Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Anika tries the clear communication and talking approach to things...
“Just remember. How many personal problems in Evangelion could’ve been solved if someone had bothered to bite the bullet and communicate clearly for once?”
“How many times do I have to admit I was wrong?”
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Quote:“Where is my reality?”
“It is at the end of your dreams,”
He shot awake.
“Rei!”
He blinked. A dream.
The room was empty. He sat on the bed, foil blanket pooled around his waist. Naked sunlight poured in through the windows to his right, illuminating the bare bedroom.
He was still there.
He thought for a moment that, maybe if he did something the fantasy couldn’t compensate for....something that’d make this reality untenable, it’d break down around him. .
The room was bare. The bed was bolted to the concrete floor. The glass was centimetres thick.
He sickened when he realised what he’d been thinking. Shinji flopped down onto his back, staring up at the ceiling above him. It was like Rei’s apartment, only cleaner and lived in a little more. He closed his eyes and held his breath, wishing one last time to wake up somewhere else.
Nothing happened.
“I want to go home,”
Nothing happened.
“I want to go home,”
His whining voice rang back off the walls.
“Take me home! Somebody! Please!......... Anybody!”
He was panting, heat welling up inside him. It was the same feeling as before.... right before his mind cut out like a blown lightbulb. A crawling fear rose up inside him as he sat there. His body started to shiver.
Outside... something crashed hard onto the floor, something hollowing and metallic. Shinji jumped and stared at the door.
It sounded like a pot... A woman’s voice cursed.
Someone was outside. His skin crawled with penderecki cockroaches, thousands of little feet prickling down his back. He wanted to call out, but it caught in the back of his throat. All he could do was sit there and stare at the door, praying that someone would come through while at the same time being terrified to the core about it.
He turned his back to the door, forcing himself to stare out the window.
Outside, there was a shuffling of feet and more voices. He knew he recognised them but tried to deny it anyway. Footsteps stopped outside the doorway. He felt his insides go taught.
It latched open, hinges squawking at him.
“Shinji....”
It was Anika. Memories of the previous night flooded back. He didn’t even turn around.
“Just leave me alone.” He spoke into his pillow.
“But....”
“I said leave!”
His voice echoed off the walls, crisp and clear, taking a few moments to finally die out. He could hear her feet shuffling on the floor.
Shinji waited. His breathing was ragged and quivering.
“No,” she said keeping her tone firm “We’re not going to make the same mistake again,”
He rolled over with a his, hot fury boiling up. “I told you to leave me alone and I mean it,” he snarled at her through clenched teeth. His hands gripped into tight fists, crunching his bedsheets together.
He could feel himself starting to coil up under the bedsheets. Anika’s presence was still there, hovering behind him, grating at the edges of his awareness.
“I just thought you’d like to know Rei Ayanami is on her way,”
Her voice was calm, soft and even. Shinji felt his body go cold, hot fury draining out of him. For a moment, hope spark within for a few moments before he could actually think about what that meant.
“She isn’t real either,” he said, flatly.
Either way.
“I don’t think she’d appreciate that,” Anika answered, archily.
Shinji lazily rolled himself over to see her standing with her hands on her hips.
“What do you want?”
She’d been terrified of him. Stunned into silence. Just standing there looking at him like he was about about to explode and then....
wink.
Rei, in his dreams. I am there, in your reality. He sat up, pushing himself slowly up with his hands, remembering to keep the bedsheets close to his body.
Anika drew in a deep breath, and seemed to look for somewhere to sit, before finally settling on the end of his bed.
“Okay.... infodump time.” she smiled at him “You remember I told you I was artificial right?”
Shinji nodded.
“Well, five years ago I was built by a man named William Flint. He built me to be the core of a weapon, to be a sort of removable sapiency driver that could be taken out and moved between different devices. For three years he treated me like nothing more than a machine.”
Shinji watched as Anika went pale. She didn’t seem like a machine.... not at all.
“He treated me like a slave. Like a tool. Like a piece of hardware.”
She was looking at his feet, then down to hers. There was a distance in her eyes that made him feel uncomfortable
“He also deliberately crippled my hardware to keep me under control. My core processors overheat easily, causing them to cut out to keep them from being damaged. The idea was, if I tried to make a break for freedom he could just pull my cooling and I’d overheat and shut down.”
She looked right at him.
“That’s what happened to you last night. You didn’t faint, you overheated.”
Me? He pointed a finger at his chest. He thought he should’ve felt sick, but strangely didn’t.
Anika continued. “I escaped two years ago, stealing his prototype duplex drive battroid. Flint hired the people here to help recover the ‘droid. He told them I was his jealous ex-partner. I thought they were trying to take me back so I turned the battroid on them.” She gave him a self-effacing smile. “Luckily I wasn’t very good with it.”
“When they figured out that I wasn’t his partner at all, they had him arrested by the Space Patrol. He spent a year in prison, and I received all his assets as compensation, including my own design plans.”
A note of pride crept into her tone.
“A couple of months ago I got shot, and we had to fix the damage. It wasn’t hard but after that, since we’re so far out here, we’re hours from help right now so Jet decided to get some practice fixing me incase something worse happened. She built a body to my design plans, so she could get used to working without actually risking damaging me.. Jet planned to dismantle it again....”
“So nobody even wanted me?”
The thought had escaped his mouth before his mind managed to catch up to it. He wasn’t admitting to it.... no way.
Anika glared at him, sitting herself upright. “I did. It was just....I...” she took a few moments to search for the words. “I saw the finished frame and it was the same as me inside so it had all the potential to do things and enjoy life and have fun that I did, so I convinced her to wave it. A few days later, we saw we were getting you and we had to figure out to do.”
Shinji looked up at her. There was a spark in her eyes that seemed to set her hair aflame.
“It was Jet, Ford and Daryl’s idea to do the whole not telling you thing.... they thought it’d be easier on you if you figured it out by yourself rather than dropping you in it. That’s why they didn’t tell you about Rei.”
He frowned.
“The plan was to do it gradually... to get you used to the idea of being here, used to us, of being an android, and then being a doppel.
“Doppel?”
“It’s what we call androids based on fictional character,”
“I see,”
He was looking at his feet, two little mountains bumping up in the bedsheets.
“We hoped to make friends first so that when we finally told you what you were we’d be able to support you.” Shinji stared at her. “It was a boneheaded plan,” she deadpanned.
Shinji offered her the merest of smiles.
“So either this is the real world, and I’m just a copy of a fictional Shinji Ikari. Or, I’m the real Shinji Ikari and this is all a figment of my mind, my mind trying to keep me trapped in my own mind because the real world is too horrible to live in,”
Anika sighed. “It’s a lot to take in,”
He didn’t doubt that she believed herself. He looked at her, then at his own reflection in the glass, and out to the rock surface beyond.
He found himself nodding gently. “I appreciate you telling me straight. I’m not sure I can believe it....but “ He swallowed a fat lump in his throat. “But thanks.”
“Search your feelings Shinji, you know it to be true,”
“I don’t want it to be.” he said, softly.
“Why?” she asked him. Her expression was a picture of compassion.
His gaze fell to the floor. “I don’t,”
And he didn’t know how to continue that. It lit up every single nerve in his body to even think it could possibly be the truth. Every fibre of his being railed against the idea.... every feeling, every sensation told him it just had to be in his mind somehow
“I’ll leave you to think about it. Rei’ll be here in about eighteen hours or so, but Kotono’s outside if you’d like to talk to someone.
“And you?”
Shinji’d decided to like her. She was the only one, aside from Mackie, who’d spoken straight to him. She was the only one who told him the truth.... or at least she hadn’t lied to him as she’d seen it.
“I have work up in the control room.” she said “If you want to get around by yourself without walking, head down to the motorpool and Ford’ll give you something”
Shinji nodded along. The offer was implied, but he didn’t really intend on taking her up on it.
He wanted so desperately for this just to be another elseworld. Another dream brought on by the Eva, by the sea of LCL, by... Giant Naked Rei. Another fantasy. Another escape.
He closed his eyes one final time, conjuring up every mental image he thought comprised himself. Every vile thing he’d done, every moment where he’d lied, or hidden, or failed to do what was necessary. Every hurt he’d caused. Every person who’d died because he was a coward, or because he was careless.
Asuka....
He formed that all into an image of Shinji Ikari in his mind then offered it up to the God’s as proof that he could recognise himself and that it was time he was allowed back to real world.
But the God’s didn’t listen.
He opened them, and Anika was still sitting there with an expectant look on her face, waiting for him to do something. He was still in that bare concrete room with a shining mylar blanket around his waist.
Outer space was still just outside his window.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
“I’ll see you later,” she said, standing up once more.
Again, all he could do was nod and watch he leave. The door locked shut behind her, sealing him in.
Alone again, he held his hand over his face.
His fingers twitched. They felt like his fingers. He gripped a fist as hard as he could, feeling nails dig into his palm, nipping just a little. After a few seconds, he released.
Red marks left by his nails slowly faded.
“It’s my hand,” he breathed.
His armed flopped down beside him. Still just as heavy as it always was. He turned over, staring at his reflection in the glass.
It’d be easier to keep from thinking about it if he had something to listen to.
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“Just remember. How many personal problems in Evangelion could’ve been solved if someone had bothered to bite the bullet and communicate clearly for once?”
“How many times do I have to admit I was wrong?”
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?