And one more. Trying a little bit of chracter development between the two And getting a Silver-haired moment from Jet. Hopefully it doesn't come across as silly.
Well... considering what the body was originally bought for.... Long story, only half finished on GDocs atm. And more evolved than it was when writing Saber Chase. It's involves the line: "they aren't perverts. They're richer than us, that makes them eccentric"
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Quote:What had started as a private concert, quickly grew into something far more energetic. Especially when someone figured out how to make Pen to the Penth work as a karaoke machine. Shinji thought he heard Yayoi mutter something dark about ‘Lebia naming things’ when it corrected her.
It was noisy, it was energetic. It was just a little bit silly. Half of the songs Shinji didn’t even recognise. Some of them happened to be in Japanese.... but nobody spoke it properly. They just sang phonetically along with the words onscreen.
He was actually laughing at Daryl and Kotono arguing about what to sing for their little duet, with Rei seated on the bench beside him wearing a content expression. She wasn’t smiling, in a way, it was more than that.
And it was only by knowing her that he could see it in her face.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “Even if we are... different. I’m still glad you’re here,”
Rei didn’t visibly react. She didn’t need to. Rei was right. Whatever else she was didn’t matter, she was Rei Ayanami.
Marsden and Ford were arguing over something. The Catgirls and their hoverbots seemed to be enjoying the whole thing. Anika was laughing with Nené at some private joke. Yayoi was being embarrassed by the cyborg and her friends. God was in his heaven and, for a few minutes at least, all felt right with the world.
He first inkling that something was wrong was when Anika stopped laughing. She just stop dead, her expression going cold. She glanced right at him, sending a chill of unease through his body. Nené seemed to ask for an explanation. What Anika told her caused the cheer to drain from her face. She stole a glance at him, confirming his suspicion.
He watched as Anika informed Yayoi, discussing it amongst themselves.
He groaned. “They’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Doing things behind my back. They’re trying to manipulate me.”
He bit back on the anger rising up inside of him. A small part of him demanded that he stand up, stomp over there and demand to be told. It fizzed through his body. The mental image made him smile wolfishly.
“They’re concerned. They’re trying to figure out how to explain things to you.”
“They’re trying to protect me from the truth,” he said, sullenly gazing at the floor. In a way, it meant they cared.
“The truth is complex and confusing. They don’t want you to be hurt by a misunderstanding.”
Shinji looked at her for a moment, then over at the conversation that was deciding his fate. Beyond the doors, he heard an engine rasp to a halt outside the doors. They opened a few seconds later, a woman in motorcycle leathers stepping inside.
Shinji thought it was Jet’s sister at first. She had the exact same face, though with longer hair. But the body... there was no way her body would fit inside that armour. It was struggling to fit into her leathers.
The top zip of the jacket had already opened itself giving a view of her cleavage. And just why did she wear high-heeled motorcycle boots? Shinji watched her speak with Yayoi and Anika, taking a few moments to come to an agreement.
Shinji felt a lump congeal in his throat. Yayoi and the newcomer started to stride towards him
“It’s me, Jet,” said the newcomer with a cheery smile. Shinji glanced at Rei, then at Yayoi who gave a confirming nod. “There’s someone here to meet you in the landing bay. They just got in”
The voice was certainly match, but Shinji didn’t think those.... things would fit inside Jet’s armour. He thought Jet’d told him that the armour didn’t come off. Was that another lie. She placed a hand one his shoulder and he swore for a second she was testing the material for feel.
“Do you want to come with me and meet them?”
It was Jet. Another order phrased like a request. That gruff voice still seemed to bully him along. His hand clenched tight into a fist.
“You can stay here if you’d like, and Jet will show them the way up,” Yayoi said. “But we thought you would prefer somewhere a little more private.”
The expectation was clear. He could stay, but they expected him to go. Yayoi thought it was for the best too.
Rei was sitting there beside him, patiently waiting with her hands on her lap, sinking down into her skirt. He glanced at her, not really wanting to leave her behind, but at the same time faintly curious about who’d want to meet him.
And Yayoi with her kind eyes seemed to think it was for the best.
“No,” he said to his feet “I’ll go.”
“We’ll be waiting for you here when you’re finished,” Yayoi reassured him
“I’ll be here when you get back,” Rei promised.
He followed Jet across the floor, feeling more like a prisoner being led to his own execution. Outside, she’d parked up that Stingray he’d seen down in the workshop beside his own machine.
Which he hadn’t ridden down there.
He looked up at the woman beside him for an explanation.
“Autopilot,” she answered. “Didn’t you read the manual?”
“Not yet,” he muttured, already longing to just go back inside.
He watched her mount her machine, trying not to pay attention to how tightly her leathers hugged her body. He placed his helmet on his head and fired up his machine.
“True Power of LINUX!” appeared onscreen, before settling on the now familiar interface.
Jet’s bike rasped to life beside him. It crunched into gear and took off with a bark from it’s exhausts. Shinji tweaked the throttle trigger and followed behind, riding through the smell of the Stingray’s exhaust.
One thing started to bother him as he watched the rider ahead. Shinji remembered the wristband communicater, still interfaced with his mind.
“I thought your armour didn’t come off?” he broadcast at her.
“I’m really up in the control room,” her voice burst through his thoughts “This is just a remote control puppet body, for when I need a pair of nimble hands.” Jet made a show of showing just how nimble and flexible the fingers were, taking one hand of the throttle to wave at him.
“You can do that?”
A quick check on Jet’s status confirmed it. She was both right in front of him, and up in the control room.
“Yup,” she answered, sounding entirely too pleased with herself. Though It takes a lot of concentration and practice. You should be able to do it aswell. You’re capable of hardware multi-tasking.”
He thought for a second.
“Like. I was playing along with them, while reading the sheet music. I was able to concentrate on reading the music I’d never seen before. I was playing off the sheet while watching Pen to the Penth conduct. And I was thinking about how easy it was to do it.”
A shiver of unease rose through him once more. Or how he was easily riding a motorcycle, while maintaining a full-blown conversation through his hardware.
“It should be easy, especially once you become conscious of it. I’ve arranged for you to meet a friend of mine, who should be able to tell you exactly what you’re capable of, after repairing the overheating glitch”
“Who?”
“A.C Peters. She built this body for me.” The rider ahead pointed at herself. “She also handles my maintenance. It’s probably best if you think of it as a doctor’s check up.”
Shinji surpressed his memories of Ritsuko and her cold rubber gloves.
“If you built me, why can’t you do it?”
He didn’t bother trying to hid the scorn in his tone.
“You’re my first,” she defended, not quite snapping his head off, but still clearly annoyed. It brought a smile to his face. “I’d like to get an extra pair of eyes to look you over and make sure I didn’t make a mistake.”
“So that’s where we’re going now?”
“No.” There was a pause. “We’re going to meet someone called Gina Langley, though you wouldn’t know her by that name.”
Langley. It didn’t take a genius to figure out exactly who she was talking about.
“Asuka...” he breathed.
Shinji gunned the throttle, hard. The turbine roared to life, inhaling great gulps of air. Electric motors punched the machine forward, the seat-back driving him forward. His hands closed tight around the handlebars. He clung on, watching the tunnel lights blur together. Turbine and motor howled as they were pushed harder than they’d ever been. All performance indicators flickered at 100 percent.
It was giving him everything.
The Stingray fell behind until it’s headlight became a spark flickering in the mirrors. A hoverbot flashed by. Followed by another. Shinji had no trouble dodging them at speed.
“Shinji. Slow down!” Jet’s voice yelled through his thoughts.
He glanced down. The speedometer was reading above three hundred kph and climbing at a rate that’d make a rocket nervous. He grit his teeth and held on.
“You lied to me. You told me you didn’t know where she was.”
“It’s complicated. You wouldn’t have understood.”
“You didn’t even try...”
“I don’t need to try a shit sandwich to know it tastes bad.”
“You’re just like my father...”
“I did what I thought was right for you.”
“But you don’t know me. How can you know what’s right?”
“Because I want you to understand the world. I wanted you to know what you are and I want you to be happy. And I wanted to do it in the way I thought would be easiest for you.”
“So you pushed me around like all the others.”
“We tried to lead you to the right conclusions.”
“Why? Why couldn’t you just leave me alone then? Why would you care if you didn’t even want me in the first place.”
He didn’t even remember Anika saying that, until after he’d repeated it.
“Because you’re a living being that I created, and I have to take responsibility for that. Because you’re alive, and it’s my duty to make bloody well sure you’re capable of living a long and happy life. And we had no idea how to do that, so we had to grope in the dark and try something, because leaving you to fall apart on your own wasn’t an option!”
Shinji swore her voice echoed in his mind. He knew he’d touched a nerve, tapping into a deep well of frustration. He knew he’d gone way too far.
“So yeah, I fucked up. And I’m sorry I made the wrong call and didn’t tell you outright. But at least I fucking tried.”
Shinji didn’t respond. He took a long deep breath, allowing the heat that’d built up in His hand released the throttle, the bike coasting down to a saner speed. The headlight behind gained ground, eventually pulling level beside him.
Through the visor, he could see the puppet body’s eyes gazing hard ahead. He quickly forced himself to look elsewhere.
“You’re right,” she said, softly. “ I didn’t want to wake up your body. But I was wrong about that too. Creating a life just seemed like too awesome a responsibility.” He glanced at her again, but she was still staring straight ahead. “But I don’t regret it. And I’m glad you exist.”
Shinji didn’t even look at her. He bit his lip and tried not to be sick with shame. His anger seemed to ground itself out, the charge in his body slowly neutralising.
What was it Mackie had said? They wanted the best for him, even if they didn’t know what that was.
Shinji really didn’t know how he was supposed to feel about it, but somewhere deep inside him, he was certain it really was his fault that things had blown up. Another voice insisted that he was right to be angry with Jet and everyone for manipulating him so much, while the rational part of his mind tried to sooth with a reminder that they only did it because they did care about him.
It was done. It was done with the best of intentions. Even Jet wasn’t trying to be a bully.... she was just.... Shinji struggled to find the right word exactly.
She wasn’t a bully, she was just unsubtle about it. It fit far more than the alternate explanation. Never confuse malice with a well-meant mistake, Misato had once advised him. She’d been talking about his father at the time, but it still fit.
It was probably too late now anyway.
Asuka was waiting. And the silence wasn't too bad.
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Well... considering what the body was originally bought for.... Long story, only half finished on GDocs atm. And more evolved than it was when writing Saber Chase. It's involves the line: "they aren't perverts. They're richer than us, that makes them eccentric"
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?