“So, this is the third Child and the passenger you picked up, Misato,” observed the blond woman that met them on the other side of the security check point. She seemed to be politely interested, yet visibly impatient about something at the same time.
“Yup. Ritsuko, meet Shinji Ikari, the illustrious third child, and Ranma Saotome, strange visitor from a world without men,” Misato introduced them jokingly. If looks could kill, then the woman would at least have been hurting by now as Ranma and the blond woman both glared at her.
“Aw, come on! Can’t either one of you take a little joke?” Misato complained, looking a little skittish under the combined stares. Ranma really wanted to let the woman know that she was actually a boy just then, despite the curse, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Mostly because she was afraid she might lose her temper and do something stupid at the same time if she did.
“Why can’t you be more serious, Captain. We are in the middle of a crises incase you hadn’t noticed. Now let me have a look at just how bad this concussion of hers is suppose to be. Then I’ll want a blood sample to make sure she isn’t really an Angel in disguise like you suggested over the phone,” the woman criticized Misato, stepping toward Ranma.
She had to bend down to look Ranma directly in the eyes, shining a penlight into them to check the insides of them. She didn’t sound too happy with what she found, judging by the sounds she was making under her breath. “Definitely a concussion. A pretty bad one at that, you should take it easy for the next day or so. I don’t recommend letting you fall asleep for the next eight hours or so either, so someone will have to monitor you for a while. You really did a number on yourself, kid. Now about that blood sample,” she announced, giving her verdict and seizing Ranma’s left had at the same time.
Ranma felt a sharp prick on her left index finger. Looking down, she watched the woman called Ritsuko squeeze several drops of blood from Ranma’s finger tip onto a small glass plate. Once she had what she wanted, the woman placed a second glass plate over top of it and carried it over to a machine that looked like it didn’t normally belong here. She slid the glass plates into the machine and typed something into the keyboard along one side of it, turned a few knobs, and then walked back to them.
“It’s not one hundred percent reliable without the backup mainframe to correlate with. But this DNA filer should still be reliable enough to identify any Angel DNA found in Ms. Saotome’s blood. The only down side is that it’ll take a few minutes to complete the process, time I could be spending more productively elsewhere, Misato. So why don’t you humor me a little bit and have your friend here demonstrate exactly why you saw fit to classify her as ‘possibly an Angel’. I’d like to have something to put in my report when I explain to the commander exactly why I let you drag me all the way down here in the middle of preparations for the Angel’s attack. You do understand where I’m coming from on this, don’t you, Captain?” Ristuko explained in a less than completely friendly tone of voice.
Ranma shrugged and decided to go with something simple, so she activated her shield, putting just enough energy into it to make form. Normally it was nearly invisible, even to Ranma, but just a little tweak was all she needed to temporarily change that for the blond woman’s benefit. “Well, this is part of it,” Ranma commented, glad that her shield required almost no effort at all like this. She didn’t even have to hold her hands out to reinforce it, since it wasn’t actually fending off any attacks.
“An AT field?! But that should be impossible!” Ritsuko complained in disbelief. The blond woman and Misato both took a cautious step away from Ranma and her shield as if afraid of her now.
Shinji on the other hand, not knowing any better, wrapped on it a few times with his bare knuckles. His hands met solid resistance as Ranma’s shield didn’t so much as waver beneath the tentative contact. He pushed on it with his hand next, as if to see wether it or Ranma would give any under the experimental pressure he exerted.
“Hey, this is pretty cool, Ranma. It’s just like something out of a comic book, except that it’s actually real,” the boy enthused as he found a few other ways to test the barrier’s strength.
“Yeah? Well maybe if I’d had it up at the time, I wouldn’t have been knocked silly by that ugly giant’s sucker punch. Can’t believe I actually tried to reason with the moody thing. I guess that’s what I get for trying to talk things over like civilized people first,” Ranma complained finally allowing her shield to drop.
“You–, you’ve been in contact with the Angel attacking the city right now?” the blond woman asked sounding somehow betrayed by the comment. Apparently this Ritsuko woman had all but made up her mind that Ranma was one of the enemy already.
“Well, yeah. I kinda felt him swim by me when I woke up under water earlier today. I could kind of feel its emotions somehow, along with a kind of light tugging sensation, so I followed it a bit. There weren’t any words though, just emotions, but it seemed to be able to understand me when I tried to ask it what was going on. I tried convincing it that taking a little detour around Japan would be a lot less trouble for everybody. Then the stupid thing sucker punched me without so much as a warning or anything. That’s when I got the concussion by the way. Now that I’m feeling better though, I’m tempted to go out there and give it a taste of its own medicine,” Ranma replied, cracking her knuckles at the thought of payback.
A soft sounding ‘ding’ stopped whatever comments the two women looked like they wanted to make. The sound drew everyone’s gaze over to the high tech device Ritsuko had put Ranma’s blood sample inside of. The others looked at it like bad news waiting to be read. Only Ranma had trouble taking the device seriously due to the sound it had just made. “I though that thing was supposed to be a ‘DNA filer’ or something; not some glorified microwave oven? Or can it cook TV diners too?” she quipped, ignoring the silence that followed the soft ding.
“Um, Ranma . . . I don’t think this is exactly the best time to be making jokes right now,” Misato observed without dropping her serious expression. She and Ritsuko just continued to stare in morbid fascination at the device in front of them as if it were about to kill them all.
So Misato failed to notice the incredulous, sideways glare Ranma directed at her for the comment. “Says the woman who introduced me as a strange visitor from a planet without men. At the most I’m from another dimension, not another planet,” she retorted dryly. “Anyway, is anyone going to go and find out what that thing says? Or should I go over there and read it off for you myself?” Ranma added irritably when no one but Shinji decided to lighten up at her joke.
Reluctantly walking over to her own machine, Ritsuko read, then reread the results on the monitor. “Unbelievable! It says that she’s at least 98.74 percent human, with absolutely no correlation to Angelic DNA,” the woman half whispered in shock to her coworker.
“So, does this mean that you’re willing to trust me or not, lady,” Ranma asked them as they scrutinized the display screen. Both women jumped a little when they noticed Ranma had all but wedged up between them while they were fixated on the machine’s results.
“Well . . . this is reliable enough to justify letting you inside the base for treatment, Ranma. But we’ll need to do a few more in-depth tests to confirm that you didn’t fool the DNA filer somehow before we can trust you any more than that. We are in a war for survival after all,” Ritsuko replied hesitantly, still a little shocked by what her machine was telling her.
Ranma nodded, accepting the answer for now. They didn’t consider her an enemy yet, so that would have to be good enough for now. “Right, so where can I get something to eat? Because apparently food is what this new body of mine needs to fix itself,” Ranma asked her, indicating that she was okay with what the woman just said.
“Let’s get past this checkpoint and I’ll have someone escort you to the hospital wing, Ranma. They should be able to feed you there. Unfortunately though, the rest of us have a battle to get ready for,” Ritsuko responded, pulling something out of her pocket and handing it to Ranma. “This is a single use visitor’s card, Ranma. It’ll give you limited access to the base until it expires in approximately twelve hours. You’ll need it to get through the main gates and to activate the transits along the way. Don’t lose it, security personnel take their job pretty seriously around here,” she explained. Just before using an ID card of her own to go through the gate behind them.
Copying what she did with her own card, Ranma followed the woman through. Misato sent Shinji through next, after making sure Ranma figured it out alright, then followed behind him as well.
On the other side of the gate, Ranma saw Ritsuko talking into a phone. “Well it wasn’t a joke, alright. Just make sure someone’s down here to take her to the hospital wing within the next half hour.” “No I don’t have time to stand here and babysit her, we have an Angel incoming or did you forget that already?” “No, security’s already tied up with lock-down procedures to escort her there. Besides, it’s not as if it’ll kill you send someone down here, you’re not that far away from the main gate after all.” “Just do it! I don’t have time to waste on this conversation anymore!”
Obviously angry, judging from her final reply, Ritsuko slammed the phone back onto it’s holder. The blond woman had to visibly calm herself before turning to Ranma. “Sorry about that, Ranma. Apparently someone in medical thought that Misato really was pulling a prank on me in the middle of a crisis situation. I believe I fixed the problem though, so someone should be down here to escort you to the hospital wing shortly, half an hour at most. Try not to get in trouble before they get here, alright?” the woman told Ranma, just as Misato was entering the gate behind Shinji
“Didn’t take me seriously on this, huh. Apparently someone’s taking last April just a little too seriously,” Misato commented as she took in the scene around her. “Anyway, you sit tight, Ranma. We have some things to take care of with Shinji before the Angel arrives,” she added, sounding just a little bit serious for once.
“You’d better get moving then. I can feel big ugly moving this way already. I don’t think he liked having that bomb dropped on him very much,” Ranma replied, waving the three of them off with only minor concern.
“I don’t suppose you can tell us exactly how far away it is right now, can you, Ranma?” Ritsuko asked her, genuinely curious. If anything, she looked hopefully intrigued by the revelation.
Ranma shook her head apologetically. “No, just roughly. This is the first time I’ve ever felt something else in my head like this. But I can tell you exactly which direction it’s in from here,” Ranma replied, pointing in the appropriate direction.
“I understand. We might actually be able to use that ability of yours later on then, Ranma. I look forward to checking up on you later then,” Ritsuko nodded in acceptance, before stepping into an elevator followed by Shinji and Misato.
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(Posted Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:49)
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