Disclaimer: Gundam Wing, including affiliated characters, story arc, and universes, are in no way the property of yours truly. No financial profit has been accumulated through the distribution of any fanfiction that I have written.
Disclaimer 2: This story is complete. Those familiar with my previous work might know that I have abandoned a couple stories, to readers' disappointment. So I have not posted anything in years, in an effort to complete this monster first. I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED! I will be reviewing chapters over the next few days and posting them as I complete that process. Please review to encourage me! (I do, after all, review work written two or even three years ago now.)
Warning: I have tried to stick close to the actual course of evens, but have definitely taken liberal artistic license – think of it as a director's interpretation. (And, of course, this is eventually gone have some purely inspired slash!) Now sit back and enjoy the angsty fun . . .
THE BEAST IN ME
Chapter 1: Solo
"The beast in me has learned to live with pain, and how to shelter from the rain." – Nick Lowe, The Beast in Me
There are a handful of vague recollections that vie for title of My Earliest Memory. There was a time when I tried really hard to sort through these cloudy memories chronologically, but I ultimately concluded that they had been formed at an age too young to code temporal markers. By working backwards I hypothesize that I was probably three or four during this early period of recollection.
I remember the constant ache of hunger that dominated my early life, always there to threaten me with starvation if I rested for even a moment. As skinny as I was back then, every second spent not procuring food was a second spent dying. So I wandered endlessly through the dirty streets of L2, sticking close to the buildings and walls to avoid being trampled by the bustling crowds of towering adults. I darted towards my targets, grabbing what I could then retreating back into the shadows before anyone could catch me. I ate what I stole, what I salvaged from the garbage, and what scraps were thrown out to the animals. If the cops saw me, they would give just enough chase to run me off (these were good days by L2 standards). I was an alert, wild little creature that responded to any perceived threat with fast frenzied attacks that inevitably involved a lot of biting and growling.
This time is a blur of stress and fear that pervaded everything I did, but I still wish that remembered it better. The closest I can come to recalling positive feelings is the warm fuzziness I felt most nights when I could retreat from my dangerous foraging to my tiny hidey-hole by the ventilation system, where foul blankets offered the blissful oblivion of sleep. But every morning met me with a ravenous emptiness in my belly and a dread of what the day held in store. Most days I could scavenge and steal enough to temporarily assuage the hunger, and even keep enough for the next day; but sometimes I would have to hide in the ventilation shafts or sewers for days as rioting and violence took hold of the streets. I somehow managed through most days without serious damage to myself, but the only days I remember are the ones in which the trauma has been etched into my psyche.
I still have the occasional nightmare about one such event, though for the most part later horrors have priority over my dreams. In this one memory from my toddlerhood, I am grabbed by large hairy arms, and I struggle haphazardly but I can't see my captor. I am shoved into an itchy burlap bag and then tossed over his shoulder. I can barely move in this position, but I scream and snarl, and I begin to get hot and sweaty and panicked; but then the bag shifts and I am freefalling for a moment before I hit the ground with a sickening crack. I try to scramble out of the bag, but then blows are landing on my body, and it is all I can do to curl up in a fetal position. In my memory, another kick to my injured rib causes me to pass out, but in my nightmare I just remain trapped and suffocating as I am beaten to death.
I woke up to the care of a middle-aged shopkeeper who I recognized me from my barrio. I knew that she sometimes threw food out to the stray children and animals, but I never dared approach her and, indeed, was almost as afraid of her as anyone else.
The plump lady smiled at me as I blinked to awareness; she should have been no match for my speed and agility, but when I tried to dart off the bed, I collapsed to the floor in nauseated dizziness and agony. I'd was relatively proficient at numbing and ignoring pain, even as a kid, but this time my body's reality was overruling my willpower. I hissed and snarled when the lady approached to presumably help me, but she was patient enough to back up and let me take stock of the situation. When I saw that she was giving me the space, I looked over my injuries and was horrified to see that my skin had turned an unfamiliar pinkish color; I had to rub at it a little to realize that the normal full-body smear of dirt had been washed off, and this is what resided underneath! Still, I didn't dare dwell on the phenomenon too long and glanced around, coming to the distressing realization that, while I could probably make it out of the lady's house, I was certainly in no state to hobble through the dangerous streets of the barrio back to my hidey-hole.
I rolled under the bed instead, and this turned out to be a very good idea. I discovered after several tense minutes of waiting for her to come after me that the shopkeeper seemed content to leave me there as long as I wished. A delicious aroma I had never smelt before eventually began filling up the room, and my mouth started watering; when a bowl was placed on the floor by the bed, I snatched it greedily and swallowed the soup in two giant gulps.
The lady squawked something, probably about the heat of the soup, but it didn't matter to me. I would eat anything, from dead carcasses to rotten food to questionably non-edible plant and animal matter, making this the best meal I had ever had. The fact that I had scalded my mouth barely registered, but I tensed immediately to see her lowering herself ground in order to sit next to the bed.
I snarled at her, but she neither came closer nor backed up. Instead, she began pointing to herself and annunciating over and over the syllables, "Mad-El-Ine."
Eventually I figured it out – she was using the sounds to refer to herself! Of course, I had no response when she gestured questioningly at me, but after a couple dozen times of her repeating her name, I started chewing on the sounds and trying to make my tongue and lips operate in conjunction. I could tell that it pleased the lady to no end when I finally dared rasp, "Mad-dine."
It was warm in the room and I soon dozed off in my dusty spot under the bed. When I woke it was dark and Madeline had presumably gone to bed. I was relieved at her absence despite how nice she had been to me: I didn't trust this unfamiliar generosity and I was afraid, so I snuck out, taking a loaf of bread with me.
Still, the experience was not left behind so easily and I soon found myself trying to imitate the words around me. I listened at every opportunity, trying desperately to understand the secret language that everyone seemed to speak. For months I spent every spare second studying the sounds coming from the passers-by. Once I even followed a young couple for several hours, eavesdropping on their amorous dialogue, and it was then that I first remember feeling loneliness as I wished I could be their dog. They pet it and fed it and even talked to it, and all the beast did was follow them around and lick their hands – I figured I could do better than that!
Of course, when I finally worked up the courage to approach, the dog barked like a maniac and the man told me to scram. It scared me a little, but it cemented the loneliness inside. In the weeks that followed, it blossomed in me like spiritual nano-weights attached to every drop of blood in my body. I barely understood my sudden need for company, but somehow I still ached for it.
I remember the pathetic relief when awareness dawned that my name was Kid; that like everything else, I had a label! I practiced all the words I managed to identify and understand, but I practiced that name until I could say it flawlessly. Of course, that illusion was fated to be debunked not too long after when I finally realized the actual meaning of the word.
At some point around this time I remember getting caught again, this time by a band of teenagers who beat and taunted and tormented me for what must've been hours. Though I still growled and howled like an animal, I was finally human enough to recognize some of the taunts and derision they threw at me. With some accuracy, they called me a mad dog, as well as such eloquent obscenities as "Dirty Fucker", "Little Bitch", and "Shithead". I can remember their threatening voices better than anything else.
Three drunk delinquents saw me climbing out a warehouse window, then cornered me when I dropped to the ground. They took by loot, hit and kicked me, and then dragged me stumbling through a couple blocks by my matted hair – where we met up with a few of their mates, and things really got interesting. We retreated to a hovel somewhere and I got pummeled a little more, until blood was dripping down my face, then the twisted fuckers settled down and made me drink rotgut with them. It tasted like poison and I tried to spit it out, but then one of the thugs put his hands around my neck and started strangling me, threatening to kill me if I didn't. Vomit was dribbling out of my mouth, and snot from my nose, and blood was everywhere, but somehow I managed to empty the entire bottle without being strangled to death. I was saved from any more by the arrival of several women that I recognized as prostitutes, who then began fucking the men right there on the dirty floor. I had, until that day, never actually been able to figure out what it was those skanky chicks did to survive, but this came as no more of a shock than any other adult behavior. Besides, I was able to use the diversion to hobble to safety. By this time I had managed to hoard enough food that I was able to sleep and recover for the next couple days.
Such dangers only got worse during later years, as L2 spun more out of control, but the streets of my barrio were never anything but mean. I suppose that I must've had parents at some point, abandoned babies don't just survive. Someone must've taken care of me for at least a couple years, but I haven't a clue. And I've really, really tried to remember.
There's a long time, stretching backwards with seeming infinity, of begging and stealing to satiate my bottomless pit of hunger, and of hiding from the monsters that roamed the streets, and of sleeping in the vents. I was surely the youngest meat ever to run the streets of L2 and survive to tell the tale.
The first date I can accurately identify is the year I met up with Solo, after which nothing was ever the same again. I was probably five or six (without a birth certificate, who knows?) and Solo was nine. I spotted him on the choice corner of my modest hunting grounds, leaning casually against the wall, but looking suspicious as Satan to me. Back then, street kids were much rarer than they would be later and I was unused to seeing an unaccompanied kid on my turf, especially one looking so neat and trim. I watched him all afternoon, neglecting an empty stomach that begged me to track down some food.
But I ultimately pushed my luck and he spotted me as I weaved through the crowd, passing close by him. I immediately realized that I had caught his attention, and dashed my retreat into the shadows, only to be followed. It stunned me stupid when I heard him call, "Wait up, kid, don't be scared!"
I don't know why I stopped, except that I was suddenly not afraid. He hadn't yelled at me the way the adults always did, hadn't taunted me like the street youth. I'm a curious little shit, sometimes bordering on stupidity, so I stopped and turned around. We eyeballed each other for a weighted moment before he continued, "I'm new here, and you look like you know this place pretty well, so maybe you could show me around."
It felt like a minor miracle that I was able to understand most of what this boy was saying to me, but I was definitely still suspicious. I forced my lips and tongue to form words that I had never before addressed to another living being, "W-what?"
For a long moment the older child considered me with a wise expression, and I can only imagine what he made of the skinny, dirty street vermin before him. He must've sensed that I was one wrong move from either fighting or flighting because when he spoke he chose his words carefully, "I need to get a feel for this place quick, if I'm going to make it here, as you probably know. . . You're the first little kid I've seen round this barrio, maybe I could look after you, protect you from the teenagers."
I had no idea how to react, if I should continue to engage this strange boy or just run away like I always did when adults tried to talk to me. After some obvious hesitation, my natural suspiciousness prompted me to croak defensively, "Don' need no look-k-kin' af'er!"
"Well," the charismatic child grunted, nodding in thoughtful agreement and, in retrospect, clearly figuring out what to say in order to gain a modicum of my trust. "You look like a smart kid, I'm sure you can find another use for some muscle like me?" As would soon become apparent, Solo always knew the exact words and approach to make me, and everyone else, see things his way.
The older boy and I stared at each other for long calculating moments before I managed to believe in the surreal situation. There was this undeniable ache that constantly mourned my survival-induced solitude, urging me to consider the stranger's proposal. He stood tall and confident, in such an untouchable way that was clearly foreign to the streets, and I could recognize somehow that he held the secrets to a better way. The new, lonely aspect of my personality felt overwhelmed at just being addressed like a human being, so it was all I could do to stare foolishly.
"My name's Solo. What's yours?" the sharp boy delivered with a friendly smile, still trying hard to put me at ease.
I remember being terrified though, because I had never had to participate in any interaction beyond a few obscenities; but it was exhilarating too, and I offered anything I could to keep his attention. "Dunno, no n-name . . . No name but Kid. . . Kid meybe? Ifn you want. . . Buh no name."
I shut up, appalled that, on my first time behind the verbal wheel, I had spewed forth such scattered weakness. Embarrassed and sure that he had not understood a single word I had tried to say, I moved towards a quick exit, but once again he said just the right thing to put me off my guard, "That's okay. I'll call you Kid if you want, or nothing at all."
It was such an unexpected reaction that I turned around hesitantly from the link fence I had been about to climb. I could tell at that moment that he knew exactly what he was looking at, a half-animal wild child that could barely speak or understand. He was, incomprehensibly, still reaching out to me. I wanted to accept.
"Here's the thing, Kid: these streets look mean, and I don't fancy facing them alone, and you're the only kid I've met so far. Maybe we could, you know, face the streets together? We could keep each other safe."
I could barely believe my comprehension of what he was saying. It seemed inconceivable that there could be someone else that knew what it was like to be so abjectly alone. I scrambled for an answer that wouldn't make me sound like the ignorant Neanderthal that my scowl of concentration surely betrayed. "Safe togeder?"
Solo smiled at me again, and a strange new warmth tingled through me body. It was as though previously dormant muscles suddenly blossomed, and my own lips pulled into a wide unnatural grin. Solo chuckled and rubbed the matted top of my head. We spent the day implementing Solo's clever two-person maneuvers and stealing more than I had ever managed on my own.
I took him to the condemned building that I was squatting in by that point, having at this point upgraded from the decidedly cramped ventilation shafts. He looked around curiously, clearly never having seen comparable squalor, and his nose wrinkled at the smell. I was embarrassed, but he didn't pass judgment; he just sat down on the pile of ragged blankets that made up my bed. He would have years to teach me the basics of keeping my body and my dwelling clean.
"Why you in duh barrio?" I finally dared, after considering the wording for the better part of the day.
Solo looked at me hard, sizing me up before finally nodding. "I hate it back home. I have nothing . . . Only a good-for-nothing father that . . . is worse than no father at all. It was . . . just horrible." Solo's voice had dropped to a quiet rasp and he rubbed his face before turning to me with a tired smile. "That's why I know it's gonna be better here, with you."
The boy was a certifiable nutbat for believing this, but I thought it was great that I had someone who wanted to spend time with me. I fell asleep in his arms that night, and held him tight as he thrashed and moaned against nightmares at dawn.
We fell into a routine easily, and we were very good together. We stole, scammed, and swindled; we pick-pocketed, we begged, and we survived the hell out of L2. I worshiped every strength and weakness that made up Solo, and he was the only human model I had ever been able to study up close, so I molded myself into his shadow, his right-hand man. I was so attune to him I could almost read his thoughts, and we were able to work in phenomenal synchronicity. I can only fanthom what he got out of the relationship, but I got everything – a friend, a guardian, and a teacher; human contact, company, and every opportunity for new insights, experiences, and feelings.
I didn't understand all that back then, only that Solo was haunted by the nightmares of his father; but in retrospect it seems likely that Solo was fleeing sexual as well as physical abuse. He seemed confident though, and so clever, to my six-year-old self, while all I could offer was a tour of the seedier L2 barrios, complete with grunted tips and warnings. Over the next several weeks, I showed him basic tricks that he was able to capitalize on better by virtue of being several years older.
Solo was bigger, of course, but he had much to learn when it came to the rougher side of street survival. He was all punches and kicks, strong and direct; he hadn't yet accepted the underdog ways. I had learned early on that, when you are smaller and weaker than your opponents, you must be able to make up for it with strategy. The underdog strategy is to strike quick, deadly, and low. Let them make the first move, but be prepared to retaliate as absolutely as possible to prevent any escalation. You have to be willing to take the struggle to the most drastic level immediately, catching the enemy unprepared for the rapid transition, and then annihilating him . . .
That's not right through, because those are the lessons I learned during my Gundam training. They are so ingrained in me now that they bleed into every memory and thought I have. I think, in the early days, the underdog way meant a wild berserker charge at my opponent, with no regards for my own safety, followed by a scramble to rip him apart . . . preferably while still being able to get away.
When Solo and I sparred, he always landed the first blow with his long limbs, but then I rushed him regardless of the pain and tackled him to the ground, kneeing and clawing and head-butting and biting. Solo learned to be thoroughly cautious while I was near, but he also became very proficient at no-holds-barred unarmed combat. I was glad to be of value and assistance in any way, even if it was in teaching Solo the finer details of my animal side. I was ashamed of my poor linguistic skills, of my ignorance and distrust and ferocity, but the animal in me didn't care about such things at all; it knew that my savage beastliness was the only reason I had survived even this long. Though every day I spent with Solo was a day closer to becoming human, and having my beast locked up forever.
In our early weeks together, he spent long night hours helping me learn to speak better and educating me on all the basic things that always maintained such a chasm between me and the rest of the breathing colony. I remember one time Solo and I took a shortcut to the neighboring barrio and we passed a corpse. I just kept walking, but had to come back when Solo just stood immobile over the body, his mouth slightly open.
When I approached him, he never tore his eyes away as he whispered, "I knew it was bad out here, but not this bad . . . Kid, this woman's dead."
I nodded, it was obvious after all and it didn't mean anything to me. I have no idea how many corpses I had seen by that point, it was never anything that had ever had much of an impact. But then Solo was looking at me critically, and I knew he was expecting more of a reaction, so I frowned and focused on the body on the ground. It was frail, with contusions visible on her arms, legs, and face, and if I had known the word I would have diagnosed the cause of death as exposure. My limited vocabulary just grunted, "Too weak n sick to sleep ou'side."
Solo actually appeared distressed at that response, and I almost panicked; I craved approval so badly, but I didn't know what my idol wanted of me. He must have seen the alarm in my expression because he suddenly calmed and grew solemn, turning his hurt eyes from me to dead woman. He closed his eyes and, to my stupefaction, recited, "There but for the grace of god walk I."
His eyes blinked up for a second to fix on mine, then he continued his bastardized eulogy. "Take her, Shinigami, god of death, for you have won her fair and square in this game of life and death . . . I hope we'll be more lucky when we face you, whatever mask you wear, but we know that only you can win in the end . . . Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . . May honor and happiness be there for you in heaven."
This entire affair was about the most astounding thing I had ever witnessed in my life up until then. What fair game? Shinigami, god, heaven? What did ashes or dust have to do with anything? I didn't even know where to begin my questions, though I sensed that it was not the time or place. Still, Solo had succeeded in what was surely his intention; I was never able to look at corpse the same way again.
That was just one more thing that Solo gave me . . . It seemed as though I had suddenly been given the key to unlocking a whole world of things that I had barely realized I had been missing. At his urging, I approached Madeline in the narrow fabrics store that she owned.
She frowned at me for a long moment before recognizing me with astonishment. "You! You ran away in the middle of the night! Scared me half to death, you did."
I shuffled my feet, fighting against the twitching urge in my muscles, and nodded shamefaced. "Sorry, mum."
Her expression was genuinely surprised and impressed. "And here I was thinking all this time that you couldn't speak!"
"I'm a-learnin'," I mumbled, embarrassed beyond all reason but bursting with pride nonetheless.
Madeline smiled then and looked at me appreciatively, almost laughing. "You're looking clean. Somebody taking care of you?"
The strange adult attention was beginning to overwhelm me, so I blurted, "Thank you!" and sprinted out the door. I dashed back to Solo and told him everything, sharing with him this unexpected pleasure that had come from the encouraged interaction. It had terrified me and thrilled me all at once, and all because Solo had shoved me in the right direction – something he would continue to do over the next couple years.
Indeed, nearly a year after falling in with each other, Solo commented to me, "I'm so glad we found each other. It's like you're a little me. . . Do you think that's what it's like to have a brother?"
I shrugged; that certainly wasn't something I would know anything about.
We were reclining on the bed pile, and Solo suddenly rolled over and came up next to me. He slowly reached a hand towards me, knowing that I startle easy, and he gently pulled the long hair out of my face. He smiled at me affectionately and said, "You really should take better care of your hair. I bet it would look really nice brushed out."
I flushed with embarrassment under the attention, "Dunno how."
Solo laughed, then reached over to the crate where he kept his stuff to retrieve the brush-thing I saw him take to his own hair sometimes. With a mischievous smile on his face, he ordered me to turn around, then began trying to untangle my hair.
The next half-hour ranks as one of the happiest of my early life. Sure, Solo was doing only as well as a kid could, and it rather hurt, but I absolutely adored the attention, of being focused on so fully and physically. Eventually even the pain faded, and then there were just hypnotic, comforting strokes along my scalp.
When Solo's hands finally stilled, he asked solemnly. "Would you be my brother?"
My mouth fell open a little bit, and the unexpected jolt of sheer glee spurred me out of my trance to turn around and cry out, "Yes, Solo, yes yes yes!"
We grinned at each other like fools, then embraced one another as hard as we could, as though a part of us would always be in that grip. Solo pulled back a little and was met by my dumb Cheshire grin, to which he said solemnly, "Well, then, as your brother, I must tell you: you need a name."
That made me frown, as I felt that loss somewhat deeply and it was not a subject I cared to dwell on. "Where do I get one?"
Solo shrugged. "Wherever you want. Make one up."
I had no idea at all, and only a vague concept of where to start. "I like the name Solo."
Solo laughed at me, and I rolled away, disappointed with my lack of understanding. Solo was a good teacher though, and he shortly explained, "Solo is my name, brothers don't usually have the same name. You need a name that no one else has, that describes you. You're lucky even, I didn't get to pick my names, I just got whatever crap my father picked for me."
"You don' like your name?" I asked, surprised and confused.
Solo shook his head vigorously, looking despondent suddenly. "Ha!" he barked bitterly. Solo! It means Alone! My bastard father gave me thaisname when my mother died during . . . you know."
I didn't know, but I nodded anyway, and I wanted desperately to be enough to banish his unhappiness. "You're not alone anymore. We're two now. Gimme a name that means together."
It was Solo's turn to be surprised, then he smiled at me as he studied me and considered, making my guts twist in unbearable anticipation. I had wanted a name for as long as I could recall, had even thought I had figured it out at one point.
"Duo," Solo finally pronounced with confidence, and I felt a thrill of pleasure on hearing the name on his lips. It was so perfect that I moved next to Solo and hugged him hard again.
He kissed my cheek and I whispered, "Duo."
We were dirty and destitute, but times seemed good for a while with Solo at my side.
I remember the first time I realized what that word meant that adults used so often – war. Solo had explained how it was responsible for the sudden and awful shift that had come over L2, that even a child like myself could not help but notice. The cost of the war was stressing the already poverty-stricken colony, and crime (which had always been high) was skyrocketing. The streets were becoming more dangerous and the mayor began dividing the colony into privileged, gated "safe areas" and abandoned, free-for-all "open areas".
The civil war was making people both afraid and angry, and tempers were growing short. Rioting and violence became common occurrences, in addition to the rampant crime and pervasive fear; fires broke out from time to time. It seemed like suddenly there were street children on every corner, and predators prowling every block. Solo and I had to be quicker and cleverer than ever before, and wary of the vultures that came out at night. To make matter worse, the colony reduced the temperature standards to save money, so it was always fucking cold. Solo and I walked around bundled in ragged blankets at all times of day.
Eyeballing the passers-by one day, Solo mused morosely, "These kids aren't going to make it on their own."
Glancing at him, I saw that he was gazing at a scraggly child begging on the corner. The girl was probably around my age, but surely didn't have a fraction of the survival odds.
"We should ask her to join us," Solo grunted.
Frowning, I looked at the girl again – she wouldn't have the confidence to execute our scams, or the agility to manage our heists. What was he thinking? "We don' have enough to feed a bunch of kids," I argued anxiously, having lived this long by looking after numero uno.
"We can use them, like an army, and protect them at the same time, see?" Solo replied, turning so that our faces were very close. "But I can't do it without you. No one is better at surviving these streets than you."
Once again Solo knew exactly what to say, and I flushed in delight at the compliment. I looked back at the girl and tried to feel what I imagined Solo felt. . . Was it sympathy I was supposed to feel? She was certainly pathetic and . . . alone. I could empathize with that; and maybe I too had benefited from Solo's sympathy. Perhaps I had been just as pathetic when Solo had approached me. The idea upset me, but I strangled the emotion and forced myself to nod casually and concede, "Okay."
We approached her cautiously, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible. Solo removed one of his ragged blankets and held it out to her as we crouched next to her. "You look cold."
Dark fearful eyes peered at us in turn, and her little fist tightened around her small knapsack of belongings. I frowned slightly, "You gotta hide your stuff. So no one can take it when you out."
She was surprised, but she nodded eventually, then let Solo hand her the blanket. "I'm Solo, and this here is Duo. What's your name?"
She blinked slowly, and I was beginning to suspect that the girl was, well, slow, when she stuttered, "T-tessie."
Solo released one of those benevolent smiles that got me every time, then said, "Well, Tessie, here's the thing. We're starting a posse, a gang of kids really, and we were wondering if you'd like to join."
The skinny thing appeared torn between relief and disbelief. "Can I. . . eat?"
"Of course you can," Solo soothed, as though food grew on trees (though even trees were rare on L2). "Duo, give Tessie a ration bar."
I scowled as I dug into the nasty rags that I used as clothes; the ration bars had been my reward for to scaling four stories of wall to reach an unbarred window. It was something even Solo couldn't have managed and I felt selfishly possessive of them, but I still did what Solo requested and I handed Tessie the unopened nutrition bar.
She tore at the wrapping and devoured the food, more akin to a starved animal than a human child. I knew then that she and I had something in common: at one time I had been just as close to giving into the wildness of single-minded survival. If Solo hadn't found me, I may have never been more than a human animal, and that wasn't so different from the opportunity here to save her life.
Eventually, she turned her attention back to us. "What'd I gotta do?"
I arched an eyebrow, silently asking Solo the same question. He appeared uncertain for a moment then ventured, "Well, what're you good at?"
Tessie brighten faintly at this question and answered after hesitation, "I can. . . dance."
I rolled my eyes but Solo smiled broadly. "Well, then, you can dance. And we'll use your dancing to get money and food!"
At that moment, Solo secured a second sibling that would worship him. And he managed to even keep his promise: we devised several plots that pivoted on the distraction provided by Tessie's bizarre street performances.
Our lives changed significantly after that first day with Tessie. Over the next several months we quickly recruited a band of twelve abandoned and orphaned kids. They were a raw and terrified bunch, but I was impressed to witness the power that came with numbers. At eleven Solo was the oldest of the ragged bunch, and yet we pulled off heists on par with the teenage gangs that roamed the streets. Our hovel became a real home, teaming with laughing, screaming, crying children. Their names are inscribed in my heart: Robin, Toni, Alejo, Lear, Mariana, Lavi, Puppy, Orion, Mandela, Bell, Shaka, and Tessie. We called ourselves Solo's Wolf Pack, and sometimes we howled out windows at imaginary moons.
With more kids working with us, our operations grew more ambitious, so Solo and I often spent the days apart, executing the different plans or different branches of the same plan. My aching fears of abandonment were eased at night by the fact that he still slept with me cuddled in his arms. A number of the kids were clearly older than me, but I always maintained a position of relative authority – in part because of Solo's reliance on me as some sort of expert at living on the edge. The other kid had their own areas of expertise.
Mariana could cook and clean (well, compared to everyone else) and comfort the younger kids; Toni and Alejo, the identical twins, perfected a little double trouble routine that never failed to yield results; Tessie had an amazing ability to draw attention to her mediocre self, much to everyone' benefit; Puppy could cry at a moment's notice and managed to milk every single charitable soul that dared traverse our neighborhood; Orion had a knack for salvage and mechanics; Lavi could sell condoms to nuns with her wide-eyed conviction; Robin could both disappear into the crowd and yell her lungs off; Lear could pass as a slumming rich kid when dressed appropriately; Shaka had spider's fingers; and Mandela was a Houdini monkey like me.
But Bell was just plain trouble. The creeps had their eyes on her from a young age, and she couldn't help but notice their interest, to hear their offers. Solo always insisted that we never sell our bodies, that doing so would forever sabotage our happiness, and we mostly agreed that he was right. Still, I wasn't really surprised when Bell's tragedy began to unfold, as I had seen it before. Over several weeks she managed to contribute an unprecedented amount of money to the group pot, but her behavior changed drastically – from bubbly and irreverent to fearful and timid. When Solo figured it out, he was so angry that he yelled until she cried piteously and swore that she would never do anything like that again. He did this in front of the entire pack, so that no one would ever forget this all-important lesson.
For a while, we were all family, as dysfunctional and wonderful as any other, living in one of the condemned buildings by the docks. It felt nice to wake up to so much life, even when it involved getting jumped on by Toni, or the equally rambunctious Alejo. It never failed to send me bolting out of sleep straight into full defensive mode, but Solo always laughed and joined into the mock pillow fight with the rags that made up all of our bedding.
I would feel lonely then, having leaped away and now watching them from the outside, unable to understand why I couldn't react like Solo and the other kids. Wrestling was about survival to me, not . . . fun.
I was growing older. Pushing maybe eight, I was easily responsible for a good fourth of the band's intake. I was inexplicably faster, more agile, and more adaptable than any of the other kids. As I began to appreciate my own power to help myself and others, it grew easier to be generous with my bounty, and with my affections. Soon enough I had developed the same sense of duty towards the less fortunate that my hero Solo possessed. I was younger than most of the other kids, but far more capable.
On the down side, Solo and I no longer spent as much time together. As I began running more jobs by myself and in a leadership position with the other kids, I started noticing that in some way I was, well, reverting.
When I was around the rest of the pack I felt human, I acted human, maybe I even overcompensated to act like a good person; but when I got down to the dirty work, all that crap faded away until it was just the me-beast and the target. Then I executed the fuck out the operation.
One such operation I recall specifically because of the pride I felt at my performance. The memory is from one of the early days, when things on L2 were getting bad, but had not yet plummeted into the horrific abyss that lay hidden in the near future. I remember being annoyed by Solo's politicking, though I knew it was a necessary element of managing a band of thirteen wild rascals. In this case he had to talk some stupid matter out between the plaintiff, overly sensitive Orion, and the ever trouble-making twins, Alejo and Toni.
It was most definitely not my scene, I thought they were all behaving like babies, so I took Mandela out with me to round up some value. It was dusk, and I could tell that Mandela was worried about the approaching dark. It didn't matter though, I'd make this quick; and smaller boy idolized me too much to object. I just couldn't understand how all the other kids could get caught up in minor squabbles with each other. How could they care about such things when Survival was such a slippery snake?
I scanned the crowd for several minutes, urging the opportunity to show itself; and as always, it was just waiting to be found.
"That one there," I gestured towards a burly middle-aged man leading a mule with a boarded-up cart. As soon as I saw it, its flaw was obvious – it was open at the top, with canvas bags peaking over the rim. And if it continued on its path, it would pass right under the crumbling and abandoned footbridge between the old buildings on Independence. I was off running even as the plan formed in my mind, Mandela at my heals. I stopped by Madeline's shop and quickly asked to borrow her pole reach; I had grown a lot closer to her since gaining a pack of lost children that essentially begged for caring adult supervision. It still required some quick maneuvering though, using a haphazard charm that was just beginning to manifest, and claiming most convincingly that some bully had thrown my backpack up on a light post. Madeline gave in, and then Mandela and I ran several blocks to Independence Street, relieved to spot the cart still making its slow journey.
"Here's what you gotta do. When the guy gets here, you stall him under the bridge so I can unload. Then, whenever you see an out, book it until he leaves. Simple, right?"
Mandela nodded, then I scurried up the stairway of the old residential building. On the second floor I traversed the hallway to a specific window next to the shoddy wall that had been plastered over the original entrance to the footbridge. I climbed onto the sill and easily swung myself onto the rickety bridge. Just in time too, because I could hear the creaking of the cart's wheels and the beat of the mule's hooves.
All railing was long gone, so I simply laid low and peered down, pole reach in my hand but held close to my body. I was relieved that my elevation provided confirmation of what I thought I had seen – the target was using canvas army bags to transport his goods. I smiled, this was going to be easy, and it was just dark enough for no one to even notice.
Then, it was time. Mandela was moaning loudly and pretending to almost throw up on the target (which he does very effectively). The guy yelled, and I heard the cart stop. I sprung into motion, using the pole reach to snag one of the many straps on one of the military issue bags. It was almost too heavy for my thin arms, but sheer willpower hauled the bag silently from the top of the cart to the balcony. Now I could hear Mandela crying hysterically and I quickly snagged another bag. This one pressed against the side of the cart and the mule shifted forward. I heard the guy cursing again as I desperately manhandled the bag onto the balcony.
I breathlessly rolled the bags up against the wall, and then crouched to listen. I was relieved that the commotion on the street seemed to die down, then again the sounds of the wheels turning and hooves, amidst mumbled curses. Mandela must've gotten away, the boy could run almost as fast as me, and I was fast. That boy in particular had grown on me.
I eagerly dug through the bag and was thrilled at my find – each bag had ration bars, a few cans of nonperishable foods, a can opener, basic adult clothes, shoes, soap, toilet paper and various toiletries, pens, paper, a couple knives, rope, bandages, a few basic medicines, and a med injector. After about five minutes I packed everything back up and then gave a sharp wolf howl, followed shortly by Mandela's own response. I returned with the double yelp that meant All Clear. Not thirty seconds later, Mandela was thundering up the stairs and then hanging out the window. Together we got our bounty back on solid ground. A high-energy kid like me, he could barely manage to keep his voice down as he eyeballed the canvas bags. "Is it good?" he practically whined.
I grinned. "Jackpot. Rations, clothes, meds, everything."
Mandela clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle his squeal.
The trek back to den was hell. The bags were ginormous, and heavy, and we had to take the roundabout way in order to drop the pole reach off at Madeline's while being as inconspicuous as possible; but the welcome we got from the troupe made it well worth all our efforts. Everyone laughed and screamed, feeling the safety of bought time, if only for a little while. Lavi hugged me and fawned over me, and as usual I ate it up.
Mandela and I ruffled through our bags, passing around the clothes and blankets; the food and medical supplies went in the communal storage; then we split up what little remained between the two of us. I gave the pen and paper to Mariana, because I had no use for them, but she could write a little. She made me promise to let her teach me to write my name, for she was as close to a teacher as any of us had, even to Solo. I agreed, but what I really wanted her to do was show me how to use the comb that had I just acquired; I had the basic idea, but I feared that my hair was too knotted to be untangled.
Even Solo looked impressed at my catch, though his congratulations were followed by concern. When we got a moment alone he asked, "You didn't get these off the Alliance, did you?"
"Naw. Jus' lifted them off a big ol' cart." Did he think I was crazy? Alliance was not quite on the radar of my capabilities just yet.
Solo just frowned deeper, inspecting a couple of my personal items before picking up the small machete. "These are more than survival bundles."
"Gangs?" I offered doubtfully; they were too well entrenched to need such supplies.
Solo shook his head pensively. "Or . . . terrorists?"
My jaw dropped a little at that; what did I know of terrorists? Would they try to hunt me down for pilfering their supplies? Were they the reason that the Alliance had such a stick up its ass? I forced myself to shrug and acknowledge, "Maybe."
I thought a lot after that about the Alliance and about the terrorists, but as hard as I tried I couldn't seem to piece it together. The Alliance soldiers tormented us and clearly considered us cockroaches, and the terrorists . . . well, all I had ever heard were rumors.
Another year cam and went, continuing war and growing destitution taking their toll. Food was scarce, sanitation was worse than ever, and environmental controls ran at three quarters power; everyone was under constant strain and fear, growing thinner and meaner. The "open areas" began to feel like civilian war zones, everyone carried a gun and everyone was on the lookout for the opportunity to take advantage of a situation. We never went out alone, we stuck to cautious strategies and streets, and Solo tried to keep us all safe, but we still had to steal food to survive. Taking risks was simply necessary, especially for me, who seemed immune to probability. Solo forbid us to have guns, but he must've known that I had started packing ever since that sick fuck Alliance soldier had gotten his hands on me.
The asshole had come out of nowhere and dragged me into an alley, where he kicked me and groped me a bit. Then he took out his gun and pointed it between my terrified eyes.
"Do you like it? It's a real powerful piece of metal, isn't it?" he hissed into my ear. I was frozen in fear, waiting desperately for any opportunity to get out of this, then he dragged the tip of the gun from my temple, down my cheek, towards my lips. "I'm going to shove this baby up inside your tight ass."
I might have whimpered, but then the gun was past my trembling lips, bruising my gums and forcing my teeth apart, and then the barrel of his handgun was thrust down my throat. The soldier chuckle and then looked down, his attention temporarily distracted by something his other hand was doing in hi spants, and the flash of opportunity triggered my berserker reaction –
I flung my head back and kicked out at the same time, hands springing up to rip the weapon out of his hand. He staggered back less than a meter, but it was enough for me to raise that gun and shoot him repeatedly in one knee, then the other. He was screaming in agony and my breath was loud in my ears, so I turned and ran and ran until I was blocks away from him, and blocks away from home, and then I collapsed in tearful exhaustion . . .
Only to realize that I was still holding the very same gun that I had recently fellated. I forced my pansy-self not to be horrified by this, and insisted that I had earned this weapon that would now help me provide for my tribe. I sneaked back to our lair and hid my experience from Solo, locking it away with the creature that comes out time and again to do what those soft humans can't manage . . .
I know how deranged this makes me sound, but at the time I was having difficulty reconciling the dog-eat-dog streets with the humanity that Solo was fostering within me and our little wolf pack. I continue to grapple with this issue for many years, and in different manifestations, and I will likely continue to grapple with it for years to come.
Back then though, my duality was everyone's gain. I think Solo probably felt guilty for relying on me so much – he thanked me once. I was sitting on our makeshift bed, using a lighter to fuse twine into a rope. He came and sat down next to me, watching me for a long time before I turned my attention to him and asked, "What?"
He had a funny smile on his face and he said, "Your hair looks really good now that you've started brushing it. . . You've really changed, in a good way."
I blushed and glanced down at my hands, more embarrassed at what a disgusting rat I used to be than proud of my accomplishments. I still had a lot to catch up on.
"Lear just showed me the shoes you got for him." Solo continued after it became clear that I wasn't going to say anything. "Thank you."
He was looking at me so sincerely that I couldn't help bust flush. "It was nothing."
"It's more than something, Duo. You're the reason our scraggly band is still around . . . Times are tough and you're carrying a lot more than your weight. I should be able to do more –"
But I didn't want his guilt; my broadened horizons had made me confident and I wanted to be relied on, so I interrupted, "I'm strong!"
Then Solo's face softened almost to sadness. "Yeah, you are. So strong I can barely understand it." I could tell that he wanted to say more, but his thoughts were deeply conflicted. Finally, he said, "Thank you, for keeping the family together. You're our provider, like a father should be."
He hugged me then, and I hugged him back forcefully, as though clinging to him would save me from the suddenly dread of looming loss.
I have always been strong, and I thrive on challenge. I had been good before, but now I was emboldened by success and need. I had turned breaking and entering into an art that I inflicted on increasingly ambitious targets. In a numb trance, I infiltrated, diverted, disarmed, mislead, hacked, jacked; I lifted anything that would sell – vids, hardware, software, data, power units, weapons, food, meds, jewelry, antiques, anything. I picked up all sorts of new skills with electronics and mechanics, basic but effective.
I would have held myself back except that I almost never failed to at least break even on a serious, pre-planned heist. But no matter how much I managed to scrape together, it was never enough to provide fully for my family of ever hungry orphans.
Then, the crippling blow came: colonists started falling sick. I overheard rumors about people wasting away and dying, but still the threat was no more real to me than the war. I had always been quite healthy, and starvation and murder were my local killers, so it was hard to look far beyond that. I had noticed that the air smelt staler, and that sewage fumes would come and go, but I didn't really understand the connection between failing environmental controls and pathogenic disease.
What few scraps of warning I had received were enough to terrify me when I first noticed something wrong. At first it was just that Puppy's skin seemed to sallow, and that he moped about a lot. When he missed dinner one evening to sleep, I went to Solo.
"Yeah, I noticed," he sighed. "Let him sleep for now. I'll start giving him antibiotics tomorrow. Hopefully that'll be enough."
He had heard the same stories I had, but he didn't say anything. I was probably being paranoid, kids get sick all time, especially when they live our lifestyle. Besides, it wasn't like we could afford a trip to the hospital.
But Puppy didn't get better; the antibiotics didn't work and his joints began hurting so bad he could barely get out of bed. The troupe took turns lying with him, but because of my scavenging duties I didn't get the chance until I requested it after weeks of watching others comfort poor Puppy.
I still slept with Solo most nights, and I cherished that time with him, but I couldn't escape the fear that I was about to lose something very valuable; something overlooked. Maybe I just wanted to say my own good-byes to Puppy.
I approached his bedding and slipped under the blankets next to him. He blinked with his wide, sunken eyes. "You shouldn' get so close, you might get sick."
"Naw, idn't no way a runt like you can kill Duo," I responded and cuddled close to him, trying to lend him my healthy warmth. He didn't resist and after a long moment, he started crying on my shirt.
"I don' wanna die, Duo," he sniffled, and I hugged him as tight as I dared. I didn't know what to say, all I knew of death was that it could happen to anyone, at any time; and that I could sense it on Puppy a mile away. Even as I felt his breathing and his heartbeat, I smelled the cloying, sweaty smell of biological decay.
I stroked his once curly hair, now a little patchy, and whispered, "I don' want you to die neither, Puppy."
There was a long empathetic silence before Puppy whimpered into my chest, "Tell me a story?"
It was a request I got with some frequency, so I responded with the standard, "I don' know any stories."
Puppy finally turned his face upward for air and said, "Tell 'bout how you saved us today."
His phrasing left me uneasy with an aftertaste of personal failure. Still, somewhere along the way I had actually developed a propensity for storytelling (due entirely to the kids habitually pestering me for tales of my increasingly legendary exploits), so it wasn't too difficult to accommodate Puppy. What unfolded was an adventure through the sewers, hotwiring a security system, and breaking into this loaded mansion. Lear and I packed up two big luggage pieces, took showers, and dressed up in the richie clothes; then we just walked out of there like it was nobody's business!
The poor boy was asleep not halfway through the story, but I knew that he had enjoyed it immensely, especially the ridiculous details and exaggerations that I wove in. By the time he nodded off, Robin and Shaka had moved to sit near so I finished the tale for hthem. It always shocked me that the other kids were so willing to listen to my broken speaking.
I felt guilty that night because Puppy, and others too like Lavi and Robin and Mandela, seemed to admire me so much. I was clearly a freak for being able to do what I could at that age, and I was just contributing what skills I had. It was the other kids who brought the humanity, and Solo who was the real leader.
Puppy died a few days later, while I was out on a scam. We took his body out by the docks, covered by his blanket, then, in the tradition of the L2 underclass, lit him on fire. I had seen bodies before, but I couldn't remember ever knowing anyone who died up. I felt numb, as if Puppy had never existed; but I also felt wrong, as if my memory was just playing tricks on me.
Over the next six months, we were struck down one by one. Tessie and the twins had grown emaciated and bedridden, and both Bell and Lavi had been looking poorly for a couple weeks. Everyone was tired and afraid, and I could only operate by severely detaching the hysteria that demanded I fix this desperate situation. I was tempted by the familiar painlessness of apathy, but I also cherished every relationship I had and I felt their loss. It was only through the pain and happiness of my relationships that I felt confident of my humanity.
When we burned Toni's body, and Alejo cried piteously to be allowed to die too, I came up with a drastic plan. We had neither cash, nor documents, so the L2 hospitals were not an option, but that didn't mean we couldn't steal ourselves a doctor. Especially if we could arrange to get Tessie and Alejo to a meeting place near the hospital, then I wouldn't even have to take the doctor far . . .
In the background, I could hear Solo saying some prayer, far more eloquent that the extemporaneous one I had heard a couple years ago. "Take what you must, Shinigami, so that you may spare the rest. You are our constant companion, our assurance against never-ending suffering . . ."
I waited until we retired back to our lair, but then the words were spilling out of my mouth, detailing an outrageous plot to save our lives. Solo and Mariana were left staring at me as though I had grown a couple extra heads. The weakling in me craved the affection of these people, and wanted me to run away and hide my outrageous self; but the monster had grown bold when confronted with crumbling chances of survival and it was not afraid to show its face.
Solo was not pleased, almost as if he sensed that the power had just shifted sharply and right out of his court. "And just how will you get a doctor to go anywhere with you?"
"With a gun," I answered, knowing that he would be pissed at that.
"No way," He blurted flatly, dead serious and as commanding as possible, but I was too worked up to take direction anymore.
"I'm not gonna let anyone else die!" I hissed, trying to keep my voice down, and my beast in check.
"Duo! Don't be crazy! Kidnapping a doctor is just going to have the cops hunting for us, or worse if you pick the wrong doc. It'll go horribly wrong and someone will killed." He tried to reason with me, but I wasn't currently listening to the half of me that listened to Solo. My decision had already been made.
"I won' pick the wrong doc," I growled, not arrogant but confident and unwilling to remain in check. "I am doing this with or without you, Solo. You took on all these kids, now I gotta take care of them. You can either help me or watch me… What kind of father are you?"
It was the first time I had ever truly challenged Solo, and I won by kicking below the belt, as usual. Solo paled at my words, and even backed up from me, as though scared… as though he suddenly realized that a part of me was still and always be the feral child that had survived on his own for so long. Had he forgotten who he slept next to most nights?
And so it came to pass that I stood by the building cattycorner to the hospital, scoping out the potential targets. This one too strong, that one looked the type to get hysterical. This was a better neighborhood than I typically scammed, so I felt particular pressure not to make a scene. I followed two candidates that left the area without ever presenting a workable opportunity. After a couple hours, I finally made a move on my third candidate, a thirty-something woman who struck me as the motherly type.
I followed her for a couple blocks until she turned a corner down a smaller street. I snuck up on her quickly but quietly, then appeared suddenly beside her. "Say, mum, is you a doctor?"
Her expression broadcasted the warning bells in her head, surely set off by my ragged clothes and poor hygiene. Still, I was almost two feet shorter than her and probably two decades younger, so she acted unafraid as she asked, "Yes. Are you hurt?"
I watched her like a hawk, her every breath, the contraction of her pupil, the shift of her muscles . . . The predatory look in my eye probably ruled out any possibility of charming her into coming with me. Instead, I held her gaze and stated in my best English, "My friends are sick. In a squat over there."
For a moment, suspicion and curiosity warred on the doctor's face, then she shook her head. "I'm not allowed to see people outside the hospital. You should bring your friends to the clinic tomorrow."
I was in no position to care about what she was allowed to do, so I promptly whipped out the large handgun that I had fellated just a few months ago. Trigger happy doesn't even begin to describe it. The doctor froze up, but I was already ice as I jerked the gun in her direction and said, "Jus' do what I say an' I won' hurt you. My friends need a doc, an' I'm gonna make that happen."
For a second it looked like she was going to bolt, but I didn't want that. So I flipped off the safety and bluffed in my fiercest voice, "If you run, I'm jus' gonna shoot you, doc. Then I'll find somebody else."
The doctor's eyes grew wider with fear, and I felt faintly ill at my behavior – I knew that it was rooted in the darkest, most inhuman crevasses of my soul. I pushed such concerns away with characteristic ease and focused on the situation at hand.
"That way," I barked, coming up close behind her and jabbing the gun forcefully into her back. When she took her first tentative steps in correct direction, I added, "Don' be scared. Don' nobody gotta get hurt here. I jus' want to help my friends."
My words soothed her, and my gun compelled her, and somehow I steered us down smaller streets, pressing myself and the gun close one the couple occasions we passed people. Three blocks away was a shabby motel room where my family was waiting. I think the doctor only really believed me when she saw Alejo, curled up on the bed, and Tessie huddled in a chair by the window. She glanced warily at Solo in the corner, but he was already glaring at me and my ill-concealed weapon; it probably set the stage and softened her up for his subsequent plea. "Please, doctor, don't hate us for doing this, we can't do any better for ourselves. We haven't the money or identification to go to the hospital. We have no guardians, we are street urchins, but we're dying from this sickness just the same. Please, doctor, we need help."
The lady doctor melted at his words, as I once again witnessed Solo's unique and impressive ability to speak right to a person's heart, to their core. If he had jacked this bitch, she probably would've accompanied him back to the motel smiling. It made me jealous and a little bitter, cuz I wanted to be able to relate like that to people – in that human way.
Even under Solo's spell, the doctor couldn't perform any miracle beyond telling Shinigami's honest truth: that she had seen this illness recently in the hospital, but there was no cure. Alejo began to cry and Tessie came over to the bed to cuddle with him. I didn't believe the doctor's words for a second, and neither did Solo. "What about them richies?," he retorted angrily, tears in his eyes. "There's no way they're dying of this!"
Only then did the doctor's face grow so empathetic that I could believe her when she said, "The rich don't get this disease, probably because of their lower rates of exposure. This epidemic is only now just spreading among the poor, and so far it hasn't spared anyone that I know of . . ." Then she added with frustration, "The Alliance is working on a cure as we speak, but viruses are hard to cure. It can take years."
Solo's frame sagged noticeably, covering his face with his hands, and for a long moment I feared that he wouldn't say anything else. Finally, he mumbled, "And if we don't have years, there's nothing we can do?"
The doctor sighed and licked her lips before replying, "You can keep them warm, hydrated, and well-fed, and out of harm's way . . . but that won't save them in the end."
Solo shattered then, releasing one strangled sob.
Something inside me broke too, but as always the other me was there to step forth. We had been dealt terrible blows today, and I needed to take my family back to the den to lick its wounds. I ushered the doctor out the door, ignoring the sympathy on her face and in her words as she gushed about this church that would be willing to take us orphans in. I certainly didn't want to hear this, but when she proffered a card, I took it as part of a combo that slammed the door in her fat face.
I helped Solo get Tessie and Alejo back home. Solo didn't seem able to bounce back from this blow, and for the first time I truly doubted that any of us would be surviving our childhoods on L2. We were all gonna die unknown and unwanted.
In the wake of his twin's death and the doctor's prognosis, Alejo's health deteriorated quickly, and he died days later. Tessie held on bravely for another month, and outlived Lavi before passing herself. Bell drowned herself when she grew so ill and thin that her hair and teeth began falling out.
We burned each on by the docks, fleeing the scene before the cops came to investigate. Except for Orion and Lear, who simply failed to return home one evening after going out together, and were never heard from again. Dead and dead, almost certainly.
Life had turned into hell. The Plague was hitting the barrio hard, and the streets reeked of death and decay. There were bodies being left in dumpsters on a daily basis, and people were visibly rotting away even as they tried to make it through the day. Supplies were scarcer than ever, and it became almost impossible to steal anymore without grave risk to self. The only places with food were well secured, like corporate and Alliance facilities and gang domain, but I was driven by desperation. Fear, which until then had always been such a defining element of my being, began to fade as I was forced to psychologically adapt to the constant danger. I steeled the maniacal inner animal that came out when the stakes were high, that kept me struggling on despite loss after loss. I learned compelling lessons during this time about the power every individual holds over their own mind and feelings. I was literally making myself who I needed to be.
Of course, all my efforts were ultimately in vain, and they only prolonged the inevitable: Shinigami took my family from me one by one. With each death, my pain and anger bulged, twisting my humanity even as it fueled the survival-beast. I felt a burning hatred for life that had me flinging myself into action while the other kids faded away.
One night as Solo and I lay in our makeshift bed, his trembling woke me up. I assumed he was having a nightmare, but when I moved to wake him up, his skin was strangely warm. Every muscle in my body tensed then, for I knew then that Solo too would die soon. Adrenaline spiked as I panicked, but it only served to hurl me into crazed action.
I clambered onto him, waking him, grabbing him, desperately attached my mouth to his and sucked wetly in a strange imitation of a kiss. Solo struggled, weakly at first but then more violently, shoving me off him and sitting up. "What are you doing?"
I was in his face again instantly, but I was not so far gone not to recognize the expression of shock, anger, and even fear on his face. I was the monster that assaulted Solo these days, not his bastard father.
The realization made me want to hate myself more, but my feelings of hurt and betrayal were too raw to be distracted by the familiar tangent of self-loathing. Instead, I continued to glare ferociously at him and I barely managed to keep my voice down as I hissed, "I'm not gonna let you die and leave me!"
I knew Solo understood then, because his anger disappeared and he looked distinctly guilty. He wiped the saliva from his mouth, frowning before his expression turned alarmed and even guiltier, but that just pissed me off more. "You knew!" I growled quietly, but with force. "You shoulda told me at least!"
He opened his mouth to retort, but the hysterical panic flared again and I attacked again, with a sloppy and open-mouthed. "Duo! Get off!" he yelled, shoving me away forcefully, striking out when that didn't work.
I rolled off the mound of bedding, jaw smarting and the stone under my skin colder even than the air. Solo was glaring at me now, but I could tell that his volume had already woken Mariana and Shaka in the neighboring bed bundle. My first plan abandoned, I scrambled to grab my makeshift coat, then plobbed on the ground to secure my oversized boots. I didn't expect Solo speak so audibly, with such frustration, "Where are you going?"
A dozen possibilities shot through my head – to kill myself, to find a cure, to rob the fuck out of some place, to take on a couple Alliance soldiers, or to simply run forever. I settled for a bitter, "I dunno."
Solo left the bed and crouched down next to me as I pulled on my second boot. He was tense, wary of me in a way that he hadn't been since our early days together. He could recognize the child-beast from the past perhaps. He cautiously extended his hand towards me until it rested on and stilled my arm. "Duo, I need you to be strong again. Please, we need you more now than ever."
I met his eyes then, and I could feel his pain so clearly that it was mine. I felt years older than my meager nine. "You can't ask me to do this Solo, it's too much. I don't want to be alone."
Now that he had my attention, he stood and glanced around the big room that had once housed twelve other kids, but now only Mandela, Robin, and Shaka stood mournfully watching our exchange. Even Marianna, who was sickly, sat watching from her bedding. Then Solo turned back to me stated bluntly, "If anyone is going to live through this, it's going to be you, Duo. If you throw away your life, then there won't be anyone at all to remember to remember me, all of us."
His words horrified me, and I scrambled to my feet. It was even more horrifying to realize that the others were not objecting to his words. The guilt and the pressure and the desperation spurred me into desperate action. I grabbed my pack, quickly checking its contents, then I moved for the door, only pausing for a moment to look back and say, "I won't let you die. I'll find a way."
I think I heard Mandela cry after me, but I legged it out of there as fast as my muscles could pump. They carried me through dark streets where addicts, whores, and creeps threw taunts and a couple rocks at me, but one would've had to run a marathon to catch me. I sprinted by Madeline's closed shop, passed the dump and went clear through the factory district, leaving the Valdia barrio far behind. When I finally stopped running, the artificial light was rising and I was soked with sweat, standing on a street in a barrio several neighborhoods away from mine. From the looks of matters, this area hadn't fared much better than mine, but I did hear one rare sound –
Church bells.
I wouldn't have even recognized them if I hadn't once stolen an obscene amount of money from a church servicing one of the "safe areas". Exhausted curiosity drew me to the bells now, until I was standing in front of the thick wooden doors of a big gray church. The bells hypnotized me for a while longer before echoing silent, and only then did I hear the undeniable sound of children coming from the living quarters adjacent to the church. The Wolf Pack had once numbered fourteen noisy rascals, so I was confident in guessing that there were about twenty kids, maybe even more if they were well-behaved.
I felt to my stomach and chest cramp as I realized what this was: an orphanage.
I made myself to breathe with some effort, and I stumbled away from the church, still clutching my belly. Orphanages weren't supposed to exist, not really, it was just something Solo told the younger kids at night to put them to sleep; just another one of those crazy things Solo would always invent, like Santa Claus and Shinigami. . . except that Shinigami was real and he had killed my friends. My thoughts were spinning almost nonsensically.
It took me most of the day to make my tired trek back to Valdia, looking fuzzily at streets and places that I could barely remember having passed. My sense of direction was immaculate, but it didn't matter, I was spiritually lost. I was afraid of who I would become without Solo, without him to teach me how to relate to the rest of humankind. I needed him to make me smile and feel something besides this icy drive to survive, and to provide me with people to care for and love. I would rather die that lose Solo, and I repeated this mantra to myself until I finally found myself glaring at the local hospital through tearing eyes.
I knew that the hospital couldn't help, I had been watching it sporadically for months, and the stream of dying people seemed to come but never leave. I believed the woman doctor when she had said that there was no medicine that could help; especially in the barrios, hospitals were little more than a place to die out of sight and mind.
The thought made me gnash my teeth. Fuck them all for dying, I wasn't going to outlive everyone just because I'm some rat that just won't die! I turned to stomp away, but my attention was caught by the growing roar of an over-flying intracolony shuttle. I squinted at it to identify the Alliance logo on its side, but my ears had already pinpointed the fact that the shuttle was flying significantly lower and faster than safety required. I felt a little flare of hate for them for always being above the law and the rest of the colony's troubles. I bet none of them were starving or dying from Plague. They thought we were scum and wanted us to die, probably had the cure right now but did nothing.
The idea pissed me off almost beyond my exhausted endurance, but there, there on the verge of hysteria, the angry desperation triggered memories, ideas, and intentions to fit together into an impossible, outrageous plan. A plan of action was the signal for my emotions to fade away, my attention to focus, and my will hardened – for it was going to single-handedly drive this through to the bitter end.
The first thing I needed to do was hole up and get some sleep. There were a couple of ration bars and a canteen half-full of water in my pack, but the second step would be to score the supplies needed to pull this off. These were the easiest parts of the plan.
By the next night, I was carrying two packs and I was cautiously making my way to the Alliance base. Adrenaline urged me to rush in recklessly, but a deathgrip on my self-control allowed me to proceed methodically and precisely. I spent three whole days observing the compound, watching guards change shifts and people come and go, and scoping out the rather intimidating wall. I slept fitfully on a rooftop shed for those nights, trying not to think about Solo and the rest dying back home; trying instead to rest and prepare for what was to come. The flaw in my plan was obvious, and I was breaking an early rule I had learned on the street: don't get death trapped somewhere without exit. I also had little idea what lay behind those walls beyond basic architecture, and that ran against my thief's instincts.
In retrospect, this was a 01-style suicide mission, but like him I had a determination to succeed that forestalled any thought of failure. As the artificial night fell on the fourth day, five days since I had run away from home, I dressed in dark gray with fingerless gloves and a ski mask, and left the shed with a small pack of carefully selected supplies. I slunk over several blocks towards the section of the wall I had deemed weakest. The night guard in that station habitually indulged in cigarette breaks outside the observation unit, so I hid across the street, just around the building corner. I wrapped a thick square of tarp around my arm, readied my homemade grappling hook and my tattered rope, then just waited in tense expectation.
My mind was purposely empty, devoid of thought as I immersed myself in the situation. I had not been 'myself' for days (whoever that was), but now I felt like I was a machine, and the rest of me was nowhere to be found. I couldn't allow myself to be distracted by anything. I was waiting for the –
I made out the tiny flash of a lighter on the far side of the wall, adrenaline hit, and within a second my legs bolted into action. I sprinted across the street and threw my grabbling hook up on my first try (that sucker had proven very useful over the years). I scrambled up the rope with the help of my gloves, but the climb felt shorter than the wall appeared, and I was quickly pulling the tarp free to cover the fierce glass shards that were cemented along the entire width of the wall. Crouching on the thick tarp, I readjusted my hook and then was rappelling down the other side. All in well under two minutes of identifying the cigarette glow.
The hard part was just about to begin.
I stealthily circled the darkened compound, jogging along the wall and carefully evaluating the different buildings. Aside from the watchtowers, there were only three lighted buildings – one which appeared to be a small residence. The complex clearly wasn't military, but I already knew that. I had chosen this installation to investigate because I had seen a handful of emergency medical vehicles speed in this direction over the years, and that was not something easily explained in the factory district. It wasn't common knowledge, but I had heard the odd rumor about an elite Alliance hospital, and I was placing my bets here. I was in all or nothing, long short or not.
While too small to really qualify as a hospital, there was definitely a medical building on the grounds – two emergency vehicles were parked outside, near a large bay entrance, and there appeared to be a small flyer on the two-story roof. The complex was apparently closed down for the night, but it had to have security beyond my modest hacking skills. Keeping low and inconspicuous, I traversed the perimeter of the building, studying every detailing, looking for something I could work with, for . . .
There.
A wolfish smile pulled over my incisors: parked outside the neighboring compound was a luxury transport vehicle, modified but definitely the same class as the street variety. I stalked over towards it, pulling a small transmitter out of my pack. A nifty piece of technology I had liberated from a pawnshop, it could be used on most simple remote-control security systems, including most vehicular systems. It cycled through different frequencies until I heard the target unlock, then I cautiously opened the trunk and peered in. It opened up into the back of the vehicle but would still be a good place to hide, and no one would suspect anything once I reactivated the security from the inside.
The medical building's side exit was a quick sprint away. I kneeled down and rummaged in my bag for my lock-picking tools. I used two to unlock the door, then stuck them in the band that held my hair back. Show time.
I stood up and glared at the door, trying to see what was on the other side. Then I wrenched it open.
Loud alarms blared and I took a long, intense look at what appeared to be . . . a lab? There were desks with computers and chemistry equipment.
I quickly closed the door and dashed for the transport, crawling in through the trunk and using the transmitter to activate the security again. Peaking through the tinted windows less than a minute later, I was only able to spot the guards running by their bobbing flashlight beams. First they congregated by door, then the alarm was shut off. One of the guards disappeared inside, while the other two split up and began searching the surrounding area. When one of them got near, I lay down in the trunk as the beam was directed into the vehicle for a short moment.
It took them about an hour before the three guards reconvened and agreed to abandon their search. I had filled the time, and prevented my focus from wandering dangerously, by whispering hypnotically to myself. Old recitations from a time when I still practiced speaking now fell perfectly from my lips, "Hello. My name is Kid… Please help me eat, I have no mother… Don't hurt me, I have been good…" And new words, "Call me Duo. Du-o, it means together… I love you Solo. I won' let Shi'gami take you."
When the guards were gone for a good hour, I crept out of the car and snuck back to the door. Again I picked the lock, but this time, when I flung open the door and the alarm sounded, I quickly scanned the room to identify a hiding place – no cameras; a bunch of desks offered partial coverage, particularly the one in the corner; a closet with no lock; a door.
Then I ran back to the vehicle again, and waited again as events repeated themselves; except this time, the guards stopped searching after a mere forty minutes. Still I waited another hour before I took my final trip to the door. I picked the lock and entered the building to the now familiar sound of the alarm. During my last stint in the vehicle, I had spent the time considering ad nauseum the various hiding places, and had decided to go with the corner desk because of the access it would give me. Another street rule: guard your exit.
Once again security came, but this time they conducted only a visual once over, though they stood around near the door for a few minutes. I was close enough to hear them complaining.
"This is ridiculous. I can't believe they won't just shut this section off!" a deep voice grumbled.
"This fucking glitch is gonna have us over here all night," a woman's voice whined.
When they left I stood up and turned my attention to the room around me. There were vials, Bunsen burners, and other equipment on the desks. Most of it was not in use, but some of it clearly was. I looked in the cabinets, which were full of chemicals, samples, and various tools. I turned my attention to a grungy refrigerator, but there was little of interest inside. It didn't help that I wasn't sure what the cure was supposed to look like. I couldn't read, so I was just hoping to recognize it when I saw it. It was an uncanny skill of mine, but here I was radically out of my element.
I soon gave up on that room, and left it to enter a hallway. I peeked into two operating rooms before I came to a much bigger, more impressive lab. I snuck in and saw that the walls were lined with sealed refrigerators, and through their plexi-glass doors I could see tiny lights casting a faint glow on row upon row of vials, of so many colors and consistencies that surely one of them was the cure I needed. Even in my apathetic state, a dull horror gripped me as I realized that I was going to fail. I was going to fail because I had not learned to read, and this wounded the monster in me as much as the human.
Close to panic, all I could do was curse myself for being so fucking stupid as to allow this to happen. I growled at myself angrily. How was I going to figure out which one was the one I needed? Not to mention the fact that there were bulky, obvious identity locks on each refrigerator.
I was so distraught with myself that I completely failed to hear the door whisper open behind me, but then I heard sharply the unmistakable sound of a handgun being cocked. A voice sneered, "Think you're smart, don't you asshole?"
I spun around, my hand diving to my bag, but he barked, "Keep your hands where I can see them!"
My fingers twitched, but one look at my captor told me what a costly mistake that would be. Tall and thin, the lieutenant sported a burn on the neck that disappeared under his uniform, suggesting some sort of experience, and he was glaring at me as though he held a very personal grudge. I took in these details, as well as his perfect stance and aim, and concluded that I was good and truly fucked.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he demanded, his tone dripped loathing.
I struggled to breathe, let alone speak, and it wasn't difficult at all to affect fear as I croaked as eloquently as I could, "I don't mean no harm, sir. I'm just tryin' to save my friends, they're kids. The Plague is killing us on the streets, sir."
The lieutenant sneered again as he taunted, "Is this the shit you're looking for? It's all we got against the Plague," and pointed at an entire refrigerator of yellow vials, labeled with prominent red labels. My mouth fell open slightly, and I couldn't take my eyes of them even as the man yelled that he knew I was a terrorist.
Frustrated by my lack of reaction, he raised his weapon higher so that it pointed directly between my eyes. "Put your hands behind your back and turn around," he barked.
I was barely holding my own leash, but I managed to follow his instructions right up until I felt the metal encircle my wrist. Then I was a flurry of sharp elbows and knees and angry fists, but he was ready for me and outweighed me by over a hundred pounds. I slammed to the ground, his knee digging painfully into my spine as he jerked my arms back and handcuffed them, then he ripped my ski mask off and slammed my face on the tile flooring –
Everything went black.
What proceeded was beyond my comprehension at that tender age. Up until then I had suffered, my entire life had been some form of pain – hunger, cold, injury, loneliness, fear . . . It had made me calloused and daring, but it could not have prepared me for my first experience with torture.
I awoke to a shower of ice cold water on my naked body, my hands still cuffed and blood caked to my face from where my forehead had busted open on the floor. I bolted up violently and stumbled to my feet, trying to take in my surroundings . . . I was stupefied at the time, though now it is obvious that I was in a quarantine cell. I barely had a moment to consider it before a bright light came on over the plexi-glass wall. I arm moved unconsciously to shade my eyes, and I squinted at the dark adult shapes behind the glass.
Just when I didn't think it could get any more ominous, a rough, unfamiliar voice came through the speaker, "What's your purpose here, terrorist?"
"I'm n-not a terrorist," I stuttered, cursing me weakness. I was going to need everything I had to get out of this alive, and that included my meager human skills.
"Don't try to lie, or this is going to get ugly," the speaker threatened harshly, and the sound of the decompressing drew my attention to the door. The lieutenant bared his teeth at me, a cattle prod gripped in his hand and a gun on his belt.
I spilled everything my weak grasp of the English language would permit, but somehow I couldn't manage anything but the truth – I was just a street kid, trying to save my dying best friend. It only a took a minute or so of my fumbling ramble for them to grow impatient, and the speaker blurted, "Enough!"
The lieutenant strode right to me, and I tried to get away, but there was nowhere to go and he shocked me his cattle prod. I screamed in an agony I had never imagined before and I collapsed to the ground, then he kicked at my arms and legs where they protected my head. My limbs trembled weakly from the shock and I could barely register anything beyond my body.
"Tell us who you work with!" the speaker demanded.
I hesitated for only a second and I was tasered again, this time with a stronger current that caused my spine to spasm and every muscle to clench agonizingly. It was followed by a third shock that had my body convulsing freakishly, then I was left panting and disoriented.
"Where are they hiding out?" the speaker demanded from out of a psychedelic fog.
I launched into a babble immediately, some outrageous lie, anything, but my desperation must've been obvious because then I was shocked again. I cried out piteously, but I was already withdrawing from reality. I heard the lieutenant yelling at me, I think he grabbed me and shook me, but my legs were too unstable to support my weight, so I fell when he let go of me. Unconsciousness was a maudlin relief.
They left me there for a very long time. I eventually woke up, who knows how later, aching and still on the floor. No one appeared to be watching, so I stiffly searched the room, guzzled water from the sink and donned a medical gown. It was something, but I was hungry and there was no sign of anything remotely edible in the cell. Two days passed, I know because the quarantine room had a small window that betrayed the fact I was on the second floor of the medical complex.
When the Alliance guard came back, I was interrogated again. They beat me when I told the truth, and they shocked me when I lied; they tortured me when I was silent, and then again when I screamed. I was weak from not eating, didn't even try to hold back the sobs when he hung my cuffs to a wall. Then he began making small knife incisions along my vertebrae.
I thrashed helplessly when I felt his tongue hiss in my ear, "What about a knife right here? Do you think you could live as a cripple? Your smart mouth won't be enough to save you then."
He stabbed me fiercely then, in my lower back, and I screamed in terror, certain that he had paralyzed me, and pissed myself. He threw me away from him then, disgusted, and he left me to bleed to death. I could barely think, but still I stayed awake as I grew weaker and colder, and the only reaction I could muster was a profound regret that I was going to die without being able to save Solo. I struggled to make my peace with death then, but in the dark I could feel the hypnotic power of Shinigami's thrall. And he was not a god of peace.
After a long time, a woman doctor came in and moved my limp body to the gurney. She began to clean me, and dress my wounds gently, but I passed out without managing a coherent sentence to her.
I woke maybe a day or two later, incapacitated more by hunger than the wounds that covered my back. A quick inventory of my surroundings revealed four hefty sandwiches in it. Starved beyond suspicion, I snarfed down two and had to prevent myself from eating the others and making myself sick. Even eaten at light speed, those had been great sandwiches, really only comparable to leftovers stolen right out of richies' fridges!
They fed me a little better after that, but they also came back a few more times to question me, interspersed with limited recovery time. Nothing I could say would satisfy them, and after a couple weeks I think even the horrible lieutenant was tired of tormenting a nine year old child. Once, when I was wavering on the edge of awareness, I think I heard him and doctor arguing about what to do with me. The lieutenant wanted to kill me, but the doctor argued that I was just a child.
I spent the days in between mesmerized by my injuries, whispering in my distraction, "My name is Duo, because this Solo." They were the words I had practiced after Solo had given me my name, and I focused intensely on his memory to get me through, to keep me ready and in my survivalist trance. I dealt with each moment as it came; I stretched my joints, massaged my muscles, and tried to facilitate my recovery as best as I could. I considered every possible outcome, and tried to steel my mind for what was going to be necessary. When I finally made my move, I would need to strike quick and deadly. I swore my allegiance and soul to Shinigami repeatedly, that he may kill through my body when the time came. Shinigami possessed me my dreams, my pain, and that beast running just below the surface, waiting with me. We waited and watched with hawkish eyes for opportunity to present itself.
So I was ready when events conspired to my favor one late evening. My arm was in a cast and my face was still healing from a busting the previous session, but I had better body mobility than I had managed in a while. The doctor and the lieutenant entered together as they had before, but I was more coherent than usual and not half-delirious from the latest beat down. My calculating mind saw the situation for what it was, and I committed myself without a hesitation of further consideration…
They had grown lazy, finally, after two weeks of torturing me with barely any struggle, and the lieutenant approached me with no precaution. He stood threateningly over my gurney, and I crushed to urge to strike out, waiting until he carelessly turned away from me to respond to something the doctor had said. The lieutenant's gun was an easy target for a pickpocket, especially one without need to escape detection.
It felt like slow motion to me, but Shinigami was anything but slow as his hands darted forward to free the handgun from the man's holster, cocked it and shot him pointblank, right in between his eyes. The doctor screamed as blood and brainmatter splattered everywhere, showering me, and the body slumped to the ground. Then Shinigami leveled the gun at her and growled, "Shut up, or we'll kill you too."
She fell silent and stilled, but I never took my eyes off her as I slid from the gurney and grabbed the lieutenant's ID from his breast pocket. I didn't want to see his destroyed face anyway. The doctor's lip was trembling and I could tell that she felt betrayed, but now was not the time for sympathy. I stepped away from the body and ordered, "Take off his jacket."
She paused, but she did it, struggling to turn his body over and slide the dark green jacket off. I gestured her back, and then I turned the jacket inside out to hide both the blood and the fact that it was an Alliance uniform. I put it on and rolled up the sleeves, because it was still better than the light blue gown that it covered. Except for the fact that I didn't have any shoes, my attire was now sufficient to fit in with the rest of L2's scraggily street denizens.
I glared at the doctor then, and gestured with the gun towards the sealed door. "Get us outta here."
She was a couple heads taller than me, but it was nothing compared to the advantage gained by a weapon, so again she obeyed despite the telling hesitation. We left the quarantine cell, into a hallway, where the lights had been dimmed for the night.
"The stairs," I hissed, and she led me past several doors to one labeled stairs. We took them down to the first level, where I knew my destination precisely. I ordered the doctor into the lab and I think then that pieces began to fall into place in her mind, cuz she looked at me with an expression of disbelief. It made me want to smack her, but instead I pointed at the rows of yellow vials that had haunted my thoughts and dreams for weeks. "What do these do?" I demanded, gun still pointed at her.
"It's a vaccine against the Ortholomyxa retrovirus. What you keep calling the Plague." Hatred welled up in me at her words, that she knew people were dying and just didn't . . . what? Believe? Care? Shinigami's finger trembled on the trigger, and the doctor must have known because she shrunk away in fright.
But Shinigami had to live up to his end of the bargain too, so my finger froze on the trigger and I composed myself. "Get the fridge open."
"I don't have access," she tried to argue pathetically, but I knew she was lying, because she had been trying to work up the courage to stand up to me ever since I had first drawn the gun.
I called her bluff. "Fine then. Just put your eye up to the scanner-thingy, then swipe your card. If it don' like you, the guards'll come runnin' right quick."
Her visible resignation betrayed the truth and she followed my directions. The door slid open and I had to hold back the excited the relief swelled inside me; I was on an emotional roller coaster, but I was far from safe and couldn't afford to slip even a little. I gestured the doctor away from the refrigerator, eying the thin camisole she was wearing under her white lab coat.
"Gimme your sweater," I ordered, and she reluctantly sacrificed it so I could carefully wrap it around eight vials and use the sleeves to tie it around my thin waist – one vial for Solo, Marianna, Robin, Shaka, Mandela, and myself, the only survivors; plus two backups, because shit always happens. Then Shinigami turned our attention back to the doctor, and explained dangerously, "If you do exactly what I say, I'll let you live, cuz you've stood up for me one or twice. But if you don' listen, then I'll kill you in a second, just like Fuckhead upstairs. I need a hostage, and if you wanna live you better go along with it."
She looked faintly ill, but she nodded nonetheless. We used her identification to get us through the building security and out on the grounds, where I guided us towards the smaller back gate I had observed weeks before when I had scouted the outer walls. It was approaching midnight, so at least I would be covered by darkness.
We approached the cubicle silently, my bare feet slowly growing numb from cold. The guard didn't even look up from his skin mag until the doctor opened the door. I shoved her forward sharply, so that both her and the guard were in my sights.
"Open the gate!" I growled.
"No fucking way!" the guard snapped, clearly not intimidated by a nine-year old. His hand went for his gun and Shinigami shot him pointblank in the neck.
I managed to avoid most of the blood splatter this time, and I quickly reached over the body to flip the big lonely switch on the side of the desk. I could see the gate begin to open through the observation window, and I was out of that cubicle in a flash, leaving that bitch doctor and the Alliance torture lab behind. The sound of the gunshot would bring guards, but as soon as I was past the gate I knew I was too fast and agile for them. I heard two shots follow me, but in the dark they both went wide.
I ran all the way home, not even feeling when my feet began to ache and bleed. I burst into the abandoned building, shouting, "Solo!"
I was a little shocked to see how the hovel had fallen apart in a mere three weeks. I quickly stalked to our bedding, and was appalled to see how that Solo had wasted away to almost nothing. I had not thought concretely of his deterioration before, and I was afraid for a moment that I was already too late. I fought back tears as his eyes fluttered open.
Mandela threw himself at me and squeezed me tightly, wailing, "You're back, Duo, you're back. I was so scared . . ."
Shaka and Robin came up too and hugged me desperately, so that I knew how bad it had been while I had been gone. Through their arms, I could see Solo smiling at me with heartbreaking warmth and confidence. "I knew you'd be back."
"Where's Marianna?" I asked, though I knew the awful answer even as the words perished on my lips. My face darkened and Shaka sniffled.
Solo closed his sunken eyes and sighed. "Shinigami took her."
"A busy fucker, wasn't he?" I muttered bitterly.
"What?" Solo asked, looking at me with concern and taking in my appearance. "What happened to your arm? And your feet? You look terrible, Duo. . . "
"Nothing," I replied quickly, not at all ready to think about the people I had murdered, or the brutal torture I had undergone. Instead, I retrieved the vials from their makeshift pouch and brandished them before everyone. "I got the cure!"
Shaka gasped, and both Robin and Mandela shrieked. Everyone took one to look at as though it was their personal salvation, which it was; everyone except Solo, who frowned as he inspected the label on his. I was confused and hurt by the sadness on his face, though he still smiled and asked Robin to go get the med injector. Shaka, Robin, and I each took a turn, at Solo's insistence, but when I held the injector out to Solo, he just shook his head.
"What's wrong?" I pleaded, feeling exhausted and emotionally frail from my ordeal, holding myself together with sheer willpower and hope.
Duo reached out with a thin hand and caressed my face. "Duo, this is a vaccine."
I nodded, not quite understanding. It was a cure.
He tried again, "Duo, baby, you've done good. This will protect you and the rest from the disease . . . but it won't save me. A vaccine can only prevent, not cure."
My face twisted in anguish and it reflected the cannibalistic ache that throbbed through my soul. I had FAILED, completely and utterly, after all that I done and been subjected to. Solo pulled me to him then, and let me sob into his frail frame. Shinigami abandoned me in that room then, and I was left a human mess of tears and love and agony. I must've cried forever, I think I am still crying today…
Light had already begun to flood our domain when I was woken by Solo's labored breathing. I brushed his sweaty hair from his forehead and steadfastly ignored the smell of death that permeated the bedding. I held him carefully and devotedly until he stirred, and his eyelids fluttered open.
"Duo," he whispered hoarsely, and I could tell that he was having trouble focusing on me. I rested my cheek against his and whispered back, "I'm right here."
"You gotta take care of the other three," he said faintly.
I nodded, already feeling the hollow emptiness of loss. "Of course."
"I don't want to die," he sniffed, and I felt his tears on my cheek, so I just held him tighter. My face scrunched in misery, but my eyes were cried out.
"Don't- Don't forget me, Duo, please," he begged quietly, and it was heart-breaking to hear him so weak. Solo had never been weak, always a leader, always a peacemaker.
"Never," I vowed, trying hard to be strong for him. "You're everything to me, Solo."
He used the last of his reserves then to squeeze me back, and he whispered so softly I barely caught it, "I wouldn't let Shinigami take me 'til I saw you one last time. I'm ready now."
A shiver ran through me, but when it faded, I was left disturbingly numb. I felt Solo's emaciated body slacken and I knew then that I had lost him, so I gently laid him back down on the bedding. He was only thirteen when Shinigami took him.
