Mission One
Chapter 25: Zero-one
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"What?" A question from most, it is almost a grunt from Heero Yuy.
Yokaze continues grinning widely. Waiting until she has her brother's full and undivided attention, she says, "You're so cute when you're loading."
The weapon in his hands snaps up, level with her forehead. "Bang," he deadpans.
She continues grinning. Even Heero looks amused at the resurgence of the joke that had started back on the morning Bisho and Quatre had arrived on L2. Trowa watches them in silence and is mildly surprised to realize that only ten days have passed since that morning.
Then, as Yokaze turns to check her own firearms, Heero's gaze collides with Trowa's. Soldier to soldier. Brother to lover.
Trowa monitors the personal comm. devices on his laptop before switching back over to the building's security cameras. He easily remembers the look that had passed between himself and Heero. It had been infinitely more than a simple Take care of her. It had been: You will tell me if she needs me and you will let me die for her if necessary.
All that in a single look.
Back during the war, Trowa is not sure he would have understood the intricate meaning therein. But he'd read it easily just a short hour ago. And he'd understood because he feels exactly the same way.
Trowa glances at the laptop's microphone status bar and knows, without a doubt, that if Yokaze were to be threatened, he would dial Heero's frequency immediately. She would probably never forgive him for it, but he knows he wouldn't be able to not do everything in his power to help her. At least she hadn't asked him not to. So, perhaps she already knows.
Who is he trying to kid? Of course she knows. But that doesn't mean she has to like it.
And it's up to Trowa to make sure the situation doesn't degrade to that point.
He checks his watch.
10:07:48
He waits.
Exactly twelve seconds later, the hotel shudders with the explosion.
"Colony air filters are off-line," Duo announces, for the record and their comrades on the other end of the radio. "Colony oxygen tanks are destroyed. Approximately four hours and twenty-three minutes to loss of colony life support."
"Acknowledged." Trowa turns toward his task of tracking their progress through the colony's administration building. Every few minutes, he checks to be sure his laptop is still recording all radio transmissions. Everything is going smoothly, thus far.
Quatre's team has yet to encounter any resistance and Yokaze is approaching the first of her targets. Trowa keeps most of his attention on her. After all, he is her backup. Not for the first time, he wishes he were in there with her but quickly squashes the thought. He turns his attention back to others and discovers they've just reached the lab level.
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His name is G. That is all she knows about the "Mission One Operation Administrator." She is determined, before this counter-mission is over, to know considerably more.
Yokaze crouches low against the doorway. The first of the variables she is interested in investigating. Several locations on the blueprints for this building had been unidentifiable. Luckily, the labs and living quarters had not been among them. But this G person... Yokaze is hoping her search will yield the administrator's location. And, if she is very lucky, she will have the chance to tag him with a transmitter.
She reaches up and gently pries the keypad beside the door open. Her fingers match up the wires and ten seconds later, the door hisses aside. The lights within flicker on at the intrusion and, on the threshold, Yokaze falters. The gun in her hands lowers as her arms relax in shock.
Before her, the sparring room yawns. Her gaze slides over the two-way mirrors, glittering like black eyes in the otherwise perfectly white room.
"Zero-one, meet my newest protégé, Zero-four."
"Jesus." Her voice echoes in the room. Echoes over her comm. link. She has forgotten that anyone is even listening. She stands there, half in and half out of the nightmare.
"Come, Zero-one. It begins."
And so it had. The two figures, garbed in perfect white, battle in the cavernous room, feeling the eyes of the men behind those mirrors watching them. The struggle progresses. Neither warrior has the upper-hand. Until... The child stumbles, her blade arcing up... up...
The young woman is quick.
But not quick enough.
Blood splatters against the white shirt, running hotly down along the fighter's jaw.
Despite their orders, they pause. They honor the moment of first blood. And they know that the next hit may well end the game.
Their maker wants death. So that is what they will give him.
Yokaze leaps aside as her opponent's steel blade arcs for her once more. The child she battles does not become frustrated or impatient, however. The attack continues. Two minutes. Five. Ten. They are tireless. And then, with a clatter, Yokaze's foil is torn from her grasp. She does not think; she acts. As the air next to her ear whistles from the near miss, she goes down onto the mat and kicks her attacker's feet from under her. Yokaze rolls to her feet, collecting her sword and turning to face the oncoming attack.
The child-soldier approaches swiftly, foil extended. They battle. Then, something flickers in the child's eyes. Something Yokaze had not hoped she would see. Something... human. In the next instant, the young girl engages Yokaze's blade once more. Redirects it. And steps into it. Yokaze jerks back as quickly and gently as she can, but the damage has been done. The wound is deep and fatal. Dropping her sword, Yokaze approaches the little girl and gathers her into her arms.
Glassy cobalt eyes stare up at Yokaze. The child draws a single rattling mouthful of air before whispering out her final breath. Though barely a sound emerges, Yokaze reads the girl's lips easily, too easily. "Thank you..." And then the light flees from her eyes and all is still.
"Come in, Six. Do you read?"
Shaking, Yokaze forces herself to step back into the corridor. The door slides shut on the silent room. She can hear her own harsh breaths echoing against the metal surface in front of her. She nods, knowing that Trowa is probably watching her on the security cam. She forces back the nausea with several deliberate gulps.
"I read you," she whispers and wants to wince at the shaky quality of her voice. "Target A is a negative. Proceeding to target B."
There is a long pause. She can hear his concern over the air waves. "Acknowledged."
She quickly snaps the keypad cover back in place and checks her watch. Damn. She'd been daydreaming for... shit, four solid minutes. Bloody hell. It is a miracle Heero hadn't already charged to her "rescue."
Yokaze turns to proceed down the corridor and shivers. She hadn't seen the similarity before... She hadn't been looking for it before. But now, with the cover ripped off of the pit containing the things she tries so hard to forget, she sees the likeness of the L1 beast, hears the echo of him.
No, she tells herself. Not now. Not. Now.
But her mind has other ideas.
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"Quatre!"
The man addressed lowers his gun and smiles reassuringly for his sister. "Althea," he breathes. "Are there any guards in here with you?" Even as he asks, his eyes scan the terrified faces of the scientists and doctors confined to the bare room.
She shakes her head. "No. Just outside the door. Quatre, what—?"
With a shake of his head, he interrupts her before she can ask after their fate. He knows she doesn't really want to know. Her eyes drop from his face and she catches sight of his gun. Her eyes widen. She doesn't finish her question.
"The children," he says, "are on level B4, sections fifteen through thirty-eight, right?"
One of the captives nods. "Yes. They're all there."
"How many?"
There is a pause. "As of yesterday morning, one hundred and seventy-three."
Quatre surveys the room. "We don't have a lot of time and we'll need your help."
"We?" Althea parrots.
Wufei and Heero appear in the open doorway by way of answer.
"We need to get the children evacuated and get everyone to the spaceport." Quatre moves toward the doorway, thankful for Trowa's support. He'd managed to confirm, by counting the people streaming out of the building and comparing that number with the personnel files, that twenty-two employees and twelve guards are still within the complex. Quatre is relieved to have found the employees, but there are still ten guards unaccounted for. "Let's go."
Althea nods. "Lead on, little brother." She follows closely behind and tries not to look too closely at the bodies of the fallen guards framing the exit.
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The General approaches Yokaze, his unsuccessful creation forgotten. "Zero-one," he says. "My first. My best. My masterpiece. You have done me a great honor today."
Yokaze remains silent, her hate chilling her muscles so that she does not tremble with rage.
He winds an arm about her shoulders. "Come," he commands.
Mute, she allows him to escort her out of the training room. Down the long, silent halls. The General guides her into an elevator and presses the ground floor button. Yokaze wonders what he is doing. She also wonders how much longer she will have to wait for the explosion.
As the doors slide open and the main foyer opens up to her, an impossible thought occurs to her. He wouldn't... release her... would he? She knows a micro-second of panic. This is not going according to plan. It's time to change that.
"For so many years I have waited for you to return to me. I knew you would. You and I are bound together, you see. We share the same soul, Zero-one. The same potential. The same possibility."
Yokaze says nothing as he walks her across the cavernous room to the bright, sunlit windows that frame the main entrance.
"Only you have ever been able to show me the errors of my ways. Only you are capable of testing my work for weaknesses. You are exceptional beyond anyone's imagination. That is why this is so very hard for me to do."
He halts in front of the door before pulling it open and stepping back. He tells her, "I gave you my word. One last training simulation. And you have completed it admirably. You are free to go, Zero-one."
Yokaze stares at his face, at those cold, ice-blue eyes. He does not seem disturbed by her flat, immovable stare. At last, she opens her mouth and speaks: "No."
He blinks. This is possibly the first time he has heard her voice since she'd been a child.
"My mission is not complete."
He tilts his head to one side. "What do you mean, Zero-one?"
"You," she says flatly. "I shall fight you."
The General smiles. "Oh, I have no doubt that you could kill me."
For a long moment, Yokaze simply continues to stare at him. "But you do not know how I would do it, do you?" she challenges.
The man's grin widens. "You are correct, Zero-one. I do not know how. So, tell me. How would you kill me?"
Yokaze says nothing. She knows that the game she is playing is dangerous, very dangerous. She knows that she will probably die. But she also knows that if she leaves now, she will never be truly free of him. Simply destroying the building and its secrets is not enough. She needs to watch the General die. She needs to kill him herself. But that means touching him. The very thought makes her stomach roll.
"Well, Zero-one?" he presses.
She simply stares at him.
"Tell me." It is a command.
She disobeys. Retaining her silence, baiting him.
A smile flickers across his lips a moment before his hand connects with Yokaze's face. The gash in her cheek gushes anew as she slowly picks herself up off of the floor. A fist or a knee slams into her stomach, forcing her breath from her. She looks up at the man and sees the bloodlust in his eyes. In that instant, she knows that he has always wanted nothing more than to fight her. To test his skills, his mind, against her.
Her muscles coil as she prepares to comply. As she stands, her training takes over. Her hatred drives her. She eyes him with a predatory glare. She can feel her mind shutting down until only the animal, the soldier, the killer remains.
But then her sensitive ears hear something else over the rush of her own blood. She pauses.
And hears the sound again.
A rumbling.
Coming from the ventilation shafts.
The bombs.
The memory dissolves as she gazes at target E from across the hall. She squeezes her palms together to still their shaking. Yokaze stares at the keypad beside the door and takes several deep breaths. She checks her watch. By now the other team should have reached the holding cells, doctors and scientists in tow. She is still on schedule.
As gracefully as her quaking limbs will allow, she crosses the remaining distance and overrides the lock. The door whispers open. Like targets B and C, there are no automated lights.
She waits.
She listens.
And then she steps into the darkness.
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~End of Chapter 25~