2022-06-28: Probing

• Cutscene: Probing
• Cast: Akane Shinjo, Alexis Kerib
• Where: Tsutsujidai - Akane's Room
• Date: 0096-06-28
• Summary: Akane and Alexis chat about the last week.

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Akane flops into the chair in her room; she feels... still not great, but honestly, compared to how she felt after talking to Yuta...

... she feels fine now? It almost feels weird how fine she feels, superficially. The feeling levels off even more in the seat.

Feet up, kicking them up on the desk.

Blue blockers on.

Monitor on.

"Hey, Alexis. Are you there this time?" He's been gone or unresponsive more often lately. He must be busy... the Earth Sphere outside is getting to be a happening place. "I'm home again, as you can see."

Alexis's face appears in short order. "Ah, Akane-kun! Yes, yes, I'm here. Apologies for not answering your message the other day; I was quite busy looking into a few things for you... Is everything all right, my dear? Something must have happened again..."

"I told Alouette that I'm the one in control of everything." Alexis remains impassive; the passiveness mirrors back. No mouth movements but the minimum necessary amount to form the worlds. Blue-blocker glasses dim the light in both directions. "I can draw you the diagram I drew her, if you'd like."

"... Hmmm... Well! I'd certainly like to see what she knows. Ah, though -- 'Alouette,' you said?" It's Alexis's turn to sound curious. "Is she a friend of yours...? I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the name, off the top of my head..."

"Yes. The girl from when we removed the Aura of Dawn from Renais." A bland, toneless answer. "I was in the Brave Robot Corps car with her. I think its name was Porc-Auto. We met up again, and I thought it would be a good way to get 3G to start moving."

"Mmm-hm, mm-hm." Alexis... well, on the monitor he's always facing forward, but there's a way in which he moves, subtly, that suggests he's reorienting himself within that space.

Diagram: redrawn, placed on the desk. A self-healing cutting mat, covered. It connects an 'unknown hand' to Riika Sheder, to Tsutsujidai's kaiju, to its psychic rupture, to both Junius Seven and Nouvelle Tokyo, to Alexis. Outward from there: almost everything. An unfathomable lilac darkness.

Another girl connects to Riika and Alexis; a NERV kaiju attack sits unconnected to anything else in the diagram.

"This is what I told her." Present a high-specificity prompt. See how your conversation partner moves. Just as Juggler suggested. (Who is the prompt for? Alouette Pommier? Alexis?) "I don't mind that you're helping other girls." A lie, of course. "You need to be more available to me, though. I think things would have gone much better with Yuta if you'd responded to me."

"Hm? One of these nodes is unconnected," Alexis responds. "Something you're stumped by...?"

"I'm still assessing that. It could be the other girl's kaiju. Drawing the line between those two points would suck for the organization of the diagram, though." As if the annoyance of drawing a curved line over a straight one carried the same (low) salience as anything else in the conversation. "Why were you asking about Alouette." Not delivered as a question.

"Hm? Oh, I was seeing if I could find information on her using my usual sources for you. It's easier for me to move on this than you, isn't it? And as it happens, I do have some things..." The teal panels on Alexis's face dance; the flames flicker. These things are as they always are.

"Tell me." A situation already past respecting Alouette's privacy.

"Of course." Another faint reorientation. "Alouette Pommier was a BioNet test subject for a specific set of pre-birth enhancements. That makes her a Coordinator, I suppose, in your world?" Alexis's relationship with category-logic within humanity is inconsistent; after all, even the line between 'human' and 'alien' was blurry in the place where his journey truly began. He learns it when it has salience, and the Natural-Coordinator distinction only became relevant to him at all with Riika. "The Gutsy Galaxy Guard rescued her. She's actually the architect of one of your persistent problems, you know; GaoFighGar was her brainchild. BioNet actually took repossession of her briefly recently, in hopes of turning her into one of their monsters... The Gutsy Global Guard rescued her, and the result is as you see."

Victimized in the hopes of building monsters -- and instead turning that toward building heroes. Or has 3G made a hero of her? "I see." An uneasy turn of the stomach that pierces Akane's blandness for a moment. "It's kinda interesting to me how much you know about 3G, the Aura of Dawn, and BioNet..." Akane's lips curl up. "I get that that stuff all connects together, but why's that so interesting for you?" Alexis doesn't strike her as the kind of person who likes a puzzle, the way she does...

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Just kidding! It's the first thing that spilled in here besides Gridman!" She seems relieved. The pressure lowers. A laugh. Alexis laughs too. Feet back on the floor. "That's good, though. If she's some sort of genius baby, that means she'll figure everything out." Maybe even the unaddressed NERV kaiju attack.

"Of course."

A quiet settles over the room. All actors settle into comfortable stillness.