Doctor Who: The Evangelion Error (Book Two)

E9 Part 8: Worried Life Blues

Outside the TARDIS
Later that night

Misato stared through the open police box doors for what felt like an eternity. "... yeah, no."

"You sure?" The Doctor, leaning inside the doorway, raised an eyebrow. "Not even a quick look?"

She shook her head. "No offense, okay? I just spent my whole day being chased around by a naked bronze dude, and not in the fun way. I seriously need, like, all the beer right now."

The Doctor made a face. "Fall back on that quite a bit, don't you?"

"Don't knock what works." Misato shifted her feet. "How's Shinji doing in there?"

He glanced back inside the box. "Yeaaahhhhh, think he's gonna be a while. I wouldn't wait up."

"Weird. He seemed to be taking everything really well before."

The Doctor shrugged. "... everyone has their limits, I suppose."

"Yeah. Speaking of which..." Misato smiled. "This isn't a no, okay? Just... not right now. Not tonight."

"Rain check?"

"Rain check."

"All right." He yawned. "G'night, then."

"Good night." Misato turned away and walked back towards the world she knew.

***

Office of Dr. Ritsuko Akagi. Central Dogma. NERV Headquarters.

Ritsuko flipped through the last few pages of the report and sighed. What a mess, she thought. One of these days, Katsuragi was really going to have to develop a sense of shame. Or, at least, figure out how to make her cover stories less transparent.

She tossed the report onto one of the piles on her desk, then glanced over at one of the monitors to her side. The topmost window on the screen showed a live video feed from the Dummy Plug Plant. The alleged alien statue stood motionless in the center of the chamber, surrounded on all sides by what struck Ritsuko as a truly excessive number of work lights. The lamps had been Katsuragi's idea, of course. "Just in case," her report had said. As if working down in that room hadn't already been enough of a pain to begin with.

Ritsuko shook her head and turned back to her laptop. She didn't have time for this right now. They were still far behind on the preparations for the cross-compatibility tests. Normally, she would've delegated this sort of thing to Maya, but the poor girl had already pulled a string of all-nighters on the report configurations and had worked herself to the brink of collapse. So, once again, it seemed that Ritsuko was on her own...

The phone rang. Ritsuko sighed. Of course. It never failed. She picked up the receiver. "Akagi."

For a moment, she could only hear an odd droning buzz on the line. Then a young man asked, "Doctor Ritsuko Akagi?" His voice sounded distant, as if he was calling from the other side of the planet.

"Yes?"

Something flickered at the edge of her peripheral vision. She shifted her eyes in that direction. Everything looked exactly the same.

"Apologies for the interruption, miss," the young man said. "But I've concluded that it's in our best interests for us to talk."

"Who is this?" Ritsuko narrowed her eyes. "How did you get this number?"

"Found it in your systems, miss."

There it was again -- that same strange little flash of light. Where was it coming from? It didn't seem to be from the desk lamp... "Really," she said in a skeptical tone. "And how did you manage that?"

"It wasn't hard, miss," the young man said. "Not for me. I've been inside this base for several of your months now. I know all of your secrets.

"I've even seen Core Control."

Ritsuko jolted upright in her chair. "Who are you?!" she demanded. "How could you possibly know about that?"

"Begging your pardon, miss, but I'm not the one you need to worry about," the voice on the other end of the line said. "It's the Doctor. He'll keep going until he knows everything. He always does. The moment he finds out what you've done, he'll burn this city to the ground. And you with it."

Ritsuko swallowed. Control, she thought. Stay in control. Stay rational. Contain the damage.

She swung around in her chair and crained her neck. No sign of anyone in the room outside her office, thank God, and the hallway beyond that was similarly deserted. No one watching, then. Or listening in. "As remarkable as he might be," she said, "the Doctor's still just one man. I sincerely doubt that he could --"

The voice laughed. It was a toneless, mechanical sort of sound, more the echo of a meaningful gesture than one itself.

"Did I say something funny?"

"You are funny, miss," the voice replied. "You really don't know anything about the Doctor yet, do you. What he is. The things he's done."

Ritsuko rubbed her eyes. She turned back to the desk --

-- just in time to see something flash across the screen.

As soon as her eyes focused on the monitor, it was gone. The screen's content looked exactly the same. It was nothing, her mind insisted. A trick of the light. Static in the video feed. An image artifact caused by unrelated network traffic. The possibilities were endless.

But... all the same... for just the slightest of milliseconds...

... she could have sworn that the statue had been looking straight up at the camera. At her.

She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Control, she reminded herself, her head spinning. Don't be like Mother. Never be like Mother.

She licked her suddenly dry lips. "I'll ask you one last time," she said. "Who are you?"

"Just call me Bob, miss," the voice said. "Everyone does."