometimes I think the Instrumentality Project will be with us forever,” Maya said.

 

The Human Instrumentality Project.

Seele, led by Kiel Lorenz, devised the plan and tasked Ikari Gendo and Fuyutsuki Kozo, among others, with carrying out the Project.

In the final stages of the Battle at Nerv HQ, the project was nearly realized, with Eva-02 as its central sacrifice.

The tree of life was etched into the heavens, the mass-production Evas danced in exaltation, and humanity glimpsed an apocalypse that defied their understanding.

But even afterward, people still believed that the project was the work of humans.

Was that really the case?

There had been the Giant of Light. And Adam. And Lilith.

Had Seele truly believed they could control such beings?

Or had they convinced themselves that the project was their creation?

The human race had defeated the Angels and avoided the dreaded Third Impact.

The Human Instrumentality Project was thwarted, and humanity gained a future.

Or so they thought.

But then Armaros had appeared, and its fragmented words, which had passed through Ayanami, sounded like a proclamation that the project would soon begin again.

 

Armaros appeared to be wiping the slate clean for a second attempt.

“Armaros sounded disdainful,” Asuka said, “like a scientist cleaning up someone else’s experiment.”

The word, “experiment,” felt accurate to Misato. She didn’t like the implications.

“Does Armaros intend to clear everything from the table in order to start the next Human Instrumentality Project, like the great flood?” she asked. The idea sounded ludicrous. “After everything has been washed away, will new test subjects come sailing in on an ark?”

 

The ark represented a way for the few chosen survivors of the old world to escape into the new one.

When Armaros spoke through Ayanami, the personnel of Nerv Japan heard the voice. But the black giant also spoke by shaking the Earth. Here and there, people outside of Nerv heard the voice as well, and its message threw humankind into even greater turmoil.