Chapter 4:
Lost Compass

 

SIX HEARD THE CRIES of countless, flocking birds—or at least, she thought she did.

“So, that’s where they’ve gone,” she muttered in her sleep before coming to her senses. “Wha…?”

Six awoke to the glare of the emergency light within her plug. Her Type-N robot had changed its treads into suction cups and was currently hanging upside down from the ceiling. Its feet made popping noises as it traversed the plug.

“Uhhh…”

What on earth happened? Six wondered.

The Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica was supposed to participate in the operation at Novaya Zemlya. She would enter sub-orbital flight in Hokkaido using the Eva’s graviton floaters. Her jumbled memories began piecing themselves together, and she frowned when she remembered how the black giant had interfered with her plans. She pouted, flapping her arms like a certain penguin.

“M-M-Marmaros!!!”

It was actually spelled “Armaros,” but Six continued to growl her version of the name in spite of the black giant’s official designation. Armaros had taken over her mind just as she was about to enter orbit and had overridden Eva-00’s autonomous navigation commands.

The Eva-00 Type-F, the one-legged giant whose arm and leg had been converted to equip the Angel’s Backbone, had received Eva-02’s Allegorica treatment and now looked like a Pegasus. It ignored its orbital trajectory and flew higher into the sky, as if drunk on its newly regained freedom of movement.

Thanks to her rushed deployment, however, technical difficulties with her equipment eventually stopped this insane Icarus from spiraling straight into the sun.

The power cascade on the left floater jerked the gravitons, which had been neatly lined up like eggs in a carton, out of place. The right floater soon followed and stopped operation before the Eva could go into a tailspin. With the floaters offline, the N2 reactor’s output immediately dropped to idling levels, preventing Eva-00 from spinning out of control while simultaneously disabling all internal electronics. The Eva had been in a state of emergency hibernation ever since.

“That jerk!” Six flailed her arms again. The sudden movement made her woozy, forcing her to calm herself.

All of the VR displays in her plug were down. The only thing she could see was the emergency light inside the tube. The only thing she could hear was the circulating LCL…and the sucking noise of the Type-N robot’s feet.

The glorified rice cooker popped over to Six’s side and chimed like a shameless doorbell. A message shone over the liquid crystal display on its head.

<<You have 148,012 messages.>>

All of which were from Nerv Japan. She couldn’t make out most of them because of weak reception, but the general thrust of the messages was, “Please call home.”

Transponders and telemetry had been disabled, along with the rest of the communication systems, but the receiving party’s high-sensitivity receivers were still working, at least. The last calls to the prodigal Ayanami had been made a few hours ago.

“I’m hungry…”

Six took a pink tube of jelly from the container next to her seat. These were emergency rations for LCL consumption.

It doesn’t have calcium, because this wasn’t supposed to be a space expedition, but it’ll do.

She could sense that she was in orbit. Six had used to pilot the Eva-0.0, an Eva with an exterior S2 Engine that allowed it to operate in outer space. Her experience helped her to remain calm.

“Let’s see…”

Six ordered the auxiliary A.I. to run a full-system diagnostic before restarting Eva-00’s N2 reactor. She got bored halfway through the process, however, and proceeded to peer outside her Eva with its external cameras. An image of her surroundings appeared on a small sub-display in her plug.

“I’m on the moon,” Six mused. The moon was badly burned, and fragments of it were floating like clouds above the surface, but there was no mistaking it. She switched to another camera to get a better view, and that’s when her problems began.

Six sat up with a start and canceled all remaining diagnostic processes. She reactivated the main A.I. and reactor to quick-start the Eva-00 Type-F Allegorica. The VR displays in her plug activated, indicating that it was functioning normally. After running a few more checks, the screens shifted, displaying the starry sky around her.

Six barely gave the celestial scene any attention. She looked about frantically in the LCL, her aqua-colored hair waving, before sinking back into her seat.

“The Earth… It’s gone…”

The only thing she saw was the scorched dark side of the moon.