Making like Freeman...

Fred Takahashi

Waking up with an air raid siren going off in your skull is NOT something I care for, shall we say! The fact that the portable (mandatory) Geiger counter that I must wear is also clicking like mad does nothing for my state of mind, either!

Not that a little ionizing (or a LOT) radiation shall do me harm. It's just that I do not care to (AGAIN) experience even a brief bout of radiation sickness.

. . .

Sigh, around chaos and wars that broke out after Second Impact the old life I lived back in . . . some town that no longer exists went up in a cloud of smoke, sort to speak. Don't ask me how they managed to get their grubby hands on it or why they used it. The small practice I'd managed to set up . . .gone. Had not even gotten a year out of college in one of my more interesting forays into trying to help my fellow man. I'd been a psychologist. Not great, but good enough. Had even been well on the way to actually HELPING some of the more needy patients before the flash and bang.

Gone. Would have been too awkward trying to explain (after I recovered enough not to puke my guts out) who I'd survived to the authorities. I went back to my . . . . friends in the shadows and bought myself yet another identity: Fred Takahashi. Set myself up in Japan and ended up hitching up to the JSDF. Met the most amazing young girl who need so much help (re: 42088).

. . .

From the highly censored letter that Major Katsuragi finally handed over to me from Rei it looks like the little help I could give--hidden under the guise of just a bunch of harmless roleplaying sessions . . . if only Gendo had dug deeper to see the recurring them I'd be SO much in trouble--worked. What had exactly happened to her that made her have to disappear off the face of Terra (this new world Tokyo 3 found itself in) . . . wasn't revealed. IT got blotted out by the censors. That said, it was nice to see that degree I'd earned from my former life paid off.

Nice to know that Rei was no longer a slave. She was a good friend.

The young girl who'd taken up her identity I'd known wasn't the young girl I'd known, but it has proven that this twin of "my" Rei is honorable enough. Pleasure being the head "Redshirt" for security for this little jaunt into the stars.

We don't interact enough to be friendly enough to actually talk about just WHY she'd taken over Rei's identity. Who she actually is. She has the good taste to not pry into why parts of MY personnel folder are blanked out, secret.

. . .

Many things had come to light after the kitsune incident (re: 42088), including the fact I was immortal. I'd been able to defuse the anger the local kitsune community had at one of their own (with young ones no less) had been harassed by my fellow soldiers. They'd insisted that I, a lowly private, be instrumental in the negotiations.

It had helped a LOT that I turned out to be an "analog" of that one female kitsune (also called Rei for God's sake). Smoothed things out and smoothed ruffled feathers. Old courtly skills still pay off.

Part of the secretive treaty between kitsune and human stated that my immortality be kept secret and ME unharmed by my flabbergasted chain of command. No laboratories where I would be sliced and diced into micro- thin wafers for study, thank YOU.

The blanked out parts of my personnel folder has been a hindrance to my career, but then again I didn't wante to really rise to the rank of officer, anyway. I actually find that I agree with the senior non- coms. Master Sargent is nice enough, and it doesn't take a royal grant from the king to make me a gentleman. Besides, I work for a living so you BEST not call me SIR!

. . . .

Oh, you might have guess that the powers that be of Tokyo 3 and NERV pretty much had to ally themselves with what was left of that "Great Kingdom". We'd come a LONG way since then (what with the industrial might that is allowed by this relatively ultra-tech city compared to the rest of Terra).

. . .

"Curbstomping" the other industries and trade houses out there with our abilities doesn't even come close.

We even managed to (how in the name of the gods how and why) develope FTL and reach the frickin' stars!

Jus where and when did those NERV types come up with the research for THAT I have no idea. Then again, I never was the scientific type. Strange business just how that had happened, though.

Didn't do too much to sway the right people (read no blackmail by misusing that treaty) to get aboard that ship, the Dawntreader.

. . .

Soviet ugly, the ship. Hollowed out asteroid with a hetch drive attached. But it served to rally the people and capture the imagination of a lot of non-humans. All good in the end.

Then, while on watch things went crazy and BOOM, I'm here.

Place looks kind of like some kind of high tech lab setting. Rube Goldberg kind of machinary. Or what remains of it. Some kind of huge apparatus that's sparking and arcing lightning bolts. Lots of debri which spoke of an explosive disaster.

Getting out of the test chamber led to a larger picture: the damage was VERY wide spread and this "Black Mesa" place is a BIG maze. Lots of injured and dead.

At first, my presence kind of draws attention (what is the JSDF soldier doing here?), but being more in need of help, my volunteering to head for the surface to get medical attention wins them over.

Besides, I need to get up to the surface to at least get SOME kind means to contact the Dawntreader above, right? Not like it's going to happen down in this pit, with all the broken and mangled equipment. And . . . it's the honorable thing to do, aiding those in need.

If I meat this Gordon Freeman guy on the way, maybe I'll be able to allay some of his compatriots of his status (guy went missing). Soon enough when I get back to them. Place is going to be difficult getting through and up to the surface as it is.

Soon enough in all my crawling and twisting my way to the surface, past and around collapsed and blocked passageway, I find out . . . discepencies. The year shown on the calander isn't anywhere near what it should be. Didn't match the timeclock announcement we'd hacked into from that unexpected encounter with a world and solar system that appeared from nowhere . . .

Before things went haywire I heard something about it being 2015 on that Earth below us. References of Second Impact.

Mirror realities had been brandied about (something I'm familiar with well enough), but before anything else some kind of disruption to ship systems (the hetch drive in paticular) and here I am. In some place where I'd just mentioned in passing about how this was almost worse than stuff I'd seen from Second Impact . . . and getting a chuckle from a scientist at a good joke even under pressure.

This world isn't the world I'd seen below.

This Earth is yet another parallel world. One where Second Impact never took place for REAL, but it is all told in some anime called . . . Neon Genesis Evangelion.

. . .

Still later . . .

Yep, the fates are laughing at their favorite whipping boy yet again!! Bad enough that, but imagine my surprise and disgust when I find out that our supposed rescuers are actually some kind of obscene cleanup crew! Silencing this . . .incident.

. . . .

Indeed, people without honor. Sad, but at least I can say that the military I belong to would never do something like THIS to . . .say those in NERV HQ . . . Why, to do anything like THAT would mean we'd discover the impossible like . . .say that NERV was actually trying to start Third Impact all along.

I've gone ahead to scout things out, making sure the coast is clear and free for a way out for the rest of my party. Time to do what I can to at least get what scientific personnel I can to safety before things go totally to Hell here when I . . .

. . . "What the Hell are you doing?" I blink, after having cut my way into this chain linked area of the underground parking garage and finding a guy (looks like the Smoking Man from the X-files, kinda . . . .vivid green eyes anyway) working on what looks to be a nuclear warhead?! Covering him with the shotgun I have doesn't phase him, however.

MY blast bounced off some kind of energy shielding (wtf, is this guy some kind of Angel with an AT field). His shot lands right between my eyes . . .

Which . . .only causes something like a mental fart and a migraine. A few more blasts from the shotgun prove to be . . .as non-effective as his shots.

Jesus, am I going to have a headache tonight!

Hm, maybe a page from Dune the movie? The slow blade might pass where the fast bullet cannot? Yeah, yeah. Stupid idea, right? Well, then again as the great Murphey said in his Laws of Combat: "If it's stupid but it works, then it's not stupid."

Not like I have a lot of other options here.

"Let's try this again," I whisper softly, actually being able to reach out and GRAB this freak of nature, pushing him hard against a wall (some security guy and a U.S. Marine type behind a bulletproof glass goggling me all the while). "Before I cut you badly, what ARE YOU DOING?!"

A thin trickle of blood leaks from a nick my knife rests on his throat. Guess he isn't an Angel after all, eh?

1. Oh, he looks a bit worried. I wonder why? Note sarcasm in voice. Let us just say I'm returning the favor for the nuke fright, shall we say!!

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