In the Central Control Room at NERV Headquarters, Kozo Fuyutsuki watched the large screen. Shigeru Aoba and Hyuga Kou were still there too.
Dozens of small hexagonal panels had lit up red across the honeycomb-like field of black modules on the screen.
"Has it been checked?" Kozo Fuyutsuki asked, his eyes fixed on the screen.
Shigeru Aoba nodded. "We've more or less confirmed it. The cause is this batch of parts brought in four days ago. This is where the anomaly occurred."
"That's the 87th Protein Wall, isn't it?" Kozo Fuyutsuki said.
"Yes. When we zoom in, we can see something like stains. What could they be?" Even Shigeru Aoba, a pilot, was puzzled.
"Corrosion, probably," Hyuga Kou answered beside him. "The temperature and conductivity have changed too. The sterile rooms have been deteriorating a lot lately."
"The construction schedule was cut by almost sixty days, so air bubbles must have slipped in again." Realization dawned on Shigeru Aoba, and he looked back at Kozo Fuyutsuki. "Looks like the work on Building B was too shoddy."
"Construction there only started after the Angel appeared," Kozo Fuyutsuki said understandingly.
"They had a tough job," Hyuga Kou agreed. "Everyone's exhausted."
Kozo Fuyutsuki understood too, but his tone remained stern. "Get it all dealt with by tomorrow, or Commander Ikari will start nagging again."
"Yes, sir."
Despite the operators' affirmative answers, Kozo Fuyutsuki somehow still couldn't put his mind at ease.
The parts Shigeru Aoba had mentioned reminded him of something Gendo Ikari had once said.
In the end, humanity's enemy is humanity itself.
In the test site's Central Control Room, Ritsuko Akagi turned around in surprise. "Another leak?"
"No. Apparently, it was caused by corrosion."
Maya Ibuki held the internal telephone, with a call coming in from the Central Control Room.