I want to thank Transmute Jun, my beta reader, for her insight, encouragement and editing skills!
Knight-Errant
He should never have come back. He didn't belong here. This was never going to work. He could have stayed in the shadows, lurking. That was where he belonged now. He should have stayed away from them…
Except that he couldn't have stayed away.
He'd been lying flat on his back on a cot, in the quarters that Dr. Nambu had brought him to after allowing him to leave this G-Town's medical ward, but now he stood abruptly and began pacing, insofar as that was possible in the limited space available.
He'd been in a state of panic in the medical ward, yet had somehow managed to hide it from Dr. Nambu, who had taken an analgesic spray to the slight burns he'd sustained while driving the Condor Attacker deep under the Dera Desert, had checked his blood pressure, had shone a bright light into both his eyes, and had drawn a blood sample. When it had become apparent that was all that Dr. Nambu had intended to do, he'd nearly sighed in relief.
"I'd love to do more tests, Joe," he'd said, "But it's very late, and it's quite obvious that Dr. Rafael has corrected your neurological damage or there's no way you'd have been able to do what you did today, especially without any serious injuries."
Joe silently vowed to "forget" to show up for any medical examination he tried to schedule.
Dr. Nambu had put his hand on Joe's shoulder, and when he'd spoken again his voice had actually quavered.
"I hope to meet that man someday. Joe, I honestly believed that no one at the ISO could have saved you… at Karakoram. If Dr. Rafael's methods were to become more widely known, it would greatly benefit humanity."
Then, Joe had looked away and had managed to mutter something vaguely non-committal. Now, he paused and stared out the small window of his quarters, at the dark water of the undersea night. Humanity? He exhaled sharply, bitterly. No, "humanity" was not served by Dr. Rafael's methods.
He loathed it, but he forced himself to speak the word, albeit in a whisper.
"Cyborg…"
The ISO didn't make cyborgs. Only Galactor made cyborgs, and Dr. Rafael had once belonged to Galactor. On some visceral level, every normal, decent person was horrified at the thought of those creatures that were neither fully human nor proper machines. They just knew that it was wrong. People that were meant to be dead should be dead, not shuffling around courtesy of metal, wires and power units, like that… Frankenstein thing in that old, old movie.
Granted, Joe wasn't shuffling any more these days; no, he moved quite well –too well, even. Long months of rehab at Dr. Rafael's lab had seen to that. Somehow today, he'd fooled them all, but that could never last.
He should have stayed away.
Except that he couldn't have stayed away.
If he hadn't pulled a semi-conscious Ken from the burning wreck of his jet at Easton Island, Ken would have died. If he hadn't located them, all unconscious in San Frangeles Bay after the destruction of the Galactor base below, they could have all drowned. If he hadn't shot those Galactor goons from a helicopter in that New Jork street, the whole team could have been badly wounded or killed. If he'd stood by today, hidden in the Dera Desert, and had let Ken force his way past Dr. Nambu into the Condor Attacker, Ken would never have survived the underground trek necessary to stop the earthquakes.
No, Ken had to live. Himself… he was expendable. That's what cyborgs truly were –disposable "people." The team was encountering just too many dangerous situations these days. If he, by rejoining them, could take the danger onto himself and keep them all alive, then he had a purpose, a justification for his wretched existence.
But seeing Jun…
No weapon or torture ever used by Galactor could match the pain he'd felt today, in the Dera Desert, when Jun rushed into his arms.
Silky hair, flawless skin, a slim and beautiful body, a voice that was the music of her heart, and eyes so clear and deep you could see all the way to her soul…
Seeing her up close again today, she was just as he remembered. His memories of her were all true. But the Joe that she remembered –that man was gone. Seeing her look at him, tears in her eyes, feeling her touch him –feeling the full enormity of what he had lost had flooded him with a pain that no whip, knife or bullet could ever match. Now, hours later, it was a dull but steady ache. Why couldn't Dr. Rafael have taken away these… residual emotions, the way he'd taken away so much else? Didn't he know how cruel it was to leave human feelings in a vessel that was no longer human?
And what if she found out? What if she found out? He knew without a doubt that the look on her face then would destroy him.
He could still remember standing in the street outside that hotel in Africa, staring down in horror at the wreckage that had been Lucy, trying not to puke, trying to keep his face expressionless as someone in a car just drove over her remains without noticing or caring.
"Oh, I feel sorry for her, the poor thing."
Jun's words…
"Poor thing…"
Stop thinking about Jun! Stop thinking about what you can never have again! He berated himself despairingly. He threw himself back onto the cot, willing his mind to empty, to find the oblivion of sleep.
But he had seen Jun today, seen her face. There was no way he could keep her from his thoughts now, and it was futile to try.
Lying on the cot, with his unfocused gaze on the door, he found his memory turning to his old quarters at the Crescent Base, and to Jun –not the first night that she'd come to him there, but the second night…
He'd been lying on his back in near darkness, awake, just as he was now. He'd been not quite able to believe that the previous night hadn't been a dream, except that the scent of her hair had still lingered on his pillow. That entire day of training, in the Crescent Base's gym and weapons range, he'd felt so awkward around her and he'd been unable to speak of the night before, especially with Ryu and Jinpei in the vicinity. She'd been quiet too, and had only looked at him when it was necessary. By that night he'd convinced himself, while staring at the ceiling over his bed, she had clearly known she'd made a big mistake and that pretending it had never happened was, after all, the best way to deal with it. It shouldn't have happened. She'd never really wanted him; it was Ken she loved. He'd just been a… coping mechanism, while she tried to work her way through her grief and loss.
But then his door had slowly opened. It had been Jun. She'd walked into his quarters soundlessly, quietly closing the door behind her, and had come over to his bed. For a second, he'd considered pretending to be asleep to spare himself from having to hear her tell him that it had all been a mistake, but that would have been gutless and some part of him had known they'd have to speak of it, sooner or later, if they were to get past it. So, he'd sat up and had looked straight into her eyes, and had steeled himself for some combination of regret, discomfort, and, God help him, pity.
But what he'd seen, in the dim glow of a nightlight, had been trepidation, and some despair, but also… desire; his breath had caught in his throat and he'd been afraid to speak or move, as one who draws the startled gaze of a doe in the woods knows that one word or gesture will make her flee. She hadn't spoken a word; she'd only stared at him, not once taking her eyes from his. Yet, somehow he must have conveyed an answer to a silent question; she'd slowly begun to undress. Shirt, pants, bra, panties –one by one they'd formed a pile on the floor until her full beauty had been bared, and then she'd come to him, in the bed…
He had to stop thinking about this!
Joe, once again, propelled himself off the cot to pace the room liked a wild animal in a cage. Two years, he told himself; he had been gone over two years. In all likelihood, Jun had long since gotten over him, finally realized her long-held dream during the interwar peace and was now with Ken, utterly happy.
That was, after all, what he'd tried to tell her to do with his last words, as he'd lain dying in the grass at Karakoram. Everyone knew that Jun and Ken were always meant to be together; he'd just been a temporary… aberration from the rightful path.
And now he was well and truly aberrant. His time together with Jun belonged only in the past. All he had were memories now, memories that were both bliss and agony.
No more! He leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes. He would stop wallowing in emotions and memories to which he no longer had a claim. He would devote himself to exactly two purposes: protecting the team, and bringing about the final destruction of Leader X. He would focus unwaveringly upon these duties, and he would forget all about love and-
There was a knock on his door.
"Joe, are you in there?"
It was Jun.
If he didn't say anything maybe she'd just go away, but…
He should answer; he was going to have to train himself to be around her and remain indifferent, revealing nothing, and now was as good a time as any to-
Who was he kidding? He was going to let her in because he was completely unable to not let her in. This was never going to work, being back, unless he could somehow…
"You can come in."
She entered quickly, shutting the door behind her. She was in civvies now, with her hair loose around her shoulders. But her face was white, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy -what had happened? Why-
"Alone at last, Joe. Let's get this over with."
He'd been moving towards her without even realizing he was doing it, but now he froze.
"Jun, what-"
She slapped his face, hard.
"How could you?"
Oh no…
"Why didn't you tell me how sick you were?" Her voice was jagged.
"You knew it was bad –why did you lie to me? How could you just… run away and leave me, knowing you were… that you were…"
"Jun." That was all he seemed capable of saying. Fresh tears were running from her angry, angry eyes.
"Finding you at Karakoram, when you were… and then afterwards you were gone –do you have any idea what that did to me, what you did to me?
All he wanted to do was pull her into his arms, and tell her he was sorry, and never stop…
But he couldn't. How was he going to do this? He should have stayed away…
"You left me, Joe. You left me all alone!"
He drew on every fiber of will that he possessed, to keep his face a mask, indifferent, revealing nothing. What could he say?
"You told me that when you took your final revenge on Galactor, you wanted me with you!"
He'd said that, that night in the Crescent Base gym when she'd told him she loved him, when he'd been holding her in his arms, and it had been true, but…
"You would have told Ken." He'd managed to speak, finally, and to keep his voice cold.
"What?" Her eyes swirled with confusion, denial.
"If I'd confided in you that I was getting mind-splitting headaches, blind spells, and numbness in my hands and that sometimes I could barely stay on my feet, can you honestly tell me that you wouldn't have gone running straight to Ken or Dr. Nambu? Can you honestly say that?"
He stared straight into her eyes, and she looked away first, staring at his feet.
"But… there might have been a treatment, a cure –maybe you could have been saved!"
"Oh, they would have tried. They would have pulled me off the team and shut me up as an invalid -or even a vegetable- in a hospital for days, weeks… But it wouldn't have done any good, Jun! And I'd have lost my chance to avenge my mother and father!"
She turned her head to the side, clenching her hands.
All he could think was how much he'd loved her, when he'd jumped out that window and had driven off to the airport to buy a one-way plane ticket to the Himalayas, about how he'd known that if he had any chance to spare her, to save her, by sacrificing himself -he who was dying anyway- he'd take it.
And he hadn't left her alone; he'd left her with Ken.
She raised her head again, to glare at him.
"So what it comes to is this: getting your precious revenge on Galactor meant more to you than me!"
Yes, that was part of who he was, but no -No! That wasn't the choice he'd had to make! It hadn't been "revenge" or "Jun"; it had been "die fighting, alone" or "die slowly and pathetically, with Jun having to watch it happen."
But if he was going to be able to stay here and protect the team and destroy Leader X, maybe that was what he was going to have to let her believe, so she'd stay away from him, so she wouldn't find out…
"I'm a soldier, Jun. The mission is more important than anything or anyone!"
She was shaking her head.
"You can't truly mean that. What are we fighting for if in the end we just become… machines?"
For an instant, his mask slipped; he gasped. Quick, don't let her see!
"Guess you've just shown why the best soldiers are never women."
"Bastard!" She slapped him again. This was how it had to be…
"And I guess you've just shown why you never let me know you were alive, Joe! All these months… there's no way you couldn't have let me know, somehow? But now it's clear –you didn't give a shit!"
She didn't give him a chance to reply.
"You and Ken –in the end you're both heartless bastards!" Her voice caught on a sob.
"Guess I've learned my lesson tonight!"
And she was out the door and gone.
Joe turned and fell back against the freshly-slammed door, slowly sliding down till he was sitting on the floor with his face in his hands and his elbows on his knees.
If only she knew…
But he could never let her find out. That was the misery he was going to have to bear, every day, if he stayed here. And he couldn't leave now –he had to protect the team, and ensure the final destruction of Leader X.
He could never let her find out.
He was still having the nightmare, the one that hurled him out of sleep, gasping, screaming. It was always the same. His eyes were open, and glaringly bright light was shining down on him, but he couldn't focus his eyes properly and everything was blurred. He was lying on a flat surface, head propped up slightly, but he couldn't move a muscle –he couldn't even blink. Strange figures covered completely in white, with only their eyes visible, were poking and prodding his body, and talking to each other but their words seemed muffled and distorted. Hoses and tubes seemed to be coming out of him in all directions.
He couldn't move! He couldn't speak! He couldn't feel anything!
Something was in his mouth and throat. His body was faintly visible, at the edge of his vision, but his body was… red, and even shiny.
What the hell are they doing to me? Are they Galactor?
Just for a second then, he could move his eyes, and his vision cleared slightly, and he looked down at himself…
He had no skin. He was just raw meat and bone, with a pulsating blob in his chest, and further down, glistening guts, and everywhere, metal –shiny metal wires and objects…
He was screaming and screaming, but only in his mind. He had no voice. Something was beeping, sharply, rapidly…
"Quick! He's coming out of the anesthesia…"
The white figures moved rapidly, and everything faded to grey, but always he was still screaming and screaming…
Still sitting on the floor of his new quarters, Joe snapped his head upright so abruptly the back of his skull whacked painfully against the door. He'd sustain no damage, of course, but it served to disperse the terror in his mind, the pounding in his chest.
Stop thinking about it!
He took some slow deep breaths and stared down at himself. He was dressed in blue medical scrubs, which he'd taken from the medical ward, and he looked normal now. He would have to be vigilant and careful around the others, all the time, but at least they couldn't tell at a glance that he was far, far from normal.
Jun had called him "heartless." Actually, his heart was an organ that he was fairly certain he still had. At that thought, a mirthless chuckle escaped him, but then he frowned.
"You and Ken, you're both heartless bastards!"
What had Jun meant by that? What had happened between her and Ken? Joe thought about Easton Island, San Frangeles, New Jork, the Dera Desert… The more he thought about it, the more he realized that Ken had been reckless, even careless of late. That was not like him. No, something was definitely going on with him, and Jun was clearly involved.
He was eager for any excuse now to get out of this room, where memories assailed him. Now he had one; he would go and find Ken.
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He knocked once on the door.
Silence. He waited half a minute.
"Ken, it's me."
The door opened instantly, and there was Ken… looking like crap, but not looking like someone who'd just been woken up, and he was still dressed in his civvies.
He looked Joe up and down once and then spoke dully.
"So that's where you've been all this time… Medical School."
"Ha ha. So are you going to let me in or what?"
Ken was looking around, as though surprised that Joe was alone.
"How did you find out where my quarters are?"
"From the maintenance engineers. Here!" He shoved a bottle of Scotch into Ken's hands.
"Where did you get this?"
"From the maintenance engineers. They always have booze –didn't you know that?"
"No." Ken said nothing else, but the way he turned back into his quarters, still holding the bottle, seemed to indicate that Joe should follow him.
"I swear the quarters in this place aren't any bigger than my trailer was. Come on, Ken, we'll sit on the floor, just like old times."
He plunked himself down across from the cot, so he could lean his back against the wall. Ken stared at him for a moment, but then sat down opposite him, leaning against the cot. The bottle, he set aside.
"Where's Jun?" he asked, pointedly… even accusingly?
"Right now? I'd guess she's as far away from you and me as she can get."
"Don't lie to me, Joe! I know she was in your quarters not that long ago."
"Yeah, and damned angry too. All she did was yell at me for everything I did… before Karakoram, and for not letting anyone know I wasn't dead."
Ken was staring at him, with the expression of one whose mind is busily rearranging assumptions, but then he dropped his face into his hands.
"I was so certain that she… that she-"
"She called me a 'heartless bastard' –and you too. I'm not going to dispute her assessment where I'm concerned, but what the hell's been going on with you two?"
Ken didn't answer right away, but when he did raise his face he looked broken, all his defenses down; Gatchaman was just not supposed to look like this…
"Joe… It's such a mess. I have fucked up everything."
"No, you haven't. Look, I can assume, then, that you and Jun got together some time…?" He lifted his hand in query.
"More than a year ago. We were living together at the J and everything… But it's over; I just ended it tonight."
Joe tried, stoically, to ignore the stab that Ken's words gave him. It was what you wanted them to do!
"Damn it, Ken! Tell me that what you did tonight had nothing to do with me!"
"I thought she… But, no…"
Ken closed his eyes, and spoke as if confessing.
"It wasn't really anything to do with you –just me. I've been losing her… No, I've been pushing her away for weeks now. Ever since the war started… I've been screwing up missions, acting so goddamned stupidly, and it's all because- "
He looked at Joe again, eyes full of pain.
"I can't be her Commander and also be… She becomes my whole world, but I also have to be… Gatchaman, and that takes everything that I have too! It just… pulls me to pieces. How can I run a mission if I'm panicking, worrying about her? And if I'm not at the top of my game -all the time- then I'm letting the whole planet down –I'm failing the most important duty there is! I know it's pathetic, but I just can't do it…"
"Does this make any sense to you, Joe?" It was an anguished plea.
Joe didn't answer immediately; he was remembering, remembering the days when he was Dr. Nambu's first and only ward, and how he'd be sent, many an afternoon, to Ken's house –the idea being that the two boys would "play" together, as they were already taking lessons from tutors and martial arts classes together. At first, that was what they did, when Ken's mother was still up and walking around, although at the faintest sound of a dropped book or a teacup clattering, Ken would be off like a shot to make sure she was okay. As time went by, Ken didn't want to play anymore; he was obsessed with remaining at his mother's bedside, even if she was asleep. If she was awake, he was so eager for her to talk about his father, and she would always gladly oblige, telling endless stories of all his brave and heroic exploits, his unwavering commitment to sacrifice and duty, while getting weaker every day until the day she…
Yeah, it made some sense.
Since the first day they'd met, he could so easily have hated Ken. Ken had been the kind of kid who did chores at home without having to be told to, had perfect manners, kept his room tidy, completed all his schoolwork neatly and on time… "Bad Boy Joe" from BC Island would have written him off as a pansy, except that Ken could fight –the clean, efficient beauty of Ken's technique left him in awe and left him, so many times in those days, sprawled on the floor of the dojo. Ken wasn't faster, or stronger –he could just think better. And he was just so damned good –pure, noble, selfless –all that stuff. But it wasn't an act to impress the adults –it was just Ken. It had always been apparent to Joe that Ken was the one with "hero" and "leader" written all over him. Standing beside Ken made Joe feel… ugly, yet somehow he could never hate Ken for that. Instead, it just made him want to stay at his side and be his "number two" –a role that Joe had never envisioned for himself, and that sometimes chafed, but that he knew instinctively was right. By that time he was aware of the rigid self-control and discipline that Ken had to exert over himself, over his own demons, in order to be the ideal leader he was so desperately determined to be. Joe knew that he could never do it, never be the man that Ken was.
He reached for the bottle of Scotch, opened it, and downed a swig.
"Here. Your turn." He held it out to Ken.
"Joe, the last thing I need right now is-"
"Don't argue, just do it. I swear it's a sacred tradition that if your best friend is hurting because of a girl, then you get drunk with him."
Ken sniffed the bottle's contents, nose wrinkling, but he drank a swallow before shoving the bottle back towards Joe.
"You haven't fucked up everything, Ken. Things will work out between you and Jun, maybe not tomorrow, but they will eventually. Give her some time to herself, and take some time for yourself too, and just… leave it alone for a while. You haven't lost her; she loves you way too much for that."
Joe downed some more of the bottle's contents and handed it back to Ken.
"What about you, Joe?" asked Ken, drinking some more, but looking at Joe with eyes still bleak and hollow. He didn't hand the bottle back.
"She should be with you; you're… the better man." That was the truth, Joe told himself. It had been true even before, but it was infinitely truer now. He wasn't a "man" anymore.
Ken laughed sharply, disbelievingly, while shaking his head slowly. He drank some more before setting the bottle on the floor.
"I know what she means to you, Joe. You'd just… stand aside like that?"
"For you, man, absolutely."
Ken slumped down further against his cot and put his face in his hands.
"And Ken, there will be no more screwed up missions," growled Joe. "I'm here to stay, and we are going to destroy Galactor, for good this time."
Joe could almost see tension, as a manifest presence, leaving Ken's body.
"I'm glad you're back, Joe," said Ken softly, through his hands, "I'm not going to question what you did, or demand to know why you stayed away all this time –you must have had reasons, reasons important to you… I'm just so glad that you're back now."
"If you're so glad, why'd you punch me in the face today?"
"Maybe I thought it would make you feel better…"
Now Ken was trembling slightly. Was he laughing?
No, he wasn't laughing.
They just sat there together, neither speaking, for a long time.
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