2010-08-07 - The Writing's on the Wall

SPACE

THE FINAL FRONTIER

REI AYANAMI IS A BITCH

In Rei's mad dash to a destination unknown, colony hopping has become a common practice for this runaway bride. Hiding her 'borrowed' Zoid among the debris and refuse floating off the side of an inhabited colony is but one example. Allowing the same Zoid to float among a pack of indigenous asteroids that have long since been strip-mined clean of any valuable resources is another.

And then, very rarely, Rei Ayanami would happen to stumble upon one of the forgotten colonies that have long since been abandoned. Erased from maps and the collective consciousness, these defunct constructs were the ultimate hideout, and were used for long stretches of R&R whenever possible.

It wasn't often that such dead colonies graced one's path, but when one of them did, it brought with it the prospect of a cold shower, possible food to be foraged for, and the opportunity to venture out of the Leostriker and live a little. What a sad, pathetic state of affairs, that a dead colony would offer the promise of life.

How low has Rei Ayanami stooped?

But this isn't about Rei Ayanami -- not entirely. Johnny Domino has been with her all the while, dragged across the gulf of space unawares. His physical condition has been steadily deteriorating the longer he spent in Ayanami's presence. He was growing thinner, more sickly. He was filthy and his muscles were screaming for activity.

Activity Rei Ayanami could not provide him with.

The last time Domino was lucid happened eons ago. Or at least it felt like eons. Leo Stenbuck's voice roused the young man for a minute or two, and then Johnny was back to his comatose state. The incident happened inside one of the dead colonies encountered by Ayanami -- a dead colony much like the one Domino and Rei are currently hiding in.

When Rei left Johnny, stashed away safely in one of the air-filled bunkers within the spacial cylinder, he was lying on his back unresponsive. When Rei returns, she will find the young man's makeshift cot to be empty. She will also find the walls of the bunker to be covered in tiny, dense writing. It is an unfamiliar script, appearing to have its roots in neither Eastern nor Western Earth languages.

Uneven columns of this script run in strips, from top to bottom, telling an unintelligible story. And Johnny Domino stands in one corner, the source of this creative new venture, still caught in the feverish grip of spewing forth these mysterious passages. It appears that at some point, while Rei was out, the young man stirred to life, conjured a piece of chalk from the junk scattered across the floor, and has been busy ever since.

To Rei Ayanami's credit, she's at least shocked enough to drop the water jug she was carrying. It's sealed, so it doesn't spill, but it does land on her foot pretty loudly, which she absolutely fails to respond to. Things like 'foot pain' are absolutely trivial compared to the summer reading assignment that Johnny Domino has spent the past however-long lovingly rendering for her.

But this is Rei Ayanami, and shock is registered by dropping a water jug and momentarily raising her thin blue eyebrows. That's it. No cry for Johnny's attention, no stammered questioning, no jubilant roar that he's up and at least quasi-lucid. Rei stands there and looks at the walls. Once she realizes that she can't read any of it, she turns and looks at Johnny, still writing.

If Rei hopes to accomplish anything with this strategy, it's unclear. Her face is as blank as ever -- her red eyes not so much a window to the soul, but a wall blocking it. Still silent, she watches Johnny write, perhaps trying to discern a motive to his madness, if not a method. She's very patient, and frankly, she has time.

Johnny Domino does not notice Rei's arrival.

He does not hear the falling jug of water.

He does not feel the girl's gaze on him.

The young man's fervor is too great as he writes. There is nothing else in the world but him and the foreign language. No matter how much his hand shakes, and no matter how much his muscles hurt from the sudden exertion forced upon them after days of inactivity, there is a story to be told. Johnny is telling it.

Or at least he was.

In the middle of a word, Domino freezes. The chalk remains pressed against the wall, stopped short from completing an alien curve. He remains like that for some time, staring blankly at the wall, script unfinished. Then Domino turns his head.

It isn't a natural motion. It's slow, and it's too clinical in its performance. Human motions flow - they curve unevenly, utilizing the nuances of a myriad of muscles. But when Johnny turns his head, it's as if he were a doll, neck capable of rotating on a single, uncompromising axis.

His eyes don't move, either. Blue and glassy, they remain set in their sockets, unfamiliar with their own maneuverability. When Domino finally this motion, his head finds itself directed in Rei's general direction as his unseeing gaze misses the girl by a wide margin.

However, Johnny Domino knows Ayanami is there. Assuming that... it /is/ Johnny Domino.

"..Rei Ayanami," he says, voice low and impersonal.

Rei Ayanami, tellingly, does not assume that this is Johnny Domino.

That said, despite her impersonal nature, Rei Ayanami is not inhuman (completely). There are a lot of things she could ask, and there are a lot of things she's wondering right now. But the question that escapes her lips is perhaps the least helpful one.

Reaching down and picking the water jug back up, Rei holds it out, toward Johnny. "Are you thirsty?" The Agent's physical decline has not gone unnoticed. Rei surveys him as she offers the jug out, trying to see any distinct signs of injury, in case he hurt himself trying to get around on his half-atrophied limbs.

Beyond this, Rei is silent; her eyes meet Johnny's, and it's darkness meeting darkness.

The jug is offered and time passes.

It takes Domino longer to respond to Ayanami than is considered normal for a conversation. The pause, however, is not quite as long as the one that came between Johnny realizing Rei was there and between him finally uttering her name. Thank goodness for small blessings.

So, is Johnny thirsty?

"He is."

And yet, Domino makes no move to claim the jug and quench his thirst. All he does is remain standing there, staring ahead. Whatever it is that currently speaks through Johnny does not seem to actually care too much about the well-being of the body it inhabits.

Instead of drinking, Johnny eventually chooses to speak some more.

"The man you are bringing him to," he says, "will fail to appease you."

Rei walks forward, unafraid. If Johnny attempts to harm her -- he's hungry and enfeebled, and has been living off of baby food for the past week. Even Rei stands a chance of taking him in a fight, especially if he's being controlled by some outside force or alternate personality. Unless it's one that knows how to fight. Rei takes the chance.

Leaning down in front of Johnny and setting the jug at his feet, Rei straightens back up and once more stares into Johnny's eyes, as if they will relent and betray the secret of his possession. It's a staring contest that she's prepared to win -- she's very experienced at this sort of thing.

This close, she could reach out and touch Johnny if she wanted, but she doesn't. And it's true that he could reach out and touch Rei. That's maybe why Rei doesn't back away. To see what Johnny does.

"I'm not seeking my own appeasement," Rei says. "I'm seeking help for Johnny. He is suffering for my mistake. That must be corrected." So then: her mission is a humanitarian one, even if it's completely backward in accomplishing its purpose.

Johnny Domino does nothing.

Rei is close to him now -- she even bent down at some point, the perfect moment to strike -- but no initiative for contact is made on Domino's behalf. His gaze does not change, either. Despite Rei's close proximity, his eyes remain dull. There is no shift in their focus - only a single blink for good measure.

"Your mistake," Domino repeats. "We have seen your mistake. You have made many of them, in this lifetime, and in another." There is no judgment in the young man's voice. Only the dry statement of fact.

"You have also done many things that are in your nature. It is... of a concern to us, that you are unable to distinguish your mistakes from what is in your nature. Your blindness leads down a dark path. We have seen it."

No sooner has Domino finished speaking that something happens. A violent tremor passes through the young man's arm, and the piece of chalk flies from between his fingers. It hits the floor with a toy-like clink, breaking into powder at the tip.

The young man's muscles have reached their limit, and whatever inhabits Domino finally allows the limb to drop limply by the body's side.

"Tell me, Rei Ayanami," inquires Johnny following this sad demonstration. "Why do you care for his suffering?"

Rei Ayanami's response is to stare at Johnny. She doesn't look at his arm as it seizes, or at the chalk as it goes flying. Her faculties are possessed entirely by the statements posed by her mysterious guest. The question that Johnny asks, though, is one that requires intense consideration before Rei gives her answer. In due time, she does.

"I care because at point point I cared about him in a way that..." Rei stops. She doesn't like to leave thoughts unfinished, but there's a very, very slight widening of her eyes that accompanies the death of her sentence. Then, Rei's hands come up and rest on Johnny's shoulders. She stays like this for a moment.

The pause in the room seems to go on forever, even if it's barely a moment. Rei leans forward, closing her eyes, and presses her lips against Johnny's. It's a noble attempt, but ultimately a failure, and before the kiss can become too much of a kiss, Rei pulls back. Her hands remain on Johnny, and her eyes open, face blank. Her cheeks aren't even flush.

"In a way that I know I am not capable of now." What Rei feels about this exactly is lost inside her opaque presentation. She could be regretful. She could be relieved.

Rei isn't the only one who feels nothing. Johnny Domino is similarly indifferent when the girl's dry lips press against his own. Would this have been the same reaction, or non-reaction, had the real Johnny Domino been in control instead of whatever dybbuk speaks through him?

The answer may very well remain a mystery.

"You who was not you died for him," says Johnny. He has not closed his eye before, during, or after the kiss. "You who was not you extracted herself from his life for his own sake. You who not you was as selfish as you are right now."

"Who /are/ you?"

It is, to the strange being possessing Johnny Domino's credit, a keen observation, and a good question. Rei isn't exactly taken aback by it -- no more than she's taken aback by anything -- but it does cause her to remove her hands from Johnny's shoulders. They drop to her sides, and she stands like a mannequin, dressed in an outdated EFA normal suit.

Her lips open to speak, but Rei says nothing for a long time. It takes her that long to figure out how to even approach the question. Her instinctive response is to simply take the question at face value: she is Rei Ayanami.

But in the space of an instant, Rei's thoughts drift. To what makes her who she is. She was defined by... well, by Gendo Ikari. He spoke, and his words were her world. But then she died, and in those last few moments, she saw the sky for the first time. And then, after that -- they pass through her memory like scenes from films, unconnected to reality. Friendship, love. And then coming back -- literally being pulled out of purgatory by Leo Stenbuck. All of these should provide clues to answer the question, but even so, they only add up to a pitifully small part of the puzzle.

"I believe," Rei says, finally, "that I am in the process of determining that."

If its words and implications are to be believed, then the strange being (or beings) possessing Johnny Domino already saw both the past and the future. And if /that/ much is true, or if even only a fraction of it is, then making keen observations may not be such an amazing accomplishment after all.

Next, when the physical contact between Rei and Johnny is severed, Domino finally blinks. It is either the second or third blink he performed ever since Rei's arrival. The implications of it, if any, remain unknown.

"Your definition of self is lacking," says Johnny. "It might as well not exist."

A low, laborious breath is drawn.

"You have contributed one of yourself to this world. You are worth one quantity of life. Do not squander it. That is... advice. Rei Ayanami -- you have once measured yourself through others. That... is a fact. Your future has also," another intake of breath, "been determined. We have seen it."

And another blink. The third? The fourth?

"Rei Ayanami -- this is a message from the present. Without knowing yourself, how can you take responsibility over another else's soul?"

Rei doesn't have a prepared answer, and once more spends a good deal of time deliberating what to say in response to the question the Johnny-Thing poses. She turns her gaze inward, just as it remains fixed and level outward. Her future has been determined. Someone else might be tempted to ask what's there -- to demand to know their fate.

Rei Ayanami is not that someone. If knowledge of the future tempts her, it remains unremarked upon. Instead, she focuses on the question asked, but even then her answer is sparse, almost cold.

"By simply doing it," Rei replies. "If he is thirsty, then you should drink." Then Rei turns and begins to walk away. Her motivation for doing so remains her own -- she doesn't explain her retreat any more than she explains anything else.

Rei turns her back on Johnny, having given him another one of her Rei-answers. And Johnny, in turn, gives Rei one of his non-Johnny-responses.

"If he is thirsty, he will."

And that's the last thing non-Johnny says. The next moment, Ayanami will hear a thump, as Domino's body collapses to the floor, like a doll that had its strings cut clean. This is followed by a groan, rising and falling in agony. And then a feeble voice:

"Where am I?"

Fool Rei once, shame on you. Fool Rei twice, shame on her. Both times Johnny has regained lucidity, Rei has spoiled it -- the wrong response to his question, the wrong look on her face, the wrong anything.

So this time, Rei tries a different approach. She simply keeps walking, until she's out the door. There's water there, a bit of food. She hopes it's gone when she comes back. As it is, she's not even sure where she's going.

Just that she'll get there soon.