2022-08-29: The Emperor's Verdict
- Log: 2022-08-29: The Emperor's Verdict
- Cast: Rei Ayanami, Gendo Ikari
- Where: Tokyo-3 Geofront
- Date: U.C. 0096 08 29
- Summary: Rei Ayanami asks her legal guardian a question at dinner.
"Rei," said the Commander.
Her eyes opened, awareness contracting. The LCL; the view of the world. The red marks on clear glass. Beyond, air, and him.
"Let's have dinner together."
Rei spoke, through the pressure-thick liquid. "Yes."
-=-=-=-
A small table lamp sat between them. A star on the equidistant point between Rei Ayanami and the Commander.
The Commander's knife chimed softly against the plate before him. The Commander dined on pork tenderloin, today; raised in confinement in the Oceanic Continental Union's agricultural sector, marinated in a rich sauce, browned, roasted. Perfection.
Rei had a large glass of blended juices before her, forming a color that was obscurely hateful to her, when the blue light shone through the evening windows of this space within Central Dogma.
"I reviewed the report from Orbit Base," the Commander said. "An Algernon case." He sliced the meat; halved the slice. "You deported yourself well."
As he ate, Rei opened the fourth compartment of her medication organizer. "Yes," Rei said, taking out an oblong black tablet and placing it in her mouth. The gelatin was sweet with nothing else, as always. It was large enough that she sipped from the glass.
Time passed.
Rei gazed at the irregular rectangles of the organizer.
"Commander Ikari," Rei said.
"What is it?"
Rei's throat closed. She could feel her mouth dry; she could feel her pulse quicken; the squirming sense in the back of her head, the desire to find a place that was dark and pleasantly warm or cool, to simply be quiet, to simply be hidden, to simply be and nothing more. The safety of the glass tube. Worse yet for what she knew what might come.
She did not dare. Not in plain. But - perhaps -
"The housing facility," Rei said.
"Manyoso," the Commander said. He looked to his plate; his fork took another slice of dead, cooked flesh. "Yes. I stayed there myself once; long ago."
The world seemed to hum. The eternal machine-life of the Geofront becoming actual. Within her. The Commander ate the morsel, and had swallowed it, with due enjoyment. Within Rei there was nothing.
Terror, perhaps. Abstraction. Easier to drop the matter. To say nothing. The Commander would think little or nothing of it.
"I want to leave it," Rei said, and it was then that she thought of the words of others; of Hebikura, of the older girl Mari, of Shinji. Of the gestures of Colonel Katsuragi. Of the exhortation to courage from Guy Shishioh. Of others.
But all those thoughts came after she said the words.
The Commander paused. His head lifted.
"Something wrong?"
The regard of the Commander. It pressed against Rei. Silent and cthonic; like the face of another planet. His expression had not changed; his tone showed mild concern, not dissimilar to when Rei had gotten a stone in her shoe during the funding conference in Thailand, not so long ago.
What was wrong? A sort of formless, stunted shape of something flittered through Rei's head; a devil squid called Argumentation. To construct a persuasive statement. To bring the Commander to see things her way. Futility; an ant considering the best way to reach the stars.
"No," Rei answered.
The Commander's head tilted down. His eyes were now visible without the intervening lenses. "It's a secured location. Why do you wish to depart?"
Rei was silent, but only long enough to breathe. Again it happened; that action, then thought:
"Because I hate it," Rei said,
And then she thought, somehow, of the anxious look in Shinji Ikari's eyes; of the clasp of her hand; of the ocean, and of making small and savory foods in a place, now in peril.
"Hm" said Commander Ikari. His gaze turned down, far enough to be away from Rei.
He raised his fork and his knife. Rei knew that the Commander was thinking.
She waited.
"It was lacking in atmosphere, as I recall," the Commander said. "Contact logistics to access your housing stipend. Section 2's judgment on security will be final; otherwise, suit yourself."
Rei felt a lightness suffuse her, as if the world itself had grown lighter. Her face colored; she could feel it. For a moment she thought that she might faint, and this was sufficient reminder for her to reach forwards and pick up a red-and-blue capsule of anti-inflammatory medication; this she could swallow without difficulty.
Her mouth was not dry. The sense of the world's tension faded.
The Commander returned to his meal.