New Gundam prototype: Confirmed.
Advanced pilot control system: Confirmed.
Location: Confirmed.
Mission: Capture pilot of Gundam prototype; return with captive for questioning to Preventor headquarters on Earth base.
Requirement: Pilot must be alive. No deceased pilots accepted.
Heero frowned as he ran through the mission specifics again. His muscles ached as he shifted his weight, crammed into the small air ducts of the enemy base. He didn't know who this enemy was, nor did he care. He had a mission, and damn it, this time around he was going to make sure the pilot stayed alive.
"In position?" a voice cracked over the radio earpiece.
"In position," he answered, trying to whisper in the confines of the metal shaft. Noise echoed unbelievably in here.
"Give me time," his partner said, a grunt accenting his request. "And before you say anything smartass, Yuy - it is not because of my lack of skills that I'm having difficulty."
Heero managed to keep back a chuckle.
"Can't believe that your sorry ass got so freakin' huge," Wufei continued to grumble, muttering to himself and not caring that his voice was picked up and transmitted to Heero's earpiece. "If we were still fifteen I'd have you down here crawling around under the floor panels. Just my luck that you shot up to six-foot-two and weigh 200 lbs. If you were smaller it'd be you down here, but no… send Wufei down under the floor; he's just a little Chinese man..."
"Quit your complaining," Heero whispered. "You sound like a woman."
The shuffling noises he'd been hearing in his earpiece as Wufei crawled in the access tunnels stopped.
"That was a low blow, Yuy."
"Are you in position yet?"
"Close enough," Wufei huffed, the scrambling noises as he slid through the tunnels resuming. "Go ahead and drop down."
"No way. We need a pilot alive, remember?"
Wufei sighed. "I remember."
Neither of them spoke of it. Infiltration into this warehouse was easy – very easy. It may have still retained its state-of-the-art perimeter security system, but it was state-of-the-art during the war… maybe. Maybe it'd been considered outdated even by the time of the Eve Wars. Heero'd been quite annoyed to find the same computer system in this base that he'd hacked into when he was fifteen. That was one less worry though. Infiltration was easy.
Keeping the pilots alive was hard.
This was his and Wufei's third time in this base.
Mission 1: confirm rumor of new Gundam prototype. Gather information in computer data and personal forms. Pilot capture wanted.
Mission 2: obtain information regarding prototype units 10-09-14-A and 18-15-04-I. Blueprints wanted. Pilot capture necessary.
And now they were on Mission 3.
Mission 3: pilot capture priority. Must be alive.
Heero frowned at the thought. Alive. It's not like he and Wufei hadn't failed in the missions before. They'd performed exceptionally, but the pilots were a different matter.
"You're thinking about it, aren't you?" Wufei asked over the radio com earpiece.
Heero nodded, not registering that Wufei couldn't see him over radio. "Yeah," he said finally.
"It's better if you don't."
"How can I not?" Heero asked, shuddering.
He wasn't unfamiliar with death, and he was no stranger to suicide. But the things these pilots did… another shiver started low in his spine, spreading up his back and manifesting in his shoulders. There was something inherently wrong with those pilots, something that drove them to insane actions. He would never forget the way the pilot's body instantaneously ignited when he threw himself screaming over the edge of the catwalk and into the vat of molten Gundanium.
"In position," Wufei announced.
"Commence operation."
Heero readied himself, bracing his back against the ceiling of the air duct, gun aimed at the bolts holding this section secured to the section in front of it. He squinted his eyes closed – a useless gesture since what he really wanted to do was close his ears.
Squeezing the trigger, Heero involuntarily jumped as the bullet breached the sound barrier for a split second before colliding with the metal of the air duct. The loud sound echoed mercilessly in the confines of the duct, rendering Heero's hearing useless for the next few moments.
Next time, he would make less of an entrance and merely kick the damned thing open.
He dropped down from the ceiling. In a few seconds, the floor rattled and exploded outward, a red-faced and armed Wufei standing in the hole it left. Both he and Heero had guns drawn, holding the pilots hostage.
Their sudden presence should have alerted the pilots, should have sent them screaming and scrambling for a weapon to fight back with. Currently, the men seemed more interested in watching the vidscreen at the end of the room.
"What the hell?" Wufei sputtered. "Did they not hear the gunshot? Did they not just see two people just fall from the ceiling and pop up out of the floor?" Wufei did not like to be ignored.
"Insane, remember?" Heero muttered, also taken aback by the fact that these pilots simply didn't notice them there.
"Should I shoot one?"
Heero took a moment to glare at Wufei. "No, this makes things easy enough. We were prepared to gas them, I guess we still could." He leaned close to the pilot nearest him, tapping the captive in the shoulder with his gun.
"We could hit them over the head."
On second thought, Heero liked that option better too. He nodded and raised his gun, ready to strike the back of the nearest pilot. Wufei did the same, and with a nod, they brought two pilots to unconsciousness. The third and last remaining pilot still kept his eyes riveted on the screen.
Heero walked up and quickly struck him as well, but not before he caught what small words the pilot had been repeating over and over.
"Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone…"
Heero shuddered at the words and bent down to handcuff and gag the captives. Wufei was already doing the same to the other two pilots. After he finished locking the cuffs and securing the gag, he reached over to flick off the vidscreen – a force of habit to shut power down when it wasn't being used.
The vidscreen was already blank. The pilots had been watching a black screen.
"So what do we do with these fools?" Wufei asked, drawing Heero's attention from the 'off' vidscreen.
"Take them back. I didn't expect it to be so easy this time around."
"Me either. Maybe they wanted to be caught."
"They are insane."
Wufei rolled his eyes and heaved one captive over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "We've already established the state of their psychological health."
Heero grabbed the two remaining pilots, slinging one over each shoulder. Thank goodness the pilots were fairly small. It wasn't comfortable and his back would hurt tomorrow, but for now Heero gritted his teeth and followed Wufei out the door and through the abandoned hallways.
"It makes you wonder why we bothered to break in there. We could have walked in the front door," Wufei groaned. He didn't approve of doing any type of mission unless it challenged his skills. And so far, the only test he'd come across was whether or not he could squeeze into a fourteen-inch access tunnel. He shifted the deadweight of the man on his shoulder and kicked open the side door.
And Wufei came face to face with the business end of a sidearm.
"You should have seen your face! Oh!" the voice in their radio earpieces mixed with the voice of the real live person as it broke off into laugher. The figure pressed against the side of the building made itself known. "Oh God, you looked like you shit your pants, Wufei!"
"Maxwell," Wufei said, using the tone of a tired father scolding for the thousandth time. Wufei looked past Duo to the transport, his eyes growing wide with surprise to see a truck with one of the Gundam prototypes strapped to the back. "When you were assigned the task of obtaining transportation, stealing one of the prototypes was not what we had in mind."
Duo laughed some more over the radio, not dignifying Wufei with an answer. He did, however, practically dance as he ran over to make sure the prototype was secure on the bed of the truck. Wufei and Heero busied themselves with securing the captured pilots in the back of the truck cab, making sure they wouldn't be able to escape, injure them, or injure themselves if they awoke before arrival at the Preventor base.
"This was way too easy," Duo's voice filtered over the earpiece. "Don't you guys think that we should have encountered some resistance by now? I mean, it's as if the whole freaking base is on vacation or something!"
"We are aware," Wufei clipped.
Wufei was perpetually annoyed with Duo, and the two often engaged in friendly brawls to settle such important disputes such as who gets the last powdered donut. Heero hoped they wouldn't start swinging fists now. The eerie silence of the base was grating on his nerves, and he wanted to be out of here as soon as possible.
"Well, let's not question good fortune." Duo appeared at the driver's side of the truck. His real voice mixed with the sound of the synthetic voice they were hearing over their radios. "Shall we get the hell out of here?" he grinned and climbed behind the wheel.
"The sooner the better," Heero growled. Something about this base reminded him of his childhood, of Dr. J's labs. This base made his skin crawl.
Quatre met them at the Med wing's main door, unlocking it from the inside at this early morning hour. His golden hair was slightly mussed, and his long white lab coat looked rumpled, billowing out behind him as he led them swiftly and unerringly through the darkened halls to his offices.
"How's your hearing, Heero?" he inquired politely – the picture of a concerned doctor with his clipboard in one hand and various medical instruments sticking out of his pockets.
"Better," Heero admitted. Apparently the close-quarters gunshot from the mission had some lasting effects – which, of course, worried Quatre.
"I can't believe you all made it out of the base without incident. And you even stole one of the prototype units," Quatre said, speaking his thoughts out loud as Heero and Duo followed him into the observation room.
"Well, we figured they must be on vacation or something... the prototype unit 10-09-14-A wasn't even picked up in the scans..." Duo's chatter broke. He and Heero were utterly shocked by the scene before them.
The observation room was small impersonal, with only enough room for a couple of scientists to sit at the small table and take notes. A camera and recording system was set up on the side, also facing the large two-way mirror window that took up most of the wall space along one wall. The observation room overlooked the interrogation room.
And in the bare white interrogation room, the three captured pilots were throwing themselves mercilessly against the window. Their faces were twisted into horrible grimaces that didn't seem to wane, even as one pilot thrust himself into the window with so much force that he knocked himself out, leaving a spattering of blood on the window.
"Damn," Duo muttered, too morbidly curious to look away as the pilot struggled against his unconsciousness and only succeeded in soaking his hair with his own blood as he thrashed around on the floor.
The other two pilots were oblivious to their comrade's fate as they continued to run themselves into the walls and beat themselves with hands and fists on their heads, necks, and chests.
They were screaming, but terror and pain rendered their words incomprehensible.
"What the hell is this?" Heero asked at last, finally able to find his voice.
"You see why I needed you now," Quatre replied, his voice calm and deeply saddened. "They broke free from their restraints and started like this only a few minutes before I called you."
"But they acted as if we weren't even there yesterday," Heero said. His voice was still gravelly due to the early. In his old age of 25, Heero wasn't much of a morning person - especially if 'morning' was at 3:47 a.m.
"Oh, they still act as if you aren't there. I ran in and tried to stop them, but they completely ignored my presence."
"Why didn't you tie them back down?" Duo asked, eyes glued now to the pilot who was screaming a horribly distorted version of Hail Mary. The pilot's voice was obscured by his own fists knocking out his breath.
"I'm a doctor now, Duo, remember? I don't keep in shape like you and Heero and Wufei. And I never was very big to begin with."
"Speaking of ol' 'Fei...where is he?"
Quatre sighed. "He has a baby now, Duo. Wouldn't you have been upset if I called at 3:45 in the morning while Melody and Harmony were teething? It takes forever to calm uncomfortable babies down enough to go to sleep. Disturbing that would likely get me a sound beating by Wufei."
"I still can't believe you named your son Harmony," Heero growled, not heard by Duo or Quatre. It had all been Hilde's idea, he knew, so complaining in front of Duo was a lost cause.
"Yeah, I see your point, Q-man," Duo admitted. "So you want us to go in there and restrain them, huh?"
"Yes please."
Without another word, Duo and Heero walked through the door into the interrogation room, large padded leather straps in hand. The pilots were easy enough to catch, considering they completely ignored the two Preventor agents. But once Heero grabbed a hold of the nearest pilot to restrain him, all hell broke loose.
One pilot bit Duo's hand. The other attempted to knee Heero in the groin, but missed and hit the inside of his thigh. Heero slammed his fist into the guy's face – purely an instinctive reaction. Losing a tooth and spitting out blood did not faze the pilot. He screamed and lunged for Heero's neck. A well-aimed kick sent the pilot flying backwards, and Heero, now on alert, tackled him the moment he hit the ground. Heero had the leather straps around the pilot's arms and ankles within seconds.
"Get out," he was whispering.
"What?" Heero asked, leaning down closer to hear the pilot who was suddenly cognizant and speaking very clearly.
"Get out. I don't want you in here with me anymore. Get out!" The pilot's voice was steadily getting louder and more insistent. Finally he shrieked, "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"
Heero shoved him aside and grabbed the next pilot as he made another running attempt to shove his face through the wall. It was fairly easy to trip him up and put a knee in the middle of his back to keep him pinned. Heero spared a glance for Duo, but Duo didn't need any assistance. He had just finished detaining his own crazy pilot and shoved the now sobbing individual towards the one Heero'd discarded earlier. That one was foaming at the mouth now.
No sooner had Heero secured the third and final pilot's arms than Quatre burst into the room with medical machinery in tow.
"Quick," Quatre called, rushing to the pilot still pinned and strapping two white disks on each side of his head. "We have to monitor brainwave patterns while we still can. It might be able to explain something." He skillfully fed wires from the disks to a small machine he'd brought in with him.
"Brainwave patterns?" Duo asked.
"It's the only thing I can think of," Quatre responded. "I've checked all them, and each pilot is very physically healthy. There's absolutely nothing that makes me think that they aren't at the peak of health." He plugged the last cord into the machine. "Ah, there we go."
Almost immediately, the machine blinked to life and began printing out a series of continuous wavy lines.
The waves leisurely crossed over the paper, looking like nothing special to Heero. But suddenly the waves became erratic, peaking very closely together.
"Get away! Get out!"
"What are you talking about?!" Heero asked, trying to get through to the seemingly insane pilot. A pilot who was apparently trying to get someone out of his own head. "Who are you talking to?"
The pilot suddenly focused on Heero. The distant and maniacal look fading as he stared directly at Heero.
"Her," the pilot replied simply. "She's inside. She controls. I only want her out. Give me peace."
Heero, Duo and Quatre all stared dumbly down at the pilot. What was he talking about?
"NO!!" he screamed, the focus leaving his eyes as his body convulsed on the floor. "Leave me! Let me die! GET OUT!"
The last "out" had barely left his lips before his eyes rolled back. The brain waves became a single line – straight. His body tensed a final time, then relaxed.
Quatre mumbled as he bent down, fingers seeking a pulse. He didn't find one.
"Hey," Duo called his attention softly.
They all looked around at the three captured pilots. Each lay lifeless on the floor, bodies contorted from their final throes against struggling to remain alive. And all had extinguished at approximately the same time.