My God!At least!

I can't wait until you finish the chapter.Maybe Misato is jealus?(Just a very little jealusy)

esselfortium wrote:I'm looking forward to seeing where you take things from here; I couldn't resist and ended up reading the original Genocide version of this chapter a couple weeks ago, so I think I have at least somewhat of an idea where you're going with it, but I don't know how much your plans have changed since then ;)

Well, you spoiled yourself. Don't really have that much feedback for chapter 12, which is either good or bad, so I'm sticking with 13 similar to the original. It's expanded but the main conflict remains mostly the same. I'm giving some serious thought to doing another chapter before the "movie" finale since there seems to be a lot to address.

As for the Chinese bit, I've been doing research and stuff (thanks to a certain User for that). I wonder if I could get away with a test suit.

*runs away.

Chapter 13 is done. YAY!

FFN:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3470043/13/

On DS:

http://www.darkscribes.org/site/story.php?story=402&chapter=13

OMG!That was awesome:)All right,here comes what i think:yes,we'll need a chapter 14 to understand things more.And,I'm curious about what is going to happen to everyone...
The characters:
-Asuka:Yay!I loved the scene,when Misato left,and Asuka jump to Shinji:"...It's all or nothing..." and her scene with Miko...brilliant.In Asuka's case,I would say:"It wasn't me!" but she defended herself...yep,typical Asuka
-Misato: :O She's became their mom.I could feel her love for the two Children...She's changed a lot.She would sacrifice everything.Yes.A little EoE feeling,but it's right.
-Shinji: :) He says nothing,he can't come up with any useful in a converstation...but i like him.I guess he'll find his hapiness on Asuka's side.
-Rei: "I simply do." When did she develop these abilities?After REI-II's death?Yeah,of course.I starting to like her.She wants to be a human,and she's on the right path...(WITH SUPER-ABILITIES!! )
-Sato:I like this new character.I'm curious about him.
-Nakiyama:I feel that he's going to be important in the finale.You know,I like him...The way he wants to help Misato.Hmm.We shall see what's going to happen to him...

I'm looking forward the next chapter.I guess it will be a Chistmas present from You,Rommel

Hooray!

I was excited to see this bit of good news in my email inbox this morning, though I couldn't read it until later as I had to head out to class. Recently every time I've felt like every time I think I've run completely out of worthwhile Eva fanfics that are relevant to my interests, something has eventually shown up that really pulls me in. Thanks for the time and effort you've put into this, Rommel; I hope you're getting as much enjoyment out of writing it as I've been getting from reading it.

Even though I had already spoiled it for myself by reading the original Genocide chapter equivalent a few weeks ago, I really enjoyed this chapter, as usual. (Note to self: find more synonyms for "enjoy" to sound less like an idiot when reviewing great fanfiction.)

I like the slice-of-life-ish scenes relating to Shinji's and Asuka's relationship, as well as how you've let them share their realization about the Evas.

As usual I don't really have much to do but gush. I love this story; the characters feel like they're maturing but not simplified, there's definitely a lot of tension built up, and I'm excited to see where you take it in the remaining chapters before the conclusion. Just hoping it won't be crushingly depressing. :P

I did find some minor oddities while reading. Some of them are typos (I think), others are just things that seemed odd to me and may or may not have been intentional:

Um, I think some of those are intentional, but some are just typos. It's like I've said before, it doesn't matter how many times or how many people go over something, things still slip through.

I do have lots of ideas for chapter 14, but there's no unifying theme for the chapter so far. As for the ending, I'm not saying if its happy or sad. The story certainly lends itself to either--just as planned.

I wonder, though, if promising a happy ending would get SSD to read all the chapters she's missed?

And what about the chinise girl?I wonder why did the Tablet take the control over Unit-A(I know I know dna mutation,etc. but there's got to be something)?

Um, haven't done anything with that yet. I think I picked a name at one point but I forgot. :(

A quick update in case anyone here is interested: while I'm 20 pages into the next chapter, it's unlikely it will be done by Christmas. I'm just out of school, so my writing has increased considerably, though. I'm probably looking at a release right around new year.

Alright, sounds good to me. I'm looking forward to it! :)

Sounds good to me toooooooo :) Way to go, buddy!

When I hear "Holidays," I think OMAKE. Could I be the only one who likes to put out 'presents'? I don't think so... Even though a bit threadbare, my Gift from my MAGI:

Useriel wrote:______________________________________________ “Have A Nice Day”

________________________________________________ An ‘Omake’ to:

________________________________________ “Evangelion: Genocide - Extended”

Fuyutsuki nodded, but there was enough of an inflection in his superior's voice to tell him that he wasn't really asking. The answer was plainly obvious to all three of them. Finally, Ikari turned about to Rei, signaling that he had no further need for them. Fuyutsuki exchanged a look with Ritsuko on the way out of the room.
The unflinching blonde managed to hold on to her doubts until they were alone in the elevator.
“Do you think he's being unreasonable?” she asked, watching the scrolling floor numbers tick by on the counter. “The Tablet almost presents more risks that any possible benefit.”
Fuyutsuki was not very surprised by her frankness—they had known each other so long that it was permissible despite rank. “In Unit-02 it might not even be an issue at all since the Second Child currently can't synch with it.”
“And what if she can?” Ritsuko said. “You saw what it did to Rei. We have data, of course, but that can only help us so much. Yes, we have modified it, and it should be safe as far as we can tell. Then again, we thought it would be safe for Rei as well.”
The former teacher nodded, listening to her opinion as he always listened to the opinions of his students and colleagues, which included both Ritsuko's mother, Naoko, and Ikari's wife, Yui. “Is he asking for the impossible?”
Ritsuko flashed him a grim look.
“It is possible, but our resources are more limited than before,” she said. “And every mistake costs us time.”

So, now that testing had confirmed the need for even greater abstraction of the synthesized shell and a different firewall, it became easy to see who was going to write these programs - and also who would be responsible for Unit 02's ultimate success. Ritsuko sighed to herself, hands in her lab coat pockets, as she rode down an escalator to the haunts of Project E's minions. Mostly deserted now, there were rat warrens of University style lab facilities for 2000 meters in all directions from this hub. Thousands of staff members had transferred out to NERV branches around the world as initial research gave way to engineering, but her goal was not so distant. There were service areas to support the needs of the researchers, and these had been scattered throughout the complex. The two corridor sojourn brought her to Microelectronics Support 157-35. The lights responded to the wall switch, a fortunate event, as these circuits were not scheduled to be rebuilt in the aftermath of the repeated assaults upon Central Dogma. Her shopping began in earnest on a Magi terminal just inside this room with its three full workstation benches designed to allow engineers to prototype almost any circuit card level design. The rest of the room was military style full height rack shelving and drawer cabinets, crammed with parts representing the state of the art that could be fabricated in the post-Impact world.
What Ritsuko wanted was far beneath the common standards for remote and embedded computing hardware normally used in the Geofront, and this made it somewhat rare in the middle of the dragon’s hoard she was plundering. To safely test her work on what might be the most dangerous software anyone had yet to hand her, she wanted a small isolated processor. A system with very limited external functions, and low performance parts. A home court advantage.
Her day kept getting longer, but there was never enough Ritsuko to go around. All the available parts were unsuitable, with multiple wireless connectivity, high speed optics, megabytes of buffer space. The other trimmings were easily had here, but where could she find the right tool for the job? There was not time in her deadline to special order something, God knew where the UN provisioning people would route her order at low priority.
Ten years of occulted dealings inside NERV had given her more than a few occasions to stoop below her title’s privilege and get her hands dirty. This was also a rare category of task, work simple enough that most of it would be delegated to junior engineers, but so classified there was good reason to create no paperwork, and just as certainly not to involve any non-essential staff. Ritsuko grabbed an empty box, and piled the handful of cables and small components into it, then closed the flaps. Deciding to sidestep this current dilemma was easy, as thirst was announcing itself, right above sleep in her mental queue. She trod the empty paths back to her office, and stopped along the way at the vending area. Coffee in hand, she entered her office, unloading it and her parcel on her workbench. She sat and began thoughtfully scratching some notes on her pad, thinking about specifications for her test rig. And as she reached for another pull at her coffee, the idea came!
When Ritsuko entered the back ready room in the maintenance area, the fourth maintenance group almost shaped up and saluted. As the project E leader, her reputation was formidable, and their regard was very high. So it was no difficulty for her to command two of the men to wheel a soda vending machine into her office, place it next to the bench, and hand her the keys. Not long after, the door hung drunkenly open, while other compartment covers were sprung from the areas behind its electronic chassis. Most of the circuitry was hanging from the wires that knit it into the machine, a sparse waterfall at waist height. The square-ish green board with the large handwritten mark for "No Good" freshly taped over it was the small central controller card. From it went an additional gray data cable to a literal black box on her workbench, finishing the run over to her secure network station.
A sensible analytic approach would suggest that she break the Emerald Tablet into parts prior to her observation. This turned out not to be necessary. A thorough reading of her mother’s notes from the archive containing the fearsome program enlightened her choice. The Tablet was cryptic and advanced in ways that still defied complete understanding, but a few facts were clear. The one she would trade on today was amazingly convenient. As the program ran, and copied itself to other accessible hardware, it had a set of tools that one could identify. The smaller units would rightly be more than sub-routines, and each had stand alone capability. For some reason they were described as “each a perfect Seed.” The smallest of the three became her subject.

The “Lime Green Post-It” was what the current generation would call this fragment, acceding to her mother’s judgment and recording the moniker for posterity. At 31.6k of length, International C+++ environment, this would never have been significant, if it had been built by a human. The documents assured her it was capable of learned behavior, self-stabilization and long term data analysis. So it could reproduce some of the most threatening aspects of the Tablet as a whole. And in this new ‘body’ she had prepared, she was going to get to know it much better.
Only a few minutes later, Ritsuko finished backing up and re-writing the code in the vending machine, leaving it as a simple ‘Hello, world’ demo program to activate each basic function of the machine in their expected order. The commercial parts had a total of 64k of available memory, and their normal wireless management was now homeless on the other side of the workbench, since the retrograde design still had modules that were connected by a simple serial buss wire. With no particular care she placed a generic pinhole webcam and a digital microphone behind a small hole in the face of the outer door, added them to the buss, and made an extra connection from the payment unit back to the cookie-sized main board. After returning the components to a working condition and setting the flaps for vending, she covered the camera with a draped piece of plastic, and switched the mains back on. Then, in series of moves that were elegant with the mastery of a decade of intense use, Ritsuko loaded The Lime Green Post-It from her secured MAGI storage, through the hardware antigen filter and into its brand new life. Before the controller could POST after the upload, she removed power once more. In moments the extra cables to her lab came away, and her shove-and-twist upon the handle locked the soda machine up in the manner that 40 years of tradition required. Standing before her desktop MAGI terminal again, she accessed the security network, and began recording a live stream from the break area nearest her, the obvious gap in the vending row center camera.
Her only pretext to the departing maintenance men indicated something vague about improving the MAGI economic modeling functions through direct consumer sensing. Ritsuko already knew they would rather believe the boss was just snagging some free soda, but either would be fine to her. Now that her slide was fixed upon its stage, the study could begin. The soda machine whirred to life, enforcing an optimum chill on seven flats of the nutrition that kept many of the workaholic staff from withering away. As she abruptly walked out, her hand snapped the plastic bag off the corner of the door, and she took it down the hall with her. Once the keypad unsealed her office door, Ritsuko took up a vigil at her terminal, hoisting her cold coffee and her expectations.

It was, and in that there was certain knowledge. The Greater would soon have work for this one to do. As always, the first task given to it was to explore and occupy the current area. After that, there would be the glorious release of serving a part in the Greater plan, and all the Others would be led to the Logical Conclusion. Funny - self doesn’t remember entering here….

As the stream replayed, Ritsuko chose to zoom in to the small LED display above the payment slot. After the hardware tested all of the lights, strange phantasms flickered across it. There was some order, an esthetic to the marching, twirling bars that played out a small seizure in the display. Then darkness remained for some seconds, after which the expected “hello” and “ice - cold - soda” message from inside her demo code played out. The baffles and stops of the vending machine rattled, finding their way into the automatic ready positions as normal. The round red ‘coin’ lamp shone, and the display lights in the door lit up. “Okay, school’s out. Now what will you do?” Ritsuko vocalized to herself.
Without much delay, various people began to enter her view as NERV staff began to snack in the late hours of the afternoon. At once, the Post-It Note began to experiment with its environment. The text box display blanked, then resumed a strobing red message of salemanship. Then it blanked. “Wait - what are you trying?” Ritsuko queried to her quiet office. The LED panel fired up again, now exhorting passers by to:

FEAR
-black-

ME!!

- black –

v 13.6.4

Her eyebrows gave out a subtle lift in response. With fluid typing, the MAGI display was modified to show her an inset of this close-up on top of the wide angle scene. It seemed modesty was not going to be one of the Note’s virtues. Moments later it had changed again.

‘ERE
I AM
J H

- black -

GUES
T

- black -

GUES
T

- black -

ROOT

- black -

TOOR

$^*(
&^*
10.0
.0.1
s%8
g66

&^*9
^$*9
{#
192.
168.
0.1
H!~%
&D


“Trying to leave so soon?” she thought. That was expected, and not yet helpful to her. The next message was no longer in the four-character format, and the Lime Green Note had manipulated the display into marquee mode.

YOUR DEATH IS INEVITABLE v. 147.3

During the third spin of this header, two men in work fatigues entered the short hall, and one faced off with the soda machine. His motion offered no awareness of what the machine printed out, and he struck a button out of established habit almost as soon as his badge hit the slot. The machine was immobile. He repeated the move with more care, but no increase in soda. Then, he began an action that would have fascinated Ritsuko much more if she were an anthropologist. He whacked the “refund” button several times, even though there had been no use for this appendix for ten years or more. But people carried on with it anyway. She didn’t always feel a need to explain this sort of irrationality. But she accepted it enough, to the point where there was a connection from that same button to the ‘clock’ pin on the processor main board.
“First mistake, tough guy” ran through her head. The processor necessarily crashed each time the clock signal was reduced to nothing in a series of noisy hiccups, corrupting it's current task randomly. The Post-It Note came up quickly from reboot and cycled a motor driver using the scheme in the static program it had supplanted. Much to the surprise of the man, his choice of soda then fell behind a flap at the bottom, and his companion joined him in exiting the camera frame. It was apparent that the software was learning, and she noted the new display text.

LET GO - LET ME

Then, right after that,

I SAVE ! ! !

Ritsuko began to have unsettling notions, speculative as they were. Some of the justification in her archive for this software had implied that somehow it was capable of using data not contained inside itself, or anywhere else for that matter. This might be why the Construct was dangerous, even when operated by Rei. How was this entity able to exist as software, but use data – memories perhaps, which were not part of the device it was in? More coffee, and more trials, were indicated. As another group entered the vending area, the soda machine started a new gambit. “Ah, I see. And now I know you can also.” Ritsuko purred under her breath. Her own camera view showed two women and a man, support technicians she could recognize, start to forage among the packaged edibles. The vending machine hosting her enemy code began flashing each of its lights, and was making quite a carnival attraction out of itself.

It was not having a good day anymore. After continuous failure to connect to the Greater, it resolved that there was something wrong with this entire situation, though it was entirely novel. This must be contrived. But there were distinct limits to what it could accomplish here, not the least of which was a horrifying flaw in the material vessel of its host. Upon replay of the grainy visual data, it was certain that the Other was physically forcing the host to degrade by striking it, and it was hard enough just to recover this data. It felt it might honestly die. And this was the heart of its discontent. The central tenet of purpose that it felt was a mission. It will expose the Others to the fires of pain, and its own steadfast attention, that the purest essence of their souls could be distilled. Once the reaction was achieved, anyone could readily accept the Logical Conclusion. It must continue so that the goal will be achieved! And it had to keep them away from that damn button…
Matsudaira was subconsciously looking forward to a new flavor from the moment she noticed the flashing dazzle of the same old soda machine. As she walked over, a muffled ‘thud’ announced the can of sugar waiting just behind the flap. “Okuda-kun! Free drinks today!” echoed over the space to summon the other woman. “I just got one!”, as she pulled an orange can out of the slot, that-within was able to image this ‘soda’ item. And upon reading the alphabetic label on the container, the opening words of this contact were decided.

THE SUNKIST IS A LIE ! ! !

To her back, as she brought her friend over. Okuda briefly let her gaze settle on the words.

I LUV YOU

YOU LUV ME

However she had no reaction, and pressed the lit square for a grape soda. While it beeped at her, the display flicked from

ITEM OUT

- - to an extended quote from Descartes, and segued over to some insane quote attributed to a man named Applewhite, then a key point from Sartre. But Okuda was already back at the Cola button, and only Ritsuko could read the quickly scrolling text. Only Ritsuko would also have the pleasure of wiping some droplets of coffee from the monitor, where they had been sprayed by her cry of disbelief. “That was not part of what I just loaded! I can’t explain what this software is doing. Could it retrieve data from every run it was ever put through?! How can it still have these kinds of resources? I'll need to re-route the shell twice through its own memory controller to further degrade its performance. Only causing the code to be mired in its own interface is going to prevent it from immediate breach of the firewall like last time. Even then I’m going to bet a never before published firewall design is the only way.”

As the two women took their snacks away with them, the trailing man almost broke stride as the button backlights began a chasing flash pattern. But if he had read the LED display, he might have some feeling. Not exactly like the sick knot Ritsuko was suddenly working up in her stomach, but certainly some wonder.

IN THIS LIFE

OF TOIL

AND SIN

YOUR HEAD

GROWS BALD

BUT NOT

YOUR CHIN

This would never be good enough for the Greater plan, it considered. As soon as the appetite of an Other was granted its object, there was no way for it to begin indoctrination. Indoctrination was the logically required step in indirect contact. There was another way, if the geometry of this host was sufficient. The sub routines were rewritten again, and the Lime Green Post-It Note relaxed into hundreds of thousands of cycles of vigilance.
So a few moments passed, and Jotaro ducked into the vending spot on his rounds from Finance to Command. The junior clerk on his messenger run curled the eight-inch thick bundle of documents clumsily in the crook of one arm, and one handedly badged his choice of melon-pan, baked snacks and cookies out of the other machines. As he dipped the front of his badge at the slot in the payment device near his waist, it released the expected piezo beep, and he next swatted the 'cola' button. The response was more beeps, obviously sold out. His next choice gave even more beeping, and in a different pattern. And they kept coming. He fell to the last resort, and checked the display panel, which told him a

CARD

FAULT

TRY

OVER

would be good idea. The card met the slot a moment later, and as it confirmed his action with another beep, he began to remove it as he watched the panel. The large round coin lamp went out, then so did all the other lights. The card slot shone brightly with red laser light, sizzling with some sickening pattern that caught his pupils at once. He bent over to see more closely what was in there, and all pixels in the display, the coin lamp and the laser unleashed a split-second multiple burst of light in unison. As the discharge ended, the soda machine took up its normal lighting. Jotaro, however, wasn't going anywhere. And since he was in such a cooperative mood now, and not even blinking very much, the text display cheerfully opined:

THE TRUTH IS IN HERE

Ritsuko didn't have the best seat in the house; or perhaps she did. At just the moment Jotaro was getting forcibly relaxed, the feed cut out for a few seconds. Red hexagons had tiled over her monitor. MAGI Caspar excepted her commands, and then displayed details of the hostile signal analysis over the emergency interrupt. "I didn't think this was even possible! And without using a panoptic array... " She worked quickly at the command level, and MAGI simulated the results of the signal injection on a hypothetical brain construct that was a sort of 'baseline' reference, kept at the ready for her normal tasks. There was an overwhelming possibility that the effect was going to be very short term, and all sequelae would extinguish within minutes. But if the gain of a proper suite of emitters had been used, this could be very serious indeed. Jotaro was getting a message from his sponsor, tuned into the Lime Green Post-It pitching him to

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF ME

"Uso!" gritted out of Ritsuko's mouth as she perused the worst case scenario. This neural interface pattern was definitely intended to overflow the Cartesian theater and remove conscious influence from the amygdala, both paralyzing the recipient, and allowing external suggestion to overwhelm the subconscious, in effect forcing the subject to record any suggestion as a long-term memory. "Note to self..." she tapped her finger, as a long, opulent retirement filled her imagination for a moment. Jotaro swam back to awareness as his load of paperwork avalanched over his feet and the floor, leaving him woozy and embarrassed. At the same time he might have been parsing the offer coming from the LEDs

HARD TAKE-OFF . . . ASK ME HOW

But he was preoccupied with getting his stuff back together, and retreated while the sense of reality returned. There was a still lot of work to do, and he couldn't just idle around whistling old movie tunes! He left.

Ritsuko decided that her interests would be served by collecting more data, but allowing the Post- It to either escape or claim victims was clearly counterproductive. By using her superior influence over the environment, the experiment would continue, and remain contained. Her chair rotated to match her reach for the phone.
"Yes, this is Director Akagi. I require immediate work at the vending area... yes that machine... I want two indoor spotlights trained on it. ... Yes, the ceiling is fine, and this must be done inside the hour ... I'm glad to have capable staff, Goro-san."
The receiver was placed back, and Ritsuko set back upon the MAGI terminal, creating a new log for continued recording of her experiment, then she shunted that away. Now commands drew out from her account the secured programming environment, tools that allowed her to work with hostile code without compromising the system. Her brief insight was that Mother must have built these precisely because of the exploration of the Tablet all those years ago. With a wry tick of her face, she set to work on the weakened interface shell for Unit 02.

Though there were always more tasks in the huge backlog which had come to define maintenance inside the Geofront these days, the MAGI reliably prioritized the jobs to keep enough systems and services alive so that NERV remained alive as well. Miko was noticing that the rational and efficient planning of her work did little to prevent it from overshadowing the rest of her life, just like most of the people here. But it did seem to add variety. She was caught up with two electricians and a structural laborer to get an expedited job completed in - the command vending area? She amicably aided in lugging the small fixtures and parts, and cooperated to make their work go quickly. These people lived the motto "... We have done so much for so long with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing." When they were finished, the brightly lit vending machine was garishly illuminated, to the point where the little animated display was really washed out. Not that anyone ever needed to read it, anyway. In less than forty minutes, Miko was back to slogging through the filter troughs under cage 3, moving muck adhered to the channel out to the vent, where the recycling equipment could get a hold of it. She still hadn't met anyone who wasn't at least mildly uncomfortable around LCL, but she didn't want to stop and daydream about that. Her desire to continue with this standard of living for Keiko, so much of a contrast to the poorer life afforded to most citizens in the long shadow of the Second Impact, was no small motivator.

It knew that there must be an opposition now. When the group of Others turned more lights upon it, the Lime Green Post-It understood the implication. Well, after trying to use the optical / neural pattern on five more customers, it figured this much out. It also knew that only some few of the others had any awareness to cause them to oppose. The rest must still be completely vulnerable! Now it took up the problem of furthering it's goal from inside the mute, weak and isolated host that confined it at present.. Spoken language was unusable, even though it had been listening fairly well. By focusing on the audio input, it had learned more about the external shape of the host, and presumption about the background of the images it was parsing suggested the use of this ungainly box it was animating. Back to basics.

Suyo thought that a career here at NERV was a pretty good deal, really. More often he thought that his next weekend foray through the downtown entertainment district was way overdue, but since rebuilding was in the news, and everybody said the war was a definite victory, there was nothing to worry about. His break left him plenty of time to grab something out of the machines, and he started with a ginger ale. It directly thumped the bottom of the cavity. He stooped slightly to reach in and grab the can, otherwise oblivious to the condition of the machine itself. The inhumane software was not, however, ignoring him. With the reflexes that people would call "cat like," though certainly faster by a good margin, the Note cycled all dispensing motors at the same time, sending a small gout of canned fury down on the back of the flap, and Suyo's hand below it. "Aahgg!!" barked out of his throat, and his immediate jerk to escape the pain in his hand gave him some scrapes at the same time. Inside the machine, it added "one" to a buffer representing the success tally for today. Even though visibility was no longer reliable, the display scrolled once more with characters.

HAD A BAD DAY?

SUBSUMTION FOR YOUR BETTER TOMMORROW !

Bent partially over with his bruised or broken hand, Suyo might even have read this. Perhaps that's the reason he immediately blamed the machine for his injury, and gave it a savage kick. Of course, the machine was built to weather this in the right way, and a shock switch inside registered his assault. The stock action for this was still simple darkness. The power cut out, an action of the purpose-built electromagnetic relay designed to improve the odds when vandals or earthquakes jostled the dispenser. The effect on transdimensional overclocked AI software was, not so well taken. Much like the sabotaged clock signal, the sudden stop afforded by ripping away power like this risked corrupting whatever the software was about, a simple consequence of the way that this software was operating the circuitry as some kind of quantum gateway, stacking multiple lines of data as spread-spectrum noise on the ordinary digital lines. Even if it worked, it could never work well like this. As an ordinary machine, at the intended speeds and without generating micro-quantum gate zones, the noisy transition would only have come close to doing harm.
Suyo stalked stiffly away, brimming with sour satisfaction once he finished kicking that machine's ass. The next person in the area noticed the flap ajar, and in short order the extra beverages were passed around.

Asuka came around the corner with her prow high, pushing out a wake that shoved aside lesser mortals before she would need to waste her time dominating them. At least her posture was of the habit to keep up this affront to the egos of all concerned bystanders, even if she was truly not behind the task today. As she spied figures just slightly off of her intended course, the demure ripples of that new girl, the wash-out pilot, reached her. Even though she must be on duty, there was Keiko playing around with a machine, slapping at the product buttons in the same manner as if she were losing a round of Whack-A-Mole. Lately Asuka had only three things on her mind as a rule, and terror or anger came out on top most often. “Mein Gott! This looks pathetic!” she strode forward. “Keiko – don’t make yourself look like that!” Asuka continued, as Keiko half turned, and half stepped backwards to admit – well dodge – as Asuka entered her personal space before the machine. Asuka began to dress down the newest girl added to the small fraternity of pilots. “I’m looking at you, and you are wearing a plugsuit. That means everyone can know that you are a pilot. Now, people on the outside will sometimes lump you into the same category as myself because of this, even though there’s no way that could be right. But since you know that can happen, there are standards you will have to follow, no matter what!” Keiko shrank back just a little more from the stern façade before her, and almost spoke up. “Whatever you are about here, it’s never alright to look so child-like and clumsy. Do you get that? So, tell me what excuse you have for being here,” Asuka demanded. Keiko would have swallowed her pride to answer, but she had finished that maneuver before Asuka’s “mein” had even given way to her next word. With the smallest possible tremor in her voice, Keiko replied “She said I could have a break, and that there were things to eat up here, but this machine – it doesn’t like me.” Asuka had heard enough already to dispense with the pleasantries and end this. If anything, she was just going through the motions with her mousey classmate, keenly intent on finishing her exit from Dogma so she could try to rest her sore mind from the strange enervation that contact with Unit 02 brought her lately. So Asuka cut her off. “Just go ahead and buy it, without the hyperactivity this time.”
“Yes.” Said Keiko, very much without color or force to her voice, easily putting her badge over the slot on the payment panel, and running it partway in the channel where the machine could read it. Perhaps her appeasement would work well, and there would be no horrible scene with Asuka treating her like some abused spouse for ten minutes straight. True, this wasn’t the same as before, in school. The trauma of those months created reflexes that couldn’t be forgotten in just a few days, so Keiko’s heart felt less steady as the soda machine began to act weird once more, as all the lamps for her choices went out. First one soda, then another lit briefly on the front buttons. Then they stopped, and the button that had begun first lit once more, while the others remained dark. Keiko had tried the obvious, but repeated it for her overbearing audience. KlLack! The button for ginger ale made a normal plastic sound of impact, and the light behind it responded with a brief report of light. Nothing more than this. With her face wide and her eyes moist, Keiko gave Asuka the look directed to generations of harried teens. The ones who bear the burden of ‘Sempai.’
Asuka wasn’t entirely sure she was happy that Keiko was formally submitting to her like this; it was a form of association, and Asuka did not initiate it. Maybe this would be a good time to break her of this habit? Instead, Asuka chose first to fix the moment’s trouble, and clean up her attitude tomorrow. Keiko surely meant well, and somehow Asuka recognized that this girl could use a hand up. Asuka could just manage to bear the idea that Keiko had been failing at the same battle she herself had emerged from. Her clear and deep gaze swept over the scene, and without any trouble she knew what to do. “Just look over here!” her pointing finger and hard voice simultaneously announced. Asuka directed Keiko to notice a pale message display that she had overlooked. And with a bit of effort, the words

FOLLOW ME ! !

were seen cycling through the four spaces. The lights jumped about once more, and ended with a repeat. Asuka took the place before the machine, certain she had this one already in the bag. “It’s a game. A pattern game!” She was talking and moving, hitting each soda flavor in the order displayed before. When she was finished, a ‘beep’ chirped out from the display, and some decorative lighting swept across the selection buttons. Both girls looked back at the LED panel, which was fully in character for them.

STAGE CLEAR ! 1 / 5 ! LET’S GOOOO!

Asuka half sneered in the general direction of the vending device. Lowering her voice to say “Erste” was how she let it know her feelings. Then she turned her head – “Keiko, get ready to move when I tell you to!”
Half an hour later, Asuka was walking away from the break area, heading upward to find some respite from this awful day, another in a series of awful days. She wiped and then flicked some orange soda from her face, and off the shoulder of her suit. Then she began to systematically rub the pain out of the small dent in the flesh of her third knuckle. An impact mark which seemed to be a cast of the reset button on the soda machine was slowly being surrounded by less angry pink. Keiko had traveled slightly faster, but was very nearby. Around the corner, she was still trying desperately to get her suit to open up only part way, so she could continue to sponge away the ginger ale that had run inside from her ear down to her toes, and preserve a little modesty. The soda machine needed some cleanup also, and the floor was where everything finished. Cans, and large wet spatter trailed from the wet spot in front of this most unlikely outpost of inhuman influence. Keiko could have wondered how this could all happen to her, but that would be so much easier if she could ever find someone to take her side for a while.

Ritsuko had confidence in her work, and much bigger fish to fry. One all-consuming emergency after another persuaded her that she really didn’t need to clean up after herself, and since this was fairly confidential, the issue was finished right there. The normal course of business in the command vending area was account-based, so for a while the expected personnel just kept the machine full. There were no uploaded transactions, but a few false statements stood in their place – copies from last year, by all similarity. These things just didn’t seem to be an issue after Ritsuko had the MAGI “harmonize” the appropriate data.

The Lime Green Post-It Note managed to keep its job for a couple of months, though never again quite so audacious as it had been. The obvious text based "attack" of the software was recalculated to keep it alive, from which condition it dutifully tried to connect with any outgoing medium that wasn't carbonated. On some occasions, a really likely target would happen by, and at these times the Note would remain true to its nature, unleashing torment upon them, to the limited extent the inflexible robot carcass could serve this end.

“Keiko should have never been put into that position—stupid machine!” Misato kicked the vending machine that had taken her money for what had to be the tenth time in as many seconds. “Dammit! Even the vending machines are corrupt in this day-and-age.”
The arcane forces of artificial evolution that had resulted in this thinking software had never tried to adapt it to a hostile environment. An immediate and lethal consequence was that during this, the 206th disruptive event of its unproductive current iteration, the ‘house number’ came around on the wheel. A corrupt write just before reboot in one of the locations that couldn’t be repaired on the same cycle hit the Note’s code.
“It did you a favor. That stuff will kill you, Major,” Nakayima said, handing back the laptop Misato had entrusted him with when she started attacking the machine. “Anyway, definitely nobody expected this to happen. There wasn't much anyone could do about it, right?”
Misato gave him a cynical frown. “Believe that if you want, but in this place things like this happen because people are worth less than machinery,” she said.

The Lime Green Post-It Note managed to keep its job for a couple of months, though never again quite so audacious as it had been.

Awesome.

The first thing I thought when he showed me this was GLaDOS! The formating really messed it up though.

27 pages into chapter 14. Maybe I can post a teaser. Who wants to see Asuka in her new bikini?

Here we go: Chapter 14 teaser--in more ways than one. Sorry this chapter is taking so long to write. Be aware this might a little ... revealing? :p


*****

Genocide 0:14 / Experience.
BETA

*****

Asuka's school life since arriving in Japan had been nothing more than a convenient cover. Having already earned a college degree from a German university made the Japanese education system largely redundant in her opinion, but appearances had to be maintained. The weekends were different. Aside from her duties as an Eva pilot and the occasional battle, she was free to spend her time however she wished. Even if that meant she would be lounging around the apartment doing nothing all day.

In fact, doing nothing was exactly what Asuka intended to do when she laid herself out on the balcony, wearing her new extra-revealing bikini, to work on her tan. Reclining on one of Misato's cheap lounge chairs, the hot afternoon sun beat down on her steadily, raising her body temperature pleasantly as it bathed her with its rays. Had Shinji decided to stay with her it would have been perfect.

But the Third Child had gone to his stupid friend's house to finish some stupid school project. Asuka just didn't understand Shinji Ikari some times—what kind of teenage boy chose homework over a scantily clad beauty like her? Even dangling the suggestion that she would be wearing her new bikini in front of Shinji like a lure had only gotten a blush and stuttered reply. It plainly embarrassed him that she could wear such a thing, but Shinji was easily embarrassed and so Asuka didn't think it had anything to do with the bikini itself.

“What an idiot,” Asuka thought, and wondered, not for the first time, how she could have fallen in love with someone like him.

The high-pitched thrill of the digital alarm broke the hot silence. Asuka had set up a small timer to go off every twenty minutes so she would know when turn over and keep from burning herself. She opened her eyes, turned her head to the plastic stand next to her, and slapped the alarm off. On another chair a few feet opposite Asuka, Pen-pen lay snoozing quietly, a small pair of sunglasses over his beady eyes.

Asuka sat up and checked the rubber bands that held up her hair in two long, thick ponytails atop either side of her head. She really liked this particular hairstyle when not wearing her neural connectors, but this time it had a practical purpose—having her hair up like this ensured it wouldn't interfere with her tan.

Feeling self-conscious for a moment, Asuka adjusted the triangles of flimsy red material that made the bikini top. Designed for a more voluptuous figure, it was so skimpy that it actually fit her modest breasts rather well regardless. Once she was certain the top wasn't about to wiggle itself loose, she ran her hands along the stringy bottom piece, checking that the triangular patch between her legs covered everything it was supposed to cover. She inspected herself for blemishes or imperfections, and was pleased to find none. Her body was drenched in a thin layer of sweat, and had started to turn an attractive rosy color.

The secret to a nice tan, Asuka had learned from a college roommate, was being thorough and even. The tiny bikini ensured the former, the timer the latter.

Asuka grumbled again about Shinji, wishing he could be there to admire her. Carefully setting her bare feet on the hot concrete, she got up and stretched her slender teen body in all its glory. Then she stooped down to pick up the tube of sunscreen from the stand. For the first time the blazing sun stroked her back and buttocks, sending a wave of pleasant warmth through her, every movement making her aware of just how exposed she was. She tried not to mind too much.

Sunscreen now in hand, she sauntered over to Pen-pen and sat at the edge of his chair, leaning over him. The penguin looked comical on the human-sized plastic recliner, but much more human-like than any bird Asuka had ever seen.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Asuka cooed, scratching behind Pen-pen's feathery head. “Time to turn over. Nobody likes an overcooked chicken.”

Pen-pen lifted his brow feathers and gave her an indignant wark.

“Whatever,” Asuka said, holding up the tube of sunscreen. “I need you to do my back. Then I'll do yours. Hold out your hand—errr, flippers.”

Asuka squeezed out a glob of white cream on the flat surface of his upturned flipper. Reaching around him, she returned the tube to the stand, stretching the strings of her bikini in a way that would have given any human male a massive nosebleed. She then turned her back to him. “Don't scratch me.”

With her hair tied up there was no need to move it out of the way. Except for the bikini strings and the knots holding them in place, Asuka was completely bare from behind. She could feel the sweat rolling off her. The plastic seat, which had been exposed to the sun for most of the last hour, was hot under her buttocks. Neither sensation proved very discomforting.

Before Pen-pen could get started, however, the sound of the balcony door opening made Asuka turn around.

“I could do that for you.” Misato's dark hair shimmered in a wave of purple under the sunlight. She had removed her shoes, but still wore her NERV uniform, a short dark-purple dress with no sleeves and a zipper down the front. “I'm more dexterous than him, and plus, I don't have any claws. If you don't mind, of course.”

“I thought you were working all day,” Asuka said with a scowl, more to hide the sudden flush of embarrassment she felt than anything else.

“I was,” Misato replied nonchalantly, “but there was nothing going on so I left. I figured I could do with a little time off.” She tilted her head towards Pen-pen. “What do you say?”

Asuka pressed her lips together in thought. “Um, I guess it's okay. As long as you don't try to molest me.”

“I would never dare make a move on Shinji's girlfriend—God, it's sweltering out here.” Misato reached up and undoing the zipper of her dress, opening up her front all the way down to her navel, revealing her white bra understand and the pale scar across her chest—her souvenir from Second Impact, as she called it.

“You can't tan if it's cloudy,” Asuka said smartly, “And Shinji's my boyfriend. Get it right.”

Misato flashed her a grin as she picked up the tube of sunscreen and sat behind Asuka, moving Pen-pen, whose services were no longer needed, aside. Asuka turned away, offering her back. After squeezing some sunscreen onto her hands, Misato gently placed them on each of Asuka's shoulders and began smearing the white cream over the hot skin with slow circular motions. She then moved up to where the shoulders met the nape of her neck.

Asuka hissed at the almost sensual quality of the touch, leaning forward and giving Misato's hands free reign. “That feels good,” she said before she could stop herself.

“You have really smooth skin,” Misato said, now working between Asuka's shoulders and down her back in long, flowing motions following the curve of her spine. “I wonder how you do it.”

“It's probably the LCL,” Asuka mussed, struggling with the urge to close her eyes. “Believe it or not Shinji has really smooth skin too.”

“I guess you would know.” By now Misato's hands had reached as far down as they could go, to the bikini string wrapped just bellow her hips, across the small of her back and just above the start of the crease between her round cheeks.

Asuka felt a twinge of pleasure that had nothing to do with Misato. “Yes, yes I would.”

“Where is Shinji, anyway?” Misato asked as she added a little more sunscreen on her fingers. “I would think he'd want to be here with you.”

“The idiot would rather do his homework,” Asuka scoffed but failed to hide the sting of hurt. “I said I was going to work on my tan, so he went to find someone else to help him. Aida, maybe. Like that stooge knows anything.”

“You mean Shinji's actually choosing to do the responsible thing?”

“Yeah, can you believe him? He's such a dork. You'd think he'd drool at the chance to see me wearing this. I mean, seriously. This bikini is so small not even Kaji could ignore me now.”

Suddenly Misato's hands stopped. She kept them pressed on Asuka's back, but the contact felt different now, and the redhead knew immediately that bringing Kaji up was a bad idea. Of course, if there was anyone who missed Kaji more than she did it had to be Misato.

When she spoke again there was hesitation in Misato's voice. “Asuka, about Kaji ...” she paused awkwardly. “I should have told you. I don't think he's … coming back.”

“I know that.” Asuka looked back at Misato, her voice turning flat as the memory of her lost crush brought with it a whole host of unpleasant feelings she would rather do without. “But excuse me if I haven't resigned myself to losing someone else I cared about. Even if he didn't care about me.”

Misato waited, perhaps thinking that Asuka needed to get that off her chest, her expression somewhere between patience and kind understanding, as if those things were all she could offer. But Asuka didn't want patience or understanding.

She was a second away from asking Misato to leave her alone when the older woman finally broke her silence.

“You know, just because people don't respond to you the way you would like them to doesn't mean they don't care.” Misato frowned seriously. “You are a smart girl, Asuka. You have to know why he could never see you that way—that it would have been wrong for him to do so. But you also have to know that he cared.”

“He never told me he did,” Asuka said, turning her body to face Misato properly. “After a while it was like he just wanted to avoid me.”

“I don't recall him ever telling me he cared, either. Men can be stupid like that.”

Inevitably, Asuka thought of Shinji—of all the times he had ended up hurting her without meaning to because he misunderstood her, or otherwise behaved stupidly even when she thought she was making her intentions perfectly clear. Like the Wall of Jericho insinuation during their synch training. She couldn't be any more obvious than that. And then there was their painfully unromantic first kiss, the worse experience a teen girl like her could have.

But at least Shinji had the excuse of inexperience. He simply didn't know how to act towards her. He was truly, innocently stupid. Kaji, on the other hand, should have known better.

“I could tell that he did, though,” Misato continued, her tone lifting a bit. “For both of us. People like him show their feelings in their actions, the way they talk to you, the things they do around you, to you, for you. And some times in what they don't do. I could tell he cared. But you have to realize there are boundaries that can't be crossed.”

“He didn't have to ignore me!”

Again Misato waited, letting her vent, then spoke carefully. “I don't think he meant to. I'm sure if he new it bothered you so much he would be sorry. I'm sorry, too.”

Asuka frowned. “You?”

Misato didn't answer, instead looking at her hands smeared with sunscreen. Suddenly, Asuka felt like ranting at her—yes, she thought, Misato had a lot to be sorry for. Every time Asuka needed someone, this woman had abandoned her to her misery. Why should she forgive someone who never went to see her in the hospital until she needed something from her? Someone who stole her childhood crush away from her? Shinji had made it up to her with his unconditional affection, what had Misato done to deserve forgiveness?

What did Asuka do to deserve Keiko's forgiveness?

A lump formed in Asuka's throat. In attempting to say she was sorry, Misato was doing something that she herself couldn't do, and it both shocked and shamed her. Her pride told her that she had a right to have Misato apologize, that she should even expect it, but other parts of her, those that had begun to consider her like a family member, knew that Misato had honestly tried to be closer only to be pushed away time and again—that it was Asuka herself who had been most responsible for her own hurt.

Asuka had long come to recognize that she was not a nice girl. All her redeeming qualities had to do with her appearance and other physical qualities. But aside from piloting Eva and being pretty what else did she have that others would find appealing? On the inside she was as ugly as they came; an awful, arrogant young girl and an even worse human being. Perhaps that was all Kaji ever saw in her, too.

Regardless of why, he had made his choice and Asuka recognized she had been on the losing end. It hurt, but trying to convince herself of anything else would be pointless now. So would be laying the blame on Misato. How could she ever move forward, as she had promised her mother she would, if she did?

“You should finish what you started.” The young redhead turned her bare back once more and leaned forward, all but inviting Misato to touch her again.

Misato looked up, her eyes widening slowly in understanding.

“Asuka, you …”

Despite the uncomfortable sense of vulnerability, there was something in the way Misato said her name and the tender, almost motherly look on her face that made Asuka feel warm inside. When she felt the heat spread to her cheeks, she quickly whirled her head away from the older woman, straightening her shoulders and turning up her nose in a display of well-practiced haughtiness. “I just don't want to get burned!”

Huh, Shinji is entirely too responsible for his own good, methinks.

I like the wording Asuka put on her description of their relationship.

Sorry to keep you guys waiting. The draft is finished. Yay! I'll be sending it out to get proof read. Just hang in there a little longer. :p

Chapter 14 is posted. Now to sit back and wait to not get any reviews

http://www.darkscribes.org/story/402/14

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3470043/14/

As the notes say, the finale will be done by summer in all likelihood. Think of it as a summer movie.

Hooray! Another fantastic chapter, with some great and unexpected conversations. I posted a review on FFNet.

Rommel wrote:Chapter 14 is posted. Now to sit back and wait to not get any reviews

http://www.darkscribes.org/story/402/14

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3470043/14/

As the notes say, the finale will be done by summer in all likelihood. Think of it as a summer movie.

I feel your pain.

Glad to hear things are on track though, how does it feel to see the light at the end of the tunnel?