Chapter 9: Mari Escapes

Chapter 9:
Mari Escapes

 

MARI, THE UNEXPECTED GUEST, had originally hailed from Nerv U.S.A. She was a wild card and had even wanted to devour the Asuka/Eva synthesis in the past. But she was of no danger to anyone so long as she wasn’t allowed inside an Eva.

After the Yomotsu Hirasaka incident, Mari, who’d previously lived on little more than animal instinct, had been reduced to constantly having her hand held. Before she’d disappeared, however, she’d howled long and hard—like a wolf.

Azuchi—Lieutenant Colonel Kasuga’s golden retriever, who’d been put under Six’s care—had gone missing along with Mari. The city’s alert level had been raised, but none of the sensors in the infrastructure had registered anything.

“Catgirl Mari goes twirl and twirl.” Six sang an original tune to herself. It jolted the security team awake, and they shifted their attention to the countryside. Unfortunately, enough time had passed that Mari’s scent was too weak for the search-and-rescue dogs to pick up. In fact, the hounds had actually tucked their tails between their legs. Even without her Eva, Mari was still the alpha of all animals.

Nerv U.S.A. had originally begun splicing animal DNA into humans in an effort to increase pilot-Eva compatibility. The U.S. Eva, Wolfpack, had been heavily modified according to this principle. Mari could never stop thinking of herself as a pack.

Now, her pack was calling for their alpha, and she responded by howling back and running to them.

 

By the time Azuchi and Mari’s tracks were found south of Tokyo-3 to the side of Lake Ashi, they’d already stowed away in in one of the aircraft at Mount Daikan’s new airport. This was only discovered later, since the search team was still focused on the mountains.

“No luck with Mari?” Misato asked. She entered the command center in a simple uniform that she didn’t get to wear very much. She only needed to look at the display to answer her question.

“Afraid not, Commander. But how did the meeting with the Japanese politicians go? What’s up with the New Island Committee?” Toji asked.

“It wasn’t something they could talk about over the phone. Although, really, this thing’s going to leak in about five seconds.” Misato pressed the folder she was holding into Toji’s chest.

He opened it. “Uhh… ‘Regarding Tsukino Yami Island.’”

“A temporary name. Not that it’s going to stick, since a U.N. goon just plucked it out of the air,” Misato ranted, “but that’s not the point.”

Toji continued flipping through the report until he got to the page with the red Eva. “What the…? Unit Two? Why—”

“Unit Two is now a relief on the forehead of a mountain-sized monster on Yomotsu Hirasaka Island.”

“What?!”

Misato weaved through Toji and the others and sat in her command chair. She took the headset at her side and contacted Cage One. “About Trois’ Unit Zero. Her converted left arm and regenerated right arm are still in the tanks, right? Okay.”

Toji was preoccupied with the picture taken by the JSSDF’s gun camera. Eva-02 was half-buried within the forehead of the giant beast.

“Heat shock them and then use array cables to hang them over the middle of the base, right above the sarcophagus.”

Misato’s mad request snapped Toji back to reality. “Excuse me?!” She wanted to hang an exposed Eva’s arm outside? He immediately thought of hanging fish over a doorway, mackerel and pilchards in particular, to keep evil spirits at bay. “That’s enough tech to build a light aircraft carrier. What are you trying to pull?”

But Toji’s snide remark only helped Fuyutsuki understand Misato’s train of thought. “Are you making a deal with the devil?”

“Call Asuka for me,” Misato said, returning to the matter of Eva-02.

“Are you sure? Soryu’s gonna want to retrieve it.”

“Like I said.” Misato sighed. “We couldn’t keep this a secret if we tried.”