Part 28 - Delete all? (Y/N)

"…ter! Dr Carter!"

Carter blinked several times as the room came into brutal focus with a strong sense of déjà vu. Iria Winner was kneeling in front of him.

"Follow my finger with your eyes," she said. "No dizziness? Nausea?"

Carter shook his head and regretted him immediately.

"Ow…"

"You don't have a concussion, but you have a nice bump on the back of your head. Here," she held out an ice pack to him, and he took it sheepishly.

"I have to learn not to let my guard down around him," he groaned.

"There's paracetamol in the cabinet right behind you if you want something for the headache. I have to warn Wufei."

"He's gone?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I'm very sorry…" he started, but she held out her hand.

"Don't," she said. "It is not your fault. Don't try to get up just yet."

She left only long enough to get the laptop and set it up on the small table next to the bunk.

"Base in. 05, come in."

"05 in," Wufei's voice crackled over the radio. "Speak, base."

"04 has left the nest."

There was a small silence, and Iria frowned.

"Do you copy, 05?"

"Say that again, base?"

"04 has left the nest."

The string of profanities that followed was one of the most creative that Iria had ever had the pleasure to hear.

"When?"

"Five minutes ago. Ten at the maximum."

"Is he armed?"

"Yes."

"Any idea of where he's heading to?"

"No, but I would say the cockpit is a safe bet."

Silence stretched again, and Iria could almost hear the wheels turning in Wufei's head over the radio. Having a loose cannon in the middle of an organized operation was hell under the best of circumstances. Having a half-drugged, Zero-enhanced, empathic loose cannon with a grudge was a different kind of hell altogether. Of the kind that could get a lot of people hurt.

"05, do you copy?"

"Speak, base."

"I know my way around those satellites. You can continue with your initial plan while I go after him."

"No."

"What do you mean, no?" Iria gasped. "It is my brother we're talking about!"

"And it's my operation we're talking about. I'm not explaining to Colonel Une why I let unarmed civilians go on the field."

"Uh… We're not unarmed," Carter piped up.

The radio crackled ominously.

"… Was that Carter?"

"Yes," Iria said as Carter huddled closer to his ice pack. "05, we don't have time for this! Do I need to remind you that we are on a deadline here?"

She heard him sigh, and she knew she had won.

"You're going whatever I say, are you?"

"Yes," she said.

"Alright. But I'm warning you now, the second you step out of that shuttle you are under my orders. If I tell you to get the hell out of here, you shut up and you do it. Carter, you have Iria's back. Try not to shoot anyone unless you're threatened. Actually, just try not to shoot anyone. 05 out."

Iria didn't have the time to add anything before Wufei cut off the communication. She took a deep breath, trying to steady her frayed nerves.

"I suggest you take those pills right now, Dr Carter. We're moving out as soon as you're ready."

"You let unarmed civilians go on the field."

Trowa's voice sounded decidedly unimpressed over the radio, and Wufei had to pinch the bridge of his nose so as not to snap back.

"Carter has a weapon," he answered. "02 gave one to him, remember?"

"It almost feels like you think it was a bad idea, man," Duo's voice cut in.

Wufei couldn't help noticing the way Duo seemed to be out of breath. The digital microphones they were using allowed for very little sound distortion. In fact, the communication was almost as crystal clear as on a wired vidphone, so it was very unlikely that Duo's harsh breathing was a figment of Wufei's imagination.

"There's no one left to take care of the shuttle?" Heero asked.

He definitely wasn't out of breath, which meant that they were not being chased and that there was another reason for how winded Duo sounded.

"Don't sweat it! Nasty little bugger can take care of herself. Never tried getting onto a Sweeper shuttle without the entry codes? I have. It's painful."

Another reason that neither Heero nor Duo seemed to think was worth mentioning, apparently.

'It might be nothing…' Wufei thought. 'But then again, we're on a multiple-way connection, and no matter how sophisticated our equipment is, it's not safe. It only takes one good tech to hack into it. If something is going on, they won't say anything on this frequency.'

What didn't add up, though, was that neither Yuy nor Maxwell had tried contacting him on his individual, secure frequency. They had just answered every time he'd done a check on everyone's location and status.

'No, wait… Yuy answered for both of them at least twice… Damn it, I don't have time for this! If one of my agents is not functioning at a hundred percent, I need to know!'

There simply was no way around the problem that Wufei could think of. If Maxwell refused to acknowledge that something was wrong and Yuy supported him, then he had little choice but to trust them on this and shoot their asses down in flames should anything happen to them because of it.

"To all field units, 04 is on the loose. He is armed and dangerous, and apparently en route for our objective. Location and status unknown as of yet. Avoid confrontation at all cost and do not engage him unless absolutely necessary. Especially you, 03. Is that clear?"

The small silence from Trowa's end of the line spoke volumes.

"… Roger."

"All field units proceed with the original plan. 05 over and out."

'I need to get out of here!'

This had to be how rats felt when the ship started to sink, Jay Maleda thought as he hurried down a strangely deserted corridor. He had done his best to make himself scarce in the last few days, especially after the team that Selim had asked be sent to silence Quatre Winner had failed to report back. Whatever status he'd had within the organization had evaporated after that last failure, to the point that he didn't even care about being paid. He just wanted to make it out alive.

He had been lucky so far. Selim's plans crashing down on him one after the other had prevented the boss from carrying out his threat to deliver Jay to Neelah's tender mercies. Death wasn't that bad an option when Neelah was done 'playing', from what Jay had seen.

Slipping out of the cockpit unnoticed had been relatively easy in the wake of the chaos created by Iria Winner's message. Jay knew the way to the escape pods, and he really wasn't planning on sticking around to see if that particular threat was real or not. Apparently, he wasn't the only one to subscribe to the 'better safe than sorry' school of thought, because he had yet to meet anyone. There had been a security guard blabbering about some intruders, but the poor guy had been shaking too hard to make sense. It didn't make the eerie silence any more bearable, though, and Jay found himself looking behind his back and jumping at the smallest sound as he hugged the walls on his way out.

He hurried around the nearest bend, and cursed as something in the way made him trip and sent him sprawling on the floor. His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the empty corridor, and he laughed nervously as he pushed himself upright again. His hands were shaking and, he realized, uncomfortably wet. He wiped them down on his jeans. And then, he noticed the dark red stains.

The obstacle in his way had been a human being before a bullet had torn his face apart. The body was lying in a large pool of blood, gobs of flesh and bits of gray matter splattered everywhere on the floor. One lifeless hand still clutched a gun.

Jay felt a wave of nausea burning his throat. He took a step back and leant on the wall for support, cringing as he realized that his hands were still covered in rapidly drying blood, fighting the dizziness that threatened to overcome him.

'Oh god, oh god, oh god… I have to get out of here!'

Click.

The unmistakable sound of a weapon being cocked made him freeze momentarily, blood pounding in his ears. He turned around without thinking, too panicked to realize that the simple act of moving could get him killed… and gaped when he realized who was holding him at gunpoint.

"Quatre… Winner!" he choked out.

Quatre Winner smiled.

"Mr. Maleda. How nice to see you again."

"Hands on the wall where I can see them."

Zero was conspicuously silent, Quatre couldn't help but notice. Not that he needed the system to navigate the satellite itself, as he was quite familiar with its design, but he couldn't afford not to rely on it in case of an enemy encounter until the drug would be flushed out of his system.

Apparently, Jay Maleda didn't fit into the 'enemy' category. In fact, he didn't even fit into the 'threat' category. As far as Zero was concerned, Jay Maleda was a non-entity. Which probably had a lot to do with the fact that, unlike the first time Jay Maleda and Zero had come face to face, Quatre was armed and in a position of strength, and conscious enough to squash any attempts Zero might make to take over.

Then again… Zero hadn't actually tried anything. Somehow, it struck Quatre as a little ironical that Zero could assess what exactly he was capable of and adjust to it when Trowa couldn't.

Jay Maleda wasn't carrying a weapon. Quatre had known it at first glance, but he took his time to frisk him anyway. Zero might have been silent, but Quatre's memory was anything but. His recollections from the clinic were still hazy and sketchy, but there were a few things that stood out.

/pushed against the wall hand on my cheek/

/'now that's a good boy'/

/'I'm not gonna hurt you'/

"Does it still hurt?" Quatre asked softly, his hand lingering on the light cast that covered Jay Maleda's left wrist. "I'd have thought it would have healed by now… how long as it been, two weeks? Looks like I don't know my own strength when I'm upset."

Maleda had tensed up, his body going completely rigid with fear. He was pressing his hands so hard against the wall that his knuckles were white. Quatre leaned in a bit closer, until his mouth was just level with Maleda's ear.

"You know it wasn't personal, right?" he whispered. "I mean, if anyone else had tried to molest me, I would have done the same to them."

Maleda's legs gave way and the man slid to the floor in a helpless lump, a dark stain widening on the crotch of his pants as his bowels betrayed him.

"P-Please don't hurt me," he stammered.

/fear/

It was almost choking. Maleda was radiating a fear of such intensity that Quatre knew that the man was utterly paralyzed just by the taste of it.

There was a distant part of Quatre's mind that wondered why it didn't elicit any kind of physical or psychic discomfort in himself. His power did not just enable him to perceive other people's feelings; it fed them to him as if they were his own. He'd trained himself to recognize the difference between what was really his and what came from other people, and to take his distance from alien feelings enough that it wouldn't disturb his day-to-day life. But even then, strong or violent surges of emotion had been more than capable of knocking him out on several occasions.

Maybe it was Zero. Or the drug. Or something else entirely, that Quatre wasn't sure he wanted to know about.

He was feeding on it. He could feel the fear running through him, but it didn't affect him in the way he knew it should have. Instead, it just made him crave for more.

If he had been in his normal state, it would probably have scared him. In fact, it did scare him a little, in that distant part of his mind. But there was no time to listen to it. Quatre crouched down in front of Maleda, gun still trained on him.

"Are you scared, Mr. Maleda?"

Maleda nodded with a whimper. Quatre smiled and shook his head.

"I don't think you quite know what being scared is, Mr. Maleda. You see, I thought I knew. I fought two wars, I killed a lot of people, I've been on the receiving end of more death threats than I can count, and I've caused the death of many people whose only crime was to be in some way connected to me. I didn't think anything scarier could happen to me, but I was wrong. In the last weeks, I rediscovered what being terrified really is, Mr. Maleda. Not just scared. Terrified. Afraid of your own shadow and of what's in your head, to the point that life itself becomes too scary for you to bear."

Maleda looked ready to pass out on the spot, but Quatre wasn't done yet.

"I'll show you what I mean, Mr. Maleda," he said.

He had no actual idea of how he did it. He just pulled everything he'd felt during those weeks from within himself, and pushed it forcefully towards Maleda.

Duo stumbled, forcing Heero to a sudden halt.

"What the hell is that?"

Heero frowned. Duo was shivering, his breath coming out in short gasps. Boost symptoms were usually debilitating, but they shouldn't have worsened for another hour of two, as far as Heero was aware. Of course he was working on assumptions and it was possible that timing would vary depending on the power. But from what Trowa had told him and what Wufei had experienced, it looked like the symptoms were always the same, and always lasted for a set period of time, which was consistent with the fact that a single genetic mutation was responsible for different powers.

Heero sat Duo down against the nearest wall to let him catch his breath and check his vitals. The slightly dilated pupils and headache were normal symptoms, but the cold sweat that plastered Duo's bangs to his face and the hyperventilating were more perplexing.

"Your pulse rate is too high," Heero said after monitoring it with his watch. "You're almost at 130 bpm."

"No kidding," Duo gasped.

"When did it worsen? Did it happen gradually or..."

"No... Just now, but... It's weird... It doesn't feel... like it's mine, if... that makes sense..."

Heero blinked, then frowned again and bit his bottom lip as he felt his own pulse quickening and his breath shortening for no reason that he could discern.

"I think I see what you mean."

"So... it's not just me, heh? That's getting... too creepy for my taste."

Heero raised his hand, intent on contacting Wufei, but the radio crackled to life before he could touch it.

"05 in, all units come in."

"01 in," Heero answered immediately. "What is going on?"

"Hell if I know," Wufei answered.

"03 in. It's Quatre," Trowa's voice cut in, not bothering with the code anymore. "He's projecting."

"I want complete radio silence for a minute," Wufei said.

Both Heero and Trowa acknowledged the order and cut off their microphones, leaving their radios on 'receive only'. For a while, the only sound that could be heard on the line was Wufei breathing.

"05 in. I can't pinpoint a location. Proceed according to plan, but hurry. We must get to the cockpit before he does. Over and out."

/incoming transmission/

/accept transmission?/

/start identification/

/checking incoming system configuration/

/identification of incoming system failed/

/starting analysis/

/similarity ratio with host system: 69,7 percent/

/diagnosis: incoming system is outdated, corrupted or infected/

/potential risk of infection by incoming system: 13,4 percent/

/accept transmission y/n?/

/... accept/

Quatre Winner's eyes glazed over as he got up and turned around, facing the end of the corridor, Maleda's presence all but forgotten. Jay would have tried to get away, but the empathic backlash had pretty much liquefied all his muscles and the slightest move made him feel like his brain was going to explode. Even breathing felt like too much of an effort.

For the longest time, nothing happened. Quatre Winner stood, staring in the void, and Jay Maleda breathed, air wheezing in and out of his lungs.

Then there was that sound. Heels clicking on the floor rhythmically, like whoever was walking had a purpose. The sound came closer and closer, and then a blond woman appeared at the end of the corridor. She stopped for a moment, smiled at Quatre, then started to walk down the corridor, her heels clicking faster and faster. By the time she reached Quatre she was almost running.

"Welcome back, little brother!" Neelah said.

Jay had expected Quatre to do something, anything. Or at least, any of the things you are supposed to do when faced with someone who tortured you for days on end with a smile on her face. Jay was pretty sure that none of those things actually entailed smiling and opening your arms to said torturer, or actually hugging them when they flung themselves into your arms.

"I knew you'd come back! Selim wouldn't believe me but I knew! They never believe me, you know?" Neelah pouted.

"It's a shame," Quatre said. "I am sure that you know quite a lot of things, Neelah."

"Oh, I do, I do!"

"You wouldn't happen to know where Selim is right now, Neelah?"

Neelah clapped her hands and twirled around happily.

"Of course I do! And if I take you to him, then he'll believe me! But we have to go fast! We don't have much time!"

Quatre frowned.

"What do you mean, we don't have much time?"

Neelah looked puzzled.

"Selim's going to die. I thought you knew that."