Doctor Who: The Evangelion Error (Book One)

Deleted Scenes: Failing the Bechdel Test, Part II

"So let me just sum things up..." Aoba punched a number on his control board. "This foreign-looking guy -- who is an actual freaking alien somehow, I guess -- comes in here, reveals classified information, sabotages the Evas right in front of us... and now we're all doing exactly what he says."

"Yeah, I guess," Makoto said.

"Does any of this seem... oh, I don't know... completely wrong to you? Not to mention insulting?"

"Well... it's..." The other lieutenant hesitated. "I guess it's like this -- the captain seems to think this guy can deliver, right?"

"Right..."

"And if he really can stop the Angels without us having to risk the kids -- that's a good thing, isn't it?" Makoto typed in a command. "If he can really pull that off, it doesn't matter how much of a jerk he is. We can deal with all that later, right?"

Aoba raised an eyebrow. "And the whole blowing-up-the-city thing?"

"Well, it's not like we don't have contingency plans for that, anyway. That's practically what the Geofront's for."

"Eh. I guess..." Aoba glanced over at the other lieutenant. "Hey, what's that on your arm?"

"Oh, yeah! Thanks for reminding me!" Makoto hurriedly grabbed a pen and scribbled down the text on his forearm onto a spare bit of paper. "Need that. It's the phone number of the girl I borrowed the Vespa from. I've gotta get in touch with her after all of this -- I gave her my new manga as collateral!"

Aoba groaned. "Dude... we really gotta talk at some point..."

***

"So when you were talking to him earlier --" Misato motioned towards the Doctor on the other side of the room. "That thing about computer access -- what was that all about?"

Ritsuko sighed. "Well... you know that my mother built the MAGI system here, right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"When she programmed it, she actually encoded her own personality into the cluster," Ritsuko said. "Each of the AIs represents a different aspect of her -- Melchior's her as a scientist, Balthasar is her as a mother, and Caspar is her as a woman."

Misato could already tell where this was going. "He said something about Caspar, didn't he..."

"Right. I don't have the slightest idea how he's doing it, or how he'd even be able to communicate with the AIs at that level at all... but if he's telling the truth, he's suggesting he somehow managed to charm Caspar into giving him administrator access." Ritsuko shrugged. "In short, he's using my mother's personality as a security loophole."

"Huh." Misato stared off into the distance for a moment. "Kind of sums up your childhood in a nutshell, doesn't it?"

Ritsuko sighed and crossed her arms. "I'd really prefer not to discuss it here."

"Or while sober?" 

"That too."