Drudge. Cubicle. Filling in data points. Filling in forms. Type, format, re-sent. Type, format, resent. Resent. Resent everything. Blink and the supervisor is there, saying, “Hey, you know about the product,”
“Yeah? I do?”
“Yeah, it’s one of your things.”
“…do you know me?”
“Does anyone?”
Walking down the hall, file of data to enter under my arm. Ache in my hand. Room full of storyboards. Massive medical machine in the corner trailing pipes and wires onto the body of the guy over by the storyboard. Images on the boards, of Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami, Asuka Sorhyu-Langley. The red marker pen across all of them. Lines, circles. Words swimming into focus with the bright white light behind them.
“The ending’s a downer too, we’ll have to stretch it to make it worth watching.”
“Is that the point?” Another voice.
“It’s okay. We’ve got something to look over.” Saw me. “Ahah, you. You, yeah, you, we need you to come in and write us out of corners. You can’t make any new footage or demand any new scenes, but you gotta restructure the script for the new names.”
“New names?” I murmured in a daze.
“Evan,” he pointed at Shinji, “Angela,” at Asuka, “and Lian,” at Rei.
I woke up.