Fate Map
By Alecto Perdita
Chapter 9 - Individuation
Rating: PG-13
Posted: April 27, 2012


Yuugi's heart lurched when Jounouchi gave a thumbs up between slinking off in the opposite direction with Anzu and Honda. Though Amane and Ryou didn't show it, Yuugi knew they were just as nervous. Ryou fretted over their lack of intelligence— they had only been able to get their hands on a set of old blueprints with such short notice. They were all going to have to do their best based on the vague recollections of someone who had been in the hospital before it was bought out. And Kaiba Corp had added several hundred square feet of new space since they initially acquired the facilities.

They were able to fly in and land on the roof on the east end of the compound under the cover of darkness. Though Yuugi wanted to trust in his other self, even he had to admit it would be too stupid to fall easily and willingly into any traps that may be set for them.

He shone the flashlight down the long and dark hallway. The others had offered him a weapon before they set out. It was cold and heavy to his touch. And after turning the gun in his sweaty hands several times over, he returned it. He'd rather rely on his xenos if it ever came down to it.

They came across three doors locked behind card keys and keypads, but managed to blow through with small explosive fuses. No alarm ever went off though.

"Where is everyone?" Amane asked after glancing over her shoulder a dozen times.

"They'll be on us soon enough. The security system's not going to stay offline for much longer." Ryou glanced down at his wristwatch.

"How are we even supposed—" Amane jumped and reached for her weapon when Yuugi's other self suddenly stepped into the hallway.

275 looked briefly to the gun pointed at him before moving his gaze to meet Yuugi's. "You're here."

"Where's... your partner?" Ryou asked. He almost looked disappointed to not see his own clone.

"268 is not involved in this. He's probably working with the security forces right now. I promise you he's not hiding in wait."

Amane snarled slightly. "Your word doesn't mean as much as you think."

Yuugi took several steps forward toward 275. "Where's Jii-chan?"

275 gestured to the room he just emerged from. "Your grandfather is still coming off the sedatives, so it may be a while before he's conscious again."

"Wait, Yuugi."

He ignored Amane and marched into the room. His grandfather was indeed slumped in a chair with his eyes closed. He approached with trepidation, fearing for a moment that Sugoroku was an illusion or worse, dead. But he could see the older man's chest rise and fall with each breath. To be sure, he placed a hand on his grandfather's warm shoulder and squeezed.

Behind him, the others filed into the room. Even Amane relaxed a little at the sight of Sugoroku.

Yuugi turned to his other self. "Thank you for helping us."

"Where are your friends? I remember there being more of you." 275 furrowed his brow in confusion as he scanned their little group again.

Ryou bit down on his lower lip. "They're busy elsewhere."

"Whatever they're doing, make it quick. You should find them and leave soon. The guards will probably regain access to the security system at any moment." 275 backed away from them and headed toward the exit.

Suddenly, the ground rocked underneath them and sent Sugoroku tumbling out of the chair. Yuugi dove and managed to cushion his grandfather's fall. The quake was immediately followed by the sound of a fire alarms echoing through the hallway.

"What was that?" Ryou climbed back to his feet.

"That was 4 bricks of C4 set off in the room adjacent to the surveillance room." 268 proclaimed as he entered the room. Behind him trailed Anzu, Honda, and Jounouchi, each with similarly guilty expressions. Ryou's clone tossed something to 275, who held it up for everyone to see. It was the detonator for the plastic explosives.

"Sorry, he caught us and made me move the C4." Jounouchi hung his head.

275 moved in front of Yuugi and his grandfather, as if he meant to block the other clone's path. "What are you trying to do, 268? You should also know by now that you won't beat me in a fight."

268 gave an impressed whistle. He grinned with the same smile as the Cheshire Cat's, loaded with bemusement. "Probably not, but look at you: Just one day out of the cage and you're already keeping secrets and rebelling. Why I couldn't have been prouder. I've been helping too. If it wasn't for me, the guards would have put the pieces together by now and you'd be dead. I just brought us another half an hour. I even brought the rest of the group with me."

"Then why did you put a knife to my throat?" Honda snapped.

"I knew you weren't going to just believe me, and I didn't have the time to convince you that I was more or less on your side. Playing the villain was just as effective and faster." 268 snickered and received several dirty looks in return.

"Why?" asked 275.

"If I don't have your back, who does?" The other betaform replied, his words colored by something akin to affection.

"Yuugi?" Sugoroku asked. "Is that you?"

"Jii-chan!" Yuugi blinked back tears of joy. He took his grandfather's hand, trying to reassure himself.

Sugoroku lurched forward, but he stumbled and Yuugi caught him. For a long moment, Sugoroku just stared up at Yuugi. The confusion visible on his face only deepened when he looked toward the other occupants of the room, lingering especially on the clones standing near the door. "What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here."

"I couldn't leave you behind," Yuugi squeezed his grandfather's hand harder.

275's shoulders tensed. He stepped back to put more distance between himself and the rest of the group. "You should go now. We've only managed to buy you so much time."

Despite Sugoroku's protest, Jounouchi transferred him onto his back in a piggy-back hold. Yuugi reached up to reassure his grandfather— who was clearly not ready to walk under his own power yet. He looked back at his twin and said, "Thank you, thank you for helping Jii-chan."

"Come with us," Ryou approached the two betaforms with open hands.

275 shook his head. "We've already done all we can. They'll kill us before we even get to the city limits."

"And if you stay, they'll probably find out that you helped us."

"Actually, there may be a way." 268 spoke up suddenly. All heads in the room turned immediately toward him.

"There is?" 275 asked.

"But it's risky, we're just as likely to get killed trying to remove it. Are you okay with that?"

The two betaforms stared at each other, almost as if they were engaged in a mental conversation. There was no hesitation on 268's face though. After several seconds, the expression on 275's face hardened.

"Tell me."

268 pulled a blank piece of paper off the desk and began sketching. 275 stood close by, watching over his partner's shoulder. Yuugi was the first to approach the betaform as he worked. Soon the others gathered around too. It looked like a rough schematic of something.

268 pointed to the collar around his neck and began explaining his plan, "Our collars are equipped with all sorts of monitoring devices. Most people would think to target those first, but everything is EM and x-ray shielded, there are redundancy circuits and trip switches. Given time, we could theoretically figure out how to electronically disable the devices. But we don't have any actual blueprints to work with and we don't have the time either. There are also two chambers of chemicals, they are what's injected into our bloodstream for termination protocols. The nerve toxin targets the cells in our brains and is immediately fatal," 268 paused momentarily and pointed to two of the three boxes in his drawing.

"But KaibaCorp needs more assurance than just killing us though. If our bodies are taken by the proper authorities, it could blow the lid on their secret cloning project. The Japanese government's hand will be forced by other nations and they will not allow illegal cloning operations to continue. That is why there's an additional measure built into the collars. Once the instruments have confirmed that a beta has been dead for four full minutes after respiratory failure, what's left of the two chemical is funneled into the third chamber and mixed. The final result is also injected, causing rapid cellular decomposition and basically melts the corpse into nothing."

Yuugi shivered. "That's... inhuman. You have to live with the constant threat of this over your head every day?"

"That's the weak link in their chain." 268 smirked.

"I don't get it," said Jounouchi.

"There is no way to beat the nerve toxin. Even if you were able to revive us, our brains would basically be mush. But while the chemicals are being mixed in the third chamber, that killswitch is rendered useless. What we need to do is simulate death for four minutes to trigger that reaction. There will be a fifteen second window to cut the collars off then." 268 pulled back from his sketch, giving them time to consider his plan.

Honda looked nauseated. "You're asking too much. If we take too long, you'll—"

275 interrupted, "Die and not even leave a trace of hair behind."

"Okay, even I think this sounds stupidly dangerous," Jounouchi objected.

"Four minutes is a long time to spend in respiratory arrest. You're pushing the limits of the human body. There's no telling the amount of brain damage either of you may suffer even after we revive you." Amane shook her head and pulled away from the huddle. "You can't seriously be considering such a reckless plan."

"Still better to die on our own terms."

-x-x-x-

It turned out that 268 had already made Jounouchi and the others gather most of the equipment they needed beforehand. The two betaforms each laid in a hospital bed while hooked up to an electrocardiogram machine. Yuugi could only watch in silence as they argued briefly over the best compound to stop their hearts with. Given their limited access though, the two finally settled on some sort of potassium solution.

"You're going to have to do both of us at once," 268 betrayed no sign of nervousness though. "Otherwise, headquarters might become suspicious and initiate the termination protocol on the other preemptively."

Honda's hands trembled slightly when he took the other syringe offered by Amane. Out of everyone else in the group, he was the only one with any medical experience after Ryou's sister.

Both betas were strapped down with the leather restraints attached to the hospital beds— a precaution in case they started seizing.

"Ready?" Amane looked to Honda.

The other man swallowed. "No, but let's get this over with."

275 met Yuugi's gaze with steely resolve. "If this doesn't work, leave us behind."

Yuugi wanted to protest. He wanted to convince them to bide their time until they could remove the collars in a safer way. But he couldn't. He couldn't ask them to confine themselves back to their prisons. Instead, he just lowered his gaze without answering.

Through his bangs, he could see Amane and Honda plunge the syringes into each of the beta's arm. 268 and 275 tensed in response as the clear liquid drained into their bodies. The long seconds that followed were silent except for the beeping of the electrocardiograms. Each sound from the monitors seemed to coincide with Yuugi's heartbeat.

Then all of a sudden, that was no longer the case. The machines were beeping too frequently— too quickly. The normal pattern of small mounds, undershoots, and sharp peaks on the monitors warped into a constant repetition of the same rounded hills. 275 struggled to breathe; his chest rose and fall erratically out of sync with his increasing heart rate. His eyes were shut, and Yuugi couldn't tell if he was even conscious anymore.

268's condition rapidly devolved to mirror his partner's. Every now and then, the betas would shudder against their restraints before stilling again. It was disconcerting to watch.

"I hope this doesn't last much longer," Amane pleaded out loud.

It only made sense people fighting so hard for their own lives and freedom would have trouble letting go in the face of death. Yuugi resolved to ask if either of them remembered anything once they both woke up.

268 was the first one to finally flatline. Everyone jumped into a flurry of motion as they scrambled for surgical scissors, stopwatches, and more syringes filled with drugs that Yuugi couldn't keep straight. Almost thirty seconds later, 275 followed suit, filling the room with a long stretch of prolonged screeching from the electrocardiograms.

Yuugi's heart was pounding in his chest when Amane handed him the scissors. He looked over at Ryou, who was similarly posed over the prone body of his twin on the other bed with another pair of scissors in hand.

Before Yuugi knew it, four minutes had passed and Ryou was ripping the torn collar away from 268's neck.

"Go!" Amane jostled him with a loud hiss next.

On the next bed over, Honda was already trying to resuscitate the other beta through CPR while Ryou injected the cocktail of drugs the betas had specified.

Yuugi's hands shook as he snagged the collar between the two blades. The leather and the electronics embedded inside resisted the pressure he initially applied. He snapped the blades close with all the force he could muster, barely containing his cry of joy when the he finally felt something break apart. He may have nicked his twin's neck, causing a brief spiral into panic. He managed to keep his wits long enough to avoid pricking 275 with injection site when he removed the collar.

As soon as he was done, Amane was pushing him out of the way.

Yuugi was so intent on staring at his own twin that he completely forgot about 268 until the white-haired beta started gasping loudly for air and thrashing against the bed. Ryou pushed his twin gently back into the mattress with a constant stream of reassurance.

But 275 remained unresponsive.


Author's Notes:

So we're basically reaching the end of Part 1 for Fate Map after next week. There's going to be a bit of a hiatus for this story while I reorganize my plans for Part 2, and get all this Sherlock fanfic out of my head.

Thanks to everyone that read/alerted/reviewed the last chapter.