2010-06-14 - Destination Unknown

Izu Base is considered, among some kinds of professionals, a joke. Its focus on bizarre 'super robots' means that a lot of the people who work there forget to pay attention to the normal, everyday realities of war; that is what other bases are for. Here, they do /science/.

Latooni doesn't mind it. She usually gets the intelligence room, such as it is, to herself; there are no full-time EFA Intel personnel on this base, just Gilliam on the rare occasions he actually shows up and does work in person.

The intel room is a small office just off the main command center. It has more than its share of monitors as well, all of which point away from the door and are wired into a quick-deactivation system in case someone who's not supposed to be here suddenly arrives. Latooni is behind about four of them, checking public records from about twelve years ago and correlating them with some data so sensitive (or so hard to get) it isn't even on the computer; she has a stack of hand-written papers in front of her, written in encoded Russian.

'Sudden arrival' is a pretty good description of it, yes.

The door whooshes open, and there's Kaworu Nagisa. He's dressed casually -- white shirt, orange undershirt, black slacks -- but he looks like a million dollars anyway. He'd probably look like a million dollars wearing a barrel and some dirt. He's just one of those boys for whom the word 'pretty' is entirely appropriate. For better or for worse.

"So I've been thinking a lot about our chat on the radio the other day," Kaworu says, confidently and affably, lips quirked into a perpetually-bemused smile-ish expression as he walks forward and folds his arms atop one of Latooni's monitors, leaning on it like it was a wall and he was Charlie Brown.

"You know, I didn't expect you to be so little," Kaworu notes. His smirk blossoms into a real smile. His eyes are the color of blood. Like hers. "I mean, on the radio... you sounded like someone much... /more imposing/." The smile turns to a grin, and Kaworu chuckles aimlessly. "Funny how things work out, sometimes."

As soon as the door opens, Latooni nudges a button with the side of her hand. The monitors - still facing away from Kaworu - change to displaying something else. DC holdings and transportation in Australia, apparently, is what she was actually supposed to be working on.

Latooni keeps her eyes hidden behind her glasses as she looks up at the person suddenly barging in. That he was let in does not surprise her. Izu is not exactly the most anal of military bases, and he /is/ cleared to be inside it; they probably didn't care where he went. Nor does it surprise her that he came to see her. She knows she's been asking questions NERV wouldn't like if they knew she was asking them.

But that he's in here, and cornering her; that puts her on edge. Once upon a time, Latooni was afraid of being recaptured or cornered, and of males in general. She isn't, anymore, but there's still the echo of unease when he just... takes up her space.

"Not everyone is tall," she eventually settles on, standing up. She is over five feet, but only really because of the heeled shoes that go with her uniform; Kaworu got the 'small' right at least. "...what did you want?"

Kaworu's smile stays fixed on his face, if slightly muted. He looks down over the edge of the monitor at Latooni. That her eyes are hidden doesn't seem to bother him -- his are uncovered, and yet the boy is somehow totally opaque. Whatever's going on in his head refuses to announce itself to the rest of the planet. Another similary to the one that's no longer around -- but Kaworu seems so much more... smug about it than her.

"You don't like me," Kaworu says as Latooni stands up. He doesn't lift from his leaned-forward position, just peering up at her from his perch, smile still there. Is he satisfied? Amused? Trying to seem friendly? Trying to seem sinister?

"The pause before you answered. The answer you just gave. That little bit of... tightness in the back of your voice. I wonder if you even hear it, yourself." Kaworu stands, now, and sticks his hands into his pockets. His head tilts slightly. "Why don't you like me, Latooni?"

Latooni Subota's first instinct is to deny it. If she was most people, she might have just done so immediately - but being Latooni, she has to go and /analyze/ herself.

She doesn't have any reason to like him, she thinks. She has never met him in person before. She doesn't like what he said on the radio, that one crack about 'real people'; much less significantly, she didn't like the comment about her height or lack thereof. He's given her no particular reason to trust him. That, and there's that whole NERV connection, although that is (maybe?) not his fault; she tries not to hold it against him. Still...

"I don't know you," she says, "and I was working. So I was slightly distracted." It is all true, even if it is not the only reason. Latooni purses her lips as she debates continuing, and eventually does: "I will try this again. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"You don't like what you don't know," Kaworu replies. He doesn't really move from his spot -- he's not about to start circling Latooni like some kind of predator. "How strange it must be to live life like that. I would ask you if you agree, but I don't know if you've ever experienced life any other way. ...have you?" The silver-haired boy seems to be just free-associating.

Still, as his mind wanders, Kaworu stays in his place. The only movement, aside from the occasional shift of his arms or turn of his head, is in his lips -- first twitching and pursing in thought, then fanning back out into a broad smile. He blinks, too. Not often, but he blinks.

"Or, I'm sorry, maybe that question wasn't fair. I don't want you to feel like I'm interrogating you. Far from it. May I rephrase it?" Without waiting for an answer, Kaworu does so: "Why do you need to know things? I'm not asking that as a challenge, but... explain the desire to me. The motive. I'm curious."

At least he does blink. If Latooni had to name the one thing that unsettled her most about Rei on a personal level, it would be the fact that she didn't, or at least not nearly often enough. It was enough to make Latooni's eyes water in sympathy.

She lets him talk. Latooni is not spectacularly verbose about anything except work anyway. It isn't exactly a hardship for her to let someone else take the conversational lead - and he does seem to like talking, although she is not entirely sure how much of it is actually directed at her and how much ti himself.

She can seize on being addressed directly as a recognizable cue, though. "If you don't know about something," Latooni says, "you don't know whether it is good or bad, or whether you like it or not. You need data before you can make a decision." She isn't even trying to blow him off to make him go away; her words seem honest enough, and she's not good enough at disguising her feelings to mislead quite that well.

Kaworu nods to the rhythm of Latooni's answer. He doesn't seem fazed by it; perhaps he can sense its innate honesty, or perhaps he's simply not surprised by what he hears. Either way, even if his mannerisms are more human than Rei's, the way he refuses to let slip his feelings is classic Ayanami.

"But where does that leave things like faith?" Kaworu asks. "If you boil everything down to data and decisions... where does that leave the mysteries in life?" Kaworu lets a hand exit his pocket, and he makes a few broad gestures, sweeping with an open palm.

"If you use the available data to decide whether you like or don't like something -- or someone," Kaworu asks, suddenly more thoughtful, as if musing to himself, touching a finger to his chin and looking away from Latooni, up toward the ceiling, "is it even possible to love?"

Latooni Subota does not respond for quite some time. She doesn't really /have/ faith in things she can't see. People - she can have faith in people. She can tell what people are going to do, whether they do what is right or wrong, once she's seen them and gotten to know them. But things she can never touch or see...

"Yes," Latooni says, suddenly. "It is. Because when you understand somebody, or something, sometimes there is a deeper connection. But if you did not understand them, it would be shallow." To 'love' someone who you don't know about, who you can't accept... that isn't love, even if according to some of the romance novels Garnet has lent her, it is.

She seems embarassed by her own outburst, and takes half a step back. There is no room for any more steps back; she is against a back wall. "But I do not know why you asked me that. It is not exactly part of my job."

Kaworu raises one eyebrow and gives Latooni a look as if she'd just said something profoundly stupid -- that sort of look that's not quite embarrassed or amused, but instead seeking verification that what they heard was indeed just spoken. "You're alive, aren't you?"

Kaworu's hand slides back into his pocket. He takes a few steps, but doesn't seem to actually be /going/ anywhere, so much as just pacing. "But, see, you raise a really interesting problem. Do you love someone because you understand them, or do you seek to understand them because you love them? I mean, having such... certainty in one over the other seems misguided. At least, to me."

Kaworu shrugs, helplessly, and laughs gently. "It's a funny thing because we can only understand what our human minds let us. There's got to be so much else out there -- things we'll never even percieve. When you think about it, as a species, we're pretty much ignorant. Maybe because we spend all our time thinking about things like love. It's the most powerful gun in our arsenal of mysteries, though, isn't it? Love. We can understand the people we love, but who can understand love? Or is /loving/, the state of it, an understanding and of itself, denied to the concepts that exist beyond love? Do you follow what I'm saying, Latooni?"

Kaworu turns to look at the short Coordinator and flashes the sort of smile that make those romance novels look like the kid stuff they are.

Latooni Subota's face reddens slightly at the words of reproach even if they are not meant to be particularly cutting. She can't control that no matter how much she wants to.

When Kaworu does not follow her back, Latooni steps forward again, closer to her monitors, the only barricade between her and the boy. Human minds... she's never even been clear if she has one. She knows she thinks in a different manner than an unmodified human, but is it only a question of speed, or is there a different quality, too?

Latooni has not really turned her mind to questions of philosophy before, though. She's out of her depth, confused by Kaworu's line of questioning (is it questioning? is it just the way he talks? she can't even tell that) and unsure of the proper responses. "I don't know," she says, simply. "Maybe one day I will."

The smile makes her cheeks redden further, but she stands her ground otherwise. Whatever /that/ is, it isn't love. At best it's a hormonal reaction she is quite aware that teens her own age are subject to: look at Leo.

Kaworu doesn't seem affected by the reddening of Latooni's cheeks. He notices -- he must notice, he's not blind (is he?) -- but he doesn't comment on it. And his expression is so perpetually amused that it's not clear whether he's amused by /her/ or by /himself/ or by /existence/ or what.

"Maybe you will," Kaworu nods, speaking quietly for a moment, chuckling to himself. "Maybe you will."

Kaworu looks down at the floor for a moment, hands still in his pockets. And then he looks up, slowly, his eyes turning to meet Latooni's behind the glasses -- his stare is just as piercing as Rei's ever was, but there's something... more insidious about it, but not expressly so. If Rei just stared at things like a laser beam boring into other people's brains, Kaworu's stare is much... easier on the eyes, so to speak. He seems to be able to follow Latooni's eyes behind the obscuring glasses. Somehow. He smiles again.

"My personal theory is that knowledge is like a maze, Latooni. There's something in the center. Maybe it's... a certain sense of completion, of security. But the problem is that it's a maze. It's so easy for people to hit those dead ends and never find their way back out. And then the deeper they go, the more they wander, and they find themselves getting... distracted, maybe. Distracted." There's a short pause before Kaworu speaks again.

"I suppose the real question, Latooni... is what you want from /me/." Kaworu maintains his smile, and casually reaches up to run a hand through his hair, with the sort of relaxed grace that is usually accompanied by sparkles and an entire girl's school getting simultaneous nosebleeds until it looks like the elevator scene in 'The Shining.'

Latooni Subota beats the stare (sort of) by refusing to meet it for long. Perhaps that means the stare beats her. She spends more of her time looking just to the side of Kaworu's head, though; normally her glasses make it difficult for the subject of this to tell.

With Kaworu, though...

Latooni understands what Kaworu is saying. Knowledge can be confusing; one can make bad assumptions and end up with conclusions that are just wrong. But it is her job to make sense of it - and more, she likes it. It's a puzzle. She does not let puzzles go until they're solved, even if it takes her a while to do so.

"I want some space," is Latooni's first request. "It's... uncomfortable." Proximity is bad; proximity with strangers is worse. Proximity with a strange male is about the worst of all. "Other than that... I suppose I want truth. I don't know if I asked you for it, though. I would rather find it myself."

Kaworu responds to the first request by taking a step back. "I told you you don't like me," he says, looking away from Latooni and letting his eyes turn upward, toward the ceiling. He examines the spots where the tiles meet, angles and corners and that sort of thing, pointedly not looking at Latooni. "You're not going to understand me and then decide whether you like me or not, I think. You don't like me and you're going to analyze the feeling to understand why." Kaworu lets out a quiet breath, barely a laugh.

"But, no, you didn't ask. Although you could, certainly. I'm sure you could ask me all kinds of interesting things, and it'd only be fair, because I've asked you about the things I find interesting." Kaworu shugs. "But if you'd rather find it yourself... okay."

Kaworu turns, still looking up, and begins to walk out of the room. "Just remember what I said about it being a maze." Kaworu reaches the doorway. It opens, and he stops. He looks down -- ahead -- and then back over his shoulder. "You're lost, Latooni. You're distracted. You showed me in the course of this little talk just how little you really do understand. I don't think I'll help you. But if you'd ever like to talk... well, my radio's on." That smile again -- that elegant, handsome smile. In profile. Even more coy that way.

And then Kaworu turns and leaves, beginning to hum just as the door shuts.

Latooni Subota does not bother to correct Kaworu this time, because she /doesn't/ like him, and she also does not know why. That's the more uncomfortable part to her. Normally she can point at behaviour and say 'this is what caused it', 'this is why I don't like you'. This time she has nothing but feelings. There is nothing wrong with feelings, but Latooni is always more comfortable when she understands why she has them. All she has here is a memory of a bizarrely strong AT Field, an off-handed comment about Rei.

So in that, Kaworu is right, and /that/ is grating, too. Is she really that predictable?

"I understand enough," Latooni says, her face as even as she can make it. "Finding out things is what I do. Every maze can be solved if you try hard enough." Even if, after you solve it, things change, and then you can no longer tell how to get back /out/. "...I don't talk to many people. But thank you." That is automatic, not terribly heartfelt.

She sinks back into her chair once Kaworu finally leaves, removing her glasses and rubbing at the sides of her eyes with thumb and finger. She shouldn't have let him get to her.