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It took a long time for the lift to reach the surface. It stopped inside a dry wooden shed, slivers of sunlight peaking through gaps in planking.
Shinji looked to Kotono for an explanation.
She just smiled at opened the door with a creak, before throttling the Yamaha out. It puttered up a gravel driveway, quietly idling along.
Shinji stared. “Bwa...?”
He sat there rigid on the saddle, still struggling to comprehend the surreality of where he was. This was real, right? He was on an asteroid, under a geodesic dome, on a gravel pathway leading across a shaggy lawn . In front of him, one of those American-style wooden houses with a green pickup truck and some sort of oversized beach-buggy parked in front of it.
A thudding lawnmower grazed on it’s own, crawling around the lawn chewing up the grass and spitting it out the back. A cool draft blew towards ventilation stacks large enough to crawl into, while a single solitary tree struggled to grow at the centre of a patch of rough ground. The sky was black above his head, sunlight hot and strong and blazing like an electric arc through the glass. It was a balmy summer’s day under the dome, all told.
“It’s... some sort of reverse Geofront?”
“If you think this is big, you should see Grovers Corners,” Kotono said. “It’s over a kilometre wide.”
Shinji did his best to imagine what could possible be bigger than this. The closest he came was the Geofront itself.... replacing the roof with a dome open to the stars... before his mind refused to believe such a thing was possible. He looked up once more, scanning for evidence of a deception.
He hoped to see something.... the edge of a screen... anything to give the illusion away. Crawling across the sky, a spark spat from the solar fires trailing thin slashes of light.
“Is that.... is that another spaceship?” he asked, his mouth tripping over itself as it struggled against his rational side to form the words.
“Umm hmm,” Kotono confirmed with a nod. “It’s a derelict moored in orbit. We call it Angie.”
They came to a stop outside the front door. The engine rattled to a halt beneath him and he immediately felt the silence closing in, chased quickly by the sweet scene of fresh cut grass.
He got off before her, and tried desperately not to snigger at his own mental pun. The boy knew enough English to make some sense of the plaque beside the front door, though he did wonder where all the books had gone if it was telling the truth about a librarian paradise.
Maybe the little floating robots hid them.
He took his helmet off, looked for somewhere to put it, before settling on holding it by the chinstrap at his side. Kotono eased the bike up onto it’s centrestand, leaving it tink-tinking away to itself.
He blinked, seeing a figure behind the tree.
“Something wrong?” Kotono asked him.
Nothing there. Must’ve been a trick of the light.
“No ma’am,” he answered. He checked one last time. One of those little floating robots scooted out from behind the tree with an electronic chirp.
“Oh them, They’re just curious about the newcomer, don’t mind them,”
For a moment, she almost sounded like Misato with that cheery skim-across-the-surface-of-life certainty to her voice.
It was chilling.
“Anti-gravity floating robots,” he muttered to his feet.
His clothes still felt too big on him. He really didn’t know Roughriders were or why their logo was on his T-shirt alongside a Blackbird jet. None of this made any sense whatseover.
It didn’t seem real. It didn’t seem possible.
In the same way a giant, techno-organic artificial humanoid had seemed impossible they day he received a letter from his father ordering him to come.
Maybe that’s why he was taking it so well, he mused privately. Reality could always outstrip expectations of what was possible. And if he waited long enough pretending to be musing on life the universe and everything, Kotono would save him the agony of knocking on the front door.
It took her a few moments to tie her helmet to the bike’s handlebars. She looked down at him. He broke her gaze and left her to knock.
The answer came after an interminable wait, wooden door creaking open like a prop a bad old horror movie.
“Hi! You must be Shinji. I’m Ford, Ford Sierra,”
Brash. Saccharine... Active. Over-enthusiastic. Definitely American. Shinji knew enough English to have understand what she was saying.
Big brown eyes. Big white-teeth grin set in a tanned face framed by chocolate bangs. His eyes fell down to a point below her neck, drawn by tank-top that conformed to her body. He noticed her arm a moment later. Metal hand, extended with an open palm.
“Oh this.... I had an accident years ago,” she patted it with her good hand, before gripping his shoulder with it, tugging him inside.
It was cold. It was metal. It was real. He could hear the actuators inside whispering as it moved.
“Sorry,” he murmured, sticking to his native tongue by reflex. He had the thought to take off his trainers, but on seeing the industrial workboots on Ford’s feet, decided not to bother.
Inside, the hallway was all wooden, but with the bare minimum of furnishing. A stairway had obviously once had a carpet, which’d been removed. He could sea where the wood had been bleached by sunlight everywhere except for a dark strip up the centre. The walls had been varnished, while the floor was acquiring a patina from a thousand booted feet. It smelled of cheese, tomato....and something that might’ve been burnt ginger.
It was lived in.
Like Misato’s apartment. There was something comforting in it at least.
There was a living room. He could see a collection of movies on shelves framing another flat-panel television. Otherwise just as sparsely furnished as the hallway with only a few mismatched chairs and a table placed for perfect use as a footstool.
“Come on in, Shinji,”
Ford’s metal arm didn’t give him a choice. He was pulled forward.
“I’ll wait for jet in the front room,”
And suddenly, by speaking in a foreign language, Kotono became completely alien.
“Sure, sure... I’ll let her know,” Ford assured her.
A face appeared at the top of the stairwell, peering down at him. A boy... a little older than him, dressed pretty much the same as he was save for the braces holding his trousers up.
“That him?” the boy called down.
Shinji gave his best 'who me?' expression.
“Mackie!” Ford snapped at him, before barking orders at him so fast Shinji couldn’t keep up.
The boy... Mackie... just shrugged at her. “Fine, fine,”
He retreated somewhere upstairs... Shinji could hear him moving about upstairs. Kotono disappeared into the front room, while he was led by Ford talking at him so fast he couldn’t understand.... but didn’t have the heart to tell her to slow down.
He followed her down a hallway, passed an image of a rusty desert under a pale green sky, to a door left ajar.
“C’mon in,” she smiled at him, holding the door open for him. “After you,”
He gave her a shamed smile. “Thank you ma’am,” he offered, coating it in keigo he knew she wouldn’t appreciate.
He stepped into a room dominated by the strangest motorcycle he’d ever seen. Long and low in a brilliant pure red, wearing what looked like years of dust on it’s bodywork. It filled the air with the sharp sweet smell of fuels and lubricants.
There were guns illuminated for display in a glass case. He thought he saw what looked like a broken sword blade, mounted above a smashed piece of machinery he couldn’t identify. Figures and models stoof proud on shelving, alongside a collection of photographs...
A few looked to be missing.
In the centre, standing there waiting for him, was an Evangelion.
That was the first word that came to mind. His jaw hung open. It was.... She looked like a woman wearing some sort of form-fitting armoured suit. It was mostly white, with blue accents. On top of it, a youthful face with a light suntan, a cheery smile and ocean-blue eyes reading him, framed by impossibly red hair.
Asuka was a redhead, but this was an unnatural red. It was almost the same shade as the motorcycle’s paint.
“I’m Jet Jaguar. You’re Shinji, right?”
The tokusatsu robot? Why did she speak with such gruff, plain Japanese? With what sounded like an urban Tokyo accident, flushed through a pronunciation sewer and stripped of any respect. She even sounded like a bully.... husky on the verge of being hoarse like someone he spent a lot of time shouting. It was a stark contrast to the chirpy Kotono, or the American drawl of Ford.
He stepped back.
“Yes ma’am,” he offered a bow “Shinji Ikari. It’s a pleasure to meet you,”
“Likewise,”
She towered over him. Big and bulky in that armour. She looked down on him. She spoke down to him...
“Kotono’s in the front room, Jet,” Ford interrupted his thoughts. She was still standing in the door, leant against the frame.
“Gimme a minute,”
That’s what Shinji thought Jet’s answer was. He glanced between them.... feeling pinned in place by both.
Ford disappeared after a short acknowledgement, and Shinji found himself staring at the door, considering escape.
“So, I assume Kotono told you where you are,” Jet began.
“Yes ma’am,” he answered. He felt the back of his neck bristle. What had he done to deserve this? A terrible dread crawled into the pit of his stomach.
Maybe she knew about what he’d done to Asuka? Had she been told. Had she met Asuka?
“She also told you about handwavium.”
“Yes ma’am,” he confirmed.... trying hard not to stare at her.
She was standing rigid... inflexible. Her whole body could’ve been a mannequin.
“I’m a biomod. That’s what happens when handwavium meets biological stuff” she explained, placing one of those metal hands of hers on her chest. “I built this armour out of handwavium, and it bonded to my body,”
“Like Iron Man?”
That was his first thought.
She smiled at him. “Yes. But more than that. I’m cyborg.” That was the exact word she used. “My armour’s a part of me. It means I’m stronger than you, faster. I’ve got computer hardware in my head,” she parted the hair at the side of her head to reveal plastic coverings where there should’ve been ears. “I’ve life support for vacuum and I can fly,”
A smirk spread across her lips. A pair of wings snapped out from behind her back with a hard metal sound that reminded him of a pistol’s slide being pulled and released. He swallowed a little...
“It’s powerful stuff. I’m not the craziest or most extreme thing handwavium has ever done to a person. ”
But that wasn’t stopping her from bragging, was it? Shinji stiffened his lips.... he couldn’t say that out loud.
“Kotono told me about it,” he said, tentatively. “She told me it was what made technology up here work, but that it would be dangerous. But how come I’ve never heard of it before?”
“There’re plenty of governments who’d prefer if people didn’t know about it,” Jet answered.
More doubletalk. It was the truth. It was a complete non-answer. Did these people work for NERV PR?
“Why?” he pushed.
“Because they don’t like people having power,” she answered. There was a hardening in her expression and he knew she meant that to her core.
It might even be a valid explanation. Imagine a substance that gave the ordinary person the power to create starships, or cyborgs.... or weapons. If the UN could suppress knowledge of the Evangelion....
“I’m normally a martial artist, I run a school here,” Jet continued. Her voice was this ambivalant mix of a deliberate soft tone and gruff language that had Shinji’s mind going through loops trying to figure out if she was mocking him, talking down to him, or even doing it on purpose. “If you want to come along later, you’re welcome to watch and I can teach you some meditation techniques that’ll help you sleep,”
He knew for certain that he didn’t want to be anywhere near her.
“If it’s okay, I’d rather not,”
For a moment, she seemed almost surprised by him refusing. A glimmer of strength caught inside him.
“Well, what do you want to do?”
His mind came up blank.
“I want to see Asuka again,” his mouth decided, independently.
“That’s not possible,” the cyborg answered, quick as a flash.
“Why?” Shinji pushed.
“She isn’t here,”
“Then where is she?”
Jet stared down at him.
“I don’t know,”
She knew more than she let on, however. That much was obvious. They all did.
“Tell you what,” she forced a cheerful smile. “My brother’s upstairs. We have a transport coming in and it needs an escort. How would you like to go out into space with him?”
A small part of Shinji’s mind actually thrilled at the idea. The rest of him noted that he was probably going whether he wanted to or not. It was best not to make a fuss.
“I’ll go,”
Jet speaks like you'd imagine someone brought up on the streets of Megatokyo might..... she has Priss' voice and 'elocution'. And ability to sing....
And, as Mackie soon tells Shinji:
“Look...um... what I meant was. They all mean well and they’re trying to do their best for you, they just don’t know what that is. I don’t want you to mistake mistakes for them being evil,”
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?