Doctor Who: The Evangelion Error (Book One)

Prequel to Episode 9

Secondary Dogma. October 2015.

Let's see if you can spot this one...

Shigeru Aoba hit the MP3 player's pause button just before the One and Only Mr. Eric "Slowhand" Clapton started into "Layla." (As in, precisely between the introductory line and the very first note of the song. Shigeru didn't believe in much, but there was one principle that he prided himself on following with all the fervor of a true zealot: you do not interrupt a master at work.)

He pulled off his headphones and called out, "Hey! Anyone here?" His words echoed through the huge warehouse. He didn't hear a reply.

Oh, come on, he thought. They weren't just going to call him all the way down here and not show up, were they? He couldn't be in the wrong place. The message had said to meet the maintenance team by the chairs. These were the chairs, weren't they? He glanced over at the sizeable pile of office chairs next to him, all of which some bigwig had apparently deemed worthy of surviving the apocalypse.

What a pain. He wouldn't even have shown up if the text hadn't come from Junior Comm Tech Matsumoto, one of the loveliest -- not to mention famously well-endowed -- ladies on the NERV payroll. She'd been kind of flirty with Shigeru that one time at the staff Christmas party. He hadn't been able to follow up on it back then -- he'd kind of been in a thing with a bandmate, who'd since decided to stay evacuated with her aunt over in Nagato Prefecture -- but now... well, you only live once, right? Especially these days...

He glanced down at his phone. No new messages. Instead, the display reported that he'd left the range of the nearest signal relay and the phone had been temporarily disconnected from the network, sorry for the inconvenience...

... which was a problem. And not just because Matsumoto might've sent a second text.

Aoba knew for a fact that he shouldn't be seeing that message. He should still be connected, even out here in the boonies. He managed communications for the entire Geofront. Therewere no dead zones on base -- or, at least, none that he didn't know about.

So... something here was wrong. Maybe even very wrong.

He slowly reached behind him and pulled the handgun out from the small of his back. He didn't usually carry it with him -- hadn't even touched the thing since training -- but he'd heard that some of those spider drones from the last attack had made it through the access point, and Shigeru had never considered himself the type to be slow on the uptake...

"Hey!" he barked. "If there's anyone out there in an onryo costume or something -- don't screw around with me, all right? Because -- not gonna lie -- I kind of might shoot you in the face here."

Again, he heard no response. He darted his eyes over the silent room, wondering if he should start feeling like an idiot.

The lights in the front of the room flickered off.

Followed by the row after that.

Then all the overhead lights went out...

Yeah, okay, Shigeru thought. Fuck this.

He took off running, gun in hand, straight towards the elevator. Something dropped to the floor somewhere in the darkness up ahead of him. He fired a wild shot in the direction of the sound and dodged down a row of shelves. The headphone wire caught on something. He felt the player dislodge itself and fall out of his jacket pocket. Leave it, he thought. Can't worry about that now. Sorry, Eric...

He skidded to a halt and raised the gun.

He could see a tall figure, outlined by a dim light, standing at the end of the row.

Aoba stepped forward, doing his best to keep his hands steady. He failed miserably. "Hands in the air!"

A blue light on the figure's chin flickered. "EXTERMINATE."

Aoba blinked. "What?"

He felt a metal hand close like a vise around his shoulder.