Sacrifice Part 8
Lab 1: Aftermath
In Lab 1, the location of Heero's escape attempt, blood was splattered and streaked over the walls, pooled on the tile floors, lots of it, so much it didn't seem real, like a scene in a cheap horror flick.
The pilots walked through the hall, walking gingerly as they had to step through the blood on the floor. Quatre slipped in it, throwing out his hand to the wall to catch himself, and grimaced sickly as he put his palm down in blood, too. He would have slid forward on the slick floor and fallen, if Trowa had not caught his shoulder. Quatre grabbed out at Trowa's jacket to steady himself, leaving a bloody handprint there.
"Be careful, Quatre," the Heavyarms pilot said softly. He didn't know why, but none of them seemed willing to speak at a normal level here, as if there was a reason to whisper.
Quatre glanced up at him, and tried not to let Trowa see how scared he was. Scared of his own teammate, even though the Perfect Soldier was no longer there. In his heart, Quatre could feel as if Heero's violence still lingered in this place, like a dangerous shadow.
The Sandrock pilot let out a small whimpering groan in the back of his throat, trying to scrub the blood off of his hand and onto his clothes. He had never had blood on his hands before... had never killed someone face-to-face...
Not like Heero. Never like Heero.
==I won't let you hurt me anymore!! Kill them... kill them... killthemkillthemKILLTHEMALL!!!==
==not the needle... please...==
"Uh.." Quatre closed his eyes tightly and bowed his head, bringing his hand up to his chest.
"Winner?" Wufei's voice cut through the silence, stern and sharp.
Quatre opened his eyes and looked up at the Chinese pilot. "I'm fine, Wufei." When Wufei raised an eyebrow, his dark eyes questioning, Quatre added, "Really. It's nothing. Just... a cold pocket. It happens sometimes... in places were many people have died. I'm fine."
Wufei nodded, continuing on. In the years they had known Quatre, all three of the other pilots had seen Quatre's visions and feelings as signals and warnings. Wufei was the one who was disturbed most by the Arabian pilot's strange ability. Being the most logical and rational of them all, Quatre's precognition was unknown and mysterious and unexplainable. Therefore, it was threatening. Trowa saw Quatre's ability to know who was on the phone before they spoke or when something was happening to his friends as a strange gift, but a gift nevertheless. Duo, who had grown up on scraps of comics of superheroes and such in his childhood in the L2 slums, considered telepathy a superpower and thus, "the shit," in his humble opinion. Heero had simply seen and accepted... as he usually did with anything he couldn't understand.
Trowa walked beside Quatre, keeping his voice low enough to where the others wouldn't hear. "Just a cold pocket?"
"I felt him, Trowa. I felt him here, but... he's in a darker place now. He has no idea, Trowa... no idea what he did here."
There wasn't any doubt about it. These were not the cold, efficient killings of Heero Yuy. These were done with a desperate, rage-filled violence that Quatre had never suspected the Wing pilot could be capable of.
Duo cautiously pushed open one of the doors, keeping his gun upheld. The room had once been someone's office, but now it was completely destroyed. The steel file drawers were violently ripped from their cabinets, scraped and dented, their handles twisted off; the contents were scattered across the floor. A heavy oak desk was tipped over on its side as if it had been thrown across the room. The wood was cracked and splintered. Papers were everywhere, typewritten sheets, EKG graphs, graphs of brain wave patterns, pages covered with medical figures and notations, all shredded and crumpled.
There was more blood here, everywhere. It was on the floor, the furniture, the rubble, the walls, even the ceiling. The whole place smelled like freshly sheared copper, the sickening sweet metallic reek of a slaughterhouse.
"Good God..." Zechs said, his rasping voice suddenly loud in the room. Duo startled, looking over at the Tallgeese pilot.
"Did Heero do this?" Wufei asked, looking over at Quatre.
"Yes." Quatre's voice was soft, chilled.
Wufei stared at the Arabian pilot with fierce scrutiny. "What do you see, Winner?"
Quatre shook his head, shaking slightly. He looked like he was going to be sick quite soon. His eyes were closed, and his hand had come up to his forehead in a familiar, sickened gesture they had all seen before at one time or another. He shook his head again, as if he would never stop shaking it. He didn't have the vocabulary to speak what he felt.
Where he had once been able to sense his friends in his mind, Duo like a shadow, Trowa like a shaft of dancing sunlight, Wufei like an obdurate stone, Quatre had been able to sense Heero Yuy, a presence as steady and calm and cool as unfeeling jade. There was none of that there now. What was left of Heero's presence had been flooded by deep darkness. There were black eddies there, riptides. There was no telling what was beneath those murky, violent depths. Anything. What was left of Heero Yuy in his mind was something dark and dangerous. He could find no words to describe it.
Trowa felt the skin on his arms crawling, and he rubbed them almost nervously. A chill crept across the back of his neck. He put a hand on Quatre's shoulder, surprised some of that pain and fear didn't jump to him like an electric shock.
"Marquise, you said you knew this enemy personally. What did you mean by that? How do you know him?"
Zechs walked carefully through the dimmed halls, avoiding as much of the blood as he could. The bottom of his long coat swept the floor, red staining the white cloth. Bare lightbulbs flickered over their heads. "Miller is a genius, a colleague of William Straub. They were both sick, but still brilliant. Miller has degrees in medicine, psychology, and chemistry. He used to work with OZ in the Weapons Development Unit. He's mainly interested in behavioral indoctrination and the psychology of soldiers."
"Why would the colonies allow Miller and Straub to do their work?" Trowa asked. His voice was soft and angry, as if he was an L1 or L2 native himself, and disgusted with the colonies for their part in it. "The colonist civilians are pacifists. And why would OZ use those men?"
"Because they are dishonorable," Wufei muttered under his breath.
Zechs pretended not to hear him. "It's power. That's what all politicians and military men are after, good intentions or not. What country wouldn't give money to have control of a human killing machine without interceding morals, or any kind of emotional weaknesses? Of course they funded his work. Both Miller and Straub."
Duo touched his gun, comforted by the pistol's cool, firm weight. "I find it hard to believe that Treize would fund that kind of psycho-Nazi crap, Zechs."
"He was unaware of Miller and Straub's true objectives. It was when OZ was still hidden within the Alliance, and OZ officers were very sensitive to the world opinion. When Treize found out about the true nature of the Project, he was disgusted. He had Miller and Straub dishonorably discharged from the Alliance... and consequentially from OZ. Maxwell-" He looked at Duo. "What did Yuy tell you about the Project?"
Duo kept walking. His voice was almost a whisper. "Straub thought Heero was perfect. He... pushed him... hurt him... because he couldn't stand the thought that his subject in the Project was anything but the most intelligent and strongest and most dangerous soldier anyone had ever seen. He tortured Heero.... tortured him to make sure that happened. He didn't say anything about it. I've just seen the scars."
Trowa made a disgusted sound. "Damn..." His quiet voice held shock and pity.
Duo felt his eyes sting, pricked with hot tears, but he would not cry. Not now. He blinked, lowering his head.
Zechs thought back on Miller. From the moment he had met the man, he had not cared for him. It was an instinctive reaction, one he could neither rationalize nor explain. He had never seen any of the man's work, and he appeared on the outside to be nothing more than any of the other techs in the Weapons Department. Rabidly intelligent, but lacking in an officer's sophistication and honor, not to mention social skills.
One of the things he had most disliked against Miller and Straub was their lack of convictions, moral or otherwise. They had no interest in the ethics of their field, no strong feelings on anything. They didn't feel one way or another about the war or the deaths caused by the weapons they developed, as long as their research was funded and their experiments carried out.
"Heero was a part of OZ?" Quatre asked, softly.
"Yes. He was young; I doubt he remembers, or if he could, I doubt they would have let him. When Straub was discharged, he took his experiments with him and defected to the colonies, out of spite against Treize. One of the weapons he took...one of the weapons he stole...was Subject 2457. He turned one of OZ's own weapons against them. Heero Yuy was ours first. That's why we knew he would eventually be deployed against us."
Zechs sighed. "When he took 2457 to the colonies, he began the Project over again, this time with Dr. Hector Jaye and Miller as his colleagues. Jaye was the most humane of the three. From what I've heard, he and Jaye had violent disputes over the ethics of their work."
Duo's amethyst eyes met the azure gaze of Zechs. "There are no ethics in torture or playing God. Anyone who could do something like that to another human being... they're damned."
"Why didn't you tell us this before, Marquise?" Wufei asked. His voice was soft and deadly. Flashing raven eyes met the cool blue of the general's.
"I did not have the cause nor the authority. I'm not in OZ anymore, but I had an oath of secrecy to protect."
"So why tell us now?"
When Zechs replied, his voice was soft. "Because OZ is dead. And if we are lucky, Heero Yuy is still not."
They came upon a set of steel tables set behind a wall of glass. Trays of instruments had been thrown to the floor, sharp sterile steel glittering on the metal tiles of the floor. The restraint tables were overturned, all the straps slashed. There was blood here, too. A huge lightboard was mounted on the wall; some X-rays were still clipped to it, but most were ripped and scattered across the floor.
/ Or maybe we would be luckier if he was, / Zechs added to himself.
Zechs entered the lab, heading for an overturned filing cabinet, pulling open the drawer and rifling through the papers. "Go through the other cabinets."
"What exactly are we looking for, Zechs?"
"You'll know it when you find it. A file folder. Maybe a three-ring binder. And computer disks. A set of them with PA-012457 on the label. Or a symbol. A red 'A' with two swords crossed over it."
He straightened up, wiping some blood from the cabinet handle off his hand and onto his uniform. "Straub also kept a personal record. All his thoughts on the Project, and a journal of completed work. But none of those things are here. They got here before us and cleaned this place out."
"You mean the dude kept a diary of all the sick shit he did to Heero?"
Zechs looked up at Duo. "We're not sure Heero was the only test subject."
~*~
The silence in the car as the squad rode over to the spaceport was deafening. Quatre, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, turned the radio on in an attempt to break the quiet. The news was on.
###"...colonial warrant out for Preventer general Zechs Marquise, Preventer Sergeant Major Duo Maxwell, L3 entertainer Trowa Barton, L4 entrepreneur Quatre Raberba Winner, and Preventer captain Wufei Chang. Maxwell, Barton, Winner, and Wufei Chang are four of the five former infamous terrorists, the Gundam pilots-"###
"First we're heroes, now we're terrorists again," Trowa said, sounding disgusted.
"It didn't take them long to figure us out," Zechs said, smiling grimly.
###"-according to L1 Magistrate spokesmen in conjunction with the Preventer Corps, the Preventers have disavowed all knowledge of an underground mission involving the five missing men, despite rumors to the contrary. The Vice Foreign Minister Peacecraft declined to comment-"###
"Relena knows about this, Zechs?" Quatre asked.
###"-mass destruction of L1 research laboratory for Nanotech Incorporated, wanted in connection with the murders of thirty-seven men in the lower L1 area and conspiracy against the colony L1-2729-"###
"Of course. How else do you think we could push this under the table? The Corps would never have let this mission proceed if Relena hadn't threatened an embargo against L1 and L2 until the situation was investigated. She's learned how to throw her political weight around."
###"-Photographs and descriptions of the fugitives have gone out to all colonial police agencies, along with an advisory that the suspects are armed and extremely dangerous...-"###
"Turn that shit off, Quatre," Duo said, voice unnaturally harsh. The Arabian pilot complied, cutting the radio and leaving the car in a tense silence. After a few minutes, Quatre was the one to break it.
"The colonies can't honestly think we killed all those people," he whispered, appalled.
Zechs answered. "They don't. At least the government officials don't. They know exactly why we're involved."
"Then why the cover-up?"
"Project Apocalypse was a government-sponsored operation. When it was held by the Alliance, I signed the papers for initiation myself on His Excellency's request. I gave responsibility for the operation over to Une when I realized what it entailed."
"Afraid to get your own hands dirty, Marquise?" Wufei muttered from the backseat.
Zechs ignored him again. He was getting good at it. "When the colonies realized what happened at Lab 1, they decided to create a joint effort to contain it, an ace up the sleeve of the colonists, in case the peace with Earth didn't work out. Not all colonial officials are as pacific as the civilians or Winner here. Even though we are no longer at war, Yuy is still the weapon of L1, and a source of tremendous military clout. Would you give up that power?"
Trowa shook his head. "Heero is a good soldier, but he isn't that good. Why would the colonies risk so much over him?"
"Like I said before, we don't know that 2457 is the only subject and the only soldier involved in the Project, although I think you're underestimating his potential, Barton. Can you imagine an army of soldiers as skilled as Yuy? Even just a squad of them?"
Trowa thought of the way Heero had cut through the scientists in his escape attempt, the blood-spattered laboratory full of death and bent steel, and slowly shook his head.
The pilots were silent awhile, as Zechs drove through the darkened streets, heading towards the spaceport. Then Quatre said softly, "We've been so concentrated on getting Heero back...we didn't think about what it meant. What they wanted with him."
"They don't want us to blow the secrecy of Apocalypse until the evidence is hidden. If our search turns out to be unwarranted, we'll look like idiots, and the colonies will be able to finish their research unhampered. We can't afford to let that happen. If the Earth governments find out that the colonies have been continuing such dangerous military research in times of peace, it could restart the war."
"No," Quatre whispered.
"Oh hell no," Duo growled. "There is no way in hell I'm doing that again. I don't know about you guys, but I've had enough deep blue hero shit for one lifetime. I just... want Heero back," he finished, softly.
"I'm not a coward," Wufei said flatly, "But I agree with Maxwell on this one."
Trowa's eyes narrowed. "We have to stop it before it comes to that..."
Zechs' expression grew grim and determined as he neared the spaceport. "As soon as we get to L2, we will."
/ Let us just hope we're not too late... /
TBC...
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