33. Threads
"Okay, let's put tension in the line," said Captain Aoba over the radio. "We've got an Eva to raise."
From the deck of the US salvage ship
Grapple, Aoba oversaw the Eva-specific aspects of the salvage mission.
Grapple's massive crane leaned over the side of the ship, lowering four cables to the water below.
"We'd want to know how Sasaki's doing at this point." That was Misato. She paced in front of a glass panel with writing in orange marker. "Why don't you check in with him, Plugcom?"
I flinched, and I waved my hands over a bank of buttons and switches. An old CRT monitor in front of me showed only static.
"This one, sir," said a petty officer, who pointed out one unlit button. "Channel number four."
I wiped at my eyes and sighed. "Right, number four." I pushed the button down and fixed my headset on my ear. "Unit-14, Unit-14, this is Manoah Base Control aboard
Ise. Do you read me?"
Silence. Misato stopped pacing. She glanced over her shoulder and looked across the room.
I turned my head to the side, following her gaze. "Do you read me?" I said again.
Silence. All eyes in the room turned to the end of my bank of terminals, where Nozomi Horaki sat. With a cocked head, she stared at another static-filled monitor.
I took my finger off the transmit switch. "Nozomi," I said.
"Yeah?" she said, not even looking back at me.
"Do you want to answer?"
"Oh, right!" She straightened up in her seat and shut her eyes. When she spoke, her voice had a low, husky tone. "Ikari? Ikari, is that you? It's so cold down here! I think I'm dying! Come and save me, Ikari! I don't want to die!" She opened one eye to meet my gaze. "How's that?"
Hyuga pressed two fingers to his temple. "Sasaki's weak; he won't have had food or water outside of what he can get from LCL for two days. Just establish contact and say that he'll try to follow instructions."
Nozomi shut her eye again and whispered, "I—I can hear you. I don't know if I'm strong enough to do anything, but I'll try."
Misato shook her head, but she gave me a hand gesture to continue on, and continue we did. For the moment, Nozomi's attempts to become an actress would be ignored. We had a scenario to prepare for. Sasaki was at the bottom of the ocean, and we were going to rescue him.
"Okay, now we'd get Nozomi—" Hyuga glanced down the row of terminals. "The real Nozomi," he clarified, "on the horn so we'd know she's ready to go."
I glanced at control panel again. The petty officer shadowing me put a finger on the row where the right button was, and I hung my head as I pushed it.
Within 24 hours of that time, practice would be over. We'd be on site to rescue Sasaki.
We were off-shore near Myoko Harbor, aboard the helicopter destroyer
Ise. MSDF Escort Flotilla 5 had gathered to spearhead the Japanese portion of the operation, and we weren't alone. The US Navy had lent us the salvage ship
Grapple, where Aoba and his team stood by as we ran through the procedure. Divers from
Grapple had gone down with inflatable buoys, and we'd spent half an hour just getting the air supply pumps working right.
Aboard
Ise, the adjustments we had to make were more mundane. The computer systems in
Ise's fleet operations room were even more primitive than those in Manoah Base's control room. The computers were old and non-standard, with an array of push buttons and lighted switches. Petty Officer Kobayashi had shadowed me for most of the afternoon just to get me acquainted with the system. I still didn't know what most of the buttons did, and that worried me.
But there was no time to worry. We ran the procedure twice while we were waiting for additional equipment to arrive: MSDF sailors had to hook up a towing platform to the back of one of the flotilla's destroyers. Once that was done, though, we got underway. It would take almost a full day to go around the Korean Peninsula and reach the crash site. While the ship was en route, we couldn't even practice very much. All we could do was eat, sleep, and wait.
I spent some of my time at a railing above the flight deck. I looked to the horizon and counted the ships I could see. Escort Flotilla 5 had eight ships, but at most, I could make out maybe three or four. The formations were so big that half of the fleet was out of sight. I asked one passing MSDF member about this, and he said that the horizon is only five or ten kilometers away at typical heights. There was a whole fleet beyond the horizon, but it couldn't be seen. It couldn't be seen, yet I knew it was there.
As I looked out over the red ocean, which glimmered in the sunset, I said to the wind,
"Ayanami, are you there?"
The answer came without a missing beat. "I am."
She stood beside me at the railing, but while I leaned on the bars, she kept her distance from the edge.
"What do you need from me?" she asked.
"Nothing," I had to admit, staring over the water. "I was just thinking about things you can't look at but know are there; that's all."
She glanced at me. "I see."
"I was a little hard on you the other day," I went on. "I'm sorry about that."
"You don't need to apologize. You said nothing wrong."
I smiled slightly. "I'm glad you feel that way, but it had to be said. I'm trying to do better now. I'm trying to do right by people—by Nozomi, by you, and by Sasaki." I tapped the metal railing. "I hope this will do right by him."
"Ikari…" She turned to face me, but her eyes wouldn't meet mine.
"What?"
"Ikari, this mission is doomed to fail."
"What? No!" I ran along the railing, forcing myself into her view. "No way. It can't. We've got to save him. We can't leave him down there!"
"You're not prepared for what she can do," said Ayanami.
"Watch us," I said. "I think we're more prepared than you realize."
Ayanami leaned to the side and stared past me. "Are you?"
I followed her gaze and looked over the water.
The water was full of bodies. Pale in color, the red water seeped into their flesh, tinting them pink. The bodies bobbed with the waves that passed by, and the creatures' limbs clawed at the air feverishly.
I blinked. I shut my eyes tight, and when I opened them again, the creatures were gone.
"Your mission is doomed," she said again, "but I can change that."
"How?"
"I need something from you: your courage, your conviction."
I laughed. I put both hands on the railing and looked at the wake beneath us. "I'm not courageous, and my conviction almost got Sasaki killed."
"You tried to be more dedicated to the cause than you knew how to be," said Ayanami, "but you
are dedicated. You always were."
"Then what could you possibly need from me?" I asked.
"You," she said. "I need you—to be here."
I stared at her, and she took a step closer.
"I'm sorry." Her eyes turned downcast. "You are a friend, but I stayed away from you. I didn't want her to hurt you, so I hurt you instead."
"You had good reasons…"
"That," she said, "is what I told myself, too. Not anymore." Her eyes came up. "I've missed you, Ikari."
"I missed you, too," I said, putting on a sad smile. "So let's not have that come between us anymore. You can rely on me. Let me stand with you. I know it's a risk, but I'm willing to take it."
Ayanami smiled. "Thank you."
I nodded, and we looked to the ocean for a time, admiring the gradient of colors across the sky as the sun set to our left.
"It is a risk," Ayanami said at last, "but no matter what, I will protect you."
She put her hand on top of mine on the railing. She put her hand there—and I felt it. She pulled my little finger up and slipped her hand underneath.
I jolted. My mouth hung open. "Ayanami—"
But she wasn't looking at me. Her eyes were fixed on the sunset. "It hurt to stay away from you," she said, "but if I know you'll have a chance, even that won't hurt me anymore."
I stared at her. I blinked a few times, but no matter how many times I did so, her expression didn't waver.
I raised my hand off the railing a bit, letting her fingers slip into my own. I held Ayanami's hand there, on one of the upper decks of the helicopter destroyer, and I wouldn't let go.
"You don't have to do that," I said. "We're here to save people. We're not here to suffer just so we can feel better about trying."
"I choose this," she said, turning away from the sunset with a wide, radiant smile. "There are things I won't like about it, but it makes me happy."
I squeezed her hand tighter—so tight that my whole body shook. "Please don't do this," I said to her.
Ayanami's smile faded. Her red eyes were cool and determined. "Don't be sad for me, Ikari. When I first chose to do this, I did it for everyone, but everyone couldn't support me. You can." She squeezed my hand back. "And you have. Thank you."
I stopped feeling her. The tension in my hand went away. Her body passed through me again. Once again she was ephemeral and fleeting. She went into a closed steel hatch, and she was gone.
I couldn't sleep much that night. I wanted to blame that on the rolling of the ship or the strange cacophony of noises from its bowels, but that wouldn't be true. At least the engines drowned out the wail of blood rushing through my ears.
The next morning, as
Ise approached the engagement site, Nozomi took a boat to
Grapple, and the rest of us manned our stations in the operations room. I spoke with Misato about the impending operation. I told her I'd spoken with Ayanami—that I knew we weren't ready. The enemy could do so much to hurt us here. Misato put down a folder and sighed.
"We've done all we can," is what she said, and she put on a weak smile. "We've got extra contingents of marines to protect us and Aoba if the enemy try to board the fleet. We've got Russian, Chinese, and US air support. This is the best we can do—the best that can be done. Right now, we have to hope."
"Hope for what?" I demanded.
"That Rei is wrong."
That was like hoping God would mix up a few letters in an eye exam.
The operation was underway by noon. Divers from
Grapple attached buoys to Unit-14's armor, and with the crane's assistance, the Eva lurched off the ocean floor.
I got on the underwater phone to Sasaki. "Hey, do you feel that?" I asked him. "
Grapple should be lifting you up now."
My monitor was blank; the underwater phone didn't have enough bandwidth for a video feed, so I could only read Sasaki's mood from his voice. "Uh, maybe?" he said weakly. "To be honest, I've wanted to throw up for about half an hour now."
"The LCL?" I asked him.
"Yeah. I feel like a vampire."
I grimaced at that. "It'll all be over soon. Just be ready to undo the restraints once the LCL is drained. One thing at a time. Work through the procedure step-by-step, and we'll get you out of there."
"Okay…"
Grapple brought the Eva back above water. Aoba's team hooked up an improvized clamp to unscrew the entry plug from the Eva's neck while the beast floated face-down behind the ship. Nozomi stood by on
Grapple's deck, plug suit on and ready to go, but just as Aoba's team cracked the entry plug hatch, a thunderous sound boomed over the radio:
CRUNCH!
"What was that?" asked Misato.
Ise shuddered. Misato caught Hyuga, and the two fell against the central strategy table.
The reports came in from
Grapple first: the red ocean had turned to flesh. The bodies of walkers coalesced around the fleet. We were trapped like Cheerios in a packed cereal bowl.
Misato got on the horn with
Ise's captain. "Blow them up if you have to," she told him. "Carve out a path with their blood if we must!"
Oh, they tried. The ships of the flotilla unloaded round after round from their guns. They launched rockets and depth charges to try to break up the fleshy blockade. It "worked," but only in the most marginal sense: any hole made in the layer of bodies was small, and only enough for a ship to move a few meters through. And even in doing that, some of the ships came up with bent or damaged propellers just trying to move through the bodies.
So paralyzed we were that we were sitting ducks for the Angel.
The Disc Angel came for us from the west. It spun horizontally, levitating about 20 meters over the ocean surface. Its yellow-white glow was like a second sun for the morning sky.
And the Angel came with more than just the intent stop us. It came bearing a gift: it turned over and dropped an object toward
Grapple. A wooden ring, as though fashioned from a bundle of vines, thudded on the deck. The object was about two meters in diameter, with prickly spikes all around.
US Marines and salvage staff aboard
Grapple raced to action. They tied some lines around the ring-shaped object and pulled on it with winches, but its spikes dug into the deck. The crew attached plastic explosives to the spikes to shatter them, but that only succeeded in scarring the deck's surface.
"What the hell is going on out there, Ikari?" Nozomi asked at one point, as Aoba's team had stalled trying to get her online. "What's that noise?
"It's just, um, a small explosion."
"An explosion? I'm sitting in a metal can with controls that aren't connected to anything, and there are bombs going off outside?"
"Just sit tight; we're working on it!" I looked to Hyuga. "We're working on it, right?"
Hyuga wasn't even looking at me. His eyes stared right through me as he listened to his headset. I switched channels, and I heard what was happening, too:
The enemy was rising. From the sea of bodies that bobbed with the waves, the white, fleshy walkers scaled the hulls of the fleet's ships. Their needle-like fingers pierced metal, giving them the leverage to crawl up.
The security staff aboard
Grapple fired volley after volley toward the water, cutting the beasts down, but for every one that fell, there was another waiting in the water, ready to start climbing anew. They climbed in columns and shrugged off impacts when their comrades above were shot and fell back to the water.
"Get ready to be loaded," I told Nozomi. "We're going to need you as soon as you're able."
As
Grapple's security forces manned the rails, nearby ships worked to clear areas closer to
Grapple and shoot into the surrounding waters.
But the Angel would have none of that. The Disc turned its edge to the water and split a Chinese destroyer in two, leaving behind severed compartments and a white-hot metal gash.
I spun around from my station. "Misato, isn't it time yet?" I demanded. "We've got an ace in the hole; now is the time to use it!"
Misato looked to Hyuga. "Is the tarp off?"
"It is, ma'am."
"Launch it."
At that, Hyuga got on the phone. "This is Hyuga in Fleet Operations. Launch."
The destroyer
Makinami had towed a barge all the way to the crash site. The ship's crew folded up a blue tarp, revealing a lean, muscular beast in red, black, and white painted armor: Eva Unit-15. On loan from Germany, it was our last hope against an Angel, and we would use it to the fullest. Once the tarp was stowed, Unit-15 sprang into action: it leapt from ship to ship, using an attached jetpack to soften its landings.
The Angel targeted another ship: the Chinese destroyer
Kunming. Personnel on deck ran inside for cover. Unit-15 jumped over like a veteran track and field star, rocking the ship side to side as it put down on helicopter landing pad.
Veering toward the center of
Kunming, the Angel would avoid Unit-15 altogether, but Hyuga relayed an idea to our German liaison:
"If you can get it to target the front part low, just before the leading edge, with an upward blow…"
The liaison seemed to understand; she got on the radio with her German superiors, and sure enough, when the Angel came in—spinning with its edge vertical, Unit-15 dashed over the side, burned its jetpack, and bashed its head on the Disc's face. It headbutted the Angel into a wobbly trajectory, knocking the enemy clear of
Kunming and into the pile of bodies beyond.
The creatures in the water paddled and swam franctically to try to push the Disc upright. Gunners on
Kunming sprayed them with bullets, and Unit-15 crawled over the side of the ship to get an angle for an attack.
But back on
Grapple, the enemy was starting to come over the rails. The marines beat back the enemy with the butts of their rifles when ammunition gave out, and Captain Aoba's staff pulled back from the railings, all working to help lift and guide Nozomi's entry plug into Unit-14.
In the fleet operations room aboard
Ise, all I could do was wait. Nozomi wasn't up and running yet, but I was still anxious. "Isn't there any way to speed this up?" I asked Hyuga.
"We'll stick to the essential checklist," he told me. "We'll get her out there."
That was looking less and less likely each second. The walkers got a foothold on one corner of the crane platform, and though
Grapple sent a handful of men with shotguns to push the enemy back, the aft platform with Unit-14 degenerated into a close-quarters melee.
"Okay!" I heard Aoba cry out over the radio. "One last push, let's go!"
They screwed the plug into place in the Eva; the covering neck plate closed, and the enemy overwhelmed the defenders, piercing their heads and forcibly dissolving them. Aoba and his colleagues took up arms to defend themselves, but single shots from pistols were no match for the enemy: they shrugged off the blows and routed the whole team.
"Nozomi!" I cried. "Are you good to go? You need to get out of there!"
"I don't have control yet!" The entry plug was still dark; she moved the control levers uselessly.
"Remote restart procedure," ordered Hyuga. "How much time?"
"Fifteen seconds!" said another controller.
My eyes focused on the reflection of a light in the monitor, but that's all that was there. I closed my right hand into a fist.
The enemy overran
Grapple's deck. They liquefied the marines and Aoba's team, but they ignored the Eva. They went instead for the ring-shaped object whose spikes stuck in the deck of
Grapple. The creatures grabbed those spikes, and their arms morphed and softened like putty. They merged with the object, and though they remained connected to it, they came back for the Eva. They came back, and they stabbed at the seams in the Eva's helmet, planting thorny, wooden protrusions.
From those thorns grew vines, bonding the Eva to the ring-shaped object.
The Eva stood up.
"Ikari, I don't have control," said Nozomi. "It's moving on its own; what's going on?"
The fleet operations room was silent.
The vines contracted, bringing the ring-shaped object to the Eva's head.
And the Eva went to work. It jumped clear across the flotilla to
Kunming. The added weight pushed the ship down to where its waterline was just below its railings. Unit-14 tackled the German Eva, and the two fought over the aft landing pad. Unit-14 was vicious in its blows, slugging it out with the leaner, but also lighter, Unit-15 in a nasty brawl. It beat the mask off Unit-15, yanked off the legplates, and stomped on Unit-15's chest.
"Fight it, Nozomi!" I insisted. "You have to do something!"
"I can't!" She slapped the controls and yanked on them as hard as he could. The levers gave no resistance. It was though they weren't connected to anything at all.
Outside the fleet operations room, gunshots rang out. The rhythmic beats of shotgun blasts echoed through the corridors.
My eyes lost focus. "Ayanami," I said, staring past the monitor, "we need you."
"I'm here."
She appeared, in the reflection of the monitor. I turned to face her, and her image was only slightly more real—translucent and expressionless she was, but she was there.
"Ayanami," I said, "I think you might be right."
"Are you?" Another voice interrupted. "You're willing to leave her to this?"
The hooded stranger—she stood on the opposite side of the command table, and she approached, not minding Misato and Hyuga's bodies that were in the way: she passed right through them (to Misato's visible irritation). She kept her gaze fixed on me, despite the hood covering her eyes.
"She puts her trust in you again." The stranger cocked her head. "It was foolish the first time; it's no smarter now. She still wants to be here." The stranger looked to Ayanami. "This is an act of false hope, Lilith: false hope for you, false hope for your children. You would only make it more difficult for both of us."
"They're capable of more than you give them credit for," said Ayanami. "You're afraid of what they can do."
The stranger hissed at that. "You're afraid, too." The stranger faced me again. "How much of your friendship have you missed out on? How much more do you stand to lose this way? You can't let her condemn herself to this fate. That would be a betrayal of everything you have together."
I slammed a fist on the console. "The only person who ever betrayed her is you! You betrayed what she stood for; you betrayed what you all stood for! And for what? To destroy us?"
The stranger looked to me, and her lips curled in exasperation. "Destroy you?" she echoed. "Please. I am freeing you from Lilith's misconceptions, from her misguided beliefs. You of all people know what pain is like. You know that the dream she intends for you is impossible. See the futility of what you strive for. See it—and let go."
"It is not futile." Ayanami stepped between us, staring down the enemy. "And they will show you that, not me."
I stepped around her, trying to catch her gaze. "Ayanami—"
"Ikari." She smiled for me. She smiled so gently, yet it was a full smile, too—full and without reservation. "Thank you," she said, "but now, I must break a promise."
Shuddering, I couldn't bear to look at her for long. "I—I know."
Ayanami nodded at me, and she fixed her eyes on the enemy. She raised a hand to the stranger, and she brought it down with the force of a hammer.
And there was a shattering. The world shattered, and my heart went along with it.
The shards left behind were images of Ayanami and the stranger, scattered images that reflected them in various stages of conflict. Ayanami and the stranger traded blows. Those surreal still frames littered the operations room. Ayanami and the stranger punched, grabbed, and kicked at one another in endless positions and combinations.
The camera on Unit-14 showed the same. All over the ocean and the deck of
Kunming, these ghastly images lingered.
And with those images in the background, the day was saved. Unit-14 collapsed in a heap. The walkers liquefied. LCL seeped under the operations room hatch. The Disc Angel spun itself out of the water and flew a wobbling course away.
Ayanami did something great for us that day. She found something inside her that she didn't know she had before—not when she was searching for meaning all those years ago, not even at the Horaki home two days before. I don't know what she found, but I know that she'd been striving to be a little more than what she'd been. And she accomplished that.
She accomplished that and was happy for it. I knew that to be true because, when I looked at those supernatural images of Ayanami and the stranger, there was one thing abundantly clear:
Ayanami always had a smile on her face.
What You Leave Behind
The Second Coming Part Five End
