14. Ground Zero
What I remember most about that day—about the first minute after the bombing—was the stillness.
My ears rang, drowning everything else out. Neither screams nor sirens reached me, so the scene there played out like a silent film.
Some people picked themselves up off the square's concrete surface, and they limped toward the nearest road. Others streamed out of the other buildings—the Defence Agency, the Public Safety Bureau, and the like. They formed a procession in neat, orderly lines, headed by their bosses, as though it were a mere evacuation drill.
"Shinji!"
Asuka grabbed me by the shoulders, and I jolted, heart racing.
"Are you hit?" she asked.
I shook my head. "No…"
"You sure?"
I nodded, and Asuka let out a breath. "Jeez, you scared me!" she said, laughing with relief. Her hands curled around my shoulders, but her eyes flickered past me, and she paled. "My God…"
Breaking away, Asuka laid down her bag and unzipped it, and she crouched next to a man not two meters away from me. The man was awake and wide-eyed. He was alive.
He had to be, for the blood was still pulsing out of his chest.
Asuka went to a knee and cradled the man's head. "Hello, sir? Sir? Are you with me?"
The man nodded weakly, and he coughed. Blood sputtered to his lips. "Not for much longer, maybe," he said.
"I wouldn't say that just yet!" Asuka ripped at his shirt, tearing off the buttons, and she flicked his tie aside. The wound was somewhere on his lower torso, but in the mess of blood, it was hard to make out the exact spot.
"Shinji, I need some cloth!"
I stared at that bloody mess. I felt my cheeks and my chest. I took a deep breath. The air went in an out. It wasn't even a struggle. It all happened without an ounce of effort.
"Shinji!"
"Hm? What?" I said.
"Cloth! We've got to stop the bleeding!"
I sat down next to the bag and fished through it for something, anything. The only thing it carried that was helpful? Asuka's white labcoat.
"Are you serious?" cried Asuka.
I balled up the labcoat and stuffed it back in the bag, and I yanked off my sweatshirt instead. Asuka pressed it against the man's wound, and the blood seeped into the green fabric, turning it a dark, sickly color.
"Agh," the man moaned. "It hurts…"
"It's gonna hurt until they can look at you," said Asuka. "You might still have some shrapnel inside, so try not to move, you understand?"
The man closed his eyes, nodding ever-so-slightly. "I guess I'm lucky it isn't worse…"
I took one of the water bottles out of the bag and offered the man a sip. "Lucky?" I said.
"Lilith must've been watching over me."
I drew the water bottle away, and I saw it: the man's silver necklace, shaped like half a face with a dark eye. You could go to the crater where Tokyo-3 used to be, and you'd see a face like that staring back at you from the water. The government let people camp out on the beach and hold rallies, distribute texts…
Or make necklaces.
"I could've been halfway up the Diet steps," the man went on, laughing to himself. "I dropped my briefcase on the way out of the train, and all my papers went everywhere. If not for that—"
"That was a coincidence," I said, dabbing at the man's mouth to take the blood away.
"Why do you say that?"
I caught the man's eye and stared him down. "Maybe Lilith was watching over someone, but it wasn't you. She let this happen. She let people do this. And you know what happened?"
"Shinji—" said Asuka.
"You can't see it right now," I said, gesturing to the rest of the square, "but there are a lot more people out here, and that's just who I can see—"
"Shinji!"
Asuka grabbed the water bottle in my hand, and her little finger came to rest over mine.
"Maybe you want to take it easy for a bit," Asuka said softly. That was a torture. With the hum in my ears, I could hardly be sure that's what she said at all, but the pained look on her face was clear enough.
I went aside, sat with my head down, and waited.
I waited for the police to arrive and secure the scene.
I waited for the paramedics to follow them and make their rounds—first to the critically wounded, then to those less injured, then to even Asuka and me, unharmed as we were. Even the two of us couldn't escape examination, couldn't escape their questions. "How close were you to the blast? Do you feel anything in your chest or airway?" You see, a blast can injure you without leaving a mark. The pressure can tear you up inside, and you might not even realize it.
Only after that were we allowed to leave the square. The police asked us questions, of course. Did we see anything? Anything out of the ordinary? I told them I was on my way to the cafe, and that I stopped for a moment because I thought I'd forgotten something. Nothing like Rei Ayanami could've appeared in front of me. That would just sound crazy and suspicious.
They let us go home after that. Of course, there was no easy way from the square at that point. The trains were closed, and the streets were jammed with patients still in need of triage. The police were kind enough to offer us a ride home, but we could've walked faster, really. Between the tents on the street for triage, the ambulance procession leaving the scene, and the two dozen police cars establishing a barricade around the square entrances, getting back home was no easy feat.
The first thing we did when we got home? We bagged up our clothes. I never got my sweatshirt back, but my undershirt bore spots from the man's coughs. Asuka had it worse: though she'd rolled up her sleeves, blood had found a way to her pants and the end of her shirt. All of it had to go.
"It's the one time maybe I should've worn a skirt to the lab, hm?" Asuka remarked.
"I guess." I took the bag and tossed my own clothes in as well.
Asuka shot me a sidelong glance. "Shinji."
"What?"
"I'm making dinner."
The bag slipped from my grasp. "You want to do what?"
"You heard what I said." Asuka was in her yellow pajamas by then, and she started tying an apron around her waist. "How does it look?"
"It looks fine. Now get the other apron; I'm helping."
"You are not!" She wagged a finger at me. "Sit down. Be a good boy."
I scoffed. "Am I a dog now?"
"That might be fun." Asuka smiled slyly, setting up behind the kitchen counter. "Come on. Put something on TV and relax."
I shook my head, pulling on my hair. "I can't do that, Asuka. I—I just—I can't. Let me help with dinner."
Hands on her hips, Asuka looked me up and down. "All right," she said. "You can help. A little."
I helped a lot. I did want to eat well that night, after all. Teaching Asuka the finer points of cooking would take more time than that.
We did eat well, as well as we could in those days. Asuka didn't hesitate to break out the catfish fillet, and we made tempura. I tried to keep things simple for her: measuring ingredients, mixing up the tempura batter, and the like. Chemistry and cooking, I learned, aren't so different in that respect.
And it took over an hour. That was an hour spent worrying about cracking eggs and cutting the fish into evenly sized pieces—instead of worrying about anything else.
But those worries weren't far from our home, either. Once dinner was served, we turned on the TV to fill the apartment with some life, but as we scanned through the channels, we found images of the bombing, counts of casualties, and the like. Asuka didn't want to deal with that for very long, and she flipped through the channel list to find anything else to watch.
She skipped past an image of a triangle with five eyes.
"Wait!" I cried, and my chopsticks clattered down on my plate.
Asuka sighed, but she hit down on the remote. The emblem returned to the screen, with a news anchor saying,
"…fighters have claimed responsibility for the attack, though these claims are uncomfirmed at this time. Nevertheless, the bombing has spurred increased pressure on the Chinese government to scour the unsecured, occupied territory of Myanmar for militant groups. Chinese president Chen Zhu issued remarks earlier today, downplaying the need for extra security…"
A round-faced man in a black suit stood before a podium, and as he spoke in Chinese, a translator said,
"The security situation in the Myanmar Territory is not ideal, but we are confident we can cleanse the region of these vile terrorists and alien worshippers who seek little more than destruction and nothingness." The general secretary shifted his weight, cleared his throat, and went on, saying, "Their ideas are repugnant and dangerous, and we will destroy these cretins and make their ideas die with them. We need no outside assistance to do this. Germany, Japan, and the United States should worry about their Evangelion units. After all, that's what they've trusted themselves with."
Asuka scoffed, and she hit the mute button. "Yeah, right," she said, and she munched on a piece of fried fish. "If you were going to take care of it, you would've done it a long time ago." She hissed. "Can you believe those people? Idiots, right?"
I watched the TV screen as the Chinese president kept talking, even though I couldn't know what he was saying.
"Yeah," I said. "Unbelievable."
We went to bed soon after that. We didn't have much choice, really. All our work was still at the base, and while we could pass time by reading, making music, or the like, none of that really felt right.
But lying in bed with incessant buzzing in your ears? That wasn't a great idea, either. It left me staring at the ceiling, into the formless, shifting void of retinal cells misfiring. At least they were firing. At least I was still alive.
It's not enough to just be alive.
I got up. I slid out from under Asuka's arm. I felt the carpet between my toes. I put on a blue hooded sweatshirt and clipped my sunglasses to the collar. I headed downstairs, and when the security guard in the lobby asked where I was going, I said,
"To work. I had to leave some things with all the commotion today. Can't sleep. Might as well be productive."
The guard narrowed his eyes. "Be safe, sir."
I nodded and thanked him, and I went out. I caught a cab, and while the driver did a double-take at a boy in a hood and sunglasses, he shook off the surprise and asked me, "Where to?"
"Embassy Row," I said.
Embassy Row was one of those shiny new neighborhoods—a place all to itself, with the buildings and homes boasting expansive grounds. Even after old Tokyo was destroyed, Japan still desired prestige and respect from the international community. It offered vast tracts of land for foreign governments to use as they wished, and they took advantage. You could count on a formal party happening on Embassy Row every week, with suits and ties, alcohol dating back no less than a hundred years, and hors d'ourves enough to feed a homeless man for two months straight.
And that hadn't changed after Third Impact, either. Though property was widely available, the reconstituted government was quick to kick out squatters in ambassadorial residences. Those houses' gates never went long without a new paint job, and an army of groundskeepers worked those lawns and gardens as though the fate of the world rested on trimming a few ill-behaved bonsai.
The Chinese ambassador's residence was no different than the others in this respect. The pool on the side of the house was a favorite gathering spot during his parties, but it was cramped and dangerous. A drunk Argentine diplomat had once knocked Asuka into the pool because there wasn't enough space to walk around. But the ambassador was very fond of that pool, enough to keep it well lit even in the dead of night.
It was by those cool blue lights that I found my way to the residence's gate, and I rang the buzzer inside the corner of the surrounding stone wall.
"Yes?" said the voice on the other end.
"I'd like to speak with the ambassador, please."
"…it's midnight, sir."
"I know that. With as much as I had to pay the cab, you'd think I'd know that, right?"
"The ambassador is unavailable," said the voice on the other end of the line.
I hunted around the gate's entranceway. There was a dark, glassy dome at the top. I looked right at it, took off my hood and sunglasses, and said,
"Do you know who I am?"
"…the ambassador is still unavailable. If you would like to speak with him, you can make an appointment with his secretary. Office hours are 0700 to 1900—"
"I don't want an appointment in the morning!" I slammed the side of my fist on the archway. "I want one now!"
Silence. The red light on the intercom panel turned on as I pressed the button, but there was no answer.
"Hello?"
No answer.
"Hello!"
No answer. Not a light came on in the house. I was just left there, at the gate, with impassable silence. I wasn't even worth the breath of someone to argue against me.
"Hey!" I yelled, and I kicked the gate. "You can't do this! You murderers! Come out and face me! Come out and face the people you've killed!"
A pair of lights came on behind me, and a car pulled up to the curb. Two figures got out of the car; they pinned me down with flashlights, and a lightbar painted the street in a red strobe effect.
"What's the problem here?" said one of the officers.
I brushed a couple stray hairs from my face, standing straight and tall. "I'm here to speak with the ambassador."
The officer and his partner looked at each other, and the second officer said, "Do you have business with him? At this hour?"
"I do. It's urgent business."
"What business is that?" she asked.
I pointed through the gate. "I need to talk to him about the people he's killed!"
"Ikari, would you come with us, please?" The first officer lowered his flashlight, letting me see his face. "We'll give you a ride home."
I shook my head, and I faced the gate once more. The gate itself was wrought iron, and along the top of the stone wall and the gate itself, there were no defensive measures—no razor wire, nothing. Crossbars on the gate were obvious points to make a foothold.
I grabbed one of the bars and climbed.
"Ikari, stop!" cried the female officer. "If you continue, you'll be trespassing on property of the Chinese government. We will be forced to intervene."
I climbed up another step. "Do what you have to do."
And they did. A hand ripped me from the gate, and a pair of arms caught me, binding me like a bear trap. The officers pinned me against the stone entryway and wrenched my wrists behind my back.
"Agh, stop it!" I cried. "I didn't—I didn't do anything!"
They responded with an elbow planted firmly in the small of my back. That held me in place, and two cold steel cuffs bound my wrists together. The officers dragged me to the cruiser and forced my head down to fit me inside. They fit me in there like a monkey going into a cage.
I cast one more glance at the ambassador's residence, and I lay down in the back seat of the cruiser. It was, strangely enough, easier to rest there than at home. The lightbar had a high-pitched hum about it that dwarfed the ringing in my ears, and as the officers radioed back for instructions, it was like falling asleep to a TV drama—to a story.
That's what children do, after all, isn't it?
They wake up, and they get dressed, but the parents take care of breakfast, of putting a roof over their heads, and the like. Parents take care of all the important things. Children just play in a sandbox of what parents allow them to do. There's not much that can be made out of sand, except a big mess. And that just means someone has to come clean up after them.
I was no exception to that. Someone came to clean up after me, too.
She came in her fancy car, something that had been modern only forty years before. She was in uniform when she arrived, and as she spoke with the police officers, the officers' flashlight beams reflected off her hat. The emblems there gleamed in the light: the ivy branch and the cherry blossom in the shape of a star, a cherry blossom in faded gold.
It's said that the use of a cherry blossom for a star represents the fragility of those who serve in SDF. Those people should be admired for their service, for that service could be snuffed out in a heartbeat, just as cherry blossoms are ephemeral in the springtime. But to me, a cherry blossom represents all the time spent cultivating the tree, selecting for the right genes, and providing the water and nutrients for it to flower. People, too, are products of all that is put into them.
She definitely was. Whatever she'd been before, she'd become the woman who could wear that hat and represent it well.
"I'm sorry he's caused you trouble," she told the officers. "He's been through a lot today; I hope that's understandable."
"Whether it's understandable or not, it's our duty to protect the ambassador's residence," said the female officer. "Just keep him away from here, and it's fine. Is that something we can trust to you, General?"
"Of course." The woman in green clicked her heels together. "You have my word as an officer."
The policewoman opened the cruiser door and undid the cuffs. They presented me to Misato, and they went on their way.
Only when the cruiser was out of sight did Misato speak to me. She clicked her tongue in displeasure, saying, "Well, look at you—making me get all dressed up at this time of night. Usually when I get dressed for a man I get a happier time than this."
"I'm sorry," I said, and I plopped into the passenger seat of her car. "I'll make dinner next time."
She scoffed, shaking her head, and she closed the door behind me. She climbed into the driver seat, but she spun her keyring around her finger, staring down the road.
"You know…"
I leaned against the armrest, away from her. "What?"
"What did you think you'd accomplish here?"
"I'm sorry."
"That's not what I'm asking."
"I'm sorry, okay?" I turned my back to her, facing out the window. "I just want to go home and forget about it."
"It is stupid, you know—to go yelling at a gate in the middle of the night."
"I get that!" I said, propping my chin up with my arm as I looked away.
"But that's not as stupid as protecting some territory you claimed from the outside world, even as goddamn terrorists take up residence there, all because you're too embarrassed to ask for help."
I looked at her from the side. "Some people don't see it that way."
She caught her keys in hand and started the car. The engine hummed, and the lights on the instrument display came to life. "Well, they're wrong, but if you want to change their thinking—"
She revved the engine, but we went nowhere.
"Ah, sorry. Always forget to take off the brake."
She disengaged the parking brake, but with her hand hovering on the gear shifter, she said,
"If you want to change their thinking," she went on, "you have to do more than just make a lot of noise, you know?"
I buckled my seat belt. "What do you have in mind?"
"Are you really interested in the answer?" she said, eyes on the road, impassive, focused.
I looked down the road, too. My ears rang still, with that incessant high-pitched hum that blared through them no matter how I turned my head, but the car's engine competed with that sound. It was a solid undertone while that ringing in my ears by itself was nothing but a distraction. The engine was like music by comparison.
It was noise with a purpose.
"I'm willing to listen," I said.
Misato smiled to herself. "That's my boy," she said, and she shifted the car into first to take us away.
