Bound 4

Bound Part 4
Lull Before the Storm

Duo heard Heero screaming somewhere in the base, wild animal howling. He had never heard Heero make any sort of noise like that. Duo knew that Heero's self-restraint and the last of Heero's strong, almost indomitable will had been shattered; furious tears stung his eyes, threatening to well up there.

A grim smile lifted the corners of the mouth of the officer interrogating him. He swayed slightly. Prisoners were not his field, but Treize was coming, and the others that were supposed to interrogate him were busy with the preparations. Treize. Just the name made the officer feel a little nauseous with nerves, even over the whiskey he had drank to stiffen his courage. He would talk to Treize, but damned if they could make him do it sober. He was terrified of His Excellency.

The officer spoke calmly, leaning against the wall with a casual air, his eyes locked on the pilot. "Your adamant friend lasted a little longer than the others thought he would. We've given up on him. He's one crazy motherfucker, you know that? Not a few cards short of a full deck, I just think he has a few extra wild cards thrown in there somewhere. We were taking bets to see how long he'd last. Not longer than I thought, though. I got a good look into his eyes--rather burn at the stake than give up any information to us. He'll be doing plenty of screaming, but he won't be screaming anything we need to know."

"Bastard." Duo's eyes glittered with pure and perfect hate. "You really think you can break the Perfect Soldier that easy?" He felt the words trying to break into a sob, but he wouldn't let them. Ever. He kept seeing Heero lying beneath a group of OZ soldiers, vanquished, thrashed... broken.

"That mobile suit..." The officer whistled in appreciation, changing the topic of discussion without warning. "What a piece of work! Does it run on bipolar or unipolar circuits, kid?"

"Neither." It was the truth, it was nothing that the OZ soldiers couldn't figure out on their own if they ever found Wing, and it was a question that had absolutely no significance to the their mission. Therefore, safe to answer. Better to answer if possible. It would probably save him a hell of a lot of pain that way.

"Then what kind of drive systems does it have?"

This, of course, was information that was best kept out of enemy hands.

"Go fuck yourself," Duo replied blithely, his voice full of a manic, forced cheerfulness. Suddenly, he was flying across the room.

If he had hit the wall head-first, he may have been killed. As it was, he hit it with his shoulder, feeling it go numb, though he knew it wouldn't be numb for long. Duo shook his head to clear it, but he couldn't get up due to his cuffed ankles and wrists. So he stayed where he was until the officer came to kneel over him. Distantly, he mourned his poor amputated braid, whose absence he had noticed for the second time when he shook his head and didn't feel it swinging behind him. His long locks, once lustrous chestnut waves down to below his waist, was now a matted shock of bloody hair cut unevenly at his chin. He would have cried over it if he didn't have other, more lethal things to worry about. That braid was his only vanity.

The officer kicked him in the chest, flipping him over onto his back and simultaneously snapping one of his ribs. He ignored it grimly. He lay there gasping silently, the bright fluorescent lights falling into his wide, glazed amethyst eyes. A second later, the officer's face filled his field of vision.

The whiskey-breathed officer grabbed a handful of Duo's bloodied shirt-or what was left of it- and pulled him up. "Jun was right. You are a difficult one, aren't you? Not as tough as the other one, but pretty damned fiesty just the same. Must be true what they say, easier to train the young. You're good. Your leaders should be proud. But you should never be difficult with me. Because I can make your life even more of a hell than it already is. I already have enough to worry about without you deciding you want to be brave and go for a medal of courage here."

Duo laughed, breathless from pain. "Man, nothin' you could do to me could ever be worse than anything I've seen on the street, my friend."

The officer stepped forward, drunkenly angry, shook Duo back and forth until the boy's eyes went a dull, senseless violet from the pain in his chest and shoulder.

"What did I say about being difficult? Did you understand me?!? Do you!?"

"Y-Y-Yes..."

"Good, you goddamned brat." The officer tried to set Duo on his feet, but the American boy's knees immediately buckled. Sighing in exasperation, the officer moved him to the chair, sitting him in it. Duo stared straight ahead, breathing shallowly, eyes unfocused.

"Now, kiddo, we're going to have a little question and answer session. I'll ask the questions, and you'll give the answers. Do you understand?"

Duo didn't answer.

The officer grabbed Duo's nose between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing it viciously. "Do you understand me!?!"

"Yeah!" Duo's wide jewel-colored eyes were watering with involuntary tears of pain.

"Good. Let's start with your name."

"I dunt ave won." With his nose still pinched shut, Duo's voice sounded foggy and nasal. The officer shook him back and forth by his nose, eliciting laughter from the rest of the soldiers. "What do they fucking call you, then?!"

"Duo! Duo Maxwell!"

The officer let go of Duo's nose, which began to trickle blood. "You could have told me that in the first place and saved yourself a hell of a lot of pain, boy," the officer remarked. "But at least now you understand how we do things around here. Don't you now?"

Duo nodded in mock submission.

{Boom.}

Duo's ears were sensitive. They had to be, living in the dark gutters of L2 where you have to watch your back even in your sleep.

The Deathscythe pilot looked up to see if his captors had heard the noise. It was soft to Duo, somewhere far on the other side of the base, and with his perceptive hearing, it must have been almost inaudible to them. If they did hear, they didn't show any sign of acknowledging it. Despairingly, Duo decided it was probably just the hallucinations of an overwrought and delirious mind.

{BOOM!}

Hell no. No way that had been a hallucination.

He hadn't been imagining it.

// Heero? //

Duo looked towards the door.

The officer's hand flew out and rocked Duo's head back with a slap that sent a fresh spray of bloody froth from his battered nose.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you, boy. Show some respect for your superiors. Time for a few simple questions. Namely, who is in charge of you?"

"You don't think it's gonna be as easy as that, do ya?" Duo replied, grinning maniacally, and began to babble aimlessly, bracing himself for the abuse that was sure to come of it. He tried as hard as he could not to look back at the origin of the noise while he did it.

~*~

"How long have you been in training against OZ under the direction of the colony rebels?"

"What the hell're you talkin' about? I'm just an L2 pickpocket." A roundhouse blow to the face. Duo had fortified himself for the worse, but it still hurt like hell.

"How long have you been training to overthrow the Order of the Zodiac?"

"Is that a secret society? Any particular zodiac you gotta be to get in? I'm an attention-loving Leo that loves long walks on the beach, music, and--"

Another fist that closed his eye. The blow made his eye feel like it had exploded in its socket, but Duo couldn't help but see the funny side. He let out a hoarse, cracked laugh.

"Where's the engineer?"

"Who the hell are you talking about?"

"The engineer, the engineers, those fucking traitorous scientists! Jaye and the rest, where are they!?"

"No habla ingles, senor..."

"You little fucker--"

"Je ne parle pas anglais, monsieur-"

The officer pistol-whipped Duo across the face, and the smartass remark was cut off neatly.

~*~

{BOOM!}

Suddenly, the hinge at the top of the door of the only occupied isolation cell snapped, twanging as it ricocheted off a nearby wall. Silence for a few moments.

{BOOM!}

The bottom of the door creaked, crumpled in its frame.

~*~

The two guards that were left on patrol were still standing in the hall east of the locked isolation ward. A few others, brought by the noise, had joined them.

"Somebody's gotta sedate 'im. He'll break the fuckin' door down."

The first guard, Duanez, looked back towards the door that led to the isolation ward. Looked through the small window in the steel door. He couldn't see anything in the dark ward. The cells were just dark pits in the shadows.

"Let's draw straws for it."

~*~

The officer held out a small disk to Duo's battered face. It caught the overhead fluorescent and flashed.

"What is this?"

"CD," Duo gasped, trying to breathe through his mouth. His nose seemed to be solid now, with no breathing passages through it at all.

"What is it?"

"What the fuck are you talkin' about? I just told you."

"What the hell is it?"

"It's a compact disk, what're you, blind and ugly? Jesus, those docs must have slapped your mother when she had you."

The officer cracked the pistol brutally against Duo's head again, and red stars flickered across his vision. Warm wetness began to run down the side of his aching face. Duo allowed himself a moment to recover, bowing his head as if he was almost at the breaking point, then lifted his head and said:

"What, is that supposed to be an incentive to answer this damned stupid question over and over again? I'm through with this round-and-round shit. I have been fucked literally and figuratively. You hear me, you thick-headed sons-a-bitches?! I'm finished with this! God forbid you guys ever open a hotel chain. This place makes a ratty Motel 6 look like the fuckin' Waldorf-Astoria!"

There was rough laughter from the guards who were only spectating, not actually trying to get any valid information. Whiskey Breath grabbed Duo's crotch, squeezing it aggressively. The American pilot let out a yelp and jerked backwards, trying to get away from the hand. It was no use. He was tied tightly to the chair, his own hands cuffed behind him.

"What's on the CD?"

"Mozart."

A harder squeeze. Duo winced involuntarily.

"Is it a program?"

"Getting cold."

"Is it a blueprint?"

"Colder."

"Is it the basis of an op?"

"You're in Siberia, buddy."

"What is it?"

"Box of Cracker Jacks." An open-handed slap to the face.

"What is this disk, boy?!"