Chapter 19: Eva-02 Allegorica

Chapter 19:
Eva-02 Allegorica

 

“THAT ONE was rather big,” Maya said.

There had been another earthquake.

The Eurasian tectonic plate was contracting toward its center, and an offshoot of the North American plate had been dragged along until it finally snapped in two.

The plate containing the Kamchatka Peninsula broke along a line extending from the Commander Islands in the east to the Russian city of Magadan in the west. It was the birth of a smaller, independent plate that included eastern Japan, though some time passed before any geologists realized what had happened. When the cause of the great earthquake was discovered, this new plate would be named after the Sea of Okhotsk.

 

In Cage One, behind Eva-00 and the grounded Eva-0.0, Eva-02 was being modified for a lunar expedition. When the earthquake subsided, work resumed.

 

“Paint it the color of the moon, please,” Asuka said.

The young woman had gone through many changes lately, but her rejection of her signature red color still came as a surprise.

Six’s Eva-0.0 was reassigned to Cinq, who would accompany Asuka and Eva-02 on a lunar sortie. Armaros hadn’t been seen since throwing the Lance of Longinus at the Earth.

If the Angel Carriers were any indication, Armaros was likely capable of appearing and disappearing anywhere at will. But with no other leads, the search would begin at the place their enemy had last appeared.

The plan was being pushed by the European members of the UN Security Council, who had suffered terrible losses, but Asuka nevertheless agreed that this scouting mission was the right choice.

 

In the old days of space exploration, astronauts had planted several laser retroreflector arrays on the moon’s surface. To better understand the Longinus Curtain, observers on Earth fired lasers of different spectra at the reflectors and measured the time the light took to travel.

This data, combined with the distortion in the star map, suggested that the Curtain was a kind of gap in space.

In other words, like an A.T. Field, the barrier created a phase contrast.

 

The effect of the USAF Orbital Combat Command’s N2 bombs lent further credence to this theory.

The idea behind N2 bombs and reactors was to recreate the Angels’ S² Engines with human technology back when the Angels’ existence could only be speculated.

But at first, the technology wasn’t controllable. The only success the engineers had found was to redirect the energy into an explosive weapon that rivaled the power of a nuclear warhead. The product was the N2 bomb.

When multiple bombs had exploded against the Longinus Curtain, the resulting energy was unable to cross the phase contrast and instead manifested as shock waves.

The engineers hadn’t been able to punch a hole through the barrier, but they had caused it to shake.

 

The new plan was to use an A.T. Field to negate the phase contrast, which meant sending an Eva piloted by a human. Under different circumstances, support might have been available from an orbital Eva-0.0, but this time, there would be no reinforcements.

“I have to take this seriously,” Asuka said.

This time, she fully recognized that stubbornness alone wouldn’t get her there and back again.

 

The modified Eva-02 Allegorica, a.k.a. the Unlimited Flight Type Reconnaissance-in-Force Spec Eva Unit-02 UX-1 Allegorica, had been so named because the unit looked like it could have come out of a fantastical allegory.

For one thing, the Allegorica had two rear legs and a body like a centaur. The added bulk would help the Eva remain stable during the long-distance flight.

Second, two large wings provided Eva-02, for the first time, with the ability to fly.

An N2 reactor generated gravitons to power the Eva. Even the most cutting-edge technology could only manage to produce miniscule artificial tidal fields, but with the Allegorica, hundreds of tidal fields worked in parallel within artificial-diamond slits to create a considerably more powerful effect.

Getting the UN to approve the development of this technology for the Eva had been a hard sell, but when the graviton thrusters were tested on old Russian fighter planes, the results had been better than anticipated. They were so good, in fact, that the test aircraft were sent to Hakone for use in real combat.

Additional N2 thrusters had been placed at the end of each wing to provide propulsion, but with skillful manipulation of the gravitational tilt, the long trip to the moon could be achieved without expending any propellant.

Two-phase contrast power generators protruded even farther out from the wingtips. By extending beyond the Eva’s A.T. Field, these generators could draw power from the phase differential between the space inside the field and out, like a kind of regenerative energy system.

Of all the child pilots, Asuka possessed the highest synchronization rate with her Eva and was far and away the most adept at field generation.

Shinji and his Super Eva were tremendously powerful, but they were still relatively unstable, to the point where no one knew what might happen with them next. For that reason, they hadn’t been chosen to undertake this extended mission.

 

Asuka had always regarded Eva-02 as a mere tool to help her achieve success.

She still believed that the Eva had stolen her mother, or her mother’s soul, from her.

For that, she hated the thing, and she had never hesitated to push it to the point of destruction if it helped her achieve her own goals.

But during the Battle at Nerv HQ, she felt like she’d seen her mother inside Eva-02.

And now there was Super Eva.

Shinji said that his mother had disappeared from inside Eva-01.

Would the presence Asuka sensed in Eva-02 disappear as well?

 

After the battle at Nerv, she did everything differently.

Her synchronization rate with Eva-02 became more stable than that of any other pilot.

She became less likely to rely solely on force, and it stopped being such a struggle to raise her success rates.

Asuka was a realist. She didn’t actually believe that Eva-02 was her real mother.

But this time, she’d decided to embark on the mission with Eva-02 Allegorica and that they would return together.

Asuka strode down the catwalk, her heels clicking loudly as she barked, “Hey, what are you painting that gold for?”

“It’s an electromagnetic-resistant surface,” a put-upon crewman replied. “Like I said, I’ll paint over it however you want, but later.”