Sacrifice Part 10
Lab 2: Heero's Army
Through dark tunnels of ventilation shafts they crawled, one after the other, as silently as they could, eyes peering blindly into the pitch black as they felt their way along with Duo in the lead and Milliardo bringing up the rear. It was freezing cold, even with their black uniforms.
As he crawled in the darkness, without realizing what triggered it, Duo found himself thinking of a time back when he was a kid on L2, back when the plague had taken almost everyone he ever knew, and when OZ soldiers had taken care of the ones the plague left behind.
One of the other priests in the neighborhood, Father Phineas, had taken the bodies of Father Maxwell and Sister Helen and the others to a run-down funeral home, where even on L2 they tried to maintain some human dignity by having a viewing and a funeral. Duo had been allowed at the viewing, even though they were closed-casket funerals, and he didn't know why they called it a viewing, because there was nothing to see.
He had snuck around to the back halls of the funeral home, opening one of the doors. He didn't remember much about it, except that there was a white room, with metal walls with drawers in them and metal tables. And there were things laid out on those tables, covered in white sheets. Only those white sheets had red blossoms on them, red dried to a brownish-maroon color. The people-shaped lumps under the sheets filled the back room. There were so many. So many.
He had run away screaming.
The scent of the Labs drifted through the vents, the same smell that he had breathed in that horrible back room of a slum funeral home in the worst part of L2, smells of antiseptic and alcohol, strange chemicals, the tangy metallic smell of freshly sheared copper that could only be blood, a vague whiff of formaldehyde.
Duo stopped dead in his tracks as he realized what this terrible place smelled like. A low moan rose in the back of his throat.
It smelled like a morgue.
"Duo." Quatre's hand came down on the back of his neck, the only place Quatre could make direct skin-to-skin contact. It was warm, even in the chill of the ventilation shaft. Duo didn't think it was physically possible that Quatre could still be warm. But he was. That warmth was calming... numbing the hysteria he had felt rising in him, the screams that would have alerted the enemy to their presence and killed them all.
"Are you okay?"
Duo nodded, then whispered, "No." Without speaking again, he began to crawl.
He fought the urge to cry out in horror, choking it back, bowing his head as he moved forward in the darkness, moved forward even though everything in his mind and body and heart screamed at him to go back. But he couldn't run away. Not this time.
Finally, after it seemed they had crawled through the darkness for hours, months... time had no meaning in the dark... Duo came across the opening hatch. It was slitted, and when he leaned over it to see if anyone was in the room below, it painted his blackened face with streaks of light. The coast was clear.
He reached deep into his braid near the scalp and pulled out his set of lock-picks, holding them across the light so he could find the star bit he was looking for. He began to unscrew the hatch, working carefully in the darkness.
As soon as they jumped down from the shaft as quietly as they could, they took out their weapons. Silenced pistols. They circled around and looked at each other, solemn shadows in black from head to foot.
"We need to fan out, Wufei," Duo whispered, violet eyes bright and violent shining out of the dark lampblack covering his face. "Look for Heero. If you come across the white-coats, take them out. Fast and quiet. No survivors. Kill them all."
Milliardo looked at him hard, as if trying to decide whether he was serious or not. Trowa swallowed hard, then nodded. Quatre made a soft sound at the word "kill," but bowed his head without protest. Wufei was the only one who would challenge the order.
"That's unnecessary bloodshed, Maxwell. We're not terrorists anymore. We're Preventers. We have to remember our place. Don't let your emotions control you. It could endanger all of us. Not just Heero."
Duo looked at him, his voice still not carrying beyond the five of them. "You know what these people are capable of. You've seen what they've done. Do you really want an enemy like that alive at your back?"
The others looked at each other. He had a point.
The five opened the door into the quiet hallways and swept through the second lab like a silent, lethal wind. They were also killing, but not in the same way that Heero Yuy had killed. They killed quietly and quickly, but with no more remorse than Heero had.
~*~
Quatre and Trowa found the scientists' quarters. And that's where they found Miller.
Trowa moved as quickly as a cat and shoved Quatre flat to the hard metal floor as Miller pointed a revolver and fired at Quatre's head. The scientist was wild-eyed, woken from a deep sleep, and looked dangerous, even wearing nothing but boxers.
The first shot was high, ricocheting off the walls with a sharp pinging sound. Sparks flew. The second shot hit him hard, threatening to throw him to the floor. He ignored the pain, which was bad, but nothing he hadn't experienced before.
Besides, he had protected Quatre, and that was the important thing.
Lying over Quatre with blood soaking his black uniform, Trowa raised his own gun and pulled off a single shot at the scientist. It hit the scientist between the right collarbone and shoulder, making him drop his weapon. Swinging his leg out hard and fast, Trowa kicked it away before scrambling to his feet and tackling the man, bringing his gun down in a brutal arc to Miller's temple.
The scientist was out cold.
~*~
Duo headed his own way down a length of quiet corridors, tailed by Milliardo. Every once in awhile, a soft hissing click and a muffled, almost mute shot could be heard from their silenced pistol as they killed one of the scientists, making their way through the base without leaving a single person alive. They had a lot of security to get through. He stayed to the shadows, taking down anyone who got in his way, even making an attempt to hide the bodies behind him, so there was less chance of getting caught.
They methodically searched through a series of laboratories and empty rooms, all with no luck. As they went through, Milliardo took pictures with a digital camera, sending them directly into the Preventers database.
Finally, they came to a door that looked almost promising. It was a big square steel door with no window looking in, much different than the rest he had encountered.
Milliardo stood back, guarding the hall, while Duo slid key cards he had collected from the guards he killed into the door's lock, testing it a few times before finding a card that actually worked, and the door slid open. His eyes widened as they met with something he hadn't expected. He had expected to see Heero, or maybe just another disappointing, empty room. Maybe a room full of enemies.
Instead, he saw a dozen kids, boys and girls. They ranged from the littlest, which looked around five years old, to teenagers who looked just a little younger then he and the other guys had been before coming down to Earth for the first time.
"What in the hell..." Milliardo whispered, following him into the room.
They were chained to the walls, which had electronic consoles built into them. The kids were hooked up to the machines with cardiograph pads attached to their foreheads and collarbones. Somewhere, Duo could hear the soft, steady beeping of their heartbeats, which intermingled and blurred into one steady background noise.
They were still as death, eyes closed, chests moving rhythmically. They all had the same angular faces, the same dark, chaotic hair.
They looked like Heero.
Duo looked at the nearest one, a young girl with her head bowed towards the floor, hung in a suspended animation, bangs hanging in her face, hair chopped into a chaotic dark brown mop over bare shoulders. She looked around ten, and saw a four-digit number tattooed across her cheekbone like a brand.
2158.
A chill slid down his spine.
~*~
"Clive Miller..." A voice boomed over him softly, reverberating like the voice of God.
He couldn't see their faces. He was tied to a chair. They had taken the base. How in the hell had they taken the base?! Their faces were covered in lampblack. Green eyes shone out of the one over him.
"Answer my questions, and we'll kill you quickly. Don't answer them, and we'll have to do this over a couple of hours. Your comrades are dead, Miller. It is in your best interest to comply." The soft voice over him was completely cold, emotionless, without a single inflection of feeling. He wasn't even breathless from being shot.
"Fuck... you. You... wouldn't dare."
"Try me, and you'll find out if your assumption is true or false. It will be the difference between a six-second death, and a six-hour one. But you're going to die one way or the other."
"Like hell... I am."
The green-eyed soldier stepped forward menacingly, causing Miller to wince and recoil. Blood hit the floor in dime-sized drops at Trowa's feet, dripping from his fingertips.
"Trowa, you're shot," Quatre whispered.
~*~
2457 was never, ever left unsupervised.
The three guards in the corridor fell to Wufei's pistol. As usual, he stalked the halls by himself. Quatre had Trowa. Duo... had once had Heero. But Wufei had always ended up working alone. And he liked it that way.
But it didn't matter now. Because he was the one who had found Heero. He was going to give him back to Duo. And they would be whole again. Their team would be restored. He hadn't realized how relieved he was at the thought of that until he saw that one number down at the end of the corridor, branding an ominous steel door. There was a screened window in the door, and one glance into it gave Wufei all the proof he needed.
Heero was in there. He could barely see Wing's ex-pilot for all the machines he was hooked up to. Heero was hanging off the metal floor, gagged and blindfolded.
Wufei beat on the door, pounding hard on it, not caring if anyone heard him. Heero might have been blind, but he couldn't be deaf.
"Yuy! Yuy, are you awake!? Yuy, move if you hear me!"
Nothing. Heero hung in his bounds as limply as a ragdoll, unmoving. Wufei couldn't even see him breathing.
He took a keycard from one of the dead men on the floor and swiped it through the lock, seeing the light turn from red to green. There was a clicking deep in the mechanics of the door as it unlocked. Wufei took the handle on the door and pushed it inward.
He moved quietly into the cell. He had been prepared to be shocked at Heero's condition, but he looked much worse than even Wufei had expected. Heero's skin was as pale as ashes, with dark-blue circles beneath his blindfolded eyes. Someone had branded his number along his collarbone in block numbers, dark green ink.
Wufei moved forward silently on the balls of his feet, prepared for attack or defense, whatever seemed necessary. He reached out to touch Heero's cheek. No response. Heero felt ice-cold to the touch.
He reached around and untied the gag, removing it from Heero's mouth and letting it drop to the floor, then removed the blindfold. He put two fingers to Heero's neck, the side that didn't have an electrograph pad attached to it. There was a heartbeat, steady and calm. Heero's breath was a soft as a child's.
Wufei's eyes widened a little. "Not dead," he whispered, softly. "Sleeping..." He shook Heero's shoulder, gently at first, then harder. "Yuy. Yuy!" Nothing. Heero gave no indication that he had heard. He may as well have been talking to a stone, Heero was so deeply unconscious.
He reached out gently, meaning to put one hand over Heero's mouth and the other over his nose. It would take less than a minute, and the Perfect Soldier would not feel any more pain. Quatre would have recoiled in horror at the act-would have called it cold-blooded murder-and Duo would kill him if he knew, but Wufei knew what Heero would do, if he was in the same position. The Wing pilot was suffering. He had been suffering all his life.
Wufei remembered the brief moment when the men in suits had come for Heero, told him that they were taking him back. He had looked so... relieved. Almost happy. At ease. Heero would see his act as a mercy, no more and no less.
If he left Heero alive, what exactly would he be leaving the Wing pilot alive for? A short, haunted existence, without purpose or meaning. A weapon in a world without use for them anymore, more a weapon than any of the others.
Heero Yuy would not want to die as an abused experiment gone horribly wrong. He would not want to die wasting away in a world that didn't want or need him anymore. He would want to die among warriors, among men who knew what his life was all about, who faced it, met its challenge, and died on their feet, with smoke around them, snarling and biting.
That path was not open to him now. The Wars were over. Best to see him out of it. It would be painless, and that would have to be good enough.
"Heero..." Wufei whispered. And still he hesitated.
// What would you want, Yuy? //
::There's always a chance. The only guy with no chances is a guy who has his chances taken away from him. I'm not gonna let that happen to Heero.::
Closing his eyes, Wufei pulled his hand back. Heero would not want to come this far only to die in a stinking sterile prison. If he would die, he would not die like this. He would die fighting. He would fight to the end, dying, bleeding, and even then, he'd take those last few faltering steps, gun raised and smoking. If he was going to die, he would want company, and he'd bring down whoever he could for the ride.
"Okay, Yuy."
He started pulling off pads and wires and straps, disconnecting Heero from the machines. As soon as he was free, Heero fell into his arms. Wufei threw Heero over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, gun in one hand, the other wrapped around Heero's back.
He went to find the others.
~*~
"Duo, what in the hell are you doing?!"
Duo threw down his gun, stepping forward. He started ripping out wires and pulling off pads. He pulled a switchblade from his pocket and began to shred the straps holding the girl down. A loud beeping noise issued as Duo disconnected the cardiograph.
When he looked up from what he was doing, he gasped softly. "Uh..."
The girl's eyes were open. She was watching him. The rest of their eyes were open.
They were all awake.
Duo's heart stuttered in his chest. Twelve pairs of cobalt eyes watched Milliardo and him blankly from both walls, the calculating, cold eyes of snakes. They didn't struggle in their bonds. They didn't ask for help.
Milliardo backed up, raising his gun. "Duo..."
Duo ignored the others, bringing his eyes back to the girl he was freeing. Those cobalt eyes blinked up at him, looking at him, but not seeing him. He didn't see the fear or pain he had expected to find in those eyes. There was only a bright, violent intelligence, waiting to be told what to do.
Or who to kill.
"Kid?"
Nothing.
Duo freed her and picked her up, setting her on the floor. She stood on her own, in a billowy white shift that looked almost like a hospital gown. Those blank eyes flickered back and forth from Duo to Milliardo. Some of the others were still watching them. Others had simply seen, accepted, and closed their eyes again.
"Hey, kid?"
The girl seemed oblivious to him.
Something broke in Duo to see the girl like that. He kneeled and seized the girl in his arms desperately, hugging her. "It's okay now, kid, it's all right. You're safe now. You're safe with us."
/ Oh Jesus... where is Heero? Where is Heero, and what are they doing to him... /
Milliardo stepped forward. "Let her go, Duo. Back away for a minute."
"Shut up, Peacecraft, don't you see? Look at her! Look at them!! They're Heero! They're all Heero!"
Duo felt himself pulled away by the back of his uniform as Milliardo jerked him to his feet, forcing the Deathscythe pilot to look him in the eyes. "Duo, becoming hysterical now will not help to save your partner. Pull yourself together."
Milliardo turned away from Duo and looked back at the young girl. "2158. 2158, do they call you anything else? I order you to answer."
Something sparked behind that frigid cobalt gaze. "No."
"What is your Mission, 2158?"
"To kill the Enemy."
"Where is the soldier code-named Heero Yuy? Where is 2457?"
The girl's gaze wavered a little. "We are Potentials. He is Perfect. He is kept apart from us."
"You have new Mission parameters, 2158. Your objective is to follow us."
An expression that was almost human slid through the girl's dark blue eyes. "You're not the Doctor."
Milliardo turned to Duo before taking out his digital camera again. "Get the rest of them down. We'll take them with us."
~*~
"One of us has to do it, Quatre."
"Trowa. Does it have to be this way? He was raised like this," Quatre said softly. He was looking up at Trowa, blue eyes wide and uncomprehending. This was not his kind of war. His was a war between mobile suits. A war between machines. He had never killed anyone face-to-face in his life.
"I was raised the same way. Does it make any difference, Quatre?" Trowa replied, his voice not quite a whisper, tinged with bitterness, a tone that Quatre had never heard from him before. Trowa was staring at the bound man with a carefully controlled hatred that seemed to emanate from him like raw heat. He knew Heero's pain. He had been there. To be controlled... by men like this...
"It should, Trowa. It should make a difference."
"Does it make any difference that Treize didn't know what these men were doing? Does it make any difference that most of the men we killed tonight were only following orders? Does that change what they did? Does that change what they did to Heero? If they followed through with their plan, if they unleashed Heero and hundreds of soldiers like him on the world in the Peace Era, does it matter what in the hell anyone told them to do?" Trowa's voice was quiet, forceful, like contained violence. He hated these men. He hated them.
"Why can't we turn him over to the Nation for sentencing, Trowa?"
"We've already discussed that. The Nation is the reason these men were able to take Heero back in the first place. It was legal, Quatre. We can't allow that to happen again. Not to anyone. It has to be done."
Trowa pulled his gun, cocking it. The click was loud in a silence broken only by the scientist's harsh breathing behind the gag.
"Look away, Quatre."
Trowa's eyes narrowed in grim determination, and for a moment Quatre thought he looked like one of the lions he tamed for the circus. Vicious. Ruthless and merciless. A predator.
"No, Trowa. Not this time," he whispered. "I'll do it."
Miller's eyes widened, and he made choked, panicked noises behind the gag. "Mmm! Hmnh!"
Quatre raised the pistol. Aimed at the man's forehead, pistol trembling minutely in a pacifist's shaking hand.
"Mhnm!"
Quatre thought of Heero, thought of the look in the eyes of the Wing pilot when he was taken away. He thought of Heero lying cold and alone for two years in a sterile cell.
He squeezed the trigger. Blood, brains, and fragments of bone hit the wall.
Quatre swallowed hard and closed his eyes, firing another round. He dropped the pistol, and it hit the floor with a clatter as he turned away from the corpse of Clive Miller.
"Are you going to throw up?" Trowa asked, softly.
"No."
"Because it's all right."
"I'm fine." Quatre's voice hardened. "I've killed soldiers before, Trowa."
"Not like this. Not anyone who is tied up and helpless. Not with a pistol."
"No."
"I'm sorry, Quatre."
"...Me too."
~*~
Quatre and Trowa headed back up the corridor. Quatre tried to get Trowa to lean on him, but Trowa would not admit to weakness. He swallowed his pain and staggered along, sweat beading on his face and forehead.
The first thing they saw when the rendezvoused with the others was the children Duo and Milliardo had with them. So many children. They were all barely dressed. All had tattoos of four-number codes across cheekbones, collarbones, shoulder-blades.
Some of the older ones carried lists of military operations tattooed down their arms like brands of conquest.
"Duo, who are they?" Quatre whispered, although he already knew the answer.
Duo looked up at him, violet eyes haunted. "Heero's army."
Trowa narrowed his eyes. "Where is Wufei? He should have been here."
A clattering noise from the rear startled them into drawing their guns. "I'm here. Somebody take him. He's heavy."
Wufei stood behind them. Heero was thrown over one shoulder, hanging limply in Wufei's arms.
Duo ran forward, checking to make sure, not willing to let his heart make the leap without making absolutely sure first. But there was no doubt about it. Pale, mangled, barely alive, and unconscious, but it was him.
Heero.
Duo took him from Wufei's arms, tears coursing down his cheeks, and he cried with a lack of self-consciousness he had not known since Solo's death. "Heero... Heero..." The Perfect Soldier was heavy in his arms; dead weight.
Wufei looked around at his team. Heero, unconscious and barely alive, Duo, shaken and on the verge of hysteria, Milliardo, standing as he patiently waited for orders, Quatre, pale and shaking, Trowa, blood trickling beneath his black uniform, green eyes glazed from pain he was holding in check for the sake of the mission.
And then there was the children. No time to ask.
"Maxwell, pull yourself together," Wufei said grimly. "We have to get out of here."
TBC...
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