Chapter 20: Ten Glass Eyes, Part 1 of 3
Chapter 20 - Ten Glass Eyes, Part 1 of 3
From the outset, it seemed as if Tokyo-3 was in for another typical day, with the sun shining brightly as morning greeted the 'fortress of mankind'. That's what it seemed to NERV tech Shigeru Aoba as he picked up his can of iced coffee from the vending machine he stood next to, his guitar strapped to his back, while waiting outside the laundromat where three of his coworkers were getting their things. Inside, Ritsuko Akagi, Maya Ibuki, and Aoi Mogami were picking their respective small loads out of the machines they'd been using.
"Am I the only one thinking the cost of something simple as doing laundry has been killing me lately?" Ritsuko posed.
"It's not just you," Aoi replied.
"Makes me wish I had more time to do my own wash at home," Maya added.
Shigeru, poking his head in, gave his own two cents. "Look at it this way--at least you can sleep at home."
Some minutes later, the quartet of NERV personnel found themselves on the subway heading towards the Geofront. Out of the corner of the NERV chief scientist's eye, she spotted another familiar face among the ridership.
"Hello, Sub-Commander," Ritsuko greeted as Fuyutsuki looked up from his newspaper.
"Good morning, sir!" Maya, Aoi and Shigeru followed.
"Morning," the former professor greeted in turn as Ritsuko took the seat one over from his.
Maya briefly glanced at the paper in her superior officer's hands, where to her slight surprise another headline based around the nightly exploits of the Shadow graced the front page, focused on the mysterious vigilante's recent exposure and takedown of an Angel-worshipping cult that had nearly offered up two children as a sacrifice. For the first time in a while, her thoughts turned back to her 'recruitment' into the Shadow's network, and how her first assignment led to her questioning how she now saw her sempai. At first, she felt it was inconceivable that Ritsuko Akagi would willingly engage in industrial sabotage, even if it kept a potential competitor off of NERV's back. Yet, the trace bits of coding she saw in the virus remains she examined didn't lie, as they bore the mark of her sempai's handiwork. It was quite a reminder she'd received that those you admire still have feet of clay.
The subject of her thoughts, on the other hand, was unaware of her kohai's pondering as she conversed with Fuyutsuki. "You're quite early today."
"*Sigh* As it is, I do have to go up top in Ikari's place," the Sub-Commander wearily said.
"That's right, the regular meeting of the city council's today, isn't it?" Ritsuko inquired.
Fuyutsuki nodded. "A pointless job, but still needs to be done, in addition to the other various and sundry duties Ikari delegates to me," Fuyutsuki answered. "Thank god for the MAGI--without it, I'd be lost."
"Reminds me," Ritsuko began, "The city elections are coming up, aren't they?"
"Even that is a farce, ultimately," Fuyutuski stated. "After all, the municipal government's really run by the MAGI."
Hearing this brought Maya out of her particular mental quandary. "The MAGI? The three supercomputers?"
Fuyutsuki nodded. "Government by majority decision of three different computers. A system properly in-line with the fundamentals of democracy."
"And the council just obeys their decisions?" Maya further probed.
Fuyutsuki gave a slight shrug. "It's a most efficient form of government."
"That's a city of science for you," Maya said. "We really do live in an era where science reigns supreme."
Shigeru chuckled at that. "Talk about an old-fashioned line."
"On the other hand," Aoi spoke up, "I can't help but think of an old short story I read."
"Which one?" Ritsuko asked.
"1954's "Answer", by Fredric Brown," Aoi replied.
"Ah, yes, I'm quite familiar with that one," Fuyutsuki said.
"And for those of us unfamiliar?" Shigeru posed.
"In under a page long, we see two technicians--Dwar Ev and Dwar Reyn--complete the construction of a network of supercomputers spanning 96 billion worlds, an event watched by viewers from all the populated planets of the universe. All would be connected to one great machine, one that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies. After the connection is made and the machine is brought online, Dwar Reyn is given the honor of being the first to ask the machine a question. He faces the machine and asks, "Is there a God?" The great voice of the machine answered without hesitating, "Yes, now there is a God." As a fearful Dwar Ev makes a grab for the shutoff switch, he is struck suddenly by a bold of lightning from what was a cloudless sky, which fused the switch shut in the process."
It didn't take long for Shigeru to get the picture. "Well, when you put it that way...Yeah, I guess it does beg more than a few questions." He then began to count off on his fingers. "'What if we go too far?' 'What if we ask the wrong question?' And of course, 'What if this cool thing we're making becomes our undoing?' When you put it like that, part of me would rather take a government based on strange women lying in ponds distributing swords."
Maya let out a small giggle at Shigeru's last line. "'I see you're a man of culture as well.'"
"I do try, sometimes," Shigeru said with mock snootiness.
Ritsuko arched her eyebrow slightly on considering Aoi's words. "Was that a barb at my mother's work?"
"Not at all, ma'am," Aoi replied. "It's the same sort of thing every scientist has grappled with throughout history. I'm sure even you've thought about it as well. Fictional he may be, we've all had to think of what Dr. Ian Malcolm posed: we scientists can be so preoccupied with whether we could that we don't stop to think if we should."
"Ever the Jeff Goldblum fangirl, I see," Ritsuko responded with a slight smirk on her face. Aoi slightly blushed as she found an ad on the subway car's wall that seemed more interesting. "Relax, Aoi, I guarantee you, I--and my mother before me--went to great lengths to ensure the MAGI never goes HAL-9000 on us."
"Good to hear," Fuyutsuki chimed in, before shifting topics. "Which reminds me--you're running an experiment with Unit-00 today, aren't you?"
Ritsuko nodded. "Yes--we'll be running the second prolonged activation test at 10:30."
Fuyutsuki offered her a small smile as he turned back to his paper. "I'll be looking forward to good news, then, regarding the outcome."
Unit-00 testing chamber, NERV HQ, later that morning...
The emergency alarms blared as Ritsuko gave the order to abort the experiment. Once the circuits were cut, the chamber powered down as the lights went off. The room was soon lit after a reboot had been made. Ritsuko looked over Maya's shoulder as they went through the data on the young woman's screen.
"Still the problem here, huh?" Ritsuko pondered.
"Yes," Maya replied. "The fact that the conversion efficiency is 0.008 lower than our theoretical value concerns me."
"It's just barely within tolerance, though," Kaede Agano, from her console, added. "What do we do in light of that?"
Ritsuko gave it some thought before answering, her eyes on the face of the cerulean cyclopean cybernetic colossus. "We'll try it again with the same configuration, but lower the reciprocal conversion rate by 0.01."
"Roger," both Maya and Kaede responded.
Ritsuko nodded in affirmation. "All right, let's recommence the reactivation experiment."
An elevator in another part of HQ...
Misato, a folder clutched in her left hand, was traveling to another floor when the car she was in stopped to admit a new passenger--one who was rushing to catch it.
"Hold that door!" Kaji said. Misato had her finger hovering over the two buttons as she contemplated which to press, 'door open' or 'door close'. Ultimately, in a bit of cosmic defiance of a path well-tread, she pressed 'door open', allowing Kaji to make the car.
"Man, what a run," a slightly-winded Kaji said as the doors closed and the elevator resumed its journey. "You're looking a bit grim today--woke up on the wrong side of the bed?"
Misato, nonplussed, slightly rolled her eyes out of Kaji's view. "How I wake up in the morning isn't your business whatsoever."
"Still, I'm guessing it's business as usual today, same as it ever is," Kaji mused. "'Nose against the grindstone, but it's all right. Look out world, it's dog-eat-dog!'"
Misato chuckled a bit on hearing this, thinking back to what she considered one of the good memories from when the two of them were together in college. While out and about one day, the two were browsing through a music store and, on a lark, Kaji bought an old "Weird Al" Yankovic album--1986's Polka Party!--that they wound up listening to on more than one occasion, to the point where they'd memorized the words to every song on it.
The streets of Tokyo-3, mid-day...
Shinji stood with the payphone to his ear as he waited through the dial-tone, until the other line picked up.
"What?" the other voice on the line asked, sounding slightly annoyed.
"Good day to you too, Father," Shinji replied, unfazed by the commander's tone of voice.
"What is it?" Gendo asked. "I'm quite busy at this time."
"Don't worry your pretty bearded head, it won't take long," Shinji nonchalantly replied. "Just wanted to inform you that at school today we were told to let our parents know about the upcoming career guidance interviews. So if you've got the time..."
"I believe I delegated all such things to Captain Katsuragi, need I remind you," Gendo coldly stated. "Don't call me over such nonsense. Furthermore, don't forward any more of these calls to--"
Before Gendo could finish his thought, the line cut out, to Shinji's mild surprise. He then hung the phone back on its receiver before exiting the stall. "Hmm, testy..." he mused as he rejoined the other pilots.
NERV HQ, Central Dogma, around the same time...
"Main power supply has been interrupted," Satsuki reported as screens and lights everywhere in the complex unexpectedly went dark.
"Voltage level's at zero," Kaede added as Ritsuko tested a couple of buttons on the console next to her.
Ritsuko couldn't see it, but she knew that most eyes were probably on her. "Don't look at me..." she said, trying to ease the tension.
In the elevator, Misato and Kaji, bathed in the red emergency light, were wondering what had cut their trip short.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Kaji asked.
Misato shrugged. "Ah, it'll probably switch to backup power soon. No sweat."
Back in Central Dogma, everyone else was trying to get to the bottom of the situation at hand.
"No good, the backup circuits aren't connecting," Shigeru confirmed.
Fuyutsuki was growing frustrated with the problem. "That can't be right--which circuits are still functioning? Route all remaining power supplies to maintaining both the MAGI and Central Dogma."
"But, sir," Aoi pointed out, "that'll interfere with the life support systems."
"I don't care!" Fuyutsuki barked back, "That's our top priority!"
Tokyo-3 streets, topside, around the same time...
*Sigh* Makoto, old boy, when it comes to crushes, you really know how to pick 'em...
Those were the thoughts on Makoto Hyuga's mind as he stood waiting to cross the street, the laundry of one Misato Katsuragi in a bag held by him.
"Of all the women you had to fall for, it had to be the beautiful, but lazy slob," he mused to himself. "I mean, come on, can't she at least pick up her own laundry herself?" Looking up at the crossing signal, he saw the red light go out...and no walk signal appear in its place down below. "What the...?"
Meanwhile, in another part of the city, the five pilots were on their way to NERV HQ for yet another round of testing, chatting as they went.
"Maybe he was just really busy?" Asuka surmised, after learning of the suddenness with which Shinji's call ended.
"Don't think so," Shinji replied. "Didn't even hear him hang up. Seems like it was more of a technical problem."
Maria, looking about at their surroundings, noticed something peculiar. "Anyone notice how quiet it's gotten?"
The others perked up their ears, and soon, confirmed the same.
"Weird..." Mari said. "Someone put a bunch of babies down for a nap or something?"
"We do not have any policies or procedures for those situations, Pilot Makinami," Rei replied.
"Heh," Mari said in turn. "Good one, Bluebird."
The quintet eventually reached the gate entrance to NERV HQ, and when Shinji swiped his card, no response came from the reader. "Curiouser and curiouser..." he said as he tried again. When again no response appeared on the LCD screen, Asuka quickly brushed Rei and Maria aside.
"Let me try that," the redhead said as she swiped her own card. Again, nothing happened. "Must be broken."
To Maria and Mari, who briefly shared a quick glance, it was probably more than just that, if the faint trilling sound Maria was emitting was any indicator. Something was off, and it wasn't just the power to the electronic gate...
End Chapter 20.