2.5.

They said God created men in his image.

Then, using His flesh and bone, men created their own gods.

And, according to the words of the (supposedly) dead woman and the decidedly not-human self-proclaimed godmachine sitting across the table, men also planned to use these godlings to "jumpstart" the next step in human evolution, by triggering Third Impact and merging the entire human race with the "true god", which was the abomination that had caused Second Impact and wiped out three billion people 15 years ago.

"Bit excessive, if you ask me. There's still a lot your kind can learn without resorting to such extreme measures," a silky voice rang out from her laptop. The fact that it managed to sound silky over the speakers only made it even more creepy. Never mind the other fact that it had somehow ended up inside Shinji's head without knowing how or why. Or that it had been snooping around, and messing withNERV's system for a while now with no one being the wiser.

Yui Ikari being alive and inside Unit 1 this whole time was just the exploding cherry on top of the cake. Or that the woman, and the commander, and highly possibly her old friend were all aware of this plot.

Major Katsuragi took a sip from the can of beer the kid had helpfully provided to her before they had sat down for this discussion. The poor child had been looking increasingly uncomfortable as the meeting went on.

With a sigh, Misato leaned back against the chair, and reminisced on how the day had ended up like this.

This is so boring, Misato thought.

It had been a few days since the last attack. Reports had been filled, repairs had been done, messes had been cleaned up, the techies had been set to analyze whatever they could gather, numbers were crunched and samples were tested. The Commander had nearly arrived, and Ritsuko had turned down Misato's invitation for a drink tonight, citing some interesting paper that she apparently needed to go through ASAP.

Which would leave her alone with Kaji. And wasn't that an interesting situation...

In the meantime, there wasn't much to do. There were no sync test planned. The major tapped her finger on her desk. There were some documents she's supposed to go through, but they were both unimportant and non-urgent.

Not to mention unimaginably boring.

Glancing at the clock, she supposed she could go grab lunch early. It was almost lunch time, and it wasn't like anyone would pay attention to her. Besides, it's not often that she got to be the highest in the hierarchy around here, might as well abuse that power a little bit before it was taken away again.

Putting on her jacket, Misato stepped away from her work table, and began her walk down to the cafeteria.

The first hint that today wasn't her day was when the first elevator she picked was already packed full. Had that ever happened before? The headquarters were ridiculously oversized compared to the number of personnel, and it's not like there was any reason for so many people to be congested here.

The second elevator opened up to the sight of Kaji. Thinking back about the last time they were in an elevator alone together...

The red-faced major stomped away without even offer a greeting.

She regretted that later, as the third elevator took nearly five minutes to reach her, stopping at every floor on the way.

The second hint came with the sign that read "Closed For Maintenance" in front of the cafeteria.

Misato could feel the corner of her eye twitched slightly. They're NERV, they're the single most important line of defense between Mankind and total extinction. Their funding rivaled the GDP of a moderate sized country. The personnel numbers were in the thousands,with a small army of armed guards, an institute worth of scientists, a company worth of engineers, and around a hundred or so janitors, cooks and other menial laborers.

It was absolutely unacceptable that they closed down the cafeteria. How would all those people eat? The city was a fair distance away. There was absolutely no way anyone could get there and get back during lunch break.

Cursing under her breath, Misato headed toward the parking lot instead. She would get her lunch, no matter what, today.

Only to find out that she had forgotten her keys at the deck, after she had already arrived in front of the blue Renault.

It should be said that Misato Katsuragi wasn't at an age that could be called "old". Not yet, anyway.

But she wasn't at the age that could comfortably chomp down on fast food without worrying about her weight anymore.

Fuck it, she'd had an annoying morning. The least she could do was to reward herself with a little guilty pleasure.

With that thought, the raven haired woman patiently waited in line at the newly opened joint. It was one of those famous American franchises that had long been associated with being cheap "poor people" food in the States, but here in Japan it still had some novelty. Due to her... eccentric driving, she would have time to spare if she moved quickly.

Thinking that, after paying for the meal, the major quickly grabbed the bag and squeezed her way past the crowd.

Only to bump into another man on her way out.

One could easily tell that the owner was in a foul mood when she got back to the apartment.

Misato loudly stomped her way inside. Her dress had stopped dripping soda, but the ketchup stain was still visible even on the dark fabric. Now there was no way she could make it on time for the afternoon shift. The major slammed the door shut, kicked off her boots and pulled her dress out over her head – the kids should still be at school at this time. With a practiced movement, she tossed the dress into the wash basket and went into the kitchen to grab a beer.

Plopping herself down at the dining table, the woman took a sip, and groaned painfully.Probably should just chill out for today, she thought. She needed to get ready for tonight's da...

No, not a date. Nope. Just two friends hanging out after work, Misato caught and corrected herself quickly.

With a groan, she stood up and headed toward the storage room to grab some white vinegar to remove the stain. Ketchup stains had the annoying tendencies to stick around unless specially treated.

And that was when, still only in her underwear, that the major was greeted by the Third Child walking through the entrance, hours before he was supposed to be back from school.

Their eyes met. And they both froze for a moment.

It took her a second to realize that the boy was carrying a bag, and then another second for both of them to realize that the bag had slipped from his loosened grip and fell down on the floor. A bunch of strange metallic objects spilled out from inside.

At once, they both said, "You're home early!"

"Why... why are you naked?" Shinji managed to stammer. By then, Misato's mind had finally caught up with the situation and switched straight to "Commanding Officer" mode. She ignored the shaking kid, walked up and picked up the strange device. It was about double the size of her palm, consisting of a metal bowl with many strange attachments on the side.

It looked somewhat familiar, and the major needed another moment to recall where she had seen it.

That morning, when she'd gone to pester her old friend about having a drink (and had been unceremoniously turned down), she'd taken a look at some of the documents on Doctor Akagi's desk.

One of them looked remarkably like what she's holding on her hand now.

"Shinji... What is this and where did you get it?" The poor kid tried to work his jaw, opening and closing his mouth in a great impression of a drowning fish.

And, before he could make a response, a sing song voice rang out from her phone.

Her phone.

"It's the casing of a very small scale and very primitive hyperspace engine," the phone said. "More as a proof of concept than anything useful, really. And I suppose there's no point in hiding it now, huh? Let me introduce myself. I'm the former Hub Mind of the Masaq Orbital, and currently a hitch-hiker to this splendid young man."

Now, it was the major's turn to feel her jaws slacken.

"What a mess, huh," Misato said while massaging her temples. To think that everything she knew could be a lie. That she had spent her entire career working diligently towards the eradication of the human race. That her bosses may have a hand in the murder of more than three billion people (or, as the AI-thingy put it, a "gigadeath crime").

Of course, there was still the possibility that this was all an elaborated scheme, and as she sent a message to Kaji to cancel the da... (It's not a date, she caught herself again), she internally debated whether to send a coded alert, but decided against it. The thing certainly knew enough technobabble to back up its claim of extraterrestrial origin, and while more than half of that had flown over her head (hey, she could still understand half, her education wasn't just for show!), if Ritsu took that paper seriously, it must be legitimate.

"What about the Second Child?" she asked. "Should we inform her?"

"Let's wait and see," The machine said. "I think it's inevitable that she'll find out, like you just did. It's hard to keep secrets when we're living together, but I'd prefer to keep her out of this as long as possible."

The major continued. "And what's about the First?" She paused and glanced at the laptop. "Is she really your..."

"Yes, Misato. We're mostly certain about that." A female voice answered that time. Yui Ikari.

"And do you think he... you know..."

"I wish I could say 'no'." Misato heard a tiny sigh from the phone's speaker. "I wish I could say I knew him well enough to be sure he wouldn't do something like that," Yui said, "but it seems grief has strange and unpredictable ways of affecting people."

"Indeed, Mrs. Ikari," the Mind added curtly. The statement was simple enough, but Misato would swear she felt a measure of disdain leaking into its voice. Which was impressive, all things considered, since it still sounded inhumanly perfect in its pronunciation.

Then, maybe because her exhaustion had finally caught up to her, Misato found a, frankly stupid and utterly inconsequential, question popping up in her head, that she couldn't stop voicing aloud.

"And why did you skip the afternoon class, young man?"

"It was my idea, Miss Katsuragi, " the Mind said." Since male and female students take separate classes, Physical-Education offers an opportunity to sneak away without alerting Miss Sohryu, and this particular instructor doesn't tend to pay too much attention to the student count. With both you and Miss Sohryu away, we hoped to get some privacy to work on some projects to improve our information gathering and general security. I've designed a suitable workout routine for Shinji to make up for lost time anyway."

"Oh, that's so not the point."

"Actually, I believe it's the whole point..."

Across the table, the aforementioned poor, little boy grew increasingly pale as his two guardians argued on.