Chapter 6

Now I'm fighting this war since the day of the fall
And I'm desperately holding on to it all
But I'm lost
I'm so damn lost
~A Shot In The Dark; Within Temptation

Throttle must have dozed off in spite of everything, because he suddenly opened his eyes to find that everything had turned completely quiet. He turned his head without getting up and saw that the stern-faced guard, the picture of diligence, had fallen asleep standing up at the end of the row of cells. Throttle looked back up at the ceiling with a sigh.

Carbine had stopped by shortly after Modo and Rimfire left. She told him, quite frankly, that the codes had yet to be found. She went on to add that if they were found in someone else's possession, someone who turned out to be working alone, he was free to go. Otherwise...

He didn't bother to protest anymore. To argue the fact that he had absolutely nothing to gain by selling anyone out - which he of course didn't. What could he possibly expect to get from something like this? Even if he was paid a tremendous amount, there wasn't anywhere he could go and hide - not without underground connections, which he definitely didn't have. And that anyone believed that he did, no matter what anyone claimed to have seen...

It was all so stupid he kept expecting to wake up. It felt too surreal, too insane to be his reality anymore, but he continued to lie here in empty silence. Nothing changed.

The guard let out a snort in his sleep and went on dreaming. Throttle sighed again and closed his eyes tight...and thought he heard a footstep. For a moment he thought he was imagining it, but the soft sound continued, slowly coming nearer. Whoever it was, they had to be female, since even if he was a barefoot a male could never step that lightly. In fact, if he didn't have a mouse's hearing, he doubted he would have noticed.

Definitely not Carbine, then. Barefoot or not, she always walked like a general. Always on duty, that one. He scoffed quietly and squeezed his lids together until he saw color spots.

The feather-light steps paused outside his cell. "Are you okay?" a voice asked, almost whisper-quiet.

Surprised, Throttle opened his eyes and sat up. Tamerin stood outside his cell, one hand resting on her bare shoulder. Her other hand was partly outstretched, as if she was thinking about touching one of the bars. "Careful," he warned. "They're electrified."

Tamerin briefly passed her fingers through the air, as if she was feeling something he couldn't see. "I know."

She glanced over at the sleeping guard, then looked at him again, folding her arms like she was cold even though it was as warm in here as anywhere. "I came as soon as Rimfire told me what happened. I can't believe she - I mean, aren't the two of you...?"

She gestured vaguely. Throttle snorted and looked away, his gaze vaguely focusing on a stain on the cot. "Doesn't matter."

"Well, it should. What's happening here is unthinkable to me."

Throttle didn't know what kind of world she came from, but he was starting to think that she was a little naive. "It doesn't matter," he said again. "None of it does. I'm guilty until proven innocent. Nothing that came before counts. And no one is willing to take my word that I didn't do anything."

Well...Modo and Rimfire did, and if he were here, Vinnie would too. But their word apparently meant nothing. Rimfire had even been relieved of guard duty until further notice due to his speaking out.

"Whatever happened here happened while I was away," he went on, mostly to himself. "It's stupid to even think I was involved. Yet here I am, because no one believes me."

No one whose opinion counted around here, anyway.

Silence fell after that, so heavy that Throttle thought Tamerin had left. When he finally looked up again, he was surprised to see her still standing there outside his cell, arms still wrapped around herself. Her abalone blue eyes almost looked moist as she gazed at him, a ghost of a smile on her face.

"I believe you."

After Charley pitched her soda bottle at him, Vinnie decided to stay away from the garage for the rest of the day. He paced the sidewalk outside her apartment building for a while, trying to come up with some kind of plan - and then it hit him. Grinning at his own brilliance, he ran to the nearest restaurant and ordered a classy dinner of hot dogs and chicken wings to go. He made sure to get separate cups of root beer and coke, because even if he didn't understand Charley-girl's new tastes, he would respect them.

He hurried back to the apartment, where he leaned against the wall by the front door with his arms folded and waited some more for Charley to appear. When she did, he saw her visibly stiffen, though she kept on walking. "You look tired," he noted - and she honestly did, making his rehearsed line sincere. "Good thing I brought dinner, huh? Come on; let's have a relaxing picnic in the park."

Charley brushed by him and went inside. "Hey," he muttered, snatching up the takeout bags at his feet and scurrying in after her before the front door swung shut. "I'm not going to eat all this myself."

"Tough shit."

"Jeez, is that your new favorite word or what?"

"Bite my ass."

Vinnie snickered at that one. "Sweetheart, if you hold still a second I will gladly comply."

Charley whirled on him, and the next thing he knew she had planted her fist on his nose. He recoiled with a yelp, dropping the takeout bags in the process. "Aw, man," he grumbled, fondling the aching organ - which had never quite stopped hurting from when she decked him last night.

Charley took advantage of his distraction and was locked in her apartment before he could catch up. "Okay, so it might not be as nice to eat off the floor instead of a blanket, but this night can still be salvaged," he called through the locked door.

"Vincent, will you just go away?"

"Not until you tell me why I should," he shot back.

This was getting beyond frustrating and he was more than ready to just kick the door down...but he hadn't forgotten that she still had his blaster. And he didn't really trust her not to do anything that was crazy at this point.

"Would you just talk to me?" he said, trying to peer in through the peephole.

When he didn't get a response, he drummed his fingers on the door for a moment. "I'm not going anywhere," he called out. "I'll sleep out here in the hall if I have to. Then when you trip over me when you leave for work, I'm going to tackle you and pin you until you tell me what's going on."

Okay, telling her his whole plan probably wasn't very smart, but he didn't think well when he was frustrated. He heard a sigh from somewhere inside the apartment, followed by the clink of dishware. "Would you just leave me alone already, you damn mouse?"

She had a few things more to add after that - mostly a string of expletives that made him blink for several moments. "Charley-girl, you have been hanging out with the wrong kind of biker for way too long."

There was a bang, followed by a strange sound. Almost like a muffled sob. Vinnie felt a tightening inside him; was she crying?

"Charley-girl, are you okay?" he asked softly. "Please, would you just tell me what this is all about?"

"No," Charley suddenly shouted, her voice nearly hysterical. "There's no point and you know it! So just go away and leave me alone!"

Another muffled sob. Vinnie felt his heart twist in his chest. "Charley-girl, the point of you talking to me is that once I know what's wrong, you know I'll fix it for you. Whatever it is, I swear I'll fix it, so please-"

A bang on the other side of the door made him jump. "You won't," Charley told him through the door, her voice dark and fierce. "And you want to know why?"

Vinnie waited, ears tingling. "Tell me," he pleaded.

"Because you'll just leave me again. It doesn't matter what I say or do, you're just going to leave. And don't lie and tell me you won't!"

There was a soft thump, followed by the sound of a body sliding down the length of the door. Charley began to sob freely. "You won't ever stay," she said, voice breaking. "You won't!"

Vinnie slowly closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the door. Each one of her sobs nearly made him flinch. "I thought so," he said quietly. "I wasn't here when you needed me and now you hate me for it. I can't say I blame you. But I'm still not going to leave you alone right now."

Not if that was exactly what she was afraid of. If she wanted him to stay, then that was exactly what he was going to do. And he knew just what to do to prove it to her.

Throttle wasn't sure what time it was when the guard woke him up and took him out of his cell. He could only hope that the real culprit - or culprits - had been found and he was free to go...but the fact that he was shackled first didn't do much to raise his hopes.

"I thought you should see this," Carbine told him as the guard shoved him into the same back room as before. "I thought I should at least give you the chance to explain yourself."

She was facing a row of monitors along the wall, arms folded and her back to him. She pointed to one of the screens. "It seems that our thief was caught on camera," she explained.

Throttle looked - and saw himself. It was impossible, but it was his likeness down to the last hair, cracking open a vault - using a password only someone who worked in the compound could know - and then pocketing the codes. Carbine turned from the monitor and faced him, her mouth a grim line. "What do you say now?"

"The same thing I said before," he told her calmly, coolly. "I didn't do anything."

The General gave her head a shake and rubbed between her eyes for a moment. She started to say something - and then Throttle felt a soft touch on one of his hands, still secured behind his back. He looked and saw Tamerin brush by him; Carbine stared at her in obvious surprise. "I don't know who you are or where you came from," she snapped, "but you're not allowed in here."

"My apologies," Tamerin said, in a soft voice. An odd voice; she sounded distant and a little clueless. Not at all the low yet confident tone she usually spoke with. "It's just that I've never seen how military operates on other worlds before, and I'm curious. What is it you're doing here?"

Carbine grunted and ran a hand over her black hair. "What I'm doing here is trying to solve the mystery to a crime," she grumbled.

"I thought you already caught the thief," Tamerin pointed out.

"We weren't sure. But now..."

She turned to look at the monitor again; Tamerin looked with her. On the screen was a frozen image of the thief, hand thrust in the vault. "What's the next course of action?" the ghostly-skinned alien wondered. "Execution?"

"If there seems to be no other course we can take...yes. After a hearing."

Tamerin shrugged, her voice suddenly returning to normal. "Why wait?"

Throttle gave a start. So did Carbine. "What?" she asked, clearly taken aback.

"If you already have all the hard evidence you need, what's the point in prolonging it? Do it yourself."

Throttle felt his eyes bulge behind his lenses. "Um..."

Tamerin cast a glance at him over her shoulder for the briefest of moments. Just long enough for him to catch the look in her eye, which said the same thing her touch earlier had.

Trust me.

Carbine looked flustered - like she didn't know how to respond. "But that's not how-"

"Oh, come on," Tamerin sniped, her tone suddenly turning cruel. "You telling me you don't have what it takes? My, some all-star general you are, huh?"

While Carbine sputtered in stunned protest, Tamerin reached out and cleanly pulled the General's blaster from her holster, hastily stepping back before anyone realized what she had done. The guards caught on in an instant and were already reaching for their own weapons, but she had already aimed the blaster at her target; Throttle's head.

Okay, Missy, Throttle thought dryly as the cold feel of the barrel poked into the fur near his ear, this had better be a damn good bluff.

Honestly, he had no clue. He didn't know anything about Tamerin or who she was, or where she had come from. For all he knew, she was the one behind the theft.

"Well?" Tamerin pressed. "If you're not going to do it, I will."

Throttle heard the trigger being squeezed. And then he saw something, something behind the row of stunned expressions of the guards, so subtle that he barely caught it. Vice was standing behind Carbine, ever the diligent little follower. And he was smiling.

What followed happened so fast he was barely able to distinguish one motion from the next. The blaster pointing at his head was jerked away and a shot was fired - and Vice flew back with a shriek. For a moment no one moved, too shocked to react. Then Vice tried to get up, the charred wound on his chest releasing something that looked like blue-black smoke. Tamerin took a step forward and fired again; he recoiled with another shriek - an ear-splitting, screeching sound no mouse could possibly make.

His back hit the wall and his body suddenly twisted, turning liquidy and grotesquely misshapen - like he was coming apart. He oozed down to the floor with an angry gurgle; Tamerin calmly stood over the writhing form and fired a final time. The oozing mass dissolved into nothing more than a spout of black smoke and whispered away. Tamerin turned and tossed the blaster back to one extremely confused Carbine, the gesture absent. "Thanks, I've been tracking this guy for months."

She knelt and picked something up off the floor, then looked up at the ring of guards, who were all quietly gawking at her. "They're shape-shifters," she said, in way of explanation. "They can mimic the appearance of anyone or anything they choose, particularly when they want something that someone won't hand over willingly. It wasn't anything personal; it just so happened that a handful out in the desert had some information that he wanted, and they agreed to give it in exchange for some sensitive data stored here."

She straightened up and held out her hand, palm up. "I believe you were looking for these."

Still looking dazed, Carbine accepted the pile of codes and computer chips mechanically. Tamerin turned and breezed out of the room. "I'm on my way back," Throttle heard her say into her communicator. "Prepare the transporter."

Carbine shot the guards a look; they immediately scattered and fled the room. After they were gone, she quietly unlocked Throttle's handcuffs. Glancing down, she started to speak, but he cut her off. "Don't."

She looked at him, black eyebrows lifted. "Don't what?"

"Don't apologize. Those aren't the words that are going to fix this."

Puzzled, she studied him for a moment. "Okay...what words should I say?"

He gave his head a small shake. "They sound a lot like 'it's over.'"

Carbine stared, clearly wondering if he was serious. "But-"

"Forget it. The first time was different - though I'm honestly having a hard time remembering why - but this? This should never have happened. Hasn't anyone ever told you that a relationship can't survive without trust?"

He gave his head another shake. "It's over. It's so over between us we may as well have not even existed to begin with."

He paused then, waiting. Waiting for what, he wasn't sure; one final chance to make all this go away?

Instead, she turned away so her back faced him, absently fingering the pile of chips still in her hand. "If that's the way you want it."

And just like that, everything they ever shared, everything they'd been through together - gone, like a candle being snuffed out. Again, he was a fool for expecting anything else. Without another word, Throttle stormed out. There wasn't a word left in any language that was worth saying at this point. There was only one thing to do right now. Put a little distance between him and her...and maybe put a little ice around his heart.