2010-04-13 - Synch / Swim

Rei Ayanami did not expect zero-gravity training to be part of her physical fitness regimen, but there you go. It's at least not /quite/ as physically stressful to the frail girl as push-ups or pull-ups or running laps or the disaster that was trying to cartwheel. Still, Rei has lived in space for all of a month, and is only barely able to function in low-g -- zero-g is pretty much like...

...well, like throwing a tiny girl into zero gravity.

Rei is determined, though, and her face is a neutral mask as she tries to direct herself through the loops of an obstacle course. This is her thirtieth go today. She's sort of gotten the hang of it, although she still needs to grab out at things more than she should to direct herself, and half the time ends up going through the hoops ass-first.

Speaking of, the blue-haired teenager is dressed bizarrely. That is to say, she's wearing the bizarre uniform of the Top Squadron, which lays to rest the question of whether or not they even /make/ those things for people with body types that aren't 'frankly unrealistic.' It actually makes her look even scrawnier, with her pale legs and meager shape, like her body only made token nods toward puberty. She crosses the checkered line -- goes through the checkered hoop, actually -- and rests against a bulkhead, staring blankly at the course, as if considering whether to go again.

Fern Calico is a dedicated Earthman (okay, Earthwoman) herself. She has been assigned regular work in the Exelion's zero-gravity training area to bring her up to speed with moving around; Rei is not significantly worse at it than Fern is, who may be an adult but never set foot anywhere but Earth until she was twenty-one.

She drew the line at doing it in the Top uniform, though, even though it would probably fit her a lot better than it fits Rei. Maybe they should give her one of the men's versions.

One of the doors whistles open and Fern pulls herself through it. She is wearing worn American military exercise gear - dark pants, lighter green sleeveless top. It's easy to see that her left arm is paler than the other, though at a distance that is the only notable difference.

Fern, as always suffering the disorientation when acclimating to moving in all three directions, drifts down the bulkhead in Rei's general direction while she lets her stomach settle. Her long braid tends to drift in zero G; she ends up shoving it down the back of her shirt as usual.

Disorientation only affects Rei when she gives herself a moment to let it -- which may or may not be the case right now, as she has her little break. She seems... not quite agitated, but not really at peace with her weightlessness. Her hair floats gingerly -- it's just long enough that otherwise her bangs would hang in front of her red eyes, the color of blood and possessed of a stare so dull as to seem lifeless.

Rei rubs a hand over her mouth as if she'd just taken a drink, and draws in a breath. Whatever's going through her head, she refuses to elucidate it further, but after a moment more of consideration, she decides that no, she won't go again.

The thing is, Rei's still looking at the course when she kicks off of the bulkhead and out into the zero-g wilderness. Because she's not looking, she doesn't really think about how hard she's kicking off -- and that puts her right on a collision course with one Fern Calico, currently shoving her braid down the back of her shirt. In the event of collision:

"Ahn--!" Rei's voice is light and tiny, unmistakably the sound of that speedfreak on the radio, but slowed down, without any intensity. "I... I apologize..."

Fern Calico finally gets it tucked more or less away and ignores the rest of her hair, which tends to be even curlier than normal in the lack of any weight to pull it straight. She was just getting ready to push off herself -

And then, suddenly, Ayanami.

Hitting Fern is less than comfortable if she's braced, because she has weight and hardness that someone without the mechanical parts doesn't have. In zero gravity, it's not really significant; she's not too dense to move, and she just gets bumped around with a slightly startled sound.

It takes her a moment to regain 'flight' control, and she automatically reaches out to try to stabilize Rei before she realizes who it is. "Oh," she says, once she's straightened out by her foot against the bulkhead. "It's you."

She's never seen Rei before. She looks smaller than expected. Has she been ill lately? That might explain the problems, Fern thinks to herself - but she does not say anything along those lines immediately. "Got turned around in here?"

Wondering if Rei is ill is, all things considered, a fairly common response to the girl. She's so pale that it's questionable whether she's ever seen sunlight. Her hair is bright blue, but that's not so strange these days -- the hollowness of her red eyes is still disarming, though, and her funereal pallor underscores the dark circles under her eyes, as if she hasn't been sleeping. She seems alert enough, though, for someone who just bonked into someone else.

The 'It's you' gets no response other than a stare -- Rei was looking down, away, ashamed maybe. But that little phrase gets her head to turn up, those creepy eyes meeting Fern's gaze colorlessly, neither challenge nor communication.

"I... wasn't looking," Rei says in what could generously be described as a mumble. She sounds younger than she looks, and she barely looks her sixteen years. Her body language is stiff and awkward, but that's not so strange for someone unused to the lack of gravity. "I recognize your voice," Rei suddenly says, languidly, as if it were a natural transition to just decide that the conversational topic had been exhausted and that a new one was in order.

Fern Calico's own hair is a pale blue. A darker blue does not startle her.

Rei reminds Fern of someone she used to know, briefly; one of the other women - girls really - in the medical hospital where she spent so much of the last year. Something was wrong with her head. Fern had never learned what, but the woman had had the same stilted, not-really-there way of speaking, the same way of staring.

Fern looks back, equally unblinking for a few seconds - but her eyes need water even if Rei's don't seem to. She blinks first. "You should," Fern says, not clarifying whether she means 'look where you're going' or 'recognize the voice'. "I was going to watch for you. I didn't think you would be here. Aren't you on a different ship?"

While she speaks, she coasts, just drifting down the bulkhead. Fern does not go fast. She expects Rei to keep up.

Rei does in fact follow -- but only at the last possible second. She free-floats unambitiously as Fern drifts away, and only when it looks like she might not follow does she kick off toward the bulkhead. Rei doesn't move with any particular grace, although she's slow enough in her float-travels that it certainly seems deliberate.

Rei likewise takes a slow, almost bored approach to replying. She sounds uninterested -- but she also sounds lobotomized, which could explain the former. Her speech is gentle, but delivered in a tin monotone, as if she was reciting prepared dialogue. "I am stationed on the Minerva, yes. I have been traveling regularly to the Exelion to attend physical training with my Coach." That's 'Coach' pronounced with a capital 'C' there. Rei's accent is distinctly Japanese. Maybe that's why she's so soft-spoken.

"You expressed a wish to speak to me," Rei says, flatly, but doesn't follow up on that point. The implication would be clear, if Rei conveyed anything that an implication could be drawn from. She's so blank that it's hard.

Fern Calico would believe lobotomized, although she isn't about to say that one in public.

Fern has little grace either. All she did was kick off the bulkhead and let momentum carry her. It's effective, just not pretty. "I've heard about this Coach," she says, though /she/ heard about it from Noriko and may have the wrong idea about who it is.

Her foot snaps out and drags along the bulkhead, now, to stop herself before she gets in front of the next door down the side. "I did. Sounds like you were having trouble with your machine synchronization. Are you new at it or did the machine just get upgraded or something?"

Rei drifts to just past Fern before stopping herself, as well. She doesn't want to collide with the other pilot again, maybe. Or maybe she just didn't notice they were stopping until it was too late -- with Rei's thousand-light-year stare, anything's possible. She maintains unblinking eye contact as soon as both travelers settle.

The question regarding GN Evangelion Unit-00X prompts another long silence from Rei. Any kind of rhythmic rapport seems to be 'not even close to an option, ever' considering Rei's approach to interacting with other people -- that is, 'mostly just staring in silence.'

"Zerogouki has just been upgraded," Rei says, without nodding -- or even really moving that much. "The synchronization required to pilot it has been changed by these upgrades. It is an experimental and classified process. It is being adjusted based on available data and projections. I apologize if my experiences have troubled you."

"Okay, maybe that's it," Fern says, rapping the back of her heel against the bulkhead in a vaguely annoying fashion. It doesn't last long (thankfully) because she noticed that the impact was starting to move her; she has to get used to this whole action/reaction thing when there's no force downward to hold her in place.

Fern doesn't connect well to others, either. If Rei was more empathic, she might get the impression that Fern wasn't trying, or that she /was/ trying and then stopping herself. Being Rei, she probably doesn't get anything more than a tendency to pause that, compared to Rei's own, is nothing.

"When they upgraded mine," Fern continues, eventually, "it took me a while to get used to it. Have you tried resetting the connection a few times?" She assumes Rei's is nothing more esoteric than her own synchronization - which is weird, but not unduly so, and perfectly scientific. "I thought you sounded new at it. I didn't know it had only changed."

That's probably as close as she's going to get to 'sorry I thought you sucked at it'.

Rei is watching Fern closely, but looking through her at the same time -- it's a stare not unlike a blind person's, where you can be certain that their attention is on you, but they're not /seeing/ you. Rei isn't blind, but whether or not she sees Fern is anyone's guess. She might be looking through the wall with her x-ray eyes. Or maybe she would if she had x-ray eyes.

"Resetting the connection is not an option," Rei replies after another inordinately long pause. "Piloting an Evangelion requires complete synchronization between pilot and unit. The process is..."

Rei considers, briefly, how best to explain it, considering how much is classified and how much she herself may not ever fully understand -- even though she does know the most about it amongst the Three Children.

"...complex." Rei says that without irony -- without inflection, even. Then she just continues to stare.

Fern's lips curl back. It isn't really a smile, though it's trying to be. "I'm sure it is," she says, "but you're going to have to master it unless you want to die." She honestly has no idea. Nobody has told her anything about NERV other than the press releases. But, thinking of her own situation, she adds, "Or your partners will, the people who depend on you."

Fern lets herself drift. She doesn't go far, but she does move away from the bulkhead, a slow movement. "So. Tried mental exercises? I want to help you. I know what it's like," she says, only very vaguely anything even close to accurate. She continues her errors with, "I do the same thing," one hand lifting up to the double jack on the back of her skull momentarily. With her hair largely moving up and out, it's even visible.

"Even if I mastered it, I'd still probably die," Rei comments. "Total synchronization sublimates the pilot's conscious mind and..." Rei trails off, and briefly looks away. Whatever could end that sentence, it's almost assuredly something disturbing and fatal.

"Besides," Rei notes, "statistics suggest that an Evangelion pilot's life expectancy is, at most, twenty years. I am at peace with this." Rei doesn't /sound/ like she's at peace -- peace would be too much like a feeling. She just sounds drained of expectation.

"I'm not sure how to describe synchronization. I do not believe mental exercises would help." Rei is usually not this forthcoming, but -- she can't keep it all bottled up /all/ the time, can she? Or maybe she figures this is the easiest way to get Fern to leave her alone. Or maybe she /does/ want the help. Or maybe she's trying to reach out and relate to someone. Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe. Rei plays her cards so close to the vest that it's impossible to tell. "Since Zerogouki's upgrades... when we synchronize, it's like... everything... everything moves faster. Too fast for my brain to process. Or... my brain moves too fast to process anything else. Or both. I'm -- not sure." Rei turns her head back toward Fern, staring at the jack as dispassionately as a plumber staring at a pipe. "Is that what it's like for you?"

Something Rei says nags at Fern's memory, something that she should remember. She does not even remember the topic, let alone the details, and it's a minor mystery; she puts it aside for later, though it does cause her to furrow her brow in thought for a moment.

But then she untenses. She has to. "No," she says. "Well, maybe. With me it's a matter of... moving where my mind is. From here," Fern taps her breastbone, "to the machine. Bad synchronization, and I can move the arms and wings. Good, and I actually don't feel this body anymore." Her tone is odd, for a 'normal' person. She sounds like she prefers it moved. But then again, neither Rei or Fern is normal. "Speed generally isn't an issue."

She lowers her hand. "You still sound like shit," Fern adds, mistaking Rei's nihilism for mental illness. "You should go talk to some of the doctors they make /me/ talk to.

Rei follows Fern's movement when she taps her breastbone, looking away from the jack, and then back up to the other woman's eyes. Rei still hasn't blinked once. If she notices Fern's strangeness of tone -- well, it's not like Rei has any room to judge, so she says nothing. "I believe it is the opposite in my case," Rei notes, quietly.

"I feel everything the Eva feels. If it becomes injured... my level of synchronization is not enough to actually injure my body, but I still feel it. All of it." Rei lets that linger a moment. She doesn't look away, but she seems to -- check out for a moment, as if the world around her were put on pause. Or she was. Whichever.

The comment about her manner gets a... possibly unique response, though. "I apologize for sounding like shit," Rei says in her listless monotone, parroting Fern's word choice. If there's humor in that statement, Rei herself doesn't find it.

"I feel the machine's damage," Fern says. "Not mine. It's just a lump of meat."

Something seems wrong. Fern runs the conversation backwards again for a few moments, fails to find it, leaves it to sit. She can think about that later, too. Instead she lets Rei come back to herself; this is the kind of thing she's used to from some war-injured soldiers. Rei doesn't seem hurt, but NERV did say that she nearly died. That leaves a mark on anyone.

It certainly left one on Fern.

Finding the conversation more awkward as time goes on, Fern looks for a way to extricate herself. This is the only time she has really shown any care for anyone else lately. It's hard for her, because every time she tries to reach out, she stops herself. "Well, good luck with it, anyway. Maybe you can slow it down some. Me," with a kick of her feet, "I have exercises to do before I get sent out on some other space mission."

"I have a meeting that I need to attend regarding my nutrition," Rei says, as blandly as if she were saying that she had to take the trash out. She apparently notices Fern's attempt to wriggle free of the conversation.

But then, Rei Ayanami is rather used to people trying to get away from talking to her. She's not exactly a charmer, and though she's never really taken any pains toward 'learning how to fix that,' she's at least gotten used to when people have had their fill of her.

Rei seems like she might be about to say something else, but then apparently thinks better of it, and simply kicks off, floating toward the exit in numb, expressionless silence.