Inside Unit One.
T-2 Hours, 47 Minutes
"No, seriously. Who is he? And, um, how did he get in here?"
It was the first time Shinji had ever seen the Doctor completely and utterly dumbfounded. He looked back and forth between Shinji and the plug's latest occupant -- a middle-aged man, slightly balding, with a leather jacket and fairly large ears. "Wh-what," he sputtered.
The third man looked, if anything, just as amazed. "You can see me?" he asked in a strange accent.
"Um. Yes?..."
The man grinned. "Fantastic!"
"What," the Doctor repeated again. "Wh -- wait. Oh. Oh, no. No no no no no. Don't you dare. Don't you -- YAAAHRGGKKKKK!" He seized his head and doubled over, as if struck by a sudden-onset migraine.
The next thing Shinji knew, he was surrounded by people. He found his hand being seized and shaken eagerly by a short, large-nosed man with a clownish haircut. "So this is the latest recruit, eh? Delighted to meet you, dear boy! Simply delighted!"
Shinji desperately tried to peer through the crowd. "Uh... Doctor?"
"Oh, don't mind Victorious over there." The tall, white-haired gentleman in his line of sight sniffed. "He'll be fine. And for heaven's sake, all of you, give the poor child some space. He looks close to seizure."
"Hmmm. Not much to look at, is he?" An elderly man peered down at Shinji, leaning on a gnarled old cane. "Still, I suppose it could be worse. At least he lacks Chatterton's arrogance..."
"Oi, don't listen to the old buzzard." Mr. Big Ears snatched Shinji's hand away from the clown and clasped it. "You're doing great, kid. Trust me. You're gonna be brilliant by the time all this is done."
"All the same," drawled an odd-looking fellow in a wide-brimmed hat and a very long scarf, "you cannot deny the girls show quite a bit more promise. The captain. The angel. Even the ginger, provided she has an actual soul in there somewhere."
"Well, of course you'd say that, you egotistical old degenerate!" snapped a curly-haired man in a hideous, multicolored coat. "Just can't wait to break out the old leather bikini, can you?"
"Oh, good grief --"
"Right, that's IT!" The Doctor roared from the back of the plug, his tone suggesting a not-insignificant level of pain. "ALL of you, BACK INSIDE! NOW!"
"Spoilsport," sniffed a pale man wearing a fez.
"I SAID NOW!"
And, just like that, the crowd vanished. The two of them were alone in the entry plug once more.
Shinji stared at the Doctor. "Wh-what the hell was that?!"
"That was impossible!" The Doctor stood up straight, his eyes wide. "Completely impossible! There's no way that anything could -- unless..." He turned and looked at Shinji. Then he dropped his hands and hid them behind his back. "Shinji -- how many fingers am I holding up?"
"What?"
"It's important! Just guess! How many fingers?!"
"Um -- three! No, wait, now four." An image flashed into Shinji's head. "Um, three -- or two if you don't count your thumb as a finger."
The Doctor held up his right hand, two fingers and the thumb extended. "Right. So... low-level psychic abilities, then. Exacerbated by the neural link. Probably doesn't add up to much outside of the tank -- maybe some basic empathy. Like wosshername, the woman on Star Trek with the -- anyway..."
Shinji's jaw dropped. "Wait -- you mean, me?"
"Fits, doesn't it? Explains why the paper doesn't work on you." The Doctor rubbed his head. "Urgh -- but it still doesn't add up. There are layers of defenses between you and those memories. My brain woulda burnt itself out before anything could reach them, much less by accident..."
"Doctor, will you please just tell me what happened? I mean -- who were all those people?"
The Doctor groaned. "Ohhh, fine. Guess I can't just let that go by, can I..." He looked up at Shinji, suddenly looking very tired. "It's like this. When I - when my species suffers a mortal injury, something that'd kill us, we've got this trick. We don't die. We regenerate. Grow a whole new body from scratch. New face, new everything. Same memories and mind, though."
"So those men...?"
"They were me, basically. My past selves. Or mental projections of them, anyway."
Shinji sat back in his chair. "... Huh."
The Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose. "Think I need some air... some actual air. Can I still get out of this thing?"
"Um, I think so." Shinji thumbed through the control menus and retracted the spinal armor that covered the end of the entry plug. "Should be an emergency hatch in the back..."
"Yeah. Cheers... still have to rig the sensors out there, anyway..." The Doctor retreated, kneading his temples.
***
Outside Unit One.
T-2 Hours, 4 Minutes
The Doctor stood on Unit One's shoulder, screwdriver pointed at a particularly stubborn accelerometer. He felt the familiar pressure behind him - or, perhaps, in the back of his head. "Maybe I didn't make myself clear," he growled. "But I've had quite enough of you lot for one day."
"Don't you take that tone with me, young man," the First -- the original, the one who Promised -- said sharply. "And let's not beat around the bush, hm? You must've made the obvious connections by now."
"Well, considering that I'm talking to myself here -- mmh, yeah, I'd say the chances are pretty good!"
"So, then!" the First snapped. "You are fully aware that what just happened had nothing to do with the boy's abilities. It was the machine, of course -- this Evangelion creature."
"Yeah, I got that, thanks."
"And for it to pierce our defenses so easily, it must be an extraordinarily potent telepath, at least on the same level as our own people, if not even greater!" The First slammed his cane down for emphasis. "Who knows what it might glean from us the longer we hang about, hm? What secrets it might learn."
The Doctor sighed. "I'm just gonna have to be on my guard from here on out. It's only until I close the loop."
The First chuckled humorlessly. "Oh, yes, and that will solve everything, will it? And what of the information we learned in the dome? How will you deign to repair that?"
The Doctor leaned forward, his hands resting on the neck plates. "There's nothing I can do about it now," he finally said.
"Do you deny that our interference has made things incomparably worse for these people?"
"I'm saying the damage is done!" The Doctor slammed his hand against the armor. His shoulders sagged. "It's... it's done, and now I'm on damage control. Because I'm finished letting other people pay the price for my mistakes, you understand? Not again. Not ever."
"And if you're merely compounding the same error?"
"Yeah, well... story of my life." The Doctor suddenly swung around and stared the First in the eye. "And speaking of which -- let's talk about what you've missed, shall we? Haven't you noticed that none of the others are fighting me on staying here at this point? Not even the dandy."
"What of it?"
"Haven't you wondered why that is?" The Doctor jabbed the screwdriver towards his predecessor. "It's because none of us went as cold as you did towards the end. Not once." The First tried to say something. The Doctor cut him off. "And I know! I remember! Reasons! But do what all the rest have done. Take how Shinji's been treated by the people in charge. Project that out. What do you think this world's gonna be like if they get their way? How much more do you need to see?"
The First stepped back and took hold of his suit's lapels. "Men have arisen time and again from worse circumstances. One cannot predict what will be forged by observing the flames."
"Yeah, well. Just look at what's right in front of you. Then tell me you believe that in both hearts." The Doctor turned back to the accelerometer. "They keep throwing him in a tank full of liquid. But nobody thought to teach him how to swim."
***
Inside Unit One.
T-1 Hour, 32 Minutes
Out of the corner of his eye, Shinji saw a familiar figure slip back into the entry plug. "Are you finished out there, Doctor?" he asked. "It's just -- if we stay open like this, someone's probably going to notice..."
"I'm not the Doctor."
"Wait, what?" Shinji turned around. The person behind him looked... nearly exactly like the Doctor, actually. Except he seemed... smaller, somehow, and sadder. And his suit was different - a tweed jacket and a bow tie, instead of the usual brown silk and Windsor knot. "Okay... so... if you're not the Doctor, who are you?"
"John Smith."
Shinji blinked. "I thought you said that wasn't your real name."
"It isn't. But it was mine."
Shinji gave him a blank stare.
"I suppose... you could think of me as a kind of mask that he wore at one point. A disguise so real, he forgot it was a disguise." The man crossed to the pilot's chair. He looked Shinji over briefly. "Young. Very young. You have a long way to go. But all the same... I think I would have been proud to have counted you as a student."
Shinji looked away. ".... th-thank you."
"There's something you need to know. Something about the Doctor."
"What?"
"That he doesn't quite think like us," John Smith said quietly. "He tries. But he misses things that a human would see in a heartbeat. Things that he's far too old to remember. Things he's spent far too long trying to forget."
"Like what?"
"Before all of this is done, he's going to have to do something terrible. And he won't even realize it until it's far too late."
Shinji stared at him. "What do you mean? Do what?"
The emergency hatch slammed shut. Shinji whirled around. "All set!" The Doctor dusted off his brown jacket. He seemed to have regained his usual cheer, or was at least affecting a convincing simulation. "Best button us back up. It's just about time."
Shinji sat back in his chair. Smith was gone. There was no sign he'd ever been there.
"Oi, did you hear me?" The Doctor must've caught a glimpse of the expression on Shinji's face. "You all right over there?"
"Um. Yeah." Shinji shook his head and hit the switch.