Though sometimes he looked at Asuka in ways he should not
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| ‘I can’t say it, because I don’t know how to stop it and it might just be my fear. I don’t know. I don’t know how to know,’ Conrad said, frustrated. ‘I feel like it’s her fate to die in a Wraith attack and I don’t know why.’
‘You have to tell Ken,’ Shinji said, frowning more. ‘Soon?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Conrad said. ‘I don’t know.’ ‘You have to tell him,’ Shinji said. ‘Does anyone else have a… bad end?’ ‘Not yet,’ Conrad said. He looked more frustrated but didn’t explain why. However, Shinji saw him look at Bert. Shinji didn’t want to get in the middle of that, but felt Rei was kind of playing with dynamite. Normally, though, they all seemed content with it. Maybe it was a woman thing; he couldn’t imagine dating two women, though if the other was Kyoko, Shinobu would probably go for it. But he didn’t think he could handle Kyoko. Still, they got on better now. Or if… he told himself not to think about Kaworu or Ken, both of whom were male and good looking and… he hated his brain sometimes. Kaworu was busy talking to Olga and they looked so happy. ‘Are they destined?’ he asked Conrad. Conrad got an odd look on his face. ‘I shouldn’t talk about people’s love destiny, I think.’ While Shinji was not good at understanding people, he wasn’t totally blind. ‘I guess Touji and I are kind of unusual in finding our destined person so young,’ Shinji said hesitantly. Conrad squirmed, but said, ‘Yes. Very much. But I think the universe would like us to only fall in love just once with the right person, but for humans it rarely happens that way and most especially if it is an elf.’ Shinji felt like he stood right next to a revelation but the revelation was hiding just beyond a veil. ‘You’re not saying Kaworu is an elf, right?’ Conrad stared at Shinji, eyes wide, arms fallen to his sides, looking confused. ‘He’s certainly pretty enough for it, but no…’ Conrad paused and studied him. ‘He couldn’t be an elf.’ Kaworu now turned and looked at Shinji, who turned so he couldn’t see him, praying he didn’t look weird. ‘So why did we get lucky?’ ‘I guess you saw your chance and you took it,’ Conrad said hesitantly. ‘If I knew, I’d.. I’d know,’ he said, studying Gretchen for some reason. ‘Good luck with Rei,’ Shinji said, then hoped he hadn’t said too much. ‘Thanks,’ Conrad said, and Shinji wondered why he put up with a rival. But it wasn’t his place to pry. Shinji thought about Shinobu having another boyfriend and his stomach curdled. There was Kyoko, but that wasn’t the same. And he could understand not confronting people. He headed to his chair; it was almost time for class. ****************** Kyoko ran into class *just* before the bell, looking pissed, but Shinobu was unable to ask her why before lunch. “We had the stupidest family fight in the *universe*,” Kyoko said irritably. “It was like this.” ***************** “Why do we have Garden Top Mayonaisse instead of the good stuff?” Kyoko’s father said irritably from the kitchen as Kyoko tried to wolf down her breakfast. “I didn’t buy Garden Top, I bought Fleischmann’s, like always,” Kyoko said without looking. Her dad plopped down a full jar of Garden Top with its distinctive purple logo. “This is all we have!” “I don’t do the shopping,” Touji said. “Kyoko has to have bought it, since she’s our shopper,” Gretta said, still in the kitchen and making her lunch to take to work with her; she and Kyoko’s dad always packed a lunch. But they didn’t have to be at work until 9, so they had more time. “I didn’t buy it! I know what I’m doing!” Kyoko said angrily. “I don’t know why it’s here, but it wasn’t me!” “Can’t be anyone else; mayonnaise doesn’t just wander around,” Touji said. Then he looked around as if mayonnaise might well be wandering around but Kyoko couldn’t see any beyond the jar her Dad had. “IT WAS NOT ME!” ************** “And it went downhill from there,” Kyoko said irritably. “Maybe Gregor bought it?” Shinobu said hesitantly, then wilted in the heat of Kyoko’s gaze. “Gregor would not randomly buy the wrong mayonnaise and leave it in our house without telling anyone!” Kyoko said. “Anyway, I’m giving it to our neighbors when we get home. If they want it.” She slumped down as Melinda arrived. “What’s wrong?” Melinda asked and Kyoko told the story again. “We found a half dozen keys under the sofa cushions last night and we don’t know where they came from,” Melinda said. “There’s not a name or anything, though the car key is stamped ‘Volkswagen’.” She sat down and opened her bag she had her lunch in. “Must be from some party but you’d think they’d miss their keys,” Kyoko said. ***************** “I can’t find my keys; Lucy had to drive us all to work in her piece of crap,” Sandi told Nancy at work. They were having lunch together. “I drove yesterday, so they *had* to be somewhere at home or I couldn’t have driven home, but I couldn’t find them.” Nancy was busy eating soup and lost in thought. “What’s wrong?” Sandi asked softly. “Ralph’s busy with some project he can’t talk about and it clearly makes him nervous but he can’t even tell *me*, and I worry,” Nancy said softly. “It’ll be okay,” Sandi told her. She knew what was up; she was involved with ‘Project Corgi’, which was the code name. It was amazing but it also kind of scared her. What would people do with this kind of power? It wouldn’t all be good. **************** Guillermo still didn’t like tying down dogs and slitting their throats and throwing the blood on his fields, but he couldn’t argue with results. How could this revive the worn out soil of his fields? He was going to have a huge bumper crop, maybe even finally pay off his debts. But sooner or later, he was going to have to explain this to his neighbors and there were not infinite stray dogs around, so what would he do then? Still, he’d do anything to make a better future for his wife and kids. So it was time for this dog to die, no matter how much it whimpered. His ancestors had been right, blood did have power. And now he could put that power to use. *************** Patrick Butterfield didn’t know why God had chosen him specifically, but he knew what he had to do with the gift he was given. He was worn out from praying over people, but he let them wheel up another person onto the stage. She was probably twice his age and confined to a wheel chair, but he put his hands on Alice’s shoulders and prayed and the congregation sang and now she rose up and walked, stumbling and then looking confident, laughing and crying at once. This part of it was wonderful, being able to help the faithful overcome their infirmities, ailments only possible because the world was flawed. But what haunted him was seeing the end of the world was coming. A great cloud of flaming rock would fall upon the green and growing places, laying waste to everything and turning lush lands into desert. And that was only the beginning of the disaster. It was the first trumpet of Revelations and it was coming. What haunted him most, though, was a vision of being here in Atlanta, going outside, and it was black as night; the stars were gone and there was only the lights of man and then the sky fell, not just here, but all across America, as if a mountain the size of a continent had fallen to Earth. He’d done some reading on astronomy; there were no known asteroids heading for the Earth but weird things were happening; the stars were getting brighter and seemed closer and radio telescopes all picked up a beautiful but sad song coming from space in all directions. His earpiece went off. “Sir, your wife’s been arrested at the airport,” Fred said to him; Fred was his information man, feeding him whatever he needed to know and letting him know if there was an emergency. Patrick cued a song, wincing and took this chance to dart to the vestry so he could talk back. “What happened?” “She tried to take a gun on the plane and started shooting people, screaming about the second amendment, when they wouldn’t let her,” Fred said. Patrick firmly supported gun ownership and felt the government restricted gun rights too much but he would not have tried to take a gun on a plane. “Why didn’t Janet stop her?” he asked. “Janet started it by slashing the TSA agent with a bowie knife, sir.” Fred sounded overwhelmed. When did Janet even GET a Bowie knife? “Call our lawyer, I’ll join you once the service is over,” Patrick said wearily. There had been a shooting at the mall yesterday too. The government would clearly use this as an excuse to clamp down further. But he would worry about that later; people needed him and so he returned to the main chapel to finish the service, though now half his heart was off worrying about his wife. But God’s grace, thankfully, carried him through it. **************** Karim ibn Khaldun prayed with five hundred others of the faithful, glad he could go to the mosque on his lunchbreak; conveniently, the grocery store was only three buildings away. It was the best part of his job. He wondered if the others felt as he did; he got such a strong sense of Allah’s presence when praying now. He’d always felt good after praying anyway but now, it was just incredibly good. As he got up, lifting his prayer rug, a 100 Euro note fell out of it and he stared. How had that gotten into his rug? He lived in Mosul and while they got a few tourists, none of them would have come near his prayer rug. It hadn’t been there this morning! But he decided to accept Allah’s blessing and pocket it. It was time to go cram food down before work resumed. ***************** Shinobu regarded geometry as the great Satan. In part because her geometry teacher was an asshole, so she sat in the room, waiting for class to start and wished she could fall forward through time to her next class. Eric was tall and blond and played on the soccer team and he now was coming her way. Not that she was paying attention, as her imagination was busy figuring out how her teacher would mock her today. Stupid math. “Hey, Shinobu,” he said and she nearly fell out of her chair; Eric blinked. “Oh, hey, Eric,” Shinobu said, smiling. “Wow, you got tall.” She hadn’t been paying attention but she’d been close to his height on meeting him and now he was much taller. And rather goodlooking but she had a boyfriend. But she couldn’t help noticing; a lot of people had gotten good looking and she’d only noticed recently, but she had a boyfriend. “And you grow ever more beautiful, day by day,” he said, smiling at her and she suddenly shivered, then felt guilty for shivering. I shouldn’t notice anyone else but Shinji, she thought. But it was hard to avoid her mind straying. “Flatterer.” “She has a boyfriend,” Kyoko said, suddenly looming over Shinobu and trying but failing to loom over Eric. Kyoko was much taller than Shinobu now, especially with Shinobu at a desk. But Eric was a bit taller than her. “I can still talk to her,” Eric said to Kyoko. “But we can talk later.” “If by later, you mean *never*,” Kyoko said harshly. Eric bowed. “As the Shogun commands.” And then he went back to his desk. “Fuck you, Kaiser-boy!” Kyoko shouted. “He was just being friendly,” Shinobu said to Kyoko. Well, maybe flirting a little but it was kind of nice to have someone flirt with her. Shinji thought she was beautiful, but most guys hardly noticed her, since Kyoko was a lot more womanly than her in appearance. “He just wants into your skirt,” Kyoko said darkly. “I could feel his desire.” Shinobu wished she was better at sensing such things; she hadn’t felt anything. And it was kind of flattering. But best not to think about it. “Sit down, Suzuhara,” the geometry teacher said, now coming back in. “Let’s get this farce started.” ***************** Touji would have normally enjoyed a kung fu fight in class, but not when someone leaped onto his desk and sent everything flying *everywhere*. Including into his face. But before he could leap into the fray between Andrew and Ian, Evelyn touched his mind. ‘I’ll handle this,’ she said. But instead, it was Hikari who rose; their French teacher was shouting at them to stop but being ignored. “STOP!” she shouted and the two of them stopped in mid-collision, then fell to the ground. She pulled them apart. “What do you think you’re doing?” “He stole my copy of Space Pirates V!” Ian said angrily. “He crashed my bike!” Andrew shouted back. Frau Fassbinder grimaced, then adjusted her shirt, pulling it up. Two buttons had fallen off and it kept trying to show off too much. “You can explain to the Vice-Principal and see what he thinks of you. GO!” They left and Frau Fassbinder sighed, giving up on her shirt. “Thank you, Frau Horaki.” “Just doing my job,” Hikari said, then sat back down. Everyone’s been a little crazy since the last boom, Touji thought, hoping it wouldn’t get worse. ************** Gustaf Egger checked the salamanders; he had an ongoing experiment with them and it was going well. His dear little turtles would be next. Classes were over for the day, but clubs were meeting, and he was free to do his part-time research. *BOOM* For a moment, he thought it was another crack of doom but then he smelled smoke and people in clubs began shouting. He quickly rigged a fan to keep the smoke off his animals and then plowed into it with a handkerchief over his mouth to screen it out, praying it would work. It worked quite well, thankfully, and he made his way to one of the labs; four kids were covered in ashes that used to be clothing and half the lab equipment was broken and it was a miracle the kids were only burned, not dead. What the hell had they *done*? ************** Seeing Frau Langley in a NERV uniform was strange, she looked older in it, as old as Frau Fassbinder, maybe. Which was still young compared to himself, as he was nearly fifty. She had a NERV security squad with her, which made him more nervous, given that this wasn’t related to the aliens… right? On the other hand, how had those kids survived??? He told her what he had seen, as he’d already told the Principal, some policemen, other teachers, and other students. The kids were on their way to the hospital or NERV or something. “Frau Langley, is that you?” One of the cops asked, interrupting the interrogation. She was a redheaded woman who, like Frau Langley, looked to be part-Asian and part-European. “Hello, Officer Adler,” Frau Langley said. “If you’re looking for Hikari, she’s still at NERV.” “Is this going to be taken over by NERV?” Officer Adler asked. “Maybe,” Frau Langley said. She turned to Gustaf Egger. “Herr Egger, did you feel anything strange before the explosion? A tension in the air, hair standing up, anything?” “I was busy working with my experiments and was totally off-guard,” he told her. “Are you two related?” he asked curiously. “No, why would you think that?” Herr Langley asked, confused. “Probably not, though it’s not impossible,” Officer Adler said. “But we are both similar enough in appearance for someone to think that,” she said to Herr Langley. “But that’s just a coincidence.” “Oh, hmm, yeah, superficially,” Frau Langley said, looking thoughtful. “Can you find one of the chemistry teachers for me? I don’t know what would have been in this lab.” “Of course,” Gustaf said and went to go find one of his colleagues. ************** Evelyn kneeled, letting the events play through her mind; a group of students with more brains than sense had found a recipe for explosives on the internet, decided to cook some up and it had blown up on them. She shared her vision with Asuka, who frowned. “It shouldn’t have worked, I think. That wasn’t accurate.” But Asuka looked hesitant, so she talked to one of the Chemistry teachers, who confirmed it. It would have actually made a hideous smell and a mess but not an explosion. They had made it explode somehow. Thinking through it, they had seen it start to do the right thing, panicked, and *then* it blew up. She resolved to avoid doing chemistry if she could help it. And reported that to Asuka. Asuka buried her face in her hands. “We can’t stop people doing crazy things to themselves. How many things are going to explode?” ************* Officer Smith stared at the burning car. He’d shot out the tire and somehow the engine had caught fire and the felon run off screaming about the car exploding after somehow surviving crashing a flaming car into a pole. When the report came back that the engine had definitely not been shot, just burned, he really didn’t know what to think. ************** Ritsuko watched the concoction bubble via a monitor; she had duplicated the experiment in a blast-proofed room with waldoes. Nothing. Just what it should do. Their own belief had made it explode. They had to find a way to lock down natural law at least somewhat or people’s stupid ideas were going to ruin everything. ************** Lars played a riff on his saxophone, then looked at Shinji. Shinji licked his lips thoughtfully and played a few notes on his cello. Gregor said, “I’ve never done a song, do we do words first or music or what?” They were at Shinji’s, trying to musically collaborate. The ladies were off in a back room busy doing… something. Which involved giggling. Misato was at the bar, busy reaching a book and highlighting every other sentence in it and seeming aggravated by that. “Well, my past music, Kyoko made up the words,” Shinji said, not sure how much Gregor knew of her powers. “I just worked out the music.” Maybe we can do something with one of mother’s pieces, Shinji thought. Though he was nervous about sharing those with people. “I have some unfinished pieces, maybe we could polish them up.” “Okay,” Lars said. “We should probably get Rei and Asuka.” “I think they kind of want this to be us doing it for them,” Shinji said hesitantly. “Well, I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m willing to try,” Gregor said. “I have a lot of poems we could work with.” The poems turned out to be love poems, a lot of them aimed at Kyoko, though he had one Shinji liked about watching the sun rise on a Russian winter morning. Shinji brought out the pieces and they began experimenting. “You have a big vocabulary,” Lars observed, reading the poems, which Gregor had mailed to them. “I could never write something like this.” “I’m sure Melinda would love it if you tried,” Gregor said. “Women love it when you create things just for them.” He leaned back on the couch. “You and Akagi used to go out, right?” “We’re childhood friends,” Lars said, studying Gregor. “It was never dating.” Gregor made a noise but didn’t challenge it. Lars looked at him and Gregor looked at the sheet music. “Well, this is greek to me, what does it sound like?” Shinji began playing and Lars blinked, then began to play; the instruments blended together and they kept going past the end of the fragment, while Gregor tapped his foot, then began to declaim about the beauty of Kyoko’s wrath, like a storm scourging away the old and the broken, that new life might spring forth. Shinji paused, thrown off. “You like seeing her get angry?” “I don’t think anyone could date Kyoko who didn’t,” Lars said, laughing softly. Gregor frowned at Lars. “You should show her more respect.” He stabbed at Lars with a finger. “And yes, her passion is what draws me to her like a moth to the flame. Her joy, her wrath, her unbridled passion is what I love about her. Who doesn’t love passion?” “I’m not very passionate,” Lars said, waving a hand dismissively. “Nor I,” Shinji confessed. “I love Shinobu because she’s so lively and joyous and makes me smile.” He smiled now, just thinking of her. “Melinda is a safe harbor on which I can rely to draw me back when I start to wander away from everything. She’s steady. And smart,” Lars said softly. “Well, we need verses from each of you,” Gregor said, calming down. “So I can understand what you like about them and we can work it in.” Shinji wasn’t good at articulating that with words, but he would try. ********************* “Olga, someone is following us,” Kaworu whispered to Olga as they walked the hallway together on the way to class the next day. “Are they studying my ass?” Olga said, frowning. “Everyone’s been staring at me more than usual.” But no one came too close. “Your beauty bewitches them, I expect,” Kaworu said, squeezing her hand and relaxing. “I like to look at you,” he said. He tried to only look at her, but even now, some older student woman went by and his eyes tracked her chest until he made himself stop and he felt shamed for doing so. He wanted Olga more than was licit. Yet when he looked at Asuka, he thought things unworthy of him. How could I feel this about several women at once?, he wondered. He felt ashamed of himself, especially looking at people like Touji or Shinji, who were so dedicated to a single woman they never looked at anyone else. He wondered how they managed it when they were entirely human and thus naturally more fickle. ************** Shinji had been working with Lars and Gregor again when, to his surprise, Kaworu showed up out of the blue. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” he said. “Are you writing a song?” “Hey you… aaargh, nevermind,” Lars said, starting to perk up, then sighing and sagging down. “We are writing a song for our ladies fair,” Gregor said, smiling. “How is your fair lady?” “Olga is well,” Kaworu said, smiling at him. “I can come back later.” “It’s okay, if you need to talk to Shinji, we will sit here and flail,” Gregor said. Kaworu studied the sheet music everywhere. “Wow, you’ve written so much.” “This is old music my mother started but never finished,” Shinji said hesitantly. “It’s been sitting in a box in NERV storage for a long time and someone found it and so I have it now.” Kaworu got a strange, sad look, then said, “You are exceptionally lucky.” Shinji now remembered Kaworu lost his mother… both parents. He felt he should say something and didn’t know what. “Thank you. We can go to my room.” Shinji sat at his desk, turning the chair, while Kaworu plopped down on the bed. Then he waited for Kaworu to speak. Kaworu studied the room; there was a picture of all the Talents and a poster of a galaxy and little other decoration. “I don’t know how to ask,” he said hesitantly. A long silence ensued while Shinji studied Kaworu, who was quite handsome in Shinji’s opinion. It was strange to see him so silent, though. “It is hard to even admit this,” Kaworu finally said, half-looking at Shinji, but only half. Shinji suddenly wondered if this was a love confession and turned red. What could he say? Kaworu was handsome and kind but he had a girlfriend and… “I’ve noticed you don’t look at any other woman but Shinobu,” Kaworu said hesitantly. That wasn’t true, though Shinji tried not to stare. But Shinji was good at hiding what he was doing. “She is the one who I love,” Shinji said. “Even if sometimes I think she wishes Kyoko and I would fall in love too.” Absolute silence set in and Shinji now wanted to run away and hide, wishing he had *never* said that. Ever. Kaworu said hesitantly, “Why would she wish that?” “Because we fight a lot, though not as much as we did at first,” Shinji said, relaxing a little. “She and Kyoko are like sisters and it hurts her when we fight, but sometimes Kyoko is completely unbearable.” Put that way, he understood. “She wants you to be as close to Kyoko as she is,” Kaworu said hesitantly. “Yes,” Shinji said. “Anyway, I’m not blind but I’d never do anything but notice. I don’t think it’s possible to never think other people are cute, but I’m faithful. She’s the only one for me.” He slumped a little, head dangling over the back of his chair, looking at the floor. “But you can’t help but notice others. It’s being a guy.” Download 215.22 Kb. Share with your friends:
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