Chapter 25: Three Plus Five
Chapter 25:
Three Plus Five
Three Plus Five
T
HE MEDICAL TEAM
rushed from the Ayanamis’ tuning room. Arriving at the command center, they hooked Six up to their equipment and began monitoring her physical state.
Her small body trembled as she muttered, “Humanity…shall not…attain wings.”
Assuming that Quatre was acting as a proxy for Armaros—with the black giant’s thoughts pouring into her through the Q.R. Signum he’d embedded into her Eva’s chest—Six’s behavior could be explained by a sympathetic induction through the Ayanamis’ mental link.
“We can’t have wings?” Toji said incredulously. “That doesn’t make any sense. Humans have been able to fly for a long time now. Hell, the mass-production Evas could fly three years ago, and right now we have two active Evas with wings. So what’s all this about?”
“Super Eva is probably special,” one technician said. “Armaros didn’t show up and start causing all these disasters until Super Eva got a heartbeat.”
“He’s talking like Super Eva is representing the human race,” another said.
Toji listened to the operators’ chatter as he watched the militarized city prepare itself. He wanted to send out Eva-00 Type-F from Cage One, but Six’s current state gave him serious doubts about Trois’ combat readiness. The girl’s situation was already tangled…but this was an emergency. He decided he’d ask her directly.
“Hello, Ayanami?” he said into his headset. “I don’t know if you’re Cinq or Trois right now, but can you respond?”
<<
I can go,
>>
Ayanami said.
“Ok,” Toji said. Then, looking at his display, he sputtered, “Wait, what? Huh?”
Toji had assumed Ayanami was still in her private quarters, but the blinking dot that represented Trois’ position showed her already at the door to Eva-00 Type-F’s cage. A video communications window opened, in which Ayanami was wearing another set of the same thought-shielding gear that Maya was using.
“I get it,” Toji said. “Good thinking!”
<<
With this on, Armaros’ thoughts don’t seem to influence my own. Although, I might have a hard time raising my synchronization rate to a functional level.
>>
“Maya-san,” Toji said, “run the calculations on whether you can reduce the thought shield’s effectiveness to a point where Armaros can’t reach her mind but she can still control her Eva.” He blinked in realization and then scowled. “Wait a minute, Maya’s not here right now!”
“I’ll do it,” Hyuga said.
According to protocol, Trois should have been taken to the intelligence division’s interrogation office, where a tediously lengthy test would be conducted to determine whether or not Ayanami’s actions could be trusted. Toji skipped over all of that. It was a terribly reckless decision that didn’t escape Hyuga’s notice, but the technician thought—somewhat to his own wonder—that under the circumstances, Toji’s decision to be flexible was the right one.
“So, Ayanami-san,” Toji said. “Is it okay that I call you Trois? Or should I call you Cinq? Or maybe I should add the three and the five and make it eight.”
The four clones had been given numbers, in French, solely to prevent confusion when referring to a particular one.
Toji had heard the speculation that Ayanami Rei Trois had been overwritten by Cinq when the clone died between Earth and the moon. Right now, the girl was displaying quick thinking that struck him more like Cinq, and her facial expressions seemed a little more adult than before. But suddenly, her expression changed.
<<
Not eight,
>>
she said softly but firmly, which caught Toji by surprise.
That’s hardly what matters right now. What made her react so strongly?
“Oh,” Toji said aloud in realization.
In French, eight sounds a lot like Shinji’s mom’s name. Huit. Yui.
“You’re Trois now, aren’t you?” Toji asked, but she’d already hung up on him. Toji had seen that Trois was still there, somewhere in her own body, no matter what the rumors said.
“Well,” Toji said with mock indignation. “They say you don’t have a personality, but it seems to me like you can assert yourself just fine.”
Ayanami’s location marker overlapped Eva-00 Type-F’s, and its label switched to “piloting.”