I Was a Teenage Dummy Plug
Part 2: Funny Meeting You Here / Elementary Biology
A Neon Genesis Evangelion fanfic by Logan J. Goodhue
*** Disclaimer***
Neon Genesis Evangelion is � and � GAINAX, et al.
This story is for nonprofit entertainment only.
First Version, 10NOV2002: Revision, 22NOV2002
******
Funny Meeting You Here . . .

	"Who are you?" Rei asked.

	I honestly didn't know how to answer that. I sat down on a nearby bench and 
felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. I thought furiously. How was I 
going to say this?

	"You already know what I am, right?" I asked.

	"Yes," she said. Her face showed simple curiosity.

	"Well, as for who I am," I said, looking up at her through my bangs, "you 
probably don't need to know until Commander Ikari decides what to do with 
me. If I'm allowed to live . . . " She didn't react to that. It was what I 
expected. "If I'm allowed to live, I will probably be your sister."

	"That is acceptable," she said, and walked away. I followed her to a 
corner. She turned and I peered around. She walked past Asuka and towards 
the pool. Asuka had changed into her striped bathing suit and was filling it 
out nicely. I would have stayed and enjoyed the scenery, but I didn't want 
Asuka asking questions about multiple Ayanamis. It would cause too many 
problems.

	I waited for her to go into an equipment room to get SCUBA gear, and walked 
out of the locker room. I saw Rei dive into the pool, and Shinji was hard at 
work on his homework. Glad I hadn't been spotted, I walked out of the 
poolroom and into the hallway. I was met by Oeda, Kanzaki, and a female 
officer I hadn't seen before. All three were nondescript, average people. 
They looked at me warily. I quirked an eyebrow at them like Spock from Star 
Trek.

	"Let me guess," I said evenly. "You're with Section Two." The officer 
cracked a smile and stepped forward. I noted that her uniform was relatively 
plain. She was probably a lieutenant. That would make Oeda and Kanzaki 
noncoms or warrant officers.

	"We are," she said simply. "Come with us, miss." I winced a little. Her 
gruff tone meant it was a command and not a request. I sighed and nodded.

	"Do you need to place me in restraints, Lieutenant?" I asked as politely as 
I could, and held out my wrists. She nodded and slapped a pair of handcuffs 
on me. I noted with some relief that she hadn't put them on as tight as they 
would go. As I was examining my bonds, she pulled out a piece of black 
cloth. She shook it out, and I realized that it was a hood. I stood 
unresisting as she pulled it over my head. It completely blocked my vision, 
but my breathing was unrestricted. I felt a slender hand touch my elbow.

	"Come along," the lieutenant said, and she began to guide me.

	We walked for a long time in silence, with numerous turns. I heard several 
doors open and close. We took two elevator rides and one escalator. I had no 
idea where I was. I heard another door open.

	"We have brought the prisoner," Kanzaki said.

	"Very good," a cultured female voice said. "Leave her here and return to 
your posts."

	"Yes, Doctor," the lieutenant said. She led me to a chair and I sat down. 
She tapped my wrists, and I raised them. I heard a key in the locks, and my 
handcuffs fell away. As I rubbed my wrists to remove the phantom sensation 
of being bound, the hood was removed. I blinked at the sudden brightness and 
looked around the room.

	It was an interrogation room. The gray reinforced concrete walls were 
broken only by the door that the security personnel had just left through 
and a large mirror to my left. Three bulbs suspended from the ceiling in 
cage fixtures lit the room, and the only furniture was a cheap table and two 
folding chairs, one of which I occupied. The other provided a perch for a 
blonde in a lab coat who could only be Doctor Ritsuko Akagi. She had a 
clipboard in hand and was looking it over. She set it down on the table and 
looked me in the eye.

	"Good day, Rei," she said. "Are you feeling well?"

	"I'm in fine fettle, Doctor Akagi, but I'm not Rei," I said with a rueful 
grin and gestured at my chest. "Although my appearance would seem to 
contradict that statement." I pointed at the mirror with my thumb. "If you 
have anyone behind that mirror that isn't Commander Ikari or Subcommander 
Fuyutsuki, I suggest you have them leave before we continue this 
conversation."

	"That's already taken care of," she said and smiled slightly. She took a 
breath and her tone became more serious. "But, if you're not Rei, who are 
you? You obviously know a lot about NERV, and you know the First Child well 
enough to fool the other Children and Section Two." Her eyes flashed in 
anger. "They had thought you were Rei until you met her in the locker room."

	"Well," I said, "you might say I'm a lost soul who found the Room of Gauf, 
and, before you ask, I don't know how I did it or how I even got there in 
the first place."

	"Go on," she said, making notes on the clipboard.

	"All I know for sure is that I went to bed last night in my original body 
in 2002, and woke up this morning as a supermodel wannabe in . . . 2015?"

	"That is the calendar year, yes," she said, obviously unsatisfied. "Now, 
you said, 'original body.' What were you like? What�s your name?" She gazed 
at me intently.

	"I don't think my name will mean much of anything to you," I said. I looked 
at the simulated wood grain on the table, breaking eye contact. "I doubt you 
would even find me in any national databases, except maybe as a casualty of 
Second Impact." I raised my eyes from the table. "For all I know, my name 
might come up as an employee of Second Branch, but I doubt it. May I see 
your clipboard, Doctor?" She started a bit, and then handed it to me. I took 
her pen and absently noted that she had beautiful penmanship before I 
flipped to a blank page. I wrote my name, address, and date of birth out for 
her in both English and Japanese. I turned the clipboard around, set the pen 
under the clip, and pushed it across the table. "As for your first question, 
my original body was overweight, hairy, and male. It's been quite an 
enlightening experience, so far."

	"I imagine it would be," she said raising an eyebrow. She looked at what I 
had written. "You're a foreigner?" I nodded. She was about to ask another 
question, when her pager went off. "If you'll excuse me?"

	"Of course," I said. "Far be it from me to prevent Misato's request for an 
'A-Seventeen.'"

	She looked sharply up at me from her pager and paled. She shakily went to 
the door and knocked. The lieutenant from before came into the room and let 
Ritsuko out. She watched me for a moment, and then backed out of the room, 
leaving me to my own devices.

	I stood and moved my chair around the table so I faced the mirror. If I was 
going to die for knowing too much, I might as well tweak that bastard Gendo. 
I sat back down and set my elbows on the table and crossed my hands in front 
of me as I leaned forward. If I'd had glasses on, it would have been a 
perfect imitation of his trademark pose.

	"Let me be frank with you, Commander," I said to the mirror, a slight waver 
in my voice. Today's events were catching up with me, and my possibly 
imminent death was messing with my emotions. "I know about your scenario, 
and its ultimate result." I remembered all of the scenes from End of 
Evangelion. Tears began forming in my eyes. What was disturbing when it 
occurred to fictional characters was devastating when one knew with 
certainty that it was going to happen to real people. "I know what . . ." My 
throat tightened. "I know what's going to h-happen to all of your p-pilots." 
The tears were flowing freely now, and I knew my emotional dam was about to 
burst. "I know," I said in a ragged whisper, "and there's not a d-damn thing 
I can do about it."

	The lights dimmed in the room, or perhaps lights were turned on in the 
other room. It didn't matter which, as the one-way glass de-mirrored and I 
saw the empty room I had been addressing. Great, wracking sobs tore out of 
my throat, and I cried myself to sleep.

	I'd like to say that my slumber was dreamless, but, unfortunately, 
nightmares count as dreams. I'm sure I had a few pleasant dreams, but I 
couldn't remember them. Many of my nightmares were bizarre amalgamations of 
reality and anime. The people I had met today seemed real in my dreams, 
while everyone else was a smooth caricature.

	Pen-pen danced with the penguin waiters from Mary Poppins, while a painted 
Gendo shot a flesh-and-blood Ritsuko. I wrestled Sachiel in a giant version 
of my original body as a burning bush, surrounded by Shinji, Touji, and 
Kensuke dressed as the Three Amigos, sang "She'll be Comin' 'Round the 
Mountain." A rough pencil sketch of UN troops slaughtered the lieutenant who 
brought me to the interrogation room as she dragged Oeda's corpse down the 
hall. I flickered between my old self and my new self. I raised a trumpet to 
my lips and played "Flight of the Bumblebee" and "Taps" as Kaworu hummed 
along. He came up beside me and whispered in my ear with a voice that could 
shatter every window in a major city.

	"Come, my brother/sister," he said gently. He held up a clarion and a 
scythe. "Will you be Gabriel, the Herald, or Azrael, the rider of the Pale 
Horse? Or, perhaps you'll be . . ." He swirled away in a burst of pixie dust 
and I knew no more . . .

Elementary Biology

	. . . Until I woke up. I opened my eyes. I looked around a bit and weakly 
said the first thing to come into my mind.

	"Ungh," I groaned. "Another unfamiliar ceiling." Okay, the ceiling wasn't 
that unfamiliar. It was just the first time I'd seen it for real. I was in 
the infirmary. I sat up.

	Yup, I was in the infirmary, all right, and still a Rei clone, not that I 
had really thought that would change. Someone had put me in a hospital gown, 
and there were EKG sensors pasted all over me. I had an intravenous feed on 
my left hand as well as a sensor on my index finger, and I also felt a 
slight prickling sensation on my head. I reached up and felt it. Two plastic 
lumps were over my temples, so I must be wearing the neural induction 
headgear.

	I finally noticed the slow beeping of the monitor equipment and looked over 
at it.  Systolic blood pressure: 110 mmHg. Diastolic blood pressure: 66 
mmHg. My pulse rate was a steady sixty-eight beats per minute, and the EKG 
showed a regular waveform. Considering that I felt fine, those were probably 
well within the expected range for a fourteen-year-old girl.

	I looked for the controls on the side of the bed and found them. I raised 
the head of the bed and enjoyed the recliner effect. It was so soft! I 
stretched a little and looked out the window.

	The lake was beautiful, marred only by the heavy cruiser parked in the 
middle of it. I sighed, and realized that I was getting hungry. I was about 
to look for the call button and summon a nurse, when the door opened. Doctor 
Akagi entered, followed by a nurse wheeling a cart. My mouth watered as I 
detected the scent of food. Whatever it was, it smelled delicious! Ritsuko 
noticed my fixed attention and laughed lightly.

	"Thank you, Nurse," she said. "I can handle it from here." The nurse nodded 
and left as Ritsuko went into action. She pulled a hospital table from 
beside me and positioned it so I could eat. She took the tray from the cart 
and set it on the table, removing the cover. Before me was a cup of green 
tea and a plate of vegetarian stir-fry. I noted the pair of lacquered 
chopsticks. "This should fill you up, Mister Good-"

	"You don't need to call me that," I interrupted, waving my hand 
dismissively. "I might as well get used to whatever name the Commander is 
going to assign me." I pointed at the IV drip. "Can I get rid of this? I'm 
left-handed, and I'm not so skilled at using chopsticks that I can ignore 
the distraction it provides."

	"Certainly, Miss Ayanami," she said. "We don't need the monitoring gear 
anymore, anyway." She quickly and efficiently removed the IV, pulse monitor, 
and leads to the EKG sensors. "I'll let you remove the adhesive pads 
yourself."

	"And the headgear?" I asked as she applied a bandage to the back of my 
hand.

	"Well, you don't need to wear it now, but after you eat, I have to 
administer some tests that require that you wear it."

	"Then I'll leave it on." I picked up the chopsticks and began to eat. "Mm. 
This is good!" Ritsuko smiled as I demolished the plate and downed the tea. 
I picked up a paper napkin and dabbed the corners of my mouth. "So, Doctor, 
what was the Commander's verdict? I'm assuming that your calling me 'Miss 
Ayanami' means I get to live?"

	"That's right," she said, nodding. "However, you will have some medical 
requirements that you may not have expected."

	"Such as?" I wasn't about to gainsay getting to live. I'd ask why later.

	"Well, in addition to the altered hygiene requirements your, ah, change of 
gender caused," she paused, savoring my embarrassment, "you have certain 
dietary requirements which are listed in your dossier." She pointed at a 
stack of documents on the cart. "The meal that you had fell well within 
them."

	"Thank you, Doctor," I said squirming a little. "By the way, how did Major 
Katsuragi's 'A-Seventeen' go?" I thought I already knew the answer, but I 
wanted to hear it from somebody who was there. She obviously didn't like the 
question, because her smile disappeared and was replaced with a neutral 
expression.

	"The Angel was defeated," she said and walked over to the cart. She picked 
up a white bundle. "Put this on," she said flatly, and threw it at me. "I'll 
be waiting outside." She walked stiffly out of the room and slammed the 
door.

	"Touch-eee!" I said to myself and shook out the bundle. I groaned as I 
recognized it as one of Rei's plug suits. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I 
removed the hospital gown and all of the sensor pads. I quickly dragged the 
suit on and made sure everything was straight before I touched the switch on 
my wrist. With a mechanical hiss, the suit went from baggy to skintight in a 
split second. I was actually amazed at how comfortable the thing was. I had 
a feeling that if I knew any martial arts, I would be able to use them 
unhindered. It was too bad that my martial arts skills were limited to 
deciding between Jackie Chan and Steven Seagall movies.

	On my way to the door, I looked at the pile of documents on the cart. On 
top of the stack was a NERV identification card. 'Rei must have posed for 
this,' I thought, gazing at the picture. It had what I thought would be my 
pertinent data, a security clearance, and the name, "Ayanami Emi." Below it, 
I found several bound manuals marked "Your Eyes Only." I grabbed the entire 
stack, knowing that wherever I was going, it would be a long trip. I could 
use the reading material.

	I took a deep breath and stepped outside. I found Doctor Akagi waiting by 
the door. She looked at me appraisingly. I apparently passed inspection, 
because she nodded and began walking away with an angry "follow me" gesture. 
I complied, tugging at the collar of my plug suit and feeling a little 
self-conscious. I was glad that we passed only female personnel, although I 
could tell that a few lecherous gazes were turned in my direction, anyway. 
We reached one of the numerous elevators and began the first of many rides. 
Hoping to patch up our working relationship, I decided to break the silence.

	"Why are you angry with me, Doctor?" I asked. I could think of several 
reasons, myself. I just wanted to know which one Ritsuko was using.

	"Because you know way too much for someone who doesn't exist," she snapped. 
It figured. I had told her it was possible she wouldn't find anything on me. 
In her mind, I could very easily be a plant from SEELE or some other 
extragovernmental organization. I could even be an Angel. I had to fight 
down a smirk, because it was possible. Rei herself bore Lilith's soul, so 
why couldn't I bear another Angel's? I didn't like where my thoughts were 
going, so I decided to talk science with her.

	"Have you ever heard of the Fox-Broome theory of parallel worlds?" I asked. 
Ritsuko looked thoughtful for a moment.

	"I can't say that I have," she said, "but I have heard some theories about 
alternate timelines." She adjusted her lab coat. "Are you saying that you're 
from an 'Alternate Earth?'" She looked at me with one eyebrow raised in 
puzzlement.

	"Yes," I said. "Now, let's suppose that an incredibly large number of 
alternate earths exist. I say a large number, because so many of them are 
indistinguishable from one another that they're effectively the same world 
anyway, okay?" Seeing her nod, I continued. "Among those worlds are 
timelines where characters you or I would consider fictional really exist. A 
world where Sherlock Holmes was Victorian England's greatest detective. A 
world where Genji was an honest-to-goodness living legend of the Heian 
court."

	"Perhaps," Ritsuko said, "a world where a girl named Nadia possessed a gem 
called the Blue Water? These are all very nice conjectures, but what do they 
have to do with your situation?"

	"I'm getting to that," I said, gesturing with one hand and holding my books 
with the other. "Gardner Fox was an American comic book writer who wrote a 
number of stories dealing with alternate worlds. In one of them, which he 
co-wrote with Broome, I forget his first name, he postulated that each 
parallel earth vibrated at its own frequency. He went on to say that on each 
planet a great number of people are susceptible to the different frequencies 
and are inspired to write stories based on the events of these other worlds. 
These people are the Ladies Murasaki, Jules Vernes and Sir Arthur Conan 
Doyles of their respective homes. Where I come from, the events of this 
world, or one very like it, were perceived by a writer for an animation 
company called GAINAX, and made into a very popular anime."

	"It can't be," Ritsuko said in shock. "You could be delusional, a 
solipsist."

	"But that doesn't explain my foreknowledge of the battle with Sandalphon. 
Besides, if I were a solipsist, I wouldn't have broken down after you left. 
Or didn't you watch the security tape while I was asleep?" I was under no 
illusions as to the existence of such a tape. If a local police force in 
1988 might have done it, then a secretive international organization in 2015 
definitely would. "Ask me something that I shouldn't have any knowledge 
about. Something that would only be of personal significance to yourself, 
Misato, or any of the pilots. Something that wouldn't really be of interest 
to a spy. I can even predict some events in the future. Not too far, because 
my very presence is going to distort the unimportant details, but I can 
confidently predict the events leading up to the next Angel attack and 
describe each of them up to the Seventeenth."

	"You could do that with access to the Dead Sea Scrolls," she muttered 
darkly. "All right. Tell me something about my mother." I looked her right 
in the eye.

	"She slept with Gendo, she killed the first Rei, and her gray matter was 
splattered across the Magi when she committed suicide. Is that enough, or 
should I mention where and when Misato and Kaji last kissed?"

	"That," she said with a look like a pole axed steer, "will be quite 
sufficient." Her anger seemed to be replaced with fear. Not quite what I was 
looking for, but it beat latent hostility.

	We traveled quite a distance, via elevator, escalator, and numerous 
passageways, and I was able to read a good portion of both my dossier and 
the Evangelion pilot's manual. I discovered that my security clearance was 
about as good as Doctor Akagi's, but not as good as "oneechan's." I figured 
that most of that was due to the fact that I, myself, was "classified 
material." Well, not so much me as a person, but me as an awakened dummy 
plug. I guess the Commander figured that giving me a lower security 
clearance than I had was akin to locking the door to the barn after one's 
horses were stolen.

	"What is this test we're doing, anyway?" I asked. I was absently paging 
through a hygiene pamphlet and trying not to blush. I hoped that talking 
about the present would snap Ritsuko out of her daze. It seemed to work.

	"We'll be running a synch test with Unit Zero," she said. "According to the 
data we gathered while you were asleep, there should be no reason you can't 
pilot EVA." She muttered darkly about the Commander, Angels, and unreasoning 
fools.

	"'Fools rush in,'" I quoted in English, "'where Angels fear to tread.'" She 
smiled, understanding the quote. "It looks like I'm a fool, then. Who's 
going to be riding shotgun in case Unit Zero goes berserk?"

	"Pilot Ikari will be in Unit One," she said flatly.

	"I see," I said, straightening out my pile of documents. "Will he know I'm 
Rei's sister, or am I to carry on the charade from yesterday?" I noted a 
sign indicating our imminent arrival at the EVA cages. Standing by the door 
was Rei.

	"I'll handle the introductions," Ritsuko said, taking my reading material. 
Accompanied by my new sister, we entered the cages.

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