Fingers
tap on the touch display. It is a new install in his office, a
bluetooth device which emits a laser pattern on the flat surface,
saving space so he doesn't need an actual keyboard. He's still
figuring out how to use it. Asuka sat him down and programmed it to
be ergonomic, and easier on his wrists.
He'll
have to ask her how to program his DVR, later.
The
desk chimes. Right, he thinks. He had that installed, to, on his
insistence. Reaching under his desk, he stares and finds the
flashing red button, tapping it. The desk rumbles, and a projector
folds out from the ceiling of his office, projecting a holographic
map of Tokyo-3 in the center of his office.
A
blinking red light on a building, and he pushes off from his desk,
sliding his leather chair back and rising. Walking to the hologram,
he takes his glasses out of his pocket and slides them on, staring at
the map.
“Damn
it. That's my bank.”
Muttering
german, Pieter Sohryu pulls the bluetooth headset out of his pocket
and slides it on.
“Girls,
this is Mission Control,” he says, “There's a bank robbery at the
Tokyo-3 First Local Bank. You're on call.”
-
-
Chapter
2:
Covered
in Bees
-
-
“They've infected you.
They work by vectors, apparently, and are able to turn you to them
via inhalation, as I'm quite sure they've never spent time along with
you.”
Cocking an eyebrow,
Pieter looks up from his monitor screen and the financial reports he
is assuming he is going to sign off on as Kyoko Sohryu enters his
office as is her wont to do so- completely uninvited and almost
propelled by her sarcasm and snark.
“Ah, yes,” he sighs,
“So, first it was Akagi, then it was Naok00. I think Shinji thinks
my idea is inane, to, but he's easily intimidated by authority that
didn't birth him.”
Kyoko purses her lips,
folding her arms. Her gaze, usually a source of intimidation with
others, mainly serves as a source of arousal with him. Mostly
because, unlike other people she works with, he regularly has sex
with her.
“Okay,” he says,
putting his feet up on his desk, interrupting the light beam from the
bluetooth keyboard and sending gibberish flowing over his screen,
“Let me explain. I'm mission control for the Ree when they go out
and fight crime. I talked it over with Yui, and it makes sense for
someone to you know, herd them.”
“That works with,
maybe, with cattle. This is seven super-intelligent, super-powered
teenage girls-”
“Eight. Mari's
joining up with them.”
She goes silent. Her
eyebrow twitches.
“Okay,” he says,
hands up, looking at his screen and sighing as he puts his feet down,
“You have a point. But that's exactly why I'm doing what I'm
doing. As much as we want the girls to be normal, we'd also want to
win the lottery every week or for there to be world peace. That's
not going to happen, and the Ree aren't going to be normal.”
Kyoko sighs, leaning
against the doorway.
“Right.
So...why...this?”
“Because that's the
approach I did with Mari,” he says, shrugging, “Mari wouldn't do
what I want just because I said 'no.' She was smart, determined, and
stubborn. I got her to do what I wanted by making what I wanted her
to do seem like the fun option.”
“By having them go out
and fight crime.”
He kicks back the chair,
spinning it before standing.
“So street crime goes
down,” he says, “I feed them information, get them to go after
low risk crimes that can't possibly hurt them. I don't let them run
wild or go after Angels. The girls could dismantle a tank with their
bare hands. Mari can punch through five armor layers with a full
powered blast. This is childs play for them, and it gives them
something productive to do.”
He
shrugs.
“What's
the worst that can happen?”
The
smoke wafts up, only lightly hinting at the fire. Normally, in this
situation, the alarms throughout Tokyo-3 would be blaring, and the
city would be in full panic mode. However, in this case, it is not
to be so. In fact, the sensors set up throughout the city are
picking up the disturbance and do register the presence, but in fact
do not trip- after all, the sheer power they are picking up is
impossible, and hence the AI behind them assumes it is a glitch.
At
the center of the bank, lying inside the vault, the one whom
appeared, whose presence set off the alarms in the first place before
causing to reset out of sheer impossibility, stirs.
This
one is a girl of around thirteen, long auburn and red hair falling
past her shoulders, dressed in a button shirt, blue blazer, and knee
length blue skirt. One shoe is missing- possibly a result of
whatever sent her this way. One hand, her right hand, holds a long
rod made of red crystal, a yellow ribbon tied around it, her fingers
tightening as she opens blue eyes and shakes her head, sitting up
with a moan.
“Ow,”
she mutters, “Ow ow ow!
That shouldn't've happened...”
She
looks to her side, a relieved smile on her face. Sitting on the
floor, surrounded by tossed lock boxes from the force of their entry,
the air around him a haze of light and ionized particles, a cat
stares back. But it is not an ordinary cat. Rather, it is a cat of
light, a silhouette of a medium sized housecat, with two black spots
for its eyes and a black spot at the center of its chest.
“Good,
I thought I lost you,” she says, climbing to her feet with a groan,
“C'mon, we need to find out where we are. We could've been thrown
anywhere.”
MEOW.
“I know, I know,” the girl says, extending her arm, the Kitty of
Light jumping on and climbing up to her shoulder, “Intelligence
first! Food later...I'm starting to sound like Yomi, aren't I?”
The Kitty starts, and looks up, through the hole in the ceiling that
they descended through earlier, where they made their entrance. The
alarms are blaring, the motion sensors inside the solid steel vault
registering their presence.
“Uh oh,” she says, “This isn't good.”
The Kitty hisses. Clad in a pink and green plugsuit, an aura around
her faintly resembling a blue octahedron, Mari descends into the
hole.
“Well, that's new,” Mari says, adjusting her glasses as the
vents in the room begin popping open, “Dad, we found the source of
the alarm. It's a big freakin' hole in the roof and a teenager with
a weird looking cat. And...oh dear that cat looks very familiar...”
The girl tilts her head, staring at Mari. And her eyes go wide when
one of the ducts opens and Kiko, in a pink and white plugsuit, A-10
connectors extended like cat ears, drops down.
“Aunt Kiko!” the girls squeals.
Which is when the Cat began to hiss.
“So, okay,” Pieter says, “The Ree found a teenager had dropped
from the sky, crashed through the roof of the bank, and is somehow
not showing up as an Angel. Is that right?”
“It is,” Yui responds, sitting at her desk and tapping her
pencil as Pieter paces in front of her, “MAGI confirms, Junior
confirms. Although the cat she has is weird, and it didn't
react...well...to the attempts at separation. We have them both in
the secure infirmary, and Section 2 is keeping an eye on them. I
have Lilly also watching, and ready to port in the Ree at a moment's
notice.”
Pieter nods.
“Great. Any idea of who she is or where she comes from?”
“I got a cheek swab before we took her to the infirmary,” Yui
responds, tapping on her computer, “We should get the results
shortly.”
The Kitty of Light has curled into a ball at the foot of the
infirmary bed as the girl goes through her satchel. Her face lights
up as she pulls out the book, with the emblazoned red fig leaf and
the words ALTERNATE UNIVERSE GUIDE stenciled on the front, and the
words DON'T PANIC on the back.
“So you're in an alternate universe,” she reads to herself, the
Kitty of Light perking an ear up, “Let's see...um...step 1, ask
yourself these important questions to figure out what type of
universe you are in. Question 1.
“Is Gendo a dick?”
She bites her lip, thinking for a moment.
“No. Question 2. Is Yui alive? Yes.”
She turns the page. An eldritch horror, resembling a mass of
tentacles for a face and bat wings emergent from its back, straddling
a mountain appears.
“Question 3. Is there Cthulhu? Hm...I don't know. What if there
is? Okay...page 32...”
She flips the page over, wincing at the picture of the assembled
horrors on the capital steps, writing a constitution in blood.
“Warning. If Cthulhu is present, this is a bad universe,” she
reads, “Do not contact NERV. Do not approach Rei. Okay...I don't
think there is, but I don't know. What's the fourth question?”
She flips back.
“Question 4. Is Kiko the Godhead? Um...how do I know...oh, page
16.”
She flips the page. On either side of the open book is two images.
On the left, there is a picture of a Ree, waving to the camera,
dressed in pink and with cat ears. The caption reads 'Kiko.' On the
other side is the same Ree, but dressed in pink leather and a high
colored cape, holding the severed head of an enemy, flailing
tentacles behind her. It reads “Kikoseid.' Below the two pictures
is the additional line, 'KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.'
“Okay,” she says, “I think we're in a good universe.”
tap on the touch display. It is a new install in his office, a
bluetooth device which emits a laser pattern on the flat surface,
saving space so he doesn't need an actual keyboard. He's still
figuring out how to use it. Asuka sat him down and programmed it to
be ergonomic, and easier on his wrists.
He'll
have to ask her how to program his DVR, later.
The
desk chimes. Right, he thinks. He had that installed, to, on his
insistence. Reaching under his desk, he stares and finds the
flashing red button, tapping it. The desk rumbles, and a projector
folds out from the ceiling of his office, projecting a holographic
map of Tokyo-3 in the center of his office.
A
blinking red light on a building, and he pushes off from his desk,
sliding his leather chair back and rising. Walking to the hologram,
he takes his glasses out of his pocket and slides them on, staring at
the map.
“Damn
it. That's my bank.”
Muttering
german, Pieter Sohryu pulls the bluetooth headset out of his pocket
and slides it on.
“Girls,
this is Mission Control,” he says, “There's a bank robbery at the
Tokyo-3 First Local Bank. You're on call.”
-
-
Chapter
2:
Covered
in Bees
-
-
“They've infected you.
They work by vectors, apparently, and are able to turn you to them
via inhalation, as I'm quite sure they've never spent time along with
you.”
Cocking an eyebrow,
Pieter looks up from his monitor screen and the financial reports he
is assuming he is going to sign off on as Kyoko Sohryu enters his
office as is her wont to do so- completely uninvited and almost
propelled by her sarcasm and snark.
“Ah, yes,” he sighs,
“So, first it was Akagi, then it was Naok00. I think Shinji thinks
my idea is inane, to, but he's easily intimidated by authority that
didn't birth him.”
Kyoko purses her lips,
folding her arms. Her gaze, usually a source of intimidation with
others, mainly serves as a source of arousal with him. Mostly
because, unlike other people she works with, he regularly has sex
with her.
“Okay,” he says,
putting his feet up on his desk, interrupting the light beam from the
bluetooth keyboard and sending gibberish flowing over his screen,
“Let me explain. I'm mission control for the Ree when they go out
and fight crime. I talked it over with Yui, and it makes sense for
someone to you know, herd them.”
“That works with,
maybe, with cattle. This is seven super-intelligent, super-powered
teenage girls-”
“Eight. Mari's
joining up with them.”
She goes silent. Her
eyebrow twitches.
“Okay,” he says,
hands up, looking at his screen and sighing as he puts his feet down,
“You have a point. But that's exactly why I'm doing what I'm
doing. As much as we want the girls to be normal, we'd also want to
win the lottery every week or for there to be world peace. That's
not going to happen, and the Ree aren't going to be normal.”
Kyoko sighs, leaning
against the doorway.
“Right.
So...why...this?”
“Because that's the
approach I did with Mari,” he says, shrugging, “Mari wouldn't do
what I want just because I said 'no.' She was smart, determined, and
stubborn. I got her to do what I wanted by making what I wanted her
to do seem like the fun option.”
“By having them go out
and fight crime.”
He kicks back the chair,
spinning it before standing.
“So street crime goes
down,” he says, “I feed them information, get them to go after
low risk crimes that can't possibly hurt them. I don't let them run
wild or go after Angels. The girls could dismantle a tank with their
bare hands. Mari can punch through five armor layers with a full
powered blast. This is childs play for them, and it gives them
something productive to do.”
He
shrugs.
“What's
the worst that can happen?”
The
smoke wafts up, only lightly hinting at the fire. Normally, in this
situation, the alarms throughout Tokyo-3 would be blaring, and the
city would be in full panic mode. However, in this case, it is not
to be so. In fact, the sensors set up throughout the city are
picking up the disturbance and do register the presence, but in fact
do not trip- after all, the sheer power they are picking up is
impossible, and hence the AI behind them assumes it is a glitch.
At
the center of the bank, lying inside the vault, the one whom
appeared, whose presence set off the alarms in the first place before
causing to reset out of sheer impossibility, stirs.
This
one is a girl of around thirteen, long auburn and red hair falling
past her shoulders, dressed in a button shirt, blue blazer, and knee
length blue skirt. One shoe is missing- possibly a result of
whatever sent her this way. One hand, her right hand, holds a long
rod made of red crystal, a yellow ribbon tied around it, her fingers
tightening as she opens blue eyes and shakes her head, sitting up
with a moan.
“Ow,”
she mutters, “Ow ow ow!
That shouldn't've happened...”
She
looks to her side, a relieved smile on her face. Sitting on the
floor, surrounded by tossed lock boxes from the force of their entry,
the air around him a haze of light and ionized particles, a cat
stares back. But it is not an ordinary cat. Rather, it is a cat of
light, a silhouette of a medium sized housecat, with two black spots
for its eyes and a black spot at the center of its chest.
“Good,
I thought I lost you,” she says, climbing to her feet with a groan,
“C'mon, we need to find out where we are. We could've been thrown
anywhere.”
MEOW.
“I know, I know,” the girl says, extending her arm, the Kitty of
Light jumping on and climbing up to her shoulder, “Intelligence
first! Food later...I'm starting to sound like Yomi, aren't I?”
The Kitty starts, and looks up, through the hole in the ceiling that
they descended through earlier, where they made their entrance. The
alarms are blaring, the motion sensors inside the solid steel vault
registering their presence.
“Uh oh,” she says, “This isn't good.”
The Kitty hisses. Clad in a pink and green plugsuit, an aura around
her faintly resembling a blue octahedron, Mari descends into the
hole.
“Well, that's new,” Mari says, adjusting her glasses as the
vents in the room begin popping open, “Dad, we found the source of
the alarm. It's a big freakin' hole in the roof and a teenager with
a weird looking cat. And...oh dear that cat looks very familiar...”
The girl tilts her head, staring at Mari. And her eyes go wide when
one of the ducts opens and Kiko, in a pink and white plugsuit, A-10
connectors extended like cat ears, drops down.
“Aunt Kiko!” the girls squeals.
Which is when the Cat began to hiss.
“So, okay,” Pieter says, “The Ree found a teenager had dropped
from the sky, crashed through the roof of the bank, and is somehow
not showing up as an Angel. Is that right?”
“It is,” Yui responds, sitting at her desk and tapping her
pencil as Pieter paces in front of her, “MAGI confirms, Junior
confirms. Although the cat she has is weird, and it didn't
react...well...to the attempts at separation. We have them both in
the secure infirmary, and Section 2 is keeping an eye on them. I
have Lilly also watching, and ready to port in the Ree at a moment's
notice.”
Pieter nods.
“Great. Any idea of who she is or where she comes from?”
“I got a cheek swab before we took her to the infirmary,” Yui
responds, tapping on her computer, “We should get the results
shortly.”
The Kitty of Light has curled into a ball at the foot of the
infirmary bed as the girl goes through her satchel. Her face lights
up as she pulls out the book, with the emblazoned red fig leaf and
the words ALTERNATE UNIVERSE GUIDE stenciled on the front, and the
words DON'T PANIC on the back.
“So you're in an alternate universe,” she reads to herself, the
Kitty of Light perking an ear up, “Let's see...um...step 1, ask
yourself these important questions to figure out what type of
universe you are in. Question 1.
“Is Gendo a dick?”
She bites her lip, thinking for a moment.
“No. Question 2. Is Yui alive? Yes.”
She turns the page. An eldritch horror, resembling a mass of
tentacles for a face and bat wings emergent from its back, straddling
a mountain appears.
“Question 3. Is there Cthulhu? Hm...I don't know. What if there
is? Okay...page 32...”
She flips the page over, wincing at the picture of the assembled
horrors on the capital steps, writing a constitution in blood.
“Warning. If Cthulhu is present, this is a bad universe,” she
reads, “Do not contact NERV. Do not approach Rei. Okay...I don't
think there is, but I don't know. What's the fourth question?”
She flips back.
“Question 4. Is Kiko the Godhead? Um...how do I know...oh, page
16.”
She flips the page. On either side of the open book is two images.
On the left, there is a picture of a Ree, waving to the camera,
dressed in pink and with cat ears. The caption reads 'Kiko.' On the
other side is the same Ree, but dressed in pink leather and a high
colored cape, holding the severed head of an enemy, flailing
tentacles behind her. It reads “Kikoseid.' Below the two pictures
is the additional line, 'KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.'
“Okay,” she says, “I think we're in a good universe.”