Gospel 1:8

The only sound in Gendo's office was the soft clack made by the wooden tiles that he and Fuyutsuki laid down on the board resting between them.

"Unit 07 is ninety percent complete," Fuyutsuki said. "I don't suppose you've considered just where we're going to find a pilot for it?"

"I already have a candidate in mind," the Commander replied and laid down a tile.

Fuyutsuki sighed. "I know that I'll regret asking this, but where did you find another pilot?" Before Gendo could reply Fuyutsuki went on. "I know that you didn't choose one from the Marduke Report's pool of candidates, given its…contamination, and there aren't any more Children out there like the young Mr. St. John, whom, by the way, I still feel is an extraordinarily poor choice for an Eva pilot. I don't know if you've noticed, but the tension between him and the 2^nd Child has been increasing steadily. If their feud comes to a head while they're in their Evas…." He let the sentence trail off, making a disgusted sound in his throat as he realized that he hadn't been paying enough attention to the game while he'd been talking. As soon as his hand left the board, Gendo laid down a tile taking control of all the wind tiles in play.

Fuyutsuki sighed and moved to lay down another tile but could already see that he was waging a losing battle. The only question left was long it would be before his position became completely untenable and he conceded the game.

"I won't be using a new Child. Not when there's an existing pilot who'll work just as well."

Fuyutsuki's hand froze in mid-movement. "You’re not serious? Do you honestly think that he can be convinced to pilot again?"

Gendo waited until the deputy commander finished his move before placing a tile of his own. "The boy has a strong sense of duty. He will require only a little persuasion."

"What about the other pilots? Do you think that your son will be able to handle having him pilot again? Have you seen Shinji's most recent psychological tests? The boy is beginning to unravel."

"If the 3^rd Child cannot handle the responsibilities of being an Eva pilot then he will be relieved of them." Gendo's voice was as hard and flat as flint.

"So are they all just tools then, to be used until they break and then discarded?"

"When your selection of tools is limited, you make do with what you have. That is why Commander St. John's son is here, and why the young Mr. Suzihara will again pilot an Eva."

Fuyutsuki laid a tile down with more force than was necessary, causing the board to jump. "So, if you do not possess the right tool, you'll force an existing one to fit your needs?"

"Correct."

With a disgruntled sigh, the deputy commander conceded the game. They're children, not tools, he thought, but did not voice it. Instead he said, "And what about this budget proposal you're sending me off to? I could think of better things to do than go to Prague with cap in hand and beg the UN for money. Especially when you have in excess of nine billion dollars still hidden away somewhere."

"You seem to forget Fuyutsuki-sensei, that as far as the UN knows, as an operational program, NERV is tottering on the brink of bankruptcy." Gendo gave Fuyutsuki a tight smile. "If I start dipping into the "borrowed" money for everyday operations it'll raise havoc when the budgets are audited."

"I know that, but is it so important that I personally make the request for more funding? I can think of a half dozen people who're better able to present our case than I am."

"I'm aware of that and I'm sure that the UN is too. However, the fact that I sent my 'indispensable' second-in-command will lend more credence to the request than if I sent one of the more silver-tongued serpents lurking around the geofront. Our allocated funds have been almost completely tapped out. If I hadn't dipped into the ‘borrowed’ money, there wouldn't have been enough to pay the suppliers to keep the vending machines stocked this week."

Fuyutsuki stared at the Commander, trying to tell if whether or not the other man was joking. "I see," he said with a sigh of resignation, "I'll leave in the morning."

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Dr. Akagi let her hands rest lightly on the keyboard as she reviewed the data that she'd just entered into the computer. Due to the lateness of the hour the overhead lights were off and most of the illumination came from the screen in front of her.

With a sigh she glanced at the empty ashtray on her desk. She'd been surprised at how quickly she'd gone into nicotine withdrawal after being locked away. She'd spent a good part of the first two weeks in that cell wiping sweat off her forehead with shaking hands and swearing to any deity that might have been listening that she'd offer them Gendo's head on a silver platter in exchange for a single drag. Maybe that's why none answered; she wanted to do that anyway.

She allowed herself a moment's rest, sliding her glasses up her forehead and wearily massaging the bridge of her nose. She owed herself that much of a luxury, since she no longer seemed to have the tolerance for cigarettes. She'd spent four hours with Rei and it had taken her two more to type of the report that the Commander wanted on the progress of the dummy system. On top of that she was sure that she'd spent at least half the day working in the third cage. She hoped that some favorable deity had increased the number of hours allocated to a day because Ritsuko was sure that she was putting in more than twenty-four.

As Ritsuko finished the report she sighed. There was still work to be done on the dummy system before she could rest. Despite her and Maya's best efforts, they'd been unable to eliminate the errors within the neural transferal system and the clones were less than three hundred and sixty hours from the stage of gestation where Rei's neurological signature would become essential. At the system's current level of functionality they could copy the base level neural patterns but the Commander wanted full memory transferal so that each component of the dummy system would be a perfect copy of Rei, right down to the tiniest memory and slightest mannerism. It was frustrating and tedious work.

At least Ritsuko couldn't say the same for the time she spent with Eve. The girl had an insatiable mental appetite and asked questions non-stop of anyone who was in the cage with her. Physical appearances aside, Ritsuko had to make an effort not to think of Eve as a girl. The child/Eva had an appealing personality that grew each day and Ritsuko fond herself becoming increasingly fond of the girl. Although the child/Eva's personality had initially mimicked Rei's it had developed and branched out and it was now easier to point out differences in the child/Eva's personality than similarities.

Each time she went down to the third cage, Ritsuko made a point of bringing several data disks with her. Carelessly stacked on one corner of her desk were disks whose titles ranged from The Complete Encyclopedias Britannica, to The Collected Works of John Keats to an eclectic collection of musical disks whose contents dated from the late eighteenth century to the present.

In return, Eve tried to answer Ritsuko's inquires to the fullest extent that she could, although there were certain topics that she refused to talk and would become sullen and uncommunicative if one of those taboo subjects was even mentioned.

How she joined with Unit 04 and escaped the Sea of Dirac topped that list, much to Ritsuko's frustration. Such a fusion should have been impossible. Unit 04 had not possessed a core when it was activated and the core of the dummy system was likewise sans soul. There shouldn't have been any way for the seed of consciousness to gestate, for a personality to have been conceived; Eve's very existence flew right in the face of reality. She should not, could not be. That a soul could erupt spontaneously from the ether frightened Ritsuko. She wanted to know the answer but no matter how circumvently she approached the subject, Eve would immediately sense the direction the conversation was taking, and cease answering. It gnawed at Ritsuko that for the time being she had to complacently accept the fact that Eve simply was.

She didn't totally begrudge Eve her secrets since there were quite a few that Ritsuko was keeping from her. Ritsuko had personally supervised the severing of all computer connections within the cage so that she had no access to any system that went farther than the cage. What Ritsuko brought Eve on the data disks was her only source of digital information. Although the girl/Eva's mental state seemed steady enough, it would've been insanity to risk allowing her access to potentially upsetting information.

Eve's near obsession with motherhood and finding the woman that she termed 'her mother' made Ritsuko feel more than justified in limiting the girl's access to NERV's databases. It hadn't taken Ritsuko long to decide that Eve's elusive 'mother' must be Rei. Although it stretched the definition of daughter, Eve was in effect, Rei's offspring and Ritsuko could imagine Rei holding a deeply buried neurosis concerning motherhood. Ritsuko was unable to keep Rei's existence secret from Eve, since an extensive amount of non-classified information had been kept in Unit 04's onboard computer but she had been able to keep any knowledge of the dummy system from reaching the girl. She hoped that her efforts had been enough. The girl/Eva displayed an almost unnatural command over electronics and Ritsuko never felt absolutely sure that she'd been successful in completely isolating Eve.

The sudden ringing of the telephone jolted Ritsuko out of her thoughts and she realized that she had spent the last fifteen minutes staring blankly at the screen in front of her. "Yes?" she said, answering the phone while working out a cramp in her neck.

"Dr. Akagi?" The voice was soft, feminine and synthetic.

Ritsuko recognized the voice and stared at the phone in stupefied shock for several. "Eve? How did you—? Never mind. This isn't a secured line."

"I am sorry, Doctor. I did not know how else to reach you. Could you please come down to the cage?"

"I'll be right down."

"Thank you," Eve replied, then the line went dead.

As Ritsuko hung up the phone, slightly unnerved by the timing of Eve's call, she reflected on Eve's almost childlike desire for companionship. At her request there was always at least one person in the cage at all times. It wasn't that hard a request to fullfill, since aside from the Commander, Deputy Commander, and herself, everyone who knew about Eve was kept either in the immediate vicinity of the third cage or enjoying the NERV hospitality that she herself had endured not so long ago.

A guard was lounging near the entrance to the cage as she arrived, looking as if he'd just happened to stop right there. He knew who she was and didn't stop her as she entered the cage.

Aside from Unit 04 and a few technicians on the floor far below the cage was empty. Ritsuko pulled up a chair and sat down next to the control console on the observation deck. "What did you want, Eve?" she asked.

"I wanted to talk."

"About?" Ritsuko prompted.

"There was a battle yesterday. Why wasn't I involved?"

Ritsuko tried to keep the surprise she felt from showing on her face. There shouldn't have been any way for Eve to know about that. "It was deemed inappropriate to reveal your existence at that time," she said finally.

"Is that the real reason, or is it because you fear and mistrust me?"

The tone of the question banished the fatigue from Ritsuko's mind in a surge of adrenaline. The synthetic voice was sharp, almost angry. Not for the first time, Ritsuko wished that the girl/Eva had facial expressions. It wasn't easy gauging moods by voice alone. "Fear you? No, I can't say that I do. Why do you ask?" Of course they feared her. If Eve ever threw a temper tantrum it would destroy Tokyo-3.

"If you don't fear me, then why am I kept here? Why am I allowed access to almost nothing?"

"We don't want you to get hurt." Ritsuko withdrew the data disks she had absent-mindedly thrown in the pocket of her lab coat and began inserting them into the drives of a computer whose only connection was to Unit 04 itself. "You absorb information so rapidly that I worry about sensory overload. If you had unlimited access to our databases, you might gorge yourself."

"So you do not fear me, you fear for me," Eve said the tone of her voice telling Ritsuko that the girl/Eva hadn't been convinced.

"Exactly."

"The Americans feared me," Eve stated matter-of-factly. "They wanted something that they could control. That's what they thought they had when they pulled me from the Second Branch. When they realized what I was they did not know if they could control me and that frightened them. That is why they gave me to you. They were afraid of what I might do if they kept me and were afraid of what I might do if they tried to kill me."

Ritsuko nodded in feigned sympathy. One of the first things that the Commander had demanded of her was to devise a plan destroy Eve, should the need arise. "Do you know what the Americans' goals were in taking you?"

"Their participation in the Evangelion program ended with the loss of the Second Branch. They are a super power on the wane, and it vexed them to lag behind what they viewed as lesser nations. An Evangelion was what they needed to prove themselves as equals, and the original loss of the Second Branch frustrated them greatly. When I…returned, they were so eager to again acquire an Evangelion that did not pause to consider the consequences. They were so eager to turn on their 'new toy' that it would have cost them the entire city of Chicago, should a…mishap similar to the one that originally befell the Second Branch, have been repeated."

"The Americans have the facilities to maintain an Eva in Chicago?"

"Yes."

Ritsuko turned this new bit of information over in her mind, wondering if she should pass it on to the Commander. She also realized that Eve had given her an opening into one of the taboo topics, and hoped that she could exploit it before the girl realized what Ritsuko was doing.

"Why wasn't another Sea of Dirac created when the S² engine was reinitialized?"

Eve was silent a moment before replying, "I corrected the…error in the S² engine that caused that."

"Corrected? How?"

"I do not wish to talk about it," Eve stated flatly.

Ritsuko felt a pang of disappointment that she'd been unable to learn anything more, but those two sentences alone spoke volumes.

"What is it like to be held in your mother's arms?" Eve asked abruptly. "I have memories of my mother, but they are unclear, confused." The degree of emotion that Eve could convey with the voice she synthesized for herself never ceased to amaze Ritsuko. There was a degree of yearning in the girl's voice that made Ritsuko's heart ache in sympathy.

She thought for several minutes, trying to find the best words. "It is…comfortable, reassuring."

"You are keeping me from finding my Mother. Do you know who she is?" Eve's voice sounded pleasant enough, but Ritsuko sensed an undercurrent of anger that sent prickles of fear racing her spine.

"I— I don't know who your mother is, Eve," Ritsuko said while trying to keep the fear she felt from entering her voice.

Unit 04's armor creaked as it turned its head to look directly at her. "Really?"

Perspiration sprang up on Ritsuko's face. "Yes," she said, forcing the words around a lump in her throat.

"Why are you lying to me?" she demanded.

In her mind, Ritsuko recalled every plan for killing Eve that she'd presented to the Commander. None of them allowed for the survival of anyone within the cage.

"Why are you lying to me?" Eve demanded again and Ritsuko felt very small beneath its gaze. "Because I don't think you could handle the knowledge of her identity."

Ritsuko shut her eyes and waited for the end, be it beneath Eve's hand or in the fire of the shaped N² mines buried with the cage's walls. Only after a minute passed in absolute silence did she open them.

"You won't tell me, because you fear…for me," Eve said uncertainly. "That is why you keep my mother from me?" Eve asked, her voice underscored with sorrow and uncertainty.

"Yes," Ritsuko said softly.

A sound came through the speaker that was almost a sob. "If I cannot have my mother…. In all that you have brought me, I have read about something…." Her voice trailed off into another sob-like sound.

"What is it?" Ritsuko asked softly.

"Ritsuko…" Eve began, surprising her. Never before had Eve addressed her by her first name. Always it had been a prim and respectful 'Dr. Akagi.' "Ritsuko, would you be my…foster mother?"

Ritsuko rocked back as if the words had been a physical blow. She tried to stammer out a response, but could not get the words to form. "Eve…yes," she finally forced out.

"Ritsuko…Mother…thank you," Eve said softly.

Ritsuko rose wearily to her feet and had to lean on the console to remain standing. "You're welcome, Eve."

"I'm sorry, mother," Eve's voice took on a contented tone, "it's late and I have been keeping you."

Ritsuko waved a hand, "It wasn't a problem."

"Good night, mother." Eve said, repeating the title as if she couldn't believe it.

"Good night, Eve."

Ritsuko made it out of the cage before the adrenaline in her system finally failed and she collapsed on the floor and sobbed with relief.

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Shinji sat in the middle of his bed, his knees clutched tightly to his chest. His nightshirt was soaked through with sweat and clung to his back. His eyes were stretched open to their limits and blinked infrequently. The room was silent except for the harsh rasp of his breath as it scraped up and down his throat. The night outside was dark, the sliver moon hidden behind clouds, leaving the room in near total darkness. He could feel the dark as if it had a physical presence and it felt like it was closing in on him, enveloping him, seeping into his body, devouring him piece by piece.

He remembered the last time that he'd been in darkness, when he'd lain trapped in his own mind. He remembered his resolve to reach the light, the determination not to let his life slip between his fingers. There was no light this time, no emergence from the dark. He could feel the resolve that had burned through his veins fading, the darkness eating it up.

Although it had only been that morning, it seemed like centuries had passed since he climbed into Unit 01's entry plug. He remembered the panic he felt as the LCL came bubbling up around him, warm like blood, thick like blood, covering him, staining him like blood; Touji's blood, Kaworu's blood. It stained him like the mark of Cain, branding him a murderer. It had taken all that he had not to scream as it streamed into his mouth and nostrils.

"I hate blood," he whispered. "No more blood. Please, no more."

Around him, the weight of the darkness seemed to increase and his breathing grew harsher. He wanted to hurl himself from his bed, to throw on the light and banish the darkness, but he couldn't. Moving would bring the attention of the darkness to him. He could feel it crouched around him, like a stalking predator, waiting for him to move so that it could pounce and devour him.

He bit his lip to keep himself from crying out, every muscle in his body tensed and screaming at him to run. Blood began to trickle from beneath his teeth. "I can't run," he whispered. He pulled his knees closer to his chest. "I can’t run," he repeated again and again, like a mantra.

It was not until the first edges of dawn began to turn the darkness gray that his exhausted mind simply shut down and sleep finally overtook him.

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Asuka turned off the sink and leaned on the counter as she drained the glass of water. She grinned fiercely, her toes curling as she remembered the almost sexual thrill that had suffused her body as she'd lanced the Harbinger's core as if it had been a nothing more than a boil.

She had done what none of the others had been able to. Not confused frightened Shinji, not the infallible wonder girl Rei, or even that brat St. John. She'd shown them. Never again would anyone doubt her ability in the cockpit of an Eva.

She'd shown them all.

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Terry paced the living room of his apartment, the thread of the carpet crushed into a circular pattern around the couch, showing the course that he'd followed for the past several hours.

He clutched a thick porcelain mug in his hands; when he raised it to his lips he realized that it was empty. With a sigh, he altered his course so that his path led him to the kitchen. He filled a copper teapot with water and set it on the stove to heat. It would've been faster to use the microwave, but their was a certain sentimentality he associated with the teapot that he usually found relaxing.

He started pacing the kitchen and grabbed a random tea bag from the pile that lay scattered haphazardly across a counter. He hadn't bothered to keep count of how many cups he'd already had. Tea usually worked to calm his nerves but tonight he felt like an overwound watch spring, the tension threatening to tear him apart.

It was the battle that had him wound so tightly. The Harbinger's appearance and subsequent attack had left everyone off balance enough that there hadn't yet been a tactical breakdown of the battle but he already knew what the results would be. They'd stunk worse than two-day-old road kill in the Outback sun.

Despite the training that they'd undergone when they'd actually been thrust into battle, they hadn't displayed any cohesion, any teamwork. They'd attacked the Harbinger without any plan, throwing themselves at it like dingoes trying to take down a steer. He'd seen what it looked like when the pilots operated in perfect tandem. Today, it had simply been a mess. Terry still winced as he remembered the pain as the tentacle crushed Unit 06's leg, how it'd felt as if his own leg was being torn off.

The shrill whistle of the kettle stopped his pacing and as he poured the steaming water into the mug, he thought about the recriminations Shinji had made as the two of them had stood on Misato's balcony. Shinji'd been right about not trusting him. He had actually considered opening fire on her Eva.

He resumed his pacing in the living room and as he walked he tried to put himself in Asuka's place. He'd considered trying to kill her, the ultimate example of his failure during the battle. Had she considered the same? He doubted it. Once in the cockpit, she'd seemed to set aside her feelings towards him. Her focus had been on defeating her enemy to the exclusion of everything else. That had been her failure.

How much hatred did she still hold towards him? The question was beginning to gnaw at his mind. Of their recent confrontations, he realized that on almost every occasion, he'd been the instigator. Was he the only one whose wound was still raw? Had Asuka allowed her own wounds to heal, forgotten beneath layers of scar tissue until he tore them open again?

Was he the problem? Had Asuka buried her ghosts, only to have him dig them up again? Could he bury his own ghosts?

The mug grew cold in his hands as he tried to find the answer.

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In a squalid corner of Tokyo-3, in a squalid apartment, Rei Ayanami slept the sleep of death: deep, dreamless, and unbroken.

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"Dr. Akagi?" Maya stepped into the lab, a cup of coffee in each hand. Ritsuko was already at work, her fingers flying over her keyboard, sending reams of data spinning across the screen in front of her. "Good morning," Maya said with forced cheerfulness.

"Morning, Maya," Ritsuko responded distractedly. The glare of the monitor off of her glasses could not hide the haggard look on her face. She looked as if she hadn't slept at all the night before.

Maya sat down and started up her laptop. "We have to initiate the final stages for the dummy system today," she said, not looking up from her screen.

"I know that."

"There're still errors within the transferal system."

"I know that."

"The errors will cause a predicted decrease of forty-six percent from the dummy system's individual optimum efficiency."

"I know that."

"We're supposed to meet with the Commander in fifty minutes."

"I know that."

"What can we do? We haven't met the Commander's expectations."

"We'll just have to disappoint him."

The tone in Ritsuko's voice made Maya glance up but the scientist kept her eyes directed at her screen and didn't meet Maya's gaze. Uncomfortable, she turned her eyes towards the tank of LCL, at the clones suspended within. They had grown to the point where they resembled newborn infants, but their eyes were already open wide, never blinking, always seeming to watch what was on the other side of the tank. "Dr. Akagi, do you think that the clones are aware of what happens around them?"

The question made Ritsuko glance up and over towards the tank. As she stared into the LCL, a memory of her conversation with Eve the previous night floated through her mind: "I have memories of my mother."

"Dr. Akagi?"

With a start, Ritsuko realized she had been staring off into space for several minutes. She turned back towards her monitor and began typing. "I don't know," she lied.

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Twelve monoliths encircled a ring of light. "Events have cascaded far beyond the bounds of our scenario." Fear edged the twelfth monolith's voice as it spoke.

The second monolith's voice was equally fearful. "There was no mention of this entity anywhere within the secret Dead Sea scrolls."

"Not even in the very beginning were we forced to grope so blindly for the path." The fifth stated.

The first monolith waited for the rest to cease speaking. "There is mention of these…Harbingers in sections of the secret Dead Sea scrolls that were not shown to you. That one was but the first, named Egrofel by the scrolls, the fist of God."

"Kihl, you kept a portion of the scrolls secret from us? Keeping vital information from SEELE could be considered grounds enough for your… removal." The twelfth monolith's voice was outraged.

The first monolith's voice was harsh. "Do not address me by name. The probability that events would lead to the scenarios outlined in the portion of the scrolls that I withheld from you was…slim."

"Obviously not slim enough." The voice of the seventh monolith was tinged with anger.

"Why did you keep this secret from us?" The ninth demanded.

There was a long pause before the first monolith answered. "The information held in this section of the scrolls is…disturbing. Now that we have entered this sequence of events, failure no longer risks the destruction of the human race, but ensures its utter annihilation."

The eleventh monolith's voice was heavy with condescension. "So you withheld this information from us so that we wouldn't needlessly worry ourselves over it."

"A convenient excuse." The ninth monolith stated.

"And an accurate one." Came the first monolith's reply.

"If we are forced to face more of these Harbingers, then Ikari and NERV are still necessary."

There was silence before the seventh monolith spoke. "But if the situation is as grave as stated, then we cannot afford to allow Ikari free reign. Permitting him to remain a loose cannon at this point would be worse than disastrous. He must be brought under control."

The monoliths began to fade out. "All men have their vulnerabilities." The twelfth stated before it vanished.

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The walk makes me feel like I'm going to my own execution, Ritsuko thought irritably as she and Maya crossed the Commander's office. He was waiting patiently at his desk, fingers interlaced, as if he had all the time in the world. The position that Fuyutsuki usually occupied just behind the Commander was vacant, the deputy commander having left several hours earlier to petition the UN for a revised budget.

They stopped three paces in front of his desk. Maya drew herself to attention, then ruined the image by fidgeting nervously. Ritsuko slouched in place, showing just how little she valued the time she expended by being there.

"Your reports, " Gendo commanded, without a touch of emotion in his voice.

Maya nervously walked the last three paces to his desk and placed the stack of folders and papers she held on its surface with the utmost care before fleeing back to her place by Ritsuko.

Dr. Akagi tossed her burden onto the desk, sending both it and Maya's report skidding haphazardly across its surface. The office was silent and still, save for a few papers fluttering leisurely to the floor. She stared at him defiantly, waiting for him to respond.

"What is the status of the dummy program?" the Commander asked, refusing to take umbrage.

"Um, I-it, I-I um…" Maya stammered before trailing off into silence.

"Clone growth is proceeding as planned," Dr. Akagi said smoothly, as if you didn't already know, she added as a venomous afterthought. He already knew everything either of them was going to say. The first thing she'd done the previous night after she recovered from her encounter with Eve was to call the Commander and tell him everything that had passed between them. The only reason that either of them was there was so that he could reassert his dominance and play his little power games. "However, removing the flaws from the neural transferal system is taking longer than expected and it has fallen several weeks behind the projected timetable."

The Commander regarded the two of them for a moment before speaking. "There is no possibility of bringing it up to speed." It was not a question.

Ritsuko shrugged carelessly, while Maya flushed and stammered out a "no."

He turned his attention solely on Maya. "I hope you have a more positive report to make on the analysis of the substance taken from the Harbinger?"

The planned retort died on Ritsuko's lips as the line of the Commander's questions took a turn from what she'd expected. Instead of speaking, she gave Maya a sideways glance.

"W-well, there was little problem in analyzing the um, goop. I temporarily pulled several people from other projects to assist me. The best analogy would be that it is the Harbinger's blood, sort of."

"Sort of?" the Commander asked, raising an eyebrow.

Maya scrubbed a hand through her hair, realized what she was doing, and pulled her arm back against her side. "In comparison to samples taken from the Angels the Harbinger's properties of…um matter were ninety-seven point four oh seven percent identical; ninety-three point four nine five percent identical to the human standard. However, we're still running tests, and should have results in about—"

"Is there anything else that you do know?" Ikari interrupted.

"Calling the…um 'goop' that was recovered from the Harbinger 'blood,' is a little misleading. In it's most basic components, it is a kind of primordial soup. A very active primordial soup."

"Meaning?"

The Commander's continued interruptions threw Maya further and further off balance, and she spent several moments stammering before she could form a coherent answer. "It is very similar to LCL in its makeup, but as opposed to LCL, which is highly conductive towards organic interface, the substance recovered from the Harbinger detrimental to any sort of interaction. If it comes into contact with organic material, it absorbs it, dissects the organism's DNA, then tries to reconstruct it. One of the technicians lost a finger when she touched one of the samples with an unprotected hand and we then had to laser-cauterize the hand in order to keep it from being consumed as well."

The Commander was suddenly on his feet. "Why wasn't this brought to my attention sooner?" he demanded angrily. "That 'soup' was taken off of Unit 02. If it infects the Evangelion…" he let his voice trail off menacingly.

"I received the final report on my way here, sir," Maya said, cringing. "I already have a team examining the Eva to see if it could've been infected during or after the battle and have ordered it isolated from the other Evas."

"And if it has been infected?"

"I-I don't know sir."

"Go oversee the operation, immediately."

Maya bowed and began backing away and Ritsuko turned to follow.

"I didn't dismiss you yet, Dr. Akagi," he said.

Ritsuko turned and stood ramrod straight, and stared the Commander in the eye. He waited until the doors had closed behind Maya before rising from behind his desk. "How is Eve doing?"

"You already know. I tell you everything that she says and does."

"Of course you do," he said as he stepped behind her. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck as he spoke. His hand clamped over her breast and his beard tickled her throat.

Everything is a power game, she thought and bared her teeth, an expression that he could not see. "Rei isn't putting out for you?" she asked in a saccharin sweet tone.

She felt Gendo tense behind her and elbowed him in the sternum, allowing her to break free of his hands. She whirled, her hand extended in a full arm slap that snapped his head to one side, the sound of her palm striking flesh echoing for several seconds.

Gendo let his head hang at an angle before dropping it to his shoulder as if his neck had snapped. He regarded her for a moment, an infuriatingly self-satisfied half smile tugging at his lips.

"Do you care for anything? Have you ever done anything that wasn't for your own fulfillment?" Ritsuko yelled. "I could have ended up carrying your child! You never cared enough to take precautions!" Her voice took a bitter, hate filled tone. "Not that I would've been cruel enough to bring any child into a world that held a man like you. Fate's already cursed Shinji to bear the burden of you as his father. I wouldn't damn another child like that."

He just watched her, his head still cocked, the half smile still darting over his lips.

"One day Ikari," she hissed out between clenched teeth. "One day, I will see you dead!"

"Perhaps," he replied, straightening his head, "but I doubt it." His tone was as infuriating as his smile.

Ritsuko resisted the urge to claw his eyes out and turned abruptly, stalking out of his office. "One day!" she hissed as she reached the doors. The echo of her words seemed to whispering mockingly in her ears until the closing doors silenced them.