Chapter 34: Eva-02
Chapter 34:
Eva-02
“Sorry, Suzuhara.” Asuka and Azuchi watched as the bike fell off the other side of the giant. She looked to the beast’s head and saw Eva-02. While features from its days as the Asuka/Eva synthesis remained, it had regained most of its original design.
In a distant forest over the mountains, rays of light flashed with explosions.
Must be Armaros’ positron rifle.
Could Shinji actually fight Hikari?
Fortunately, the beast’s quadrupedal movement didn’t cause much turbulence to the head.
Will this thing even move? Asuka thought, as they approached Eva-02.
The mechanical parts activated, as if to put her worries to rest. Asuka and Azuchi fell into the ejected entry plug. She looked around and found that the virtual displays were all lit up.
“Hunh. It’s on? It’s activated?!”
She was shocked. The plug wasn’t even inside Eva-02 yet.
Asuka gripped the controller, but it gave no response. The readings on the display didn’t make sense to her.
“Okay, what the hell is going on here?”
Azuchi barked, as if prompted by her surprise. The graphs on the screen scattered like a pack of animals.
“I guess the one who tried to eat me is still around.”
Was Eva-02 part of Wolfpack now, as its appearance suggested?
Despite being powered up, she didn’t feel that unique pressure from the front of the entry plug where the core resided. It emitted no A.T. Field, no barrier of individuality. Instead, it allowed itself to be covered by Wolfpack’s superior field without so much as a complaint.
“Seriously?”
<<Asuka…!>> A voice came from the receiver in her arm.
“Shinji? What’s your situation?”
Shinji reported his stalemate. <<I can’t convince Horaki-san to leave Armaros. Sorry, but is Unit Two functional?>>
She didn’t know. But Asuka flared her nostrils and said, “I’ll figure something out.”
Not like we have a choice.
<<All right…>> Shinji answered, understanding the heart of her situation.
Schematic windows opened one after another on her sub display, and she looked for a way to infiltrate through the command line.
“Mari? Can you hear me? Are you satisfied now?” Asuka asked.
Mari had jumped onto the gigantified U.S. Eva and melted right into it. No, it was more appropriate to say that she’d returned to her pack and become one with it.
“You ran away from Hakone and came all the way here to meet this big palooka, didn’t you?”
A pause, and then, <<I can hear you.>>
But this was no audible response. The blinking cursor on the sub display produced a line of text.
<<I’m not satisfied…yet.>>
“Why not?”
<<I can’t be. Not while there’s a big pack around.>>
“You lost me. Look, can you detach this Nerv Japan Eva from you?”
<<I don’t know.>>
“Excuse me? You’re not going to tell me you can’t see it, are you? Because it’s right on your forehead. That joke is tired.”
<<I don’t know where your Eva begins and ends.>>
She doesn’t recognize it as a separate entity because they’ve been synthesized? Or is the life-form data that occupied Unit Two not completely purged yet, and so she can’t tell it apart from Wolfpack because they’re both amalgams?
Asuka’s finger stopped on the reactor output line when she felt Wolfpack turn its head from inside Eva-02. “Sorry, what was that about a big pack?”
Her hairs stood on end.
Scheiße… The Ark is that way.
Azuchi’s ears flipped when she heard Eva-02’s mechanical sinews tense.
“Unit Two doesn’t like it, either. Not after the horrible things it did to us. Mari, that’s not a pack!”
Then again, maybe a collection of all terrestrial life-forms could be considered a pack.
A sudden acceleration jolted Asuka out of her musings and into her seat. Azuchi yelped as she slid under the seat toward the back of the plug tube.
“Mari, don’t eat that thing!”