This story has been posted to the RAAC, but it seemed a little off. So I
figured I'd see if I could get a little help cleaning it up. Thanks in
advance.

	Fuyutsuki entered the commander�s office early that day, holding
 a copy of the Marduk �report.� He walked across the long, dark room, 
and faced the commander. His hands were white from squeezing the 
paper tightly for the whole elevator ride up to office, and his 
breathing was a bit more rapid than usual. The commander noted these 
things in the way a chemist noted the purity of his reactants, and 
spoke.
	�I see you have received the newest copy of the Report.�
	�Yes,� Fuyutsuki said coldly, �and I am glad you didn�t feel 
the need to tell me about the changes before you released it.�
	�I felt that you would�ve agreed with me,� the commander said, 
tonelessly.
	�I would�ve had you consulted me. I wonder sometimes, if I am 
really necessary here.�
	�Come now, Professor, it isn�t that important of an issue. I 
determined that we need more pilots, immediately. So I picked from the 
pool available the most qualified candidate.�
	�Even though Unit 03 is more than two month from completion?�
	�I have reason to believe one of the Evas could become 
available at any time. I wish to have a spare that will be more, 
reliable than the Third.�
	�I see,� Fuyutsuki said, thoughtful. �Has the boy been 
contacted?�
	�Yes. Mr. Suzihara will be undergoing his second synch test 
later today. I have informed Dr. Akagi and Captain Katsuragi as well. 
It will be up to them to inform the other Children.�
	�Of course,� the old man said, thinking: not that Ayanami will 
care.
	 �Would you have the revised disposition report and tactical 
guidelines finished today?�
	�Of course.�
	�Thank you, Fuyutsuki.�
	�It is nothing.�
	The professor left the room, leaving Gendou to his musings. 
�Its all going according to plan,� he muttered as he locked his hands 
across his face. After he was certain that no one was around, he let 
out a loud chuckle at the ridiculous way his mantra sounded.


Unfamiliar, But Welcome.

A Needlessly Verbose Title Production

Special Effects By Close Your Eyes and Imagine, Damn It, Inc.

Catering by ARMARK (unfortunately)

Titles by Six In One Hand, Half A Dozen in the Other Enterprises

All text in [ ] is English.


Three Days Later, NERV hospital, Room 101

	He woke with a pounding headache. No pounding wasn�t the word, 
he reflected. Splitting left something to be desired as well. Or 
perhaps excruciating. It was safe to say that he hadn�t felt like this 
since�well maybe since high school. He reached up to his face, noting 
the IV stuck in his arm. What had happened to me, he wondered idly? 
Then he noticed his hands.
	[Wha-!] he yelped. 
	They were too dark, too small. He stared at his hands, looking 
for the scars on his knuckle and across his palm. They weren�t there. 
His skin was darker, his arms bulkier. He looked down at himself, 
noticed the hospital gown and his body. He was built stockier, more 
solidly than he remembered. And he stroked his chin in thought, then 
realized he had no beard. His glasses were gone, yet he could see fine.
	[If I didn�t know better,] he said wearily [I�d say I was in a 
new body.] 
	He chuckled at his own joke and tried to get up. His muscles 
were sore, as if he had been sleeping for a long time, and his 
coordination was off. His legs were shorter than he remembered, the 
weight distributed wrong. The subtle differences combined with 
exhaustion and confusion managed to overwhelm him, and he tottered 
as he held onto the bed for support.
	He glanced around the room, taking in as much as he could. It 
was a hospital room like any other, with two beds side by side. There 
was no one in the other bed, and no sounds coming from the hall. In fact 
there was no sound coming from anywhere. A large computer terminal was 
built into the wall. He walked over to it, the IV cart trailing behind 
him. 
	The screen was blanked out, and the smooth touch pads that 
served as input devices were covered in Asian characters. He couldn�t 
make any of them out, so he touched a random one. The screen flared to 
life, covered in words that he couldn�t quite place. A picture of a 
young Asian man took up the top corner of the screen. The young man, 
actually boy, had dark black hair, brown eyes and an amused look on his 
face.
	Suzihara Touji, it said below the picture in English letters. 
He studied the picture for a moment, only to be distracted by his own 
reflection on the screen. He reached up with  one hand to feel his face. 
Then he sat down on the floor and shook his head.
	[Its got to be a bad dream,] he thought. [I had a bad slice of 
pizza or something.] He was perfectly aware of the fact that all the 
slices were bad, but decided to ignore that fact for the time being. He 
looked around the room again, this time out the window. The sky was 
gray, with no sign of the sun beside the diffused light that slipped 
past the blanket of the clouds. But he was definitely not in Boston 
anymore.
	[Not unless Boston tripled in size and got retractable 
buildings] he said as he stared at a skyscraper extending from the 
ground, a massive phallic symbol reaching towards the heavens. [I�d 
hate to meet the architect of that one] he said, situation forgotten 
for a moment. He didn�t notice the tiny camera positioned 
in the far corner of his room. 

	Dr. Akagi stood before her lover, clipboard in hand, trying 
to feel reassured in Ikari's office. She had been called up here 
directly form an inspection of Unit 01, Commander Ikari wanting answers 
to the problem of the Fourth child. 
	�He has woken up.� 
	�That was expected, the damage done was minimal. In fact I 
haven�t determined the cause of the rejection yet.�
	�Listen to the recording made after he woke.� Gendou reached 
down and a button on his desk. The speaker clicked on: [Its got to be 
a bad dream. I had a bad slice of pizza or something.]
	�He�s talking in English.�
	�Rather observant Doctor,� Ikari  sounded somewhat irritated.
	�I am quite sure that the Fourth doesn�t speak English. His 
school transcripts include notes to the effect that he had a good deal 
of trouble learning the language.�
	�I believe the word used was atrocious,� Gendou said with rare 
humor. �What happened.� It was not quite a question, more of a demand, 
but Dr. Akagi replied evenly.
	�The mental contamination we detected apparently took hold. I 
don�t know exactly where it came from, but I believe we should garner 
as much data as we can on the phenomenon as possible. It should shed 
some light on the process of synchronization process.�
	�Will he be able to pilot.�
	�I don�t believe the new pattern could handle synch with the 
present Eva system. However, I noticed something about his brain 
patterns during the examination.�
	�And,� Ikari said, irritated by the delay.
	�They�re a perfect match for the projected requirements of Project 
Y.�
	�Interesting coincidence,� the commander said. �I�d hoped that 
project would remain buried. But it could turn out to our advantage,� 
he mused. �Begin taking the unit out of mothballs. And interview the 
child. I want to know as much as possible about him. As I remember the 
Y project required some special� requirements from its pilots.�
	�I�ll get right on it,� she said. In her mind she was already 
running over the schematics for the Y project, preparing for its 
revival. �What if he doesn�t want to pilot?�
	�We�ll convince him,� the commander said with cold certainty. 
�There is more at stake here than the desires of children.�
	�Yes. Yes I guess there is.� Just what is at stake here? She 
asked herself. Do I even know?

	The first thing they had him do was fill out a form. They had 
looked at him rather funny when he started laughing at them. It took a 
bit of time for him to understand what they wanted him to do since there 
was no one speaking plain English to him. 
	[Name:] he read [Jerico Mele] he wrote. He looked down at the 
form he was filling out, ignoring the black  suited figure behind him. 
It was a freshly printed copy of the SAT form. He let out another 
chuckle at the irony of it all. Hope I do better than a 550 on the math 
this time, he thought.
	[Date of Birth:] he read. [5\18\80] he jotted down amazed at 
how easily he was taking this. Filling out forms after waking up in a 
new body in Japan. He had settled on Japan after picking up the couple 
of words he recognized. But there was no point in wondering about what 
had happened to him. After all he had no data to work with what so ever. 
No concept of how he had entered this body. No memories of 
leaving his last one. 
	[Intended major?] he asked the room at large.

	�He�s getting a little edgy,� Fuyutsuki said, glancing at the 
monitor. 
	�He�s been kept in the dark for the last three hours. No one�s 
told him anything about what�s happened to him, where he is or what is 
going on,� Misato said bitterly. �His opinion of us can�t be that 
great.�
	�We haven�t known anything, Misato,� Dr. Akagi said quietly to 
her friend. �And we needed time to track his data entry down in the 
global net. We�ll send you down to talk to him after this briefing.�
	�So what do we know about him?�
	�He�s an American. Jerico Mele, born on Nantucket in 1980.�
	�What? An old American is living in the body of the 4th Child?�
	�Not an old American. He died fifteen years ago.�
	�Excuse me?�
	Ritsuko held up the printout. �According to this death certificate 
he died in early part of the year 2000.�
	�Second Impact?� the Captain asked.
	�Actually he died of head trauma.� Ritsuko seemed to be smirking. 
Confused, Misato looked to the professor. He too had an amused 
expression on his face. 
	�Caused by?� Misato ventured.
	�A piece of Sky lab.�
	�Sky lab?�
	�An old American space station that fell from orbit in the 1970�s.�
	�It hit him? I thought he died in the year 2000?� The captain was out 
of her depth.
	�Pieces were falling for the next twenty years. Being hit by a 
chunk of it was improbable in the extreme,� Fuyutsuki explained. 
	�It appears that our Mr. Mele has had a string of good and bad 
luck. I figured out the method by which he came to inhabit Suzihara�s 
body.�
	�How,� Misato said, swinging from the Doctor to the Professor. 
	�The Fourth was in the midst of a synch test. During this time 
the brain is being restructured from input coming from the Eva. There 
is a strong random element to this input, but sometimes the pattern 
generated looks like a wave equation that represents the sum total of 
states that a brain can exist in. Somehow the pattern that represented 
our visitor got itself locked into the pilot�s brain.�
	�So he�s possessed?�
	�Not quite. The other wave pattern could still exist in the 
brain, but there�s nothing we can do about it as of now.�
	�I see. I should go talk to him now. I hope my English is up 
to task.�
	The two watched her leave, and shared a glance.
	�Is it necessary to-�
	�Yes,� the old man cut her off. �We need another pilot. We�re 
one Eva short and the 4th cannot use Y. We discussed this with the 
commander.�
	�I see. I�m sorry Professor, I have to get to work.�

	Misato waited for the elevator impatiently. She wasn�t looking forward 
to this conversation, especially since she hadn�t had a conversation in 
English for almost a year. A Captain�s job is never done, she lamented 
silently.
	The elevator door opened up and Misato hurriedly stepped inside. 
And bumped right into one person she had hoped to dodge until later. 
	�Hello Shinji,� she said cautiously. �How did your test go today?�
	The young pilot took his eyes off the floor. Absently he brushed a
 hair from his face and looked Misato in the eyes for a moment, before 
glancing back to the floor. �All right, I guess.� He shuffled his feet 
uncomfortably, and Misato knew he was going to ask a question.
�M-Misato, 
um, is Touji alright? I heard his test, um�� Shinji faded off and
continued 
to shuffle as Misato pressed the button for the hospital level.
	�I�m going to talk to him right now. Shinji, you have to understand 
that there was some mental contamination.� She stopped, unsure of how 
to explain it. �Touji thinks he�s someone else right now.� A 
lie, but not a bad one. �We�ll try to straighten it all out.�
	�Oh, all right. Um, sorry for the trouble.� 
	�Don�t worry, Shinji. We�ll fix everything.�
	He stayed quiet until his stop, then muttered good bye. 
	�I�ll see you tonight, Shinji.�
	Then the doors closed and she was alone with her thoughts until 
the hospital floor.

	He was getting tired of the forms. One after another, every detail 
charted. He�d filled out the math and verbal sections, twice each, and 
it was beginning to get irritating. There were only so many circles he 
could fill out before they all look the same. The sterile hospitality
was 
grating on him, as were the confines of his room. Any attempt to leave 
the room was turned down politely but firmly. 
	[This is pissing me off,] he muttered in an irritated tone of 
voice. [I wonder when they�ll send someone to talk to me?] Jerico 
wondered as he filled a circle at random. [Probably some old stodgy 
military guy.]
	Jerico turned his head to face the door as he heard an exchange 
from outside the room. He couldn�t understand it, but the guard, sorry,
nurse, 
shook himself from the daze he�d been in for a couple of hours. He 
busied himself with something in the room as the door opened.
	Looks like the boss is here, Jerico thought. Maybe I�ll get to 
learn a little about what�s going on. Yeah right.
	[I hope someone can help me out with what the hell is going on here,] 
Jerico said, allowing a bit of his annoyance out. [Last I checked it 
was illegal�] he drifted off as he glanced up at the person meeting him.
	She was gorgeous. No other word for it, not even beautiful. Gorgeous. 
Jerico realized his mouth had dropped open and made an effort to shut
it. 
The woman before him was incredible. Tall, with purplish hair and an 
open, friendly face. A large cross hung from a pendant around her neck, 
and she was dressed in a not quite uniform consisting of a red jacket, 
short skirt and tight black shirt. Upon reflection, Jerico decided the 
shirt wasn�t so tight, it just had a lot of�containing to do.
	[Hello,] she began in mildly accented English. [I am Captain 
Katsuragi of NERV, and you are Jerico Mele of the United States of 
America. I need to ask you a few questions before I can explain 
anything to you. Would you sign this?]
	Jerico glanced down at the sheet of paper she offered him, and 
the mass of Japanese characters on them. Kanji, he remembered idly, 
drawing on the vast store of knowledge that he had in his head that 
related to nothing pertinent. [I will if you tell me what it says,] he 
said, slightly ashamed at his own ignorance. 
	[Oh, I�m sorry. I forgot that you can�t read�never mind. It 
says you releases NERV of any responsibility in case of your injury or 
death, and you waive your�] she broke off and muttered in Japanese for 
a moment �what�s the word here? Oh yes.�
	[It says you waive your constitutional rights and your status 
as an American citizen,] she finished sweetly. 
	Jerico looked at her for a minute with a completely blank expression. 
His eye twitched a couple of times and he spoke slowly, enunciating
every 
word as clearly as possible. [Why would I want to do that?]
	[Because we have two things to offer you. I�m sure you noticed 
your, um, unusual situation?]
	[You mean �have I noticed I�m trapped in a Japanese boy�s body?]
	[We can offer treatment for this problem.]	
	Jerico marveled over the fact that in Japan body snatching was 
only a problem. In America it would have been a cause for alarm at 
least. [So you can return me to my original body?]
	Captain Katsuragi shuffled in her seat for a moment, obviously 
nervous. [We can also offer you a job here at NERV, as we need you for 
a series of experiments.]
	[Experiments? Job? Look I�m sorry if I sound a bit angry or 
annoyed, but I don�t really need any of this. I need to get back to 
school and figure out how the fuck I got to Japan in the first place. 
And what�s the deal with those retractable buildings? They new?]
	[Look, Mr. Mele, we have a couple of things to discuss. Can I 
ask you what�s the last thing you remember before waking up here?]
	[Um, I was walking back from lunch to my room in East, and I 
heard a whistling noise. That�s about it. After that it was like I 
immediately popped up here.]
	[All right, what year is it?]
	[1999, sorry, two thousand. Always forget for the first couple 
months.]
	[I see. Actually, Mr. Mele-]
	[Might as well call me Jerico. Or just Mele, I�m not particularly 
formal.]
	[Jerico, there have been some things that have happened. First 
you died.]
	Jerico looked at her with complete and utter confusion. He tried 
to frame a word, a question anything, but couldn�t quite wrap his brain 
around the concept. Misato handed him a copy of his death certificate, 
and he started laughing. From a chuckle to a roaring laugh, Jerico 
completely lost it.
	Misato hoped she had done the right thing. After a few moments, 
Jerico calmed down, tears in his eyes from the length and intensity of 
his outburst. [So this is what, heaven or something?] he asked 
sarcastically.
	[No. This is Tokyo 3, in the year 2015, at NERV headquarters.]
	[I guess I�ll take your word for it.]
	[No, I can show you,] Misato said as she stood. Some sympathy 
appeared in her voice. [As a prospective employee you do deserve a tour 
of your workplace.] I can�t wait to show him the Eva�s, she thought 
wearily. The little nutcase'll probably flip.
	[So its 2015 then, huh?]
	[Yes.]
	[That makes me what? Thirty five?]
	[Yes, it does.]
	[This is really going to take some getting used to.]
	[I�d expect so. Come along if you would. There�s a great deal 
to see.]


Next Time: (If there is one)

	The author decides if this is a joke or a real story. Shinji 
gets to meet the �new Touji� as does the rest of NERV. Jerico remarks 
on the one thing all NERV females have in common. Jerico also gets a 
serious case of culture shock, engages in teen drinking and proves that 
Islanders stick together.

A Quick note on Self Insert Fan Fiction:
	Do you know how hard it is to write one�s self in third person? 
It�s driving me nuts!

C&C Appreciated, jmele@brandeis.edu
http://www.undergrad.brandeis.edu/~jmele