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And new. Going too far? Anika plays the F-card
I'm trying to leave *something* for people to do when they arrive on Frigga, while still moving the plot forward in an interesting way. And I still haven't decided whether Shinji will watch the series itself (Even just to hear familiar voices again) or never want anything to do with it. And I'm stuck with a foot in both camps because each seems perfectly valid.
And Conductor Pen-Pen was too awesome not to use.... even as just a 'music playing' animation. (And I realised it's 2nd Power of Pen on the collar, not Pen to the Penth... dooooh)
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
And new. Going too far? Anika plays the F-card
I'm trying to leave *something* for people to do when they arrive on Frigga, while still moving the plot forward in an interesting way. And I still haven't decided whether Shinji will watch the series itself (Even just to hear familiar voices again) or never want anything to do with it. And I'm stuck with a foot in both camps because each seems perfectly valid.
And Conductor Pen-Pen was too awesome not to use.... even as just a 'music playing' animation. (And I realised it's 2nd Power of Pen on the collar, not Pen to the Penth... dooooh)
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“It took you longer to say it out loud, than it did to work it out, didn’t it?”
Shinji could only nod. “I knew how to do it..... and it just went..... I went through each and every step. I remember going through it and.... it took less than a second.” Shinji glanced at the sums onscreen beside him, looking entirely uneasy “I’d never have been able to do that in my head, and it would’ve taken minutes by hand.”
“It works for higher mathematics too. So long as you know how to actually do it.... “ Anika told him
“How are we able to do this?”
“Well, most AI can to a point. But we’re both a little different. Flint originally designed me to be the core of a weapon’s system, so we’re pretty math-heavy, especially for vectors, and fourier and laplace stuff. We can also synchronise with hardware, so long as it’s designed to fit.”
“Synchronise?” Shinji blinked. “Like an Evangelion?”
“A little,” Anika confirmed with a soft smile. “But it’s a lot more invasive. Our cores can operate like this normally on air cooling - that’s why you breath and have a heartbeat, to keep yourself cool - but to handle the added workload of a battroid we’d need a little more than that. Not to mention all the direct data connections since a wireless system could be hacked.”
“Direct?”
“Think, wires and cables running from your naked body like some cyberpunk’s wet dream.” She visibly shuddered. “Look, just tap your two middle fingers to your palm”
There was a painless tingle as the skin on his wrist slit and split open. Shinji’s mind spinlocked as what looked like a shrunken serial power emerged, His eyes went wide.
“It’s a...” he managed to say before alien information burst into his mind... a stream of data so utterly inhuman it stopped all thought in it’s tracks.
“That’s for diagnostics,” said Anika.
He put a finger to the side of his skull.
“It’s in my head,” he forced out through a clenched throat.
Anika’s smile remained comforting. “Normally your consciousness is abstracted from all that... but it’ll become second nature soon enough.”
He tapped his palm again. The port retracted with an electric fizz and another burst of information. A moment later, the skin had healed over leaving no trace that it ever existed.
Shinji stared at his wrist as he opened the port, then close it again. The same alien burst of information interrupted his consciousness each time. He tried it with the other one... getting a subtly different response. He found he could close his eyes and tell which one was opened without looking.
“And both of us are the exact same?” he asked, still playing with his wrists.
“Yes. Beneath the skin, we could probably trade parts.” There was a giggle in her tone.
But, there were two very obvious differences staring at him, right in the face.
“But you’re....” He wasn’t quite sure how to finish that sentence without sounding like a moron.
“A girl?”A wry smirk curled up the edges of her lips. She poked at her chest. “This came after my frame was built. It’s the handwavium that decides on the final appearance and gender and stuff, based on the AI’s self-image.”
He could see his reflection in the glass of the monitor as he pondered
“So, I see myself as Shinji Ikari, so it gives me the body of Shinji Ikari, as I’d see it?”
“Yes, pretty much that.”
She almost sounded relieved. Shinji gave a quiet sigh, his brow furrowing for a moment as he mulled it over in his mind.
Anika put her fingers to her lips. “Come to think of it....”
“What?”
Shinji felt a fearful shudder run through his body. Anika poked at the panel in front of her, clicking a few keys. A few lights on the panel came on
“Hey Jet.... my...uh....suit’s gone with Mackie, right?”
“Yeah... Why?”
The answer through the speaker was unmistakeably the right voice, but had the same synthetic quality as the MAGI had. It was just a little flatter than it should’ve been
“Oh nothing. I just wondered what would happen if we put Shinji in it,” Anika said, matter of factly.
“He’d probably fit. It’d need some core adjustments,” answered Jet, after a few moments to think it over. “Surely you can’t be thinking...”
“Don’t call me Shirley,” giggled Anika. “It was just a thought because of all the syncro stuff in it, it might be worth him trying to get used to himself.”
"Ah, you think that's a good idea?"
Shinji assumed that because she was asking, she didn't.
"I’m showing him some AI things right now," answered Anika.
"How’s it going?”
Anika sat back, offering the console to Shinji. He stared at the speaker set and opened his mouth for a second, before thinking better of it. He glanced up at Anika, fishing a little for sympathy.
The look on her face told him she expected him to speak for himself.
“I don’t know,” he whispered to her. It was the truth, and he hoped she believed him at that.
Anika nodded, giving him a soft understanding smile. “He’s freaked out a little. But his mind’s in the real world now,” she said.
“I see.” Jet seemed satisfied with that at least. She almost sounded relieved. “We’re nearly ready up here. Just have to finish setting up the terminal and making sure it works.”
“Message me the address and I’ll update the routing tables for the node.”
Something chirped on Anika’s panel.
“Done.”
She punched at a few keys.
“And,” she said. “I don’t want to stay up here all day. I need someone to take over when Nene comes.”
“Let me know when and I’ll use the puppet.”
“I will.”
Anika closed the channel. Shinji sat there. He tapped open the port on his wrist, before closing it again.
“So how do you feel Shinji?” Anika asked him.
Shinji took some time to think about it. His eyes scanned around the room, searching for any hint as to the answer to that question.
“I..... I know this is real.” he started, tentatively. Anika’s expression remain mild, waiting for him to finish. He placed his hand on the console beside himself, gripping the edge then releasing for a moment. “But I still want to wake up,” he added, breaking eye contact.
For a brief moment, Anika’s brow furrowed with concern. Shinji cringed inside himself, fearing hid somehow given the wrong answer.
“That’s okay,” she said, exhaling a deep breath Shinji hadn’t been aware she’d been holding.
“Wark!”
Both of them turned towards the holographic penguin, who was waving for their attention. Shinji checked on it, a new message have arrived.
“I have found music you like!” it announced. 'Recommended for R. Ikari Shinji: Lilia ~from Ys~ featuring Kotono Mitsuishi and Toshiyuki Omor.
Shinji blinked....
“How did?” That was bang on. “It guessed my favourite.”
It didn’t seem to surprise Anika in the slightest.
“Wark..quark War!”
“An analysis of all mentions of Shinji Ikari, cross-referenced with noted musical samples, subtracting all which could be considered ‘classical”
It sounded especially proud of itself.
“I guess I really have no secrets” he sighed. “Play Blue Legend then.”
The bird spun around, donning a conductor’s tuxedo with a baton in each flipper. One....two...three...
Shinji closed his eyes as the music began, allowing himself to drift back to a train carriage in Tokyo--3. He could smell the ozone from the overhead lines and the dampness of the other passengers clothes. There was a dark-haired girl who smelled of strawberries.
He remembered it all so clearly.
He remembered laying awake on the final night in his own bed with the moon full in the sky, listening to the same track praying that the world would end so nobody would ever find out what he did.
The lyrics began and Shinji’s eyes shot open.
“Misato!..... That’s Misato’s voice! That’s Misato singing that!”
His first thought was that Misato had made it there somehow. A doppel like, or the real Misato Katsuragi.... Shinji didn’t care.
“It’s not.” Anika said softly.
Pen-Pen Quarked.
“Kotono Mitsuishi. Voice actress and singer. Known best for her role as Usagi Tsukino in Sailor Moon and as Misato Katsuragi in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Would you like to know more? “
Voice actress. Neon Genesis Evangelion. A two dimensional image appeared on the holowindow beside the text.
“She looks like Misato,” he murmured sullenly. Tears began to well up once more.
Anika placed a warm hand on his shoulder. “Shinji.... I’m your sister. That makes us family. And that means we’re for each other no matter what.”
He wasn’t able to say a word. He sat there trying to figure out if he should burst out sobbing again, embrace her deeply or just plain ask her why she thought that. All he managed to do was offer her a faint, grateful smile that she was at least trying.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?