Just as it was 15 years ago, isn't it.

EVANGELION PROJECT Director Ikari Gendo [Supreme Commander of the special agency, NERV, Chief Director of the Evangelion Development Project, Age: 48]:

So it is... there can be no doubt... an ANGEL! At last one has come... alone. Homo sapiens can not avoid the responsibility of action: the day of the trial has come...

Several kilometers west in the interior of Japan away from the carnage on the coast a small city sits deserted. The populous have long since taken to underground shelters in the surrounding hills and beneath the city. A ghost town. Only the Public Address System echoes warning of the doming danger. ...This is an emergency broadcast warning announcement. All services to the Eastern Seashore region and Kanto Prefecture are hereby discontinued by proclamation of Special Emergency Declaration as of 12:30 local time. Please rapidly assemble and take refuge in Special Reserve Shelter.

As the announcement drones on the monorail station is deserted. ...Repeating Announcement. Rapidly assemble and take refuge at the Special Reserve Shelter. The information board shows that all departures-arrivals read, out of service. Shinji didn't go to the shelter with the crowd. Instead he tries the phone. No use.

"Damn." says Shinji slamming the phone down on the holder.

"Even the phones are useless. The monorails have stopped running. How this place functions as a transportation center is beyond me."

Shinji decides to strike out on his own leaving the station. However with no police to ask directions and no map it seem that his efforts will do little more than leave him more lost than he already is. The station is a huge maze. Finally Shinji finds the front portal that opens down to an amphitheater like facade and the city streets beyond. Resting on the steps he considers his options. Throwing his clothes bag down on the steps the sound reverberates round the portal like a canyon.

"This is so annoying." Shinji says. "Will I may as well wait here a while and maybe someone will show. This is just great, not! `Shelter'? Well it doesn't look like much of a war to me right now."

Feeling a little dejected Shinji reaches in the clothes bag and pulls out a letter. It's from NERV. He's read the letter before, but decides to read it again and think about his past and what may be his future.

"Father..." says Shinji. "Now that I'm almost grown up you take an interest in me. I doubt that you never once felt the ridicule that I did living at Uncle's house."

With the letter is a photo. It's the contact from NERV who will accompany Shinji. Katsuragi Misato, a high ranking officer in the EVANGELION PROJECT is sporting her favorite bikini top and high-cut jeans. She strikes a pose as she bends down to the camera. She writes that she can't wait to meet him. A big smudged lipstick kiss mark and arrow point to her bikini top and "attention" is written. Shinji just thinks she's weird.

"annnnn......." says Shinji. " This is one strange woman. She must think she's a sex symbol or something? Well ... I'm not going to stay here all day."

Shinji decides to walk. Perhaps he feels like getting away to anywhere bit where he's at.

"Let's see..." says Shinji. "If I follow the rail line to the second station, then I might run into this Miss Crazy Woman. Beats sitting around here doing nothing."

While Shinji walks down a deserted boulevard fighter jets streaks through the sky over head. Their white contrails like pixel lines on a blue field vdt at school. Crossing chaotically, they begin to fill the sky. Each pair of fighters successively passes lower over head.

"That's damn low for a military jet to fly over a city." says Shinji. "...AAAHHH...."