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Part 23

The ICU was a flurry of activity, a study of controlled chaos.  Shinji
had arrived no more than ten minutes ago, and they already had a
comprehensive analysis of what was wrong with him.  Actually, the report was nothing
more than mere exhaustion.  Well, that and the two rather large
purplish-yellow bruises on his chest.  But after the report that his condition was
simply because he was tired came in, everyone seemed to relax.  Misato almost
wilted against Kaji, while he himself had trouble standing.
Ironically, it seemed that the only person who wasn't having fits of
relief was Asuka.  She was standing off the the side, appearing to be
quite oblivious to the casual observer, but she was in the right place to get
a good look at everything that happened in the room without being too
obvious about it.  She had her arms folded across her chest, the picture of
studied indifference to anyone who didn't look into her eyes.
In those deep blue orbs, they would find a deep compassion mixed with
something else, something that Asuka was trying very hard not to show
to the outside world.
'No one can know,' Asuka was thinking to herself.  She could barely
stand to just watch and do nothing.  She thought she should walk over, talk
to him, sit by him, do _something_, but her legs refused to move.  'It's
probably for the best,' she thought.  She herself had only realized
what that other feeling was a few moments after Shinji was released from
Unit 1: a deep, painful ache.  One that grew dramatically with each passing
second that Shinji was unconsious and she did nothing.
But she was at a loss of what she could do.  The doctors knew what to
do better than she ever could, Ritsuko would have all the scientific data
reported in less time than it took Misato to make a bad dinner, and the
techs were already working on the recovery and repair of all the Evas.
In the end, she decided that there was nothing she could do, for the
moment.  And she also decided that no one would ever find out what
Shinji had said to her during the battle.  The Supreme Commander- 'Supreme
Dork,' Asuka thought -would never allow such a relationship to occur.  Asuka
figured that as soon as she and Shinji started seeing each other, his
father would reassign one of them.
'Which is really, really stupid.  What's wrong with having a
boyfriend?' Asuka aksed herself before the reality of the words sunk in. 
'Boyfriend... boyfriend... boyfriend... boyfriend...'  Hearing that word echo through
her thoughts brought a whole new argument to the surface.
In her haste to seal herself off from the rest of the world, to avoid
being hurt again, she'd also sealed herself off from any potential
relationship with anyone beyond  friendship.  She'd never let herself
love someone; not even Kaji, which was painless flirting.  But in the last
few years, the ones with Shinji in them, she'd discovered how much of life
she'd been missing.  How much a relationship with a man could free her
mind and spirit.  And how badly she wanted that relationship.
She wanted to live, truely live, and in order to do that, she had to be
open with someone.  Completely frank, completely honest, completely
comfortable.  To keep nothing from them, to keep her heart and mind
open.
But what scared her the most was letting someone know her, all of her;
physically and emotionally and spiritually.  Perhaps as frightening was
knowing someone else in the same way; she had doubts of her worthiness
of such an honour.
But, she decided, if there was anyone out there with whom she was going
to take the risk with, it would be Shinji Ikari; perhaps the only man she
would ever give herself the chance of loving without reservation. 
Giving herself completely to.  For a brief instant, a split second, she saw
herself on the edge of a huge ledge, with no bottom in sight; it was
all sheer cliff face and rocky walls.  Behind her were all the walls that
she'd made for herself over the years, rising high above her, out of sight.
Ahead of her was all sunny and grass lawns and parks with beautiful,
lush flowers and warmth all around.
She realized that what was ahead of her was what being with Shinji
offered; the peace and happiness of a regular life.  Behind her, with
all the high walls, was the security and protection that the past offered. 
She couldn't see any way to get from one to the other, and so she realized
that, with no bridge, she would have to make a leap of faith.  Either
she would succeed, and attain a new level of happiness, or she would fail,
and face the consequences.
As soon as Shinji was ready for it, she would make that leap with all
her heart, his father be damned!
Several hundred meters above her head, the Supreme Commander was
getting a report of damages sustained, both by the Eva's as well as Terminal
Dogma and the Geofront.
"Unit 3 sustained the least damage of all the Eva's, and repairs should
only take five, six hours at most.  Unit 0 is next, with medium amounts
of damage.  Repairs could take as long as a day.  Unit 2 sustained massive
amounts of damage and will take the longest to repair, up to two
weeks,"
Ritsuko read from her clipboard.
"And Unit 1?" the Commander prompted.
"Unit 1 is quite peculiar, actually," the Doctor reported after a
moment of organizing her thoughts.  "It has absolutly no damage incurred, save
for the two injuries made by the Lance of Longinus.  Preliminary analaysis
shows that it will take considerable time to repair the damage from the
Lance, even to the extent of maybe having to replace whole sections of
components instead of just regenerating them."
"And how long will that take?" Fuyutsuki asked, dreading the answer. 
With matters pertaining to Unit 1, the Supreme Commander could be quite
unpredictable.
"I honestly have no idea.  It all depends on how the Unit responds to
initial attempts at regeneration."
"Begin immediatly," the Commander said quietly.  Ritsuko took note of
the volume and stifled her own questions.  "If there is nothing more..."
Commander Ikari let the question trail off.
"Actually, there is.  According to all our monitors, and Unit 1's own
internal diagnostics, it ceased to function 2.31 seconds after the UN
Eva punctured it's internal battery."
"But we saw it moving!" Fuyutsuki thundered.
"That we did.  But all the information avalable to us at the moment
indicates that Evangelion Unit 1 ceased all of its functions when its
battery was destroyed.  Perhaps we'll know more when we actually get
inside it," Ritsuko finished.  She nodded at the Commander before leaving the
room to begin the tedious, but necissary work on the four Evas, leaving the
two men to discuss other details.
"So," Fuyutsuki said after a long silence desended over the room. 
"What are we going to do about Seele?  They will be calling for a meeting,
and soon."
"We are going to have to wait for more information before making any
decision.  If we proceed in haste, it will only come back to haunt us
in the long run."
"Speaking from experience?" Fuyutsuki couldn't help but jab at the
Supreme Commander.
"Enough of that," Commander Ikari said, raising his voice slightly, and
Fuyutsuki knew that he'd pushed it too far.
'Three,' the Sub-Commander thought.  'That's only the third time he's
raised his voice, that I've ever heard.'  "So," he said, trying to
change the subject, "if we don't tell Seele something, then what will we do?"
"Wait.  We need more information before we proceed.  Besides, we have
at least two days before Seele will contact us and make demands."
"Based on what?"
"They're going to spend at least a day, maybe a day and a half
reorginizing their schedules and tables."
"True."
"And the rest of our time will come from them spending all of it in
meetings, trying to decide on a course of action."
"So we will have some manuvering room?"
"Without a doubt."
"But, going back to my original question, what will we do with it? 
Waste it?"
"What else can we do?  The Third Child stated that he knew who this
traitor was, and without that knowledge..."
"Yes.  We will have no bargining chips.  Unless there is something
else?" Fuyutsuki asked before he stood up and moved to the door of the office.
"Actually," Commander Ikari said quietly.  "I do have another task for
you," he waited until the older man turned around before continuing. 
"It concerns the Second Child as well as Major Katsuragi..."
Fuyutsuki left the office a few minutes later, his mind puzzling over
the task Commander Ikari set out for him.  He had absolutly no idea how to
accomplish it, but he would find a way.  The most annoying part was
that he was on a timetable, and had to have the answers by the time that the
schedule said it was needed.  'Look at us,' he thought mournfully. 
'We've turned into Seele, all concerened about timetables and schedules.'  He
sighed while waiting for the elevator.  He was not going to enjoy the
next few hours.
Sitting in his dark office, the Supreme Commander of Nerv folded his
hands in front of himself and brooded.  He did not like the way events were
turning.  Some things were taking to long, while others were speeding
by at a reckless pace.  Not that he had problems with them, he would just
prefer them to go by his timetable.  But, he eventually decided, there was
nothing he could do about it.  All he could do was adapt to new situations as
they unfolded.
And speaking of new situations, his thoughts turned to more immidate
matters, such as the Third Child having gained knowledge of Seele.  If
he knew about that, then it was probable that he knew of the Marduk
Institue, of Rei, of the true purpose of the project and the Eva's.  With a small
sigh, the Commander realized that he might even know about Lilith,
Adam, and the experiments thirteen years ago.
He sat there for several hours, all of them spent plotting out his next
several moves.  But all of his thoughts came to a dead end whenever
they came to trying to decide what to tell Seele.  Without more information,
he could make no decision.  It was probable that he'd have to improvise
when the time came; and that was akin to asking a cannibal to become a
vegitarian.
He sighed again, heavier this time.  He really didn't like
improvisation, almost as much as he liked dealing with Seele.  Aside from their own
individual annoying habits, as a commitee they didn't know how to use
their time effectivly.  He, on the other hand, was the type of person that
once they decide on a course of action, they want to do it right away.  And
Seele didn't know how to do things with any amount of speed.
Sternly, he ordered himself to stop all of this wondering and get back
to work.  The Lance was beyond anyone's immediate reach, and steps could
be taken to prevent any recovery.  Though he would've liked to hear the
Third Child's reasons for throwing the Lance away, it wasn't all that
important.
And not hearing that would be a minor thing to give up compared to some
of the other things he'd lost over the course of his life.
He turned around in his chair and faced out of the huge office, the
tinted windows providing all the view he needed.  He eventually got up and
looked at the GeoFront, contemplating the workers, buzzing around the damaged
buildings and grounds.  He thought about what must be going through
their minds, having just barely surviving being obliterated by their own
government.
That thought brought a smirk to his lips.  He imagined what the look on
the UN Commander's face must have been like when he got the order to
retreat.  He imagined what the looks on the subordunates faces must
have been when they got the order.
He was still smirking about that when his phone rang.  He answered it
and was mildy surprized to learn that the repairs on Unit 3 were completed
and that Unit 0 would be repaired in less than an hour.  He looked at the
clock built into his desk, and discovered that he'd lost several more hours
to deep thought.  He did some quick math and figured that he had been
thinking alone there for ten hours.
An hour later, Fuyutsuki was still pondering how he was going to pose
his questions to the Second Child and Major Katsuragi.  After eleven hours
he was no closer to an answer than he was when he started.  True, he did
spend most of time doing the other tasks that the Commander had assigned to
him, but he never stopped thinking about that last one.  'Perhaps a
straight-forward order would do the trick,' he thought.  Then he saw
Asuka's reaction to that and quickly pushed the thought away.  He
prefered breathing.  He looked up as a knock on his door pulled his attention
away.
"Ah, Major.  It's good that you came, I have some more questions for
you."
"Yes, sir, and I have some bad news for you."
"What news?"
"I can't get Asuka to tell me what Shinji told her.  I tried ordering
her, telling her, asking her, and begging.  None of it worked.  She won't
tell me.  And, may I offer some advice, Commander?  Don't even bother
asking, you won't get anywhere."
"Well," he said, thinking.  "That answeres some of my questions.  As
for the other ones, what do you possibly think he could have said?  Use
your best judgment."
"I really couldn't say.  I can't even hazard a guess because something
may have happened between them after he came back and they were ordered to
move in together."
"Alright, then," he said and stood up.  He started moving out of his
office and gestured for the Major to follow him.  "Next question: do
you think there is any way to get the information out of her?"
"None at all."
"What makes you say that?"  Misato gave him a brief explanation of the
conversations the two women had about what Shinji said.  "Ah.  You said
that she said that it was 'Personal'?"
"Yes, sir.  What are you going to do about it?"  The Sub-Commander
winced.
"I'm going to tell Commander Ikari."
"You poor, poor, soul," Misato said with a wink and a knowing smile.
Fuyustuki smiled back, though his had a bittersweet tinge to it.  She
turned away and walked off, while he stood rooted to the spot for a
moment, before he started towards the Commander of Nerv.
As soon as he walked in the office, he could tell that something was
wrong with the picture that greeted him.  He saw the Supreme Commander
standing behind his desk, staring out the window.  He tried as mightily as he
could, but couldn't place the wrong element.  He put it aside and prepared
himself to tell the Commander exactly what he didn't want to hear.
"Well?" the question came, the speaker not turning around.  The
Sub-Commander was silent until he stood beside the younger man.
"Nothing.  I haven't been able to find out what Shinji said to Asuka. 
Not even Major Katsuragi would hazard a guess."
"And what of Kaji?"
"He claimed the same, saying that Major Kasturagi would know the two of
them better than he."
"Whom did you speak to first?"
"Kaji," Fuyutsuki said slowly, suddenly wary at the question.  It
wasn't idle speculation; the Commander just wasn't like that.  The Commander
was silent, and Fuyutssuki held his tounge and questions.  The younger man
would explain in his own time, in his own way.  He was just opening his
mouth to ask another question when the phone interupted him.
The dark uniform crackled as Commander Ikari turned to answer it.  That
sound put the puzzle in a new light.  'I wonder how long he's been
standing there,' the older man thought.  Putting a hand out, he could feel the
faint heat in the space that the man had occupied that a body produces after
being at rest for too long.
"Yes?" He paused, listening.  His eyebrows lifted fractionally, "Are
you sure?  Wait."  He pressed the hold button, and replaced the handset. 
He turned to face the Sub-Commander.  "The Third Child is awake."
"Yes?" Fuyutsuki answered, waiting for more information.  "Has he asked
for something?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"To see me, apparently."  Fuyutsuki was speechless for several seconds,
his eyes going wide.
"What is it about?"
"Unknown.  He wouldn't tell them anything except to relay his wishes."
"What are you going to do?" Fuyutsuki asked quickly.  "Ikari, this is
what we've been wait-" The Commander interuppted him with an impatient wave.
"I know that," his voice was hard, and suddenly Fuyutsuki knew how most
of the people in this facility were treated by the man.  He'd forgotten,
through his long and deep contact, just how intimidating Commander
Ikari could be.  He now understood why some people would visibly quake when
he walked by, why some people would go to any length to avoid his wrath,
regardless of the power he held over their jobs.  Now he knew why so
many people were openly hostile at the mere mention of his name.
"Well?"  
In response, the Commander picked up the handset again, took it off
hold, and said, "I'll be there in ten minutes."
Shinji was nervous.  Confrontation was never his strong suit, and
neither was dealing with his father.  Now, he was trying to do both at the same
time.  For a brief moment he wondered about his sanity, but only
briefly. 
Having the knowledge that he did, he had a responsibility share that
knowledge with the world.  Alright, so it wasn't the world, it was
Seele.
He shivered when he thought of that group of men, controlling nearly
everything about the E-Project.  He had to admit to himself that he
wasn't entierly comfortable with that knowledge.  'One time where ignorance is
bliss,' he thought to himself.  Then he sat up straighter in the bed as
his father walked in, dropping the temperature of the room.
"Yes?" the older man asked simply.
"I need a favour," Shinji said, cursing himself for the quiver in his
voice and hoping that his father missed it.  The Commander didn't, but
made no mention of it.  He stood silently, waiting for the request.  "I need
to have an audience with Seele."  The silence that followed grew longer
and more palpable.  It was interuppted by a nurse walking in.
The Commander turned to look at the nurse and nodded at the door.  She
nodded quickly and turned around to walk away as fast as she could and
not look like she was running.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a
device that looked like a remote control, pointed it at the top corner
of the room, and pressed a button.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I need to.  I have information that they need to know.  That
everyone needs to know."
"So tell me."
"I can't.  I have to be the one to tell it."
"Why?"
"Because I can't be sure that you'll tell everything, and I'm still
working on figuring somethings out.  I don't know everything that I
have to tell them, but I will with time.  There is a slight problem, however. 
I get the feeling that I'm going to forget everything that I know.  I'm
going to forget all this information, and I can't let that happen.  I need to
tell them.  Now."
'Smooth move, Ikari,' Shinji thought to himself as he heard the tone of
his own voice.  No one orders the Supreme Commander around.  'Why don't
you just ruin it all the way?'  His father was silent for a minute,
apparenetly thinking it over.
"No."
"What?  Why not?"
"Seele simply can't be 'called'.  They will come to you when they are
ready; if they wish to speak with you at all."  With this, the older
man turned to walk away.
Shinji couldn't belive this.  The world needed this information, and he
wouldn't get a chance!  He looked at his fathers back, and a fleeting
memory flashed before his eyes.  That old memory, of his father walking
away from him so many years ago, stirred a newer memory, one of from
his time with Unit 1.  A new piece of the puzzles of his conflicting
memories fell into place, and he knew something that he didn't a few minutes
before.
"I know what happened thirteen years ago," he said loudly, his voice
harsh.  The Commander stopped, his hand on the doorknob.  Shinji
thought he could see the slight tensing of his fathers back muscles as his words
sank in.  He slowly slipped out of the bed, though his own muscles protested
loudly.  He ignored them and stood as tall as he could.  "Why didn't
you tell me?"
"It wasn't your business," the Commander said, bringing sound to the
thoughts that have been resounding in his mind for thirteen years.
"None of my business?!" Shinji snarled.  What was the man thinking!?
"She wasn't your wife!" The Commander exploded, all traces of control
gone.  How dare he?!
"She was my mother!  That should have been enough!" Shinji snapped
back.
Later, he would admit to himself and others that he was scared. 
Standing before him now was a man he didn't know.  Commander Ikari was always in
control, every situation as predictable as the phone book.  But this
new man, wild and uncontrollable, was frightning.  This was the man the icy
gaze held in check every minute of every hour of every day.
He swallowed, bracing himself for the next outburst.  He watched his
fathers lip curl up into a snarl.
"Don't ever, ever mention her again."
"Why?  Afraid of what I might make you do?  Afraid of what other people
might find out about you?  About Unit 1?"  That did it.  Commander
Ikari stalked up to Shinji, grabbed him by his hospital shirt and pushed him
back onto his bed.  Hard.  Shinji grasped at the bed to stay standing, but
the Supreme Commander pushed him again, and he fell across to the other
side, knocking a heart monitor and other equipment away.
Hearing the crash from her position beside the door, the nurse decided
that her job could be at stake if she was discovered, turned and fled
down the hall.
As the Commander raised a fist to continue, Shinji grabbed a pillow and
threw it into his fathers face.  As the Commander pushed the
obstruction away, Shinji kicked out with a foot and connected with his fathers
knee.
He jumped up, reaching for his fathers throat, but his father caught
his hands at the wrists and twisted them.
Trying to avoid crying out in pain, he kicked out, again connecting
with his fathers knee.  This time his father had to let go and stagger back
a few steps.  Shinji pressed the advantage, as small as it was, and
charged.
As he punched at his father's gut, he remembered a time not too long
before when he knew just what to do, knew how to fight well.  'I've been
reduced to this,' he thought sourly as he attacked.  'I don't even know how to
coordinate my body anymore.  But,' he argued with himself, 'how much of
that was Unit 1?  How much of me is me, and how much is still Unit 1's
influence?'
His father punched out and managed to shove Shinji away.  They both
locked eyes, the older man's glasses having been sent flying off his face
during the course of the fight.  They both attacked at the same time, and both
connected at the same time.  Each hit with enough force to drive them
back to the far walls and stay there.
They leaned against their walls, each preparing himself for the next
round, when something happened.  Shinji looked at his father, and the
older man glared back.  But there was something about his eyes.  Something
changed behind the Commander's eyes.
They both stood where they were, leaning against their respective
walls, the silence growing more and more palpable with each passing moment,
when suddenly the Commander stooped quickly, retrieved his glasses and
replaced them on his face, his eyes growing cold once again.  He started towards
the door, as if nothing had happened.  Shinji couldn't believe what he was
seeing.  After all that, still nothing!  Is there nothing that pleased
the man?
Suddenly Commander Ikari stopped at the door, his hand on knob.  "I
will call Seele," he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper.  He
turned to look at Shinji, staring at him with all the intensity he could
manage. 
"Whether or not they will listen, I cannot say."  And then he was gone,
the only evidence about his presence being the disarray of the room.
Shinji stood there for ten full minutes, counting them in his mind,
until he allowed himself a deep breath.  He'd done it.  He'd gotten through
to his father and made him understand.  'I should be happy,' he thought to
himself, wondering why he wasn't as he dressed.  He thought he heard
the door open, but dismissed it as his imagination.  Then he looked up and
saw Asuka standing there.  Apparently the door did open.
"A-A-Auska," Shinji stuttered like long ago.  There was something about
the look in her eyes.  Shinji felt fear coming and started to back into
the corner.  She followed, but didn't speak.  For each step he took, she
took two.  Soon, far too soon for Shinji's liking, his back hit the wall,
and when it did, Asuka was close to him.  Their noses were almost touching.
"Shinji," she said, her voice strange, sounding almost strangled. 
"About what you said..."
"I meant every word," he said, some of his spine coming back, though
his voice was also strangled.
"I know," she whispered before closing all the remaining distance and
kissing him on the lips, and -whoa!- was this a different Asuka than
the one that'd kissed him before.  This time she was full of passion, she
knew what she wanted and wasn't looking for anything.  It took Shinji by
suprise and it took him a few moments to catch up to her.  For several minutes
the two of them were away from everything, the only thing in the world that
mattered was each other.
After a short while, too short for either of them, they broke it off,
and reluctantly allowed reality to intrude.  Asuka leaned close, allowing
his arms to wrap around her while she whispered in his ear.  Then she
gently pulled away from him, but held his hand as long as she could before
leaving the room entierly.
Shinji stood there, looking at where her body had been.  He remembered
what she said to him, and it brought a smile to his lips.  'To think
that she would ever...' he thought to himself.  Then he looked up and saw
Rei standing in the room.
"I am here to escort you to your meeting," she said tonelessly.  For a
short moment Shinji wondered what she saw, and his ears started to burn
red.  "Is everything all right?" she asked, still without tone.
"Um...um...um...Yes," he said, "never better."  Then he strode out the
door, prepairing for the next fight.  Rei caught up to him and directed
him through the massive complex that was Nerv Headquaters.  No words passed
between the two as they walked and the silence was comforting. 
Eventually they came to a hallway, and Rei stopped.
"I am forbidden to pass this point.  The room you are looking for is
down this hallway, the second door on your left."
"Right," Shinji said.
"No, left," Rei answered, and Shinji thought he could hear a small tone
of humour in her voice.  When he turned to face her, he could see that her
eyes had the smallest trace of mirth in them.  He smiled at her before
starting down the hall, but her voice stopped him.  "Ikari," she said,
obviously a little nervous.  "Be careful.  The people you are going to
deal with...  they are not nice."
"Thanks," he replied, touched by her concern.  Then she turned around
around and left him to his fate.  His footsteps rang loudly in the
empty hallway, each one sounding like a death knell.  'What am I thinking?'
he asked himself.  'Why do I think that I can even talk to Seele without
turning into a gibbering idiot?'  Then he was at the door, even though
his hands refused to open it.  'Stop all this and get to work,' he thought
harshly.  Resoutly he opened the door and stepped inside quickly,
moving before the rational part of his brain could override his body.
The sight that greeted him was everything he could imagine, just not
what he expected.  He saw his father sitting at a long confrence table, his
arms folded in front of him, but no one else was seated.  Just as he was
about to open his mouth to ask his father what was happening, five people
appeared in the room in a flash of bright light.
'Here we go, Ikari,' he thought to himself.  "What I'll try to explain
to you will be said in terms that you can understand-"
They all interuppted him, demanding to know what happened. 
Unfortunatly, they all chose the same time to ask.
"What are you saying, a traitor-"
"What happened between you and Unit 1-"
"Why have you called us he-"
"What do you want-"
It was too much for the poor boy, and he lost his temper.  Reaching
behind him, he flipped the switches that made his hologram appear for Seele. 
He counted slowly to ten before flipping them again.
Fortunatly, this time they were quiet.  They all had their collective
mouths open in shock at the blatent contempt the young man had shown
them.
Never before had someone been so brazen witht them, and it took them a
moment to adjust.  Soon, the head of the council spoke up.
"Boy, listen here, we do not come at anyone's beck and call.  You will
answer our questio-"
"No," Shinji interuppted.  "You will listen to me.  I have information
that you need, and unless we do this my way, I won't tell you."  A
little lie, he needed to tell them what was going on, but it had to be on his
terms.  It couldn't go any other way.  "You need this, and I have it. 
That means that I've got you by the short and curlies.  No interupptions. 
If I'm forced to stop, I may forget some important detail."  He stopped
talking for a moment, but only long enough to look at each of their
faces and to see that he had their whole and undivided attention.
Commander Ikari smirked behind his gloves.
"Now, then.  We were discussing a traitor?" Shinji asked plesantly.  He
didn't even wait for a response.  "Unfortunatly, you can't understand
what's going on now without knowing all of what happened before. 
You'll need all the background information."
"What sort of 'information'?" the man in yellow demanded.
"What the Eva's are, exactly.  Who made them, exactly-"
"We did!" the green man exclaimed.
"I believe that constitutes an interupption," Shinji stated quietly. 
"But I'll answer it.  Did you?  Did you really?" he deliberatly left the
thought hanging, preventing any more discussion on that topic.  "We'll also
discuss what the goals of the Angels are; and, perhaps most importatly, how I
know all this information."
The Commander's smirk grew.
"What are the Eva's?" Shinji asked rhetorically.  "They are, simply
put, war machines.  But, that's not all they are.  They are so much more. 
As far as I know, the Eva's were created not only from Man's imagination,
but also from instructions found in the documents uncovered in the Dead
Sea, correct?"
"Yes," the Green man answered, his voice betraying some the shock he
was feeling.  This was the Third Child, the one that everyone could walk
all over.  He wasn't supposed to be like this!
"And who wrote those instructions?"  The members of Seele looked at
each other, trying to strive for an answer that they would like.  "I'll tell
you," Shinji's voice broke their deleberations.  "The Angels."  It was
stated with such finality that the assembled men had little difficulty
in thinking that the young man before them believed what he just said.  It
was absolutly silent in that little room before the shock set in and the
five members of Seele let out a collective gasp.  They started murmuring to
themselves, trying to digest this new opinion.
"Why?"
"That should be obvious.  They want to win this war.  What better way
than to have the odds tipped in your favour?"  Before they could answer, he
held up a hand, stifiling any argument.  "Allow me to elaborate.  They're in
this war because they want our planet. But not us.  They want it
compeletly swept clean of any trace of Mankind.  Don't even ask me why, I don't
know.
So, they set out to thinking how they could go about getting our world,
and they hit upon the idea that, if they could somehow get us to do the
work, it would be much easier for them.  Once they had the whole thing
planned out, they 'faxed' the information down to us, in the form of the Dead
Sea Scrolls.  Information including how to build the Eva's, how to set off
the Third Impact, how to set about man's evolution, etc.  But, what the
Scrolls don't say is that the information is not entierly accurate."
"How so?"
"Another interupption.  The Scrolls forgot to mention two major things.
One, is that each of the newly crafted machines would have a mind
already dorment within it, one of the Angels.  So, in essence, each Eva would
be double-agent made by humans."  He let them digest what he just said, as
well as prepaired his next statement.  "Now, to suppliment this
information, which would be useless without several tools, they also
provided the neccissary tools that we would need to do their indirect
bidding.  The first angel, Adam, as well as Lilith, and this very
caveren in which I sit."
"Why do that?  And what about the Lance?"
Shinji didn't even bother to acknoledge the interupption.  "I don't
know. 
All I know is what they did, not why they did it.  And I'll get to the
Lance of Longinus soon.  Getting back to the Scrolls, the second thing
they forgot to tell is that the Third Impact would do absolutly nothing
except cause the extinction of the human race.  No evolution to a higher
being, no merging with each other; nothing except death."  Some more murmuring
accompanied this, but fortunatly, no one spoke up.
"So, to recap, their plan was this: if they beat us, they win.  If we
won, but got turned on by our own tools, they win.  If we won, beat our own
tools as well, but set off the Third Impact, they still win.  It seemed
to be a win-win-win situation."
"So what went wrong?"
"The plan didn't work out exactly as planned.  While the information
was being transmitted, given, or whatever the hell you want to call it,
something occured.  What happened exactly, I don't know.  But what I do
know is that some of the data was corrupted, and the instructions
weren't completely copied down.  And that missing fragment of data gave us a
chance at survival."
"How?"  Shinji sighed.  Wouldn't they ever learn to keep their mouths
shut?  At least he finally knew what his father went through for many
years.
"The missing fragement contained the information required to bend the
Eva's to their Angelic masters' will.  Without that section of
programming, they were, and are, not entierly slaves; though they were still
commited to the cause."  Here, Shinji paused, took a deep breath, and prepaired for
the next bombshell.  "You asked me about the Lance?  A weapon that had
absolutly no purpose save to hurt and destroy Angels and Evas?  Why
would they give it to us?  It's simple.  They didn't."
"What?"
"You can't be seio-"
"Are you su-"  Shinji crossed his arms over his chest, and settled in
to wait out the tide.  It didn't take all that long.
"What?  You don't think that Humans and Angels are the only players in
this game, do you?"  His voice was the picture of innocence.  A
startled gasp met this comment.  "Incidently, this third group, whoever they
were, was also the group responsible for the accident that caused the data
problem."
"If there is this third group, which we highly doubt, why keep
themselves hidden?  Why not show themselves?"  Yello asked, and the other members
nodded their agreement.
"Why do you hide yourselves in your dealings?" Shinji asked back.
"Because it would be easier, because you want to stay hidden, because
you like it?  I don't have those answers."  He took a deep breath.  "Now,
after the Eva's were built, their masters called to them, and told them to
start moving the next sections of plans ahead.  Here, in the real world, we
were starting the initial synchronization experiments."
Commander Ikari's smirk fell.
"The Angels called to Unit and told it to kill the woman within
itself," his voice cracked on 'kill'.  "Unit 1 recieved those orders, and
prepaired to carry them out when a thought occured to it: this woman had done
nothing to it, so why should it kill her?  But, it had its orders, and using a
self-defense system built into its entry plug-"
"What system?!" The man in Green demanded.  Shinji favoured him with a
frosty glare. 
"Each Eva is built with several special systems, the majority of which
we had no idea existed.  One of these is a self-defense system built into
it's entry plug and allowed the Eva to dissolve whomever was inside it at
the time," Shinji said, his voice betraying nothing of the churning
emotions within him.  This was the truly hard part; keeping all of his emotions
in check and not letting them get out and colour his opinions and words.
"After Unit 1 killed the woman and realized just what it'd done to an
innocent creature that had done nothing to it, it went mad.  Well, not
mad as in insane, but mad to the point that it started to question its own
beliefs and those of its masters.  What really pushed it over the edge
was when it looked back at what it'd done, taken a really good look, and it
realized that it had done something more than just kill her, it shared
her entire life.  It looked back at her life, from what she did as a child
to what her last meal was.  The womans entire life was laid before its
eyes, and it felt shame.  The woman had done nothing to it, and she died for
no reason." Shinji was aware that he was repeating himself and he didn't
care.
 The emotion of the moment was simply too much for him to hide.
While everyone was digesting their own thoughts, no one saw Commander
Ikari hands tightening.  He could feel the bones of his hands starting
to move out of alignment, but he didn't care.  The physical pain was there
to drive away his emotional pain.
"Then, armed with it's new knowledge, Unit 1 decided...  decided
to...,"
Shinji took a deep, shuddering breath, "to try to take the place of the
young woman who's life she took."  That finally said, it was like
something in his mind broke open, and he couldn't stop talking.  "Now Unit 1 had
a plan, a reason to live other than war.  She wanted to protect this
world that the woman had so cherished, to the point of even taking her own
actions against her former masters.  The other Eva's, who also have
minds and personalities of their own, sided with Unit 1, and declared war."
"If the Eva's have personalities and mind of their own, why have we
seen no indication of this before?"
"Because they're so alien to us that we can't even see it.  In fact,
the only major time that we even come close to the same level of
consiousness is one very brief moment during synchronisation; the moment of contact.
 In that one instant, for both machine and pilot, something wonderous
happens... something that transends such trivial matters as war,
survival, evolution, and the technologies that bind them together."
"Why haven't we seen any of the other Eva's take direct action against
the Angels like Unit 1 has?"
"Because none of them are as highly... motivated as Unit 1.  For them,
it's a job.  For her, it's personal."
"Fine.  Now that you've explained this all to us, will you tell us who
the spy is?"  There were murmers of agreement among the other members of
Seele.
 Shinji's gaze travelled around the room, fixing everyone with a frigid
stare.  He spent several minutes studing all the faces that were before
him.  He could see the fear and aprehension in the coloured faces, and
felt a small thril of satisfaction deep within himself.  He doubted anyone
else had done this to them.
"Him," he said, nodding towards Keel Lorenz.

end