Angels, Heaven, and Earth
                                by Ken Arromdee

                                   Chapter 3

    It had been 21 years since Sasami came to Earth, a stowaway on her sister's
spaceship.  By the standards of the older Juraians, that wasn't long at all,
but by the standards of anyone who lived through it, it was a lifetime.  On the
Earth, Sasami had grown from a skinny freckled kid to a beautiful woman.  She
always knew how she would grow up, tall, long aqua hair descending past her
shoulders, and with a figure that made her sister and Ryouko jealous years
before she even developed it.  Luckily for their egos, she grew out of her
childhood crush on Tenchi and had gone on to have a normal Earth life...  which
as a princess of a planet thousands of light years away, was something quite
unexpected.

    Sasami knocked hard on the door underneath the stairs.  There was no
response.  She guessed, then, what the next step should be--she leaned on it.
That would, of course, be the perfect time for the door to suddenly fly open
and let her fall through.

    The door indeed behaved as expected.  Sasami stumbled in, quickly balanced
herself, and walked into the lab.

    A tall and busty redheaded woman in a lab coat looked up from her equipment
and greeted her.  She had shed her false age years ago, together with Yosho.
"Hello, Sasami.  You still want me to call you that, right?"

    "I don't know", replied the blue-haired woman.  "Do you still want me to
call you Washuu-chan?  To you I may be your sister from long, long, ago, and
you can call me that if you wish, but to everyone else I'm Sasami.  I've always
been known that way."

    Washuu considered that and nodded in acknowledgement.  "No, that's okay,
Sasami.  I should have known better than to ask.  Anyway", she explained, "as
for what I'm doing, I'm studying the Angels."  It was a very straightforward
answer; Washuu never played jokes on or tried to confuse Sasami.  Much, anyway.

    "I figured as much", replied Sasami.  "You've been working on this for the
past week.  When Akuma went to Tokyo-3, you started researching to find out
what he was up against.  And you haven't stopped since."

    "The answer's coming.  We just need to give it a little time."  Washuu
pointed to a plastic bag covered by a shimmering charteruse field and added
"By the way, want some French bread?  It's still warm, I put it in stasis as
soon as we left the restaurant."

    "No thanks, I already ate.  And did you know I'm going to be doing my own
investigation?  Let's see who finds out more first."

    "Oh?  You never struck me as a scientist, Sasami."

    Sasami shook her head.  "Remember what I do.  I'm investigating things for
the government.  It turned out that our branch has been investigating NERV, so
all I needed to do to get on the job myself was be transferred.  Yosho helped
pull a few strings...  he has a _lot_ of old family friends to call in favors
on.  And I'm on the case.

    "Besides", she added, smiling, "I'm pretty curious too.  It must run in the
family, sister."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    As a child, Sasami had cooked constantly.  Not only did she cook, but she
also cleaned, did all sorts of housework, and generally made everyone happy by
playing the part of a dutiful little child.

    Everyone except herself, that is.  She did enjoy cooking, but she
eventually came to understand what was wrong with that scenario.  There were
other people in the house; other people in the family.  It was their home too,
and they had to bear some of the responsibility of maintaining it.  She got
together with Aeka, who had herself been doing far much more housework than she
was used to as a spoiled princess, and they confronted everyone else with their
laziness.  They would do their share, but they would no longer be maids.

    From then on, Sasami never cooked more than once a week.  Today the chef
was Ryouko, slaving over pots, pans, and woks while Sasami sat in the living
room flipping channels and watching television.

    The phone began to beep angrily, drowning out the minimally exciting story
about the Tokyo-2 replanting program.  Sasami muted the television's sound on
the remote control, and picked up the phone.  "Hello, Masaki residence", she
answered into it.  "Jurai Sasami speaking."

    "Hello", said the voice on the phone.  "My name is Misa...  Sasami?  Is
that you?  I don't believe it.  It's been so long!  Remember me, Misato, from
college?"

    "Misato?" replied Sasami, wondering just what was going on.  "I haven't
heard from you since, well, since then.  Of course it's me.  How did you
ever manage to find me here?"

    Misato sounded almost apologetic.  "Well, I...  it's a long story.  I was
trying to find the parents of a boy named Masaki Akuma.  Masaki Tenchi and
Ryouko."

    "Oh, Ryouko's in the kitchen burning rice, should I get her?"

    "It's okay", answered Misato.  "There were a few problems with Akuma's
records, and I got this crazy idea that his parents were using fake names."

    "Nope, they're the real thing."

    "So anyway, I called this house up just in case I wasn't getting paranoid.
Are you two related?"

    "A little distantly, but yes we are.  Are you okay, Misato?  I missed you
for all those years.  What's going on with you?"

    "I'm just overworked.  It's the way things work in Tokyo-3.  Overworked,
underpaid, and underrested.  I'm also getting too paranoid, as you've seen.
And I have a hangover."

    Sasami briefly snickered.  That was Misato, all right.  "Tokyo-3?  I didn't
know you worked for NERV."

    "I didn't know you've heard of NERV, so we're even.  What have you been up
to these days?  Find the right guy yet?"

    "I'm still single.  Somehow I just don't feel like rushing through life.
And I'm working for the government.  I wouldn't say it's really top secret, but
you know how they are about telling people exactly what you do."

    "You don't sound like you've changed one bit, Sasami.  You were always the
mysterious one in our class, and you still are.  You know, we really ought to
get together and talk about old times."

    "That doesn't sound like a bad idea at all.  And with as big a coincidence
as this something has to come out of it."

    "I'd love to have the company.  If you want to come, just go to Tokyo-3
and ask for a green-level visitor pass.  It should get you into the housing
areas.  Nobody's ever visited me in a long time who's not a co-worker or an
old boyfriend.  Oh, or a fourteen-year-old."

    "I'll see you around then, Misato.  I have to go, Ryouko's about ready.
It's not really that bad, she cooks like you used to."

    "Ooh, my sympathies", said Misato.

    "Anyway, will you be in...." Sasami thought.  "Tomorrow evening?"

    "I should.  If you want to be sure, here's my phone number."  Misato
rattled off a string of digits, which Sasami wrote down on a pad near the
phone.  "I'd ask you for yours, but I seem to have already found it."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Seated at the table were Sasami, Washuu, Tenchi, and Yosho.  Ryouko brought
the food out and served it to everyone, then sat down.  Sasami lifted a
spoonful of curry rice to her mouth.

    The food was fine, just a bit ordinary.  Ryouko could cook perfectly well,
thought Sasami.  Despite what the odder stories in her shoujo manga collection
depicted, cooking wasn't difficult; all it really took was following
directions.  Ryouko's problem was that she never liked to spend a lot of effort
doing things, so she usually kept all her cooking simple.

    "So how is it?", asked Ryouko.

    Sasami stayed silent.  The question, she knew, wasn't meant for her.

    "It's wonderful", answered Tenchi.

    "So I see I make you feel good..." replied Ryouko.  "How about I keep doing
that after we're finished eating?"

    Ignoring the flirting husband and wife, the other three people at the table
started to talk among themselves.  "I got the strangest phone call just now",
said Sasami.

    "Wrong number, Sasami?" asked Yosho.

    "Yes and no.  It's an old friend from college.  Her name's Misato.  It was
pure coincidence; she didn't even know I live here.  She works for NERV, and
they had some kind of problem with Akuma's records, so she had to call here to
be sure that everything was right.  I haven't talked to her in six years, and
that's a long time."

    Yosho shook his head.  "It's not so long, Sasami.  You can still talk to
her as yourself.  In another twenty years, you'll need a disguise.  In another
fifty, she might be gone."

    "I'm... still young", said Sasami, pausing a bit with the thought that in
one way, that was not entirely true.  But it was close enough.  "That hasn't
happened to me yet, and it's something that I have to try not to think about
too much.  Not if I want to live here on Earth, and I do love Earth."

    "I love Earth too, Sasami.  And I'm not going back.  It'll be hard when
it happens, but you'll be able to make it through.  Just remember one thing.
We'll always be here, no matter what happens to anyone else."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Sasami rapped on Misato's door three times, then two.  After several loud
noises sounded out from inside the apartment, the door opened and Misato stood
there, slightly bleary-eyed and holding a can of Ebisu beer.  Sometimes,
thought Sasami, it was hard to remember that this woman's class standing had
been even higher than her own.

    Behind Misato was a penguin.  Misato glanced back at it and it waddled away
into another room.  "Hi, Sasami!" she exclaimed.  "Come on in.  Oh, and don't
mind Pen-Pen.  Sit down, make yourself at home, fill me in on how you've been
doing."

    Sasami let Misato lead her through the apartment to the living room, where
she motioned to an old couch.  They both sat down.

    "Man, has it been a long time", said Misato.  "Anyway, after we graduated I
went to work doing research for the government.  It didn't work out, but then I
got the job here and worked my way up.  So here I am, Major Katsuragi.  I never
expected you to be living at home, you struck me as more independent than
that."  She opened the can of beer in a fast practiced motion and tossed the
pull-tab in the trash from across the room.  "Oh, want some?"

    Sasami shook her head at the offer as she explained.  "To tell the truth",
she answered, "it's an old family homestead.  We've owned it for seven hundred
years and there's always been a lot of people from our family living there."

    "That's impressive!" said Misato.  "I guess you wouldn't want to leave it,
then.  I don't have any family, you know.  It's like almost everybody else
here.  So tell me what it's like living at home."

    Sasami knew that that would come up, eventually.  She had had to rehearse
to herself just what she could say and what she couldn't.  "Well, we've got a
lot of people living there.  There's my brother Yosho, there's Tenchi and
Ryouko, their kids Mayuka and Akuma, there's Washuu...  she's my brother's
girlfriend but she's been there a lot longer than that...  Tenchi's dad, my
sister Aeka and me.  And anyone we know who drops in.  It's a _big_ homestead
and it holds a lot of memories for a lot of us.  We all help take care of the
place together, and we keep it safe against our other relatives from Jurai."
Sasami laughed a little as she said that, but of course didn't explain just
what Jurai was.  "I guess my family's like that.  We try to be pretty close.
Besides, most of us have jobs which let us live in the same place.  Noboyuki
designs buildings, Tenchi teaches in the Masaki dojo...."

    "I have myself", replied Misato.  "And the pilots.  They're really just
kids.  Pen-Pen to mess up the refrigerator, and that's about it.  It's still a
lot to handle.  There was this time that Asuka tried to do her homework faster
than Akuma, just last week.  She hates so much to lose, she absolutely has to
be best at everything."  Misato thought a moment at what she said and realized
something.  "Say, you said you're related to Akuma?"

    "Oh, yes.  A little distantly related, but he's part of our family.  He was
really excited at coming here to pilot an Eva.  Too bad it didn't work out."

    "You ought to talk to him about that", said Misato, sipping her Ebisu.
"Sometimes it seems like he has no sense of danger.  Not that it matters any
more without Unit 03."

    Sasami nodded.  "His mother's like that too.  She also has your taste in
alcohol and cooking.  You ought to meet her someday, maybe next week when she
has a little free time.  I think you'd get along great together.  I..."

    "What is it, Sasami?" asked Misato.

    "It's nothing...."  No, it wasn't nothing at all.  It was that she still
had to be mysterious.  As far as Misato was concerned, Ryouko came from
nowhere.  Aeka was just engaged to a friend of the family.  Sasami's stepmother
didn't exist.  The bonding ceremony uniting Sasami with her tree wasn't just
(as only a few people knew) unnecessary, it didn't happen.  Sasami never spent
half a galactic year back in the Palace.

    All the way back in college, Sasami had considered telling Misato.  She
never did find the right moment, though.  By now she knew that Misato was a
lot less scatterbrained than she sometimes acted in her private moments, and
would never reveal the secret by accident.  She did her job well.  But it had
been six years, and Misato had become a Major in a semi-secret government
organization.  If there was someone she would have to reveal it to, well, she
would certainly do her job for them quite well too....

    "Sasami?" asked Misato.

    Sasami smiled at her as best she could.  "Just thinking about something.
Maybe I'll explain it later."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    It was the start of another day at the Internal Investigation Department.
Sasami entered, carrying a cup of coffee with her, and greeted Kaji.  "Good
morning", she said as she stopped at the roughly-shaven man's cubicle.  "Guess
what happened to me this weekend?"

    "I give up, what?" asked Kaji as he looked up to talk.

    "I met Misato last night.  It started out as a coincidence, but we got
together and talked and drank for a while.  Especially her."

    "No kidding?  I haven't seen her in, oh...."

    "Five days, Kaji."

    "Hm?"

    "We did talk for a while and she did mention you, you know.  And there's
more."

    "Go for it."

    "I'm off the Disney case.  The bosses put me on the same case as you.
NERV.  We're going to be partners." Sasami grinned.  "I know you and Misato
still like each other.  I'm not going to be doing as much field work as you,
but if we're both there for some reason and we run across her, I won't get in
your way."

    "I just hope that she and I don't end up on opposite sides."  Kaji returned
the grin to Sasami.  "Anyway, if she's too busy to be with me, my bedroom is
empty and you're always welcome to...."  Kaji stopped, since somehow Sasami
had managed to get her hand into position above his head, holding a cup of
coffee in a very dangerous way.  "Heh", he said.  "Can't blame a guy for
trying."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Sasami was not only a spy for Japan, in a way she was a spy for the planet
Jurai.  In truth, all she did was send back regular reports to the Ministry of
Information--that is, to her stepmother.  It was public information, but in the
absence of an embassy Jurai had to get the information this way, and the
situation was still a vast improvement over the situation during the previous
seven hundred years--that is, it was an improvement over getting nothing at
all.  The job was also an official excuse for her presence on Earth; the
king's advisors could either write that down in their records, or they could
write down "runaway princess.  Lost control."  Needless to say, the first
option made everyone look better.  And finally, her stepmother didn't want her
to be too accustomed to palace intrigue.

    Spying for the IID was a lot like palace intrigue, anyway.  Sasami needed a
job like this; it kept her in practice.  She emptied out her NERV folder onto
her desk, and added the pile of documents she had received from Kaji.  Then she
began to read through the stacks.

    The Second Impact, the documents explained, was not caused by a meteor as
the public had been told.  It was caused when the Katsuragi Expedition at the
South Pole had found Adam, the first Angel, and somehow in the process set off
the biggest disaster in the history of the world.  Well, well, that was
interesting.

    NERV designed and created the Evangelion units, as a line of defense
against the Angels.  That itself was little known, but what was even less known
was that they were really defending Adam.  If the Evangelions ever failed,
another disaster, a Third Impact, could take place.

    It was odd, thought Sasami, that they didn't just blast Adam into space
where a Third Impact would be no threat.  It would take a huge rocket, but
NERV already had tremendous power and influence and could command the
resources of a medium-sized nation.

    Which was, after all, the problem that Sasami and Kaji had to investigate.
Supposedly an arm of the United Nations, NERV had been allowed so much freedom
that it had in fact become a shadow government, which could commandeer its own
resources and military support and which answered to nobody.  Just how did it
manage to become like this?  And what exactly had it been doing behind closed
doors?  Surely protection against the Angels couldn't be the only reason.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Washuu tapped Sasami on the shoulder.  "Come on over to the lab, sister.
I've got something to show you."

    Sasami got up and followed Washuu into her lab, considerably less afraid
than anyone else in the house would have been at the prospect.  She seemed to
have fallen into the niche of 'person for Washuu to explain things to'.  "What
is it?" she asked, closing the door, which melded into the wall invisibly.

    "Oh, it's the Angels.  I found out where they're from."

    "That's great.  It may put me out of a job, but it's great", replied
Sasami, sitting down at a table across from Washuu.  "What planet?"

    "Earth."

    "What?  I thought for sure it was an invasion.  Jurai isn't going to help
against internal Earth struggles."

    "It may as well be an invasion, but it's certainly internal to Earth.
They're artifacts of Neo-Atlantis.  Look here", said Washuu, motioning to the
middle of her table.  At her gesture, a screen rose from the surface.  "These
are photographs of some of the previous Angels", she said, pointing to a
montage on the left side.  "And these", she said, pointing to a similar
collection on the right, "are best matches from all the Neo-Atlantis data I
have on file."  The pictures looked, as far as Sasami could tell, identical.
"I visited Neo-Atlantis six thousand years ago.  They were very advanced for
people on such a primitive planet.

    "And", continued Washuu, "I got a great deal of data when I visited.  I
know about their artificial life forms and their attempts to chart the future
for the human race.  It's my belief that the Angels are remnants of
Neo-Atlantean projects to design a new kind of humans, only these prototypes
didn't keep the human form.

    "Oh, and I also found one other reference.  There was an Adam found at the
South Pole back a few years ago in the 19th century."  Sasami suppressed a
smirk at Washuu's idea of 'a few years'.  "It was believed destroyed, but
somehow it must have survived.  The expedition that triggered the Second Impact
could have been working from these old records."

    "That's a lot of good information", said Sasami.

    "No, it's not.  It's completely useless, unless you want to start telling
Kaji a few things that you don't want to be telling him, if you get my drift.
But it's fun to find."

    "You know I've never searched for information just to have inf..."  Sasami
thought.  And chuckled.  "I guess you're right.  I was curious.  I did want to
know what was behind it all."

    "You're getting better.  A few millennia and we'll make a scientist out of
you yet."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Of course, Washuu had exaggerated.  The information she gave wasn't
_completely_ useless.  In fact, some of it could come in pretty handy, with a
little bit of work.

    "Hi!" said Sasami to Kaji, who was sitting in his cubicle drinking morning
coffee.

    Kaji smiled at the woman--after all, she was female, so she deserved a
smile--before greeting her.  "Good morning, Sasami, find anything new yet?"

    "As a matter of _fact_", replied Sasami, drawing out a pause before
finishing, "I did.  Take a look at this."  Sasami handed Kaji a glossy printout
from some old piece of microfilm.  It still smelled of toner.

    Kaji took the paper and read it, not expecting more than another joke
article to pin near his desk.  "Hmm", he said, reading off some of the words.
"Captain Nemo...  1898...  Adam at the South Pole...  _what_?  Sasami, just
where did you find this?"

    "It was in a National Geographic supplement.  One that they forgot to
index.  I guess you could say I got lucky."

    "I'll say.  I think I know what the next step is."

    Sasami nodded.  "We have to check it out.  Confirm that this is the same
Adam the Katsuragi Expedition found."

    "It's not going to be easy sneaking into the core of the Geofront...  and
it may be dangerous.  Too bad Agent Mulder didn't stop by the right spot in
Antarctica in that movie.  Would have saved us a lot of trouble."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Deep within the Geofront, Kaji and Sasami were doing spy business.

    "I feel silly", said Sasami, listening to the bathroom floor.

    "Relax", replied Kaji.  "It's somewhere around here."

    Sasami pointed to a corner tile.  "It sounds more hollow there.  I think
that's it."  She handed Kaji a laser drill.

    Kaji pried away a floor tile and used the laser to cut a small hole in the
floor, maybe a centimeter wide.  It wasn't exactly silent, but it was a lot
less noisy than a normal drill.  Once he was done, he removed his belt, which
held a fiber-optic cable and a miniaturized recorder.  He lowered the cable
into the hole and recorded for two minutes as he moved the cable around.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Back in the safety of the IID building, Kaji popped the recording into a
viewer and punched in a frame skip command.  "Well, let's see what was in
there."

    Kaji flipped through the individual images on the recording and stopped on
the clearest image.  It was limited by the low resolution of the cable, but it
was clear enough.  The picture showed a giant figure, crucified in the middle
of an equally large room full of liquid.  On its face was a mask covered with
painted eyes.

    It was immediately obvious to both Kaji and Sasami that it didn't fit the
description in the article.  "Well, that was a bust", said Kaji.  What do you
think we should do?

    "More work, I suppose", answered Sasami.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Kaji, officially employed by NERV as well as the government, had a much
easier time than her getting into restricted areas, so he did most of the field
work.  Meanwhile, Sasami stayed behind and helped analyze the data.  Of course,
like many other desk job workers, she occasionally took some of her work home.
But unlike them, she didn't do it for lack of time.

    "Find anything, Washuu?" asked Sasami.

    "Nope", answered the redhead, leaning over her computer banks.  "I'm going
to run that video you got through a search, though...  you should feel really
lucky I'm helping you, sister.  The Earthlings' machines aren't advanced enough
to search images like this." There was a knock on the door.  "Wait a moment",
said Washuu, "we have a guest."

    Washuu pressed a few buttons and the door changed position.  It now faced
straight down, at about eye level.  Another button press later, the door opened
up, unceremoniously dumping Ryouko onto the floor.  She frowned at Washuu as
she rose into mid-air, to which Washuu replied "Hey, it got you in here fast,
didn't it?"

    "Hello Ryouko", said Sasami, "Washuu's searching right now."

    Washuu's display suddenly lit up, divided into three horizontally adjacent
segments.  Images flashed through each segment for several seconds; then, the
first image stopped and displayed the image of a crab.  The second, and then
the third, segments showed a similar sequence.  Finally, a bell rang.

    "Jackpot!", exclaimed Washuu.  "Here we go."

    She manipulated the controls a bit more, and the slot machine display
disappeared to be replaced by a more normal set of pictures.  One was the image
from Kaji's video.  The second was another image, looking very similar.  It
showed a huge figure, in a tank this time, of a similar pale color and wearing
the same seven-eyed mask.

    "This one's called Lilith", explained Washuu.

    "This is what Akuma was assigned to protect?" asked Ryouko.

    "Seems that way", answered Washuu.  "It's definitely from Neo-Atlantis, so
that question's answered.  I can think of a lot of things that it could be
used for, and too many of them would have an impact on the whole human race.
And I do mean 'impact'."

    "Akuma's not going to get hurt, is he?"

    "Oh, the boy will be fine.  It's everyone else who'll have problems.  You
see, if the Angels are from Neo-Atlantis, and they fuse with Lilith, the result
will be a disaster.  The Neo-Atlanteans believed they could control it, and I
wouldn't be surprised if the humans do, too."

    Finishing Washuu's sentence, Sasami added "And of course they can't.  I
think I understand...."

    "No", replied Washuu.  "Maybe the humans can.  But then, it will be even
worse...."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "Lilith?" asked Kaji.

    "That's what it's called", said Sasami.  "We just have to do an ordinary
search on it, in that data you got from NERV.  I need to confirm this."

    "I don't understand how you keep finding out this kind of stuff in the
first place.  It's amazing."

    "Hey, if I explain it, how am I going to stay mysterious?"

                                *   *   *   *   *

    A man spoke, faceless and voiced by a machine, behind a black slab labelled
with the number "08".  "The Internal Investigation Division is getting too
close.  They have found out about Lilith."

    "The IID's job is to be our backup", replied the tinny voice behind number
04.  "As a way to leak information if we must embarrass NERV in the future.
If they are starting to do enough real research to find out about us, their
attentions must be redirected and their information sources found and
eliminated."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Meanwhile, as SEELE creaked into motion against the IID, Kaji and Sasami
(with a little help from a certain redheaded scientist behind the scenes) were
discovering more and more.

    "Now here's something interesting, Kaji", noted Sasami.  And for once, she
thought, she had managed to find out an interesting piece of information by
herself instead of needing Washuu's help.  "All these people...  Gendou,
Fuyutsuki... I think I'm onto something.  They worked for an agency named
GEHIRN, before NERV.  And so did Gendou's late wife.  So we know that whatever
NERV is up to, they've been up to it since the Second Impact."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Back in the dark room full of faceless voices, a report was made, from the
one labelled "07".  "The information source has been found.  The new agent
Sasami was transferred in abruptly, for unknown reasons.  Her background is
less than unmarred; her records don't exist before 1994, except for a birth
record, and we suspect it may be fake."

    "An immigrant?" asked 03.

    "Perhaps.  She lives in the same house where the suspected seventeenth
Angel can be found.  In the year of the supposed birth of Masaki Akuma, a
Masaki Katsuhito vanished without a trace."

    "I agree" said another invisible voice.  "They could be survivors of
Neo-Atlantis.  Keeping the last Angel in their care forever under different
names.  But there is not enough information to confirm that possibility."

    "Then", said 03 again, "confirmation needs to be done."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    The campus of the University of Kyoto was fairly deserted in the evening.
Aside from a core of students, only the janitors, a few late-working
professors and grad students, and the inevitable recreation center crowds were
left.  And one eighteen-year-old who really liked her great grand-aunt's
cooking.

    Masaki Mayuka pulled open the door of the Tsurumaki Biology Center.  It was
easy, she thought.  She picked this place because there was rarely anyone
around, but if someone did wander by, all she had to do was pretend that she
belonged there.  People wouldn't give her a second thought.  Mayuka passed by
the janitor and found a room far enough away to give her a minute of privacy.

    There were two special items that Mayuka always carried around.  One was
the Tenchi sword, and the other was a round jewel, completely different from
those the sword used to have, but very useful on its own.  Mayuka unzipped a
hidden pocket in her yellow dress and took the jewel out.  She placed it down
on the tiled floor, concentrated, and a whitish aura spun out of it and swept
her and it along.

    Blink.  The Dark Dimension.

    Mayuka gazed at the jewel again, pouring more mental energy into it.  Once
again the aura enveloped her.

    Blink.  A few hundred yards away from her stood the Masaki house.

    Mayuka walked the rest of the distance.  Too bad she couldn't teleport for
real, she thought, as she slid the door aside and removed her shoes.  "Hi!"
she said.

    "Hi!" shouted Sasami from the kitchen.

    Akuma appeared out of nowhere, right in front of Mayuka, startling her for
a moment.  "Hey, watch it!" she yelled at him.  "What if you teleported right
where I was?"

    "Look, Mayuka", he said.  "I'm immaterial.  It wouldn't have hurt you."

    "It's still pretty rude."  Mayuka glanced around, seeing who had arrived
and who hadn't.  "Now..." she said, "we have to wait for everyone else.  I bet
Mom and Dad will be first."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    It wasn't a long wait.  They popped in, quite literally.  Ryouko waved,
kicked off her shoes, and asked "So how are you kids?  Tenchi and I hardly
ever get a chance to see you any more."  Ryouko hugged Mayuka and Akuma in
turn, and then stepped aside while Tenchi did the same.

    "You know I come back a lot, Mom", replied Mayuka.  "And Akuma hasn't
even been away a month.  I'm doing well."

    "Yeah, me too", said Akuma.

    "Did you pick your major yet, Mayuka?" asked Tenchi.

    "Come on.  I have almost a year to decide, Dad!  Oh, all right.  I might
pick history.  Or political science like Aunt Sasami did."

    Ryouko asked Akuma "Did you find a girlfriend yet?"

    "Well, there is a girl I like.  We went roller skating but I'm not sure
what she thinks of me."

    "And what about you, dear?" she asked Mayuka.

    "I don't think I'm going to find a girlfriend."

    "Don't be smart with me."

    A door materialized and opened into the dining room.  Out of it walked
Washuu, Yosho, Aeka, and Noboyuki, all looking the same age as everyone else
except the two teens.  Aeka reached over to pull a piece of lint off of
Noboyuki's shirt.

    "It's ready!" shouted Sasami's voice from the kitchen.  She walked in,
apron over her business slacks and blouse, carrying a huge bowl of rice, which
she placed in front of everyone.

    "Here, let me help" said Tenchi, walking towards the kitchen.  Sasami stood
in his way and motioned him back to his seat.  "All right", he said.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    There are several different ways to spy.  There are the hidden cameras and
microphones, and the computer searches.  There is talking to the neighbors.
And if everything else fails, there's sending someone in person.  Besides, how
else do you place the hidden cameras and microphones?

    A middle-aged man in a tan business suit knocked on the glass in the door.
He was carrying a large box of green detergent.  "Hello...  may I interest you
in...."

    "We're _eating_", replied Aeka and Mayuka almost at once.  Mayuka got up
and pulled the blinds down on the salesman.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Good, he thought.  It could have been worse.  They could have let him in,
and then he would have had to spend an hour washing clothes in front of
everyone.  He withdrew a handful of pea-sized spheres from his pocket and
tossed two up onto the roof, then pressed the others under window frames and
other shadowed places.

    It was strange, having to sneak bugs near a house.  It wasn't a
factory, it wasn't a boardroom or an embassy; it was a house.  A plain old
ordinary house.  There must be something _very_ special about this particular
house that merited spending all this effort on it.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "Spy work?  Against NERV?  Really?" asked Akuma.

    "Of course", said Sasami, chewing a mouthful of rice.  "Doesn't it all seem
a little, well, strange to you?  The group has a big enough budget to make
those Evangelion units and enough influence to just take the power supply of
all of Tokyo when it needs it.  And nobody questions anything.  At first I was
just curious, but now, I think there's a real danger.  A big danger, and I'm
just _this_ far from finding out exactly what it is."

    "Well", replied Akuma, "they're just fighting the invaders.  You know, like
Gundam."

    "Myaaaaau!  Myaaaaau!" cried Ryo-ohki, interrupting the conversation.
"Myaaaaau!" the cabbit cried again as she deposited several small round objects
on the table over the napkins.  They didn't appear important, but Ryo-ohki
looked quite sincere in wanting somebody to get them.  "So what did you bring
me?" asked Ryouko, picking up and petting Ryo-ohki.  "Well, whatever it is,
I'm sure you thought we could use it."

    Washuu already had an instrument out, this one looking very much like a
salt shaker.

    "Do you know what they are?" asked Ryouko.

    "Instruments", replied Washuu.  "Oh, wait, you mean _these_."  Washuu
indicated the spheres.  "Someone's been bugging us", she said.  "Excellent
workmanship.  With one of these, you could hear a full conversation from five
yards away through a solid wall."

    "How dare they?" said Aeka.  "Eavesdropping on a house full of royalty."

    "Hah, princess", replied Ryouko.  "Royalty makes an excellent target."

    Sasami watched the bugs as Washuu folded up the napkin and took them away
to her lab.  She considered them, the first signs that this was starting to get
really serious.  "I don't think they're after you, Aeka.  They might not even
be after Akuma.  It's just a hunch, but I think yhey're after me.  I spy on
NERV...  they spy back.  It almost makes me feel like I'm on Jurai."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "All gone", announced Washuu.  "Well, all out of range.  Earthlings never
really got the hang of transmitting through dimensional barriers.  I also got
two that Ryo-ohki didn't find."

    "So what can we do?" asked Mayuka.

    "Well", explained Sasami, "destroy the bugs.  The only problem is that it
lets them know that we're onto them.  Either that or we leave them here and
watch what we say, which would cramp everyone's life, a lot.

    "If this was Jurai", she continued, "and the bugs came from Sabaku, we'd
have a few days to prepare before they could try again.  It takes a long time
for even a small committee to decide on anything.  I don't think that NERV
would be much faster.  Even if they have a contingency plan, they still have
to figure out just what our new situation is, and that takes time."

    Aeka nodded.  "So we wait until they do something else, and in the meantime
we try to think up a plan ourselves."  Left unspoken but well-understood was
one important fact: _they_ were a family, not a committee.  They might argue,
they might act on their own, but ultimately they could depend on each other's
cooperation.  NERV could never do that.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "No signal for three days", said the voice hidden behind the number "05".

    "The bugs must be gone.  They have discovered one plan.  But no plan stands
alone", said another voice.  Light suddenly shone on a pillar amidst the
circle of voices, and pictures began to project onto all four of its sides.
"We've imaged the troublesome woman."

    The projection showed a fuzzy image, of a blue-haired woman walking down
the street away from a whitish squat building that must have been the IID
HQ.  The woman walked a block, the camera following her invisibly at a steady
distance.  Then suddenly the image flickered in a burst of static.

    Subtitles flashed onto the screen, reading "RF INTERFERENCE HIGH".

    The image flickered into snow again, and the subtitles appeared again.
"RF INTERFERENCE HIGH".

    Static obscured the image on the screen again, until it abruptly cleared
up.  Instead of Sasami, what appeared was a large cartoon crab waving its
claws at the camera in a friendly greeting.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "You'd better do some real research, sister", said Washuu.  "I'm running
out of gadgets."  She pointed to a cartoon crab on her monitor.  "And sooner
or later they're going to getting nasty.  They're not going to watch videos
forever.

    "Oh, I have", replied Sasami.  "I found out something else: the whole thing
is run by a group called SEELE.  But that's as far as we're going to get.
It's a cabal.  They don't need to leave lots of traces around when they plan
in secret--the only way we're going to find out anything more is to break in.
But I have one more idea.  If it works, I'll come out of there knowing exactly
what they're doing."  She leaned to Washuu's ear and began to whisper
something.

    Washuu shook Sasami's hand and returned to her control panel.  "Seems
perfectly logical.  It might even work.  Will you be done before making dinner
next week?"

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Sasami prepared carefully.  In her pocketbook was a letter to Kaji, another
one to Misato, a personal diary, and a few other special items.  Hopefully they
would be as convincing as they were fake.  And, she thought, I'm sorry, Misato.
I don't think I'm going to be introducing you to Akuma's mother next week.

    She took the noonday train to the nearest stop to Tokyo-3 and walked into
the complex.  "Hello", said a guard in blue.  "I'm sorry, but I'll need to see
your identification."

    "I don't have one.  I need to get a pass.  I'm here to visit my nephew.  He
goes to school here."

    "That's the wrong way for passes.  Security is very tight here", said the
guard apologetically.  "We had a problem with terrorist threats."  That was
the standard line he fed anyone who wondered just why there were so many guards
around.  "Come this way, Miss."

    The guard led her to a small booth where another guard yawned as he
watched rows upon rows of video monitors.  "We have a visitor.  She needs a
level 1", said the first guard.

    "Okay, sign here", replied the sitting guard, shoving a pencilboard to
Sasami.  She signed her name and the guard handed her a green-colored badge.
"Take that onto the shuttle", he said.  "And don't try to get off at the wrong
spot."  The guard primped.  "We do take our security seriously around here."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Sasami exited the shuttle at the school area.  Tokyo-3 itself loomed on the
horizon, about two miles away.  The safest way to get there was simple: walk.
Hardly anybody ever walked two miles when there was a shuttle available,
guaranteeing that the path would be nearly deserted except for a few random
personnel.  She replaced her green badge with the one from her pocketbook,
which was a faked-up copy of Kaji's with her own picture glued in.  It would
keep passersby from noticing anything odd, and it would even pass a computer
scan, as long as nobody noticed that the encoded data didn't match the name
and picture.

    Her skeleton key--produced by the Internal Investigation Department--worked
wonders on many of the doors deep in the complex.  The badge, fed into the
readers on the more special doors, took care of the rest.

    Sasami searched through several empty offices, but finally hit paydirt.
Someone had left a computer terminal running.  Sasami looked up what
information she could and continued onwards, committing it to memory as much as
possible.  No doubt, by now she must have set off at least one alarm, silently
alerting the guards.  She had to avoid spend too much time in one place,
staying ahead of them for as long as possible.

    She searched deeper and deeper within the complex, her route leading her
by a door festooned with warnings of danger in the "LCL production center".
She knew what really lay beyond, because of what Kaji found with his
fiber-optic camera: Lilith.

    Shunning the door in favor of continuing her search for information, Sasami
came to another room, deep beneath the complex.  The card opened the unmarked
door.  Revealed was a room filled with a low intensity humming and a huge tank.
And within the tank floated dozens of albino female bodies.  As Sasami glanced
at them, one opened its eyes and tried to focus very near her.  Sasami let out
a small gasp at the sight, then looked away.

    Replacement bodies, thought Sasami.  No doubt for the girl that Akuma had
described, because the description fit her exactly.  That must be why he
thought she was so strange; she must be an experiment of some kind.  And the
bodies...  it must not be possible to kill the girl just by killing the body
that was out there walking, because that wasn't all of her.  They would just
awaken another one.

    On the other side of the room was a closet and some papers.  Sasami
searched through the papers, knowing that that was her best chance.

    Over an hour of reading afterwards, Sasami knew that she had hit the
jackpot.  The papers explained what the bodies were for, and just what NERV,
and probably SEELE, was intending to do to the world.  Washuu's worst-case
scenario was true.  Sasami imagined everyone and every living thing dissolving
into orange sludge like the pool in Lilith's room, all in the name of human
betterment, and she shuddered a bit.  Not even Tokimi would have had the
audacity to do something like that.

    The door slid open again.  "Looks like you've been giving us a merry
chase", said a man with greying hair who wore a black suit.  A pistol was
already in his hand, cocked.

    "Would you mind explaining to me what this is all about?" asked Sasami.

    "If there's anything you wanted to know that wasn't in your choice of
reading material", the man said, "here's your answer.  No, I'm not going to
explain."  He fired the pistol at Sasami, tearing a hole into her uniform and
exposing the bulletproof vest underneath as Sasami kicked away his weapon and
tried to run past him.

    Another old man walked up to the doorway and emptied six shots into
Sasami's head, shattering her skull and splattering the room with blood and
gore.  She fell down and twitched, then lay still.